Stolen by the Dragon (Storm Dragons Book 1)

by Riley Storm

“Uhh,” Anna said uncomfortably, realizing that they must have heard what she’d been saying.

  “Thanks a lot,” Genna hissed, turning away to hide her embarrassment.

  Damien held up a hand to silence his fellow storm dragon as Altair opened his mouth to speak. Shaking his head, he hushed him, recognizing that now was probably not the time for this.

  “Is everyone ready?” he asked.

  “Ready,” Jane said, taking control of the witches while Anna returned to Damien’s side. “But where are we going? They didn’t leave much of a trace as to their whereabouts.”

  Damien smiled tightly. “There’s a few things about them that we learned during our fight. Most of it bad, but a bit of it helpful.”

  “Like what?” Anna asked for everyone.

  “They use their powers to hide their presence,” he explained.

  “We noticed,” Anna said. “That’s how they got away. The ice dragon hid them.”

  “Exactly. It hid them from our eyes down here. But any snow that the ice dragon creates will melt away after it passes. And any snow that it moves to cover itself, will leave marks elsewhere.”

  “But we can’t see anything,” Jenna said. “It just looks like they dove into a snowbank and disappeared.”

  “From down here,” Damien said. “Because that’s where they’re trying to obscure our vision from. But they don’t think like we do. Their concept of things looking ‘natural’ is not the same. If we take to the skies, we’ll see their trail as clear as daylight. Trust me.”

  The witches looked to each other, and then shrugged, almost as one calling upon the air to form their normal steeds.

  Damien shook his head. “No. Not this time.”

  Anna and the others faltered. “What? How do you expect us to get there then?”

  He grinned. “In style.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Damien

  He ignored the startled yelp from on his back as he, Altair and Rane banked to the east, following the trail in the snow below. Like he’d said, from above, it was easy to spot the passage of the Infected.

  “I fail to see how this is in style!” Anna shouted. “This is terrifying!”

  “How is this worse than flying on your little mounts of air?” he rumbled, keeping his eyes focused down below. They might come upon the Infected at any time.

  Rane and Altair were watching the skies above them, while the women lay waiting, keeping their magic ready for when the time came.

  That was why Damien had wanted them to fly on the backs of the dragons. He knew that the air mounts, while not incredibly taxing for the witches, still demanded focus and concentration from them. Much more than flying in their dragon forms did for him and the others.

  “Keep your eyes on the sky,” he said. “We don’t know that they’re below us.”

  Or that it was just the two Infected. Damien hoped they were early enough to stop the spread, but he had no way of knowing for certain. All he could do was eliminate the ones he knew about and go from there.

  “Is it just me or does the trail end where it gets rocky?” Rane called out.

  Damien had noticed the same thing. The snow ended in a rocky section of mountainside that sloped up sharply, and all signs of the Infected’s passage ended.

  “They’re nearby, stay sharp,” Damien ordered as the dragons banked around the site, forming a large circle as they searched for more clues.

  “Dive!”

  The shriek from his back was all the warning he got.

  Folding his wings in tight, Damien dropped from the sky like a stone. “Hold on!” he bellowed, summoning the winds to him with a wicked grin, giant teeth flashing in the sunlight.

  If the Infected had been stupid enough to come after him and his storm kin in the air, they were in for a rude awakening.

  Not that they think like this. They aren’t smart, not intelligent in the way we know them. They probably never even thought of the consequences.

  Wind currents swirled around Damien as he fell, slowing his progress, solidifying into huge eddies of currents that whipped around him and his precious cargo like a tunnel.

  “Damien?” Anna called uncertainly as they fell. “What’s going—eep!”

  The tunnel hardened and suddenly, they were sliding. Through the air. Damien was like a bullet down a tube.

  “Hold on tight!” he shouted as the tunnel rolled them up and over, giving him a chance to see what was going on.

  Right on his tail was the fire dragon, wings beating furiously to keep up with the wind dragon as he rode his air tunnel like a water slide, spinning, ducking and moving with ever-increasing speed, trying to put some distance between them.

