Traitor

I Meet the Crew

(This fabulous cover was made by the amazing @Eryn_the_Falcon drew this all on an iPad! Isn't that awesome!? Also got a great book out called The Lost Crimson. You should check it out!)

It was six.

There was no way to tell. No blinking alarm clock, not even a pinkish light warming up across the mountainous horizon. There was no window in this room. It was pitch black. My ears strained, almost as if I tried hard enough I could hear that familiar bugle and the sound of recruits yawning as they got up and shuffled to the bathroom. But there was nothing other than the sound of Caedmon's soft breath mingling with mine, and the steady whirring of the fan headbanging above me. I stared at the fan, wondering if it would come hurtling of the wall and shred me like an old plane propeller.

I sighed and looked away from it, willing the grisly scene to leave my mind. I could see the dim ouline of a dresser- my very own dresser- along with my very own nightstand that was decorated with a single, ugly toad that stared at me with buggy yellow eyes. It was all very strange, being in my own room. It felt so...empty.

The soft pads of a dragon's paw slid over my lips, reminding me that that was not entirely the case. I looked down to see my dragon sleeping peacefully, half his body on my chest and his haunches curled up beside me. His long black tail flicked slowly on the side of the bed. I put a hand on his neck, feeling the waxy scales covering lithe, ropy muscle. His strong, webbed wings spread their bony fingers across my chest, covering me as a second blanket.

Thanks to my old foster home, S-11 Dragon Rider Training Facility, I had almost lost him. Riley, a familiar, set it all up for me to be kicked out, then sent to the Wolves who were supposed to chop me up like a frog in science class. Darius and his crew had saved me from that fate, whisking me away to this new place... which was conveniently in an old Twinkie factory in the middle of a ghost town.

Caedmon blinked awake slowly, his ears perking as if he too sense the absence of sound. With a curled-tongue yawn, he reached out his paws, each little toe stretching out. Then he sighed, laying his head back on my chest, looking at me with dully glowing purple eyes.

"What do I do now, little man?" I whispered, stroking between his eyes.

"'splore," he whispered back, a fat blue tongue pushing out to bulge between his scaly lips.

"Explore?" I echoed. That actually sounded like a good idea. I hadn't really had the chance to meet the whole crew, since we had arrived at their base in the middle of the night. Who knew if these guys were really creeps? Only a bit of snooping on our part could clear that up. "Good idea, buddy. Let's go see what everyone's up to at six in the morning." I grinned at him.

He stood up on the bed and gave a good flap of his wings before folding them to his sides. Then his form became hazy until he looked like a black splotch on a photograph. I followed him into shadow form, grabbing onto him so he could guide me through the shadow world.

The shadow world was no easy thing to maneuver through either. The only way I can describe it is that it's like white water rafting on a tube. It tended to just pull you along and you could pop up literally anywhere. Luckily I've never shifted back to human form in a vent or anything. Caedmon made it seem really easy though, probably because he's a shadow dragon.

In a matter of a second, we were in the room directly beside ours. All I could see was gold for a moment before we shifted position and realized we were staring at a very large mound of gold. The light shining from the single window behind it made the gold shimmer so brightly Cade and I had to crouch in the shade of a rack covered in an array of puffy jackets (Cade and I are similar to vampires in that respect- we hate light).