Stolen by the Dragon (Storm Dragons Book 1)

by Riley Storm

  She would never get back to Winterspell, never get back to prove to the others she was worthy of Apprenticeship, that she was good enough to be among them.

  But worst of all, she would never get a chance to truly explore things with Damien. To see where they led, what kind of future the two of them might have. After all, nobody knew if dragon and witch DNA were compatible. Could they bear children? What would they be?

  All these thoughts and more raced through her mind as she plowed through the snow, desperately trying to shake the dragon on her tail.

  She was going to lose. Her life. Damien. Everything.

  The emotions built, and built, coming on stronger as images of past, present and all possible futures slammed into her, an epiphany pummeling her mind, making it hard for her to run.

  “Stop it!” she shouted to no one in particular, needing to focus. “Stop it now!”

  But they built, hammering at her head, telling her of everything she was going to miss, everything she would never get the chance to know.

  Like love.

  Would she ever find love? Would she ever love Damien? Did he, or could he, ever love her?

  The monstrous white maw closed in on her, the one good eye focused on her, its redness like a laser beam, locked and ready to fear. Lips pulled back to reveal teeth as long as her arms, perfect for slicing her to pieces.

  Anna had never been in love before. And now she never would be.

  That last thought pushed her over the top. There was no more running. No more fleeing. If she was going to die, she was going to do so facing down her attacker and making them hurt as much as possible.

  Magic surged through her body, filling her veins with its song, singing louder than it ever had before.

  With an unholy scream, she planted one foot, spun, and unleashed every ounce of power she had at the creature just as it loomed up to bite down on her.

  Flame burst from her staff, a two-foot-wide spout of orange-red fire that struck the white dragon square in the breast, burning a hole through its scales. The sheer force of the impact picked the creature up and flung it backward, blasting it through a tree trunk and onto its back, where scales continued to crackle and snap as the heat burnt them back.

  The dragon thrashed in agony, managing to flip onto its stomach as Anna stared in shock. She’d never before been able to summon such power, such raw magic. Nothing even came close. A fireball enough to blind the dragon’s eye? Sure, she could manage that. But this? This was something else entirely. What had happened?

  She didn’t have time to think it over, because the dragon was recovering. But as it saw her approach, the tip of her staff glowing orange, it dove into the white on the ground. Snowflakes spun up, blinding Anna in a temporary blizzard that reduced her visibility to zero.

  When she cut through the snow globe, the dragon was gone, leaving no trace of its presence.

  Anna sagged against a tree, looking at her staff, and then at her hand.

  “What the fuck just happened to me?”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Damien

  He looked around wildly, but none of the others had any answer. Focusing for a moment, he returned to his human form. Rane took his own pants off, tossing them to the naked Damien, who wisely ignored the wide-eyed stares from the witches.

  He needed to find Anna. It was at that point, as he finished doing up the pants, that the third witch appeared.

  “Where’s Anna?” Damien demanded before the woman could get a word in. “Where did she go?”

  The young woman, clearly frightened by what had just happened didn’t answer, her eyes wide.

  “What happened? Did you see her?” he shouted, barely restraining himself from shaking the poor girl in his panic.

  “She pulled me from the snow. After the, after, the dragon attacked. Then the snow moved, and the white dragon was there. She pushed me away. I ran. The dragon went after her.” The witch sagged. “I’m sorry. I just ran. I should have fought. I should have helped her, but I was so scared, it was so big and strong.”

  The woman was in shock, clearly babbling and unable to realize it, but the important details were coming out.

  “Where!” Damien snapped, fear bubbling higher in him at every moment.

  Anna was a strong woman, but that strength unfortunately didn’t translate directly into an ability to defend herself from an infected dragon. None of these witches could handle one of his kind alone. They simply lacked the strength of their magic to do so. If the dragon had cornered Anna alone…

  He shook his head, fearing for the worst.

