Chapter 4 #2
Our ceremony was scheduled to take place on the bluffs overlooking the ocean.
We were a water clan, our strength drawn from liquid, especially the ocean.
We had to live near large bodies of water.
It was part of the reason I’d chosen Harvard and a hospital in Boston.
It was right on the Massachusetts Bay and kept me near the sea.
We walked to the designated shifting spot. Our clan wasn't limited to shifting only during clan shifts, but if we were going to all do it at the same time, we had to have a cover.
That was where our clan witch came in. Long ago, dragon shifters and witches teamed up. We gave the witches protection. Real witches survived the witch trials, Salem or otherwise, and our clans tried to help as many of the humans as we could as well.
As we crested the hill, I breathed a sigh of relief when I caught the view of the ocean under the moonlight. “I missed this,” I whispered. There was nothing like this view, not anywhere in the world I’d been so far.
The rest of the clan followed us, some coming from the forest, some from the nearby fields, and a few flew in, shifting back to their human forms and landing on the cliff. My mother and father waited at the peak of the cliff, ready to get started.
“You got this,” Jace said.
I squared off my shoulders. I’d been waiting a long time for this. “I do have this.” As I nodded at Jace, I noticed Sammy, our clan witch. She sat in a lawn chair at the edge of the cliff. We couldn’t see it, but all of us were under a large bubble of protection. A ward.
My father put his arm around me as we faced the clan. “Tonight, we pass the alpha energy, in a time-honored tradition dating back to…” He looked at me with an amused look on his face. “The beginning of time?”
The crowd chuckled as they finished assembling in front of us, and as Dad talked about his time as the clan alpha, I looked at the people.
My people. Soon, it would be up to me to protect them, make sure they thrived and succeeded; everything.
Their survival as dragons would be on my shoulders, at least until I had a child and that child took over as alpha.
I secretly hoped it was a girl. We hadn’t had a female alpha in a few generations, the firstborn coincidentally having been a male.
It looked like everyone had come, from the oldest—my mom’s great-aunt, Gertrude, 103 years old—to the youngest, Tessa’s sister’s new baby boy. Tessa held him off to the side, rocking him and patting his butt as she watched my father. She’d be a great mom one day, no doubt, just not of my children.
“Anthony, are you ready?” Dad asked.
I stepped forward and smiled at everyone.
“Thank you all for coming. I know I’ve been away for a while, and I appreciate that you’ve all still supported me.
And to everyone who sent cards and emails and such over the years, you’re so appreciated.
It felt amazing to know I had the support of everyone here at home.
I hope I’ll prove to be as strong a leader for you as my father has.
” I wanted to keep it short and sweet before the actual handing over of power.
Dad took my hand and dropped to one knee. I had no idea how this would work. Dad always told me it was tradition for me not to know, that his father hadn’t told him, and the clan members who had been around at that time were sworn to secrecy.
“Anthony Mason, I submit as your beta. I will follow your guidance and will in all things. I trust you to lead our clan and make decisions for us all. You are now my alpha.”
The rest of the clan followed suit, starting with my mom, and ending with Great-Aunt Gertrude who slowly lowered herself with the help of her cane. “We submit as your clan,” they intoned as a group. Had they planned this beforehand? How did they know what to say?
“We will follow your guidance and will in all things. We trust you to lead our clan and make decisions for us all. You are now our alpha.” As the words faded, the energy in the air shifted, and a weight laid on my heart.
I knew, at that moment, that it had happened.
I was now their alpha. The burden settled heavily in my soul.
Not a bad burden, but there all the same.
They rose and stared at me in silence. “Thank you,” I whispered.
Dad got to his feet and held out his hand. “That’s it.”
I laughed and looked around as the hundred-odd clan members closed in on me. “That’s it?”
Aunt Gertrude cackled. “Now, you must command all of us not to tell the next alpha.”
“But why?” I asked.
“The pressure of the oncoming ceremony is enough,” Dad explained. “Your child, when he or she becomes alpha, needs to take it seriously. But it’s nothing major. There are no bangs or flashes. Responsibility comes to us all, son. And now the biggest one is yours.”
“Thank you all,” I repeated. “I know this is typically a hereditary thing, but it means the world that you all have accepted me. Unless something has changed, we’ve had no requests for transfers?” I gave my father a quizzical look.
He shook his head. “None.”
That warmed me. “There will be changes,” I said.
“As with any new alpha. I hope to take the clan into the digital age, find ways for us to be modern and in touch with the rest of the world, but all that can wait for another day.” I didn’t mention other ways I wanted to progress the clan forward, either.
Like mating with humans. That could definitely wait until after my very first night as alpha.
“For now, let us shift and enjoy our time together!” I yelled as my shift began.
My dragon erupted, my clothes disappearing, thanks to a spell put on me at birth by Sammy. It wasn’t a completely necessary spell, but it made life easier. Sammy had invented the spell herself and I knew she’d shared it with few other witches. She was a little proprietary.
I turned and ran for the cliff, trusting our beloved Sammy to cover me as I launched myself into the air and roared. The ocean below kicked up, the frothy waves already volatile turning violent as they reacted to my innate magic and my connection to the water.
Flying high before looking back, I watched my clan follow me, launching into the air and circling below me, frolicking both with each other and the ocean. They dove into the waves, coming up with mouthfuls of fish and sea creatures, shooting arcs of water out of their mouths.
Sammy walked to the cliff, holding the only baby our clan currently had.
There had been a time when we’d had several, and the mothers and fathers took turns watching the children or flying, but at the moment it was only young Wallace, watching us fly with his onyx and golden eyes that all dragon babies had.
My heart full of pride, I joined them, and we flew late into the night, wild and free.