Chandler
The rain pelted my back so hard I thought for sure it would leave bruises. I huddled against the face of a rocky cliff, under an overhang that did nothing to shield me from the rain. I wasn't alone, there were arms around my shoulders and my arms were around someone else's. I think it was more than one person with me, all pressed against me, seeking shelter. I couldn't tell what they looked like though, the rain was so strong I couldn't see more than a few inches in front of my face. Not that I wanted to, just opening my eyes made them sting from the wind. If anyone was speaking, I couldn’t hear them over the roar of the wind.
It ended. Just like that, it was over. I stepped back, away from the others and looked at the rocks, craning my neck to see up the cliff. I blinked and found that I had been transported to the top. Instead of a face-full of rock, I was staring out at ocean, as far as the eye could see. Sprawling out below me was an island, ravaged by the hurricane that I just experienced. There didn’t seem to be any trees left standing. I don’t know how I knew, but it was clear that some of the places covered with sand weren’t meant to be beaches.
Someone moved behind me. Before I could react, a hand grasped mine and I realized who it was. My Dragon. I squeezed his fingers. This was his island. I gasped in horror as I looked around again, recognizing and not recognizing the island.
“Are you okay?” I asked him.
“Aye. Though I know not for how long. The storm destroyed our supplies.”
“What will you do?”
He shook his head helplessly.
“Can you leave? There must be some land nearby.”
He didn't look a day older than he had the day I first started dreaming about him, but he had never looked more careworn. He looked at me, sorrow in his eyes, and shook his head again.
“We tried. There is no land within flying distance, unless we want to risk being airborne when the sun rises.”
“But you can’t stay here, like this!” I gestured out over the devastation below us.
“I fear we have no choice.” His eyes scanned his island and the surrounding water, wide and desperate, as if he expected the answer to present itself. When nothing changed, he turned his gaze to the horizon.
I did the same, willing the image of an island to appear. Nothing.
I woke with a gasp, shaking and sweating. What the hell had happened to make my dream into such a nightmare? In two hundred years the dream had never changed so much. It was always a tropical paradise with my smiling dragon. Only a couple of weeks had passed since the last dream and it hadn’t seemed any different. Troubled, I rose and walked to my window. The sea outside was its usual gray and the sky was clear and blue. It was a beautiful day. Why then, had I had such a nightmare?
My thoughts whirled all the way down to breakfast. Aurora was the only one there. Tarren was probably staying in with his mate for the morning and Kenai was known for sleeping in. Likewise, Francis was probably still in bed, recovering. New turns always took a few days to adjust after each full moon. But Elara’s absence was unusual.
“Something on your mind, Chandler?” Aurora asked.
“Just a bad dream,” I answered as I settled in at the table. “Do you know if Elara is up?”
“I have not seen her.”
Fear gripped me. What if my dream was a warning? What if something had happened to Elara and the weak psychic connection between us had affected my dream?
I stood quickly. “Excuse me, I need to find her.”
She didn’t answer her door, even when my knocking turned into banging. Terrified, I slammed my body into it until it gave. I stumbled into her room, staggering and trying to catch my balance. It was empty, but the door to her balcony was open. I rushed out, but she wasn’t there. Heart pounding, I turned to run back inside, when it occurred to me to look over the edge. I rushed back and leaned over the railing.
Sure enough, she was down on the rocks. I climbed over the railing and hurried, as fast as I dared, down the steep steps carved into the cliff face. I stopped when I reached the large ledge at the bottom.
“Elara?” I called, hoping I didn’t startle her.
She stepped back from the edge and turned. Something was wrong. I could see it in her eyes and sense it rippling from her.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” She sounded tired. “I had a bad dream is all.”
“Me too.” I joined her at the edge. A brisk wind blew around us, carrying a light spray of salty seawater.
Her eyes searched my face as she turned to me. “Have I ever told you about my dreams?”
“Sometimes.”
“No. These are different.” She turned and looked at me curiously. “I don’t know why I’ve never told you…”
“Told me what?”
“Perhaps I thought you’d laugh.”
