Lily’s pov.

After chatting with Ma and Raya for a bit longer, Raya said she needed to go home and Ma had to go to work.

I say goodbye to the both of them , go upstairs and into Ma’s room to try and find some stuff out.

There’s definitely something going on and I’m determined to find out.

“Where would my mother hide stuff in here?” I thought to myself, looking around while squinting my eyes, as if that might help me.

I started opening drawers and moving stuff around trying to find something, anything!

Desperate for some answers.

I go into her closet next and start moving stuff around. I notice a board loose and pull it. The floor starts moving and startles me causing me to jump back and let out a little scream.

I crawled back towards it slowly and noticed there’s stairs going down. What the hell! I thought, “Why would Ma be hiding this?”

I decided to go down and see for myself what this is about. As I'm going down I notice the horrifying darkness tunneling down the stairs, making me swallow the lump in my throat.

The walls are lined with light torches so I grab one and head down the spiral, the torch makes it so much easier to see. I walked down the stairs until I finally reached the bottom.

It’s so hard to breathe down here with all of the dust and no windows. I walk towards the other end of the room and see a Sapphire coloured necklace locked in a glass container, standing out amongst all the other things.

I walked towards it absentmindedly, as if my body had a mind of its own.

I try to open it but it won’t open. I keep trying and it’s just not gonna budge.

I see something heavy and round looking and go towards it, I pick it up and it seems to be some kind of rock.

I finally get it high enough off of the ground that I can try to drop it on the glass container and see if it’ll break.

As I drop it on the container, it shatters and glass flies everywhere. Some even hit me in a few places.

“Ow!” I winced, feeling so angry at everything right now, “What a joke, what am I even doing down here!” I screamed at myself. Feeling angry and confused.

I tried to pull the glass pieces out before slowly walking towards the Sapphire necklace on the ground.

As I get closer it seems to glow brighter with every step I take.

Finally, I bend down to pick it up and when I do I gasp as I’m thrown backwards.

I hit a wall hard, some kind of force throwing me back like I’m nothing.

I start hyperventilating as my body feels foreign, like it’s not my own. My brain feels like it’s going through a vice and hurts so bad I think I’m going to pass out… Before it gets too bad, I hear a voice in my head.

“Hello”

‘Hello?…’ I said back in my head thinking I’m fucking crazy for talking to myself.

“You are not crazy and you’re not talking to yourself Lily,” it said again, sounding so majestic and lovely..

‘I am your dragon Lily,’ I heard the voice whisper again, “Lily I have been able to break through the warlock's for-trace with our talisman from our grandmother.. she was a witch and our grandpa was a dragon.. we are part witch and that’s why we were able to break through that pesky warlock's hold on me.. if it wasn’t for him, I’d have been with you since you turned ten years old! I’ve been trapped in the darkest place of your mind, all alone, for what feels like forever and you don’t know how happy I am to finally be with you Lily,’ My ‘dragon’ started to explain to me, making so much sense now.

“You are telling me.. I’m a dragon?” I asked uncertainly, my nerves on edge from being down here.

“Yes Lily, we are the last female dragon.. my name is Sapphire and together we will be unstoppable.. but Lily, I am going to need to shift and to do that we need a huge area like a really wide open cave where nobody will see us.. nobody can see us do you understand?” Sapphire told me. Making the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

“Yes, I understand but what does this even mean? Why did our mother want to keep this away from us?” I asked with desperation in my tone, needing to find answers.

‘Lily, your mother is a witch but not like us, She is not very strong. Our father was one of the strongest dragon shifters. His father and mother were the witch and dragon. Our mother's parents are a witch and warlock. So you see we should have been a witch., So, technically, I shouldn’t have existed, but here I am and we are the last female dragon,’ she explained again, making me feel frustrated about how little I know.

‘We are very important, Lily. In fact, if any dragon shifter found us they would take us, lock us up and breed us until we have more female dragons and that would be our life.’ Sapphire finished, a dangerous edge in her tone.

‘So, you are saying.. dragons..warlocks and witches.. are real? I mean why am I even asking when I am literally talking to you in my head..’

‘ Lily, we must hurry. I don't have that much time to shift. If I don’t do it as soon as possible, I might not ever be able to since I have been confined in your mind for almost seven years,’ she said urgently.

I finally picked myself up off of the floor and can already feel stronger and see without the torch.

‘Woah, this is weird,’ I say in my mind, looking around and noticing just how clear everything looks.

‘Yes, Lily, you will get used to it. Your senses are heightened with me and you will be even stronger’ Sapphire said, sounding proud of herself.

I walked up the stairs and when I got to the top I put everything back the way it was. Obviously if Ma goes down there she’ll see the broken container and the necklace gone but for now I am not saying anything to her.

I cannot believe her. I feel so betrayed by the one person I love the most. How could she think of keeping something like this from me? Was she protecting me? I know I’m still young but from what Sapphire said I would've transformed at ten and I wouldn’t be confused.

I started making my way to my room with so many questions going through my head. I just don’t understand anything! A dragon?! A witch?! What else is out there…

‘Well Lily, your “friend” is definitely a werewolf, I can smell it in the air… that’s the only other smell though other than Ma and us,’ Sapphire spoke to me in my mind. Which I think is still so fucked up.

‘Okay, so you are telling me that Raya is a werewolf, Ma is a witch. We are part witch and dragon, my dad was a dragon and we need to grab everything we need and find a cave or you will what? Explode out of me? Or I will just never be able to shift? That’s crazy. But I mean here I am talking to a voice in my head..’ I mumble, playing with my fingers to distract myself from everything happening.

‘It’s okay to be confused Lily, the moon goddess told me you’d be this way, confused and scared. Not knowing the truth can be scary and it’s okay, I am here now,’ Sapphire said in a cool voice, calming me down instantly.

I started shoving things I might need into a bag, phone, extra clothes, because from what I’ve read when you shift your clothes, they tear.

Some snacks and water cause you never know if you are gonna be starving or something.

After I grab everything I think I’ll need I make my way out of the house, towards the woods and jog as fast as I can.

I’m jogging around for a while before I see a cave just up ahead. I keep walking towards it, so badly wanting to get this over with.

As I got closer, I heard something and Sapphire strained her ears to listen.

“Danny wants them captured alive, he hasn’t seen them in twelve years and was told they were dead. He never stopped looking for them. He is basically going insane, man. We can’t go home until we find them or we will be skinned alive!” Dude #1 yelled at dude #2, and #3.

All of them huddled around together at the entrance of the cave.

“Yeah well this was a death wish going on this mission!!” Dude #2 yelled back suddenly.

“Guys, we have no choice, we either do this or die when we go home, and if we run.. he’ll find us” dude#3 said. Unable to handle the truth of what awaits them, he started walking away from the other guys.

‘Sapphire, what are these guys?’ I asked my dragon, uncertain of their different scents.

‘That’s a delta dragon, gamma dragon and warrior dragon. That gamma dragon is the highest ranking one, deltas are like healers and warriors are obviously warriors,’ she laughed at me, making my fists clenched slightly.

It’s not my fault I don’t know anything…

‘Okay, well, they are walking the other way. So let’s just wait a bit and they should be far enough so that we can do this.’