by Kayla Wolf
Right. The Rockies were unfolding beneath him, and he knew he was close to where he was headed. Cover story. Probably best to lean on the tried and true, right? He’d never seen another dragon like him, and neither had anyone else. So that was his story. Last of his kind, tragic tragic tragic, looking for a home. Depending on how soft-hearted they seemed, maybe he’d throw something in about his family being killed by wolves. Dragons usually went for that.
He flared his great wings as he spotted a familiar set of mountain peaks below him, with a shallow and very rocky valley between them. A river ran down the outside of one of the peaks, moving down into a lush valley. Owen was glad it was midsummer. This whole place would be covered in snow come winter, and he didn’t exactly blend in to bright white snow with his gunmetal gray hide. Where to land, though? The central valley seemed inhospitable and craggy. If he lived in a place like this—and by all accounts, the caves were carved into those two main peaks—he’d spend most of his outdoor time by the river to the east. So he dove, circling as he lost altitude, and eventually settled to a gentle landing in a clearing in the trees.
Once he was human again, he straightened his hair and set off walking up the river. Hopefully, his instincts were right. Who knew? Maybe he’d even run into the so-called princess that Violet had been so darkly fixated on.
He didn’t envy her, whoever she was. She’d made herself some powerful enemies.
Chapter 2
“Angela! Come running with me!”
Jessica was standing in the door to her room. Angela groaned, turning over in her bed. The sun was up, she knew that much—the curtains she’d hung up in the window of her room didn’t do much to keep it out. And knowing Jessica, it was some ungodly hour of the morning. Her older sister absolutely adored running. If the sun was up, she was up, and probably on her way out for a jog—and that would have been absolutely fine by her if Jessica hadn’t been so obsessed with the need to have company whenever she went. Angela opened one eye, squinting at the woman who was standing in her doorway with her hands on her hips and a truly demented grin on her face. What was she wearing? Athletic gear, a pair of trainers… Angela groaned, burying her head under her pillow. But it wasn’t long before that particular gambit was defeated. Her sister was hauling her blankets off her like a dog playing tug-of-war.
”I don’t want to run,” Angela groaned. “I hate running. Especially on two legs.”
”We have to stay fit in both shapes,” Jessica caroled, using that specific pitch of voice that she knew her little sister hated. No matter how old they got, some part of Jessica would always be the aggravating twelve-year-old who used to push her around. “You know what Helena says.”
”So go running with Helena,” Angela groaned.
”She’s a newlywed, I’m not going in there.” Jessica sat back on her heels, having thoroughly destroyed her little sister’s cocoon of blankets. Angela sat up, her blonde hair a chaotic mess despite the careful bun she’d put it in before she’d gone to sleep. Jessica used to tease her about how much she tossed and turned in her sleep. The solution would be cutting all her hair off, she supposed, gingerly reaching up to inspect the damage. But she loved her hair. It was long and sleek and blonde, just like her mother’s had been when she was Angela’s age. She often wondered if it would fade to the dull mouse brown of her mother’s when she got older. She didn’t have much that connected her to her parents anymore.
Jessica kept her hair short these days. She’d gotten their father’s dark brown hair and strong features, which only accentuated her vibrant silver eyes. She was a striking woman—not that she’d ever cared, much. Always more interested in running. It had been that aloofness that had gotten her into trouble. Men always wanted what they couldn’t have, and in their case, it had been the new Alpha of their hometown who’d wanted Jessica. Old hometown, Angela corrected herself. After Jessica had refused to marry him and run away into the woods, a rather dramatic chain of events had been set into motion that had ended up with Angela and Jessica fleeing the town.
Technically, they were allowed back. Their father was the new Alpha, and he’d made it clear, in a few extremely stiff communications, that they were invited to visit. But they hadn’t taken him up on the offer. Though Jessica wouldn’t say it out loud, Angela could tell that she still didn’t trust her father. And fair enough, too. He’d been willing to marry her off to an absolutely awful man—what assurance did she have that he didn’t have something else up his sleeve now? But Angela missed their mom. She hadn’t seen her since the day they left—and that had been five years ago, now. She’d still been a teenager. So much had changed since then. Especially for Jessica, who’d run into a lot more than trouble when she’d left their hometown. Speaking of…
”How’s the recruitment going?”
A familiar voice from the doorway, a note of gentle teasing overlaying the question. Samuel—her brother-in-law—also wearing workout gear, and looking a little bit sheepish as he waited for the women. Jessica grinned wolfishly.
”Oh, Samuel, she got you too?”
”Happy wife, happy life,” the man said solemnly. Jessica bounced off of Angela’s bed, clearly satisfied with how thoroughly she had interrupted her little sister’s sleep, and wrapped her arms around her husband’s neck, planting a kiss on his long-suffering face.
”See? Even Samuel knows running’s good for you.”
”Bet he prefers flying,” Angela said under her breath.
”He does not,” Jessica said with dignity. “He prefers running, with me, his adoring wife. Why would you want to be in the sky with a bunch of ratty pigeons when you could be out among the trees, running! C’mon, Angela. You’ll feel good after. I promise.”
