Page 1 of The Silent Mountain (Under the Werewolf Crown #2)

one

The Warrior Princess with the Fiery Hair

*FAVIAN*

H er beautiful hair looks like flames in the snow, dancing and moving in the wind. Within the grey, boring view of the endless white of the snow and the fog surrounding us, she is the only picture of joy. We reside high in the mountains, surrounded by the safety of the steep rocks. Ahead of us lies the Kingdom of Eternal Ice, a magical place full of snowy landscapes and romantic forests.

The land beyond my kingdom, however, is empty. A barren landscape with white rocks and uninhabited wasteland stretching towards the ocean shore, angry and unpleasant.

The flames move now, coming closer. I watch her as she leads the horses over the mountain path and to the stables.

“Princess Alana.” Some of my fellow dragon shifters greet her politely as they pass, much to my relief. She deserves to be treated with the utmost respect, and I would hate to have to put my foot down and threaten my people after what our kind went through only recently. “We hope you are settling in well.”

“I am,” she reassures them with a smile.

It’s humbling to see the interactions and to understand that we dragons are slowly able to recover our strength again. We almost became extinct in the war, which destroyed most of our lands and killed so many of us. My father and mother were killed, leaving me as the heir to the throne. Our enemies put me under a spell and locked my mind, forcing me into a deep sleep, until only a couple of months ago when I was finally able to return. The red-haired princess was one of the reasons I was able to wake up again.

A werewolf shifter.

The Warrior Princess of the Kingdom of Eternal Ice, the werewolf kingdom.

Many years ago, she saw a dragon, and ever since, has never believed that we were extinct. She was persistent in her belief and stood confident against everyone who doubted her.

I leave my spot on the balcony, making my way downstairs and through the entrance hall of the castle. Thick, stone bricks surround us: our halls are very high, they keep the cold outside, and are sturdy enough to allow us to shift to our dragon form without tearing the castle apart. When I step outside, I can see my younger brother, Elio, running over the snow path towards my Warrior Princess.

I follow Elio slowly to give the both of them time to chat a bit before I need to intervene to send Elio back to his studies. He is my only remaining family member, a teenage boy who has spent years hidden away with his nanny, until Alana’s family and her brother’s mate set us free. It’s all thanks to them that I survived and was able to reunite my people.

The Warrior Princess looks up as I approach them slowly. Her senses must have alerted her. For a moment, our eyes meet, and I can feel the persistent, dragon soul in me reaching out to her. Her eyes are telling a similar story, her wolf spirit clearly looking at me longingly.

“Alana,” I say when I have finally reached her.

She brushes through her hair in an almost tentative gesture to tame it, then she smiles. “Favian. Are you done with your work?”

“Not yet,” I admit. “But I noticed that you are bringing the horses back in.”

“Thank you for letting me do this,” she says.

“I told you, you are my guest here,” I say. “You can do whatever you please. And the horses are a good addition to the Silent Mountain. It gives my people a sense of peace to have them around.”

“They are a sturdy breed,” Alana reassures me. “I hope, sooner or later, some of your subjects might want to learn how to ride.”

“You might do well with asking the female dragon shifters first,” I tell her. “In general, they are more open to trying new things than us men are.”

Alana chuckles. “Thank you for the heads up.”

My heart skips a beat at her laughter. I want to reach out for her and hold her, but I’m not quite there yet. After years of being forced into a slumber and being held hostage, I am not yet ready to let someone close to me again. For her, it’s very similar as she lost the person she loved, the one she wanted to take as a chosen mate.

I try not to be jealous when I think about how she almost chose someone else instead of waiting for me, her fated mate, but she was in love, and I can’t blame her for it.

I turn to my brother now. “Elio, did you finish your studies for the day?”

“No,” Elio admits, shifting around under my gaze. “I heard Alana and wanted to see if she needed help.”

“Alana can fend for herself,” I say. “And in case she needs something, she can ask me. You have your own tasks, and I expect you to listen to your teachers.”

For a moment, Elio looks crestfallen for being admonished, but he recovers quickly and nods. “I will go back,” he says.

Alana and I watch him leave; then I help her attend to the horses. Dragon shifters usually don’t live with other animals around them, but Alana has told me about how the werewolves hold horses in their stables and use them to cover distances in their human form. It was intriguing enough for me to try.

“You are good with them,” Alana says while one of these elegant animals rubs its nose against my shoulder.

“I’m just pretending to be,” I admit. “I have no idea what I’m doing.”

She chuckles. “You know,” she says after a while. “I feel for him,” she admits. “I mean Elio. He just wants to help.”

