Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Akhtar
“ H aaaah!” Akhtar awoke to the sound of chirping birds and the harsh glare of the setting sun piercing the thick branches and leaves shielding his naked body, tears streaming down his face. He could have laughed if it wouldn’t have come out bitter, how similar his circumstances were then and now, seven years apart from capture.
His body quivered from head to toe, still remembering the sensation of freefalling, of plummeting to his death with his sister pressed to his chest. Of his leg clipping the cliff, the near-fatal injury spewing blood everywhere. Of his desperation, calling on his half-breed blood to act, to transform, and then finally, the relief of soaring, of the only time his luminous white wings allowed him to take flight.
He had been so hopeful then, soaring above Lunaria, faint with the loss of blood but exhilarated by his triumph. His sister and he had escaped! And yet, it was all for not.
Three months ago, after a year on the run, hiding in neutral territory, the kindred war arrived on their doorstep. Then bounty hunters and slavers. Their victory ended brutally when Rikisha was recaptured by people worse than the fanatics. And now she was trapped in the Kindred Empire’s capital city of Kinev, helpless as her magic had been sealed away by her brother’s hand.
As he rolled to the side of his grass bed, Akhtar thought, Waking is worse than dreaming these days. At least in my dreams, my phantom lover greets me , with a glum expression.
He had been traveling on Harvest Road towards the capital, trekking through the sleepy hamlets that refused to be pulled into battle, populated mainly by humans whose borders butted up against the Kingdom of Wolveria. And those humans had long made truce with any power who took control of their lands. They avoided war, while Akhtar charged headfirst into it.
“Ouch,” Akhtar winced as he stood, the familiar ache in his left ankle and scarred leg jolting him fully awake.
Akhtar cursed his lousy luck. He had made the journey through the woods on foot, trading his skilled hands and muscular body for coin and food as he went, taking on odd jobs until he exhausted any opportunities in the tiny towns and villages he passed through.
He’d stuck close to Gem River to fish during the day after that and rationed his coins in taverns as best as he could. He was half-human after all, his white horns so tiny his mop of curly, sky-blue hair could keep them well hidden. His skin was still tan, but only because he was in the sun now. It would fade to its natural ghostly hue if he got inside a building again for long.
Either way, his sun-kissed features matched the villagers. Without his faint command of magic, Akhtar would have his horns sawed off and live among them. He took no pride in his dragon blood, which had brought only misery and death in its wake.
Akhtar would’ve done just that if Rikisha hadn’t blossomed into her pureblood as she matured. They had tried so hard, for so long, Mother’s last command to hide it never leaving them. They’d been diligent at whittling down her large white horns, a dragonkin’s symbol of power. They’d hidden her transformations with pills and snake oil potions. His sister even agreed to take a very expensive elixir, a suppressant that stemmed her omega scent and hid her powers.
All for nothing, for on the eve of her nineteenth birthday, He had come, the shadow of the shadow God.
He’d slithered from the corner of their cottage as Rikisha hid behind her older brother, and Akhtar waved his useless magic in warning. Nocturnos had demanded her womb as tribute, to be sacrificed so that he could bring forth his avatar in the flesh.
Akhtar had balked and ran away with his sister, and calamity had snapped like a hungry wolf at their backs ever since.
As one of the last Axeland, the clerics of that demon thought he would be successful in breeding, beneficial, and pleasing to their lord. That’s why they kept him barely alive for so long. After all, Akhtar was a half breed but mixed with the last of the frost dragons who once dominated the Nocturnal Mountains and had all but been wiped out across the land. Masters of shadow and light magic. Indeed, they were confident he would have been the vessel, tricked by tonics and Rikisha’s magic that he was pureblood.
Except, that was another lie. Rikisha was the pureblood frost dragon, one of the rarest shifting beings in the world, not a half blood mutt like Akhtar. And now she was chained to human meat meant to symbolize a truce between Empress Gloria and King Cassian of the defeated wolves. She would be served on a platter, literally, if he couldn’t reach her first. All because she rejected being violated by a devious God.
It made Akhtar sick, physically, puking his guts out into the meadow.
He rubbed his sore throat, still sticky with acidic bile, determined to rescue his sister before she met such a cruel fate. Shrugging on his grimy clothes, the omega checked his coin purse. It was enough to buy him a room for the night in the Village of Stardew Creek.
“We cherish our children, huh? What horseshit,” he grumbled, wondering how his childhood now seemed preferable to his life as an adult. Their abusers almost seemed loving when faced with such hopelessness, the old saying taunting him.
The Village of Stardew Creek was still a day on foot away. Akhtar would be just in time to intercept a caravan making its way to Kinev. Then, all he had to do was pay his fair share through his labor and what was left of his coin, and he’d have the protection of warriors and numbers, no longer fending for himself alone in the sprawling woods. That was Akhtar’s plan until he felt the presence of something chasing him a few days back.
Flashes of sharp golden-yellow eyes cooling into a heated coal-black gaze haunted him, a heady, masculine scent reminiscent of firewood tickling his senses, the ripple of brown muscle inspiring lust, the wave of fiery shoulder-length red hair, and enormous, curved black horns aroused his fear and adoration.
The flashes of this phantom stalker were everywhere and nowhere, disappearing like smoke when he looked too closely. It was a mystery he had no means to solve, waking to the riddle of who and what it was daily without answers.
