My brothers, my mates; even stupid townspeople A through Z. They kept me safe despite not being close to me, and I’ll never be able to tell them I appreciated it, that I was more than the sarcastic bitch-face I showed them. I wouldn’t change a thing, because I love myself, but I could at least say thank you.
A burning tears through my back, making me cry out, and the air whooshes out of my lungs as our descent slows. I hold onto Eli fiercely, not letting him slip so much as an inch as we start to rise. My back screams and I feel blood coating my shredded skin, but I just use that as fuel to hold him tighter, not wanting him to slip from my grasp because of it.
My feet brush stone and we collapse in a heap, panting. I blink through my watery eyes, forcing myself to look at Eli’s face, to see him looking back at me. I reach out to touch him nervously, my hand shaking as I fear breaking the spell.
“You’re okay?” I whisper, barely audible.
He tries to snort, but it’s weak. “No, I was shot, don’t be dumb,” he wheezes. “Far cry from okay.”
I huff out an incredulous laugh, sitting up and wincing as my shredded back protests. The earth shakes and I pull my blade, hovering over Eli and defensive, seeking out the threat.
“You motherfuckers!” I shout, throwing my knife and getting to my feet.
Three absolutely breathtaking dragons surround me on the cliff as the triplets rush over to me and Elias. All three have variegated tones on their scales, ranging from light to dark for their respective coloring.
Emerald scales cover the smallest one, with a familiar set of blood red eyes looking back at me. He’s about twenty feet long from snout to the tip of his tail.
Golden scales and bright blue eyes adorn Cai’s form, just slightly larger than Vyrian’s. Soren is larger than both, azure scales glittering and shimmering in the light. Most of the smoke has been cleared away by now, between their wings and the fires fading out below us.
They can’t answer me like this, but I can see their amusement in their eyes. Cai’s talons are coated in blood steadily dripping on the stone, so he must have been the one to actually catch me. Obviously, he botched it a bit, but beggars can’t be choosers.
“The ritual was ‘yeet the mate’ and if you cared enough you’d save her?! Let’s just chuck a chick off a mountain and if you love her she lives, but if you don’t she fucking dies? We’re supposed to be dragons, not goddamn baby birds!” My voice is bordering on shrill, incensed and incredulous. “I didn’t even have sex with Yri, so what the hell?!”
I storm back over to Elias, checking on him before I blow a gasket. The bullet went clear through his stomach and out his back, so I cauterize the wounds and leave him in the hands of the triplets while I face the mythological figures in front of me.
“One of you change back and go jump,” I demand. Soren ignores me, coming forward and nudging me with his head. “Stop being cute, I’m trying to rage.”
Despite my words, I stroke along his jawline, still in awe. He opens his mouth, showcasing an array of wicked teeth, and gently bites my shoulder; ‘gently’ being used sarcastically here. Each razor sharp tooth sinks into my flesh with a lance of fiery pain that radiates bone deep.
I hear my brothers shouting behind me, even louder when Vyrian and Caius replicate Soren’s actions, leaving me a bloodied mess. My heart hammers and my blood races through my veins like pure adrenaline. My skin burns like never before, stretched too tightly and threatening to tear. The agony is like none I’ve ever felt as I shift and contort, power flooding my system as heavily as the pain.
Everything feels too heavy, too cumbersome. I see a flash of red scales as I bring one foot forward, testing my balance. My stomach feels like a pool of lava nests inside, just waiting to burst out of me. Twitching a heavy wing, I work the foreign appendages and underused muscles.
Then I jump.
I fall, hard and fast. The wind rushes by me, my tough skin not perturbed in the slightest. It’s a rush where I feel weightless, suspended in time even as the ground rushes up to meet me. Instinct takes over and I spread my wings, jolting as they catch the wind with an audible snap.
It’s everything I ever imagined and more. The strength, the freedom; they’re living entities that don’t have to war for dominance, two halves of a whole. For just a few minutes, everything else fades away. All of the pain, all of the problems we haven’t managed to solve. There’s nothing beyond this feeling, absolutely nothing.
There are a few flashes of color as the sunlight reflects off of my mates, letting me know they’re with me. I never want it to end, want to carry on like this forever. But life doesn’t wait for the fancies of beasts and men, not this one at least. Despite my assumptions that nothing could hurt me from here, that I could fly high enough my problems couldn’t reach me, I was wrong.
Because part of my heart will always remain on the ground with my family, and I’ll always come back for them.
I land back on the mountain, shifting back when my feet hit the ground as if I’ve done so my entire life. I’m on hands and knees, panting and elated, when Kahl extends a hand to help me off. He whips off his filthy shirt, offering it to me and I suddenly realize how naked I am. I don it gratefully before embracing him, a sudden wave of tears threatening to rear their ugly heads.
“I was worried about you guys,” I admit softly. “Let’s go home.”
Kinsley clucks his tongue, looking at me inquisitively. “So hear me out; we love you too, so if I toss you back over, think we’ll also shift?”
I punch him in the shoulder, grinning. “Maybe wait until I figure out how to shift back in case you fail. Seeing as you didn’t shift whenbothof your darling siblings nearly plummeted to their deaths, I’m leaning towards no.”
We start heading back down through the tunnel system, all of us on edge in case we missed someone. After Eli got shot, it’s clear there are a few stragglers. We navigate the tunnels, Cai, Soren, and Yri as naked as the day they were born. They’re obviously uncomfortable, but no one is keen on stripping off the pants from a corpse to borrow either. We each have a change of clothes in my car, so they’re stuck until then.
We hear a shout and our hackles raise. A flame ignites in my palm as I move in front of Eli who is currently still clutching his stomach, sore, but hopefully without internal bleeding. This time a pained whimper meets our ears and the triplets rush past, running into another tunnel a little ways ahead.
We catch up just in time to see Kaiden literally beat a man to death, blood coating his knuckles as he caves the man’s face in. Kahl is lifting a battered girl off of the ground, one hand beneath her legs and the other under her back. He cradles her to his chest, hefting her for a better grip.
She whimpers, her leg clearly broken, her clothes torn, but still in place. Smeared in blood and dirt as she is, it’s hard to make out her features, but there’s no denying who it is.
