Leif had no real plan as his feet found solid ground in the Gray Oasis Forest. He’d flown here faster than the wind, running on pure adrenaline. He’d intended to come in with blazing fire and burn everything to a crisp, but he’d quickly realized that he needed to be careful. Sofia was down there, and he didn’t want to harm her with fire, or, worse, have the Dark Warriors try to use her as some sort of human shield. And then, there were the dragons. They looked like Seth and Evan, although Leif hadn’t been able to tell for sure as he flew above them in the sky. The colors on their dragon hide seemed a bit off, although Leif had no idea what other two dragons would have been roaming through the Gray Oasis Forest. Seth and Evan should have been impossible to capture, but it looked like the dark wizards were stronger than Leif thought they were. It also looked like Jake had been right: the Dark Warriors’ plan had somehow involved using the dragon trainees as pawns in whatever game they were playing with Sofia.

Leif had not had any trouble identifying Sofia from high up in the air. She’d been crouched low under the force of numerous wizard attacks, presumably dark magic attacks. She’d been so still and unresponsive that he’d thought she was dead, and he’d roared in anger, shooting furious flames out of his mouth. She hadn’t responded to that, even, although Vincent had. He’d realized in that moment that Leif was coming in to fight, and he wasn’t happy about it. Leif had roared again and again, breathing out fire. The more he could hold Vincent’s attention, the less Sofia would have to suffer dark magic attacks.

Finally, Sofia had looked up, and Leif felt an overwhelming sense of relief that she wasn’t dead. He wasn’t sure how badly she might be injured, but at least he knew she was still breathing and responsive. The two dragons, on the other hand, continued to remain oblivious to Leif’s presence. They still thrashed about as though they were being attacked, even though all of the wizards had now turned their attention to attacking Leif. There was something strange about the two dragons, but Leif couldn’t quite figure it out. Were they under some kind of weird hypnotizing spell?

When he finally landed, and tried to catch the eyes of the dragons to see whether they were indeed Seth and Evan, everything became clear. The eyes did look like Seth and Evan’s eyes, but they were only clever replications. Leif breathed in deeply to be sure, and, if he’d been in human form, he might have laughed out loud. He caught no scent of dragon as he sniffed. These “dragons” were some sort of computerized fakes. This knowledge gave him renewed strength. These wizards and shifters, although they had some grasp of dark magic, were not powerful enough to subdue two dragons. They only wanted Sofia and whoever else saw them to think that they were. But Leif could not be fooled so easily. If there was one thing Leif knew well, it was dragons. And these were no dragons.

Leif let out a roar and ran full speed toward the group of wizards and shifters who had been attacking Sofia. His sudden charge seemed to catch them off guard, which was surprising to Leif. Had they not expected him to attack? If they thought two fake dragons were going to deter him, they were even dumber than he’d thought.

Leif breathed out fire as he ran, causing immediate screams of pain from several of the wizards and shifters. Vincent had been smart enough to move out of his range of fire, but half his group of minions had not. Panic ensued amidst the Dark Warriors, and Leif used the chaos to his advantage. The fleeing wizards made easy targets, and those wizards who had stayed to fight were horrified at the sight of their friends going up in flames. They tried to launch attacks, but they were too shaken to aim well, making it virtually impossible for them to have any hope of hitting Leif in a vulnerable spot. His dragon hide kept him well-protected from wizard attacks, unless one happened to hit a spot where the hide wasn’t as thick. But Leif did a good job of keeping his weak spots away from the attacks, easily spinning and ducking and returning attacks of his own. For several minutes, he felt like he was performing some kind of dance as he moved quickly back and forth in front of the Dark Warriors who had not retreated in fear yet. He became too absorbed in the dance, however, and only snapped out of it when he heard Sofia screaming.

His heart dropped in his chest and he whirled around to see what was causing her screams. Leif had placed himself between Sofia and the Dark Warriors, but Vincent had managed to sneak around and get behind Sofia. That blasted wizard must have walked a huge loop to get around to the back without Leif’s noticing what he was doing.

Leif cursed himself for being so stupid. He’d been too cocky with fighting the group in front of him, and had forgotten to watch his rear. That was such a rookie mistake, but Leif was not rookie. He should have known better.

