Prologue

Jefferson

When I was younger I found the world to be such a cruel place. As two young kids who had no choice but to be on the streets. Every foster home we ran away from. Together as brothers we needed no one else. Eventually that all ended too. It was a normal day. We had just stolen food from the local grocery store. We were eating it in a nearby alley. My twin Morby as I called him, sat with me while we feasted on chips and candy. The smiles on our faces sere filled with Joy as we filled our stomachs. We laughed as we told each other jokes that we had heard from other children who attended school.

We set frozen in fear as a shadow appeared over us. For sure this time we were going to get caught as the thieves in the grocery store. At times we felt that sometimes the store owner knew the kinds of kids that we were. We thought that he felt bad because of how we looked. We have been wearing the same clothes for so long that we lost count. Bathing ourselves in open restrooms and in the rivers of the forest was our normal. We made do with what we had. We always discussed the plan for what to do if we ever got caught.

The pain in the back of my head was the worst that I had ever felt. I still remember the look of shock on my brothers face as his gaze lay on a space I couldn’t see above my head. As the world around me faded to black in the moment I remember calling out his name. I have no idea how much time had passed while I was out. I awakened disoriented and in pain. My eyes hurt as they opened and I peered around. In the distance I saw a body on the floor and I pushed to my feet as fast as I could.

My steps faltered and wobbled as I headed toward the opening of the alley. When I saw that it was my brother laying on his back on the ground I fell to my knees. I tried to shake him awake as I screamed for him to get up. I called out for help but he just wouldn’t respond. Desperate to make sure that he was okay I broke our rule. My brother was hurt and I didn’t care if he would be mad at me for it later. I ran inside the store that we stole from every day and I grabbed the manager.

His steps followed behind me quickly as I led him to my brother. I prayed that he would still be there. I wanted things to be different. I wanted to go back to the moments before when we sat there laughing with our candy. When he told me jokes and made sure that I always ate more than he did. When my best friend was awake and I could look into his eyes.

I should have known after everything that we have been through that I wouldn’t be that lucky. I should have known that I would lose the only person in this whole world that meant something to me. I remember being in such shock as I stood there staring at the spot where my brother had lain. All that was left of him was a puddle of blood on the concrete. The color was a bright red and I could swear that when I blink it shined.

I remember as the shop owner shook my shoulders and kept yelling at me to tell him what happened. I remember the crowd that gathered as I stood there unable to say a word. My mind kept racing as I tried to remember who was in that alley. Did I see anyone else near my brother? Did I see anyone hit him or who took him? Did I see a car or hear any noise at all? I would face all these questions for so long but never be able to come up with a single answer.

For years, the very thought of that moment would make me angry. I had lost my brother all because I broke the one rule that he ever gave me. There was so much blood that there was never a question as to what had happened. My brother was gone. My life would never be the same without him. The other half of me would always be gone.

It took so much time for me to heal. So much time to find even a piece of forgiveness in the moment. It made it so hard for me to accept myself and what came with being a dragon. Having the power to illuminate joy and happiness was the worst part. How was I to ever show others these things when I didn’t feel them myself? It all became a moot point when I lost touch with my dragon.

The worst part of it all is that I punished myself for years. I made sure to never allow others to get too close. I never allowed my self to find joy in the small things. I didn’t believer that I deserved joy. Yet, it was all for nothing. The brother that I thought was dead, isn’t. He still leaves and breathes on this very earth where I have had to live without him for twenty years.

However, this is a man that I do not know and who doesn’t know me. He is the one that brought me to this cold place that is now my home. He has beaten me and had me beaten. He has had me cut and been the one to do the cutting. He has become my torturing physically and mentally. There is no light shining in his eyes like it once did when we were children. This is a new man that I do not know. This is a dragon that I now fear.

