Dragon 3 Chapter 1 (Patreon)

Let it begin!

I scribbled in the last answer on the biology test, not even caring if it was the correct answer. I was ready for it to be done.

It was the last thing standing between me and flying off to Switzerland with Jadelyn and Scarlett.

Jade had pulled some strings so that we could all take our finals a week early. It had been two days since the knockout fight with Nat’alet and Morgana’s disappearance, and I was antsy to go find Morgana.

My hand tensed just thinking about it, and my number two pencil crushed its tip against the page and then snapped in half. I grumbled. My new strength was great most of the time, but sometimes it was just a pain.

The beast inside me smiled, pleased with the crushed pencil, but it thought I should just let my strength out in a mad rampage, smashing everything in sight. Then burn it to cinders and piss on the ashes.

To put it gently, the beast had been extra frustrated the past two days, straining to get free and go after Morgana. I was pretty sure it would not have been okay with sitting for months before it could go after her.

“Are you okay, Mr. Pendragon?” Professor Vandal asked, breaking me from my little spat with the beast.

“Fine. Sorry, I’m just in a rush.” I did my best to smile.

“I can see that.”

I waited until he looked back down at the stack of papers on his desk before shifting my finger into a razor sharp claw. With my golden, glittering claw, I shaved one of the broken halves back to a point and scribbled furiously, wishing I could write faster.

Jadelyn was much more composed. She sat near me, calmly scribbling on the paper. She was leaning over; her face nearly pressed against the page as she focused intently. I smiled, watching her bite her lip just a little as she tried to puzzle through the problem on the page.

Looking back at my test, I finished the last of the questions and slapped my pencil down, breaking it again. Since I was already done, I didn’t care, dropping the broken pieces into my bookbag.

I stood up, realizing professor Vandal was staring at me, a skeptical frown on his face as he stared at where the pencil had been.

I quickly started moving, not wanting to give him too much time to think about it, handing him my test.

“Well done, Mr. Pendragon. You’re free to go.”

Jadelyn looked up and then back down at her own test. She gave me a nod to wait a moment as she finished it up as well. Then she neatly put away her supplies into her bag and handed in her test. As she walked by me, I snagged her bag, throwing it over my shoulder as well.

“Both of you have my condolences. Please be well.”

“Thank you again, professor.” Jadelyn gave him a sweet smile that could charm just about anybody we met, woman or man.

As we walked out, I lifted an eyebrow in question. “What did he think was the reason that we were taking the exam early?”

“I don’t know.” Jadelyn shrugged. “One of my men arranged it for me.”

I nodded. From what he’d said, I was guessing the professor thought somebody had died? But it didn’t matter much to me. We were free, and my dragon was roaring to be off in search of Morgana.

As we approached the edge of campus, a black SUV pulled up and two suited men popped out of the car. One of the men scanned the surroundings while the other opened the door for us.

I still wasn’t used to the security teams, but now that I was married to Jade, I’d have to get used to them. They were officially part of my life.

The beast in me did not see the need for their protection of Jade. I could become a several ton gold or silver dragon-scaled tank at will, or at least, that’s how I thought of myself. In reality, I was a dragon. And I felt pretty sure I could protect her just as well, if not better than the small army of men they called guards.

The gold or silver part still had me a bit baffled. Somehow, I was both, which was apparently impossible based on every book I could find in Jadelyn’s library.

If I could read a few dozen languages, I would be able to use Morgana’s library as well. But that would have to wait until I wrangled my wayward partner.

“Airport please.” Jadelyn said as the men hopped back into the car.

Scarlett turned around from the driver’s seat. She wore a hat, with her orange fox ears sticking up through the top. I’d learned by that point that people liked to explain away the oddities. They’d most likely think they were a prop. But her ears twitched as she scanned the surroundings quickly. As Jadelyn’s guard, she was currently on duty. “On it!”

I was pressed back into my seat as Scar tore forward. “You almost drive as poorly as Morgana.” I grumbled.

“Oh, really? Remind me… who was the one that wrecked Morgana’s car?” Scar took a hand off the wheel to tap her lips in thought.

“I’m never going to live that down, am I?”

“Nope. But at least you didn’t wreck any last time.” Jade pointed out.

“There’s always next time.” Scar said, far too peppy for the topic.

