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  “It’s a small one…”

  “Don’t matter. Still has all its parts.”

  “I call dibs on the liver!”

  There was no way out. The humans grabbed each of my legs to make sure I couldn’t move. One of them snapped my muzzle shut with his gloved hands.

  With the last ounce of my strength, I ripped my snout from the raider and threw my head back, letting out one last, sorrowful howl - a cry for help.

  3

  Dante

  I’d never been so fucking bored in my life.

  I groaned loudly as I beat my wings, staying afloat on top of a thermal. Catching the columns of hot air was about the only fun to be had while patrolling the skies and being a babysitter to the raven scout beside me.

  “If you groan one more time,” Ruby growled, her raven voice stern, “I’m going to peck your eyes out.”

  “Please do. At least that would be interesting.”

  Ruby was losing patience with me. “Why don’t you look around? There’s plenty to see.”

  “Like what? Trees? Oh, look, is that an elm?”

  She sighed and flew ahead. “Don’t fall behind.”

  I grumbled and joined her within a few wingbeats. As if a raven could outfly a dragon. It was almost laughable.

  For anyone down below looking up, we must have been a sight indeed. Two pitch black shifters flying underneath the new moon - one, a large black bird, and the other, a dragon with iridescent scales and a cream underbelly.

  “I don’t understand why I had to come,” I repeated. “There were plenty of others who could accompany you.”

  “I chose you,” Ruby repeated with the thinning patience of a school teacher whose student wouldn’t shut up, “because you’re one of the only dragons who hasn’t been on a scouting mission.”

  “Apparently, I wasn’t missing much.”

  “Dante, this is important,” Ruby chided. “We’re always looking for new blood in the tribe. Without it, we risk losing genetic diversity and the opportunity to acquire new types of shifters.”

  I’d heard this spiel about a hundred times before, and it wasn’t any more interesting the hundred-and-first time around.

  “We don’t need new types of shifters, do we?” I muttered. “I mean, we’re dragons. It doesn’t get much better than that.”

  She glared at me with her beady raven eyes. Although she was small, the ferocity of her gaze was enough to make me shiver. Big, bad dragon indeed.

  “You’ll understand when you’re older,” Ruby said.

  I growled this time and puffed out smoke from my nose. “Excuse me? I’m an adult, Ruby. Don’t talk to me like I’m a child.”

  “Then don’t act like one.”

  I clicked my tongue. “Harsh.”

  She shot me a wry smile despite herself. “Maybe when you’re interested in starting your own family, you’ll appreciate the diversity of the available omegas in our tribe. It’s one of our most important strengths, Dante.”

  This time I couldn’t help but laugh. “I’ve got plenty to keep busy with. I don’t need an omega right now. Gods know I especially don’t need a baby.”

  She gave a little shrug of her wings. “You might change your mind.”

  “Doubt it.”

  She rolled her eyes at me, but there was a good-natured twinkle in them, like she knew more than I did at any given moment.

  Annoying little raven, I thought affectionately.

  The skies were dark under the moonless sky, with only stars to light our path. The iridescence of my scales dulled under the low-light and it was a small blow to my vanity, but there was nobody up here to impress anyway. Even though I wasn’t interested in finding an omega and starting a family, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a big flirt. It wasn’t so much the romance I liked, but the attention. Knowing that I could have anyone I wanted if I so much as batted my eyes and blew a heart-shaped puff of smoke in their direction.

  Isn’t that what being an alpha dragon was all about?

  That’s why I didn't want an omega. An omega meant a family; a family meant responsibility. Responsibility was like, the polar opposite of fun.

  I could just imagine my older brother Lorenzo’s stern face glowering down at me. We weren’t more than a few years apart, but there was a chasm of differences between our personalities. Having a family was all he wanted. He wanted an omega to adore, a baby in his arms to cradle, blah blah… Sometimes I wondered if we were even related.

  That train of thought only lasted me so long. Once I’d chased down that thread and finished it, I became bored again.

