I was sitting in my office, my desk faced away from a floor to ceiling window and I'm sat in the cushioned office chair. I run a hand threw my unkempt, overgrown hair my father's disappearance had dumped a whole heap of things on my plate. I was definitely not ready to take the position, but when my father disappeared my mother took off for the skies. I get an occasional gift if I visit her meadows, but she hasn't come back. Ah but I'm getting ahead of myself so lets start with introductions.

     I am Anubis and five years ago I was made the Alpha and King of dragons, well at least for my species of dragons. My species is the smallest of dragon species but the fastest, the title of king and Alpha being passed down through my family as long as shifters have been around. We are The Onyx Crown and rule over all shifter species of Tupinambis. Then you have my uncle who rules in our neighboring kingdom The Gliding Jewels, because his species look exactly like jewels and the other precious stones of our world. His territory is known as Dracaena, his species is able to produce a small amount of magic to mold and shape stones to their needs.

     I then have three aunts, but I have only met one and she is the ruler of the ocean kingdom. The Serpents of Tardigrade were more serpent than dragon but that didn't mean they could fly. However, they are fastest and strongest when in the water, my aunt Chelydra had brought my cousin Osiris from their kingdom. She begged my father a year before his disappearance to let my cousin stay with us, the oceans had become too dangerous as hunters were searching for stronger animals to use as weapons. He agreed then you have The Dragons of The Core, they are a species of dragons that lives and protects the core of our planet. They use magma tubes and vents to move around a very rarely ever come to the surface. But when they do, they are so hot that they can cause wildfires with just their bodies. When they are cooled off, they still resemble the fire that they came from, mixtures of reds, oranges, yellows, white and black. Then there is one other species but not a lot is known of them, and they are called Titans. It is rumored they are so big that their heads scrape the clouds when they stand on the ground, they don't move fast but they could destroy a small village with just a swipe of one of their enormous, clawed paws.

     But let's take this farther back in our lores and myths, back to the beginning and we got our territories. In the beginning there was nothing and everything, the past, present and future and nothingness at the same time. Then The Creator or The Fates depending on the history created all and brought everything to life, gods, goddesses, dragons, animals, humans and so on. The first dragon to have ever been created is told to have been a five headed dragon, each head got along for a while until differences started causing tension. The Goddess of the Sun Daria seeing their discourse spoke to them through their minds, trying to bring them to peace again. She had fallen in love with one of the heads and went to The Creator and begged him to split them and to give them human bodies.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

     The Creator eventually relented and separated the dragon into five and gave them the power to shift into humans so that Daria could be with her love. All was good again for several years, until the other gods and goddesses couldn't control their jealousy why shouldn't their own creations be allowed to shift? They started turning their creations into shifters and all started to crumble, wars broke out as gods and goddesses started to shift more creatures to take out the species, they found abominable. Daria approached the first five dragons that had once been one for help, if they didn't do something there wouldn't be any species left and all would be lost.

    Only three of the dragons agreed the two male heads that had fallen in love with the goddess and the serpent like dragon. The other two had disappeared years before and refused to come out of hiding as they had despised the goddess for making them lesser than the powerful creator they once were. As it turns out dragons are very scary and intimidating creatures, it is not worth the time or resources to try and kill one. The three dragons were able to bring peace and order to the realms, they created territories, packs and took rule over the land. The packs Alphas would be able to turn to the dragons to settle any conflicts that may arise, and all was believed to return to peace. Some humans became greedy and began hunting shifters, if they could kill the shifter in their animal form. They could take the corpse in butcher it and sell the parts for easy cash, but they knew the most valuable thing was to catch a shifter in human form alive. The amount of money you could get from the bidding wars that started just for a shifter was astronomical. But the hunters were smart and went into hiding, keeping their deplorable crimes hidden from the majority and kept everything underground.

     That brings us to now a hundred- and twenty-six-years young dragon forced into a world my parents had shielded me from. Between the challenges for my title, more disappearances and searching for my father I didn't have much time for anything else. I didn't care that my hair was overgrown or that my beard had grown wild, I just wanted to find my father and make my family whole again. I look down at a flyer of a missing gryphon child and let out a stressed sigh and lay my head on my desk. Maybe a small break would help me clear my head when James my beta calls me through the mind link.