Fated Hearth

Guarding Their Dragon Mate Collection 2

Layla Heart

Fated Hearth (Guarding Their Dragon Mate Collection 2)

Copyright © 2020 LAYLA HEART

All rights reserved. No part of this story may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without express written permission of the copyright holder.

This book contains sexually explicit content which is suitable only for mature adults.

ISBN: 9789493139213

NUR: 285

Edition: 20201006

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Blurb

Just when Sophia thinks she’s got a handle on things going on in the dragon town, her whole world is rocked, quite literally.

The town Sophia grew up in is in a very bad state. Earth dragons are going missing, leaving young kids orphaned, and nobody knows what’s going on or where they’re taken. To make it even worse, a group of rebels who were supposed to bring supplies to the town haven’t shown up, making everyone worried that they’ve been caught by the renegade fae soldiers.

Sophia and her men turn to an unusual source in their desperation to find answers, a magically sealed room at the hidden dragon library. A place nobody has been able to get into in decades.

When Sophia manages to finally unlock the room with a spell passed down from her witch father, everything she thought she knew changes. It seems her father was involved in things that nobody had any idea about, showing a side to him that Sophia doesn’t know how to combine with what her mother told her about him. To top it off, she’s confronted with a half-sister she had no idea existed, a half-sister with fae and witch blood.

Can Sophia and her men find out what happened to the missing earth dragons? And how much is Sophia’s father involved with what’s going on in the town right now?

But most importantly, can they heal the town and the people in it, so that they can thrive again, like they used to?

These are the second three novellas in the Guarding Their Dragon Mate serial, Captured Dragon, Reclaimed Dragon and Ferocious Dragon, a six episodes long reverse harem #WhyChoose story. These novellas may include any of these elements: steamy scenes, ‘I need tissues NOW’ moments, cries of ‘why, oh, why’ and cliffhangers that make you bite your nails (and curse the author).

This story takes place in the same world as the Lughnasadh Elite Academy and happens after the events from the other series. Both series can be read stand-alone, they are about different characters, but they are connected.

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Captured Dragon

Guarding Their Dragon Mate 4

Chapter One

Lyell

As soon as the shaking from the earthquake stopped, footsteps began thundering down hallways, people calling out to each other, checking in on others. The shaking from the ‘earthquake’ didn’t take very long, just a couple of seconds, but it’s got my heart beating like crazy and I know that I heard things falling over elsewhere in the building.

“Anyone hurt?” I turn around, looking back to the hallway, waiting for news from the rest of the people.

A handful of rebels burst into the room, their eyes wide, their breathing hard.

“Status?” I step towards them, but then stop. They might be other werewolf rebels, but I’m not in charge, Sophia is.

“Nobody as far as we can tell. Everyone is unharmed. Just books that fell from shelves, a couple of poorly stacked chairs tumbled down, things like that. No significant damage.” The first rebel begins speaking to me, but then turns to Sophia when he realises she’s here too. “Everyone’s safe.” He nods, then looking more serious. “What was that? I didn’t know we could get earthquakes here.”

I glance at Sophia, who shrugs, pulling a face. “Not an earthquake, exactly. Earth dragons, potentially.” She looks at the little girl in her arms, who’s still sniffing, her eyes wet. “We think it might be Gaia’s parents, but we’re not sure yet.”

Sophia nods, like she’s deciding something. “Nobody leaves the building tonight. I want reports of anything that’s different, stuff that fell, anything. Just to make sure that we’re not overlooking anything. If it’s more than just some dragon magic, I want to know immediately.” She glances up at the rebels in the doorway. “Pay attention to windows, doors, anything like that, anything that could be broken and used to enter this building. Go.”

The rebels dart off again, spreading Sophia’s demand. The whole building filling with voices and activity even though it was starting to wind down for the night.

I walk over to Sophia, carefully wrapping my arms around her. “What are you thinking?”

She slowly shakes her head. “I don’t know yet.” She looks out the window, to the sky. “It’s a full moon. Magic is at its strongest during the full moon. That might have something to do with it, that they can only do whatever they do during the full moon because it takes so much magic. But for now, we’re just guessing. I feel like I should...” She sighs. “I feel like I should know something, but I don’t. Like a memory that’s just out of reach.” Sighing again, she turns her head to me and gives me a quick kiss, little more than a brush of her lips on mine, but it lights up my whole body, makes me crave her even more. “This is going to be a long night.”

Another long night... We’ve been doing nothing but long nights since I met her. Day and night are nothing more than the sun being in the sky or the moon. We’re working all hours, sleeping whenever we can. It’s exhausting, but it feels like this is the only right way for now.

