Hmmm, there seems to be at least one scientist left out there.
Maybe I was a little sneaky about getting Eliane into the water, but really, I’ve seen her naked many times. Granted, she’s right that I didn’t have a human form then, but now that I do, it’s better. We can be together as we were meant to be.We spend the afternoon bathing. I know Eliane is afraid of the water because she says she doesn’t know how to swim. However, she has control of water, it's one of her elements. Once we’re able to tap into that element, she won’t have to worry. But for today, I use her fear of the water as an excuse to hold her close, letting her wrap her legs around my waist as I take her deeper into the water.In her bag, she’s collected lilacs and flower petals. They give her daffodil scent a slight change for a short period of time, but they smell nice, so I use my earth element to grind them up and then I have her lean back in the water to wet her hair before massaging it into her hair and scalp.I love watching her as she closes her eyes, letting me shampoo h
I have no idea what happened, no clue what Iniko saw in my mind that made him run away from me like that. I’d felt his pain, as if I’d stabbed him in his heart. I love him, I do. How would I even know if I loved him because of a mate bond or just because of who he is?Then I’d heard his dragon’s lament begin. I’d felt every emotion he’d been feeling, agony, betrayal, regret, fear. Fear for what he'd done. That, more than anything, caused me to sob as I listened to him crying.Then, something had happened, and it felt like he’d begun to numb our connection, like he did something so I couldn’t feel him any longer.“Iniko!” I called out, hoping that he’d hear me, hoping that my call would bring him home. But it didn’t and not long afterward, I lost all connection to him and his emotions.I cried myself to sleep, so horribly sad to have hurt my dragon like that, sad that I’m not what he thought I was. Hopefully, when he returns, we can talk about it so I can understand what I did wrong.At
I couldn’t believe it when Eliane ended up at the Academy. I had no idea that she knew where we were, but after listening to her, I realized that she not only knew where we had been this entire time, but she and Iniko had purposefully avoided us.I didn’t want to believe it when she called him Iniko. I knew what it meant, but I had to hear it from her that he shifted and when she’d shown us her claiming mark, I felt like my entire world was crumbling around me.Her anger, her hatred toward me was palpable. She thinks I left her to die, thinks that I haven’t searched for her. I need to tell her, explain to her that I have been searching for her from the beginning, but for now, she’s here asking for our help. I don’t want to save Iniko, my brother. He submitted to MY mate. Now she’s HIS rider. But I can’t deny that he’s my brother any longer. His mark is almost identical to the one that Merethyl wears from my father, only with Iniko’s image.As we walk inside, I can feel that Eliane is b
The moment I wake up, I’m terrified that it’s all been a dream and I’m back in the laboratory. I’m on a bed with tubes in my arms and a machine beeping near me.I hear voices nearby and I lay quietly, trying to hear what they are saying.“I’ll have to talk to her, explain to her what’s happening and what we need to do to keep her and us safe…” a man’s voice, vaguely familiar, says. His voice cuts off suddenly and there’s silence.“She’s awake,” a much deeper voice says. That voice is like a call to my soul, like it’s drawing me to him. Who is that?“Hey there,” a pregnant woman says, walking into the room. “I’m Tesha. The others told me you remembered me from when you and Iniko saw us. Kaylani said that you thought I was nice and that you might be okay with me coming in to talk to you.”“I remember you,” I say quietly.“Good. I wanted you to know that you’re safe. You’re not back in a laboratory which is what most of us think when we wake up like this,” she says.“If I’m safe, why am I
I knew it. I knew he’d tortured her, but to hear her say it, to hear Eliane sobbing with the memory of what must have been unimaginable pain….I couldn’t take hearing anymore.I’d been right outside her door, listening in. I don’t care if she doesn’t want me to hear. She’s my mate. I need to know what I can do to help her. But hearing that, hearing her break down, it nearly broke me.I raced outside, barely making it before my dragon ripped through me. I leaped into the air roaring my anger and frustration. Elio and Ajax are the first to join me, the other dragons joining close behind.“Please, I just want to be alone,” I tell them.It takes a moment, then they all fall away. All but one.I turn and look at my best friend.“Alone means by myself, Jax,” I tell him.“I know. I’m just flying,” he says as if he’s not keeping tabs on me. I’m too distraught to care. If he wants to follow me, fine. At least I know he’ll keep quiet.I fly high up into the sky, high enough that humans and even m
