Weston stood with Violet on the outskirts of the tiny town of Blackstone, Nevada, watching the first rays of dawn creeping over the horizon. Next to them stood Holden, Weston’s best friend and clanmate, and a fellow dragon shifter. The three of them were waiting to greet the incoming group of wizards and shifters, who had traveled here for a special summit to discuss the next steps in the war effort. Weston had tried to dissuade everyone from choosing Blackstone as the location for the summit, but he had been overruled. Despite his protests that the town was too close to Saul’s hideout, and therefore not a safe place for a meeting of VIPs, Peter had set Blackstone as the summit’s location.

Weston should not have been surprised. Peter, the head wizard of the Falcon Cross clan of wizards, was something of a rebel. He was an old man, but energetic and full of spunk. Weston knew the old wizard wanted to see for himself the location which the evil Saul had chosen as his headquarters. Knox, the dragon shifter who led Weston’s crew, had been equally eager to come scope out the lay of the land. And so, Weston had been forced to accept the fact that a large group of shifters and wizards would be flying into Blackstone, risking the ruin of the one thing the side of good had going for them right now: the element of surprise.

To be honest, Weston wasn’t sure how much longer their operations in Blackstone were going to remain secret, anyway. One didn’t have to look very far to notice that Saul was growing restless. The number of guards around Saul’s headquarters had increased, and the spies that Weston and Violet had caught last night had certainly been sent to Blackstone for a reason. It looked like Saul was worried.

As he should be, Weston thought with a puff of bitter pride in his chest. He hasn’t beaten us yet. We still have some fight left in us. We just have to figure out how to get the upper hand on him.

Weston’s musings were interrupted by a single, softly spoken word coming from Violet’s lips.

“Incoming,” she said.

Weston followed her gaze up to the sky, but all he could see was an unremarkable gray sky with a few streaks of pink.

“How do you know?” Weston asked.

“I cast a magic-revealing spell when we first came out here,” she answered. “My magic ring is vibrating like crazy now, indicating that heavy use of magic is nearby. I’d bet my firstborn child that it’s because of the invisibility spells Peter cast over the group. You’ll be seeing them soon enough.”

“You don’t have a firstborn child,” Weston said, rolling his eyes. Violet shrugged.

“I might have one someday. Stop being a dumbass and watch the sky.”

Weston, for once, did as Violet suggested instead of trying to come up with another comeback. He trained his eyes on the sky above them, trying to see any sort of disturbance in the color pattern that might give away the fact that someone up there was using invisibility shields. He saw nothing, though. Peter could cast the best invisibility shield of any wizard alive, and whatever shield he was using was doing its job well. The sky looked completely normal.

Until it didn’t.

A sharp, dramatic pop filled the air, and then, suddenly, the invisibility shield Peter had been using disappeared. In the sky almost directly above where Weston was standing, he could suddenly see the group Violet’s magic ring had been able to see well before he had. They were flying too fast now for even Peter’s invisibility shield to keep up.

Peter and Knox were in the center of the group. Knox was in dragon form, of course, so that he could fly. It had been a while since Weston had seen his clan leader, let alone seen him in dragon form, and, oh, was it a sight to behold. Knox’s dragon was giant, his iridescent scales shimmering in the early morning sun as his powerful wings sliced through the air. His mighty tail swished behind him like a rudder, and Weston felt pride puffing up his chest once again. Weston was proud to be part of such a magnificent clan of dragons, and seeing his leader majestically flying through the air buoyed his morale.

Beside Knox’s dragon, Peter the high wizard flew. Even from the ground, Weston could see Peter’s long white beard, which was outlined sharply by his dark black robe. Peter might have been an old man, but he maneuvered his broomstick with ease. His athleticism matched that of any man half his age, and he had no trouble keeping up with Knox’s dragon.

Around the two leaders, an entire squadron of wizard soldiers flew, keeping their broomsticks in a tight formation to protect Peter and Knox. Weston kept his eyes on the group as they zoomed closer to the earth and closer to the spot where he, Violet, and Holden were standing. Less than a minute after they had first appeared in the sky, the wizard soldiers, Peter, and Knox were coming to a rapid landing just a few yards from Weston. As soon as their feet touched the ground, the wizards all began dismounting from their broomsticks. Knox immediately began to shift back into human form, and one of the wizards was waiting close by to give him a fresh set of clothes to put on.

“So this is Blackstone,” Peter said. “Looks like a sleepy little town from above.”

“It is sleepy,” Weston said. “That’s probably why Saul hasn’t bothered that much with it before now. He’s too focused on his operations in nearby Sandview.”

