The Commander and the Dragon (Redwood Dragons Book 3)

by Sloane Meyers

  He held out his hand for her to shake, and, for a moment, she just stared at it. She looked back and forth between his hand and his eyes, and he thought she was going to refuse his peace offering. But then, her eyes changed, and she nodded. Slowly, she raised her hand to meet his. Their palms clasped together, and he shook her hand firmly. Their eyes met, and in that moment, there was a rush of heat and electricity between both their hands and their eyes. Zeke was overcome with an urge to kiss her, but he resisted. He did not want her to think that he’d had ulterior motives when he apologized.

  Yet as he started to pull his hand away, she gripped it tighter. Then, almost before Zeke could realize what was happening, she was leaning over the desk that separated them, and her lips were on his lips.

  A fire like Zeke had never known rushed through his body. He pulled his hand away from Mac’s grip and then reached to climb over the desk, scattering her papers as he did. She only laughed, her eyes dancing as he pushed her up against that ridiculous hot pink wall of hers and kissed her deeply. He slipped his tongue past hers and drank in the taste of her. His skin tingled as she ran her hands across his back and pressed her hips against his. Every fiber in his being was filled with a desperate need for more of her, and from the soft moans that were escaping her lips, it seemed she felt the same.

  They kissed like this for several minutes, and despite the warning bells going off in Zeke’s mind that this was a bad idea, and that he needed to focus on the war and not on kissing Mac, he could not pull away. She was like a drug that had instantly hooked him, and he only wanted more.

  When she finally pulled away to catch her breath, they were both flushed and panting. She looked up at him and grinned, a mischievous expression crossing her face.

  “I thought you said we couldn’t afford to waste a single second on fun,” she said, crossing her arms dramatically.

  Zeke laughed. “Well, you told me that wizard-shifter relations need to improve. I was only doing my part.”

  Mac threw back her head and laughed, and the sound of it filled Zeke with a fresh wave of warmth.

  “Come here, you,” he said, then reached to pull her closer. But before he could find her lips again, the lights in the office suddenly went out, and the loudest siren Zeke had ever heard was blaring through the late afternoon air.

  “Is that…” he started to ask.

  “It’s a warning siren that our invisibility shield has been breached!” Mac shouted. In the dusky light of her office, Zeke saw her running to grab her broomstick. She glanced back at Zeke, her eyes filled with an expression of dread, and he knew his own eyes must be mirroring back that same dread. The army wasn’t ready. The wizards hadn’t received additional training yet. There had been no new recruits who could help fight. But it didn’t matter. The enemy was here now, and they had no choice but to fight back the best they could.

  “The war has begun,” Mac said grimly. She pointed her magic ring at her window and shouted, “Magicae aperio.” The window slid open, and then, with a look of grim determination, Mac mounted her broom and flew out into the sky above Falcon Cross.

  Zeke jumped up onto the windowsill and let out a roar, then shifted into a dragon. His human form gave way to his giant dragon body, which he knew would not fit inside the frame of the window. He jumped before he had fully finished shifting, freefalling for several seconds before his wings finished appearing so that he could flap them and make his way high into the sky to join Mac and the gathering wizard army.

  The fight for Falcon Cross had begun.

  Chapter Seven

  Mac spun in a giant circle on her broom, trying to assess the situation. She scanned the growing group of wizard soldiers, hoping to see one of her scouts who could tell her what was going on. Despite the fact that the Falcon Cross army had performed innumerable drills on what to do if the invisibility shield was breached, all of the wizard soldiers Mac saw looked panicked and most were not properly in formation. She had to get this under control, and fast.

  She rose high into the air, so that she was flying above everyone else, gritted her teeth and said, “Magicae amplificare.” The amplifying spell would allow her voice to carry throughout the whole village of Falcon Cross, which would hopefully allow her to bring some order to this chaos.

