Ward of Wyvern: A dragon shifter fantasy (The Dragon Mage Book 1)

by LJ Andrews

  I crossed my arms, reluctant to agree only because she’d insisted. She wouldn’t hold back; she’d try to cause some damage.

  Teagan crouched. Mini, surprisingly, sheathed her knife and pressed her palms firmly on the ground. I rushed back when the earth rolled from her touch. Teagan stumbled against the trunk of a towering maple. Mini held her palms up again and the roots of the tree slithered through the soil like serpents. They bent and stretched for Teagan’s limbs, to tether him against the trunk.

  Teagan lost the knife when he rolled aside. He scrambled to his feet and rushed for a pile of stones at the base of the hillside. At his touch, the stones hurled across the lawn, aimed at Mini. She grinned, approval in her gaze, but she raised her palms and the stones fell where they were.

  “Well, done,” she said, “but it’s not enough.”

  Mini clenched her fists, and the stones exploded into gray dust. Teagan released a breathy curse and rose to his feet. Skeins of dust and stone wrapped around her palms in a kind of cyclone. Before Teagan could react, the jagged shards flung at him, and whipped against his bare skin.

  “That wasn’t nice, Mini.” Sapphire said but he laughed.

  Teagan glared and wiped a trail of blood from his cheekbone. At his side, he spread his fingers wide and squared his body against Mini. Mouth set in a white line, he said nothing. Mini reached for the earth, but her face went slack. She looked at Teagan. Unblinking, unmoving.

  The snap of branches, a shudder of moving stones, came from somewhere deep in the trees. Birds took flight, shrieking their warning calls as they fled to the sky. A sudden wind, chilled and sharp, whipped my hair against my face.

  “Teagan!” Mini cried. “You’ve blocked me from speaking to the earth.”

  A curl pulled at Teagan’s lips. The force snapping the trees to bits drew closer.

  Mini backed away. “Teagan, what are you up to? How have you warded against me?”

  “Anything goes,” he said through his teeth. The wyvern marks along his arms had shaded once more to the gilded sheen as his power surged through his body.

  Then, the thunder found us.

  Sapphire ripped me away. Raffi, Dash, and Eisha shifted without thought and shot to the clouds. A torrent of frothy water pummeled through the trees. An uncontrolled wave of murky water and trees and shrubs, all aimed at the clearing.

  I covered my mouth, watching all the water from the distant river raging across the ground as it carved a new path—a path leading straight to Mini. The mage held up her hands, desperate to defend herself. The harder she tried, the less power she seemed to grasp. The water swirled around Teagan’s body, leaving him dry and in control.

  Mini shouted her fury, gripped her knife, and tossed the blade across the clearing. The point aimed at Teagan’s heart, and the mage had expert aim.

  Teagan narrowed his eyes and bellowed frustration, forced to dodge the blade. The water stopped its rampage, swallowing him and Mini as it spilled across the forest floor. My heart shot to my throat as I waited, searching for his head.

  As the water calmed, their sopping forms took shape. Teagan spluttered on his hands and knees, coughing and spitting water. Mini’s hair stuck to her forehead in chunks. Her steps heavy as she crossed the space between them.

  Teagan saw her rampage and held up his hands, laughing. “Whoa, hang on. Are you going to get angry at me for nearly beating you?”

  She tightened her fists, eyes ablaze. “I want to! Really, I want to, but mostly I’m damn impressed. You don’t even understand what strength is required to summon that much water from such a distance. Though I don’t believe you had the control you think you did—I probably would have died in the end.”

  “Don’t be dramatic.” He shook the damp from his hair. “I had control.”

  “Yes, until you crumbled from exhaustion. Even still, well done, Teagan. I wanted to start with my power, just to show off a bit. I wasn’t expecting to drown today.”

  From above, Dash returned and shifted quickly. “I am not a water dragon! Next time I could use some warning!”

  We only laughed.

  “I can take you back to rest, Teagan. You look sick again,” Sapphire said.

  Teagan shook his head. “I think I’d rather stay here. The forest helps.”

