“DOWN!” Nadine wrapped both arms around Logan and I, yanking us to the ground just as a sonic boom blasted every piece of glass in the room, shattering it to bits. Nadine was surprisingly strong, and I fell to the ground hard, sending a shooting pain up my elbow. I grabbed my ears, sure that they were bleeding. Shaking my head, I tried to clear the ringing that now whined there. Nadine’s clothes tore; the faint sound of cracking bones filled the room, and she changed into her wolf form. I looked up, slightly dazed, to see Logan crouched before me, fighting his own change. Black scales were crawling down his face, his neck, his leftarm.
Whoa.
The entire outer wall of the entertainment room had been blown out and a troop of hunters now stood behind a man with a bald head and red tattoos—the same man from my dragon sleep-induced dream.How was thatpossible?
“Druid,” Logan spat as the pack assembled before him. Four had shifted to their animal form while the other two stayed human. The humans, Gear and Cooper, were pulling crazy weapons out from behind their backs and from inside of their boots. Cooper had what looked like some small throwing knives in his hands, the tips glowing a fiery yellow, while Gear was holding a sleek black gun in eachhand.
I went to move and Logan’s tattooed hand reached backward suddenly, grasping my right ankletightly.
“Hey! Owww!” I told him, as I instinctively tried to jerk back, but his strong hand pinned me and a green light poured from his palm, crawling up my leg and wrapping around my pelvis. It moved up around my entire upper body until I was encased in a bubble of greenish-blue light. It tickled my skin, encompassing all of me in a magical haze. I was both fascinated and terrified. I tried to move but was cemented to the spot. Logan let go and I realized he had once again cagedme.
“Logan!” I tried to scream, pushing against the green light. My dragon scales were already pouring across my skin but I couldn’t move. I just sat there helplessly on the ground as the hunters advanced with weapons drawn. I tried one final time to stand, but the heavy green magic blanketing my body pushed against my efforts and kept me frozen in place. What the hell had he done tome?
Logan ripped off his shirt quickly and stood, pants and underwear dropping to the floor, which left him completely and gloriously naked, with his back to me.Don’t look, I told myself, but I couldn’t look away and my eyes landed right on his impressively tonedglutes.
Good Lord,he must do squats in hissleep.
Black scales began to pop up on his feet, working their way up his calf and then along his shoulder blades, meeting at his lower back. His muscles changed, bulking out, as the pack leapt out onto the snowy forest floor, pushing the hunters back and away from the house. The druid had his hands sunk deep into the earth; his eyes glowed red, and a crimson mist of what I assumed was magic poured off ofhim.
Logan moved towards the outside, his figure hulking larger and larger with each step. When he was fully transformed, all I could do was gawk at the massive size of his dragon. I could see now why the alpha had called me small. Logan was a menacing twenty feet tall. The tip of his black tail had serrated spikes on it, and he lashed out at the hunters with it, sending them flying to the ground with every stroke—the various pack members pounced on their bodies and ripped their throats out. It seemed blood loss was the best way to killthem.
The druid was encased in his red glowing magic, and I thought there was no way in hell he stood a chance against Logan and his huge dragon. Until the druid started working the red magic with his hands, shaping it into a ball.Okay, that didn’t look so good. He pulled his arm back, and with one quick movement threw the magic fireball straight at Logan’s chest. The black dragon was otherwise engaged and didn’t see it coming. I tried to cry out, but it was too late. The ball of red energy slammed into Logan’s back and knocked him forward a few feet. He opened his dragon snout and roared in fury; the walls of the house shook with thesound.
I felt the tingling along my arms and heard the crisp popping as my red pearl scales came to the surface fully. My dragon could be caged no longer. But one of the hunters had slipped out of the protective line of wolves and was heading right for me. He had an arrow nocked in his bow, the tip glowing bright red. Why had Logan stuck me here in this green blob? I was about to become skewered dragonmeat!
My dragon finished the last of her transformation, and although I couldn’t stand, still pinned to the ground, the green magical cage Logan had stuck me in had grown to accommodate my new dragon size. Cool party trick, but I was stillpissed.
The hunter loosed the arrow. I raised my left dragon arm to try and intercept it, bracing myself for the pain. But as the arrow crashed against the green light dome, it shattered to pieces, leaving me unharmed.Whoa.I looked up to see that Logan was breathing fire onto the druid, but when he stopped to take a breath, the druid was hovering in a protective red magic dome similar to mine, unharmed. I pushed against my green cage and reminded myself to have a talk with Logan later about his obsession with cagingme.
Kinkybastard.
A wolf howl rose up in warning and I saw that Keegan was protecting Logan’s back, but one of the hunters had broken free and was about to shoot a crossbow bolt into Logan’s side. I knew how bad those damn thingshurt.
“Logan, behind you!” I screamed, but it just came out as a dragon’sroar.
