Work Text:
For what it’s worth, Hayden didn’t want anyone getting hurt. He did not think the other hunters would take this so far. He expected the threats, the scares, the blackmail. The hunters were adamant to get what they wanted, spent the last several years tracking and following clues and dead-ends. It grew frustrating, but this line of work was taxing with worthwhile freedoms and power if they succeeded.
Hayden was quickly learning there were no limits or lines they wouldn’t cross.
“I don’t know about this,” Hayden says.
They’re standing in a large warehouse, built three stories tall with metal and wooden pillars. Wire fences stand as perimeters in the room, and other steel bars barricade the windows and doors. The building is old, constructed with stone and concrete, specifically chosen to prevent anyone unwanted from coming inside.
Or anything.
The floor is cold and dirty. There’s a single metal pole with a man handcuffed to it, hazed with drugs and covered with scars and wounds from physical assault. His black hair hangs limp, drenched with sweat and blood. His face is pale, cheeks flushed and drops of sweat on his jaw and nose. He stays silent, stubbornly tightlipped from the moment he woke up. His brown eyes are glued to the window on his right.
“Why?” Wilson snaps. Another hunter with weapons strapped on his waist. “He knows what we want to know. Once we get it, we’ll let him go.”
Wilson holds a silver knife to the injured man’s throat, who still doesn’t look at him. He flinches when the knife cuts his skin.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Shane. Did that hurt? Am I hurting you?” Wilson sneers.
“We’ve been at this for three hours,” Hayden says. “This needs to stop. Let me bandage his wounds before they get infected.”
Wilson laughs, cruel and mean. He taps the sharp point of his knife on the man’s bleeding neck. He slices again. “He’s a doctor. He’ll be fine. He can treat a woman’s shattered hand in a matter of hours. He can treat an infection.”
Shane pulls his gaze to give Wilson a long, unimpressed expression. His breathing picks up at the mention of Rose Landry. A woman in town who was accused of being a witch. Her name holds leverage with her father being the mayor, so they hadn’t voted to hang her. They broke her hand in three separate places instead and claimed the problem was fixed.
A witch needs two hands, apparently.
Hayden was with two other hunters watching Shane’s home. Wilson had received word of suspicious activity surrounding Shane Hollander six months prior. He was a respectable and credible doctor. His parents held high positions in the town court as well, loved and known by many. Everyone was friends with the family, and they all were in awe of Shane’s hard work and dedication. He wasn’t the most sociable, but he was kind, extremely intelligent, and…open.
Anyone and everyone came to him for problems that varied. His remedies didn’t stop with injury or sickness. The things he did was sometimes unexplained, which is what brought Wilson and the other hunters to him. People talk of his greatness and his power with reverence, and how he always had an answer for everything.
Rumors went around about his concoctions. Drinks that smelled sweet like nectar, ointment that tasted like sunlight and smoke, and other various vials of mysterious ingredients. Powerful and robust, supernaturally made. Ingredients more potent than any regular magical being. Whatever he was using, it wasn’t average or impure. It was raw and explosive, weaved to nature with a bottomless chasm of the unknown.
It took more time to narrow down the possibilities. There weren’t many. Not many beings and creatures hold pure energy. This called for more books and research performed in another hunter’s library. Theriault is an older hunter with a hatred for magic, and this was his specialty. After tracking and stalking Shane for three months, they finally got their answer.
When they broke into Shane’s home and found the drawers, jars, his instruments, small iron bowls, alchemy books, and the radiant gold, red, black, and blue scales in powder form, that was the final nail to his coffin. A regular doctor wouldn’t own such things. Neither would witches or warlocks. These were rare items.
“I am bored,” Wilson grumbles. He is squatting on the floor. He tilts his head. “Where’s your lover? I thought their kind was protective. Why hasn’t he come to get you yet?”
Shane looks at the window again, eyes hardening with a glare.
Wilson grins coldly. His malice brings age to his youthful features. “Maybe he doesn’t actually care about you. You’re just a human. What do you have to offer a dragon?”