  “Wizards! Into formation,” Mac yelled. “Remember your training, and prepare to defend our home!”

  Her voice seemed to bring a bit of calm to the wizards, and they all began moving to their designated spots, forming ranks and preparing to fight whatever enemy was coming their way. But what enemy was that? Mac looked all around and could not see any unfamiliar faces. Her wizard army was there, of course. There were soldiers in the air on their brooms and also on the ground, finally in formation and ready now to take on whatever was about to be thrown at them. And the dragons were here—Mac could see all four of them up in the air, circling high above even her. Their mighty wings beat at the open sky and an occasional blast of fire streamed from one of their mouths as they swung their heads back and forth, no doubt searching for the enemy as well. But everything was quiet. Even the sirens had faded now. Had it been a false alarm?

  And then, finally, Mac saw one of her generals streaking through the air toward her. It was Raven, and Mac hoped that she had some news on why the alarms had gone off when there did not appear to be any enemies nearby.

  “Amplificare terminantur,” Mac said, ending the amplifying spell on her voice so that she could talk to Raven without the entire village hearing her.

  Raven came screeching to a halt right in front of Mac, breathless, sweaty, and flushed.

  “What’s going on, Raven?” Mac asked, concern filling her voice. Raven looked worried, and Mac immediately lost any hope she’d had that this was a false alarm.

  “There are thousands of them,” Raven said. “And they’ve got us surrounded. I don’t know how they did it, but they seemed to have figured out where we are. They penetrated the invisibility spell, which set off the alarms. But they only partially penetrated it. They can see us now, so they know for sure that they’ve found us. But the protective shield tied to the invisibility spells is still holding strong. They haven’t managed to penetrate it yet, but any moment now they will.”

  Mac’s heart started beating faster. “They must have wizards with them, then?” she asked.

  Raven nodded. “Yes. They have hundreds of wizards, all of whom are doing their best right now to cast counterspells on the protective spells. They also have hundreds of humans and hundreds of shifters. It’s a large army, probably twice the size of ours.”

  Mac considered this information. “The humans should be easy enough to get rid of. Their defenses won’t be very useful against our spells or the dragons’ fire. But the wizards and the shifters will be more difficult, especially since we’re outnumbered.”

  Raven nodded, her eyes looking worried. “All we can do is the best we can do,” she said. “We’ve trained well, but we’ve never had to deal with an actual attack. I’m worried about how well the soldiers will perform under pressure. And—”

  Raven never got to finish her sentence. In the next instant, a loud, deafening roar sounded off as the protective shield around Falcon Cross was penetrated. Suddenly, hundreds and hundreds of enemy soldiers were pouring into the city. Mac watched in horror as she saw them beginning to brutally attack the wizards on the Falcon Cross front line. Mac took in the situation, trying to assess how powerful the enemy wizards were and what kind of shifters they were up against. As expected, the enemy humans were falling like flies. But the enemy wizards and enemy shifters were putting up an incredible fight.

  Mac scanned over the enemy lines. The wizards seemed about equally matched with her own army in skill, which was bad news since they outnumbered her wizards. They were gaining ground by sheer strength of numbers right now. The enemy shifters were moving forward against her wizards, too. There were some impressive beasts—grizzlies, lions, tigers, wolves, and mountain lions. But as
Mac flew in a circle high above the battle, she noticed the one thing that would actually give them a chance to win: there were no shifters that could fly. Not only that, but the enemy wizards did not appear to be able to fly, either. Mac didn’t see any brooms, and all of them seemed to be keeping firmly to the ground despite the fact that half of the Falcon Cross army was hovering above them in the air, waiting for the enemy to rise into the air so that they could engage them in battle.

  “Magicae amplificare,” Mac said, once more amplifying her voice so that she could speak to her crew. Once the spell was effective, she yelled out, “Aerial attack, Formation B!”