  “Behind that building,” the witch said, pointing off to her right at the largest of the little cluster of structures.

  Damien dashed off without waiting, his heart thundering in his chest, spurred by adrenaline-based fear. They couldn’t have gotten her. Not now, not after they’d broken through yet another barrier, exploring whatever it was that was growing between them. She had to be safe. He had to save her!

  He raced around the corner, but there was no sign of her.

  “Anna!” he bellowed, looking this way and that. Where was she?

  He looked down at the ground, noting melted snow. The fire dragon hadn’t come this way, he was positive of that. Which meant…

  “Anna,” he breathed. She had fought back!

  He followed the tracks, jogging down the length of the building, then out back and into the forest. The footsteps were spaced fairly far apart in the snow, he noticed, his worry rising again. Wherever it was she’d been going, Anna had been running. Fast.

  His long legs carried him forward. Ignoring the branches that slapped against his upper body, Damien dove into the forest, noting the trees that had been blasted apart, half the time following what could only be the path of the ice dragon. He picked up Anna’s footprints again as she went left, and the dragon went right.

  “Anna! I’m here! Where are you?” he called, turning to the left and right as he went.

  She had to be okay. Had to be fine. If Damien had lost her, he didn’t know what he would do. The idea of facing his own kind in battle was one thing but having to fight someone he cared for someone he…even his mind shied away from the word, but not for the reason he thought.

  It would be easier if she were gone, to not acknowledge the way his feelings had evolved for her. Not now, at least. Not until there was at least some sort of closure, as horrible as that was to think about.

  That’s enough brain. Anna is alive, I can feel it. We’re going to find her. Now.

  “Anna!” he called again, still following the trail. How far had she gone? He didn’t think his fight with the fire dragon had lasted that long…

  All at once, he came to a stop. All around him the snow was melted and even the pine needles on some of the evergreen trees had met the same fate.

  “What did this?” he asked, looking around, noting the diameter of the heat blast. “What other foul creature was here?”

  “It wasn’t a creature that did this,” a voice said from off to his left.

  Damien whirled to see Anna leaning against a tree trunk, staring at the opening, the scorched marks on the ground, with a blank spot in the center of them. Damien did some quick thinking and realized the not-quite-burned area was about the size of a dragon.

  Had…

  “Are you saying you did this?” he asked, approaching the shell-shocked woman cautiously.

  It was hard to restrain himself from rushing over and picking her up, but something had occurred here, something that had left Anna not quite all there.

  “Yes,” she said, looking up, a tiny smile forming on half her face. “Can you believe that, Damien?”

  “I…I did not think you had such power,” he admitted. “To unleash this much fire…” he waved his hands around the clearing. “How?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know, Damien.”

  Her legs started to wobble, and he raced in close, catching her swiftly befo
re she had a chance to hit the ground, lowering her into his lap, holding her close to his chest. With one hand he gently pulled her staff free, laying it on the ground next to him.

  “Are you okay?” he asked. “Did you get hurt?”

  “I’m fine,” she said. “Completely and totally fine. Except…Damien, I hurt it. Bad. I burned a huge hole in its chest with a blast of fire unlike anything I’ve ever been able to summon before.”

  “Are your powers evolving?” Damien wasn’t sure how that worked with humans.

  “No. No that’s not how it works. I can learn more complicated spells, but the amount of magic I can call, that I can control, that’s finite. Nobody has ever increased their magic before.” She paused, eyes unfocused, distant. “But I did, Damien. I did.”

  “How?”

  She turned her head, looking at him with those same vacant eyes. “I thought of you,” she said. “Of losing you. All my fears, my dreams, they all focused and when I attacked, just before it ate me, I had more power available to me than I ever did before.” She shrugged, bouncing his arms as he held her tight. “So, I attacked that nasty thing and beat the shit out of it.”

