Nick was amazed at how matter of fact and nonchalant Dizag sounded as he talked about murdering his parents. It was as though they never had any importance to him at all.
“I waited until they were asleep in human form and cut their throats. They died together, which is what they would want,” Dizag said, shrugging his shoulders as he spoke. “They never knew what happened to them. I wasn’t so bad that I would want them to suffer.”
He said that as though that made his crime any less awful. “I didn’t kill any of my siblings. I figured they could find their own way. If their way got into mine, I would take care of them later,” Dizag said, as if it made up for his other deeds.
The nature versus nurture argument was one that had always fascinated Nick. Were people born evil or were they made evil by their circumstances? The way Dizag was talking, he was an evil seed since he first popped out of his egg.
While Dizag was regaling Lana with the details of the patricide he committed and how he had carefully planned out his evil intentions, Nick studied the surroundings. There had to be a way that he and Lana could beat the dragons.
The cave was very large, with extremely high ceilings. That gave the dragons some room to fly and maneuver. However, the fact that they were in a cave would also limit their ability to fight. They needed to be able to spread their wings out and spit fire. Fire, along with talons and tail, was their main weapon. The dragons would have to be careful.
The fact that there was more than one dragon actually benefited the lion shifters, Nick thought. If they tried to take flight, they would only get in each other’s way. One dragon might be able to fly, although there would be limitations.
Another factor that worked in Nick’s and Lana’s favor was that the cave would limit the dragons’ ability to use fire. There were four of them, and they took up a great deal of space. If they weren’t extremely careful, the dragons would end up roasting each other.
Nick was starting to feel a bit more hopeful, because as long as they stayed in the cave, he and Lana would actually have a fighting chance. They were still outnumbered and would also be limited with space, but it was better than fighting in the open.
His attention returned to Lana, who looked horrified as Dizag continued to boast about his attack on his parents. He was telling her how he terrorized both of his parents since the moment he was hatched, which was another one of the reasons that Vardok noticed him. Several times, as a young dragon, he would escape from home and head into the bigger villages, bullying the shifters who lived there.
“You’re proud of yourself, aren’t you?” Lana asked. “You're proud of the fact that you are an evil monster who can’t do anything in life besides hurt others.”
Dizag puffed up his chest. “You bet I am. People fear me. Everyone fears the name of Dizag. I am powerful. I have the power to give life or take life. I have the power to make people scream in anguish or walk away without even knowing who I am. I am mighty. You, and people who think like you, are pathetic and weak.”
Lana shook her head. “I thought I had heard it all. You are even worse than the horror movies that the mundane humans watch in their world.
Dizag took that as a compliment and smiled big. “I am, aren’t I?”
Deciding that their little gab session was done, Dizag strutted back to his throne.
“I’m so glad that you guys decided to come,” he said.
He looked at Nick as though noticing him for the first time. “You are the detective that has been trying to find me in that other world. Tracking down every little bit of a clue that I left behind, which always ended up nowhere. I thought it was a great game.”
Nick bit back the words he wanted to spit at Dizag. He wasn’t going to engage this monster in his sick game.
“I really think that this is going to be even more fun than I thought.”
Dizag got off his perch and walked over to Lana. He touched her face and said, “I’m going to have so much fun with you. I really enjoyed Lucy. She was so in love with me and refused to believe that I was my true self at first. When she did, she put up a hell of a fight, which made it all that much more fun for me. I still don’t know if I completely broke her, but watching me torture you might send her over the edge. Oh, yes, I will have so much fun with you.”
“Over my dead body,” Lana growled at him.
“Well, that is always an alternative,” Dizag said. “Although I would be extremely disappointed if that was how it turned out.”
Trying to distract the dragon shifter, Nick asked, “Why are you doing this? What are you getting out of this whole thing?”
Dizag turned his attention toward Nick.
“Well, Detective, we have an imposter sitting on the throne. She is a dragon shifter, to be sure, but she doesn’t belong there. She murdered Vardok and stole his kingdom,” Dizag explained.
“He married her. That made her the queen when he died,” Lana said.
“True, but she murdered him. She is nothing but trash,” Dizag spit out. “Me and several of Vardok’s other warriors escaped when she was rounding up all of Vardok’s people to punish them. I was not going to be taken by someone as weak as she is. All of us who escaped got together to formulate a plan.”
“And what is this plan?” Nick asked.
“We decided