The dragon's harem

“Can you guess why?” Mira glared at them, dangling her hammer. “Two women, a mother and a daughter no less come here seeking my husband. It shouldn’t be hard to guess.” The hammer stopped, crackling with divine magic.

Gamond smiled, “And you aren’t that good at deceiving others. Even if you nailed the expressions and voice, you’ll never nail the smell. You’re annoyed but not angry, in fact, I can sense that you’re happy about something.”

It wasn’t easy to trick a dragon’s mind, one would at least need years of experience and training to get past their senses, let alone someone as sharp as Gamond.

Mary sighed, “Who am I to think I can deceive two powerful dragons…” She looked at them with a sharp glare, “I’m indeed annoyed since you two came out of nowhere. To me, there are far more women that I expected him to bring.”

“Like what?” Gamond could smell that Mira might not be as hard to convince as she initially thought. But even so, “Another demi-goddess like you?”

“So you can tell by just looking at me?”

Seeing those two speak, Kory felt like a little kitten stuck between two tigers. Her mother’s powerful aura and Mira’s divine soul collide as if the two were about to start fighting. But only one thing was clear, Mira was nowhere near Gamond’s level, in fact, she was barely stronger than an average human. What was scary about Mira was that Arad was her husband, and he was capable of more violence than anyone could ever imagine.

“Of course, I can tell. You aren’t even trying to hide it. But I’ll let you know, what little divine magic you have isn’t enough to intimidate me.” Gamond put one leg on another a looked at Mira with a smile.

Mira giggled, “My husband is enough to intimidate you.”

“That’s why I want a piece of him. But I also don’t intend to act outside my boundaries. You don’t need intimidation to gain my respect.”

“Then let’s cut straight to it. If you want me to accept you both, then I want your blood and scales.” Mira glared at them, pointing toward a large blade that was on the table.

“You want to kill us!” Kory cried but Gamond smacked her on the head, “Of course not.” She quickly shifted her gaze to Mira, “Is that all you want?”

“I can’t fight so this is the only way I can be of use to Arad. If you aren’t going to help him then I don’t want to see you anywhere near him.” Mira stood and Gamond did so after her. “We’ll gladly help you as many times as you like.”

“Then we can start right away. You’ll have to wait for the others to arrive anyway.”

****

Arad was on his way back to the university to pick up Aella and the others. As soon as he got in range he shifted back into his humanoid form and teleported straight into the university’s hallways. The moment he landed inside he found Betty standing before him, “I almost didn’t recognize your magic.”

Betty had sensed a vast amount of magic suddenly appearing in the middle of the university and came to kill it. Luckily she is so fast that she had enough time to recognize that it was just Arad.

“I’ve been training for a while now. I came to pick up Aella and the rest, I need them for a while.” Arad replied as he sensed the whole university and detected where all of his wives were, at the same time he detected something else. Two draconic signals crept beneath the ground toward Zul’s layer.

“Training? I doubt even you can grow this much in just a week.” Betty looked at him with a smile, “Who taught you?”

“Myself, but it was Lilia who gave me time.”

Betty’s expression quickly changed, “Gave you time? Did she?”

Looking at Betty’s complex face Arad could understand that she knew something that she didn’t want to tell him. It didn’t take him long to guess that he already knew that, “I know she’s Yog, she sent me to her world and I spent a whole year there.”

Betty blinked twice, “She told you? Well, when I studied under her she made it clear how important is that I don’t tell anyone about her.” She turned around, flicking her fingers. “Aella is on the south side of the forest practicing live archery with her class, and Merida is on the north side hunting monsters with her class as well. For Eris, you’ll find her in the church.”

****

On the south side of the forest, Aella was hunting a monster deer under her teacher’s guidance.

“Relax and don’t pull the string, keep your eyes on the target and focus. Wait for it to stop moving and fire, but keep in mind that you need to be sure that he’ll stop long enough for the arrow to reach him.” Maria said as she stood beside Aella who was watching a fire deer from over two kilometers away.

“How am I supposed to know that?” Aella could see the deer clearly thanks to her elvish eyes, but hitting him from this distance with the bow Maria gave her seemed impossible.

“Most bows have 60-150 pound draw weight. The one you’re using is a special one with 400 pounds draw weight. It’s lighter than your steel bow so you should be able to fire it with ease, but never stress your arm with aiming for a long time. Only pull the strong when you’re about to fire.”

Aella had been watching that deer for over three hours now, making sure to study its movements and wait for the best opportunity to kill it. This process should be simple when dealing with an animal or a monster, but it’s the same one snipers take when killing their target. Wait and watch, find an opportunity, and fire your shot.

At that moment, Maria froze in place as she saw a massive shadow engulfing her. She could sense sharp magic boiling behind her back, for a moment she almost turned with a powerful attack if her senses didn’t realize it was Arad.

