Dragon’s Protected (West Coast Water Dragons Book 6)

by Kayla Wolf

  Dragon’s Protected

  A Paranormal Romance

  West Coast Water Dragons Book 6

  Kayla Wolf

  Copyright © 2020 by The Wolf Sisters Books.

  All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of the book only. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form, including recording, without prior written permission from the publisher, except for brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Contents

  Chapter 1 – Lori

  Chapter 2 - Harvey

  Chapter 3 - Lori

  Chapter 4 - Harvey

  Chapter 5 - Lori

  Chapter 6 - Harvey

  Chapter 7 - Lori

  Chapter 8 - Harvey

  Chapter 9 - Lori

  Chapter 10 - Harvey

  Chapter 11 - Lori

  Chapter 12 - Harvey

  Chapter 13 - Lori

  Chapter 14 - Harvey

  Chapter 15 - Lori

  About the Author

  Books by The Wolf Sisters

  Chapter 1 – Lori

  Lori leaned back in the splintered wooden chair that she’d managed to claim before the meeting started, fighting to keep the boredom she was feeling from showing on her face. She’d always been someone who fidgeted a lot, and it was difficult to resist the temptation to shift in her seat, or better yet, to get up and walk around the enormous barn, stretch her legs a little. But she knew her mother and father were sitting right behind her—and she knew what she’d have to put up with later if they perceived any kind of disrespect from her, real or imagined.

  It was bizarre to think that she’d only been home for a month. In a way, it felt like she’d never left … like her whole adventure in Los Angeles had been a particularly vivid dream. It hadn’t, of course. She had a whole lot of unpleasant memories, a sizable credit card debt, and a wedding ring stashed in a drawer in the farmhouse that proved it had all really happened. She kept meaning to take the ring into town and sell it, put whatever she got for it towards the credit card debt … but for some reason, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. The very idea frightened her.

  A lot of things frightened her these days. She knew they could sense it, the pack—they could tell that she was damaged goods, a weak link in a chain that needed, now more than ever, to be strong. Wolves didn’t traditionally have a lot of time for weakness. She knew that her parents had taken a pretty serious risk when they’d brought her here, welcomed her back to the pack. She owed them a lot—owed them her life, really. But it didn’t bring her much joy, thinking of the debt she owed her parents. It made her stomach twist with guilt and shame … and the same claustrophobia that had driven her out of the old farmhouse five years ago, desperate to make her own life outside of the pack that felt like it had had a stranglehold on her since before she was born …

  Juliana was still talking. She talked a lot, this new Alpha. Their previous Alpha, Cyrus, had never been this talkative—he’d been the kind of wolf who preferred action over words, and who shared precious little of his thinking with his pack. But Cyrus was gone now. That had been one of the big changes she’d come home to. Something had happened—some kind of attack that had gone wrong. Cyrus had been badly injured—not killed, but injured—but what had really doomed him politically was that his pack had seen his weakness. They’d seen his plan fail, seen him fall in battle against their enemy. How could they follow him after that? So he’d been ousted, and Juliana had taken over instead.

  At least, that was what she’d pieced together from the very fragmentary update her parents had provided her when she’d returned home from the city. From what she could tell, it was fairly likely that Cyrus had been killed by Juliana, not just removed from power. The new Alpha was a hard-faced woman with close-cropped, salt-and-pepper black hair that accentuated the brilliant silver of her eyes. What was more, she was new to the pack—something that had surprised Lori. But that wasn’t the only big change that had swept through the pack.

  Lori sighed as she fought to keep her eyes open, her mind drifting …

  For as long as she could remember, they’d been a pack of nomads, moving from place to place in northern California, wherever their members could scrape together some work or find somewhere to camp for a week or two. It had been a hard life. And what made it harder was the atmosphere of resentment, of bitter, bitter anger about something that had happened before Lori had even been born … before her parents had been grown-ups, even. A betrayal. A cataclysmic battle that had literally decimated the pack—killed most of their members and sent the rest scattering into a life on the road. Sometimes Lori wondered whether the wolves would be as bitter about the event were it not for the curious shared memory that was a unique quirk of the magic that allowed them to transform into wolves at will. But it was an academic question. Whatever the cause, there was a rage and a bitterness in the heart of her pack that time was never going to mend.

  When Lori was ten, Cyrus had found them a place to stay. It was a ramshackle old farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, barely fit for human habitation—but they’d bought it for a song from the old owners, and the pack soon set about rendering it habitable. In time, they’d turned the old place around into a functional farm, and even managed to afford to start buying the neighboring properties. There was enough space for the various families that composed the pack to live in relative comfort … even if conditions were cramped. Lori shared a room with her two younger siblings, but it was better than sharing a tent.

  When she’d left, things had been—well, not good, but steady. The pack owned a dozen farmhouses now, and the majority of the wolves spent their days working in the fields, taking care of crops and animals, making sure that the pack would be able to keep body and soul together. It was hard, punishing work. Lori was always expected to pitch in, as well as supervising Jack and Kara, her little brother and sister. She knew her parents loved them, but their way of showing it left a lot to be desired. So when she’d seen an opportunity, she’d taken it. A couple of backpackers had taken some seasonal work on the farm—they were passing through town on their way down the coast to Los Angeles. She overheard them talking one night in low voices about how great the city was, how much life there was, how anyone could make their own life there if they were willing to work hard.

