In a Dragon's Mind (Dragons of Mount Teres Book 1)

by Riley Storm

  “I am going to cut your tongue out for that!” Liroi shrieked as he got to his feet, a bright yellow blade of fire extending from his fist, perhaps two inches wide. “Come here!”

  Vlad watched the other shifter come closer. He waited until Liroi was only a few feet away, the warmth of the fiery blade reaching him across the distance.

  Then he flung a fireball at Liroi’s face. The other shifter raised his free hand to block it casually with a shield of his own fire.

  Which left his crotch wide open for the second ball of dragonfire that Vlad flung from his other hand. It impacted on Liroi’s pants and quickly began to eat through them. Liroi screamed and violently sucked the life from the flames, his panicked will overpowering Vlad’s. Apparently the thought of losing his junk made him stronger.

  “Enough of your tricks,” Liroi said, coming closer. “Now you pay.”

  He came in close. Vlad tried to fend him off, but the yellow blade came closer, and closer. Liroi’s hand flashed out, fingers stiffened, and he jabbed Vlad hard in his already broken ribs.

  Vlad cried out in pain, and at the same time the yellow blade slashed across his face. Pain seared his cheek and tiny orange scales blistered and fell free, mingling with Vlad’s blood as it dripped down his cheek and onto the cavern floor.

  “Just a start,” Liroi promised.

  Vlad looked at the other shifter hazily, his vision blurred from the pain and the constant punches to his head.

  His eyes focused just long enough to see Liroi pull the blade back and prepare to stab it into Vlad’s throat.

  I’m sorry Ellyn. I tried to hold on. I tried.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Vlad

  The blade wavered for a moment, and then plunged down at him.

  Vlad stared at his doom, awaiting the inevitable, mourning his failures with Sache and the loss of a lifetime with Ellyn.

  Then suddenly the weight was gone, taking the blade with it as Liroi was ripped from his position on Vlad’s chest.

  “No!” Sache screamed as he hurled the other shifter across the floor.

  Liroi bounced, rolled and landed in a crouch. The blade was gone but fire was crawling up his forearms and filling his eyes.

  “I knew you were just as weak as him!” Liroi screamed. “You are pathetic. Move aside, or I will move you.”

  Sache placed himself in front of Vlad, fire blossoming in his own hands. The air inside the cavern was rapidly growing warmer with all the flame being tossed around. Sweat was beading up on Vlad’s temples.

  Or was it blood?

  He wasn’t sure. The sucker-punch from Sache had caught him completely by surprise, and he’d spent the rest of the fight just trying to avoid death. Cataloging his wounds would have to wait.

  Sache charged across the open space at Liroi. Wild, aggressive and completely forgetting all his training. Vlad tried to call out, to tell him to hold back, but the noise in the cavern was deafening as the other two clashed.

  Liroi was dangerous, despite Vlad’s taunts to the opposite. All Sache’s emotions, his pent up fear and hatred at himself, came out in a giant wave of fire that washed over the shorter Cado shifter, but ultimately left him unharmed. Sache continued to close, fists blazing. He hit Liroi several times, but they were glancing blows.

  Shaking off the worst of his hurt, Vlad struggled to his feet, ready to help Sache.

  Realizing that he was about to be outnumbered, Liroi did something neither of the Teres shifters expected.

  Reaching a hand up into the air, he shot a stream of fire high into the cavern roof. Vlad frowned, trying to figure out what the point of it was.

  He found out a moment later when Liroi ducked under a wild punch from Sache, grabbed the shifter by the ankle and spun. Hauling Sache from his feet he chucked him across the room, right under the point in the ceiling where his fire had hit a moment earlier.

  “Sache!” Vlad screamed as he realized what was happening, a moment before a massive stalactite dropped from the ceiling, burying his friend under tons of mountain rock, shaking the entire cavern with its impact.

  Liroi cackled victoriously, shot some fire at Vlad to distract him, and then ducked into the slit, headed for the outer cavern, and beyond that, freedom.

