For the Memory of Dragons
Read For the Memory of Dragons Online
Authors: Julie Wetzel
Tags: #romance, #fantasy, #magic, #science fiction, #dragons, #sorcery, #shifters, #new adult
Julie Wetzel
For my favorite brother, Forest.
I love you. Call home!
THIS book is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places and incidents are the product of the authors' imagination or
are used factiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or
dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely
coincidental.
NO part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or
distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.
Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted
materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only
authorized editions.
For the Memory of Dragons
Copyright ©2015 Julie Wetzel
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-63422-146-7
Cover Design by: Marya Heiman
Typography by: Courtney Nuckels
Editing by: Cynthia Shepp
~Smashwords Edition~
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Beating his wings hard, Alex pushed past the
pain and raced higher into the sky. Droplets of water brushed over
his face as he broke into the cloud cover.
Safe
.
Without a direct line of sight, the mage
firing at him wouldn’t be able to get a clean shot in. His muscles
quivered from the two glancing blows he’d already taken while
trying to escape. Swallowing back his grief, he clutched his
leather bag against his chest. He had to get this information to
Daniel before more dragons died at the hands of these monsters.
Pushing himself as fast as his injuries
would let him, Alex pulled a sharp turn, hoping his attackers would
follow the original course he’d set. He turned a few more times
before letting his instincts take over and lead him off in the
direction he needed to go.
The soft caress of the clouds lifted, and
Alex found himself in open skies. The whip of the air lapped the
moisture from his scales, cooling his heated skin. It felt
wonderful. For all of ten seconds.
White-hot currents of electricity cracked
across his hide, taking him by surprise. How the hell had that mage
tracked him through the clouds? Alex tried to roar in pain, but
everything had seized up as the bolt of magic raced through his
body. He clenched his twitching muscles around his satchel as he
spun out of control. No matter what happened, he couldn’t lose that
bag and its contents.
Forcing his unresponsive wings out, Alex
tried to right himself, but he only managed to propel himself into
an odd spin. He tried to gain his bearings so he could pull himself
out of the fall, but his muscles refused to work properly.
Everything was numb from the electrical shock. The only thing he
was sure of was the ground was closing fast and this was going to
hurt. A lot.
An explosion rattled the windows of the old
farmhouse, wrenching Terra from her book. She cursed as she fell
off the couch and scrambled towards the windows at the back of the
house. It was nice, living out in the middle of nowhere, but it
meant that she had to be more aware of the things going on in the
area around her.
Sure she would find a fireball that went
with the explosion, Terra scanned the skyline. A cloud of dust rose
from the cornfield just behind her house. Cursing again, she
dropped her book on the floor. Something had to have come down over
there, and someone could be hurt. She thought about grabbing her
cell phone, but the reception out here was crap.
First aid kit!
She grabbed the box
from the kitchen and jammed her feet into her shoes.
Possible
fire!
Nabbing the fire extinguisher from the stove, she raced
out the back door.
Terra’s thoughts turned to what could have
fallen from the sky as she pushed through the rows of corn.
A
plane?
Surely there would have been a bigger explosion if some
aircraft had come down.
A meteor?
That would be cool to see.
Racing through the rows, her mind worked on the possibilities.
Completely distracted by the potential of
the fallen object, Terra missed the huge groove the thing had cut
in the crops as it dropped from the sky. Tripping on the edge, she
tumbled down into the bottom of the furrow. Pulling herself up, she
looked around for the wreckage. Oddly, there was none. No scraps of
metal or chunks of anything that could have broken up upon
impact.
Getting to her feet, Terra clutched her fire
extinguisher. Just because there wasn’t a fire to put out didn’t
mean that she didn’t need it. Something had to have torn the great
crater in the ground. If necessary, the heavy object would be great
for bludgeoning whatever alien popped out of the corn.
Carefully, she made her way down the
churned-up path. Seeing movement at the end, she raised her fire
extinguisher, ready to swing it. The dirt exploded from the ground,
and a mythical beast popped out.
Terra screamed and scrambled away as a
dragon thrashed about, trying to stand up. It let out a weak roar
and collapsed in a heap of wings and tail.
Terra peeked out from where she had taken
refuge in the cornstalks.
The creature took a deep breath and
snorted.
Of course, Terra knew dragons weren’t really
mythical creatures. Although she’d been very young at the time, she
still remembered when the dragon king had paraded his entourage
around, showing off the fact that dragons were, indeed, real. And
there were plenty of dragons on TV, but to have a real-live dragon
in her backyard was something else entirely.
