Epilogue
Raziel
My shoulder was killing me. I’d spent the morning sparring with my sire because I woke up a bundle of fire.
My dragon wanted Creon. He wanted to take off into the sky and show ourselves for who we really were.
He took these moods and my inner beast knew it wouldn’t take long to fly from my family’s territory to where Creon lived.
I could be there before nightfall. Only I wasn’t going.
Rumors were starting to fly. Visions were being talked about by those with mystical sights.
So, instead I spent the day trying to one-up a dragon who was impossible to get anything by.
Sometimes I thought my sire, Star, had an advantage because he remembered his life as an elf and a dragon back when he was two separate beings.
Maybe those experiences worked on his muscle memory or something.
I had been alive over three decades and still couldn’t get a hit on him.
“It’s because you’re too in your head,” he crossed his arms as I drank what must’ve been my hundredth bottle of water for the day. “You want to win. You don’t need to win. I sort of like it that way.”
“Because you want to keep winning?” I huffed, falling back onto the ground and staring up at the cloudless blue sky.
“No, because I fought my scales to the bone to keep you from ever needing to win a battle. I want it to stay that way. Not just for you. Not just because of what you think you’ll do if you taste blood, but because that’s what I want for my kids.
I want all of you annoying little mini-mes to be able to rip heads off but never have need of the skill. ”
“How long are you going to stop me from going?” I asked him, trying not to laugh. He’d once flicked a teacher in the forehead when I was in middle school for calling me annoying.
“I’m not doing anything you didn’t ask me to do,” he shrugged. “You’ll go for real when you’re ready. When the time’s right.”
“It feels like I’m only half alive,” I admitted.
“You’re all the way alive. You’re just—It’s a form of homesick. I get it when I’m away from your carrier,” he said.
Dad knew who I was. He reacted so calmly when I told him that sometimes I wondered if he knew before I did.
“You’re my kid,” he shrugged, picking up my thoughts from the family link.
“I don’t care who you were before. You hatched from an egg I guarded.
I raised you. You’re mine. I used to be an elf named Mel.
I used to be a dragon named Erg. I still adore my past life best friend, and I still won’t buy cake from a bakery, but I’m me now and you’re you.
Though, I’ll tell you what I’ve told all of your older siblings, if you turn into a problem for shifterkind, I’m the solution. ”
I laughed. I didn’t know who Hans was this time but I couldn’t imagine murdering anyone.
Then again, I couldn’t imagine the leadership of my group forcing me to take a mate against my wishes and his will.
I liked to think I chose the parents I did because when I was still Uriel I felt so horrible and wanted to make it up to my pup.
“Hit the shower. It’s almost dinner time,” he said and started toward the house.
In the shower, I scrubbed at my sore shoulders. Had Dad changed out my training sword for a heavier one without me knowing?
“Ouch!” I fingered around my sore trap muscle. Why was my claiming gland swollen? It liked to pull this shit when I was around Creon, but I hadn’t been anywhere near my mate recently.
“Wrong side!” my dragon chimed off from inside his inner sanctum.
The scaley beast was right. Wait! Two? On the wrong shoulder? What had Creon done?
I reached for the sliding glass door of the shower but stopped myself. He was with Kodiak and Silas now. I’d given my blessing on that while I was dead. While I was pacing and snarling and trying to figure out how to obliterate my very soul without Frost or the Crow King’s consent.
“He knows,” my dragon whispered into my thoughts.
Even if he did, why would I gain extra claiming glands?
Was I bound to all of them now? Was this Creon’s way of letting me know he knew and he forgave me?
Was it the byproduct of my giving them my blessing?
I wasn’t sure how I felt about any of it, but one thing was clear – Creon probably knew I was back.
The only question that remained was – would he run for the hills or into my arms?