by Riley Storm
Trapped by the Dragon
Storm Dragons (Book Two)
A Winterspell Academy Novel
Riley Storm
Trapped by the Dragon
Copyright© 2020 Riley Storm
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic means, without written permission from the author. The sole exception is for the use of brief quotations in a book review. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real.
All sexual activities depicted occur between consenting characters 18 years or older who are not blood-related.
Edited by Annie Jenkinson, Just Copyeditors
Cover Designs by Kasmit Covers
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter One
Rane
He waited with his back to the wall, heart pounding in his chest.
Easy does it, Rane. Easy does it now. Can’t make any noise. Not now.
Slowly taking in a deep breath, he held it, letting his lungs scream in protest as he edged closer to the corner. At this point, any sound could give him away. He had to be deathly silent.
Licking his lips, ignoring the scrape of stubble in desperate need of a shave, he nodded his head in time with the mental count.
One.
Two.
Three!
As the count hit the end, he leapt around the corner of the hallway, one hand in front of him outstretched, wind swirling violently in a protective shield, while his left hand stayed tucked in closer, lightning flickering between his fingers.
The hallway stretched out in front of him, grayish-tan stones forming the floor and walls, including the softly-arched ceilings. It was drab, utilitarian, and the walls were mostly undecorated.
It was also completely and totally empty.
Rane sighed, relaxing his guard, dismissing his powers as he stood up straight, trying to prevent his shoulders from bowing in dejection. Taking it in stride, he continued to walk his designated route throughout the hallways.
Just because you haven’t found them yet, doesn’t mean they aren’t there.
Grimacing, he reached out, dragging his fingers along the wall, feeling the stone. Winterspell Academy. Home to witches, and now the last remnants of the Dragons of Dracia, as his people had come to be known among the human population. They were living together.
Co-existing would be a bit of a stretch, but it had barely been two weeks at this point since they had arrived inside the stone walls of the magic school. It would take time for things to settle down. For trust to be earned.
Trust.
On both sides. Rane continued his walk through the hallways of the dragon quarter, the three levels of the building that had been turned over to his people where they could reside in peace—and begin to plan how they would rebuild their people now that their world was no more.
Yes, trust is something in short supply, he thought to himself as he patrolled.
Three nights ago, Rane had been awoken by the sound of something in the hallway outside his room. Like most of his kind, he was a light sleeper now, ready to go at a moment’s notice. The war had taught them that it was a necessity if they wanted to survive.
By the time he had scrambled from his room, however, the hallway outside was empty, and despite searching, he’d found no one. Still, he could smell the presence of a human. Someone was trying to spy on them, and he’d taken it upon himself to capture them, to find out why.
It wasn’t like the dragons had anything to hide either, which lent the intruder a more menacing air in his mind. There was no need to sneak in unless the intruder was up to no good.
Yet, after two nights of complete silence and total loss of sleep on his part, Rane was beginning to wonder if he’d been imagining things, like Rokh had said. The fire dragon had nearly scoffed Rane out of the room when he’d reported the intruder the first night. The leader of the dragons had lots on his plate and worrying about a witch spy was not something he was willing to entertain, as much as he wasn’t fully trusting of them either.
So now here he was, on his own, wondering if there would ever be a chance to prove to the others that he wasn’t useless. That he could help his people out.
Bitterness enveloped Rane as he walked, despite his best efforts to dispel it.
You can do this. Catch the spy, and they’ll give you something else to do. They’ll trust you.
It sounded simple, but without any sign whatsoever that the witches were trying to spy on them, it was also proving to be impossible. Rane was stuck doing nothing. Again. Just like he had during the war, deemed too young to be of sufficient help on the frontlines, he’d been relegated to guard duty.
I’ll show them. I’ll show them all.
A hallway crossed his ahead and Rane slowed, but despite his inner thoughts, he lazily poked his head around the corner, looking left then right, before continuing on. Rolling his eyes at his own ridiculousness, he inhaled deeply, ready to sigh away his frustrations.
As he strode through the intersection, the air rushed through his nose and Rane came to an immediate halt, stopping so quickly he may as well have walked into a wall. Not that the storm dragon noticed.
His nose twitched. Nostrils flaring, he called upon his dragon, waking the scaly other side of him, drawing upon its superior senses.
There it was again! No doubt about it this time. Someone else’s scent was in the air, crossing his path and heading down the right-hand hallway.
Someone had passed through there shortly ago. Not just anyone though. A female.
The war had taken a devastating toll on the female dragon population, and dreadfully few had made it through the portal to Earth.
And none of them have made it to Winterspell yet.