“He’ll come,” Theriault says. He stands in front of another window, sharpening his knives meant to remove precious scales. “Dragons are naturally possessive over their treasure. I’m sure he’s on his way.”
“And what is exactly the plan for when he does?” Hayden asks nervously.
He needs to do something with his hands. He retrieves a glass of water and kneels in front of Shane. Shane refuses to look at him. Hayden takes the opportunity to check his wounds. He should clean those.
“Rose Landry may or may not be a witch,” Wilson says. He stands to hover over Shane, lips curled in disgust. “But we have our own ways of protection against his kind. He’d have to bring the whole fucking place down to get inside. Kill us and his treasure.”
“He wouldn’t do a thing to harm you, but we would.” Theriault huffs a devilish laugh. “I have no problem plucking your eyes and carving into your bones. If that’s to show you we mean business, son, then I’ll do it myself.”
Shane doesn’t react right away. He considers the window once more, scrutinizing it for something Hayden doesn’t understand. His bottom lip is bruised.
Hayden has witnessed many of Wilson and Theriault’s captives. He stood by as they all screamed about their innocence, and every single one of them refused to admit what they were. They cried and insisted they had no idea what Wilson was claiming, even as their fangs and claws were out. It didn’t matter that their true face was revealed, sharp and feral with hostility and terror. They were terrified and at the hunters’ mercy, screaming themselves hoarse to be let go.
Some cried for their families and packs at the very end, irrational and desperate. They must have been warned because the names called out were nowhere to be found.
Hayden was in charge of getting rid of their bodies. He learned how each different type of supernatural dies. Vampire, werewolf, witch, selkie, fae, merpeople, wendigo, and many more. Hayden learned, adapted, and got it done.
Shane Hollander doesn’t beg for mercy. He doesn’t flinch or shudder in fear. He jerks when he’s cut or hit, and tears form in his eyes, but he doesn’t beg or plead to be let go. He doesn’t look at all like someone who’s afraid he’s going to die. He drinks the water Hayden offers him without a word. His wrathful gaze is calculating, revealing the intelligence he oozes. Even in this dirty warehouse full of weapons, smelling like iron and blood, bleeding all over his body, he just looks mildly annoyed and disappointed.
“Is this your home?” Shane asks. Hayden wipes at a particularly gnarly stab wound on his thigh. Shane stretches his leg for him. Hayden doesn’t know how to interpret that.
“No.” Theriault frowns. Shane rests his head on the pole, like he wasn’t being held against his will. “What?”
“So you’ll have to leave eventually,” Shane states. His voice was scratchy from being choked, but his tone was heavy like a judge making a verdict. His brown eyes are layered with ice. “He already has your scent.”
Theriault’s brow twitches. Hayden’s stomach sinks.
“What?” Shane blinks. “You didn’t think he noticed you? In the same town he’s lived in for a century? You could swim for miles, cross oceans, travel across thousands of civilizations, and he’d find you by scent alone.”
“Like you?” Theriault says coolly. “We’re expecting him to come find you. He’ll smell you, but he won’t be able to reach you. No magic is allowed past these walls. We cut it all off the moment we got here.”
“He doesn’t need my scent to find me,” Shane says. His gaze drops to his bleeding and bruised body. He lingers on his bloody sleeves from where Wilson dug iron nails into his skin to prove he had no magic. “He probably smells my blood though, and you’ve cut me a lot.”
“And we’ll continue to cut you if you don’t give us what we want,” Wilson snaps.
“What is it that you want?”
Wilson clenches his jaw. “Dragon scales. Dragon teeth. The leather from the beast’s wings.”
“I don’t have that on me at the moment,” Shane deadpans.
Wilson’s laugh is nasty. “If your lover cares for you, he’d give himself to us willingly.”
“I thought hunters hated magic,” Shane says. “Why do you want draconic ingredients?”
