Dragon Defending (Dragon Apparent Book 7), page 1
DRAGON DEFENDING
DRAGON APPARENT™ BOOK SEVEN
TALIA BECKETT
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This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.
Copyright © 2023 Talia Beckett
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LMBPN Publishing
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Version 1.00 May, 2023
eBook ISBN: 979-8-88541-782-2
Print ISBN: 979-8-88878-388-7
THE DRAGON DEFENDING TEAM
Thanks to my JIT Team:
Dorothy Lloyd
Christopher Gilliard
Jeff Goode
Diane L. Smith
Paul Westman
DEDICATION
To Bryan. Somehow you have an endless patience for the thoughts in my head, the chaos in my life from all its many sources and you look at me through it all the way I hope Neritas looks at Scarlet.
I hope we’re always fighting the demons of life alongside each other.
— Talia
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Connect with the author
Books by Jess Mountifield / Talia Beckett
Other books from LMBPN Publishing
CHAPTER ONE
The world had changed so fast in a short time. I looked out over the crowd that had gathered, able to see them without them being able to see me. It was scary. Politicians, soldiers, cops, and so many reporters that they’d needed to get a bigger tent to hold them all.
The people in charge of the US wanted to keep the dragons contained, so the tent had been set up in a clearing near the side of the road not that far from Detaris, the dragon capital city of the world.
I was the dragon queen, but it hadn’t been a clear route to the throne. Until six months ago I hadn’t even known I was a dragon, let alone royalty.
And the demon I was meant to protect the world from had escaped. Three days ago.
I’d barely slept the night before and had woken up in a pile of tangled limbs with Flick and Neritas. We hadn’t intended to share the bed, but none of us had been able to sleep. After the conversation we’d had, it had gotten worse.
I’d finally told Flick that Neritas had somehow developed the same magical ability as a red dragon and had practiced it as well, and that had taken a weight off my mind. It had hurt Flick to find we’d kept a secret, but he’d understood why we hadn’t said anything at first, and he’d been generally encouraging.
We’d tried to teach him after that, but we didn’t have decent conditions and it wasn’t going to get easier.
After that, we talked until we fell asleep. Neither of them had been awkward about waking up with us all on the same large bed, and I had bigger things to worry about today.
Like telling the whole world that dragons did exist and that I was their queen.
My stomach felt so tight I was afraid I was going to throw up, but I hadn’t eaten anything for my stomach to give back to me. The rest of me was shaking, terrified of what they all might do.
I’d failed them all by letting out a demon intent on enslaving or killing everyone on the planet. I hadn’t been directly responsible, but I had failed to power up his gate in time to stop him from breaking out of his prison.
“It’s almost time,” a woman said to me and then hurried away again.
I was grateful for the warning, but I wasn’t entirely sure what was coming. Not without some kind of explanation.
It was clear I wouldn’t be getting one when the people on the stage started talking.
A woman sat on a bright orange chair. Several more sat opposite and around the area. She seemed to be in charge and only let the others speak when she decided they could. If there was any pattern to it, I couldn’t work it out.
They discussed what was happening and why, and the revelation that there were dragons, for several minutes before the woman cut through all the noise and chatter and brought everyone back to her. “It has been a day of many changes so far, and we’ve all learned a lot, but what can help us most at this point is speaking to a dragon themselves.”
Silence followed this, and I was sure that I wanted to puke. Somehow, I held it together as she motioned for another chair to be put out and someone else motioned for me to walk onto the stage.
“Scarlet, a young woman from LA and also Queen of Detaris, the great dragon city, and the entire dragon population, please come in and have a seat.”
“Thank you,” I replied, trying to test my voice and make sure it worked. The words came out okay, but my voice was a little shaky.
I sank into the chair. Cameras flashed and the light sent bright spots into my eyes, making it harder to see.
“There are a lot of questions that any of us could ask you about where you are in life and what is going on. Many of them involve the dragon city you live in and how you’ve been able to go about your business and fight demons all the time.” My host smiled as if she’d said something very normal, but I knew it wouldn’t be anywhere near normal for pretty much everyone watching.
