Fated for the Firedrake (Shifters of the Four Kingdoms #1)

Chapter 1 Kael

There was a thief in my tower.

I sat hunched at my writing desk, half-asleep, the leather of the chair cold and stiff beneath me. My fingers worked to sharpen a quill, the repetitive scrape against the small blade a futile attempt to settle my restless mind. The open journal before me lay blank, its pages mocking me with their emptiness.

The forest stirred around me, murmuring secrets in the language of shifting branches and rustling leaves. The moon hung heavy in the sky, its light spilling silver over the snowy landscape, casting long shadows that crawled up the jagged walls of the tower I called my home.

Or my prison.

The faint smell of wax and ink mingled with the cool draft that seeped through the ill-fitted stonework. I’d left the fireplace untended tonight; a fire’s glow might attract unwanted eyes. It didn’t matter that I was miles from the nearest town. Paranoia was second nature now.

The scrape of quill against the blade paused as my ears caught the sound.

At first, it was a whisper, the faintest creak of wood bending beneath weight. Then, more distinct—the muffled rustle of fabric against a wall. A silence followed, then came the sound of a flint being struck.

I straightened in my chair, listening intently. My senses sharpened. The scrape of my chair’s leg against stone as I stood felt louder than thunder. The air in the room thickened as my instincts roused, my heart pounding against the cage of my ribs.

This wasn’t the first time someone had dared to enter this forsaken tower. Hunters, vagrants, or children on dares—curiosity brought them here, always to their detriment. None had returned.

Not because of me, I reminded myself sharply. But because the forest is merciless.

My superior hearing helped me make out the sound of a footstep, slow and stealthy.

My blood ran cold, then surged hot. Even as I tried to tamp it down, rage bubbled to life in my veins, forcing an instinctive urge to roar and leap at the unknown thief’s throat for daring to step into my domain—

No. I was no unthinking beast to be ruled by my instincts.

The sting of my claws pricking my palms brought me back to myself, and I forced my fingers to open before I could lose my senses. I closed my eyes, willing the magic to settle, the transformation to subside. The beast stirred beneath my skin, hungry and impatient.

Steady, I told myself, and just like that, I could hear my old Sergeant’s voice again, as if Varshid was standing beside me on the eve of battle once more, even though he’d been dead for nearly two years now.

Steady, Kael. Whatever awaits us, we’ll face it with a cool head.

I had to remind myself—I was not an animal. Not yet.

My hand brushed the thick wool of my cloak as I swept it from its hook, fastening it over the plain tunic and breeches I wore. The garments were rough but serviceable, the kind a farmer might wear. No insignia, no embellishments to mark me as anything but a nameless man in hiding.

The thief had stopped moving. A faint hiss reached my ears—the unmistakable sound of flint striking steel. Candlelight. My pulse quickened.

I moved to the window, pressing my back against the cold stone wall. Snowflakes floated lazily on the breeze, landing on my cheeks and bare hands as I calculated the distance. The floorboards below creaked again, heavier this time.

I acted.

Swinging one leg over the ledge, I felt the night air rush against my skin as I eased myself down the side of the tower. My fingers found holds in the crumbling stone, muscles stretching with the effort. I dropped silently to the window below, fingers catching the sill to steady myself.

I landed on the floor in a crouch, my vision switching to adapt itself to the candlelight.

The room was empty. The faint flicker of a newly lit candle cast warm light over shelves groaning under the weight of ancient tomes, their spines cracked and faded. An iron cauldron sat in one corner, cobwebs stretched across its rim.

Where was the intruder?

The soft pitter-patter of footsteps told me that the thief had been alerted to my presence. They were on the stairs, trying to escape. I sprang to my feet and looked out of the window to see a cloaked figure emerge from the doorand rush away into the woods that surrounded my tower.

A smile split my face, my fang digging into my lower lip.

This thief would find out they couldn’t outrun me .

With a snarl, I turned, leaping from the window into the cold embrace of the forest. My boots landed soundlessly in the snow, and I straightened, scanning the treeline. There—a flash of movement. A figure, cloaked and stumbling, fleeing toward the shadows of the woods.

Adrenaline surged, igniting something primal within me. I gave chase.

The night came alive as I sprinted, my breath leaving clouds in the icy air. Snow crunched underfoot, the sharp scent of pine mingling with the earthy decay of winter’s grip. The thief’s steps were erratic, clumsy, snapping branches and rustling the undergrowth.

Easy prey.

A part of me thrilled at the hunt, muscles coiling and releasing with every leap, my senses heightened. Moonlight silvered the branches, the shadows of trees forming a canopy overhead. I bounded into the upper boughs in one leap, relishing the stretch in my muscles and the pounding of my heart as I exerted myself. I hardly allowed myself to run this way, legs pumping and the breath whistling through my lungs.

Freedom.

For a moment, I allowed myself to revel in it—the wind whistling past my ears, the pulse of my heart matching the rhythm of the forest. But freedom was a fragile thing. A stolen thing.

It was too dangerous in the daytime, when anyone could see me, all it would take was one villager with a loose tongue, and I would be a prisoner again.

