With a sigh, Mac stood up and walked across the room to start gathering her papers up. She had to get rid of the silly idea that there might be some sort of romance brewing between her and Zeke. He wasn’t here to find love, and neither was she. They were here for a war, and she needed to keep that at the forefront of her mind. Besides, his interest in her was likely nothing more than a work interest. Yes, he had seemed to pay a lot of attention to her in the meeting today, but of course he would. She was the speaker half the time. Mac needed to get her things, go to her office, and focus on work.
She straightened up her back and headed out of the conference room, keeping her head high as she strode purposefully toward her office. She had a lot of strategies to flesh out, and no time to waste on extracurricular pursuits. She was commander of a whole goddamn army. She needed to act like one.
Yet despite all of her stern admonitions to herself, she couldn’t keep Zeke’s face from constantly flashing across her mind’s eye as she sat down in her office and tried to focus on the task in front of her.
Chapter Six
Zeke breathed a sigh of relief when the last of his clan mates finally left for the day. He hated days like this, where he was forced to spend pretty much every second around other people. Even though he loved his crew, and the wizards in Falcon Cross were all extremely nice, he needed some alone time. Now, he could finally get it.
After meeting with Mac, the dragons had gone on a long tour of the military facility. Despite his initial skepticism, Zeke had found himself quite impressed with the place. The wizards may not have trained for war, but they had all the necessary resources. They just needed to focus and work hard over the next several days and weeks, and Zeke knew that big strides could be made toward a more fearsome army.
Zeke frowned. Assuming of course, that they actually had weeks or even days. He had a feeling that an attack was coming sooner rather than later. The enemy must have realized by now that the scouts they had sent to the Redwood Dragons’ forest had been killed. It had been at least four days now since those scouts had had any kind of contact with their leaders. Zeke had no way of knowing how often they were supposed to check in, but he knew that by now even the most easygoing of commanders would be growing uneasy. And if the enemy was growing uneasy, he might accelerate any plans for attack. If Zeke had been in the enemy’s shoes, and had lost scouts in enemy territory, he would have been extremely worried about losing the element of surprise. Zeke had a sneaking suspicion that there would be an attack within the next couple of days.
This worried him. If the army was as large as he feared it would be, then Falcon Cross was in trouble. Zeke and his clan mates were good fighters, but they could not work miracles. At a certain point, they would be too outnumbered to resist. It was imperative that the army in Falcon Cross be built up as much as possible, as soon as possible. And Zeke had very specific ideas on how that should be done—but he had a sinking feeling Mac wasn’t going to agree with him.
He had to admit that he liked her a bit better today than he had yesterday. Seeing her dressed in uniform and standing in front of a room of shifters to boldly give a presentation had made him feel a little better about the fact that she led the army that stood between the enemy and the destruction of Falcon Cross. Still, she wasn’t experienced with fighting real wars, and neither were her soldiers. Not only that, but he had realized during the meeting this morning that she had a stubborn streak almost as bad as his. Odds were good there were going to be some serious sparks flying between them—and not the good kind of sparks.
Oh, there had been some of the good sparks, too. He couldn’t deny that looking at her did funny things to his heart. Really, though, what man could look at a woman like that and not feel something? She was drop-dead gorgeous, and she kept looking at him in a way that made him feel like she was sizing him up as a man. But there wasn’t time to kindle those sparks right now. He had more pressing matters to take care of then wooing a girl. Besides, odds were good Mac was going to hate him after they had the conversation about her army that he knew they needed to have. She wasn’t going to like his advice one bit, but he hoped that for the sake of Falcon Cross, she would take it.
Zeke fingered at the edge of his notebook, furrowing his brow as he thought. He should go talk to her one on one sooner rather than later. The sooner they got the initial conversation over with, the better. They could be angry at each other if they had to be, but they needed to start moving on their plans. The clock was ticking. Besides, perhaps Mac would surprise Zeke and be more willing to listen to him than he anticipated. He wouldn’t know until he tried.
