Raiden: House of Storms
Dragon Guardians Book 7
Scarlett Grove
Contents
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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
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Chapter 1
Flora Baptiste packed up the last of her things in a cardboard box and taped it up for the journey to the House of Flames. She had finally finished her doctorate at the University of Washington. With the distraction of her schoolwork, she hadn't been able to focus her full attention on discovering a vaccine to protect humans from vampires. With her doctorate done, Flora could prioritize the vaccine, and while at the House of Flames, she would be there to help her twin sister Penelope with the new baby.
Dax and Cato carried her boxes down to the moving van. She followed them out of her condo and downstairs, carrying her computer bag. They slid the door of the van closed with a loud thwack and, as they climbed inside, gave her a nod.
She would miss her condo by Lake Union in Seattle. She would miss the hustle and bustle of the city and the easy access to food and entertainment. She would even miss school. But she had important things to do. Finding the vaccine to the vampires’ bite was monumentally important work. Her move was coming just in time for the birth of her sister’s first child.
Penelope and Flora were more than sisters—they were best friends. They'd had a good-natured competition throughout most of their lives, but about a year before, Flora had been kidnapped by vampires, and Penelope had saved her life. Since then, they’d been closer than ever, and the competitive feelings that had driven them since their parents died had mellowed. The sisters had come to realize they were on the same team. There was no point in competing with each other anymore when they could do so much more working together.
Flora looked at her condo in the rearview mirror as she drove away, thinking of all the years she and Penelope had lived there growing up. Their great aunt, who’d raised them since they were ten, had left the place to them.
Moving away from Seattle was going to be a difficult transition, but Flora hoped to come back to the condo after the vaccine was discovered. The sisters had discussed selling their home, but Flora wasn’t ready yet. She’d been offered research grants at the university, and she expected to take advantage of them. She didn't know if she wanted to spend the rest of her life living with the dragons out in the middle of nowhere.
Flora followed the van onto the highway, starting the long trip. Penelope lived in a mansion in rural southwestern Washington with her husband, Cato, along with all of the dragons of the House of Flames. It was a nice place to live, with many acres of land, a pool, and a basement theater, but Flora didn’t want to stay there forever.
Cato was a fire dragon. His crew of fire dragons was the first to be awakened on the planet after a million-year slumber in stasis chambers. Flora still had to pinch herself when she thought about it.
The Dragonians—dragons from across the galaxy—had left their dying star, looking for a new home. When they finally discovered Earth, they seeded the planet with the DNA of their ancestors, hoping that one day, the primitive inhabitants of Earth would evolve into intelligent creatures and carry the souls of ancient dragons, becoming Dragon Souls—humans who could be the fated mates of dragons. After the seeding, the dragons went into stasis chambers, where they’d slept for a million years.
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.
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nbsp; "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 come 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—enou
gh 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.
Raiden: House of Storms: Dragon Guardians Book 7 Page 1