But the moonlight that silvered everything was safe, it cast dark, deep shadows that I could hide in as I chased the intruder. I put on a burst of speed, running unnaturally fast with the help of the magic in my veins. I was never been quite sure how I called upon my powers, I had been born without magic, but now, I used it instinctively whenever I needed to call upon it.

Yet another way my life had changed after I’d joined the war.

I’d joined to protect my country and my town, but in the end, I’d been just another na?ve recruit who had bought into the lies told about war.

And like all the other young boys in Drakazov who had joined the army, when the call came for war, I’d marched off to the battlefields of our not so friendly neighbor, Telluria.

Just like all the other soldiers in my regiment, sent off to fight and die for their country and their Tsar, like good little windup toys.

None of us had any idea what we were walking into.

It had been a bloodbath.

The Tellurians had s who knew magic like we had never seen. They defied nature, turning animals against us and controlling the weather.

The worst of it had been the dragons. The firedrakes. These mages had captured them and bound them with dark magic. They’d set the creatures against us, all teeth and claws and fiery death. We were outnumbered and outmatched, and most of us had perished.

I was one of the unlucky ones who had managed to survive as a prisoner of war.

My hand went automatically to the pendant at my throat, a nervous habit I’d picked up. I clamped down hard, making the sharp facets of the gem stab into my hand. The prickle of pain helped me push away the memories that threatened to assault me—of my time in captivity, of the tortures I’d overcome.

Closing my eyes, I took in a lungful of cool, clean air. I was free of those torments in the mage’s lab.

I was free .

And I needed to make sure I would never be caught again.

Which meant catching this thief, and making sure no one knew about my presence in this town.

Ahead, the thief stumbled, their cloak snagging on a branch. They swore under their breath, and the sound made me grin.

Within moments, I had them.

I jumped in a free fall, tamping down on the instinctive temptation to shift, just enough to unfurl my wings and glide down to the ground. I had no idea how transforming—even just a little—would affect me. I needed to remember not to push it until I had found a cure.

I landed hard in the snow, rolling and tumbling in the soft powder. I came upright just in time to put myself in my quarry’s path. The thief was looking back at my tower, and so they missed my entrance, bumping into me as they looked over their shoulder. My hands shot out, gripping their arms to steady them—and to keep them from escaping.

The thief shrieked and tried to wrest their arms from my grip, but I was stronger, of course. Their scuffling pushed the hood from their face, and a moment later, I was blinking down at my captive.

Who was a girl. All long, curly, black hair and dusky skin and flashing amber eyes.

She struggled against my grip, but I held firm, my pulse quickening for reasons I couldn’t name.

Who was she? She had to have come from the nearby town, but what was she doing wandering around an abandoned mage’s tower in the middle of the night?

“Let me go!” she cried.

The scent of her fear was sharp, almost metallic, and it churned my stomach. My grip slackened, and she wrenched free, stumbling back.

Picking up her skirts, she stumbled down the snowy path, her feet clumsy and afraid.

Of me.

Cursing under my breath, I took off after her. Thief or not, I couldn’t let a young girl wander about the forest alone. It went against everything I believed in; I could no sooner let her go than I could fly into the sun.

I caught up to her easily, she ran without care for her tracks, leaving ample evidence of her passing. She seemed to be desperate to escape, but all her clattering and noise would be sure to wake up the predators who slumbered in the forest.

Again, I leaped and put myself in her path. She gasped and tried to run around me, but it was easy enough to cut her off. I spread my hands out in front of me to keep her at bay as if I were calming a spooked filly.

Clearing my throat, I spoke, wincing at the way my throat rasped. “I mean you no harm.”

The girl stayed still in the path, clearly debating whether to go right or left to cut around me. I couldn’t stop my sigh this time.

Why was I even bothering? I should’ve let the chit run blindly into the night and out of my life. Why did I care if the wolves got her or if she broke her neck tripping over a tree root?

It would be less hassle for me, in the end.

But the part of me that was still human, that remembered walking down the streets of Kalinovo, my hometown back in Drakazov, and smiling at a pretty, apple-cheeked young woman in the streets—that little part of me rebelled at the idea of causing more harm. I had put enough pain into the world.

Spreading my hands—I darted a quick glance at them to check that my claws weren’t visible, thank the gods—I lowered my voice, trying to project a sense of calm.

“I mean you no harm,” I repeated firmly. “I thought you were a thief.” She was still a thief, but I bit my tongue on that and tried to seem non-threatening.

“I’m not a thief,” her voice wavered when she spoke. “I thought the tower was abandoned.” She swallowed hard; my hearing could make out her wheezy breaths as she gasped for air. “I’m sorry for disturbing you—please— let me go , I promise I won’t return.”

My mind whirled with more questions, but I bit them back. The girl’s obvious fear and the scent of her distress in the air was turning my stomach. Suddenly, it felt important that I prove to her—and myself—that I wasn’t something to be feared.

I wasn’t a beast .

