Determination and the Dragon (Redwood Dragons Book 4)

by Sloane Meyers

  Up close, Harlow could see all the marvelous details that were impossible to notice from far away. She ran her hands over Myles’ thick dragon hide, admiring the way his green scales shimmered even in the dull winter light. When the light hit them the right way, they took on iridescent shades of pink, blue, and purple. Harlow thought that she had never seen anything so beautiful.

  Myles had not been exaggerating, either, when he said that his dragon form was large. Harlow had seen during the battles that the dragons were giants, but, again, seeing them up close gave a different perspective. She’d had no concept of just how large they actually were. Even with Harlow, two duffel bags, and another large backpack on Myles’ dragon back, there was plenty of spare room. As Myles had said, this did make his back a very stable place to sit while he flew. Harlow had been worried before takeoff, but she had not felt nervous since they actually launched into the air. Myles was a steady flyer, and his back felt completely safe to her.

  His long neck and fearsome dragon head stretched far in front of her, and his long, spiked tail stretched behind, whipping through the air with ease. But it was his wings that really took her breath away. Calling them massive would be an understatement. Each wing stretched out from his body at least twice as long as the length from his head to tail. They skin on the back edges of the wings was thinner, which made the iridescent effect of his scales even more pronounced. His wings looked like a true work of art to Harlow. She watched, mesmerized, as they rose and fell with powerful grace, propelling them quickly away from the town and toward the spot Myles had chosen for their next hideout.

  It had been a big step for Harlow to let Myles take complete control of where they would relocate to next. She was slowly learning to trust him, and to trust that she did not have to do everything on her own, or make every decision by herself. Myles had studied the maps very carefully for several hours while she was sleeping, and he was convinced that there were caves out here they could hide in. He was also convinced that Saul’s men would not be too far from the caves, based on the predicted travel path he had made the night before. If Myles’ observations were correct, then Harlow might have a chance within the next few days to sneak into the enemy’s camp and steal the amethyst records. If they could manage to finish their mission that quickly, everyone back home was sure to be pleased. The wizard High Council might even recognize them with an award, and Harlow wasn’t going to lie—she wouldn’t mind being recognized a little bit for all her hard work.

  But the best thing about going home would be that she would be able to spend time with Myles in a normal, safe environment. She was glad to be with him now, of course. She was happier than ever that he had won the argument over whether or not he would accompany her on this mission. But the middle of a snowy wilderness, with enemy soldiers close at hand, was not the best place to kick off a new relationship.

  Relationship. Harlow frowned as she considered the word, and wondered what kind of relationship she and Myles had. They had fought, then worked out their differences, then made love, and then…they had not really discussed things. There had been no time, of course. They’d needed to get away from the hotel. Still, Harlow felt anxious whenever her mind turned to considering what it was that Myles might want. Would this just be a fling for him? A fun diversion while he was off on a mission? Or was it something deeper? Something that meant something.

  He’d said this was only the beginning. But the beginning of what? Did Harlow dare to hope for something truly permanent?

  Her fretful thoughts were interrupted by the realization that they were beginning to spiral downward. Myles was moving in wide, graceful circles, slowly losing altitude so that Harlow never felt frightened by too sharp of a downward angle. Below them, dark black rocks jutted out from the snow here and there. Harlow assumed those must be the tops of the caves, although it was hard to say what anything was for certain right now. Last night’s snowstorm had covered the landscape quite completely.

  A few minutes later, Myles came to a smooth landing right in the middle of the black rocks. From this vantage point, it was clear that these were caves, although their entrances were almost completely blocked by snowdrifts. Myles looked back at her, and gave her a gentle nudge with his dragon head. Harlow understood that he wanted her to dismount, so she grabbed the bags and threw them off his back, then slid down and off herself, landing with a soft thud in the snow. She sank in all the way to her waist, and found herself struggling to move forward even a few feet. Myles, on the other hand, seemed to be able to walk around fairly easily, thanks to his giant dragon legs. He swung his head to and fro, inspecting the different cave entrances. Harlow presumed that he was trying to decide which cave would make the best hideout for them. The caves didn’t seem all that large. Many of them were not much more than shallow rock shelters, barely big enough for two humans to stretch out inside.

  Myles finally settled on one of the medium-sized caves, and swiped at the snow in front with one of his giant front legs. Snow went flying in a powdery white shower, and Myles continued swiping like this until much of the entrance was cleared. The inside of the cave was quite full of snow, too. It had probably been piling up there all winter, since the weather had not been warm enough to melt snow for quite some time. Myles decided to do a little melting on his own, though. He let out a loud roar, and then shot a stream of fire from his large dragon mouth. The flames gave off an intense heat that Harlow could feel even from several yards away. The warmth felt good, and she watched in fascination as even the top layer of snow near her began to melt from the nearby heat. After a few short minutes of fire-breathing, Myles had reduced the inside of the cave to a sopping wet puddle. He continued to breathe fire on the water, until it boiled. Harlow frowned, unsure of what he was trying to do. He didn’t seem to be getting the results he wanted, either, because after a few moments he stopped and backed away from the cave. With a loud roar and a huge rush of energy, he shifted back into human form, completely naked from head to toe.

