The sky grew darker and darker until it was completely black. The rain continued, and Bree could no longer see the path in front of her at all. She did her best to step softly and not make noise, but it was difficult when she had no idea what her foot was actually landing on. The only way she could continue following the dragon shifter was by following the beam of his flashlight. Even then, it was difficult to keep up. He moved quickly, and with the benefit of light.
At one point, Bree thought she had lost him. The light disappeared, and she could not tell whether he had turned off his flashlight, or had just gotten so far ahead of her that she could no longer see him. She desperately picked up her pace, and wondered if she dared cast a light spell from her ring so she could move more quickly through the darkness. But just as she was about to speak the words of the spell, a beam of light turned on just a few yards away from her. Startled, she froze in place.
The dragon shifter had been waiting silently, intent on catching whoever was following him. He swept his light back and forth quickly across the forest, passing it over Bree without even realizing it. He cursed, then sniffed deeply.
“Come out, coward!” he yelled. “Show yourself. I know you’re there. I can smell you!”
Bree shivered but did not move or make a sound. The anger in the shifter’s eyes sent chills down her spine, and the light from the flashlight cast long, spooky shadows across his face. Bree wasn’t sure if she had ever been so terrified in her life.
She had always been smart, and that’s why she had chosen to become an Advocate. The Advocates fought with the strength of their minds, not with the strength of their physical bodies. And Bree was pretty sure that her smarts weren’t going to help her very much if the dragon shifter somehow realized where she was. He looked so terrifying right now that she was beginning to think that it must be impossible that he was one of the good shifters.
He can’t see you, she told herself. As long as you keep the invisibility spell going, and stay far enough away that he can’t reach out and touch you, you’re fine.
The dragon shifter swept his light across the forest several more times, then gave a defeated sigh.
“I’m going crazy,” he said aloud before giving a nearby tree trunk a frustrated kick. “Losing my edge. William would be ashamed.”
Bree wondered who William was, and hoped the shifter would say more. Was William his clan leader? Perhaps this dragon shifter was on some sort of mission for William?
But the shifter said no more. Instead, he turned and continued walking, slowly now. He was sweeping his light back and forth, carefully searching. A few minutes later, Bree realized what he’d been searching for. He found another one of the large redwoods that had a hollowed out area in the trunk, and he crawled into it, using it as a natural shelter. Bree waited a few minutes, then crept up to the opening and peered in.
The shifter looked like he was unpacking for the night. He had taken off his wet clothes and changed into dry ones, and he was now struggling to hang the soaking wet garments on little knobs that stuck out here and there from the tree.
“Don’t know why I bother,” he muttered. “No way these are gonna dry by the morning, with all the moisture in this damp tree.”
He began to rummage in his pack for food, eventually pulling out what looked like a few meal bars. He grimaced as he bit into them.
“Damn rain,” he muttered. “Makes it so hard to catch real food. What I wouldn’t give for some meat.”
He ate two of the meal bars, then lay down on the ground on his back, using his pack as a pillow. Bree felt strange spying on him like this, especially since he kept talking to himself, clearly unaware that anyone else was listening to him voicing his private thoughts. She didn’t care that she was getting rained on while she watched, because she was getting a glimpse of who he was and what kind of man he might be.
He muttered things about his crew, wondering aloud how their missions were going. Then he whistled a tune for a while, apparently cheered by the fact that at least he was dry and relatively warm. As he whistled, the rain finally stopped and the sky began to clear. This was lucky, because soon after the man turned off his flashlight, making it extremely difficult for Bree to see into the cave. The moon was coming out from behind the clouds now, though, and from the right angle Bree could just make him out, lying there drumming his fingers on his stomach.
Much to Bree’s disappointment, he soon stopped talking. A few minutes after that, the sound of soft snores filled the air. Bree sighed. She wasn’t going to learn anything more from him tonight, it seemed. She needed to see if she could find a soft spot nearby to lie down and sleep herself. She didn’t dare go into a tree, for fear that she wouldn’t hear him when he woke and left. Instead, she would find somewhere as sheltered by the leaves as possible, dry the ground using magic, and hope that it didn’t rain anymore tonight.
Bree started to turn away from the tree, but then stopped short for just a moment. She turned back to look into the tree trunk cave, and raised her magic ring to point it at the man’s soaking wet clothes which hung from the side of the tree’s inner walls.
“Magicae siccum,” she whispered. Instantly, the clothes dried out. Bree smiled, then withdrew to a soft spot not too far from the man’s tree hideout. She pointed her ring at the ground and repeated the words.
“Magicae siccum,” she whispered again. The drying spell instantly dried the ground near her ring. She settled down to sleep, using her own pack as a pillow just as the shifter had done. It was not terribly warm, but it wasn’t cold, either. Since the rain had stopped and the ground was dry, Bree was almost comfortable sleeping out here.
She stared up at the sky, which was now brilliantly lit by the moon and stars.
“Please be a good shifter,” she whispered into the night air, directing her thoughts toward the tree where she knew the man was resting. “I can’t keep going on my own much longer.”
