Clint
Uncharacteristically of me, I cut short my date with Lenore and canceled my threesome, too. Was the threesome with Lenore and Heidi okay? Yes, but I felt odd afterward. Lenore has been acting strangely since Monday, but I have too. My birthday is a week away so that can explain my behavior. Why is she acting differently though?
"Maybe she is realizing that she isn't our mate," Carter says, in my mind. But we don't know for certain that she isn't. I still don't want a mate, but I can tell that Carter is finding the idea of one more appealing than before. After I dropped Lenore off, I went home. Cassius and Conner were watching a movie when my stomach growled, so I set out to find Avery. When she wasn't in her room curled up with a book, I freaked out. She's always here. I saw the look of surprise on my brothers' faces when I told them that she wasn't in her room and her backpack wasn't either.
Yes, Avery tried to leave Naga before and she knows the consequences for anyone who does before they graduate. She won't try that again, especially being so close to graduating. It is only 35 weeks away, not years, as it was the last time she tried. That was when my parents showed mercy on her. Instead of beating and imprisoning her, as is our custom, because of her age, they made her a servant. She worked off her debt as a maid and they were impressed by her diligence or perhaps they saw something in her. Nevertheless, they promoted her to be our personal assistant. Since that day, even after my parents' death, Avery has made sure that my brothers and I have been taken care of.
I have been such a prick to her despite her never doing anything to me. That is why I gave her my shirt to wear today. Mrs. Moore, in her roundabout way, has made me start to appreciate the void Avery so willingly filled. I know that most dragons terrify her, but she was never afraid of her adoptive parents or mine. I don't think that she fears some of our teachers either. But she does my brothers and me, for good reason, too. We have done nothing but treat her badly since the day we met her. Now she's missing, and I can't help but think that we are somehow to blame.
It is approaching midnight and all of the usual places a teenage girl would go have closed. Avery isn't a normal teenage girl, so we can rule out checking the malls and clubs in our territory. The library was closed before school was let out in honor of our opening game. Cassius, ever the alpha, suggested that we start where we last saw her, which was as she was leaving Mrs. Moore's class.
Once we arrived at school, we went in the back way because we knew where Coach kept his spare key so that anyone on the team could come in late after school or on the weekends to workout. We split up so that we could cover more ground. Cassius started at Mrs. Moore's classroom, Conner went to her locker, and I went to the front doors. We were to meet at the back door of the gym. There was nothing by the front door so I started to make my way back. As I did, I caught Lenore and her friends' scents near the door to the basement.
Why would they go down there? Letting curiosity get the better of me, I went down several flights of stairs. At first, nothing seemed out of the ordinary but the further I descended into the ancient bowels of the school I started to pick up this metallic, almost coppery, scent. It is the scent of blood. Carter took over and vaulted us into the darkness below. When I stood up, I didn't expect to see what I did.
There dangling from metal cuffs secured to a beam, was Avery's pale, nude, bloodied body. 'Please, please, don't let her be dead,' I thought before I linked to my brothers telling them to rush to the basement. I reached a shaky hand up to check for a pulse. "She is alive," I said aloud. As I said that, my brothers flanked me.
"This is bad," Conner remarked, as he switched on the lights. "Who would do this to her? We only humiliated her. We never cut her and left her for dead."
Cassius looks around. He lifts remnants of my shirt that are now soaked in Avery's blood to his nose. Fury and disgust fill his eyes as he makes his hand into his dragon's claw, slicing through the chains as if they were butter. I reach out and catch a nearly lifeless Avery and carry her away from the mess of congealed blood. Cradling her in my arms, I sit on the floor. She is so frail and tiny that I fear I might break her.
My brothers came over. "We need to heal her the best that we can before we take her home and call a healer." They both nodded as they joined me on the floor. We joined hands and allowed our dragons to have control. When our dragons work as one, they are capable of healing minor wounds. Our mother referred to our healing ability as The Power Of Three.
Leaving only dried blood behind, her cuts began to heal. "We need to cover her up," Cassius said as he pulled his shirt off and put it on Avery. We stood up in unison. Climbing five steps at a time, we made it to the hallway leading to the main hall. Once outside, we take flight. I think to myself that this must be Avery's first true flight in our arms instead of our talons. If she can ever forgive me, I would like to show her the peace that soaring in the sky offers. When we land, I rush Avery to her room and dress her while Cassius summons the tribe's healer, Enya.