Zeke stood and gathered up his things. He would head to Mac’s office and see if she was still there. It was not yet five p.m., so she likely would be. The work day was far from over for any of them, really. Zeke’s clan mates had only left so that they could at least work from the comfort of their own homes—but they would still be working. Mac would be working, too, and since she was the commander here, she should be staying in the office until at least five p.m. If she didn’t, Zeke would be pretty unimpressed with her.
Mac was indeed in her office. As he approached her closed office door, he could hear the soft sounds of instrumental jazz drifting from behind the door and into the hallway. On the wall next to the door was a black nameplate that had “MacKenzie Somers” printed on it with gold lettering. Zeke shook his head, thinking for perhaps the twentieth time that it was odd how she went by “Mac.” He thought MacKenzie was a beautiful name, and he wished she didn’t shorten it. Then again, Mac had a nice ring to it, too. It was a good, strong nickname, and seemed fitting for a military commander.
Zeke raised his right fist and rapped lightly on the door a few times, but there was no answer. He tried again, a bit harder this time, and a few moments later the music stopped.
“Come in,” Mac’s voice called from behind the doorway.
Zeke pushed the door open and was instantly greeted by a vanilla-cinnamon smell. He quickly saw that the source was a candle that was burning on top of one of Mac’s bookshelves. Several white wooden bookshelves lined the walls of the room, but there was plenty of open wall space, too. And the appearance of those walls shocked Zeke a bit as he walked into the room. They were hot pink, the same color that Mac’s dress robes had been. The hot pink stood out sharply from the white bookshelves and from the wood of Mac’s desk, which was also painted white. Mac’s desk chair itself was white leather, as were the two visitor chairs that sat across the desk from Mac. A large glass window took up almost the entire back wall of the office, and Mac’s desk was situated so that her back was to the window. Her desk was cluttered, but not hopelessly so. It looked like she’d been working hard all day.
Beside Zeke, to the left of the entrance door, a wooden coat rack stood. It was also painted white, and held a simple black jacket and a hot pink scarf. At least the jacket was normal enough, Zeke thought. He felt his eyes widen as he looked around the small room. He told himself to be polite and not react to the unconventional decorating scheme that Mac had used in the office, but he couldn’t help himself. Before he knew it, he was opening his mouth to speak.
“Why don’t you lobby to change all the military uniforms to hot pink?” he asked, his voice dripping sarcasm.
Mac, who had looked up from the paper she’d been bent over when he walked in, raised an eyebrow at him. “I’ve thought about it,” she said. “But a lot of men can’t handle wearing pink. They get their manhood all threatened by the color, which really makes me think that they aren’t as masculine as they claim to be. If your manhood is threatened by a color, then maybe you’re not as tough as you seem, after all.”
Zeke frowned at her. “It’s not about feeling threatened,” he said. “Wear pink to the banquets if you want to, but this is a military office. It’s unprofessional.”
Mac frowned right back at him. “I’m not wearing pink right now. I’m wearing my official military uniform. Is that not impressive enough for
you? And who cares if I want to decorate my office with shades of pink? It’s my personal space. Most of the time, if I want to have a meeting, I book a conference room. I rarely have visitors here. And you’re the first visitor who’s been rude enough to comment on the color of my walls. Didn’t your mother teach you any manners?”
“My mother died when I was five,” Zeke said flatly.
Mac’s face immediately fell. “Right. Sorry, I forgot,” she said, her voice sounding less antagonistic than it had before. She looked incredibly uncomfortable, and Zeke actually felt a little sorry for her.
“It’s alright,” he said. “I didn’t come up here to discuss my mother. Nor did I come up here to discuss the color of your walls. We need to figure out what we are going to do about training up the Falcon Cross army, and I have some suggestions.”
“Alright,” Mac said, her voice sounding wary. Even though she had agreed to take Zeke on as her strategist and right-hand man, Zeke could easily see that she was still not sold on the idea. And, he supposed, coming in here and starting off their conversation by criticizing her love of the color pink had probably not been the best way to start things off.
