Slayer- Chapter Two

Flying, Chase discovered, came to him as easy as breathing. He soared through the silent night sky. His white and silver scales shone with a soft inner radiance. With the griffins flying in formation around him he flew on. Following them who knew where.

Chase was in shock from the events. In a single day he had gone from a hunter of magical creatures to one of the beasts he had been raised to kill. His body moved on autopilot as his mind struggled to come to grips with the new reality. Chase's world had been turned on its head.

By the time the sky began to lighten his wings were shaking with exhaustion. His newborn dragon body was nowhere near strong enough for such a long flight. The group descended on a small lake in a wooded area. On the other shore the street lights from a town glowed brightly in the predawn.

That was when Chase discovered that while flying was simple, landing was another story entirely. The elves which had been riding on his back bailed quickly, falling the last twenty feet and splashing into the water. Chase tumbled wings over tail and slammed head first into a large oak tree. He stumbled to his feet with a groan clutching his head in his hands. Surprised, Chase blinked and looked down at himself, he was human once more.

Well as human as he ever would be again, anyway.

"Augh! You have to be the most incompetent dragon ever born. Didn't you learn anything from your parents!? You can't even land properly." Mara shrieked as she sloshed out of the lake completely soaked. Behind her the other elf, a boy, rolled his eyes and smacked her on the head. They looked enough alike that Chase knew they were brother and sister.

"My sister might be rude but she has a point. You clearly know nothing of your capabilities. There's no way even a young dragon could be taken down by such low level Hunters. So how did they catch you?" The other riders came to stand beside them, all three of them girls.

Chase eyed them warily, wondering how much he should admit. Then he shrugged and took the plunge. "Those Hunter's caught me because they were my family. Until today I thought I was human." He pulled back his shirt and exposed the tattoo on his collarbone. It was of the constellation Orion.

The others stumbled backwards and one of the girls tripped and fell. "A dragon raised by Hunters!? How is that possible!?"

"You think you're confused, put yourself in my shoes." Chase snapped, crossing his arms defensively."

The boy shook his head. "The Elders are not going to like this."

"I don't think that really matters." One of the girls spoke up, she had black hair with bubblegum pink streaks in it. "He's a dragon. He could give us a huge advantage."

"If he can be trusted."

"So do we him bring him in or not?"

"You know I can hear every word you guys are saying right?" Chase interupted with a smirk. "As for trust, that's a two way street."

The boy, Chase thought he was the leader of this little gang, sighed in frustration. "Mara take one of the griffins and fly home. Inform the Elders of our situation. They can meet our new friend and decide for themselves."

Mara put her fists on her hips. "Why am I the one who has to leave, Maddox?"

"Because you're a hyperactive troublemaker and this is a delicate situation." He told her.

Blowing a raspberry Mara stalked over to the griffins and mounted up. Within moments she was in the air and flying northwest.

***

"So you are the young draon my daughter claims was raised by hunters. How could such a thing come to pass?" The older elf drawled. Three hours had past since Mara's departure. Chase had sprawled out on the grass, his mind whirling with thoughts and possibilities. Maddox and the girls, who had identified themselves as Nikki, Sahren, and Tory, stayed on the other side of the clearing. Neither side crossed the invisible line that had been drawn until Mara arrived with her father and another Elder, a woman.

Right now Chase was just taking things one bit at a time, living moment to moment..

Chase shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. "Well, I know I'm adopted. All of us boy were adopted. Our parents never hid that from us. I was really young when they got me too."

"How young?" The older woman demanded and Chase noticed the fangs as she spoke.

Chase watched her with an unblinking stare. He wasn't comfortable sharing so much information. But he needed these people. Right now he was young and clueless, and he knew it. "Only a few months old, maybe less. Why is it important?" He told her.

"Because the dragons are gone." The elven Elder told him. "We thought they died out decades, if not centuries, ago. Then last week we felt the prescence of a magical signature unlike anything felt in all that time.

Chase chewed on his bottom lip. "So if the dragons are all gone... where did I come from?"

The man sighed. "It is a mystery, one we would like to know the answer to as well. For now, you are welcome in our town while you... adjust."

"I object." The fanged woman snapped. "He could be a spy planted by the Hunter's to find our location. This is a trap."

The man rolled his eyes, looking a lot like his son. "Don't me ridiculous Beth. The Hunters would never allow such a powerful issolfar to live. Chase is one of us."

"No he's not, Varen. He may have been born issolfar but he was raised a Hunter. The only thing he knows is how to kill our kind. A Blood Traitor like him should be killed before he comes into anymore of his powers."

At that point her tirade was interupted by a deep growl. The woman froze turning her head slowly to stare wide eyed at Chase. He was a lanky teenage boy in a dark t-shirt and jeans, his dark blonde hair spiked up. His eyes were a striking brown flecked with gold. When he was angry the gold became more pronounced as it was now. He shouldn't have looked intimdating but danger seemed to radiate from him like an aura.

"Say that again. I dare you." Chase's voice was silky with menace.

Varen rolled his eyes. "Foolish Beth. No one likes being threatened like that. Especially those he can shape shift. They are closer to their more primitive instincts you know that. Or did you forget Wolf-Queen?"

"Fine he can come to Sanctuary. But I want him watched at all times." Beth caved in with bad grace."

"So where is this Santuary?" Chase asked.

"Oh, it's right over there." Sahren spoke up, pointing at the town across the lake.

Chase looked at the town and then back at the group he had begun to think of as the Welcoming Commitee. "It's takes three hours to fly across the lake?" He asked skeptically.

The goth girl, Nikki, grinned. "No, we just took that long to confuse you."

Mara skipped over to Chase and unexpectedly took his hand. "So Tarzan, you ready to see how the other half lives?"

TUNE IN NEXT WEEK FOR CHAPTER 3- CULTURE SHOCK

For those wonder issolfar is just a word I made up. It's a blanket term for anything and everthring magical.