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Prologue

Thirty Years Before

Pearl and Magnus looked at their child, the hatchling that had finally happened. The dragon was asleep on his little bed. They hadn’t named him yet because they had been so afraid that the egg would never hatch, just like the ones before. They had been trying for a long time to have an heir who could take over the stewardship for the area that they controlled to help keep the supernatural beings of the land in check. Just like humans had their own government, they helped to keep the supernaturals in check.

“He’s beautiful,” Magnus said as he reached down and touched the larger stretch of fluff that was on him. He was the same breed as them, which was the way that it was supposed to be. Their breed was smaller than other breeds, but when it came to dragons, that didn’t mean much because they were bigger than most other beings in the world. There were some supernatural creatures in the water that were bigger than the dragons that lived in the water, but there were no creatures that would attack dragons, because while they were bigger, there were many dragons. The Fathoms and Undertides protected their waters with the help of a few dragons who could be on land or sea with no issue.

“He really is. He’s going to grow up so loved,” Pearl said. She used one of her claws to pull the blanket up over him again. He wouldn’t get cold, but the weight of the blanket seemed to get him to sleep more deeply. His breathing evened out even more. He was going to spend the next day or two sleeping a lot, and then he was going to end up being full of energy as he looked around the new world.

Being freshly hatched was hard on the body, getting used to not being inside the egg and getting everything from the egg that they needed. Pearl had already made sure that things were ready for her to step back to take care of the care and feeding of the hatchling. They hadn’t cared if they had a male or a female. There was no rule of gender like there had been for a long time with the humans; it was new that they had those rules broken.

Magnus stepped back, looking like he wanted to do anything but that, but he still did it. He turned to leave the room when the flames of the torches on the wall that burned forever, magic that made sure that they didn’t go out for anything, fluttered. He stopped, and he looked back at Pearl, where she curled around their hatchling. They were ready for whatever was coming.

There was a strange sound, and then their hatchling’s familiar came into the room. It had shown up two weeks before and had stayed around the egg. There had been no promise of hatching, though, because each time that they had an egg, there was a familiar that arrived when it was close to hatching. Then the family would leave and never come back after the hatching was dead when the egg didn’t hatch when it was supposed to. The magic that protected their young also made it impossible to know if an egg was viable to be hatched before the day when it just didn’t. It was something that they dealt with, and normally, the issues never lasted; it was just a single egg, never a whole nest. The issue was that their nests only ever gave them a single egg, so there was loss upon loss.

The familiar settled over their hatchling. Pearl allowed it to get close and it to settle over him. One clawed arm moved and then settled around the familiar as much as it could. It was one of the rarest familiars. There were those that were plentiful, and then there were those that were not. This one was one of the rarest because there were only ever a few in the world at a time. They never went to certain lines of dragons and just seemed to pick one based on something that was inside the dragon. It had been over three decades since the family had bound itself with a dragon. After their last dragon died of old age, the others of its kind, if there were actually more than one, just never showed up over the last thirty years.

Cumulus was like a green, flowing, and yet wispy cloud. It looked like it would protect their hatchling with their life, and that was all that mattered.

A storm started to pound on their compound. The castle at the center could withstand a lot, and there were more than enough dragons to help those who couldn’t help themselves because of what this kind of storm could do.

The magic built, and Pearl growled as she tried to use her own magic to protect them. The wind was howling, and their ears only heard the roaring of it. Then there was the sound of the rain as it beat on the castle. There was no stopping it. There was just this, the end of it all, and the way that it was just beating down. There would be flooding from the onset of this. They would have to make sure that their people and the humans who were affected by this got the help that they needed.

Then just as quickly as the storm started, it ended. The smell of magic was strong.

Whatever caused that had failed in what it was going to do.

The wail came not from their hatchling but from Cumulus. Pearl looked down to see that the bed was empty. She looked to see where her hatchling had gone, but there was nothing. The smell of magic was coming from there. She moved the blanket away from the bed, and there was a mark on the bedding, a strange mark that she had never seen before.

