Devoted to the Dragon (The Last Shifters #1)

2. Randi

Chapter 2

Randi

I unleash my fire, my throat warming and neck frills shuddering with the blast of heat. The funeral pyre bursts into flames, the white-and-blue sparks dancing into the rising dawn. The wolf guard sends a final offering to the moon, the chorus of howls bouncing off the mountains on the other side of the lake.

I stare at the ball of light and the tendrils of black smoke chuffing into the sky. Five wolves died in total after the dust settled in the club tonight. It’s becoming more frequent with each passing year as more wolves turn feral because they haven’t found their mates.

Vandera squeezes my hand and sighs. “We are losing too many. I need?—”

“You’ve already done what you can. Their fate is decided,” I say, resigned.

The wolves have always surpassed the krakens and dragons with their sheer numbers. They were made by Odin to be ground fighters, the army of mass. Many centuries ago, the Shifter Wars with the human knight crusaders decimated the great shifter species: the dragons, the krakens, and the wolves.

But even still, it only brought the wolves’ numbers to the thousands. For centuries, they haven’t so much thrived as maintained. Now, their numbers are dwindling as fewer wolves can find their mates. And no one knows why the omegas or the gods-given mating runes have disappeared.

My best friend wraps her arm around my back, her bangles tinkling as she rests her head on my shoulder and squeezes me tightly. “I know you’ve got that whole ‘jaded because I’ve stared down eternity’ thing going, but I’m not ready to give up yet. My wolves aren’t dying. Those who find their mates through my calling spell can bond, and Frenzy helps wolves without mates through their ruts safely. We’ll find a way to bring back the runes and the omegas. I found you, didn’t I?”

I lace my hand with hers, hugging her back. “You’re a squatter,” I say, tone dry. “You walked into my valley and never left.”

Two decades ago, the first thing out of bright-eyed Vandera’s eighteen-year-old mouth was, “Your magic is very loud. It keeps screaming at me for help.” That was followed by a trunk full of suitcases. Vandera doesn’t know the word no.

“You’re welcome,” she says smugly.

She’s absolutely right, even if she isn’t humble. When she came, I’d barely gotten the concept for Frenzy off the ground, and we were struggling to manage the ruts as wolves were beginning to turn feral. Her magic, her friendship—they turned it all around. With our combined magic—my scales and her spells—we were able to not only train humans to attend a rut but to mimic omegas’ pheromones and send the wolves into rut safely.

I thought it would give us time to find a solution to the problems, but we’re no closer than we were when we started. It feels as though everything we’ve built is set to crumble.

I will survive it. And that is the problem.

I always survive .

Each time, I claw my way back from the brink, let myself get close to people and build a new world—and time eats away at it until it all crumbles.

Lovers. Friends. They grow old. They die.

Over and over, they die .

And I watch.

They say dragons are made of fire, but I think at this point, I’m made of ice. Each new lifetime I live creates another layer of permafrost around my heart that settles over the last.

I thought this time it might be different.

“I really am grateful you’re here,” I tell her. The night has made me sentimental, pushed to the surface what I work so hard to keep buried. “I’m just feeling off.”

Vandera’s soothing herbal scent isn’t enough to dampen the smokey air, nor to ease my restlessness.

“You’re entitled to it. Five wolves aren’t something to forget, no matter how often the deaths are coming.” Her usually sunshine-soaked voice is as somber as I feel.

“My dragon needs some air. Why don’t you find your guys and go home? I’ll keep the vigil,” I suggest.

Vandera was the first to benefit from her calling spell, and her two wolves, Alden and Brooks, claimed her within days of her casting. Now, she boasts a record of ten sets of matched mates, Delia included. Finding a fated mate is the only real way to save a wolf from eventually turning feral without an omega. But the spell only calls to mates. They have to answer.

Vandera nudges my side and pulls away to study me. She is a natural beauty with golden-brown skin, long straight brown hair, and chestnut eyes flaked with warm honey. All this is wrapped in colorful fabrics and jangling tokens made of silver. “I need to go back anyway to check on Mattie and see how he’s holding up.”