It sounded like she was talking more to herself than to me. Nevertheless, I said softly, “I would never.”
Elara smiled. “I know you wouldn’t… I had a strange dream. A recurring one.” A small, self-deprecating laugh escaped her. “It is my true mate and I. And we’re always on this beautiful, tropical island. Silly isn’t it?”
Time seemed to stop. My stomach twisted and my breath caught. How could we possibly have the same dream? It wasn’t until she spoke my name that I realized I was just standing there staring.
“Chandler? Are you okay?”
“You… have a recurring dream about being on a tropical island with your true mate?” I echoed.
“Yes.” She shrugged with an almost apologetic smile. “It’s been decades. Centuries actually. It’s not every night, but probably at least every other week.” Elara frowned again. “I don’t know why I’ve never told you…”
“Magic maybe… some strange magic that keeps you from talking about it. Just like the force that deters humans from remembering us.”
“Magic?” Elara laughed. “Why would you say that?”
“Because I don’t know how else you’d go two hundred years without once mentioning that dream to me.”
She shook her head. “No, that doesn’t make sense. I’m sure I’m just forgetting. I must have told you once.”
“No.”
“You sound so certain.” Her eyes narrowed at me. “And you’re just vibrating with emotion. I can hardly sort it out.”
“I am certain. I would have remembered if you ever told me you dream about the island… because I do too.”
“Do…” She stepped back from me. I could tell she knew exactly what I meant. “You do… what too?”
“I have the same dream.”
If we were in a movie there would have been a dramatic crash of thunder. As it was, the wind chose that moment to blow hard. It howled briefly around us, whipping our clothes with it. Elara’s hair lashed across her face, momentarily obscuring her look of shock. Okay, so maybe it was just as dramatic without the thunder. I was almost afraid to blink as our eyes locked. For a moment I was afraid we had told each other before. What if the memory of this conversation would fade, just as the existence of shifters was erased from the minds of humans?
“Tell me,” she breathed.
I told her all about my dragon and the island. All about the dreams. Her eyes never left mine as she nodded along. As I neared the end, I realized why she was out here, skipping breakfast. I had a bad dream, she had said. I swallowed hard.
“Last night… the dream changed,” I whispered. She slowly put a hand over her mouth as her eyes widened in horror. “It changed for you too, didn’t it?”
“A hurricane destroyed the island.”
“What does this mean? How can we have the same dream?”
Elara shook her head. “I don’t know. But the implications…”
We stood in silence. When I couldn’t take it any longer, I voiced what I knew we were both thinking. “Could it be real? Could there actually be an island out there with… with dragons on it?”
“And if there is, are they in danger now? Was the hurricane real?”
“Have you watched the news recently?” She shook her head. “Me neither.”
“Let’s start there.”
We went into her room and turned on the TV. We didn’t have to wait at all; it was on almost every channel. A devastating, record breaking hurricane was ripping across the Caribbean, destroying all of the islands in its wake.
“Well,” Elara said grimly. “We know the storm is real.”
I was about to turn it off when they switched to the upcoming weather report. My finger froze over the power key as my eyes locked onto the second hurricane symbol.
Storms of the Century – Cat. 5 Darlene Bearing Down on Islands Battered by Clyde, read the caption.
“Oh my god, there’s another,” I gasped.
We watched the report in growing horror. An equally powerful hurricane was following directly in the path of the first. It was going to hit all of the same islands while they were still reeling.
“What do we do?” I cried. My stomach growled in answer.
“I haven’t eaten yet,” Elara said. “Let’s get some food in us and talk to Aurora.”
We hurried down to the dining room. To my relief, Aurora was still there. Elara and I sat on either side of her, practically bombarding her with our story. To her credit, she listened intently. I couldn’t be sure if she was making sense of our nonsense, but she didn’t interrupt. A few seats down, Francis had stopped eating mid-bite and was watching us, fork still dangling from his fingers.
When we were done, we waited with baited breath for Aurora to speak. She folded her hands in front of her in thought.
