Stolen by the Dragon (Storm Dragons Book 1)

by Riley Storm

“Ahoy, me matey! I am here to plunder yon booty!” Courtney called in her best pirate voice, before throwing herself at Anna, howling with laughter as she hung from the irate witch. “Oh, come on, that was funny!”

  “Maybe,” Anna admitted, chuckling a little. “But despite poor word choice, you know what I meant.”

  “Did I? I mean, I don’t know, you never provided much details. Did Damien, um, plunder your booty?” Courtney giggled some more as Anna glared at her.

  “For your information no. My booty is still, um…”

  “Afloat?” Courtney suggested. “It has not as of yet been punctured by the large cannons of the enemy?”

  Anna groaned and fell back on the bed. “Okay. That’s enough out of you. I should be going anyway; the others are waiting for me.”

  Courtney sobered. “It’ll be okay. Genna will be there with you, and then I’m sure I’ll be there next. We can do this, Anna. We’ll find a way to shut that damn portal. You just keep it together and do what you do best.”

  “What’s that?”

  Courtney wrapped her up in a hug. “Prove everyone wrong about you.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Anna

  She dropped her bag on the cot and walked back out of her room.

  The “Outpost” that the Coven had decided to erect near the portal was a small cluster of buildings. There were the sleeping quarters, kitchen and communal living area and a supply and storage shed. That was it, nothing more.

  “What an absolute joke.”

  “I’m sorry, Gen,” she said, apologizing to her friend. “I…I didn’t know that you would get swept up in this with me.”

  “It’s fine, it’s fine. Two weeks, that’s it. I can handle two weeks out here.” Genna smiled bravely. “It’s the others you have to worry about.”

  Anna nodded grimly, noting the other four witches, including one Initiate Bowen, who she just knew was going to be trouble before the two weeks were up. This had Master Loiner’s fingerprints all over it, and she wondered what the Master had planned.

  “What about them?” Genna looked over Anna’s shoulder.

  “I have no idea. I…I assume they’re sleeping in here with us,” Anna said uncomfortably, knowing who Genna meant.

  Both Altair and Rane had joined the little expedition, assigned by the dragon leader Rokh to come with the witches to the outpost as backup, in case anything came through.

  “So much for not fraternizing,” Genna muttered.

  “Yeah. It’s okay, we’ll figure it out,” Anna said, patting her friend on the shoulder, trying to force a positive smile on her face.

  “Did he come out to see you off?” Genna asked, using a quieter voice.

  “No.”

  Anna had been the last witch to depart from Winterspell, her wind steed launching itself after the others as Anna delayed as long as she possibly could. But there still had been no sign of Damien.

  “I’ll find a way to send word back to you if he starts showing his face now you’re gone,” Genna said. “That sonofabitch, how dare he do this to you and then just avoid you like that.”

  Anna smiled. She’d put a lot of thought into whether or not Damien was avoiding her, and she still didn’t have an answer, but it seemed more and more like he had been. After all, where else would he have been?

  “I’m going to go for a walk,” she said. “Before that storm hits us.”

  “Okay. Be safe.”

  “I will,” she said, heading for the exit, pulling the hood of her robes up over her head.

  On the way in, they had spotted dark clouds moving through the mountains, a clear warning that another winter storm was headed their way. Anna didn’t intend to get caught out in that weather on her own, but right then she just needed to be alone. By herself, with her own thoughts.

  She walked outside, noting the portal itself, a shimmering oblong shape hovering four feet off the ground. Anna made a note to erect some sort of cordon around it, so that nobody would accidentally walk into it or get too close. They had no idea what the effects of that would be.

  The portal. Her final task, and the only way she would ever get back to Winterspell.

  How the hell am I supposed to figure out magic cast by dragons? This is ridiculous. I’m never going to be able to understand how they made this thing. It’s not at all like our own rifts.