  “How am I supposed to hit him when we’re moving like this!” Anna shouted as they went through a dizzying set of turns and then shot straight upward at a speed the fire dragon simply couldn’t match.

  “Get ready to hit it with everything you’ve got!” Damien roared, feeling the air around him, right down to the very molecules if he concentrated. This was his element, and he was in control.

  His senses raced out, finding Rane and Altair, both of them doing what he did, but to lesser degrees of effectiveness.

  The frost dragon was closing in on Rane. Damien couldn’t see it, but he could feel it in a way he’d never felt before. A flicker of his brain and a miniature tornado spun the infected frost dragon around and dropped it several hundred feet before it recovered.

  Even as he did that, his own body, Anna attached, looped up and over to point down at the fire dragon.

  A vortex of skin-shredding wind erupted from his throat as he flung his anger and power at the infected creature.

  Anna lashed out as well, a brilliant beam of silver light slashing across the fire dragon’s nose. Scales froze and popped, the ultra-cold energy a direct counter to the fire dragon’s strength. Exposed skin under the scales blackened and the fire dragon fell away, revealing the still-healing wound in its chest that Anna had inflected before.

  “Good job!” he roared, diving after the creature. “Keep it up!”

  “I don’t even know how I did that!” she yelped.

  Damien grabbed at the winds, charging them. Thunder clapped nearby as storm clouds appeared out of nowhere, racing in to cover the battlefield as he directed the very fury of mother nature itself.

  The fire dragon landed roughly, bouncing and rolling as it shifted back to its human form. Evidently it realized that the skies were not a place for it to be. Nearby, the other trio of dragons also landed, Rane and Altair facing off against the infected frost dragon.

  Anna slid free, somehow easily blocking a blast of fire that the human form of the fire dragon sent their way.

  “How are you doing this?” Damien wanted to know as he got to his feet.

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I really have absolutely no idea. I’m not complaining though, are you?”

  “No.”

  “And since when could you ride the winds like a rollercoaster?”

  Damien wasn’t sure what a rollercoaster was, but he knew what she meant. “Always,” he said quietly. “But never while doing everything else I was doing. I feel…different. Stronger, like the air isn’t just my ally, but as though I’m a part of it.”

  “Good,” Anna said, grunting as her green shield deflected more fire. “Now use it against this guy. That one was rough.”

  Even her newfound magical powers had limits, it seemed. Damien thrust his hand upward, and lightning slashed down in response, filling his body with its spiky charge.

  He leveled his other hand at the fire dragon. The infected creature only had a moment to open its eyes wide before the fury of a storm blasted into its stomach, flinging it back against the rock face.

  Damien stomped forward, ready to finish this off here and now. He would fry the damn thing’s mind and then Anna would turn its body to a crisp—much easier for her to do when it wasn’t fighting back. They would leave no hope for the in
fection to spread.

  “Earth is under my protection,” he snarled, and more lightning slashed out, this time impacting on the rock face and opening a thousand cuts on the fire dragon’s face and skin as it got to its feet.

  “Look out!” Anna yelped, throwing herself to his left.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the ice storm race in, foot-long darts filling the air, ready to shred his skin and pierce his body, leaving him riddled with their deadly killing power.

  But Anna was there instead. Orange light sprang into being in front of her, a finely woven mesh catching the spikes and shredding them into tiny little flakes that covered his skin in a fine dusting of their cooling touch. Damien snarled in anger as Anna slumped to the ground, totally spent.

  And totally exposed.

  Both the fire dragon and frost dragon launched renewed attacks directed at her, determined to kill at least one of their foes.

  Damien saw that Altair and Rane were both recovering, the witches with them hovering protectively over one of their downed numbers. They weren’t able to help. Not fast enough.

  He leapt over Anna’s body as she fell, landing feet spread apart, the light layer of snow and first layer of rock crunching under his impact.