There was nothing to be done now, though, other than figure out a way to take out Vincent without harming Sofia in the process. This wasn’t going to be an easy task. Using fire was out of the question. If Leif tried to burn Vincent, he’d end up burning Sofia at the same time. Vincent had managed to get Sofia in the one predicament Leif had most feared: using her as a human shield.

Leif breathed fire into the air as an angry distraction, but Vincent only laughed. He knew that Leif was powerless to burn him without burning Sofia, too. Leif felt his anger rising and he roared upwards in agony, shooting flames into the sky. Vincent laughed again, and Leif forced himself to stop shooting pointless flames. Now was not the time to let his rage get the best of him. Now was the time to think. What could he do?

On his back, he could still feel the pings from wizard attacks, but they still couldn’t hit him. He glanced over his shoulder and saw a few shifters charging toward him—a wolf and two bears—but a quick blast of fire in their direction stopped them. A large popping sound filled the air as a thick stick that had been in the path of the shifters burnt to pieces from the heat of Leif’s fire. In that moment, Leif realized how he could stop Vincent. Leif’s eyes traveled upward. Vincent was at the edge of the clearing right now. He’d had to step almost back into the forest in order to keep Sofia between him and Leif. And this meant that, high above Vincent, a few branches from the thick trees were stretching directly over his head.

Leif picked a branch, and started gathering his breath. Vincent must have thought Leif was gathering more strength for another fruitless, angry roar. The evil wizard threw back his head and laughed, then kicked Sofia roughly with the edge of his boot. Sofia yelped in pain, and Vincent laughed harder.

“You can’t hurt me without hurting your precious little wizard friend,” Vincent yelled out. His very voice sounded like it was dripping with pure evil. “Or, should I say, your precious little spy. Your precious little traitor.”

Vincent spit on Sofia then, his face twisted into an expression of disgust. Leif almost laughed. Vincent wasn’t the honorable type, who would deem spying an unforgivable sin. His whole Dark Warriors group essentially served as spies for him. No, his disgust wasn’t from the mere act of spying itself. It was from the fact that Sofia had managed to trick him. She’d pulled one over on him. Vincent might have her helplessly pinned to the forest floor right now, but it didn’t matter. He was still the one who had lost, because she’d proven to his whole stupid Dark Warriors group that he was not invincible. He could be tricked and betrayed just as he easily as he himself had tricked and betrayed others.

And he was about to be tricked again. With Vincent’s laughter still ringing in his ears, Leif pointed his flames toward the sky once again. Only this time, he aimed specifically for the tree branches above Vincent. The solution was so simple that Leif couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it before. In a matter of moments, Leif’s dragon fire burned through the thick branch and a sickening crack sounded into the air. The tree branch snapped right off the tree and came crashing toward the forest floor.

Vincent never saw it coming. He was too busy laughing at Leif and threatening to kill Sofia if Leif took one more step forward. His empty threats came to an abrupt halt when the tree branch landed on him, crushing him into the ground in one quick movement. The pings of dark magic spells that had been bouncing constantly off of Leif’s dragon hide stopped abruptly. For a moment, an eerie silence filled the clearing as the panicked attacks turned into shocked silence. And then, a scream of anguish from one dark wizard seemed to break the trance. Leif stepped closer to Sofia, ready to defend her against more attacks. But the attacks never came. Instead, one of the wizards grabbed a broomstick and rose into the air, then dove down and swept Vincent’s body up onto the broomstick with him. Leif couldn’t stop the wizard without risking breathing fire onto Sofia, and so he let him go. It was likely that Vincent was dead, anyway. Leif couldn’t be sure of that, but the branch had been a large one, and it had hit Vincent squarely on the top of the head. At the very least, Vincent was knocked out cold. His body hung completely limp, and a small stream of blood was trickling down his neck.

