Simon, like most men, wasn’t exactly an expert on female emotions. But it didn’t take an expert to see that Brittany was upset. She was doing her best to hide it, but the frightened, almost angry look in her eyes when he left her at his house had been too strong to miss. He’d had no choice but to leave her, though. Duty called, and he hadn’t even had to look at his email to know that there would be a message summoning all of the dragons and military commanders to the High Council’s conference room.

Now that he was here, he was doing his best to push Brittany out of his mind, but it wasn’t an easy task. He couldn’t believe that he’d gotten the chance to kiss her, only to have the moment ruined minutes later by a Dark Warrior attack. He added that to his long list of reasons to hate the Dark Warriors. They had already held him in captivity once. Thanks to the rescue efforts of the Torch Lake dragons, Simon had escaped that fate, but he would never forget how angry it had made him to be a prisoner of evil. He had pledged his life to the Torch Lake council, and to working to eliminate evil wherever it was found. He would do his best to make sure that no one ever had to suffer at the hands of the Dark Warriors like he had.

“Let’s call this meeting to order,” Head Councilor Blaise Morgan called out in a loud voice. The hum of conversation in the room died down, and Councilor Morgan cleared his throat once more before continuing.

“As you are all well aware, we’ve just suffered another Dark Warrior attack. This time, there were several wizards attacking a boat out in the middle of Torch Lake. The attack is quite concerning to me since it wasn’t just one rogue grizzly shifter, like the last attack. It was a large group of Dark Warriors. How such a large group could get into the city without us knowing how is beyond me. I’m hoping some of you might have some explanations.”

Councilor Morgan gave the military commanders sharp looks as he said this, but the military commanders only gave each other and Councilor Morgan confused looks.

“I’m sorry, your honors. We have examined the problem from every angle, and we cannot find any plausible way that the Dark Warriors are getting into the city. We’ve interviewed our City Guards, even using lie detection spells to make sure that none of them are somehow traitors without our knowledge. But they are all performing their jobs perfectly as far as we can tell. We’ve reviewed all our defenses and our coverage of the perimeter of the city, and there don’t seem to be any weak points.”

“You must not have reviewed everything from every angle,” Councilor Morgan snapped back. “Because somehow, some way, Dark Warriors are getting into our city.”

Simon looked up in surprise. It was highly unusual for Councilor Morgan to snap at his commanders like that. Usually, the Head Councilor was the very picture of calm. But the latest attacks had clearly gotten under his skin.

“Can anyone at least tell me what this latest attack was about? What were they after?”

Simon raised his hand. “I believe I know.”

“Good,” Councilor Morgan fumed. “At least someone knows something.”

Simon chose to ignore the Head Councilor’s temper and do his best to just convey the facts. “By coincidence, I was actually out at the lake when the attack occurred. Those dark wizards were definitely after Brittany Otte.”

“Brittany Otte?” Councilor Morgan’s brow furrowed in confusion.

“She’s the same Brittany who happened across the grizzly shifter last night,” Simon explained. “I believe the Dark Warriors were furious that she’d interfered with that and had decided to take her out.”

“Great,” Jake, another of the dragon shifters said, pounding his fist on the table. “So now we have Dark Warriors coming into our city willy-nilly, whenever they want, and taking out people merely for opposing them. This is absurd. Obviously, pretty much everyone in our city opposes them. If things continue this way then no one in the city is safe, and that’s just not acceptable.”

“I agree,” Councilor Isviar said. He sounded much calmer than Councilor Morgan, but the anger in his eyes was still evident. “I think it’s time for a big push in the war effort.”

Councilor Morgan finally sat down in his chair at the head of the table, but he didn’t look any less distraught just because he wasn’t pacing. “What kind of a push?”

“We need to do something big,” Councilor Isviar said. “We need to go after them with such force that they won’t know what hit them.”

“Stop beating around the bush. What do you mean?” Councilor Morgan’s nostrils were flaring with impatience, but Councilor Isviar remained calm.

“I suggest an immediate, full-scale attack. We’ll leave the City Guard here, of course, and one or two dragon shifters. But all other dragons, and all other soldiers, will go on the offensive. So far we’ve tried to balance our forces between protecting the city and launching offensives. But it’s not working. If we want to keep the city safe, we need to do something big. We need to go all in and just silence these Dark Warriors once and for all.”

Councilor Morgan pondered this for a moment, and seemed to be considering actually doing it when Jake spoke up.

“With all due respect, that’s a bit absurd. We can’t just leave the city unprotected. We need troops here watching over them, or no one is safe.”

