by G. Bailey
“My name is Mr. Graves. Though your father used to call me Graves, so you may, as well. I do wish for us to get along,” he says, referring again to the fact he apparently knew my father. I almost don’t want to reply, knowing that there is a very good chance my asshole of a father did something evil with this human. I already know he was not a good king, mate or person. If he had something to do with this human, I might as well call him evil and be done with it. I know it’s immature to want to cling to some hope that my father made one good decision in his life. That he did one pure, selfless thing that means I can remember him without hating him. The more I learn of the past, the more I know that will never happen.
“I don't believe you. What was the king of the Dragons doing talking to a human like you,” I growl, and the man's face tightens in anger. “Humans were nothing but slaves to a king like my father.”
“I have already warned you once to behave, and I will tell you now that I do not lie or give second chances. I want us to have an agreement, purely because I respected your father and had a good agreement with him,” he says, calming himself down as he speaks. I resist the urge to roll my eyes at his lie. This man used my father as much as my father likely used him. The only question is: what did my father want with humans?
“What kind of agreement are you talking about?” I ask, instinctually going to cross my arms but the handcuffs don’t let me. I lock my fingers together instead, feeling lucky the middle part to the handcuffs is a chain, so it’s possible.
“Come with me, and I will show you,” he simply replies, nodding his head towards the door before walking towards it. Again, I know he is demanding I follow him and not asking. The sound of the guards behind me unclipping their guns tells me as much. I walk just behind him, looking behind me once to see the two human guards staying close, with the guns once clipped to their belts now in their hands. Apparently, they don’t trust the collars all that much, and it gives me hope that I might be able to break them somehow.
The door opens out to a massive white room that is circular, and there is a banquet table in the middle, with empty metal trays where I assume food is served. There are doors littered around the room and tables with chairs pushed up to them in the middle. Graves walks straight across the room and opens the door directly opposite the door we came out of. This room is similar to the one that we woke up in. There are cages lining the sides of the corridor, and it is all made of stone except for the thick metal bars.
Graves stops next to the first cell, and I stare in at the little metal bed, a small desk and chair. A young boy dressed in white clothes sits on the chair with his back to us. He turns and faces us, and I step back in shock because he is the very image of Jace. The boy can’t be more than seven, but my god, he looks like Jace when I first met him as a child myself. They have the same white hair, blue eyes and even similar facial features. For a second, I make myself believe that he is a human that just looks familiar, but when I scent him, I know that he is an ice dragon even if he smells a little odd. I’m not the last ice dragon. The fact sends shock through me. The boy doesn't say a word, he just goes back to whatever he was drawing, like he is used to people staring at him and that it is no surprise to see another dragon. I wonder how many of my people are in this place. Graves doesn’t say a word as I stare at the boy, feeling shocked to my core.
“Who is that?” I finally demand, but instead of my voice coming out strong, it is like a hushed whisper.
“Now you see my proof, let us go back and sit in the main hall as we have a talk. This conversation is not meant for little ears,” Graves states, and I run my eyes down the row of cages, seeing little flashes of other people, possibly children in the other cells.
“Fine,” I mutter, but Graves is already walking around me and back to the door we came out of. I follow him back into the massive room and he sits at one of the tables. I walk around the table and sit opposite him, folding my hands as I wait for him to speak.
“That child, like many here, is a dragon we bred,” he starts off, placing his hands together. He speaks about the boy in such an impersonal way, and it annoys me, but he doesn’t seem to notice as he keeps talking. “Though not many of his kind did survive. This boy, and the others which we mixed with different gene lines, did. Creating a pure ice dragon is a lot harder than we thought, but add in some different strands of DNA, and we have things that live.”
“Bred? Things? What the hell? They are people, not animals! They are just innocent children who didn’t want you to mess with them!” I shout, a long growl slipping from my lips, and he smiles.
“Do not lose your temper with me, little dragon princess. Remember you are not in Dragca, you are not a princess here, and you are in my world now,” he responds, flashing his eyes at his guards behind me before looking at me. The warning is clear enough.
“Are you claiming Earth belongs to you?” I muse. “I wasn’t aware they named you king of Earth.”
“Not king, but simply, yes, I claim to protect Earth. We are the only thing that stands between the Earth falling to ruin by creatures like you destroying it,” he explains, making us sound like emotionless monsters. “The Hunter’s Organisation is the last defence for mankind now.”
“We are not here to attack you,” I bite out, ignoring his statement on how he is some kind of protector of Earth. He is just a human with a big ego.
“Maybe you’re not. Maybe you are. It is my job to protect my people, my world; and your kind is a threat to that either way,” he states firmly. His mind made up.
“So, putting children you bred in cages is your way of dealing with dragons?” I ask. “Don’t you worry those dragons you capture are going to bite you in the ass one day for treating us like shit?”
“We give them—you—a home. We are being reasonable, rather than killing the creatures like every human wants,” he replies smoothly.