I made sure my seat belt was fastened as she turned through the bar street just off campus. It was still busy despite it being the middle of the day.

We whizzed by a bunch of people who had no idea that the world was filled with paranormals. And not long ago, I would have been among them. It had taken confronting a werewolf asshole for me to even realize I wasn’t human.

“Do you have everything you need? You didn’t pack much.” Jadelyn asked, scooting closer to me in the back seat and intertwining our fingers.

I pulled out a foam pad from a bra, holding it up for them. “I have what I need right here.”

The entire car looked at me as if I’d gone crazy. I just smiled, enjoying their confusion.

“It’s Morgana’s.” I said, helping them understand.

“That just makes it creepy. That’s from her bra?”

Laughing, I decided showing them would be better. “And so much more.” I stuck my hand into the bra pad, or more precisely, into the spatial pouch inside of it.

When she left, I looked through her room a few times for any hints of where she had gone, using my dragon eyes to sense magic. And while doing so, I came across the bra pad in my hand. It all made so much more sense now. Morgana was always pulling things out of her bras. With how tight her clothes were, I’d never been able to figure it out.

She’d used her spatial abilities to create additional storage.

Pulling the silver templar sword halfway out of the bra pad, I gave both girls a big smile. “See?”

“Holy shit.” Scarlett’s eyes were wide in the rearview mirror as she watched me rather than the road. “That’s a bag of holding.”

“Maybe tell us that first, before proclaiming, all you need is Morgana’s bra. I thought you planned to use it for her scent or something.” Jadelyn rolled her eyes at my antics.

Shrugging, I put the sword back into it and placed the pad back in my pocket. “I don’t know. I liked it my way. It was funny to watch your faces. And this has a dual purpose. It makes it easier to carry and lets me bring a sword through customs.”

“We have a private jet; there are no customs.” Jadelyn looked confused.

I stared at her for a moment. I’d never ridden on a private jet before. It hadn’t occurred to me that they'd travel in style, but now that she said it, I wasn’t very surprised.

“Sweet.” I replied slowly. “I guess we have a direct flight then to the City in the Shade. What’s it like?”

“It is absolutely beautiful.” Scarlett said from up front. “The city is run by the royal family of the high elves. They also maintain the enchantment on the city to keep it hidden.”

“How exactly do we get to a secret city of supernaturals? I mean… there’s got to be some sort of catch.”

As soon as I said that, Scarlett snorted, barely keeping in her laughter.

“What?” I could tell that I was missing something.

“Nothing.” Jadelyn couldn’t hide her blush, though. “There’s a secret platform in a Lucerne train station.”

“Kind of like—” I started, but Scarlett burst out laughing, interrupting me.

“Yes, exactly like it. You should have seen Jade when that scene happened in the movie. She was screaming for her father that the humans know about the Shade Express. She was convinced that our secrets had been spilled.”

Jadelyn’s face was turning bright red all the way to the tips of her ears. “Sometimes fiction mirrors reality. Plus, I was what, eight, when that movie came out?”

I laughed along with Scarlett, imagining little Jade running around the house, sounding the alarm that the humans were coming for them.

Although I realized her panic was created because of the immense fear pushed onto children that the paranormal world cannot be found out by humans.

“I think it’s cute.” Running my hand through her hair, I pulled Jadelyn close and kissed her. I went to pull back, but once wasn’t enough, so I leaned in again, sucking on her lips and letting my other hand roam her curves.

Scarlett coughed politely up front before we were suddenly blasted with cold air conditioning. “Sorry, I needed to cool it down back there if I’m to maintain my focus.”

“I’ll remember that.” Jade warned with a frumpy set of her shoulders as she lay back against her seat.

“Don’t worry. I’ll help you get payback for it.” I glared at the back of Scarlett’s head until her ears twitched. “Anyway, so we take a secret train to the city? That’s pretty cool.”

“That’s just the tip of the iceberg.” Scarlett said, feeling safe to rejoin the conversation. “The city itself is quite literally magic. You just have to see it to believe it.”

I couldn’t wait. I was so ready to explore the paranormal world, but I was even more ready to hunt down Morgana.

The only real friend in town I’d ever seen with Morgana was T, and he knew that if Morgana left, she went back home and likely was in contact with her.

