There were many Dragon Souls living on Earth in this time period. Flora had discovered she was a Dragon Soul, like her twin. But not one of the dragons who had awakened was her mate. She sighed as she pulled off the freeway, following the moving van down the rural road that led to the House of Flames.
She and Raiden from the House of Storms had become close. They both enjoyed first-person-shooter video games—one of the few hobbies the busy science student allowed herself. She heard no end of teasing from Penelope about being his mate, but Flora and Raiden were just friends. Besides, Flora had been far too busy finishing her thesis to even consider a relationship. Nevertheless, every time she thought about Raiden, a little thrill ran down her spine.
He wasn't exactly her type. He was so type B and was obsessed with video games and working out. But he was fun to be around, and every time they spent an afternoon together, he helped her relax. That was exactly the kind of relationship she needed.
Flora was young for a PhD candidate, and she had her whole life ahead of her. She wasn't in a big hurry to settle down, get married, and start a family. Penelope hadn’t been either. Not until she’d met Cato. Everything had changed since then. But Flora had important work to do and wouldn’t be distracted from it. She wanted to help the world. Her project on the vaccine was just the beginning. She hoped to accomplish much more. Getting into a relationship at this stage in her life just wasn't a priority.
However, her body had other ideas every time she thought about Raiden. The last time they’d spent an afternoon together playing video games on the couch at the House of Storms, she had seen the twinkle in his eye and the flirtatious tilt of his smile. At one point, she thought he was going to kiss her. But then he just turned away and shrugged, looking almost disappointed. She was disappointed that he hadn't done it. She hadn’t been kissed in… she couldn’t even remember how long. If they hadn't been interrupted a moment after he had lost his nerve, she would have kissed him herself.
She pulled up in front of the House of Flames and parked in the large circular driveway outside the mansion. Dax and Cato started unpacking her things and carrying them to the bedroom. She grabbed her purse and laptop backpack and hurried upstairs behind them. When she got to the room, she found them already at work, her boxes stacked in the corner.
"Thank you for doing this." Flora watched Dax and Cato kneeling on the ground, putting together her bed frame. "You must think I'm picky for needing my own bed when there are so many here to choose from.”
"Not at all," Cato said, waving his hand. “You need what you need to be at your best.”
She began to unpack her desktop computer on her desk, which Cato and Dax had placed under a window overlooking the garden. She had to admit, it was a nice view. When the guys slid her mattress onto her bed frame, she plugged in the last of the cables and clicked on the monitor.
"Have you made any headway on the vaccine since the last time I was here?" she asked Cato as Dax disappeared out the bedroom door.
"Zephyr and I have found some interesting anomalies in antibodies in mated Dragon Soul blood. But our simulation attempts at synthesizing a vaccine from the antibodies have been disastrous," Cato said.
"I hope that I will be able to offer some insight into the human genome," Flora said.
"We know that you will. You have the expertise we lack," Cato said.
Flora chuckled. "You are an advanced race with millions of years more scientific experience and technical advancement."
"But we still need you, Flora," Cato said. "You are a human scientist who has insight into your race that we do not. We appreciate you taking time out from your life and your career to work on this project.”
"I don't know of anything more important," Flora said.
“And here I thought you’d come to take care of me," Penelope said, rubbing her stomach as she walked into the room and hooked her arm into her sister’s.
Standing up to kiss Penelope on the cheek, Flora said, "You're absolutely glowing.”
"I'm as big as a house. I can't wait for the birth."
"Only a week until she's due.” Cato rubbed his wife’s stomach and kissed her cheek.
"I hope that our work won't be a distraction from the baby," Flora said.
"Our daughter is important, but so is the vaccine," Penelope said. “I would never expect you or Cato to stop your work. But I do hope you will be there to help me with midnight feedings and to bring me tea when I'm tired."
"Of course we will," Flora said, leaning in to hug her sister and pat her on the back. “I’ll always be here to take care of you. Just like you are always there to take care of me."
Cato and Penelope wandered off, and Flora closed her bedroom door for some much-needed rest and privacy. She would never forget what her sister had done for her a year before when vampires had kidnapped Flora for her Dragon Soul blood. The coven leader himself had bitten and changed her. It was only because of Penelope's dogged determination and tenacity that Flora was still a human being.
Penelope wouldn't give up even after she learned Flora had become a vampire. There was just a tiny spark of humanity left in Flora, and Penelope and Cato had done absolutely everything they could to bring her back. They had taken a chance on a cure, and it had paid off. After a complete blood transfusion, they’d been able to bring Flora back to her humanity.
Flora still had nightmares about that time. She had become a bloodthirsty vampire, happy to murder and kill and drain the blood of any human she chose. She’d been a complete psychopath. Sometimes she woke up at night, sweating, with her heart pounding. She would sit up in bed, panting at the memory of those few days.
Her conscience and consciousness were unable to fully process what she had been for that brief time. But every day, it got a little easier, and the flashbacks became less pervasive. The search for a vaccine against the vampires had become her greatest desire.
