Courage and the Dragon (Redwood Dragons Book 9) Read online

  Grayson’s mood might have continued to spiral, had it not been for the sudden interruption of a giant explosion. Grayson stopped in his tracks, startled, as the hallway walls around him began to shake. For a moment, he stayed there, stunned. And then, instinct took over and he began to run—straight toward where the sound of the explosion had come from, of course. Dragons don’t run away from danger, they run toward it. Especially when the source of that danger might be threatening their clanmates or allies.

  The last bite of Grayson’s chocolate bar fell from his hands as he ran, but he wasn’t thinking about his hunger any more. He was thinking about what might have caused such a horrendous explosion, and whether it was actually possible that enemy soldiers had infiltrated the city of Falcon Cross without setting off an alarm from the guards who constantly patrolled the borders of the city. That didn’t seem possible, and yet, there was no doubt that the explosion that had just rocked the ground he was standing on hadn’t been an ordinary explosion. It had come from the direction of one of the training rooms, but there was no way that was some sort of practice spell. The training rooms were well insulated, and Grayson knew that wizards had cast incredibly powerful spells inside without so much as a picture rattling on the wall of the hallway outside. No, whatever explosion had just gone off was something different. Grayson’s first instinct was that the city was under attack, and what better place to launch a secret attack than the middle of military headquarters?

  With these thoughts running through his mind, Grayson sped toward the training room, preparing to shift into dragon form at a moment’s notice if necessary. The door to the training room was being guarded by two sleepy looking wizards, who seemed unconcerned by the fact that smoke was seeping out from under the training room’s door, and that the walls had just shaken as though an earthquake had hit them. Grayson didn’t bother to stop and ask for permission to enter.

  “Out of my way,” he bellowed as he barreled toward the door. The guards both jumped, startled, and barely had time to register Grayson’s huge form running toward them before he had pushed the door open.

  “Hey!” one of the guards yelled. “We’re not supposed to let anyone in there right now.”

  He was wasting his breath. Grayson didn’t even hear him as he rushed into the training room. The door was protected by a fingerprint sensor, so most of the people in Falcon Cross would not have been able to simply open the door and get into the room. But, in a show of solidarity and trust, the high wizard Peter had give all ten of the Redwood Dragons free access to the entire city of Falcon Cross. Grayson’s fingerprints would open any door in this building, even the ones that were restricted to those who had a top security clearance.

  The only room in this building he cared about at the moment, however, was the training room he was standing in now. The entire room was filled with thick smoke, and the acrid smell of something burning tickled at his nose. Grayson came to a halt and assumed a defensive stance, his eyes straining to see through the smoke even as his hands were ready to launch out a volley of punches if necessary. His skin tensed up, feeling too tight for his body as he hovered on the edge of shifting into dragon form. He breathed in deeply despite the smoke, trying to detect whether there were any other smells in the air that would give away who was in this room. He wanted to know what sort of enemy he was facing.

  For the space of an eternity—an eternity which in actuality only lasted about fifteen seconds—Grayson remained in this state of uncertainty, unable to see or smell anything that would show him what he was up against. He could hear shouts and people running around, but he couldn’t make out what they were saying, and he had no way of knowing whether the voices belonged to friends or enemies. Grayson was just about to move forward into the unknown dangers of the smoke cloud, when he saw her.

  Through the slowly clearing gray haze, his eyes landed on the silhouette of a short, curvy woman in a tight-fitting Falcon Cross Military uniform. He could see the Falcon Cross military insignia stitched into the left chest of her uniform. The insignia had been embroidered with standard gold thread, but the insignia didn’t glitter like it normally did on the wizards’ uniforms. It was too dark and gray in this room, like the smoke had sucked in all the light. There was no brightness for the gold thread to catch.

