After leaving the mountain that Zephyr threw me off of, I followed her for awhile, then, her lament stopped. I tried searching for her, but I couldn’t find her.
I went back to searching for Ancalagon and finding the laboratory dragons. I’ve been searching everywhere, in constant contact with Avani and Cedric and none of us has a clue where they’ve taken him.
In a group meeting, Kenna, Tana and Cedric's daughter, mentions that we might be looking in the wrong place and it makes sense. Ancalagon isn’t where we expect him to be, so we need to switch where and how we are looking for him.
I head back to the city, back to the penthouse. As soon as I walk inside, I smell her scent of freshly fallen snow. Zephyr has been here. I follow her scent to my room, seeing that some of my clothes are missing. Then I follow it to Tana’s room, seeing that several more of Tana’s clothes are missing and some of Kenna’s shoes.
I make note of the sizes that she’s taken from their rooms before going to shower off the wilderness and stress of constantly searching for my mate, her son, and the laboratory-created dragons. It’s what I do, but usually, I’m not so emotionally invested. And I’ve been putting off my work which I somehow need to make time for.
When I get out of the shower, I order clothing for Zephyr. If she’s coming here, there’s a reason, even if it’s only a place for her to regroup and get her bearings. But, it makes me wonder if there’s a reason she’s chosen to come to the city. She’s less like Tana who actually worked in the city for five years, and more like Avani who can’t stand the city and would rather live in the forest. I have a glimmer of hope that the reason is me.
After ordering Zephyr clothing and shoes, I go to the kitchen, finding the refrigerator empty. Instead, I order delivery and then call Avani.
“Ishir, do you have news?”
“No, I was hoping you did.”
“Nothing. How is this possible Ishir? I’m going crazy trying to find my son! I met with Zephyr and she hasn’t found any leads either.”
“Where did you meet with Zephyr?” I ask him, trying to piece together her timeframe of where she’s been and when.
“A couple of days ago. She was out in the forest. Why?” he asks me.
“Just curious,” I say, deciding not to tell him that she’s been here at the penthouse. I want to know why she’s here first before I say anything.
“Are there any other facilities that I can search?” Avani asks.
“I thought you were heading home for a few days,” I say to him.
“Yeah, I need to, but if there’s another one….”
“I need to look again, see which ones are left. I’ll meet you in a few days, we can search them together. I have some things I need to check on here anyway. I’ll call you and let you know where and when to meet.”
“Sounds good.”
“And Avani? Get some sleep, you sound exhausted,” I tell him, knowing I need to take my own advice. We’re all running ourselves ragged trying to find Ancalagon.
The next day, I go through my requests, happy that it’s not full of missing shifters like it has been in the recent past when they were building the arenas.
However, there is one shifter and I move it to the top of the list. As a rule, shifters don’t go ‘missing’. If they’re missing, it usually means something happened to them, like a hunter got to them or maybe the kid who took Ancalagon is starting to collect shifters as well.
This shifter is an owl shifter, so the person is most likely intelligent and a predator, but not an apex predator. It’s possible that he was actually shot by a real hunter not a supernatural hunter, but I’ll search for him anyway.
Zephyr’s clothing arrives and I leave it out for her, with a note telling her to take anything of mine that she wants and if she needs anything else to let me know. I tell her I’ll be gone for awhile searching for Ancalagon, so if she needs a place to stay, she’s welcome to stay in my room.
I’ve been around dragons for years, and I’ve seen Tana and now Avani with their mates. Even before they were claimed, the pull to their mates was strong. I’m hoping that Zephyr will use this place as a central point for her searches, and that being around my scent will help soothe her. Tana rarely comes here anymore, preferring to stay at home with her family unless she is out helping to search for Ancalagon.
As I pass her clothing on the table, I decide to scent it. Maybe that will make her feel more comfortable. I know it will make me feel more comfortable knowing that my mate smells like me when she’s out in the city.
I go through the list of laboratories that are left on the list that the scientist gave me. We’ve almost exhausted the list and we need to think of different ways to find Ancalagon.
I call Avani again.
“Meet me tomorrow,” I tell him and give him the coordinates. “I’ll be there mid-morning. And Avani, these are the last of them. After this, we need to come up with a new plan.”
“I’ve been thinking about that. I’ll talk to you about it when we get together,” he says.
I decide to truly scent the new clothing I bought for my mate, so I put the clothing into my bed and after rolling around on all of them, I sleep with them. The next morning, I fold them up and put them back on the table with the note before locking up and heading out to meet Avani.
Once I’m out of the city, I shift, lifting my nose in the air. I’m almost positive I catch Zephyr’s scent, but it’s gone almost as quickly as it came. I take off, knowing I need to meet up with Avani.
