Chapter One

You know the feeling you get when you’re sitting on the beach on a summer evening, a drink in your hand as the sun lowers over the horizon? With someone somewhere playing the guitar, and people sing along? It’s calming, isn’t it? Now throw it out the window.

I cover my mouth with a clawed hand to muffle the sound of my heavy breathing as I hide from my pack leader.

“You can’t hide from me,” Alpha Will crooned as he stalked past my hiding spot.

My heart pounds in my chest, blood rushing through my ears. It’s surprisingly loud. Is it the adrenaline, maybe? Maybe.

“Come on out, little one.” His smooth voice alone nearly makes me obey. But I can’t. I would lose.

I risk a peek out of my hiding place. He’s moving away. I keep low to the ground and crawl to the edge of the clearing and climb a tree just enough to keep out of sight. The alpha is checking under heavy branches and the thicker shrubbery, looking for me.

“If you hide much longer,” I hear the warning in his voice. “You’ll be forfeit and fail.”

Now, we can’t have that. I take my boots off and place them quietly on the ground, before letting my feet change from human-looking to clawed and scaly. Much better. I scale the tree, going straight up. I don’t exactly have a plan, just know that I need to make a bit of noise so the alpha knows I’m not forfeiting. Looking down, I see him climbing after me. I smile. Mission accomplished. I break off small sticks and twigs in the hope that they fall in his face. If he didn’t want to risk blindness, he shouldn’t have been looking up while climbing directly underneath me. The canopy above is my advantage. Up there, the branches are all crossing over each other and connected with thick vines, making a kind of natural netting. Here’s where I get ahead. Dragon shifters, such as myself, have long, semi-curled claws. Perfect for gripping rope-like systems. Wolf shifters like the alpha, however, have furry paws with short, stubby claws. Better for navigating the ground. That, and the fact that dragons can jump further and have better balance. Once in the canopy, I sense Will’s hesitation. He knows I have a plan. No I don’t. Wait. We’re not too far off the ground are we? No? Neither of us will die? Good. I look down at the alpha and grin. I shift so that I’m almost upside down on the trunk, and his face falls.

“No…” he whispers.

“Yes,” I reply, and drop. Hands out, I grab him by the shoulders, pushing him down under me to soften my landing. It’s rough, but we make it. We hit the ground, and the alpha gasps for air as the force of the landing renders him physically breathless. A part of me wants to help him up and make sure he’s okay, but that could cost me the test. I keep him pinned until he starts breathing normally again, before getting back up.

“Excellent work, Ellie,” Alpha Will speaks first. “You have shown improvement in both agility and on-the-spot decision making.”

I smile and acknowledge the praise with a nod. It does not come often.

The first person to greet me as I enter the house, is Kaylum, one of my roommates. I’m the youngest in our room.

Kaylum stops me just as I walk through the door. “Hey, Ellie?”

I look up at him. “Yeah?”

“Have you seen Clara? I’ve been trying to find her for the last hour.”

I shake my head. “Sorry, I haven’t seen her since breakfast. Why do you need her?”

Kaylum held up one of his textbooks. I tried to stifle a chuckle when I saw it covered in moss.

“It’s not funny!” He exclaimed. “I have an exam next week, and the pages are getting ruined!”

“I don’t know where she is!” I laugh.

“You know, I’d ask to borrow one of your books, but you don’t even know your element.”

I stopped and stared at him. The gall of this boy. Most of our pack finds their element, the kind of magic that they excel in, usually around the ages of 13-15. Kaylum, at 17, has had his for three years. Lightning. It’s not a rare element, just not common. What’s the word? Uncommon? Yeah, that’s it. Back to the subject at hand. I have just been insulted.

“Listen,” I say, keeping my head cool and voice level. “You may be an alpha, but I am still your equal. It’s not my fault you leave your stuff all over the room, or that Clara needs physical objects to practice with.”

He steps closer, trying to intimidate me. Then apparently thinks better of it and leaves to find our oldest roommate. What is with alphas? Thinking they can just go around telling people what to do. I have a healthy respect for Kaylum, and he for Clara and I. But sometimes I wonder if he’s repressing something.

I enter our shared room on the second floor, and stop. Normally, it is composed of a window seat, our three bunks along one wall with a large open space in the center. Three built-in wardrobes in another wall, with individual desks opposite. Now, it looked like a nature sprite had gotten drunk and decided to convert the room into a mini forest. Moss covered most of the floor, including Kaylum’s things. Toadstools and Angel’s Cap were growing in corners and hidden crevices of the room, which presents a removal problem. Clara’s a green witch, she works with plants. Honestly, I’m not surprised it happened. It was probably a stronger spell than she was used to. There are saplings growing on the desks.