  And hadn’t Lori been working hard since the day she was born?

  It had been easy—almost too easy—to get out. She’d gathered what savings she had managed to scrape up (it was useful to have an emergency fund, just in case times got tight) and bought a bus ticket to Los Angeles. She left a letter for Jack and Kara and one for her parents, explaining that she was going to make a new life for herself, that she’d write to them regularly, send money back whenever she could. It had been enough to soften the feeling of betrayal she felt as she crept from the farmhouse she’d called home. Nineteen years old. A good age for doing stupid things.

  ”Lori,” Jack hissed. Her little brother was sitting next to her, kicking his legs against the seat. She shushed him, reaching over to ruffle his sandy brown hair affectionately. He’d inherited their mother’s wild curls, where Lori had their father’s thick, straight black hair. But both of them had the same eyes—silver, luminous, and bold. The eyes shared by every member of the pack, every member of their species. The silver eyes of wolf shifters.


  ”How much longer?” the boy mouthed. He was ten now—she’d been shocked by how much he’d grown when she got home from LA. When she’d left, he’d just turned five. It felt like he’d grown about ten feet taller, even though that made sense. It was as though her funny little brother had been replaced with a stranger. Had he forgiven her for leaving? Kara certainly hadn’t—she knew that from her little sister’s sullen silence, from the one-word answers she’d been getting to all of her questions since she’d gotten back. Lori heaved a sigh, trying not to think about it as she played with Jack’s curly hair.

  ”Alpha Juliana.” That was her father’s voice. Harrison had been a pillar of strength for the pack for decades now—he was regarded with respect by just about everyone. When she’d been younger, Lori had wondered why her father had never expressed any interest in being Alpha. But now, witnessing how quickly the pack had turned on Cyrus when he’d let them down … well, she was thinking her father was a lot smarter than he let on. Better to be second-in-command your whole life, than to reign for a few years then meet a lonely, isolated end. “What exactly are our numbers now?”

  Despite her unease, Lori leaned forward, interested in an answer to this question. For as long as she could remember, there had been exactly nineteen members of the pack. But that had all changed in the years she’d been away.

  ”Good question, Harrison.” Juliana gave the old wolf a respectful nod—Lori hid her irritation. Everyone was always talking about how wonderful her parents were, what important members of the pack they were, how hard-working and tireless they were, how much they sacrificed for the pack. Well, they sacrificed a lot, that much was true … and what they’d sacrificed first was their firstborn daughter’s happiness. She shook herself, resisting the urge to drift down that line of thought too far. If she got herself too worked up about it, she wouldn’t be able to sleep. “Since the most recent family group joined us, our numbers come to ninety-four in total.”

  A murmur of surprise went up among the wolves gathered in the barn. Even Lori was shocked. Nearly a hundred wolves in one pack? It seemed ridiculous. But Harrison was nodding, exchanging glances with Lori’s mother, Jenna.

  ”The last time we were even close to such numbers was when the dragons betrayed us on the peninsula,” Harrison said now, raising his voice to be heard by the wolves who were gathered in the barn. It was newly-built, this barn, the scent of fresh timber mingling with the scent of fresh straw. A fitting place for a meeting about expansion, about growth, about the numbers they were adding. And Lori couldn’t help but lean forward again, suddenly interested in the thoughtful look on Juliana’s face.

  ”As you all know,” she said, turning back to the gathered crowd, “I’m a relative newcomer to this pack. We all are, in a way. Ever since our smaller packs combined to form this large one, I’ve been reflecting on what it is that makes a pack. Is it a shared history? Is it a shared purpose? Is it a shared home? The common theme, it seems, is sharing. Each of our smaller packs is like a thread that’s come together to weave a new piece of cloth. We share each other’s strengths, and we share each other’s pain. Each other’s indignities, injustices, betrayals.”

  There was an eerie quiet in the barn. Lori glanced around, seemingly a little surprised by how intently her packmates were listening to the Alpha. Of course, the betrayal by the dragons was no secret. Back in the sixties, when her parents had only been kids, their pack had had an unusual alliance with a family of dragons. They’d traveled together, worked together, kept each other safe. They even found a home to share, a beautiful, isolated peninsula that would have been a perfect place for a group of shifters to settle down. That was, the story went, until the dragons decided that they preferred to claim the entire territory for themselves. The wolves were banished after a furious battle that claimed many lives ... and they’d been a nomad pack since, traveling from town to town, eking out a meager existence and longing for a permanent home like the one the dragons had stolen from them.

  Lori often wondered if there was more to the story. She knew far too much about wolves to trust that all the details of that particular legend were accurate … but who was she supposed to ask? Her parents? She’d be likely to get a slap upside the head for her trouble. They weren’t as violent as they could be, her mother and father, but they certainly didn’t shy away from making their feelings known physically. Especially feelings like disappointment, or frustration, or anger.