The dragons had found almost by accident that a mated Dragon Soul’s blood was poisonous to vampires. But they still hadn't found a way to transmit that poisonous quality to the rest of humanity, ensuring that any vampire who bit a human would immediately perish. That work was most important to the safety and security of all humanity.
Vampires had been living on Earth for ten thousand years and, through their interference, had skewed the nobility of human society and created an undercurrent of greed and egotism throughout the human race. In the beginning, they were like gods to humanity. Later, as their strength waned, they’d adopted a more clandestine approach.
Their influence was still present at all levels of human society—from the very top to the very bottom, from politicians to gangsters, and from CEOs to Mafia bosses. Their influence spread like a poison throughout the human race, twisting how humanity saw itself and the values that they espoused.
Without the vampires, the humans might have been able to grow into more mature forms of themselves. Their creation had been sparked by the introduction of dragon DNA into their primitive ancestral species and by the process of a million years of evolution. But the interference of the vampires had set human civilization on a tangential course.
No one knew how things would have developed without the vampires, but Penelope wanted to know who modern humans could be without them. Humans were at a point in their history where things could either become better or worse. Their world could become a utopia or a dystopia, depending on the choices they made.
Flora believed that her work on the vaccine would be a deciding factor in the course of the rest of history. The dragons were a noble, loyal, and true race, especially those who had escaped the cataclysmic death of their sun.
After millions of years of battling with the vampires, the elders of Dragonia had become set in their ways and unwilling to change. But those who had escaped—whose DNA was mixed with that of humans—were brave and bold and true to the core values of what it meant to be a dragon. And that was what they had given humanity.
This was what Flora had c
ome to believe in her work with dragon and human genetics. She had traced the lineage and looked for clues throughout the genome and history. Her conclusion was that dragon DNA carried with it intelligence and nobility and a sense of duty to protect those who were weaker. She was proud to call herself a Dragon Soul, just like her beautiful, loyal sister, who had stopped at nothing to save her and bring her back to herself even when all had seemed lost.
That quality was exactly what Flora was fighting for and what she believed would save the world and bring a new dawn of peace, prosperity, and understanding to the planet she loved.
Chapter 2
"Incoming! Six o’clock! Look out!” Raiden yelled into his headset at his teammates. A volley of gunfire peppered the narrow expanse between buildings. A spray of digital blood sprang up, and Raiden's avatar went down.
"Good job," he grumbled. “Way to have my back."
"We were overwhelmed," came the clipped sound of his teammate’s voice through his headphones.
“Typical excuse,” Raiden said. “If this were a real-world maneuver, we'd all be dead right now."
“What's got your panties in a wad, Dragonheart127?" came the voice of another teammate.
"We just lost our number-one ranking. I hate being number two," Raiden said.
“I doubt that's the reason," Tangofoxtrot99 said.
“So where's that hottie you had playing with you the other day?" Ispy47 asked.
"How do you know she's hot? You can’t see her.”
"She sounded hot,” Ispy47 replied.
”Well, she is,” Raiden grumbled.
"So did she dump you?” Tangofoxtrot99 asked.
“Bionerd111 isn’t my girlfriend,” Raiden said.
"Maybe that's the problem," Ispy47 said.
"Both of us are too busy for relationships.”
"Keep telling yourself that, Dragonheart127,” Ispy47 said.
"She just finished a PhD in in genetic engineering.”
“Ohhh. She's too good for you. That explains it.”
There was more laughing, and Raiden gritted his teeth, growling. "You all suck,” he said, pulling off his headset.
"Don't rage quit," Ispy47 said.
Raiden heard a few more snickers before his headset hit the couch. The next battle was in fifteen minutes—enough time to find something to eat.
"Do you ever do anything but play that video game?" asked JoJo as he entered the kitchen.
"I enjoy it.”
Everyone was giving him a hard time that day. He should have been able to do what he wanted, when he wanted. It wasn’t as if he needed to go out, get a job, and earn a paycheck. The dragons had a huge hoard of gold that paid for everything. They just sat around and waited for the enemy to strike instead of going out and doing something about them.
Since the dragons had taken down the nearest vampire compound a few months before, the Pacific Northwest had been quiet. Too quiet. Raiden had a feeling the vampires were just biding their time before they attacked with greater force. Meanwhile, he'd been working out every day at sunrise and spending the rest of the time keeping his reflexes fast with his games. The other dragons didn't understand how similar his video game was to actual combat. Back on his home planet, Dragonia, they’d had far better virtual simulations for practice. But here on Earth, this would have to do if he wanted to play with other people and not a computer.
He did enjoy the camaraderie, when they weren’t teasing him about Flora. Since the crew of the House of Storms had awakened on Earth, the opportunities to go on missions had been few and far between. If the vampires were making a ruckus or attacking someone, sure, then he got to use his skills as a warrior. But the rest of the time, he couldn’t do much else other than play computer games.
He wasn't a scientist like Zephyr. He wasn't a captain, like Hanish. And he didn't have a pregnant mate to fuss over, like Yuki, Ragnar, and Akash. That kept them occupied. Plus, they lived up in the city, and Raiden lived all the way out in the middle of nowhere.
