Origin (Scales 'N' Spells Book 1)

by AJ Sherwood

  Contents

  Tags

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Dictionary

  Authors

  This book is a work of fiction, so please treat it like a work of fiction. Seriously. References to real people, dead people, good guys, bad guys, stupid politicians, companies, restaurants, events, products, locations, pop culture references, or wacky historical events are intended to provide a sense of authenticity and are used fictitiously. Or because I wanted it in the story. They belong to their own owners. Characters, names, story, location, dialogue, weird humor, and strange incidents all come from the author’s very fertile imagination and are not to be construed as real. No, I don’t believe in killing off main characters. Villains are a totally different story.

  ORIGINS

  Scales ’n’ Spells 1

  Copyright © 2020 by AJ Sherwood and Jocelynn Drake

  Cover by Katie Griffin

  vector illustration, set of round tribal dragon designs, black and white graphics by artdock/Shutterstock; Fractal smoke swirl by Martin Capek/Shutterstock

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights.

  Purchase only authorized editions.

  Tags

  Not-so-extinct, dragon shifters, mages, fated mates, secret clans, epic libraries, hurt/comfort, age gap, not that Alric cares, magical heritage, mechanical engineers being BAMF, grumpy dragon kings being protective of their cute mates, really the cuteness is downright criminal, we might need a firehose for these two, or not, sass, so much sass, Ravi and Cameron are no longer allowed to be alone together, for reasons, dragons hoarding, when you live long enough statistics will get you, bats named Cheryl, beheadings, no damsels in distress here, just very unhappy mages, with trigger fingers, anyone have life hacks on how to get rid of kidnappers, Cameron is open to suggestions

  Alric Burkhard, King of the Fire Dragons, had a duty to love and protect his people. All of his dragons, no matter how much they might irritate him. Like now. He reminded himself of that quite firmly.

  Because he was about two seconds from wringing Ravi’s neck like a chicken’s.

  “—I swear,” his friend and bodyguard said earnestly over the phone. Ravi seemed to realize Alric was about two seconds from bashing him over the head and then retreating to the castle. “It was a mage. A full-blown mage. Would I lie to you?”

  “If it meant getting me out of the castle and into the festival, yes, yes you would.” Alric drew on his patience. It was currently in short supply. “If you smelled a mage, then where is she?”

  “Have you seen the streets right now?” Ravi protested. “I can lose my own nose in this crowd! It’s why I called everyone down to search too. I mean, I’m totally happy to see everyone in the festival, don’t get me wrong, but I wouldn’t lie to you about spotting a mage. That’s beyond mean, and I’m not mean. Impulsive maybe. Perhaps a touch impatient, but I wouldn’t be mean, right? Right. She’s totally here, I swear on the left toe of my legless teddy bear. I’m just having a little difficulty picking the scent back up, but I swear to you she was near the beer stand, y’know, the one that’s across the street from the bakery and—”

  “Ravi, breathe,” Baldewin reminded patiently from beside Alric.

  Baldewin was always patient and calm. It was part of the reason why Alric had asked him to be his personal bodyguard so many years ago. That and people normally took one look at Baldewin and reconsidered whatever nefarious thing they had in mind. The man was over six feet of solid muscle and had a deadpan attitude that gave him the aura of an immovable object. Walls of concrete had more give than Baldewin. It was tempered by his good-natured humor, in evidence now in his grey-green eyes and the slight quirk of his full mouth. “You’re remembering to breathe, right?”

  “Fuck you, people don’t forget to breathe while talking,” Ravi shot back.

  There was a snort from Dieter. “I don’t believe you, young dragon. I’ve seen you almost pass out while talking a mile a minute.”

  “I was concussed!” Ravi howled, a whine in the words.

  “Ravi, focus.” Alric took in a deep breath himself, trying to scent the air without being obvious about it. The world at large thought dragons were extinct, and it was a rumor the remaining dragon clans encouraged for the simple fact that it made life a little easier.

  Revealing himself at the festival was something he very much wanted to avoid.

  The annual Dragon Festival was in full throttle, the city streets packed with an estimated fifty thousand people, and it was literal chaos. People from all around the world had gathered here for the three-day event. For a town that normally had only twenty-thousand inhabitants, the additional influx of people strained the seams to bursting.

  Alric’s normal approach to surviving the Dragon Festival each year was to hide in his castle, in the mountains, with several bottles of select wine. He drank steadily through the event until it—and his hangover—had mercifully passed. He avoided the festival with more dedication than humanity would a plague.

  And yet, here he was in the middle of it, on the streets, with people packed in against him on all sides. If Ravi had said anything aside from the word ‘mage’ he wouldn’t have moved from the castle. But that single word was enough to mobilize the entire clan.