  Damien gaped as Anna began to giggle. “I did it. I, Anna Sturgis, beat the crap out of a dragon with my magic! I did it!” she threw her head back and howled with laughter.

  He didn’t even get a chance to ask if she was okay again before the laughter turned to tears and Anna flung herself at him. “Oh Damien,” she gasped, fingers digging into the muscles on his back, holding on for dear life. “I thought I was never going to get to see you again.”

  “I’m here,” he said calmly, stroking the back of her head, dragging his fingers through her hair, the black strands smooth and soft to his touch. “I’m here, Anna. I’m here.”

  He repeated that over and over again as she shook with tears, though the sobs slowly faded. The sounds of her struggling to get her breathing under control and to regain her composure reached his ears, but he ignored them, just continuing to hold her.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, noting at last the large gash on his opposite shoulder from where her head was tucked in, dried blood reaching down to his waist.

  “Yeah, I will be,” he said. “It’ll heal fast enough.”

  “Are they…are they gone?”

  “For now.”

  “But they aren’t dead, are they?” she asked, already knowing the answer.

  “No,” he said quietly. “And that’s why we need to get back to the outpost. As much as I want nothing more than to hold you in my arms forever, we must be going. Soon.”

  He didn’t want to put this weight on Anna, but there was no choice.

  “We have to kill these creatures now. Before they can replicate. Or else there will be no stopping them, and your world will fall, just as mine did.”

  Anna sniffled loudly before sitting up straight in his arms. “Okay. Let’s go,” she said, extracting herself from his grip, much to Damien’s dismay. He liked having her so close.

  “Here.” He handed her the staff from the ground.

  It surprised him to note how tentatively she reached for the magical implement. That wasn’t good. Damien needed her to be in full control, to be trusting of her powers.

  “Anna, are you going to be okay?” he asked. “I need to know now.”

  “I think so,” she admitted, giving him a look that was less than confident. “I just…what if I can’t do it again Damien? What if I need to use that kind of power, and it doesn’t come to me?”

  He nodded. “I don’t really know how to give you any sort of advice on this. I’m not familiar with your magic, not yet. Though I hope to be in time,” he added with a little smile that he hoped was reassuring. “But if it came to you when you needed it most, then I suspect it came to you for a reason, Anna. A good reason. Believe in yourself, and you will always have the power you need.”

  She smiled up at him, then surprised him by grabbing his neck and pulling him in for a quick kiss.

  “Thank you,” she said after they reluctantly broke apart, neither wanting it to end, but both of them knowing that bigger, more important things awaited them now.

  The Infected were here on Earth, and Damien intended to ensure they never got away. No other planet would suffer like his people’s had. No matter what it demanded of him.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Anna

  They walked back to the outpost hand in hand.

  Anna no longer cared who saw it, or what other people thought of her relationship with Damien. They had fought side by side, her witches and his dragons, and they had all come out alive. It was time they started putting their silly issues aside and acting as allies.

  A bigger enemy awaited them all.

  Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for her to realize that the others didn’t see it that way.

  “Bowen was right after all, I see.”

  Anna turned, mouth dropping open in shock. “Lowry?” she gasped. “You can’t be serious right now.”

  The Initiate whom she’d helped save from the frost dragon’s wrath had noticed them approaching the outpost and had come over to confront them. Gone was the look of gratitude on her face, instead replaced by something similar to what Anna had seen on Bowen’s face when she’d confronted her and Damien in the woods.

  “Look at you. Holding hands with him, flaunting the fact that you two have likely been intimate.”

  Anna’s eyebrows shot up. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize we were still fifteen and back in high school out there,” she snapped. “Where who kisses who is what you judge someone on. Have you really not moved past that? Are you really so immature still?”

  Lowry’s face darkened. “Damien, you are under arrest for conspiracy to commit harm, and for assaulting a witch of Winterspell.”

  “This is a joke, right?” Anna said, dropping her hand from his and gripping her staff tighter. She wasn’t about to let everything just frazzle apart.

