“She’s asleep.” The voice broke into the peaceful zone I’d meditated myself into, but I pushed the intrusion away.

I wasn’t asleep, I was simply plotting my escape. Something far stranger than being captive was making my skin crawl and my hair dance on my head, my mate was calling me. The wrong mate.

I tried to breathe in evenly and slowly, I tried to focus on calm and peace, but it was too late, my escape place was gone. I kicked out a booted foot against the wall, kicking away the chain that ended in a tight clasp around my hands. I couldn’t even put my arms to my sides, so I had to sit with my hands in my lap.

I wanted to run, I needed to run, but my ankles were similarly bound. I needed to escape, not just because my father had left m...no, he’d had to escape alone to save our clan. My thoughts stuttered and staggered around in my head the longer I was in this wooden hut the dragons were calling a cell.

Mate, my thoughts kept repeating in a torturous tattoo, he’s your mate.

He can’t be, he’s a dragon. A dirty, disgusting dragon!

I leaned back against the wall and noted that the guards were preoccupied with some kind of game they were playing. If only I could get these blasted chains off. I’d chew those two weakly bears to shreds, escape, and maybe even kill the dragon king Wruin.

I tried the breathing exercises again, but no matter what I did, my thoughts kept going right back to him.

Taka.

The taker.

Dammit!

I don’t want a mate, I didn’t want to be taken! I hadn’t been raised for that sort of life. I had been raised to fight, to destroy, and to be a queen when we ruled the world, my father and I.

My childhood wasn’t really a childhood, after all. I’d been trained from the moment of my birth. Do not cry, do not tell the world your needs, because your only need is to destroy. Forget your hunger, forget your pain, destroy.

There’d been no soft furs for me, or toy dolls and china cups, oh no. I’d had a real sword by the time I was three. I’d learned to use my wolf to bring destruction to the world around me. By the time I was five, I’d done things that I should probably be ashamed of.

But, I wasn’t.

When your life is about getting a boot to the head for simply breathing, a hard floor to sleep on because you aren’t good enough for a bed, and scraps of leftovers to eat because you’re only a dog, you do not worry about regrets. When you have been shown no human kindness, you don’t know how to give it back. You don’t even know what it is really. So you don’t expect it either.

A mate would only bring more hurt, I suspected. I didn’t mind the few rough couplings I’d experienced already, some of them were even fun, but I’d been raised to never expect anything but hardship until I’d succeeded in helping my father to eliminate the dragon kings. I hadn’t done that yet. But maybe…

Maybe I could use this reptile to do just that. I sank back into myself, letting the world disappear as I let my animal brain run like the wind, escaping the cell, and my chains. Here I could be free, I could think, and plan.

That last battle had not gone as I planned and as desperately as I wanted to escape, I knew I’d have to face my father’s wrath for being captured. If I ever made it back to him. I might be able to use this connection I have with the dragon Taka to make that happen. I didn’t have the slightest qualm about that.

Love, and kids, and a soulmate? Those are the kind of things I can live without. I don’t care what the legends say about how fatal it is to be without your mate, I was made of stronger stuff than that. I was even stronger than my father, though he might not realize it.

In my make-believe world, I was in my wolf shape, a sleek animal with shiny black fur that gleamed in the moonlight. I wasn’t in the cruel silver chains, I wasn’t left behind, I was racing into the snow that crunched under my feet with a satisfying sound. I was the one in control here.

“Hey fellas, uh, Wruin said to bring you this tray. You’d better hurry before it freezes!”

My world was interrupted again, and I came back to reality to find a black haired woman standing in the open doorway, killing-cold air blowing in the door. I think her name is Holly, she’s come in to bring the guards food and drink before. Something about her was different tonight, she seemed jumpy.

“Thank you, mate of the giant.”

I didn’t live in the same world as these people did, these other magical beings, so I still couldn’t get used to the way they talked. I’d slipped in and out of the worlds, a roamer and an outcast, so I spoke a more modern language than they did. I found their way of speaking revealed a lot more than maybe they should. This one wasn’t a dragon’s bride then, she was a giant’s mate.