Which meant that whoever it was, they were human. A spy.
Rane smiled grimly, unhappy to be proven right, yet determined to catch the intruder and prove to Rokh he’d been right all along. Air swirled under his feet and he floated along the hallway after his quarry, making no more sound than a mouse.
Storm dragons were very adept at sneaking if they chose to be, able to muffle sounds and move without walking on the ground. Now Rane put that all to good use as he pursued th
e witch spy.
The scent led back toward the cluster of rooms he shared with the other two storm dragons, Damien and Altair. Both were asleep and would be of no help, but it didn’t matter. Rane was going to take the witch down on his own. He doubted they even realized he was awake and in pursuit.
The corridor curved to the left ahead, before ending in a T-intersection. Damien’s room was right at the end of his corridor, forming the fourth side. Rane’s room was down the hallway to the left, with Altair on the right, toward the stairs and the exit.
Floating along on his cushion of air, Rane listened for any sound he could pick up that would let him know where the intruder had gone.
He heard something scraping, like metal on metal. Very faint, he nearly missed it, but when it sounded again he knew he’d caught up with his quarry. None of the dragons would be sneaking around; they had no need for that.
His senses told him that the sound was coming from the left. From his room. Angered by the fact that not only was someone trying to break in, but they were attempting to get into his room, Rane sped ahead.
“You’re mine now,” he whispered with a growl, turning the corner and preparing to trap the witch.
But the corridor was empty.
“What the hell?” he said, frowning in confusion.
A surprised hiss came from right in front of him as he spoke. Rane frowned and sent a gust of wind down the hallway, but there was no disruption in it. Nobody was there, invisible or not.
Slowly, he turned to look over his shoulder.
Just in time to see a brown-hooded witch raise her wand and say something. The voice emerged from thin air behind him, and Rane understood what had happened at the same instant a blast of gray energy swept over him.
If he’d been standing on the ground, it would have tossed him down the hallway, doing little real damage. But he was on his cloud of air, and so Rane easily absorbed the energy, floating back a few feet before darting ahead.
No longer would he be confused by the misdirection spell the witch had cast. He’d not known they could do such a thing, but it seemed like a simple spell in hindsight.
“Stop!” he called sharply as the witch took off. “Don’t make me come after you!”
He picked up speed rapidly, closing on the witch as she fled down the hallway, footsteps now coming from where they should in front of him as her spell was broken.
“You can’t escape!” he shouted as he floated closer, her brown hood and robes nearly within his grasp. He hadn’t gotten a look at the woman’s face yet, and he wanted to, just in case she pulled some sort of trickery.
His fingers grasped her robe as she reached the end of the hallway. Rane expected the witch to slow to turn left or right, which was where he would grab her. He yanked hard on the robe in expectation of this.
The witch stumbled, then flung herself forward, spinning in mid-air from the force of his tug. Rane caught a glimpse of green eyes deep within the hood, and then they were gone as the witch dove through the wall.
Knowing it was some sort of magic, Rane dove after her, determined not to let the witch escape. He emerged on the other side of the wall, high above the courtyard.
This time, his floating cushion of air worked against him. While it kept him easily floating in air, the witch had plummeted downward, gravity working in her favor. He saw her come to a halt on the stone courtyard with practiced ease and then race around a corner. Rane followed, but she was gone, as he expected.
“Fuck.”
Feeling like even more of a failure, he returned to the dragon quarters the hard way, via walking. When he got there, he found that the pursuit had alerted several of the others, including Rokh.
“What is going on, Rane?” the irritated fire dragon demanded. “I wake up to you shouting at someone. What is going on?”
“Another witch,” he said. “They were trying to break into Altair’s room. I found them and chased them. I told them to stop, but they didn’t listen.”
Rokh bit his lip, then followed Rane over to the door to Altair’s quarters. He tried the handle. It was locked. The head of the dragons lifted his eyebrows in doubt.
“You’re sure about this?”
Rane rolled his eyes. “I don’t have any reason to lie,” he snarled, angry that Rokh wasn’t believing him. “They were here, trying to break in!”
“Do you have any proof of this?” Rokh demanded, waving his hands at the others, including a pair of dragon young who were watching, sending them back to their rooms.
“No,” Rane admitted after a moment. “She got away.”
“We can’t be doing this, Rane,” the fire dragon said quietly. “The witches took us in, offered us sanctuary. We can’t be accusing them of spying on us.”
“But they were!” he protested.
“You need to have proof,” Rokh said gently. “Otherwise, I can’t do anything.”
Rane looked away unhappily, knowing that Rokh was right. The witches were their hosts; they couldn’t just go accusing them of these sorts of things without any proof.