“Children. They are children, not creatures,” I spit out. “We are not creatures, we are people, but if you treat us like monsters and bring those children up thinking that’s all they are, you won’t be able to control them when they decide they want to be free.”
“Children that will grow into monsters will never be free. They are creatures that humans cannot stop on their own, therefore they must be controlled,” he says and lets out a long sigh. “Though this is wasting time. I am not here to convince you that my job is the right thing to do.”
“What are you here to convince me of then?” I ask.
“The Hunter’s Organisation has been around for almost one hundred years, and we were set up by your grandfather as a way to keep dragon prisoners he didn’t want to kill,” he points at the yellow dragon crest on his coat. “This shows our past and is our symbol. Your family designed it.”
“Excuse me? I don’t believe you!” I growl, shaking my head before looking away.
“Then your father took the throne, and we made a new deal. He wanted us to make more ice dragons and mix them with different supernatural gene lines. He wanted to see if we could make an ice dragon more powerful than ever before,” he pauses, fixing his coat. “So, your father sent us any ice dragons that he could make go missing, and the company got to work. We also made a deal that he could hide his daughter and another male ice dragon on Earth, and that we would watch over you. I loved my chats with your father as he checked in on you. Your father was a very smart man.”
“We can agree to disagree on that one,” I mutter to myself, trying to hold in my burning anger. My father was clearly a fucking disaster.
“All this was working out well for our company. Unfortunately, not many of the created dragons survived in the early years, but in the last twenty years since I took over, we have made amazing advances,” he says proudly, even though it just makes me feel sick.
“That child…is Jace’s brother?” I ask, almost not wanting him to tell me the answer, but I’m not stupid. He showed me that boy to rattle and upset me.
“Yes. Jacian’s mot
her was taken by us, and unfortunately died giving birth to the child in there. Jacian’s father died in early testing,” he says. “Such a shame.”
“You’re disgusting,” I spit out.
“It is work, nothing more or less,” he states. “Now we have a problem. I have spies in Dragca who claim you have lost the throne and you are meant to be dead. With your father dead, there is no one else to deal with Dragca, and we have decided, after the instance in Paris, to keep all supernaturals here until they pass away.”
“You’re keeping us here?” I ask.
“Simply, yes,” he says with a smile. “Though do not worry, we do not treat you badly. We plan to continue our testing for advances in medicines, which I’m sure you will not mind helping with to keep everyone you love safe.”
“You’re a terrible person and human. I will never help you or stay here!” I spit out and slam my hands on the table. “I am getting out of here, and I will kill you before I leave!”
“All you dragons are so uncivilised. I had hoped you would be different, being a princess brought up on Earth, but it seems not,” he sighs dramatically.
“You are treating us like monsters, so that is what you will get in return. Let us go, and I will walk out of here without killing you,” I suggest. “That is the only way you are getting out of this.”
“Isola, dear princess…you don’t have any power here. I could kill you with the snap of my fingers, but my daughter has convinced me it would be smart to keep you alive. The other dragons will listen to you, follow you, and you will listen to me. See, we all can win here. Don’t push me, this is your only warning,” he threatens and then changes his tone into a sickly sweet one, “Enjoy your time with your dragon guards and sister. We will talk next week when you have had time to settle in.”
“I will make sure you regret this. I am not some simple dragon that you can control,” I tell him as he stands up and looks down at me with a big, happy smile on his lips.
“But that is exactly what you are, Isola Dragice,” he responds and walks away, laughing. I grit my teeth as I watch Graves walk out of the room through one of the doors, knowing there isn’t anything I can do to fight him just yet. But there is always time.
Chapter Three
Isola
The guards lead me back to the cage, taking off my handcuffs before pushing me into it with a harsh slam on my back. They laugh as I bounce across the floor, smacking my shoulder on the cold floor. I quickly turn over, glaring at them as they lock the door, and my dragon finally comes back from her sleep in my head. As I pull myself up off the floor, she pushes into my head for control on pure protective instinct until I can’t do anything but focus on her.
We can’t shift, I tell her, and she stops for a second, only sending waves of worry, panic and anger through me. It’s not emotions that aren’t already in my head anyways.
Mate. Sister. Mine all in trouble. We must fight. She pleads with me, and every part of me wants to go with her plan, if it weren’t for these damn collars around my neck. I ignore my dragon for a moment to walk to the bars and sit on the floor, reaching my hand through them to try and reach Dagan who is still passed out.
When it is time, we will fight. That time is not now. Rest. My dragon thankfully listens to my advice and settles down with a huff, and I look over the cages to see Thorne slowly starting to move. It takes a while before he is sitting up, looking dazed, and there is blood covering the one half of his face. A growl slips out of my lips before I can acknowledge it, and he turns to me, relief spreading across his handsome features.
