Chapter 6 #2
We were not given a choice when the alpha started shifting into his dragon scales once again.
There was not nearly enough room in here for him in that form, so we all ran for the door and into the hallway.
That was our mistake, though, because there was the old man that came into our rooms and stood there staring at us, and he was not alone.
The weird one that had been the one to give us the food that had been tainted was with him.
We screamed and rushed back into the room. Our cries caught the attention of the alpha. The room was all but gone, the ceiling crumbled on the floor, and the outer wall was gone.
“Behind the alpha,” Lukas said, and we all ran under a black wing while the dragon tried to turn in the room.
The old man stopped just inside the door, his eyes growing large at the sight of the massive dragon in front of him.
I heard the familiar rumble in the chest next to me and pushed the others closer to where the wall had once been just as there was a blast of heat and a loud, angry roar.
Loud screams of pain quickly died. The scent of burnt flesh caused me to wrinkle my nose, but I did not fault the alpha even a little.
If I’d been able to torch them, I would have, as would the others with me.
The alpha moved again, simply walking out of the missing wall, then spreading his wings. We watched, enthralled by the beauty of one so majestic and graceful for his size.
“He is not like us, is he?” Elias asked.
“I don’t think so, no,” I said. I moved to the edge of the wall and looked out, watching the dragon as he circled around and came back to us. He was large enough to land on the ground and allow us to carefully step out onto his wide shoulders and sit down.
“How are we going to hang on?” Elias asked.
“I’m not sure. Tightly. Hang on as best as you can,” I called out from the back. My arms were still chained together, as were Lukas’s, but we did the best we could. A smooth jump and two flaps of his wings, and we were airborne.
While I expected the alpha to fly us away, he instead circled around, carefully landing on the ground just at the tree line.
When he lay down and leaned to the side, we all made a noise as we slid off the back of the dragon.
He circled around, sniffing at Lukas’s wrists, and when he opened his mouth, Lukas placed the chain near the shackle on his wrist in the mouth of the dragon.
A quick bite had the chain breaking, and with it this time, the shackle.
Lukas cried out in pain, falling to the ground. We all moved closer, ready to help if we could.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“I felt a pull. One that felt like it was ripping something from inside me,” Lukas said. He held out his arm, revealing the dark mark on his wrist. I quickly looked down at mine, but the shackles were on too tightly to see anything.
“Do you want the other one removed, Lukas?” Wilhelm asked. He was staring at the dragon, who was looking at…me.
“I want mine removed,” I said, volunteering.
I didn’t know if I would feel the same, but I did not care.
I simply wanted them gone. I held out my arms, wondering if the alpha would agree to help me get mine off.
When his mouth parted slightly, I walked closer.
I held my arms upward, placing the edge of each shackle within the dragon’s bite.
I took a deep breath, kissed the scaled snout in front of me, and closed my eyes.
When the alpha bit down, I cried out when I, too, felt as if something were being ripped from inside me. I fell to the ground, immediately surrounded by the others, and a dragon’s head pushed against my chest. I weakly reached out, touching him.
“Thank you, Alpha,” I panted out. When his nose pushed against me, I felt something I had not felt in too long. My dragon was just under the surface, more than ready to come out and say hello.
“It’s the shackles. Somehow, they have kept us from shifting,” I called out to the others as I tried to sit up.
With Lukas’s help, I sat, picking up the pieces of the shackles that had been on my wrists for so long.
They looked like nothing special, just black metal that had been locked into place.
Only, they weren’t locked. They were somehow fused together.
“Will you bite the other one of mine off?” Lukas asked. The dragon alpha nodded once and opened his mouth just enough to get the shackle inside. Lukas called out and fell, just as I did, when the alpha bit and the shackle fell to the ground.
“I don’t understand,” Elias said. “Why is it hurting?”
“It feels like something is being ripped from deep inside your body,” I told him as I crawled over to where Lukas was lying on the ground. I ran my fingers through his hair; he offered a pained smile. “It only lasts a moment,” I told him. Lukas closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
I heard Wilhelm cry out, and then Elias was crawling over to him, offering help if at all possible. That left only Elias, who didn’t look as if he was interested in getting his removed.
“Come on, Elias,” Lukas said as he sat beside me. “We need to leave, and I don’t think the alpha is going to do so until yours are gone.”
Elias sighed and held out his arms, turning his head toward us, his eyes closed tightly.
I groaned. “Elias, you have to put them in his mouth,” I said as I crawled to them.
When I got there, I carefully lifted Elias’s arms, placing them where they needed to be.
I watched the large dragon eyes as he effortlessly closed his mouth, effectively cutting the last set of shackles from us.
Elias cried out loudly, collapsing back against me.
I held Elias for a moment as the alpha once again shifted back into his human half.
“Ack. I have never seen someone shift that fast,” Wilhelm said.
I glanced at my friend and shook my head. Me either. The alpha walked off, leaving us just at the edge of the trees.
“I guess that’s it? We’re on our own now?” Lukas asked.
I stood up, pulling Elias with me.
“We owe him our lives, but he owes us nothing. We should be grateful he came to us for whatever reason,” I said. I wrapped my arm around Elias’s waist and started walking. I had no real clue which direction was home or even if we had a home to go to.
“Home is that way,” Wilhelm said, pointing in the other direction.
“I will take your word for it. I do not even know what day it is.” I changed direction and started walking. My dragon did not like that I was leaving our mate behind though.
“We are just going to leave him behind?” Elias asked, his arm still around my waist.
“He left us and disappeared into the woods. He did not even give us his name,” I said.
“It’s Aleric, mate. Where is it you believe you are going without me?”
I froze, slowly turning to once again look at the alpha that called to my dragon. Aleric. My mate’s name was…very fitting.
“You left without saying a word,” I said sternly.
“I needed to retrieve this.” He held up a satchel before dropping it back to his side. “Where were you taken from?”
“There is no name for our village. We were up near the sea, just a dozen or so families that make up our thunder,” Wilhelm told him.
“We are just north of Brandenburg now. I will shift, and you can ride on my back once again. I will take you to the sea north of here. If there is no name, how am I to know where to return you to?”
“That was the hope of our alpha. He did not want others to be able to find us.” Which had been both a blessing as well as not. So many of us had missed out on being able to meet others like us.
“I will take you in that direction. If you feel strong enough to shift and fly, I will trust you to guide me in that direction.”
“Do you know who took us? Or why?” Elias asked. He had moved over to Lukas and was now hanging on to him.
“I know not the why but know of the man. His name was Feiedrich Konig. I do not know what magic is happening here, but he was human. How he was able to capture four dragon omegas, or why, I am not sure. He will not be able to answer any questions though.”
That made me feel better. That man did not deserve to live. I tilted my head, watching the alpha that had twice now called me mate. That meant he was claiming me, right?
“We must fly. I will need to be out of the air by sunup, and we do not have much time.” The man before us changed before our eyes, tan skin being replaced by midnight-blue scales, the body growing in size that should not be possible.
When the dragon—no, Aleric—lay down once more, I grabbed the satchel he’d dropped, and we all climbed onto his back.
I could feel my dragon, but I knew I had not had nearly enough nourishment in the past weeks or months to shift, let alone fly to the sea.
Once we were situated, Aleric stood, jumped, then flapped his wings, taking us high into the sky with his powerful wings in no time.
I held on as best as I could, but I somehow knew my mate would not let any more harm come to me.