  “Goddamn, it’s cold out here. Even for a dragon shifter,” he said. “Toss me my duffel bag.”

  Harlow reached to the spot a few feet away from her where the duffel was, and with some difficulty dragged it toward her. She picked it up high above her head, and then it hurled it toward Myles with all her strength. It landed just a few feet away from him, and he reached out to grab it from the snowdrift it had landed in. He quickly opened it and began to rummage around for clothes, cursing the cold as the snow bit at his bare skin. Harlow waited until he was dressed and had stopped cursing before speaking.

  “What were you trying to do, breathing fire on all the water in the cave?” she asked as she started laboriously trudging through the snow toward him.

  “I was trying to make the water hot enough to boil away, so that the cave would be dry for us,” Myles said, wiping at his brow, which was covered with thick snowflakes. “But there’s too much of it. It’ll take hours. There was so much snow in there that melting it turned the cave into a literal pond. I think we might be better off just choosing another cave, and clearing the snow away completely by hand instead of melting it. We can’t very well set up camp on top of a pond.”

  Harlow grinned when she heard what Myles had been trying to do. “You need to dry out the cave? Oh, that’s easy. Allow me,” she said. She stumbled the last several feet through the thick snow, right up to the edge of where Myles’ snow melting efforts had indeed turned the ground into a sopping wet mess. She pulled the glove off her right hand, and then raised her magic ring to point it at the water.

  “Magicae siccum,” she said. Energy radiated from her ring, and the water in the cave began to evaporate rapidly. After only a minute of this, the inside of the cave was bone dry. Harlow looked triumphantly over at Myles, who blinked a few times in amazement as he looked at the cave.

  “Right,” he finally said. “I forgot you could do magic.”

  “Minor little detail,” Harlow teased. “Now let’s get our stuff in
to the cave and see if we can warm up a bit. I’m freezing.”

  “Here,” Myles said, tossing her his duffel bag. “Take that inside and I’ll go grab the other bags.”

  He trudged through the pathway Harlow had made when she walked over, grabbed the other bags, and then trudged back. He deposited them on the cold hard earth that made up the floor of the cave, and then began rummaging around inside the cave, trying to gather up the large, loose stones that were scattered here and there.

  “We’ll have to make a fire pit,” he explained. “It’s not exactly ideal to have smoke going up into the air, telling anyone nearby where we are, but we can’t freeze to death either.”

  “By ‘we’ you mean ‘me,’ don’t you?” Harlow said, raising an eyebrow at him. “Your dragon genes seem to keep you warm enough to deal with this weather. Well, at least they keep you warm enough when you’re not butt naked in the snow.”

  Myles chuckled. “Fair enough. But we have to keep you warm, too. And as much as I would love to just wrap you in my arms constantly to heat you up, that’s not very practical. So we’ll have to build a fire. Hopefully, Saul’s men won’t be close enough to notice the smoke in the sky. And if they are, well, then we’ll just have to fight them. Things might come to that anyway.”

  Harlow grinned. “You’re forgetting something again,” she said with a twinkle in her eye. Myles looked over at her and narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

  “What?” he asked.

  “I can do magic, remember?” Harlow said. Then she raised her ringed hand and said, “Magicae therma.”

  Almost instantly, the room began to fill with a welcoming warmth. Myles stared at her, dumbfounded.

  “That’s a pretty useful trick,” Myles observed. “I didn’t realize that spell could warm a whole room. But why didn’t you just use that in your own room when the power went out last night?”

  “Because I can’t keep the spell going while I’m asleep,” Harlow said. “Which means that when it’s time to go to bed here in the cave, we’ll either need to build a fire, or you’ll have to snuggle close to me while we sleep to keep me warm.”

  Harlow winked at him for added emphasis, and he let out a low growl noise.

  “Come here, you,” he said reaching toward her to pull her close. His lips covered hers, and he wrapped his arms firmly around her. He pressed hips against hers to let Harlow feel the stiffening between his legs.

  “So that’s a ‘yes’ to snuggling me?” Harlow asked in a teasing voice when Myles broke off the kiss for a moment to catch his breath. He growled again, and started in to kiss her again. But he stopped before he reached her lips, suddenly taking on a thoughtful expression.

  “You know,” he said, his voice soft. “I would like to fall asleep next to you every day for the rest of my life, regardless of whether the temperature around us is hot or cold.”

  Harlow swallowed hard, her eyes widening as she looked up at him. “That’s…that’s quite a long time,” she said.

  “I know,” Myles said. “Well, I mean, hopefully it will be a long time. I’m going to do my best not to get killed on this mission.”

  He laughed at his own joke, but Harlow frowned. “Don’t joke about dying. It’s not funny.”

  Myles reached out and brushed a stray strand of hair back from her face. His finger left a trail of heat across her face, and she closed her eyes for a moment, relishing how wonderful his touch felt.

  “Hey,” he said, his voice even softer now. “I’m not going anywhere anytime soon, okay? And I mean it when I say I want to spend a lifetime with you. I know you probably think I’m crazy for saying that so soon, but it’s true.”

