Forsaken Through Fury

Chapter 1

Scotland

Late June, 1930

The Alpha of Indigo Sky’s POV

“How much further do you think it is?” Calder asks, his strong voice carrying over the rushing wind as we make our way through the cool air of the night sky.

“Maybe another 15 miles.” I answer, “I believe that last town we passed was Strathpeffer.”

He nods, then points to a machine in a farmer’s field far below us. “What do you make of that mechanical beast?” He asks.

We make a circle in the sky, swooping a little lower to get a better look at the new machine the humans have been using in their fields. “I believe it’s called a tractor, and they aren’t all that new.”

“Ach”. He sneers, “A tractor. What do they need such an ugly machine for anyway?” He says.

“I understand they use them in place of a plow horse,” I answer, “and it can do some other things. Tractors never get tired, and I suppose you don’t have to feed them!” I say, making my cousin chuckle.

“True,” He says.

“Times are changing, my dear cousin.” I say loudly, against the wind, “and we must learn to change with them if our clan is to survive to the next century! Hence our journey this evening”.

“Yes, Yes” He says dismissively.

I note by the constellations that we are making good time. “Sunrise is just an hour away,” I say.

“Then let us make haste to our destination,” he replies.

“Indeed,” I say and flatten and angle my wings to catch an updraft as I veer slightly to the south. Calder does the same.