“No one should have that much power - not even doctors who want to protect their friends,” Wilson snides. “Especially some fucking beast. They need to be taken out of this world. They’re unruly savages and should be extinct. There’s only been five sightings in the last five centuries.”
Shane’s features harden, and he stares at Wilson with deep-seated hatred Hayden hasn’t seen yet. His glassy eyes spark with bitter distaste. “And you want those things for trophies.”
A wicked grin is his only response.
“How many dragons have you found?”
“Just the one,” Theriault answers. His lips curl. “Until we pry the information from your dragon. Maybe we’ll torture you right in front of him. Force him to watch us brand you with fire.”
“That would be poetic,” Wilson laughs.
The laughter cuts off at the sound of a distant roar, followed by the flap of massive leather wings. From Hayden’s side, Shane tenses slightly. Wilson and Theriault give each other a complicated look. They sprint for the windows and doors to test their stability. Their traps and barriers set.
Shane assesses them, seeing the way they move as a unit. They’ve done this before, except this time was new. A new supernatural being to barricade from.
Shane’s nose flares.
“You’ve done this before,” Shane concludes. “Lure people to your trap using their loved ones. Like wendigos, doppelgängers, changelings, vampires, and skinwalkers. You claim you’re different, but you’re not. If they’re monsters, then so are you.”
“Shut the fuck up!” Wilson snarls.
The malevolent sounds approach at a faster speed, wings beating hard. The voluminous roars sound like shattering blasts, shaking the ground and the building. The vibrations make Hayden fall over, and Wilson runs to the gated window to peer out.
A large shadow falls onto the building, canceling out the moon and stars. An insufferable silence fills the air, and every nerve in Hayden’s body is shot with fear. He breathes hard, and his hands shake. He drops Shane’s water with a curse. He swears the earth goes still.
The building shakes and splinters under the tremendous weight of the dragon landing on the roof. Its claws sink undeterred into the walls, and the building groans and bends. The foundation of the stone walls hold up, powered by the barriers set by the hunters. The roof caves in a little, and large rocks fall. Hayden saves Shane from being hit.
An onslaught of roars and intimidating snarls explode in the night. Rage fueled by fire and vengeance makes Hayden cower. There’s nothing like the fear sinking deeper inside, enforced by ice and his promised death. He’s going to hear these horrifying earth-shattering roars and the crack of wings forever, if he somehow doesn’t die tonight.
“Gold!” Wilson cries. “The fucker is gold. Look at those wings. Bigger than a mile long.”
The deep roars cease suddenly. The dragon shifts above, and Hayden can only assume it’s studying them and the shields preventing it from breaking through.
Then Hayden hears a new sound. Less loud and intimidating. A call, he guesses. A clicking noise - a trill.
Shane perks up, disregarding his hurt arm and twisted ankle. He tilts his head from side to side, reminding Hayden of a bird. His lips part, and he clicks his tongue in response. A reciprocating trill. He does it twice, and the dragon is quiet. The other hunters are too far to hear the private exchange.
Hayden’s blood goes cold. “Uh, guys.”
Wilson makes an anguished cry. The dragon takes off, flying straight upwards and over the vast wooden area. They are in the middle of the woods, far from civilization.
“Where did he go?”
Theriault glowers at Shane. “Dragon whore, he just abandoned you.”
Hayden studies Shane’s face, searching for clues to what he’s thinking. Shane doesn’t seem all that concerned. For a moment, he had looked desperately at the roof, looking right through at the dragon. His watery eyes and trembling lips, with his chest heaving as he responded to the call.
Now, Shane was calm again. Impassive.
Theriault shrugs. “Not the first to be abandoned. Wilson, remember that lone werewolf a few weeks ago? Nobody searched for him. He died alone just like he lived alone.”
For the first time, Shane flinched. He narrows his eyes. “What werewolf?”
Theriault chuckles. “Blond boy. Skinny. Scrawny. Not very tall. A weak lone wolf. Nobody important.”
“Name,” Shane hisses.