Aella immediately stopped aiming and looked back, “Arad! It’s been a while.”

“I came to pick you up, but for now focus on taking that deer down. I want to talk with your teacher privately for a moment.” Arad smiled and grabbed Maria by her wrist.

“Got it, I’ll finish this one quickly.” As Aella returned to her aim Arad teleported away with Maria.

Ganta approached Aella and whispered to her, “You sure about this? Letting your husband go alone with her? She’s not known for being a wench, but with her beauty, he might end up

cheating on you.”

“You don’t know Aron like me. He doesn’t have a reason to cheat.” Aella replied with a smile and Ganta sighed, “You trust him a bit too much, but I won’t argue with you.”

Aella giggled, “Ever since he saved us from the mother spider you’ve been asking me if I can do something between you two even though you knew he’s my husband, shouldn’t I be more worried about him cheating on me with you than her?”

“Fair enough, but I at least approached the wife to ask.” She sat beside her, “I hope you’ll consider my request.”

****

Arad landed with Maria in the middle of the forest. She looked at his hand grabbing her wrist and started sweating buckets. She can’t use any of her magic, he had put a powerful curse on her to prevent her from casting magic.

“So…” Arad looked at her, “I want to know what a witch is doing around my wife? No…should I call you Sylvany? Illusion magic isn’t enough to get past my eyes now.”

“What do you want?” Maria mumbled.

“That’s my question. I just realized you were first pretending to be that teacher Sylvany and after the mother-spider incident, you came in as a new teacher. Don’t think I missed figuring out that the mother spider is alive and sneaking around me as Anansi.” “Wait!” Maria cried, “We don’t intend you or your wives any harm, please reconsider!”

Anansi fell beside Maria, tied with ropes. “I’ve already captured her, now either tell me what you want, or I’ll make sure both of you are really dead.”

When Arad returned to Hati’s house with his new and empowered magic the first thing his senses picked up was an old enemy, the mother spider that bullied Aella in the underground dungeon. He was quite disappointed in himself to discover that she was disguised as Anansi right under his nose without him noticing so he ordered Lucia to capture her immediately.

“That bitch Lucia! She’s a vampire.” Anansi growled, “This monster had turned her.” Arad shifted into his draconic form above them, glaring down at them with a body burning with magic. Undine and Salamander flew out of his body and started flying around the two women, “Our lord found his meal. Shall we boil them?” Undine said with a smile. “Roasted is better. Smoked is even better.” Salamander giggled and the two women started shaking in terror, none of them could mistake the identity of such powerful spirits, it was clear from a glance that they were on the level of queens.

“I beg of you! We really didn’t intend to harm anyone. We would’ve done so long ago if were meaning harm.” When Maria started begging Arad sighed and shifted back into his humanoid

form.

“Fine, but I’ll make sure you won’t even have the luxury of going to hell if you harmed any of my wives.” He then released the two of them but neither of them dared even run or move.

“Anansi, stay here and wait. I’ll go with Maria to bring Aella.” Arad teleported away with Maria and Anansi remained alone, looking around her. ^I could run away now. With my spider body, I should be able to cross the mountain range and hide in seconds…no, I’ll wait for him, running away would only get me killed.^

She sat mumbling, ^How did he change so much in a few hours?^

When Arad appeared again behind Aella she had already taken the deer out. Ganta noticed that Maria was sweating buckets, had a bright red face, and was panting heavily. She immediately

pulled Aella back, “Excuse us for a second.”

“What?” Aella growled at her.

“Don’t ‘What’ me, just look at her. They did something! Aron is too strong to show signs of

exhaustion but teacher Maria isn’t. I told you!” Ganta tried to whisper as silently as she could but even with that it was clear that she wanted to scream.

Aella giggled, “Ah, please…you look like a barbarian with those massive horns on your head

yet you still act like a worried love fairy.” Aella patted Ganta’s shoulder, “I can assure you he

didn’t cheat on me, I know him far too well.” She looked at Arad. “He can hear us now as

well.”

Ganta looked at Arad and he nodded. Her face immediately paled, “We’re ten meters away…” “Still can hear us.” Aella approached him. “Don’t mind Ganta’s comments, what did you

want.” “Let’s go.” Arad took Aella back to where they left Anansi and explained everything to her. With Aella confirming that Maria was nothing but a helping hand to her in the past weeks, Arad decided to give the two a chance.

Anansi willingly walked back into Arad’s stomach so he could take her back with him to the beast village where the other students were. He then returned Maria to the students. Ganta asked Aella again if she was okay and Aella confirmed that she got more than an explanation from Arad. After which Arad flew with Aella to find Merida as she seemed to be fighting a powerful monster.