The soothing sound of Raven’s rhythmic breathing filled the tiny, rocky shelter, but Owen still felt tense. He was glad that she was getting some rest, but he himself could not sleep anymore. He’d slept all day, and now, he was wide awake and restless. His eyes glowed dimly as they scanned the horizon, searching for signs of bats or wizards or anything else unusual. But nothing stirred in the darkness. It was quiet.

Too quiet.

Owen tugged absentmindedly at the neckline of the simple gray t-shirt he was wearing. He’d finally put some clothes on, and he was surprised at how well Raven had guessed his size. Then again, perhaps he shouldn’t have been surprised. They’d spent so much time together now that they knew each other well. Owen smiled. After tonight, they knew each other about as well as two humans could.

He’d felt the lifemate bond forming as they made love. He’d long suspected that Raven might be his lifemate, but he’d never allowed himself to dwell on the thought for very long. He’d long been known as a player, and the thought of being with one person for the rest of his life had always frightened him. But Raven was different. The only thing that scared him about her was the thought of not being with her for the rest of his life.

Owen glanced over at her sleeping form, and his smile deepened. He hoped she would sleep for a long time. She needed the rest. He knew she had wanted to get away from this town and to Texas as quickly as possible, but, even if they did head straight for Texas like she wanted, one more night wouldn’t make much difference. And whenever they did leave, he needed her awake and alert. Having a wizard ready to fight on his back would make him feel a lot safer as he flew. If Saul’s soldiers caught wind that a dragon was flying around with the dragon amethyst, they would focus all of their attention on him, trying to bring him down and steal the stone before he could reach the safety of the shifter protectors in Texas.

Owen turned to look toward the shadowy town of Sandview that sat in front of him. Only a handful of lights were on in the town, likely from the gas station or one of the motels. The quiet felt eerie and unnatural, even for a sleepy village in the middle of nowhere. Owen’s eyes turned toward the sky, searching. There was no moon tonight, although the stars did twinkle brightly in the desert sky.

He didn’t know what, exactly, he thought he would see. If any of the dark wizards were around, they would almost certainly be hiding themselves under invisibility spells. They wouldn’t want to make a big show of things in front of all the unsuspecting townspeople. Owen stared at the sky for several more minutes, anyway, and then turned to look for some food in the backpack. He didn’t want to overly deplete the supplies Raven had stolen. They had a long road ahead of them, after all. But he was so hungry right now that his stomach felt like it was twisting itself in knots. He would eat just one meal bar to take the edge off.

Owen found a peanut butter flavored bar and tore it open. He bit half the bar off at once and started munching while he dug around in the bag, looking for some water. He found a bottle, but finished eating his meal bar before he drank any. Even then, he only allowed himself a few sips. If he and Raven did somehow become stranded, water would be even more precious than food.

When he was done drinking, he carefully replaced the cap on the water bottle and put it back in the backpack. Then he went back to his spot at the front of their little hideout to resume his watch. He sat down with a contented sigh and looked up at the sky, but his heart stopped the moment he did.

The stars had disappeared entirely. Where the soft orbs of light had been twinkling only minutes before, there was only inky black. And, Owen realized with horror, that inky blackness was moving. The black sky seemed to undulate, ripples of darkness swelling, rising, and falling.

“What in the world?” Owen whispered, rubbing his eyes. Was he imagining things, or was this some trick of dark magic? But even after rubbing his eyes and opening and closing them several times, the dark waves still persisted across the night sky. Owen tensed up, wondering whether he should wake Raven. If there was dark magic afoot, he would need her help fighting it. A lump formed in his throat as this thought crossed his mind. If there was dark magic afoot, he and Raven didn’t stand much of a chance trying to fight it on their own. Their only hope was to avoid discovery. Owen knew that Raven had cast invisibility spells and protective shields over their hiding spot, but those would not last long if the dark wizards were casting counterspells. Owen chewed his lower lip nervously, hoping that perhaps the wizards were not suspecting any enemies to be out here, and weren’t actively trying to disarm any invisibility spells.

Owen glanced back at Raven, who looked so comfortable and peaceful curled into their sleeping bag. He hated to wake her, but he would rather wake her now than have her startled out of her sleep by enemy soldiers. He gritted his teeth and looked up at the sky one more time, and then, suddenly, he realized why the blackness seemed to be moving.

