Page 2 of Saving the Last Heir
Returning to the chest, I shifted, rising up to my full fifteen-foot height, and extended my wings, the membranous skin muting the sunlight as it shone through, lighting the capillaries and veins beneath. Grasping the chest with my forelegs, I pushed off the ground and rose high into the air, each beat of my wings catching air and lifting me higher. The powerful muscles propelled me, flexing and rippling until I rose above the treetops.
Finding warm air currents, I rose even farther until I coasted right below the clouds above, soaring back to the home I hadn’t seen in months. Back without the cure we desperately needed. A cure I, and others, had spent years trying to find.
Below me, the world of creatures and men continued on as if nothing was happening. Humans and shifters went about their day without a worry. The other breeds of dragons were happily mating and having children, with no fear that their loved ones might vanish at the drop of a hat.
I flew for hours, cruising south above the earth, mostly trying to zone out. Every now and then, I rose as high as the speeding airplanes that carried the humans and other creatures not blessed with flight to and from their destinations. I assumed many would be snapping pictures of me out the windows—had they been able to see me, that was.
Humans knew nothing of our kind, which was due in part to the absolute secrecy all species of shifters abided by, but also due to the magical camouflage flying dragons had that would keep them from spotting me or the others of my kind as we flew. The warping effect of our magic caused us to blend into our environment at will. The disguise was a hundred times better than any chameleon, and barring a glitch in the magic, no camera would pick us up.
At this point, there were so few dragons left, even without our magical camouflage, humans would probably never see us. They knew nothing of our existence, and if things continued as they were, we’d go extinct without them ever knowing we were here to begin with. Our numbers had never been as high as those of the flightless wyrm or drake breeds of dragons, but we’d had far more than we did now. The specter of extinction was breathing down our necks.
When I finally swooped low over the edges of my family’s ancestral land, the moon’s milky crescent was high in the sky.
The Adelmund family estate lay in the warm and forested Piney Woods region of eastern Texas. In days past, it had been the perfect location for our kind. Mostly warm year-round, centrally located to the rest of the country, and also near enough to the ocean. My ancestors had settled here centuries ago and built the huge mansion in the center of our land—a mansion that once teemed with life, but was now mostly empty.
As I swooped low over the huge pine trees, my home came into sight. The three-story brick house with white accents had wrought-iron railings on the porches and stone walkways leading from the home into the gardens surrounding it. As late as it was, a small group awaited my arrival outside near the front door.
“Jackson!” Carson shouted as I landed. He was older than my mother and had lived at the manor as long as I could remember.
I handed him the chest and shifted back to my human form. “Carson. Good to see you again.”
“Any luck?” he asked, looking at me hopefully.
As badly as I wanted to say yes, all I could do was shake my head.
The hope evaporated from his eyes. He nodded, then glanced at the chest in his hands. “What’s this?”
“Books,” I said. “As far as I could tell, they don’t have any cures in them, but there might be something in there that could help. Can you and the others go through them? I didn’t have time to dive deep.”
The sadness in his face broke, and he grinned. “Of course. We’ll read every line.” He turned and called to the few other adults nearby. “Come on, everyone. We have a job to do.”
They followed him inside, leaving me behind to hug my mother. She grabbed me, squeezing me tight.
“I’m glad you’re home,” she said.
“I’m glad you’re still here,” I whispered.
Ever since The Vanishing began, I was always worried that any time I left, I’d return to find someone else I cared for missing, gone to the winds, nothing more than a memory.
“I would never leave you,” Mom said, breaking the embrace, and putting a hand to my cheek.
I had to drop my gaze, too ashamed to keep looking at her.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Sorry for what?” she asked, frowning at me.
“I failed. I didn’t find what we were looking for. I let everyone down.”
She nudged my chin with her knuckles, lifting my face like she had when I was a child. “Look at me, young man.”
I snorted a laugh even though I was upset at myself.
She faked a scowl. “What’s so funny?”
I was thirty-five years old, and she somehow still managed to make me feel like a kid.
“You haven’t called meyoung manin about a decade, that’s all,” I said.
