Dragonrider Academy: Episode 1

the truth about my father. Whatever evil had done this was still out there… and a sinking sense of dread in my gut said it was going to hurt a whole lot more people if I turned away and did nothing.
There was really no choice at all. I couldn’t leave. I couldn’t give this up.
“What do I have to do?” I asked, my voice trembling.
His smirk turned into an all-out grin. “You have to kiss me.”
“You’re making that up!” I shrieked.
He laughed and threw up his hands. “I’m not, Viv, I’m really not. He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall with an expectant look on his face. “You’re going to have to come to me.” He flashed his teeth with a wicked grin. “I promise I don’t bite.” He gave me a wink. “At least not this time.”
I rolled my eyes and shot to my feet, determined to make this as chaste as possible. “Fine, I can do that.” I marched over to him and looked up, realizing that this would prove difficult with my arms wrapped around myself with his blazer. I frowned.
He chuckled. “Giving up? I can take you home, if that’s what you really want.” He joked when he said that, but I caught the flash of desperation in his voice and the panic that crossed his beautiful eyes. He wasn’t lying. I had to do this of my own free will or else his wyvern would die.
I opened my fingers before I had a chance to think twice about my decision. His coat fell from my shoulders in a puddle around my feet and his eyebrows shot up. I was still only wearing my bathing suit and my dried hair curled around my face. I ran my fingers up his arms and he uncrossed them for me as I moved in closer. I had to lean against him and stand on my tiptoes to reach him. I had intended the kiss to be quick, but the second my lips met his, everything changed.
Heat and fire shot through me and I found my arms wrapping around his neck as I sucked in a breath through my nose. Embers and an ocean breeze invaded my senses as I leaned against him, the chainmail cold against my skin but his breath scalding on my face. He deepened the kiss and I reveled in it, feeling a connection between us surging to new heights as the room boiled and threatened to catch fire.
When I finally managed to pull away to catch my breath, he smiled, his eyes now filled with golden energy that I had exchanged with him.
“Welcome to Dragonrider Academy,” he said before he pulled me into a kiss again.

The kiss told me more about Killian than a lifetime of experience ever could.
In that instant, I knew that this was real, that I belonged here, and that Killian was my mate.
It felt as if I grew wings and I soared to new heights with Killian at my side. He’d lived a hard life, but he wasn’t much older than me at just eighteen. He grew up knowing what he was, that he would one day attend Dragonrider Academy and would be tied to the rider bond with a female he barely knew. His race was the most common one from which knights and dragonriders were chosen. They were called Nephilim, a hybrid between human and angel which made them the perfect protectors. They were strong, nearly immortal, and had enough humanity to be compatible with the rider bond.
Being what he was, though, he didn’t have a lifetime among the humans he was meant to protect. He envied that of me, that I had gotten to feel normal, but just like I explored his mind he explored mine. He understood that “normal” wasn’t how my life had been at all. I’d in fact been lonely, confused, and distant and it would have been better if I could have grown up with my own kind.
My race was all but dying out, however, the women of Avalon being all but extinct. I saw the mystical city through his memories of the stories of what it had once been. Avalon was an island covered in fog filled with beautiful women who wore crystalline headdresses and spoke prophecies given by the goddess. Knights protected Avalon—but they had failed a hundred years ago. Wild dragons had destroyed it and the image in my mind changed as the beautiful city grew dark and flooded with water, sending all the light and fires snuffing out when the crashing waves overtook the city that soon filled with screams. It kept going, the dragons swarming in the distance until there was only muted silence underwater.
Those who escaped fled to other realms, and my ancestor was the only one who went to Earth.
A tear sizzled down my cheek as the thoughts and memories flashed through my mind, all the while I was still locked in a debilitating kiss with the beautiful Nephilim and dragonrider named Killian.
Still, I sensed something he tried to hide from me. Instinct made me seek it out as I searched through his mind. We were bonded, now, and there would be no secrets between us.
I found it and a cold jolt swept through me. What surprised me was that this was my own secret. I had indeed called Killian to be my mate, although I hadn’t been aware of it. He’d been approached by a golden finch throughout his life, a spirit of wellbeing that he thought had been from Heaven. It had guided him to the Academy and promised him the perfect mate, one who would make him stronger and wiser and help his dragon thrive.
That had all been a lie. I had too much humanity in me to do anything for his dragon, much less the rest of the realms. I needed him and his angelic strength to help me bring my father’s murderer to justice, but that’s all