by Zoe Chant
Amazed, Alanna could only stare. Did he really... did he just say...
“I can’t be seen to be playing favorites,” the Lord High Hunter continued after a moment. “It would be wrong for me to show preferences, just because you’re my daughter. And it is necessary for us to heal certain... rifts in our coven. A Hadley and a Carlyle working together would be most beneficial.”
Alanna had to stop herself from shaking her head.
Of course. Of course that’s what it’s all about. He doesn’t care about me. He only cares about being the Lord High Hunter.
It had been the same story ever since he was a child. She’d only been eleven when her father had been elected the leader of the coven – and sometimes when she spoke to him, she felt she was still nothing but a child desperate for his attention.
“Touching.” Casper’s sarcastic voice sounded from behind her.
Alanna wondered how he had the gall to be so rude. But then, that was the Hadley family through and through. Arrogance seemed to run in their genes.
“But if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather we get going sooner rather than later. It’s taken a long time to track this dragon down. Who knows what he’s been doing all this time, and how many humans he might have threatened – or killed.”
As much as she hated to admit it, Alanna knew Casper was right.
Gritting her teeth, she put her anger at being used as a pawn to patch up the rivalries in the coven – and her misgivings about the assignment in general – to one side.
She had to prove herself worthy of her lineage.
She had to prove she could be trusted.
“If you’re not going to drink the blood, Alanna, then I will.” Casper walked by her, lifting the silver chalice to his lips. “Anything that’ll give me the edge in a fight is something I’m interested in.”
He gulped it down quickly – though Alanna noticed he couldn’t help gagging a little at the end.
“A wise choice.” The Lord High Hunter nodded to him. “Very well then – I give you my blessing. You may both go.”
Swallowing, Alanna bowed low before the leader of the coven.
She bit her lip, hoping that he somehow couldn’t read her doubts in the tension of her shoulders.
I’ll do better this time, she thought fiercely as she stood, and then turned to go. I won’t let you down again. I promise I won’t.
Alanna couldn’t stop herself from glancing over her shoulder before she at last passed through the huge wooden doors of the room.
The Lord High Hunter was still sitting behind his desk – but Alanna could see that his shoulders were slumped in a way they hadn’t been just moments before, and his expression spoke of a man with too many problems to count.
I won’t let you down again, she promised him in her mind. I promise I’ll do better this time... Father.
Chapter Two
Magnus
Standing, Magnus took off his heavy work glove to wipe the sweat from his brow.
Working as a forester was difficult and dangerous work, but he enjoyed it. And with the strength of a dragon at his disposal – even when he was in human form – he could work harder and faster than most people. Even on days like today, when the sun was beating down, making his shirt stick to his back with sweat.
He liked the work though – and more importantly it had given him some hope at a second chance in life.
And for that, he’d be forever grateful.
The skills needed for the job had seemed to come naturally to him – he could climb and cut trees, he could use heavy machinery, he could spot sick trees and he could range far and wide across his employer’s lands, making sure everything was as it should be.
It made him wonder if, in his previous life, he might have done some kind of similar work, and he’d somehow retained the knowledge and skills he needed.
That would make sense – but he supposed there was no way he’d ever know for sure.
Because everything else about his life before the last year and a half was just one big blank.
He remembered nothing about who he’d been before then – not even who his family was, or what his childhood had been like. Where there should have been a whole lifetime’s worth of memories and experiences, there was nothing.
Not even a glimmer of the life he once surely must have had.
Pulling in a deep breath, Magnus tried to ignore the surge of anger and bitterness in his chest.
He had worked hard to try to get past it – not that it had been easy. He had spent six months lost in fury and turmoil at what had happened to him, and at the ones who had done this too him.
Dragon hunters.
He didn’t know how, but he knew they were to blame.
They were the ones who had captured him and collared him – and made him a tool to hunt down his own kind.
He had no memory of how he had been taken, or when it had happened. Maybe he’d only been a child at the time, or maybe he’d already been fully grown. Either way, it didn’t matter.
The only thing that mattered was that the dragon hunters had put a collar on him that meant they could control him – mind and body.
But not spirit.
That was the one thing he could feel proud of: during all that time, he knew he hadn’t wanted to be doing the things he’d done while under the dragon hunters’ control.
He had fought every step of the way.
It made him shudder to think of the last fight he’d been forced into. The dragon, Isaak, hadn’t even known he was a dragon at the time. He had never shifted before and had never known his biological parents.
The dragon hunter who had controlled him, Bain, had almost forced Magnus to kill both Isaak and his mate, Josie. Thankfully, they were two of the most forgiving people Magnus had ever met, and they didn’t bear a grudge. They knew that Magnus never would have done anything to harm them if he’d any choice in the matter.
In fact, it was thanks to them he even had this job in the first place.
