Protector
Page 1
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
About J.A. Culican
About J.A. Armitage
Books by J.A. Culican
Books by J.A. Armitage
Protector
Book 3 Dragon Tamer
Armitage & Culican
Copyright © 2018 Armitage & Culican
All Rights Reserved.
All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.
Edited by: Cassidy Taylor
Cover by: Covers by Christian
ASIN: B07BDN6YBJ
www.dragonrealmpress.com
To our husbands…
For supporting our love of dragons.
Chapter One
I gazed at the people surrounding me, amazed at how far we’d all come. We still had a long way to go to reach the top of the mountain, but I never thought I’d see the day that Slayers, dragons, and wolves would come together for a common cause.
Not that they were all especially happy about the situation. Apart from Alpha, Morganna and, of course, Ash and me, the others had formed very distinctive groups. The dragons took the lead with Spear heading up that group. Rocco followed behind with a group of Slayers. Then, at the very back, were Morganna and Alpha with the wolves. From where I stood, I could see all of them and the long trek ahead of us. I’d made this particular trek before but that seemed so long ago now.
After the fighting and the traveling, all of us were exhausted, including me, and we’d only just set off. It was going to take us a lot longer than it had before to traverse the rocky pathways. We hadn’t even gotten through the trees on the lower part of the mountains and I was already flagging with fatigue. The trip to the Wolvrens’ home and then back to Dronias, not to mention all the blood I’d lost, had taken its toll on me.
“Are you ok?” Ash asked, noticing my discomfort. I couldn’t hide anything from him, he was so perceptive.
“I’m fine,” I replied, plastering on a smile. I wasn’t fine, but if I said that, he’d either make me turn around and head back to my mother at the bottom of the mountain or insist on turning into his dragon form and carrying me up the mountain himself. I wasn’t willing to let either one happen. Truth be told, I was scared that if I left the group, something would come between them. Our solidarity was hanging by a thread as it was and I didn’t want to jeopardize that. As much as I hated to admit it, I was the glue that held us all together. Ok, Morganna could technically do the same job. She knew the wolves well and, of course, she was a Slayer, but it still felt like my responsibility to keep everyone together.
“Do you want me to carry you for a while?” asked Ash. “You look really tired.”
And there was my second option. The problem was, he looked tired, too, and if he carried me up the hill, the others might expect the same treatment. Besides, I really didn’t want to show weakness this early on in the trek. I shook my head and grasped his hand. Just holding onto him gave me strength and if he pulled me up a little and helped me over the rocky terrain, who else was to know?
After centuries of fighting between the Slayers and dragons, it was strange to see us working together. I could still feel the hate and dislike between the two groups. Friendship would take a long time, but with a common enemy in the Goblins, at least we could focus on something other than killing each other. Once we reached the Goblins’ cave, bloodshed would be inevitable. I wasn’t so naïve as to believe that we could sort out the problems without it. We still had many dragons to save and as I was the only one who could do it, I had to remain fit.
Ash and I had only just left the leafy shade of the wooded area, beginning the long, arduous journey over the rocky, gray terrain that made up the next part of the mountains, when up ahead, Spear came to a stop. I paused under the pretense of seeing what Spear was up to, but as far as I could tell, he was simply gazing out over the view below us. I couldn’t see it from where I was near the back of the caravan; I could only see the dark forest behind me, but I knew once I cleared the tree line, I’d see fields of gold and green laid out before me like a patchwork quilt. I’d seen the view enough to remember it well and had even flown over it on Ash’s back.
Looking back up at Spear, I could see him speaking animatedly to my father. At the beginning of the hike, before the groups had split, the two had been doing well, chatting about the route, both of them leaving old wounds behind them. But as I watched them now, I could see animosity between them. They were too far ahead to hear what they were saying and the wind that whipped around us swept their voices away, but it was plain to see they were having some kind of disagreement. Nudging Ash, I pointed up at them.
“Do you think we should go see what the matter is?” he asked as he saw what I was pointing at.
I sighed. I’d hoped that we could at least get to the top of the mountain without problems, but it seemed it was not to be. “I guess so,” I said, shrugging my shoulders. I didn’t have the energy to run to them, but I knew I’d have to find some from somewhere if I didn’t want this journey to turn into an all-out war again. I huffed and puffed as I increased my pace, passing Wolvren and Slayers until Ash and I were at the front of the group.
“What’s the matter?” I wheezed at the two men, both of whom looked disgruntled.
“I think we should camp here,” my father said to me, “but your friend here thinks we should carry on.”