“Where is he?” Pearl asked.

There was nowhere in the world that would stop a bonded familiar from finding their charge. Magunus came over and reached out to scoop up Cumulus. It was still shuddering and seemed to be shocked. He tried to read it, to let his magic wash over it, but there was just such pain in its body that Magnus wasn’t sure that it was all there mentally.

“Send the guards out,” Pearl demanded.

One Week Later

Magnus crouched down below his wife because she was the one speaking at the moment, to the guards who were going to search the state and to the others who were on loan from the other states around them. There were more who were there via magic, little shimmering lights in the air above the gathered dragons. They would look in the other states. Finding their hatchling was the biggest priority.

There were already dragons who had tried to track the spell that had done this, but the storm and magic from it, as well as the foul smell from the spell, had made it impossible. It was something old and foul, a thing not used because it harmed. There had been a section of the land and sea on the edge of Los Angeles that had been stuck dead. There was nothing growing there, and nothing was left alive in that area of the water. The ground was grey, as if all life had been sucked out of it. It was where the spell had started. Where it had come and done its damage. It was more than enough to make them think that this was something that was bigger than what it was.

Other hatchlings from other governors were being protected, and their president, much like the human counterparts, was making sure that they were safe. If someone came after their hatchling was there, were there any who were safe? It made Magnus think that the whole reason why they had never had a hatchling life was because of whoever this was. They had made no enemies. They had been pretty good at not having anything big happen in their state since they took over for Magnus’ heirs four decades ago. They had another forty or so years to be rulers of the area before they would be asked to step down and hand it over to their hatchling that was most suited, but now they had no idea what to do about that.

“We have found nothing,” Kinard said as he bowed his head. He turned his body to face Pearl fully.

“You have found nothing? No one has a new Aether hatchling when they did not have a nest that was close to hatching?” Pearl asked.

“There are pockets of even our kind where they live alone. We cannot see what is going on there. They could be living in the Arctic for all we know. We will not rest until we have found him.”

There was something wrong with the dragon. Magnus slipped down, and he got closer to one of his oldest advisors. His hatchling wasn’t old enough to shoulder his burden, but there was something wrong with him. Magnus would have to figure it out. Everyone was suspicious at this point. They had their hatching for six hours before he had been taken, and they had no idea if he was alive or not. His familiar was still around, staying in the gardens and never leaving them, the ones that were right outside of the room that would have been where their hatchling lived.

They would never stop looking for their hatchling.

Three Months Later

Pearl looked at the dragons that were assembled after the public execution of Kinard. He hadn’t been found to be part of the scheme against them that had their hatchling taken, but in looking at him for that, they had found that he was abusive. His mate was there with their hatchling. She had watched the proceedings, but he had not.

“Present,” Pearl said.

Magnus was making sure that those who were loyal to Kinard were found and rooted out. There had been a small bit of cancer inside their ranks, and it had to do with hiding the abuse that they doled out to their mates and hatchlings. It was the kind of cancer that would see them taken down.

“This is my hatchling, Tommy.”

“Delphine, he’s beautiful. He takes after you, I’m glad. You are free to do as you wish. I know that he’s not old enough to make his choice.”

“He wants to serve as best he can. He wants to be helpful. He is grateful for what you have done.”

“You are the first of your breed to serve us; we are pleased with that.”

Delphine nodded, and she bowed a little deeper, her body moving with a grace that hid how sore she was from the beating that she had been taking when Magnus had come to call at their house to check in. Tommy had been held back by three of Kinard’s dragons, and there had been so much blood. The three men had not survived Magnus’ wrath, and the only reason that Kinard did was that Magnus wanted to make his death a public spectacle.

“We like to think that we are above the kinds of emotions that humans have, the kind of horribleness that they have done to each other and even our kind over the years, but we are just as susceptible to it all,” Pearl said. She looked around at the dragons around them. “No more will we allow for this kind of abuse to be hidden. We have to make sure that we are protecting even those who are being isolated. We will be rewriting a few codes.”