I put my head against hers, taking a couple of deep breaths, before I look at the others in the room. Sophia’s hoard is all here, even Kieran, who came back down right after the earthquake, as is Agata, the woman who used to take care of her, and Lapis, an old friend of Sophia, who is the head of a small family of dragon shifter kids, almost all orphans.

Sophia squeezes my arm for a moment and steps out of my embrace, pulling Gaia a little higher up on her hip. Her movements are automatic, like she’s used to it, like she’s used to having a kid in her arms all the time, and my heart soars at the thought that someday she might do that with our kid... But I quickly push that thought down, before Sophia or Topaz feel it and might get awkward over it.

After one last glance my way, her eyebrow raised as she’s got a curious look in her eyes, Sophia walks over to the map we created earlier today, looking out over it. “Lapis.” She keeps her voice soft. “The people you tried to reach, where do they live?”

Lapis stands up from where she was sitting and walks to the table with the map, pointing at two houses on the same street. It’s on the other side of the town from where Gaia and her parents used to live, but like Gaia, they’re one of the outer streets, their back gardens looking out over the fields. Not as well-guarded as the inner streets and much easier to slip in and out of undetected.

“I didn’t know them that well, but well enough to know that they should have picked up when I called.” Her voice shakes and tears drip onto the map. “They wouldn’t ignore us.”

Agate steps forward too, wrapping her arm around Lapis’ shoulder. “I agree with Lapis. They would have picked up. They... They often help to find places for rebels to temporarily stay at and they know that a call from us means that we need them. They wouldn’t ignore it.”

“Okay.” Sophia nods, her voice thoughtful. “You said that they have kids?”

Lapis and Agate nod, looking pained.

That makes Sophia think, almost like I can see a plan form in her head, then she looks at me and Gale. “I don’t dare to send dragons out right now, but could you two check on them? Bring any kids back with you? I’m praying that the network around there is down or whatever, anything simple like that, but I’m afraid that it won’t be. Could you?”

“Of course.” I nod. “I’ll take some extra rebels to be safe, in case we find something.”

Gale steps closer, frowning, but his hands move over his waist and arms, like he’s checking his clothes for something. “Anything we can do to make them trust us? You know, to say or do? Because if their parents are gone now, then... they’ll be scared.”

Agate nods. “Call me. They know me. That’s all I can offer.”

This makes Gale eye Lapis, who simply shrugs. Yeah, trusting Agate seems a common theme in this town. When Gale found her, Lapis didn’t trust that Topaz and Gale were really there to help them and not try to break up her family, until they’d put Agate on the phone.

The old earth dragon, one of the oldest dragon I’ve seen in the town yet, Sophia’s former neighbour, is a pretty influential person around here. I’d gotten that idea before, but this is making that feeling only stronger. She’s the one most in contact with the rebels, she’s the one who knows what’s what in this place.

It could work to our advantage, as long as everything goes well, but if Sophia does something that Agate doesn’t agree with, it could turn very ugly too...

Gale gives Sophia a hug and then he jerks his head towards the door as he catches my eyes. Yeah, yeah.

I give Sophia a quick kiss and then nuzzle Gaia’s head for a moment. How scared she must be, sensing her parents, but them not being there, and then... If what just happened really came from her parents, then I don’t know if they’re angry or if they only tried to get our attention.

But I’m not looking forward to more examples of this any time soon. One earthquake is bad enough.

Gale and I are walking down a narrow and dark side street, towards the edge of town. It’s quiet, really quiet, right now, and I hope it’s because people are heeding the warning to stay inside and not for any other reason.

We chose a group of six former werewolf rebels to join us. Four werewolves and two witches, mostly people who can protect themselves and us, but who are also good with kids, since we have no idea what we might find. Two of them are walking a distance behind us and the other four are split into pairs and walking one street left and one street right of us, to cover more ground in case things go sideways.

I nearly jump when Gale speaks, not expecting the grumpy witch to make small talk during something so stressful. He’s not even looking in my direction, still looking ahead, walking on. “Were you aware of what my division in the rebels was for?”

I blink, stopping a moment as I stare at him before I catch up. “Missions?” He shoots me a disbelieving look and I shrug. “I really have no idea. Not sure why it matters.” All divisions had their own purpose, and I didn’t really have much to do with most of them.

“I just don’t want you to be the only one who doesn’t know, doesn’t seem fair.”

“What?” He’s not making any sense.

He looks ahead again. “Not many were aware of it, but my division was in charge of ‘covert operations’.” He makes it sound like that’s the most ridiculous thing to name what he does, or did, I dunno. “Basically, we were sent when things either had to be taken care of quietly or when they needed more leverage during negotiations.”

