79. Dimitri

CHAPTER 79

Dimitri

March-

We get to the other side and back on the main game trail. It's not long before the scent of other bears fills my nostrils; we are close to their camp. I can feel it. Out of nowhere, I get blasted in the side by something huge. Aurora goes flying, and I can hear her clothing rip as she shifts midair.

I hit the ground hard and scent the boar flying towards Aurora. She catches him and slams his bear to the ground. I can hear bones crack from the impact. Aurora is growling and drooling venom on the male's face. I go nose to nose with the male, and his eyes widen in recognition. Immediately he shifts back and looks up at me as Aurora releases him. "You're of the Kovac line, I know those markings," the man says in Romanian to me.

I raise my eyes to look at Aurora and explain what's going on through the bond to her. She runs and walks back to the bags and shifts back to her human form. Quickly, she dresses and returns to me with my clothes. I return to my human form and get dressed. "Yes, I am of the Kovac line; my mother was Svetlana, and my father was Beck." I answer him in Romanian, and he nods slowly.

"They've been dead a long time, my friend. You cannot be their Dimitri. He should be long dead." He continues speaking in Romanian to me.

I show him the family brand on my forearm and the brand given to me the day I went to work as the queen's guard. Aurora silently steps up beside me and rests her bare forearm next to mine. She bares the Marelup seal as well as the seal of the Ice Dragon Royal House. The man visibly pales, looking at her markings. Quickly, he drops to one knee and apologizes for attacking.

Aurora walks over and gently touches the man's chin and raises his eyes to meet hers. Her steel-grey eyes examine him, then look back to me. "Tell him why we are here and that I forgive him. Make sure he realizes you're my mate and your life span was extended because of me. Tell him we seek your descendants," Aurora says, looking back down at the man. Slowly, she releases him, and she returns to my side where I hold her tightly to me.

Quickly, I relay what Aurora had said to the man before us. He's in shock that I'm almost a hundred and fifty years older than the oldest living Great Bear in our history. He gets up and grabs our bags, offering to lead us to the clan. Aurora is happy with this turn of events and smiles as we head towards camp.

Everything is almost how I remember it, except the clan is much smaller in numbers these days. My mother's hut is still standing where it was all those years ago. Planks have been changed out and the roof updated, but yet the same shape. A robust woman steps out of the hut, and she reminds me of my mother. I stare for several minutes while the man explains who we are to her and the others gathered.

Aurora looks up to me, and her eyes shift to that of her beast. I feel a tingle through the bonds as she attempts to pull some matrix shit with me. Aurora blinks twice, and the tingle stops; her attention turns back to the female. "She's of your blood, Dimitri, a grandchild. I can scent it on the wind." Aurora cants her head to the side, looking up to me.

I'm not sure what's more shocking right now, the fact Aurora just ravaged my mind and learned to speak Romanian in a matter of minutes, or the fact I left behind a child. "Who is your grandmother?" I ask the woman directly.

"My grandmother is dead, but her name was Irina. Her boyfriend left her pregnant to go work for the wolves." She spit on the ground after saying that. My chest hurt, all this time I had a child and never knew. Eventually, her mother emerges and I see my own eyes staring back at me. My chest tightens as I think about all of the years I missed with my daughter. I watch her run back inside and comes out holding a small canvas. I know that canvas; Irina painted my portrait just before I left to work at the castle.

Slowly the old woman turns the painting around, There's my face staring back at me. "Papa?" she asks hesitantly.

I nod my head slowly, looking at her. I'm all choked up from the power and emotion in this moment. She makes it past her daughter and comes over and hugs me without hesitation. I hold my daughter tightly to my chest. I explain a short version of what's happened in the last two hundred and almost thirty years. My daughter Katrina tells me her mom was going to tell me she was pregnant the day I left. I see tears rolling down Aurora's cheeks as she listens to my daughter's story. Katrina's daughter eventually comes around and starts talking to me about what I've missed. Aurora is silent, watching everyone like a sentinel. I also hear the whispers of her updating the others through the bond. I still have family; that in itself is a miracle.

~Later that night~

Everyone gathers around the fire to talk, but Aurora remains at a distance. My people blame her people for my leaving and why so many never returned home after the coup. I believe that they sense she's more dragon than wolf, so they sort of relax in her presence. I make sure the entire camp knows who Aurora is and why we are here. I thought wolves were bad about shutting out other species, but apparently, the bears are worse. Slowly, I extract myself from the bears and walk over to the tree Aurora is leaning on. "Are you okay?" I just had to ask.

"It's just a lot to process." She kicks off the tree and starts to pace. Her hands shoot up and threads through her long, white hair roughly. "I'm the reason you didn't get to see your daughter born. My people are the reason so many of your people were slaughtered the night of the attack." Shaking her head slowly, she raises her eyes to look at me. The sadness there makes my chest hurt; by proxy she blames herself for what happened. "I'm not welcome here, it's okay. I understand why. If you want I'll have Marco come and get me, or I can call Alaric to me instead," Aurora says, her tone is broken and full of pain. Here, I thought this would be a joyous occasion, and now I'm having second thoughts.