How loyal was she to any of them this mate of the giant, I had to wonder, so still my muscles didn’t move an inch. There was information to be gathered.

“Holly, hurry! My knees are frozen solid and I think my nipples are so cold they’ve fallen off!” A musical voice came out of the doorway and I saw a grinning green face poke into the doorway. The fairy.

Another one of the creatures I would rule when my father and I took total control of the magical world. Her coloring was odd to me, and though I’d seen her before, I still twitched a little. Just in my shoulders, just enough to draw the fairy’s attention.

Was that a wink she sent my way? I’d let the back of my hair fall over my face earlier, and now I thought it would screen my open eyes, but apparently not if the fairy knew I could see her.

What an odd little creature, that one. Why would she wink at me like that?

“Alright, it’s done, let’s go.” The human woman whispered to the fairy, but I heard it.

The fairy jerked out of sight suddenly and the human woman left. Something was up; I had a feeling about it. At least this was a feeling I could deal with. Those other things those feelings were just gross and made my stomach turn.

I knew when Taka was near because my heart would race and this longing would start between my stomach and my heart. I’d have called it indigestion at any other time, but it went away as soon as he distanced himself from me. Really gross things, those feelings things.

The men drank their ale and ate their dinner, but didn’t offer me a single bite or drink. I was fed only by Wruin and he only came twice a day. He’d leave me with fruit and a flask of ale, and one of water, but that was all. He didn’t want anybody else coming near me. If he wasn’t a dragon, I’d have to admit the king was very intelligent.

I didn’t quite understand why my father hated the dragons so much, but I suspected now it was simply that he coveted their power. He wanted to control the legions of magicals, he wanted to use them to drive the fairies back into our world, so that he could then destroy the nonmagical world. He wanted to use that world for its resources, to reap the rewards until there were none left to take, and then come back to our magical world to rule over it all.

I was raised to want the same thing.

Now, I might just have the opportunity. I have a feeling a rescue attempt is coming my way.

All I needed was to get these chains off and then I could shift. Once I’d shifted, I could escape them all. Even the dragon. If I was forced to remain though, I’d use Taka for whatever I could, and make my escape when it was possible.

Perhaps it was better to stay, though? Find out what I could about the people here, so that I could use that information later.

It was an idea that I couldn’t dismiss.

Before I could think on it further, the two guards slumped over, straight down to the floor, and then the door burst open again. The green fairy came in, her steps light as she headed straight to me, gloves on her hands. They were for more than just protection from the cold though, silver was dangerous to all magicals.

“What are you doing, fairy? Come to play with the big bad wolf?” I couldn’t help the sarcastic barb, it was just who I was.

“As much as I’d love to play with you, little furry one, I have other things to do right now.” She gave me a decidedly saucy wink, telling me in an instant that she didn’t mean playing in the snow, while she undid the chains around my feet and unscrewed the bolt holding my fetters to the wall.

“Now, if you’re a good girl, I might play with you later, but right now, you need to walk wolfie.” She made a gesture with her hand and I took it to mean it was time for me to go.

I stood up without falling over and made my way to the door.

“Fine. But could you undo my hands, maybe? It’s going to be awkward in that snow.” I wanted to run the instant we left the doorway, but she was smart, even for a fairy. She kept my hands chained.

“Nope, not going to happen, wolfie. Walk.” She poked me in the back with a lime green fingernail and we both started walking.

“This might be faster in my wolf form you know? If you’re betraying your people and letting me go, you might as well go the whole nine yards.” I was trying to goad her into telling my why she was letting me go. This didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.

The fairy was bound to Taka, but the giant’s woman, Holly, why would she help?

“You’re far more trouble than you’re worth wolfie, I’m not betraying anybody, I’m getting rid of you and the disruption you’ve already caused.” With that something hard hit me in the head and I fell to my knees.

The world faded away instantly.