There really was nothing else to do besides pump iron and play first-person shooters. The crew should have been commending him instead of insulting him as if he were some kind of loser. Flora understood why he spent so much time playing. She was actually pretty good for a science nerd, and they played together whenever she was around.
Raiden grabbed a piece of leftover pizza out of the refrigerator and began munching on it. JoJo set her adopted son, Tor, in the high chair. It was nice having JoJo around. She balanced out Hanish and made him less bossy and demanding. But that was only because she was even more bossy and demanding than he was. Raiden was going to have to get out of there sooner or later, or they were all going to drive him crazy.
"Flora moved into the House of Flames today," JoJo informed him, wiping Tor’s mouth with a napkin.
"I know," he said. "I was with her to celebrate her graduation. Kind of a big deal, getting a PhD."
"Flora is quite gifted."
"I know. She's real smart."
"It amazes me that the two of you get along so well. Especially since you're not mates."
"She likes the same games I do,” Raiden said. "It's pretty logical that we would be friends."
"Sure, sure. I understand all that. But I don't understand why you haven't done a mating analysis to see if she is your mate."
"My inner dragon hasn't made a peep about it," Raiden said. “And Flora has never shown any interest. She's busy with school, and I'm busy running my guild. It's best to just leave well enough alone. We’re friends, and that's all there is to it. Why does everyone have to keep insisting that we be in a relationship? This is the twenty-first century. People don’t need to pair up just because they like hanging out with each other."
"I agree," JoJo said. “But that isn't exactly the reason. It's just that you're a dragon, and dragons have fated mates."
"Well, if Flora was my fated mate, I would know it, and she would know it. Didn't you feel it when you met Hanish? You couldn't keep your eyes off him. I was here. I remember."
"Yes, it was rather awkward falling for my employer. But everything worked out in the end, and I couldn't be happier being with Hanish and Tor. And now, with a baby on the way, my life is truly complete."
"Well, that's nice for you and Hanish," Raiden said. "We’re all really glad for you—I'm glad, Flora's glad, and everybody at the House of Flames is glad. All of this dating and mating and baby making—it's fantastic!"
"You don't seem convinced."
"I'm just tired of being pressured to find a mate when everybody else's mates just showed up for them. And I'm tired of being criticized for my pastimes. Just because I like video games doesn't mean that I'm a useless member of society. That is a terrible stereotype that needs to end."
"Just look at what Aiden and Aria are doing with their music and Cato and Zephyr and Flora with their vaccination."
"I'm preparing myself for war," Raiden said. "It's coming. Mark my words. The vampires know we’re here. We've destroyed their compound twice. They're not going to just sit idly by and let us take over the planet. You know, there are hundreds if not thousands of super-powerful elder vampires who are sleeping and regaining their strength. They're going to reemerge at any time. I am keeping myself in top physical condition and using these video games like military drills to keep my mind and my reflexes in shape. Just because everybody else is off doing other things doesn't mean that I have forgotten what the vampires did in our home sector or what they are doing here on Earth."
"I understand, Raiden. I'm sorry that I questioned you."
"Well, could you tell Hanish to lay off me too?"
"I absolutely will." JoJo picked up Tor and held him on her hip. She patted Raiden on the cheek as she passed. "You're doing well, Raiden. You really do have your head on your shoulders. And I will talk to Hanish about what you said. You deserve to be commended. I can see that your mind is in the right place."
"Thanks," he muttered as she walked out of the k
itchen.
He threw a bag of popcorn in the microwave and ate another slice of pizza while waiting for it to pop. With the popcorn in a bowl and two liters of Mountain Dew, Raiden made his way back to the living room and picked up his headset.
"Five minutes until our next round," Raiden said.
"Nice of you to join us," said Bionerd111.
"Whoo, it's Bionerd," said Ispy47. "Dragonheart and Bionerd sitting in a tree…"
"Shut the hell up. Are you in the next round, Bionerd?" Raiden asked, preparing to add her to the team.
"I have time for one round, and then I need to get back to the lab.”
"What is this important work that you have to do?" asked Ispy47.
"I am on a mission to save the planet. It's something only I can do. I'm working with a squad of super-elite extraterrestrial scientists on a mission to create a biological weapon against our greatest enemy. But it's top secret, so you can't breathe a word to anyone."
Ispy47 started cracking up, and so did several other members of Raiden's guild. "You're hilarious, Bionerd. You should come on more often. Raiden is less of a dick when you're around."
"Raiden has years of military experience. You would be wise to listen to him," Bionerd111 said.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. We all do," said Ispy47. "I just took down the squadron of Nazi zombies this morning in World War II."
"Hilarious," said Bionerd111.
"Quit yapping," Raiden said. "Our battle is starting in thirty seconds. Choose your weapons carefully. We're up against the top-ranking team in our battle sector."
The timer ticked away, 5… 4… 3… 2… 1, and the team was dropped into the battleground. Raiden and Flora battled side by side. This time, when he needed someone, Flora was there to cover his back. They were able to capture the flag and take out the other team. They won by twenty kills to five and put themselves back on top of the leaderboard.
Dragon Guardians: Complete Series Page 24