“There’s a lot in that statement alone,” I replied. “I haven’t been queen for very long, and I’ve lived as a human and in the human community for most of my life.”
“You don’t look like much of a dragon right now. Can you explain how you are a dragon? Many don’t believe it. They think that maybe you have a dragon, or that the dragon is nothing but an illusion. That all the videos are fake. Can you shed some light on how you’re sitting in front of us like a human but you are a dragon?”
I tilted my head to one side as I thought, trying to work out how to explain this or prove it in some way, then I remembered one of the first things I had done to get better control of my dragon transformation: changing a small subsection of the body at once.
I stretched out my hand and indicated that the cameras should all focus on it, then concentrated and shifted the skin from the pink fleshy softness of a human hand and arm to a more dragon-like appendage. My fingers became claws, and deep red scales spread.
There were gasps from those closest to me and some people shuffled further back.
“Go on, touch it and see for yourself,” I said. “Hopefully it will help show you that dragons are real.”
The presenter hesitated, but the guy next to her, who had been hanging back until now, was less scared and got up so he could come closer. He ran his hand slowly down my scales, his eyes going wide as he did.
“Wow. It’s definitely very real, and this is your arm.” He moved back, impressed.
His bravery helped to encourage others to give it a try and feel my scales. All of them sat back, satisfied that I wasn’t entirely human.
“Thank you, everyone,” the presenter said. “We have checked, stroked, and confirmed for ourselves that Scarlet here is a dragon with scales and the ability to shift between human and dragon form.”
As she said the last few words, I went fully back to my human form. Although some dragons in Detaris had gotten used to holding a sort of halfway shift and appearing with patches of human features and skin and others of scales and dragon assets, I preferred to be one or the other entirely.
“Okay, so you are a dragon and you are a queen. You seem to do a lot of fighting, for a queen.”
“I do. There is a threat that likes to plague my life and the lives of others. I first discovered it when a good friend of mine went missing and these creatures were looking for him and sniffing around. Eventually, they locked onto me and started chasing me. Sorry, mayor of LA. That park that looked like a train wreck had hit it and then somehow miraculously disappeared? I was learning to fly and running scared from one of my first ever shadow catcher encounters.” I wasn’t really that sorry for it. It wasn’t as if I had done it deliberately, and I had done everything I could to get away from the demons another way.
It made the audience laugh, however, and it took the edge off the conversation we were having. Making them laugh was also something I hoped would endear them to me.
“And you have been fighting the same creatures ever since. Is that correct?”
I nodded. “They keep coming. Because I’m one of the few dragons left with the gift needed to harm them, they actively hunt my kind. But they will also hurt others nearby if someone gets too close and the drone-like demons don’t have the more sensible mind of a handler to control them.”
“But this hasn’t been working lately?”
Thankful for the reporter’s question, I seized my moment to talk to everyone about what had happened and how we were going to fix it.
I talked about how the gate had grown weaker but the knowledge to repair it had disappeared with time, and dragons who had been hunted down to almost nothing had taken the rest of the knowledge about it with them. Although I talked instead of answering the exact question, no one interrupted me as I explained what it had been like.
Despite telling my own story in my own words, there were things I left out. I didn’t mention the bullies or Grigick, and I glossed over the majority of the difficulties I had been having with the elders.
By the time I was getting to the fateful journey to the gate and everything that had happened, I was sure that I was losing a few people, but thankfully, the news had captured a lot of that day.
“Most of you know what happened next. You’ve seen the footage, so I won’t bore you with the details, other than to say, we did our best that day. Tried to get everything coordinated and information to the people who needed it. But humanity wasn’t ready for this, and dragons have slowly made themselves less so.”
“And the gate opened, exploding out another dragon?” The presenter asked the question with a lot of concern in her voice, but it was an awkward question and asked in such a way that I wasn’t going to look good, no matter the answer.
“Firstly, I want to clarify that it was not a dragon. It may have looked like a dragon, but it isn’t one. There are theories that once upon a time it might have been, but many, many lives ago. It is stretched thin now and much more like the demons it controls. Handlers are also similar. They were once creatures that have been corrupted and morphed and become part of something akin to shadow catcher and also partly a corrupted version of whatever they started as.”
