RAST

I hold a tiny scrap of material wrapped around one claw as I fly over the human hive, searching for the one whose scent is on the faint pink material. The one whose scent holds me captive.

The faint, appealing smell has faded over time, but it does not matter. I have memorized it, and I would recognize it anywhere. The scrap itself does not matter, save that it is a reminder, even in my most crazed moments, that I have a goal. And so I carry it with me always. I do not know how long it has been since I found it. Three days? Thirty? Time is meaningless to my thoughts. The days run together in a haze of smoke and bloodlust.

It does not matter. I will not rest until I find her.

My mate.

The scent on the pink bit tells me many things about her, even if I do not know her face or her name. I know that she is young, she is fertile, and she is unmated. I know that she is not drakoni. And I know that she is untouched by another male, or I would scent his claim.

But there is nothing, and so I aim to be the one to claim her.

Just the thought of a mate is enough to focus my scattered thoughts, to bring me clarity after weeks, months, maybe even years of madness. Breathing in her scent provides me with direction, like a tunnel of clarity in the wild, bloodthirsty thoughts that crowd my mind. For a moment, a brief moment, I can remember who and what I am.

Then the scent fades and I am lost once more.

I do not give up, though. Between the push and pull of my mad thoughts, I remain focused on one goal—finding my mate. She is somewhere here, close to this human hive, and so I will pursue her until I can find her. Each day, I take to the skies, hunting for faint traces of her scent on the breeze. When there is nothing, I land on the ground and prowl over the grasses and rocky ruins of this place, trying to pick her lovely, light scent out from the myriad others that pepper the world.

She is here somewhere. I will find her.

I lift the scrap to my nose, breathing in deep once more. Then I lift my wings and fly higher, trying to catch the wind. Instinct tells me that I must check everywhere, and that includes breezes both low and high. I sweep along the ground when there is nothing high, and then when low provides nothing but the stink of the human hive, I take to the air once more.

Then, I find it. Just a trace, no more than a hint, but she is here. Somewhere.

I wheel about, plunging headlong into the wind, following her scent-trail. It is so slight that it is easily missed…except that I have her scent etched into my mind, surging through my blood. Even though it is faint, I can pick it up, and I follow it eagerly.

My mate—she is close.

I sweep through the skies, but no matter how hard I fly, it seems that her scent grows no closer, no stronger. The faint thread of it remains just that…faint. It is frustrating, but I will not give up.

Not when I have a hint that she is here. That she is as real as the air under my wings, and not just a figment of my tortured mind.

For days, I circle the same area. At least, it seems as if it is days. Time ebbs and blurs together. I eat little and sleep less, because I do not want to miss a chance of finding her scent. Endlessly, I pick through the scents in the air, looking for one hoped-for waft of my mate’s delicious aroma. When it trickles past again, I stop everything and fly to the nearest tall perch. There, I sit, and drink in her scent.

It is not alone, my mate’s aroma. It is accompanied by that of another female…a mated one. I can make out the rich notes of drakoni claiming in the second female’s scent. I am not interested in her, but it explains why my mate has been so elusive. As the smell of a drakoni male entwines with the second female’s scent, I realize that they are protecting my mate.

No…they are keeping her from me.

Anger simmers in the back of my mind, bubbling towards fury. That is why I cannot find her. They hide her away, ensuring that she is kept from me. I follow the scents, latching on to that of the mated female. It is stronger, easier to find on the breeze, and in a matter of hours, I locate their nest. It is a perch atop one of the tall, finger-like structures. As I approach, the male bugles a territory warning and I veer away.

For now.

If this is where the mated female is, mine will be close by. She will be waiting for me to claim her. I imagine her, claws curled, scales flashing red with mating need, imagine her lifting her gaze to mine in a challenge to enflame my loins and excite my soul.

But I cannot get to her if these others hide her away. I dare not attack a male protecting his territory and his female. I move to a nearby perch a short distance away and settle in, tucking my wings against my body and waiting. I will watch. I will pay attention to scents.

And when the time is right, I will attack and flush out my female, force her to take to the air and in battle-form. Once she does, then she is mine.

AMY

BOOM.

The sound wakes me from a deep sleep. I sit up in bed, disoriented. It’s hot in my room, my skin sticky with sweat, and at first I’m not entirely sure what happened. A bad dream, perhaps? I scrub a hand over my face and reach for a candle on the bedside. As I do, I hear a trumpeting, angry sound that shakes the walls.

A dragon. Bugling.

My heart hammers in my throat and I squeeze back against the wall, forgetting all about a candle. I draw my good leg up against my body, as if it will somehow shield me from the onslaught. What’s going on? What’s Kael doing? I huddle in bed, my back to the wall, trying to make myself as small as possible. If Kael and Claudia are having a fight…but they never fight. I don’t understand.