  Anna couldn’t even feel its presence when she quested out for it. None of the witches who’d tried could sense it. It was like, to their magic, it simply did not exist.

  Her footsteps took her past the portal and out into the snow-covered trees. The portal and Outpost were sheltered on three sides, one by the bulk of the mountain, with two fingers of rock stretching out to create a dead zone in between. The buildings themselves were nestled back against the sheer wall of the cliff face, sheltering them from much of the wind. On the fourth side, the trees rose up and headed down the slope of the mountain to ground level.

  It was into these forest giants that Anna headed, wanting to be alone with her premonitions of failure. With her staff at her side, she did not fear any of the predators that roamed the slopes. Her magic would protect her.

  “Anna.”

  She spun as a familiar basso rumble sounded from off to the side.

  “You,” she hissed, straw-blond hair and brilliant blue eyes capturing her attention, and also her hatred.

  “Hi,” Damien said calmly.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” she snapped, remembering at the last moment to keep her voice low. “Where have you been?”

  “I had to come see you,” he said, spreading his hands wide, as if he’d expected her to know that. “I missed you.”

  “You missed me?” she yelped, then covered her mouth as Damien hushed her. “Yes, yes, I know. Be quiet.”

  “Of course, I missed you,” he said. “How could I not?”

  Anna worked her jaw to find the right words to express her incredulity at both his presence and the words he was uttering. “You do realize, somewhere underneath that thick skull of yours, that you had two days to come find me. Two days that I spent packing and preparing to come out here, where you weren’t around. Two days I spent thinking you didn’t want anything more to do with me.”

  Damien frowned. “Anna, I couldn’t. But don’t think it’s not been driving me mad not being able to see you. That I haven’t been thinking of you.”

  “What are you talking about?” she said, pulling back her hood to better glare at him. “You avoided me. You got what you wanted from me and then you just left. Like all men. I should have listened to Circe the first time. She warned me you would do something like this.”

  “What on earth are you talking about, Anna? “Got what I wanted”? What does that mean?” Damien was looking at her with consternation in his eyes, brow wrinkling more and more with every passing second.

  She tried to meet his gaze, but the longer she stared, the more her mind started to tell her she’d misjudged his actions.

  “I…I thought that once you’d, um, had me, that you, didn’t need me.”

  “You mean that since we slept together, I was over you and wanted to move on to the next? That’s what you mean, isn’t it? You thought I was just using you to have your body. That I wasn’t interested in anything else about you.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, I guess.”

  “You’re wrong,” he rumbled. “I hope you realize that.”

  “Then where the hell were you?” she cried. “You had days to come see me. To send a note. To communicate at all. But you didn’t.”

  “I had to leave, Anna. To leave Winterspell.”

  Anna rocked backward. That wasn’t the answer she’d expected at all. “What? Why?”

  “I passed out in the barn after you left. When I woke up, Rane was there. He’d found me and told me about your punishment. I had a split-second decision to make. Go accept my punishment from Rokh, and likely never leave Winterspell, or run away. Hide out in the mountain
s, and—”

  “And when I came here, you could come find me without worrying,” she finished.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” Damien said apologetically. “I wanted to. But it needed to look real. If Rane had told you I was out here waiting, you wouldn’t have acted the same. People would have known what was up. It…it had to be real.”

  “I’m still upset, but if you’re serious, then I’ll get over it,” she said. “But it’ll take time for my emotions to calm.”

  “I understand,” Damien said. “I’m not happy about it, but I am happy to see you again. The idea of never being able to see you again. To be near you, I couldn’t stomach that. I had to do whatever it took, so that we could be together, at least somehow, some way. I…”

  She bit her lip as he faltered, his emotions showing through the normally stoic exterior.

  “Anna, there’s something I need to tell you,” he said, looking up suddenly, eyes focused on her, and only her. “Something I’ve been thinking about, that I want you to know.”

  “Okay,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “I’m listening.”