Chapter Five
Knox could not shake the awful feeling that someone was watching him, and if his nose was to be trusted, someone was. But no matter how carefully he peered into the forest behind him, beside him, or before him, he couldn’t see anyone. He might have thought that whoever was following him was a shifter using chameleon tricks, but the smell was not that of a shifter at all. It smelled like a full human. Knox could not decide what to do.
He was traveling deeper into the forest now than he had planned, getting further and further away from his crew’s base camp. But he didn’t want to lead the mystery stalker toward his crew. He grew more frustrated with every hour that passed. Something was wrong here. Had his survival skills grown so stale that he could not even catch someone who was following him? Or, worse, was it possible he was actually imagining someone?
Two more days passed like this. Knox’s food supplies ran low. He purposely had not packed much. After all, what was the point of practicing “survival” when you brought with you more than enough to survive? No, Knox wanted to force himself to hunt and to feel hunger. He needed to set an example for his crew by proving that he himself was capable of everything he was asking them to do. And, if Knox was honest, he was glad to have an excuse to focus on hunting instead of on his phantom stalker.
The rains that had fallen heavily at the beginning of his journey had disappeared now, making it easier and more comfortable to move through the forest. Knox crept silently, watching carefully for any sign of squirrels, the most likely prey he would find out here. But then, unexpectedly, he came across a wounded elk. The great animal was limping, and looked as though it had somehow fractured its leg. The beast sensed danger when it saw Knox, and started trying to retreat, a difficult task due to its injury.
Knox hesitated. This elk would be easy prey, and would supply him a great deal of meat. But he would not be able to eat all of it out here before it went bad, and he hated to waste meat. Then again, the animal was so badly wounded that it was likely going to die, anyway. If Knox did not kill it, one of the mountain
lions in the area certainly would.
With a sad tone in his voice, Knox began to sing a soothing song to the elk in an ancient dragon dialect. The elk slowly calmed, and stopped its frantic attempt at retreat. Eventually it sank down in a trance to lie on the soft forest floor, which was covered in thick moss here. The elk closed its eyes, lulled to sleep by the song. Knox crept toward it, still singing. He reached to pull his pocket knife from the holster on his belt where he usually stored it securely when he was moving through the woods. He flipped the blade open, and, when he was close enough to the now sleeping, entranced elk, he quickly slid the knife across the elk’s throat.
The razor sharp knife quickly cut through the muscles, veins, and arteries in the majestic elk’s neck. The animal never knew what killed it. It gave a quick shudder, and then went still.
“Sorry, old buddy,” Knox said. “But I promise you this was a quicker way to die than being dragged down by a mountain lion.”
Quickly and with great skill, Knox began gutting and field dressing the elk. As he worked, his sensitive nose still detected the scent of human nearby, even over the scent of dead elk. Knox frowned and looked around, but, as usual, he didn’t see anything.
Something had to change. He had to figure out why he was smelling human, or he was going to go crazy. William had always told him that when something didn’t feel right he needed to trust his gut. And Knox’s gut instincts were screaming at him right now, telling him that he was being followed. But why? And by whom?
As far as Knox knew, there was peace in the shifter world right now. There had not been any unexpected shifter sightings by humans, and there was no reason Knox could think of that a human would be tracking him down. But either he was going crazy, or someone very good at hiding was on his trail.
Knox worked carefully on the elk, all the while keeping a wary eye on his surroundings. His uneasiness grew as the smell of human seemed to even overpower the smell of the elk. His dragon senses were hyper-alert, warning him that he was not alone. At one point, Knox left the elk and walked in a big circle, looking deep into the surrounding forest and trying to find a trace of someone or something. But there was nothing to see, and no sign of any other living thing except banana slugs, spiders, and birds.
Knox returned to his work on the elk, and soon it was time for him to start building a fire. Here, however, his skills failed him. He attempted to start a fire using flint and steel, something he must have done a thousand times over the years. But for some reason, it would not work today.
Knox felt a deep feeling of foreboding. There was no reason for the fire not to roar to life. And there was no reason for him to be smelling a human that he could not see. He set down the flint and steel, and stood. He looked around, his body tense and ready to shift into dragon form at any moment.
“I know you’re there,” he bellowed. “Show yourself! What is your business with me?”
The only answer was the sound of birds chirping. Knox felt frustrated anger rising in his chest.
“Show yourself!” he called again.
For another moment, there was no answer. And then, for a long moment, the woods went completely silent. Even the birds stopped chirping, and the wind was completely still. Out of this silence came a sudden, sharp yell.
“Magicae ignis!”
A sharp hiss sounded, and then, the pile of tinder and firewood that Knox had arranged suddenly went up in flames.
“What the…” Knox said, spinning in a circle, holding his pocket knife in front of him against an enemy he could not see but now had no doubt was real.
“Invisibilia terminantur,” came the same voice.
