Chapter 196: The History Lesson
**Avery**
The name, *Adrik*, hung in the cabin’s still air like a death sentence. The shock that rippled through my mates was a physical thing, a wave of cold dread that made the hairs on my arms stand up. Cassius, Clint, and Conner looked as if they’d seen a ghost from a nightmare, their faces pale beneath their sun-kissed skin. James’s hand, which had been resting on my shoulder, tightened into a vice. Vincent’s shadows deepened, coiling around him like serpents.
But Donn… Donn just looked weary, a sad, knowing smile playing on his lips as he met my bewildered gaze.
“I know your daddy,” he’d said. “And he *really* doesn’t like me.”
The words were so casual, so utterly Donn, yet they were a match dropped into a room filled with gunpowder. The absurdity of it, the sheer audacity, broke through my shock and ignited a white-hot fury. My past, my parents, this earth-shattering revelation—it wasn't a joke. It wasn't one of his charming anecdotes.
My fingers tangled in the silky strands of his long black hair before my brain even processed the command. I yanked, hard, pulling his head down until his roguish, infuriatingly handsome face was level with mine. His eyes widened in surprise, but he didn't resist.
“What do you mean?” I snarled, my voice a low, dangerous growl that felt foreign coming from my own throat. The others tensed, ready to intervene, but a flicker of my eyes held them back. This was between me and me.
Donn’s smirk finally faded, replaced by something ancient and sorrowful. He met my gaze, and for the first time, I saw past the charming rogue, past the playful lover, and into the soul of the Reaper. I saw millennia of duty and death.
“It’s a long story, love,” he murmured, his voice raspy.
“Then start talking,” I ordered, my grip not loosening.
He sighed, a sound that seemed to carry the weight of ages. “Alright.” He gently untangled my fingers from his hair, his touch sending a conflicting shiver through me. He didn’t step back. He held my gaze, forcing me to see the truth he was about to unveil.
“We weren’t always just… Reapers,” he began, his voice dropping, drawing the rest of us into the quiet gravity of his tale. “The Ravens, my kind… we were arbiters. And a long, long time ago, the worlds were not this faded echo you see now. They were vibrant, thrumming with magic. Technology and sorcery walked hand in hand. And above it all, dragons ruled. Not as tyrants, but as the pinnacle of existence. They were the architects, the guardians, the very heart of the world’s power.”
He looked around the small cabin, at the ancient wood and stone. “This… this is a relic. The world you know is a ruin, Avery, and you’re all living in the overgrown rubble, thinking it’s a garden.”
The air grew heavy with his words. I could almost see it—a world of impossible spires, of skies thick with iridescent wings, a symphony of steel and magic.
“But something… changed,” Donn continued, the haunted look in his eyes deepening. “A force. Not a god, not a demon. Something older, more fundamental. A cosmic decree was issued, a shift in the universal balance. And the decree was simple: the age of dragons was over. They were to be extinguished.”
A collective, sharp intake of breath came from my mates. This was not a history they knew. This was a truth that had been buried.
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