“It’s not like I can’t sympathize,” I say. “I understand where he is coming from, but he didn’t have any education for years. And, as the only prince of my lands, I need him one day to step up as my advisor or in another high rank. I can’t always be his friend. At the moment, I am unfortunately his father, his brother and his king.” I pause. “Quite frankly… I wish it were different.”

“Don’t worry, I understand.” She closes the door of the stables and turns to me. Her gaze lingers on me for a moment, and there is a hint of red on her cheeks. I’m not sure if it’s because of the cold or because she is finally warming up to me. She brushes through her hair again. “I have younger siblings too,” she says. “And I’m lucky to only be their sibling and nothing else. But you and Elio, you lost so much. I don’t even know how you manage to deal with it…”

I want to lie to her and tell her we are coping well enough, but the bond that connects us is too strong and real to lie to it. I feel like lying to her face would disgrace the mate bond that connects us. “It’s going to be a longer journey,” I say. “I know that Elio is still having trouble sleeping.”

“And you?” she asks quietly. When I don’t answer, she takes my hand. “Are you sleeping?” she asks with a surprising amount of concern.

“It’s not that I’m not tired,” I say, “or that I don’t want to sleep. But when I close my eyes, I’m scared to be a prisoner of my dreams and mind again.”

Her eyes sadden, and I almost regret having said it out loud.

“It won’t happen again,” she reassures me. “We dealt with the threat; you were part of the last battle too. The threat is gone, and I’m here now, as well! I will protect you and Elio.”

“I know,” I say. “I know we won. But sometimes I feel like something is still out there, waiting in the shadows to hunt us.”

She furrows her eyebrows, and I feel like an idiot for laying my fears and paranoia out there, worrying her further.

“It’s probably still part of the nightmare I was caught in,” I add. “The aftermath.”

“But if you feel danger is approaching, please tell me.”

“I will.”

For a while, we walk in silence. “How many dragon shifters did you manage to find and return to the Silent Mountain?”

“Approximately sixty,” I say. “There are a few more that will move soon. And then there are a few who settled in the human realm. They have human partners now.”

“Do you want them to return?”

“Previously, we dragon shifters didn’t really mate outside of our own kind,” I admit. “But I think it’s long overdue to loosen this rule.” Especially with me being fated to a werewolf, but that’s not the only reason. We were elitists for too long, to the point that we were all alone when we fended off the danger threatening our whole species. “A lot of these dragon shifters did what they needed to do to survive. They have partners now, and I want to honor that.”

“But they don’t have their dragon spirits, do they?” she asks.

“They don’t. As the leader of the dragons, it’s my task to grant them their dragon spirit. It’s a whole ceremony when someone comes of age.”

“I almost forgot you can do that,” Alana says. “That’s amazing. But how come Elio got his dragon spirit? You were still in a coma when he shifted for the first time.”

“That’s because I took precautions,” I explain. “I granted him his spirit when we parted ways, and he went into hiding. His body was just too small to shift at that time.”

“So, once you find those shifters who live with the humans or who live as humans, will you grant them their dragon spirits?”

“Of course. They did nothing wrong. If that’s what they want, I will grant them their dragon spirit.”

“If you want, I can help reach out to them,” she offers. “Wolves have some connections to the other realms, and if any of your kind are hidden somewhere in the werewolf kingdom, it would be really easy to find them and talk to them.”

“I would appreciate your help,” I say. “I had a similar idea but didn’t want to impose my own political issues on you.”

“You are not imposing anything,” she says. “Remember, I am here to help and to learn more about the dragons.”

“Well then, should I take you on a ride?” I offer.

I can see the surprise on her face, and it’s obvious how she battles her emotions. I can see the curiosity in her eyes, but I also know she has her pride and dignity. She is a princess and a warrior after all.

Watching her makes me realize I do want to take her on this ride. I want to show her my lands. I want her to like it here. “I’m a bit different than other dragon shifters,” I say. “I am not bound to these lands.”

“What?” she asks in surprise.

“Our dragons are bound to the lifeforce that they feel in the lands they are connected to. For us, it means we can fly through this area but also over your kingdom, but the moment we enter a completely new realm, we can only last a few minutes up in the air.” I pause. “I don’t have these limits.”

“Because you are a golden dragon?” she asks curiously.

“Because I am blessed,” I say. “My golden shape is a result of being blessed.”

“You are the last one, aren’t you? Did the others all pass?”

“Originally, we were more, but the golden dragons were all slaughtered by our enemies.” I pause. “One of my children will one day carry on and have the same genes,” I add.

