Dragon's Last Hope

Chapter 7

Through the bonds, Maya shared her emerging plan—not in words but in direct conceptual transfer, which made all seven dragons go very still.

"Ambitious," Leon said finally. "Dangerous.”

"And utterly insane," Lucian added, his light-touched wings folding against his radiant form. "You're talking about revealing our existence to the entire world."

"The Order has been picking us off one by one for decades," Maya replied, her golden consciousness weaving through each bond as she refined the plan. "They rely on secrecy, on hunting isolated dragons who can't call for backup. But what happens when their prey becomes the predator?"

Through Kai's bond, she felt his immediate understanding and approval. "A coordinated strike. Hit every Order facility simultaneously before they can adapt."

"Using our combined resonance to locate every dragon in hiding," Cassius continued, his storm-touched mind grasping the tactical implications. "Unite the scattered bloodlines."

"Create an army," Darius concluded with grim satisfaction.

Vivienne stepped forward, her human form dwarfed by the eight dragons filling the crystallised chamber. "Maya, what you're suggesting would expose dragonkind to humanity. The consequences—"

"The consequences of doing nothing are extinction," Maya cut her off, golden light flaring along her scales. "I can feel it through the bonds—how many of us are left? Hundreds? Dozens?"

"Forty-three confirmed bloodlines," Leon supplied through their connection, his shadow-wrapped intellect having catalogued every piece of intelligence he'd gathered over centuries of careful observation. "Scattered across six continents. Most are unaware that others even exist."

The number hit Maya like a physical blow. In her human life, she'd worked with endangered species conservation projects. Forty-three breeding individuals were catastrophically below viable population levels.

"We're already functionally extinct," she said quietly. "The Order just hasn't finished the job yet."

Through the bonds, she felt her mates' acknowledgment of the truth they'd all been avoiding. Dragons had become legends precisely because they were dying out, withdrawing from a world that no longer had room for them.

"Your plan would require perfect coordination," Kieran observed, his analytical mind working through the logistics. "We'd need to locate and contact every surviving dragon, convince them to act simultaneously, and strike at targets across the globe within the same time window."

"The light dragon resonance could do it," Xander said, his void-touched perception seeing possibilities that existed in the spaces between conventional reality. "Amplified through seven bonded mates, broadcast through the planetary ley lines... theoretically possible."

Maya felt the plan crystallising, shared across eight draconic consciousnesses working in perfect harmony. It was ambitious beyond reason, dangerous beyond measure, and probably their only chance of survival as a species.

"The Order's headquarters," she said, accessing Leon's intelligence through their bond. "Geneva. Where are their primary research facilities?"

"Scattered," Leon replied. "But I know the locations. Seventeen major installations, forty-three smaller outposts. All heavily defended, all equipped with dragon-specific countermeasures."

"Not anymore," Maya said, “and I think I know why I can have seven mates, I’m not just a light dragon but a member of the high dragon royal family.”

The revelation hit the chamber like a thunderclap. Maya felt her seven mates' shock ripple outward through their bonds in waves of disbelief, recognition, and something approaching awe.

"Impossible," Vivienne breathed, her composed mask finally cracking completely. "The High Dragon bloodlines died out during the Great Purge of 1247. Every record confirms—"

"Every record was wrong," Maya interrupted, her golden consciousness suddenly accessing memories that weren't her own—ancestral knowledge flowing through bloodlines that stretched back millennia. "My mother wasn't just a light dragon. She was the last of the Celestial line."

Through the bonds, she felt Leon's shadows coil with sudden understanding. "That's why the Order found us so quickly. High Dragon manifestations send out resonance pulses that can be detected globally."

"And why can you bond with seven mates simultaneously?" Cassius added, electricity crackling with renewed intensity along his scales. "High Dragons were the nexus points of the old Dragon Courts. They united multiple bloodlines under a single rule."

Maya's consciousness expanded further, touching something vast and ancient that had been sleeping in her genetic code. Suddenly, she could sense every dragon on the planet—forty-three flickering lights scattered across continents, most of them weak and isolated, all of them unaware that their species' salvation had just awakened in a crystallised chamber beneath Seattle.

"I can feel them," she whispered, wonder threading through her mental voice. "Every single one. Their locations, their bloodlines, their..." She paused, processing what her expanded awareness was showing her. "Their terror. The Order is moving against multiple targets simultaneously."

"A coordinated purge," Kai snarled, flames erupting along his spine. "They're not just hunting us—they're trying to finish what they started eight centuries ago."

Maya watched the unfolding catastrophe in real time through her High Dragon consciousness. Order strike teams were moving against dragon safe houses in Tokyo, London, Cairo, and São Paulo. Silver weapons were being deployed, suppression fields activated, ancient bloodlines about to be snuffed out forever.

"How long?" Darius demanded, his granite hide grinding against itself as rage built in his mountainous form.

"Hours," Maya replied, her awareness tracking the tactical deployments. "Maybe less for some of them."

The bonds between her and her seven mates suddenly blazed with shared purpose. This wasn't just about their survival anymore—it was about the continuation of dragonkind itself.

"Then we stop talking and start acting," Xander said, his void-touched presence beginning to warp the surrounding space. "Your High Dragon abilities—can you contact the others directly?"

Maya tested the possibility, her consciousness reaching out along the ley lines connecting dragon territories across the globe. The response was immediate and overwhelming—forty-three voices crying out in recognition, hope, and desperate need.

*Who are you?* came a mental voice from somewhere in the Australian Outback—an earth dragon whose resonance felt ancient and weathered as sandstone.