The dragon's harem

Gale watched Arad and Zeus talking with a stern face. His brain was now rolling and twisting. Those two were clearly conspiring to pull something off. It was just too strange for Zeus to escape and be this friendly with him, let alone take Arad’s presence in the kingdom for a given.

Now, he has many options to act upon, and the first of them is to kill Arad and completely give up on making any friendly relationship with him and his kingdom. Once Arad dies, his countless wives are bound to fight over power and cause his growing empire to crumble.

As long as he eliminates Arad from the table in secret, everything should return to normal unless Zeus is willing to plunge the Storm Titan’s kingdom into endless bloodshed.

Gale walked away and headed deeper into the castle. Soon, one of his wives approached him. “How is it going? Is Zeus planning something?”

“I don’t know. He looks frustrated but nothing more. I don’t even think he is angry.” Gale sighed with a somber face, “That’s the scary part. That means he either has a plan in motion or has given up.”

She looked at him with a frown, “The latter isn’t impossible. He did give up when fighting you. But the former is most likely the case.”

Gale nodded, “We need to do something to ruin whatever plan he has in mind. First, we can’t spy on them. Tyal holds a huge portion of the kingdom’s assassins and spies in her fingers. We need to act in secret and quickly with just what little information we have.”

The wife took a deep breath and looked at him. “I can eliminate Tyal before the fight with you. But we’ll have to deal with Arad somehow.”

Gale looked at her with a deep frown. “Eliminate Tyal?”

She immediately understood what he was thinking and quickly explained herself. “I don’t mean kill. Just make sure she can’t fight.”

She gulped, “I’ll give her a laxative, and she’ll be out. Of course, not in food. I’m sure they brought Claug with them, so we can’t poison them. I’ll mix it with an aphrodisiac and call it a royal secret drug to help at night.” She smiled, and Gale almost laughed.

Gale was almost certain that such a thing would get past Claug’s detection. Aphrodisiacs, in general, are unregulated and usually have many side effects.

“Then how about Arad? Killing him would be hard.” Gale looked at her, and she paled.

“You want to kill him? No, I don’t care. Killing him, as you said, is hard but not impossible with a well-thought-out plan. But I want to suggest another solution to eliminate him from the board entirely.” She looked around and made sure they were alone.

“We can spread a rumor that Tyal has been with another man. With how proud dragons are, he is bound to leave without a second thought. I mean, he already has her as a concubine. How hard would it be for him to drop her?”

Gale’s frown grew deeper, “So you suggest we tarnish Tyal’s reputation for this. It is indeed the safest option for us, but I don’t want to go that far.”

He then looked at her, “Tyal controls most of the assassins, but not all of them. Out of those we have, do you think anyone can kill Arad?”

“There is this one called Malina. Her skills are unmatched, and she has never failed to kill her targets. But, she is quite picky and only takes the contracts she likes. She is also very expensive, almost five times the other assassins.”

“Malina? Didn’t she join Tyal’s servants?” Gale gasped, and his wife smiled.

“Malina is a smart woman. I bet she already figured that we’ll have a contract on Arad, so she prepared beforehand.” She looked around with a grin. “I’ll give her double her normal rate and see. If she refuses the contract, I’ll just have to sweeten the deal a bit more. How much budget can I use?”

Gale nodded, “Arad is indeed powerful and would require more effort to silently eliminate. Pay her as much as she needs. Almost anything she can ask for is cheaper than whatever Zeus’s scheme would cost us.”

It was then that Gale paused. Why was he thinking of Arad as a bigger threat than his demigod father? He should be thinking about a way to get rid of Zeus. He then can just say that he ascended to heaven.

“I’ll make sure Malina gets the job done.”

Gale’s wife’s voice pulled him back to reality. Was he insane? Zeus is a demigod now. Killing him is just impossible. That is true. Zeus is unreachable, so Arad is his only target to ruin the plan.

“Listen, getting Malina to finish Arad is one thing, but do you think that Tyal won’t have some of her assassins among the servants? I bet she keeps at least one at her side all of the time.”

Gale could imagine two assassins playing cat and mouse inside the castle, each trying to eliminate the other before they could reach their target.

Gale’s wife smiled, “From what I found out, she only has one beside her. The woman is reliable but nowhere near Malina’s track record. I’m sure that she won’t even notice Malina making her move.”

Gale returned the smile. “Then let’s get her involved. In the meantime, I’ll think of a way to get Father out as well.”

It was unrealistic to try killing Zeus, but it wasn’t impossible to send him out on a mission or something for the time being. What Gale needs most now is time.

“Then what about Claug and Alice? I’m sure those two would get in the way.” His wife frowned, “Arad is smart. He brought a poison expert and a magic expert. It would be hard to get past them.”

“Those two are indeed a problem.” Gale’s face paled, “But I’m not scared of them. What terrifies me is that fairy, Zephyr. Why in the nine hells is she staying with him?”

His wife also paled, “I saw her taking a nap on his head. She almost never leaves his side.”

“Malina would have to act in the rare moments when Zephyr leaves Arad alone. How about the bathroom?” He looked at his wife, and she shook her head.

“She enters with him. In fact, he is treating her like a hat on his head. Arad doesn’t seem to care about her presence around him.” She had asked Tyal once about Zephyr earlier. It seems that from what Tyal saw, Zephyr’s Herald is Arad’s first wife, and thus the mighty fairy is basically a first wife.

“Do you know?” She approached Gale and whispered in his ear, “Arad has a child with Zephyr.”

Gale froze, and his face contorted into a deathly pale frown. “A child with the Wind Spirit Queen? So he took both the Spirit and her Herald, the crazy bastard.”

His wife nodded, “We have to act around Zephyr. Alerting her would be spelling the kingdom’s doom. She might’ve forgiven us normally, but not when she had a child with him.”

Gale growled, “So this dragon is protected by his harem, and what a powerful harem he has. But that only means he is aware that we should be able to kill him. That is why he brought them to protect him. As long as we play around Arad’s protections. He can be killed.”

Gale smiled, “This is good news. He isn’t unkillable.”