I’m not really sure what he means, we had loads of different divisions, some were in charge of simple brute-force missions, others in charge of diplomatic missions, yet others were doing what we’re doing now, helping out a town or city, rebuilding or otherwise helping where help was needed. “Okay?”

Now he does stop, his eyes on mine as he thinks. “Putting it clearly, we were assassins. Kieran knew, he told Sophia earlier, and Topaz also probably knows about it by now. I didn’t feel it would be right for you to be the only one who didn’t know. Especially since not everyone is... comfortable... when they find out.”

I run his words over in my head a moment. Gale, an assassin. The werewolf rebels had a whole division of assassins. It doesn’t actually surprise me. I don’t know why, really, but if they’ve got a whole group of rebels who are basically teachers most of the time, turning into smugglers when needed. Why not assassins? “Thanks for telling me, I guess?”

He nods, then looks to the next street. “We’re nearly there. We should keep going.”

“Yeah.” The guy’s great at keeping things segmented in his mind, as far as I know him, but it still sometimes surprises me, like now.

The next street over isn’t as quiet as the streets we just walked through and, with a sinking feeling in my stomach, I know that Sophia’s wish that it’s a communication problem and nothing more severe is going to be in vain. I can already hear the crying from kids, calling out for their parents, and also adults, calling out for the missing dragons.

Whatever happened to Gaia’s parents, I think it happened here too. It’s definitely a pattern. Now we have to figure out what the pattern leads to, before it gets worse and more people vanish...

We need to find out why these people are going missing. Maybe they’ve got more in common than just being earth dragons and living on the edge of town, but until we have more of the picture, it’s going to be hard to predict what’s going to happen next, where they’re going to take the next people from.

But, for now, we need to worry about the kids, and getting them to a place where they’ll be safe. As safe as we can keep them anyway...

Chapter Two

Kieran

I’m sitting at the table with the map on it, laptop next to me, as we input the data from missing people since last summer. Previously, I’d mostly been focusing on kids and parents, trying to gather data of who we’re going to have to help the most, but now we’re just focusing on earth dragons.

Agate found one mention of a missing earth dragon in her notebook from last summer. It didn’t stand out to me before, it happened once in a while. While it was more common for other types of dragons to go missing, earth dragons did happen from time to time. Looking at it again, this person went missing during a full moon. It might have been a coincidence, but we weren’t taking any chances.

Agate and Sophia are marking places where the earth dragons lived and when they went missing. It’s always just a handful at a time. One here, one there, a couple there. The four from this time are the most taken in one go that we’ve found yet. Always random locations, never many at the same time. Not like the sweeps of twenty to thirty fire or water dragons that I found in Agate’s notebooks and the data that Finn gave me, just a trickling, small enough numbers that it didn’t stand out.

Topaz has also gotten dressed and is talking to some rebels, making notes of their reports of the damage to the building. As we expected, some fallen books, toys, a globe or two, but there didn’t seem to be any damage to the building itself, at least not visible from the inside. We’ll have to see about the outside in the morning.

Gaia went with Lapis to their room, since the little girl kept falling asleep and she didn’t want to sleep alone. But it would also not have been a good idea to have her here the whole time, especially not if we’re working all night.

Not too long ago, Gale messaged us that Lapis’ instincts had been right and that the kids had indeed lost their parents. Both families had two earth dragon parents, and all four parents were now gone.

One of the kids gave a quick description of what had happened and it didn’t fill us with much hope. Someone had appeared at the door, both parents had stepped outside, and then nothing, silence. When the kid went looking, worried and curious, their parents were gone. No trace of them at all.

Currently, their group is packing some clothes and such for the kids, before bringing them here, and Gale is checking out the area around the house to see if he can find more traces of what happened. But he didn’t sound very hopeful, which gave me an even worse feeling. Because if they can hide their traces from Gale, someone trained to find people, this is going to get much more complicated.

The suddenly orphaned kids agreed to go with them when they found out that Lyell and Gale were both werewolf rebels and heard Agate and Lapis were with us too. Seems that the werewolf rebels are accepted as the ‘good guys’ around here. Which, this close to the border, makes sense.

“That’s all, up to today.” Sophia steps behind me and looks at my screen, her hands on my shoulders soft and steady. “Did you get all that?”

I nod, still a little nervous about being near her, after what I pulled earlier and how angry she’d been. But I guess this is much more important... It is more important, but being around her still makes me nervous. I definitely messed up. I messed up big time and until things calm down, I don’t think I’ll get a chance to properly apologise to her...

