A Dragon's Heart (6 page)

“Wait. Did you see this?” Dag pointed to the monitor in front of him. It was a map with detailed notes of important worldly locations and names.

“The humans want to use us as weapons.” Drakk couldn’t believe it. All that time they had cooperated, it was all for them to find a way to control them. The U.S. government wanted world domination. He flipped through the file. Certain words popped out at him. “Alluminati. Skull and Crossbones. Celebrities. Government leaders. They are all working for a new world order.”

“Check this shit out!” Brak exclaimed.

“What is that?” Jex read, not believing his eyes.

“Concentration camps. FEMA. Red Cross. They are all behind it! Look! The damn camps are setup all over. Louisiana, Georgia, Washington. All of them are hidden in remote areas. This is a stockpile of plastic caskets. From what this is saying, each casket holds up to three bodies. There are rows and rows of them out in a heavily camouflaged compound. These assholes are preparing for a war, with us as the weapons. Page after page of this stuff all leads back to this. They want to imprison anyone who gets in their way.” Brak might not be fond of humans, but this was ridiculous. They lived on Earth, and if the government took control and forced humans to submission, it affected them in more ways than one.

“Shit. Here are blueprints for ration cards and scanners. This is end of the world crap, boys. They want to use computer chips placed in the palm to control them. Anyone that doesn’t comply ends up in one of their camps or dies. This is unbelievable.”

“They can’t possibly think it’ll work. Heck, half of all citizens own guns. It’ll be another revolutionary war. People aren’t going to allow this.”

“That’s why they want us. They know we are more powerful than any weapon they have created. What they don’t realize is we have more magic than they could ever dream possible. All they see is size and strength. If there are other clans out there, we need to get to them before they do. It’s going to take as many of us as we can get.” Gandore couldn’t believe what he saw. Of all the centuries he had walked Earth, he had never seen something to this degree. Then it hit him. A long time ago, there was a secret society, which devoted their life to keeping the balance of the world and fought against the cults and organizations out to make profits on others’ losses. There was no doubt they still existed, and were needed more now than ever. “The Templar Guard.”

“What? You can’t actually think they are still around...” Peyon leaned back in his chair.

“If you remember correctly, dear friend, we swore our allegiance to them and will always be Guards. If we exist, the Guards exist.”

“Gandore has a point. Peyon, pull up the history on each member, then track down their descendants. Chances are that neither time nor technology has changed the family heritage that is passed down between generations. The Templar Guard is and always will be. It’s just a matter of finding them. They have never been discovered throughout history. Our lineage and the fact we are in the inner circle will help.” Drakk leaned forward on his elbows, feeling Aislinn’s closeness as a distraction. He needed to stay focused and not allow a measly human girl to have such an effect on him.

“You do realize how hard this will be, don’t you? They have kept the location of the Holy Grail hidden for hundreds of years, and still only members know about the marriage between him and Mary Magdalene and his only heir. If secrets like that have been kept, what makes you think they will trust us?” Drakk knew his words were true being the oldest amongst them, and yet even they didn’t believe him fully. The Guards all dedicated their life to upholding their ways and secrets. Just because the dragons were members didn’t guarantee the trust bond was still intact after years of silence on their part. It would take time and a ton of convincing to get their foot back in the door.

“This is crazy. Jesus…secret groups…you all have lost your mind. There is no way this is possible…” Her thoughts trailed off to old stories her grandmother used to tell her as a child. Stories of ancient magic and voodoo that their ancestors supposedly held, and large creatures who soared through the air and could burn whole villages to a crisp if angered. Maybe they weren’t legends. Dragons were obviously as real as the air she breathed. So, did she have the voodoo magic? The idea of her once thought captors who she felt protective of after such a short time being hunted for personal capitalism and financial gain had her willing to do whatever it took to protect them, and the fate of the world. “I need to go back to the shop. There are old books stacked in the back that I thought were just old folklore.”

“What kind of folklore?” Jex asked.

