by Riley Storm
“Why is that?” Vlad swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down, a reflection of the nerves she could see on his face.
“Because I love you Vlad, and I want to be with you.”
“I want to be with you too,” he said, sweeping her up into his arms, lifting her free of the ground and gently turning. “I love you Ellyn Pearson. With everything I have, am, and will be.”
“And I you,” she said, squeezing him tighter.
She never wanted to let go.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Vlad
It took a day longer than he’d expected, but he didn’t judge.
So when the golden and red scaled dragon settled down on the rooftop across from him in the early hours of the morning, Vlad just nodded and tossed the folded pair of pants he had with him across the distance.
Sache shifted, and pulled the pants on. Once he was done Vlad got to his feet and waited for his old friend to come in.
“I needed some time,” Sache said quietly as he approached.
“I know,” Vlad said, pulling open the door. “Welcome home.”
Sache glanced inside the compound, hesitating. “I don’t know if I’m staying yet. I’ve…got a lot of thinking to do.”
Vlad shrugged. “It’s still your home. Doesn’t mean you need to live here yet. It’s the people.”
“They’re going to hate me.”
Vlad snorted. “None of them care. Plenty of them ask me every day how you’re doing, and when you’re coming back. They just want to see you home. They know where we were. They understand it’s not who we are.”
“That’s just it Vlad,” Sache said quietly. “I worry that it is who I am.”
“If that were true, you would have let Liroi kill me back in the cave. But you didn’t. You stopped him, because you’re not Cado.” Vlad shrugged. “Doesn’t mean you’re perfect. It’s not one or the other.”
“Maybe,” Sache said uneasily. “It’s still going to take me some time to get used to the idea of living here again.”
“Nobody is going to force you to do anything you don’t want to do,” Vlad said, clapping his friend on the shoulder.
“Yeah.” Sache looked back out into the night sky from whence he’d come. “Either way, we need to talk with Pierce. There are things he needs to know.”
Vlad nodded, and the two headed inside.
“How did you know I was coming today?” Sache asked as they walked along the hallways.
“I didn’t.”
His friend glanced over. “Have you just been waiting up there every night for me to arrive?”
Vlad shrugged. “So what if I have?”
“I punched you.”
“Yeah. I figure getting a few tons of rock dropped on your head about evens us out, even if it wasn’t me who did it,” Vlad said, unable to keep a smile off his face.
Sache snorted with laughter. “You might have a point there.”
They knocked on Pierce’s door, then went to wait for the head of the Teres clan to get dressed and meet them in the conference room. There they waited in silence until the doors opened again behind them.
“Okay, what it is it?” Pierce asked as he led Blede and Kayb into the room with him.
Apparently he’d felt that awakening several of the others was prudent.
Vlad sat back as Sache talked, going over the Cado. He gave Pierce the names of all their ranking members, clues to the organization that they had long been lacking, and more. At the end he even provided the address of their newest hideout, the place they were moving too after Vlad had escaped.
“We’ll send a team to check it out,” Pierce said. “But I suspect they’re long gone again.”
“I want on the team,” Vlad said.
“No, you can stay here and spend time with your mate,” Pierce said. “You’ve done enough. The both of you have. We can handle it from here.”
Blede nodded. “We’ll find what we can, but they’re a shifty bunch, no pun intended. I too suspect they’re long gone.”
Vlad nodded in understanding. Blede was a logical choice to head up the strike team.
“Well, at least we can relax now,” Vlad said. “With Liroi and friends history, we can go back to normal.”
The others nodded. All of them except Sache. Vlad was the first to pick up on his friend’s hesitancy.
“What is it Sache?” he asked, leaning forward.
Around the table others shifted their focus back to Sache.
“We’re not done yet,” the younger shifter said uncomfortably.
“What do you mean we’re not done?” Pierce asked. “They’re gone. We killed them.”
Sache shook his head. “No, you only killed the advance team.”
Faces stiffened.
“Sache, what are you talking about?” Vlad asked, stomach dropping. He had an idea what his friend was about to say, and it wasn’t good. It wasn’t good at all.