We are en route to the city of Inverness, soaring over the farm fields and pastures that dot the Scottish Highlands. We are on our way to meet with a human in the morning in town. A businessman called Harrow. We are to meet him at a pub at noon.

~~~~~~~~

We are dragons, members of an ancient species of the blessed races. We are shifters, or two-form creatures. Our people were born of the Dragon Goddess herself and a human man at the dawn of humanity thousands of years ago.

We are born in our human forms, which are mostly indistinguishable from actual humans. Though as adults, we are a bit larger than the average human and much stronger. When we are at the end of puberty, between the ages of 14 and 17 we can begin to shift into our second form, our Dragon form. Millennia ago, we lost the ability to shift fully into proper dragons. Now our second forms, our Dragons, are a hybrid; shaped like much larger humans with two arms and two legs. But our hands are clawed as well as our elongated feet, which add to our height. Typically, a Dragon is well over 7 feet on average in that form.

Our bodies are long, lean, and incredibly strong. Shifting is always a little painful, but the entire transition takes only a few seconds, so it is easily lived with.

We retain our human hair when we shift, but our faces change shape; they become slightly longer, and our canine teeth become quite sharp, more like fangs. We also sprout horns, each of us having a distinct array. The warrior classes tend to have larger, more pronounced horns, making them easy to spot in a group. Our dragon skin is incredibly tough and takes on a variety of colors depending on the individual. Some of us, like Calder, have tones of deep red and brown, while others may have more blue and grey, like me, and everything in between.

Perhaps our species’s most notable trait is our large, bat-like wings which sprout from our backs, just over our shoulder blades. The tough membrane of skin that stretches between the bones of our wings connects to the base of our backs. We have an added layer of pectoral muscle in our dragon form to power our wings separately from our arms. When not in use, we can fold our wings across our backs, though not nearly as neatly as a bird can.

Despite having wingspans well over twice our height, unlike birds or even bats, we are far too big to take flight from the ground. We generally have to leap from a height to catch a current and glide. Pumping our wings to gain height is possible, but only with tremendous effort.

Our dragon forms are completed by our whip-like tails, which we use to steer in flight, stabilize ourselves when clinging to a surface, and defend ourselves.

Like most of the shifter species, we live in tribal groups away from humans. Werewolves have packs; we have clans. Clan life is highly structured and cooperative. Everyone has a place in the clan. In our civilian class, we have farmers, fishers, healers, teachers, spiritual leaders, historians, caretakers, makers, and other roles, as in any society. For the most part, our people choose what role they want to play inside the clan.

Then there is the warrior class. The command line is the highest rank in the clan. We tend to use the Greek words most shifter species use for these roles so that diplomatic endeavors between tribes and species are simplified. These are the Alpha, the Beta, the Gamma, and the Delta.

The clan leader is the Alpha, sometimes called Ceannard in Gaelic, or Chief. This role is passed from father to son. Though another clan member may challenge the role. If successful, his own descendants would inherit the position and begin a new Alpha line.

The other positions are appointed by the Alpha, but almost always from the warrior-born. The second-in-command is the Beta. The Beta works alongside the Alpha in most matters and steps in if the Alpha is unable to fulfill his duties for any reason.

The Beta is usually a sibling or otherwise kin to the Alpha.

Next is the Gamma. The Gamma is responsible for overseeing the guard and matters of clan defense.

Last in the command line is the Delta. A Delta’s job is to look at civil matters like infrastructure concerns and resource distribution. Each position has an automatic seat in the clan council. Elder members, the clan shaman, and experienced warriors also typically serve on the advisory council to the Alpha. All of these people work together to make sure the clan is safe and has everything it needs. While the council can advise, the Alpha has the final say on almost all matters.

Like most shifter races, our species is blessed by the Gods to be given fated mates. Once found, an Alpha’s mate is also a high rank. Most shifter communities call the Alpha’s mate the Luna. We use that word as well, but also sometimes the more traditional Gaelic Banrigh, or even the Rion. The Luna also has specific duties that come with being mated to the Alpha. She is responsible for overseeing the welfare of all the clan children, and she holds a seat on the council as well. The Rion is often thought of as the mother of the clan.

Our people come from the cliffs of the the nothern British and the Scandinavian coastlines. My Clan, Indigo Sky, resides in a small village on the northwestern shore of Lewis Island, Scotland, approximately 100 miles from Inverness. My people have been there since long before the Romans came to Britain. We lived among the cliffs and glided along the sea, diving for fish from the ocean. Our strong, clawed hands and feet let us grip the rock-faced cliffs overlooking the sea, and even dig into the solid rock for a better purchase. Over time, we evolved from making crude shelters in shallow caves common in cliff walls to digging into the rock, eventually excavating complex communal structures.

Our Clan home is now a massive complex built into the cliff wall, protected from most human eyes by the harsh nature of the northern island and sea. The complex, which we call Clach Mhàthar, or Stone Mother in Gaelic, is topped with an additional stone manor surrounded by smaller dwellings. When approached by land, it looks like a simple laird’s manor and tenant buildings. In this way, given the island’s remoteness and harsh weather, we have managed to stay mostly hidden from the human world.

Centuries ago, before humans spread so far to the northern shores in large numbers, we had dozens of clans and hundreds of thousands of people. Now, only eight other dragon clans remain, and each has a similar way of life.

