Shadows and Peace Book 2: Cool as Ice

Part 1: Seriously?!

Chapter 1

Freezer Burnt

The herd of orange-bronze animals was standing right in front of him. Just waiting to be attacked.

It was Yeti's turn to hunt and of course he was hunting in the place opposite to his homeland. The golden desert was hot and humid. He hadn't seen a day of snow in months, not since he'd been kidnaped from his estate.

He didn't even want to be with them. The dragonets. The stupid dragonets. They weren't even actually stupid, they were quite smart. This bothered Yeti. They'd always thought they were better than him. It reminded him of his parents.

He needed to get away from that but he couldn't. Not even with the dragons he called his friends. They thought he was arrogant and vain. And in part, they were right. But he was so much more than that. They just needed to see that.

Back to the herd. Yeti reminded himself. His target was a brown female with a white underbelly. Her horns were short and curvy. She was one of the largest females in the pack and had a lot of meat on her bones.

Yeti had the perfect plan. He would first exhale his freezing death breath onto the antelope. However, it wouldn't kill the savannah deer, it wasn't cold enough here. It would probably incapacitate her though. He would kill her with his sharp claws.

Now it was time to set the plan in motion.

Yeti silently crept forward, making sure not to step on anything that might give him away. The antelope was so close he could taste its scent on the breeze.

He leapt forward and landed right on the creature. The look in her eyes was of pure terror.

He opened his mouth and out came a stream of frostbreath. She fell limp. Yeti raked his claws through her neck, making sure she was really dead.

Deep red blood flowed out of the gashes. He picked it up in his mouth and took off.

The dragonets had set up camp near a tiny oasis during a passing storm. They'd been stuck there for almost a week and were about to leave. Finally, Yeti thought. He'd been practically dying to stretch his wings after sitting with grumpy Amber for days on end.

She was so depressed because of Shard and Cherry. No matter how much she denied having a crush on him, Yeti could tell. He knew what it looked like to be rejected. Plus, Shard was acting weird around her.

The two most hated dragons were sharing a tent. But they hated each other too. How ironic...

He was so lost in thought, he almost missed the two trees that marked the campsite. He touched down on the soft sandy ground. The other dragonets looked up lazily and turned to the prey that Yeti had just caught.

"Nice work," Shard said in a kind of grumpy tone.

Some kind of attitude that he's got. Something must have happened... Yeti thought as they all took part of the antelope. There was an eerie silence as they sat down to take their first bite of the prey. The only thing that could be heard was the loud and obnoxious noise that the so-called "birds' 'made. The Icewing kingdom was always a quiet, peaceful, cool, cold place. There were never loud noisy birds in the Icewing kingdom.

The Icewings have the best kingdom, by far. Yeti thought with a hint of satisfaction. His home was the best home. Or, his kingdom was, at least.

"Why is it all wet? Didn't I tell you not to use your frost breath?" Amber snapped. She was leaning over her piece of the prey with a look of contempt on her face. "And why is it covered in blood? Yeti!"

"It's covered in blood because it's dead, Amber!" He shot back with a glare. Honestly, she could be so over the top sometimes.

"Every other kill we've had this week hasn't been nearly this messy!" She complained.

"Well maybe that's 'cause everyone grew up hunting this kind of prey! Are you shaming me for growing up in a different kingdom?" He challenged. Amber stepped closer to him, circling his slice of prey. It was bright red and looked pretty much uncooked. Blood was oozing out of the cracks in the fur.

"You little-"

"Guys! You're giving Blackpearl a headache," Boriel sighed. The couple was sitting right next to each other. Blackpearl was hunched over with eyes all scrunched up. It was hard to be mad when looking at that face.

"Sorry," he muttered, grabbing his prey and stepping away from Amber. Instead of going back to where he was he decided to sit down next to Cherryblossom. She was using her magic to cook her meat.

That's probably what they were fighting about. Yeti thought to himself. Shard hated when Cherry would use her magic, unless it was an extreme emergency. And even then he would still try to convince her not to use it.

"Hey," she said wearily as he plopped down next to her. She'd been exhausted ever since she came back from rescuing Starflower. Somehow the experience had changed her entirely. Instead of being her normal peppy self, she'd been as silent as Blackpearl, only talking when necessary.

"Hey," he replied back. Everything had been so weird recently. "Shard mad at you again?"

"Why does it even matter? We've just been fighting more and more since we got here. I'm so glad we're leaving," she ranted. Yeti nodded. Being in a relationship seemed kind of stupid. Weren't they made to fall apart. Cherry had set herself up to fail and now she was paying for it.

"It must feel good to be going home," she added. Cherry's parents had kicked them out in order to protect them from her brother's army. She had no idea what going home entailed for Yeti.

"Can't wait," he rolled his eyes sarcastically.

"I bet they've missed you!"

Not like they were happy to have given me to the guardians or anything.

That had been the scariest day of his life. Pine had just shown up at his doorstep and taken him. His parents had smiled while he was fighting to get out of the sack. Then he'd flown away to another place where everyone hated him.

There was literally no difference between his house and the caves where the guardians had kept them.

"Sure," he replied.

Suddenly Amber jumped up onto a rock. "Is everyone done with their food?" She looked around, "Well okay then. Let's grab the stuff and go. We have a long flight ahead of us if we want to make it to Yeti's house by morning."

Everyone took off into the sky in unison. Like there was a spark of hope they could all work together again.

And a spark was all they needed to start a blaze. 

How are you all? 

Sorry for not updating this book in a while. I've had a major bout of writer's block. The oneshot book was just a little easier to write. Go check it out on my profile if you haven't already!

That's all for now, see you next week. :)