A moment later, someone bangs on my door. “Amy! Amy, let me in!”

“Claudia?” I call out from the bed. “What’s going on?”

“Hurry and just let me in!” she calls out, sounding impatient and worried both. She bangs on the door again, and I can feel her impatience.

I get out of bed and rush over to the door, ignoring the shooting pain that moving so quickly is sending up my leg. I manage to get over there, fumble at the locks in the darkness, and my sister falls inside the moment the door opens. She’s got something long and dark in her hand—a shotgun.

What is going on?

“Is that a gun?” I whisper, breathless with shock. They don’t work against dragons. “Are you going to shoot Kael?”

“What? Never!” She pushes the door shut behind her. “I can’t believe you locked this. Don’t do that again. I nearly got nailed with one of those rocks he’s throwing down here.”

I fight back the wave of irritation I’m feeling at my sister’s comment. Just like that, she’s going to take away my right to privacy? What next? Me sleeping at the foot of their bed? I don’t say that, though—it’s clear she’s stressed out. “What’s going on?” I ask again.

“There’s a dragon out there,” she tells me, pulling me back from the door itself. We’re alone in the dark, and it’s deathly quiet for a long moment, the only sound that of our breathing.

And then the dragon trumpets again, a moment before another ear-shattering BOOM shocks through the room. The floors rattle with the force of it, and I gasp and cling to my sister for balance. Before I can speak, a second dragon adds an angry bugle to the mix, challenging the other.

Two dragons.

“We’re being attacked,” my sister says in a sour voice. “That other dragon started tossing rocks onto the building. Not just rocks, actually. More like fucking boulders.” Claudia doesn’t sound scared, just annoyed, and I’m envious of how calm she is. “I don’t know what his deal is. Kael says he should be able to smell that a mated couple lives here.”

I clutch at my sister’s arm, my thoughts racing. I’m glad it’s dark so she can’t see my face, because I imagine I wouldn’t be able to hide my feelings very well. Another dragon’s attacking us.

I wonder if he came for me?

My fear mixes with hope. I don’t know why he’s throwing rocks down, but surely I must be the reason why he’s attacking this building despite Claudia and Kael’s scent being all over it? My sister can’t know what I did, though—if she finds out about my panties, she’ll never even let me up for air. Her protective side will take over and then I’ll be trapped forever.

“A second dragon…what do you think he wants?” I keep my voice as calm as I can, but it’s wobbling, just a little.

Claudia snorts in the darkness and pats my arm. “They’re crazy, remember? Who knows what he wants. Maybe he imagines this as his home. Don’t worry. Kael will take care of things.”

“Is Kael talking to him?” I ask, curious. “What’s he saying?”

“He won’t answer,” my sister says, and I can hear the annoyance in her voice. “He must be crazier than usual. Come on. Where’s your bed? Let’s go sit down so you can rest your leg.”

I’m torn—part of me wants to go and peek out the door and get a look at the dragon. What if she’s right, though, and he’s not for me? He’s just crazy and attacking because…well, crazy? She’s told me that Kael has shown her just how mad this world leaves the dragons, so I know it’s really a thing with them. They’re not just bloodthirsty and cruel to be cruel. They’ve truly lost their minds and only know how to lash out to share the anger and pain they’re feeling.

It sounds so terrible.

It’s another reason to take a dragon as my “mate”—he can save me, and I can save him.

Of course, I didn’t think this through very well. If this dragon’s truly here for me, I don’t know how I’m going to get to him without alerting Claudia to what I did. And if Kael sees me out on the roof without my sister, while we’re under attack? I have no doubt he’ll just snatch me up and dump me somewhere safe.

Once I figure out what’s going on with this dragon, if he’s mine, I’ve got to somehow get away from them so I can escape with him. I don’t exactly know how to do that, though, and my leg’s throbbing with pain, so I take my sister’s hand and lead her over to the bed. I sit down on the edge and sigh with relief at how much better it is on my bad knee. I can never stand for long, and running to the door only made it worse. I feel the mattress sink a little as Claudia sits down next to me, and then the metallic clank of the gun as it brushes against my bed frame. “What’s the gun for?” I ask my sister. “I thought dragons couldn’t be hurt with a gun?”

“They really can’t,” she murmurs. “It’s mostly to ensure that he doesn’t have a rider. And if he dives down low enough and doesn’t have his third eyelid protecting his eyes, we might be able to blind him. But that’s a big if.” She pats my shoulder. “I feel better with a weapon though.”

I don’t. Now I’m envisioning my sister blinding my dragon, my handsome, wild prince. “Don’t use it, okay?” I whisper, finding her hand in the dark and clutching at it. “Please don’t.”

“Don’t be scared,” Claudia tells me in an easy voice. “I’ll protect you, and Kael will protect both of us.”

That isn’t what I’m worried about.