  The woman appeared to be stunned. Grayson saw her eyes, which looked like the color of deep charcoal, as they fuzzily gazed over at him. He couldn’t tell whether her eyes were actually dark gray, or whether the smoke was just making them appear that way. Her hair was pulled back into a tight bun, and the severity of the hairstyle accented the pale, drawn look on her face. She looked down at her magic ring, then back up at Grayson. Her face had an unreadable expression on it, but whatever she was feeling right now was definitely not happiness. She wobbled on her feet for a moment, but managed to steady herself and then looked back down at her ring.

  Grayson went to her, moving as quickly as he dared. He didn’t want to attract attention to himself if there were enemy soldiers around, and he didn’t want to spook the woman. She had a deer-in-headlights look, like she might take off running in any direction at any moment. She watched him as he walked, her face scrunching up in confusion once he stood right in front of her face.

  “Are you alright?” Grayson asked, keeping his voice low and soothing. Her face was streaked with soot and red scratches. She looked like she’d been in quite a fight today, although from a cursory glance she didn’t seem to have any serious injuries.

  “I’m fine,” she said, although she wobbled unsteadily. Grayson reached out to steady her arm with one of his own strong hands.

  “You look like you’ve taken a bit of a blow,” he said, still soothing. “Can you tell me what happened?”

  The woman’s squint deepened. “You’re not Knox or Noah,” she said, ignoring his question.

  Grayson frowned. It was a strange thing to say. Of course he wasn’t Knox or Noah. Why were they everyone’s favorite dragons? Sure, they were his clan leaders. But just because he wasn’t a clan leader himself didn’t mean he wasn’t an exceptional dragon, too.

  “I’m Grayson,” he said. There was no flicker of recognition in her eyes, but she did lessen her squint a bit.

  “I’m Zoe,” she said, looking him up and down. “You weren’t here before.”

  Grayson wasn’t sure what she meant by saying he wasn’t there before, but he decided to ignore it for the moment and focus on dealing with the danger of the present situation.

  “Are you sure you’re alright, Zoe? Can you tell me what happened here?”

  Before Zoe could answer, a loud laugh rang out from somewhere to Grayson’s right. He couldn’t see anyone through the smoke, but he would have known that laugh anywhere. Knox. His clan leader was in here, and, if he was laughing, that meant that nothing was seriously wrong. In an instant, Grayson felt foolish. The explosion had just been a training exercise. Perhaps it had been a training exercise gone wrong, but still. There were no enemies in this room to defeat, yet Grayson had come rushing in like he was ready to do battle.

  Grayson forced himself to turn sheepishly toward his right, where, to his horror, he saw that it wasn’t just Knox walking toward him. It was Noah and Peter as well. All three of them had amused looks on their faces. Grayson didn’t embarrass easily, but he was pretty sure his cheeks were turning red. He turned back toward Zoe merely so he wouldn’t have to look at his clanmates and Peter for a moment. Hopefully, he could get his emotions under control and they wouldn’t see how red-faced the moment had made him. He struggled to come up with a question to ask Zoe. He needed some sort of excuse for turning back toward her. As his brain scrambled to think of something, his eyes fell onto her uniform’s name badge. Whitt.

  “Whitt?” Grayson said before he could stop himself. Suddenly everything about the explosion was making perfect sense. “You’re Zoe Whitt?”

  Zoe did not look pleased by this question. She merely nodded, and set her lips in a tight line as
though she were bracing for something unpleasant. Before either of them could say anything else, Noah spoke up, unnecessarily explaining what Grayson had already figured out.

  “We’ve been testing Zoe’s powers all morning,” Noah said. “The explosion you heard was the Crepitus spell, not some sort of enemy attack. But it was quite noble of you to come rushing in to help.”

  “What else would I have done?” Grayson asked, the redness of embarrassment gone from his face and replaced with a deep, scowling glare. “If there’s an attack on Falcon Cross, it’s my duty as a dragon to defend the city.”

  Noah put his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “Dude, I was just explaining things. No need to get nasty. Do you have bees up your ass or something today?”