The sight of their leader, bleeding and lifeless, was the last straw for the wizards and shifters who had been brave enough to remain. Now, they all fled. As they did, the two imitation dragons suddenly vanished. Whoever had been keeping up that optical illusion had no reason to continue the spell any longer. After a few moments, the last shouts of the retreating Dark Warriors faded away, and silence once again filled the forest. Leif turned around in several big circles, his dragon eyes piercing into the darkness as he looked for any enemies who might have been brave enough to remain behind. He breathed in deeply, trying to catch the scent of stragglers. But there were none. He and Sofia were alone in the forest now.

Leif felt a lump of emotion rise in his throat as he looked down at Sofia’s withered form. Her clothes were torn and dirty, and her knotted hair was sticking out in a thousand directions. He didn’t see any blood, but it was hard to tell for sure with her clothes being so covered in filth. And she was again lying completely still, not moving. She must be growing weaker by the second. Leif had to shift to human form and see what he could do to help her.

With a roar, he let his dragon form melt away. He slowly came back down to the size of a man, and his wings and tail disappeared, along with his horns. His thick dragon hide faded into tanned human flesh, and his dragon face became the face of a man once more. When his transformation was complete, he rushed to Sofia’s side. She was on her stomach with her face against the cold forest floor, and he gently but swiftly rolled her onto her back, looking for blood or other signs of injury. He saw a couple deep scratches on one of her arms, but nothing else seemed amiss. Her eyes were closed, though, and he feared that she’d suffered internal damage from all the blows that had been thrown at her.

“Please still be alive,” he whispered as he put two fingers on her wrist, searching for a pulse. To his relief, he found one. At least he knew she wasn’t dead. But, how was he supposed to know what was wrong with her, or how to help her, if all of her injuries were internal and she was completely nonresponsive? Leif was beginning to regret having left Torch Lake without even pausing to grab a radio. He needed to call for help, but how? He started searching Sofia’s pockets, looking for a radio there, but of course she didn’t have one either. He noticed she wasn’t even wearing her magic ring. The Dark Warriors would have taken any form of weapon or communication device away from her. Searching her pockets was bound to be a waste of time.

Leif was about to go search the area to see if someone from the Dark Warriors had left behind a radio he could use to contact Torch Lake, when Sofia’s eyes fluttered open. Leif’s heart constricted in his chest as she blinked a few times and then settled her gaze on him. He hadn’t realized until just that moment exactly how terrified he had been of losing her, and the thought overwhelmed him.

“Sofia!” he choked out. “You’re awake.” He didn’t know what else to say. His heart filled with words that he could not allow his mouth to say. He wasn’t sure how to label the emotions he was feeling right now, but he knew he’d never felt anything close to this level of concern for anyone else—and he’d been in plenty of battles where friends had been wounded, sometimes fatally. Yet nothing had ever affected him the way Sofia’s sudden awakening had just affected him. Was it possible he cared for her on a level deeper than just friendship? Confused, Leif tried to push the feeling away and focused on seeing what he could do to help Sofia right then. She was struggling to talk now.

“I…I don’t remember what just happened. I was fighting Vincent, I think? But they’re not here anymore. And there were two dragons. I think they were Seth and Evan. But they’re gone now?” Sofia looked around in confusion. “Did I dream all that? But I must have been in some sort of fight, right? Every muscle in my body feels like it’s been twisted up the wrong way. I hurt everywhere.”

She tried to sit up, and her hand immediately went to her head. “I feel dizzy.”

Leif put out a hand to settle her. “Shh. Just lie still for a moment. You were in a fight, but all of the Dark Warriors are gone now. You’re safe. Relax, and catch your breath.”

For a moment, Sofia looked like she might protest. But finally, she nodded slightly and let her body go limp against the ground once more. Leif heard her take in several deep breaths and exhale slowly, as though she were trying to calm her nerves. He felt the need to calm down himself. The adrenaline from the battle still coursed through his veins, and he felt on edge as he looked around the clearing. He was angry, not only that dark magic had once again found its way into Torch Lake, but that the leader of this dark magic group had tried to kill Sofia. All his protective urges took over, and he had to bite back tears. He couldn’t bear the thought of something happening to her. How had been so foolish, to not see who she truly was?

“Are you okay?” she asked, breaking into his thoughts. Her voice was stronger now, and she sat up again. This time, she managed to get her torso completely upright without succumbing to dizziness.