The presenter and other people nodded and asked some questions about the handler and main demon. I couldn’t answer all of them, but I tried to do so to the best of my ability.
“Is there anything else you’d like to say before we open this up to questions from our audience and news reporters?” the presenter asked.
“Yes. That I’m sorry. It was my duty as queen and leader of the magical creatures of this world to protect you all. I failed. The demon has escaped its prison and now there is no telling exactly what it will do. I’m truly sorry. I will do everything I can to defeat it again and protect you all, as it is my duty to do.”
There were a few murmurs at this, and I got the feeling it would create a few questions. Alitas had tried to prepare me for this earlier that morning. He’d been asking me difficult questions, and I had tried to be truthful while also being guarded.
After a little while, he had nodded and told me that I stood as good a chance as any at getting out of this one alive. Now I would see how much that preparation helped.
“It sounds as if you’ve screwed up a lot along the way. What makes you think you’re fit to be queen?” The guy who’d said it was glaring at me. I wondered if there was any way to answer this question or if the guy simply wanted me to fail.
“It’s easy to look at what’s gone wrong in hindsight and make second guesses about what would have happened and who might be to blame, but no matter how much people want to act like they know better, the truth is, we all did our best at the time and could have done no more.”
“So you’re just ruling over us whether we want it or not?”
“I’m not ruling over anyone forcefully. I do not want to start civil wars, or any other kind of war. All I want to do is use my magic to pull the demon back and put him back in his eternal hell hole.”
The questions continued, and despite my reassurances that they were safe and that I wouldn’t rule over anyone, dragon or human, in a way they weren’t okay with, some people couldn’t grasp the logic and seemed to constantly be hitting a mental block. They wanted to charge me with a crime and declare me an illegitimate queen.
It got more and more out of control until one of the army soldiers stood up near the back of the tent and yelled at the top of his voice, “Enough! This is still the United States of America, and you are still all free citizens.”
As he finished speaking, the crowd quieted and enough of them shuffled and sat that I was able to see to the back. It was Colonel Flint, and he gave me a grim smile and a curt nod before also sitting back down.
I appreciated the support from him all the more for how chaotic and angry it had begun to get. They weren’t thinking clearly, and I didn’t know how to calm them down properly.
“Why don’t we take a short break?” the presenter said. “Scarlet can come back in a few minutes, and we’ll talk more about the future and you can ask more questions about the role she plays and what is going on.”
Relieved, I was soon up and on my feet and heading for an exit. It felt a little shameful to not stick around and to be clearly eager to leave, but I wasn’t going to burst anyone’s anger or happy bubble.
All I wanted was to find the demon king and get him back in his prison.
CHAPTER TWO
Once I was out of the hostile environment and the adrenaline had started to run out, I cried. Neritas and Alitas tried to comfort me, but I felt like a total failure. The demon had got out because of me.
“I’ve said this before, and I seem to need to say this again. You are not to blame.” Alitas put a hand on my shoulder. “Everyone out there may be freaking out, but they’ll get over it and get used to having a queen around on US soil and a president.”
“I don’t want anything from them. I’m not trying to make their lives harder. Just defeat a demon.”
“And that is what will come out eventually. A sort of thank you for making life work despite all the danger and difficulties.”
I nodded as the stagehand asked me if I was ready to go live again. I wasn’t sure that I was, but they needed someone to talk to them and it was better me than anyone else.
More people had crammed their way into the tent. Reporters from foreign delegations had joined as well, and more police. The latter was probably to help keep law and order among the humans.
With my head held high and a brief respite to take care of my mental state, I walked back on stage and retook my seat. Not quite everyone was ready, so I waited for a few seconds and looked around. After a while, I met the eyes of a young woman. She was standing in the reporter section, but I hadn’t seen her in the previous round.
She smiled at me and waved. I returned the gesture, and she took a few steps forward, coming closer so that she might say something over the din of the crowd.
A cop came out to stop her from getting too close, but I waved my hand so they would let her through.
