CHAPTER 1

“I want to go with Liam!” Dawn demanded loudly.

“Dawn, you know that you can’t. Only the boys are allowed to go on this trip. No girls! How many times must we have this conversation?” her mother told her.

Dawn stood looking at her mother. She was a wonderful woman with a good heart, but she had no idea what it was like to be part dragon. Dawn’s father had met his mate in America and brought her back here to the village. Dawn had been patient with her parents, Owen and Amy McCord, as neither of them could fully understand her kind. Her father was a dragon shifter, and her mother was human. Neither of them were like her. She was something new, something different.

Even Liam could not fully comprehend what it was like to live in her skin. There were many here in the village that feared her for reasons that had no basis. Still, others should fear her. She knew their secrets…all of them. It was said that half dragon, half human shifters possessed a new power – some skill that normal dragon shifters did not possess. There were shifters that could shift into multiple lifeforms, or perhaps just one other, like a tiger. Dawn could only shift into a dragon. It wasn’t what made her special.

Dawn had been given gifts unknown to other dragons. Even her mentor, a dragon named Kergot, possessed only a fraction of what she had been given. He could read minds and he could communicate with others using his mind, even if they didn’t possess that ability themselves. It had been him that helped her to understand her gift and to hone it. He had told her that it was far greater than his own, and he had helped her reach further and deeper to find more.

Still, what good did it do to possess all this power and be relegated to a group of girls who could not go out on hunts like the boys? She was sick to death of hearing she couldn’t do things because she was a girl and having to rely on Liam to tell her the details of his trip when they returned.

“This place is ridiculous! Just because I don’t have a penis, I can’t do things? It’s bullshit!” she screeched at her mother.

“Dawn McCord, you watch your mouth. I’ll not have you speaking like that in my house!” her mother barked at her angrily.

“I hate this place!” Dawn yelled.

A plate fell off the wall, shattering into pieces. Amy McCord jumped and then pursed her lips tightly as she turned back toward Dawn, who glared at her defiantly. She felt guilty when she forgot herself and accidentally caused her mother’s things to break, but she refused to back down. For all of her kindness and understanding to people in the village, she was also more stubborn than the entire population combined.

“Go to your room!” Amy demanded, pointing toward the stairwell.

Dawn stomped away, wordlessly climbing the stairs and slamming her door behind her. Picking up her cellphone from the small desk beneath her bedroom window, she tapped furiously at the buttons and then glared out the window while she waited for a reply. She saw a tendril of smoke rise from a small rose bush in her mother’s gardens and shut her eyes, taking her focus and her fury away from it. Her mother would be furious if she burned another plant she had worked so hard to grow. Her phone vibrated in her hand, and she looked down at it, quickly responding to the inbound message.

“I don’t know where we are. It is an island, but doesn’t appear to be populated by anything but wild animals. It’s been a good kill,” Liam replied to her request for his location.

She hated it when he was away like this. As much as it displeased her that boys were allowed to do things that girls weren’t, it bothered her more when she couldn’t feel him. As long as he was close to her, she could feel everything about him. She could read his thoughts, understand his feelings, share his emotions. It had been this way since he was just a baby. She hadn’t understood it then, but she was pulled to him in a way she wasn’t to others. It was if they shared something unknown. What that might be, she still didn’t know, but lately things had begun to change between them. He needed to come back home.

“How much longer?” she typed, hesitating before hitting send.

She didn’t want to sound needy, but she did need him here. There were plenty of places to hunt on the mountain. Why they had to go so far away to do it, she didn’t understand. She knew it was so that they could use their dragon form more freely in a remote area, but it eluded her why they had to remain hidden. Humans were weak – no match for them. Why should they hide themselves instead of just living among them in the open?

A lot of things in this village made no sense to Dawn. As soon as she was old enough, she would leave this place. She would be eighteen in a few months. Perhaps she would set out on her own and find a new place where she could live freely without the stares and whispers of the older villagers. Maybe she would show herself to the world and let them learn to deal with someone like her living among them. It couldn’t be any worse than how she was treated in this place. Her powers exceeded everyone else’s in the village, and yet, she was far more limited than anyone when it came to what she was allowed to do.

“I will be home in a few hours. We’re loading up to come back now. I have to go,” Liam replied.

Dawn looked down at the message and smiled. Things would be okay soon. Liam would be home, and everything would be fine again. He wouldn’t be able to come over at this late hour, and she wouldn’t be allowed to leave the house so late, but once he was back in range, she would be able to feel his heartbeat again. That would make everything better.