“I’m fine,” Leif said, pasting a broad smile on his face. “Glad to see you sitting up. You really scared me there for a minute.”

Sofia frowned at him. “Are you sure? You don’t look fine. You look like you’re ready to kill someone.”

Leif had to chuckle. “Well, trust me. I’d be happy to kill Vincent or any of his minions if they tried to come back here again.”

Sofia kept frowning. “So I guess the High Council told you about Vincent? And about who I am?”

Leif nodded. “Yeah. I came to the High Council building this morning not long after the Dark Warriors broke in and forced you to open the vaults. The High Council explained everything to me at that point. I…I owe you an apology. I’ve treated you like shit, when all the while you were working so hard to help our cause.”

Sofia dropped her head. “Not hard enough. I can’t believe the Dark Warriors managed to use me to get into the vaults. I was so weak!”

“Hey. No one blames you, okay? We all saw the video footage of what happened. No one could have stood up to an attack like that on their own. You did the best you could. The best anyone could. I mean it.” Leif reached out and grabbed her hands in his. He was surprised at how small they felt in his, and at how cold they were. He was also surprised by the sudden flip flops his heart did when his skin touched hers. He tried to ignore the way his heart beat faster, and he hoped that his emotions weren’t showing as strongly on his face as they felt inside of him. Now that the excitement of battle was finally starting to fade, he had expected his sudden infatuation with Sofia to fade as well. But it seemed to only grow stronger. He forced himself to hold her gaze, and he was surprised to see that her eyes were burning with emotion, too. But what emotion was it? It wasn’t possible that she was suddenly feeling something for him too, was it? He had been nothing but rude to her since the day he met her, and he was sure she hadn’t been able to stand him because of that. Surely, one battle wasn’t enough to change all that. Or was it? The way she was looking at him now left him wondering.

She was the first to look away. She stared up at the treetops, as though waiting for someone to fly back into the clearing suddenly. But everything around them was mercifully still right now. Even the breeze had ceased.

“So, what happened?” she asked. “I don’t remember much after I saw you. Vincent knocked me to the ground, and the two dragons were thrashing around. Then you appeared, and then everything went black.”

“I drove them all off,” Leif said with a shrug. “It wasn’t that hard to do, really. They were using dark magic spells, but they’re not very good fighters. Most of the spells just bounced off my dragon hide. I actually brought Vincent down with a tree branch, funny enough.”

“A tree branch?”

“Yeah, he was trying to use you as a shield, so I burned off a tree branch from high above him. It fell on him and knocked him out. Possibly killed him, but I can’t be sure.”

Sofia looked back at where the tree branch still lay on the ground in a heap of tangled twigs and leaves. “Wow. The dark magic master brought down by a tree branch. If he is still alive, he’s going to be horribly embarrassed by that.”

Leif laughed. “Yeah, I guess he is.”

“But what about the two dragons? What happened to them? Were they Seth and Evan? Do the Dark Warriors still have them? We have to go help them!”

Sofia started to stand, but Leif pulled her back down.

“Calm down. There weren’t actually two dragons there. Some of the Dark Warriors wizards were casting some sort of optical illusion spell or something. They wanted it to look like they had captured two dragons so they could scare you and anyone who rescued you into thinking that they are actually a lot stronger than they are. I have to admit, they had me worried for a minute. I wasn’t sure what I was getting into, fighting with a group that had already captured two dragons. But I wasn’t about to leave you alone with them, so I decided I had to fight no matter how many dragons they had captured. When I landed on the ground, I could tell they were fake. There was no scent of dragon around, and, besides, the two “dragons” kept writhing around in pain even when no one was attacking them anymore.”

Sofia’s eyes widened. “You’re right. I sort of noticed that, too. I thought it was really odd. But if that wasn’t Seth and Evan, where are Seth and Evan?”

“I don’t know, exactly,” Leif admitted. “I left Torch Lake in a hurry, and didn’t bring a radio with me. I’m assuming they are somewhere north of us. This part of the Gray Oasis Forest isn’t very close to where most of the dark monsters hide out, so it wouldn’t make much sense for them to be here.”

“You left Torch Lake without a radio?” Sofia sounded incredulous. Leif shifted a bit uncomfortably.

