Determination and the Dragon (Redwood Dragons Book 4) Read online

  Determination and the Dragon

  The Redwood Dragons, Book 4

  By Sloane Meyers

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Similarities to actual people or events are entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 by Sloane Meyers. All rights reserved.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Thank You For Reading!

  More Books by Sloane Meyers

  About the Author

  Prologue

  The sky above the California Redwoods gave off no light. Clouds hid the stars and a small sliver of the moon from view, and the air stood eerily still. Nothing moved in the darkness, in fact, except the deep green eyes of a lone dragon shifter.

  Weston Pars sat tensely on the log near the fire pit, peering right and left into the blackness of the forest. The fire in the pit had long since died, flames giving way to glowing embers which eventually gave way to cold black coals. By all outward appearances, this was just another normal night at the Redwood Dragons’ base camp. The clan members—the five who were here on base at the moment, at least—had grilled burgers and brats for dinner, enjoyed a beer or two (or three), and then made their way to bed in their respective one bedroom cabins. Weston had taken the first watch, from midnight to three. He was assigned to wake Holden at three in the morning to take over the watch, but Weston was beginning to think that he might need to wake the dragons earlier than that.

  Something was very wrong.

  He couldn’t see or hear anything out of the ordinary, but he had a gut feeling that he was being watched. When the hair on the back of his neck stood on end, he tensed up even more. Someone was out there. Someone evil. And Weston had a pretty good idea of who it was—he’d bet his right arm that Saul’s army had returned.

  Weston remained as still as a statue, careful not to let his facial expression change. If the enemy’s army was watching him, he did not want to give away the fact that he knew they were there. He’d rather they kept their guard down, thinking they had the element of surprise, for as long as possible. Weston breathed in deeply, filling his lungs with forest air and using his keen dragon’s sense of smell to search for any unusual scents. If there were intruders out there, he should be able to smell them from a good half mile away. Weston breathed in all of the normal, woodsy odors. Tree trunks, leaves, soil, rocks, and moss, among other things. But then, his nose picked up another scent. It was a strange, sweet smell, reminding Weston of sugary frosting like the type you find on grocery store sheet cakes. But there were no grocery stores for miles, and no hiker would have lugged a sheet cake out into the redwoods. As soon as Weston smelled that sweetness, he knew for sure: enemies were afoot.

  Masking scents had become ever more popular lately. They were sold by scrupulous and unscrupulous shifters alike, but they all had one thing in common: they replaced the smell of shifter with another smell, usually something that seemed benign and ordinary. And, in many settings, the smell of sugar certainly would have been nothing to raise an eyebrow at. But here, in the middle of the dense forest, where cakes were rare, it was a dead giveaway that someone was out there, using a masking scent.

  Weston casually reached into his pocket, feeling for his cell phone and pressing the button on it that linked to the cell phones of Vance, Holden, Grayson, and Finn. Grayson had rigged a vibrating alarm signal between all of the phones, so that any dragon could set off a vibrating alarm on all five cell phones at once by pushing and holding down the home button of one of the phones for five seconds straight. Weston felt his own phone begin to vibrate in his pocket after five seconds, and he released the home button before casually pulling his hand back out of his pocket. The phones would continue vibrating for the next thirty seconds. Hopefully, that would be long enough to wake the rest of the clan.

  Weston resisted the urge to look toward the cabins. He could not in any way act like he knew that anything was amiss. Whatever attackers the Redwood Dragons were about to face, their best hope for victory was to lure those attackers into a false sense of security. Weston did his best to appear on the outside like he had no idea that anyone was waiting for him. On the inside, though, he was tense, and ready. His dragon roared within him, screaming to be let out.

  Steady boy, steady, Weston thought to himself. He had to wait until just the right moment. The sickly sweet smell of sugary cake was growing stronger. The enemy was getting closer. Weston’s heart began to beat faster as adrenaline filled his body. This attack had been a long time coming, he knew. He was ready to actually have the chance to fight, instead of just preparing to fight as they’d been doing for the last month.

  For another few minutes, the forest remained dark and silent. Nothing seemed to stir, but Weston was not fooled. The sugary smell grew stronger still.

  And then, a sudden roaring sound came from the forest as the enemy army rushed forward. The invisibility spell they had been under broke as they moved forward too quickly to maintain it, and Weston saw hundreds of angry eyes coming toward him from the once dark forest. There were wizards, shifters, and humans, illuminated by the lights of torches, flashlights, and magic rings. The humans would be easy enough to dispose of, despite the swords they carried. Full humans moved much too slowly to be any real threat to a dragon. The shifters would be more of a problem. In the split-second that Weston took to do an inventory of the situation, he saw lions, bears, tigers, bats, and panthers. And, of course, the wizards would be able to do substantial harm with their magic rings, if they could aim their curses quickly enough to hit the dragons. Which only meant that Weston and the other dragons would have to be quicker than them.