“Look out there,” Spear said angrily pointing behind me. The golden fields were covered in a blanket of fog. “If we don’t keep going, that is what we will wake up to tomorrow. Do you have any idea how difficult it will be to navigate this terrain with no visibility? We’ve only just set off anyway. Why are we resting now?”
My legs already felt like jelly with only a couple of hours of walking, but I couldn’t be seen taking sides.
My father puffed out his chest. He hated being told what to do. Not being the leader on this particular expedition was obviously not sitting well with him. “We are not like you. We are human. We need a break. You know these mountains. Are you saying you won’t be able to find your way in the fog?”
Spear grimaced. “It’s not exactly going to make it easy, is it?”
Spear gritted his teeth as though he was holding back what he really wanted to say. He looked over at me, and despite me trying to appear fine from the journey so far, I was obviously not doing a good job. “You do look tired,” he conceded. “Ok, everyone. We are going to set up camp here. We all need to be rested for the next part of our journey tomorrow.”
I could hear some of the others, mainly the dragons, mumbling to each other behind me, but none of them would dare to go against Spear’s orders. I caught a grin on my father’s face, but when I looked at him directly, he let it drop.
All in all, I was glad for the rest. I didn’t want to announce it to everyone, but I ached all over, especially where my scars were. My body was a map of scars crisscrossing the skin where I’d cut myself to free the dragons. My skin was no longer flawless and never would be again. Some of my scars had faded to thin, silver lines, and others still shone red, but they were all there, plain to see, each one representing the freedom of a dragon.
Two of the younger dragons, Nenno and Fox, changed into their dragon forms to light our campfire. It was getting chilly now the autumn air was coming in and with little to shield us from the wind, we needed all the warmth we could get. Thankfully, my mother and the other villagers had packed us some warm blankets along with enough food for us to feast upon, but as the flames flickered in the wind, I couldn’t help thinking I should have been stronger and insisted we carry on further up the mountain where there would be more shelter from the elements.
Fox and Nenno changed back into their human forms and dressed quickly in the cold air. A couple of the Slayers shifted to one side begrudgingly to let them have space by the fire.
The fire was small as we only had the wood we’d brought with us from the forest, and there were so many of us crowded around it that I could barely feel the heat from it. I had to content myself with snuggling into Ash and wrapping the pair of us in a blanket.
Even around the fire, the group was still separated into three distinct parts. No one was fighting, but no one was making any effort to talk to anyone from one of the other groups either.
“How long do you think it will before someone kills someone else?” joked Ash.
“That’s not a bet I’d like to take,” I replied quietly. He was trying to be funny, but I knew our expedition was hanging by a thread. Centuries of hatred didn’t disappear overnight, and though everyone was doing their best to not get in each other’s way, I knew it would take very little for this whole thing to blow up in our faces.
“Your father looks mad.”
I glanced over at him. “He always looks like that. I don’t think we need to worry about him. He got what he wanted after all. I caught him grinning a while ago. He just likes to be the boss, that’s all.”
“What about Spear?”
I sighed. Spear was as pigheaded as my father. If any two people were going to come to blows, it was them. Alpha, leader of the Wolvren, seemed happy enough to camp. As I looked over at him, I saw he was chatting to Morganna. Both of them were grinning, caught up in some shared story or joke.
“Maybe we should have brought more women up here,” I said, pointing at Alpha.
Ash hugged me closer to him and laughed. “I think it would just give them something else to argue over,” he pointed out. Maybe he was right. I couldn’t see my mother wanting to make this journey and I wouldn’t know who to bring up to keep Spear company. It certainly was a male-heavy expedition, though. Other than Morganna and me, there were a couple of female dragons who were keeping out of everyone’s way. All the rest were men.
“If women were in charge, this would be so much easier,” I mused.
“The guys think they are in charge, but let’s be honest, without you and Morganna, none of us would be here at all. If you ask me, women are in charge here.”
I didn’t feel in charge of anything, but it was nice to be thought of in that way. I stood and grabbed some food from the pile that had been put out and brought it back to Ash. Between us, we ate bread, cheese, and ham that I made into rough sandwiches, followed by a couple of cupcakes I recognized as my mother’s handiwork. Only my mother could think of baking when the whole world was falling down around her ears.
The sky darkened, but I couldn’t see any stars. Spear had been right. The fog was already beginning to drift in.
Chapter Two
I slept better than expected in the cold night. Ash’s body heat and the thick blanket helped keep me warm. That was one of the perks of being a dragon’s girlfriend: I was never cold. I opened my eyes and blinked. I couldn’t see a thing. My first thought was that I’d somehow gone blind, before realizing the damp air around me was actually thick fog. I’d never seen anything like it. I could barely see my hand when I stretched out my arm. I nudged Ash awake.
