12. Lucy
Lucy
If you find a single shoe on a crossroads, leave it. Someone walked out of their old life there, and the road remembers.
The icy veil hit my back as I soared from the fog into moonlight.
HUNT.
The collar’s command was absolute. My wings beat faster, carrying me toward—
No. Stay. Think.
The damn collar burned and pushed harder.
HUNT. FIND. DELIVER.
No. It cannot consume me.
Remember. Remember. Fight back.
The icy fog bit at my scales as I fought to keep my mind. Remember.
But it was consuming me.
Fuck. Every night the same commands, the same fragments, the same—
MOVE.
My wings obeyed before I could stop them. Diving lower, I slowed, circling within the wall of mist.
Stop. Listen to yourself. You’re stronger than this.
The woman was fading. I could feel her slipping away, thoughts fragmenting into the obedient beast the collar demanded I become. But she was still there, fighting, clawing for control even as the compulsion tried to drown her. She needed to stop fighting. Become the beast.
Pain, white-hot and relentless, burned against my throat. My vision blurred.
OBEY.
I’m not yours to command.
Poor little woman. But I was the woman. She was me. And she was right. I couldn’t bend. I couldn’t break. I couldn’t lose myself.
The defiance cost me. The collar constricted, choking, burning through scales that should have protected me. My wings faltered.
Easier to obey. Safer. The hunt was simple. Clear. No questions. No pain.
No.
I forced my wings to steady. Forced myself to think past the commands screaming in my skull. There had to be more than this. More than fragments and compulsion and waking up exhausted without knowing why.
What am I hunting?
The question formed fully, clearly, before the collar could crush it.
The pain answered. Searing and so absolute, I gasped, nearly falling from the sky until my resistance shattered.
HUNT. FIND. DELIVER.
The fragments were easier. I stopped fighting.
The woman’s voice went quiet. Faded into the background like a whisper I could no longer hear. The hunt was all that mattered.
I lifted higher, breaking through the final wisps of fog. Moonlight washed over my scales as I left the mist behind. The world opened up before me, vast and burned, empty and yet full of prey.
The collar hummed with approval and I scanned my surroundings. But there was no target, there was no immediate pull to that which I hunted.
There was only a purple dragon.
He’d been waiting. I could tell by the way he sat, perfectly still. The collar screamed.
THREAT.
I hesitated.
The compulsion pulled harder, burning against my throat. But I didn’t dive. Not yet. Because this dragon had been waiting for me specifically, and I wanted to know why. I thought maybe the woman would want to know why too. The woman that was also me. Wasn’t she?
The collar tightened at the thought of her. Pain shot through my neck, down my spine.
I dove for him.
The purple dragon saw me coming and moved, but not to flee. He leapt from the cliff, wings spread wide, muscles coiling beneath scales that shifted from nearly black to lilac in the silver moonlight.
Beautiful.
The thought formed before I could stop it.
We collided, chest-to-chest mid-air. The impact knocked the breath from my lungs. His claws found my shoulders, redirecting my momentum with precision that sent us spinning head over tail. Amber eyes locked on mine, burning with recognition I couldn’t place, and everything went silent.
The collar. The commands. All of it… gone.
And I remembered.
This dragon. The way violet scales rippled beneath my claws as I grabbed for purchase. The scent of him, smoke and winter frost and something deeper I had no name for. The way his eyes held me like he’d been searching as long as I had.
The peace I’d been missing.
He’d been here before. Another night. The same silence. The same pull low in my chest that had nothing to do with the collar and everything to do with the heat radiating from his body against mine.
His arms came around my back, muscles flexing as he pulled me closer. Legs hooking around mine, tangling, his tail wrapping around me to secure the hold. We spun through open air, wind screaming past us, and I could feel every place our bodies touched. Chest. Stomach. Thighs.
Too close.
A great roar rumbled through him as he commanded me. “Stop fighting.”
But why should he get to touch me? Why did he think he had the right? The woman in me bristled. I didn’t belong to him any more than I belonged to the damn collar.
I pushed back against him, claws digging into his shoulders for leverage. I tried to break free. He held tighter, breath hot against my neck as we tumbled. The scent of him filled my lungs. His wings folded around both of us, encasing us in violet and shadow as we spiraled down and down together.
Beautiful and infuriating and in complete control. He kept me locked against him even as I fought, his wings spreading to slow our fall. I wanted to tear away. But I also wanted to stay with the peace he gave me forever.
A dance between what the collar demanded, what his presence gave me, and what I should do as the wind whipped around us and the ground rushed closer. The world reduced to his body pressed against mine, his heartbeat thundering against my own and the way he held me like he’d never let go.
Before I could decide what I wanted, or needed, he pulled away, dropping me onto the cliff seconds before he landed gracefully across from me, shoulders heaving as he glared.
I snarled, fury replacing the brief clarity.
“Why are you acting like you don’t remember?” His voice was low, rough. “Tell me your name.”