Renee, one of the few sows in the camp that holds no ill will towards the wolves, brings Aurora some desserts and candies. They seem to get along well enough. Aurora isn't used to having a female friend, and Renee is trying to be that friend to her right now. Renee's three mates take turns bringing drinks and snacks over to them. Each male young and virile, muscles on muscles. Aurora doesn't even notice them at all. I can tell they are trying to be playful with her, and she seems to be lost in her own emotions again. I move back and forth between the family I never got to know and my mate. I'm torn. Both need me, and I can't be in two places at once.

A roar sounds overhead, and Aurora's eyes light up. They take on that ghostly glow when she talks to the dragons; it's frightening to those who don't know what's happening. Aurora tilts her head back and does that roar-howl of her beast, answering the dragon's call. I know it's Alaric, and he's concerned because of how Aurora feels through the bond. A bag falls from the sky, and Aurora catches it and runs off into the night. I get up to follow, and my granddaughter grabs my arm scared of what's to come. "Shh, little one, it's my bond mate, Alaric. He sensed Aurora was upset and came to her the fastest way he knew how."

"He's a dragon?" my daughter Katrina asks. She quickly pulls her daughter to her side, holding onto her tightly.

"Yes, he's a dragon, the Ice Dragon King to be exact, and Aurora is his queen. Everyone here shunned her because she's part Lycan. You should all be ashamed of yourselves." I make eye contact with each of my descendant's clan. I see the regret in their eyes, I can only hope it's enough to appease Alaric.

Alaric and Aurora walk into sight, hand in hand, and thankfully she appears to have calmed down. Well, all except both of their eyes are that of their beast. With the light coating of frost on them, I can tell Aurora is in deep conversation with Alaric. Dragons and their freaky shit, I think Ellis had it right. It's just weird how hard-wired they are to each other. "Greetings, Dimitri!" Alaric says as he releases Aurora and embraces me. We pat each other's back then step back.

"I hope your flight was a good one, Alaric." I can tell he's mad. I know it's not at me but at my people. At this point, I can't blame him. I'm mad at them too.

"It was, Dimitri. It's just upsetting that my mate is distraught because of how speciesist your people are. Part of me, I want to burn them all to ash. Then again, Aurora tells me you have a daughter and granddaughter here, and both are anti-Lycan," Alaric says, trying to contain his temper. I can see the struggle he's having with his beast.

Aurora moves in front of Alaric and lays a hand upon his chest. Slowly, she brings her free hand up to lightly stroke his beard. "Love? My mother's Lycan mate did a lot of damage to a lot of species. In some ways, I understand why they have a dislike of the Lycans. But in other ways I don't, it happened two hundred and twenty-nine years ago, on my birthday of all days. My poor mother was drugged and unable to fight against Vladimir. I swear I will have my vengeance on him for what happened to my mother and all the other lives lost that day. I will make him suffer a thousand deaths." Aurora speaks with so much passion that it brings tears to the bear's eyes who can hear her clearly.

Alaric leans down and kisses Aurora passionately. You can hear the happy rumble of their beasts. Eventually, Alaric releases Aurora and she just smiles up at him, content again. "D? What do you say we head to the pit and let your people see who I really am? Maybe let them send four of their strongest boars into the ring with me? I could use the exercise." Aurora smiles at me sweetly then I see Dante, Edgar, and Marco flank Alaric. Oh boy, Aurora has a plan, and it involves siphoning energy from the other dragons if need be.

Several bulky males laugh and offer to take the "queen" up on her offer. Alaric and I both can't help but laugh. They have no idea whom they are fucking with. They assume that because she's female, she's going to be smaller and weaker. That is their first and last mistake.

I move to the training pit center and hold up my arms, getting everyone's attention. Aurora, apparently, wants to fight all four at the same time. I can almost bet she has a new move she's waiting to try out. "Attention bear clan, dragons, and hybrid, this is the challenge ring. We obey the old laws, fight to submission or knock out only. Does everyone understand?" I look between the four boar and Aurora. Aurora looks absolutely bored out of her mind right now.

Aurora walks up to Alaric and hands him the robe she was wearing. Slowly, she shifts to the form of her beast; her beast's bulk and mass are insane. More dragon features are now very pronounced as she turns to face me. Her entire muzzle is covered in white scales and up around her eyes to protect them. Her heavily scaled arms look like very aggressive medieval gauntlets with almost six inches of razor-sharp talons on the end. Aurora's legs even have scales on them from her paws to her knee. She starts tapping her talons together as her dragonic eyes regard everyone around her. I use the word regard very loosely; it's more like she's sizing everyone up, assessing them for strengths and weaknesses.