“No one is safe now,” Simon blurted out, surprising even himself. As the newest dragon shifter in town, it wasn’t often that he spoke out in meetings. But something about the attack on Brittany had fired him up. No one was going to attack his girl and get away with it. It didn’t even matter that she wasn’t officially his girl. He felt protective over her, and he didn’t want to leave her open to another attack. “Look, Dark Warriors are getting into the city whenever they want now, anyway. Unless we stop them at their root—where their main armies are—people in Torch Lake are going to be killed. The Dark Warriors are going to keep infiltrating our city and it’s only a matter of time before someone here is actually murdered by them. We have to stop putting half our efforts here and half our efforts there. Councilor Isviar is right. The best thing to do is to hit them where it hurts with an attack so huge they never expected it.”

The room was silent a few more moments, the tension hanging heavy in the air as Councilor Morgan continued to stroke his chin and think about his decision. Finally, though, he sat up straight and nodded his head. “Let’s do it.”

A murmur of surprise went up around the room. No one had actually expected him to listen to Councilor Isviar’s radical suggestion. But now that the decision was made, Councilor Morgan seemed confident in it.

“Commanders, how soon can you have the whole army ready to go? I want them to join our forces already in the field as soon as possible, and launch an immediate attack on the Dark Warriors’ camp. This is going to be one epic battle to end this war.”

“Uh, we should be able to have the armies on their way by sometime tomorrow,” one of the Commanders said. The other military officers nodded in agreement.

“Good. Let’s plan on that, then. We’ll leave two dragons here to defend the city. Jasper will stay, because we agreed when he joined our clan that he would not have to go on the offensive during war time.”

Jasper nodded his head in appreciation at Councilor Morgan, who was already surveying the rest of the dragons.

“We’ll also leave…”

All of the dragons held their breath, hoping they wouldn’t be chosen. No one except Jasper wanted to stay behind when the most epic battle of the war was about to take place.

“Simon. You’ll stay with Jasper.”

Simon’s heart sank. He knew he’d been called out because he was the newest of the dragons, and Councilor Morgan preferred the tried and true warriors on the front lines. He also knew better than to protest, but Simon felt too rankled to sit by silently.

“But, your honors, I’m the one who spoke up in favor of the plan. Shouldn’t I be allowed to go?”

Councilor Morgan gave Simon a sharp glance. “I appreciate your insights into the benefits of this plan. But I’ve made my decision as to who will stay. Protecting the city itself is an important job, too.”

Simon did his best to smooth the anger off his face and nod respectfully. Protecting the city was important, of course. But it wasn’t like anything big was going to happen while the rest of the dragons were at war. At most, a handful of dark wizards and shifters would pop up with another random attack, but that would be easy for two dragons to take care of. The real fight, the real adventure, would be out on the front lines. Simon felt that if anyone deserved to do battle on the front lines it was him. After all, he had been held captive by these bastards, and then they had attacked his girl. No one was angrier at them than him.

But Councilor Morgan wasn’t the kind of person you wanted to argue with when he was in a good mood, let alone on a day like today, where he was in a horrible mood. So Simon sat back and listened sullenly as the commanders made initial plans for the epic attack that he would not be a part of. By the time the meeting was dismissed, Simon’s mood was even worse than Councilor Morgan’s had been.

“Hey,” Jasper said, shaking Simon by the shoulder. “It’s not all that bad to be stuck with me, is it? Chances are we’ll have nothing to do except hang out at the Winking Wizard and drink some good beers. Doesn’t sound like a bad gig to me.”

Simon was tempted to make a sharp comment to Jasper about how city life had made him soft, and he had no taste for adventure anymore. But he held his tongue, figuring that annoying the one dragon left in town with him was probably not the smartest move. He mumbled a weak reply about wanting to fight with his brothers, but then made his way out of the conference room to head for home.

The one bright spot in all of this was that Brittany was waiting for him back at his house. At least, he hoped she was. He hoped she hadn’t been foolish enough to venture out on a night like this, when Dark Warriors might still be anywhere.

His heart twisting in fear, Simon drove his sleek red sports car home much faster than the speed limits allowed. He didn’t care if he got pulled over. Cops usually went easy on dragon shifters, and besides, he didn’t really give a damn right now if he got a ticket. All he cared about was getting to Brittany as fast as he could and making sure she was alright.

If he was going to be staying in the city, the person he was most concerned with protecting was Brittany, and he was going to start by making sure she was safe tonight.

If he happened to get the chance to kiss her again while he was at it, well, then so be it.