Chapter 1: Kenna

Kenna

“Are you serious? You’re pregnant again? Can’t Ajax keep his hands off you?” I ask my friend and ex-roomie, Emmi.

“You do know it’s not his hands that got me pregnant, right?” she asks, smirking at me.

She wasn’t always this confident. For someone who used to be so innocent, Ajax, or more likely Phoenix, has totally corrupted her.

“Yes, I know,” I growl.

“Speaking of hands, how is a certain elf king?” she asks.

“That question had nothing to do with hands,” I say to her as we make our way to my mother’s fire class. It still feels ridiculous to me that I have to attend these classes merely because I haven’t turned eighteen and been claimed. As if I would allow anyone to claim me, much less an elf.

“Okay, then,” she says, getting serious, “how are you holding up without Yhendorn here?”

I asked him to leave. I told him that if he didn’t leave the school, I would. I’m getting too close to turning eighteen and I know he intends to claim me. I’ve always known he intended to claim me. But over the past ten years, it didn’t matter. Now, as I approach my eighteenth birthday, it does matters. It matters a lot. So, he left, telling me in his typical Yhendorn way, that it was safer for me to remain here than to leave.

He’s not wrong. Ever since Prince, now King, Faeler used his elven troupe to claim Kenzo, the elves have become divided. You have the side with elves like Yhendorn, Keya, Nesterin, and Fenian who not only believe in the mate bond, but also believe that a dragon hybrid should be mature in both forms before they are claimed. Then you have the side with elves like Faeler, and there are too many like Faeler. They don’t try to claim a dragon the way they should. They bring a group of elves to subdue a dragon, then force their submission. Kenzo was the first, but Laiken and Ember have also been claimed that way.

While both of them are dragons, hatched in a laboratory, there have also been attempts on the hybrids, such as Naida and Brooke, but also the younger hybrids, like my brother Rhys, Kaylani’s twins Ebba and Kawai, and Avani’s daughter, Terra.

None of us are safe anymore. None of us leave the Academy grounds alone. There’s no flying on your own. If you’re alone, you’re at risk of being captured. Some troupes have even made the mistake of attacking the Academy. Cal and Eliane make sure that anyone who tries to attack the Academy is never seen again. And since we have earth dragons and some elves on our side, we’re able to hide the evidence deep in the earth’s core where no one will ever find the burnt out remains of the ones we’ve killed.

But it’s made things very difficult for the dragons. We've never had to be so careful about where we flew or if we were alone. We were the leaders of the supernatural world. Now, however, the elves are trying to change that. They are greedy and power-hungry, and they want us. All of us.

“I’m fine,” I say to Emmi.

She stops and pulls me to a stop with her. “This is me, Kenna. Don’t lie to me. I may not have been able to sniff out your lie before I had Phoenix, but I definitely can now,” she says to me.

Emmi and I have always been close. I never knew why people shunned her for being strong. Granted, she and Phoenix weren’t one entity and fought against each other a lot, but in the end, it was just power. Raw, unadulterated power. In a school of shifters, you’d think that would be a positive thing. But almost all of the shifters shied away from Emmi. Not me, though. I wasn’t scared. Yes, her fire is hotter than mine, which is crazy, but I don’t cower down. Not to anyone. And because I was the only one who was willing to befriend Emmi, we became very close.

“Fine, I miss him, okay. But I’m not risking him claiming me,” I say.

“Because he waited ten years but now he can’t wait a couple more weeks?” she asks, giving me a look.

“You wouldn’t understand, you’re not a dragon,” I hiss, not because she’s wrong, but because she’s right. I know she’s right. Yhendorn would never claim me until my eighteenth birthday. He’s honorable like that and I love him so much for that. It’s what he and the other ‘good’ elves are fighting for.

But my birthday is too close and I need him far away from me.

I’m not sure what Emmi would have said next, probably something profound and something that would make me rethink my decision to send him away, but at that moment, I heard it. A dragon’s call, and not just any dragon’s call. My brother Rhys’ dragon’s call. He and Enki, Avani and Merethyl’s son went out hunting together.

I snarl, leaping into the air and shifting.

“KENNA!” Ancalagon booms.