  Vlad, now properly angry, the fury burning through much of his pain and clearing his head, dashed toward the pile of rock. Family first. Sache was kin, and he needed help.

  Hauling several boulders away, he partially uncovered his friend. A quick check of his pulse showed him to be alive.

  “I’ll be fine,” Sache groaned. “In time.”

  “Thank you,” Vlad said. “I knew you were still in there.”

  “S-sorry,” Sache said, grimacing in pain—he likely had a number of broken bones, so any movement would be painful.

  “Forget about it.”

  “Not anytime soon,” Sache said. “Did you get him?”

  “No, he’s headed out.”

  “Well then go get him, will you?”

  Vlad grinned, showing a full mouth of teeth. “My pleasure.”

  He got up and shot through the crack, moving faster than he ever had down the long passage. Up ahead he could hear Liroi nearly out on the other side.

  “You can’t run far enough,” he growled, his voice easily carrying. “I will find, you, and I will kill you.”

  “I highly doubt that,” Liroi retorted as he slipped free. “You see, I didn’t come alone.”

  Vlad raised a palm, shooting his own fire down the slit in the rock, forcing Liroi to duck aside before he was able to fill it with his own flames and roast Vlad alive. In that extra time he slipped free, immediately squaring off against his nemesis.

  Farther up, near the mouth of the cave, footsteps crunched.

  “And here they come now,” Liroi crowed.

  Soon they could discern movement in the shadows. Three large figures, and one much smaller.

  “And they have your girl,” Liroi sneered, turning on Vlad. “Because you, like an idiot, brought her up here as well. It’s a shame I had to kill Sache, he was a convincing actor.”

  “He’s not dead,” Vlad said, unable to suppress a roll of an eye. “And those aren’t your friends.”

  Liroi’s triumphant look faltered. “What? What are you talking about?”

  “He means,” the shorter figure said as Ellyn stepped into the cave. “That you’re screwed.”

  Pierce, Lara and Blede stepped forward into the light as well, revealing themselves to be Vlad’s backup, not Liroi’s.

  “All good?” Vlad asked calmly.

  “All good,” Pierce confirmed. “They didn’t suspect a thing.”

  Vlad grinned, turned his attention back to Liroi. “See, the thing is, when you set a such a blatant trap like this, it gives those walking into it the opportunity to set their own trap.”

  Liroi screamed, and lost control.

  “Get her out of here!” Vlad shouted as the other man began to grow at an exponential rate.

  Pierce picked up Ellyn and ran for the exit. Vlad charged inward but a giant wing flicked out and batted him back up against the wall. He slid to the floor, dazed but otherwise unharmed.

  Lara and Blede had a split second to brace themselves before the massive lizard mouth breathed fire at them, searing at the two shifters and turning some of the nearby stone to glass.

  Then the scarlet scaled dragon shot out of the mouth of the cave and into the night sky.

  Vlad was up and running after it.

  “Vlad, wait!” Blede shouted.

  But he didn’t stop. He reached the edge of the cave opening and flung himself into the air, the change overcoming him as he soared into the night.

  A moment later, rust-colored membranes spread from his back and Vlad winged out over the mountainside in hot pursuit. He wasn’t letting Liroi get away. This ended now.

  Sheer determination saw Vlad close the distance on his prey, each mighty swoop of his wings bringing him that much closer.
His ultrasharp eyesight picked out the scarlet dragon glancing back over his shoulder. When he saw how close Vlad was, the panic was obvious.

  It’s too late now.

  “Enough Liroi, it’s over,” he bellowed, hoping the Cado shifter would finally see reason, and submit without a fight. Vlad didn’t relish what would he would have to do otherwise.

  “Piss off,” Liroi said, punctuating his answer with a fireball.

  Idiot! That will be seen from miles away!

  Vlad easily dodged it, closing harder. He needed to take Liroi down before the terrified shifter gave away the secret of dragons to everyone within a hundred mile radius who could see the night sky light up like that.

  “Land. Now. Final chance!” he roared.

