The Pearls

The Pearls

The Extinct Race Series

By

Michelle Farrell

Cover
by : Marek Purzycki

Stock photo model: Night-Fate Stock

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

This book is for

My love, my life, my husband

Who
encouraged me to put my story on paper, this is for you baby.

23 years earlier

Marcus and Elizabeth are fairly young for a King and Queen. They have only been fully Dragons for about
ten years now. Marcus lost his parents when he was about eighteen years old. They went for a flight one foggy night and never came home. When Marcus was twenty, some college buddies and he decided to go to Italy for a spring break trip. While he was there he felt an incredibly strong pull and followed it. He met Elizabeth. She was the princess of the Italy Sect.

Marcus was instantly in love with Elizabeth she was absolutely beautiful. She ha
d the whitest hair he has ever seen and blue eyes you could drown in. They were an amazing aqua blue color with flecks of white in them. She introduced him to her parents the King and Queen of the Italy Sect. They agreed right off that these two were meant to be and they allowed Marcus to take her to his home in America, where they would become the King and Queen of the America Sect.

Life was good for years. They were a very happy couple and he thought himself to be a good King. He didn’t have many people to look after
, it was a small Sect. Marcus allowed them to live where they wanted and how they wanted to. He just had one rule, Check in with him after a flight or a vacation. California was becoming very populated and the flying was becoming harder and harder. If you did not check in, Marcus and Elizabeth would have a road trip and check in on you.

Most
of the time the members just got lazy, or were stuck in their Dragon form in a cave. Being the King and Queen, Marcus and Elizabeth could always sense them, and they would always hike up to the cave and help them escape. Sometimes though, they would just find a pile of ash with the most beautiful flowers of all colors growing out of the ash. That’s what happened to Dragons when they die. If they are injured they bleed out quickly and turn to ash, and new life grows in their ashes.

In February 1990, Elizabeth found out she was expecting a child. Marcus and she were so excited to finally be having their family. Elizabeth had found out last November her Parents never returned from a flight. She had a thought that the Dragon Race was in danger, but with this pregnancy worry went out the window. They had created a new life another
Full-blood.

In March they got a letter from the Ireland Sect, they too were expecting. This made everything so much better in Elizabeth’s eyes
. This meant that if she had the opposite sex of the Ireland King and Queen, that their children would be soul mates. This is what she knew about soul mates of the Pearl Dragon, since after all she is a Pearl herself. With the Pearl Dragon, usually a male is born and then his soul mate is born within five years of him. Sometimes sooner but never later and the female were never born first.

The King and Queen of the Ireland Sect, Makayla and Ethan, stated they were about
five months along and they were just putting word out that a Male was to be expected, they had a King being born. Elizabeth sent word that she too was expecting and as soon as she found out the sex of her baby she would write back.

Several months went by and Makayla kept up the letters
, seems she needed a friend to share in the joy of her pregnancy as well. Elizabeth loved that she had someone to talk to about her pregnancy and they could compare their notes. In July Elizabeth found out she was carrying a girl.

Elizabeth
knew then that she carried the Queen to the Ireland Sect. She was elated. As soon as she got home she called Makayla and had to tell her instead of waiting for a letter. They talked for several hours and got to know each other a little more. They shared their family histories and talked about how their children would be in the future.

The calls and letters got fewer and fewer as the month
s went on. Dragons usually had very easy pregnancies but they could not shift with child. This was the painful part for Elizabeth she loved her Dragon form and wanted so badly to fly. Marcus hated to leave her alone so he endured the pain, also not shifting into his Dragon. Elizabeth was due November 6th so she still had a couple months to endure the pain.

In September
, during a rare storm, Marcus knew to expect some calls in the morning or late into the night. However, those calls never came. Not one of his five members checked in. All five couples were missing or in trouble. Marcus and Elizabeth decided to hop in the car and visit each and every one just to make sure everything was ok.

When they got to the first house he couldn’t sense any other Dragon
. They decided to check the forest anyway and they found two large ash piles with flowers about two hundred yards apart. When they got to the other houses some had ash nearby the others had nothing, not a thing, no ash and no sense of them. Marcus and Elizabeth became paranoid then. Something or someone is out there killing them off. They are the last of the America Sect, The last two Dragons in America.

This frightened Elizabeth to her very core. This baby was everything to
them. Elizabeth thought maybe they could leave the country, go to the Ireland Sect. They had the money to just leave. They didn’t have anything in America anymore. It was at that moment that she remembered, in her last letter to Makayla, they had made plans to meet in fifteen years right here in California.

They both made an agreement,
they needed to raise the children separate, teach them their history on their own. She had to stick by that agreement. They couldn’t just go to another King and Queens Territory. She had to stay where they were, she could not risk the baby. This was their Territory. They needed to rebuild the race, track down the half-bloods and turn them, then go into seclusion like their ancestors had in the past.