I stared at him. The collar burned hotter, demanding I attack. But I held still, fighting against the compulsion because I needed to understand what he wanted. Why he kept coming back.
The pain intensified. My vision blurred at the edges.
He stepped closer. “Tell me my name.”
For a second, I wanted to answer. Wanted to reach for whatever he was asking for. But there was nothing. No name. No memory beyond the certainty that his touch had brought silence.
Frustration ripped through me. I was not to be commanded. Not by him. Not by this collar. Not by anyone.
I roared at him.
His eyes trailed down my body, narrowing on the darkness that moved along my scales.
I swatted at him with my tail, putting force behind it.
His claws dug into the cliff. “Are you in there? Tell me you know what’s happening right now, Lucette Varrow.”
My name.
He knows my name.
Lucette Varrow.
Sadness crashed over me. The ache of what it was to be her. To be me. To carry a name that felt like home and grief and control tangled together. To remember having a life beyond the hunt, beyond the collar, beyond waking up exhausted and empty.
Lucette Varrow.
The dragon stepped closer. “Now, tell me my name.”
I stared at him. I wanted to answer. But I couldn’t.
He took another step toward me and my heart jumped.
KILL HIM.
No. Remember. I know him.
“Say my name.”
Fight back. Stay calm. Think.
I stepped away.
The collar burned. His eyes held mine, intense and desperate and demanding.
I knew his name. I knew it. It was right there, just out of reach, buried beneath the fragments and the compulsion and the—
HUNT. ELIMINATE.
Remember. Please. Remember.
“My name.” His voice cracked. “Say my fucking name.”
I opened my mouth. Nothing came out.
The collar shrank. Pain shot down my spine. My vision blurred.
Think. Fight. Be calm. Remember his name.
“Riot!” He screamed it. Desperation tearing through the word. “My name is Riot. Say it. Tell me you remember.”
Riot.
Riot.
Purple dragon. Cards. Butter knives and buttons…
“Lucette.” He said my name like he owned it.
Like he had every right to demand answers.
“Tell me you’re fighting. Tell me you know what this is.
Tell me what to do to help you.” He spun and roared and ripped his claws down the mountain wall before shifting into a man.
He fell to his knees and bowed his head, black hair spilling around his face like a curtain, threaded through with silver so bright it looked moonstruck.
“Just tell me how to help you because everyone else is gone.”
But his words were lost to the panic growing in my chest.
FLY.
No. Riot. His name is Riot. He’s sad.
My throat closed. Vision blurred.
ELIMINATE THE THREAT. TRUST NO ONE.
He's not a threat. He's—
OBEY.
The fog was too cold. Remember? Moonlight too bright. Ash beneath my claws. His heartbeat. My heartbeat.
Thunder.
Thunder.
Thunder.
Heartbeat.
Riot. Remember Riot.
HUNT.
The woman screaming. The beast roaring. Commands drowning everything.
Sunrise coming. Feel it. The pull. Time running out.
Find the target. Deliver.
No. Stay. Fight. Riot needs—
Move.
No.
The fog. The moon. The ash. The ache in my skull.
Too much. Too loud. Too many voices screaming.
Hunt hunt hunt hunt.
Riot Riot Riot Riot.
Woman beast collar command demand remember forget obey.
The world spinning. Fracturing. Breaking apart.
I couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. Couldn't—
The only thing I could do was scream.
And scream.
And scream.
The sound tore from me, raw and broken and furious.
He moved fast. Shifting mid-step, he pressed his forehead to mine before I could pull away.
The collar went silent.
Not quieter. Silent.
My thoughts stilled. I could think. Could feel myself beneath the hunt, beneath the compulsion, beneath everything that had been drowning me since sunset.
For a moment I was lost in him. The weight of his head pressed to mine. The absolute quiet. For a moment I was weak. I could feel the warmth of him, the steadiness, the way his breath came slow and even against my scales like he was trying to give me something to match my rhythm to.
I pushed a word toward him through whatever connection his touch had created.
Hurts.
I felt it reach him. Felt the exact moment he understood.
It hurts.
His shock cracked his composure, he jerked back, staring at me. I used the moment to throw my weight to the side and shove, sending him over the edge of the cliff. Then I was racing away, wings beating hard, putting distance between us before he could recover.
But I noticed the exact moment his presence faded. The absence of him was its own kind of pain, sharp and internal in a way the collar never managed to be.
The collar roared back. My thoughts scattered. The hunt resumed its grip, clawing away the clarity I’d just tasted. I couldn’t trust him. He controlled the collar’s silence. He controlled the collar.
But he was peace. So maybe he only broke it.
I tried to turn back. Tried to find him again.
The purple dragon was gone.
I needed the hunt. I needed the peace. I needed my target, the one I was supposed to deliver.
The collar pulled me southeast, and I followed because I had no other choice.
But part of me was still on that cliff, pressing my forehead to his, held inside that silence.
And I wanted it back.