At the end of the day, the only thing that I know for sure, is that I will be the one to take him off of this earth. I will be the one that ends this life that he has made for himself. Now, he deserves the pain that I will bring him. If it had been just me who was to suffer, I could have dealt with that. I thought I deserved the consequences for breaking our rule. Although, he has since brought our mate here. I may not know her, but for this act along, he deserves to die………

Morbius

When I see the world its different from the view that you have. You see family. You see happy homes. You see life and you see love. You see your hopes and your dreams. You see a job or a career where choose to go in each day. You find smiles and happy tears in each moment that you experience.

For me though, its different. For me, this world is full of things for me to take away. Its full of things that are mine if I have the power to do it. Oh, and the power; I have a whole lot of it. In the world that I live in, I am unstoppable. In the world I live in, there is no room for caring. There’s no room to make friends. There’s no room to make or have a family. At the end of the night all I have are my knives and the blood that stains my hands.

The screams of my victims haunt my dreams. The cleanliness of my metal home. For me, life is not a burden. It’s a place where I am free to roam and do what I want. I can take it into my fist and crush it or I can give it a chance to thrive. I never get to choose which option someone gets. There is someone that tells me what to do. I have been under his thumb since I was a child unable to escape the life that he taught me I should have. The life that I have now accepted as my own.

This life that I have accepted is one that I have never even considered getting out of. I am a murder. I am an assassin. I like to bring pain to the people in the world whether they deserve it or not. I am a monster. I do not have a soul. I do not get or give second chances. I am undeserving of anything good. This is exactly where I am meant to be. This is who I am. Now, that I have brought here the very thing here that could interrupt it, I am going to have to make a choice.

I don’t have a care in the world. The one person who I felt betrayed me in my childhood. The only person that I ever trusted, who was my so called family. He is the same man that is underneath my knives at this very moment. He is just like the rest of you sad people. He is full of laughter, joy, and life. Now I have spent my days slowly bleeding It out of him. I have given him one thousand cuts for a thousand things that he got to experience that I didn’t.

I was the forgotten one. I was the one who ceased to matter. I watched from behind the scenes as the man with my same face moved on. I watched as he has got to live a full life. I watched him as he smiled. I watched him as he played. I watched him as developed his own family while he forgot the original. I was the one left behind. Now I have made this a moment in his life that he will never forget.

I have made it my life’s mission to destroy everything that he has built. In the end, I will be the one to destroy the very life that he breaths too. But hey, that’s just another day in the life of an assassin. If It wasn’t knives and blood today, then it would be guns and ammo tomorrow.

Julia

I’ve really gotten myself into the thick of it this time. I should have learned a long time ago to keep my mouth shut and to stay out of the way. I should have just lived a solitary existence and never made friends or tried to find love. I should have known that after generations of failure on my families part that it wasn’t in the cards for me.

However, I just had to believe in it for others. I have never been one to lie to myself. I know exactly what the women in my family get out of life. Each one has found love and lost it. Once they lost it the only thing that they had to hold on to was the child that they made from it. Men don’t really fall in love. They choose woman who will give them what they need for the time being and then they move on. The universe seems to love playing tricks on the woman in my family.

For decades no one has every sustained a lasting relationship. Many of us children knew who our fathers were but rarely ever saw them. Our mothers became our pillars for the epitome of strength. It taught me never to trust a man, despite the pretty words he uses. Now the universe has seen fit to give me two. I never thought it before now but I know that the mating phenomenon is joke. No woman in my family has ever been able to keep a man and I’m supposed to deal with two.

I do have to say though, if this were real, then whoever is creating these men, needs to do it for everyone. Never have I seen so many muscles and physical attributes that make me drool. Bring in this facility of theirs is a complete drag but I have to admit that the eye candy isn’t too bad at all. I know that I may soon change my mind about that once they start the torture for this experiment they keep bringing up. I’m going to be out of here long before that.

As for the universe, they can keep these so called men. As far as I concerned they can have each other with all the threats and the bickering. There is no room for either of them in my life and from now on the is no room for any of their kind either. I really do think that I have had enough of these dragons and their protective crap. They can find someone else to get between them because it won’t be me.