”Wish I was a newlywed,” Angela said grumpily, finally dragging herself out of bed. She yanked some trackpants out of the chest of drawers that held most of her clothing, and Jessica whooped in triumph behind her. “If Helena doesn’t have to go running…”
”Angela, when you get married I will not make you go running for a whole year. Promise.”
”Heard and witnessed,” Samuel said solemnly and winked one golden eye at Angela. They were a family trait, those eyes, and though Angela had been living with Samuel and his family for nearly five years now, she still hadn’t quite gotten used to those striking eyes. Of course, there had been more than just golden eyes to get used to, living with dragons.
Jessica and Samuel left Angela to get changed, and she yanked on her workout gear, grinning to herself. She thought about home sometimes, of course—she’d spent twenty years of her life there, she was bound to revisit those memories. But the years of her life when she’d been happiest? Those were these years, the last five, the years she’d spent living with the dragons who lived in this isolated little valley in the Rocky Mountains.
Samuel’s brother Alexander was the King of the little settlement. When Jessica and Samuel had fallen in love, the invitation had been extended to Angela to come and stay for as long as she liked, too. She tried to make herself useful around the place, but she was still very grateful to the dragons for taking her in. She’d made fast friendships here—not only with Samuel, but with Helena, his little sister, and his father, Stephen. The other dragon families had been a little more stand-offish, especially at first. Samuel had explained that they didn’t like change much—and since Alexander had married a human woman a year before Jessica had met Samuel, they’d had more than enough change to be getting on with. But Angela had been patient and even managed to make a few friends among the other dragons. Amara, from the family who lived across the valley from the palace, was one—a blue-eyed dragoness, wickedly funny with an extremely sharp tongue. She wouldn’t be seen dead going jogging in her human body, Angela thought irritably as she laced up her shoes. Amara, like most dragons, preferred her four-legged, winged shape. Angela supposed she would too if she had wings. But she and her sister were wolves, not dragons.
“Do we seriously have to run on tw
o legs?” Angela demanded irritably as she joined her sister and brother-in-law in the corridor. She much preferred her wolf form, if there was running to be done. Jessica was springing from foot to foot, with far more energy than seemed civilized for this hour of the morning.
”We can run as wolves tomorrow, okay?”
”You’re suggesting I get out of bed this early again? Two days in a row? Whatever, crazy.” Angela rolled her eyes, grinning a little as she heard Samuel snort laughter. “What about Lisa? Is she coming?”
”She’s been sick the last few mornings,” Jessica said.
”A likely story. And Helena’s not coming either?”
”Like I said, you get a free pass when you’re just married,” Jessica said primly. “She and Art are getting plenty of exercise, I’m sure—”
”Gross,” Angela said, wrinkling her nose. It was strange to think of the quiet, reserved man Helena had brought back to the palace with her nearly four years ago doing anything other than sitting quietly in corners. It had taken her a few months to get a read on the guy—he was so reserved, so still, that she always felt like she was disturbing him. As a match for Helena, who had always been so wild and vivacious, he didn’t seem to make sense. But they were besotted with each other. Unlike Jessica and Samuel, who’d been married within months of meeting each other, Helena and Art had taken things slowly. He’d been dealing with a lot of emotional damage—he’d lost his family in a fairly awful attack that he still talked about very rarely. But anyone who looked at them together could tell that they were soulmates. And Helena had been more than happy to wait until Art was ready.
The wedding had been a few weeks ago—a beautiful, incredibly simple ceremony, held not in the great cavern below the palace which was the traditional site for wedding ceremonies, but outside, by the river that ran down one of the twin mountain peaks that formed their home. It had been a small ceremony, too—just close family and invited guests. Jessica and Samuel’s wedding had been much bigger, but also, surprisingly enough, less controversial. The dragons had been resentful about wolves in their midst, but willing to tolerate Jessica (and by extension, Angela) once they’d met her. Art had been another story. One of the Elder dragons had spoken out against him at a meeting—claimed he would bring their community nothing but ruin. It had been a diplomatic crisis—but so far, nothing had come of it. Still, Art and Helena had decided not to have their ceremony in the Palace’s sacred space. The location meant nothing to Art—and Helena didn’t care where the ceremony took place, so long as it involved her soulmate. Angela had felt a lump in her throat when they’d exchanged vows, Art’s voice so soft that even standing a few paces away she had hardly been able to hear him. The love they had for each other—it was beautiful. She wanted that.
After a short walk through the winding corridors of the palace, cut out of the very rock of the mountain that formed their home, their little group came out in the midst of the forest and set off running. Jessica was a wolf of habit, and there was a little trail through the trees that she’d basically carved into the soil herself. Angela dropped into pace behind her, breathing deeply. As much as she complained, she did enjoy these little sojourns. A notorious bookworm, Angela was renowned among the family for being the kind of person who’d forget to eat, sleep or breathe if she was suitably entranced by a book. It was good to have people around who’d pull her out of those other worlds and make her pay attention to this one.