Isaak had inherited a failing shipping company from his adoptive parents and had spent years turning it around into a thriving business. Josie was a professor of ornithology at a prestigious university and was famous for her work preserving endangered birds. Together, the pair of them owned the land he was working on now – a sanctuary where students could practice their field skills, and rare animals could roam safely.
He had no papers, no proof of his identity, no qualifications and no idea who he was. Magnus knew that getting any other work – or any other legal work, at least – was virtually impossible. He owed Josie and Isaak more than he could say.
Hoisting his axe to his shoulder, Magnus set off through the dense woods, looking for the next tree he needed to work on.
To be honest, it wasn’t only that he suspected he’d learned such skills in whatever his former life had been. There was something more primal about it than that. It was almost as if the forest spoke to him, the trees whispering to him gently on the breeze of the warm summer day.
Magnus wondered if his dragon clan had forests as part of their ancestral lands, and whether that was why he felt so at home here. A dragon’s lands, after all, were almost as important as his hoard.
Without contact with his land and his treasure, a dragon grew weaker and weaker – and eventually stopped being able to shift altogether.
Magnus didn’t know how long it had been since he had last been in contact with his clan’s treasure hoard.
While he had been a captive it hadn’t mattered – the enchanted collar the dragon hunters had placed around his neck had meant he kept all his dragon magic. But now that it was gone and he was free...
As if to emphasize his point, his dragon grumbled restlessly within him, switching its tail.
How long since I was last allowed out to fly?
Magnus swallowed. How could he explain to a bored and still angry dragon that he couldn’t let it out?
Not now – and perhaps, not ever.
>
That every time he did let it out to fly, to stretch its wings and feel the heat of the sun upon its scales...
... Every time might be the last time.
Without a hoard – or a mate – Magnus didn’t know how much longer he could keep his shifter powers.
He could already feel them diminishing inside him: the last one or two times he’d shifted had been a painful ordeal, and it had depleted his energy immensely.
He could feel he only had one or two shifts left in him – and he wanted to keep those for emergencies.
Though I’m not even sure if it even works like that, he thought, as he swung his axe back, ready to start taking down a tree that was growing too close to another, overcrowding the soil.
Maybe it wasn’t that he had a limited number of shifts left – maybe it was that his strength and power would slowly keep diminishing over time, no matter what he did.
He’d never known a dragon who had been away from his hoard long enough to find out.
Or, if he had, he could no longer remember them.
Just like he couldn’t remember anything – or anyone – else.
As the axe fell, anger surged through him once more, his dragon’s eyes glinting in the darkness.
He had worked so hard to overcome it, but sometimes he couldn’t resist. His whole life had been stolen from him! Didn’t he have the right to be angry?
No – didn’t he have the right to be blazingly, blindly, amazingly furious?
Maybe, he told himself as he chopped, but what good will it do?
Six months had been lost to his rage already.
Six months where he’d done nothing but wander around in a drunken stupor, getting into fights and letting his dragon’s more aggressive side run riot over his good human sense.
Eventually he’d been able to pull himself out of it and realize that he was hurting no one but himself.
And that was when he had gone to find the only other dragons he knew – the dragons of the Novak clan, who had freed him from bondage. Isaak and Stefan, their mates Josie and Holly, and Stefan’s younger sister Darklis had welcomed him with open arms. They knew what it was like to be so alone. They had lost their entire clan to a blood feud, and they were still in the process of rebuilding.
Magnus knew that his experience was different – presumably his clan was still alive somewhere, even if he had no idea who they were – but sometimes he too felt like a lost dragon, belonging nowhere, cut off from his home and his hoard.
Most days were better now. He had work he loved. He had dragons he could call his friends.
And he had to believe that one day...
The tree began to fall, and Magnus paused in his chopping, stepping out of its way as it crashed down amongst the ferns and bracken. It would decompose and become food for the soil, and a home for the creatures of the forest.
Magnus was just about to put the cover back on his axe and head out to inspect the next section of forest when he felt it.
He stood stock still as a terrible cold shiver ran down his spine. A strange, paralyzing fear suddenly seemed to grip him, making it impossible for him to move.
In his chest, his dragon raised its head, steam rising from its jaws, its eyes flashing furiously. Who’s there? Who can I sense?
Despite his diminishing powers, Magnus still had enough for this. He could sense lurking danger – and it was close.
Whipping around, Magnus lowered his axe, gripping it in both hands as he scanned the forest.
There wasn’t much that could spook a dragon – and almost nothing that could challenge a dragon in a fight. There were only two things a dragon feared: other dragons – and dragon hunters.
Magnus didn’t move, his senses on high alert, all of his dragon’s instincts straining.
But he could see nothing.
He couldn’t even sense what it was that had made his dragon so jumpy.
He only knew there was something there.
