Dragon Rescuing (Torch Lake Shifters Book 3) Read online

  Here, in the Dark Warriors’ meeting room, there was no dress code. As Sofia walked into the main area of the secret cave, she saw shifters and wizards wearing everything from full suits to ratty jogging pants. No one cared about your clothes here. They cared about what you could do for the cause of dark magic.

  Sofia smiled brightly at the wizard who stood at the front of the room. He did not smile back.

  “You’re late.”

  “Sorry, Vincent. I got caught up at the Dragon Utilization Department. Leif Redding isn’t easy to deal with.”

  Vincent frowned at Sofia, but then merely waved for her to sit down. He cleared his throat and looked out across the small crowd again. “As I was saying, we need to be more careful about the paper trails we’re leaving behind. Another document that aroused suspicion was left behind at the Advocacy Bureau this morning. There is no reason for any of you to be writing down anything related to the Dark Warriors. Please make sure you’re making all of your notes in our encrypted, password protected digital portal. Now…”

  Sofia wished she could roll her eyes, but she was already in enough trouble for being late. She didn’t want to draw any more attention to herself. The beginnings of these meetings always seemed to drag on forever, though. And Vincent was always saying the same things: warning about paper trails, pushing for higher recruitment numbers, and chastising everyone for taking too damn long to get their jobs done. As though infiltrating the major Torch Lake government divisions with dark magic should have been as easy as sneaking into a six-year-old’s birthday party.

  Sofia could not deny that Vincent had smarts. But he also had a horrible temper and zero patience. He wanted things done in a week that would realistically take a year to complete. His ranting impatience made the meetings nearly unbearable, but Sofia did her best to keep a respectful expression on her face.

  After all, she should be grateful for Vincent’s impatience—because that impatience would be his downfall. The man acted impulsively when he wanted something badly. That’s how Sofia had been drawn into this circus. Vincent had wanted an audit agent on his side, and he had recruited Sofia without fully vetting her. If he’d taken time to get to know her fully, he would have known that she would die before she would practice dark magic. He would have known that he had unwittingly recruited a High Council spy.

  Of course, he didn’t know. He prided himself on how quickly he had found Sofia, and he seemed to think it was appropriate to scold Sofia twice as much as all the other group members, just because she was “his” find. Sofia suffered his insults with as much grace as she could muster. She would have the last laugh, and that knowledge kept her going on nights like tonight, where she was forced to sit and smile like she actually supported the revival of dark magic.

  Vincent droned on and on from the front of the room. He was surrounded by two wizards and two bear shifters who served as his personal security guards. Sofia knew he would have loved to have a dragon shifter guarding him, but dragon shifters were notoriously difficult to corrupt with evil. That’s part of why Vincent was so interested in what went on at the Dragon Utilization Department. He wanted to know if there were any dragons there who might be convinced to join his cause, and he wanted to get rid of any dragons who weren’t.

  “Sofia!”

  The sound of her name broke through the monotony of the meeting. She looked up to see Vincent watching her expectantly.

  “Well? Would you like to update us on your progress?”

  “Uh, sure.”

  Sofia stood and made her way to the front of the room. She knew better than to try to quickly give her report from her spot near the back. Vincent insisted that anyone speaking up in a meeting needed to do so from the front of the room, and he threw a temper tantrum if someone tried to bypass that rule.

  Sofia cleared her throat and looked out over the crowd. The Dark Warriors seemed to grow every week, a realization that made her feel sick inside. After the horrors of the Great Dark Magic War, she couldn’t understand how anyone would want to be part of a dark magic movement. She wondered, as she briefly studied the faces, whether anyone else in here was a spy for the High Council. For safety and security reasons, she was not privy to the identities of any other spies. Still, it would have been nice to at least know she wasn’t alone. If there were other spies here, though, they were doing a good job of playing their part. None of the eyes looking back at her were particularly friendly or encouraging. Sofia smiled as bravely as she could, and began to speak.