  “Anna, I—”

  A blast of black energy slammed into Damien from the side and flung him out into the depths of the forest, smashing him through at least one sapling along the way.

  Anna spun to see where the attack had come from. Initiate Bowen stood off to the left, wand raised. The magical weapon swung from where it had been aimed at Damien, to point at Anna.

  “Initiate Sturgis, under the authority given to me by Master Loiner of Winterspell Academy, I hereby arrest you on charges of treason. Resist, and I will incinerate you.”

  Anger blossomed in Anna, but she kept herself under control. In a straight-up magical fight, she didn’t stand a chance against Bowen. The other Initiate would be able to follow through on her promise with fair ease.

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” she snapped, looking out into the forest, trying to see where Damien had gone.

  “We figured you would continue scheming with that rogue dragon. You’re probably trying to figure out how to open the portal to admit more of his kind. But we’re not going to do that. Now, you will come with me at once.”

  Anna rolled her eyes. “You are an absolute idiot!” she shouted. “You couldn’t be more wrong if you tried to be. Why I—”

  The wind picked up and a giant ethereal hand reached down to swat Bowen aside.

  Damien stalked back into the little clearing, twigs and brush still embedded in his clothing and clinging to his skin.

  “You just made a big mistake,” he growled as Bowen’s magic sliced through the barely visible wind-hand, dispelling it.

  “Time to teach you a lesson.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Damien

  Magic cracked and spat at him from Bowen’s wand, but Damien was already moving. Wind grabbed at the snow in the trees and on the ground and spun it in a violent vortex that descended on the witch, trapping her like a snowglobe.

  “Damien,” Anna called. “You can’t kill her! She needs to live.”

  He turned a wide-eyed stare at Anna. “You can’t be serious.”

  Yellow-gold light flared to life inside the globe as Bowen sliced her way free.

  “Very serious. If you kill her, they’ll never stop searching for you. They will kill you, and the rest of your people will be imprisoned or worse. Please, don’t kill her!”

  Gritting his teeth, Damien nodded. He’d been about ready to summon a thunderbolt that would have obliterated the loathsome witch, but instead he lifted a palm and a blue-white fork of lightning spat across the distance at Bowen.

  This time though, the Initiate was ready, and a silvery curved wall about six feet in front of Bowen deflected the blow aside.

  Damien grunted as the return strike swept in with unexpected speed and smashed him to the ground, the same black energy as before pummeling his left shoulder. Pain lanced into his core and he closed his eyes against it, rolling with the impact.

  “For interfering in Winterspell affairs, and for assaulting an Initiate of Winterspell Academy, I hereby sentence you to death!” Initiate Bowen proclaimed, going on the attack as she came in at Damien from the side.

  “We’ll see about that,” he growled, his earlier restraint fading as he got a better idea of the Initiate’s strength and powers.

  Blackness came at him again, but it was met with blue-white lightning that stopped it cold, tendrils of azure energy working their way deeper into the magic until it simply shattered Bowen’s spell.

  The skies above rumbled ominously, and Damien grinned. That wasn’t even him. The storm from earlier was moving in now, perhaps summoned by his own anger, perhaps of its own volition. But as the weather broke over them, he launched a blistering assault on the witch.

  Blast after blast, from his hands and from the skies above slammed into her protective shield, shrinking it in diameter and forcing her backward.

  To her credit. Bowen tried to fight back, but the storm was Damien’s home, his element, and he opened himself to it completely. Air swirled and snow came with it, moving so fast the little snowflakes cut like ice. Damien was no frost dragon, but the winds were his, and he used them now.

  A tremendous bolt of lightning shot down from the heavens, exploding on the ground less than ten feet from the witch. The shockwave blasted the Initiate from her feet, throwing her across the ground like a ragdoll.

  Damien gestured and lightning jumped across his body as he prepared to strike one more time.

  “Don’t kill her!” Anna shrieked. “You can’t kill her!”