  “No!” he roared, one fist up to block the fire, the other to block the ice.

  Winds roared so mightily even the ancient mountain seemed to groan in protest as he sucked in every ounce of power available to him.

  Lightning coursed along his skin, and through his skin. His veins sparked with charge, his eyes filling with power. Blue scales pushed up as his body partially morphed to contain the charge flowing through him.

  Fire met wind and stopped cold. The ice spikes slashing in simply froze in place.

  “Earth is under my protection,” Damien said, his whisper-quiet voice easily carrying over the completely stilled battlefield. “And you are not welcome to it.”

  He clenched his fists.

  Fire went out, robbed of its oxygen. Ice shattered and fell to the ground.

  Then the skies vented their fury. Bolts of lightning thicker than Damien was tall struck the Infected. Their bodies didn’t explode, but they simply vaporized, everything happening far too quickly for even the dragons to process.

  The lightning struck. The Infected disappeared, and just like that, the battle was over.

  Damien staggered, falling to one knee as the bright blue scales of his heritage sank back into his skin and the energy faded from his body, leaving him weak and weary from what he’d just done.

  Altair and Rane raced over to him, Rane managing to catch him before he fell to the ground, steadying the storm dragon.

  “Damien. Damien, respond!” Altair barked.

  “Will you keep it down?” he asked drowsily. “I’m trying to sleep.”

  The other dragons chuckled.

  “Sleep is for the weak,” Rane informed him. “You have other things to deal with right now.”

  Fresh energy pulsed through him as he remembered where he was. And who he was with.

  “Anna!”

  Sitting up, he looked around wildly, sighing in relief as he saw Anna stirring too. She was unharmed. Tired, like he was, but otherwise—it seemed—unhurt.

  “You okay?” he asked, shuffling to her side, not so much managing to hold her up, as leaning on her in a way that propped both of them up.

  “Yeah,” she replied, sounding unsure. “Yeah, I am. I don’t believe it, but I am.” She looked around. “Did we win?”

  Damien grinned. “We won,” he told her, finding the energy to sit up enough to kiss her. “We won. You’re safe now.”

  “Good.” She yawned. “Thank you.”

  “You are most welcome,” he said. “Thank you. You saved my life there.”

  “That’s what mates do for one another,” she said with a lazy smile.

  “Mates?” he asked, confused.

  “Soulmates,” Anna said, reaching up to stroke his face. “Because that’s what we are, Damien. In the most literal, physical sense of the word. I don’t understand it, but it must be.”

  He considered her words. “You think that we are quite literally fated to be together.”

  “Prove me wrong.”

  Damien shook his head. “I don’t think I could even if I wanted to, which I most certainly do not. There is a connection here. A charge. Unlike anything else. If you will have me, Anna Sturgis, I will be yours, forever more.”

  Her eyebrow arched. “Are you asking me to marry you? Because there are certain customs that go along with that.”

  Damien frowned. “I’m not sure what you mean, but whatever I have to do to make you mine, to be yours, for eternity, I will do it. No matter what.”

  Anna grinned. “I’m going to hold you to that. We humans have some fun customs for that sort of thing.”

  Damien swallowed nervously, which only made his woman—no, his mate—burst out into laughter.

  Just what was he getting himself into?

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Anna

  Back at the outpost, they all gathered around, pulling chairs up to the central table. Helped by Lowry and Anna, Genna gingerly sat, her one leg completely bandaged up and unable to support any weight.

  “I’m not made of glass,” she said, swatting Anna away as she tried to fret over her friend. “It’s all kinds of mangled, but I’m going to live, okay? Stop.”

  “Okay, sorry,” Anna said, backing off, letting Genna relax into the chair, her injured leg resting on a makeshift footstool from a few boxes of supplies.

  “I appreciate your concern though,” Genna said, taking pity on her. “I just wish I could have done what you did.”

  “Don’t we all?” Jane Lowry said, chiming in.