  Weston had observed all of this in a fraction of a second, but he did not pause for long. He had been prepared to shift at a moment’s notice, and now, he did. He let out a long, angry roar as his human body began to give way to the body of a dragon. His clothes tore to shreds as his body quickly grew too large for them. His human flesh hardened and morphed into the thick hide of a dragon. He was covered with iridescent scales that glinted in the light of the torches and flashlights, shimmering in shades of green, blue, and purple. His head grew several sizes, growing horns as it became a dragon head. His teeth grew long and sharp, and smoke rose from his nostrils. Wings sprouted on his back, and his arms and legs became fearsome dragon legs, ending in razor-like claws.

  He was not the only one. The rest of the clan had indeed been warned by the vibrating alarm. As Weston’s body was completing its transformation into the body of a dragon, so were the bodies of four other dragon shifters. Just moments after the enemy army had charged the Redwood Dragons’ base camp, five dragons were rising into the air, pumping their wings furiously and already breathing out streams of fire.

  The enemy army had expected the shifters to morph into dragons, but they had not expected it to happen so quickly. Thanks to Weston’s calmnes
s, they had been fooled into thinking the dragons were not ready.

  Fools, thought Weston as he rose higher into the sky. Dragons are always ready.

  Weston joined the rest of his clan as they shot out stream after stream of well-aimed fire. Shifters, wizards, and humans alike screamed in terror and pain, and the smell of burning flesh filled the air as the enemy soldiers met with the fury of the dragons’ fiery breath. Wizards attempted to aim attacking spells at the dragons, but the dragons moved quickly and were difficult to hit. It was nearly impossible for the wizards to see, anyway, in the midst of the chaos. Fire was everywhere. Some of the redwood trees had gone up in flames, and part of one of the dragons’ cabins was beginning to burn.

  The growing fire seemed to terrify the army, and Weston heard someone shouting something about forest fires and how they destroyed everyone in their path. A good portion of the attacking army retreated after that. But some stayed, mostly wizards. They continued to fight, sending blinding laser beams through the air, trying to hit one of the dragons in a vulnerable spot. A few of the laser beams made contact with Weston, but his thick hide was difficult for the spells to penetrate. Once, one of the beams hit him on the underside of his tail. That one stung, and he let out a roar of pain as the heat from the laser beam melted his skin.

  The battle raged on for about ten more minutes. By then, so many of the attackers had either been killed or fled that the remaining enemy soldiers thought better of continuing the attack. They retreated, calling curses over their shoulders as they left. Weston and the other dragon shifters chased after them, their streams of fire bringing most of them down in lifeless heaps before they could get very far away.

  When the last of the enemy soldiers were gone, Weston turned back toward base camp. Vance, the dragon shifter in charge here at camp, had already shifted back into human form. He’d run into his cabin to call for his lifemate, Lily. Vance had instructed her to remain hidden during the battle for safety reasons, but now, the dragons needed her help. There were fires everywhere, many growing rapidly in size. Lily was the only one who could put them out in time. Weston watched as she raised her magic ring and pointed it at one fire after another.

  “Magicae superaqua. Magicae superaqua. Magicae superaqua,” she said over and over. The spell caused huge gushes of water to shoot from her magic ring. She used the water like a fire hose, quickly putting out the flames.

  When her work was finally done, the shifters stepped back and surveyed the damage. One cabin was badly burned, and would need some repair work. Much of the ground around base camp was charred, and several nearby redwoods had suffered fire damage as well. Additionally, there was some water damage to another cabin due to the flood of water from Lily’s ring. But, overall, things weren’t too bad. The dead bodies of enemy soldiers lay everywhere, and here and there a discarded flashlight still shone its light across the ground where it had been dropped, illuminating the mess of burned bodies and scorched earth. Plenty of clean up and repairs would be needed, but for now, the dragons were just glad that the enemy had been beaten back.

  Weston sighed. They had known this attack was coming, but it still felt a bit surreal that the war had finally reached the dragons’ base camp, deep in the redwoods. Their enemy was growing more and more restless, and Weston felt sure that worse battles were to come. Vance seemed to agree. He let out a long string of curses and then looked over at the rest of his clan.

  “We need to warn the others,” Vance said. “They’ll want to know that Saul is on the move again.”

  Chapter One

  Myles Pars blinked his eyes open in the darkness, disoriented for a moment by the fog of sleep that attempted to cling to him. He sat up slowly, wondering where that annoying buzzing sound was coming from. Then, in an instant, he was fully awake as he realized it was his phone vibrating. A glance at the glow of his bedside clock told him it was 3:25 in the morning, and the only people would be calling him this early were his clan members—and only if something was wrong.

  Myles grabbed for his phone, knocking it off the nightstand in his haste, and cursing as it went tumbling loudly to the ground and slid beneath his bed. He groped around for it in the darkness, finally closing his palm over it and pulling it back up from the floor. A glance at the caller I.D. showed him that the call he’d just missed was from Noah, and Myles felt his stomach tightening with nerves. Noah was the dragon shifter in charge of the group of Redwood Dragons that was currently residing in the wizard town of Falcon Cross to help the wizards defend their village from Saul’s attacks. Noah was second in command of the Redwood Dragons’ clan, answering only to Knox, the alpha leader and first in command of the clan. If Noah himself was calling at this time of the morning, then things must be serious.