“Why were you up late anyway?” Rokh asked.
“Trying to catch them,” he admitted.
The fire dragon rubbed his face. “Get some sleep, Rane. We have other things we should be focusing on.”
Rane snorted. “Like what, Rokh? I don’t have anything else to do. You don’t trust me enough to do any of it.”
He bit his lip, ashamed at speaking that way to the eldest dragon, their leader. It wasn’t their way of discussing things like this.
Rokh didn’t berate him, however. Instead, he just looked at Rane thoughtfully.
“You want some responsibility?” he asked rhetorically. “Fine. Then you can have some. Let’s see how you handle it.”
“I’ll get it done,” he said, hoping that meant Rokh was going to assign him something important.
“We’re going to throw a party,” Rokh said.
“A party?”
“Yes. As a thank you for what they’ve done. You plan it. Pull it off.”
Rane sagged. “Plan a party. For the witches. That’s what you want me to do?”
The big fire dragon reached out and patted him on the shoulder. “It’s a good start, Rane. Don’t knock it. Get it done, prove you can handle responsibility, and we’ll go from there.”
Stiffening his spine, Rane nodded. “Of course. I’ll handle it,” he said, deciding to take the assignment seriously. “You can count on me.”
“Of course,” Rokh said. “Now, I’m going back to bed. I suggest you do the same.”
“Yeah, I will,” he said, wondering if he’d be able to get any sleep.
“Oh, and Rane? One more thing,” Rokh said as he walked down the hallway to his quarters.
“Yes?”
“It has to be a surprise. The witches can’t know about it.” Rokh smiled over his shoulder. “No pressure.”
Rane nodded slowly, still staring down the hallway after Rokh was gone.
“Yeah, no pressure at all. Just throw a huge party for the witches. At Winterspell. Where everything is run by…witches. Without letting the witches know. Easy. Totally easy,” he said to the empty corridor.
You wanted responsibility.
Now he had it.
Chapter Two
Natasha
“I can’t believe they’re letting dragons go on the patrols now.”
Natasha nodded. “Right? Seems rather trusting if you ask me.”
“Just my luck I had to be assigned to the first one,” Sara muttered bitterly as the pair walked side by side toward the main courtyard.
Natasha looked at her friend, noting the unrestrained contempt her friend had for the dragon shifters. Although she generally found the presence of the dragons irritating and disruptive, her hatred wasn’t as strong. Not that she blamed Sara though. After all, it was her friend going on the patrol, not her.
“I guess,” she said. “But I’d rather be on patrol than stuck here.”
“Want my spot?” Sara joked, though they both knew the other woman wasn’t giving it up, dragon or no dragon. Everyone wanted a chance of some action.
“Maybe having a dragon means that the Coven knows there’s something out there.”
Sara rolled her eyes. “The only thing out there is more dragons to find. The Abyss has been abnormally quiet lately.”
“I guess,” Natasha agreed, knowing the netherworld could spit out a host of creatures at any time. It was why the witches patrolled the mountains in the first place, sending the foul werewolves, vampires, demons and more back where they came from before they could reach humanity.
The two watched in silence as the dragon on site shifted into his lizard form, the scaled beast dwarfing the human witches.
“Well, that’s just fun,” Sara said, covering her mouth with her arm to stifle a yawn.
“You going to be able to stay awake over there?” Natasha joked. “You’ve been yawning non-stop all morning.”
Sara shrugged. “Slept like crap last night, you know how it is. Too much excitement to be getting out of here for a bit.”
“Yeah. Fair.”
“What the hell is this all about?” Sara sneered as another of the dragon shifters ran up through the group of women getting ready to depart, commandeering the ear of the dragon.
The two watched as the air blurred around the pair, one of the dragons using their powers to distort the sound of their voices.
“Talking in secret?” Sara said, scowling in the direction of the shifters. “I don’t like that.”
Natasha was busy watching the newcomer. She hadn’t bothered to learn any of their names, but she had seen his face around before. The scruff on his cheeks was growing longer than she recalled him having kept it before, but it just helped emphasize his strong rounded jaw in her opinion.
His eyes flashed blue-green in the early morning light as he glanced at her for a moment before returning his attention to the dragon headed on patrol. She admired the way his shoulders filled out the sleeves of his shirt. Very muscular, like all the shifters.
“Yeah, tell me about it.”
“You should go tell Master Loiner about this,” Sara said. “She’ll want to know that they’re talking about something and don’t want us to overhear it. If something goes wrong on this patrol, it will be because of this, mark my words.”