“Bats!” he exclaimed in wonder. There must have been hundreds of thousands of them. Their black bodies were so numerous as they flew above the town that they were blocking out the stars. Owen quickly crawled over to the sleeping bag and started shaking Raven awake. He wasn’t going to hesitate any longer. She had to see this.

“Raven,” he whispered in a loud hiss. “Raven wake up.”

She blinked her eyes open, disoriented. She focused on his face and smiled, but then sat upright wide awake when she saw the concern in his own eyes.

“What is it?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”

“Come look at this,” he said, and motioned toward the front of their rocky shelter. She crawled after him, and her gaze followed his finger upwards as he pointed toward the sky. He saw confusion in her eyes, the same confusion he had felt only minutes before.

“They’re bats,” he said. “Thousands and thousands of bats.”

Understanding dawned on her face, and horror filled her eyes.

“So many of them,” she whispered in awe.

“I know,” Owen said. “It’s incredible.”

“What are they doing?” Raven asked, never taking her eyes off the sky.

“Circling the town. Although I have no idea why. It seems odd, doesn’t it, that they’re in plain sight? You would think that Saul and his army wouldn’t want his bats parading around for all to see.”

“You’d think,” Raven said. “Maybe he wants to scare the people in Sandview for some reason?”

“But why?” Owen asked, a deep sense of dread filling him. “Is he trying to force them into his army?”

Raven didn’t answer, other than to shrug in frustration. She continued staring up at the sky, and Owen turned his eyes skyward again. No sooner had he looked up, though, that he heard Raven gasp, and his own heart filled with fresh horror.

The bats were no longer alone up in the sky. Zooming underneath them now, were hundreds of wizards flying in on broomsticks. They all had beacons of light shooting from their magic rings, and the closer they flew to the town the brighter the sky became with their lights, until it might as well have been daytime.

“I’d say Saul is definitely trying to scare the townspeople for some reason,” Raven murmured. “The bats are bad enough, but having wizards fly in with no invisibility spells? That’s guaranteed to terrify any full human.”

The show wasn’t nearly over, though. A thundering sound suddenly filled Owen’s ears, and he looked behind him to see hundreds of lions, bears, tigers, wolves, and panthers running across the desert toward them.

“Shit!” he said, pushing Raven back into the rocky hideout. “Get back. Out of their way.”

They moved just in time, both sitting with their backs flattened against the wall as the shifters ran past them and headed full speed ahead toward the town. Owen had never been so thankful for an invisibility spell. The shifters never so much as gave Owen and Raven a second glance as they ran past, unaware that they were running right past the coveted dragon amethyst.

When the last of the shifters had passed them, Owen exhaled, and turned to Raven with a grim expression on his face.

“We have to get out of here,” he said. “You’re right, babe. Hanging around here is definitely not a good idea. That’s way more wizards, bats, and other shifters than I want to take on.”

“Not to mention a dragon,” Raven murmured, her eyes wide as she continued to stare up at the sky.

“Dragon?” Owen choked out. He followed Raven’s gaze, and his own eyes widened. Overcome by curiosity, he crawled back toward the front of the rocky shelter to get a better view. If he’d ever in his life before this thought that his blood ran cold, he’d been mistaken. He’d never felt a chill go through him like the one that filled him when his eyes saw Saul. And Owen had no doubt that the dragon he was seeing right now was Saul.

Illuminated by the lights of hundreds of his dark wizards, the ugliest dragon Owen had ever seen flew slowly across the night sky. Saul’s dragon was a dark red, and there was no shimmer to his scales, like there was to every other dragon Owen had ever seen. The red scales did seem to glow under the wizards’ light though, making Saul look almost like his whole body was covered in blood. His translucent wings had scars so huge across them that Owen could see them from even here on the ground. Each wing had four points to it, with a sharp black spike extending from each point. Saul’s tail extended behind him, horned with spikes of the same dark black color as the spikes on his wing. His dragon feet ended in the longest claws Owen had ever seen, and Owen shuddered just looking at them. In one of his feet, he carried a giant wizard’s wand. It was more of a staff, really, but it looked like a mere wand when held by the giant claws of Saul’s dragon. The end of the staff had a glowing orb of light on it that looked both beautiful and sinister at the same time. And his head. Oh his head. It was gigantic, even for a dragon, with large, gnarled horns extending several feet into the air above it. He swung it back and forth, and Owen cringed when he saw Saul’s eyes.