“Anything they’ve got in common, apart from being earth dragons?” She leans closer and I catch a whiff of her scent, which seems clouded slightly, muffled by other scents, Gale and Topaz’, though it’s getting stronger again. That scent of water and forest that always hangs around her, tempered by Gale’s post-thunderstorm and Topaz’ campfire scents. I try to ignore their scents, only focusing on Sophia, how she makes me relax and feel more nervous at the same time.

I clear my throat, knowing that no way in hell is she going to let me get close to her now. “Not that I can see. Different ages, from eighteen to over fifty. Some have kids, some are single, some were in relationships with dragons of other types.” I sigh. “Only thing they’ve got in common is that they all lived at the edge of town.”

Sophia sighs. “That’s what I was worried about. It’s... Random, for a lack of a better word, or at least made to look like it is.” She scrutinizes the map, narrowing her eyes. “If we split them into groups based on when they were taken, say... Summer to start of war, end of war to mid-winter, mid-winter to now. Anything jump out then?”

I group the different times together, hoping it’s going to give us something to work with, but when I look at the data, I shake my head sadly. “Nope.”

“Fuck.” She closes her eyes. “I’d hoped that maybe they took more people from the edges of the age groups at the start and narrow down over time, closing in on the ‘perfect’ subjects, or the reverse, narrow group at first and then spread out more as the experiment progresses. Anything that tells us what direction they’re moving in next.”

I look at the entries again. “The location they take people from is virtually random. Most likely to do with what area is quietest at the time or just them throwing a dart at a map. Age groups are all over the place. Some have kids and families, some don’t. Even jobs are all over the place.”

Agate looks up. “And they’ve all been involved with the rebels. But it’s hard to find anyone here who isn’t. So, not conclusive either.” She shrugs. “I didn’t spot it because it fits in with what we’ve been through for decades.” Agate sighs, then looks up at Sophia, her eyes pained, but she’s not really looking at her, more that she’s looking into her own memories. “Water dragons were generally taken in the winter. Since they were put to work on farms in areas that are warmer in the summer, we suspected it’s because not everyone survived the winter.”

I nod. “More of us suspected that. Either they don’t survive the winter, or they lose many in the heat during the summer and don’t care about it in autumn, but then in the winter they need to get more people.” It feels wrong to talk about people like this, like they’re objects to move around, not people with feelings and emotions and families and friends, really wrong, but it’s how many fae in charge think of these things.

Agate nods. “Yeah, something like that is possible too. We don’t have air dragons around here, too cold. Fire dragons...”

“Taken when they needed them.” Sophia’s voice is sharp, her eyes filled with anger. “But mostly just younger people. They didn’t take many dragons over thirty, but they would...” She balls her fists, her jaw set. “They would take kids sometimes. If they were ‘extra rowdy’ or whatever excuse they could come up with.”

I carefully reach out to her, wrapping my hand around hers. She moves, weaving our fingers together tightly. I hate seeing her in pain, especially when I can’t do anything to fix it. I hate feeling this helpless when I can’t take her pain away, like I’m failing her or something, no matter how unrealistic the thought is.

She looks at our hands. “Living here, growing up here, we knew what to expect. We knew... It’s the not knowing, it’s the unknown that’s the hard part.”

I take one more look at the sheet, not sure if I can make any more sense of it than what we’ve already done. Then I stand up, wrapping both my arms around Sophia, before I step back. “With your permission, I’d like to send this to Finn and Rune. Maybe they have more information for us. And I’ll ask for them to send me anything they can come up with. And I’ll reach out to my old organisation, ask them if they have more too.”

She nods, her eyes on me a moment. “Send it to Finn and Rune, but not your old organisation, if possible.”

“Why, if I can ask?”

She looks down, her eyes unfocused as she worries her lower lip with her teeth. “Just not yet. Ask them for information, but I’m not ready to share this with them right now. They were never involved with this area, and I don’t know why.” Looking up, she shrugs. “I’m simply trying to keep people safe. We’re dealing with loads of orphaned kids here and I don’t want to take a risk with them. Lapis is right. Not everyone who comes here to ‘help’ is as honest about their motives. I don’t want authorities involved.”

I give her a quick smile. “You do realise we are the authorities at the moment, right?”

She gives me a slight smile back. “I meant authorities from other areas, people who don’t know how things are run here.”

I nod. “I understand. Things are a bit more... self-governed around here.”

She nods. “That’s one way of putting it. We just tend to say it’s too cold for them to bother much with us up here.” She leans in, giving me a kiss on my cheek before nodding at my laptop. “You get in touch with the kings. See if they’ve got more for us. And also ask your old organisation. Just, you’re with us now, not them. So, information moves from them to us, not from us to them.”