  Harlow felt her heart beating faster as she stared up at Myles. His deep green eyes looked down at her with an intensity that was becoming quite familiar now. She was learning that dragon’s didn’t really half-ass anything. When they decided to do something, they were all in. And, apparently, that included falling in love.

  “How can you know for sure?” Harlow asked. “You barely know me?” She asked the question not to cast doubt on the truth of his words, but because she was genuinely curious. She thought she felt similarly, but he was right. It did seem crazy to know, after one time of sleeping together, that you wanted to be with someone forever. Especially when, until the day before, you thought you hated the person. But Myles said he knew, and, if Harlow really searched her heart, she knew, too. She never wanted to leave Myles’ side. He might drive her a bit crazy sometimes, but he was exactly the calm, steady influence that her sometimes unsteady heart needed.

  Myles took a deep breath, and smiled a bit ruefully down at her. “It’s a bit of an involved explanation, actually,” he said.

  “I’ve got time,” Harlow replied.

  Myles nodded, took another deep breath, and then launched into his explanation. “In the shifter world, we have what are known as ‘lifemates.’ We believe that every shifter has a destined lifemate—someone they are fated to spend their whole life with. It’s similar to the human concept of a soulmate, except it’s even a bit stronger than that. I’m not sure if wizards believe in soulmates or not?”

  Harlow shrugged. “Some do, some don’t. I’ve always thought the concept seemed a bit farfetched.”

  Myles chuckled. “Well, then, you’re probably going to think the idea of lifemates is really farfetched. We believe that, throughout your whole life, destiny and fate are working to bring you together with your lifemate at the perfect time. Some shifters might suspect that someone is their lifemate from the moment they meet them. With other shifters, it might take some time. But the one thing that all lifemates have in common is the lifemate bond. As soon as two people who are fated lifemates make love for the first time, the lifemate bond is formed. Once that bond is formed, the two will never truly be able to break ties from each other again. The threads of their lives are irreversibly connected.”

  “That doesn’t sound that farfetched to me,” Harlow said, her voice barely more than a whisper. “Because I feel like that’s exactly what happened between you and me. I would never have known to explain it as a lifemate bond, but after we made love I felt different. I felt…connected to you, in a way I’ve never felt connected to anyone before.”

  “Did you feel your body fill with warm glowing heat, right in your core?” Myles asked, his own voice a whisper as well.

  Harlow nodded. She felt suddenly lightheaded, and was so overcome with emotion that she found it difficult to speak.

  “I felt it, too,” Myles said. “That warm glow is the lifemate bond. It bound us together for life, Harlow. Of course, you can make your own decisions about what future you think we have together. But for me, I know with certainty that there will never be anyone else. No matter what you decide you want, I’m yours for life. My existence from now on will be dedicated to making you happy, to protecting you, and, hopefully, to building a life together.”

  Harlow felt her heart beating rapidly in her chest as she looked up at Myles, drinking in the love that she saw in his gorgeous dragon eyes. “I feel the same, Myles,” she said. “I am yours for life, come what may. I can’t wait to see what adventures lie ahead of us.”

  Myles smile deepened, and he leaned down to kiss her again. Harlow closed her eyes, and let his love wash over her. So much uncertainty clouded the horizon, and there was no way to know whether the good shifters and wizards would be victorious. But tomorrow would take care of itself, Harlow decided. Right now, at least she knew she had a dragon shifter who cared for her, wrapping his arms around her. She could not ask for more.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Myles would have loved to spend the rest of the day wrapped up in Harlow’s arms, but he knew that lazy days of lovemaking were not his lot at the moment. He hoped things would be different once he and Harlow made their way back to Falcon Cross, but for now, they must focus on the task at hand.

  Myles and Harlow studied their maps and made plans, each of them assuming a businesslike air
as they considered their options for finding and overtaking Saul’s men. Myles was convinced that the enemy must be nearby, but Harlow was not so sure.

  “We’re assuming that they’re moving forward in their search in a logical pattern,” she said. “They might not be doing that. Especially if they do know that we’re here. If they know they’re being watched, they’ll want to keep things as confusing and unpredictable as possible for us.”

  She had a point, but Myles still thought the odds weighed in favor of the men being close by.

  “You heard them on the recordings, talking about how they were running short on supplies,” Myles said. “They would not want to waste resources by searching in a haphazard pattern. Besides, if they know that we’re here, they might try to stay close by so that they can search for us. The townspeople would have told them we are only two people. They probably think they can handle two of us. And if they surprise us, they might be right. Which is why we have to find them before they find us.”

  “Right But this snow is going to make scouting out the area on foot nearly impossible,” Harlow said. “Do you think you could do a bit of aerial reconnaissance? If you shift into dragon form, you’d be able to quickly cover a large area by flying around. You could check the locations where we think our enemies are most likely to be hanging out at the moment, and see if your hunches were correct.”

  “I could do that,” Myles said slowly. “But there’s just one problem.”

  “What?” Harlow asked.

  “They’ll see me circling. We’ll lose any remaining element of surprise we might have had. They’ll know that I know where they are, and they aren’t complete idiots. They’ll know that an attack is imminent, and they’ll be prepared for it.”