A Dragon's Body: A New Adult Fantasy Dragon Series (The MINATH Chronicles Book 2)

by A. L. Tippett

  They made it to the other end of the tunnel without incident and she sprayed another camera before climbing to the top of the stairs. She paused and swept her consciousness out. Besides her two companions waiting behind her, she only sensed the aura of one guard nearby. He was walking away from the door in the ground. Once again, Sera held her PSB to the door and waited for the sound of Frank unlocking it. Edging it open slightly, she poked her head up and scanned the area to make sure the guard wasn’t looking their way. Luck was on their side. As she watched, he rounded the corner of a nearby cell block and disappeared.

  They stealthily crept out of the tunnel and shut the door behind them before sprinting to the cover of the closest building. The IRC was made up of two buildings: one high-security cell block that sat separately and the main building with wings sectioned off for each category of mythic. There were separate branches for flighted, water-based and earth-bound mythics as well as another for humans.

  From her examination of the plans, she identified this cell block as the one that housed the flighted mythics, as well as a laundry room. The plan was to get her in a clean IRC uniform to avoid questioning if they ran into other guards, then find and release Arius. Now they were here, her soul was tugging her towards the high-security cell block. They’d get his help to break out her father from the human wing and if they remained undetected, sneak out the secret tunnel. If shit hit the proverbial fan, she was relying on Arius’ fire to burn through the mesh dome and fly out of here.

  Closing her eyes, she focused on sweeping her consciousness through the cell block in front of her. A hundred auras assaulted her senses internally. Among the chaos of golden light, Sera managed to distinguish the human auras of the squabs. There were only a few on duty, and none near their entry. Holding her PSB out to the control panel, it took a few moments before the armoured door in front of them hissed open and they stole inside. The prison walls were a crisp white with stark lighting. Most of the inmates appeared to be asleep on the floor behind the tempered glass of their cells. Their small rooms were padded and held no furniture. Gargoyles, harpies, hippogryphs, sphinxes and even one phoenix lay trapped in their prisons. Revulsion coiled in her gut and a fierce anger at the President made her heart pound loudly in her ears.

  I wonder how many of them truly deserve to be locked up in here.

  She murmured to Tor and Idris, “Stay here and keep a lookout. I’ll grab a uniform and come back.”

  They nodded and continued examining the prisoners. Sera hurried down the hall until she reached a sliding door that automatically opened upon her approach. The room was filled with washing machines and dryers, along with rows of grey folded clothes in various sizes. She grabbed a uniform and changed in a hurry, before threading her belt into the trouser loops with her weapons attached. Shoving her own clothes into the nearest washing machine, she exited the laundry. She realised if any guard discovered them wandering the halls of the IRC she might get away with a brief inspection, but questions would be raised if they looked too closely.

  At least this outfit might buy us some time.

  As she scurried back towards Tor and Idris, a hippogryph in a cell on the opposite wall caught her eye. He was awake and staring at her in disbelief. He reared and beat his steel-coloured wings urgently, the tips of his feathers grazing the walls of his prison.

  It was Professor Tormund.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  “Tor! Idris!” she hissed. “Come here!”

  Her companions immediately joined her at the cell and studied the mythic inside. Torvold gasped and jerked back. Eyes wide, he demanded, “What’s he doing here?”

  “Do you recognise him?” she asked.

  “He’s my father.” He stared longingly into the cell and tapped the glass gently with his beak. “Mother banished him years ago. I haven’t seen him since I was a foal. But I never forgot him.” Tor’s eyes glistened and he ducked his head, a shuddering breath causing his feathers to tremble.

  “I don’t know if this will work, but I’ll give it a go.” She stepped to the side of the cell and held her PSB against the control panel. Tormund watched anxiously as they waited, when a loud hiss sounded and the tempered glass lowered into the floor.

  “Seraphina!” cried the grizzled hippogryph as he stepped shakily out of his cell. “What in Ghaia’s name are you doing here? And who are your friends?”

