“Where’s Lana?” Casian asked when Andreas reappeared outside.

“Safe.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve done something stupid.”

Andreas fixed his gaze on Casian. “She is going to be furious with me when all this is over, but she will be alive. There is nothing more to it.”

Kalen chose that moment to enter their conversation. “You did not lock her in her room…” he said, incredulity to his tone.

“I did what was necessary.”

“Clearly you don’t want her to forgive you,” Casian stated with the shake of his head.

“There are more important things right now,” Andreas argued, his tone not betraying a single hint of emotion. He tried to fight off the memory of kissing her, mere minutes ago, but was unsuccessful.

Raphael, flanked by Eric, ran up to their group, finally disrupting Andreas’ thoughts. They looked as troubled as one would expect. “Mallory took Izzy inside and she said she’d make sure that she remains safe. Natalia is with them to ensure the same thing. We just need to keep the dragon out here so he can’t reach them,” Raphael said, his voice slightly out of breath.

“All the women as safe them?” Kalen asked, concern etched into his features.

Casian furrowed his eyebrows. “Should we account for Leita? Or am I the only one who believes that she is quite capable of defending herself?”

“She scares me…” Eric commented, his eyebrows raised inward.

Before anyone could say another word, a deep, menacing roar echoed through the sky. Any other preparations they might’ve taken, were now an afterthought. The dragon had returned. They could do no more than stare at the massive beast as he grew closer and closer.

“Andreas, I sincerely hope your powers extend to fighting un-killable creatures….” Kalen commented, his gaze fixed on the approaching dragon.

“That would make two of us,” Andreas replied in a tone that was almost too low for them to hear. He had never been faced with anything remotely close to this caliber. While he had always known that other magical beings besides sorcerers existed in their world, he hadn’t come into contact with any of them until he met Leita. Dragons were completely out of his range of knowledge; it was one of the reasons he wanted Lana away from the fight. Even he had no idea how to beat this enemy.

Fire scorched down to them as the dragon swept by mere inches from their heads. The sorcerers were quick to act, throwing up fire-resistant force-fields before the fire could touch them. Casian was just standing there casually with his arms folded across his chest like this meant nothing to him and Andreas fought the urge to roll his eyes.

The dragons circle away from them, and a figure jumped from its back and landed on the ground before them. Slowly, Andreas started to make out his features. It was a man in what appeared to be his early forties. Andreas’ eyebrows scrunched up as this fact tried to settle in his mind. From what he had learned from Casian, dragon lords were chosen once they reach their physical prime, which typically happens around the ages of twenty four to twenty eight. Why was this man different?

“Aspen,” Raphael commented, his voice cold and deadly. Andreas could almost approve. This must be the dragon lord that Elisa introduced him to. Fury made its way through Andreas. If that was true, then the dragon lord was here for Raphael. Lana and Izzy were in danger because of Raphael. Andreas could barely believe that he could have another reason for wanting to kill the light sorcerer.

A wicked gleam filled the man’s eyes as a crooked, malicious smile formed on his lips. Andreas had to give him credit for trying to appear menacing. The dragon landed behind Aspen, keeping close to his lord.

“Raphael, so glad to find you. When my dragon told me that there were sorcerers here, we could only hope that you would be one of them.” There was an amusement to Aspen’s tone that Andreas found annoying. Annoying because he recognized it as one he used often as well.

“Let me guess. The queen sent you here to kill me because I refuse to join her in the persecution of my kind?” Raphael’s eyes were narrowed slits, sharp as daggers.

Aspen shrugged. “Pretty much. And it seems like I might be getting more than I bargained for. Five for the price of two.”

Casian started laughing as Andreas raised a single eyebrow.

“People are always so quick to judge, believing they have won the battle before they even realize who they are dealing with,” Andreas commented, his voice low and heavy. His dark cloud started wrapping affectionately around his legs. It had been a while since he saw it, but welcomed the flood of power the darkness brought.

Aspen waved him off. “You are a mere sorcerer. You are no match for me.”

Casian couldn’t seem to help himself and started laughing even louder. Everyone turned their attention on him, glaring at him like he had grown a third eye.

“Oh, I apologize. Don’t mind me. I just find you hilarious. You seem awfully confident that we are all sorcerers and that you can beat us,” Casian noted, still laughing.

The older dragon lord folded his arms across his chest and scowled at Casian. “I know I will beat you. There is not a single doubt in my mind.”

“There should be,” Andreas and Casian said at exactly the same time.

This amused Aspen. “I see what you are doing. You think by making yourself sound powerful, that you will succeed in intimidating me. You are wrong. I have killed far more powerful sorcerers than the likes of you.”

“I am not a sorcerer,” Casian said with a shrug.

“There is no sorcerer more powerful than I am,” Andreas replied with the same casual demeanor. Their three companions could help but stare at them wide-eyed.

Aspen’s lips quirked up in the corners. “Oh, is that so?” Behind him, the dragon let out a smoky breath. “Care to enlighten me?”

“Enough of these antics, Aspen. We are here to kill them,” the dragon stated, his voice rough and very deep.

“Not yet,” Aspen said, holding his hand up to halt the dragon. “I’m curious to see why they are so delusional.”

“The only one here under a delusion, is you,” Andreas said.

“Brave for someone in your position, magic user. But my dragon would be able to take out even Andreas Grigoli, so you stand no chance.”