  “Where’s the closest pack or clan or whatever?” I asked Ruby.

  “Why?” she asked wryly.

  “So we can grab a couple omegas, put ‘em in a doggy-bag, and get out of here.”

  “I’ll spare you the entire explanation since I’m sure you’re aware of it, but we do not just grab omegas like they’re fruit at the grocery store,” Ruby said. “There’s a process involved. For one thing, to join our tribe, they must volunteer -”

  “As tribute?”

  Ruby turned to me with her feathers fluffed up. “What?”

  I grinned at her. “Nothing. Something I read in a book once.”

  “They must volunteer,” she continued, “of their own free will. Our tribe has no place for omegas who don’t wish to truly be there.”

  “Makes sense. I wouldn’t want to make a baby with someone who didn’t also want to make a baby. Hypothetically, of course.” I flew closer to her, nudging her with my wing tip. “Anyway, you never answered my question.”

  “Which is?”

  “What’s the closest pack or whatever?”

  A strange expression crossed her face. “We’re coming up on it now, but I’m afraid you’ll have to be bored for a bit longer.”

  “Why?” I asked indignantly.

  “We’re not stopping,” she said.

  I blew an irritated puff of smoke. “Why not?”

  “Because it’s Stoneheart pack,” she said irritably, as if that was supposed to mean anything to me.

  “So?”

  “For all the books you read, I’m surprised you’re so ignorant of the world,” she said coldly.

  With a growl, I quickly flew in front of her and flared my wings so I cut off her flight path. “Ruby, tell me why.”

  She stared me down, then finally sighed. “They won’t want us there. They’re a small, highly secluded pack. It’s not like anything I’ve ever seen before. They live walled off from the rest of the world.”

  “Walled off? Why?”

  “To protect themselves from the humans.”

  I laughed. “No, really, why?”

  But it was clear from her expression that she wasn’t joking. “Dante, the humans outnumber them easily 3-to-1. And these aren’t the humans that go screaming and running away from us. They’re vicious and cruel. They stop at nothing. I’ve heard stories of the humans tearing Stoneheart shifters limb from limb and taking the leftover parts. And Stoneheart pack is made up of wolf shifters, not big scary dragons like you.”

  I frowned now. To me, it seemed ridiculous that humans could ever frighten a shifter, no matter what the species. But Ruby explained the situation with such gravity that I believed her.

  “So why don’t they want us paying them a little visit?”

  “They have a shortage of omegas. Every breeding season - springtime - they’re all required to mate. If not, they’re banished outside the walls, where they are killed by humans.”

  Indignation filled me like fire. “What?”

  “It is their way,” Ruby said simply. “I have no place to judge them.”

  “Fuck that. I’ll judge them as much as I want. That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  Angrily, I turned around and beat my wings hard, letting my rage fuel my muscles. What Ruby just told me was like a fairytale gone wrong. It was wretched and awful.

  “Where is it?” I asked.
>
  Ruby’s tone was cautious. “No, Dante. We can’t stop there.”

  I exhaled a plume of fire. “I don’t care what the rules are, I just want to see the damn place for myself!”

  She hesitated but said, “Down below. See the stone walls?”

  Immediately, I withdrew my wings and plummeted downwards. Through the rushing wind around my ears, I could just barely hear Ruby sigh in exasperation and follow me. I was glad she didn’t try to stop me. She must have known this was something I had to see with my own eyes to believe.

  I flared my wings to slow down when I saw the walls. From high above, it looked like a circular ring of stone, just like a piece of ceramic jewelry. But it was nowhere near as beautiful. The sight filled me with disgust. For a dragon, freedom was the most important thing in our lives. I’d heard the same of other large predator shifters - wolves, bears, big cats. But here were wolves living penned inside a cage, like dogs. It wasn’t right.

  As I flew closer down, Ruby cautiously called my name. “Dante…”

  “I won’t get too close,” I promised. Maybe that was a lie. I didn’t know yet.