He was an ancient elf who was wanted for having performed forbidden magic. Yet no one seemed interested in going for him directly, instead his daughter was the one everyone was after.

She was his most guarded secret.

Yet, T had given me instructions on how to contact his daughter, including secret messages disguised as fliers. A stack of them were printed up and stored in the spatial bra pad.

I was starting to wish Morgana had enchanted something else. It wasn’t the most convenient thing for me to carry around.

Checking once more that the fliers were in there, I relaxed again.

We had a plan. We would get to the city and post up the fliers. Hopefully, T’s daughter would then get in touch with us. She was our best hope. It seemed likely that if Morgana had in fact returned to The City in the Shade, she’d be in contact with her oldest friend.

Besides just catching up, Morgana needed healing. If she was T’s daughter, I hoped she’d be able to help Morgana. Though that didn’t explain why she’d ran without planning to return.

During the fight with Nat’alet, I’d learned enough to know that she’d been essentially being poisoned by celestial magic during the seventeenth century war between the church and the paranormal. Her special champagne she drank was actually angelic blood in an attempt to hold off the damage.

But the fight with Nat’alet had pushed her to the point that she had to use her hidden affinity with angels, transforming into some strange vampire slash angel mode and wrecking Nat’alet before being overcome with her affliction. And she’d done it to help save me.

I was still mad that she’d run off. She needed healing just as much as I had. But she wouldn’t have handed off Bumps in the Night, her nightclub, if she wasn’t serious about staying away. So I was off to find her.

“Hey broody mcbrooderson.” Scarlett called to get my attention. “Tone it down. You’re growling. We’ll find her.”

“Thanks.” She could read me like a book and had been a big help the past two days in trying to stay grounded and focused on the solution rather than getting lost in my thoughts.

“Besides, we are almost there.” Scarlett pulled up to a booth, and I realized we were at some private entrance for the airport.

She flashed her ID and was let through without much fuss, driving out past a few dozen private hangars and into one that had a small ground crew working.

I’d expected them to be in the grungy jeans and reflective vests I was used to at the airport, but instead they wore clean black slacks and blazers.

Scarlett pulled up, stopping the car to the side of the hangar as the three security men bailed out and did a sweep of the hangar. She whirled around in her seat to talk to us as I reached for the door handle. “Just a minute; they have their jobs to do.”

It was all routine; I told myself as they calmly checked the place, using a little fold out wand to scan the underside while the other stepped inside to check it as well. The third stood at the nose of the jet on watch.

When he tensed up and drew his weapon, I knew something was wrong.

“Stop where you are!” He shouted, sighting down his gun.

I didn’t need another warning. The car door crumpled under my strength as I tore it off in my haste to get out of the car.

“Zach! Let them do their jobs!” Scarlett shouted after me.

I ignored her; I had energy to burn off.

When I saw a shifted werewolf sprinting towards the hangar with a large duffel bag hung over their chest, my vision went red and I roared, shifting into my dragon form and pouncing over the guard.

The werewolf tried to stop, its claws skidding on the smooth ground and losing traction.

I landed on top of the werewolf, my size making the hangar shake. Fully transformed, I was but a whelp compared to many dragons. I didn’t even have my wings yet.

But that didn’t mean I wasn’t a giant four ton wrecking machine.

I leaned down, pinning the werewolf under my claws.

“Stop!” Scarlett was screaming from behind me, and the panic in her voice made me pause. I had the werewolf under control; why was she concerned?

My dragon brain was often processing things I hadn’t given conscious thought yet, so I did pause.

And in that moment, the werewolf shifted back into its human form.

Soon, my claw was holding a very naked Kelly. She was holding a duffel back almost as big as her to her chest. “Hi?”

I let out a deep grumble from my throat and shifted back, standing naked over her. Before I could speak, Scarlett was there, grabbing Kelly by the collar and hauling her up while yelling at her.

“What are you doing here?! Did you not think about the fact that we have a fucking pissy dragon here to keep in check? Do. Not. Startle. Him.” She scanned the rest of the hangar, nodding to her men to put their guns down.

“Fuck.” Scarlett cursed, dropping Kelly, who at least looked ashamed. “Men, finish your sweep of the plane. Jonny, get a cleaning crew to make sure we wipe any footage. We don’t need others seeing golden boy here.”

