by Sophie Stern
They have to come to the fourth stone tower at midnight on a night when there’s a full moon. If they can do that, we’ll accept them into our clan.
In the last year, no one has come.
We know another clan that lives in the forest, but they tend to keep to themselves. They’re private, like we are, and that’s the way it has to be. Still, there must be a way for the dragons to take back the world. There must be a way for us to live that doesn’t involve hiding away in secret.
There’s word that there are other clans who are more modern and tech-savvy than us. Our hacker guy has connections all across the globe and he’s always offering us new insight as to how we can further secure our world from the outside, but there’s only so much Lee can do from behind a desk. The rest of us have to find ways to make sure our community survives.
And right now, things aren’t looking so good.
Right now, shifters are outnumbered, and dragons? We have one major flaw that scientists have already discovered. It’s the reason we haven’t shifted and emblazoned the entire world in fire. It’s the reason we’re slowly being dissected and killed.
Dragons can’t shift when they’re scared.
It has something to do with elevated heart rates. The same thing happens when we get too excited or too angry. This is why at Fablestone, every dragon has to learn meditative breathing and calming techniques. It’s like yoga, but for shifters. It helps us to relax and learn to control ourselves so that if we’re ever in trouble, we won’t be inhibited or killed because of our inability to shift at that moment.
As far as I know, there’s nothing we can do to counteract the effects of this curse that’s been put on us, but I don’t really care. Right now, all I care about is getting to the stone, waiting the required hour, and then going home. That’s more time I can spend trying to figure out what happened to my sister.
I need to find her, to save her.
I can’t believe someone may have taken her. I can’t believe she might be out there, hurting somewhere. I shouldn’t be waiting. I should be tearing apart the fucking world to find her, but no. Wilson wants to do recon first. He wants to go in carefully, cautiously. He wants to plan this thing out completely before he decides what his next move is going to be.
And while I know the leader of the dragon clan is right, it still pisses me off.
We have money.
We have safety.
We have a magical world that’s hidden away from prying eyes.
What we don’t have is my fucking sister, and that’s the one thing I want.
While I shouldn’t risk flying to the tower, I decide to take my chances under the cover of darkness. I leave long before the moon is high in the sky. There’s a lot of ground to cover, and as long as I fly low to the trees, I should be okay.
I know I shouldn’t risk shifting. I probably shouldn’t even be coming here because something very wrong is happening and it might take everything I have just to get through tonight.
I don’t need to risk being abducted, too.
But the stone tower calls to me.
If a shifter needs to seek refuge from the human world, it’s where they’ll go. I’m not about to leave anyone – wolf, bear, or dragon – alone in the world. I’m not particularly keen on dying for people, especially people I don’t know that well, but at the end of the day, I will risk anything to save another shifter.
We are all we have left.
When I get to the tower, I drop down into the clearing. For a moment, I wait, but then I shift back into my human form. I’m naked now, obviously, and I don’t keep a spare set of clothes here. Perhaps I should, but it’s been so long since someone actually used the stone tower as a rescue point that I don’t even think it matters.
No one is coming tonight.
No, it’ll just be a chance for me to be alone for a little while and try to come up with a way to find Ellie.
I circle around the tower slowly: sniffing, examining. No one has been here since the last full moon. Even then, that was only me. Still, it’s nice to know the space is undisturbed. Although wolves are the ones with the strongest ability to scent, dragons aren’t bad at it. We aren’t bad at anything.
Except, apparently, finding lost sisters.
I shake my head and circle the space two more times before I find a tree to settle into. I climb up, lean back against the trunk, and observe the stone tower.
It’s a mythical thing, really. The stone towers were built by the dragons who first inhabited these forests. We wanted mountains and secrets and places we could be alone, and we got it. Westbridge Forest, as the locals call it, is over 15,000 square miles of woods that backs up to an incredible mountain range. There are little towns and homes and cabins sprinkled here and there, but for the most part, the forest belongs to the shifters, and that’s the way we like it.
There are wolf clans nestled in different areas of the forest, along with groups of bears and tigers and, of course, the dragons. We aren’t even the only dragon clan in the forest, but Fablestone is, in my opinion, the most wonderful. It’s not just because I grew up in the clan.
It might be because I grew up in the clan.
Still, what matters now is making it through tonight and then figuring out where to look for my sister. If only she could send us a message. If only I had anything to go off of, but right now, I have nothing. I don’t even have her fucking scent right now.
I hope Wilson comes up with a fucking plan because if I have to wait much longer to start the hunt, I’m going to go crazy. I’ve waited because I respect him and his judgment. I know he wants to do more recon before he starts some sort of interspecies war, but at some point, enough is enough.
As the moon rises, I find myself starting to relax. I should be more on edge than ever, but there’s something so calming about being alone in nature and just staring at the beautiful night sky.
Is Ellie out there looking up at the same sky?
Is she thinking of me?
Of us?
Of her clan?
Does she know that we’re here, wishing for her?
