“Kent, we have a new job for you! You need to meet us up at the lodge in an hour.”
Kent listened to the message one more time, sighing deeply. Everybody was always placing these demands on him, but when it came to Blaine, he felt obligated to do whatever he could for him.
“Perfect!” Blaine said when Kent arrived. He was standing at the head of the long, rectangular table, smiling broadly. “Just in time. Take a seat, my boy.”
The lodge was empty except for two other men sitting at the head of the table near where Blaine was standing. They were seated across from each other and everybody, including Blaine, were dressed in business suits. Kent looked down at his own clothes self-consciously. He had just thrown on a casual pair of jeans and a t shirt. Nothing fancy. He had assumed this meeting would end with him running off to another odd job at the mines. They should have told him if there was a damn dress code.
“Kent, you do know that you’re a very valuable asset to our community, don’t you? I’ve put you to work time and again, and for good reason. You’re a great worker, and you’re a good man, too. That’s why I have a proposition for you. Take a seat.”
Kent sat down reluctantly at the other end of the table, as far away from the men in suits as he could get. He didn’t recognize the men, which was odd considering he had met just about everybody that Blaine had working the mines and it was rare for him to be focusing on anything but.
“Kent, these are two associates of mine. Mr.Lawrence, one of my lawyers, and Mr. Mills. Mr. Mills here is a client of mine. I needed him here both as a witness and for other reasons which will become clear here for you in a few minutes.”
“Hello,” Kent mumbled in response to the men’s silent, formal nods.
“Kent, I am offering you a position within my company. Now ,you know full well that I’m the legal owner of Oak Mountain and just about everything therewith, and I see the potential in you. You’re kind of a lone agent, and I don’t want to take that away from you, so I think you would do well with a position high up in the company, but one we can be sure that you are going to be comfortable with and thrive in.”
“I don’t understand,” Kent said, shaking his head and standing up from the table. It almost felt like an ambush, a job proposition of this kind, and as much as he trusted Blaine, it seemed too good to be true. “You want to hire me? For what?”
Blaine chuckled and shook his head. “That, my boy, is what we’re going to find out. We need to figure out the best type of work for a man of your caliber. Something that isn’t going to keep you on call like this. I know it’s good to keep busy, but a man also has to have a routine. It’s not good to be at the beck-and-call of any man, whether master of the mountain or not. You know what I mean?”
Kent nodded. He sure as hell did know what Blaine meant. It was impossible to be at the beck and call of another man without starting to feel a bit resentful about it. Especially when he had his own things to do.
“So you want to give me regular hours? But doing what?”
“That’s where Mr. Mills will come in. Mr. Mills, introduce yourself.”
Mr. Mills rose and the lodge crackled with electricity as his dark, serious eyes met Kent’s. He was a stern, powerful man who towered high above Blaine. He fixed his cool gaze upon Kent and proceeded to speak.
“Mr. Black, my name is Logan Mills. I am the CEO of Herrington and Mills Company, the joint owners of the little gold mining operation along with Blaine over there.”
“I didn’t know this was jointly owned,” Kent said, frowning.
“Oh yes,” Mr. Mills said with a firm nod. “I’m sure there are many things you don’t know about this mountain, Mr. Black, but that isn’t why I’m here. I’m here because, as co-founder of this corporation it is in my best interest to see to it that you are trained in the most efficient way possible.”
“You’re going to be Logan’s shadow, Kent. You will follow him everywhere and carefully watch him conduct himself. You understand it is more than mining that we deal with here, don’t you?”
“You own the mountain,” Kent said dully, still barely able to believe what he was hearing. It seemed unfathomable.
“Yes, and that is a big job,” Blaine said, his face growing dark. “You know how tense things have been with Geron lately. The dragon-shifters are really growing bitter. There is much to do and you’re the man to help us to get it done. There is no doubt in our minds about that much.”
Kent looked from Blaine to Mr. Mills, and both men looked pensively back at Kent. Even the lawyer was nodding in agreement, and he was a man Kent had never seen a day in his life. From what Kent could tell, he was half human, and not very strong at that.
“All right,” Kent said, sighing heavily. “When is it that you want me to get started?”
“I want you to go with Mr. Mills now. That’s why I brought the two of you here. There’s plenty of work to be done little time to waste. I got approval from the board to bring you on with us, and now that you agree, then there’s only one thing left to do, and that’s to begin immediately.”
Blaine strode toward Kent and the other two men rose from their seats and followed him over to Kent. Blaine slapped Kent on the shoulder and grinned, sticking his hand out to shake it. Kent gave it a firm pump, unable to keep the slow grin from spreading across his face as Blaine smiled broadly.
