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As they approached the source, Lyra could tell that it was Caleb, but it was something else as well. She could smell blood, and lots of it. They slid down the side of a small hill, dried leaves and dead branches crushing and breaking as they arrived at the bottom. Lyra spotted a large boulder, and knew that the smells were coming from the other side.
Emma made it to the other side first, and Lyra heard her whisper, “Oh my God.”
Lyra quickly took a look and saw the body of a man she had known for several years. He had been slashed through, his limbs ripped from his body and his face and head bashed in. Lyra staggered backward, trying to steady herself as a wave of nausea hit.
“What happened?” Jackson asked, sniffling. “What the hell happened to him?”
Aaron let out a long loud howl that pierced the night. The pack stood together in solidarity for their fallen brother. Aaron and Jackson got to work digging a grave, and Orson lifted Caleb’s remains and gently placed them in the ground where he was buried and put to rest. The pack remained at the scene for a few hours, crying silently.
“This was a dragon,” Orson broke the silence, drawing everyone’s attention. “Look at the claw marks, and the sheer brutality of it. Caleb was attacked by a dragon, and it definitely wasn’t a single dragon. He stood no chance.”
“There are marks on this tree here, hard to tell, but I know it’s definitely not another werewolf. This is wrong, and just straight up barbaric! Why would they do something like this? We’ve kept our distance for so long, we’ve kept the peace,” said Jackson.
Lyra felt a wave of panic, knowing what he meant. The dragons and werewolves had stayed away from interactions with each other, knowing that they could easily result in fighting. Most of the time, death would occur on one or both sides. Worse, sometimes humans became collateral damage in the frenzy.
Orson straightened up. “I’m going to talk to them.”
“There are dragons in Ridgeshire?” Lyra asked.
“Yeah, they’re here, in hiding. But I can draw them out, and we’re going to have a face-to-face conversation and someone is going to have to pay for this,” Orson finished, drawing his claw against a rock. He was fired up, and Lyra felt chills run down her spine. Everyone felt it when the Alpha was ready for a fight, and they were going to back him to the very end.
Chapter 4 - Lyra
Lyra walked up the stairs to the attic, looking into Isaacs’s room. It was a lot different than it had been when she left all those years ago. Isaac had been into dinosaurs and Gundam. Now, the decor was all about some music band Lyra had never heard of. She smiled to herself, walking through the house as she reveled in her memories there.
When Lyra was still learning to shift, she had once been chased through the house by the whole pack. She had jumped and leaped and managed to evade everyone, until she got out of the house to the front door. Isaac had leaped out the attic window, landing on top of her and pinning her to the ground.
She remembered the look on Orson’s face when he heard what had happened. The werewolves had done their best to keep themselves secret from the humans and, for the most part, it worked pretty well. In all of Ridgeshire, there was only one human who knew about the shifters. Lyra had known him all her life. One of the reasons he knew about them was because he was a sorcerer.
Lyra picked up the clothes that Adam had taken off, and walked through the house, seeing Jackson playing the guitar with his bedroom door open. He didn’t turn to look at her, but he didn’t have to. His senses would let him know where everyone was, he could easily tell she was right behind him.
“You’re getting good at that,” Lyra called out.
“Yeah, thanks,” Jackson called back reluctantly.
Lyra turned away and continued making her way toward the basement. She didn’t know Jackson well, as he had just joined the pack recently. He was a stray whose entire pack had been killed. From what he said, his pack had fought some dragons, and those who were left behind killed themselves. He was the only one left, and had come to Ridgeshire in the hopes of joining the pack or getting killed by them.
As time went on, Lyra noticed just how bitter Jackson was. Maybe it was the loss of the pack, or maybe he just had a sour attitude, but Jackson did his best to be unlikeable most of the time. The rest of the pack had actual jobs which they all worked during the day, but he stayed home, playing his guitar.
Lyra shook her head as she put the clothes in the wash. She looked up at a photo on the wall. It was in a small frame that was covered in dust. Wiping it with a soap-lathered hand revealed a photo of Lyra and Emma, sitting on Orson’s car.
Emma was a young college student when she had first met Lyra. She had been studying medicine and surgery at the university. One night, while she was next door to some frat party, someone had come in and called her, telling her that someone was having a seizure and they needed help.
Emma rushed down to see the person, restrained to a chair as his body bucked and shook from left to right, trying to control his shifting. Emma, not sure what was happening, got a little too close and ended up being bitten. The person who had bitten her was Aaron.
Emma was quickly brought in to the pack, and they went through their changes together. Emma and Lyra had grown into close friends, supporting each other in the pack and spending lots of time together. Lyra quickly mastered her shift, and had grown more powerful, allowing her to become Beta.
“What good times we had,” Lyra said to herself, looking at the picture. She put it back on the wall and let out a sigh, turning to head back up the stairs to the kitchen. Her phone rang on the counter, and she picked it up, seeing that it was Orson. “Hey, Dad.”
“Just calling ‘cause you and Jackson are at home. We meet with the dragons this evening, and I think you should know and be ready.”
Orson’s words were vague, just in case Jackson was listening in, but Lyra knew what he meant. The person she had seen in the taxi had truly been Levi, which meant that he was probably going to be a part of the meeting, and Lyra would have to be there.
“I will be.”
“If you want to stay home and watch over Adam—”
“No,” Lyra shot out. “No, I’m going.”