“Dragons were few and far between when the two of you were born,” she said at last. She nodded toward me. “Or changed. Many shifters were afraid of your psychic abilities and rumors of their strength were greatly exaggerated. Yes, your powers are stronger than those of other shifters, but not as strong as many feared. That said, dragons are connected.” She looked at the two of us, eyes so wide she looked more like her owl form than her human one. “Even we regular shifters have a strong physic connection to our true mates. That same connection is amplified in dragons. If the two of you have true mates out there somewhere… then, I see no reason you shouldn’t be able to sense them on some level. Your guards are down when you sleep. It could allow you to connect in some way.”
“So, you think these dreams are real? That the dragon I dream about is off on an island somewhere?”
“I believe it’s possible. Regardless, your dreams of the storm worry me. If there really is an island of dragons that you dream of and the hurricane you dreamt of last night is the one that just struck, then these dragons are in real danger. I think… it may be wise to try and find them before the next storm.”
“So soon?”
“We cannot afford to wait,” Aurora said.
“The next storm hits the first island tomorrow night,” Elara said. “We can’t search the entire Caribbean by then; there are thousands of islands.”
“We use Google Earth,” Francis said. I honestly almost forgot he was sitting there. He grinned at our blank expressions. “You love reminding me what a young pup I am, it’s about time it worked to my advantage. We can zoom in on the islands with Google Earth and try to narrow it down. You said they can’t get to any inhabited islands, right? So, we’ve got to find some isolated ones.”
“Brilliant,” I said. I couldn’t believe I had never thought to try locating the island like that. In two hundred years I never even tried to find it on a regular paper map. Then again, I didn’t think the dream was anything more.
Francis rushed off for his tablet and returned with the Caribbean pulled up. “Shall we just scan, west to east and north to south?”
“No, start with the East,” Elara said. “I have a feeling they can’t reach any other islands. It’s got to be secluded one.”
“I agree,” I said.
In a matter of minutes we had five good candidates.
“What now?” I asked. “Go check them out in person?”
“Figure out where you want to start,” Aurora said. “I’m going to speak with Parliament members and our contacts to arrange transport as soon as possible.
“You don’t have to do that!” I gasped.
“How else will you get there?” she asked. A sad look passed over her face. “We failed you,” she said softly. “The Parliament promised to protect dragons and we failed miserably. If ever there was some way to even begin to make up for that, I can think of nothing better than to try and rescue more dragons.”
“Thank you,” Elara and I said. Aurora nodded and swept out of the room.
“This island last,” Francis announced.
“What?”
He pointed to a spot on his tablet. “I checked the weather report. This island here is just getting the first winds from Clyde right now. Unless your dream was a premonition, I think we should start with the islands the hurricane already hit.”
“Good idea,” said Elara.
“I didn’t sleep in very late,” I said. “And it was already morning in my dream. I saw the hurricane and the aftermath.”
“Start east then, a time zone or two ahead,” Francis said. He swiped his finger across the screen. The map scrolled and then zoomed way in until the island was a blur. “Whoops, sorry.” He used his fingers to slowly zoom back out.
“Stop!” I cried. Elara lurched forward with a gasp at the same moment.
Francis’s fingers hovered above screen. “What?”
Elara pointed with a shaking finger. “That’s it. I recognize it.”
“Can you clear it up?” I asked.
Francis fiddled for a moment, before shaking his head. “I’m afraid not.”
Elara pointed to some dark shadows. “Those are the houses on the beach, I’m sure of it.”
“If that’s the houses, then the farm is…” I guided my finger up the coast to where the farm should have been. Sure enough, in spite of the blurry pixels, it looked like the area was full of straight lines, unlike any of the other terrain.
“And the cliff.” Elara pointed to the dark, rocklike blur on the other side.
A chill went through me as I looked at the island. It was real. Really, truly real.
Francis dragged the overlay of the hurricane paths over it. “Clyde hit it dead on, the eye passed totally over it.” Darlene’s projected path followed it to the letter. “They’re in serious trouble if they get hit again.”
“We’ll save them,” I said confidently. “We’ll save them.”
And our entire species while we’re at it.