integral it is a part of him, but I do not fear it. Neither does Dawn, it simply makes Griffin who he is.
“Nice? Fucking nice?” he shouts, stepping closer, mist coating him and wrapping around his form, darkening the forest. The animals go silent, sensing a predator.
“Guys,” the dragon calls out, but we ignore him.
“Yes, nice,” I grind out. “I don’t like it as much as you, but we are going to need all the help we can find to get Dawn back...that is what you want, correct?”
At the mention of her name, he growls, grabbing my throat and slamming me back into the tree. With a flick of my power, I send him sailing through the air, where he smashes through branches and underbrush before he suddenly materialises in front of me again. His eyes are nothing but darkness now, all the blue is gone. I remember how my mate likes him like this, how she can handle it, tame him almost...I cannot. And I can’t kill him, which only leaves talking to him.
“Other mates!” the dragon calls louder, but we don’t break our stare down, knowing if I do, he will strike. He wants an excuse to attack, he is looking for a weakness. He won’t get it from me.
“We have no choice, Griffin. We work together, we will go back to your place and reach out to everyone to see if they know anything and then make a plan. We are getting our fucking mate back,” I snap, his attitude and anger rubbing off on me.
Uncaring about the enraged and slightly mad fallen, the dragon steps between us. “There is a dead body over there, if you didn’t know.”
It makes Griffin laugh suddenly, the sound slightly manic. “Hell yes we do, that’s what happens when you fuck with our mate.”
It breaks the tension between us, and I relax as Griffin’s wings disappear and his eyes bleed back to normal. He claps me on the back as he passes me and follows the dragon, who yet again is going the wrong way. Aren’t dragons supposed to have a good sense of direction? “Let’s get her then.”
Sighing, I send a thought out to my mate, hoping she can hear it.
Little Monster, it will be a miracle if we don’t all kill ourselves before we find you, we need you...without you we are falling apart already...please, little one, come home.
I stir, unable to help myself. Something pulls at me. I felt something similar before, but it was weaker, miles away. Almost a world away. I ignored it and went back to sleep, back to my magical slumber we all agreed to when we took our position, sleeping away the ages until we are called forth to serve…and rule.
But this time, I can’t. I can’t ignore it, the pull. It’s filled with pain and rips through the magic and layers of sleep shrouding me like a blanket. Stabbing into my brain and echoing in the prison of my head. It’s female, her mind reaching for mine even across the many miles separating us. I see flashes of what is happening, stabs of electricity moving through her to me. Men in black, flickers of corridors, and then darkness...just the scream remaining.
Screaming for me, even though she does not know me.
I sit up with a roar, my body bolt upright in my tomb, my eyes sealed shut and body weak from years of resting. But not for long. It’s unnatural for me to be awake, it will cause ripples. Problems.
None of it matters.
Not the years of control I learned, not the power I gathered and wielded like a sword. Not my place.
My name.
My position.
Only her.
My head droops uselessly against my chest, my once long hair cut and matted and greasy, hanging in shorn lumps across my oily and dirty face.
Pain is my constant, it is all I know.
My mouth is so dry, I feel my lips crack and bleed.
My body feels like a husk, all the water, all the liquid gone until I am nothing but a starving skeleton of what I once was.
That is what they want.
To deprive me of the very thing I need most and watch as I crumble into nothing but a monster for them to control. It’s the only way they can control me. Make me what they want me to be. I don’t know how long I have been here, but they should know one thing about me—I do nothing I do not want to.
This world has