“Stay here and protect the Academy,” I bellow back. Eliane is sitting on another group of dragon eggs, since Cal can’t seem to keep his dragon dick out of her. Zephyr is watching their human child, Titus, so she can’t join me. Emmi is pregnant, but I feel Ajax leap into the air behind me. I feel several others leap into the air behind me, Valko, Enya, Kano, and Amne among them.

Ancalagon bellows to those who remain to guard the borders. As we fly to where we heard my brother’s dragon’s call, I hear the wolves howl. My father will make sure that our borders are secure while my mother rushes to help save my brother. She’s ahead of me along with Avani. Kaylani is staying behind to make sure the school is safe, helping to protect the large number of dragons that we have on the Academy lands.

My mother bellows her anger that someone is trying to claim Rhys. He may be a fully grown dragon, but he’s only eight in human years. Enki is even younger, just a couple months past his seventh birthday. Avani’s angry bellow follows my mother’s.

We fly hard and fast, knowing that time is not on our side. We’ve already lost several of our dragons because we didn’t get to them on time.

As we fly up, I see them, the elven troupe who has surrounded my brother and Enki.

I’ve just about caught up to my mother as she opens her mouth and lets her fire rain down on the elves. I hear them scream, and they scatter like ants under her heat. They won’t get away. I open my mouth and send a stream of fire down on the ones trying to escape my mother’s fire.

Amne and Enya come up behind us. Amne blazesg another trail of fire as we turn, ready to continue hunting and burning these elves alive.

Avani lands hard, standing in front of Rhys and Enki who have been forced to the ground by the metal nets that the elves have become so fond of using.

Ajax, Kano, Enya, and Valko land and shift, quickly starting to pull the nets off the dragons. The ground around my brother and Enki opens up, creating a barrier so that the others can work without worrying that elves will sneak up on them. While he guards his son and my brother, my mother, Amne, and I continue to hunt and fry the elves who thought they could claim two of our kind.

I’m floating in the air, watching as my mother and Amne circle around, searching for any survivors when I see it, movement in forest. I dive quickly, plucking the elf off the ground. I immediately feel him pulling on his earth element, hoping to use it against me.

“Avani!” I call out.

As I carry the elf toward him, Avani counters his earth element, effectively making him unable to use it. When I set him down on the ground in front of Avani and the others, I hold him caged inside my talons.

“He said he was an elf prince,” Enki tells his father.

“Is that so?” Avani growls, lowering his head and making the earth under the elf rumble.

“He wanted both of us,” Rhys says, making me growl. Flames flicker between my teeth as I lower my head to the puny elf.

“One isn’t enough anymore? Now they want two?” I growl.

“They heard about Eliane claiming Iniko and Ancalagon,” Enki says.

“Of course they did. Fucking power hungry bastards,” Amne says.

“What’s your name, elf prince?” Ajax asks, walking up in his human form.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” he growls.

My mother lands, hard. She begins pushing her heat into the earth under the elf’s feet.

“Tana isn’t really happy that you tried to claim her son. She’s old enough and has enough control to make sure that you slow cook for days, if that’s what it takes to get answers from you,” Ajax says, his voice hard.

The elf starts dancing, trying to get away from the heat of the dirt under his feet. But, he’s still trapped under my talons and there’s no where for him to go.

“Keryth! My name is Prince Keryth!” he finally says.

“Who is your father?” Ajax asks.

“King Ilvisar! He’s my father, now stop! I’ve told you what you want to know,” he says.

“Yes, yes you did. But, you did try to claim my son,” Tana says, even though the elf can’t understand her.

She pushes more heat into the ground and I watch as the soil begins to melt under her heat. The elf begins screaming, begging for us to end his life. He doesn’t bother asking for us to let him go. It’s too late for that.

I lift my talons and we all watch as the elf prince slowly melts into the earth.

“Get them back to the Academy, Tana. Ajax, Kano, and I will bury this elves so that no one will ever find them again.”

“Rhys, Enki, let’s go!” my mother commands. We lift off into the air. Even though my brother and Enki are fully grown dragons, the rest of us surround them, protecting them as we fly home.

When we get close, we bellow to Cal.

“We’re coming in!” I say.

“Doc Everett is waiting,” Eliane calls out.

When we land, Cal is there instantly. He growls, smelling the large number of elves that touched Enki and Rhys.

“Tell me everything!” he commands.