As I’m running, I think about the owl shifter, thinking about where I can begin my search for a nocturnal predator. The forest is the natural option, so while we’re out here hunting for Ancalagon, I’m going to see if I can find this owl shifter, Owen. Owen the owl. I do a mental eye roll on that one.
I’m nearly to the meeting spot when I hear the whoosh of dragon wings above me. I look up just in time to see Avani’s green scales glinting in the sun before he flies over me and lands, shifting gracefully.
I race up to him and shift, nodding at him.
“Avani, how are Merethyl, Gaia and your unborn son?” I ask him.
“Better than I am. They’re good. I feel like my daughter is growing up and I’m missing it,” he says and I hear the regret in his voice.
“You are, so let’s find Ancalagon and get everyone back home where they belong,” I say to him.
We check out the first laboratory, it’s empty but there are still some documents left behind. I find a working computer, uploading the documents to myself to review later before stepping out. Avani does his dragon thing calling to the earth and the underground laboratory implodes and collapses in on itself. He uses his element and covers it up, so the humans with their drones and satellites won’t come looking to see what this strange looking area in the middle of nowhere is.
“Where’s the next one?” he asks.
I tell him and he grimaces.
“You know I can’t carry you without Mere’s permission,” he tells me.
I know this. Once a dragon is claimed, they give their free will to their riders, even if those riders don’t want it. Both Cedric and Merethyl have told Tana and Avani that they don’t want them giving up their free will, but it’s the way of the dragon. When they finally submit to being claimed, they give themselves up completely to their riders. In the recent past, that hasn’t been a bad thing because their riders were also their mates. However, historically, there have been times where it was terrible, fraught with problems and causing chaos in the world, leading to the many human stories of dragons and dragonslayers.
“I know, it’s no problem. You’ll beat me there, but you can look around and make sure the place is empty while I catch up,” I tell him.
“See you in a bit,” he says, leaping up into the air and shifting.
I leap forward, shifting into my tiger form and racing to the next coordinates. It’s a couple of hours later and I’m almost there when I hear Avani calling me.
“Ishir!”
I turn, following his scent when I smell the other, lighter scent near him. The scent of blood, an owl shifter’s blood, lingering in the air.
I race up to him, seeing him crouching on the ground.
I shift and come up behind him. He turns looking at me over his shoulder.
“What do you make of this?” he asks me.
When I can finally see, I’m surprised at what I’m looking at. The owl shifter is there, in his human form lying on the ground, his head separated from his body.
“I think we just found Owen the owl,” I say to Avani.
I think the owl had been a test. Oliver, that’s the guy’s name, wanted to see if I would actually do it. I did, I killed him with my bare hands, then I took a picture of his dead body, before racing off and vomiting on a mountain. The force of my dry heaves started an avalanche which thankfully covered what little I had vomited up.I send the picture to Oliver before deleting it from my phone. Then I stay on top of the mountain and begin a lament for the owl. He had been a kind shifter, and he had trusted me as all shifters will because I’m a dragon. I betrayed that trust and I hate myself for it. I can only hope that one of us can find Ancalagon quickly so I can stop this before I completely lose myself.The look on that owl’s face and his desperate “Why?” as I killed him, will haunt me the rest of my life.When I finish my lament, I shift back, waiting for instructions. It took me two weeks to finally be able to kill the owl and I haven’t seen my son in that amount of time. I have n
It’s been two months since Ancalagon went missing and I can’t find him anywhere. Of course, the one time I desperately want to find someone, I can’t find them. I know that Zephyr is hurting. My mate is hurting and I should be able to help her. This is what I do, after all, and I’m damn good at it. Or at least, I used to be. Now, when it’s most important to me, I find I’m incapable. Incapable of doing the work I’m usually so good at and incapable of taking away my mate’s pain.I’ve been working closely with Avani and Cedric and we’ve searched the city, even found places that had Ancalagon’s scent, but it was faint, as if Oliver is moving Ancalagon around so we can’t find him. It’s maddening because it means that he’s been planning this for a very long time and he’s more than a couple steps ahead of us.If that wasn’t bad enough, shifters have started to turn up dead. I have no idea if Oliver is responsible for the deaths of these shifters or not, but since Avani and I found the owl shi