I hate not knowing where she is.
I hate not knowing if she’s in trouble.
I hate not knowing she’s lost and afraid.
And then I hear a twig snap, and I stop feeling sorry and instantly go on alert.
Someone’s come to the stone tower, and it can’t be anything good.
Chapter Five
Peggy
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
We make it to the fourth stone tower just before midnight, but there’s a problem. I hike the baby carrier up on my chest and shush the kittens, who are going crazy in my backpack. Yeah, I know it’s not really cool to carry my kittens in a backpack, but it’s not like I was going to leave them behind and I couldn’t go hiking through the woods with a cat carrier.
We’re definitely at the tower, but there’s nobody here.
No one.
It’s just desolate.
This can’t be it. We couldn’t have come all this way for nothing.
My heart sinks and my stomach feels heavy. We’ve been walking for two days. It took two fucking days to walk here with the baby and my bag o’ kittens, and there’s just nothing. I’m out of diapers, out of food, and out of luck.
What did I expect?
I shake my head. I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up, but I did. Somehow, I thought there would be someone here. Maybe several someone’s. I thought there would be information on how to find Fablestone. Hell, I kind of thought maybe this was Fablestone or that there would be some sort of secret portal, but that’s not happening. That’s not here.
There’s just nothing.
Daisy starts to cry, and as I approach the base of the tower, I look up at it. Vines cover the old tower. How fucking old is this thing, anyway? Kids in town always come up with weird legends and fables surrounding the stone towers, and even though I k
now it’s stupid, I always sort of thought they must be a little bit true.
I always thought there must be something more in the forest than we thought.
Then again, maybe I’m too much of a dreamer. Maybe I’ve been reading too many books, watching too many movies. Real life isn’t some magical fairytale that can be neatly tied up with a happily ever after.
I know that.
“This can’t be it,” I whisper. “This can’t be the end.” I swallow hard. Daisy starts to cry louder, and the last thing I need is for any predators to find us. It’s the middle of the night and it’s going to get cold soon. The best thing to do would be to create a shelter and camp here tonight. Then in the morning, I’ll figure something out. I don’t know what, exactly, but I’ll figure something out.
I lift Daisy out of the baby carrier and she instantly calms.
“That’s better, isn’t it, Daisy?” I ask. She coos and reaches for my face, touching my cheek. “Yeah, I don’t like to be all cooped up, either.”
I carry her over to the base of the tower, lower my backpack, and sit down with my back to the tower. I turn Daisy around so her back is to my front. She sits in my lap while I rustle around in my backpack. To my surprise, there’s a single diaper left, and I pull it out.
“All right, little monkey,” I tell her. “It’s go time.”
I get her changed and set up a new bottle. The kitten twins are somehow sleeping. I have no idea how. They’ve basically been meowing the entire journey, so if anyone or anything was following us, they’d have no trouble locating the lady with the crazy cats. Still, it’s nice to have a little bit of quiet. As I hold Daisy, I start to rock back and forth, singing quietly.
I don’t know if the dragon shifters have special songs they sing to their children. I don’t know if they have fairytales they share. I don’t even know what they eat, but I know that Daisy needs to be with her people. I promised Ellie. Somehow, the idea of going back and turning Dais over to child services doesn’t even seem like an option.
No, even if I go back, I’m going to have to find a way to contact Fablestone.
I fish my phone out of my pocket and turn it on, but there’s no service out here. Of course, there wouldn’t be. We’re way too far from civilization for that. Still, I try, holding it as high as I can reach and then staring at it again.
“Come on,” I murmur. Then I look around the clearing. There’s maybe thirty feet to the nearest tree in any direction. I don’t hear anything and I certainly don’t see anything, but suddenly, I’m starting to feel a little scared and nervous. I basically got here on pure adrenaline, but what happens now?
What happens now that we’re here, and there’s just nothing?
No one?
What if there’s something watching me from the darkness?
“Don’t be stupid, Peggy,” I say out loud. “You got this far and you can make it the rest of the way. You just have to have hope. You have to believe in yourself. You can do this,” I say. “You have to do this. For Daisy.”
Then I sit there. Daisy finishes her bottle and quietly falls asleep in my arms. My kittens are still passed out. Me? I’m starting to feel scared and alone. Maybe I shouldn’t have taken up such an important quest all on my own.
You took an oath.
I still don’t know what’s happened to Ellie. Is she okay? Did she go to a hospital? Did she escape from whoever was trying to find her? And why separate Daisy from herself? I don’t actually need answers to that last question. I know why. I might not be a mother, but I’d do anything for my child.
Even if that meant leaving the child with someone else…while I fought for my life.
I close my eyes and stop singing to Daisy. There’s no one here tonight. There’s no one coming for us. In the morning, I’ll have to figure out what to do next. Hike back to my house? Or go deeper into the woods looking for Fablestone? There’s no way for me to know what the right choice is, and right now, I’m just so tired.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Finally, sleep claims me.
