Table of Contents
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
Dragon Rescuing
Torch Lake Shifters, Book 3
By Sloane Meyers
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Similarities to actual people or events are entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 by Sloane Meyers. All rights reserved.
Table of Contents
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
Thank You For Reading!
More Books by Sloane Meyers
About the Author
Chapter One
“Step it up, boys!” Leif yelled. His lungs burned as he ran, but he ignored the pain and ran faster. Leif never let anyone outrun him, especially not his trainees. He glanced over his shoulder and grinned at the red faces of the two dragon shifters far behind him. “Catch me if you can!”
Leif didn’t look back again. He pumped his powerful legs as he sprinted toward the parking lot where his large white truck was parked. He’d offered to hand over the keys of the truck to anyone who could beat him back, but he wasn’t worried. He always outran these guys by a good half minute, at least. Today looked like it would be no different, and Leif grinned despite his screaming muscles. He lived for this kind of pain—the pain that told him that he was alive, that he was strong, and that he was fast.
Normally, Leif didn’t slow down as he approached his truck, preferring instead to blast past it at full speed in a final burst of energy. But today, as he ran closer to his truck, he saw that someone was already there. He slowed slightly, his grin fading from his face as he squinted to make out who was leaning against the vehicle. He knew it wasn’t anyone on his current training team. His two trainees were well behind him, and Clint, Leif’s Assistant Trainer, was jogging along behind them to bring up the rear. Besides, this person looked like a woman in a business suit. The truck partially blocked his view of her, but the closer Leif got, the surer he was that whoever this person was, she wasn’t here by the lake to work out. She was here to see him, and her business suit meant she’d been sent from one of the government agencies downtown.
Leif slowed even more, so that he was almost walking by the time he reached his truck.
“Howdy,” he said, raising an eyebrow in her direction. “You take a wrong turn somewhere? You look more like you’re dressed for a council meeting than a run by the lake.”
“Leif Redding, I presume?” she asked, ignoring his sarcastic question.
Leif sighed. “Yes. I’m Leif. And you are?”
“Sofia Hayes,” she said, just as Leif’s two trainees came whizzing past the truck.
“Nice job, boys,” Leif said. “Make sure you walk a bit to let your muscles cool down. I’ll catch up with you in a minute to do some stretches.”
The two dragon shifters nodded and started to walk off just as Leif’s Assistant Trainer, Clint, jogged up.
“Clint, I just sent Seth and Evan to do a cool down walk. Can you follow them and get them started on some stretches? I’ll be there shortly.”
Clint nodded, and gave Sofia a dark look before ambling off. Leif was trying to be polite, but he would have loved to glare at Sofia just as Clint had done. Jake, the dragon shifter who had been head trainer before Leif, had warned Leif to expect a visit from one of the government’s pawns. An underground plot to bring back dark magic had been uncovered a few months ago, and ever since then the High Council in Torch Lake had been trying to keep close tabs on all of the many government bureaus and departments. The Dragon Utilization Department, where Leif now worked, was no exception. Leif took a deep breath and turned back to face Sofia.
“How can I help you?” He took in her appearance as he waited for her to answer. She looked to be about his age, maybe a few years younger. She stood tall and had a look on her face that was almost too confident. She was trying too hard to appear authoritative, which led Leif to believe she must be new in her position. Good. He could use that little fact to his advantage.
He also couldn’t help but notice how beautiful she was. Leif didn’t make a habit of staring at women’s bodies, especially not in a work setting. But it was impossible to keep his eyes from grazing across the beauty in front of him. Sofia’s dark brown hair hung in wild waves around her shoulders, and her tanned skin seemed to glow against her honey brown eyes. The bright red of her business skirt suit, probably intended to make her appear powerful, only served to accentuate her curves. Her long legs were well-toned, a fact that her high heels only accentuated. Leif forced himself to look away from Sofia’s legs and up to her eyes. No matter how sexy this woman was, he needed to remain professional. And he needed to remember that she was probably here to make his life difficult.
“Well?” he prompted, when she remained silent for several more moments. She tilted her head to the side and waited a few seconds before answering him.
“I’m here on behalf of the High Council. I’ve been sent as their agent to conduct a review of your training procedures.”
She fished in her large tote bag and pulled out a clipboard and a pen. Then she opened her mouth to say something else, but Leif interrupted before she could speak. She’d made him wait for a reply, but he was going to show her that two could play that game. “Well, I’m sorry, but I’m a bit busy at the moment. I just finished a hard workout with my trainees, and I need to go stretch with them. It’s going to be quite a while before I can speak with you.”
Sofia remained unfazed, however. “No problem. I have time. I’ll just observe while you lead them through their paces.”
Leif frowned at her but said nothing else. He turned on his heel and headed over to where Clint was already stretching with Seth and Evan. Sofia followed, removing her heels when they reached the lake’s beach so she could walk steadily across the sandy surface.