“Hmmm?”
“Wake up,” I whispered. Everything was silent around us as though the fog was hiding the sound as well as taking our vision from us.
“Woah,” exclaimed Ash as he opened his eyes.
“Shhh.” For some reason, it felt wrong to be speaking aloud.
Through the fog came the sounds of Spear’s voice. “I told him this would happen!”
“I can hear you, you know,” replied my father tetchily. I rolled my eyes. The pair of them would be the end of me if they didn’t get over their differences.
“Breakfast anyone?” I asked, just to break the tension.
“How are you going to make breakfast?” someone shouted, maybe Nenno. “Are you able to cook in the dark?”
It looked like my father and Spear weren’t the only ones in bad moods. The cold, damp air was getting to everyone. I stood, dropping the blanket to the ground. The dampness clung to me. It was going to be a miserable day. I wished I’d not agreed so readily with my father about wanting to stop. Now, if anything, the cold was making my body ache more.
I felt around for my backpack and pulled my warmest sweater from it. The sounds of other people stirring from sleep filled the air. The cloying fog was the main topic of conversation and the main cause of grumbling as we packed up the camp.
Breakfast was impossible. I had to content myself with eating a bar of chocolate that my mother had packed until we got a bit further up the mountain and escaped the fog. I crossed my fingers and hoped that as we climbed, the fog would thin out if only to keep Spear and my father from killing each other.
I whispered this to Ash who smirked. “If they do, at least they won’t have to worry about hiding the body.”
I rolled my eyes for a second time. It was going to be a long day. The going was extremely tough, not least because we could barely see where we were going. Nenno and Fox turned into dragons and used their fire to light the way. They’d argued that it made more sense for them to fly up the mountain, but both the Slayers and Wolvren argued that it would give them some kind of unfair advantage.
I kept to the back of the group, relying on Ash to keep me going in the right direction with his much better eyesight. It meant I didn’t have to listen to the endless complaints as we steadily made our way to the top of the mountain.
By the time we stopped for lunch, even I was getting grumpy. My hair was soaked and my sweater was barely keeping out the cold. The incessant squabbling between all three groups was driving me crazy and to top it all off, I felt sick with the lack of food and exhaustion. A campfire was set and, thanks to Nenno, lit. The fog had thinned out a little—enough to cook a meal—but it was still gray and dreary. I remembered this part of the mountain. We’d gone above the trees and already crossed the scrubland into the rocky parts. Even without the fog, the scenery would be gray and unexciting. I hoped it wasn’t a harbinger of things to come.
I helped cook, mainly
as an excuse to be close to the fire. As we’d missed breakfast, I elected to cook it for lunch instead. I pulled a pound of bacon and three boxes of eggs from my bag. Someone else brought out a couple of loaves of bread and another person buttered them all. I fried eggs in one pan while Fox fried bacon in another. We had limited supplies, but my mother always liked us to have a cooked breakfast and so she had packed enough for everyone and split it between my father’s bag, mine, Ash’s and Jasper’s. Between us, we cooked up quite a feast.
After we’d eaten and once again set off on our way, I noticed that people were grumbling less. A bit of food in their stomachs and the atmosphere had changed completely. Well, all except for Spear and my father who seemed to be unable to help themselves.
The actual atmosphere was getting better too. The higher we climbed, the thinner the fog became, until we finally climbed above it. With the gray clouds below us and the peaks of the Triad Mountains rising majestically above us, showing snow caps next to blue skies, it was shaping up to be quite a nice day after all. The sun shone down, drying my hair and lifting the damp from my clothes. Now that I could see, I recognized exactly where I was, and it wasn’t far from the entrance to the Goblin city. We’d made it and more than that, we’d made it without anyone killing anyone else.
The last time we’d been here, a small green door had been left open. Ash had walked down the tunnel beyond it to find a very grumpy Goblin. I expected as much today, and so was surprised when I saw the little green door was very much shut. Shut and locked. A huge metal chain with a padlock kept it that way.
“What are we going to do now?” asked my father, glaring at Spear.
Spear shrugged his shoulders. “How should I know? The door was open the last time we were here. Why don’t you figure it out?”
What was wrong with these two? They were acting like schoolboys. I marched past everyone else and stood in between them before they began throwing punches. “Father, without you I wouldn’t know how to hold a sword, let alone fight with one. Spear, you command a city of dragons. Both of you are fearless and brave. You are both great leaders.” They both nodded. “So please act like it,” I continued. “You are embarrassing yourselves.”