Raven had felt exhausted plenty of times before in her life, but she was realizing with every passing minute that she had never truly known what being tired felt like before now. Every bone in her body ached. Every muscle screamed in protest as the motion of Owen’s wings rocked Raven back and forth. Even her skin seemed to throb with pain. She wished that she could just collapse onto Owen’s dragon back and sleep, long and hard. But she fought to keep her eyes open. She had to watch out for enemy soldiers. She forced herself to scan the horizon, looking east and west, then north and south. She did not want to be the victim of a surprise attack again. Perhaps Owen was right, that the fact that they were surprised hadn’t made much difference to the outcome of the battle. Still, Raven was a seasoned soldier, and she felt ashamed that she had let her guard down so much. She did not want to make that mistake again, and so she continued turning her head in every direction, watching for any sign of incoming soldiers.
But she saw nothing, and sleep fought incessantly to take hold of her. Just as the first gray-pink streaks of dawn were starting to appear, she finally gave in. Her eyes slid shut, and the sweet, soothing blackness of sleep overtook her. She slept dreamlessly, unaware of anything going on around her. She did not feel it when Owen started to slowly descend toward the earth, circling downward until he came to a soft landing right in front of a giant, white farmhouse. It was only when he nudged her head with his dragon snout that she regained consciousness.
Blinking in confusion, she opened her eyes to find the morning sun shining brilliantly down on the world. Gone were the soft, muted grays of sunrise. It must have been about nine in the morning now, from the looks of it.
Embarrassed that she had fallen asleep, she sat up quickly and slid off Owen’s back, looking around in search of some sort of familiar landmark.
“Where are we?” she asked Owen, even though she knew he couldn’t answer her while in dragon form. But he was already shifting. As soon as she was off his back, a familiar rush of energy filled the air around her, indicating that he was beginning the transformation back into human form.
“Persimmon Springs,” Owen said, as soon as he was done shifting. “This house serves as home base for the shifter protectors here, but I’m not sure if they’re here. I’m hoping that—”
Owen never got to finish his sentence, though. Suddenly, the front door swung open, and a flood of people came running out, all screaming at once.
“Owen! You’re here! You’re still alive! And this must be Raven? God, we were so worried. Do you still have the dragon amethyst? Did any of Saul’s soldiers follow you? We’ve been sitting on pins and needles hoping for some word from you!”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Owen said, laughing. Raven thought she saw a hint of tears springing to his eyes, but she couldn’t be sure. “We have the dragon amethyst. But one question at a time. And I get to ask some questions, too. I have a lot of them!”
Raven looked around at the group, surprised at how large it was. She recognized Knox, who was the leader of the Redwood Dragons clan. Next to Knox was Bree, who was Knox’s lifemate. Bree was famous in Falcon Cross, since she had been the one to discover the dragon sapphire and to forge an alliance between the dragons and wizards. Raven was about to introduce herself to Bree when an older, pleasantly plump woman came pushing through the crowd.
“Out of my way, everyone. Out of my way!” the woman said. “You all settle down and let these two come inside and get something to eat. They look like they’re starving, and I daresay they’ll be much happier talking to all of you at the breakfast table, over plates of eggs and bacon.”
“Ma, you stepped on my foot,” one of the men protested.
The woman waved him off. “Shouldn’t have been standing in my way,” she said. Then she grabbed Raven’s hand. “Come on, my dear. Let’s get you some food. I’m Hazel, but everyone around here just calls me Ma, and you should too. I keep this place running, and let me tell you, it’s quite a job with all these whiners and complainers always getting in the way. You’d think I never did anything for them, and—”
Raven glanced back at Owen helplessly as Ma dragged her toward the house. He just shrugged and smiled, then started following them. The rest of the group came as well, and soon they were all seated around a kitchen table, where heaps of delicious breakfast food covered every spare inch. Raven saw scrambled eggs, crispy bacon, biscuits, breakfast potatoes, toast, jam, and fresh fruit. Carafes of water and juice stood next to a large thermos, which Ma quickly pointed to and identified as coffee.
“Now eat up, my dear.” Ma said. “Don’t be shy. You’re just in time for breakfast, and we always have plenty of food around here.”
Raven didn’t need to be told twice. Owen, who was seated next to her, had started introducing her, telling everyone her name and that she was a military commander in Falcon Cross. But Raven hardly paid attention, barely raising her hand to give a small wave of acknowledgement to everyone at the table. The smell of food had made her realize that she was so famished she could hardly think straight, and she piled her plate high with a little bit of everything.
After a few bites of food, however, the fog in her mind began to clear. She looked up and made eye contact with a few of the other people at the table, who were all staring at her with amused looks on their faces.
“Uh…I guess I was hungry,” Raven said. Everyone laughed, and Owen leaned over to plant a kiss on her cheek.
“Have you heard anything I’ve been saying?” he asked. Raven looked at him and saw that his eyes were dancing with merriment. She felt happy, suddenly. They had left the battlefield in the middle of an argument of sorts, and they probably both owed each other an apology. But right now, they were happy and among friends, with plenty of hot, delicious food in front of them.
“Sorry,” Raven said, giving him a sheepish grin. “I wasn’t paying much attention.
Owen rolled his eyes playfully. “I guess I’ll start over, then. I was introducing you to everyone. You know Knox and Bree already, I’m assuming?”
Raven nodded, and smiled at the couple, who smiled warmly back.
“The rest of the group work as shifter protectors, guarding the dragon stones and looking out for the welfare of shifters in general. There’s Levi and his lifemate Olivia. Levi is a panther shifter. Next to Levi are the three Texas dragon brothers and their lifemates—Theo and Maddie, Zane and Molly, and Drake and Kaiya. They’re Ma’s sons, although of course, everyone is Ma’s kid around here. You met Ma already, but her that’s her lifemate William sitting next to her. William was the leader of the Redwood Dragons clan before Knox. He rescued all of us orphan dragons and raised us to be the men we are. He lives out here now, retired and deserving every moment of peace he can get.”