  This was a planned scheme of attack that was to be used in the event that an enemy unable to fly attacked Falcon Cross. Mac had never expected that the great army coming at them would not have anyone in it able to fly, but she was not going to complain about this stroke of luck. She watched as her somewhat dazed troops sprang into action. They formed into predetermined groups and then fanned out, flying in rapid, zig-zagging patterns above the attacking enemy. The Falcon Cross soldiers in the air began pointing their magic rings downward, yelling out defensive spell after defensive spell. Enemy wizards and enemy shifters began to fall. The enemy did its best to aim spells up at the attacking Falcon Cross wizards, but the Falcon Cross soldiers were expert flyers, and their rapid zigzag movements made it difficult for the enemy to hit them.

  And, of course, there were the dragons. As soon as the dragon shifters realized what was happening, they flew down to join in the aerial attack as well. They flew in large circles over the enemy shifters, breathing out huge streaks of fire and burning to a crisp dozens of shifters with each pass. Wisely, the dragons did their best to stay away from the enemy wizards. Dragons were large beasts, and so a spell had to be extremely strong to affect them. But that didn’t mean they were immune to the spells the attackers were throwing out, and they did their best to avoid them and focus on taking out the enemy shifters. At this point, there did not appear to be any more enemy humans. They were all either dead or they had fled in terror. Slowly, but surely, the enemies forces were diminishing, and Mac felt her heart filling with hope.

  “Amplificare terminantur,” Mac said, once again ending the amplifying spell on her voice. She flew high above the fray, her sharp eye keeping a lookout for weak spots or breaks in the ranks of either side. At one point, she saw that a group of lion shifters had managed to completely break through the barrier of Falcon Cross wizards on the ground. The lions started rushing into the city, where they would have easily been able to kill off any civilians they found.

  “Oh, no you don’t!” Mac said through gritted teeth. She dove downward, flying at lightning speed toward the ground, and pulling up right in front of the lions. “Magicae afflictio,” she yelled out. The spell hit one of the lions square in the middle of the head, and he let out a loud yelp of pain before falling to the ground in a lifeless heap.

  “Magicae afflictio! Magicae afflictio!” Mac yelled over and over, aiming her magic ring at each lion in turn. One of the lions roared in anger and lunged right toward her. Another of the lions had the opposite response, and turned to flee in terror. It didn’t matter. Mac hit them both with the same spell, and they both crumpled to the ground in heaps, never to roar again.

  Mac glanced around to make sure that all the lions had been killed, and that the Falcon Cross line of soldiers preventing the shifters from entering the main village had been closed and reinforced. Satisfied that the line was holding and all was well, she turned her broom to fly upward and once more assess the situation from the sky. But before she could gain any upward momentum, she felt the breath go out of her as she was hit forcefully from behind. The blow knocked her off her broom, and she hit the ground with a large thud. A searing pain shot through her shoulder, but she ignored it as she rolled onto her back with her face upward. She looked around desperately to see where the attack had come from, but all she could see was houses, trees, and nearby parked cars. Then, suddenly, a lion sprang into her field of vision. She barely had time to register in her mind that there was a lion running toward her before he was right in front of her. He hurdled up into the air when he was a few feet away, making a giant leap toward her with his teeth bared and ready to clamp down on her neck.

  Weakly, Mac raised her ringed hand. She wore her ring on her right hand, and it was her right shoulder that was currently causing her blinding pain. But she grimaced and forced herself to keep moving. She had to get her ring up and a spell out of her mouth before the lion reached her, or she would be dead. Everything seemed to move in slow motion, and for one horrifying moment, Mac realized that she wasn’t going to be quick enough. She couldn’t believe that this was how she was going to die, knocked off her broom in battle and eaten by a lion shifter.

  But then, in the middle of the lion’s leap, he was suddenly knocked sideways by a giant stream of fire. A roar of pain rose up from the lion’s mouth as he rolled on the ground a few feet away, engulfed in flames. At the same time, a whoosh of wind rushed by Mac’s face as a giant dragon form rushed by her face. After the dragon passed her, he slowed and then turned around, landing on the ground and running over to her to make sure she was alright.

