Page 124 of Silent Jay

The sound of distant kids danced in my ears.

Time stopped. For a heartbeat, I floated on the edge of mindlessness before my dragon pushed my rational mind forward.

Find her now.

My metaphorical feet hit the ground, and time restarted with my rational mind still functioning.

Jay’s stale scent drifted down the hall. I followed it, retracing her steps to a spot where she’d fallen to the ground. She’d fallen. My dragon raged. Her smell mixed with others, and my brief run-in with Doctor Raba became sharp in my mind.

My dragon demanded we find him, but I clung to my human logic. The doctor was our ally and had been for years. I’d just met Jay. We couldn’t jump to conclusions. I needed more information.

Aria. The little girl had been fast friends with Jay. My feet moved without my direction, and my tail whipped back and forth so hard it dented the walls. I suddenly found myself looking down at Aria, her little body shaking as she peeked through her cracked door.

“Where is Jay.” I didn’t recognize my rough voice.

Aria’s eyes became little saucers. “I haven’t seen her all day.” A tear ran down her face. “Do you think I did something wrong?”

I forced myself to breathe and knelt so I would be at the little girl's eye level. Aria shook harder. Scales ran up the back of mygood hand and probably across my neck and face. My headdress pulled at my chin as my horns desperately tried to grow. Not to mention my tail, twitching out of my torn robes.

“Why do you think you did something wrong?” I said as evenly as possible to keep from scaring the kid further.

Aria squeezed two more tears out of her eyes before reaching out and gripping my robes. “I told Doctor Raba our secret…do you think she knows?”

Doctor Raba.

Shit.

Last night flashed across my memory. Jay’s body snuggled next to mine as a dragon from each element worked together. My aggression manifested through the moves of a board game instead of base violence. My dragon liked it. Peace. Love. The family I never had.

Now it was gone.

The evening had been everything I dreamed of, with Jay at its center.

Now she was gone.

My heart thudded in my chest as realization hit me. I’d rather lose everything I built here than lose Jay.

“Even if she does, she would forgive you.” I stood. “Jay’s amazing like that.”

The air rushed around me. Magic crackled. Aria shutting her door didn’t even register as my rut rushed forward, destroying my rational mind. My dragon was done. I’d ignored him and my instincts for too long.

Anger boiled my blood. I needed something to fight or fuck, now. I raced down the hall only to have Jay’s scent fill my nose. Like a bloodhound, I followed it. A few kids scattered from my path. One of my fellow priestesses took one look at me and ran in the other direction. I wanted a challenge, not easy prey.

Jay’s trail led me outside, where the wind immediately erased it. My rage doubled, and I looked for any outlet. A flash of movement caught my eye, and I focused on a dragon already in the sky. Small, so probably female, rose gold scales covered her body, and she clutched something in her right claw.

Fight or fuck—this little dragon was mine.

For the first time in a year, I shifted. Pain lit up every nerve ending in my body as my human bones broke and grew. Tatters of torn white robes fluttered to the ground while my prosthetics landed with a thump. As fast as the pain came, it vanished, leaving my white-scaled dragon body standing strong. A crown of horns briefly weighed down my head before I remembered my strength and let out a stream of electric flame.

Although it was always awkward to balance as a dragon with only one back and one front leg, I’d spent my life doing it. My long-spiked tail whipped and counterbalanced my missing limbs. I called on my control of air, sending a gust of wind into the little rose gold dragon’s face to slow her, and jumped off the platform with my wings spread wide.

Joy lifted my heart, briefly clearing the haze of my rut. I was flying again. As fast as it cleared, my rut rushed back in, and raw need took its place. My gaze tunneled onto the little rose gold dragon, now struggling with my magic slowing her. She banked hard to look for a new flight path. Her front legs remained balled like she was holding something.

A bad feeling flooded my dragon gut. Nothing else existed for miles; if she’d stolen something, it would have been from my temple. I pumped my wings, closing the gap between us at the speed of a rocket. A gust of air blew past me, carrying nothing with it. Not the rose gold dragon’s smell or even a stray bird.

Wrong. It was wrong. And I was going to destroy it.

I let out another lightning-infused roar and sent a mini cyclone of air and cracking power at the dragon's left side. Shedodged, tucking her wings into her back. For a moment, she floated before plummeting toward the mountain range below, nose first.

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