We are a long-lived race; our eldest members are typically halfway into their second centuries. Because of our long life spans, we are not fast to reproduce. This fact, combined with every growing threat of exposure to humans, means that as a species, our numbers are small, worryingly so. There are fewer than twenty thousand of us in total, and our numbers have been slowly decreasing over the last several centuries.

The leaders of each of the clans do their best to coordinate social gatherings regularly to try to encourage young people to find their fated mates and keep our numbers steady.

A fated mate is a person we believe the Dragon Mother herself has chosen for each of us. While it is an act of faith to attribute it to the will of our Gods, the fated mate bond is a biological reality. When a dragon is around twenty years old, they are considered physically mature and become able to sense their mate. There will only be one.

When mates find one another, they recognize each other through all the senses, usually immediately. The smell, especially, is a strong force, said to be intoxicating to one another. No one knows why most shifters experience fated mate pairings, but we consider it a blessing from our Goddess, helping us to form strong families and have healthy children.

Technically, we can partner with whomever we choose and engage in sex in either of our forms, but typically, breeding is almost always unsuccessful unless between a fated pair, and conception can only happen when mating in dragon form.

Once a couple bonds, they mate and mark each other. Marking is an intimate action where, in dragon form, while engaged in the mating process, we are able to call upon a small piece of our ancestral dragon abilities to breathe fire. We can’t do all that, but we can call a tremendous heat from our throats. Our canine teeth grow incredibly hot, and dragon mates will brand one another on the neck or shoulder with what we call the fire kiss. It is said to be one of the most incredible moments in a dragon’s life, painful and immensely pleasurable all at once.

Fated pairs who, if for any reason, are prevented from marking one another may experience serious problems, such as unstable behavior and a mating lust. The later is a state where the individual’s sexual appetites and possessiveness over their mate are so immense to the point of inhibiting their regular duties and responsibilities. As such, newly formed pairs typically seal their bond with marking soon after meeting.

In our culture, it is understood that our mates make us whole. They allow us to fully experience the joys life has to offer. But fewer dragons spread out between remote clans means we have to work to keep inter-clan relations open and allow our young people to mingle, in the hopes of more mate bonds being discovered.

Our dwindling numbers were my father’s greatest concern. He spent his life working hard to find ways to secure our future. He was dedicated to that directive even if it meant we needed to change our way of life, to adapt to a changing world. I promised him, on his deathbed, that I would make it my life’s work as well.

Ten years ago, my father, Alistair Dunstun, fell ill with the Spanish Flu. This human disease unfortunately, affected our kind as well. Nearly half our clan, as well as other clans, succumbed to the illness, drastically reducing our already dwindling numbers. My father’s passing meant that at age thirty-three, I became the youngest Alpha in over 400 years.

A few years into my Alphaship, I came to the realization that the only way forward for my people was to stop living completely apart from the human world. I realized there is no longer their world and our world. There is only the world, and we must find a new place within it. We must adapt. This notion has hardly been popular with the clanspeople of my council. I knew that to get the support, I would need to be able to present detailed plans and well-calculated risks and benefit analysis.

To help me accomplish this, I sought the counsel of a Werewolf Alpha from a particularly successful and frankly diplomatic pack in France. Different species of the blessed races have not always been supportive and cooperative with one another. In fact, just like humans, different clans, tribes, factions, and various groups of supernaturals have fought more wars throughout history than can be counted.

Werebears tend to despise dragons and Fae. Werewolves are aggressive when it comes to territory in general. Dragons have a reputation for having a superiority complex regarding their own intellect as well as our dragon forms, and basically, all shifters hate witches. So I was very fortunate to be received by Alpha Alain and to have him help me.

We met with a small group of our respective command lines, guards, and advisors for a few days in Paris, where Alain explained the history of their pack’s success alongside the humans. Then he gave us a tour of their pack’s territory. It is integrated right into a small village near the French Alps and is all but invisible to the humans who share it. After seeing this, I became convinced that dragons, too, could learn to hide in plain sight and thrive. Over many months of correspondence, Alain helped me to understand how to achieve the new goal of integration into the modern world.

I quickly realized that the key to living among humans and partaking of the benefits of the modern world while protecting ourselves and staying together is, simply put, money. And lots of it. Many of the wolf clans own some of the most successful businesses in the world, and with over two hundred thousand strong, the wolf population is massive, and still well hidden from the humans.

So, for the past two years, all my focus has been on finding a way to enrich our clan and create a way forward for my people in this changing world. And that is why my Beta and I are flying across Scotland to meet with a money man.

_________________

We have been flying since dusk, and despite being built for gliding, I am starting to tire. I can tell Calder is as well, as he keeps rolling to the side to stretch his left wing into the wind better. A quarter of an hour later, the lights of the city come into view. The sky is still dark enough that if anyone awake were to look up, they would not be able to make out our shapes. We chose a moonless night for this journey on purpose. We soar over the Beauly Firth (river) to the west side of the city, looking for a hidden place to land. I point to a wooded patch near the road leading into the city. “Let’s set down there to change”. He nods, and we descend quickly, landing on our clawed feet behind a line of trees blocking the road.

