A dragon shifter novel Chapter 26

She’s Not Supposed to Matter

My dragon’s growl won’t quiet. It presses against my ribs, hot and sharp, and the longer Cage smirks, the harder it becomes to hold it down. Kael is still

grumbling at him, but the words blur. All I see is Cage’s grin, smug and vicious, like he’s gotten away with something. Then I’m moving. One second, he’s standing there brushing dirt off his sleeve. The next, he’s flat on his back, my hand fisted in the front of his shirt, my knees pinning him to the dirt. My dragon roars through me, the sound spilling out of my throat as a snarl that silences the field. “What the fuck did you do?” I growl, hot breath fanning his

face. Every head still in the field turns to stare, and every ice dies. Coach’s whistle blasts, shrill and furious.

“Break it up! Drayke! Off him, now!” Cage doesn’t flinch or struggle. His grin widens further, malice written all over his face. “Temper, temper,” he drawls,

unbothered. “People might start to think you care, golden boy.” Before I can slam him into the dirt again, his body shimmers, magic snapping like static. A

blink later, he’s gone, leaving my fists clutching at air. Coach storms toward me, but a voice pipes up first, thin but sharp enough to cut through the silence.

“I–I saw him!” Everyone turns now to the scrawny boy, no older than eighteen, sparks of elemental fire still clinging faintly to his fingertips. He looks

nervous as hell, but he forces the words out anyway. “The new girl. She wasn’t far behind me… On the beam. He… he kicked it. I saw him push her off to

gorge.” The silence that follows is heavier than the canopy of the woods. My dragon roars against my chest, demanding blood. Cage tried to kill her, and

now, everyone knows it.

Coach freezes mid–step, the whistle still clutched in his hand. The boy’s words sink like stones into the silence. This isn’t some training mishap. This was

intentional. His gaze snaps to me, then to Kael. “You two. Drayke. Pierce. You’re our best trackers. Get in there and find her. Now.” Kael doesn’t waste a

heartbeat. His skin ripples, bones snapping, black smoke curling around him. In a blink, the lean, cocky boy is gone, replaced by the hulking, fire–eyed hell

hound, fur bristling and teeth flashing white. I’m already moving. My boots tear up the grass as I break into a sprint, the shift rising like fire under my skin.

Heat rolls through me, scales breaking through flesh, wings cracking free from my spine. My vision splits, gold bleeding into everything, making me sharper

and more determined to find her. By the time I hit the edge of the woods, my body is no longer human, and the forest swallows me whole. Wind whips past

as I take low to the air, wings shredding the branches above, my dragon’s fury roaring through the trees. The scent of her is faint and muddied by river

water and blood, but it hits me like a knife to the gut. My chest tightens as my instincts snap taut. She’s hurt. I push harder, banking toward the river, my

senses stretched wide. I watch for a second as Kael’s hell hound form tears through the undergrowth below me like smoke and flame.

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Her scent clings to the water, thin at first, then thicker, heavier the further downstream I follow. I smell blood, a lot of it. I land hard, claws gouging the

mud as my wings fold tight against my sides. The trees are hushed, the river hisses beside me, but the copper tang of blood is everywhere, choking the air.

Then I see a wraith–beast… Its body lies sprawled across the bank, half in the water, half out. Grey flesh split open, steaming where it touches the river,

jagged antlers cracked like brittle wood. The stink of rot burns my nose, but worse than that–worse than the corpse itself–is how it’s been killed. It looks

like it took on a whole army of magicals. It’s got burns, tears, stone fused into flesh and water soaked deep into its remains. Its insides look hollowed and

drained, as if its own essence had been ripped straight out of it. I frown, lowering my head to sniff closer. Magic still clings to it faintly, but it isn’t shifter

magic. It isn’t anything I know. “Fuck,” I mutter, teeth bared. My dragon hisses in my chest, uneasy. She was here. The scent of her blood is evidence enough

that she fought this thing, but what in the hell did she use to do this? I straighten, eyes sweeping the trees. The silence presses in again, heavy, wrong. A terrifying thought cuts clean through the storm in my chest. If she didn’t do this alone… then what else is still out here with her?

Kael’s howl splits the trees like thunder a moment later. It’s a sound that makes every scale on my body bristle. My dragon doesn’t hesitate, i shift again,

wings snapping open, beating the air as I launch myself toward it, cutting through the canopy in a storm of branches and leaves. I don’t want to see what

waits, but my body pushes me further and faster. I land hard, dirt spraying under my boots as I shift mid–step, human skin taking over as I sprint the last

stretch, and then I see her… Kael’s hound lies low to the ground, his dark fur gleaming in the dying light. He isn’t touching her, but he’s close enough to

radiate heat, keeping her from freezing completely. His great head rests near her arm, and a low whimper bleeds from his throat. A sound I’ve never once

heard from him in all the years we’ve been friends. My stomach clenches, and my chest tightens impossibly. “Allison.” Her name scrapes raw from my throat

as I drop to my knees in the mud. She’s a wreck. Soaked through, skin pale beneath streaks of dirt. Mud is smeared across her limbs, and the stench of blood

is so intense I can almost taste it. My hands shake as I turn her gently, cradling her weight. Her back steals the breath from my lungs.

Long, savage gashes tear across her skin, wounds deep enough that I see flashes of muscle. They look half–healed, half–fresh, like they’ve been ripped ope

again and again. They’re the kind of marks you don’t walk away from. My heart hammers as I press trembling fingers against her throat. For a moment, I

don’t feel a pulse, just cold skin and silence. I exhale, relief ripping through me so sharp it almost hurts as I feel the faintest thump, thump, thump. “She’s alive,” I rasp, my voice breaking. Kael’s massive head lifts, molten eyes meeting mine. Relief flickers in them, but so does something else, something that mirrors the storm inside me. No one is supposed to matter this much. Yet here she is, broken and bleeding in my arms, and my dragon wants to burn the

whole world down for it.

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