Theriault ponders, deliberately unbothered and careless. “Pretty sure he told me his name through all that annoying crying. He couldn’t say much of anything else when I sawed one of his canines. What was it? Jonah? Lucas?”
Shane goes still, struck with intangible fear. “Luca?”
“Yes! That’s it.”
“He was a kid!” Shane shouts. He bares his teeth with a biting snarl. He throws himself forward, and the rope around his wrists prevents him from getting far. He growls under his breath, and his eyes momentarily glow. “He didn’t hurt anyone!”
It startles Hayden. Shane hadn’t acted like this when he was being tortured. He didn’t once show a fraction of this anger. He looks ready to kill - ready to break something.
Including the rope and the metal pole.
Hayden jumps back in alarm when Shane turns to him, and snaps his teeth at him. He tries to kick, and Hayden moves out of his space.
“Fuck you!”
“Pike!” Wilson barks. “Get him under control-“
A knock gets all their attention.
Wilson takes charge and flings open the door with an axe in his hands. There’s nobody directly in front of him. A figure stands 20 feet away.
A woman in a black dress stares back at him. She’s tall and skinny, body shaped with a gray corset, and black boots poke out from under the dress. A hood is pulled over her head, and light brown curls frame her face and spill out over her long neck and shoulders.
Something about this woman screams danger. The air around her sparks with dark magic, emitting off her thin frame and brown satchel on her hip. Her nails are sharp and red, and she’s delicately holding a tiny bag. A hex? A protection totem?
Alarmed by the offputting woman, Wilson raises his weapons. “Who are you?”
“My name is Svetlana,” the woman introduces calmly. She doesn’t look the least bit concerned by the hunters.
“And what is it, witch? These matters have nothing to do with you,” Wilson retorts.
“I act as a liaison,” Svetlana explains. “Creature to…creature.”
If she wasn’t so beautiful, she would be deeply unsettling. She still was, practically exuding danger, and Wilson and Theriault were both affected.
Just then, the dragon flies above them menacingly. Wide, deadly wings capture their attention with loud, thunderous beats. Similar to the witch, the dragon is beautiful with an ancient, powerful appeal. Muscles moved with a graceful elegance. At the same time, its beauty was tied to horror and lingered with fright. It promised destruction with a limitless magic capability.
Hayden has never seen a dragon, and a huge part of him wanted to run and hide.
“We have a barrier against your kind too,” Theriault spits. “You cannot come inside. We don’t have to do what you say. You best be off.”
The woman peers up at the dark sky, cocking her head as if she could communicate with the dragon. The dragon lets out a thunderous roar, twisting its majestic and large form in agitated circles. Hayden flinches from where he stands in front of Shane, and heart beats like an ominous drum warning him he’s going to die. He’s not making it out of this building. He’s going to be flayed alive or burnt to a crisp.
The witch smiles, and it doesn’t come close to a friendly one. It holds contempt and promise for mayhem.
“He really insists on having his beloved treasure back,” she purrs. Starlight flashes in her eyes. She looks at Wilson again, and they morph back to black. “Or he’ll burn you to ash.”
Theriault smirks in disbelief. “These walls are made of stone.”
“Yes,” the woman agrees. “You are made of flesh, yes?”
Wilson and Theriault pale, and they dart their eyes to the dragon. The dragon was made of gold and red, but the night hid him well. All they could see was its shadow, leaving their imagination free to spiral from the vicious rumbling snarls and flaps of its massive wings.
Theriault grabs his gun and points the barrel at her. Sweat forms on his forehead and neck, betraying his stoic persona. “The boy is made of flesh too.”
The witch doesn’t answer.
The dragon lets out a furious, resounding roar that splits the sky. Hayden covers his ears at the sudden explosion, feeling each bone of his vibrate. He falls to the ground, and he brings his knees to his chest. His eyes water, and he bites his tongue. He tastes blood, and his entire skull sings in pain. His teeth rattle. His head might explode.