“I know. I’m yours.” I feel my cheeks heat up at those last words, I hadn’t meant to say them. To hide my own surprise, I quickly grab my laptop and make my way up to our room.

Yeah... That was... I hadn’t meant to let that slip, no matter how I feel inside. Saying those things is... Maybe a bit too much and a bit too soon. Hoard or not, connections or not, saying that is... Maybe not the right time yet. I don’t know.

But it’s the truth. I feel it. I feel how I belong with her, how I don’t want to be apart from her, no matter what. I belong with her, and nowhere else.

My loyalty lies with Sophia and helping her, making a better future here, with her. This is my place now, even though I never expected to find somewhere I fit in, I do with her.

I quickly look around our room, but nobody is here. Gale and Lyell are still out and Topaz is with Sophia in the other room. I sit down behind the desk and open my laptop again. I create a secure connection with the kings, before calling them, to give them a heads up about what I’m about to send them.

Chapter Three

Sophia

I can still feel Kieran’s discomfort around me, and while I’d like to think that I can just ignore what he did and what he said, it’s not that simple. It’s not that simple to ignore that he revealed what Gale did in the past, revealing something that wasn’t common knowledge, his division being one of assassins.

It still annoys me that Kieran did it, but I also felt his desperation while he said it, he felt it was the only way out, the only thing he could do. I guess we’re going to have to have a long talk later, to hopefully overcome this, but, for now, we’ve got other things to worry about, like the missing earth dragons.

Let’s hope that the kings or Kieran’s old organisation have more information that we can use. I can’t shake the feeling that I know something about this, something connected to this, but I can’t seem to put my finger on what it is and that makes the frustration worse. I feel like I should have the answer, even if I can’t grasp it.

Topaz sends me a little mental nudge, like he’s trying to get my attention, and when I look to him, he comes over, the rebels he was talking with having already left. When he’s near me, he makes me sit in the chair that Kieran just sat in and kneels in front of me. “If you’re not going to stop this swirling in your head, it’s going to drive me crazy too.” He gives me a sort-of smile.

“I just... I feel like I know something, it just won’t come up.” I sigh, staring at the map, but he puts his hand to my cheek, making me look at him instead.

“Okay.” He nods. “What do you feel it’s related to? Magic? Rituals? Dragon powers?”

“Maybe?” I sigh. “Maybe something I heard while at the rebels? Maybe... Maybe from my mum? It’s like I know it, but...”

“You can’t get to it.” He finishes my sentence. “Yeah, I felt that strong enough to understand it.” He stands up, looking around the room. “Is it a memory? Something you experienced? Something you read? Something you heard? Something you saw?”

“I don’t know.” I growl and nearly push him back as he crowds me too much. We might have had sex just a few hours ago, but I still don’t like him crowding me, I hate people crowding me. Something occurs to me, another place that was crowded. “Topaz? What happened during the final battle? How did the fae king die? What happened?”

He stills, eyeing me. “You know what happened, you were there. You saw it.”

“I know.” I still remember everything, but something nags at me, something connected to what happened that day. “Still, walk me through it.”

He lets out a slow breath, eyeing Agate, who’s very obviously listening in on us, then he focuses back on me. “From where?”

I think a moment. “We found the queen and kings at the edge of the mountain around the academy, they were about to be blown up by bombs placed by the fae army.”

He snorts. “Yeah, that was fun.” He sits on the floor, ignoring that there’s a chair right behind him, instead leaning against the leg of the table. “Okay. From there on out, we made our way through the forest, picking up some more rebels along the way. When we reached the middle of the forest, the heart of it, where the magic is strongest, we knew we had to get down. To the underground garden of the old witch castle.”

I nod, remembering the panic going through everyone when we realised we had to get down, into the earth, that we were so close and yet so far from the fae king and his army.

“Instead of going some other way, Rune created a ‘bubble’ around us all, with some other dragons, and we were magically lowered into the ground, until we reached the garden.”

Earth dragons can send their senses into the earth, detect different layers of stone and rock, and in this case could detect that the old garden was still there, protected by magic, the same as it was over a hundred years ago, just... underground. The nagging feeling is there again, something about their powers, being able to locate things, people, being able to sense the earth. It keeps nagging at me.

The magical box the fae used to hide themselves during the attack on our way here, the magic that could create that cloud of pure darkness around them, to totally hide them. They can’t really see in it either, so being able to use an earth dragon’s sense of location and where things and people are would be useful. But it still doesn’t explain why they’d kidnap earth dragons for that, or why Gaia can still sense her parents even when they’re not physically there? And then what? What could fae do with an earth dragon’s body that they don’t need the dragon’s minds or beings for?