“Voodoo. Witchcraft. I think there are even dragons mentioned. It has been years since I have looked through them, but if what she said was true, instead of just stories to fuel my imagination, I might be able to help.”

Drakk glanced at the others, and nodded. He knew the witches of New Orleans back when they practiced in the open and the power they held. If Aislinn was truly a descendant of that bloodline, she would be more help than he had originally anticipated. He also needed to get away from her long enough to get his common sense back. Being in tight quarters with her had only shoved the natural mating instincts in his face despite his determination to avoid it. Once Jex claimed her, his normality could return. What better way to speed up the process than give them both ample opportunity and time together? “Jex, fly Aislinn back to gather the grimoires and whatever personal items she needs for the next few days.”

“Wait…fly? I hate to break it to you but people might not react well to seeing a giant flying lizard in the sky,” Aislinn said sarcastically.

“Not if they can’t see it. I told you…we have abilities. One of them happens to be invisibility,” Drakk explained.

“Wow.” Aislinn found it hard to believe, but given she was standing amongst seven fire breathing massive dragons—anything was possible at this point.

“If you think that’s cool you should see what other talents we have…” Jex wagged his eyebrows.

Aislinn rolled her eyes, but her imagination took a sharp turn into the gutter. Her body heated at the thoughts that floated through her mind. Knowing she would be sleeping in a cave with three hot, drool-worthy, muscled hunks didn’t help her situation. Jex turned to her and locked eyes, a shit eating grin spread across his face. Could he read her thoughts? Her eyes went wide. The others all refused to make eye contact with her, finding interest in the files on the monitors.

“It looks like you get to ride me, baby.” His sexual innuendo only embarrassed her more. The fact he began to strip in front of her only added to it. She needed to get away, and fast. She turned and all but ran out of the cave. She needed fresh air, and distance from them all.

Chapter Six

Jex smiled to himself as Aislinn shifted once again on his back. Drakk and he were going to have to talk tonight, because he could see when they left how pissed his leader was that Aislinn was on his back. This wasn’t going to work unless they were on the same page—there was no room for jealousy.

Regardless, he had her on his back for now, and Jex was loving it. The way she laughed and enjoyed herself as they traveled through the skies was enough to make him want to fly all night long, but they couldn’t. They had a job to do, and the sooner they got what she needed from her place, the sooner they could get back into the air.

Before they left when Aislinn had walked outside, Drakk had spoken to them all in low tones about his suspicions.

“I think she is a latent,” he had said quietly.

“Probably why your dreams led us here,” Gandore had agreed.

“Does anyone remember how the witches got their full power?” Brak had asked and looked at Jex and Drakk closely. They all knew the answer, because they all knew the history, the asshole was just trying to make them say it out loud so Drakk would pull his head out of his ass soon.

“
No
,” Drakk had growled.

“It is the only way.” Xavier laughed.

The men smiled at their leader. Of course none of them said outright that the only way for a latent witch to gain her full powers was to be fully mated with her true mate. In this case, Aislinn apparently had two, and unless she mated with them both she would never have her powers. They had seen it happen before, only once, but it had made a lasting effect.

Most dragons were solitary creatures and way too arrogant to share. The problem was in their genes. However, there were cases where the witches were so full of power the witch would need to mate two dragons to contain it. In the one case they knew of it had not been successful. Mostly because one of the dragons refused to admit he had to share his mate. He had taken the witch away from their third and hidden her. After he had mated her, she had slowly begun to gain power, he was arrogant enough to think he could contain it. It had not taken long for the dragon to realize his mistake. By then the damage had been done. The female had gone mad from power and ended up killing both herself and the dragon before they could make it back to their other mate.

So the elders of the Templar Guard had been notified, and if a triad was to be formed, they would automatically be made a part of the guard, since the power would help them in their protection of the balance. Each of the men belonged to the guard, and as they stared at one another, Drakk had cursed loudly.

“The seer foretold this.” Gandore smiled.

“What?” Jex had asked, scratching his head.