“The forest isn’t safe,” I murmured, daring to take a tiny step closer to her. She didn’t flinch, which I took as a good sign. “Let me escort you home.”

Immediately, she shook her head, her eyes widening. She shuffled back, and it took everything in me not to follow. I dug my fingers into my palms, quelling the beastly instinct to follow her as if she was prey.

I was not a beast. I was a man.

“There are wolves. And wild beasts,” I said, a little desperately. As if to help me prove my case, a wolf bayed in the night, the call taken up by its fellows. The girl flinched at the sound, and I spoke again. “I’ll follow you a few paces behind. Just until you reach your town.”

She eyed me uncertainly, and I coughed as a sudden inspiration hit me. “All I want is to make sure my presence at the tower remains a secret,” I said softly. “If something were to happen to you, it woud bring a town’s worth of trouble down on me.”

It was true, but the more pressing reason—the one I didn’t tell her—was that I just wanted to feel like a man again.

Just a normal man, escorting his lady home in the night.

She seemed appeased by my honesty, and after a long moment, she nodded. “And once I reach home, you swear to let me go unharmed?”

I nodded. “I swear it.”

With another nod, she raised her hood again, shielding her head from the snowflakes that had started to drift to the ground. Slowly, she set off down the path again, skirting along me with great trepidation. I watched her go, letting her get twenty paces ahead of me before I started to follow in her path.

In the beginning, she turned back frequently, looking back at me as if to see if I was truly going to let her go unmolested. Every time she turned and saw me behind her, with the distance between us neither lessening nor increasing, I heard her heartbeat slow down further until it began to beat steadily again.

As we crunched through the snow, it was almost…peaceful. It had been a long time since I had spent so much time in the company of another human in such harmony.

As the houses of her town came into view, I stopped, my heart feeling heavy. My time with her had come to an end, and I realized I would miss this brief moment of feeling like I was connected to my fellow humans again.

“This is where I leave you,” I said, and the girl turned around. Her amber eyes were dark and watchful, and she bit her lip as she looked at me. I knew she couldn’t make out my face, I had drawn my cloak around me, keeping my face hidden in its hood.

Whatever she saw when she looked at me, she took a deep breath and spoke.

“I still have business with the tower,” she said.

I frowned. The tower held secrets that I still needed to uncover, books that I had to decipher and codes I had to break, all left behind by the accursed mage who had condemned me to this life. I couldn’t have some girl rooting around in there.

“You cannot enter the tower again,” I said repressively, hoping she would get the hint.

She frowned, crossing her arms against the chill wind that had sprung up around us. “But I must,” she shook her head. She looked at me for a moment, as if debating her next words.

“I know you can do magic,” she said in a rush. “I need your help. And then I promise, I’ll leave you alone.”

Oh, hells . She thought I was the mage in the tower.

Just the idea had my hackles rising, and I could feel my control of my magic slipping. My blood boiled in my veins, and I had to let out a hiss of breath before I had myself under control again. She watched me in alarm, taking a quick step back, but I was powerless to reassure her.

“I am no mage ,” I bit out, when I had control of my tongue again, and I could be sure I wouldn’t breathe out a shower of sparks.

She licked her lips, her eyes still wide with a shadow of her fear. “Then what are you?” she asked, her voice trembling.

“Just another unfortunate soul,” I said shortly, turning away from her. “One who doesn’t wish to see you again.”

“Wait,” she said, taking a quick step forward and reaching for my arm.

Instinctively, I jerked away from her touch, which made my cloak slide down. Her hand landed directly on my heated skin, and she wrenched her hand away, hissing in surprise.

I swore under my breath. Now, she would scream, and all the townies would come for me—and I would lose access to the tower. Curse my foolish loneliness that had spurred me to escort the girl home.

But the scream I was waiting for didn’t come and instead, the girl stared at me, her breath coming fast.

Finally, she spoke. “Whatever you are, I don’t care,” she said, licking her dry lips. “As long as you let me visit the tower and look around in there.”

I stared at her, unable to believe my ears. “You will keep my presence a secret?”

She nodded; her eyes gleaming. “As long as you promise not to harm me, or bar me from the tower and its secrets.”

I nodded. “I won’t.”

“Swear it,” she said, stepping forward to grip me by the arm. “Swear it by your true name,” she said urgently.

Ah, so she thought I was an Elf. Well, it would do no harm to play along with her.

“I swear it,” I murmured, but she shook her head.

“By your true name,” she insisted.

“I swear by my true name, Kael Duzac, that I shall not harm you,” I said, hiding my amused smile.

“And I swear by my true name, Seranni Vasalt, that I shall not harm you,” she responded, nodding solemnly.

Seranni. A Tellurian name, but with her dusky skin and cinnamon-brown eyes, she looked like she had some Sunvaaran blood in her.

“I shall return to the tower in a few days,” she said, drawing her hood up over her hair again. “See you then, Kael.”

I nodded, watching as she turned and walked to her home. I -waited until I heard the distant sound of a door closing softly and then turned to begin my lonely trek back to the place that was both my home and my prison.

It was only when I reached my tower again that I realized that I was still smiling.