12. Chapter 12
John was alone, but not. True, he had his own space and wasn’t staying in the clan house.
But that didn’t mean he couldn’t feel the clan around him.
His dragon senses—what little he had left—were very aware that they were living near a clan of dragons.
It had been a long time since he spent time around this many.
Hell, it had been years since he’d been around any dragons at all until Eric came with Megan to see him at his old cabin.
Then Tessa barged her way into his life.
And now that they had discovered she was a witch and she was able to interpret the scroll, she insisted that he was her teacher when it came to all things witch-y.
Yes, he was half witch, but after his grandmother threw him out as a child and he was raised by his dragon grandfather, John was definitely not the expert in spells.
Even though he had been the catalyst for the worst spell ever cast. The irony was not lost on him.
With Adam insisting on accompanying Tessa every time she showed up at his cabin, he’d had another dragon to contend with.
But this? The air crackled around him. He stepped out of the cabin and gazed up at the sky.
And that’s when everything came into focus.
A craving for that wide-open space above was fundamental to anything with wings.
As if called by his thoughts, a guard soared above him, his orange wings shimmering in the early morning sky.
A sky John hadn’t flown for over a century.
Even though he didn’t age, the curse still leeched his dragon powers away.
A double whammy he could thank his grandmother for.
John was the only living dragon who at one time had been able to turn into his full dragon.
First his dragon left him, but his wings remained as a consolation prize until they were taken from him as well.
Dragons born in the past century or so could unfurl their wings and fly, but they couldn’t turn into their full dragons.
And now in recent years dragons were losing their ability to fly and babies were being born without back markings where their wings should eventually appear.
If this continued, dragons would cease to be.
He swallowed. He would give anything to feel his wings unfurl and the air currents embrace him as he soared above the earth.
But he didn’t have time to wish for things that couldn’t be.
Instead he would break this curse so that others would once again feel their wings and, magic willing, their full dragons.
John walked around the cabin, taking in the trees cocooning it. He touched the closest tree, running his fingers over the rough bark. Trees offered a sense of permanence. Pushing up into the sky while being linked to the earth, something else that John didn’t have.
He was like a tree with failing roots—already hollow on the inside. It wouldn’t take long for him to topple.
An engine sound had his heart revving as he turned back to the small clearing in front of the cabin.
That would be Megan. She’d called earlier and asked if they could meet.
It had been wishful thinking that she would simply review all the journals and not have questions, but the idea of discussing them made him feel like he was sucking air into his lungs through a straw. However it needed to be done.
The UTV came through the break in the trees, but Sienna was driving it.
Megan sat beside her and waved cautiously at him.
They came to a stop, and Sienna put the vehicle in park but kept it running.
Was she just dropping Megan off? He should be happy about that, right?
Megan climbed out of the UTV and pulled out his backpack.
His hand twitched by his side before he stopped it.
He was so used to protecting that bag that it was second nature for him to reach for it.
Megan walked up to him. “Would it be okay if Sienna stayed? It’s perfectly fine if the answer is no. I just thought it would be good for someone else to hear our discussion as well.”
Did he want her there? If he had anything to hide, he sure wouldn’t have handed over the backpack to Megan.
And he trusted Megan. Sienna was a new variable.
One that was wickedly intuitive and kept him on his toes.
He didn’t like that she knew him as well as she did when they were still mostly strangers.
What would it be like if he let her further inside?
He looked over at Sienna. The longer it took him to answer, the more she fidgeted in her seat. Maybe she wasn’t as confident as he thought she was. And even though he normally didn’t care what others thought about him or his actions, he didn’t want her to think she wasn’t welcome.
And that was definitely new for him.
“She can stay.”
“Great,” Megan said before gesturing for Sienna to come. A brief smile graced Sienna’s lips before she shut off the UTV.
They headed inside and Megan set the backpack on the table. “Okay if I sit here?”
“Of course,” he said automatically. He kept standing since he wasn’t in the mood to sit down.
Sienna gravitated to the sewing machine again, running her fingers over the top before turning to face them. “I’m here to listen. I’ll keep quiet.”
John wondered if that would remain true, and almost said so but didn’t think they needed to start the meeting butting heads.
Megan smiled. “Thank you for sharing your notes with me, John. As you know, there is a lot of information here. I think discussing a few items with you will help me get some context on things before I keep studying them.” She unzipped the pack and pulled out the oldest book and rested her hand on top of it.
“From what I can see, you didn’t begin keeping notes until about thirty or so years after the attack. ”
He swallowed his emotions down. “Correct. I didn’t realize what my grandmother had done. That a curse existed until I stopped aging.”
Megan took out a new pad of paper and a pen and jotted down some notes. “So you lived all that time with your grandfather’s clan? You mentioned that you lived with him after the attack.”
“After my grandmother sent me away, my grandfather raised me as dragon. But I didn’t live with the clan for very long.”
Sienna walked over to the bookcase and looked at the books sitting on the shelf. Was the conversation boring her?
“When did you go out on your own?” Megan asked.
“The summer I turned eighteen. I left the village after my grandfather’s death. I was a constant reminder to the clan of what happened to my father, who was supposed to be the next leader.”