Pearl waved her arm, and everyone, but Delphine and Tommy, filed out of the room. Pearl stepped down to come face-to-face with Tommy. The Cirrus breed was one of the outliers of their people. More for the plains than the areas like LA that were coastal and rocky. Even among their kind, there was prejudice. Pearl had been unsure of when the first of the Cirrus breeds started to become more popular. LA had become the city where many came to find a new start, and even the breeds that wouldn’t do well in their climate started to come, and then it was the city where most breeds could be found. Then it was the city where all breeds could be found. Cirrus dragons were beautiful in their own way.

“We protect you, and no matter what Tommy chooses, as long as you want to live here, you can.”

“Live here?” Delphine asked.

“In our compound. Your rooms are being readied. It was offered to your former mate when he came of age, but he moved out and stayed on the edges. We thought it was because he wanted to stay closer to the people and their wishes, but now we think that he did so to hide the part of himself that would have made it impossible to ignore. You can move in today.”

Delphine bowed low, and Tommy followed her, his body betraying him since he was still a gnarly teen, his legs longer than the rest of his body as he grew into the dragon he was meant to be, even if he looked a lot like a horse compared to other breeds of dragons.

“Thank you,” Delphine said.

“Thank you, we will take it,” Tommy said.

Pearl looked at Delphine to see that she was proud of Tommy for speaking up. “Good. Then we will have someone helping you, and then you will be moved in. Tommy, you can start the lessons that you need to learn to replace your father.”

“I would be so proud.”

Pearl knew that she shouldn’t ache with want when seeing Tommy. She did when she saw any of the young of their kind. Her own hatchling was still missing.

“May I…” Tommy stopped himself.

“Yes?”

“The news only reports him as your hatchling. I wanted to know…”

“His name is William. We wanted him for a long time, and that was the name we settled on just a week after he had been taken from us.”

“William.” Tommy bowed again.

Pearl knew that the news was trying to be respectful and not post his name before they had been able to present him to the world. She was sure that someone had gotten it from a staffer at the compound. There were too many who knew the name for it not to have made it to the news. Yet, it had not been posted. It was respect and only respect that caused that to happen. Pearl was just happy not to have to deal with seeing her hatchling’s name in the news.

The pair slipped from the room, and Magnus came into it. He slipped up to wrap himself around her, and she sighed as he did. They would never be whole until their William was returned to them. Every day that slipped by made it harder and harder to think that he would ever return home.

Thirty Years Later

Pearl heard the doors opening, and she looked to see who was disturbing them as they met with international dragons about treaties to get their local goods delivered to foreign lands. She was shocked to see that it was Tommy; he was alone, which was rare, as usually his two hatchlings were never far from him.

“What is the meaning of this?” Magnus asked.

“I’m sorry. Forgive me. I wanted to give you the news as soon as I got confirmation.”

“What news?”

“I have found William.”

Chapter One

Three Months Before

Tommy kept his gait steady as he made his way up the stairs that were made for dragons bigger than him. He wanted to make sure that Evan didn’t slip off him. Kiara had come back to him and then brought along a lot of other dragons who were helping him to make sure that Evan was fine, but it seemed that he was out cold again. Gina had gone to Tommy’s rooms to make sure that she had everything she needed to help take care of Evan.

That storm had been horrible, and it had been horrible to try to get through it. Tommy had wanted to be out there to protect, but he had a job, a place to be. He knew that there were more than enough dragons out there that were able to protect the beings. There were other beings that could do it as well.

This was something that Tommy felt he had to do, and the calling to him would be allowed by Pearl and Magnus. They trusted him. He had shown it time and again that he had the beings that they ruled over in his favor at all times. He wanted to have it be something that he had for the rest of his life. There were going to be more beings around him than normal. It wasn’t every day that they had a storm, and Sal would be the one who was leading the charge into looking into it. Gina would be the best option for looking at Evan. There was so much shit that was going on for Evan. His body was beaten to hell and wasn’t healing up as it should.

