Looks like this laboratory is about to go down. Updates daily.
We’re moving toward the sounds of screams and loud crying when I hear a sound that breaks my heart. It is the sound of an elf in pain, extreme pain. The sound is so high pitched that a human couldn’t hear it, but Avani does. He slaps his hands to his ears, turning to look at me, but I’m already moving past him. That sound had to come from one of my people. Someone is torturing one of my elven kin. It doesn’t sound like Yhendorn, but I can’t be sure. I burst into a room filled with people and with all sorts of shifters and supernaturals strapped to beds. In the center, is an elf. I’m not sure what’s happening but it looks like the scientists are pumping something from each of the supernaturals into the elf, and it’s obviously very painful. I begin ripping the tubes out, knowing that even if it hurts, it will hurt less than whatever they are pumping into him. Avani moves to take out the guards. The scientists rush toward the door, like they think they will escape. They will not. I tu
The more time I spend with my mate, the more I come to realize how strong she is. Where I come in like a tornado and blow through everything, counting on my brute strength to defeat my enemy, Merethyl’s strength is delicate, intricate and it makes her stronger because she has such control over it. Her love for all creatures is admirable and her fury at those that hurt the creatures she protects is magnificent. Earth may be our element, but it encompasses all of the elements within it, the fire from the center of the earth, the air that breathes life into every living thing and the water that feeds that life. She, like me, has pieces of all of those elements within her. As she turns to the door, after punching the scientist, I move to step in front of her. She may be strong, but I’m still a dragon. My scales give us both a protection that she doesn’t have on her own. I look back at the room, making sure everyone is ready before I open the door. I glance at the elf lying on the table.
So many of my people are here. “Help me get them out!” I say and we start to go into the rooms, releasing my fellow elves. Several of them are in bad shape. I push my healing into them, which is easier than doing it for other shifters. I can feel that something is off, but I don’t have time to figure out what it is. “Princess, what are you doing here?” Someone asks me. “I came looking for Yhendorn, I didn’t know they had captured so many of you. I was worried you were dead.” I say. “Some of us would have preferred dying to what we’ve experienced here.” Another says. He’s one that feels ‘off’ to me. “Have you seen Yhendorn?” I ask. “No, Princess. We have not seen our King.” One says and I hear someone suck in air behind me. I turn and see the Komodo dragon shifter. “You’re an elven princess?” He asks, his eyes wide. Avani has just come out of a room, carrying an elf. He hears the Komodo dragon and snarls at him, putting the elf down and cornering him against the wall. “Keep yo
I had a moment of pure terror when I saw that fire about to engulf Merethyl. I scooped her up and raced outside, thankful that the blast hit me and not her. Even for me, that was painful. I’m pretty sure my back is scratched, and my wings are probably torn. It hurt pulling them in, but it would have hurt worse landing on them. Now, as she straddles me, watching the blazing inferno behind us, I feel like I need to do damage control. So, I revert to what always works for me. Arrogance. When I make a joke about her wanting to be on top, she responds as I expect. She practically leaps off of me. If we were alone, I might have considered taking a more flirtatious approach, but we’re not and there are still many injured out here in the forest where they are easy targets for hunters. We get up and I move to find Kayid. He had been unconscious when Merethyl had found him. Since I had smelled his blood on the hunters, I’m not surprised. As a shifter, he may have advanced healing, but it’s no
The nerve of Naremyn, thinking that a dragon is meant to be tamed. I’ve heard of it being done in the past, and I also heard that dragons became nothing more than slaves to their riders. Elves, in particular, could not handle the power that came with claiming a dragon and they abused that power. I won’t allow that with Avani. I don’t know what is going on between us, and his arrogance irritates me like nothing I’ve ever experienced before, but I won’t allow one of my brethren to try and take away who he is, especially not Naremyn. He and his family have been after my family’s position as leaders of our elven troupe for longer than I’ve been alive. I know that the only reason he wants Avani is to gain the power he thinks would put him in a position to overthrow Yhendorn. I won’t stand by and allow that to happen. I’m surprised when Avani lets me pull him away without a fight. I take him into the forest where no one is around and turn to him. “Why didn’t you tell me you were injured?”
I realize my subtle attempts to see if Merethyl likes me, aren’t subtle at all. When she tells me she likes older men a lot, it actually has the opposite effect than what I was hoping. I had asked the question, hoping she’d say yes, meaning she liked me. But her response and the way she said it made me realize that my mate may have quite a bit of experience with older men. It immediately makes me jealous. No one touches what is mine. I watch as she strides away, full of grace and confidence. I need to get my jealousy under control. The potential that one of the elves in her troupe that are standing on the other side of this tree line from me may have touched my mate has me on the verge of shifting and roaring my claim over her. Not that it would matter. Elves can’t be claimed like that any more than a dragon can. I take a deep breath and walk out of the forest. Merethyl is already organizing her people to go back to their lands. I take the opportunity to go speak to the shifters. “Y
I love flying on Avani’s back. It’s like I was meant to be here. I can feel the wind blowing over my skin, taste the water particles in the air, feel the coolness of the clouds as we pass through them. I lean back, letting my fingers caress Avani’s back again. I’m so amazed at how his body is a dichotomy of hard versus soft. The scales are hard as stone. You can feel that they can’t be penetrated, and they lay over top of each other, giving him protection, like he’s wearing armor. But if you actually run your hands over the scales, you can feel the warmth, the muscle underneath. It’s very similar to Avani’s personality. Cold and hard on the outside, soft and warm on the inside, although I would never tell him that. He’d just deny it anyway. I feel Avani’s rumble under me and I sit up, looking around. We’re over the forest and I’m not sure, but I think he wants me to help him look for anyone that shouldn’t be here. He makes a couple of circles around the forest area before finding a
I took the opportunity while I was getting the dead elves out to the pyres made by Merethyl, to see if the bullets in their bodies matched the ones I saw in the hunters’ laboratory we just found. They don’t, which means, that while those hunters knew about this place and what happened here, they weren’t the ones to capture Mere’s brother and her brethren. Merethyl’s grief is palpable, and I knew that when it came time to say goodbye to her parents, she would struggle. One good thing about dragons is that we have good memories. Because her song was something that sounded like it came from the earth, I was able to pick it up easily, so on our final night of laying her dead to rest, when Mere couldn’t sing the words, I did it for her. Each night, after we’d send off the next group of dead, I’d curl up around her in the forest and we’d fall asleep. Tonight, as we lay here, I can tell that she won’t be able to sleep. I can almost hear the wheels turning in her head, keeping her awake. I