  “Which is why,” Juliana continued, “I have an announcement to make. I’ve been in conversation with the pack’s elders for months, ever since our numbers began to grow, since we began to form alliances with smaller packs. Our strength is in numbers, and our strength has never been so formidable. It’s time we took back what by all rights should be ours. It’s time we claimed the peninsula.”

  There was a shocked silence … and then everyone in the barn began talking at once. Even Lori was taken aback—she sat back, blinking in surprise, glanced over her shoulder to where her parents were holding hands in silence, their bright silver eyes fixed on Juliana. It was clear that they’d been a part of whatever conversation had led to this decision, Lori realized with a prickle of apprehension. What more did they know about the pack’s future? What else were they keeping from her?

  ”The dragons are still there, of course,” Juliana continued, and an ugly murmur of resentment went up among the wolves. “But we have intelligence that suggests that their numbers are smaller than they were at the time of the last confrontation. And as we know, wolves working together can take down a dragon with ease. Especially in such large numbers. Especially with the unique gifts of our species.”

  A murmur of assent in the group and Lori found her heartrate accelerating, anxiety building in her chest. What were they headed for? War? Her thoughts turned immediately to her little siblings. Jack was still too young to be considered for battle—he’d only just found his wolf shape. They wouldn’t be so bold as to insist he fight alongside adults in such a dangerous context. But Kara … Kara was sixteen now. More than old enough to be recruited. Lori glanced around at her sister, whose closed face indicated she was probably miles away from the meeting, daydreaming. Her stomach clenched.

  “But we’ll need information,” Juliana continued. “Our intelligence is limited to a couple of wolves who live in the town closest to the peninsula—they haven’t actually been down to the settlement these dragons are maintaining. But we have a way in. The dragons have recently turned their home into a tourist trap for humans—a little holiday resort. That gives us an opportunity to send someone down in disguise as a holidaymaker. It would need to be a younger member of the pack, someone the dragons aren’t likely to recognize. Someone who can lie confidently about who they are, where they’re from.”

  ”I have an idea about that, Alpha Juliana.” Lori turned in surprise. That was her mother. Jenna had risen to her feet, a solemn look in her silver eyes. “If you’ll permit me.”

  ”Jenna? You and your mate were at the battle decades ago.”

  ”But our daughter wasn’t,” Jenna said simply, lifting her chin. Lori’s heart dropped, and her eyes shot to her little sister, who was blinking in alarm. But then Lori realized with a sick lurch that they weren’t talking about Kara.

  They were talking about her.

  ”Lori’s been back for a month now,” Harrison continued, stepping up beside his wife. They’d clearly been discussing this, Lori realized as her heart raced. Planning to volunteer her for this dangerous duty … and, typical of them, hadn’t even considered discussing it with her. “And before that, she was in Los Angeles. She’ll have a believable, current story about living in the city that she can tell the dragons. City wolves have no packs,” he added, a dark look on his face. “So, her story will be easily believed.”

  ”Lori left the pack,” Juliana said flatly, her hard silver eyes turning to Lori. Lori shrank down in her seat under the Alpha’s regard, feeling those ancient instincts kick in. Though protest
had risen in her throat the minute her mother had volunteered her, she knew as she looked up at Juliana that there was no way she could turn down this duty. She just didn’t have the strength to override an Alpha’s command. “Can we trust her with something this important?”

  ”Let her prove herself. Her renewed loyalty to the pack. I know my daughter,” Jenna said softly, and there was something almost like love in her eyes when she looked at Lori. “I know how much she regrets abandoning us. But in a way, it was a blessing. It taught her where she truly belongs. And I don’t doubt that she’s eager to prove her loyalty, once and for all, by undertaking this mission.”

  Juliana’s eyes returned to Lori. All she could do was nod mutely, utterly cowed by the weight of the pack’s attention. She hated herself, hated her cowardice … but what could she do? She’d tried to get out of here once already. She’d failed. Maybe it was time to resign herself to being a helpless pawn, slave to the will of the pack.

  The sooner she gave up on her own happiness, the sooner she might find something like peace.

  Chapter 2 - Harvey

  Some people didn’t like fall. The changing weather, the slight chill in the air as summer retreated, the knowledge that winter was coming. And for the dragons of the peninsula, fall meant the off-season. Fewer guests, a quieter day … but for Harvey, that was the best of all possible worlds. So when he slid out of bed to find the air a little cooler than it had been during the usual scorching summer they’d just had, a broad grin spread across his face. No matter how many seasons he lived through—and at this point, he’d well and truly lost track of that number—he always loved the change from summer to fall.

  He padded out into the kitchen, barefoot and bare-chested, catching a brief glimpse of himself in the tall mirror in the hall as he went. Over the last few decades, he’d been spending so much time in his human form that it almost seemed more familiar than his true form. He supposed that made sense. Shifters had been hiding their true identities from humans for as long as anyone could remember, but with the rapid increase of technology over the last century, that was getting harder and harder to do. There were far fewer opportunities to inhabit his dragon body without constantly worrying about being seen. Especially since they’d opened up their home to tourists.