*
The nightmares that fill my sleep are so terrible that when I wake up screaming, I think the hand that clamps down on my mouth is part of my dream, and I fight harder, trying to wake up. I need to rouse myself from my slumber. I need to wake the fuck up.
“Hush.”
Then I realize I’m not dreaming anymore. There really is someone here with us. My entire body stills.
Daisy.
Where’s Daisy?
I don’t feel her in my lap.
My eyes shoot open and I see a man squatting in front of me. His hand is firmly clamped over my mouth, and I can’t move. I can’t scream. I can’t do anything except stare into his deep, dark eyes.
“You cannot scream,” the man says. “It’s not safe. Do you understand?”
I nod as best as I can. Now that I’m staring at him, I don’t think he’s going to murder me. At least, I hope he’s not going to murder me. If he was a killer, wouldn’t he have slit my throat while I was asleep? Wouldn’t he have come after me while I was resting?
“Good. I’m going to remove my hand now. No screaming.”
He takes his hand away and I press my lips tightly together and quickly looking around. Daisy. I need to find Daisy.
“She’s fine,” he says, and a gentle look crosses his face. “Look.” He points a few feet away, where Daisy is laying in a small bed of grass. Did he make her a little grass nest? It kind of looks like it. What the hell? Daisy is awake, and she’s looking around, but she’s not crying or screaming, so we’ve got that going for us.
“Who are you?” I ask quietly.
“I am the guardian of the tower,” he tells me, and then I realize that we came to the right place, after all. We did it. Daisy, Mocha, Frappe, and I…we all made it to the tower in time. Now everything is going to be okay, right? It has to be okay. I don’t know if I can keep moving forward if everything isn’t okay. Honestly, I just don’t know what I’ll do if it’s not okay.
The world is different now than it was a few days ago, at least for me. It’s darker now and more dangerous. Those people who came to my house? They weren’t government officials. They were looking for Daisy. I just know it, but why? Because she’s a dragon shifter child? Is that why they want her?
I look up at this man and my heart fills with relief.
Contentment.
Joy.
We made it.
I leap forward, wrapping my arms around him, and my quick movement catches him off guard. He tumbles backwards and I land on top of him, straddling him. The man looks shocked.
“I’m sorry,” I mumble awkwardly, trying to scoot off of him. “I’m just…relieved…to have found you.”
As I move away, though, I realize something terribly awkward that I probably should have noticed before.
“You’re naked,” I squeak out, blushing.
“I am,” the man agrees, glancing down at himself. He looks back up at me, and his eyes are twinkling. He’s seriously, legitimately got twinkling eyes right now.
What the actual fuck?
Is he a shifter, or is he a fucking fairy?
I don’t know, but I wiggle away, moving backwards, stumbling a little, and then I finally right myself and squat, looking over at him. He hasn’t moved. He’s just watching me cautiously, carefully.
“You’re human,” he says, pointing out the obvious.
“And you’re not.”
“Why have you come here?” He asks, but he doesn’t seem mad. He just seems curious.
This is the part where I decide whether I’m going to be honest or tricky. Do I want to tell this man why I’ve come? He might be the only one who can help me. On the other hand, what if he’s not a shifter like I think he is. What if he’s one of those evil people who were chasing Ellie? What if he’s a monster in disguise?
I have a choice to make, and I don’t know which
is right.
I can be truthful and risk being taken captive, or I can lie and possibly risk not being taken to Fablestone.
In the end, I decide that the most important thing is getting Daisy where she belongs. The most important thing is keeping the dragon’s oath I swore, so I take a deep breath, and I meet the man’s eyes directly.
“My name is Peggy,” I tell him. “And I need to find Cameron of the Fablestone Clan. It’s a matter of life and death.”
Chapter Six
Cameron
Those were not the words I was expecting the human to speak.
What DID you expect, Cameron?
I shake my head, as if that will silence my inner dragon. I want the beast to be quiet, to be still, but I know that this is a futile desire. My beast has been restless since my sister left. It’s been angry, desperate.
I miss her.
Dragon shifter twins are rare, almost unheard of. Our mother survived birthing us and is still alive. She lives happily with a clan across the sea and she is mated to a shifter there. After our father passed away, she was inconsolable, but then someone came into her life and made everything better. He saved her.
This woman could save you.
But Peggy is not the same as my stepfather.
She’s not a shifter.
She’s just a random human who stumbled upon the stone tower at just the right time.
No, she’s not. She came here for a reason. She came here to find you. Of all the shifters she could have been searching for, she wants you.
“Why do you seek him?” I ask her.
Another test.
She considered lying to me before. I saw it in her eyes. She was afraid. Scared. Nervous. She confessed, anyway. That surprises me. Most of my experiences with humans have been less than memorable. Humans lie more than they ought to, at least from what I’ve seen. Not that dragons are the most honest of races, of course. Dragons love to lie. We lie about treasure and we lie about what we are. We lie about everything, but there’s a difference between a dragon lying and a human lying.