Gina had the room ready for them, the large resting chair that Tommy loved to lie on was ready with extra blankets on it, and one of them was one of the ones that was there for birthing the eggs that were created. Gina was the main healer for the compound, with a lot of healers under her. Gina took care of the main beings whom the governors said she could take care of, and then the rest saw everyone else. It wasn’t a push on Gian to control her, but a way to make sure that Gina was on hand when things were needed. On days like today, Gina took care of whoever was in front of her. Calling for her had pulled her from others, but no one who was injured had been in the water when it happened, not one of the beings here. There were dragons that were in the water, and they would be taken care of by their clan’s healers. The Undertides and the Fathoms were good at making sure that their dragons were taken care of. Then there were the familiars that lived in the water as well with their dragons.

Tommy looked to the side at his familiar. One of the rare ones. It hadn’t been a shock, given who he was when he had been hatched, that he had gotten one of the rare ones. There were only a dozen of them in the world at a time. Families rarely died, but if one did, another took its place. There was a sense of sentience to the magic that ruled their world, which made it hard to ever think that there was something that was guiding them.

“He’s out…was he ever awake?” Gina asked.

“Yes, he was. His name is Evan. He was out having a fun day flying over the water. The storm came out of nowhere, and it made it hard for him to get back, and then he was in the water.”

“Okay, good. He looks like he’s been tossed about the rocks for a while. That’s not a good thing. I need room to work, and the hatchlings need to be elsewhere. I know that they probably worry about them.”

“It’s okay,” Kiara said. She crossed over to nudge at Evan with her snout, and then Keanon did the same thing. It wasn’t something that they did that much, and Tommy wondered if they felt the same pull to him that Tommy did. That kind of pull was meant to be followed, but it was hard to know if it was personal or something else.

“HIs familiar?” Gina asked.

Tommy froze in place, and he looked back toward where the beach was. He shook his head. He had been so worried about the dragon that he hadn’t thought about a familiar. It had not been on the beach. Evan hadn’t asked after it. That was strange, but maybe Evan knew it was fine. Tommy knew the general well-being of his family. The bond had been a strong bet between them from the start.

“Send someone down to look to make sure. Some of them are rather small.”

Tommy nodded. He slipped out of the room and found his hatchlings on the side of the hall, sitting nose to nose with their whole bodies pressed down to the ground. They looked younger than they were when they were like that. “Go with guards to the beach again, check for Evan’s familiar.”

Kiara was the first look-up. She looked to the side where their pair of nymphs were resting on a table like it was a chair. Tommy’s sprite was still back in the room. The nymphs were more populous but looked a lot like the sprites—a cousin of sorts.

Kiara’s was a Cloud Nymph, green body, and looking like it was keeping secrets at all times. Keanon’s was a Boulder Nymph and looked very, very close to Tommy’s Earth Sprite. They were like siblings and less like cousins in looks, but that was okay. It wasn’t like they ever really mixed them up. Their mother had her own family that was nowhere close to meeting to talk about what she wanted out of giving him hatchlings. Tommy hadn’t really spent any time with her. She had never wanted hatchlings of her own, but she was willing to be the one who helped other dragons get their children, even with same sex pairings that couldn’t do it on their own. Tommy had wanted the pressure off himself, and it wasn’t like he didn’t have the money to make sure that they were taken care of.

Pearl and Magnus doted on them as well. Tommy knew that he had sort of taken the spot of their lost hatchling in their eyes. He wasn’t treated exactly like William would have been, but there were concessions that he was given that spoke of their affection for him. He wasn’t sure if that would keep on as time went on, but he would take what he could get. He had lost his mother before his hatchlings had hatched. So he had made sure that they knew everything that he could remember about their grandmother. It was more than enough to make it all a little better when they had two dragons who acted like grandparents with them.