  Liroi tried to bank away, but he was too late. Vlad had gotten too close, and now he raked the talons of his hind legs through the membranes of Liroi’s right wing. The razor sharp talons tore jagged holes through the wing, and Liroi immediately began to lose height.

  Vlad dove after him. The Cado’s long neck flexed and he swept it around. He was going to try and burn Vlad from the sky, it was obvious. But Vlad was quicker. His neck snapped forward and his jaws crunched down around Liroi’s snout. Flame jutted from the sides but most of it was trapped and dissipated inside him as Liroi panicked and twisted in mid-air.

  The action tore the wounded wing almost in half, and Vlad released his hold to avoid being dragged into a freefall as well. Liroi plummeted downward, his massive dragon form crashing into trees and leveling a huge space as he impacted on the ground.

  Spiraling down, Vlad landed gently just off to the side.

  Liroi was ready for him, and belched flame. Vlad responded, the two streams of fire mixing and stalling one another out in the space between their mighty forms, illuminating the forest around them and the downed trees from Liroi’s crash landing.

  Knowing that he was now in better shape, Vlad pressed his advantage. The streams of fire continued unabated for long seconds until they were both forced to stop for air, unable to continuously expel flame that way.

  While Liroi immediately sucked in another huge breath, his flanks bulging to accommodate the inflating lungs, Vlad adopted another tactic. He pivoted slightly, and his tail flicked out at one of the fallen trees.

  The impact launched the maple into the air—right at Liroi’s head.

  It cracked off his lizard skull and Liroi stumbled, expelling his flame at a downward angle into the exposed forest floor and trees at his feet, turning it into a burning inferno that quickly started to spread.

  Vlad charged in, closing the distance while Liroi stumbled back, trying to put out his own fire while also recovering from the impact of a foot-wide tree trunk to the head.

  Teeth flashed, scarlet scales tumbled to the floor and mixed with crimson blood, and it was over.

  The smaller dragon collapsed, Liroi gurgling softly as the light flickered from his eyes. A moment later it went out.

  Turns out it’s hard to live when most of your throat is forcefully ripped out.

  Vlad looked at the corpse in disdain. He didn’t enjoy killing, but the world was a much better place without Liroi in it.

  The dragon body rippled and then shrank back to its human form, as was normal when a dragon died in its animal form. Vlad inhaled sharply, focusing his energy, and then breathed a stream of blue-white fire across the body, incinerating it, and any nearby scales and traces of blood. He burned a huge swath of the forest, turning it to cinders.

  And then just as quickly he stole the fire away, down to the very last ember. With the secret of the dragons hidden, he spread his wings and headed back toward the top of the mountain.

  He had somewhere important to be.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Ellyn

  She watched the dragon come closer.

  “It’s him, right?”

  “It’s Vlad,” Pierce confirmed, patting her on the shoulder as he and the others retreated to give them their privacy.

  By the time Vlad settled down on the side of the mountain nearby, they were gone, all of them, including Kayb who had stayed outside the cave from the start as a lookout.

  “Did I scare them off?” Vlad chuckled as he came over and wrapped her up in a hug.

  He was battered, bruised and bleeding, but she didn’t care. Ellyn grabbed on for dear life, squeezing him as hard as she could.

  “I missed you too,” he said. “I’m glad you’re safe.”

  “I am.”

  “I’ll be back in a moment though, Sache is still in there.”

  “No, he’s not,” she said, shaking her head.

  “He isn’t?”

  “No. He came out, looked around, and then headed off without a word,” she said quietly, pointing in the direction the wayward shifter had gone.

  “He’s going to his vault,” Vlad said after a moment. “To recover. To take some time for himself.”

  “Is he…” Ellyn bit her lip. She’d been about to ask if he was still a bad guy or not. The other dragons had watched Sache warily, but they hadn’t intervened, so she had assumed he had come back to their side, but his departure left her wondering.

  “In time,” Vlad said. “He just needs some time now that the threat of the Cado is no longer over his head. Or ours, for that matter.”

  “Indeed,” she said, hugging his naked form, reaching around to squeeze his butt. “You have no clothes on by the way.”