He took a deep breath and gazed over at her, knowing that he needed to choose his words carefully. She looked back at him steadily, and he saw a deep determination in her eyes. She might not fit his conventional idea of a commander, but Zeke had to admit that she had some good qualities. She was smart, she worked hard, and she wasn’t afraid to get in your face. Besides, as far as he could tell, she had done a good job of leading the Falcon Cross army. She was quite young to achieve the position she had achieved, and she might not have a lot of experience with war, but she had done a good job with what she had.
Her frown deepened as she leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms, giving him a cold, calculated look. “Well?” she prompted. “What are your brilliant suggestions. Let’s hear them.”
Zeke took one more deep breath. He had a feeling she was going to disagree with him, but he needed to just spit it out.
“We shouldn’t try to grow the army,” he said. “We don’t have time to waste on recruiting right now. The enemy might be attacking us at literally any moment. The best thing we can do is spend every spare second we have on training the soldiers you already have to fight better.”
Mac’s eyes widened with incredulity. “Are you serious? I thought you were supposed to be the gifted strategist of the group. Were you listening at all today? Did you hear how small the Falcon Cross army is compared to how big we think the enemy’s army is? This is a crisis. We need more soldiers, and the sooner we can recruit them, the better.”
“Numbers aren’t enough,” Zeke countered. “We could be attacked at any moment. It’s highly likely that an attack is coming within the next few days, in fact. Every second we waste on recruiting is a second that could have been spent on beefing up the training of the soldiers we already have. Even if we could recruit a thousand more soldiers, it wouldn’t do us any good. We don’t have the time to train them. Our best bet is to train the soldiers we have. Look at my clan, for example. There are only ten of us, but we have managed to hold off armies much, much larger than our clan. We have worked hard to learn how to fight well, and—”
“And you’re dragons,” Mac pointed out.
“So?” Zeke said, frowning. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Oh, come on,” Mac said. “Everyone knows that dragons are powerful fighters, and can take on much more than the average shifter. Besides, you can breathe fire.”
“Wizards can shoot fire from their magic rings,” Zeke pointed out.
Mac sighed, sounding tired. “Yes, we can. But we usually do so in order to start a campfire or something along those lines. We just aren’t even close to as skilled as dragons are at battle, no matter how many spells we know.”
“Which is why you need to invest all your time in training the wizards you do have,” Zeke said, feeling his frustration starting to rise.
“Which is why we need to raise as large an army as possible,” Mac countered. “We can raise an army faster than we can train one. Even the worst fighter can at least do a little bit to hold off the enemy.”
“You’re out of your mind!” Zeke said, shocked that she would even say that. “You realize that sending someone unequipped to fight into battle is about the same thing as sending them to their death, right?”
Mac’s frown deepened as she looked over at him. “Wizards all know how to fight,” she said. “Perhaps they’re not very good at it, but they know the basics. And in this instance, I think that the basics will have to be enough. I won’t have my clan’s village be overrun by the enemy while perfectly good wizards are sitting at home doing nothing because they didn’t understand how serious the threat that faces us is.”
“Do you understand how serious the threat facing us is?” Zeke asked, his voice starting to rise. “You’re sitting here worrying about the size of the army that will attack us, and yet you’ve done nothing to actually further our defenses. Since I arrived in town, I’ve been to a banquet, had a brief presentation on the history of the Falcon Cross army—”
“—it wasn’t that brief,” Mac protested.
“And I’ve had a lovely tour of military headquarters,” Zeke said, ignoring Mac’s comment. “It seems to me as though no one around here is placing any priority on actually preparing the army.”