He smells the fire before he sees it. The impatient dragon makes his move. Flame reaches the windows, licking the walls and singed the grass and forest surrounding them. They are trapped within a ring of fire, snapping and crackling, and inching closer. It was all the dragon could do with the barriers. Soon they’ll run out of oxygen and perish anyway.
The witch disappeared, but Wilson and Theriault both called out for her. They’re trying to make a deal, but neither witch or dragon are interested.
Hayden doesn’t understand what’s happening. Was the dragon going to let Shane die? For a creature who is inherently protective over their possessions, he didn’t seem to care about Shane getting hurt in the crossfire.
Except when Hayden searches for Shane, expecting to see him coughing from inhaling smoke, Shane is unnaturally unfazed. He is tugging on the rope, huffing under his breath in frustration. He is a strong dude. It takes muscle to carry patients to his office, and he helps farmers sometimes with their yard work. His cardio and leg muscles are impressive, considering he travels all the way to the mountains to visit the dragon living in the caves.
He’s a tough guy, and he is using all his might to try to break free. He’s unaffected by the intense heat, perspiring a tiny bit. His eyes glow from where the firelight lands on them, and he grunts.
“Luca,” Hayden rasps. Shane pauses, and aims his furious gaze at him. All his fury swims in his eyes, burning Hayden from within. Hayden chokes. “He’s okay.”
Shane’s face contorts into a display of confused aggression. “What?”
“The werewolf,” Hayden croaks. He coughs harshly. He hears the other hunters shout. “He’s okay. I got him out. I told him to hide and lay low for a few months just in case. Luca is hiding out. He told me where he went, uh, I think 30 miles west. Near the ocean.”
Shane studies him. “Why?”
The flames grow higher and hotter. Guilt and shame fill Hayden’s belly, adding to the misery of smoke entering his lungs. “They put me in charge of disposing of the bodies. I lie about making sure they’re dead. I give them what they need to get away. I never signed up for being a murderer.”
The windows shatter, and glass goes flying in all directions. The fire cracks and burns, sending more heat inside. Hayden hears Wilson and Theriault collapse to the ground, grabbing uselessly for their weapons.
“I’m sorry, Shane,” Hayden chokes. He heaves and coughs harshly.
Shane doesn’t reply. He’s staring irritably at the window. Hayden realizes what Shane has been keeping a keen eye on. The barrier symbol hidden in the corner of the window. There was one drawn on four windows. They are slowly being eaten away by the flame. Hayden isn’t certain he’ll still be breathing by the time they’re erased.
“Get up,” Shane says, tone serious. “Get rid of those symbols. He needs to get in here. Do it, and I’ll make sure you live to tomorrow.”
His order is laced with an authoritative tone made of steel. Hayden couldn’t disobey. If he does live to tomorrow, he's never blindly following orders again.
He struggles to his hands and knees, coughing wetly onto the floor. Gravel cuts into his skin as he crawls across the floor to the window. Thankfully, all four symbols are required to successfully keep out all supernatural beings. If he wipes one out, he should be done.
“What makes you so confident he won’t just murder me,” Hayden jokes. His voice is scratchy and broken, and he coughs with every word. He’s growing dizzy and weaker by the second. He grabs the barrier tool and crushes it with his palm.
Hayden’s ears pop at the increase of pressure. He feels like his skin is going to melt off. He collapses and looks at Shane’s blurry figure. The building shakes harder, pushed against its limit. Deafening roars and harsh, thunderous screeches cause him to cover his ears with a cry.
“I’m not just his treasure,” Shane says. “I’m his mate.”
That’s when fire pours in, flooding the entire space and sealing all exits with flames. Hayden sees his end come for him, and he closes his eyes. He’s a cowardly hunter. He can’t watch the ball of flames coming straight for him.
Except he feels nothing. He doesn’t feel the ambush of fire. He’s hot and sweating, but he’s not burning.
He blinks his eyes open.
What he sees makes him freeze.
What Shane said finally registers. Mate.