True, perhaps both he and his dragon were more sensitive to danger these days – but Magnus had vowed he would never be caught unawares. Perhaps it had been assuming his dragon had been overreacting that had meant he’d been captured in the first place.
He’d never make that mistake again.
He’d never let himself be taken prisoner again.
His dragon opened its mouth, baring its saber-sharp teeth.
Let me free – let me free and we will destroy the danger.
It was tempting. In his dragon form, Magnus could soar above the trees and pinpoint whatever it was that was sending his dragon’s instincts into overdrive.
But doubts still lingered in his mind. Could he really spend what might be one of his last shifts ever on something that might turn out to be a false alarm?
If only I could be sure...
Swallowing hard, Magnus tried to relax his muscles.
He had been standing here for almost ten minutes, with no sign of any danger.
He took a cautious step forward, making sure he didn’t let his guard down. His dragon’s senses continued to scan the area all around him.
There’s something there, his dragon insisted. I can feel it...
Magnus shook his head. Maybe, he answered. But what is it? And where?
His dragon writhed grumpily, irritated that its instincts were being challenged.
It is there, it hissed insistently, more smoke beginning to spool up from its jaws. I know it!
Magnus was about to answer the dragon with placating words, when a sudden noise made adrenaline shoot through his body.
He scanned the forest for a moment, then took off running, his dragon’s unerring instincts telling him which way to go.
I definitely heard that, Magnus told himself.
He didn’t know exactly why he was running, only that he had to.
Faster. Faster! his dragon urged him on, eyes blazing.
Leaping over fallen logs and brushing past overhanging branches, Magnus could do nothing but obey.
The only thing in his mind was the sound he had heard before his dragon’s reflexes had taken over his body.
The sound of a woman screaming.
Chapter Three
Alanna
“Our tracker followed him to this location,” Casper said, squinting down at the GPS device in his hand.
In some ways, dragon hunters were steeped in tradition – but in others, they had seen the benefits of modernization. Using modern location devices was just one of the ways in which they’d seen the light of technology, even if they still used swords and chalices and magic for others.
Alanna examined the surrounding forest carefully. It was dense and green – and while it certainly provided cover for them, it also made their quarry particularly hard to find.
“Which way next?”
Casper raised his head, turning slowly first left and then right. Alanna knew he was calling on his borrowed dragon instincts, using his heightened senses to find what they were looking for.
“Over there,” he said, pointing to a particularly dense bit of forest. “We’ll find him through there.”
Alanna nodded, setting off. It was a challenge to move soundlessly through terrain like this, but she’d been training all her life for it. Silently, she stepped through the thick undergrowth, leaping over fallen logs as stealthily as a cat.
Behind her, she could hear Casper following somewhat less quietly.
Shut up! Who taught you to clatter around like that? she thought angrily, half-hoping Casper had absorbed enough of the dragon’s psychic abilities to hear her thoughts.
From his angry snort, she guessed he had.
Coming to a halt behind a massive redwood, Alanna dropped into a crouch and peered ahead of them. If the dragon was here, he must have heard them coming after the commotion Casper had made. She could only hope they still had the element of surprise.
And what if you do? Her traitorous brain suddenly sprang into action once again. Alanna shook her head, trying
to banish her doubts. If she allowed them to take her over, there was no way she’d be able to do what she’d come here to do.
The dragon is dangerous, she reminded herself. He took down one hunter already. Do you want to be the second?
That was an easy question. But try as she might, she simply couldn’t dismiss the man’s blue eyes from her mind – the loneliness she had seen in them that pierced her to her very core.
I can’t think about that now. Or ever, she told herself angrily. She was a dragon hunter – he was a dragon. That was all there was to it.
“I don’t see him,” she mouthed silently to Casper. Dragon hunters were well-trained in lip-reading.
Casper frowned at her, pointing more insistently ahead of them. “He’s there. Look harder.”
Furrowing her eyebrows, Alanna turned away from him again. Could Casper be mistaken? She was sure –
The sudden spike of pain to the back of her head had her seeing stars.
Reeling, Alanna stood, stumbling a little as her vision gave way to whiteness.
For a moment, she felt certain she was going to faint – but sucking in a deep breath of air and gritting her teeth, she forced herself to remain standing. She pressed her back against the trunk of the massive redwood to help her stay up.
“Damn, you’re tougher than you look.” Casper smirked at her, clenching and unclenching his fist as if his knuckles were hurting him. “I was sure that’d take you down.”
Alanna stared at him, the pain in her head and the whirl of her thoughts temporarily making his words incomprehensible to her.
Then, their meaning crashed over her like a tidal wave.
“Casper?” she asked, blinking in shock. “You – what are you—”
“I don’t really have time for questions right now,” Casper said, dropping into a fighting stance. “Like I said, I thought that smack to the back of the head would have sent you down for the count – but it seems I’m going to have to do this the hard way.”