  “You’d better get used to that,” he said with a shrug. “I end up naked a lot.”

  “Gee darn,” she said dryly, giving him a bold elevator stare and wiggling her eyebrows at the same time.

  “I’m just so glad you’re okay,” he said, the huge biceps swallowing her up in another hug.

  Ellyn squirmed deep into it, enjoying the sensation. She liked his hugs. A lot. Heck, she liked all of him a lot.

  “I told you it would be fine,” she said, shaking off his concerns. “Just like we planned.”

  “You were alone in the truck though,” he said. “I don’t like that they used you as bait.”

  “Pierce, Kayb, Lara and Blede were already in the mountains Vlad. They had their eyes on me the entire time.”

  She didn’t bother telling Vlad that she’d still been terrified, sitting out in the open to draw out Liroi’s accomplices.

  They’d known that Liroi wouldn’t come alone, that there were others. Nobody was sure how many, but nobody argued that there were more Cado in Five Peaks than had been seen. So the other dragons had flown ahead and nestled down in the mountains nearby, where they could watch unseen.

  When Ellyn had pulled up and dropped Vlad off, she’d stayed outside, in the truck, looking vulnerable and scared. Which is exactly what she’d been, so it hadn’t been too hard for her to fake anything.

  But that was all done now. Pierce had rounded up the two more Cado who had shown their faces, and they’d been led somewhere. Ellyn preferred not to think of where. She somehow doubted there was a dragon prison somewhere. They seemed to favor much more permanent solutions.

  None of that mattered now though. It was over, done, and she was back in his arms. Where she liked it. That was where she wanted to be.

  Just the thought of it made her stomach backflip.

  “It’s over now,” he said, a bit more of a pronouncement than an observation.

  “What do you mean?” Ellyn asked, stepping back slightly to better look Vlad in the eyes.

  “I mean, it’s over. It’s done. The Cado aren’t going to come after you anymore, and you’re free from your old boss as well. Lex knows that it’s probably best if he stays on the east coast. Away from me.”

  Ellyn smiled. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

  “You know what that means now, don’t you?”

  She frowned. Why was he suddenly getting so uneasy? Vlad was practically shifting his weight back and forth in discomfort. What had she missed?

  “Um. I don’t have to worry about
you fighting people anymore?” she said, not sure where he was going with this.

  “Well, that’s true,” he admitted. “But I meant that you’re free now Ellyn.”

  “Oh.”

  “You’re free to go wherever you want. To start a new life. You can do whatever you want.”

  Ellyn nodded slowly. He was right, she was free. Not only from the Cado and Lex, but also from Vlad. What he meant was, she was no longer his ‘prisoner’, not that she’d felt that way in a long time. But he was giving her the choice now, to do what she wanted. To go where she pleased.

  She could go to one of the big cities on the west coast, start a new life there. Be whoever she wanted. Find a new crew, or maybe go legit, find some new job where she could be useful, and earn a normal living. Boring, but she wouldn’t have to be constantly looking over her shoulder.

  Or maybe she could go north to Canada, or south. Maybe Europe, explore the old world some. The choices were numerous now, and Ellyn could pick one, or she could pick them all.

  “I guess I am free, aren’t I?” she said somberly, twisting to look out over the horizon at a world full of possibilities.

  “What are you going to do?” Vlad asked.

  Ellyn fell silent, thinking of the best way to answer that question.

  “I think I’m going to find a place to settle down. Somewhere different. Where there are good people, who won’t judge me for my past. A place where I could see myself living for a long time. Maybe raising a family. A place where I could be with the man I love.”

  Vlad took a slow breath. “That sounds nice.”

  “Yeah,” she said, a smile coming over her face. “It does, doesn’t it.”

  “So where will that be?” he asked tightly.

  “Wherever you are,” she answered, taking his hand and squeezing it tight.

  Vlad turned to face her. “You don’t have to do this.”

  “I know,” she said. “But I want to. Do you know why?”

  She could feel his hand quiver slightly as she asked the question. It was so adorable.

  Or was that my hand? My heart is certainly beating fast enough.