“What’s that all about,” Clint whispered, gesturing toward Sofia with his chin as Leif sat down beside him.
“She’s here nosing around for the High Council. We can’t be trusted to do our jobs well on our own. They have to send some little cupcake to make sure we aren’t dabbling in dark magic.”
Clint’s eyes darkened as he glanced back at Sofia once more. Leif refused to look again, though. He wasn’t going to let some pretty little thing with a clipboard intimidate him. He was a dragon, after all. And the Dragon Utilization Department was his territory. She could “observe” all she wanted to, but, at the end of the day, he called the shots around here.
Didn’t he?
Chapter Two
The week turned into one of the longest of Leif’s life. Sofia fol
lowed him around with her damn clipboard, muttering and clucking disapprovingly while making little notes and checkmarks. By Friday, it took all of Leif’s self-control not to lose his temper on her completely. She obviously thought her position as a low-level auditor gave her some great power over him, but it didn’t. Leif wasn’t afraid of what she might report back to the High Council. He was doing a damn good job in his new position, and he knew it. Besides, he was one of the few dragons in Torch Lake. The High Council had a duty to make sure no one here was dipping into dark magic, sure. But they wouldn’t dare piss off a dragon. They couldn’t afford to lose any dragons in this town. In fact, they were actively trying to recruit more dragons as citizens. That’s the whole reason Leif was here—to convince the dragons who were new to town that Torch Lake was the best place in the shifter-wizard world to put down roots.
On the surface, the training program was touted as a way to get dragons in shape to go hunt dark monsters. Dark monsters were left over from the Great Dark Magic War that had ended three years ago. A few dark monsters had escaped and bred, until the number of these creatures roaming freely had become disturbingly large. Luckily, dragon fire could kill off the monsters easily, so the High Council of Torch Lake had started recruiting dragons to come to Torch Lake and do just that. The High Council was paying exorbitant funds, in excess of a million dollars, to each dragon who completed a training program and then killed off a dark monster. But the point of the months-long training program wasn’t actually to prepare the dragons to breathe fire on a few monsters. That part was easy, and a single day’s briefing would have been sufficient for most dragon shifters. No, the training program functioned as an excuse to keep the dragon shifters in Torch Lake for an extended period of time, in hopes that they would fall in love with the town and choose to stay here permanently. Seth and Evan were the first dragons Leif had trained, and he was determined to convince them both to move to Torch Lake. Sofia, with her snotty clipboard, was an unnecessary distraction from the real work he was doing.
“So,” Leif said as he collapsed into the chair in his office. “Are you satisfied that everything over here is in order?” He crossed his arms across his chest as Sofia sat daintily in the guest chair, her pen poised over her ever-present clipboard.
“Well, Mr. Redding—”
Leif rolled his eyes. “Just call me Leif.”
She didn’t miss a beat. “Well, Leif, I can tell that you are working very hard. The High Council appreciates all the effort you are putting in to train the new dragons. And I found no hints of dark magic use in the department.”
“Imagine that,” Leif said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. He resisted the urge to roll his eyes again.
Sofia gave him a sharp look. “Mr. Redding, this is not a matter to be taken lightly. We all need to work together to hold back dark magic. If you have nothing to hide, then you should be happy to have your department audited.”
Leif’s anger flared. “Just because I have nothing to hide doesn’t mean I have to be excited about some nosy government agent following me around with a clipboard all week. You’ve seen that there’s no dark magic here, so now I’ll thank you to go back to the High Council and let them know everything here is in order, and leave us alone to do our work.”
Sofia tapped her pen on her clipboard. “Well, almost everything here is in order. But there is one issue we need to address.”
Leif clenched his fists tight and did his best to bite back more sarcastic words. The calmer he stayed, the sooner he would be able to get this woman out of his office for good. “Oh?”
“Yes. You see, the High Council is concerned with the amount of frivolous spending that has been going on in the various government departments since the town’s inception three years ago. It seems that, since this town is new, many thought they could get away with spending however much they wanted on whatever they wanted. Not many departments have stayed within budget.”
“Okay,” Leif said slowly, not sure he understood. This was about money? He had nothing to worry about, then. The Dragon Utilization Department spent hardly any money on a regular basis. No one here was out buying unnecessary office equipment or throwing frilly office parties.
“The High Council is not just sending me out to look for evidence of dark magic use, although that is certainly an important part of my job. But I’ve also been tasked with finding ways to cut back on expenses.”
Sofia looked at him proudly, as though she had just announced that she’d been elected as a High Councilor herself, or something extraordinary like that. Leif wished she would wipe the smirk off her face and get to the point, but he forced himself to hold his tongue. The less he said, the quicker she would get through whatever pointless lecture she wanted to make, and the sooner he could go home and get away from her. When Sofia realized that Leif was not going to reply, she sighed and continued speaking.