  “I’ll stay with him and help,” I said.

  Raffi scoffed. “Surprise.”

  Sapphire hesitated, jaw tight. “We’ll stay then.”

  Mini laughed, and there was an unusual hint of madness in her tone. “Kon, did you see what just happened? If any sparrows or rabbits attack Jade, I think Teagan can handle it. Oh, don’t look at me like that, I’m only teasing. But I think we can stand guard at least a little distance away.”

  “It’s time for our watch at the borders anyway,” Eisha said. “We’ll return soon. Teagan, we’re placing Jade in your care. Don’t fail us.”

  Raffi and Dash rushed deep into the forest after Eisha where they would shift and take to the sky. The borders of Wyvern Willows were protected by the willow, but each day my closest friends took it upon their shoulders to ensure it stayed that way.

  Sapphire folded into his wyvern form, and Mini clamored on his shoulders, notably thrilled with the show of power. Teagan slid from the rock, and leaned his back against it, holding his arm out so I would come sit next to him. I was mightily glad to oblige.

  Teagan held me against his side. I wrapped my arms around his middle, urging my magic into him.

  “You’re incredible,” I said. He only shrugged, so I pinched his arm. “I mean it, I’ve never seen anything like this in my life.”

  “I don’t know if I hate what’s happening, or if I never want it to stop,” he admitted. “It’s almost painful, and it makes me feel like I haven’t slept in weeks, but when I hear the power—or whatever it is—telling me what to do, it’s addicting. Is this what magis feel all the time?”

  “I can only speak for dragons, but it can be overwhelming to have power, yes.”

  Teagan let out a long sigh. “I’m strong one minute, weak in another, then it’s over.”

  “It’s hard to believe you’ve harnessed mage energy. A dead power and all this time it was in you, waiting.” I nuzzled his neck, kissing him there.

  “I’m sure there’s a lot to learn. I’ve actually been thinking,” he said, tilting my chin so I looked at him. “I’ve read about the shift of wyverns—would you want to try? I mean, having me release you?”

  My lips parted. “You know how?”

  “I don’t know for sure, but what I read sounds like what Mini did for Sapphire. If you want to, I want to help you.”

  “Yes,” I said quickly. “Yes, please. Try. Do you feel strong enough?”

  Teagan nodded and cleared his throat. “Okay, so I’m supposed to touch you—”

  “So far so good.”

  His eyes shadowed in a rush of desire, but he shook his head as if to bury the need for later. “I say this line, no idea what it means, but I memorized it. I have to command the power, then you must accept it.”

  “Okay, I’m ready,” I said when he placed his hands on my shoulders.

  “Don’t laugh, I’m going to try to pronounce this right,” Teagan said, closing his eyes. “Orietur verus forma.”

  The longer Teagan gripped my shoulders, the more fire scorched inside my chest. As though a match had been struck through my heart. My body burned. Yet, my skin was still fleshy and pale. Teagan swallowed and cracked his eyes to see if anything had changed before trying again.

  My eyes closed. A foreign surge of his magic coiled with mine. Inside everything seemed in place. I wanted to shift, but it was as if the spark could not breathe, and died before the change could happen.

  Four more times Teagan tried. His voice cracked and his head beaded in sweat when I finally rested my hand against his cheek, accepting our failure. “I feel like I’m locked inside. I sense your power, but I fear it is on my part that I can’t shift. You need to rest.”
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br />   Teagan dropped his gaze to the ground and his shoulders slumped forward. “I can bend a river to do what I want, but I can’t release you.”

  My hands found the sides of his face. Hot tears burned behind my eyes. “It’s on me, not you. I can feel something deep inside blocking me from accepting the shift.”

  I didn’t ask or wait for him to move before I kissed him. The sweeping swell of power electrified between our touch once again, and though Teagan’s skin was still pallid, he gripped the sides of my arms, pulling me closer.

  I kissed him deep and thorough. He groaned against my mouth and covered me with his body. His hands left hot bursts of energy on my skin. Too soon, he pulled away, grinning against my lips. “I’m lightheaded.”