“Agate?” I cut through Topaz’ recounting. “Of everyone who went missing, who had taken the antidote and who hadn’t?”

She comes over, thinking but then shaking her head. “The people who were taken before the end of the war, of course, all hadn’t taken the antidote. But since then... Some had and some hadn’t. Gaia’s parents had taken it, but I know some who hadn’t.”

Okay... “So they don’t need the dragon’s body.”

Topaz looks at me, his eyes wide in shock, horror flashing through him a moment. “What? Body? What are you...?”

I sigh. “I was thinking that there might have been something about an earth dragon’s body that they needed, something specific to them, like the scales were for the fire dragons. That the fae were able to split the mind and body somehow, I don’t know, maybe to control the dragons’ shifted forms?”

“Why would they...” He keeps looking at me like he’s about to be sick.

“Stop thinking of it.” I shake my head at him. “It’s not even possible. Many were taken before we brought the antidote over.”

Agate makes a slight sound. “That doesn’t mean it’s not possible... We weren’t able to undo the elixir, but that doesn’t mean that the fae didn’t know how to.”

Topaz jumps up. “Okay, this is making me feel sick. You don’t just split minds and bodies off. You don’t start living in another person’s body and push them out of it. Splitting is a... It’s...” His eyes widen, and I feel some realisation set in for him. “Fuck.”

“What?” I eye him, not sure about his change.

“Succubi and Incubi can shadow-walk. They literally split their minds and bodies off from each other. They’re still connected to their bodies, but their ‘spirit’ can travel great distances at a high speed. I’ve seen Kit do it.” He runs his hand through his hair roughly, making it stick out at all angles. “What if they do that? What if they split them off like they do in shadow-walking?”

I stare at him. Now I’m the one feeling sick... Splitting people’s mind and bodies off if they do it themselves is one thing, but to have it forced onto you? That’s a whole other issue. “Why?”

He pulls up his shoulders, making a face. “No idea, it just came to mind when you said that they could be ‘split’. But...” He looks at the map. “It still makes no sense. Why only earth dragons? Why not the other types? There are enough fire dragons here, so it wouldn’t make sense to just take earth dragons if it wasn’t specifically related to their abilities.”

“I agree.” I also eye the map. “We’ll have to figure it out some other way. Maybe Kieran can find more.” Then I look at the door. “How far are Gale and Lyell?”

Topaz checks his phone. “They’re on their way back. Should arrive at any moment.”

I nod. “Put the kids with Lapis. They should feel safer there.”

“What are you going to do?” His voice is careful now, but I simply shake my head.

“I’m going to...” I sigh. “I’m going to check with Kieran, see if I can maybe talk to Rune.” I eye Agate. “I’d like for you to come too. You’re the two most powerful earth dragons I know.” And the only ones I implicitly trust...

“Sure.” Agate nods, her eyes tired but also soft. “You’ll figure this out. You always do.”

I wish I felt so sure of myself. Before I can leave the room, Topaz takes my arm, stopping me.

“What about me? What do you want me to do?”

I look at him, leaning up, giving him a quick kiss before I step back. “Don’t go outside. Get more beds for Lapis’ room ready and see if the kids Lyell and Gale bring back need any immediate care. Then...” I have no idea what to ask of him. I’m still too wired of what just happened and any thoughts that he might be in danger... not a good thing.

His eyes soften, rubbing his thumb over my hand, squeezing softly. “I’ll keep the fort until you return.” He winks and my stomach manages to do a little flip.

“Sounds good.” I can’t help smiling and then I fully step back, already missing his touch.

Even though I basked in his nearness not too long ago, skin to skin, having him make me come, I still miss his touch and I know he can feel it too. But I can’t think of things like this, of selfish things like having his arms around me and hiding from the world for a little while, when I need to protect this town. When four people just went missing on my watch. Four people I was supposed to protect, and now they’re gone.

I stalk out of the room, up to the room where Kieran is. I need more information, lots more information, and I need it now.

Chapter Four

Topaz

I let out a frustrated sigh as I look around the room with the map and the piano, which Lyell played on before, where I found him with Sophia, sharing their hearts. I want to do things, help out in some significant way, but I have no idea how I can when Sophia is going to hunt me down if I even think of going outside. I understand her fear, I don’t want her to go outside either, no matter that she doesn’t consider herself a dragon, she still is, even a half-blood is in danger.

Then I hear sounds from down the hall, voices, footsteps, and as I walk out the room, I catch sight of Gale and Lyell, three kids at their side. Gale looks up, his eyes dark, as Lyell guides the kids into Lapis’ room.