Samuel wasn’t coping well, she noticed with amusement. She and Jessica could run for days on end—it was in their blood, in their genetic makeup, almost. Wolves were endurance creatures, and some of that translated to their human forms. So by the time Jessica and Angela were starting to break a sweat, Samuel was looking like he was just about done. He staggered to a stop by a tree, leaning hard against it as he gasped for breath.
”You wolves—are—ridiculous,” he forced out between gasps, and Jessica laughed. “Make me—feel—unfit…”
”You could outfly us any day, though,” Jessica said encouragingly, jogging in a circle around him and then blowing him a kiss as she set off again down the trail. “C’mon!”
”Cruel,” Samuel groaned, staring after her—and Angela grinned at the look of absolute admiration and adoration in his eyes. Even after five years, they still flirted and stared at each other like newlyweds. It would have been gross if it wasn’t so sweet.
When was her gorgeous husband going to arrive, Angela wondered as she set off running again, Samuel groaning behind her. Jessica had Samuel, Helena had Art… not that the course of true love had run smoothly for either couple, but they were together now, and unbelievably happy. When was Angela’s turn coming? Was there some handsome stranger waiting for her out there somewhere? She’d never even dated back home—there’d been a few guys she’d had her eye on, but the combination of her father’s fearsomely protective reputation and her own shy, retiring nature meant that nothing had ever come of it. And it wasn’t as if there were many dating opportunities up here, in the valley—she’d met everyone who lived here, and nobody seemed to spark that energy that Jessica and Helena had both described feeling when they got to know their soulmates.
It wasn’t that she was bored, not exactly. But it kind of felt like she was treading water here, surrounded by people who were happily settling down together and starting their lives. She was twenty-four years old, and all she did was go running with her older sister and bury her nose in old books. It was a wonderful life, and she was grateful for it every day. But was it really all the world had in store for her? Perhaps she’d talk to Stephen about it. She was meant to meet the old dragon later that afternoon in the library—he’d discovered a rather exciting cache of old records about magic that he’d agreed to let her help sift through.
Jessica, panting happily, waved goodbye to her as they returned to the entrance to the palace. Samuel was still staggering out of the woods, looking absolutely destroyed by the run. He was a patient man, Angela thought, smiling—Jessica could run laps around him, but he still tried to keep up every time they went running. Well, good. Her sister deserved a man who looked at her like she was the moon and all the stars. She’d been through enough horrible stuff to have earned a bit of simplicity and peace.
That was a big part of why Angela didn’t want to bring up her misgivings about where her life was going with her sister. Jessica was so happy here—but Angela knew how much she loved her, how willing she would be to throw everything away and make some grand gesture to make Angela happy. They’d talked, a long time ago, about moving to a human city. She still thought about it from time to time… but Jessica would never let her go on her own. She’d tear her whole life apart just to be there for Angela, she knew she would. And Angela couldn’t let her do that. So she sort of … waited around the palace. It felt like she was treading water in her own life.
“You seem quiet today,” Stephen commented. Angela shook herself a little, trying to wake up, giving the old dragon a smile. His human form was an unassuming old man, fond of wearing bowties—but Angela had seen his draconic form, witnessed the astonishing power he had and still had, and knew that the eccentric old man was just the tip of the iceberg. She liked Stephen—enjoyed the unofficial role she’d fallen into as his research assistant. They ambled into the library together.
“Jessica took me running this morning,” she explained to cover her distraction. She didn’t want to burden Stephen with her misgivings about her life, either. He had enough to be dealing with—he was only just coming out of the maelstrom of grief he’d experienced at the death of his soulmate, almost a decade previous. She’d been the Queen before Alexander—his and Samuel’s mother, and by all accounts a terrifying and magnificent monarch. Stephen missed her furiously, that much was clear. He’d only mentioned her once or twice, but the force of his love for her was evident in the way his voice shook, his eyes disappearing into the past. Compared to the depth of that loss—the loss of a soulmate whose life he’d shared for
centuries—how could Angela bring up her own petty concerns?
“Ah, yes. Well, good! It’s good for the brain, to get the blood pumping.” Stephen tapped the side of his head, his golden eyes twinkling. “And we’ll need our wits about us to decipher these old records.”
”Are they written in—”
”Ancient Draconic, yes, I’m afraid so,” he said. “Hope you’ve got your dictionary.”
The dragons could all read the ancient script many of their records were printed in. For Angela, whose people didn’t have a shared written language, it was incomprehensible. But Stephen had been teaching her to read it—and she’d been keeping a record as she learned. He’d been fascinated by the way wolves kept records—not in paper, but in shared memories that they had the ability to transmit between members of each pack. Angela’s mind contained first-person memories of wars that had raged hundreds of years before she was even born. She tried not to think about it, most of the time—and Stephen seemed to sense her discomfort with the concept, because he hadn’t pried after his initial round of questioning, despite his clear and fierce interest.