“The seer,” Gandore said and laughed. “More than a hundred years ago, just before we allowed Langston to convince us to move, a seer came to us. She told us she had a vision of a time when the Templar Guard would be made up of only triads. They would need it to face the danger that was looming over the humans. We all just nodded because she seemed a bit crazy with the one eye that seemed to move at weird times. It was creepy, you know. Anyway, we figured it would be long after we were around, I guess we were wrong, huh.”

“We don’t know anything yet,” Drakk growled.

“You can feel it, I know it,” Jex had said to his friend and the man had growled at him.

“You don’t know a damn thing,” Drakk had said.

“You can’t run from the mating heat, and if she was meant for us, then she was meant for us,” Jex shrugged.

“I don’t want a mate!” Drakk had yelled.

“But you have one,” Jex had told him and watched as he struggled with this thought. Jex knew Drakk was attracted to Aislinn, hell, they all did, the tension in the air when they were together was enough to convince them.

“Yeah, I know,” Drakk had said darkly.

Jex had tried to talk to him them, but Drakk had stalked off once again. When they got back, they would talk. There was nothing to be done, if the seer was right.

“Jex!” Aislinn yelled, bringing him out of his thoughts and he smiled.

“Yeah, babe,” Jex yelled.

“Down,” she laughed and he looked, sure enough, they were closer than he thought.

“Sorry, was enjoying the ride,” Jex said smoothly.

As they landed, Jex remained cloaked and it wasn’t until she stepped off his back that Aislinn was visible to anyone, if a human would have been staring it would have seemed like she appeared out of nowhere, thank goodness there was no one in the alley where he landed.

“Hurry, babe, don’t want to spend too much time here. Don’t know who could be out there,” Jex growled and waited until she nodded. He saw her biting her lip and wondered for a brief moment if she was going to run on him. Before they left she had assured him she wouldn’t, she was too curious about what was going on.

“Okay,” she said and nodded. “Give me a few minutes.”

Jex nodded, he was going to stand guard while she went on the hunt for the books. He could shift back to human, but if he did and they had to make a quick getaway, they would waste precious time.

So while Jex waited, he planned. How were they going to know if she was their true mate? And if she was, how were they going to tell her she was their true mate? What would she think, hell, it had been so long since he had to actually woo anyone, Jex wasn’t sure if he could actually do it.

When they were in the facility it was easy, the human females were enamored with them. Every night, one of the women would slip into their room if they wanted company. Shit, now they were going to have to work for it. What had he done before?

Jex thought hard and then realized he never had worked for it. He had never been in a relationship before; he had never had to think about what a woman wanted. Looking inside the store, he saw Aislinn with a large bag. She was shoving books and other things into it, plus making phone calls to ensure someone took care of the business while she was gone.

He looked to the street and then frowned. People were passing and he stepped closer to watch. A couple was stopped in front of a store across the street; the man was smiling as the woman shook her head. Closing his eyes, he focused and heard their conversation. He was buying her a scarf she wanted, and she was arguing over the cost of it. Jex listened to her tone of voice though, he could tell she really was happy when the man mentioned he had seen her looking at it for weeks, and wanted her to have it.

Then he watched as others on the street shopped. Couples who were in love, buying things for each other, or just walking hand in hand.
That is what he wanted
, he thought.

“Jex,” Aislinn whispered and he turned and saw her standing in the alley looking for him.

In that one moment, he had a plan, and one he knew was going to work. With a grin, he lumbered back to her and whispered, “Here,” in her ear.

She jumped and laughed when he plucked her up and put her on his back, they needed to get back to the cave, then he could talk to Drakk about how they were going to win her over.

*****

Aislinn frowned as she read the books in front of her. One of them her mother had given her before she died, but it didn’t make sense. It was written as if her mother believed she had magic that was untapped. She read of her great grandmother who passed down a story about their ancestors. The dragons held her other books and were looking at them as well; her mother’s journals were the only thing Aislinn refused to give them.