“I think the situation triggered the mate bond with Colton and Austin,” I muse, mentally ticking up her match count to eleven.

It wasn’t a calm first night for the new human rut companion, but he seemed to be doing more than okay when I checked in with the closing staff. The two wolf guards for the club seemed overly protective and out of sorts, hovering over the man and refusing to leave his side.

Vandera wipes her brow with one finger and makes a smug sound. “Called it last week when Mattie arrived. Those two were tripping all over themselves to make him comfortable.”

There goes our newest rut companion . But at least another two wolves will be saved, even if shifter pairings with humans have yet to produce any omega pups.

Brooks, one of Vandera’s mates, calls to her from the circle of gathered wolves.

She pats my cheek as if she’s the one who is lifetimes old. “Have faith, Di. The others will come.”

I shove away her belief and harden myself against that hope, shooing at her to get going. I don’t have the heart for getting into it with her tonight.

The crowd disperses, but I don’t go with them. Instead, I watch the blazing light drifting on the lake's surface. I don’t know how long I stand there, the dawn rising, before Fennik’s warm scent reaches me. I turn to see him watching from the tree line.

He levels me with his intense silver eyes, prowling toward me. For a moment, I forget all about feral wolves and dying shifters. I see only how the dark slashes of his eyebrows furrow in concern. It’s past late, and his meticulous daily shave has been replaced by salt and pepper.

His angular face is a study of contrasts. The dark eyebrows and goatee are stark against the white scruff on his angular jaw.

He doesn’t say anything as he encroaches on my space. He is all wolf now, unable to hide his wildness. I have the urge to run my palm along his stubbly jaw to see if it’s scratchy or soft. I ache to know if it would burn when his lips tease my skin.

His scent creates a thick blanket, cloaking me in the heady rush of his dominance, and all I want to do is submit, to give him what we both crave. I shift subtly, trying to ease the emptiness the wolf in front of me ignites.

“The newest batch of recruits will arrive within the hour,” Fennik says, voice like fire crackling from a hearth.

I want to close my eyes at the deep, rich sound. It hurts, the way it makes my heart sing.

He steps closer, spearing me with his eyes. “This time, you will take another for your personal guard. We’re having too many nights like tonight, and I refuse to leave you vulnerable.”

“The club guard handled the situation fine,” I scoff, even though the mention of my personal guard is a sopping blanket that douses my fire.

My dragon whimpers, her claws sharp in my mind as she lashes out, sending a shockwave of grief through my body that makes my muscles freeze.

Before Vandera arrived, I lost too many wolves. Even the thought of losing Fennik guts me. How am I ever supposed to accept another in my inner circle?

Fennik has been with me for the last thirty years. A blip in the grand scheme of time. He was the youngest among the first of the wolf guard, sent as part of the alliance when I came to the wolves with the proposal for a rut bar. Fennik was a boy then, barely reaching his twenty-first year. He is also the last of my personal guard. The only survivor.

“I refuse to bury another,” I hiss, my throat burning with unshed fire. Tendrils of smoke billow from my nose. I’m at my limit for loss today.I ignore Fennik, turning back to the lake.

“The Wolf Council will know about the birth soon enough if they don’t already. What you and Vandera have made here is the closest thing to a solution to the lack of omegas. You stave off the rut and find suitable mates with humans. The Council will want full control.” He steps into my line of sight, crossing his arms over his broad chest, bulging muscles tugging at his shirt sleeves.

I brush past his infuriating allure, turning back toward the forest and town.

He tugs on my elbow, twisting me toward him.

“And whose side will you fall on, Councilman?” I spit the words, glaring at him, angry all over again that he isn’t allowed to be mine, that I have to ask this question in the first place.

His eyes flash with a glint of his wolf. The air around us thickens with his amber scent, spicy with anger. “You dare ask me that?”