Again, Casian couldn’t contain his laughter. “I am really sorry… this… this is just too funny.” He placed a hand on Andreas’ shoulder. “It appears grandfather over there has heard of you, my friend, but has no idea what you look like. Tell me you see the humor in that.”

“What do you keep babbling about, warlock?” Aspen directed at Casian.

“Again, not a magic user. And you do realize that this man standing here next to me is Andreas Grigoli, right?”

Aspen’s eyes widened slightly, but he failed to look concerned. “What an interesting development. The queen will be pleased to learn that I managed to take out her attacker the same time I took out her traitor.” He rubbed the stubble at his jaw. “I am curious though, if you aren’t a sorcerer, then what are you?”

Casian flashed his teeth. “I’m starting to think you aren’t very bright if you haven’t been able to figure it out by now. I mean, even if it weren’t for that giant, scaled beast behind you, you reek of dragon…. Aren’t you able to identify your own kind with some sort of telepathy or something?”

The dragon snarled. “Aspen, he is a dragon lord. Surely you must have noticed.”

Aspen balled his hands into fists. “I wasn’t paying attention. Enough of this! I don’t care what you are. If you side with the filth of magic, we will kill you too.” Behind him the dragon seemed to stiffen as a small shape fell in line next to Casian.

“He is just a baby,” the dragon said.

“I don’t care. Kill them. Kill them all.”

The dragon rose to the air again, and dove straight for Andreas. Eric and Raphael had the sense to jump out of the way, but Andreas and Kalen remained rooted in their positions. The dragon let out a burst of flames and the sorcerers acted quickly to deflect it, but the beast was still heading their way Andreas managed to lunge away at the last second when he realized the dragon was going to make impact, but Kalen was not as fast to react. The dragon had sliced his upper torso with one of his teeth, and Kalen threw up shield after shield to prevent further damage.

Andreas felt the dark aura taking physical shape all around him, and called it all to him. It was dusk and the sun was setting, and soon the blanket of night will provide him with the advantage he always had in the shadows. He threw a blast of pure energy at the dragon who was still stalking Kalen. The blast of energy didn’t even warrant a reaction from the great beast. He continued his pursuit of Kalen like Andreas hadn’t even done anything at all.

 Kalen was trying everything in his power to try and deflect the dragon, whose sole attention was on the younger sorcerer at that point but the dragon was relentless. From the corner of his eye, Andreas could see Argento approaching the bigger dragon. He was heading up to the older dragon’s legs, wariness written all over his demeanor. Just as the dragon was about to Blast Kalen with his fiery breath, when Argento decided to bite into his leg. That got a reaction from the dragon and he turned away from Kalen long enough for the sorcerer to get away.

The dragon was trying to shake Argento from his leg, but the little guy clung to him like a leech. Andreas hadn’t formally met Casian’s dragon, but he already decided he liked the fellow. He tried to help out the baby dragon and manifested a sword. He charged the dragon and angled the word towards the dragon’s spine. The sword pierced the skin, and the dragon swung his head to Andreas. Realizing he couldn’t pull the sword from the dragon’s scaly skin, he let go of the hilt and was able to throw up a shield right before he was blasted with fire. The dragon, realizing he wasn’t making any progress by attacking the sorcerers with fire, extended his claw toward Andreas and sent the sorcerer flying through the air.

Andreas fell onto his side, landing on his right shoulder. Raphael extended a hand to Andreas, a hand Andreas reluctantly took, and pulled the latter to his feet. Andreas examined the damage to his arm. There was a long gash, gaping with blood, and it was definitely going to scar later, but he couldn’t worry about that now. The dragon didn’t give him much time to recover before breathing fire his way again. This time, Andreas was much slower to react. While Raphael was able to throw up a shield in time, Andreas realized seconds too late what was happening.

Fire spread around him, and he managed to cast a force-field, but not before his arms caught flames. The same arm that seconds ago had a gaping wound on. With the force-field around him, Andreas extinguished the flames on his arm. At least the fire manage to stop the blood from dripping from the wound.

“Andreas, are you okay?” Raphael asked, just as they were blasted with more fire. The world around them was shield from their sights. They kept their shield’s up, but could already begin to feel their power waning.

“I’m fine! But magic seems to be useless against this creature!”

“I noticed! How do we fight him when our powers are useless?” Raphael yelled over the roaring flames.

“If I knew that, I WOULD BE DOING IT RIGHT NOW!” Andreas yelled back, his patience completely gone.

The flames finally cleared, and Andreas noticed a small form still hanging onto the bigger creature’s leg. Argento finally let his teeth go from the dragon and stepped back. The tiny dragon took in a deep breath and seemed to try to breathe fire at the bigger dragon. All that came out was a cloud of smoke. The older dragon turned his attention to Argento, and Andreas could almost swear he saw a look of regret on his face as he swung his claw to the baby dragon. Casian screamed and dove in the claw’s way, knocking Argento back. Casian was sent flying into the air and he knocked Kalen down as he fell to the ground. Argento stared after his master with wide, scared eyes, but turned his gaze back on the bigger dragon, anger suddenly heated behind those eyes.

This time, without any thought from the baby dragon’s part, he breathed fire are the bigger dragon. The dragon staggered backward, surprised by the strength such a small creature could hide.

Eric came running to Raphael’s side. “What are we going to do?”

Andreas fixed a glare on Raphael’s sidekick. “If we had the answer to that, don’t you think we would be doing it?”

“Geeze, you are snappy today,” Raphael commented.

“If we don’t stop that thing, we, along with everyone inside that house will die. So yes, I am snappy!”