The Dragons' Mates

The Threat

The Threat

Mina pov

I woke up as the sun was coming up. I feel strong arms around me and turn to seem my handsome mate staring at me lovingly. "Were you watching me sleep?" I ask. "Yes, you are so beautiful, and I can't believe I finally found you. I wanted to make sure this was real and not a dream," He replies. I smile and place my hand on his chest. I feel his chest vibrate. "I really enjoyed last night. I also enjoyed meeting Xavier. Can I tell you something and you not laugh at me?" I say drawing little circles on his chest. "I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours," He responds with a smirk. "OK, I had a dream the night before we met and I saw your wolf," I blurt out. He stares at me wide eyed and says, "me too. I mean I was in wolf form and I saw a woman with your eyes reaching out to me." I look at him and smile. "We dreamed about each other," I say and cuddle in close to him. He kisses my head and just holds with.

"Unfortunately sweetheart, we need to get up. There are meets and alliances to talk about, plus we are scouting that mountain area this evening, " He says. I nod and we get ready.

We get downstairs and Callan smirks at us. "What, nice new mark you have there little one," Callan says. Dad turns to him and growls a little. Callan just smirks behind his coffee cup. Dad clears his throat and says, "I see you have marked each other. I didn't get a chance to talk to you about some things. I already told MJ before he, I assume, marked Gem. As you know dragons have a longer life span than a lot of other species. Us being royals, we have a slightly longer life than other dragons. Another perk to being royal is that when we mark our mate, that lifespans is extended to them as well." I look at Jace and his eyes are wide. "What's the matter Jace?" I ask. "That's incredible, I will now live as long as you do. But, what about my parents, my friends, and pack. I will watch them all die," He starts rambling. I was about to speak when dad interjects, "another perk to being royal is that, I believe, some of that lifespan will extend to your pack members as well since you are the Alpha. Now I am not sure. This has never happened before, but in the past when a royal would mate with an alpha or their child, that horde's lifespan increases."

Jace POV

I woke up before Mina. It all felt like a dream. I quickly realized it was not when I took in her amazing scent and felt her warm body in my arms. I look at her face and brush her hair from her eyes. 'Wow, she's so beautiful, ' I say to Xavier. 'Yes, human mate is beautiful as well as her dragon Sapphire. She was appropriately named; her eyes match her dragon's scales.' He points out. I mentally nod to him and continue staring at my mate. Yeah, it may be creepy, but I don't care. I've waited for six years to do this.

Her eyes flutter open and I stare into her pretty blues. I can't believe how lucky I am. She accepted me and we are whole now. I can't wait to introduce her as Luna. She will be fierce and take crap. I already saw that with how she handled herself with Anna.

We cuddle a little longer, but we need to get up. Lots to do today. 'Devon, you up,' I link my beta. 'Yes, just creepily staring at my mate. No biggie,' he responds sarcastically. 'I was too. No shame in that. We need to notify our allies about our mates and that we are forming an alliance with the dragons as well as telling them that the dragons may be occupying the mountains north of our territory, ' I respond. 'I will draw up the paperwork before breakfast for us, Alpha Dylan, and King Maximus to sign about the alliance. It’s a good thing I have my laptop. Gotta go. Cara is waking and I want some time together before I start that. This will be good for her to learn as well,' he says as he closes the link. 'We have an excellent beta,' Xavier says. I nod in agreement.

Mina and I get up and ready. We head downstairs and are greeted by a smirking Callan. 'I wonder if he will smirk at Devon and Cara as well,' I say to Xavier. He just snorts at me. Max walks up to us and starts talking about us being marked and what that means. I'm a little shocked about the lifespan thing but he assures me that it should extend to my pack since I am Alpha.

I am a surprised by what he says about alphas of hordes. "What do you mean horde alphas?" I ask.

Just as he was about to answer, Devon, Cara, Blade and Stella come into the dining room. "Hey Jace, I got those papers ready for you to sign if everyone is in agreement, " Devon says handing me the alliance paperwork. "What is that?" Max asks. "These are standard papers for alliances that our pack joins, if everyone is in agreement on the alliance, we sign them, I put my seal on them and send them to the council," I reply looking over the papers before handing them to Max. "I also drew up the papers for Dylan's pack. I called Carter and he emailed me their standard papers with their crest. Dylan should have his seal with him when he gets down here," Devon says.

