#13 The Dragon King and his Werewolf Princess
Chapter 19 River

After breakfast, well the second breakfast, Calix asked me to take a walk with him to which I agreed. He stopped at the coat closet by the front door and reached in, pulling out something that looked like a cape.

“It can be chilly in the shade.” Calix said, holding open the red velvet blanket.

It wasn’t a cape or a blanket, but a cloak complete with a brass bottom clasp around the neck and a fur lined hood. It was like something straight out of Little Red Riding Hood. I laughed as Calix laid the cloak over my shoulders, but I was quickly silenced as his big arms wrapped around my body to clasp the bottom. His biceps clouded my vision and I gulped.

“What’s funny?” He asked, his breath blowing across my neck as he removed his hands.

“It’s just….people don’t wear these anymore.” I said, looking up at Calix.

“Oh, really?” He thought about that for a second before shrugging and reaching around me to open up the door, “Ready?” He asked and I nodded.

I followed Calix out the door and down one of the cobblestone paths. We walked in silence for a while before Calix cleared his throat,

“How are you feeling?” He asked.

“I feel fine.” I shrugged.

“And Lavender?”

“She’s fine, too.” I said,

“Great.”

Awkwardness hung between us like an itchy, wool blanket.

“I….”

“Do you….”

We both spoke at the same time and then stopped. I clamped my mouth shut and blushed while Calix ran his hand through his hair.

“I’m sorry, you go ahead.” He said,

I opened my mouth to speak, but before I could, a high pitch scream ripped through the quiet courtyard. Calix was a flurry of movement. In seconds, his arm was wrapped around my waist and I was shoved behind him, my body pressed firmly against his back. His entire form was ridge and tense, poised and ready for an attack.

“What’s wrong?” I gasped.

Calix didn’t say anything. I craned around his freakishly sized body to get a look at his face. His eyes were swirling red and orange, and I guessed he was using the mindlink….mental link, whatever they called it here. When his eyes returned to blue, I fisted the back of his shirt and tugged at it,

“Calix?” I demanded.

He looked down at me, his face stone cold.

“Ferals.” He spat through his teeth.

“Wha….” Before I could finish my question, Grier was taking Calix’s spot as my guard.

“Take her inside to our room and guard the door,” Calix ordered Grier, “I’ll be in soon.” He directed his voice towards me.

“Where….” I started to ask, but Calix was already gone.

“What the hell?” I grumbled to myself.

“Let’s go, River.” Grier grabbed my arm and started dragging me back towards the castle.

“What is going on?” I demanded, digging my heels into the ground.

“River, it’s not safe….”

“Grier, I won’t move until you tell me what the hell is happening!” I yelled, crossing my arms over my chest and refusing to move.

Grier looked pissed, his eyes flashing red and orange, his fists shaking at his side, but he answered me anyway,

“Ferals have breached the Royal City and are attacking the market.” He said in a tense voice.

“Ferals?”

“Dragonhearted who stand against the Crown and our people, criminals, heathens, thugs,” He rattled off a bunch of terms, “Shifters not in control of their dragons, Benders who use their elemental control for devastation, Enhanced who thieve and murder, Guardians who attack instead of protect.”

“Rogues,” I said, “We call them rogue werewolves.”

“Fine, same thing. Can we go now?” He wrapped his hand around my arm again.

“Calix…”

“Is fine. Magnor and Vix went out, too, and a hundred warriors. They’ll handle it. What won’t be fine is if he replaces out you’re still out here. I’ll be the one dead, River.” His voice was serious.

I sighed and nodded, allowing myself to be dragged back inside and up to Calix’s bedroom. And don’t think I missed the fact that he called it our bedroom to Grier.

“Tell me more, Grier.” I refused to let him leave the room, forcing him to sit in one of the chairs in the sitting area and talk to me.

“What do you want to know?” Grier looked uncomfortable.

“I don’t know….I just figured everyone would be all happy and peaceful being inside one realm all together.” I shrugged.

“We’re stuck inside one realm all together, River. A drop in the bucket compared to the amount of space the other species have to roam around in between all the other realms. We can’t get away from each other. Tensions rise, people start to think we’re cursed, they think the Crown is responsible, they think the House of Dragonblood is keeping us here or keeping secrets. We’ve been here for ten centuries, countless generations. At some point, cabin fever gets the best of all of us,”

Grier laughed humorlessly,

“There’s an Underground City. It used to be more of a merchant’s alley, home to outcasts, those who didn’t fit into society’s norms. Now, it’s where the criminals live, and the only way to be a criminal is to commit treason. There aren’t many laws here besides the obvious, don’t murder, don’t steal, don’t start shit you can’t finish,

“The Crown generally stays away from the Underground, leaving them to their own undoing as long as they stay below. Sometimes they come up and start trouble. The tunnels aren’t far outside the City.” Grier explained.

