Pierce: Dragon Heartbeats, #1

1

Pierce

It was the silence that startled me into wakefulness.

Not that life in a cave was ever truly silent. There was always noise somewhere, the constant flow of life through what only appeared as cold, dead, lifeless rock to the untrained eye.

Yes, the rock could be quite cold. But it lived. It shifted, it creaked. Thousands of years of rain and snow had worked their way into the cracks and crevices.

Patient, so patient, chipping away over time until a network of veins ran through the mountains and filled the tunnels long since carved with the echoes of dripping and trickling. In the winter, the water froze and swelled and strained, and the rock groaned in protest. There was never complete silence.

Even so, compared to what I and the rest of my family heard every minute of the day, the ambient noise was deafeningly quiet. There had never been a day of my life when I didn’t hear the heartbeat of my clan resonating from deep in the core of the planet.

It was the rhythm of my existence and had been for a millennium. Dragon heartbeats. But now, the sound was gone.

Not softer, not drowned out by some other noise.

Simply gone.

The dragon within me questioned this, instincts on full alert. I had learned to listen to those instincts.

Even so, my immediate assumption was that the problem was with me. That there was something off with my senses.

Granted, it would be the first time, but there wasn’t exactly a rulebook for our lives. There was no telling what might happen to someone like me. I told my inner dragon to listen for even the faintest trace of a beat before I climbed out of bed in search of answers.

At first glance, my suite of rooms could be mistaken for a luxury suite at any fine hotel—granted, I was only basing my assessment on what I’d seen on television and in movies, but I felt it was a fair one.

The major difference was the lack of windows, naturally, but the lighting both in my suite and throughout the maze of tunnels carved into the mountain were fitted with sensors which automatically brightened and dimmed the brightness according to the time of day.

It provided the illusion of living in the outside world, at least. Something I hadn’t done since we left the original clan. I wasn’t sure what existing in almost constant darkness would’ve done to my psyche over a century or two. And luckily, I didn’t have to.

Not that we never left the caves—in fact, I’d be leaving today. It was my turn to drive into town for supplies later that afternoon. Still, being able to open a window and get a feel for the day’s weather was a small luxury I’d taken for granted prior to moving to our subterranean home.

The touchscreen display screen installed inside the door to my bedroom told me what I needed to know, but there was nothing like finding out for myself.

It was a cool day, and rain was predicted. I would have to keep that in mind while dressing. Granted, even very cold weather had little effect on me. I was a walking furnace.

I used the touchscreen to access my music library and turned on a little old-school Metallica to get me started and drive away the anxiety which was slowly wrapping gripping me.

Still, no matter how loud or driving the song, I couldn’t shake the feeling of there being something wrong.

The lack of a steady beat in my head reminded me of the time the generator failed and plunged the caves into darkness for a short while.

The generator’s buzz was something I had grown just as accustomed to as I had the ever-present beating of the hearts of my dragon kin.

Hearing that beat was my connection to the rest of the clan, even though we were thousands of miles apart.

I showered quickly, in a hurry by then to check in with my family. It was Cash’s turn to guard the cave, which meant he had been up through the night. He’d be able to tell me when the beats ceased—if they had at all for anyone but me.

I dressed in a tee and jeans, my normal uniform, and slid into trainers before grabbing a zippered sweatshirt and leaving the suite.

It was early, barely dawn, but I liked getting an early start. I only felt accomplished when I did so, even though there wasn’t much to accomplish for any of us.

We had our particular jobs, but none of them took up much time. Mine was to be sure the generator was running smoothly, and the backup power was in place—we had learned that lesson the hard way back when the lights went out, and we were left with nothing to do but light candles and try to fix the problem.

My only other responsibility besides taking my turn at guarding the cave was keeping stock of our supplies and driving out to purchase them.

That wasn’t what was on my mind when I began the trek out to the mouth of the cave. It was a long walk through a maze of corridors I had committed to memory centuries earlier. Like a map inside my head.

My feet carried me past the suites occupied by my family members, then around the corner and down the corridor to the common area and the game room. The library was to the right, and filled floor-to-ceiling with more books and scrolls than I could possibly hope to read if I had another several centuries to do it.

The meeting room, originally intended as a throne room of sorts before we agreed there would be no set leader among us. The clan had its royalty, but there was no reason for us to carry on that tradition once we left the homeland. There were far too few of us, for one.

When a few hundred dragons needed governing, there was cause for a ruler to rise.

We were six. Just six.

We hadn’t even found our mates yet.

The longer I walked, the closer I came to the mouth of the cave and the more prominent the scent of moisture. The rain had already begun.

I heard the sound of water pelting leaves as I stepped out and pulled up the hood of my sweatshirt in an attempt to stay dry.

Cash? I called out.

He couldn’t have gone far.

The sound of heavy footsteps filled the air before I caught sight of his gold-tinged scales through the trees just beyond the cave mouth. I waited for him to shift back to human form—it only took a few seconds.

What is it? he asked, sounding perturbed.

We rarely shifted from dragon form while we were on guard duty, but I reminded myself that it would take less than the blink of an eye for him to shift back if trouble arose.

It wasn’t as though I didn’t have a good reason to interrupt him, either. Do you hear it? The heartbeat?

His brow furrowed, and I could tell in an instant that it wasn’t just me.

It was all of us.

It disappeared overnight, he explained. One moment it was there, and the next…

Gone.

Right.

Nothing happened before that? Nothing to catch your attention?

He shook his head. Nothing at all. Just silence.

It should’ve made me feel better, knowing I wasn’t crazy or losing my senses. Instead, I felt much worse.

Supplies would have to wait for the time being. I traced my steps and hurried back to the heart of the caves, where the rest of my family was likely sleeping. They wouldn’t be for long.

When I reached the control center, I sent out an alarm which would sound on all the touchscreen systems. They would hate me for it—I was the only early riser—but they would understand in time.

I waited for the four of them to join me. When they did, rubbing their eyes and scrubbing their hands through their sleep-mussed hair, I didn’t waste time with preambles.

The heartbeat is gone, I said. Cash confirmed that it stopped overnight, with no warning or identifiable reason.

Fence scratched at the stubble which covered his cheeks. Has this ever happened before? I don’t remember a time when I didn’t hear it.

Smoke shook his head. I’ve never seen anything about it in the scrolls. My brother, the amateur historian.

Does it mean they’re dead? All of them? That’s not possible. Gate looked around at the rest of us. Is it?

No way, Miles said, shaking his head. There has to be an explanation.

Sure. For the first time since any of us has been alive, we can’t hear the heartbeat of our clan. I shook my head. Everything has an explanation, of course. The question is whether the explanation is one we can live with.

Mary would know. Wouldn’t she? Smoke asked. Or she’d be able to find out.

How would she find out something about our clan? Fence shook his head. I don’t think so, man. She’s a human. She doesn’t know about our world.

No, but she has connections all over, Smoke countered. And she owes us one.

You’re not seriously thinking about calling in a favor from, what, forty years ago? I asked with a laugh. She probably doesn’t even remember.

She’s the one who swore she’d do anything she could to help us. We saved her life.

Miles shrugged. I guess it’s worth a shot, right? She has the resources. Might as well put them to use.

It can’t hurt, Smoke added.

Yeah. I guess not. I watched as Smoke pulled up his Skype account. Mary was listed there as one of his contacts.

I didn’t know they kept in touch—then again, I had little time for that sort of thing. I liked being able to access my music, movies, TV, that sort of thing. But social media? Chatting? Even message boards made me roll my eyes