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  Saved By The Soldier Dragon

  Special Ops Shifters: L.A. Force

  Meg Ripley

  Shifter Nation

  Copyright © 2020 by Meg Ripley

  www.redlilypublishing.com

  All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be used or reproduced in any form without written permission from the author, with the exception of brief quoted passages left in an online review. This book is a fictional story. All characters, names, and situations are of the author’s creation. Any resemblances to actual situations or to persons who are alive or dead are purely coincidental.

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only; this copy is not available for resale or to give to another reader aside from any transaction through Amazon’s e-book lending program.

  Disclaimer

  This book is intended for readers age 18 and over. It contains mature situations and language that may be objectionable to some readers.

  Contents

  Saved By The Soldier Dragon

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Raul

  Preview of Secret Baby For The Soldier Bear

  Chapter 1

  About the Author

  Saved By The Soldier Dragon

  Special Ops Shifters: L.A. Force

  1

  Kate stood on a rocky outcropping, feeling the closeness of her vampire brothers and sisters around her as they crowded forward to see what their patriarch had in store for them. The brood had loyally followed Luca for centuries, but as they hiked far out on these lonely trails in the moonlight, they began to question his reasoning and motives. He’d remained silent until now.

  Older than them all by hundreds of years—yet hardly looking a day over forty—Luca spread his arms wide at the scene below them. “Behold, my children. We’ve wandered the world and seen many things, but what lies before you is a veritable treasure trove of food and life.”

  Kate studied the sparkling ocean under the moonlight, where it nestled up next to the pale line of a curving beach and the city beyond it. There was no doubt the scene was beautiful, but she still didn’t understand. Hunger boiled inside her, the relentless thirst for blood that could never be quenched. “Another new city.” She licked her lips, wondering what delights waited innocently for them below.

  “No, my dear. Not simply another new city.” Luca gestured grandly with his hands, the streaks of white in his dark hair standing out in the pale light. “This is Los Angeles. It’s the type of city that humans flock to, thinking their wildest dreams will come true. I suppose that’s the case for some of them, but for us, it could change our lives completely. Not simply our dreams, but our reality.”

  “How?” Thomas demanded, daring to step to the very edge of the cliff and look down on the city with a threatening interest. His thick hair was black as pitch, darker than even the sky. Luca had sired him about a hundred years ago, which felt like yesterday to Kate. “We’ve been feeding on people everywhere we go, but this curse has its claws in us. Nothing is helping.” He clenched his fists at his sides, no doubt just as angry and frustrated by the hunger that plagued them as the rest of them were. If only the New Orleans brood’s matriarch hadn’t been so territorial about her feeding grounds, Luca and his vamps would’ve still found sustenance from human blood. No one expected her spell to last this long.

  Luca sighed as he turned back to his brood, steepling his fingers in front of him. “I’m well aware of what the curse has done to us: we feed, yet we still have thirst. I know. Not only that, I of all vampires remember when we could spend a week feeding on a small village before they ever realized what was happening, satisfying ourselves without any fear. There’s no doubt the world has changed around us, and now, it is changing us as well. We’ve been faced with many obstacles, but we will endure, my children, just as we have for centuries.”

  “So, how will this place be any different?” Kate dared to ask. She was excited about living in a new place, and certainly one that looked as beautiful as this. “It looks as though there are plenty of people here, but we’ll still only be able to feed for a certain amount of time before the rumors start to spread.” Thanks to the internet, the world was far more interconnected than it’d been in the past, when they could have waited for word to pass from one villager to another before they had to leave.

  Luca turned to Kate, lifting her chin with one finger, forcing her to look him in the eye. “You have so little trust in me after all these years? I suppose I need to remind you of who’s been keeping you safe all this time,” Luca said, his eyes darkening as they bored into Kate’s, “of who gave you eternal life.”

  “No.” She turned away, guarding the scars on her neck where Luca had fed on her. As the curse had taken its toll, they’d each offered themselves to their patriarch to sustain his strength. But the pain of a bite from one of their own was excruciating for even a vampire. It’d been a relief when he’d left for a short time to find new hunting grounds, and she could only hope he was right about this new city.

  “Good. Anyone else?” He looked at each of them in turn.

  Kate kept her eyes focused on the city below them, knowing it was dangerous to challenge Luca. He was the oldest—and therefore, the strongest—and he’d managed to keep the brood safe for hundreds of years. If anyone knew what the next step was, it was him. He’d saved them from mortality, and he would save them from this curse.

  Kate eyed Melissa and Kenneth, much younger vampires who’d only been with them for a few years. Since they were newly-turned, they’d been affected more than anyone else. At this point, they’d become so weak, they had to be carried around by the brood.