  Myles saw the voicemail indicator showing a message from Noah, but he did not bother to listen to it. Instead, he called Noah back right away.

  “Myles,” Noah said as he picked up the call, not bothering with pleasantries like saying hello. “The Redwood base camp was attacked a little over an hour ago. Vance just called me to let me know. The dragons there managed to hold off the attackers, but a lot of damage was done to the trees around base camp, and to one of the cabins.”

  “Is everyone alright?” Myles asked, now fully awake.

  “All our clan members are fine,” Noah said, his voice sounding weary. “Just minor scratches and such. But we’re worried that the attack indicates that Saul is returning.”

  Myles frowned, his heart dropping in his chest as Noah spoke. Myles was glad to hear that none of his clan members had been harmed in the attack, but the attack was not good news. Saul was an evil dragon shifter who was leading an army of corrupted shifters, wizards, and humans on a quest to gain control of the dragon stones. The dragon stones were four powerful ancient stones that contained within them the power of the ancient dragon shifter kings. Myles had spent his life trying to recover ancient shifter artifacts that contained ancient powers, but the four dragon stones were by far the most powerful of the ancient artifacts. Saul knew this, and he wanted all four of them for his own. Saul’s goal was, quite literally, to rule the world.

  Luckily, with the help of dragons from Myles’ clan, two of the dragon stones had already been recovered by good shifters—the dragon emerald and dragon sapphire were in Texas, under the watchful guard of the shifter protectors. Saul didn’t know where the dragon emerald and dragon sapphire were, but he knew that the good shifters had them, and the good shifters had lived under the threat of attack by Saul’s army for the last several months. Saul had attacked Falcon Cross, where Myles was staying right now, but had ultimately been unsuccessful and had retreated. That had been about seven months ago. Now, it was January, and things had been quiet for quite some time.

  But the quiet had not been peaceful. The Redwood Dragons and the wizards of Falcon Cross knew they were in a race to find the last two dragon stones—the dragon amethyst and dragon ruby. If those dragon stones could be found by the side of good before Saul could find them, then Saul would not stand a chance against the good shifters and good wizards. The only problem was that no one had any idea where to even start looking. No one had seen the remaining two dragon stones for several hundred years, and trying to uncover clues as to their whereabouts was a painstaking, frustrating process. Myles had been working closely with the wizard advocates of Falcon Cross for more than a half year now, carefully researching and trying to discover where the stones might be. But he felt no closer to an answer now than he had half a year ago.

  He knew that Saul’s army had been trying to find the dragon stones, too. Was it possible that Saul had some clue as to the amethyst’s or ruby’s whereabouts, and that’s why he had suddenly grown bold and attacked the Redwood Dragons? And would there be more attacks, possibly on Falcon Cross as well?

  “We’ll need to step up our efforts to find the other dragon stones,” Noah said, breaking into Myles’ thoughts. “That’s why I called you in the middle of the night. Th
ere’s nothing you need to do at this exact moment, but I would bet you’re going to wake up later this morning to a flurry of emails from Alfonso about the dragon amethyst and dragon ruby. He’s going to get even more demanding than he already has been, and he’ll probably be adding some people to the research team. I just don’t want you to be blindsided by everything that’s going on.”

  The frown on Myles’ face deepened. Alfonso was the head of the Advocacy Bureau, and he frequently clashed with Myles over the best way to conduct the search for the dragon stones. Myles didn’t enjoy being micromanaged by Alfonso, and he also didn’t like it when Alfonso added new people to the research team. The team searching for the dragon amethyst had swelled to such a great number now that Myles frequently found people were wasting time arguing over what research had already been done, or how best to move forward on research. All of this took away from actual research time, and made it difficult to make any real progress.

  “Thanks for the heads up,” Myles said. “I suppose there’s not much I can do to keep Alfonso from adding more people to the team. And I’m glad that everyone back at base camp is alright, but this does not bode well for the future.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Noah agreed. “I fear that our months of quiet are over. War is on the horizon, Myles. Saul might be reckless, but he’s been building his army over the last half year. His soldiers are better trained than they were last time he attacked Falcon Cross, and he has more of them. As obnoxious as Alfonso can be, try to remember that the man is under a lot of pressure. Everyone holds him responsible for the fact that the other dragon stones have not been found yet, even though, as you know, finding them has proven to be a nearly impossible task.”

  Myles merely grunted in response. He knew that Noah was right, but it was hard to give give Alfonso any grace. The old wizard was under a lot of pressure, and he frequently took out his frustrations on his research team. Myles had grown terribly weary of always being yelled at by the man, especially when many of the problems the research team was experiencing were due to Alfonso’s overstaffing of the team in the first place.