Just as he says that Dylan and Ember enter followed by MJ and Gem.

Maximus POV

I look over the papers that Jace hands me. They seem straightforward, basically you help us we help you type of thing. I hand them to Callan to look over. When MJ and Dylan walk in, we all sit at the table and discuss the alliance as well as other potential alliances we could connect with. Callan hands MJ the papers for him to look over as well.

"As I was saying, dragons are similar to, wolves as we live in packs, but we call them hordes. Each horde has an alpha and so on. When my father took the dragons into hiding our numbers were low. Many dragons were not trained to even defend themselves. Many hordes were completely wiped out. Anyways, when the dragons went into hiding, they combined the remaining hordes under the king. All the alphas still served as advisors and other important roles within the horde. The horde that was most closely related to the royal horde was the Darkwing horde. Callan's father was the Alpha and became my father's advisor as he already had a beta, but when I took over, I made Callan my beta. What better beta to have than someone that was ready to run their own horde?

If this relocation and assimilation goes well, it's possible that the dragons may decide to go back to the smaller hordes. It would be up to Callan and Blade if they wanted to reinstitute the Darkwing horde." I explain. Callan looks proud as does Blade. I know that they are born leaders. It would be good if the hordes became smaller. Most dragons do not do well in large hordes. Callan clears is throat, "if today goes well and the land we are going to survey is suitable to have two hordes, I think we should reinstate the Darkwing horde if Blade is willing to become the Alpha.

MJ POV

Everyone was starting at Blade. I clapped him on the back and said, “I will miss you as my beta, but you were born to lead. You have my blessing if you would like to do this. This is a time of new beginnings. “Who would you have as beta then,” he asks me in concern. “I will talk with Steele. He is a royal as well and is strong and smart. He could handle it,” I say. That decision was easy. We were all really close and this would be a great opportunity for both of them. Gem was right. Things were changing, a lot. Separate hordes would be good. We would be able to spread out the dragons instead of having everyone in one spot. Strategically, that didn’t make sense. It left us vulnerable if an attack were to come.

I look over the papers that my dad hands me. They look good. We both sign each set of papers for both packs. Jace and Dylan sign their respective papers and use their seals. I felt a sense of pride. The dragons were really moving forward. This was amazing. We could hopefully get our numbers back up and integrate into the supernatural world with minimal problems. My only concern was the hunters and the witches. We would know where at least one group of hunters stood today, but the witches. They avoided us yesterday. I may need to seek them out to talk and see where they stand.

After the papers are signed, we eat our breakfast and head out.

Mina POV

After breakfast, all of our wolf mates and their parents left to get changed for today’s meetings. They didn’t bring any clothes with them. We head over to the Gathering Hall. We enter and are immediately bombarded with questions. Some are just curious about us. I hear some talking to my dad and brother about alliances, but something catches my eye. I look and I see the three sluttyteers standing there scowling at me and the girls. I just roll my eyes and move forward. They are not even worth my time.

The entrance hall was so crowded with people trying to get a look at us and ask us questions that I got separated from the others in all of the commotion. I smile politely as I try to make my way back to my group. I am suddenly grabbed by someone. I whirl around and come face to face with Anna. She has an evil smile on her face. "I'm so glad that I caught you. I am going to give you a chance to reject and leave Jace," she says in her annoying voice. I laugh at her, "are you kidding me? Why would I give you anything? I don't know you, but I do know you do not truly care for or love Jace. You just want the Luna title." "Well, I did give you a chance," she says before shoving me. I land against another woman that tries to wrap her arm around me. Out of the corner of my eye I see another woman coming at me with a needle. ‘Oh hell no,’ Sapphire says. She pushes forward and we combine our strength.

I quickly grab hold of the woman and yank her fingers back until I hear a crunch. She wails in pain and releases me. I go for the woman with the needle and punch her in the nose. She drops the needle and I stomp on it. The smell of dragon’s root hits my nose. 'MJ, Dad, someone just tried to inject me with dragons root,' I link. All I hear come through the link are roars. I look around and everyone that was involved with this kidnapping attempt were gone, including Anna.

