Chapter One

Madison

A n accident stole my blood family from me, and a dragon robbed me of the one I’d found in the midst of dealing with that tragedy.

I stared up into the blood-red sky through the cracked and broken windshield. The setting sun had tinted the clouds the color of death. How fitting.

Somewhere, alarms screamed at me, warning of the impending death. Of how I’d failed those who’d relied on me. My adopted family.

There was no movement from my right. My copilot was dead. I couldn’t even cry. My brain was still in space-cadet mode, fully detached from the carnage around me. The helicopter I’d been piloting had plowed into the side of the supermarket, carving a giant furrow out of the brick facade as it went. A giant green-colored Pu- was all that remained of the neon lettering.

I glanced over at Jill’s body and nearly vomited at the sight.

The alarms continued to wail, but I barely heard them. My hearing was shot from the explosions. Which was probably for the best. I hadn’t heard my best friend in the entire world scream as her body was torn apart in the crash.

A crash I should’ve prevented. Even as the guilt-ridden thought entered my brain, I knew better than to blame myself. There was no way I could have avoided the attack. Dodging a dragon mid-air was vastly different than trying to avoid a missile.

Especially when the dragon was bigger and infinitely more agile.

The wrecked AH-64D Apache Longbow was one of the best attack birds that could be deployed, but it still hadn’t been enough to stop the dragons. Nothing could stop them.

Our mission had been to delay them, not stop them, but no soldier wanted to know they couldn’t beat the enemy.

The leftovers of the supermarket shuddered, and some of the facing toppled over, slamming into the rear of the airframe. I screamed as metal shrieked and the cockpit twisted to face upward, showing the edge of the building just as a gigantic ruby-red snout appeared over the edge.

Another dragon. Come to finish the job its fellow had started.

I bared my teeth in wordless challenge as the beast came closer, its slit-nostrils flaring as they sucked up the chemical smoke from the burning wreckage that used to be my helicopter.

Take that! I hope you choke on the fumes.

It didn’t. A giant huff of air expelled the smoke from its lungs, and the beast moved out of the way, examining my wreckage. As it did, it came around the front. I grinned and reached for the controls one last time.

The movement attracted the dragon’s attention. Its head snapped down, both giant black eyes focusing on me.

“Eat shit, Scales,” I spat, finger tightening on the control stick as I stared the terrifying beast down, preparing to hit it with all the weapons I had left. If any of them worked.

However, before I could pull the trigger, our eyes locked. Dragon slitted pupil met human circle, and the world disappeared before me.

Gone were the pain and suffering. The looming grief of the death of half my squadron, including Jill, simply vanished. It was replaced by an abyss that drew me down into its depths.

Is this death? Is this what it’s like to die?

I fell, sucked inward, freefalling into eternity as everything ceased to have meaning.

Until I was no longer alone. There was another presence. Another being there with me. I reached out for them, and they reached out for me. I’d never witnessed such perfection. The beauty I could not see but knew was there brought me to tears.

Tears and … yearning. A brief touch wasn’t enough. A gentle caress of my mind didn’t cut it. More. I needed more. So much more.

I sought to embrace them. To feel their arms beneath my fingers, their heartbeat under my ear. In return, they lit my body on fire. A golden warmth that pulsed through every inch of me, awakening it like never before.

Take me , I whispered mentally, my body aching as it strained against the holds of the physical world, demanding that I relinquish it to whatever was on the other side.

Red-orange light exploded everywhere.

All at once, I was slapped back into the helicopter seat, rocked by the shockwave as something erupted on the dragon's flank. It snarled, and a fireball spat from its mouth.

I shrieked and prepared for death, but the attack wasn’t directed my way. It flew overhead, the searing heat making it hard to breathe for a second, but then it was gone.

A moment later, two more explosions—that was what the red-orange light must have been—rocked the dragon backward, driving it off the edge of the supermarket roof. It disappeared from my view, but not before it took a third anti-tank round right to the face.

“Hah! Fuck you!” I shouted, shaking my fist at the retreating scaled form.

Somewhere else, I could hear the clanking of tracks as the tank-destroyer squadron inched closer. Their weapons would’ve driven the beast off, but only for a time. It would be back soon, and surprise would no longer be on our side.

Soldiers appeared everywhere, and civilians followed shortly after, piling out of the storefronts where they’d hidden from the attack. They had to find a safer place, quickly, before more dragons appeared.

Time. That was all we could buy with our lives. Time for the civilians to run again and stay one step ahead.

It was never enough.

“Hey!” a voice shouted as a helmeted soldier appeared. “Anyone alive in there?”

I waved weakly, trying to give him a thumbs-up.

“Holy shit,” he exclaimed, gesturing. “We’ve got a live one!”

It took a few minutes, but they managed to pry me out of the wreckage. I could barely walk.

“How are you not dead?” the soldier shouted, his shoulder under my arm to keep me upright as we ran from the burning helicopter. “I watched the dragon come for you. He had you dead to rights. Should have burned you up. Then he just stopped. What did you do?”

“I don’t know,” I whispered, a sane part of my brain taking control, realizing that if I said I’d made eye contact with the beast, it wouldn’t go over well. They would think I made a deal with the devil to spare my life.

As it turned out, it didn’t matter.

The story spread, and they all assumed it anyway.