Tommy stayed in the hall until his hatchlings were out of sight, and then he slipped back into their room. They had more than enough guest suites in the house, and this was Tommy’s suite. He didn’t want Evan to be alone at any point unless Kiara and Keanon were in their classes for the day and Tommy was working. Sleeping at night was going to be an issue if there were nightmares. Tommy knew that shit happened even to dragons.

“How are you feeling?” Gina asked as she pulled her forelegs from where they were pressed to Evan, using her magic to see how he was doing. Her face didn’t spell good things.

“Fine. The storm didn’t hit here that hard, and we made sure that the warding held.”

“That’s good. I have more than a few guards to take care of, those who were outside of the wards. There was a sense of the magic that seemed like it was looking for something.”

“Or someone?” Tommy asked.

“Cannot tell you that. I watched it, and it moved, like it was tracking something. I noticed that it seemed to drift back out to sea after it had been on the edge of the city for a while.”

Tommy had seen that as well. He had already given that report to the governors. It hadn’t gone over well. If the storm had been looking for something, and especially if I had been looking for someone, there were going to be issues. Many artifacts in the world needed to be kept away because with great power came great responsibility, and even dragons were not infallible. The governors might have some of those things in their hoard that were below the compound. Tommy wasn’t sure. He was pretty sure that there was at least a lot of treasure down there. Tommy’s own hoard had more than enough treasure for him and his hatchlings, along with many other things that he hoarded.

“I’ve talked to many of my healers, they all say the same thing, the magic clings to those who the storm attacked.”

Tommy nodded. He had heard that in the last report. They were still gathering a lot of information. He hadn’t looked at the scroll that had been dropped off to him hours ago again. It would update with everything that was added to the main document. It made things a lot easier for Tommy to keep on top of things when it came to advising the governors on what to do.

This was going to be a circus for days, if not weeks, while things were looked into. The humans would be freaking out. They would want information on what was going on. If there was nothing to share, it was not going to go well at all. It was going to suck like hell.

“He is tired. There is a magical drain that happened when the storm swept him up. He’s going to sleep more than anything, so keep the hatchlings from doing too much to him. Let him set the pace on what he needs to do. He needs to stay at least two weeks until I’m happy that he’s not going to die. Do not let him use his magic for anything, Thomas.”

Tommy jerked back at the use of his full name. He hadn’t gone by it in a long time. Even in a work setting, he used Tommy. No one called him Thomas, except for Sal and Gina when they wanted his attention.

“I’ll make sure he stays and that he wants for nothing.”

—

Buck looked around the rooms he was in. He had woken up here and for the last couple of days had felt like shit, so he hadn’t paid much attention. The rooms were nice, but he had no idea where he was. He wanted to know where he was, so he knew how to slip out before Tommy and his two hatchlings got too attached to him. He still had no plan for what he was going to do, but he needed to get away and figure out what was going on. He needed to figure out who sent that storm to kill him. Why he had been gone after was the biggest question; he was no one. His own sires wanted nothing to do with him. His own sister wanted little to do with him until she needed a place to run away when her own mate hit the point where Maddie was unable to ignore the abuse that he was doing to her. Maddie had taken after their mother, a Veilspun dragon, who had taken care of their father and was an Aether. There was no breed that couldn’t breed with another breed, but the chance of getting a certain breed for a hatchling was to have two of the same breed mate.

His body was still sore. His healing was slowed down, and no one knew why, but Tommy hadn’t had many looking at him, just a single healer who had said that being in the water during the storm had messed up his magic, and it would take days for it to settle down.

No one knew that he was alive, and it would be a year before anyone would start to consider having him announced as dead; it was the way that things were. Dragons could survive a lot of things, and this was just one of them. He could wash up as far as Japan and still live. Even dragons had things that happened to them. Buck had met a few dragons over the years of being one of the support teams for the city, who had lost their memories, mostly to be short-term, and they got them back, but there had been ones where the magic and damage made that impossible.