  There wasn’t much to see. A normal town, if a bit cramped, stood inside the walls. The people in the streets looked like ants from this distance. I could afford to fly closer, so I did. It wasn’t like they had anything to stop me.

  I paused.

  There was an ant outside the walls.

  Not a real ant, of course. A shifter from inside Stoneheart pack.

  “Ruby,” I said, “do you see that?”

  With her sharp raven eyes, she never missed anything. “Yes. But I don’t believe it. Why is a Stoneheart wolf outside the walls?”

  “Maybe you were wrong.”

  She hummed. “Maybe things have changed.”

  But it became clear that wasn’t the case.

  We both saw it before the wolf shifter did. A huge swarming mass of humans carrying sharp weapons lay hidden in the trees. It was easy to see from our vantage point, but the poor wolf shifter clearly had no idea.

  My heart skipped a beat. What was going on?

  “We should go,” Ruby suggested, but she couldn’t tear her eyes from the scene.

  “I want to know what’s happening,” I said firmly.

  Ruby didn't argue this time.

  I dipped my wings and flew in closer. My eyes narrowed. It was quiet, but I knew it wasn’t calm. After what Ruby told me, there was only one explanation for what was going on here.

  Those humans were about to kill that shifter.

  But when I laid my eyes on him - that little wolf - something stirred inside me. A small white-blue flame kindled in my chest, a strange sensation I’d never felt before. At first I thought it might be adrenaline - but it was clearly more primal and arcane.

  The humans broke their hunting crouches. They exploded towards the wolf shifter, weapons raised high.

  For a moment, I was too stunned to move. I watched the shifter become his wolf, and make a break for it. The grey blur darted through the trees running as fast as he could. But it wasn’t enough. There were too many humans waiting. They were on him like a cloud of piranhas on a slab of meat.

  And then I heard it.

  That heart wrenching sound that rose up from the wolf’s lips and disappeared like a ghost into the night sky.

  That howl that cried, “Help me.”

  My body reacted. Wings tight, I shot towards the ground like a black bullet. I saw red. Fury gripped me. My muscles ached for a fight. I wanted blood.

  I let out a feral roar that shook the trees and earth. All the humans stopped. Their eyes went wide, their jaws dropped.

  I dropped to the ground on my back legs and reared up, standing taller than the trees and flaring out my pitch black wings. Smoke and embers fell from my snout. I bared all my bloodthirsty fangs, and flexed my knife-like talons.

  While the humans were frozen, I made eye contact with the wolf. His yellow eyes were wide and full of terror. His paws were stretched out, held tightly by the humans, and he was utterly defeated. I knew without a doubt that he would have been dead if I hadn’t showed up.

  But that wasn’t all.

  The tiny white-hot flame that kindled in my chest when I first saw him from above burned brighter now. It grew, enveloped my ribs and my heart, pulling me to him with the force of a magnet. It was almost painful not to be closer to him - and seeing him in the humans’ clutches like this was painful enough.

  I thought I would dread this moment, but instead I only felt a wavelike calm, like I was standing deep in a silent ocean. My whole life, I had been waiting to meet him. He was mine, and I was his.

  He was my fated mate.

  “Drop the wolf,” I commanded.

  My voice was booming loud and rough, hellish and ancient, like the demons that humans were so afraid of.

  Except I wasn’t the demon. The humans were.

  They seemed too afraid to move.

  I snarled. “I said drop the wolf!”

  They dropped the wolf. Without even thinking about my actions, I reached down and picked him up between my claws - gently, so as not to hurt him.

  When their precious prize was lost, the humans went from shocked to angry. They picked up their weapons and charged at me. Had I not been so furious, I might have laughed. They were like insects. Their spears and swords barely put a scratch on my tough scales.

  Holding the wolf close my chest, I let out another roar. Embers from my fangs fell to the ground, burning up the soil. The humans danced around it, continuing to batter me uselessly.

  The wolf said nothing. He must have been in shock.

  “Leave now before I kill you all!” I snapped.