  They hadn’t seen a new mage in over five hundred years. Alric had prayed, and hoped, and searched for mages for so many years he’d almost given up on it entirely. Hearing of a mage here, so close to his home, was as incredible as it was odd. Why now? Why here? Surely it couldn’t be coincidence.

  Assuming Ravi was right.

  For the young dragon’s sake, he’d better be. Alric really would wring his neck if he’d gotten all of their hopes up for nothing.

  Also, fortunately for Ravi, none of the revelers seemed to be paying much attention to them. They were too focused on enjoying the festival to the fullest. Dragon masks—most of them colorful, gaudy, and covered in sequins or glitter—were either on people’s heads or shoved to the side to give the wearer room to eat. People flocked to different stands offering merchandise and souvenirs. Mostly dragon-themed, naturally. The statues and pictures depicting the dragons were a little off, even accounting for artistic license.

  Then again, the Dragon War had ended five hundred years ago, and the dragons had disappeared more or less at that time. Old records and depictions were all that modern people had to go off of. It made sense nothing was quite right.

  Alric moved through the streets, trying to squeeze between groups of people, Baldewin his dedicated shadow. There was likely no
danger here, but the royal bodyguards were not in the habit of letting their king wander around alone outside of the castle. And bodyguards came in handy. Alric may or may not have used his friend’s bulk as a trail blazer. Once or thrice.

  He kept the phone to his ear, keeping tabs on people even as he scented the air with every breath. “Lisette, anything?”

  His senior mage sounded a little dragony herself in frustration. “We’re getting readings of magic, yes. But there’s so many magical elements in play down there it’s like trying to find a particular drop of water in the ocean.”

  “Would it help if I ordered all the dragons back out?”

  “No, not really. Frankly, at this point I think you’ve got a better chance than we do of finding her. Our seeking spells just aren’t that accurate unless we have a focus.”

  Alric grimly acknowledged this with a grunt. He knew that, all too well.

  “I say keep searching. If Ravi’s caught her scent once, surely he can do it ag—”

  “FOUND HIM!”

  Alric’s head snapped up and in the direction he could hear Ravi. He’d been loud enough that even above the din the crowd was making he still heard the man’s voice. “Where?!”

  “Front of Petratschek—excuse me, coming through, move, move, move!”

  Alric wasn’t far from there. He and Baldewin moved as one, fighting through the crowd, trying to cross the small square parking lot and to the clinic in question. Even as he fought through the crowd, his mind couldn’t help but question the pronoun. Had Ravi said him? A male mage? It was rare—most mages were females—but not unheard of. Alric didn’t care, gender wasn’t relevant. Just finding a new mage was cause for celebration in and of itself.

  It meant magic wasn’t dead after all.

  It meant his people had a chance.

  Between one heartbeat and the next, he spied Ravi. The little wind dragon was practically glommed onto a taller man, his slender frame vibrating with excitement. With his curly dark hair standing up in interesting angles, and the overwhelming words pouring out of his mouth in frantic German, he probably looked like someone wired…or on drugs.

  At least, the man he held onto obviously had that impression. His body language shouted discomfort as he leaned away from Ravi, trying to pull his arm free.

  Alric stole a moment to get the man’s measure, to catch his scent for himself before trying to pull Ravi off. The scent was strong, unmistakable—like the sky right before a storm, lightning poised to strike. That kind of charged, power-enriched air couldn’t belong to anyone else but a mage. Ravi was right on that, and Alric owed him an apology for accusing his excitable bodyguard of pranking him.

  On the heels of that impression was another Alric hadn’t quite expected: the mage was attractive. He looked of Asian heritage, black hair swept back from his face in a romantic fall that brushed his collar, highlights of brown catching the rays of sunlight, flattering his olive skin. He was taller than Alric, athletic in build, dressed in jeans and a white, form-fitting button-up shirt.

  Dragons were, by nature, pansexual. Alric had never really paused and thought about that much, or considered if he had a type. All he’d ever really wanted was a mate, consort, lover, and best friend. If that person came as male, female, non-binary, gender fluid, or something else entirely, he frankly did not care.

  But hot Asian men wearing glasses? That could totally be his type.

  Shaking his head, he pulled himself together and strode in. “Everyone, we’ve found him. Retreat to the castle.” Pocketing the phone, he ordered, “Ravi. Desist.”

  Ravi, normally good about obeying orders, only turned his head, greeting Alric with a bright smile. “I told you I wasn’t pranking you!”

  Ravi would never let them forget this. Sighing, he waved Baldewin forward. The bodyguard did so, wrapped Ravi up in a bear hug, and carted him off with Ravi kicking his legs and spluttering protests.

  The mage watched this retreat, body language relaxing as his shoulders came down. In a very American accent, he said in English, “Phew, thanks. I was beginning to wonder what virgin I’d have to sacrifice to get him to let go.”

