I gently massage my temples as I think back to the challenge. I surprised the shit out of the New England Coven, and they all assumed I was an extremely powerful witch. Most of them are still confused. The coven elders have been arguing about what I am since the challenge, and I’m not in any mood to disclose such valuable information. I’ve kept my dragon a secret for the last four hundred years, moving constantly to keep myself hidden. Hell, I even got rid of my Irish accent in favor of a fairly neutral American one. I still sort of hate myself for that decision. The New England Coven, without actually meeting me, had simply assumed I was a high priestess. Their ranking system within the coven is based on a witch’s aura, and considering mine is packed with powerful magic, it makes sense. The New England Pack, again without meeting me or discussing me with the local coven, assumed I was a latent shifter.
Nope.
I’m a dragon shifter. One of the last remaining female dragons on the planet, and to my knowledge, the only queen dragon remaining. Male dragons are rare, but females are almost unheard of anymore. Queens are, at least to the general shifter and witch population, a myth. We were extremely rare even when dragons were abundant. As a queen, I can harness and use magic as well as shift into a dragon. This makes me a pretty hot commodity to the male dragon populous.
Dragons are a matriarchal species, and as a queen, I’m at the top of the food chain. Being a queen’s consort is something alpha male dragons would kill and die for. Only a queen can produce another queen. Unlike every other shifter, a queen can only mate and reproduce with an alpha male dragon. Which, I feel, is shitty because all other species of shifters can mate with whomever the hell they want. I, on the other hand, am stuck with a macho, chest-pounding caveman. Well, I would be if I had a mate, which I don’t, thank the gods.
Unlike other dragons, who have heads roughly the size of a bus, a queen is smaller in stature. I’m only about eight feet in height when standing on my back legs. I saw How to Train Your Dragon once, and that Toothless dragon is pretty close to what I look like shifted. I’m lean and built for speed and stealth. And, as my fight with Morgan demonstrated, I’m stronger than I appear. I just happen to be faster than a male dragon, which isn’t that hard, to be honest, because they’re big and clunky. I can also harness my magic while in dragon form. Other dragons can only shoot fire. Pretty fire, but just normal, run-of-the-mill fire.
Queens have a unique ability. We can sense and kill archdemons. We were created for that task. My mother had been the last great battle queen, tucking her daughters, all queens, into hiding before she was slaughtered in battle by Malick, the oldest archdemon she had ever encountered, but she took Malick with her as her final act. My mother had put my two older sisters into a sleep-like stasis but ran out of time and couldn’t do the same for me, so she helped me flee Ireland instead.
I’m the only one of my siblings awake that I know of, and I have no idea how to wake my two older sisters, or even where they are. Once it became apparent that they weren’t going to awaken on their own, I started looking for them. I was attempting to research the spell my mother had used on them when I met Kelly and Olivia. There had been no way I could allow Morgan to continue selling females, so I stopped my research and kicked tainted alpha ass.
Which is how I am now both high priestess and alpha.
Rubbing my temples again, I try to fight the migraine that is steadily building behind my eyes. Morgan had to have been working with demons, though I hadn’t sensed any in the area leading up to my challenge of him. I don’t sense any now either. My challenge shattered my well-earned security, which is what I get for catching feelings and making friends. Gross. While I hadn’t used my magic outright during the challenge, the witches had been able to sense it building in my body, which demonstrated to them that I outranked all of them. They had peacefully named me high priestess, against my wishes, directly following the alpha challenge. The shifters had stood in stunned silence after I killed Morgan, shocked that I had been able to remain human the entire time. But the dominant energy I had been giving off made the entire town fall flat on the ground, even the witches buckled to their knees.
And then there’s the Council. I hadn’t been thinking, not really, when I challenged Morgan. A part of me knew I would need to report the shift in power to the Council, but that part of me had been small and screaming from a distance so far away it was a mere buzz in the background. The more emotional part of me hadn’t cared. In fact, that part of me had punted the rational, Council aware part of my brain to another planet. My instincts had screamed at me to protect the community. It appears my DNA finally kicked in after being dormant for centuries.
The Council is the united governing body of supernatural creatures dedicated to keeping the peace and holding back demons. They essentially took the place of queens after my mother died. The Council is currently run by an alpha male dragon, who is considered by shifters to be the Alpha of all alphas. The rest of the Council consists of highly powerful representatives of each species. I had been keeping my existence a secret from the Council before my challenge, fully aware of their nasty little habit of making rare species either vanish or assimilate.
The shrill screech of my cellphone startles me out of my thoughts. I stare at the screen for a minute—an unknown caller. Well, that’s never good. I hit the button to answer and put the phone on speaker.
“Hello?”
“Ms. McInnes?” a female with a light British accent asks.
“This is Attorney McInnes.”
“Please hold for Alpha Caleb O’Dwyer.”
Fuck me sideways with a cactus. That didn’t take long.
How did the Council know already? I hadn’t even had time over the last week to report the change in power. Someone else must have done it.
“Alpha McInnes,” a deep timbre rumbles through the speaker. He’s got a Scottish lilt that makes me shiver and sounds as smooth as a glass of aged Scotch. “This is a courtesy call to inform you that myself and two other Council representatives will be traveling to visit your pack.”
“Alpha, I—”
“McInnes, there is no room for discussion.” The line goes dead.
Did he just…?
Hang up on us? Yep. He did. Typical alpha male. My dragon snorts, and I can practically feel her eyes rolling.
Great. A visit from the Alpha of all alphas and the Council. There was no way this could end well. I kind of want to just bang my head against my desk, but that would only make my migraine worse. Instead, I lean down and open the bottom drawer of my desk, pulling out a bottle of whiskey. I don’t bother to grab a glass, choosing to pull the cork out and drink directly from the bottle.
I let the warm liquid soothe my insides. I need to let the others know. Dialing Kelly, I put the cork in the bottle and tuck it back in its drawer.
“Hey, Ayla.” Kelly’s greeting is chipper, which serves to just irritate me further.
“I’m glad you answered.” My tone is clipped, and I wince at the sound of it.
“You sound ready to kill someone. What happened?” A hint of worry creeps into her question.
“The Council. The Council happened.”
“What do you mean?”
“They’re coming here. Sometime in the vaguely near future. He didn’t really specify.”