Marcus and Elizabeth packed up their small house and moved up north to the mountain city of Paradise. The
y found a cute little house away from people, they felt safe in the mountain. Marcus got a chance to fly a couple times in the low clouds and fog of the mountain. They finally felt safe once October hit. Their daughter would be here soon and they needed to get the other bedroom prepared for her.

They had picked out the name already and she was going to be their Zoe
Mechelle. They decorated her room in pastel purple and pearl colors. Her crib was done in Ivory and lace, the walls a soft purple and lots of stuffed animals. Elizabeth loved going to town to the little baby boutique and picking out little girl outfits. She couldn’t wait to hold her daughter and tell her how much she loved her.

November 1st came and went, it had been a while since Marcus had flown
, and he knew Elizabeth could go into labor anytime. He never wanted to leave her side. On the 3
rd
, Marcus’s head pain was so intense that all his muscles were quivering. His Dragon wanted the release. His Dragon also knew it was time to celebrate the birth soon and wanted to soar high. Elizabeth noticed his pain and his muscles bunch and flex and shake violently. She told him she felt fine and didn’t feel like she was going to have Zoe today, she told him to go take advantage of the early snow fall and the clouds. She wished she could join him too but she did not.

She decided to go lie down and take a nap while he was out. It was around 5pm and she told him to be home around
9 that she wanted to cook him a late dinner. Elizabeth woke up suddenly at 8pm. She thought she heard Marcus call to her. She ran outside and could sense him about a mile away. Running did not bother her being pregnant. She was still incredibly fast with the large belly. She grabbed a coat and her boots and took off in his direction, sensing he was in trouble.

When she was near him she sensed something else, someone else, many people in fact with large trucks. She heard Marcus roar
, then nothing, silence, but for the yelling of the men. Then she heard the chains, the chains being pulled and scraping into the back of the largest truck that was there in the field. She panicked and hid, stayed as quiet as possible. Elizabeth could sense Marcus, he was hurt and unconscious. As soon as the men closed the doors on the large truck all sense of Marcus was gone.

Elizabeth took off running, tears
streaming down her face blinding her as she ran. She was in complete panic mode. She boarded up the windows and doors cried until there were no more tears to come. She felt lost, Zoe would be here any day and her Dragon would call, would want to fly, celebrate the life of Zoe the newest Queen. That scared her most of all, the flight after Zoe is born, there was a possibility she would not come back. That thought got Elizabeth moving preparing a life for her baby if she was taken or killed. Elizabeth called a lawyer, made a trust fund, and made all the arrangements in case she disappeared. Once the baby was born, if Elizabeth disappeared, this lawyer was to contact Makayla, have Zoe sent to Ireland.

Elizabeth spent
two days writing up the story of Marcus and her. She collected all the journals of her parent’s history, of her ancestors, and grabbed Marcus’s family heritage journals. She also wrote in her private journal when she could. She wrote of the capture and what she sensed and saw. She spent time in town looking for a nice family. There was on that caught her eye. They lived in town, had a little boy and a little girl, they looked like a happy little family. She thought she could leave Zoe in their care when she had to take to the skies.

Zoe arrived at 8:30 on November 7th 1990. Her birth certificate was made and a copy faxed to the lawyer. Zoe was a beautiful baby with her mother’s hair and her Father’s deep blue eyes with pearl flecks. She had ivory skin and rosy cheeks; she was a very healthy baby. Elizabeth was released the next day
, as she had no complications with the birth, just a deep worry about what was to come. She knew once she shifted that there was a strong chance she wasn’t coming back. She just had a deep feeling she was going to be hunted too.

She got to hold Zoe for
four days before the pain took over. She wrote up a note, packed up the diaper bag, and picked up her baby. Her tears blinded her as they flowed, she could barely see as she kissed Zoe. She walked her down to the house she knew the family lived in. She put a large amount of money into the diaper bag, the note and the birth certificate, she also made sure to include the Lawyers contact information, in case Elizabeth did not come back. She set her on the doorstep and kissed Zoe’s cheek. Zoe was asleep and looked at peace. Elizabeth ran, her heart was breaking and the pain was unbearable, tears streamed down her face as she cursed herself, she hated her Dragon at that moment.

She ran to the clearing that she and Marcus
had picked out for this “celebration” flight. She shifted right there with a loud roar and took off into the sky. She felt the pull of the men as soon as she came around the bend. She heard the shots before she could flip around and turn back the way she came. They hit her solid in her wing and her left leg, she went down hard. She lost consciousness once she hit land. She woke up to the men packing her wounds with gauze and strapping chains to her feet.

Elizabeth vowed that she
was NOT going to be taken. These men will have to kill her right here or let her go. She knew her wounds were bad, but they were not life threatening, if she could just get to the trees, she could shift and out run them. But in these chains she could not turn. She thought of Marcus then, how he was unconscious when they took him. Oh Marcus where was he? Then she thought of Zoe, she had to get back to Zoe. Elizabeth picked her head up. She saw that the men were not looking at her head. They were concentrating on the wounds on her legs. She thrashed and growled pulling free of two of the chains. That’s when she noticed the man outside the truck with a very large gun, and his eyes.