What he can only describe is a giant wall of fire surrounding him. It flows steadily into the room, cut short by an invisible force five feet from Hayden’s body. The bright array of colors shines with radiance, a living and breathing thing. It was an ocean of yellow and red, moving in waves to claim space. It would be beautiful, if it wasn’t horrifying to be at the mercy of a dragon.
Even the smoke pulls away from Hayden, allowing him to breathe gulps of oxygen. He peeks over at Shane, and he gasps at the sight of him.
While the fire sidestepped Hayden, cut off by an invisible wall, it completely blanketed Shane. Bright yellow flames enveloped Shane like a warm coat. The hot tendrils move like a sentient being, caressing Shane’s body with the passionate reverence of a lover. The fire sinks under the man’s skin, like raindrops to a pond, with Shane sighing in pure bliss as he soaks in the energy.
Wounds heal in front of Hayden’s eyes. Blood disappears. Gold eyes glow, emanating power. Dragons are made of pure magic - they are magic. Raw and explosive that could fuel entire worlds of witches and magic doers. Dragons have an infinite supply, and to be around one is incredibly overwhelming. It’s like being by a god.
Shane exhales a dark cloud of smoke that spreads out in the space around him. It’s thick and smells like magic, spicy and ancient, and Shane disappears behind it.
His shadow suddenly grows at a rapid rate. His body expands, and two appendages form out of his back. It was difficult to see clearly through the smoke, but Hayden could feel the shift. The metallic scent of old magic chokes him.
Hayden realizes he needs to get the fuck out.
Hayden makes it out of a broken window just in time for the roof to be torn apart by a massive being. Black and blue scales shine under the moonlight, and the dragon leaps into the sky. Large wings stretch, brushing off broken stone, and catching the current of the wind and pushing him forward.
The abrupt explosion causes the other dragon to jump back, startled, wings flapping at the sudden appearance of Shane. The golden dragon makes a guttural, deep chuff, and he shakes his giant head. Hayden couldn’t see the dragon very well from inside. Here he can see its elongated snout and jagged spiked horns. His massive fangs that are longer than Hayden’s height.
His yellow eyes with slitted pupils like a cat are glued to the black dragon.
The golden dragon roars.
And takes off after his mate.
The sight of them is nothing like anything Hayden has ever witnessed. Two large, magnificent creatures with profound, unrestricted power that could make or break worlds. They are older than most human civilizations, and they supply magic.
Tendrils of gold, red, black, and blue twirl together like ribbons. Their scales shine like jewels, and delicate frills that make them appear even bigger. They chase each other, flying high and far in the night sky, with Shane’s polished obsidian embedded with streaks of blue form barely visible and his mate blazing through the dark. Trills and loving purrs echo as they answer each other, communicating through their own language. Long talons reach for the other, and tails intertwine. Wings affectionately caressing.
They dive to the earth, shifting to their much smaller forms. They are maybe three feet tall now, and they chase and play in the flowers and grass like two pouncing foxes. They tackle and nuzzle their faces, tails flicking back and forth. They take turns scenting each other, while nipping at necks and tails. Sometimes one of them will shift bigger or smaller, and the other snaps their teeth and trill.
Dragon transformation isn’t like a werewolf. Bones aren’t broken and healed. This is far more seamless, like sliding on a glove.
Two women approach, and Hayden goes still. He recognizes Svetlana immediately, and he’s pretty sure the other one is Rose Landry. The dragons shift even smaller - barely six inches tall. Shane lands on Rose’s shoulder, and the other dragon gets on Svetlana’s. The witches coo at them.
Hayden can’t see far, but their separation doesn’t last long. He thinks he hears Svetlana shout ‘Ilya!’
Ilya’s posture screams curious and obsessive, tilting his little body and head to keep watching Shane. He refuses to look away, too worried Shane was going to disappear again and be taken away.
Ilya gives in and chases after Shane, jumping on Rose’s shoulder. Rose giggles, laughing harder when the little dragons fly off to disappear completely in the woods.