Word travelled faster than breath.
By the time the messenger reached the throne room, Gaffer was already standing as if his body had known before his ears did.
Days passed and all that has been happening was him patiently waiting for reports on the search while taking care of his son himself.
The doors opened with a whisper and a young beast-man stepped inside, bowing low enough his forehead nearly kissed the floor.
"Greetings, Your Majesty."
Gaffer rolled his eyes. "You are not like my subjects, you are one of the men who fought hand in hand with me during the times of war. Master is a fine title."
"Yes, Master."
What message do you bring?"
"They found her location, Master."
The words hung between them like a lantern in the dark.
For the first time in days, Gaffer heard a good news.
"Say it again," Gaffer murmured, as if repetition might anchor hope in place.
"We've tracked the rabbit."
His hands tightened around the stone armrests until the veins in his wrists rose. The room seemed to breathe with him.
"Is there news? Is she harmed? Is she… safe?"
The messenger swallowed. His throat bobbed once. "Master, Commander Scliff reports…she was seen with two figures."
Gaffer's brows lowered a fraction. "Figures?"
"Two beastmen."
"…"
The air shifted.
The messenger's voice gained a cautious tremble as he spoke this time. "They appeared…possessive and protective of the rabbit. They seemed so close according to what Commander Scliff reports."
The words kept coming, scraping into Gaffer's skin as they left.
"Close?" "Two beastmen?"
Gaffer's jaw moved once, a muscle jumping beneath the skin.
His chest felt tight. Too tight.
"And…they were—" the messenger hesitated "…very striking. They were beautiful beastmean in their human forms. They were bare-chested but full chested at the same time. They looked so tanned in skin and one has a very dark attractive skin with golden flowing hair. Both were nearly naked, according to the Commander."
Something in the dragon snapped silent.
A thin line of smoke slid from his nose.
"Stop," he said softly. Almost gently. "Stop describing them as if you admire them."
The messenger dropped to both knees, forehead pressed to the floor now. "Forgive me, master."
"Get. Out."
The messenger fled.
The door closed.
Stillness crept across the room like frost.
Gaffer turned slowly toward the mirror. It was a tall slab of polished onyx framed in silver, reflecting a man who looked nothing like the word invincible. He stared at his unassuming reflection.
Had he always been this pale?
Had the shadows always lived beneath his eyes like permanent nights?
He lifted a hand and pressed fingers against the glass. The reflection did the same. He looked too pale and sick.
Suddenly, his lungs burned. He coughed.
The cough tore out of him before he could bury it, all he could do was raise his hand sharply to cough into his palm. A dark smear of blood bloomed across his palm.
He stared at it.
The dragon king, the storm of the Scales Tribe, was bleeding like any other fragile thing.
But this wasn't the point. The point of the moment was… two beastmen… touching what was his?
His eyes changed from a molten gold bleeding into red until they glowed like fresh-forged metal. His face hardened into something not meant for warmth.
His voice returned as a whisper meant for no one but the mirror. "I think my little rabbit wife needs a cage."
The thought curdled.
Good thing she was already bound by that fraudulent contract of marriage. A marriage she didn't even know existed.
The dragon in the mirror looked back — sinister, beautiful, and broken — and smiled without softness.
Meanwhile…..
The world outside the burrow was not a world at all.
It was a wound.
Linda had stepped outside the burrow mansion with Bemu and Daku leading her.
The world outside was a cracked version of earth stretched into a red horizon, bleeding under a burnt sun that hung too low and glared too hard. Ash-dust rolled with every faint breeze, and monstrous shadows crossed the ground where beasts roamed in forms far too large for safety. Wings. Horns. Scale. Fur. Teeth.
She walked with the meerkat, Bemu, now a man with wild hair falling over sharp eyes and a grin that always looked half-plotted. And beside him, the black rabbit, Daku, long-limbed in human form, dark-eyed and unreadable, like night wrapped into skin.
And between them moved Linda—small white and tired.
She hopped carefully over broken rock, her tiny paws scraping, the world towering so high above her it felt like it might fall.
Bemu tossed a glance her way. "We will arrive home just past the gate, little miss. After that, it's safer and less…teethy."
Daku didn't smile. "Stay close."
Linda swallowed around the small carrot clamped between her teeth, the taste of it steadying her even as her chest fluttered fast. Her legs ached. Her lungs burned. And despite everything she missed…warmth.
Here she was, doing all the walking while when she was with Gaffer, he never let her walk on her own.
He carried her like royalty and not like a baby.
She missed the low hum of his voice. When he would always say a few warm words that threw her off guard. What the fuck was 'stay close' compared to 'you're wet'?
"!!!"
She missed the dragon. So bad!
But she'd rather walk a thousand miles than get made into stew for another woman to devour her!
There was the gate in front.
The gate rose ahead had iron bars twisted into ancient patterns, humming with old magic. Beyond it, she saw silhouettes. People walking upright. Talking. Laughing.
They were in human forms.
She paused. There was not a single beast form behind the gate in front.
Bemu and Daku moved forward to unlatch the gate.
And then…. WARP!!! The sky exploded.
A shadow ripped across the sun. It was vast, and winged, it swallowed light. Wind roared downward, slamming the dust into a spiraling storm.
Linda looked up.
A green dragon dropped from the clouds like a falling mountain. His claws hit the ground with a sound like thunder tearing open.
Before Bemu could swear and before Daku's hands could shift back to claws and before Linda could even take one more breath, talons closed around her small white body.
Pain lanced.
The carrot slipped from her teeth and vanished into dust.
She was grabbed off the floor. She wasn't attacked she was just being stolen away by a green dragon for some reason. Food?
"LITTLE MISS!" Bemu roared.
Daku's rage burned silent, his eyes turning dark and dangerous as he stared upward, fists clenched hard enough to whiten bone.
The dragon's wings beat once, then twice, then it vanished into the sky with Linda in its claws.
High in the frozen air, Linda felt the claws digging into her fur. It was sharp enough to sting and strong enough to make her helpless.
Wind tore at her. Her heart pounded so hard it hurt. She was scared and maybe that was the stimulus she needed because her ears suddenly shrank.
Her bones began to stretch and her fur receded in a wave. No longer paws, she had now grown human fingers that were now pressing against the dragon's scaled talons.
Her breath caught in a throat that was suddenly human. The world blurred as she gasped, her eyes widening in shock.
What was happening?
What was happening was that she was finally transforming to human. And this… this was her first shift.