  Alric didn’t know whether to feel bad or relieved that it was very likely the mage hadn’t understood a word Ravi had spewed at him. Pulling up every ounce of charm he possessed, Alric bent a smile on the mage. “Sorry for my friend, I think he’s enjoyed the festival too much.”

  It was the right tactic. The mage relaxed his guard completely, returning his smile. “Oh, thank god, your English is amazing. Yeah, I think he mistook me for someone else? My German isn’t great, but I thought I caught something about magic? I’m assuming he’s a LARPer or something.”

  Alric’s smile froze and twitched. Did this man not know he was a mage? How…How was that even possible?

  Or was he pretending to be only human, as Alric himself was doing?

  This would take more than a few minutes to figure out. And it did put a wrinkle in his first plan. He’d hoped to simply find a private setting to reveal himself as a dragon and then take the conversation from there. That option was clearly out. To buy himself a moment to think, he offered a hand. “I’m Alric Burkhard.”

  The mage accepted the handshake with a firm one of his own. “Cameron Park, nice to meet you.”

  “You’re here on holiday, I take it?”

  “Yeah. I heard someone say one of the larger Dragon Festivals in Europe was here for some reason, so I decided to come and check it out.” Cameron looked about and shook his head in bemusement. “It’s been more than I bargained for. They weren’t kidding, this is quite the party. Why here, though, I don’t understand. Sonthofen’s not really that big. I figured Munich or even Berlin’s would be bigger.”

  “It’s more the location.” Alric experienced a sinking feeling in his stomach. This young man was not aware at all of the significance of who he was—or who he spoke to. Alric needed to handle this carefully. He couldn’t lose his chance to win Cameron over by scaring him off. He absolutely must bring him into the clan somehow. Flying by the seat of his pants, he turned and indicated the Allgäuer Hochalpen mountains nearby. “In the mountains is Schloss Burkhard. Traditionally, the castle was believed to be the home of the Fire Dragon Clan.”

  Cameron’s mouth formed an O in understanding. “Burkhard? Like your family name.” Alric only smiled in return. Better to simply evade this question than try to convince him he was a dragon. Cameron winked as if he was in on the joke, and Alric studiously ignored the stab of guilt that came from purposefully not correcting Cameron. The omission felt like a lie. “Gotcha. That makes more sense. But why not hold the festival up there?”

  “It’s not open to the public. They choose to hold it here, nearby.”

  “Huh. That’s interesting; no one mentioned that part.”

  Alric extended a hand toward the festival. “Please, allow me to give you a proper tour of the area. I know it and its history well.”

  Cameron’s interest visibly perked. “Oh, you’re a native here?”

  “I am. I live in Burkhard Castle, in fact. I’m happy to play tour guide as an apology for Ravi.” Alric held his breath, fervently hoping his lure would work. If he could get Cameron to walk with him of his own accord, so much the better. He needed to spend time with this man if he was to foster a better connection with him. And he didn’t have much time if Cameron was simply passing through.

  Cameron didn’t even hesitate. “Sure, I’d love to take you up on that. Frankly, it’s always so much better to get a native to show you around rather than a tour guide. You get to see the really cool out of the way stuff the professional tours never hit.”

  Alric dared to breathe out. “I feel the same. Are you aware the city is very old?”

  “No, really?”

  “Indeed. Sonthofen was already inhabited during the Stone Age. It was settled by Germanic Alemans who first built at the foot of the Kalvarienberg—” Alric continued on, gently leading him through the crowd to t
he outside of the city center, partially so he could be heard without raising his voice. It was quite noisy in the middle of the festival throng. He tried not to ramble too much about the history. A hard thing to do, as he was quite keen on history himself. But that wasn’t the point of this. The point was to earn enough of Cameron’s trust so the mage could openly admit who he was. What he was.

  Why did he hide it? Surely the name Burkhard meant something to him. The Fire Clan had been known to all the mages before the war. Cameron should have realized instantly that he was safe with Alric because he was a Burkhard. It didn’t make any sense to Alric. The dragons were very eager to find mages. Wasn’t the reverse true as well?

  Then again, considering how the Dragon War ended, perhaps not.

  He weaved in many a story of mages and dragons as they walked, watching Cameron’s expression keenly. Aside from interest, and curiosity, there was no other emotion, as if this didn’t connect to Cameron himself on a personal level. Alric wasn’t sure what to make of this, but it boded ill.

  They came within eyesight of the ruins of the Burgruine Fluhenstein. It sat further up on the mountain slope, the walls still standing although the roof had given out ages ago. It looked blocky and imposing from one angle, but sad as well; a relic of a time gone by. Alric gestured up toward it. “A castle once stood there, although as you can see it’s completely in ruins now. It stood somewhere around 1360. The fire dragons lived there first, when they came to this area. They moved out only when a fire damaged most of the structure, deeming it impossible to repair.”