“The royal werewolves stay out of pack business unless they are requested to intervene, our secret is threatened with the humans, or a big enough war is brewing. We have rogues who don’t belong to any pack, they are feral and unhinged, like the Ferals you’re talking about. They have no allegiance and just cause trouble. For generations, Kings and Queens have been trying to limit rogues.” I did what I could to relate this strange world to my own.

“Sounds right.” Grier nodded.

“What’s going on now?” I asked and Grier shrugged,

“We’ll know when they get back.”

“They aren’t mindlinking you?” I asked impatiently.

“Mindlinking? You mean the mental link?”

I huffed in frustration,

“Whatever!” I complained loudly.

Grier chuckled at me,

“No, not during a battle, not unless something is wrong.” He didn’t sound worried so, I decided, I wouldn’t be either.

“Can you tell me about your Goddess? I’ve heard her mentioned a few times. Tiamat?” I changed the subject.

Grier focused intently on me,

“Yes, Goddess of the Dragons. It’s a long story,” He sighed, “But, I’ll try to summarize it for you,

“Tiamat was the mother of all the Gods, known as the Chaldean dragon. She merged with her lover, Apsu, the watery deep beneath the earth. Her children were Anshar and Kishar, the twin horizons of the sky and earth, and Lahmu and Lahamu, the first Gods to be born from the chaos. In the end, Aspu was killed by their bickering, selfish children,

“Eventually, Tiamat was killed by her grandson and her body was used to create the world and her spirit was released into it. Tiamat’s second husband, Quingu, was killed and his blood was used to make mankind who were ordered to do the bidding of the Gods,

“Tiamat creates the Great Dragon in her image to protect and aid mankind against the Gods, her children who she deems unworthy, as a way to avenge Apsu and Quingo. From the Great Dragon came all Dragonhearted. From within the spirit world, she carefully wields the strings of fate to help her Dragonhearted children be better than the Gods.” Grier explained expertly.

“Same story, different version,” I laughed and Grier’s eyes pinched together in confusion, “The Moon Goddess, Selene, created man as the innocent and werewolves as the protectors in her image.”

“I’m sure the real story falls somewhere in the middle of all of our versions.” Grier replied smartly.

“So, what happened? Why was the realm sealed off?” I asked.

“Mankind failed to replace peace with the Dragonhearted like Tiamat imagined, so she created a new realm to protect her children. The Viking era was the war that ended our peace. Before then, mankind and the dragons got along; the Dragonhearted guarded and protected humankind. But, when Noresemen invaded Europe, a wave of devastation and a struggle for power struck,

“Dark dragons were created to destroy humans and claim land for the Dragonhearted. Hunters came from humankind to kill dragons and preserve the land for themselves. With no end in sight, Tiamat intervened. She created a daughter pure from the Great Dragon bloodline who destroyed the dark dragons and sealed off our realm. From her and the House of Dragonblood came Calix’s ancestors and steady peace inside our realm,” Grier shrugged,

“At least, that’s the story we’re told.”

I laughed as his tone went from serious to casual,

“Some story.”

“It’s easy to know your history when you live for centuries. Calix’s grandfather, King Roarke, mated with the heir of the Great Dragon, his grandmother, Queen Astryd. They only just committed to their dragon forms a hundred years ago, when Calix took the throne. They told us the stories themselves.” Grier said,

“I’m sorry, they did what?” I was distinctly focused on one key detail.

“Their dragon form?” Grier looked confused.

“What do you mean fully committed?”

“When they decided to fully turn into their dragons, forever,” Grier looked at me strangely, “Wait, do werewolves not do that?”

“Do we turn into our werewolf and run off into the sunset forever? No, no we do not do that.” I looked stunned.

“Oh, well, once the man and the dragon both agree that it’s time, the human form ceases to exist and his soul is completely consumed by the dragon. The dragon form takes full control. Basically, the human gets full control during the first half of their lives and the dragon gets control the second half.” Grier looked perplexed and I felt slightly nauseous, although I didn’t really know why.

“How long?” I asked.

“There’s no hard and fast rule. Whenever the dragon and human decide, but they always agree with each other and with their mate and her dragon. It’s why Shifters can only mate with other Shifters, so they don’t leave behind a mate,” Grier said and then clamped his mouth shut, “Oh.”

“Yeah, oh.” I replied snarkily.

“Wait, so what happens to your wolf once the human dies?” Grier asked.

“The wolf returns to the Moon Goddess and awaits another soul.”

“I don’t know, River, but I do know that our Goddesses aren’t cruel. They wouldn’t put the two of you together to have you ripped apart in the end.”

“No?” I cocked an eyebrow and Grier shook his head, “Then why pluck me from my realm and drop me down here? Unless you’re saying I’ll never be able to get back and I’ll never see my family again.”

It was in that moment that Grier realized how truly screwed he was.

“I…uh…erm…”

“Nevermind, Grier.” I sighed, waving my hand around dismissively.

“I have faith, River.”

“Good for you.” I bit.

Another high pitch scream stopped our argument. I jumped off the bed and ran towards the window, against Grier’s warning. I looked down and saw a horrifying sight.