Good questions from Ancalagon tonight.
I was exhausted when I got back from searching for Iniko with Ancalagon all day. I was glad when Kaylani told me she’d already assigned me a room.“I’m assuming you don’t have anything in the way of toiletries, right?” she asked.“No. Umm, and I don’t have a way to pay for them either.”“Oh, sweetheart, we’re dragons. You have so much to learn about how you are now, but just know that dragons collect treasure. There is no need for money here. Between the four elemental dragons and probably Ancalagon as well, I’m sure we could build fully stocked castles if we wanted to.”“What kind of treasures?” I ask her.She reaches out her hand as if she’s feeling for something in the air, and then she closes her eyes. I feel the ground wobble a bit underneath my feet before the ground opens up and a beautiful pearl is pushed up by a small water spout.“Like this,” she says, taking the pearl off the water, and letting her water element drop.“Wow!” is all I can say.“You’ll get used to it, Eliane.
“Cal, you should really get up and get some breakfast this morning,” Ajax says when he comes back into our room. I can smell the scent of the cafeteria food on him.“Why the fuck would I want to do that?” I grumble. I was up late getting clothes for Eliane. It hadn’t even occurred to me that she only had the clothes on her back. I had to go to Kaylani and my mother and then I’d flown to a town hours away that still had stores that were open and got her some new ones. Then I’d flown back and snuck them into her room, with Anala’s help of course.Eliane was sleeping peacefully when I left her so I told Anala to call me if that changed and I went to my room.“Your girl’s in the cafeteria. Just thought you’d want to see her this morning,” Ajax says casually, and I shoot up out of bed.“What the fuck is she doing in the dining hall?” I ask, grabbing some clothes and quickly getting dressed.“Hanging out with your dragon horde is what it looked like to me,” he says, smiling at me.I stop and
As we walk out of the classroom, I turn back, seeing Revalor and Ancalagon glaring at each other.“That was awesome!” Anala says.“Which part?” I ask frowning.“Do you even know how you did that?” Ajax asks me. I don’t know why, but I like him immediately. He’s got a kind air about him. Even though he was teasing me and obviously teasing Cal, it wasn’t malicious.“Pushed them back like that? No. No clue,” I say.“You’ll want to talk to Zephyr about that. That was her air element. Hopefully she can help you understand what you did and how you pulled on your air,” he says.“Zephyr’s great! I wish I had more classes with her, but I only have fire. You have all the elements and you’re her son’s rider, so I’m sure she’ll be thrilled to have you in class,” Anala says.“Even if she wasn’t my son’s rider, I’d be thrilled to have her in my class. So few have or can manipulate my air element that I’m happy to know there’s one more,” Zephyr’s sweet voice says as she meets up with us.“Hi, Zephyr.
Ancalagon follows me to my next class, anatomy of a human. This class, unlike the last is inside the big house. When we get there, he follows me inside the classroom.“I didn’t know you were a human,” I say.“I don’t have to be a human to take this class. I take the elf and Lycan classes too, but that’s mostly so I better understand how to defeat them in claimings,” he says, to me, looking around.“This way,” he says, putting his warm hand on my back and guiding me to where he wants me to sit, beside Ajax. Ancalagon sits on my other side and I’m sandwiched in between the two of them.“How was air class?” Ajax asks me.“Good, I guess.”“Did Zephyr figure out how you accessed your air?”I glance an Ancalagon. “Cal says it’s because I was nervous or scared.”Ajax nods. “That makes sense.”I frown and look at him. “How so?”“I wouldn’t say you were scared, I didn’t smell an increase in fear. But you were nervous. You were looking around, worried about the others getting hurt, weren’t you?”
All of us, every one of the dragons, hates the idea of getting claimed. Watching one of our own fall to the claiming process, even if it is to their mate, feels frustrating, like I’ve lost one of my own.As I lift off, I see Ajax moving toward Eliane and I know he’ll keep her safe for me. I made sure he knew that I didn’t want her alone and since I knew that Anala would join me if Morgan fell, I told him to make sure he was there for her.I don’t wait to make sure that Aithlin will heal Morgan, that’s what my parents, Kaylani, and Tana will do. Cedric, Merethyl, Ishir, and Everett will begin teaching him how to be a rider and the two of them will now join the mates class and Aithlin will join the riders class, the same class that Eliane has because she claimed Iniko. The thought makes me growl and fire blows out out my mouth.As we fly through the sky, I wonder what Eliane thought of this claim. It was pretty tame compared to say an earth or fire dragon claim and those are nothing comp
I’m about to push her for more, when I hear one of my favorite voices in the world.“Calgon! Calgon!”“Hey!” I say, rushing forward to scoop up my half-sister. “Princess Cyrene!”She reaches her arms around my neck, giving me a big, wet kiss on the cheek.“Who’s that?” she asks, pointing to Eliane.“That is Princess Eliane,” I say and I watch Cyrene narrow her eyes at Eliane. Eliane raises an eyebrow and looks between Cyrene and me.“Princess Eliane, meet my sister, Princess Cyrene.”“Not a pwincess,” Cyrene says stubbornly. She very much likes being my favorite.I lean in, pressing my mouth to her ear so Eliane can’t hear me. “She’s the Princess of my heart.”She begins to look Eliane over even more closely making Eliane frown.“She’s also a dragon and she doesn’t know it,” I tell Cyrene more loudly, watching Eliane and smiling when she gives me an exasperated look.Cyrene extends her hand with my mark on it, palm up to Eliane.“Kiss her palm,” I tell Eliane.She frowns at me again, t
How could I have been so stupid? I let my guard down, talking to Zephyr and seeing Ancalagon with his family and I forgot who he is. He’s the guy who tells me he cares about me, but he has a girlfriend. He made me think is was nothing more than sex, but he obviously forgot to tell the pretty red-head that.I hear him call my name, but I ignore him. I don’t want him to see how much it hurts me that he’s with her. He’s not mine. I have no claim on him and I don’t want to claim him. I have a dragon and I need to focus on finding him, not letting the dragon that I thought Ancalagon was sneak into my heart.Rather than go to my room where Ancalagon can find me, I go to see if I can find Doc Everett. There are so many things that I assumed about Iniko that I was wrong about and I want to know if he knows why.I walk to the hospital, hoping he’s there. When I arrive, I walk in, realizing that it’s very quiet.“Hello?” I ask, knocking on the hall door. I hear shuffling and then Doc Everett pok
As soon as Eliane was out of earshot I turn on Charlotte.“What the fuck are you doing?”“What do you mean?”I get in her face, letting my anger fuel my heat. Charlotte steps back quickly but I just push my heat out to surround her.“I….I…I missed you,” she stutters.“Everyone knows that Eliane is my mate. Everyone. That includes you. You know that you were nothing but a fuck for me while I waited for her.”“Cal, no…” she says, taking a step toward me.The growl that comes from my mouth makes the earth rumble underneath her feet, the wind begins swirling around her uncomfortably fast and heat and water mix in the air making it steam.“No? No? I was very clear with you, Charlotte. She is mine. She is my mate. You are were nothing but a good time for a short time.”“But she doesn’t even recognize you as her mate, Cal. And I….I love you,” she says.“No you don’t. You love the idea of being with the biggest, baddest dragon that’s ever lived. It was fun, Charlotte, but that’s all it was. An
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