  Torvold interrupted Sera’s response with a soft whistle.

  The old professor turned his head sharply as he examined the other hippogryph. “It can’t be,” he whispered. Taking a step forward, his expression turned hopeful. “Torvold? My son? Is that really you?”

  With a cry, Tor sprang forward and buried his face into his father’s feathered shoulder. Tormund swept his wings around him and preened his son’s neck.

  After giving them a few moments, Sera whispered, “This is wonderful, but we really have to keep moving if we want to avoid the guards. Professor, tell us, how did you end up in the IRC?”

  Together, they walked towards the exit as Tormund explained. “It seems my little speech about the existence of dragons was not appreciated by the authorities.” A dark shadow crossed his face. “It turns out I was right! I heard the squabs talking earlier, the President has brought in a dragon this very day!”

  “He’s who we’re here to rescue,” Sera said. With a slight smile, she added, “We don’t understand why it happened, but he and I are Soulbound.” She held up her palm to the Professor, showing the golden scar.

  “Four Gods! What a peculiar thing to happen! You must be distraught to have had your Soulbound captured.”

  She grimaced. “Yes. That’s putting it mildly.” As they strode down the corridor, she faltered at the cell of a male harpy. The blue-haired mythic was lying on the ground, with oxygen tubes coming from his nose and wires hooked up to a machine. Every now and then his body twitched and the veins in his pale skin appeared blue in the white light. “Professor,” she began but Tormund interrupted with a smile.

  “I’m no longer your teacher, Seraphina, you don’t have to call me professor anymore.”

  “Fine, Tormund then. Why is that harpy hooked up to those wires?”

  “My dear girl. Have you not yet realised what the true purpose of this place is?” he asked sorrowfully.

  She shook her head, confused by his question.

  “The IRC parades as a place where mythics and humans who have made the wrong choices in life have the opportunity to redeem themselves through counselling and community service. Everyone knows it acts as more of a prison than a true rehabilitation centre. However, what they really do is torture and conduct experiments on mythics. If there’s a mythic who has a magical talent that the President wishes to harness as a weapon, or whose relatives he can exploit in the outside world, those poor souls are subjected to a terrible fate. It would be better to just let them die.”

  Sera felt her stomach roil at the revelation. All these years she had blindly accepted her government’s narrative as the truth. To think that every mythic she’d helped track down might have been subjected to this torment made her question everything she’d ever known. Aloud, she murmured, “Ghaia, help us.”

  “Sadly, it seems the Four Gods have forsaken these mythics,” Tormund declared sorrowfully.

  She paused when she realised Idris was no longer padding beside her. Glancing over her shoulder, she found him motionless except for his ears flicking forward and the flames around his neck flaring in distress.

  “It seems the Gods have forsaken us too. Squabs approaching from our front,” he hissed, his tail whipping from side to side.

  Sera cast her mind out and sensed the auras of two guards about to turn the corner into their hallway. “Shit,” she cursed and shoved her wrist at the control panel. She might have been able to get away with the story of moving two prisoners by herself, but moving three on her own with no obvious restraints would immediately raise questions.

  The four of them raced
through the armoured door, Sera trailing behind. As the door hissed shut, she heard one of the squabs call out to them. Not taking any chances, they dashed around the corner of the flighted mythic cell block before sprinting across the exercise yard, towards the high-security prison. Slowing only to open a gate in the barbed wire fence, they continued toward the glow of the solitary building. As the two hippogryphs cantered ahead of her, their eagle eyes sweeping the area for guards, Sera noticed Idris was no longer with them.

  “Stop,” she commanded. Turning around, the hippogryphs cocked their heads in confusion as she scanned the area for the lynx.

  “We can’t stay in the open, Sera,” whispered Tor.

  “I know, but we can’t leave Idris behind.”

  Idris? Can you hear me?

