“What do you seek, child? I see your heart is troubled,” the shadowy figure asked.
“Father, I am conflicted within my heart. Our history with the monsters of blood, the day-walkers of old, tells us to beware, to call upon the ancients to protect us as we battle this evil.”
The figure nodded. “It is so, Child.”
“But with the utmost respect, Father, I have met one, and he is nothing as our ancestors have described. He is honest and true, trying to protect his tribe from the very evil we have battled against. I have seen it with my own eyes. How can I destroy what has saved my life?”
“He has tasted your blood?” The shadow recoiled at the thought.
“No! He fought an evil sorceress, his own mother, to save me and my friends. I would have died if they had not called upon the Piasa Bird to save me.”
“You speak of legends long dead, daughter. You were mistaken in your thoughts. The Piasa Bird is extinct.”
“No, Father, he lives. The last of his kind. Unique, just as I am unique.”
She pulled her shawl away from her shoulders, exposing the birthmark of the dragon. It glowed with an inner light of green. The figure stepped back.
“How long, Daughter?”
“Since the day the sorceress tried to take my soul and my powers. The dragon’s tears saved me, but now, my mark aches and glows.”
The figure was silent for several minutes. Delta worried she would never get an answer to her problem. Finally, he spoke, “There is only one reason for your mark to glow, Daughter. You are the key to banishing this evil from your world. You must turn these evils on to each other, so they will each destroy the other and leave your world forever.”
“Very well, Father. I will turn the day-walker against the dragon. My prayers and offerings will be centered on their demise.”
Delta Malone, shaman, shop owner and unbeknownst to her, destined soulmate of the rarest dragon, is about to embark on the greatest adventure of her life—she will attempt to pit the most powerful vampire against the fiercest dragon in an effort to control her own destiny and prevent the elimination of mankind.
Jackson Thibedeaoux, the last of the great Piasa Bird Dragons, has come home to die. Or at least, that what he thinks until he meets the beautiful, soulful, Delta, saves her from an evil sorceress, and realizes she is his fated mate. He knows she has secrets, but it's nothing he can't handle, right? After all, he's the fiercest dragon of all time with the most powerful friends in the shifter world.
But when he learns his soulmate's secret, it's up to him and his friends to convince her to throw caution to the wind and damn her destiny in favor of love, or else all of them are doomed.