“You aren’t just any wolf,” I say, my voice now steadier than I feel. I have never questioned his allegiance, but the wolves’ future has never been so bleak. “You’re a member of the Council and represent the wolves’ share in this club. Your people are dying. I would be a fool not to question it.”

“No, I’m not just any wolf… Dammit, Randi.”

He spins me in his hold until I’m looking up into eyes so dark they make the silver center glow like a sliver of the moon. He beats his chest with his fist, right where his guard tattoo lives. His expression is fire and determination, but I feel the plea in his eyes.

I can’t answer it, no matter how much I wish I could, because I knowif I give him anything, I’ll give him everything. And what will be left when he’s gone?

It’s funny how centuries can pass like seconds while some decades take infinities. It feels as though I’ve spent lifetimes with Fennik Weston. But the truth is that if he doesn’t go feral without a bond, I’ll only get another hundred years if I’m lucky, and that will never be enough.It’s the worst cruelty, knowing Fennik is here but he can’t be mine.

Why? Why would fate send me one mate? Why, when it takes at least three mates to form a dragon bond? And why send him when the wolves are dying?

It feels as though I’m being punished, forced to live beside him and not have him. The horror of it is enough to make me want to rage and scream because no matter how much I love him, no matter how much I want and crave him, he will grow old and die without the bond. And there can be no bond without the horde. All in a horde awaken or none do.

His thumb brushes against my cheek, the slow touch as hypnotic as any of Vandera’s spells.

“My wolf has only ever pledged allegiance to my mate.” His voice is sure and smooth, like the first sip of coffee in the morning.

Even his promise isn’t strong enough to push back time.

My dragon remains restless inside my chest as she watches, still unwilling to claim him. Think of the pain of losing our wolf brothers and dragon sisters . Accepting a mate without the horde? A single bond will never take. All mate bonds must be completed before the end of a full moon, or the bond will break. It could kill him.

My heart splinters, little bits getting lost in the swell of hopelessness. Though my dragon feels deeply for Fennik and is pleased by his renewed pledge of loyalty, she will not entertain the idea of a mate bond without all my mates. It’s too risky.

“You know it’s not to be,” I remind Fennik, my words thin and flat.

The words strike anyway, landing a blow that ricochets across his angular face, and for a moment, he is more wolf than man, lost to his wildness.

I know I hurt him by keeping him away. I don’t know why he doesn’t rage and yell, tell me I’m awful. Because I am. I’m cold. Distant. But no matter how much I hate myself for it, each time I look at him, I see a future where I’m alone.

When Fennik first came, I was so hopeful. I let him get close. Closer than most. And for a moment, I believed it was finally time for me to awaken as an omega, that my horde was coming.

But they didn’t come.

Then in a single night, all of my guard but Fennik died when ferals turned Frenzy into a massacre. After that, all I could think was that he would die too and leave me. I couldn’t bear it, so I created these canyons and valleys between us to protect us.

He reaches across the distance and pulls me into his arms, his voice dropping. “You’re mine. You’ve always been mine. No matter how much you deny it.”

His lips brush against my neck, down the collar of my satin blazer. The scruff is as I imagined, the raw burn lighting a trail straight to my center. It’s sweetened by the soft brush of his lips on my neck. He has never been so bold, and I close my eyes, taking in the comfort of being in his arms.

But before I’ve had my fill, I force myself to pull away. Giving in to him will only lead to more heartache for everyone. With strained detachment, I reconstruct those carefully crafted boundaries between us.

Even to my ears, my voice is cold when I give my commands. “Begin evaluating the newest wolves as soon as they arrive. Determine their loyalty to the Council and their reasons for wanting this assignment. I’ll train them as always, but the guard remains unchanged.”

I let my dragon take over. I’ve barely gotten my blazer off and my dress over my head before the shift begins. My muscles ache with the welcome heat of the change. I sprout wings and claws as scales take my skin.

“We’re not done talking about this.” Fennik’s growl of disappointment follows me as I launch into flight with a burst of fire.