What was my mother before me slowly loses every familiar nuance. The way she tilts her head when she’s thinking. The smile that’s comforted me since I was a hatchling. All of it bleeds away until only the black figure remains. The figure moves with fluid grace. Every clash of steel against steel rings in my ears. The air around the figure bleeds red, staining everything crimson.
‘Protect your mates, protect the hatchlings; this being is a threat. Your mates aren’t safe.
Protect...
Protect...
Protect...’
My dragon’s voice is harsh, and it’s the first time I hear her clearly as a separate voice in my head—distinct from my own thoughts, foreign and terrifying. The wordprotectechoes in my head, driving me to fight harder, faster, more violently.
I try to pull back. Try to remember this is Mom. Try to see her face instead of the target. But the dragon won’t let me. She’s in control, and I’m just a passenger in my body.
That is until I smell Hemlocke’s blood—copper and sweet like caramel. Did this figure hurt him? Or did something else hurt him? The dragon’s focus breaks for just a moment, and I snap to the present, looking at Hemlocke. The vision ends.
I open my eyes, looking into my dad’s sapphire eyes, and I see the understanding dawn there. And worse—I see the fear. He glances over at Klauth, and he nods.
“Some of the older bloodlines can separate themselves from their beast.” Dad says, then looks over to Klauth again. His voice is carefully neutral, but I hear what he’s not saying. This shouldn’t be happening to someone my age. This shouldn’t be happening at all.
“This is a development that we need to talk about as a family in a neutral area where neither of you gets territorial.” Klauth says with that serious dad look on his face—the one that means this is important. This is dangerous.
“What development?” I look between the two of them, feeling like they’re speaking a language I don’t understand. “What’s happening to me?” My voice cracks, and I hate how young I sound. How scared.
“Your dragoness is powerful and more than likely at wyrm status. I remember seeing the white scales on your maw the last time.” My birth father says and looks down, unable to meet my eyes. “I’ll set the talk up for tomorrow. Spend the night with your mates.” Both dads kiss my cheeks—one on each side—and I watch them leave, their forms growing smaller as they walk away.
They’re afraid of me. I can see it in the set of their shoulders, the way they don’t look back.
Ugh... I don’t know what’s worse. The health of the nest talk I know I’m walking into at home, or the end of the world talk I know iscoming with my parents. The one where they try to figure out what to do about their daughter, who’s losing herself to the beast inside.
I run toward the cliff edge and shift. My dragon rips free from me—the transformation violent and desperate. The change feels different this time. Easier. She’s closer to the surface than ever before. With every beat of my wings, I hear my dragon’s words thrumming in my ears like a war drum.
Protect...
Protect...
Protect...
The word echoes through my entire being, and I realize with growing horror that my dragon is getting stronger. That I’m losing control, losing myself, losing everything that makes me Raven.
And I don’t know how to stop it.
What if this is what I’m meant to become? What if the chimera blood, the three fathers, the legendary power—what if it all means I was never meant to stay human? What if I’m destined to become the beast?
The sky opens before me, endless and blue, but all I feel is the weight of everything I’m becoming. Everything, I’m afraid I can’t control. I think of my mates—Corvis, Hemlocke, Keir—and wonder how long before I become too dangerous for them.
I think of Isolde, small and fragile, in that cave. I saved her. But what if next time, I’m the threat? What if next time, I’m the monster in the darkness?
Protect...
Protect...
Protect...
The mantra follows me into the clouds, but I can’t tell anymore if it’s a promise or a threat. Can’t tell if I’m protecting my family or if I’m becoming the thing they need protection from.
I fly higher, faster, trying to outrun the fear. Trying to outrun what I’m becoming.
But you can’t outrun yourself.