I can’t get the smell of blood off of me, the blood of the innocents that I’ve killed. I scrub and scrub, but their blood is still on my hands. I hate it, and I hate myself.None of them, not one, worried about being in my presence. Why would they, dragons have always been the protectors of the shifters, the strongest and most fierce of us all. And yet, as much as I hate myself, as much as I know I’ll be tormented for the rest of my life, I would do it all again, and I know I will have to, in order to ensure my son stays alive.Oliver had finally let me see him. He looked drugged when I saw him, but at least he was breathing. In the short time that I got to see him, I could see the sores around his mouth where he’s been fighting against the muzzle, see the bruises and patches of spots where the scales have worn away or been ripped out from the restraints that are holding him down.Afterward, I came back to the penthouse. It’s become my central point. So far, I’ve been lucky and haven’
I watch my mate across the table from me. She’s holding herself together, but the cracks are starting to form. She’s falling apart.I’m not sure she realizes that she’s been creating gusts of wind when she has strong emotions. It makes it a lot easier to read her because outwardly, she’s not giving me anything. But she’s having a harder time controlling her element.I can imagine that the thought of Avani taking his pregnant mate to his cave of treasures hurts Zephyr in more ways than one. First, if he’s there, he’s not helping to find Ancalagon, which could feel like he's choosing that son over his son with Zephyr. But also, he’s protecting his mate and their child, when Zephyr can’t protect hers.I’ve been watching her push her food around on her plate, after the first bite that looked like she barely got it down, she hasn’t eaten anything. She’s struggling, not letting me in so I can help her, and I’ve had enough.I stand, her head whipping up to look at me as I move around the tab
I’m not sure I’ve ever broken down like I did with Ishir last night. And I know I’ve never let someone hold me, seeking them out to hold me while I cried. He thinks my sadness is due to my missing son, and most of it is. But the rest is about having to kill these shifters. Their pain and their cries are haunting my dreams. It seems that only Ishir can quiet them down, helping to bring me peace again. I had to leave early this morning, before Ishir woke up. I heard my phone ping with a text, and I knew who it was. Oliver. He gave me a new address to meet him at. I’m not sure what that means, but I have to assume that Ishir is closing in on him and he’s moving. It was news to me that he’s moving Ancalagon, and that Ishir has found a couple different places with his scent. I figured he’d brought him to the warehouse to get him in the city and then was housing him somewhere, although I’ve never been able to find out where. If he’s moving him, why doesn’t the video image of where they ha
The last time I was with Zephyr, I woke alone. Again. It’s not like I’m a heavy sleeper, but when the woman wants to slip away from me, she does. I had smelled the scent of magic when I walked into the penthouse that night. Magic and blood. Then, when she had been on the verge of falling apart, I needed to show her that she’s mine, that I don’t care how damaged she thinks she is. I know from being around Tana and Avani that nothing is more important to a dragon than being accepted and claimed by their rider. I’m not technically her rider, but I am her mate, and so I had done what I could do to show her that she’s mine, no matter what. When I had stripped her down, I’d seen the burn marks, the bruises. I didn’t say anything to her and I didn’t say anything to Avani when we found the dead witch and warlock beheaded the next day, but I’m pretty sure I’ve found my assassin. It’s my mate. I know I should have told Avani and Cedric, but I can’t betray Zephyr like that. I need to find out
“Why?” “What did I do?” “How can you do this?” The voices of the ones I’ve killed continue to haunt me. They are always with me now, tormenting me. Somedays, like today, I don’t even realize that I’ve killed again until they are in my head and I know they are gone. I should call myself the soul collector. Every one of them, going back to the owl are here, in my head, screaming and crying and asking me questions I don’t have a good enough answer for. I tried, for the longest time, to tell them it was to save my son, to save Ancalagon. I needed to help him, I needed to save him. “How long ago was that?” “You killed me months ago.” “I’m dead and he’s still a prisoner.” “Is he even alive anymore?” “STOP IT!” I scream at them, covering my ears with my hands. He has to be alive, he has to be. If I did this, if I killed these innocents and he’s dead…. “You’re cruel.” “You’re a horrible person.” “A horrible dragon.” “You’re wicked, evil.” “You’re no better than Oliver.” “I forg
My mother never came for me. I heard her voice, she told me to hold on, that she was trying to get me out of here, but she never came. Of course, I don’t know if that was one day ago or one year ago. I’ve been inside for as long as I can remember, strapped here and only smelling the air outside when they move me. After I killed several of the humans who were participating in my hell, they covered my eyes. Now, I haven’t seen anything or anyone in who knows how long. What I do know is when my mother saw me, she told Oliver that I was too small and he needed to feed me more than he was. Since he wants me to be some sort of killing machine for him, he listened, and I’ve been growing at an amazing rate. This is good and bad. It’s good because I’m getting stronger and the DNA of my aunt, the water dragon, and the fire dragon are absorbing into my body, making me even stronger. Most dragons can breathe fire, but now, my fire is hotter than anything on this planet. I’m biding my time befor