  “I managed to secure an audit job based in the Dragon Utilization Department. Getting this job was a big victory in and of itself, because any jobs that involve working with the dragons are highly sought after, and I’m still considered a junior auditor.”

  Sofia paused a moment to let her words sink in. The truth was that she had been given the job because she was a spy, and the High Council knew she needed the job in order to make herself invaluable to the Dark Warriors. Under ordinary circumstances, a junior auditor would have had less than a one percent chance of a job like that. Vincent didn’t need to know that, though.

  “And?” Vincent piped up impatiently. “Did you manage to actually help our cause over the course of the week?”

  Sofia forced a smile on her face again, and nodded. “Yes. Observing Leif Redding and his associate trainer, Clint Wallace, gave me some invaluable information on these two dragons. I have uploaded a full report to our encrypted database, but suffice it to say that neither of those two dragons are likely candidates for recruiting. They are, as is typical of dragon shifters, obsessed with honor, and with guarding Torch Lake against dark magic.”

  Vincent let out an exasperated sigh. “That doesn’t sound like it’s very helpful to our cause.”

  Sofia resisted the urge to roll her eyes at him. Instead she kept smiling, and put an expression of sorrowful concern on her face. “It’s not the outcome we would have hoped for, true. But it’s still helpful to know what we’re dealing with. Once I determined that Leif and Clint were unlikely to be convinced to join us, I turned my attention to the newest dragons in town, the trainees Seth and Evan.”

  “And?”

  “They are also not good candidates for recruiting. However, the good news is that they are not yet sold on the idea of moving to Torch Lake. If we can convince the High Council to cut their training short and send them out on a mission right away, then we can probably keep them from moving to Torch Lake permanently.”

  “Hmph,” Vincent replied.

  Sofia waited while Vincent considered the matter. Another thing she’d learned the hard way in these meetings was that Vincent did not like to be interrupted while he was thinking. He expected everyone to always realize when he was thinking, which wasn’t an easy task. But he expected a lot of things that weren’t easy tasks. Sofia had gotten somewhat used to his overblown expectations.

  Sofia hadn’t wanted to suggest to Leif that the dragon trainees be sent on a mission early. For one thing, she knew that saying it was for budget reasons made her look like an idiot. Leif’s point was well-taken: the High Council had paid out millions to get dragon shifters to come to Torch Lake. Why in the world would they balk over the expense of a few more weeks of training? But Sofia wore a hidden camera and microphone so that Vincent could review her work as an auditor if he wanted to. She needed to act like she was actually trying to do things to help the Dark Warriors’ cause, like convincing Leif to send the dragon trainees out early.

  “And what are the odds of the High Council listening to your advice to cut training short?”

  Sofia hesitated. “I’m, uh, not quite sure.”

  “An educated guess, at least?” Vincent snapped.

  “Right, well, they trust the auditors a great deal, so if I say I think they’re ready and that getting these guys finished with training will open the door for more dragons to come to town, they might take me up on the offer.”

  Sofia actually wasn’t sure whether the High Council would
want to send the dragon trainees off on a mission right away. On the one hand, the High Council wanted to do whatever they could to give Sofia credibility with the Dark Warriors. But on the other hand, they wanted to do everything they could to keep more dragons in Torch Lake, and Sofia had been telling the truth when she said that she didn’t think Seth and Evan were sold on Torch Lake yet. A lot of dragon shifters weren’t ready to settle down in towns with wizards after the Dark War, and Sofia wasn’t sure she blamed them. She herself sometimes dreamed of moving far away to a human town where no one knew that magic existed, and she could act like a normal, everyday non-wizard. But she knew she would never follow through with that dream. No matter how hard things were in the wizard-shifter world, Sofia felt a duty to do what she could to hold back the forces of dark magic.

  “Well, I’ll expect you to convince the High Council that ending training early is the right thing to do. Understood?”