  “I expected nothing less.” I kissed his nose and adjusted so his head was in my lap.

  A peaceful moment. The forest settled in the sounds of the night and a summer breeze rustling in the trees.

  “Jade, I’ve been thinking about something,” Teagan said after a long silence. His fingers slipped into mine, and he rested our hands on his chest. “What if my parents died during the war, too? I mean, they must have been mages, right?”

  “As I understand it, yes, you must come from a mage bloodline.” I combed my free hand through his hair. I bit my bottom lip, wondering how much I should say. Teagan stared up at the sky. I noticed he did it often, almost like it brought a certain level of peace to his soul. Clearing my throat, I lowered my voice. “Sapphire believes, and I think it’s entirely possible, he thinks you . . .”

  “What?”

  I met his gaze, my nerves faltering. “Sapphire believes it’s possible that you’re . . . not an orphan.”

  Teagan’s brow furrowed as he sat up. “He thinks my parents are alive?”

  I folded my knees beneath me, clasping Teagan’s hands tightly. “He mentioned your last name could be a tag for a mage. Until you started showing how powerful you were, he didn’t put it together. He believes it’s possible your parents wanted you to be known as a mage, but for what reason, we don’t know.”

  Teagan leaned back against a boulder. “But, my aunt, she’s told me stories of my mom.” Teagan hesitated, mouth tight. “I think we need to go speak with her.”

  “Your aunt?”

  “Jade, I’m a mage. Odds are, Liz hasn’t been telling me the truth about my parents.”

  He was probably right. My insides cinched. But why would this woman hide Teagan from the truth. Unless his parents were . . .

  “Will you come with me?” he asked, pulling me from thoughts.

  “Leave Wyvern Willows?”

  Teagan brushed off his pants and, to my disappointment, went in search for his shirt. “Yeah,” he said simply. “Haven’t you ever left?”

  “Never.”

  A sly grin played with his lips. “Well, I think you should know you’re the first girl I’ve ever brought home to meet the family. The only problem is getting there.”

  “Eisha has a car,” I said. “We don’t fly to school, you know.”

  “Will they allow you to leave?”

  It was a question I didn’t know the answer to. “I think leaving us alone today was a good sign they trust us. But I’ve never left the willow. I agree you need to find answers, and I’m not letting you go alone, so I suppose they will have to.”

  A thrill of excitement pulsed through me at the idea of seeing a small bit of the world besides my tiny town. Frightening in the same breath, too. But we would protect each other.

  How strange life had become. My power had grown with Teagan, and something inside convinced me the time to take the throne was near. King Nag didn’t haunt my dreams, but our destinies were intertwined. I’d meet the serpent king again. I’d be ready.

  I marveled at Teagan.

  When he’d come there had been anger in his soul, but pure intent. He’d lived in confusion, in the dark all his life. Now, he walked with shoulders high, with a shimmer of constant power in his eyes.

  I was falling in love with it. With him.

  But it was more. A deeper feeling I knew to my bones—I was the rising queen, but Teagan was something, too.

  No ordinary mage.

  As if the forest agreed, the whisper on the wind told me this bond, this change between us, was bound to change everything.

  Part Three

  The Mage

  Chapter 23

  My lungs burned like I’d been running a marathon, and for a while all I wanted to do was curl along the grass and sleep for twelve hours. Then Jade touched me and went right again.

  Wyvern Willows was meant to serve as my prison. The place where I would learn to behave, where my anger would be given a voice, where I was supposed to become the man my aunt Liz saw.

  Never in any realm, of any dream, did I imagine the reality I was living now. Wyvern Willows wasn’t my prison, it was the place where I’d been set free.

  Not defective magic. Protected. And I still struggled to process it all.

  Then, there was Jade.

  How I’d struggled to wrap my mind around every emotion I’d felt with her in recent days. The connection had been undeniable when I’d first met the queen of the elementals, but now, with her hand warm against my palm, I was invincible. I would die to protect that feeling. I would die for her.

  Never one for romance—who’d want a defective, after all—but this had taken me body and soul. She set me on fire with a single touch. She filled a missing link I’d never realized had been left open.