  There was no reply from the lynx. His black coat would melt into the shadows of the night so she opened her mind to search for his aura. Before she could cast her net wide enough to locate him, she discerned a squad of guards approaching from the high-security block. She screamed a warning but it was too late. A lasso made of iron links snaked through the air and landed around Tor’s neck. Many of the weapons used to subdue mythics were made of iron to quell their magical abilities. Tor reared in panic, wings flapping violently, unable to find who had thrown the metal rope. Some strange power concealed the guards from their eyes, yet Sera could still see their auras.

  Through her alarm, she managed to focus enough to count them and yelled, “There are eight of them, three in front of you, Tor, and five coming for you, Professor!”

  “You will not harm my son,” the grizzled hippogryph screamed at the empty air. Lunging forward, his beak snagged the lasso and pulled, dragging it over Torvold’s head. “Fly, son! Get away while you still can!”

  “I can’t leave you and Sera!” Tor argued.

  “You must!” insisted Tormund.

  “Save yourself, Tor.” Sera added her voice to the fray. “You can’t help us if you’re dead!”

  With a deeply pained expression, Tor leapt into the air, spinning and diving to avoid the bullets shot in his direction. Wings beating frantically he made it out of range and disappeared toward the secret tunnel. Meanwhile, Tormund had dived forward and was striking wildly in an attempt to take out as many guards as he could. Heavy thuds met his hooves as three guards lay unconscious on the ground, visible now that he’d knocked them out. The other five were converging on the old mythic as Sera raised her pistol.

  One, two, three. Three shots. Three bodies. Three auras snuffed out by her hand. She shook uncontrollably as she loaded the next round of bullets.

  I can’t think about the three lives I have taken tonight. Not yet.

  Swallowing the bile in her throat, she squeezed the trigger to take out the seventh guard. A knife sailed through the air towards her and she cried out, jerking the gun as she lurched, and missed her target. The blade was not meant for her though. Striking Tormund, it sliced easily into his chest. He paused his fierce attack and looked down at the blade. A puzzled expression flitted across his face as he watched the red blood drip from the wound. Raising his head, he caught Sera’s eyes and gave a soft smile.

  “Better this than ending up as one of their experiments. Tell Tor I always loved him. And then go save the world, Seraphina.” Tormund’s voice trailed off and he fell to his knees as the blood pooled around him. With a sigh, he closed his eyes and crumpled to the ground.

  EPILOGUE

  Beaten and dragged into the high-security block, Sera blinked the blood out of her eyes. Her captors dropped her to the floor and exited, the door hissing closed behind her. A blurry figure stood in the centre of the hallway that stretched away from her. Squinting, Sera tried to make out the person through the blinding white light. Slowly, the features of President Kaesus came into focus.

  “Good evening, Sera. What a merry time you’ve had, hmmm? And you were so close to saving everyone you loved… or were you?”

  He raised his arm, presenting his own PSB, and pressed a button. Frank’s pre-recorded message echoed in the empty space.

  The President chuckled. “Oh, Seraphina. How naïve you are. AIs don’t have feelings. They don’t care about equality. I arranged for his coding to be altered to help you and fed him the IRC blueprints. A tracer was added to the file he gave you, so I knew exactly where you were the whole time. As a bonus, you’ve been particularly helpful in showing me precisely where the Little Birds’ nest is, so thank you for that.”

  “What?” she gasped and struggled upright. Surprised to find she still had her blade, she released Firinne from its sheath.

  “Now, now, let’s not be too hasty,” he pacified, his cordial tone at odds with the evil glint in his eye. He pulled a pistol from his belt and aimed it towards a door on his right. Two guards dragged an unconscious prisoner into the hallway. Sera moaned when she recognised the shackled man. It was Allen.

  “Not Dad,” she whispered, loosening her grip on Firinne.

  “He is not your father,” the President thundered.