  Sofia nodded at Vincent. She kept a pleasant expression on her face, but inside she was seething. Vincent stood up there and barked orders like he was asking her to do something as simple and easy as picking up coffee for him from the local café. Under normal circumstances, there was no way the High Council would listen to a junior auditor’s recommendations to end dragon training early. They would only listen to her in this case because Vincent would use any perceived failure on Sofia’s part to accuse her of not being loyal to his cause, and the High Council needed Vincent to trust her.

  As Sofia sighed with relief and went to sit down, Vincent continued on with the next item on his agenda. He had no idea how the government in Torch Lake worked, but that was probably a good thing. If he’d been a little more clued in, Sofia’s cover would have been blown long ago. But now, she lived to fight another day—and hopefully to take down this whole Dark Warriors operation. Dark magic would not gain a foothold in her town. Not as long as she still had breath in her body.

  Still, she wasn’t looking forward to the conversation she was going to have to have with the High Council. They weren’t going to be pleased at the prospect of ending Seth and Evan’s training early. There was always a high price to pay, though, when you wanted to outsmart a dark wizard. Sofia just hoped the price would not go up any higher.

  Chapter Four

  Monday morning, Sofia once again put on her red power suit and made her way to the Dragon Utilization Department. This time, she had made an appointment with Leif instead of showing up to surprise him as she had before. Vincent had wanted her to once again catch Leif off guard—thinking that anything that annoyed a dragon shifter was hilarious—but Sofia had insisted that they needed to keep Leif’s anger as contained as possible. Sofia had warned Vincent that Leif, as a dragon, had a great deal of clout with the High Council and might be able to convince them to change their mind.

  Leif did have a lot of clout, but the truth was that training would be ending early no matter how angry Leif got. Sofia had met with the High Council during an emergency meeting on Saturday morning, and, as she had known they would, they voted that protecting their spy was more important than potentially losing two dragons, as painful as that was. Sofia still felt bad for what she was about to do, though. She was going to ruin Leif’s day. Possibly his year. He had no idea that what happened with his trainees had nothing to do with him or with budgets, and everything to do with suppressing another dark magic movement. All Leif was going to know is that his two dragon trainees were unlikely to stay in Torch Lake. For a dragon trainer, retention rate was everything, and Leif had big shoes to fill. Jake, the head trainer before him, had convinced each and every dragon he trained to stay in Torch Lake. Leif, on the other hand was about to lose two trainees in one blow. His first two trainees. It wasn’t going to be easy on the ego.

  “Hi. I’m Sofia Hayes. I’m here to see Leif Redding. I have an appointment.” Sofia smiled brightly at the receptionist sitting behind the large front desk of the Dragon Utilization Department. The girl smiled right back and checked her computer so quickly that Sofia was pretty sure she hadn’t bothered to actually check Leif’s appointments.

  “Alright. Go ahead. Oh! Do you know where his office is?”

  Sofia nodded, and gave the girl a little wave before quickly walking off. The girl must be new at the job, and seemed quite eager to please. Sofia didn’t want to wait around for her to suddenly remember that she was supposed to be checking IDs before letting anyone into the building.

  Sofia grimaced when she saw that Leif’s office door was open. His office was at the end of a long hallway, so an open door meant she had to walk quite a long stretch with him watching her. She would have preferred to have had a more anonymous approach, but he had already lifted his head and spotted her. His eyes were cold, and he didn’t smile, but what had Sofia expected? He had every reason to hate her. She had played her part of annoying auditor quite well, even though it made her sad to have a man like Leif dislike her so strongly.

  Sofia, like so many, adored the dragon shifters. How could she not? They were all impossibly handsome, and they all had sparkling personalities. They were kind, funny, and witty. And, most importantly, they were driven by loyalty and honor. Leif was no exception. She had been excited to meet him in person, even though she had known she would have to act like she hated him in order to make him believe that she was just another auditor. She’d been prepared to admire him only secretly, but she hadn’t been prepared for just how admirable he would be. Of all the dragons in Torch Lake, Leif was by far the most handsome. His deep emerald eyes held a soulful intelligence that melted her, and his dark brown hair looked so soft and shiny that Sofia had to remind herself more than once not to reach out and touch it. She was mesmerized by him, and he hated her.

