Page 6 of Blood Oath
For a moment, I can only stare incredulously as the creature’s wings beat the air, creating a strong wind that rustles everything around us. The beast lands in one of the training fields nearby, and I can feel the ground tremble from all the way over here. Its wingspan is staggering, scales gleaming. It folds away its impressive wings and snorts blue fire into the air…and then, in two blinks of the eye, he shifts into a man.
Dragon shifter.
I can’t see him clearly from here, but I can tell he’s a huge, naked mass of solid, tanned muscles. A few other legacies—presumably shifters—jog up and slap him on the back. Shifters are extremely comfortable with nudity, from what I’ve heard. All of them are shorter than he is, even though shifters tend to be taller than all other legacies.
“What a drama king,” Kenzie scoffs, shaking her head. “I wonder what set him off today.”
“You know him?”
“Oh, yeah! Everyone knows him. You’re looking at Baelfire Decimus, the youngest son of the revered Decimus family. You’ve heard of them at least, right?”
“No.”
Kenzie is surprised. “Really? Well, they’re basically the last branch of dragon shifters in existence, and as their youngest son, Baelfire basks in a ridiculous amount of attention. Although that’s also probably because he’s a rizz master.”
I face her. “A what now?”
“You know. Rizz. Charisma. He’s a people person,” she amends when I clearly don’t get it. Then she wags her brows. “Not to mention his looks. Crazy handsome, don’t you think?”
Hard to tell from so far away. I watch as he laughs with his fellow shifters, throwing an arm around two of them at once.
“Huge. I pity the vagina of anyone he takes to bed.”
Kenzie throws her head back and cackles. “Yeah, well, don’t tell him that. He’s already got a dragon-sized ego. Come on, I’ll show you the grand dining hall. Did you get a map of where your classes are tomorrow? Because if you want, I can help you find them?—“
“Kenzie!”
We both look over at two girls approaching. Before they get close enough, Kenzie grumbles under her breath and whispers to me, “Watch out. These girls are highly ranked. Nice, but way too competitive. It’s better to stay under their radar.”
They stop in front of us, and the redhead on the left looks over me sharply. “Never seen this one around. She new here?”
I don’t miss that she addresses Kenzie and not me, as if I’m just a vague presence she hasn’t deemed with person status yet.
“Oh—yeah, this is Maven. I’m just showing her around. We’re roommates.”
The other girl is tall with dark skin, a nose ring, and short purple hair. “House?”
She’s demanding the answer from me. A small part of me is tempted to flip her the bird to show how little I care about her “high rank” status, but Kenzie is right. I don’t want any attention, so for the next two weeks, I’ll be nothing but a quiet, shy wallflower.
“Arcana,” I say quietly.
The girl grunts, and they both turn back to Kenzie like I no longer exist. Fascinating. They really do care about their power games, don’t they?
“So,” the redhead grins. “Tea time. Decimus lost control earlier. Went from zero to dragon in the blink of an eye—I saw it myself! He barely made it out of the castle in time, and rumor has it he lit an entire hallway on fire and killed someone they haven’t been able to identify.”
Kenzie glances at me with raised brows, clearly coming to the same conclusion I have that the dragon shifter must have been the one to set fire to that stairwell. “Oh, shit. What made him so mad?”
“Who knows? I get that you shifters have intense emotions and all, but gods, he’s on another level.” She sighs, clearly thinking that’s attractive.
“And you wanna hear something else?” Nose Ring leans closer to whisper. “We overheard some siphons talking, and rumor has it that the Nightmare Prince was spotted in Halfton.”
At that, Kenzie’s mouth drops open. “What? No way. No one has seen him for a couple of years, not since he slaughtered an entire courtroom full of humans during that whole sex trafficking debacle and pissed off the Legacy Council and the human government. Why the fuck would he be in this area?”
“Maybe he’s going to the Seeking,” the redhead suggests.
“Yeah, right. He’s never been to a Seeking, not even when he attended Everbound years ago,” the other girl cuts in, rolling her eyes.
Kenzie says something else, and they keep talking, but I find my thoughtful interest drawn back to where the dragon shifter is still chatting with other shifters far in the distance.