  “What?” She turned her head sharply to stare at him. “How do you know about the vision…” Slowly, she pieced things together in her head. She whispered in horror, “Malcolm Kaesus. Your name is Malcolm. Short for Mal. Mal. No, no, no.” She gripped her head in her hands as her world imploded. Digging her nails into her scalp, Sera desperately wanted to deny the truth. He smirked, his penetrating blue eyes razing her with their intensity. The same sapphire blue as hers. How had she not paid attention to the colour of his eyes before?

  With a feral snarl, she launched herself at him, Firinne poised, ready to strike. Everything seemed to move in slow motion then. Unsurprised by her attack, Malcolm squeezed the trigger and shot Allen. Sera’s heart shattered and she screamed as she watched his body jolt from the impact. The President then swung the pistol forward and shot her square in the chest. Pain like she’d never experienced before streaked through her body, as the force sent her flying backwards. Firinne flew from her grasp as she smashed into the floor and lay in a broken heap, unable to move. She took a shuddering breath as she waited for her life to end. Confusion warred against the pain when she remained conscious. Her limbs were locked but there didn’t appear to be any blood.

  Heavy footsteps echoed in the hall as Malcolm stalked toward her. He knelt, pressing the muzzle into her cheek, and whispered, “Sorry, sweetheart. No death for you. Not yet, anyway. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

  Realisation dawned when she noticed the pistol in front of her was set to stun. Malcolm grabbed her by the collar and dragged her down the hall. Passing her father’s prone form, she could only hope he was simply paralysed too. As they made their way past another cell door, Sera felt the familiar tug of Arius’ soul. Making a mental note of which door he was behind, she vowed she would figure out a way to free him. Sera’s toes were beginning to tingle as they reached the end of the white corridor, giving her hope that her muscle control would return soon. The President entered a code into the keypad beside a heavy metal door and swung it open. He flung Sera onto a chair in the middle of the cell and chained her to it. A feminine voice cried out. Sera wrenched her head up and located the owner.

  A woman sat against the opposite wall, shackled in iron chains.

  A woman with ginger hair.

  Her mother.

  Links

  If you enjoyed A Dragon’s Body, please leave a review:

  www.altippett.com/rl/1892280

  Read A Dragon’s Soul, Book Three in The MINATH Chronicles:

  www.altippett.com/rl/1892279

  Claim your FREE short story when you subscribe to my monthly newsletter:

  www.altippett.com/latest-updates/subscribe/

  Get to know me by visiting:

  www.altippett.com

  Or by following my socials:

  www.facebook.com/altippettauthor

  www.instagram.com/a_l_tippett_author

  www.tiktok.com/@altippett

  www.book
bub.com/profile/a-l-tippett

  www.goodreads.com/altippett

  *Some of these are affiliate links. If you make a purchase through these links, Firefly Books will earn a small commission. This does not affect your purchase price.

  Acknowledgements

  Once again, I want to take a moment to thank you. Yes, you there, holding this book. Whether you are reading these pages on your Kindle, phone, tablet or if you’ve got your hands wrapped around the spine of a paperback… I want to say a heartfelt thank you for reading this story. I hope you loved reading it as much as I loved creating it.

  If you enjoyed A Dragon’s Body, please consider leaving a review on Amazon, Bookbub, Goodreads or my website. If you really loved it, feel free to shout it from the rooftops! Authors rely on the passion of lovely readers like yourself to prove to others that our book is worth taking a chance on. I’m always happy for readers to reach out to me with constructive feedback; if you have any suggestions on improvements for future books please head to my website to get in touch.

  Make sure you keep an eye out for the third and final book in The MINATH Chronicles: A Dragon’s Soul, set for release August 2022.

  I want to sincerely thank the professionals who helped make A Dragon’s Mind the best story that it could be. A special thanks to my editor Sheryl Lee whose advice and guidance is always appreciated. Thank you to the ever-patient Elena Dudina, my cover designer. A special mention to the model Miranda Hedman (www.deviantart.com/mirish) and dragon artists, Elevit-Stock (www.deviantart.com/elevit-stock) and Valentyna Chukhlyebova (www.shutterstock.com/es/g/vac).