  “What are you talking about? You could have done that,” Anna said, scoffing at the other woman. “You’re one of the most powerful Initiates at Winterspell.”

  “Even I don’t know if I could have deflected multiple blasts from that dragon,” Jane said uncertainly. “The ice dragon was trouble enough. I mean look how it blew through us and got Genna.”

  “I don’t know,” Anna said.

  “I think you do,” Jane countered, leaning forward on the table, not letting the conversation die out. “You know more than we do, at least. What happened to you? Where did you suddenly get that power from?”

  Anna shrugged. “I don’t know for sure.”

  “But you have an idea,” Jane pressed. “I know you do.”

  Anna looked down at her hands, and past them, to where one of Damien’s hands rested on her leg. They all knew how the pair of them felt. That was no secret. But she hadn’t confessed things yet to anyone but him…

  “I love Damien,” she said, the words eliciting a few gasps from the table. “Are any of you really surprised?” she challenged.

  “Maybe not surprised,” Genna said, speaking first. “But didn’t expect to hear you say it out loud to the rest of us. Not yet at least.”

  Anna nodded in understanding. “Well I do. And I’m no longer afraid to say it.” She smiled up at him, enjoying the way his eyes, such a brilliant and unusual shade of blue, sparkled at her words. “I realized it during the first attack on the outpost. I was trapped, had nowhere to go. I thought about everything I was going to miss with him. About my feelings for him. And all those emotions welled up inside of me, and when I latched on to them, I burned the frost dragon with more fire than I’ve ever possessed inside me before.”

  The others were silent, processing that information.

  “So, you think Damien is the source of your power?” Genna said into the silence.

  Jane nodded. “That’s what it sounds like to me.”

  “That’s what it feels like to me,” Anna said to the group. “Not just in my heart, like an emotion. But something literally tangible, you guys. Like a rope that joins us together, making us stronger.” She threw her hands up into the air. “I don’t know how to describe it. It’s no
t like anything I’ve ever felt, but it’s real. I have my emotions too, but this is separate from that somehow. Argh, I don’t know how to describe it!”

  Jane rested a hand on her forearm. “It’s okay, Anna. You don’t need to justify it. We can see the evidence of it. There is something there. Something unusual. I’ve never heard of a witch gaining power like this.”

  “Me neither,” Anna admitted. “Me neither.”

  “Either way, we succeeded,” Genna said, slapping her hand down on her good thigh. “The Infected are dead, we’re alive. It’s good.”

  Anna nodded. “Yeah. We succeeded.”

  Except the portal was still open.

  Everyone sobered as they looked at her, realizing that despite all the good they had done, Anna still wasn’t going home. Not yet.

  The front door burst open and none other than Circe herself stepped through, wand drawn and at the ready. When she saw the assembled group of shifters and witches sitting around the table smiling and acting relaxed, she paused.

  Anna held her breath. She was in a lot of trouble now.

  “What is going on here?” Circe demanded as other Masters filed into the outpost main room, looking around for trouble that no longer existed.

  “Circe, there she is. Sitting with him. Take them both!” Initiate Bowen appeared in the doorway, stabbing a finger at Damien and Anna.

  Anna tensed as Circe focused on her. Then her eyes went over to Genna.

  “What happened to you?” she asked, gesturing for another Master to go and see to the Initiate and heal the wound properly while she waited for an answer. “Did they harm you?”

  Genna shook her head. “No not at all. They saved me,” she said, nodding her head at Damien and the other shifters. “The Infected caused this. One of the frost dragon’s ice spikes made it through our defenses and pierced my leg. Without them, I’d be dead.”

  “We all would be,” Jane said, standing up. “Damien and Anna saved us all.”

  Anna watched Circe take in that information, processing it as Jane filled her and the other Masters in on the events of earlier that day. Throughout the story, Initiate Bowen continued to get more irate.

  “They are right there! The shifter assaulted me. He sent me back to Winterspell in some sort of cocoon that he created! Imprison him!”