“Welcome to the team, son.”
***
The next few weeks went by in a blur as Kent shadowed Mr. Mills. He was a strong, impressive bear-shifter, and together they scoured the mountain in their bear forms looking for clues as to the whereabouts of the dragons and any potential plans they might have in the works. There were rumors of a powerful source of dragon magic hidden deep within Oak Mountain, but the mountain always has and always would be bear territory. The dragons and the bears had lived in peace for quite a while, but all of that was starting to change.
“I need to see you in action,” Mr. Mills said one day, eyeing Kent seriously. “There’s a serious threat we fear will be facing the mountain in only a few week’s time and there’s something more important than you could ever imagine that needs done. Is that clear?”
“Of course,” Kent said.
Things had been going remarkably well. Kent had a huge amount of respect for Mr. Mills, especially following him out in the field. The man was incredibly strong and had a lot of talent that Kent recognized as a martial artist. Clearly, the man knew what he was doing and Kent found it easy to follow him into a fight, knowing they both were skilled and could work flawlessly as a team, sharing a similar understanding off the art of battle. If Mr. Mills wanted to see him fight, he would be glad to oblige.
“Follow me,” Mr. Mills said, leading Kent down the mountain. Kent followed, curious about what they were going to encounter.
When Mr. Mills stopped, he turned to Kent, his eyes dark and serious.
“I need you to go in there, and whatever you find, deal with it. Follow your intuition. It’s the last test of your mettle before we give you your first real assignment.”
Kent gazed at the harrowing square opening, a deep tunnel shoddily held together by thick railroad ties that looked centuries old. His hatred of small dark spaces nearly made it impossible to move forward, but the thought of disappointing Mr. Mills broke the spell keeping his feet bound in one place.
A chill crept down his spine as Kent ducked into the small opening, following his nose down the tunnel. There was something strange here. Magical.
The pull of learning what the tunnel held in store was more compelling than Kent’s fear. He wanted to make sure he got everything done that he had to do. The one weakness he had were spaces like this; the overwhelming emptiness he felt when consumed by the memory of losing his parents. And yet as a bear, he was meant to enjoy these comfortable spaces, cozy dens and areas where he could curl up and enjoy the peace and solitude of the darkness. He crept along the winding labyrinth until he suddenly sensed movement. Whoever or whatever it was didn’t know he was there quite yet, but he had a sinking suspicion he was about to be tested in a way he never had been before.
A deep, involuntary growl began to rumble in the back of his throat when he caught the scent of a dragon. The whole tunnel ahead reeked of the foul odor and he began to shift slowly. If what he was hearing was in fact a dragon, he could only hope that there was only one. The dragons were powerful, but to his knowledge they were most powerful on their own mountain. Their magic was limited away from its source. Unless they were highly advanced, he would probably be able to handle anything they threw at him.
The further Kent got away from the entrance, the more unnerved he became. But in his bear form, he felt distant from the nervous little boy within him who couldn’t help but relive the toil and trauma of the day he had lost his parents. Now, he was more of an angry, possessive bear, sniffing out an enemy on his turf and furious to find a dragon where it didn’t belong.
A sudden heat filled the tunnel, followed closely by a furious orange light. A fireball struck the wall behind him and Kent unleashed a furious roar. The walls around him quaked as he ran through the tunnel until he came upon a huge cavern where a medium-sized dragon was standing, its golden eyes narrowed in anger.
The cavern sparkled with glimmers of quartz, and in the center of the cavern was an otherworldly statue half buried in the dirt. The dragon was clearly attempting to extricate it from its resting place, though it looked as if it had been there for centuries. All Kent knew was that the statue was a part of Oak Mountain, and if anybody wanted to get it of bear turf, they would have to go through him.
Kent lunged at the dragon-shifter and soon they were wrestling in the cavern. Kent’s teeth latched onto the scaly neck of the beast and he felt it grow tense beneath the weight of his bear. Just as he was sure he had the advantage, the dragon bucked Kent off and with a speed that left Kent breathless, escaped from the cavern, and disappeared.
Kent was left in the cave, adrenaline coursing through his body. He shifted back into his human form and walked cautiously toward the statue. It looked as if it had come from some other world, and it probably had. How it had managed to find its way on Oak Mountain was a mystery to him. However, what he knew in a flash of instinct and intuition, was that the statue was unbelievably important, and he would do whatever he had to do to make sure that the dragon-shifters left it where it belonged.