  She wished she could scream at him that she wasn’t who he thought she was. She wanted to tell him that she was on his side, truly. As she walked into his office now, she wanted to apologize to him for what she was about to do, and beg him not to take it personally. She wanted to beg him to understand that she didn’t have a choice.

  But Sofia could not do any of those things. Vincent was watching, via the small, secret camera on the lapel of Sofia’s suit. If Sofia made one false move, her cover would be blown. Vincent would know she was a spy, and he would try to kill her. He might succeed. Even if he didn’t, though, she would still have jeopardized the Torch Lake spy program. And so, Sofia swallowed all of her feelings for Leif and put a haughty expression on her face.

  “Good morning, Mr. Redding.” Sofia had noticed that Leif hated it when anyone called him by a formal title. He’d told her at least a dozen times to please call him Leif. So she continued to call him “Mister” just to get under his skin. She knew it was petty, but it was effective. She saw his mouth twitch as he tried not to react to the title. To his credit, he didn’t lash out at her. But he also didn’t bother telling her to call him by his first name this time. Instead he leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms, and glared at her.

  “Don’t you knock before waltzing into someone’s office?”

  “Your door was wide open, so I let myself in,” Sofia said in a sugary sweet voice.

  Leif let out a loud sigh that was clearly intended to express his annoyance with her. Sofia ignored it and sat down in the guest chair.

  “How was your weekend?” she asked.

  “Fantastic. I didn’t have to see you for two whole days. Although, I must say I thought you finished your audit last week. I was surprised when you contacted my secretary for an appointment.”

  “Ah, yes. Well, as it turns out, I was able to get in an emergency meeting with the High Council on Saturday.”

  Sofia watched Leif carefully as she said this. As she’d expected, his eyes widened slightly in surprise. He caught himself quickly, but she’d seen the momentary shock. No doubt, he was wondering how the heck a simple auditor had managed to get a meeting with the High Council on a Saturday. He said nothing, though, so she continued.

  “They agree with me that Set
h and Evan have had enough training. I have orders here for you to send the two of them off on a dark monster killing mission immediately.”

  Sofia passed the official orders across the table and held her breath, waiting for Leif to read them. She saw his eyes darken as they scanned the words, and she waited for him to explode in anger. She gripped the edge of her seat tightly, and felt beads of sweat forming on the back of her neck. But to her surprise, Leif didn’t yell or lash out at her. Instead, he finished reading the paper, then looked up at her with calm but furious green eyes.

  “Shut the door, Miss Hayes.”

  Sofia stood and pushed the office door shut, then calmly sat in her chair again. Leif was drumming his fingers on the table and staring up at the ceiling. He was thinking carefully about whatever he was about to say, and Sofia felt her heart pounding as she waited, and waited some more. She wished there was a way for her to signal to him that whatever he said was going to be viewed by the leader of a dark magic underground group, but she couldn’t warn him. Any attempt to do so would compromise her legitimacy as a spy. So she waited, and prayed he wouldn’t give away any big state secrets.

  Finally he took a deep breath, and looked at her in what was probably an attempt to be calm and professional. His eyes gave him away, though. They were shooting sparks.

  “Miss Hayes, I appreciate the fact that you have a job to do. I know you are trying to help make the government of Torch Lake better and more efficient. But you have no idea what you’re doing here. I don’t know what you said to the High Councilors, but it was a mistake. If we send Seth and Evan on a mission right now, they will complete the mission, come back to collect their huge paychecks, and then leave. We’ll be losing all the money we invested in them. We’ll be losing two dragons. And this town needs more dragons.”