I was having dinner with my parents, seven younger brothers, and two baby sisters when I felt the draw to my mate.
It was like the gods had smiled down on me. Six years after my emergence, my mate’s dragon had finally appeared too.
My mother had given birth four times since my emergence. I shared a room with all seven of my younger brothers.
The situation had been getting dire.
“Ezra?” my mother asked, looking across the table at me with wide eyes. “Is it happening?”
My limbs were heavy and burning. I had to go. I had to find her. My mate was ready for me.
“I have to go.”
“Yes! Go! My baby,” my mother sobbed, reaching for her two closest mates and gripping their hands. “Leaving us, forming his own flight. How can this day be here so soon?”
“You’re leaving?”
“Ezra!”
“Can I come with you?”
“No, take me! You won’t even know I’m there!”
I made my escape from the caves as my youngest sister’s wailing started, stripping quickly and bundling my clothes to carry in my teeth once in my black dragon form. I shifted on the platform outside the entrance to the den. It was the fastest shift I’d ever made, my dragon eager to get into the air, to find my mate.
It didn’t take long to get to where the draw was coming from. Unease set in almost instantly as I circled over the forested area below. Dragons lived on mountains. There was no mountain around here for miles.
There was nothing around here for miles.
Was she in the forest? Why would she be out here?
I landed in a clearing and pulled my clothes back on. A few moments later, a silver dragon hit the ground with a thud next to me. As he shifted, the green earth-dragon landed next to him, far more gracefully.
“I’m Hiram,” the silver air-dragon said, giving me a cocky grin as he pulled his clothes on. Pretty boy. Arrogant. Would probably cause me trouble. “I’m guessing you’re the Alpha.”
I nodded, keeping my eyes trained skywards as the red dragon circled, landing almost cautiously.
“I’m Levi,” the green earth-dragon said, pulling his shirt on. He had a quiet, peaceful presence. Appropriate for a dragon with an earth affinity. He’d balance out the cocky silver dragon nicely.
“And I’m Seff,” the red fire-dragon announced, standing a little further away from us, lacing his trousers. I tilted my head, beckoning him closer. He complied easily. Good. You could never be sure with fire dragons, their temperaments were the least reliable. Seff looked younger than the three of us and like his dragon had only recently emerged.
The blue water-dragon was procrastinating, staying in the air longer than necessary. I narrowed my eyes as I took in the sharp, icy spikes that surrounded his face, his pale blue eyes staring down at me with a mixture of recognition and disappointment.
If I remembered how to smile, I would have.
“Oren,” I boomed with all of my Alpha authority. “Land.”
The blue dragon bared his teeth as he landed as far away from us as possible in the small clearing before shifting back and pulling his clothes on almost aggressively.
This situation would be his worst nightmare.
“Ezra,” he gritted out. It had been years since I’d heard him speak. Since anyone had heard him speak.
“Oren. Meet Hiram, Levi, and Seff,” I replied, gesturing at the three males looking between us with interest.
“You know each other?” Hiram asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Oh, we go way back,” I confirmed, smirking at Oren. I hadn’t seen him in a few years, but there was no mistaking him. Our dark blonde hair was the same shade, though he wore his longer than I did these days. He was big, too. Not as big as me, but probably Beta material. “As he said, my name is Ezra. But I believe we have something more important we should be focused on right now.”
The others didn’t hesitate in agreeing. We had plenty of time to get to know each other — after we’d found our mate.
We moved east, letting the draw in our limbs guide us. It surprised me that our mate hadn’t come to meet us. She would have been feeling the same thing, though if she was going through her first shift then she may be in pain.
My poor love. I would care for her.
All at once, we bounced off an invisible wall.
“What the fuck,” Hiram muttered, reaching out with his hand and sliding it over the hard bubble that kept us from the forested area beyond.
“What is this?” Levi murmured, rapping his knuckles against it, head tilted curiously. “She’s on the other side of this.”
“She’s inside of it,” I corrected, rage bubbling in my throat. “This is fae magic. The fae have her.”
Only fae magic was that fucking sneaky.
I hated the fucking fae.
I wanted to burn every one of their stupid treehouses to the ground for daring to touch what was mine. For being so arrogant as to take a dragon. A gold dragon. The weakest and most fragile of our kind. The most special.
Revenge had to wait, though. For now, we had to work with some fae to free our mate, which was the most godsdamned insulting thing. Seff’s father, Ilia, who was in the Avalon Assembly and one of our most respected leaders, had recommended a fae investigator, Brently, to find a way in.
He hadn’t been much use either. Glendower Castell was a powerful fae who had warded the property so we couldn’t even see it, let alone get into it.
He had been little use until now. If the fae girl, Ffion, hadn’t happened to get in touch with Brently on the off-chance that he knew who the prisoner Ffion sensed was, we’d still be hanging around with our dicks in our hands, trying to figure out how to gain entry.
Ffion had already escaped imprisonment with the Castells. While she was cagey about it, we knew she was an empath. She’d told us she’d sensed a presence, a sadness nearby that she knew didn’t belong to a fae. If that presence wasn’t our mate, the gods were playing cruel tricks on us, but I was sure it was.
The draw always brought us back to the same place, our limbs pulling us towards our mate. It had to be her, and she was sad. That was fucking unacceptable to me. No mate of mine should ever feel sadness a day in her life.
Rage bubbled through my veins, and my fire magic licked over my skin, smoke pouring from my fingertips. We had one chance to break her out today, and half of our plan hinged on luck. It was infuriating.
The fate of my mate, my gold dragon, shouldn’t be left to chance. Her safety shouldn’t rely on some harebrained fae scheme to break into the property and disable the wards. Dragons were the most powerful, fearsome creatures in Avalon. How could there be any force strong enough to keep us apart from the being we loved the most?
Oren slipped silently into the room as he always did, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. He'd been talkative once upon a time, perhaps even friendly. Now, he barely opened his mouth. He blamed me for that, among other things. I hated being alone in a room with him these days. The tension in the air was uncomfortably thick.
Levi and Hiram appeared next. Their friendship had blossomed quickly over the past six months. When they’d first met, they’d been the most cheerful of our flight. As the months without our mate dragged on, they’d grown increasingly agitated. We all had. Today they were both silent, pensive.