I stretch my arms, legs, back, and wings, then take and release a deep breath, allowing my bones to shrink and crack back into the place of my human form. Calder does the same, and we take fresh clothes and shoes from the bags we carry, replacing the clan Tartan kilts we have been wearing for flying. We dress in our simple but clean clothes of wool trousers and collared linen shirts, then find a tree with a good hollow and stuff our bags into it.

By now, the sun is just beginning to rise. In the distance, we hear a vehicle approaching, and crouch low so as not to be seen hiding in the woods. Once the car passes, I take my satchel containing writing materials, my “human” documents, and a pouch of gold, and we emerge from the woods, beginning the several-hour walk into the city. I imagine we will have just enough time to walk the rest of the way into town and locate the meeting place.

We have been walking silently for about an hour now, and are slowly making our way into the heart of the city. There is activity everywhere as the people go about their morning routines. I smile at a few children playing in the street outside their home, their mother keeping a watchful eye as she hangs laundry.

A few blocks later, I ask a paperboy for directions, and soon we are walking across a bridge spanning the River Ness. Our destination is only another mile or so.

“Are you sure we can trust him?” Calder asks quietly as we walk along the edge of the bridge.

“He is a part of our world, mated to a fae, a wood fairy named Arabella Aurelis,” I answer. “Her grandsire fought with our grandsire in the daylight wars of 1802.”

“Ach. A human mate. Even for a fairy, the shame of it!” Calder says, the repulsion thick in his voice.

“Indeed, it is not a choice I understand,” I agree, “but the Gods must have their reasons, and it is not for me to judge.”

“Humph,” Calder snorts as I continue.

“Surely we wouldn’t begrudge someone the happiness of experiencing the mate bond. You of all people must find it hard to deny anyone that joy.” I playfully hit his shoulder.

Calder grins cheekily. We are cousins on my mother’s side, but he is mated to my half-sister Alba. They recognized each other 3 years ago, when Alba was just 21. She was born to my father and his second wife, and thus not a blood relation to him. My own mother died when I was very little. He, being the mate of my sister, is part of the reason I named Calder as my Beta when I was bestowed the Alpha title from my father. The other part is that Calder and I have always been close, since we were lads, and despite his sometimes sour demeanor, there is no one I trust more.

“Yes, it is true,” Calder responds, “having a mate is the closest thing to bliss I can imagine”. The air between us becomes awkward for a moment before he breaks the tension by checking my shoulder gently with his. “Don’t worry, cousin, your mate is out there somewhere, and I have no doubt she’ll come to you when the time is right.”

I say nothing on the subject; I only snort dismissively. I had thought my Rion would have become known to me by now. I have been of age for twenty years, but she has not appeared. Still, it isn’t so uncommon to not meet one’s mate until one’s fifth decade.

A few seconds escape between us, then I continue, “Well, perhaps the fae’s bond to her human mate will benefit us in this endeavor. The world is changing, cousin,” I say to him. “The humans are leaving no spaces left for our kind to live in their absence. So, if we are to survive, we must learn to live in their world.”

“Yes, you keep saying,” Calder says, rolling his eyes. “And that of course means getting our claws on their money”.

“No,” I correct him, “It means finding ways to make our own money”.

We round the corner of the bridge and walk two more blocks before we see our destination. Fourteen Bridge Street, Gellion’s Pub and Hotel. I glance at the sky, and the sun is nearly at its Zenith. I don’t have a pocket watch, but it must be nearly noon.

We enter the pub, and after scanning the room, I see a man sitting at a table a ways back fitting the description I was given. He is petite, slightly round in the middle, with thinning salt and pepper hair and a small mustache. I can tell that he was a handsome lad in his youth, and he has kept some of his looks into middle age. The benefits of being mated to a magic wielder, I assume.

As we approach, the man looks up. “Mr. Dunstan?” He asks with a nervous smile.

I smile back and extend my hand. “Mr. Harrow, I presume”. He nods. ”This is Mr. Calhoun, my second.”

They shake hands as well. Calder smiles politely but impersonally. Mr. Harrow visibly relaxes when he sees we are not going to be aggressive with him. I can imagine, knowing what we are, meeting us like this could make a man nervous. Few people ever meet one of our kind, and we have a reputation for being… disagreeable.

“Please, please, have a seat.” Harrow says, “I am sure you are both weary from the journey. Let us order some luncheon and discuss your investment options”.

A few hours go by, and Mr. Harrow, who is an investment manager in Edinburgh, has explained how stock trades work. I listen eagerly, fascinated with the system humans have devised to enrich themselves by essentially making wagers on who amongst them will succeed in their endeavors. I ask many questions and take many notes throughout the afternoon. Calder does not display a matching level of curiosity, and in fact, exudes a disinterested and superior air the entire meeting, often yawning dramatically or sighing while examining his fingers.

How can I make him understand the importance of what we are doing here today? I wonder, disappointed in his lack of enthusiasm for the plan.

Given that the country is just starting to recover from the economic depression, Mr. Harrow advises us to diversify our investments into several industries.

“I believe that would be wise,” I say, after taking a long sip of my tea. “I can’t imagine humans going back to horses from cars, so tell me more about that automobile company, Chrysler, was it?”