Knox had finished dressing now, and came over to give Weston and Holden each a big bear hug.

“Good to see you boys,” Knox said, a wide grin spreading across his face. “I hope you’ve been staying out of trouble?”

“You hope for too much,” Weston said with a grin. Knox laughed and shook his head.

“Fair enough. I should know better by now. So, you guys ready to get down to business and make some plans about how we’re going to win this war?”

Weston nodded, but the grin faded off his face as he did. He glanced over at Violet, whose face was looking equally serious now. They both knew that today’s meeting was going to be anything but fun. Weston was still blissfully unaware, however, of just how hard it was going to turn out to be.

 

* * *

 

Three hours later, Weston kept his eyes carefully glued on Peter’s and Knox’s faces as Holden finished a presentation on the war effort in Blackstone. But their expressions gave nothing away. It was anyone’s guess what they were thinking.

Weston was sitting with the others in one of the bedrooms in a small house on the outskirts of town. The house had been rented to house some of the wizard soldiers sent to Blackstone. This bedroom had been turned into a makeshift conference room, and all of the junior soldiers had been sent away for the time being so that the senior officers could discuss the situation uninterrupted.

Holden had done an excellent job of presenting. The information had been thorough but to the point. Holden had shown all of the reconnaissance videos and photographs that Holden’s stepson, Nick, had managed to get of Saul’s headquarters. Thanks to Nick’s efforts, they had a pretty good idea at this point of how Saul’s lair was laid out. That knowledge was, of course, a huge help. But Weston was convinced that this insider information still wasn’t enough to guarantee victory in a battle against Saul. The videos and photographs didn’t just show the layout—they also showed how heavily guarded Saul’s headquarters were. Hundreds of wizard and shifter guards patrolled the premises, and the number of guards seemed to have nearly doubled in the last week. Any fight against them would not be an easy fight, and would require very careful planning. Which was why, when Knox looked over at Weston with eyes full of questions, Weston slowly shook his head no.

“I know you all sent us a large group of soldiers so that we could attack Saul’s headquarters and cripple his operations. But what we have here is not enough. We’d be risking certain defeat if we attack now. I’m not one to cower away from a fight, but I’m also not one to take foolhardy chances. Especially when those chances are being taken with the lives of soldiers under my command.”

Knox and Peter both furrowed their brows, thinking. Neither one of them looked pleased, and Weston didn’t blame them. Just over a week ago, Peter had sent a large group of wizard soldiers to Blackstone with the intention of attacking and damaging Saul’s operations. Weston himself had come just before that group, and had also been hopeful about the possibility of attacking Saul. It had seemed, at first, straightforward enough. Now, things weren’t so clear.

No one knew why, exactly, Saul had chosen Sandview as the location for his headquarters, but Weston could take a couple good guesses. The town was large enough to have a decent amount of supplies, but still relatively small and off the beaten path. Saul could easily control the population of the town—and any unlucky tourists who happened to travel through on their way to visiting one of Nevada’s state or national parks. From the spying Nick had done, Weston knew that Saul was regularly torturing citizens of Sandview, trying to pressure them into joining his side in this evil war. Weston shuddered at the thought. Shifters and wizards tried to stay away from full humans for the most part, keeping them oblivious to the existence of shapeshifters and magic. Saul, however, liked to shock humans by letting them see shifters and wizards in action. He seemed to get some sort of cruel satisfaction from watching humans cower in fear.

Another reason Saul liked Sandview was the nearby caves. Saul was using these caves to house all his wizard and shifter soldiers, and to hide his bat cloning operations. Saul had figured out, like several evil leaders before him, how to rapidly clone bat shifters. He was cloning bat shifters as fast as he could, trying to raise an army that would overwhelm the size of any other army by sheer numbers. Weston knew that this bat cloning operation needed to be stopped, and soon. But he also knew that the number of soldiers they had in Blackstone right now was not enough to take on Saul at his headquarters.

Blackstone itself was a small town, much smaller even than Sandview. Holden and Violet had been the first ones to arrive here on a scouting mission. They had come to see whether Saul had any guards in Blackstone, which he didn’t. Saul seemed to think that Blackstone wasn’t worth his time, but that was a grave mistake on his part. Blackstone was the perfect place for the good wizards and shifters to hide out, preparing for a surprise attack on Saul. And, unbeknownst to Saul, Blackstone was also connected to Sandview by a secret underground tunnel. If Weston and a group from Blackstone could sneak through that tunnel, they would have a good chance of surprising Saul. The problem was that, even with the element of surprise on their side, Saul’s army at his headquarters was too strong. It was too risky to attack without bringing in at least three times the number of soldiers currently residing in Blackstone.