Buck had his memories, and he just didn’t tell Tommy anything that was close to the truth. Washing up on that beach had been a shock to him because he hadn’t been sure what the hell he was doing there. He had aimed to die to protect them all. The storm had ended, so whatever magic had created it seemed to think that he was dead. He had no idea who had started the storm that had come to kill him, but he wanted to make sure that no one else was caught up in it.

The doors opened, and Tommy came in alone. The doors shut behind him. He looked like he was on a mission, and he headed for the windows, opening them up. It took just a touch of a hoof to get them open. Buck winced, but nothing happened. He knew that he was being paranoid. He still had no idea where he was. He knew it was safe, and he felt protected there, and that was all just Tommy protecting him. The magic of this place felt like it was going to protect him as long as he stayed there.

The issue was that Buck didn’t trust the magic to protect him from another storm like that. He worried the storm was going to build again and come for him. He had tried to pull it from the coast as much as possible, but the news was full of the issues the storm had caused. It was the kind of damage that they rarely ever saw. The storms that occurred naturally were able to be lessened by the time they hit the coast. They were needed, but not that kind of damage to humans and the other beings that lived on land. The natural cycle of the world only needed to be allowed to do what it needed before it was contained. There was only protection when it came to things like that.

Dragons knew that things had to happen because even Mother Nature was a force that was not to be reconciled with, and the magic of the world needed the chaos of storms. It was why they knew that the storm coming wasn’t natural at all. The sea mage dragons were not able to stop it or slow it. They were not able to defend their lands from what was to come. The only thing that they were never able to lessen was earthquakes, and that was because those were an explosion of force, but again, they had magic that was on their buildings that stopped them from coming down. There was magic everywhere that protected everything that needed it.

“You are hiding still.”

“I’m…the storm affected them more than I thought. Being in the open air scares me,” Buck said.

“Evan.”

Buck looked away. He had given his former name. The one that was given to him by parents who hated him. He had shed that name when he had been at the academy that trained him to help beings, to be a caretaker of the beings. Nothing like a police force like the humans had, but closer to their medical staff, which also dealt with the things that magic did.

“I’m sorry,” Buck said, looking away from Tommy because there was a stirring inside of him that made him want to do what Tommy wanted. He felt safe with Tommy, which made it even harder to leave. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to do, but he knew that it wasn’t safe there. It wasn’t safe anywhere for him. That was the biggest issue. He needed to know how to counteract; however, they found him. Was it blood? Was it just magic? Was the target just to have a target that was not stationary? Was he just a random person? His brain had been swirling with what could happen if he left the grounds.

“You don’t need to be sorry. I can’t even begin to understand what you went through out there. The storm came out of nowhere, and it had followed no known path for a normal storm. There is no reason to think that I look at you as less.”

“Where are Kiara and Keanon?” Buck asked. He liked the hatchlings. He wanted to spend more time around them because it seemed that so far, he was safe. There was a lot that he could end up doing with them in the confines of the house that he was in. He wasn’t even sure it was really a house.

“They are at their lessons. I let them have more time off because you were in here, but I wanted to get them back to normal as fast as possible. They will be back. They are advanced, learn things fast, so that they will be back after lunch.”

“And you?” Buck asked. He hadn’t been alone with Tommy since the storm had washed him up on the beach. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to be alone with him. He would have to just take it as it came.

Buck wasn’t a stranger to having sex with a dragon of any sex. He had a lot of fun and never felt like he wanted to settle down with anyone, not until the last few years working under Bobby at the 118. He had been more into trying to find someone to stay with, but there was always something. He was never enough. He wasn’t enough to settle down with, he wasn’t enough to do anything for. He wasn’t sure that he would ever find someone who would look at him as wanting to love. There was so much shit in his life. He never found anyone really willing to stay for long at all, even when it came to the dragons he called family. They had their own. They had their mates, their hatchlings. There was no space for him when it came to getting all of the attention.