This time when I wake up, I look around, not afraid, but not seeing anything familiar. My eyes land on the large, dark figure sitting in the corner of my room.“What are you doing here?” I know it’s him. He smells so good. He’s been here a while based on how strong his scent is in this room.“We need to talk.”“Did they find Iniko?”“Not yet. My father, Merethyl, Tana, and Cedric are still out looking. They’ll have to come back soon. They all have small children at home. But we’ll keep looking. I’ll send the dragons out to search.”“But not you. You won’t search for your own brother, will you?” Of course he won’t. He was willing to let Iniko die.“I would, I have, but right now, I’m worried about you,” he says.I snort. “A bit late for that, don’t you think.”“Listen, Eliane, I know you think I didn’t try to find you, but I did…”“Save it. I don’t want to hear your excuses. You always seem to have one. So, what is it this time? What dire emergency is keeping you from helping to find yo
When my father, Merethyl, Tana, and Cedric arrived home later that night, I went to them and told them my plan. My father is covered in his children with his mate, loving on them and giving them a lot of attention since he’s been gone. Merethyl is holding the youngest one, an elf son, while my father plays with the other three. He’s always been a good father, even to me. I wonder if I ever have children if I’ll be a good father too.“Are you sure that’s a good idea, son?” my father asks me.“I don’t see any other way. Do you?” I ask.My father looks at Merethyl.“When do you want to do this?” she asks me.“Tomorrow. I don’t like the idea that she has explosives in her brain. Now that we know how the Mean Ones got the paralytic, I’d feel a whole lot better if they were out of her head.”“I understand, but it’s a risk,” my father says.“So is everything else that we do. This isn’t any different, it’s just that I’ll be the one taking the brunt of her anger if she lashes out, but I don’t t
I knew the moment I smelled him that Cal was my mate. Everything about him is drawing me to him. I can feel my heart, already wrapping around him, loving him in the way that only a dragon can.I rumble happily as we fly, my mate whooping on my back excitedly, enjoying himself as he was meant to be, riding on my back.“Over there, Jewels,” he says to me, guiding me to the place he said he wanted to take me. I feel a wave of jealousy flow through me. No human could get up here. He had to come on a dragon. He has the scent of a dragon, all of the elements blended together. His scent is intoxicating, but now, I wonder if it’s because he’s been with other dragons. I did notice other dragons at the school. Perhaps…“Jewels, why are you getting hot? What are you thinking about?”I don’t answer him right away, but my jealousy is getting worse the more I think about my mate with someone else.“Jewels, what is going on?”“Who is she?” I growl.“Who is who, my beautiful dragon.” I can feel his ha
One Month Later.I’ve never been so exhausted in my life. An Alpha, especially an Alpha of Alphas, should never be this tired. But with twenty-two mouths to feed, it’s nearly impossible to keep up. I’m pretty sure that whoever said it takes a village to raise a family was a dragon, because if I didn’t have the help of nearly every dragon at the academy, I don’t think I’d ever be able to sleep.I can hear my little darlings screeching before I can see them. The four deer I have in my talons will only quiet them for a moment. By the time I’ve fed every one of them, the first ones will be screaming for more food again. And by screaming, I mean screeching. It’s an ear-piercing sound that makes my head throb.As I fly in, I see all of my half siblings in various stages of assisting with my babies. Thankfully, the younger kids enjoy helping out and they can oil and scrub my babies as they shed their skin, which seems like they do every damn day. I’d think I was over-feeding them if they were
Three months later.“Iniko! Be careful!” I say to the little dragon, the perfect little white dragon. He hatched from his glass egg a couple of weeks ago and because I laid my eggs while he was still in his, he seems to think that my babies are his siblings. I don’t mind. I love that I get to see Iniko as a baby dragon.“Hey, little bro. It’s too hot for you to be here. This is a hatching ground. You’re going to burn yourself,” Ancalagon says, using his big snout to carefully move Iniko away from the hot area that used to be the medical center and is now a dragon egg hatching ground. Of course, I’m the only dragon producing dragon babies, and they had to put a barrier around my eggs since Ancalagon and I won’t let most people near our babies, but it’s still a hatching ground. Iniko hatched here and he’s one of the few that I let near my eggs.He’s always allowed to come see me. I’ll never be able to say no to him. He’s just as sweet as a baby as he was when I met him, sweet and gentle.
The aftermath of the battle was tough, made more difficult by Iniko’s passing. Two of the people manning the harpoon launchers were killed, but no one claimed that they killed the third and by the time we went searching for him, he was gone.The two earth dragons refused to speak to us until I used my Alpha command to force them. Once I did, they told us how Galeus, Truda, and Banari had convinced them that we were the reason that everything had happened to them and that’s why they attacked. I still don’t trust Dion and Sena, the new earth dragons, but Kaylani has allowed them to move into the big house. At least there, we can all keep watch over them. To their credit, they’ve joined the classes and seem to be advancing quickly.The clean up took a while. With so many dragons crashing to the ground and the two new earth dragons rupturing the earth, it’s taken all of us to make sure that the big house is structurally sound for us to keep living in. The earth itself was easy to correct.