Knox nearly jumped out of his skin when a woman suddenly appeared out of thin air only a few feet away from him. She was dressed in jeans and a hoodie that looked like it had been through the muddiest portion of the forest. She wore a big backpack, and stood tall with her right arm outstretched in the direction of the fire. It was impossible to miss the giant ruby ring on her finger. The stone was enormous, and must have been worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. It looked completely out of place in the wildness of the forest. Knox knew that she had started the fire, but he didn’t understand how. She was not a shifter, and definitely was not a dragon. The only possibility Knox could think of was that her ruby ring was a magical artifact, but it did not look like any of the ancient artifacts he had ever seen—and he’d seen well over a hundred ancient, supernatural treasures.
“Who are you?” Knox demanded.
The woman lowered her arm and looked him directly in the eyes. It was only then that Knox noticed how beautiful her dove gray eyes were. Her face was dirty and her light brown hair was messy, pulled into a tangled bun. But she was undeniably beautiful, and there was a look of intelligence in her eyes that Knox had not often seen.
“I’m Bree,” she said. “And we need to talk.”
“Bree,” Knox repeated, letting the name roll over his tongue. It was a beautiful name, fitting for a beautiful girl like her. She didn’t seem ready to attack, so Knox slowly lowered the knife he was still pointing in her direction.
“I wouldn’t mind some food, either,” Bree said, looking longingly at the elk meat that Knox had been preparing to roast.
Knox actually managed a smile.
“Well, I suppose since you started this fire, I’ll share my food with you. It’s more than I can eat myself, anyway. Let me get the meat cooking, and then we’ll talk.”
Bree nodded, never taking her eyes off of him as he set up a crude spit to roast the elk. Once it was cooking, Knox motioned to her to sit down. She did so, sliding her backpack off warily and keeping it close, as though she were prepared to run at any moment. Knox noticed that she kept her ring pointed toward him as well.
“What’s with the ring?” he asked, raising an eyebrow in her direction. “And don’t try to act like it’s nothing special. I’m quite familiar with supernatural artifacts.”
“Not as familiar as you think you are,” Bree said.
Knox immediately felt defensive. Who did this girl think she was? She had clearly found some sort of special stone and had learned how to use it. But she wasn’t a shifter, and he would be surprised if she knew much about the ways of shifters.
“And what makes you such an expert on supernatural artifacts?” Knox asked. “For your information, I’ve spent my life studying them, and chasing after people who try to obtain them to use for their own benefit. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were one of those people now. What claim do you have to that ring?”
“The same claim any wizard has to his or her own magic ring,” Bree said, then paused to let her words sink in. Knox tried to process what she meant. Was she saying she was a wizard? But those didn’t exist anymore.
Did they?
Knox had heard tales of wizards roaming the earth centuries ago. They had often clashed with shifters. Back when all shifters used to hold more magical powers, it had only made sense that wizards and shifters would have had some inevitable power struggles. But according to the history books, wizards had disappeared hundreds of years ago. There had been a huge battle between evil shifters and an alliance of wizards, and no one had seen or heard of wizards since that day.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Bree said. “That the wizards are all gone. But this isn’t true. The wizards only want you to think that they’re gone. They’re still here, they just keep a low profile. They think that any shifters who discover them would try to destroy them.
“Why are you telling me this?” Knox asked suspiciously. “If you wanted to keep a low profile, following me around for days and then blasting in here using magic to start a fire isn’t exactly what I’d call subtle.”
Bree sighed, and her face seemed to soften. “No, it’s not subtle. And I’m sorry for following you like that. I know it was driving you crazy, being able to smell me but not seeing anything. I had to make sure, though, that you were a good shifter before I revealed myself to you. You
see, I’m a wizard on the run. I have some news you’re not going to like, but you need to know. I’m risking my life and my magic to tell you this. If I’m caught before I find a shifter to help me, then I’ll be excommunicated from my wizarding community. And if I told a shifter who was on the side of evil, well, it would be more than just my life in danger. It would be all of the wizards, all of the shifters, and possibly all of the humans as well.”
Knox’s head was beginning to ache with a dull sense of dread. He wanted to immediately write this girl off as some sort of dramatic full human who had just been lucky enough to come across a magic ring. He didn’t want to believe her that wizards still existed. But he had to hear her out. He was the leader of a clan, and he owed it to his dragons to listen to any possible threats. From what this girl had said so far, it sounded like she was discussing a very serious “possible threat.” And if she knew that shifters existed, then she was not just some normal human who had accidentally come across a magical artifact. She knew something important, and he needed to know what it was.
“Well, I can assure you that I am not an evil shifter. In fact, I’ve dedicated my life to fighting evil. So if you know of evil brewing, I would be a good person to tell.”
Knox watched Bree hesitate for just a moment, looking at him thoughtfully.
“I’ve been watching you for several days, wondering where you were going and who you were,” she said slowly. “It was hard to tell what kind of person you were, and I was afraid maybe you were on the run because you had done something wrong. I finally decided to trust you because of the elk.”
Defiance and the Dragon (Redwood Dragons Book 1) Page 4