Which was why he sought out sex, a lot of it. For a short time, he could be the center of someone’s world, and it worked for him. He would be clingy, and the females liked it. Then he would disappear. There was never a chance that the females misunderstood either. He had the magical contraceptive on himself, and it stopped any of them from getting pregnant. It never failed unless it wasn’t taken at the same time each month. There could be a few hours of a lesser effect if he missed a dose by even an hour. He just didn’t have sex at all on the day he took it, just to be safe. No one really noticed.

There was nothing wrong with his family; they had their own families to worry about, and he was okay with that, but he was searching for his own family to have. He didn’t even really mind if there were hatchlings in the picture. Yeah, he loved them. He just wasn’t sure if he really wanted to have them. It was something to think about when he settled down with someone. Even when it came to two males, there were many options when it came to having a nest of their own, their own chance of hatchlings. It was something to think about, and he really wanted to think about it more.

Now, of course, with all of this going on, there was every chance that he was going to be killed. He wanted to see Maddie again, but it was better if she didn’t know that he survived the whole thing and then ended up killed anyway. The storm was being looked into; someone was going to figure out who sent it, and there would be consequences for that being. Yet, there was the chance that it wouldn’t be before it killed Buck, or whatever else was coming.

“Me what?”

Buck blinked, and he looked at Tommy again. The look on Tommy’s face said that Tommy had said that a few times.

“Oh, what do you have going on?”

“I was going to see if you wanted to take a walk in the garden. You are supposed to be moving around more now. These gardens are just mine. No one else will come into them. I have sent the staff to work elsewhere.”

“You are rich?”

“No, not rich. I make good money with my job, but the governors maintain these grounds.”

Buck had started to get up, and he looked at Tommy, and his leg slipped, his body crashing down, and he looked at Tommy in shock. “You work for the governor?”

“Yes, this is inside the compound of theories. I’m one of their advisors.”

Buck looked at Tommy like he had grown a new head, and then he slowly got up. He went over to the door that led to the garden and then went out into it. The sun was bright, and everything smelled wonderful. He went to the furthest point and looked up. He had so fucking out of it that he didn’t realize where he was. He had no idea how the hell that had happened. He swallowed. He had met them a few times in the workings of his job, never anything that was official and big, just being at an event as a protector. Someone who was there in case small fights broke out and to help people. He loved helping people. It was the biggest thing he had done in his job.

There had been a lot of training to deal with events like that, the kind of help to give to other dragons and other beings. There was a lot of work to train to know the healing aspects for more than just dragons, even down to the humans. Their world was enmeshed, and it was the way it should be. They had different leaders because they needed something different. It was better than having laws that had differences for the different beings. Even within the world of those under the dragons, there were a lot of differences, but they made it work because a lot of laws could be tailored to stand for all beings.

“Evan?”

“I didn’t notice. I mean, I see the building all the time when I’m flying. I know that it’s there, but I never looked up to see where I was. I knew I was close to the beach, but I didn’t realize that I was on the beach at the governor’s compound. I’m sorry. I can leave.”

“Nope, you are under the care of Gina, and she wants you here. I want you here, Evan. It’ll just stress me out if you are out there and I have no way of finding you.”

Buck nodded. He dropped down into the area that was made for lying down. He was tired as hell. Whatever that magic had done to his head robbed him of being able to do anything. He wasn’t sure that he could even fly at all. “Sorry, I’m not going to be able to do the whole walk thing you want to do.”

Tommy came over, and he lay down beside Buck, not close enough to touch but enough to be a happy presence. “It’s okay. We can just sit here like this. I just wanted you out of the house for longer than just looking outside and taking small walks. I think the air and sunshine will do you good.”

Buck wasn’t sure it was going to do well, but knowing where he was, he was the safest he would be. There was so much magic around this place, so many wards that there was no chance that anyone was going to get inside the place. The storm, if it came back, would be coming after him again, and he would be safe here. This place had little damage, mostly from things that were unstable and were knocked over when the beings inside the compound had moved around to get to where the wards were weakest.

