Page 6 of To Match A Dragon's Fire

Not anymore.

One of the shadows loomed over the rock wall near the creek, perched more birdlike than beast and sitting in silence.

I split another round before acknowledging him. “It’s been a while.”

The shadows folded themselves around Lucan’s back as he stood in his human form. A judgmental look hardened his face. “How can you listen to that British screeching?”

Not this again.I yanked my axe from the round. “Beethoven was German. And your unhealthy obsession with the Brits is outdated. We weren’t even there when they came.”

It was the same old fight.

The hint of his accent got stronger with each hotly worded blow. The strange inflection of old-world dialect from our migrations throughout the centuries mixed with bits of dragon speak we only used with each other came out during heightened moments.

I already knew his coming response, despite not seeing my cousin for the past forty years or so.

“Patrick was a Brit.” He spit the saint’s name as an insult.

Some things never changed.

“We weren’t even there. And that’s a good way to piss off an entire population.” I chuckled to myself, feeling centuries of ancient tales swirl as distorted memories.

When you lived as long as we did, our history became blurred and story-like. A shared canon with the facts altered by our ancestors to teach us our lessons.

“But Callie was there,” Lucan growled, growing even more somber at the mention of our distant relatives who’d once been persecuted.

Only a dragon could hold grudges this long.

We’d grown up on these tales of scorned beasts. Though the basalt of the causeway was still cooling when half our ancestors left Éire.

Our clan put down roots over most of Europe before following the Vikings to North America.

Then came the love story between our Samoan grandmother and our Irish grandfather when their dragons met near the Pacific Ring.

But that was a tale for a happier time.

In the end, it all resulted in this. The prophecy bringing us here where the next guardian was needed until… he wasn’t.

I turned off my earbuds, killing the music, as I embedded my axe into the wood. “Callie didn’t deserve her fate. And Paiste was justified.”

Stories.

That’s all our history was.

We’re to be the stories now.My own dragon woke from his slumber inside me, sighing his discontent as a spark of his dying anger lit and smothered out.If there’s anyone left to tell them.

I put my hand on my chest to soothe my beast.

“Paiste should’ve killed them all,” Lucan grumbled. His shoulders sagged as he stared into the distance.

More great wings beat against the night sky and shadows loomed over the landing pad on the roof of the compound. Cain and his brothers of the MacAlister Clan had arrived.

Lucan bared his teeth at the flock.

“Easy, cousin. No one is fighting here.” Not tonight. Not anymore. There wasn’t anything left to fight over.

“They still blame him,” Lucan spit in disgust, turning his back on the beasts landing on my roof.

There were moments when I agreed with the MacAlisters, despite our long history of distrust, but I didn’t need to tell Lucan that. He was loyal to a fault.

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