“Least of all you!” Mac said, rising to her feet and slamming her fist on the table. “You came waltzing into Falcon Cross like you’re our savior and know what’s best for us, but you don’t understand how the wizarding world works at all! You think that feasts are a waste of time, but I already told you that wizards need to feel like they know and trust someone before they will go to battle with them. You can’t seem to wrap your head around the fact that the feast actually was an important and necessary step in building up our army. Morale is higher than ever in Falcon Cross after the banquet. And then, today at the meeting, you sneer and sit there with this cool look on your face like you’ve got war all figured out and no one else in the room does. Well let me tell you something, Zeke. War has a lot of variables. And I may be a peacetime commander but I do know my troops much better than you. If you want to help us, then we need to work together instead of nitpicking over every little thing. And you’ve got to trust me a little more.”
“I do trust you,” Zeke said, somewhat surprised by how forceful Mac’s tirade had become. “But—”
“No buts!” Mac said. “Either you trust me, or you don’t. And for fuck’s sake, can you stop criticizing me about the pink already? You sit here and complain about how we’re at war and we’re wasting time, and yet half of the things you’ve said to me since we’ve met have been to complain about how I like pink. Who cares? I don’t think that the color of my office is going to matter much when the enemy troops come swooping in. What’s going to matter is that we have an organized army and a united front. I may not be perfect, Zeke, but I’ll tell you one thing: I love my wizards. I hate evil. And I’m going to do my damned best to make sure that evil stays away from my wizard clan. Now are you with us, or not? Do you trust me, or not? Are you going to shut the fuck up about the color pink, or not?”
Mac slammed her fist on the table one more time as she finished her angry diatribe. For several long moments, the office was completely silent except for the sound of Mac’s breathing. Her face was flushed red with anger, and her eyes flashed with such passion that Zeke wouldn’t have been surprised if literal flames had started burning in her pupils.
In that moment, she was exceedingly beautiful. It was not the right time or place for him to be thinking about her in that way, but he could not stop himself from noticing how perfect the angles of her face were, or how smooth her skin appeared, or how full her curves were under the fabric of her uniform.
“I asked you a question,” she insisted, her voice still filled with rage. Zeke met her eyes with his own, and
he suddenly felt ashamed of himself. He was here to help, not to stir up discord between the wizard military and the dragon shifters. She was right, in a sense. He did not understand the ways of wizards. And unless he was willing to try to understand, all of his military knowledge and expertise would do no good here. He wished in that moment that he could have a do-over of the last twenty-four hours. He had been treated like an honored guest, and he had returned the courtesy by criticizing everything he possibly could. He needed to apologize, but how?
And then, in a flash of inspiration, he knew what to do. He stood, and walked a few steps across the office to where the coat rack stood. He took the pink scarf off the rack and wrapped it around his neck, throwing the tail of the scarf over his shoulder with a flourish. Mac looked at him in surprise and confusion
“What the…” she asked, her words trailing off as though she was unsure even of what question she should be asking.
Zeke stood tall and straight, the pink scarf no doubt looking comical on his broad shoulders and muscular neck. He took a deep breath, and then, reminding himself that it took a real man, a strong man, to apologize, he began speaking.
“I’m sorry, Mac. You’re right. I’ve been rude and insolent, and I’m sorry for that. But just as much as you love your wizard clan, I love my dragon clan. I may have an awful way of showing it, but I just want the best for Falcon Cross, because the best for Falcon Cross right now is the best for good shifters and good wizards everywhere. My clan thrives when your clan thrives. You are our allies, and that means something to me. Dragons value loyalty above all else, and I will fight fiercely and loyally to protect you, to protect your wizards, and to protect the side of good. I trust you. And I’m with you. And you’re right—who cares what color the walls are. Or our clothes for that matter. If you want me to wear pink every goddamn day I’m here then so be it. All I ask in return is that you trust me, too, and that you at least hear me out when I have something to say. I know I have an outsider’s perspective, and that there are things I just won’t understand. But sometimes an outsider’s perspective is good, too. It helps you see the blind spots you otherwise would have missed. And I think that, together, we can make an unbeatable team that will lead Falcon Cross to victory in whatever war is coming. So what do you say? Truce?”
The Commander and the Dragon (Redwood Dragons Book 3) Page 6