Once they confirmed their orders, Scar whirled on me. “Calm down. I know you are tense, but jeez! Didn’t you recognize Kelly?”

A little ashamed of myself, I looked down at Kelly as she got to her feet and swung the bag over her back, comfortable in her nakedness. “Just the tension of the situation, I uh…”

“Went crazy.” Kelly coughed. “I mean, dear god. I’ve never been so afraid for my life.”

“You.” Scarlett glared at Kelly, silencing her. “Don’t get to speak besides telling me why you are here.”

Kelly rolled her eyes. “Duh. I’m here to go get the blue bitch.”

“Don’t you have a pack to manage?” I frowned. When I’d last left her and the pack, she was barely holding onto her status as alpha.

But she just waved away my question. “It’s under control. Took a day of beating the boys senseless, then hiring a coach back for the team and getting some number two’s established, but it’s handled. It’ll be good for me to be absent a little. They can cool off and then I’ll come back and beat them senseless again. You know, really drive it home that they have no choice in the matter.”

I knew nothing about pack politics or even the magic that tied them together, but I shifted my eyes to look at her magic.

A brilliant orange web spanned out from Kelly, stretching mostly in the same direction. It appeared to be very stable.

Staring at it, I didn’t have a good reason she shouldn’t come with us. “What do you think Scar, Jade?”

Kelly gave Jade a pair of puppy dog eyes.

“Don’t you dare.” Scar grabbed her by the ear.

“I think she can come. You were saying we were light on security, anyway.” Jadelyn said.

Scarlett stomped her feet. “Damnit.”

“Are we not bringing the guys?” I asked, looking at the team doing a sweep of the plane.

“There’s a team at the Scalewright's home in Sentarshaden. We won’t have a detail, though. I figured with you and I, we could handle any surprises as long as we flew under the radar.” Scarlett chewed the inside of her lip as she looked Kelly up and down. Her face turned stern when she finally spoke. “While we are on this trip, you listen to me, got it?”

Kelly perked up. I had a feeling that if her tail was out, it would have been wagging. “Yes, Sir.” She gave Scarlett a cheeky salute.

Scarlett scoffed, not believing a word of the world’s only female alpha. Like she’d listen to another. “Fine, then get on the plane.” One of her men was giving Kelly the all good signal as he finished sweeping the tail of the plane. “And get some damn clothes on.”

A tap on my shoulder made me turn. “Here.” Jadelyn held up a pocket from my torn clothes with the bra— er — spatial artifact inside it.

“Thanks.” I wasn’t quite as comfortable as Kelly in the nude, but the appraising look that Jadelyn gave me made me feel far more comfortable.

“Least I could do for my big scary protector.” Jadelyn sashayed in front of me and walked up the steps to the private jet, swinging her hips and trailing her fingers along the banister.

It wasn’t like I needed her to ask. I chased after her; the beast inside of me was already trying to break his way out of my chest.

But even the beast paused as I got to the top and got a peek inside the plane.

The interior was a soft tan suede leather, with half a dozen swivel chairs throughout. Two beds sat in the back, and a full bar peeked around the corner.

“I said get some clothes on.” Scarlett yelled as Kelly rushed up the steps and slammed into me from behind, knocking the two of us down on the floor, still naked.

Jadelyn turned back and lifted an eyebrow curiously. “Kelly. Please do get your clothes on. Zach, please leave them off.”

“Not fair.” Kelly whined.

Scarlett stepped over both of us. “Deal with it.”

The door closed, and two pilots made their way to the cockpit. Both of them professionally ignored the two naked people on the floor.

Pushing Kelly off of me, I got up and scooped Jadelyn up, carrying her to the bed in the back.

She put her lips to my ear and let out a single note that made my eyes close as I squeezed her tight, careful not to tip over as her siren song drove me wild.

“I’ll handle this one.” Scarlett closed a curtain and dragged Kelly away. “But don’t think I’m going to be left out. I want to join the mile high club too.”

“I expect you as soon as we hit a mile in the sky, then.” I said as I threw Jadelyn onto the bed.

The lovely siren arched her back and gave me a come hither look, beckoning me with her finger while her eyes smoldered.

She had been using sex as her own way to distract me the last two days, and it had been working. I had yet to tire her out, but we had a transatlantic flight for me to give it another go.