  “As for exactly how this new place is going to help us, let me first take you to our new home.” Luca held a triumphant finger in the air as he led them back down the path and into the coastal mountains. He could’ve flown, but the fact that the others couldn’t kept him grounded. He moved with a speed that would look like little more than a blur to human eyes.

  The world moved slowly for them, the night breeze barely shaking the leaves on the plants near the trail as they shot past with relative ease, considering their weakened state. A simple walk for a vampire was a marathon for a mortal, and it humored Kate to think of all the humans who’d likely huffed and puffed along that very trail in Topanga State Park.

  Their leader brought them through hills and valleys until he stopped in front of a rock formation. It was shadowed from the moonlight, the small opening little more than a dark crevice. Other holes further up on the structure peered at the brood like suspicious eyes, wondering what they had planned.

  “A cave?” Thomas remarked, shaking his head and sneering. “Luca, we’ve stayed in palaces and castles. Even an apartment would be better than this.”

  In one swift movement that was so fast, even Kate hardly saw it, Luca had Thomas pinned by the throat to the rock. “Insolence will not be tolerated,” he hissed, only inches from Thomas’s face. His eyes went black as his fingers dug into the younger vamp’s flesh. “You will do as I ask because I never ask for anything that isn’t for the good of our family. You understand this, and so, you will do it.”

  “I…understand,” Thomas repeated slowly.

  “Excellent.” Luca gave him a fatherly but condescending pat on the cheek
before stepping aside and leading the way through the mouth of the cave. He was tall and had to crouch to make it inside the small opening.

  Kate followed. Her night vision was good, but it didn’t quite penetrate the deeper shadows inside the cave. She moved slowly, pressing her hands to the cool rock while keeping her head down. When Luca had sparked a fire and lit a makeshift torch, she turned and helped the others bring Melissa and Kenneth inside.

  Past the threshold of the opening, the stone floor smoothed out into a welcoming surface. The interior of the cave was far more extensive than it seemed from the outside, with a ceiling that reached high up beyond the light of the torch flames. The smaller holes Kate had noticed before provided little windows that made it cozy, but the fact remained that it was still a cave.

  The brood settled in, setting their bags down near the wall and making a circle around their leader. Nastasya, almost as old as Luca and one of his first, spun in a slow circle with a critical eye and laughed as she lowered herself with a ballet dancer’s grace to the floor next to Luca.

  He arched an eyebrow in her direction but said nothing. He tolerated attitude from her more than anyone else, but she never actually stepped out of line. Kate knew Nastasya was just as loyal to Luca as the rest of them were, perhaps more so.

  “Now, then. I know you’re all wondering why we’re here. It seems a rather unusual place for people like us to live, considering we’re far more sophisticated than the mortals who’ve crammed themselves into the city. They have all the luxuries, and so should we. Right?” He looked around, watching both for agreement and any sign of rebellion. When no one spoke, he continued. “You can complain about our circumstances all you want, but you don’t know what I’ve found here.”

  Kate leaned forward, desperate to hear. There had to be something extraordinary about this place if Luca was willing to live in such primitive conditions. He enjoyed a featherbed and running water just as much as anyone else.

  “What first brought me to Los Angeles was the sheer amount of people. Gone are the days when we could focus on a random rural town. As we all know, humans have changed. Cell phones and the internet have altered the way they connect, and so, we must find ways to change with them. A sprawling metropolis with almost four million people is much easier for us to hide in than a village. It’s merely a numbers game when you think about it. However,” he continued, “there is something here in a much higher concentration than anywhere else in the world. Something powerful. And absolutely delicious.”

  “You’re killing me,” Nastasya said dramatically, touching the back of her hand to her forehead and draping herself on the stone floor. “I can’t stand the suspense any longer, Luca! You’ve refused to tell us anything about your trip here while you left us behind in Vegas.”

  Luca smiled. “Once you find out, my dear, you’ll be so eager to head down into the city, you won’t be able to contain yourself.”

  “Please,” she begged, still laying on the floor. Nastasya gripped his pant leg and pulled herself toward him. “Please tell me it’s something that will rid us of this hex once and for all.”

  “Would I bring you here if I didn’t have confidence in that? Now listen. I needed to feed while I was here. My plan was simply to find a human who’d made the mistake of wandering away from the crowd and get whatever I could. We all know that ever since this curse has hit us, even the healthiest flesh gives us minimal reward.”

  Several of the others moaned in agreement. They felt it every second of every day, and time dragged on like an eternity when one was destined to live forever.

  “But this particular man that I found was different. He was stronger than any normal human, and I immediately knew he was anything but normal. His blood carried with it the strength and agility of an animal. I could sense a beast inside him, one that was part of him, yet not.” Luca’s eyes gleamed, but this time, with excitement and intrigue. “I believe it was a shapeshifter.” He rose, full of energy as he spoke. “Imagine draining the blood from both a healthy human and a wild animal at the same time. It was the most remarkable meal I’ve ever had, and the most satisfying. I had far more energy afterward, and I hadn’t felt that good in a long time.”