MJ, dad, and Jace all come thundering into the hall that I am in. Silence surrounds us as people have noticed the three big, burly men with their eyes either glowing with their dragon or darkened with their wolf. I am seething mad. I know that Sapphire is coming to the surface and my eyes are glowing as well. "What happened," all three men ask at the same time. "Let's go somewhere else and talk," I say.

They all nod. Jace grabs my hand and walks towards another hallway that has multiple doors. He opens the first one we get to, looks in and then pulls me in behind him. MJ and dad are right behind. “I linked everyone else to come here so we can hear what happened,” MJ says. I can tell he is trying to keep Storm under control. Dragons are very protective of their families, and royal dragons even more so. Jace takes this moment to pull me to him and wrap himself around me. He is so big that I am sure that he could almost hide me in his arms if he wanted to. He takes in my scent to calm himself down and I do the same.

A minute later everyone else comes bursting through the door. Cara is on me, looking me over. “What happened,” she almost squeals. I take a breath and tell them about getting separated and my interaction with Anna and then her shoving me and being grabbed. “I can’t be sure, but I think they were witches that grabbed my and try to inject me with dragon’s root. I mean, who else would know our weakness? We haven’t been around,” I say. Everyone is quietly thinking. I speak up, “I think that we should set up a meeting while we are here with the witch coven leaders that are present. We could say that we are just wanting to put aside past incidents and move forward. I can read them while we are talking to see if any of them are being deceitful.” “That’s an excellent idea Mina. I think that we should also have a council member or two present so they cannot try to say that we threatened them,” dad says.

We hear a knock on the door and it opens revealing Kent from the hunters guild. Behind him is another giant looking man with sandy brown hair. “I hope I am not interrupting anything, I saw you come in here and was hoping that we could discuss a treaty between the dragons and the Striker Force Guild,” Kent says. The man behind him steps forward and introduces himself, “I am Bryant Whitepaw, Alpha of the White Paw pack. The werebears are also interested in a possible alliance with you.” We all nod. “Well, since we are here and there is not a scheduled meeting for us for a little while, why don’t we sit down and discuss this,” MJ says. ‘I’m proud of you big brother. You are really taking charge. You are going to make a great King,’ I link. He smiles at me.

“Um Kent,” I say. “Do you know any of the witch covens?” I ask. He stiffens. “Yes, many of the witches have been a problem. My guild just took out an entire coven because they were using dark magic against a nearby human population.” “So, we may have a witch problem already,” my father says. “What do you mean already?” both Kent and Bryant ask. I retell my encounter. Bryant turns to Jace, “Alpha Jace, with yours and your Luna’s permission, may I smell her to see if I can track down who did this. I can probably do it a little easier with less suspicion since they do not know that we are in talks yet.” “That would be great, Jace what do you think,” I ask him. He just nods. I stand and Bryant comes near me, “Where did they grab you?” “Here on my arm, and I broke the one that grabbed me with my left hand,” I say. He holds out his and for mine. He smells and says, “Damnit, I recognize the scent. It’s from a higher up witch from the South East Coven. We worked with them before. It was not a fun experience and not one that I want to repeat.”

Anna POV

Damnit, I knew she wouldn’t agree to just leave. I only said that so she would be distracted enough for me to push her into one of Eve’s witches, but they couldn’t hold her long enough for her to get injected with, whatever that was. What am I going to do now? ‘I think you should give up on this crazy idea and go back to our mate. There is nothing wrong with being mated to a warrior. Not everyone can be a Luna.” my wolf says. I just ignore her. She will not get off the mate kick. I head up to the room to talk to Eve.

I enter and hear, “so the plan did not work. We will need to come up with something else to isolate the princess,” Eve says. “Yeah, I’m not doing that again, she broke three of my fingers like it was nothing,” says a witch that I don’t know the name of. “You won’t be. We cannot let you or Treeva be seen since you were injured. It will draw attention to what we are trying to do,” Eve replies. “Anna, why don’t you challenge the dragon princess for the Luna position? She would have to accept it and when you win, she will be distraught we can whisk her away,” Eve says to me. “I suppose I could. I don’t know how strong she is but since she is a princess, I doubt that she is a skilled fighter. I’ll do it,” I reply.