Once we know that he is steady on his feet, we move together towards where we had left the rest of our Bonded Group. The terrain is the only thing that stops us from moving as efficiently as I would like to. The shadow creatures move around us, more thorough in their search of the bodies now that we're looking for some sign of the Trigger.
He's nowhere to be seen.
We find my Shifter Bonded first, standing with a gun in his hands at the edge of the explosion site, the last line of defense before the Resistance could come to find us.
He looks at my Bonded with such relief, clapping him on the back as he joins us. “North and Atlas have gone to escort the last of the TacTeam back to the Transporter zone. Kieran came back for us, but he’s been working overtime getting people out. He's the strongest transporter we have.”
He directs the last bit at me and I nod because this is information I already know.
We make it a few hundred feet before the next explosion hits.
It comes from further in the Wastelands, right where North and Atlas are escorting TacTeam personnel, and it’s clear to us all that they’ve come across the Trigger.
While I don't feel pain immediately from that, a minute later there's a searing heat in my stomach that says that North has been injured over there. This time, I cannot stop myself from going straight in that direction. My Shifter Bonded looks at me and nods, pulling his shirt over his head. “I’ll shift and get to them faster. They’ll need backup.”
His bones and skin morph and twist into a giant feline predator.
I shake my head at him. “Think bigger.”
My Bonded looks at me with a raised eyebrow. “He’s a leopard, the biggest Shifter I've ever seen. What could be bigger than that?”
I reach into his chest, bond to his bond, smaller and quieter than I am, but still there and alive and more than anyone else's outside of our Bonded Group. As I lean down and look into the perfect, honey-colored eyes of the leopard, I say, “Think. Bigger.”
His eyes shift to white as the change starts and then to a gold-amber that isn’t human at all, and my other Bonded both falter to a stop to watch as his body writhes and grows, bigger and bigger and bigger, the fur slowly slipping away to reveal shiny black scales. His limbs all distort and lengthen, his fingers and toes turning into talons and an extra set of limbs burst from his back, shifting and morphing until, slowly, he has a set of wings protruding from his shoulder blades. Bigger, bigger, bigger, until suddenly, we're staring at a monstrously large creature. One who has never walked the earth before now.
“What the actual fuck?” my Bonded sputters, and my Damage Bonded nods slowly.
“A fucking dragon.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Gabe
A fucking dragon.
Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would have the ability to shift into a fucking dragon. When I’d first realized I could shift into any living creature, hell, I thought I’d won the jackpot. The possibilities seemed endless, and I’d spent months researching different animals to figure out just which ones were the most useful to me. I loved the wolf and the panther the most, the predator nature of them both had called to me.
Wearing the skin of a dragon is different.
I can’t describe it any other way. When I shift into any other predator, it’s as though my own mind is blended with the beast. I still have control, but my own thoughts and cravings and impulses become wild.
The dragon is something else.
The dragon wants things for himself. The dragon doesn’t want to listen to my directions and impulses. The dragon wants to burn them all alive.
How dare they touch what is mine?
I have no choice but to sit in the back of my own mind as the dragon takes over, taking off in flight and letting out a medieval roar as it rises up and up into the sky, until I can barely see my Bonded and the others I’d just left behind. I’ve shifted into birds before, flown around Draven just for fun, but this is something else entirely.
We’re hunting.
We’re going to burn them all.
From up here, I can see the magnitude of the situation we’re in. The Wastelands are at least five times the size that North had first told us they were, and I can see the amount of Resistance who are still alive and moving towards my Bonded. They’re clearly being used by Davies and the higher-level Resistance leaders as a test of our powers and what we’re willing to do, but none of that matters to me or the dragon.
Burn them all.
The panic I felt at hearing that voice in my head disappears, because it’s right. My Bonded Group is being targeted, there is evil heading in my Bonded’s direction with every intention of hurting her and taking her away from me and using her to hurt others.
All of them must burn.
I have no clue whether or not it’s even possible for me to breathe fire. I didn’t know I could shift into a fucking dragon an hour ago, but I surrender completely to the dragon. I stop fighting it for control. I stop trying to dampen the thirst in me for death and destruction, and I let the ultimate predator take full control.
It lets out a roar, a booming sound that cracks out across the sky like a physical thing, and then it dives down, the huge jaws opening as we get closer to the men on the ground. It roars again, but this time, acid pours out of my throat. The acid bursts into flames the moment it hits its target, the sounds of screams tearing into the air as I wipe the first group out in one pass.
The dragon is satisfied with the kill, but we want more. All of them, they have to burn.
I soar back up into the sky, circling as I watch the destruction I’ve wrought, and when I’m sure that they’re all dead, I move on to the next group.
One by one, I destroy them all.
One by one, I keep my Bonded safe and secure and by my side.
I find North and Atlas at the Transporter zone, both of them staring up at the sky. Although I can't see them clearly from this distance, I can imagine pretty easily what they're both feeling. The look of shock and disbelief on Gryphon’s face is still echoing in my mind. I’ll have a great time mocking him for it later.
Nox had taken it surprisingly well, but I'm not surprised. He has a living being inside of him and creatures that have their own personalities that can appear out of his body at any given time.
I'm sure it's hard to be surprised by things when that's your reality.
I swoop down towards the last group of Resistance who are working their way to the Transporter zone. There's an uneasy feeling inside of me about the one whose skin is glowing, a sure sign of a Trigger. I’d seen Unser go off once before in a controlled environment, and he’d done the same thing.
I don't want him dead though. I mean, I do want him dead, but not right now.
The dragon is mindful of my directions to aim the acid that comes alight carefully, and before the Trigger has a chance to go off, I swoop down, the flames touching my scales but not harming me in any way, and grab the Trigger in my talons.
It's risky, but I get one of the long claws around his neck, cutting off his airway until he passes out. I can feel that he's moving and struggling, but it feels as though I have a kitten in the palms of my hands, absolutely useless in his fight.
My wings beat quickly against the wind again, taking me back up into the sky, and I let them stretch out more fully as I fly. The cargo in my claws is too important to sit around with. It only takes a matter of minutes before I spot my Bonded again.