“The Cado are coming in force,” Sache said without preamble. “I was never told the exact nature of their newest mission, but the target is here. Five Peaks. And the dragon clans.”
Vlad swore. Blede slammed a fist into his palm. Pierce blew out a long breath.
Kayb blinked. For him, that was a lot.
“Cratom is leading them,” Sache said uncomfortably. “I don’t know anything more than that, they didn’t completely trust me with the rest of the details, but someone hired them to come here.”
“Who the hell would hire them to do that?” Vlad asked aloud.
“And who has that sort of money?” Blede said. “Hiring a team of Cado, sure. The entire North American cell? That’s big backing. Big.”
“Government?” Kayb suggested, speaking for the first time.
“Maybe,” Pierce said, mulling it over. “But our contacts would have notified us of that I think.”
Vlad didn’t bother to ask what Pierce meant by that. He knew that, thanks to the fighting back in the forties, there were certain parts of the government that had knowledge the dragons existed. Over decades worth of effort however, the dragons had mostly managed to suppress that information, and they had a sophisticated network in place to warn them if someone went digging were they shouldn’t.
Which meant it was a private backer of some sort. Thus virtually untraceable.
“What do we do?” Vlad asked, looking at Pierce.
The head of Clan Teres swept his gaze across his clanmates, those whose safety he was responsible for.
Pierce’s face grew dark. Angry. He was furious at the potential threat to his family.
“We stay alert, and we prepare. We warn the other clans, and when the Cado come calling, we either send them home with a bloody nose,” his nostrils flared and he slammed both hands down on the table, leaning over it. “Or we send them home in body bags. But I will be damned if those assholes are going to come into my valley and threaten my family!”
There were snarls and growls of agreement through the room.
Kayb even nodded his head.
Chapter Forty
Ellyn
“Ready?”
Ellyn nodded, reaching into her pocket. “As requested,” she said with a grin.
“Thanks,” Lara said, then did a double take at the item. “Is that…”
“Hey. It’s what I had, okay?”
“Not judging,” Lara said with a mischievous twinkle. “I have one too, in red.”
Ellyn smiled, hefting her bag in the other hand, loading it into the trunk after Lara popped it open.
“Do you care if I sit in the front or back?”
“By all means, sit up front. I’d be thankful for the conversation,” Lara said, heading around to the driver’s side of the SUV.
“Awesome, thanks!”
There was a noise behind them from the direction of the compound. She twisted at the hips to look behind her. It was Vlad.
“Hey darling. How’s it going?” she called, waving at him as he strode over.
/> “Good,” he said. “Where are you going?”
Ellyn tilted her head toward Lara. “Going to work.”
“Right, I got your text that said that. But, um, since when do you have a job?” he asked, confused.
“Since this morning.” She thought about it for a moment. “I think it was around ten or so that Lara came and found me, asked me to help her out.”
“Of course. But darling, you never told me what you were doing? What job do you have? I want to hear all about it!”
Ellyn braced herself. “Well, I didn’t know if it was going to work out or not, and it’s just a concept in my head right now, you understand.”
“I…guess? I mean, I don’t, actually,” Vlad said. “Why are you being so secretive? What am I missing here? Lara?”
“Not getting involved!” came the call from the front seat. A moment later the door closed.
“What is going on?” Vlad wanted to know. “Ellyn?”
She sighed. “I’m going with Lara to take a look at her vault for her.”
Vlad frowned. “Is something wrong with it? I can come. I know about vaults.”
She smiled. “Not like this you don’t Vlad. You know how to build them.”
“Right, and?”
“Darling. My love. My one and only. I know how to break into them. I’m going with her to see if her security is up to par, and show her how to improve it.”
“Oh. I see.”
“And she’s paying me in gold for it. How cool is that?” Ellyn exclaimed, trying to quickly shift the topic.
“Ellyn Pearson.”
“Yes?” she said, biting her lip.
“Why are you being so evasive about this?”
“Because,” she said uncomfortably. “I didn’t want you to judge me for going back to my old life.”
Vlad blinked. “But…you’re not? You’re using your skills to help people now, instead of hinder them.”