  “She deserves it,” he rumbled, turning to face Anna, fully aware of the fearsome visage he must cast, his eyes likely disappeared behind the turbulent storm clouds of blue-white energy that infused his body, lightning crackling across his skin like he was some sort of godlike figure from myth.

  “I don’t care,” Anna snapped, standing her ground. “You kill her, and we’re done. Over. Understood?”

  Damien reared back, surprised at her outburst.

  “You would do that for her?”

  “She’s a witch, like me,” Anna said softly. “She’s just been misguided by someone with a lot of hatred. She could still come around. But not if you kill her.”

  Damien stared. “You are a remarkable woman,” he said quietly. “Just when I think I know you, you go and show me another side of you.”

  He gestured distractedly and a blast of lightning shot out and took Bowen in the chest just before the recovering witch could cast another spell.

  “Very well.”

  The lightning energy dissipated. But not the winds. Damien focused and the air rushed in, wrapping itself around Bowen like a blanket and chains before lifting her into the air.

  “What are you doing?” Anna wanted to know.

  “Sending her back to the Outpost. Where she can’t bother us.” He flicked a finger and the package took off, bouncing off a nearby tree trunk as it went. “Oops.”

  Anna glared at him, but he just shrugged. “Guess my aim was a little off.”

  Then, closing his eyes, he let the power leave him, emptying his body of the excess energy.

  “You done?” Anna asked uncomfortably, looking around.

  “Yes, why?”

  “Uh.” Anna pointed at the wall of snow surrounding them. “What’s all that?”

  “That’s the storm,” he said. “I’m just keeping it at bay from us so that we’re comfortable.”

  A twelve-foot radius around Damien was cleared of the heavily blowing snow, which reduced visibility to near nothing on the other side of it. The blizzard was here, and it was a brutal one.

  “What do we do now?” Anna asked, stepping closer to him.

  “Now you come with me,” he said.

  “What? To where?”

  Damien grinned, putting an arm around her. “To my lair.”

  Anna shied away. “What? Your lair? That doesn’t sound
ominous and threatening whatsoever!”

  “Oh, but it is,” Damien rumbled deeply. “Very ominous. Super-duper ominous.” He grinned, letting her know he was joking.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Well you can’t exactly go back to the Outpost, now can you?”

  Anna shrugged. “I’m sure Bowen will fly back to Winterspell. They’ll spend a day deliberating what to do. We’ve got some time before we really worry about that.”

  “Then you can spend it with me.”

  Damien gestured, and two storm stallions, similar to the animals he’d seen in the barn, just larger, shimmered into life. “Do you trust me?” he asked calmly, holding out a hand to Anna.

  She looked at him, at the stallions, then at him.

  “I do,” she said quietly, and took his hand.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Anna

  “You realize, don’t you, that you’re adding kidnapping to your list of crimes now.”

  Damien grimaced. “Yeah. How does it feel to be dating a bad boy?”

  Anna gaped. “How can you make light of this?”

  “What else would you have me do?” he said with a shrug as they completed their descent to a ledge on the side of the mountain.

  They hadn’t flown for long. Anna had no idea where they were exactly, the storm preventing her from seeing outside the protective sphere Damien was keeping about them. For all she knew, they could be fifty feet above the Outpost, or ten miles away.

  “I don’t know, maybe take it seriously? Your life is quite likely in danger now. Your people’s safety as well.”

  “Perhaps. But this is what’s best for you, Anna.”

  Their stallions landed on the ledge, and slow dispersed until Anna’s feet touched solid ground, preventing her from ever having to actually get ‘off’ the wind-created animal. That was a neat trick, and she’d have to remember it for her own creations next time she flew.

  Then Damien’s words clicked in.

  “Wait a minute. Best for me?” she yelped. “How the hell is this any good for me?”

  His blue eyes clouded over and he stroked the strong lines of his jaw in thought. “I don’t know how to explain it.”