Gale waits for me as I go over and heat flushes through me at his intense gaze. Fuck. Totally inappropriate right now... “Any change here?” His voice is low, his eyes on the people in the room, tracking them, guarding them, keeping them protected.

“No. Not much.” I also keep my voice low. “Sophia is with Kieran and Agate upstairs, trying to get more information. How is it out there?”

He shakes his head. “I’m good at hiding my tracks, but these guys... I’ve not seen this before.”

“Magic?” That would make sense.

“Some sort. It’s not the darkness magic, but I suspect that there are enough people trained at some form of cloaking magic that they can pull this off. I just have no idea how they make the dragons disappear. The kid also didn’t hear any panic or struggle. Just, parents stepped outside and they never came back in.” He turns, putting his hand on my shoulder, squeezing a moment. “I’m going to report to Sophia and then I’m heading back out, see if I can find traces they might have forgotten to hide.”

“Gale...” I eye him, meeting his gaze, but only nod when I catch the seriousness in his eyes, a sliver of worry in his mind. “She’ll want to know as soon as possible and I should go get some more beds for the new arrivals.”

“Yeah.” His hand slides off my shoulder and then he walks up the stairs.

I look after him a while longer, not sure if I feel differently about him because of the sex or if he really has changed in the last few hours. Then I shake my head and turn to one of the storage rooms, ready to grab another bed. It’s good we brought a lot of them, but we’re going to need more if this keeps up...

I sit on one of the desks pushed to the edges of Lapis’ family’s room, looking out over the quiet space. Everyone woke up when the new kids came in, the new kids upset and crying a lot, and it took a long time to calm them down. But they were tired, everyone was tired and they finally fell asleep a short while back. Lyell and Lapis are on the other end of the room, talking quietly. They seem to connect over taking care of young kids and the difficulties of it, and just in general over taking care of young shifters. While somewhat interesting at first, I quickly got bored with it when they started talking about how to teach kids reading and writing, Lyell being a teacher and all. That’s just… Not my thing.

The door opens and Onyx comes in. He glances at Lyell and Lapis and then spots me on the other side of the room and comes over. He sits down on the table next to mine, his eyes slowly going over the room, a slight smile on his lips. “I never thought I’d ever see the inside of this building. It’s always been closed off with magic, as far back as I can remember.” His voice sounds upbeat, but there’s something under it, worry.

“Didn’t you have a school? Maybe somewhere else, a different building, when you were growing up?” I glance at him from the corner of my eyes and his face falls as he shakes his head.

“No. Some of the adults would teach us things we needed to know, like numbers and such, and the rebels would help out too. They’d bring school supplies over from the werewolf kingdom from time to time. But I’ve never had, what do you call it, ‘traditional’ schooling. Just whenever people were able and knew things, they’d teach us. You? Where are you from? You look... well-educated.”

I can’t help chuckling at his tone, like he’s taking the piss with those last words. “I got an education, pretty posh too. I ehh...” There’s no use keeping this from him, and maybe it might do something good in the long run. “My family has always taken care of the dragon royal family, so we got a good education, same level as the royals. I finished college last summer.”

He lets out a low whistle. “College. I don’t think I’ve ever met a dragon who’s gone to college, at least not from around here.” Then his eyes darken. “Or the rebels, they don’t tend to have college degrees either.”

“I know. Sophia told me.” The moment I say her name, I know I shouldn’t have because his jaw sets and his eyes shoot to Lapis, anger forming in them.

“I wonder what else she told you. What else she—”

I hold up my hands to him. “She doesn’t talk about her past. Not much anyway. Until we were sent here, I had no idea she came from this area. I had very little idea of what she’d gone through while at the rebels, or before that. And since then...” I lower my hands when he doesn’t seem to be on the verge on another rant. “Since then, she’s only had good words about you and Lapis and what you do here.”

He jerks his head up, his eyes on the door, glaring. “I know that Lapis thinks Sophia only wants to take us out of here, away from our town, make us join the rebels or something.”

“And you?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t know Sophia like Lapis did. But Sophia has always only acted in ways that tell me that even though her ideas might be too much for Lapis, she means well and always manages to do good.” He looks at Lapis again. “When Lapis was hurt by Sera, Sophia wanted her to go with the rebels so she could see a good doctor at a hospital. Lapis thought it was just another way for Sophia to get Lapis, any of us, out of this town. So she refused.” He swallows hard, his eyes moving to the floor, hanging his head. “I hope you’ll never have to see anyone you love hurt so much that they can’t sleep, every movement shooting pain through their bodies, crying out in their sleep. And sharing those experiences, every one of them, helpless to do anything.”