“I…I guess. But I’m still trying to break in to her vault. I thought you would think I was maybe going to start doing it again for real.”
Vlad laughed sharply. “Ellyn darling. My mate. People who do consulting like this always make more money than those that actually do the robbing. You’ve just discovered a perfectly legitimate way to do what you’re good at, and make a lot of money. More than you did in the past.”
“So you’re not mad?”
“Mad?” he said, clapping his hands. “I’m excited for you! When you get back, drinks on me at the Dragon’s Eye!”
“No,” Ellyn said. “Drinks are on me. I can afford it.”
“Hey, if the lady wants to buy me a drink, then the lady can buy me a drink,” Vlad said, holding up his hands.
“Good.” Ellyn crooked a finger at him. “Now give me a kiss, I need to get going.”
Vlad leaned in and kissed her, making sure to take just a bit too long so that he could be properly thorough about it. Then he let her go.
“Go get em babe.” He grinned at her.
“Thanks.”
She reached up and tugged the elastic bands of the item in her hand over her head. “Okay, gotta go!”
Vlad’s face took on a confused look as she pulled open the door.
“Hey wait a minute. Why are you wearing that? Isn’t that from our drawer?” he asked.
Ellyn shrugged. “She doesn’t want me to see where the vault is located. So I needed something to cover my eyes.”
She hopped inside the car before Vlad could say anything more, pulling the lacy black blindfold down over her face.
“Go, go, go,” she giggled as Lara popped the car into drive and they drove away from her mate.
“Is he going to be mad?”
“Naw,” Ellyn said, leaning back to relax and enjoy the ride. “I’ll just let him use the rest of the set it came with later. He’ll be happy.”
Lara burst out laughing.
This felt good. Ellyn’s life was coming together. She had a job, she was making friends, she didn’t have to look over her shoulder anymore.
And best of all, she had a man she loved with all her heart, who loved her back.
Yes, life was just grand.
***
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Thank you for reading In a Dragon’s Mind. If you enjoyed it, please consider leaving a review so that others might enjoy the adventure as well.
Next Book: In A Dragons Heart (Dragons of Mount Teres: Book 2) – June 23rd 2020 –
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Other Books by Riley Storm
Thanks for checking out my other books!
Below you can find all my novels, divided up by series. The brackets indicate which of my worlds the series is written in. So dig in!
Dragons of Mount Teres (Five Peaks)
In a Dragon’s Mind
In a Dragon’s Heart
In a Dragon’s Dream (July 2020)
In a Dragon’s Soul (July/August 2020)
Dragons of Mount Aterna (Five Peaks)
A Mate to Treasure
A Mate to Believe In
A Mate to Protect
A Mate to Embrace
Storm Dragons (Winterspell Academy)
Stolen by the Dragon
Trapped by the Dragon
Dragon’s Chosen Mate
High House Ursa (Plymouth Falls)
Get the Five Book Bundle (Click Here)
Includes:
Bearing Secrets
Furever Loyal
Mated to the Enemy
Shifting Alliances
Blood Bearon
High House Canis (Plymouth Falls)
Get the Five Book Bundle (Click Here)
Includes:
Savage Love
Blood Mate
Moonlight Bride
Shadow’s Howl
Royal Alpha
High House Draconis (Plymouth Falls)
Get the Five Book Bundle (Click Here)
Includes:
Fire Dragons Bride
Mated to the Water Dragon
Ice Dragon’s Caress
Earth Dragon’s Kiss
Claimed by the Dragon King
About the Author
Riley Storm
Riley is one of those early-morning people you love to hate, because she swears she doesn’t need caffeine, even though the coffee-maker is connected to her smartphone. She lives in a three-story townhouse by the good graces of a tabby-cat who rules the house, the couch, the table, well, basically everywhere. When she’s not groveling for forgiveness for neglecting to pet her kitty enough, Riley is strapped in to her writing chair coming up with crazy worlds where she can make her own decisions of when feeding time is and how much coffee can be drank without her friends—of which she has three—holding yet another intervention that they threaten to post on the internet.
Find her on:
Riley Storm’s Website
Riley Storm’s Amazon Page
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