Ohhh, a dragon academy...
The next morning, I go out to spend time with Ancalagon and the other dragons. I realize that their abuse at the hands of Oliver and The Chief may not have been the same as mine, but they are all suffering in their own ways. I let Ancalagon know that we’ll be checking out the space where we found him tonight and he immediately asks to join us. I really don’t want him to come, I want to protect him, but Ishir told me that he needs this. So, I tell him yes. I follow Kaylani and Everett around, checking over the dragonlings. Some are younger than others and some are getting closer to the their fifth birthdays when they will finally shift and get their human form. “How do you feel about having some of these little ones having your DNA, Kaylani?” I ask her. My sister as always wanted a child, but she was never able to have one, not even with Avani. “Mixed feelings I guess. It’s nice to know that I have what you could call true children, and that the water dragon line won’t die with me,
I look at Ancalagon, well, what I can see of him. Even being mated to Zephyr, Ancalagon blends into the night. Everything but his eyes, which glimmer like jewels. I have an idea of what Oliver did to Ancalagon. While we’re there tonight, I want to see if I can find any paperwork at the burnt out laboratory. The Chief documented everything. It helped me to find his lairs, figure out how to save the laboratory dragons and ultimately, how to find and kill the man himself. ‘What do you think he did to my son?’ Zephyr’s voice filters into my head, catching on to my thoughts. I turn and look at her, her white hair standing out in the night. ‘I don’t know for sure,’ I tell her. ‘You seem pretty certain, based on your emotions,’ she presses. I sigh. ‘I think that Oliver has been pumping Cal with Tana, and Kaylani’s DNA. I think he was trying and apparently succeeded in creating a dragon that could manipulate all four elements,’ I tell her, latching on to her mind in case this sends her s
I lay strapped to the bed, a needle in each of my arms and legs. My father told me I needed to think about what I had done. What had I done? I’m not even sure. I had been helping Ancalagon get free, trying to help him escape and my father had come in and found me. Cal had tried to reach down to grab me. My father says he was trying to kill me, but I think he was trying to save me. Of course, then, he blew his fire on me. He already knew it was too hot for me, I had told him, so then, maybe my father was right and he was trying to kill. He should have killed me, except….except, something happened. Somehow and I don’t now how, I blocked the fire. My father had grabbed me and I had put a protective covering over us. As soon as the fire stopping raining down on us and we heard Ancalagon scream as he flew away with the others, my father had yanked me out of the burning building. “Do you know what you’ve done, Eliane?” he had yelled at me. “Father, I’m sorry. I didn’t want him to die.”
I love waking up with the smell of cold snow in my nose and my naked mate wrapped around me. There’s nothing better in the world. I take my time, slowly waking and savoring my mate before we crawl out of bed and shower. As we get ready to leave the room, I smell Kenna and Tana. They are already here. I pull Zephyr to me, stroking her cheek. “If it gets to much today, just reach out to me. I’ll be in your head, but apparently, I have my own class to attend. No matter what, you are the most important thing to me, so please, if you need me, don’t hesitate to call out to me.” She lifts up onto her toes and leans in, her eyes never leaving mine, her lips so close I can feel the coolness of snow. “I promise, tiger,” she says before quickly pecking my lips and dancing away as I growl my pleasure at her words. As she skips ahead of me, I begin to stalk her. “You know a tiger always devours his prey,” I say, my voice deep with my desire for her. She looks at me over her shoulder. “You hav
I know Ishir is worried about me, but I also know that Tana would never hurt me. She, Kaylani, and I were the last female dragons for a very long time. Kaylani and I are older than Tana, but there was never any animosity between us. And, I know that Tana killed innocents a lot longer than I have while she was in the Arena. She may not have killed that many more than I did, since Oliver was pushing me to kill more and more frequently, but she still has quite a list of supernaturals that she killed. As we walk into the forest, Tana takes my hand. “Do you mind telling me about the voices in your head?” she asks me. I think about the ghosts of the shifters in my mind and it’s Tana’s hand in mine that helps to keep me grounded. “They talk to me,” I say to her. She nods as she finds a place for us to sit. “They say horrible things to you?” she asks me. I nod. “Yes.” “Things that you believe?” “I believe them because they are true,” I say. “Are they, Zephyr?” she asks. “I killed t
After dinner, Everett pulls out the documents that I gave him, and we all sit around the table. I can feel a shift in Zephyr’s feelings toward him. It makes me edgy, jealous. What if she wants him? I won’t allow it. She is mine. ‘Yes, I am, love. I am yours and I will explain the change in my feelings toward him later, when we are alone. For now, know that it has nothing to do with you and doesn’t change my feelings for you at all,’ she says in my mind. I’m still not happy about it, since I have no idea why she suddenly has warm feelings towards the human, so I pull her into my lap, needing to have her close. I relax when she snuggles up against me. “First, let me say that that, whether they have learned from their earlier mistakes or Oliver is just a better scientist than his father, the hybrids that they were creating in that laboratory are much more sophisticated than the ones I heard about before.” He passes around some documents that include images of young hybrids in the top
The next morning, we’re up early. When I get outside, Morgan is already there with Kaylani. If she had a human form, she’d be bouncing on her feet. Instead, her scales are rippling and the excited energy coming off of her is palpable. “So, this is a good training exercise for both of you,” Kaylani begins. “Both of you need to learn to have control of your element. Watch as Zephyr and I show you,” she says, and Zephyr pulls a small tornado onto her hand. “The key is to trust each other, Zephyr and I are sisters and have grown up together, so we know that the other can control their element. But you also have the responsibility when you mix elements to maintain control of your element. If ones goes out of control, they both do,” Kaylani says, as she adds water to the tornado, making it a water spout. As we watch, she begins to add too much water, making waves around the tornado, making the tornado sloppy and eventually it falls off Zephyr’s hand and splashes on the ground at our feet
As we fly to the city, I can feel my tiger purring on my back. If I turned my head, I would expect to see him curled up like a cat. I’m pretty sure he’s not, but that’s what it feels like. ‘I love riding on your back, Zephyr. It’s so different from the others,’ Ishir saysin my mind, making me growl. I don’t like my rider having ridden on another’s back, he’s MY rider. ‘Yes, I am now. But I wasn’t always, and it was never comfortable for me. Necessary, yes, but I never purred for them, my little dragon,’ he says seductively. ‘You know I’m not little, right?’ I ask him. I mean really, even in his tiger form, I’m much larger than he is. ‘Shall I sink my teeth into your neck again, Zephyr? I only need to be large enough to claim you, and once you’re in your human form, let’s not talk about how, what was Merethyl's word, dainty, you are,’ he says, making me shiver at the thought of his canines in my neck. ‘You like that?’ he purrs. ‘Yes. I like the way you claimed me. I like the mark