“Yeah, well, you were in a lot of danger. I didn’t want to waste a single second.”

“But surely the High Council would have insisted you take some supplies with you?”

Leif felt even more uncomfortable. “Well, uh, the High Council didn’t actually send me. I just came myself, without their permission.”

Sofia looked at him like he’d just grown a third head. “Do they know you’re here, at least?”

Leif nodded. He was suddenly painfully aware of the fact that he was still holding Sofia’s hands, and he let them go as he looked off into the distance. There was nothing to see out here other than trees and rocks, but he acted like the pine tree a few dozen feet away was the most interesting thing he’d ever seen. He had never been the type to defy a High Council, but this had been a matter of life and death. Surely, Sofia could see that. How could he explain that to her, though? And why the hell did he suddenly care so much about what she thought?

Before Leif could get himself too worked up about the situation, Sofia started to laugh. It started off as a small chuckle, but quickly grew to full-on giggles, and then to roaring guffaws. Leif gave her a blank stare. Was she making fun of him?

“What’s so funny?” he demanded.

She wiped tears from her eyes as she kept on laughing. “I don’t know,” she finally managed to choke out. “It’s just that I spent so much time trying to convince you that I wasn’t an awful person. All it took for you to realize that was my getting kidnapped, I guess. Maybe I should have gotten kidnapped from the start. Now you’re so convinced of my worth that you took off to find me without the High Council knowing.”

“Well, they know,” Leif said reluctantly. “They saw me take off, and I’m pretty sure several of them were yelling at me to stop. But I chose not to hear.”

Sofia grinned as she finally got her laughter under control. “Well, in any case, it’s nice to know you don’t hate me anymore.”

“Yeah, about that…” Leif swallowed nervously. “I owe you a big apology. I treated you like crap, and there’s no excuse for that.”

Sofia shrugged. “It’s okay. You didn’t know who I was.”

Leif shook his head. “No, it’s not okay. Regardless of who you are, I should have treated you with more respect. I was so caught up in trying to prove myself in my new position that I lost sight of what’s important. I wanted to prove that I could handle the Dragon Utilization Department better than anyone, but I let my ego get too big. I should have been more focused on combating dark magic, and less focused on being better than everyone else. The truth is that you are a lot better than me. Now that I know who you are, and how hard you’ve worked and how many sacrifices you’ve made to protect Torch Lake from dark magic, I feel like a fool for ever thinking I was better than you.”

Sofia smiled at him. “It’s really okay. I know I was hard on you. I did my best to annoy you intentionally. The more you hated me and thought I was actually a snobby junior auditor, the more convincing I was to Vincent. But now that my cover is blown anyway, I have to say that I’m relieved you don’t hate me anymore. I admire you, and all the effort you’ve put into the dragon training program. It’s true that the more dragons we have, the safer Torch Lake will be. For what it’s worth, the High Council was heartbroken to have to end the dragon training program early. But they didn’t feel like they had a choice. They didn’t want Vincent to find out who I was, and if it looked like I was balking at the idea of getting two promising dragon shifters out of Torch Lake, Vincent would have been suspicious.”

“But now your cover is blown anyway. And that’s all my fault, too. He figured it out because of what you said to me in the grocery store. I should never have cornered you like that.”

Sofia shook her head. “It’s not your fault. It’s mine. Regardless of how cornered I felt, I shouldn’t have hinted at being a spy. I was an idiot to do so in a public place. The fault is mine. And I hope we can move past our rough start and be friends.”

Leif tried to ignore the sudden urge to say he wanted to be more than just friends. She’d given him no indication that she had feelings for him, and he was bound to make her angry if he tried to make a move on her now. She was offering him friendship, and he should take that gratefully. After everything he’d said to her, and all the times he’d treated her like the enemy, she would have been within her rights to say she never wanted to see him again. Instead, she was forgiving him and offering the olive branch of friendship. He should take that and then keep his big mouth shut. He’d come here to save her from dark magic, nothing more. So he smiled at her and extended his hand.

“I would like that very much,” he said. “Friends?”

“Friends,” she repeated, taking his hand. And then, to his utter shock, she leaned in and kissed him.