Alpha Island: The Dragon's Mate

Chapter 7

DARREN

I was watching her walking away, helping her friend to have my jacket in place.

“If she turns now to look at me, she feels something,” I thought. And just as the thought of that formed in my head, Skylar turned to throw one last glance at me, her ginger hair, blown by the wind.

  Gods, my mate was beautiful.

  But also she was complicated. I couldn’t help but notice that something was off. She really wasn’t like other dragons. And I couldn’t figure out why. At least not for now.

  “The water is amazing today!” Griffin walked towards me fully dressed already and even his hair was dry, but his eyes were on the two girls. Sirens did not have the magic similar to dragons and couldn’t make their clothes disappear and reappear as they pleased.

  “What a lovely night, don’t you think?” he chuckled, his face smug.

  “I can see that you restored quickly,” a snort escaped me as I gestured for him to walk with me. We decided to make those little night patrols around the campus just in case. Most students were disappearing when the sun was down. So, it didn’t hurt to be on high alert.

  “Please!” my chosen brother rolled his eyes, “Mermaids can’t drain too much of life energy out of a dragon. You know that, right?”

  “Still. You seem too happy for a guy whose crush just tried to kill him.”

  “Deidra was making her point for everyone else. But out of the whole university full of guys, she chose me to kiss.”

  “I hate to break it to you, Griffin, but it was only because Skylar had to sit at our table,” I wanted to bring him back to reality.

  “And yet she didn’t turn to you,” my friend smirked.

  “Fine,” I ran my hand over my face, “Do you have any information about Skylar?”

  He got his phone out and checked his email eagerly. But as he read something there, his face frowned.

  “What is it?” I felt impatient.

  “Nothing,” he handed me his device and I had a look at a few very basic sentences, “This is all that they found on Skylar Aster. An orphan, studied in a regular school for humans, a dragon. Nothing even remotely interesting happened in her life before half a year ago when she was noticed by one of the professors. She is considered talented in fire magic and they gave her a scholarship here. And that’s it.”

  “Hmm,” I confirmed myself everything that he just said, “I see. But it’s not enough. Find out everything you can about her parents. I want to know her lineage.”

  “All right,” Griffin nodded and started typing something, “By the way, I asked around today about everything but students have absolutely no idea that anything is going on. The Alpha Univesity announced that the first two students simply left the school. But as it repeated, they had to admit the next disappearances. But only that last girl made some noise as her boyfriend does not give up looking for her.”

  “All right, I’ll talk to him tomorrow,” I said, “At least he cares for what is going on. Maybe he can give us any clues.”

  “Let’s hope so,” Griffin agreed, “Do you want me to pass any of this information to Dylan?”

  “Why?” I snorted, “The chihuahua can bring my slippers when I am done here. It’s not like he has brains for the task so why bother wasting our time on him?”

   “True. Do you want me to do anything else in the meantime?”

  “Yes, I want to know Skylar’s timetable,” a smirk formed on my lips as we were now back to the guys’ dorms buildings, “And you and I are going our separate ways tomorrow.”

  “Fine,” the sea dragon was too agreeable.

  “And you are not going to follow that siren, Grif,” I told him at once.

  “How is that fair?” he shot me a death stare, “You can follow your mate but I can’t try and create a relationship with Deidra?”

  “She is my mate,” I  rubbed the bridge of my nose, “And your future queen. Have some respect.”

  “You just don’t get it, Ren,” my friend sighed, “There aren’t too many water creatures out there for me to meet. What happened right now was amazing! You fly with other dragons all the time, but I rarely get to swim with anyone else.”

  “Fine!” I had to give up, “Just make sure to do your job in the meantime too.”

  “Did I ever fail you?!” Griffin hit himself on his chest, looking at me as if he was offended.

  “Do you really want me to answer that?” I raised my brow at him.

  “Fair enough,” he chuckled as we went back to our room.

   SKYLAR 

  I woke up slightly tired since Deidra and I were talking for most of the night. Mainly about how arrogant dragons were. Dragon guys. We came to a conclusion that it was purely about guys since I was technically a dragon myself. 

  But I was happy since thanks to everything that happened, my roommate and I really hit it off. 

  In all honesty, I did not think that Deidra hates the dragons that much. Since when I told her that she doesn’t have to sit with us at the dining hall, she insisted that she would never leave me alone. And that since Griffin was the worst of the worst, she would be the one next to him and not me. 

  I had no choice but to pretend that I bought it, which made her very happy and was probably the best thing for me. I wouldn’t be alone.

  I was brushing my hair for one hundredth time today, still not happy with how it looked. Catching myself on the thought that I usually never paid attention to any of that, I made myself put the hairbrush down. It was ridiculous! Why did I suddenly think of things like that?

  Swearing under my breath, I pulled on my high-waisted wide-leg jeans and a cropped top, topping all of that with an oversized white t-shirt that I carefully tied at my waist. I didn’t own too many clothes but I knew very well how to pull a lookout of a few pieces that I had.

  “Looking good!” Deidra gave me an approving gaze and we went to the breakfast tomorrow. 

 Surprisingly, the dragons were not there. And I felt slightly relieved. A calm morning was just what I needed.

  Then we went to the freshmen introduction lecture, where they told us more about the rules, the subjects, the teachers… I almost fell asleep. All that was in the brochure already.

  But the next one was slightly more interesting – The Theory of Artfcatorics. An arrogant woman in her forties, Professor Ford,  was telling us about the basics of artefact creation.

  I was writing everything down since I had zero experience with all that. And it could get useful when I was on the run again. By the end of the lecture, I was already asking questions and taking part in the discussions that our teacher initiated, getting an approving smile from her. However, my classmates looked at me not in the best way. 

  “Suck up,” I heard some fairy snort behind my back and realised that I probably looked like someone who tried to get into the professor’s good grace. It was an introductory lecture, and everybody probably already knew everything. 

   But I never attended a magical school or academy.

  For me most of this information was new. Yet, of course, I couldn’t explain that to anyone. Sometimes my life sucked.

  As soon as the bell rang, I gathered my things and rushed to leave the auditorium, not even waiting for Deidra.

  I bumped into something hard and lifted my head up to see Darren. He was looking at me with so much concern in his eyes that my lips parted in shock.

  “What happened?” he grabbed my hand and pulled me aside, "Who made you sad like that?"