The shared bathroom joined to the room is untouched, however. I take the chance for a shower before lunch.

When I get out of the bathroom in a fresh tunic, Clara is scraping the moss off the floor. She looks up at me.

“Would you mind helping me?” she asks. Not even a hello? Rude.

“I could, but I need to study first.”

She nods to a pile of semi-mossed books. They were mine.

“Clara?”

“Yes?”

“My books?”

She looked up from her spot. “Yeah, they got in the way. You should have seen Kaylum’s.”

“Yes,” I replied. “I did. He has an exam coming up, and now he can’t go over the material.”

She just raised an eyebrow. “I tried, okay? It was an accident, and now I’m fixing it.”

‘Try practicing outside like a normal person,’ I thought as I selected one of my books and left the room. It’s not the first time this has happened, won’t be the last. But why does it happen every time she starts a new unit?

The moss damage isn’t too bad, only on the cover. It’s easily brushed off as I make my way to the beach. Yes, there is a forest on the estate, but it’s behind the house. The beach is out front, only two arrow-flights away. It’s a nice walk. Fine, golden sand greeted by gorgeous green waves, a jetty for ships/pack boats to dock for trades. Every six months, there is a trade meeting between the packs. This summer, the host pack is my own. The Bayband Pack. Known for producing witches ranking among the top in the entire island and occasionally, the world. Which reminds me, I’m here to practice.

I open my book once I get to the beach. The first page is an introduction. Boring. I skip the next few pages until I get to where I want to be. This book is an elemental instructional. How to bend certain elements in your favour. I’ll be working on air. Or wind, more accurately. Just making it move. Most witches, upon finding their element, receive a mark on their arm. Kaylum’s mark is a lightning bolt, Clara’s is a flower. Make no mistake, the cute marking is deceiving. Those with forest magic are among the most creative in a fight. The more advanced, the more dangerous. Clara, being the oldest student at 19, has almost all her lessons perfect, and can revive just about any dead plant in mere minutes. At 16, I’m not the youngest. Our teacher, the oldest pack member, says I showed incredible promise towards elemental magic as a pup, especially kinesis, but something happened to make that stop. I’ve been trying to get it back, but so far nothing has happened. Maybe I haven’t found my element yet, but I’ve tried just about all of them.

Hydrokinesis: Nearly drowned after being pushed off the jetty.

Pyrokinesis: Tripped over a branch at a bonfire. Landed on the coals.

Geokinesis: Was practicing with another student who caused an earthquake.

Electrokinesis: Kaylum accidentally shocked me.

Botanokinesis: I learned from Clara’s many messes. Not even going to try that one.

I could go on, but I don’t want to sound boring. Basically, any magic I could practice, has not worked. I don’t know why I still try, besides the calming effects. You need to focus all your energy on the desired outcome, your mind needs to be clear. I open the book to the page I was after, and settle to practice. At first I’m just waving my hand around, and nothing is happening. Of course not. I’m not sure what I expected. I’ve been trying for years upon years, I can’t be the only one in the pack without magic. I refuse! Everyone else, even the Alpha and First Omega, have at least a little magic.

Some can shift at will, some are elementals, some are witches like Anka, the High Omega and our teacher. We only know I’m a dragon-shifter because when they found me, I was in what’s known as the ‘primal state.’ It’s when adrenaline takes over you, and you appear more and more draconic, depending on the severity of the situation. It’s a defense mechanism, for the most part. It often takes quite a lot to go into the primal state, which raises the question: What reason was there for a four-year-old dragon pup to be wandering around in her primal state?

In any case, I was welcomed into the pack and placed under the care of the High Omega, and the Alpha himself is training me to hunt and fight. Something about that doesn’t sit quite right with me, but I don’t know as much about him as the High Omega does, and she approved of the decision, so I guess it can’t be too bad. I find it funny how he goes to her for approval, she’s not his mother. They look nothing alike. No one talks about it, which is strange. It’s understandable in that gossiping about pack leaders doesn’t usually end well, but not once in my 12 years here have I caught even a whisper of an answer. I have tried asking around, but everyone pretended they were suddenly deaf. I learned very early on some things must just not be questioned. Didn’t stop me looking for answers, though. Growing up, my curiosity on this subject was unquenchable. I found the library records, where the history of the pack is kept. I was in there reading through them as often as I could, to find the story. Never found it, but I do know that Anka helped the alpha bring the pack together out of strays. From what I found, she trained him in leadership, and he rewarded her for this with status. Very strange, indeed.