“And what if you are mated to a werewolf?” Alana asks quietly.

“I’m sure the deities had a plan when they mated a dragon and a wolf together,” I say.

A smile curls Alana’s lips. “Take me on a ride,” she says. “I’m curious.”

Dragons don’t usually have an inner voice or a spirit they can talk to. For me, it’s different. I have two souls in me. One is my dragon, who shares a soul with me, and the other is the soul of a deity. It’s a second spirit in me, the deity who blessed me and lends me their power. We have an agreement, a contract almost. Most of the time, I own my body, but when the necessity arises, the deity in me can take over. In exchange, I was gifted with important powers to keep my people safe. The deity and I can talk to each other and communicate, whereas my dragon does not have a voice. He has emotions, though, and I can clearly feel them now as he is looking forward to spending time with his mate.

Before he can do so, however, the deity in me pushes forward. She barely comes forward, so when she wants to, bound to our contract, I always let her. I can feel my body changing slightly to adapt to her look and take a step back while my counterpart comes forward. “Hello, hello,” she whispers, reaching out her slender fingers to lift Alana’s chin. “My beautiful fire-haired princess.”

“Favia,” Alana says. “It’s been a while.”

Favia looks like she is my twin sister. She does not have a body of her own in the mortal world, but she can change mine to resemble her female nature. In a way, she looks like me if I were a woman, though her hair is longer, and her features are a bit softer. Other than that, we truly look like twins. She is much bolder and more direct than I am, which only makes sense, seeing how she is a deity.

Favia twirls a lock of Alana’s red hair between her fingers. “How about we show you the ocean, my princess?”

“Oh, I love the beach,” Alana says.

“I am not talking about the beach,” Favia smirks. “Have you never gone beyond it?”

“No… the ocean that my kingdom borders is too wild to travel by ship,” she admits.

“Then how about traveling by dragon?” Favia offers.

Alana looks sincerely shocked at her suggestion. Before she can recover, Favia returns and hands me back the reins. She was just curious and wanted to talk to Alana herself. Now that I am in control again, I shift to my majestic golden dragon form, my dragon’s scales shimmering under the afternoon sun.

“I have so many questions,” Alana mutters. “Favia’s existence is still such a mystery.” She shakes her head as if to chase her thoughts away. “Later,” she says, before eyeing my dragon form. She hesitates for a second but then climbs on my back, holding on tightly to the edges of my wings. I use the tip of my tail to poke her a bit, making her laugh. “Okay, I got it. You are flexible, King Favian.”

I laugh inwardly before I take off, trying to move upwards steadily and slowly so she won’t be in danger. Once we are up in the air, I pick up my pace and glide through the sky. I make sure to show her the whole kingdom of the Silent Mountain. I start with the area she already partly knows… where the castle, houses and other buildings are. Similar to the werewolves, we live in a town of sorts, with a self-sufficient system. We grow our food or go on hunts, and we have a school and a few smaller shops. Recently, through our relations to the werewolf kingdom, we have started to trade with them. Mineral raw materials and gemstones are something dragons can easily detect and produce, exchanging them for supplies from the Kingdom of Eternal Ice.

Unlike the werewolves, we don’t have smaller packs all around the kingdom. While my kingdom isn’t necessarily small, our main town, our clan, is the only inhabited area. I pass by the forest, noting how Alana comments that this could be a lovely riding path.

If that’s what she wants, I will make it happen.

In my dragon form, I can reach the highest points, where no humans or animals can pass through due to the height, cold, and the roughness of the landscape. It’s a majestic view, and I can hear Alana gasp now and then. There are little platforms and caves on a few mountains, which we dragons built in case we need to take a break and want to rest or seek shelter. Once we move past the mountains, I fly downwards towards the broad beach.

There is an actual path leading from the castle to it, but it’s long and not particularly easy to walk through.

“It’s amazing,” Alana whispers. “I know it’s a mostly uninhabited area due to its nature, but the mountains and the ocean… It’s truly breathtaking.”

I’m so relieved she likes it. To impress her further, I make sure we pass the beach and fly right towards the ocean. Below us, the water is dark and wild, but the further we get, the calmer the ocean appears until a beautiful, deep blue surrounds us.

Alana is entirely silent. I’m not sure if it’s out of amazement or not, but I hope she likes it. On our way back, I can feel her loosening her grip and opening her arms while the salty air from the ocean breezes around us.

“I have never felt so free,” she mutters. “Is this how you always feel when you fly through the air?”

My dragon hisses as an answer. We do. It’s the only time I truly feel free.