Weston took a deep breath, and started to stand. Peter and Knox hadn’t asked for his opinion yet, but Weston didn’t care. Before they wasted too much time thinking about other possibilities, he wanted to make sure they understood the trickiness of the situation, and the weak position of the shifters and wizards in Blackstone. But before Weston could fully get to his feet, Violet was standing. She wore a grave expression on her face, and she was pointing up at the map of Blackstone and Sandview that was on the large projector screen behind Holden.

“We need to move quickly,” she said. “Saul is getting more suspicious by the day, and is sending spies out to Blackstone now. Weston and I took down two of them last night, in fact. Luckily, we were able to catch them before they sent any information back to Saul, but there will be more spies coming. Saul is going to realize that the spies he sent never came back, and he’s going to know that this doesn’t bode well for him.”

For perhaps the first time since he’d met Violet, Weston was truly annoyed with her. How could she just stand up there and say they should attack, without consulting him first. True, he hadn’t actually told her his thoughts on the matter, but he’d hinted at the need for a bigger army. She should have at least checked with him before telling everyone it was time to make a move. She was acting like she was in charge, and she wasn’t. If anything, he had more say in military matters than she did. She wasn’t even a real soldier, after all. She was an Advocate, and had only been trained as a soldier in a rush because Falcon Cross was so desperate to shore up its army.

Weston was glaring at Violet, but it wasn’t having much of an effect on her because she was refusing to look in his direction. That told him all he needed to know.

She knew I wouldn’t like this idea! he thought. That’s why she didn’t tell me what she was going to say, and why she’s not looking at me right now. Well, hell, two can play this game.

Weston stood to his feet abruptly, before Peter and Knox had a chance to respond to Violet’s suggestions.

“Actually, I think attacking Saul right now would pretty much be a suicide mission,” he said. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Violet whip her head around to look at him. No doubt, she was glaring now, but he wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of looking at her. In front of him, he did see Holden rolling his eyes. His friend knew Weston and Violet well enough to know how stubborn they could both be when they had their minds set on something. This was not going to end well.

Peter and Knox were looking at him expectantly now, so Weston took a deep breath and spoke his mind.

“Saul has been building up his army. You can see from the surveillance that’s been done that the numbers are growing by the day. We don’t have enough soldiers here to take on all of his guards, let alone to fight off all the bat shifters that he’s cloning. If those bats have already been trained to fight, then we’re screwed. I can’t in good conscience sit here and recommend that we send our people in to certain death.”

“It’s not certain death!” Violet exclaimed. “I’ll admit, it’s dangerous, but waiting is also dangerous. We have to strike now while we still can. The longer we wait, the stronger Saul gets and the more likely we are to lose our surprise advantage. It’s now or never, Weston. No matter when we attack we’re going to lose soldiers. That’s the way war works. It sucks, but no one joins the army thinking their life is perfectly safe.”

Weston turned so that he was standing directly in front of Violet. She was tall, but he still towered over her. He looked down at her and put his hands on his hips. “Violet, you know I’m the first one to rush into battle. I love a good fight. But you’re not asking for a good fight, you’re asking to wipe out all of our forces here. There’s no way it’ll work.”

She glared up at him, her hands on her hips as well. Her face was flushed red with fury, and her violet eyes, for which she’d been named, were blazing like a purple fire. And in that moment, despite the fact that he was more annoyed with her than he’d ever been before, he could not help but notice how beautiful she was.

She was always beautiful, but there was something about passion, about anger, that made her even lovelier than normal. Her skin glowed, and almost didn’t seem human. Perhaps it was because she wasn’t fully human. She was a wizard after all, magical. And perfect, despite her faults.

Weston felt his stomach flip-flopping with pleasure. His heart rate was rising, and a telltale stiffening began between his legs. He turned away from Violet quickly. He could not allow himself to be turned on by her. Not here, not now. Not in front of everyone like this. He hated to lose the little staring contest he’d just started with her, but it was either that or risk a full blown erection. She was fired up, and she was hot.

Weston turned his attention back toward Peter and Knox, desperately trying to regain control of his emotions and think of words to say that would convince them that his view of the situation was the right one. Violet had the same idea, and they both started talking at once. But it didn’t matter much what they were saying, because in that moment another voice suddenly joined the noise in the room. The door flew open and Nick stormed into the room, breathless and pale faced.

“Guys, we have a problem!” he said, and all eyes in the room turned to him.