“Not much peace around here, with so many noisy kids,” Levi commented, turning to shush a young boy who looked like a perfect miniature version of him. That was the first Raven noticed of the “kids’ table.” Behind the main table, about a dozen children of various ages sat at a smaller table.
“Oh, let them be noisy,” Ma said. “There’s no sound so wonderful as a rambunctious child.”
“Huh,” Theo said, crossing his arms and looking at his mother. “That’s not what you said when us boys were little.”
Everyone laughed, but Ma just shrugged. “I’m allowed to change my mind,” she said.
Raven chuckled, too, but her head was swimming. “That’s a lot of names to remember,” she said.
“Oh, that’s only about half of us,” William said, smiling at her. “There’s also Pierce and Aria, Griffin and Avery, and Max and Cassie. They’re off on guard duty this morning, or taking care of other chores. I can’t keep up with what everyone’s doing. But anyway, there’s a whole big crew of us. And we’re awfully glad to have you join us.”
“Agreed,” Knox said, speaking up for the first time. “We were worried when we hadn’t heard from you that you’d been captured, and that the dragon amethyst was lost.”
“We tried to contact you, but we couldn’t get through,” Owen said. “We were worried that something had happened to all of you.”
“I told you guys that the communication lines aren’t working properly,” Levi said. William waved him to silence, though.
“We’ll figure all of that out in a minute,” William said. “Right now, I want to hear about how you two got here from California.”
The fog was still lifting from Raven’s brain, and she suddenly realized that no one had said yet whether everyone in Falcon Cross was alright. She assumed they would have told her by now if something was terribly wrong, but still, she wanted some reassurance.
“Wait!” she said. “What about the wizards? And Falcon Cross? Is everyone okay there? And did the group escaping the Redwoods make it out okay.”
Owen gave her a funny look. “You really have been out of it, huh? That’s the first thing Knox told us. Everyone in Falcon Cross is alright, and Vance and the others made it safely to Falcon Cross itself without being caught. Unfortunately, the Redwoods base camp is in enemy control now.”
Raven took a shuddering breath. “Can we get it back from them?” she asked.
Knox spoke up. “Well, we hope to eventually. But it’s not a priority right now. We need to focus our manpower on finding the dragon ruby, and keeping the other dragon stones safe. There are other vaults near the Redwoods base camp that are full of powerful ancient artifacts, and we’re worried about the security of those vaults. Hopefully, Saul’s men don’t find them. But even if they do, the dragon stones are more powerful than all of the artifacts in the vault combined.”
“You’re telling me,” Owen said. “The dragon amethyst saved our lives.” And then he told the group the story of the battle the night before, and how the amethyst had activated just in time. He also told of what they had seen outside of Sandview, and how Saul was building an army of bat shifters. Owen gave as many details as he could remember of the events that had transpired since he had escaped from the Redwoods with Raven. He only left out how he and Raven had finally admitted their love for each other, but Raven supposed it wasn’t necessary for him to explain this to the group gathered around the table. It was obvious to anyone looking at Owen and Raven that they were together now.
Together, Raven thought, and she smiled. She’d loved Owen for so long, and it was nice to officially be his. Even if he did act like a stubborn jackass now and then. When he was finally finished speaking, the table was silent for quite some time.
“Wow,” Levi finally said. “Sounds like we’ve underestimated Saul a bit. He’s following in the footsteps of many evil wizards before him with the whole bat shifter army thing.”
William nodded gravely. “He definitely isn’t sitting back and taking it easy. But let’s not despair too much. For one thing, he’s lost the element of surprise, now that Owen and Raven discovered his hideout in Sandview. For another thing, we have three of the four dragon stones. If we have to use them, we can. And, as Owen and Raven saw, the stones can be very effective at beating back even a large enemy army.”
Raven sat up straighter. “Why don’t we use the stones to go destroy Saul’s army right now?” she asked. “Let’s just end this thing!”
The table fell silent, and the shifter protectors looked at each other with worried expressions.
“What?” Raven asked. “What’s the problem? Why can’t we do that?”
“The problem,” Theo said, “Is that we don’t want to take any chances on the dragon stones that we do have being stolen away. We’ve discovered some information on the dragon ruby, and it seems that the ruby is the most powerful of the dragon stones by far. If Saul’s soldiers are able to get to it first—and they’re searching like crazy right now—then we need to make sure we have all three of the other stones. It’s our only chance for victory. We’re not out of the woods yet.”
“Not even close,” Levi agreed. “We need to focus all our energy on finding the dragon ruby and keeping the dragon stones that we do have safe.”
Raven studied the faces surrounding the table. Everyone wore a grave expression, and the mood was somber. She felt somewhat deflated herself. She’d told herself that if she and Owen could just get the dragon amethyst to Texas, and to safety, that the war would be all but won. But it seemed they had a lot of work to do yet. Even the children had fallen silent now, seeming to sense that the adults were all unhappy about something.
Finally, though, Ma’s cheerful voice broke through the gloom. “The first thing y’all need to focus on is finishing up this food. Then you can worry about chasing after rubies. You’re not going to get very far on an empty stomach.”
Everyone laughed, and the tension was broken. No one at the table right now had an empty stomach, since they’d been eating nonstop for the last forty-five minutes or so. But they all obliged Ma and started picking at the last pieces of toast and fruit. For the moment, things seemed happy again.
But Raven was not fooled. The undercurrent of despair could still be felt in the room, and she knew that Owen and she would not be able to rest easy just yet.