They glowed solid red. He did not seem to even have any pupils—just two orbs of swirling, horrifying red. He searched the sky, the ground, the town…Owen did not know what he was looking for, but he knew he did not want to be found by this evil dragon right now, with no army to reinforce him. Owen had never been a praying man, but he was praying right now, pleading with whatever higher powers might be out there that his invisibility shield would hold. He felt Raven reach over and squeeze his hand tightly, and he knew she was praying, too.

“He looks more awful than I could have even imagined,” Raven whispered in horrified awe.

Owen nodded. “Is that a wizard staff he’s holding?” he asked.

Raven nodded. “I don’t know of any wizards that still use wands or staffs these days. I thought everyone had switched to magic rings. But I suppose a ring would be lost in shifting. That must be why he uses the wand.”

“It’s so unnatural,” Owen said with a shudder. “A shifter who’s also a wizard.”

“Agreed,” Raven murmured, never taking her eyes off the horrifying sight that Saul made as he moved slowly across the sky, his giant, scarred wings flapping lazily while bats and wizards on broomsticks swirled around him. Owen watched, too, continuing to hold Raven’s hand. Ordinarily, shifters could not do magic. Only those who were born wizards were capable of casting spells. But dark magic allowed anyone to become a wizard, and Saul, who had been born a dragon shifter, had become a wizard as well using dark magic. His transformation was not without its costs, though. Every time a wizard cast a dark magic spell, it cost that wizard a piece of their soul. This slow chipping away of the wizard’s soul would twist and corrupt the wizard, making him or her ever more evil, until finally the use of dark magic would kill the wizard. Saul undoubtedly had given up a great deal of his soul to reach the point he had, and at some point the dark magic he loved would kill him. In the meantime, though, his evil actions were threatening the peace and safety of good wizards, shifters, and humans everywhere.

Owen followed the outline of the great dragon as he approached Sandview, and then, to his great shock, an evil, booming voice suddenly filled the air.

“People of Sandview,” Saul’s dragon said as it flew directly over the heart of the small town, “Look up and see the power of Saul, the mightiest dragon king there has ever been.”

Saul’s booming laughter filled the night sky, and Owen and Raven looked at each other in shock.

“He’s speaking!” Raven exclaimed. “In dragon form! I didn’t know that was possible.”

“I didn’t either,” Owen said, just as shocked as Raven was. “I’ve never heard of a shifter being able to talk while in animal form.”

“It’s some sort of dark magic spell, I guess,” Raven said. “Paired with an amplification spell. That’s what’s making his voice so loud.”

“I offer you all a choice, as I have offered many other humans,” Saul said, continuing to circle slowly above the town as he spoke. “I need more humans in my army. Join me, and you will be part of the most powerful army that has ever existed. You will be granted great power, honor, and wealth. Defy me, and you will face certain death.”

To punctuate his death threat, Saul breathed a huge stream of fire into the air. But the flames weren’t an orange-yellow color, like normal flames were. Instead, they were an unnatural, blood red color. Even from this distance, screams of terror could be heard from the citizens of Sandview. Raven and Owen exchanged another glance of horror.

“We have to get out of here,” Raven said. Owen did not argue.

“Let’s pack up the sleeping bag and get going,” he said. “Our best chance is probably to sneak out quietly while Saul and his army are preoccupied with terrorizing the people in Sandview.”

It went without saying that, if Saul and his evil army became aware of the fact that Owen and Raven were sitting just outside town with the dragon amethyst, all attention would be turned to killing them and stealing the amethyst away.

“What about the people in Sandview?” Raven asked. She sounded like she felt as sick to her stomach as Owen did right now.

“There’s nothing we can do for them,” Owen said sadly. “The two of us alone aren’t strong enough to stop an army of this size. Even if we knew how to activate the dragon amethyst’s powers, I’m not sure it would be enough. The best thing we can do for them, and for all humans, really, is to get the amethyst to safety.”

Raven let out a long sigh and nodded. “Alright. Let’s make a break for it.”

She looked at the sky, and then added, “And let’s hope that break is successful.”

“It will be,” Owen said through clenched teeth. “It has to be.”