  Grayson wished he could start a good old-fashioned fist fight with Noah right then and there, just to let off some steam. Back home in the Redwoods, that’s exactly what he would have done. Grayson and his clanmates were always fighting. It was a good way to burn off energy or angry emotions. But here in Falcon Cross, things were different. There was an actual hierarchy here, and Noah was considered some sort of high-ranking officer. All of the wizards in the room would gasp at the scandal of a lower ranking dragon shifter attacking his superior. Back in the Redwoods, the dragons had all been brothers. Equals. Sure, Knox was technically in command and Noah was second in command. But no one had paid much attention to titles. When a leader was needed to make a decision, Knox stepped up. Otherwise, the dragons didn’t spend much time worrying about showing appropriate respect to higher officers. Working with the Falcon Cross military had been quite a learning curve for Grayson.

  Peter seemed to have already moved on from the amusement of seeing Grayson rush in as though an actual battle was taking place. The old wizard had turned his attention to Zoe, whose face still looked quite unhappy.

  “Zoe, that was marvelous,” Peter said. “You have an extraordinarily good command of the Crepitus spell. I’ve never seen anything like it. Just one more amazing thing our little secret weapon can do.”

  Peter smiled and put one of his hands on Zoe’s right shoulder. Grayson saw Zoe stiffen, and she did not smile. But Peter didn’t seem to notice her cool reception to his praise. Instead, he continued on with his analysis of what she had done well in her demonstration of magic skills that morning. Grayson wished more than anything that he had not rushed into the room when he heard the explosion. He was stuck here now, listening to Peter gush about Zoe’s amazing fighting abilities, which, as far as Grayson knew, she’d acquired through sheer luck. He felt the scowl on his face growing deeper. No one ever praised his fighting abilities. Never mind the fact that he had worked damn hard to be the exceptional warrior that he was. He was just one of ten dragons, and the most quiet, ordinary of the ten at that.

  Grayson could not escape from this moment, though. It would have been rude to interrupt Peter, and just as rude to walk off without saying anything. So he stood there, bitterly listening to all the wonderful things Peter had to say about Zoe. When Peter was done, Knox jumped in before Grayson even had the chance to realize that Peter had finished speaking. Thankfully, Noah had nothing to add to Peter’s and Knox’s long speeches, and Grayson thought he might be on the verge of being allowed to escape from this awkward situation. But then, Peter spoke up again, and his words made Grayson’s blood boil.

  “Zoe,” the old wizard said, folding his hands serenely in front of him. “We’re planning a mission to search for the dragon ruby, as you may know. We’d like to send you on that mission, if you’re willing. The mission is likely to be dangerous, so whoever we send needs to be a smart, skilled wizard. You’ve proven that you definitely fit that description.”

  Grayson had to bite his tongue to keep from exclaiming that it wasn’t right that someone who’d acquired their skills through luck was being offered a prime mission, while he, who had worked so hard for his abilities, was still stuck in an office, researching. For her part, Zoe did not seem thrilled by the idea. She smiled at Peter and stood tall as a soldier should. But there was no warmth in her smile, and her eyes betrayed a tired resignation.

  “I’d be honored,” she said. But Grayson caught the note of frustration in her voice.

  She doesn’t want to go, he thought. He couldn’t believe it. He would have jumped at the chance to go search for the dragon ruby. But instead of accepting the mission with enthusiasm, Zoe was struggling to act excited. Her performance was not convincing, but if Peter noticed her hesitation, he did not say so.

  Grayson felt the anger within him rising. If Zoe was so unenthused by a spot on the mission team for the dragon ruby, he would gladly take her place. Of course, he couldn’t do magic spells like she could. But he could fight, and stand up for himself.

  That’s it, Grayson realized with sudden clarity. I haven’t been standing up for myself. I’ve been working hard, thinking that hard work alone would get me the recognition I deserve. But I haven’t tooted my own horn enough. The higher-ups don’t notice anything unless it’s a literal or figurative explosion in their faces. You have to be loud and insistent.