  “You’re lost in your thoughts,” she whispered.

  My hand tightened on hers as I pulled heavy shrubs out of her way. Lights from the reform house poured through the trees, but I didn’t want our solitude to end. “I was thinking of everything that’s happened since I came here. I was thinking of you.”

  Jade’s body pressed against me as she rested her head on my shoulder.

  My magic responded, reaching for her, burning in my blood. Not a painful sensation, more like adrenaline. A rush I couldn’t stop. I hesitated to use the new power, and at the same time it was as though I could not live without it.

  Funny how for years I believed trees spoke to me and in truth, they had. A new language I never understood before.

  Jade’s fingertips traced the marks on my arms. A habit I’d noticed. I smiled, and lifted her knuckles to my lips.

  “Look, Eisha is here,” Jade said, breaking me from my thoughts. Eisha’s dark BMW was parked right along the curve of the drive.

  Another strange thing: all the dragons in this town fell beneath my magic’s desire to protect. I didn’t want anything to happen to any of them, so fiercely I could hardly breathe sometimes. Eisha didn’t trust me, clearly, but was getting there. Raffi and Dash tried to play hard, as if they didn’t like me, but respect was there.

  Jade stopped short of walking up the stairs, her jaw pulsed.

  I squeezed her hand. “You okay?”

  Jade’s eyes were fierce, like green fire blazed behind her irises. “I don’t know . . .” She looked at the ground. “I can’t believe I’m going to suggest this, but I think we should just go.”

  Jade glanced at Eisha’s car. My brow furrowed. “You want to leave without telling them? So, I’m supposed to run off with you, leaving four dragons who have basically raised you behind. Raffi and Dash aren’t kittens.”

  “They won’t let us leave, I know they won’t,” she said. “Don’t you want to know the truth about your family? How can we really defend ourselves if we don’t know the whole truth? You heard Mini, even she wishes she knew where you came from. Sapphire and Eisha barely let me stay alone in the forest with you. You think they’ll let me leave Wyvern Willows—and before you say it, you’re not going without me.”

  My voice caught in my throat, the exact suggestion building on my tongue. I hesitated. “Do you have the keys?”

  “Hmm. Weren’t you arrested for stealing a car?”

  “You want me to steal Eisha’s ca
r?”

  Jade opened the car door, her hand gliding across the side of the driver’s seat. “It would be interesting to watch, but I know where she keeps a spare key.” I released a long breath when Jade held up the key tucked in a plastic bag with tape around the center. “You’ll have to drive, though. I’m afraid a royal wyvern has no need to get a license. Unless you want to teach me.”

  I snatched the key and leaned in, so our lips touched. “Maybe when it’s lighter, and we aren’t in the middle of grand theft auto.”

  Jade pecked my mouth and leveraged into the passenger seat. “Well, let’s go. I’ve already convinced them that the car is in the driveway, and it will stay that way for several hours.”

  “That might be calling it close.” I sat behind the wheel and started the engine.

  “Where’s your sense of adventure, Mr. Ward?” Jade raked her fingers through my hair.

  Not even months ago, sex and romance were simply part of the fun. But Jade’s touch left me helpless. She could demand anything of me. I trapped her face between my palms and kissed her. Her lips warm and soft, her tongue stroked mine.

  With a touch of reluctance, I broke away, and drove down the drive. “You’re not helping me reform, Queen Jade.”

  “I never want you to reform or change anything,” she whispered with an underlying meaning. Jade settled in her seat, but her hand was still clasped tight in mine as we sped toward the town limits.

  There was a notable shift in power when we crossed the border of Wyvern Willows. Jade seemed to sense my unease, her touch ever constant on my arm as she spoke of anything but the idea of leaving the only town she’d known.

  “It’s so wide and open,” she said, leaning her head out the window and breathing in the air.

  I watched her for a moment. She seemed so at peace, almost like she’d come home. I knew the feeling. The easiness of nature, the peace of the trees. It was strange to think of Jade as rebellious, but she had been before. I pinched my mouth, curious, but hesitant.