“We have been unable to find your family,” Tommy said.

“Oh,” Buck said. He swallowed and tried to figure out what to say, because the truth would make Tommy hate him, which was something that he didn’t want. He didn’t have to deal with anything close to this. “It’s fine. He’ll come back when he’s ready. He’s a pretty free spirit.”

“Evan,” Tommy said. He turned to where his head was facing Buck’s. “Tell me.”

Buck looked away from Tommy, and he groaned before he closed his eyes. “I killed my familiar when I was a hatchling before I turned one.”

“Impossible,” Tommy said.

“I did. My mom told me about it when I asked about everyone else’s before I started school. I never had one. There were none in any of the pictures that were taken of me, none of the stuff…though there were not many pictures of me. Just like other people with me. I never had one. No one asked about it when I was young, and never again after that in the town where I grew up.”

“Evan, that’s impossible to have happen. You would have had to have been crazy to do that.” Tommy got even closer to Buck, scooting so that their noses touched. His snout was right there, filling up all of Buck’s vision. “The crazy can kill their familiar, but once you are bonded and bonding happens at birth, no hatchling would hurt their familiar, and to be honest, I can’t see a hatchling of that age being able to do much of anything. You would have had to use your claws to kill it. That is impossible. You would have felt all of that pain.”

Buck had never talked to anyone about it. He just said his familiar liked to hide. There were some who had ones that stayed close but felt like the act of having a familiar was something that should be protected. No one had ever questioned him on it. It seemed that Tommy was probably correct, because any familiar that wasn’t also crazy, like their dragon, would have been there with Buck the moment he was found. Even if they were knocked out, it would have come to him. The bond could cross the entire world. There was no keeping a familiar form going to where their dragon was.

“Do your parents both have familiars?”

“Yes, but they didn’t like me. They stayed away from me. Maddie’s familiar did as well. They stayed away and never interacted with them. I’ve seen you cuddling with your hatchlings. I saw that growing up with other dragons as well. I am not sure what else to think that I did it, and that’s why all familiars don’t like me.”

“Except mine was with you all the time. I don’t think you noticed him with you.”

“No, I would have.”

“No, you didn’t. Kiara’s also spent a lot of time with you, but that was mostly when you were sleeping.”

Buck tried to remember the first few days, but they were blurry because of tiredness. Then he remembered the one time he had felt something on his face. He had thought it was a hand of one of the dragons, but it ended up not being a dragon, it seemed. It had been Tommy’s Earth Sprite, which was something that Buck had never felt before.

“Do you think that your parents killed your familiar?” Tommy asked.

“I…don’t know. To be honest, I pretty much raised myself. My sister did what she could. There were only eight years between us. We weren’t as close as I would have wanted, but I just lived my life and learned what I needed. I left my house as soon as I could. I moved around the country and then landed here.”

“LA is the place where dragons come when nowhere else fits them.”

“Or they want to be actors,” Buck said.

Tommy laughed, and he relaxed a little more.

Buck wanted to have this, a place to be, but he knew that he needed to leave as a son as he was allowed. Trying to escape the compound when he was an unknown dragon here was not going to go well. The guards would never let him out. There were guards who flew over and would track him. He could maybe try it, but he needed to have fewer eyes on him when he left. Then he could figure out why someone sent that storm to kill him. He might be able to find out more here as well. It was the kind of thing that would be hard given where he was, but with Tommy connected in this fashion, he just might be able to make it. He might be able to do it.

“Wanna nap here? I’ll head inside and figure out what to have brought in for dinner.”

“Nap,” Buck said. He groaned and stretched a little bit before he relaxed and closed his eyes again. The sun was on him fully, and it warmed him up in a way that he hadn’t felt in a long time.

Maybe he could relax and figure this out at a slower pace, get fully better before he took off. Maybe it would work out.