“Watch over me, Goddess Lulana,” Akhtar ended his morning prayer with his usual plea, dropping to his knees and lowering his head toward the rising sun even though he was praying to her sister, the Moon Goddess. Even though he should pray to none of them at all since they had no control over their shadow-bound brother, it seemed.
Once back on his feet, the omega reached for the bag on his hip and grabbed a handful of berries to tide him over until he reached Stardew Creek.
Akhtar needed meat. He needed to feed on something befitting a maturing dragonkin with aching, elongating teeth. His lifespan was shorter, but at twenty-two, he was about two hundred in regular dragon years. Fully mature but still growing.
However, as he got closer and closer to his destination, that was the least of Akhtar’s worries. He felt the presence of purebloods growing by the hour, which meant he was crossing over “their” territory and couldn’t hunt.
If they caught him, they would kill him on sight. Pureblood kindred hated half-bloods. Taverns were nearly nonexistent this close to the battlefield, too, so Akhtar couldn’t stop for a bite to eat until tomorrow. And it would be many more days—a few weeks, give or take—before he reached the fortified citadel hosting the annual Lunar Carnevale, even if he could get onto a caravan.
If only he could fly, his wings now miniature caricatures of their former glory. Though, that wouldn’t help much. He’d be shot out of the sky. The only choice he had was to walk.
“I scented him,” a muffled, foreign voice grumbled within earshot, behind the omega where a hill swelled high. The voice was attached to a person still a reasonable distance away from Akhtar, picked up by his elevated hearing. “He is near, I promise.”
Akhtar’s whole body quivered. He could smell it on them, the moon-metal. It did nothing against him but was the telltale sign of dragon slavers and werewolf warriors, as flame dragons dominated the world now. Or, more accurately, they had more than a few dozen on Lunaria, unlike the decimated frost dragon clans.
“Damn it all,” he whispered, limping to the forest as his run was always stunted. “To think I’m sick on top of all of this shit.”
And he feared this sickness could be deadly. Dizzying spells of heat and body aches ravaged him nightly. The illness had stunted his progress, but complacency would set him back or get him killed. The road ahead was tough no matter what. So, Akhtar concerned himself with the more troubling fact that someone was genuinely chasing him. And they were closing in.
Who can it be? Who is chasing me? He doesn’t sound like the phantom who whispers sweet nothings into my ear…
Akhtar concealed himself in the forest, on the outskirts of the road, so close to his destination he could smell it, the scent of kindred pheromones mingled with humans’ earthy scent, baked goods, and ale strong in the air. A neutral town in a sea of warring kingdoms, queendoms, and empires. A similar city to where he hoped to build a home with Rikisha someday.
Therefore, I must live!
He whispered magic into the palms of his hands, and light fractured around him. The prism spell refracted natural light, and an onlooker’s eyes were misdirected, the colors too bright so that Akhtar could hide behind the mirage without notice. Like a sheet of ice catching sunlight, the omega was shaded by the rainbows of color in the world, hidden in the shadows of their forms.
And then he saw them, two hunters instead of one, and couldn’t suppress an icy huff of rage. The bastards standing in the way of Rikisha’s freedom were acolytes of Nocturnos, his mortal enemy. They wielded moon-metal short swords like the slavers and bounty hunters in the area to blend in, but the telltale tattooing peeking through their sleeves was a dead giveaway to those in the know.
Like me, he thought with a grimace. He snarled, then covered his mouth, coughs wracking his body and his bespelled hands shifted, crystals of frost following in their wake.
Tracked down and killed by bounty hunters would be more welcome than facing death at those fanatics’ hands. But neither could happen. Rikisha, his beloved sister, needed him.
Akhtar squeezed his fist and barely drew blood, his patchy memory of spell work more useless than ever before.
And I’m too sick to defend myself; my claws and fangs are puny and useless even when I feel whole.
It took effort for the frost dragon to keep his claws from retracting. The caravan was close. He couldn’t miss it. He was close to saving Rikisha, but the acolytes had to die. Did he have the strength to kill them?
Just as he was ready to hoist himself up and strike, pathetic claws, limp, and all, an arrow sailed through the air and pierced the first acolyte’s head. And then another struck true, killing two.
Just like that, dead! And their magic had been defenseless against their attacker as if they didn’t sense them at all.
Oh… Oh!
Akhtar’s eyes widened into saucers as a cloaked figure appeared in a plume of smoke, his black booted feet planted on their slumped head, yanking out his arrows and stuffing them into his quiver slung around his broad shoulder. Massive obsidian wings flapped and then folded, disappearing with magic. This strange hunter was just like his spirit stalker, only taller and more muscled if that were even possible.
It was as if he could sense Akhtar behind the veil, maybe even smell him through the spell. His sizeable red tail swayed, red and orange scales peeking through his collar shimmering, and golden eyes narrowed with…
The ice dragon groaned, shocking himself, his mysterious illness surging at the worst possible moment. The alpha grinned, for there was no mistaking his status, and he was almost positive he’d been spotted then.
Akhtar had to get away. And so, he did, fleeing, hoping the warrior was just defending his stretch of the road and would ignore a mere omega like him. The omega hoped against reason that the visions soothing him between his nightmares were just that, visions, a figment of his imagination.
But Akhtar had a sinking feeling, as he limped with all his might, hidden in the shadows of the world, that he’d attracted a much more significant threat than a deranged God and his merry band of lunatics.