Logan spun towards the threat, giving the druid his back, and doused the hunter in fire before he could loose the arrow. The hunter screamed in agony as the auburn flames engulfed his body. I could see the druid just beyond Logan; he had taken the opening to break free from his red dome. He was running in stealth mode right at me, slipping between the two fights going on. As he ran, he was building up a red energy ball in his hands.Shit.My stomach clenched in fear. Something told me this green cage wouldn’t hold against that dark magic or whatever it was. My dragon kicked against the green cage as that warmth uncoiled in my belly. The cage shook but heldstrong.
The druid reached me in three quick strides across the room, and cold hard fear trickled down my dragon’s back. He wore clothes from another time: suede breeches, with pelts of animal fur sewn on the shoulders of his leather jacket. Something told me this wasn’t a “weak” druid like the one who had attacked earlier. As he came closer, I realized those pelts were wolf, and bile churned in mybelly.
Holding the red fire ball in his hands, he sniffed the air. “Interesting,” hesaid.
As he raised his arm to throw the fire ball, Nadine’s wolf—I recognized her by her markings—launched herself at his outstretched arm. Her teeth clamped down hard and the druid groaned in pain, the red ball of energy in his hands weakening with his discomfort. Shaking his arm hard, he yanked Nadine loose and then wrapped his hands around her wolf’s neck and squeezed. Red magic seeped from his hands and saturated her collarbone, before he tossed her across the room, slamming her into the wall. I heard the hard snapping of bone before she sank unconscious to thefloor.
I roared again, hoping to get someone from the pack’s attention and let them know Nadine was hurt, but it was no use. The druid had turned and had set his sights on me. With no time to waste, he threw the ball right at me, and I was helpless to do anything but sit there and brace for theimpact.
The red ball slammed into my green shield, dissipating it with ease, shattering the magic that protected me. Now, fully free, I stood quickly to my dragon’s full height. I wasn’t as big as Logan but I still towered over the druid as he began to chant something. The earth beneath me shook a little. My head was skimming the ceiling as I felt for that heat inside of mybelly.
“Dragon’s power, dragon’s might, magic be mine on this night…” the druid chanted in an ominous tone that rose the hairs on my arms. A glint of metal drew my eye to the weapon in his hands. It was similar to the blade from before. The hunter I had burned to ash was holding one; it must be same ceremoniousartifact.
The heat in my belly was overwhelming, and when the druid flung his arm out at me, ready to cut me with that knife, I opened my mouth and roared. Fire coated my throat, ripping out of me in one long stream, covering the druid. I didn’t let up. I pushed all of me at the druid, knowing that when I stopped to take a breath, I would have no more fight left in me. I wasn’t trained, I didn’t even know how a dragon could fight. I was uncomfortable in this body; it was wonky and unstable, like all of those T-rex jokes on the internet—I had no idea how to use my arms. Once I felt like I would pass out from the heat and being out of breath, I stopped the fire. The druid was covered in black soot, sweat rolling down his face, but he was unharmed, as if his skin had a protective coating.Shit.Nadine’s words about the other hunters we encountered being tied to a weak druid came back to me. She had said we’d gotten lucky. Now I knewwhy.
The druid raised his knife to come at me again when a streak of black flashed behind him. Logan tore across the lawn and into the room, his head smashing into the ceiling, ripping into the top floor. The commotion caused the druid to turn around, but it was too late. Logan’s open jaws came right down upon the druid’s head. I flinched as Logan’s jaws clamped shut, and nearly gagged at the sound they made when piercing the druid’s flesh. In one swift move, Logan yanked upward, pulling the druid’s head cleanoff.
The shock of seeing such a gruesome death had me stumbling backwards, away from the scene. My dragon was panting, trying to regain some of the strength I had lost when I’d breathed all that fire, and I was trying not to throw up at the sight of so much blood. Suddenly, over the druid’s dead body, a green concentrated mist began to rise up. I looked up and locked eyes with Logan, instinctively knowing this was dragon magic. This druid had stolen dragon magic long ago and it was now rising up upon his death, as if it knew it didn’t belong with the evil man. Logan stepped forward into the green mist, breathing it into his nostrils and lungs, his eyes momentarily glowing green. The entire time, they were locked onme.
My body felt frozen as I took the time to examine his dragon fully. His belly had a silver pearl color that faded up to the inky black at his chest. His wings were tough and leathery, and outstretched must have spanned forty feet, but it was his eyes that had me pinned to the spot. Those emerald green eyes were captivating; they glowed in a magical way that had me unable to look anywhere else. There was an unfurling in my chest as I stared into those eyes, and my dragon stepped closer to him. She was vibrating my chest as if trying to tell mesomething.
“We’ve got two injured!” Keegan’s gruff voice called from behind Logan, and it snapped me out of my stupor. I looked at the place where Nadine had fallen and saw she was sitting up in her human form, but she looked pale; an angry purplish green bruise dotted her collarbone down to her elbow. Logan turned to Keegan suddenly and lowered his dragon head. Keegan reached in his pocket and pulled out what looked like …tweezers.