By the early evening, Mr. Harrow had created an investment package focused on automobiles, steel manufacturing, a company called General Electric, and a few other holdings.

My people have never lived integrated into the human world and don’t use much human money, so Mr. Harrow must exchange the gold we have collected for centuries into English pounds and then create documentation to accompany our investment purchases. He tells me that if the stocks do well, we can sell a portion in a few years and use the proceeds to reinvest in more solid things like real estate or even purchase a company outright.

“I have a few colleagues in town to whom I can go to exchange the um, currency, and obtain the documents we need for the purchase of the stocks. It should take about a day. You will need to sign them, and we will need the sale receipt notarized. Would you be able to meet a notary and me here around dinner time tomorrow? I should have everything you requested in order by then.”

I agree and reach for the pouch of gold in my case. I begin passing it across the table to the man when Calder suddenly puts his hand over my arm, lowering the pouch to the table.

“How do we know you won’t make off with gold?” Calder says, staring menacingly at the gentleman.

Mr. Harrow, who had been at his ease most of the conversation so far, stiffens briefly. He stares at Calder, thoughtful for just a moment before suddenly breaking into laughter. Several seconds pass, and he laughs harder and harder. Calder and I look to one another blankly as the man laughs in a hysterical fit. People at other tables are beginning to look as well. Calder shrugs his shoulders at me. I tilt my head and look at Mr. Harrow curiously. He looks back at me, his laughter finally dying down as he catches his breath.

Boldly, he looks Calder in the eyes and says, “Mr. Calhoun,” then he pauses and takes a deep breath. “Sir, I love my wife; she is my absolute world.”

“Of course–” I begin to interject, but he continues, never breaking his gaze from my cousin

“When she became my world, it meant I would have to become a part of hers, and when I joined her world, her family became my own. My wife’s grandfather asked that I do you this service, as a favor repaid for one given long ago. I agreed, and I can assure you, sir, I am a man of my word”.

“Yes, but how do we–” Calder continues, but Mr. Harrow brazenly silences him with a finger raised and continues.

“But beyond the love I have for my wife, and far beyond the respect I hold for her family,” he glances around the pub before lowering his voice and leaning in, “I am tremendously fond of my own life, and have no intention of having it cut short due to being ripped to pieces by a fucking dragon.”

He leans back cooly, knowing his point has been made, and Calder looks at me and nods. I slide the pouch across the table to Mr. Harrow, who takes it and tucks it into the inside of his jacket, then continues.

“Well then, my good sir’s it would seem our business is concluded for this day. With your permission,” he rises from his seat, stretching his short legs a bit and turns to twist his lower spine “I will take my leave of you, and we shall reconvene tomorrow, say at 5:30?”

I get to my feet as well and extend my hand to him, which he takes in a friendly shake. “Of course. Thank you, Mr. Harrow. Until tomorrow”.

Drawing from the small amount of human money we do carry, I book us a room for the night with the barkeeper. Then Calder and I head out into the streets to stretch our legs after sitting so long at the pub’s table. We explore the city for a while, then stop at another establishment for a quick dinner before heading back to the pub. Our weariness is finally catching up on us, and as we walk along the river, I find myself looking forward to the crispness of hotel sheets.

As an alpha, I am never off duty, which means staying in bed past a mere few hours of rest is a rarity for me. I am thinking happily about the notion of sleeping through the morning when Calder decides to share his thoughts with me.

“I still don’t like it, Cousin.” He says. We pause, leaning on the railing that goes along the river wall and looking out over the Ness’s water. I watch as it scatters the lights of the surrounding city on its dark surface.

“Oh?” I say, urging him to go on.

He sighs and says, “Since the dawn of our kind, we have separated ourselves from the humans, and now you want to connect us to them? Even though several of the other Clans have spoken against it?”

“But we are not separated from them, cousin,” I argue, “and don’t you mean reconnect to them? We never have been truly separate. Our own histories name a human man as the father of our race”.

“Yes, I know,” He continues with annoyance in his voice, “but he was a gift to the Mother Dragon, surely he was no ordinary man. That is what many of our historians and scholars believe.”

“Yes,” I concede, “But don’t you think that means other humans may be exceptional as well?”

“I don’t kn–”

I cut him off by placing a hand on his shoulder and turning him to face me. “Calder, our kind and theirs have always been connected, and now it would seem our history repeats and we need to weave our paths together once more.”

Calder is quiet as he turns back to the river, folding his arms on the rail and leaning. “I just don’t like it. What if living with them causes the Serpent God to grow angry? What if the Dragon Mother disapproves and curses our kind with them as mates as punishment? It would be an abomination after so many millennia of keeping our lines pure”.

I wrinkle my own nose in disgust. “Slow down, cousin. I am uniting our kind in economy, not in matrimony!”

He chuckles a bit at this, and I smile and continue, “I can’t imagine that our Gods would punish us with human mates simply for finding ways to continue our own existence. Have faith, cousin.”

“Besides,” I add, “Not all the other blessed races are against it, against living alongside humans, that is. The wolves have been living side by side with humans for centuries. There are packs that basically own whole cities. You know that. I mean, by the Serpent’s Eye, there are two wolves in British Parliament now!”

“I suppose,” He says, and sighs heavily, knowing there is no arguing it anymore tonight.

I turn towards the Hotel. “Come, we are tired, and our beds await.”

With nothing more to discuss, we make our way to our room and both collapse on the mattresses.