The Dragon Queen's Immortal Mates

There is that one moment that changes a person’s life forever. When I look back on my own life, I realize my fate changed permanently the moment I agreed to perform at the top of that skyscraper.

In my world, risks like these were normal. I’d been a ballerina since I was two, and besides dislocating my knee once, I’d never had any major accidents.

But that day was different.

My wolf was quiet, and my feet had been oddly cold the entire day, like I’d soaked in an ice bath for too long. But as I took careful steps towards the edge of the rooftop later that night, the hidden harnesses strapped around my upper thighs, and just beneath my ribs, calmed my nerves.

“Go Lys!” Fentone, my soon-to-be-fiance, shouted from below.

I drew in a deep breath, and leaped off the building. The wind caught my skirt immediately, and my eyes watered at the rush of air. I could hear the distant cheer from the crowd below as my body plunged down several floors in perfect form.

Just before my anchor reached its limit, I leaped forward and opened into a midair split. The suspension cord held me in place as my supporting dancers floated down the building like fairies on either side of me.

This time, the cheer from the audience was a reverberating roar.

From this height, they looked like tiny marble dolls. There were at least three hundred people watching our performance, seated in a large garden across the building.

Out of nowhere, a sudden burst of flashlights blinded me. Camera shutters rattled like gunfire into the night as photographers from a nearby rooftop took pictures of us.

My core tightened in irritation. Our company had given clear instructions that they could not use flashlights while we were up here. But the press never listened.

My vision was hardly clear when I launched into the air again, but something tugged my attention. My eyes narrowed on a model-sized woman, her golden curls distinct even from this distance.

Time seemed to slow as the chill that had clung to my feet all day rushed into my bloodstream, freezing my bones.

The blond woman was my sister, standing on our side of the road, right at the foot of the building. She had a wide, wide smile as she raised both hands up. She clapped once, then twice, again, and again.

Gianna hardly ever smiled, least of all cheered anyone on.

Before I could react, a violent jolt tore through my harness. The tension around my midsection vanished and gravity yanked me down.

I screamed as my body nosedived, the ground rushing fast at me.

This was not a part of the performance, but it took the crowd way too long to realize that.

They continued clapping as the world blurred around me and my ears popped to the violent pressure of the wind. My best friend and dance partner, Kael, screamed from above, but the rest of my oblivious veils went on with the performance.

As I fell to my death, I remembered Grandma’s persistent distaste for this sport. “Nobody ever listens to me,” she said last month. “Pull her out. It will alter her life.”

Plop! My head smashed the ground like a coconut against concrete.

From a distance, a feminine voice let out a piercing shrill that rose above the noise of the traffic and the festivities. The world fell away around me, and that was the last I remembered.

Broken

Organ trauma

Wolf, weak, unresponsive

Concussion

Nerve Damage

The beeping sound of a monitor reached me as if from far away, and the closer I got to it, the louder it shrieked, like a needle painfully poking my eardrum.

“Someone please turn it off.” My voice came out hoarse as I winced at the awful noise. I tried to move, but felt immediate resistance.

Unresponsive

Nerve Damage

Fighting the words off, I opened my eyes to find grandma hurrying towards me. The nurse she had been speaking to spun for the door at once, her sneakers squeaking against the marble as she bolted out of the room.

“Sweet Lys.” Grandma reached for me with trembling hands, her eyes bright with tears. My brows furrowed. Grandma never cried.

Suddenly, I remembered the rooftop. My stomach lurched as the memory of my great fall crashed over me.

“No, no, no.” My heart thudded, my vision blurring with tears. But I fixed my gaze on my fingers, willing out my claws.

I could not afford to lose even one week of practice this year. I had worked so hard for my spot at that tournament.

“Lys, baby, look at me. Look at grandma.” Her hands rested on either side of my face, attempting to turn me in her direction, but I stubbornly kept my eyes on my fingers, and finally, my claws began to protrude as if hesitantly.

Heat scorched my eyes from within as my body started to shift.

“Stop!” Grandma yelled, startling me. She snapped my head to face her, “You’ll be stuck in wolf form if you shift, you are too weak. You barely survived.”

“I need to heal. I cannot miss practice, the Grand Ascension…”

“Is not more important than your life.” She cut me off as the door to my ward creaked open, and my parents walked in behind a doctor.

“Mom,” I called out to my mother who was sniffing behind a silk napkin, her eyes red and raw. She looked up, and stared at me for a long second like I had failed her, before hurriedly looking away. My father would not even look at me, standing stiffly beside her.

“How are we feeling, Miss Grunder?”

My eyes found the doctor, suddenly realizing I could not feel my body.

“Has the anesthesia not worn off?” I gasped, willing my body to move, channeling all my attention to the singular task, like I had learned to do in my teen years when I learned the wolf shift.

Still I could not move.

My mind called out to Rhea, my wolf, but she whined in exhaustion and I realized I was mostly on my own till however many full moons it took her to heal.

I burst into disbelieving tears, looking around the ward and willing anyone to tell me my assumptions were wrong.

“I cannot feel my body!” I shrieked, aching to thrash around, but it felt like my flesh was a concrete bodysuit. I was trapped in it.

“Grandma. I cannot compete like this.” My gaze found the woman I had learned to lean on since I was a child. But her lips trembled with emotion, unable to speak. “Why’s no one saying anything?” I lost my patience, a rarity for me.

My life was crumbling right in front of me and my family stared on in silence.

Only one in two thousand ballerinas ever qualified for the Grand Ascension. I made it, the only representative from the US. I had practiced till my feet bled, passed up paid vacations for years just to make it.

The organizers would toss me out the moment they realized I'd begun to skip practice. Injury or not.

“What is wrong with my body? How many days of practice do I have to miss?”

“Miss Gunder, you have to calm down, or I’ll need to sedate you.” The doctor said, and when my eyes swiveled to him, he winced. “You just got out of surgery, and barely survived.”

Placing his hand on mine, he stared into my eyes. “I’m sorry to tell you this, but you’ll never dance again. You damaged several nerves in the fall, and medicine has no solution for those kinds of injuries yet.”