  Several of the vampires moaned, and Kate closed her eyes to savor the very thought of a buffet like that. Her body burned with the need that hadn’t been sated in months. “Are you saying there are more of them?” she dared to ask.

  Luca nodded, a smile stretching his face. “Oh, yes, my dear. So many. And if you go down to the city, you’ll even smell them.”

  Thomas and Nastasya rose and prepared to leave, but Luca stayed them with a swipe of his hand through the air. “Not so fast! There’s more you need to know before you dare to take your next meal. When I finished with the first, I immediately tracked down another. I had to understand what was happening and who they were. I found the next one, a woman, by her scent. I followed her out of a restaurant and to her car in a dark parking lot. She sensed me, and you all know that any normal human would never have known I was there. Instead of running, she turned and called out to me, warning that she would kill me. I remained hidden, waiting to see what she would do, and she transformed into a tiger right before my very eyes! They’re animal shifters, my children, and they’re far stronger than any other meal you’ve chased down in the past.”

  “We’re ready for them,” Nastasya urged.

  He smiled. “Go and get your dinner.”

  The brood left as one, pausing only long enough to duck through the narrow cave opening that suddenly didn’t bother them nearly as much. In her excitement, Kate grinned as she sped up to a flat-out run, covering the distance through the state forest. Even off the trail, taking the most direct route down to the city, she bounced from one rock to another and dodged low hanging branches in her urgency to get to the feast.

  A trilling laugh sounded behind her. “I’ll get all the shifters before you even get a chance to smell them!” Nastasya cat-called, moving swiftly past Kate and shooting off into the distance.

  Kate laughed to herself. This is going to be fun.

  She hardly gave herself a chance to slow down once she reached the bottom of the foothills and her feet crunched into sand. Kate sucked in a deep breath, taking in the scent of the ocean that lapped gently on the shore to her right. On the left, towering palm trees swayed gently in front of storefronts, houses, and restaurants. Bike rentals, head shops, bars, and even outdoor gyms filled the oceanfront. Even at night, there were people everywhere. She saw something different every time she blinked her eyes. The brood moved together, keeping in the darkness near the water as they blazed past, burning off their excitement so they could control themselves for the hunt.

  Finally slowing down, Kate turned and looked behind her. She realized how far they’d come already, how much they’d skimmed straight past. The coastline seemed to stretch in both directions for all eternity, and she smiled. In all their travels with Luca, they’d never lived on a beach before. Castles in the mountains, mansions in the oldest towns of the world, and penthouses in the wealthiest cities, but never along a beach.

  She paused as she passed a building, noticing the colossal reproduction of Van Gogh’s Starry Night painted along the side of it. It tugged at her as she took a few steps closer.

  “Hey, are you coming?” Thomas asked, stepping up next to her.

  “Yeah, sure. This is just so beautiful.” Kate moved further toward the light and population, realizing that as she did, there were paintings all around her. Every surface in the area seemed to be covered in some sort of artwork, whether it was the side of a building or a concrete bench. Someone had even covered the sidewalk with chalk drawings, though she couldn’t see them from where she stood.

  Luca was suddenly at her other side, drawing attention from the entire brood. “I should remind you to stay together, at least at first. We don’t know what to expect from these shifters. I’m older and stronger, so not only was I capable of taking one down on
my own, but I need one of my own. And don’t forget to bring a little something back for Melissa and Kenneth. I hope this new blood will allow them to be able to hunt alongside you once again very soon.”

  Kate nodded as did the others. This was a chance at a good meal for them, yes, but it was also a mission for their entire brood to survive and carry on. She stepped back toward the group as they wandered into a bar.

  “Oh, I can smell it!” Nastasya hissed, practically jumping up and down in place. “Luca was right. It’s a different note from regular humans. Now, we just have to figure out which one it’s coming from.”

  Once again, Kate was shocked at just how much there was to see and smell there. She even felt the vibration of the live music thumping through her blood as a band played live on a small stage in the corner. The song came to a crescendo and stopped, eliciting a whoop of encouragement from the gathered crowd.

  The vampires lived so much of their lives in solitude. Sure, they had each other, but it was easy to feel isolated even among their own when they couldn’t just walk through town on a sunny day. Kate had attacked travelers on dark roads in the woods, and she had dragged off the bodies of wayward college students who wandered too far from the streetlights, but they were always in hiding. This place felt alive, welcoming.

  “Over here!” Nastasya’s eager shout dragged Kate out of her reflections as the other vampiress grabbed her by the elbow and pulled her physically across the room. She stopped near the bar and pointed. “I think it’s coming from him. Can you smell it? It’s like a good steak, but with all the right seasonings and sides to make it a gourmet meal.”