  Mac found herself looking up into Zeke’s eyes, only right now they were part of a dragon head instead of a human one. Zeke looked her over, searching to see if she was severely wounded. Satisfied that she was not, he gave her a wink with his deep green eyes, and Mac could have sworn that his dragon lips turned up in a smile. Then, with a puff of smoke, he hopped up into the air and pumped his wings, once again flying high up into the sky. Mac shook her head in amazement. He almost seemed like he was having fun.

  Mac wasn’t exactly having fun at the moment, but she wasn’t going to complain about that too much. She was happy to be alive right now, and she needed to get back up into the sky to continue directing her troops. She stood to her feet and ran over to where her broom had landed on top of a small bush. Pulling the broom off the bush, she hopped on and then launched herself back up into the sky. She winced slightly at the pain in her right shoulder, but did not let it slow her down anymore. The pain was already diminishing, and, besides, a sore arm was nothing when she could have been dead.

  When she got back into the air, she could see that the tide of the battle had turned significantly in favor of the Falcon Cross wizards. There weren’t many enemy soldiers left to fight, and the Falcon Cross soldiers were quickly finishing off those that were. A few of the enemy soldiers had turned, and were cowardly running back into the forest. Several of the Falcon Cross wizards on brooms were flying after these deserters, zapping them with spells in an attempt to not let anyone get away. Mac was pleased to see this. If they could manage to keep any escapees from going back to the enemy leader to report, so much the better.

  The dragons were still circling, although they were flying much slower now as they looked carefully for any remaining foes. Now and then they would find an enemy solider and finish him or her off with a burst of fire, but as the minutes passed, they weren’t finding any more enemies to destroy.

  Finally, the noise of battle ceased completely. The wizards on the ground looked around warily, ready to meet any straggling enemy soldiers. The wizards in the air looked this way and that, searching for any more attackers. But there were none. The enemy had been defeated in total, and an eerie silence settled over Falcon Cross as the Falcon Cross soldiers looked around in disbelief, almost unable to believe that they had actually done it. This had been the first real battle they had ever seen, and they had won it.

  The battle had not been without cost, though. From her vantage point high above the city, Mac could see that many of the lifeless bodies on the ground belonged to Falcon Cross wizards. Her heart caught in her throat. She was famous for being the youngest Commander-in-Chief Falcon Cross had ever seen, and it was true that she was talented and had accomplished a great deal in her short tenure. But today had reminded her that she was still
relatively young, and still had not faced many of the harsh realities of life.

  Mac hated to think of who might be among the dead soldiers. Each one of them was special and unique, and none of them deserved to die. With a sad, resigned sigh, Mac started spiraling downward on her broomstick. She landed in the grassy area in the middle of Town Square, and did her best to choke back the traitorous tears that were threatening to spill over. It would not do for her army to see her cry. Now, more than ever, she needed to be strong for them.

  Mac looked around for Raven, and saw that her most trusted general was already flying downward toward her. At the very least, Mac thought, she knew that Raven had made it through the battle. A glance upward into the sky told her that all of the dragons were fine, too—although that wasn’t much of a surprise. It wasn’t easy to bring down a dragon, especially when you yourself couldn’t fly. Mac’s heart tightened with gratitude as she saw Zeke’s dragon flying in a large arc above her. It was good to know that he was safe. She needed him now more than ever. She had a feeling that not only was he going to offer invaluable strategic advice for her army, but he was also going to offer emotional support. Right before this battle had begun, Mac had seen how caring Zeke could be when he wanted to be, and she needed more of that right now. It was not going to be easy to face all of the deaths that had just occurred in Falcon Cross.

  Raven came to a soft landing in front of Mac, and hopped off her broom.