As we rush towards where Zephyr continues to cry her dragon’s lament, we pass Iniko. My heart clenches, but I know we have to help the others first. As much as I want to go to Iniko, to let myself grieve for the loss of my friend and dragon, I need to help Zephyr. Iniko would have wanted that.When we get to her, Ishir has stopped outside the big house, holding on tightly to her as she cries her dragon’s lament in her human form.Ishir seems to be fighting his own tears and based on what Ancalagon told me, I’m sure he’s battling Zephyr inside her own mind. Nova and Brooke are with them, all of them have their arms wrapped around Zephyr, Nova and Brooke sobbing with her lament for Iniko.“Go get Cyrene. She’ll respond better if it’s you. I’ll help your mother,” I say to Cal.“Be careful,” he says before running inside the big house. I can smell a fire nearby, but that will have to wait until I can get Zephyr calm.“Zephyr,” I say, putting my hands on her body. Almost instantly, I feel t
As I blow my elements onto my mate’s chest, submitting to him as his dragon and leaving my mark on his chest, I feel something inside of me heal, something snap into place besides our bond. Suddenly, memories come flooding into my mind, images of times in the laboratory when I was a girl, memories of helping Ancalagon when he was captured by the man who claimed to be my father, my father imprisoning me and torturing me to make me into the dragon I am now, my first shift where I destroyed the underground laboratory where my father kept me captive, shifting back because I was terrified of what had happened and seeing Iniko for the first time, helping him escape the laboratory. I remember being alone, being lonely, finding Iniko again, realizing now that he really did know that I was both the humanand the dragon, and that he and I weren’t fated mates. I remember seeing Ancalagon and having no loving feelings for him, being angry with him for leaving me and not coming to find me. I didn’t
The moment the howls of alarm went up, I raced to the house, helping Zephyr get our kids and rushing them to the nursery in the big house. We have several babies on campus now, so we’ve established a safe room of sorts for the young kids with any mothers or assigned protectors going with them. I want Zephyr in the safe room. She’s getting close to delivering our next kitten, but I know she won’t sit this out. Two of her sons and her sister are out there fighting.As we rush to the battle, I hear the sickening sound of a harpoon launching. The sound brings with it the memories of fighting in the arena, of the days when the dragons were attacked. I thought the harpoons and launchers were gone, but obviously, some remained or have been rebuilt.I hear Avani scream in pain, the earth rumbling around us as he pulls on his earth element and tumbles to the ground. I know it must be bad if the harpoon brought him down. I heard in the past that he ripped a harpoon out of his wing and kept fight
I’d been flying patrols, thinking about Emmi when I saw the strange dragons, two of them. I bellowed a warning, in case it was an attack and I’m glad I did. At least everyone had a few moments to prepare before all hell broke loose.It felt like harpoons were flying everywhere. Elemental dragons were getting hit and taken down quickly. I’m not sure if that was an intentional move by the attackers, or if the elementals are trying to protect the others. Either way, Avani and Kaylani went down fast.Zephyr is still pregnant, so she can’t shift, but Tana is up, blowing fire and protecting the packhouse where her pups reside.I realize that Merethyl was protecting their house, but once Avani got shot, she raced to him, working to get the harpoon out of his body. I stayed back, battling with the others against these new dragons. Since I was the first to see them, they’d attacked me together. Then Kenzo and Daichi, two other earth dragons, jumped in and we began throwing our earth elements ba
This past week with Eliane has been amazing. Except for the times when she goes off alone with Iniko, sometimes even flying with him, it’s been incredible. I know I’m a greedy dragon, all water dragons are, but I want my mate to myself, all the time.Today we have mate bonds class. I love this class, not only because Iniko isn’t in the class with us and I get to have her all to myself, but it’s filled with other students who share a mate bond like we do.“Where are Tesha and Fenian?” I ask when we walk in. Those two are always in this class, Fenian wanting to make sure that he’s a good mate to his dragon, especially now that she’s about to have their baby.“Tesha went into labor this morning. She and Fenian are at the medical center,” Kaylani says.“Ohh, another baby. How exciting!” my mate says. I can’t wait for the day when it’s my mate going into labor, or maybe laying her eggs. We just have to get her connected to her dragon first.“I’m surprised that she didn’t want to go off into
It seems like once Cal accepted me, everyone accepted me. Well, except the elves, but I was warned by basically everyone to stay away from them, Revalor especially. So Eliane’s first day back, even though she spent most of her time with Ancalagon in our joint classes, went really well. I guess being the Alpha of Alphas, what Cal says goes, or at least it seems so.If I’m not in classes with Eliane and Ancalagon, I’m in them with Ancalagon and the other dragons. There are very few classes that Eliane has without Ancalagon, but more that she doesn’t have with me, like mate bonds. Since she and I don’t share a mate bond, I’m not in that class, but she and Ancalagon are. I know that she’s learned a lot about what a mate bond is from that class. And while I know that she and I don’t share a mate bond like the others do, that doesn’t mean that I don’t love her with my whole heart.While the two of them are in classes together, I go to see my mother. I still feel the draw to her and even thou