Captured By The Dragon
Episode 88

I turned back to the building and walked inside. There were piles of guns and several long tables that smelled of silver and gun powder. There were a lot of pieces on the table and a long line of men in shackles standing by the tables. From the looks of things, they were being forced to assemble more weapons.

I walked towards a table to look at the pieces then at the men. They were all too young to be considered men. They looked to be teenagers at most with scared gazes, backing away from me as far as their shackles would allow.

“Lock down this place and get these teenagers out of their shackles and to a safe house for now. We’ll get them back to the other side of the border as soon as it’s safe.”

One of my subordinates came up beside me, “How many guns do you think are here?”

“Aside from the knives? Enough to arm an army.” I turned, “If properly assembled. We can’t trust if any of these aren’t rigged. Especially if they found a way to send some kind of sickness through the community.”

“What should we do?”

“Take back the weapons we brought with us. The rest of this should be destroyed unless we can use it for the weapons we have without worrying.”

There was no way to know if we could, so we cleared out the building and left the building.

“Dylan!” Someone called rushing over to me. “We have trouble.”

“What is it?”

“A human caravan of cars are making their way towards your house armed. We don’t know what they want.”

I cursed and hurried to one of the cars. Everyone cranked up the engines and started to drive as I fiddled with the radio trying to tune into the right frequency.

How could they have found out about my new house? Had Patara called them again? Was there a traitor in my forces?

“We’re looking for Malcolm and that girl. Orders are to bring her back alive.”

“What about the dragon?”

“Shoot him out of the sky.”

“Are we sure that this information is accurate?”

“I think the tigers have just as much reason to hate him as we do. Let’s just get this done. We don’t want to be on this side of the border when the factory explodes.”

Someone laughed, “Stupid shifters.”

I disagreed. Stupid humans.

3rd POV

It had been a few days since Dylan had started this new war. Patara had no idea how high the death toll was climbing, but she knew that it was only a matter of time before the war spilled over to the human side. She wondered if the hunters would see reason and admit to sending the weapons or if there would have to be a fight.

She wondered what Dylan would do if he won the battle. He might not approve of human trafficking, but would he make humans serve shifters in some way? Would the humans give in easily?

Would her parents come around? She didn’t know.

Ethan, for the most part, didn’t understand much of what was going on. There were always people coming in and out of the house. Most of them were familiar. Erik would come by every so often to check on them and drop off food.

There was a lot of food, but the warm woman who held him close was scared and seemed to always be on edge. She was healing though. Her injuries were a lot better and she didn’t seem to be in pain every time she moved, but she wasn’t completely better.

The house was quiet for a long time before Ethan smelled strange scents nearby. He tugged on the woman’s arms and fear began to churn through him. He wasn’t sure why exactly, but he knew that there was something coming.

The scent was familiar and smelled a lot like that horrible place he never wanted to go back to.

“What’s wrong, Ethan?”

He got her out of bed and downstairs just as the front door burst open. Strange men with shiny things in their hands burst in. The woman screamed.

“Adam?” She asked.

“You!” The man turned and rushed towards his mother, “You’re coming with us. Where is Malcolm? You were the last one to see him.”

“He’s dead, and I’m not going anywhere with you.”

He growled, “Don’t think I’ll be as nice to you as Malcolm was.”

“No!” Ethan screamed running at the strange man as he got closer.

“Get off me, you little brat!”

“Ethan, no!”

Ethan caught the man’s hand before he struck him and squeezed until the man cried out. Something cracked in his hand and the sound sent Ethan back through his memories that were smeared with b***d and pain.

“Ethan!”

The hunter howled in agony and Ethan leaped onto him with a feral growl.

“Mom no gone!”

He remembered, or he didn’t remember. He remembered pain and fear. He remembered the darkness of that place. He remembered his dad transforming into a dragon and how his great wings stretched out and shielded them from the sight of the moon.

He remembered the men in that terrible place saying dragon and attacking him soon after he learned to walk and whenever they wanted to. He remembered the last time when he had been in so much pain after they prodded and hurt him with sharp things that cut and made him bleed.

He remembered his mom being taken and how she came back in so much pain. Had those people taken her to that place? Had they hurt her? It was the only thing that made sense to him. He wouldn’t let them take her again.

Dad would be sad. He would be sad too.

If Dad meant that he was a dragon too, then he had to do what Dad did. That word, protect, had to mean this.

It meant stopping men from taking his mom.

Maybe that’s what mom meant, someone who held him close in a warm embrace and someone he had to protect. He would do that just the way his dad did.

The man beneath him screamed in pain as he tore into him with changed fingers, ripping through his flesh. The scent of b***d filled his nose and he remembered this.

He remembered them making him fight, poking and prodding, agitating him until he couldn’t do anything else.

“You little—”

Ethan roared, launching himself at the next man and slashing him through his throat. He heard screaming as something was fired, grazing past him. He turned in the direction and darted across the room. His hands were burning as he jumped on the man and pressed them against his face. He screamed as his flesh melted and he went down. There were more people coming.

“Ethan, no!”

He darted around the flashes of light. They sparked memories of pain he couldn’t escape and couldn’t understand. There had been so many days of lying curled in pain smelling b***d and trying to just hold on a little longer.

He didn’t know warmth, but he knew he was alive.

The others he’d seen stop breathing. He didn’t want to stop breathing.

These men, though, could stop breathing. He shrieked charging across the room and tackling them.