  Rane and Altair had come over now and were arrayed off to one side, both of them watching Damien. They were waiting for his lead to see what to do, she noted.

  “Why do you hate them so much, Jane?” she asked, leaning on her staff. “I didn’t take you as one of Master Loiner’s little cult. I thought you were better than that, capable of thinking for yourself.”

  Jane Lowry snorted in disdain. “So did I. Then I got sent out here on some punishment detail. Look where trying to stay apart from politics has gotten me. Do you think I want to be here? Do you think I deserve to be here?”

  “Did you ever think that you got sent here because, oh I don’t know, the Coven had faith in you? That they thought you were strong enough and worthy enough of such an assignment? That maybe they sent you because if I screwed up or left, you would be the one best suited to take over in my absence?”

  For a moment, Lowry seemed to consider Anna’s words. “If that were the case though, Anna, they would have sent me because they know that I would uphold their rules. Which includes arresting Damien for what he did to Initiate Bowen.”

  Anna cursed herself silently. She hadn’t thought that far ahead, but Lowry was right. The Coven would expect her to follow the rules.

  “Except the rules have changed,” she said, latching on to her only hope. “The Infected. They were not a part of the plan. None of us expected or believed that they would be able to come through the portal, did we? But they have. Not just one of them, but two. Here, on Earth. That changes things, Jane, and I think you know that as well as I do.”

  The other Initiate chewed on her lip. “Maybe,” she admitted. “But not enough. They’re gone now. We can get backup from Winterspell and go after them. We don’t need their help. Which means I have no choice but to arrest him. And you too, if you abandoned your post last night.”

  “She didn’t abandon anything,” Damien said, speaking up at last. “I made her come with me. She didn’t have any choice in the matter.”

  Lowry’s eyebrows w
ent up slightly. She clearly didn’t believe that story, but without any evidence to prove otherwise, she would be forced to go with Damien’s version of the story.

  “Then you are under arrest for two counts of assault on a witch of Winterspell, one count of kidnapping.” Her rod, a two-foot long piece of wood as thick as her wrist came up and began to glow blue. “Please come with me peacefully. I really don’t want to fight you.”

  “Wait, Jane, you can’t do this!”

  Anna blinked as Maddison Tolle jumped forward, putting herself between Damien and Lowry. This was most unexpected. After Bowen, Tolle had been the most vocal anti-dragon proponent in the little group of witches assigned to the outpost. Why was she now sticking up for Damien?

  “What are you doing Initiate Tolle,” Jane said, waving her rod to the side. “Get out of the way.”

  Tolle shook her head. “I can’t. You’re making a mistake.”

  What the hell…

  “How am I making a mistake? Unless you’re going to admit that you did everything?”

  “No of course not,” Tolle snapped, irritated at the ridiculous question. “But you’re making a mistake. Just like I made with the dragons when they first arrived.” She exhaled heavily. “And maybe mistakes I made before that.”

  Anna remained silent, stunned. What had caused Tolle to have this sort of epiphany, she wondered?

  “But then, in the middle of the fight, Damien saved me. He jumped in front of the fire dragon. Took the attack that was meant to kill me.” She shook her head. “I would never in a million years have expected such an action from him or his kind. But there it was. It did happen, and he did so without hesitating, either. Like he never thought otherwise.”

  Tolle looked at the ground, shoulders slumping in what felt like shame to Anna. “I know I wouldn’t have done the same.”

  Anna didn’t know what to say, and by the looks of it, neither did Jane.

  “This wasn’t your time to die,” Damien said softly. “We brought these beasts here, however inadvertently, and we would rather every last one of us dies before they hurt you.”

  Maddison looked up with a grateful smile. “Thank you, Damien. But after what you demonstrated here today, it would be my pleasure to go into battle next to you, and if need be, save your life. You won’t face those things on your own when they come back next. Of that, you have my word.”