  I’d never seen such insolence. These were the first humans I’d ever met that weren’t piss-their-pants afraid of me. It frustrated and infuriated me, on top of how angry I already was.

  The humans didn’t listen. And I knew it wasn’t because they didn’t understand me. Dragonspeech was a powerful, ancient tongue that resonated deep within the minds of those who heard it. Even if we didn’t speak the same words, dragonspeech would always register as a language they understood.

  So these insolent humans were just being difficult. No problem. I’d just have to kill them.

  I looked down at my little wolf. “Mind if I make a mess?”

  The wolf just blinked his big yellow eyes. In a tiny peep, he said, “No?”

  “Thanks.”

  Keeping the wolf safely close my chest, I whipped around and clubbed the surrounding humans with my thick, powerful tail. They toppled over like grass beneath a scythe.

  The remaining humans hesitated at first, but fuelled by their anger at losing the wolf, they came again, relentless. I had no problems taking them out the same way. I had flame, scales, fang and talon. All they had was their useless weapons and willpower.

  I had another thing they didn’t - wings.

  Bunching up the muscles in my legs, I pushed off the ground and took to the air. It was more difficult to take off from the ground, especially with the wolf’s added weight, but I could still do it. Beating my wind furiously, I whipped up a cloud of dust and dirt that blocked the humans’ vision. I rose higher and higher until the humans were about half their normal size.

  “See you, assholes!” I spat.

  Something sharp grazed my wing and made me growl. I saw the spear falling in an a downward arc from the corner of my eye. There was a tiny nick in the bottom of my wing and it beaded with blood.

  No matter. The important thing right now was saving the wolf - my fated mate.

  As a final fun farewell, I inhaled and blasted a wave of fire towards the humans. They screamed and danced backwards, scrambling to escape the flames. They gave up the fight. They fled back to wherever they came from, leaving only dying cinders behind.

  “That takes care of that,” I muttered, and beat my wings harder to join Ruby back high in the sky.

  “You just had to make a big dis
play, didn’t you?” she said with a sigh.

  “Nothing wrong with a fire show.” I grinned. “Were you watching?”

  “How could I not?” she mumbled. Then she flew closer to the precious life in my arms and said, “Hello there, wolf. We won’t hurt you.”

  With a yelp of surprise, the wolf transformed back to his human form. My heart squeezed with affection. With his dirty blond hair, golden eyes and tan skin, he was just as beautiful - if not more - in this form.

  “What’s your name?” Ruby asked when the wolf didn’t reply.

  Finally, in a flustered voice, he asked, “What the fuck is going on!?”

  4

  Gabriel

  Hallucinating. I was definitely hallucinating.

  Except I wasn’t, because there were definitely strong, sharp, scary dragon claws holding me. In midair. About a billion feet above ground.

  It was all I had not to scream.

  So when the little talking black bird asked me what my name was, I immediately lost my shit.

  “What the fuck is going on!?” I cried.

  The dragon and the bird - a raven? - glanced at each other and chuckled. I got mad.

  “What’s funny?” I asked.

  “Wolf, you’re being carried by a flying dragon that just spewed fire and you have the audacity to be angry,” the raven said. “You’re an interesting one.”

  I shut my mouth, still agitated but now distinctly aware of how high up I was, and how powerful the dragon - the goddamn, real life son-of-a-bitch dragon - was holding me, I decided not to retort again.

  “So,” the dragon purred, craning his neck so that he could look at me, “let’s begin with names, shall we? I’m Dante Drakinus.”

  “Ruby Corvae,” said the raven.

  I blinked at both of them. Although I was scared out of my wits, I mumbled, “Gabriel Brooks.”

  “There we go. That’s a good wolf. Gabriel Brooks,” Dante said, as if tasting the words on his tongue. “Lovely name. I like it.”

  I blushed when he called me a good wolf. Just who was this guy?

  “So, not to be rude, but are you actually a fire-breathing dragon or did those humans inject me with some kind of drugs?” I asked.