Megan frowned. “Wouldn’t you have been the leader after your grandfather died?”
His stomach twisted. “Normally, yes. If I were a true dragon. But no one wanted a half-witch, half-dragon leading the clan. And I didn’t blame them.”
Megan’s eyes filled with pity. He didn’t need that. He looked over at Sienna, who had stopped studying the shelf and instead studied him. She obviously was paying attention. But her expression was shuttered. No pity or sadness directed at him, which he appreciated.
“Where did you go after leaving the clan?” Megan asked.
“I traveled to other small human villages working odd jobs until a blacksmith took me under his wing and taught me his trade. I worked alongside him for a bit, then moved through villages and learned other trades. I continued to age until I almost turned forty, and then everything changed.”
“What happened?”
“I was trampled by a horse. I was on my own and laid on the forest floor looking up at the sky, wishing I could fly one last time before I passed out.” He swallowed.
“I woke up days later, and even though everything hurt like hell, I was able to get up and head back to the hut I called home. I knew something wasn’t right.
And that magic had played a part in it. I could feel it bubbling under my skin. ”
He started pacing. “After that point it seemed like I stopped aging. You have to remember back then, if you were lucky and survived through childhood, the average life expectancy was fifty to sixty. It didn’t take long for me to figure out I was different.”
Megan’s eyes widened. “So you stopped aging after you should have died. I wonder if you hadn’t had the accident, if you would have continued aging?”
“I’ve thought about that before. I’ve thought about a lot of scenarios. But we’ll never know for sure.”
“What did you do when you realized magic was involved?”
“I returned to the witch village. My grandmother had been dead for some time, and I approached a woman that had been a few years older than me at the time of the attack. She told me what I had feared. My grandmother had set the curse in motion to destroy dragons but had unknowingly cursed all magic as well.”
“Why didn’t your grandmother reverse it?” Megan asked.
“She withered away rather quickly after the attack. If she had lived longer, maybe she would have tried to reverse it.” At least he hoped that was the case.
“And the other witches?”
He sucked in a breath in an attempt to soothe the pain in his chest. “They tried over the years to cast spells to reverse the curse, but nothing seemed to work. And their powers were also slipping away. That was all the information she shared, and even that was given to me reluctantly. The rest of the village didn’t want anything to do with me and encouraged me to leave.
I didn’t know until years later that my grandmother had painted the Death of Magic painting. ”
Megan tapped her pen on the notepad. “And you started keeping your journals after your visit to the witch village.”
John nodded. “I tried to return to the dragon village, but they’d moved away. It wasn’t until decades later that I heard they had traveled to America to start over again. And the witches also.”
“Why do you think they both left England?”
“A fresh start? Maybe they thought the curse wouldn’t follow them to a new land. I felt like I needed to follow as well. How could I break the curse if I wasn’t near the people impacted by it? By the time I traveled to the colonies, I could still fly, but I had lost my dragon.”
Megan jotted a few more notes and then looked up at him. “You noted several attacks over the years.”
John crossed his arms. “Yes. I was attacked by different factions at first—witches and dragons who were alive when the curse was cast or told by their parents or grandparents what had happened. I started to hide. Changed my name and moved around so that I couldn’t be tracked.
After a few centuries the attacks died off as the truth of the curse was lost. And then about five years ago I was attacked by people who I now believe to be Templars. ”
“Why do you think dragons attacked you?” Megan asked.
“Same as witches. Because they see me as the reason why magic is dying.”
John glanced away before he could see Megan’s expression. She wore her heart on her sleeve, and he didn’t need her feeling sorry for him. He met Sienna’s gaze, and it was no longer shuttered. Anger shot from her eyes. His chest tightened. Did she feel the same? That he was to blame?
Megan cleared her throat. She put her notes and John’s journal in the backpack.
“I think that’s enough for now. I’m going to keep reviewing the journals.
I’m creating a timeline and I’ll share any observations I make.
” She stood and walked over to him, placing her hand on his arm.
“Thank you for sharing that, John. I know that wasn’t easy. ”
He nodded since his throat felt like a boulder was lodged inside it.
Megan smiled at him and headed outside.
Sienna stayed behind and faced him. “Can I ask you something?”
He’d answered enough damn questions for the day, but she had stayed quiet throughout the discussion and his curiosity got the better of him. “Yes.”
“What did it feel like to turn into your dragon?”
Hell. All the other questions were tiny pinpricks compared to this one.
It had the potential to flay him open. But something about this female made him want to tell her the truth.
“Turning into your dragon…it’s absolute freedom.
It’s giving yourself over to something bold and beautiful.
Something that hums under your skin and fills your lungs and heart like warm honey. ”
She stared at him. Her eyes glistened for a moment before she blinked and put on her clan leader poker face. “That sounds…incredible.”
“I’m sorry you haven’t experienced it.” And he was. More than she would ever know.
She walked to the door before turning around at the last second. “John, you are not the reason magic is dying. If you don’t believe anything else, believe that.”
Sienna stepped out and closed the door, leaving him alone. Which he normally preferred. But for the first time in centuries, it was the last thing he wanted.