He’d been just another team member before his older brother, the real King of Drakkon died in the Royal Geneticist’s planet-destroying terrorist attack. A mere fating portal engineer, who’d been officially sent, but more like secretly exiled, to this planet. His mission had been to help construct a fertility portal system for the wolf mutations the Royal Geneticist had created to serve as their hunting dogs.
Of course, the other drakkon had no idea that Damianos and his father had been secretly assigned the task of killing the king’s younger brother, thus assuring he never returned to their home planet. But somewhere deep inside their flames, they had to understand who the true leaders were meant to be. The Royal Overlord and the Royal Huntmaster, not the missing king.
It went without saying that the gathered drakkon would all assent to his father’s proposal.
At least Damianos assumed it did. Unlike his father, he’d never cared for these shows of democracy.
The fact was it had already been decided that he, the Royal Huntmaster, would command a small squad of drakkon in battle with the wolf mutations. As the fiercest hunter in their horde, who had trained countless wolf mutations and anthros to obey him, he was obviously the best suited to lead the charge. Who cared whether the other drakkon agreed or not? Their spoken accord changed nothing about how events would unfold that morn.
To prove how little their assent mattered, Damianos launched himself into the sky before any of the drakkon could answer yay or nay. Even if the others continued to stupidly cling to a bloodline order that mattered little now that their numbers had been whittled down from six figures to a mere three, Damianos knew who the true king of the drakkon was.
Damianos thought of those moments before that battle often since that time. The memories of drakkon are photographic and exact. When he closed his eyes and concentrated, he could once again feel the wind rushing past his scales as he sailed over the mountain. He could still hear the beat of wings behind him. His would-be subjects rushing to catch up.
He’d been so certain of his place in the world before that battle. He had known without a doubt that he, not his worthless cousin the former prince, would be named King of Drakkon after that day.
And he’d been right in his prediction.
Unfortunately, his father had been wrong in his.
The wolf mutations were not engaged in their mindless sex and feast acts when they descended upon the village.
They had been armed. And expecting the drakkon who descended upon them.
The drakkon had been betrayed once again. This time by their new king, who for reasons Damianos still did not understand had allied with the wolf mutations, after sending his own drakkon subjects into a battle that would end in many of their deaths.
After uncovering the new king’s betrayal, Damianos would indeed become the King of Drakkon. But his father fell that day, his life cut thousands of years short by the sword of the oldest North Wolves prince. And soon after, Damianos was attacked by the youngest wolf prince. By the time Damianos recovered and moved to exact his revenge on his father’s killer, both princes and their sister had disappeared through the fating portals.
They’d used the drakkon’s own fertility technology to escape his wrath. His rage burned as hot as the forest he set to flame after their departure.
Then it began to burn cold.
When he was alive, his father had often scolded Damianos about his impatience and his inability to manage his flame. “If you wish to assume your rightful place as King of Drakkon, you must learn to control that temper of yours.”
Damianos had tried and failed so many times to honor his father’s directions to manage his flame wisely prior to that tragic day. Ironically, revering his father after his death was how Damianos finally learned patience.
He bided his time through the following centuries. Torturing the Betrayer King endlessly as he waited for the wolf mutations who’d gotten away to reappear. He knew it was only a matter of patience. For a wolf mutation’s lifespan is but a speck of time in comparison to a drakkon’s.
Thus he waited. And waited. And waited some more. Carts gave way to cars which gave way to drones. The upright primates’ villages became cities, one of which was located on Mars. And there was talk of going even further now. To the next solar system.
For their former food now believed they were worthy of forming civilizations on other planets. What hubris. But still Damianos waited.
Until one day both wolf prince brothers showed up in the North American territories. The fating portal had sent them both to the same mate, with whom they bore two girls. This only made his plans for revenge that much sweeter.