Or dead.
Terra eyed the great, blue
beast as it lay in the dirt. It was unnervingly still.
Creeping closer, Terra reached out to touch
the shimmering scales on the thing's shoulder. They were smooth and
hard like polished glass or carefully chiseled bits of sapphire.
She stroked the warm scales, awed by their iridescent quality.
Logically, she knew this was an intelligent creature, but it looked
so much like an animal, with those wickedly pointed horns and
razor-sharp teeth, she wasn’t sure what she should do.
The dragon let out a groan and shivered.
Magic shimmered across the creature, reducing its massive bulk to
the size of a man. He curled on his side in the dirt, naked as the
day he was born.
Shock rooted Terra to the ground for a
moment before she could shake it off. Now
this
she could
handle. A man, even a naked man, was a whole lot better than that
towering bulk of dragon.
“Hey.”
She patted him gently on the shoulder, but
he didn’t move. Grabbing his shoulder, she pulled him onto his
back. Reaching down, Terra checked his pulse, praying he was alive.
A steady beat met her fingers.
Good. A live, naked man was much
better than a dead, naked man any day of the week.
“Hey fella.”
She tried smacking him on the cheek lightly,
but he was out cold.
Great.
She glanced around at the
cornfield. The weather was starting to turn a little chilly, and
she couldn’t leave him out here, exposed as he was. She looked back
down at him. He was easily twice her size and stacked to hell and
back. There was no way she was going to be able to get him up and
out of the cornfield by herself.
Standing up, she dusted the dirt off her
pants and tried to get her mind back in gear. For goodness’ sake,
she was a farm girl and had dealt with bigger issues than this.
Running her eyes over the fallen man, she couldn’t help but notice
other things about him that she would consider a big issue.
Jerking her eyes back under control, she
grabbed up her safety kit and fire extinguisher and headed back to
the farmhouse. She dumped her supplies off in the kitchen and went
to the living room. A blanket—that’s what she really needed.
Ignoring the small afghan on the couch, she decided to go with the
much larger quilt from her bed. So what if she got the handmade
bedding a little dirty? When someone dropped that much beefcake in
your backyard, you needed something extra large to cover it.
Stopping on the porch, an idea hit Terra.
She may not be able to lift him by herself, but she could probably
roll him into something and drag his ass back to the house. Heading
into the barn, she spied an old wheelbarrow.
Perfect!
She
flipped it over and dumped her bedding in the cart. Now all she
needed to do was get him in it. No problem.
Problem.
The man was a whole lot
denser then Terra ever dreamed possible. That much limp bulk was
proving to be a pain in her backside.
“Come
on
!”
She groaned as she yanked on him, trying to
get him up and into the bed of the cart. Giving up on the idea of
lifting him, Terra draped the blanket over the man’s body and laid
the wheelbarrow on its side.
“Get
in
there.”
Grunting, she shoved him backwards into the
cart. Pushing on the top side, she managed to get the wheelbarrow
upright, but it scooped both of them up together.
“Damn it!” she cursed as she flailed around,
trying to get free. This was just what she needed—to be stuck in a
wheelbarrow with a naked man.
Finally, she managed to get untangled from
the guy and out of the cart without tipping it over again. “God,
you’re heavy,” Terra complained as she sat on the ground,
resting.
After a few minutes, she stood up and
flipped the blanket back over the unconscious man. It was a shame
not to appreciate something so fine, but she needed to concentrate
if she had any hope of getting him back to the house. Glancing
around the crater, she found something that didn’t belong. A
leather bag. Grabbing it up, she tossed it in the wheelbarrow with
her load and worked on getting the whole mess back to the
house.
***
Stopping at the bottom of the steps, Terra
looked up at the porch.
Problem number two.
How in the hell
was she supposed to get this dumb lug onto the porch? She couldn’t
pull the cart close and drag him out—the railing was in the way.
And she couldn’t push or pull the wheelbarrow up the steps—they
were much too steep.
Pondering this for a moment, she pushed the
cart next to the bottom step. Sure enough, if she worked the
wheelbarrow up onto the bottom step, the front edge of the bed
would almost touch the porch. If she could get it up there, she
should be able to just slide him out.
Shoving with everything she had, Terra
managed to get the lip of the bed up onto the edge of the porch,
she pushed the handles up, expecting him to slide out. A resounding
thud sounded from the other side of the bed, and she dropped the
empty cart to find her mystery man hadn’t slid out at all; he’d
fallen out. Right on his face.