Silence ticks past. A moment later, something loud and metallic shatters against the roof, making both of us jump. “Car,” my sister says. “Man, this bastard’s determined.”

“Can Kael talk to him? Reason with him?” I ask, worried. A dragon in love wouldn’t…throw cars at his beloved, would he? This sounds more like crazy than romance, which means we really are in danger.

“Nope. He’s not responding. Kael says he’s somewhat lucid, but not enough to stop attacking.” She squeezes my hand. “We’re safe. I promise.”

I nod in the darkness and give her hand a squeeze back. I wish I knew how to communicate with the dragon out there. To ask what he wants. To see if he came for me. But there’s no way to do that, so all I can do is sit here in the dark with Claudia and wait. “Is Kael very mad?”

“More annoyed than anything,” she tells me, a hint of amusement in her voice. “We were…cuddling.”

“Don’t tell me any more,” I say quickly, because now I’m visualizing.

She just giggles.

* * *

Even though it feels like we’re in danger, it’s late and it’s dark. I drift off against Claudia’s shoulder as she remains quiet, locked in conversation with Kael. From her infrequent updates, I know that Kael’s perched atop the building, preventing the other dragon from flying too close. No other cars or boulders have been dropped all night and I doze against my sister’s side as we wait for the dawn…or for the dragon to leave.

I don’t know what I want to happen. I don’t want him to leave…but I don’t want him to keep attacking, either. I didn’t think further ahead than dropping my panties off so a dragon could pick up my scent, and now I worry I’ve made a mistake.

“The dragon’s gone,” Claudia murmurs just as I’m about to fall asleep again. “It’s safe.”

“Oh, okay,” I whisper as she gets up. “I…is Kael all right?”

“He is,” she tells me. “He’s not going to leave this day. He’s going to stay close and skip hunting just in case our new friend comes back.”

And now I feel guilty that Kael’s going to go without just to protect us, when I suspect it’s my fault. “Did he find out what the other wanted?”

“No,” my sister says, and there’s a wry note in her voice. “Just another crazy dragon in a world full of ’em. Get some sleep.”

I curl back up in my bed after she leaves, and I can hear the gentle thud of Kael as he lands on the roof, and my sister’s voice as she calls up to him. Then it’s quiet, and I imagine they’ve gone back to bed…to cuddle.

And I’m all alone once more.

* * *

“That dragon wasn’t from this area,” my sister says over lunch the next day. “How’s your tortilla?”

Like she can lob a bomb like that and not distract me? I chew as quickly as I can. “Dry and chunky. Um—”

“Well, crap,” Claudia says, frustrated. “I was hoping it’d be as simple as grinding up some corn. Maybe not.”

“It’s still good,” I tell her between swallows and drink heavily of my water. Time to get back to the main subject. “Um, so how does Kael know the dragon’s not from around here?”

“He doesn’t recognize the mind. You know there’s a couple in this area we’ve had run-ins with,” she says casually, taking a bite out of her tortilla and then wrinkling her nose. “God, that’s awful.”

“It’s very…corny,” I say. I can’t be picky. Food is food, and I’ll eat it no matter how dry and strange it is. I do think about what she said, though. If the dragon’s not from here…maybe he’s not mine. Maybe no one’s found my panties, and they’re sitting in the grass still unnoticed. Maybe no one will find them ever, and they’ll just fade away to nothing.

Like me. Gosh, what a depressing thought.

Claudia flips her tortilla in the skillet, frowning with concentration. She’s determined to try and recreate old foods we can’t get in the After. I think part of that is her pregnancy speaking, but everyone’s got to have a hobby, right? Mine is…well, sewing clothing, reading and decorating my room and wishing desperately for change.

There’s a loud flap of wings and then Kael alights above us, in his battle-form. He doesn’t relax, but sits alert and ready, eyes whirling as he gazes out on the skies. Claudia glances up at him but then returns her attention to the skillet and chuckles under her breath. I’m struck by envy and loneliness all at once. I should be happy that I’m safe here with my sister. Isn’t this all I ever wanted?

Instead, I feel like a third wheel. Like I’m constantly left out of the conversation. I know it’s not Claudia’s fault. She can’t help it that dragons are telepathic and I can’t hear Kael. But it just makes me wish even more that I had someone of my own. “Do you think he’ll be back?”

“Hmm?” My sister glances over at me. “Oh, the dragon? I sure hope not. It took Kael forever to get rid of all the crap he dumped up here on the roof.” She looks up at her dragon and gives him such a happy, contented smile that it makes me ache.

Even a “bad” day isn’t so bad for Claudia anymore. She’s happy as long as she has Kael.

* * *

It’s late, and I’m reading a book in my room by candlelight when I hear another fierce roar in the distance. I sit up, pushing aside my book even as Claudia enters my room, shotgun in hand.

“He’s back,” she says grimly.