“What did you want to talk about?”
“It’s about what Joseph was doing in Venezuela. The hunter I questioned said Joseph and an old man would visit their camp and go into the shed where they were holding the supers. He didn’t know what they were doing but he did say Joseph seemed different when he came out. Also these hunters were connected with the Northcott hunters in Kentucky. The guy I handed over to Alanza’s clan was a lieutenant.”
“So they are expanding,” Daniel said thoughtfully.
“I’m not sure. I know they were sent down there because of Joseph, but I don’t know if they would’ve been there without Joseph.”
“Well now that we have a concrete name to work with, we can start monitoring their movements a little closer, and we can add hunter activity to Lyosha’s tracking program.”
I nodded, “My thoughts exactly. What do you think Joseph was doing when he went into the shed?”
“As you know our magic has been hunted by other dragons and sorcerers. He has probably figured out how to siphon off the magic and use it on himself.”
My brow furrowed, “So that’s why he was more powerful this time than last time. He’s had two years to add to his magic.”
Daniel nodded, “Doing this turns the person doing it into something unholy. Our magic isn’t meant to be stolen, and as a result when it transfers, it corrupts.”
“He has definitely corrupted himself. I’m worried about how he’s going to get his power now that we’ve taken his main source away. Maybe we should put out an alert to the other clans.”
“We can do it tomorrow morning.”
I stood and walked toward the door, “Right. Well I need to get back to Fox. I’ve got some training to do. Speaking of which, are you planning on making Leandra go through glacadh?” He nodded, “Follow-up question, who’s going to fight her?”
“I haven’t decided yet. I might get Jace to train Finley, once she’s healthy enough, and have her fight Leandra.”
I tilted my head, “That could work.”
“Have fun training with your mate,” he said, as I stood to leave, dismissing me.
I made my way back to where I left Fox. He didn’t hear me walk up behind him, so I wrapped my arms around his midsection. He tensed at first, but relaxed when he realized who it was. “Ready to go for that run?”
“Yeah. It was great talking with you guys,” Fox said to Liza, Mike, and Georgie.
“See you later guys,” I said with a wave. Fox linked his hand with mine as we walked toward the exit. “How many miles do you run each day?”
“About fifteen.”
“We have to get that up,” I told him.
He scoffed, “How many do you run every day?”
I smirked, “Between thirty-five and forty-five.”
He looked at me in disbelief, “What the fuck? Why?”
“Endurance. When you’re fighting you have to be able to keep up or you will lose simply because your opponent had better conditioning. You will definitely lose to Daniel or Jace if your conditioning isn’t where it should be. You need better conditioning if you’re going to fight a dragon. Jax is easy to beat compared to any dragon with even half the skill because we’re hardy creatures.”
He sighed, “All right. What’s the goal?”
“At least thirty,” I said, causing him to groan. “You’ll be fine. Come on. We’ll start slow.”
He gave me a dubious look as we started our run. I pushed him to run twenty instead of his usual fifteen. When we made it back to the complex he fell down on the ground, flat on his back. I rolled my eyes, “Goddess. You’re almost as dramatic as Jax.”
He looked up at me with a furrowed brow, “Why do you say goddess rather than God?”
“Because I don’t worship your God. There’s a goddess of dragons and a goddess of the moon, one I’ve met and the other Jax worships.”
“You’ve met her? How and why?”
“The first time was when I was kidnapped. She’s the one who gave me my new bending, but she always goes to comfort our kind in times of need, like being held by hunters.” I took a moment trying to make up my mind on whether or not to tell him about the biggest secret about the goddess, “My mom is the goddess.”
He sat up, “I’ll be honest. I have no idea what to do with that.”
I laughed, “As you know my mom was the Queen of Dragons,” he nodded, “Well I found out when I was kidnapped that the Queen becomes the goddess when she dies. That’s why the Queen is always that, a queen rather than being a king because there will never be a male goddess.”
“So you’re kind of like Jesus?”
I laughed harder than I had in a while. “Sort of, yeah, I guess,” I said once I collected myself.
“Am I supposed to worship your goddess once we’ve mated?”
I shook my head, “She doesn’t care if you worship her or not, nor do I. You can do whatever you like. Plus we don’t really have a specific way we worship. We just know she’s there and will help should we need her,” I explained with a shrug.
“Good to know. I’m not really religious, so it’s nice to know I don’t have to change that,” he said before standing, “Are we doing any hand to hand training today?”
“Not today. Maybe tomorrow.”
“Aren’t we on a time crunch?”
I grabbed his hand as we walked back into the complex for lunch, “Yeah, but I don’t want to throw too much at you and you not retain any of it.”
“That makes sense I guess,” he responded with a frown.
“We are going to work out though. I want you to be strong enough too.”
We ate quickly before heading to the indoor gym, where we worked out until dinner. When I looked over at Fox, he looked completely exhausted, “All right. We’re done for the day. Let’s go grab something to eat.”
He blew out an exhausted breath, “Finally. But did you forget you’re going on a date with me tonight?”
“Of course not,” I played it off as if I didn’t.
He stood up and picked me up from behind causing me to giggle, “Uh huh,” he said in my ear. He set me down and slapped my ass, “Come on we’ve got a date to go on.”
Author: Kailan Counahan 