All four males make the mistake of shifting at once, and Aurora spins to face them. She roars at them, causing the dragons present to answer her call. All almost ten feet of Aurora's beast lowers its body into an attack stance. The bears don't know what to make of her at this point. Hmm, let's see here, an almost ten foot tall, approximately half-ton of heavily muscled and armored white Dragon-Lycan hybrid in the ring. I can only imagine what's going through their minds right now.

Two of the larger males charge simultaneously, and with a quick swipe of Aurora's talons, she cut both of their muzzles and sent them crashing to the ground. Her eyes lock on the last two, and she charges them. They move, trying to circle her. Aurora, on the other hand, is having the time of her life. The two boar decide to charge again at the same time, idiots. Aurora saw what they were going to do long before they did it. At the very last second, she leaps up and lands on the one boar's back, causing him to crash to the ground.

All four male bears are wounded, and Aurora's fur is still its ghost-white color. I can see how she's watching them, assessing if they will continue to fight or tap out. Her eyes land on me, and then I look to the boars still attempting to get back into the fight. "I'm going to count to five. If you cannot continue, lie on the ground. If you want to continue, then fucking do something. One … Two … Three … Four …" Suddenly, a boar leaps out of the crowd, heading directly at Aurora.

She spins just in the nick of time to grasp him by the throat and slam his body to the ground. She starts to growl and snap in his face; her venom is dripping from her canines, some of it landing in his mouth. He starts thrashing as his beast retreats deep within himself because of the toxin. Aurora backs up and narrows her eyes at him as her tail thrashes wildly behind her.

Apparently, the Alpha's son thought he had enough strength to take her. Obviously, he was wrong. Now he's going to be stuck as a human until the venom works its way out of his system. I finally yell five, and the match is over. Aurora looks back to Alaric and then me. We both bow our heads to her and raise our fists to our hearts. Slowly, Aurora looks at the gathered crowd, and one by one they mimic Alaric and me. I guess she earned the clan's respect in the ring, more by actions than by words. The old Alpha Vladimir would have disregarded the rules and killed all those who challenged him.

In one round of battle against five opponents, Aurora showed mercy and proved that not all Lycans are bad. Aurora steps up to Alaric and licks his face, then she turns and licks mine. Silly woman. Alaric throws her robe over her beast's shoulders as she shifts back to her human form. The clan Alpha comes to apologize for the way his son attacked out of turn, and Aurora accepts his apology.

Alaric raises an eyebrow, looking at me, shocked that Aurora is speaking yet another new language. I shrug my shoulders, looking at him. "She pulled some matrix shit with me earlier. Next thing I know, she's speaking my dialect." I shrug my shoulders at him again, then go back to watching Aurora greet the clan's people. Finally, they pull their collective heads out of their asses.

Alaric starts to laugh and shake his head. "I honestly can't figure out how she does that. Usually, only the ancients can pull that off. Maybe it's Aurora's hybrid status that helped. I honestly don't know. We'll have to remember to ask Nicodeamus about it when we return," Alaric says as if he's going to ask about the weather instead of an ability.

Aurora returns to us and looks back at the gathered bears before facing us once more. "Time to go home; there's not enough Great Bears to ask them to fight with us. Alaric love, summon Ellis and his Polar Bears; we'll need them. The winter storms are almost over; his people may be able to blend in." Aurora finishes speaking then turns her face to the sky. Soon, we hear Marco's, Dante's, and Edgar's call. Aurora extends her arms outward just as the snow starts to fall. I don't know if she sensed the snow or summoned it; either way, we have one last freak winter storm to deal with, and we need to leave. "I'll fly back on Alaric. Dimitri, you can fly back on Marco; we need to call a meeting of the clans' heads. Soon, I hunt Elena, then we head towards my mother's castle." Aurora's tone is cold and detached.

We watch Aurora walk to the field where the other dragons have landed; she seems to be in deep conversation with them. "What just happened, Alaric?" I had to question him, something isn't sitting right with me.

Alaric inhales deeply then slowly lets the air escape his lungs. "Apparently, she sent the trifecta to investigate a lead for her. They came back with the news that she needed to hear. She now knows exactly where Elena and the rogue pack are. They apparently have a small force of Wyverns with them. If I know my mate, she's going to ask those three to pick the best fighters to come and take them out." Alaric looks back to Aurora then back to me.

Before I have a chance to say anything, Aurora is yelling that we have to get moving. The two War Dragons take off, and the Black Dragon waits for me. I look at Aurora and Alaric as he jogs to join her. His shift is fast and fluid; apparently, that is one of his gifts from Aurora. I watch them take off, and I head over to Marco. He lowers his wing and stretches his front leg out so I can get on. This is going to prove to be a very interesting flight home.