“Isola, fuck, are you okay? Kor and Melody are in the cages next to mine, but they are passed out, by the looks of it,” he tells me, not needing to use our ability to talk into each other’s minds as he is close enough I can hear him. I’m filled with relief to not only see him awake, but to know Kor and Melody are okay and close. The only thing that panics me now is where the hell Bee is. I have to tell myself they wouldn’t kill her. That she must be somewhere safe, or I would know. Right? We are bonded, and I don’t feel like she is in danger. I know he can feel that I am not hurt, but I think he means if I'm okay emotionally.
“I don't really know right now. This place, everything about it, is nothing like I expected,” I tell him, and he crawls as close as he can to the bars, as I try to think over everything that I have just learnt. I know I don’t want to believe what Graves said about my father, but it is hard to ignore the proof that he showed me. I have to admit, my father was a monster. That boy looks so much like Jace that there is no way he is not related to him, and it doesn't make any sense how there are ice dragons here if my father didn’t help these humans. I thought I was the last ice dragon, but it is very clear that I'm not. Some part of me is relieved, but other parts of me worry. I am starting to think that something bad happened in Paris, and if it has to do with us, then humans are always going to hate us. I need to talk to Hallie. She is the only one who could make any sense of all this. I also need to talk to Melody. Considering that she and Hallie are meant to be together in the future, she might be able to knock some sense into my friend.
“What is going through your mind, Issy?” Thorne asks me, snapping me out of my own thoughts and back to the reality of the situation. I know we have to take one day at a time.
“The man that runs this place states that my father made a deal with him and my grandfather did before him also. He must have meant my grandfather who died shortly into his rein,” I reply, my voice sounding like it echoes when I wish I could keep it quiet.
“What kind of deal?” Thorne asks.
“My father and grandfather gave the humans dragons. They gave humans dragons like they weren’t people, like they were theirs to sell rather than protect. I saw an ice dragon boy that was the image of Jace. Jace’s parents went missing, and now I know they were brought here because my father must have betrayed them. Jace’s brother is here, and god knows who else,” I angrily reply.
“Isola…fucking hell. This is complete crazy,” Thorne gapes in shock.
“I know, right?” I reply, staring over at him as he looks at me with a desperate need to get to me, to hold me close. “We need to get out of here, but I don’t see any way of that happening unless Hallie decides to help us.”
“Isola!” Dagan grumbles, shaking his head and picking himself up off the ground quickly. When he looks over at me, there is relief on his face, and he comes closer, reaching through the bars to hold my hands for a brief moment before straightening up and turning to look at Thorne like he can sense he is watching.
“Good to see you awake, Dagan,” Thorne says.
“Do either of you want to explain how you ended up mated?” Dagan asks us but turns to stare at me. “And what I mean is: Thorne piss off for a second and leave us alone so Isola can explain.”
“Isola?” Thorne asks me, his tone telling me he just wants to know what I want to happen. I stare at Dagan for a moment, seeing the hurt in his eyes and how lost he seems. I need to explain everything and make sure Dagan and the others understand this wasn’t me picking Thorne over them. I have no doubt Dagan’s dragon is losing his mind right now.
“Give us some time. See if you can wake the others up,” I ask, and I’m happy to see he doesn’t look mad, just accepting.
“Others?” Dagan asks.
“Kor and Melody are in the cages near me. I can’t reach them, but I can see them. I will give you two space,” Thorne says, nodding once at me before walking off into the shadows of his own cell. Dagan moves closer to tightly hold onto my hand as we look at each for a second. This isn’t the place for romance. This isn’t the time for love and feelings when we need to fight to survive, but every part of me knows we need this moment.
“To break the dragon guard curse, I had to mate with a half fire and ice dragon guard. The curse was made out of love and honour, but it caused nothing but pain until right at the end when Thorne and I mated. That was happiness, and I know it upsets you, and
you have every right to be mad at me for loving him—”
“You love him?” Dagan interrupts. I meet his blue eyes, knowing I need to be confident as I admit the truth.
“Yes. I tried to fight it, but it’s always been there with Thorne. Even when he betrayed me, part of me still loved him. There is just something between us. The same feeling I have for you, for Kor and for Elias. I love each of you more than I knew it was possible to love anyone,” I say. “I know the world we live in expects me to choose one of you, but I can’t do that. I will let any of you walk away if you want…but this is where I stand on all of us.”
“I will admit I’m fucking mad and jealous…but I think I can get used to this, and I will never make you choose. Thorne is in love with you, always has been, and he has proven it over and over. He made a mistake, a big fucking one, but he has earnt your love and trust back with his actions. Thorne has earnt my trust back. That is enough for me,” he says, lifting our hands through the bars and kissing my fingers. “But I want us to mate as soon as we get out of here. No more wasting time. I need to know you’re mine…if you’ll have me.”
“My answer has always been yes. I love you,” I whisper, and we kiss awkwardly through the bars, and I giggle as I pull away, holding him close. I nearly jump out of my skin when there is a loud buzzing noise just before the doors automatically open. I stand up, watching as the main door to the big room opens on its own too, just before a sweet female voice talks over a hidden loudspeaker.