“But you were there for her, you took care of her.”

He nods. “Sometimes I wonder if I should have pressured Lapis to go with Sophia, get help, and then return to us. But it’s no use to think of that anymore. That’s in the past.” He sighs.

I shake my head. “Give yourself a break. You’re what, eighteen? You can’t be more than that. The choices you, and Lapis, have had to make are things that people double and triple your age still struggle with. She’s alive, she looks healthy and she’s strong. You did the right thing.” We fall quiet for a while, and then I need to ask him something, something I don’t even really want to think about. “You’re both earth dragons, right?”

He eyes me, then nods.

“With earth dragons going missing, aren’t you afraid that they might come for you, either of you? What happens then?”

“Cole, the next oldest of us, will be in charge and he’s to bring everyone to Agate when we go missing. He can’t take care of them on his own. Agate will figure out what to do next, she always does.”

“You’ve talked about it with Lapis and Cole?” I can’t help my surprise, somehow. It feels so ‘adult’ for these kids, but then, they’ve not lived like kids in a long time.

“Yeah. When Gaia’s parents went missing, we came up with this plan. Cole isn’t an earth dragon, so he should be safe, now they’re no longer taking people for experiments and stuff.” He slides off the table, stretching. “I think it’s time for all of us to go to sleep. Sorry for kicking you out?”

I stand up too, following his example and stretching, my muscles way too tense. “No problem. I should probably do that myself too.” I go over to Lyell, tapping him on the shoulder and he looks up, surprised, like he didn’t expect me there. “Time to leave them alone for the night.”

Lyell eyes his phone for a moment, it’s past three in the morning, and then he looks at Lapis and Onyx before he nods, standing up too. “You’re right. We should leave you be. See you at breakfast, or lunch, whatever time any of us wake up again.” He gives them a soft and reassuring smile, before heading for the door. There’s some confusion and worry in him, though he doesn’t show it on his face, and he doesn’t seem to pull out of it as we leave the room.

When he closes the door and we’re in the hallway, I stop him. “What’s going on? You were having a very serious conversation with Lapis, at least from what I could feel of it.”

He nods, glancing back at the door and then nods his head to the room with the map and everything down the hall. “Let’s find a more private space, I don’t think we should talk about this in the open.”

Once we’re in the room, he closes the door behind him carefully before walking over to the table with the map, his eyes going over everything, but he’s not talking, still sorting his thoughts.

“Talk.” I step to the other side of the map, my eyes on him.

“Lapis has been telling me about how they’ve managed to survive around here. How the town takes care of its sick. What kind of relationship they’ve got with the different rebel groups. Giving me a better idea of how things are from the perspective of someone a little younger, someone who didn’t leave, like Sophia did.”

“Lyell...” I’m not going to have that argument with him, he’s not going to talk shit about Sophia for not staying here, and he quickly holds his hands up.

“I’m not blaming Sophia. For fuck’s sake, I can’t imagine how hard that decision must have been for her. Sophia did what she had to do, just like Lapis did by staying. I’m not putting any blame anywhere, just stating the facts. There are things that Sophia doesn’t know about because she hasn’t lived in the town full-time in the last decade. That’s all I’m saying. Their knowledge of the town is different, and we need both.”

He’s got a point. “And?”

“And I think we need to give this town a lot more credit for staying alive as long as they have.” He sighs, tapping at somewhere on the map. “She also told me the town has a ‘secret’ library here. It’s technically abandoned, but it’s still in use in some form. Lapis has been reading books from it for years, many of the people here do, even though it’s not kept up to date. I’d probably do the same, if I’d been in their situation. Anything’s better than nothing.”

“A library?” I blink, not something I expected. At least not one that appears to still be in use.

“Yeah.” He nods. “It includes a lot of old books, on many subjects. But there’s also a part that’s magically closed off, nobody’s ever been able to get into it. Curious, no?”

“Closed-off part?”

“Yes.” He smiles slightly. “Apparently it’s been closed for decades and nobody knows what’s in it. Theories range from some weirdo keeping their fantasy book collection in it, to it being a secret fae lab, to it belonging to some famous painter from a century ago and it being filled with priceless paintings, to the royal dragon family keeping their family pictures in it. But nobody seems to really know.”

“Sounds like we might want to check it out.”

“That’s what I thought.” He grins now. “I love me some history hunting.”

I grin back, shaking my head. Well, not like I should expect anything different from him... But I have to admit, it sounds interesting, hidden history of this town, whatever’s in it, it’s got to be important to someone.