“I commend you on running a relatively low-cost training program here. However, the program, while low cost, still runs too long. I’m going to recommend to the High Council that a time limit be placed on the dragon training program. The two dragons you have here have already been in training for a month, and all they seem to be doing is working out constantly. There is no reason they need to be in any better physical shape than they are now in order to hunt down dark monsters.”
Leif gave Sofia a blank stare for a moment. Then he threw back his head and laughed. “Oh, that’s rich. You have no idea how this program actually works, do you?”
Sofia’s eyes darkened. “I’m well aware of how the dragon training program works, Mr. Redding. I—”
“Call me Leif.”
“I’m well aware of how the program works, Leif. But my job is to save the city money and make sure everyone is operating on a reasonable budget. Three months of ‘training’ that actually consists of merely working out is not reasonable. Send the dragons out to kill some dark monsters, and do it now. Otherwise, I’ll have to report to the High Council that your department is not running efficiently.”
Leif laughed again. “Go ahead and tell the High Council we’re not running efficiently. You realize they pay these guys over a million dollars to come to Torch Lake, right? The point of this program is to bring dragons to Torch Lake, not to kill dark monsters. If all the High Council wanted was to kill off the dark monsters, then they could just send Clint and me down to do the job. We’d have it taken care of in less than a week. So go ahead. Go tell the High Council that you want to get these dragons out of here sooner rather than later. They’ll be wildly impressed that you want to get rid of the dragons they paid millions of dollars to recruit.”
Sofia narrowed her eyes at him. “Spending so much money to bring dragons here under the barely legitimate reason of hunting dark monsters is horribly inefficient. There has to be a better way.”
Leif shrugged. “Perhaps there is. But right now, this is the way that the High Council has chosen. My job is to follow their orders, so that’s what I’m doing. Now, is there anything else you’d like to complain about? It’s Friday, and I’d like to get out of here at a reasonable time.”
Sofia looked down at her clipboard, her brow furrowed in anger or frustration—or perhaps both. She scanned whatever was written in her notes, then looked up and shook her head stiffly at him. “No. I think I’ve got everything I need for my report. Thank you for your time, Mr. Redding.”
Leif didn’t bother telling her to call him Leif. He didn’t care how she addressed him anymore. He just wanted her to get out of here. She stood and held out her hand to shake his, then stiffly turned and walked out of his office door. Leif’s office was at the end of a long hallway, so he was able to watch her for a long time as she walked away. Today, she was wearing a navy blue skirt suit. She had on a pair of gray high heels, which clicked the ground with every step, and Leif wondered why women bothered to put themselves through the torture of such ridiculous shoes in the name of fashion. He was pretty sure he would have been just as impressed
with Sofia’s body no matter what kind of shoes she was wearing. Her long legs were strong and slender, and her curves filled out the suit perfectly. Her hair was up in a bun today, but the wavy tendrils wouldn’t quite stay put. They kept escaping, and several were falling around her shoulders in a strangely seductive way.
In fact, everything about Sofia’s body felt seductive. Leif found himself grateful that she had acted so obnoxiously. He might have been tempted to ask her on a date if she’d been the least bit nice. And dating the girl sent to audit his department probably wouldn’t have been the wisest of ideas. He was sure there was a conflict of interest in there that the High Council would not approve of, and the last thing he wanted to do was draw the disapproval of the High Council. He was still new at this job, and there were old dragons on the High Council who would have no qualms about firing him. They didn’t consider his “dragon status” as anything special, even if all the other shifters and wizards did.
When Sofia finally disappeared around the corner of the hallway, Leif pulled out his phone and sent a group text to his friends Jake, Russ, and Clint. Winking Wizard tonight? I could use a good beer or ten.
Within moments, his phone was buzzing back with excited replies. Leif wasn’t the only one who’d had a hard week. The rest of the crew was ready to head to their favorite bar and relax as well. Leif did his best to push Sofia from his mind. It was the weekend. Time to have fun. Besides, all Sofia was going to do when she went to the High Council was make herself look like an idiot. Leif had nothing to worry about.
If he had known that Sofia wasn’t heading back to High Council headquarters, but rather to a secret meeting of wizards and shifters who wanted him dead, Leif might have been a bit more worried.
Chapter Three
“Electi,” Sofia said to the seemingly normal stretch of rocky hillside. A slight groan sounded out, and then, a small door in the hillside opened. Sofia quickly stepped inside, and the door groaned shut behind her. She shivered as the cool air of the rocky tunnel hit her, and she wished she’d had time to go home and change out of this blasted suit before coming here. She’d seen Leif looking at her suit with mild disdain, which amused her. If only he knew that she hated dressing in suits as much as he apparently hated seeing them. But Sofia had a part to play—the role of a dutiful High Council audit agent. And a prim and proper suit was the required costume for that role, so Sofia wore it.
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