  And in that moment, Grayson decided that loud and insistent was exactly what he was going to be. Normally, he wouldn’t have bothered to tell Peter and Knox about the new lead to the dragon ruby that he’d just found. He would have figured that the people in charge of reporting research progress to the head wizard and head dragon would take care of updating them. But perhaps that had been his problem. He’d assumed that whoever was giving reports was giving credit where it was due. That might not be the case. Grayson’s hard work might all be attributed to someone else, and he would never know. This time, Grayson wasn’t going to let that happen.

  “Speaking of the dragon ruby,” Grayson said, standing up straighter and letting his voice take on a loud, booming quality. “I discovered this morning some records from Colorado indicating the ruby may be buried in a mountain near a small town out there called Shadowdale. The mountain is known as Red Point Mountain.”

  Grayson waited for a moment to make sure he had Peter’s and Knox’s full attention. The two men looked at him with mild curiosity, as did Noah and Zoe. Grayson would have liked them to show a bit more interest, but at least they were listening.

  “There were actually several ancient records regarding the dragon ruby in some old bear shifter histories. No one thought to look there, but something else I saw in one of the dragon king’s histories prompted me to look. I followed the rabbit trail, and it turns out I was right. There were several bear shifters hired to help escort the ruby to a new hiding place. The bears were used because the ancient dragon king thought they would be less conspicuous than dragon shifters. He must have been right, because as far as I can tell the ruby hasn’t been moved since the bears escorted it to the mountain. I don’t think Saul has figured out the mountain location, either. The records I found had not been accessed for decades, at least. Possibly longer.”

  Grayson stood proudly, waiting for Peter and Knox to process the news that they now had a location for the dragon ruby that was somewhat certain. But the two men still didn’t seem as impressed as he thought they would. Despite the fact that Grayson had uncovered a huge lead, they both merely nodded in acknowledgement. There were no big exclamations of excitement. No big slaps on the back to show they were proud of him. Grayson felt deflated. What did he have to do to prove that he was an important part of this fight against evil?

  Grayson opened his mouth to explain further. Perhaps Peter and Knox needed just a bit more explanation of how big this news really was. If they truly understood that Grayson might have just uncovered the actual location of the dragon ruby, then surely they would be a bit more enthusiastic. But before Grayson could say anything further, the group was interrupted by wizard medics, who had come over to check on Zoe.

  “Any major damage?” one of the medics asked, pulling out a blood pressure cuff and attaching it to Zoe’s arm. Peter and Knox seemed to take more of an interest
in Zoe’s medical exam than they had in Grayson’s news about the dragon ruby. Grayson watched with irritation as they spoke to the medics about possible aftereffects from performing the Crepitus curse.

  “God forbid anything happen to their precious little secret weapon,” Grayson said.

  He hadn’t realized he’d spoken the words aloud until Noah gave him a slight shove in the arm.

  “Dude, be a team player,” Noah said.

  “I always have been,” Grayson said, scowling at Noah. “But it seems the coach likes to keep me on the bench and let the rest of the team play, when I’m the one who could make the winning shot.”

  “You’ll get your chance,” Noah said. Grayson would have told Noah that he’d like a chance right about now, thank you, but Peter and Knox were turning their attention back from Zoe.

  “Sorry about that interruption,” Peter said. “I just wanted to make sure Zoe was alright. We want to get the mission for the dragon ruby started as soon as possible. Great news on finding the location, by the way. Our research team had already briefed me that there was good news, but I’m glad to know just how good it is. Nice work.”

  Grayson stared at Peter blank-faced for a moment before remembering to mutter out a “Thank you, sir.”

  “Now,” Peter continued. “If you wouldn’t mind, Grayson, I’d like you to escort Zoe safely back to her quarters.”

  Before Grayson could speak up and say that he was a warrior, not some sort of nurse or chaperone, Zoe herself spoke up.

  “I can walk back by myself just fine,” she said, crossing her arms and looking at Grayson suspiciously, as though the suggestion to walk her to her room had been his idea.