Fire Born Dragon (Rule 9 Academy Book 1) Read online

  Fire Born Dragon

  Rule 9 Academy, Volume 1

  Elizabeth Rain

  Published by Elizabeth Rain, 2020.

  While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

  FIRE BORN DRAGON

  First edition. May 8, 2020.

  Copyright © 2020 Elizabeth Rain.

  Written by Elizabeth Rain.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  I didn’t want to go.

  I stared out the window of the Explorer, eyes squinting in the bright sunlight, as the rolling plains and hills of North Dakota gave way to the more mountainous terrain of Eastern Montana. I pressed my cheeks to the cold window to cool them down; my eyes itchy where I’d scrubbed at them to erase the damp smear of tears.

  All of it. Everything I cared about lay behind me in Witching, North Dakota. Summer vacation wasn’t even over yet, and I would have to finish it without Cal and Lisa, my best buds since grade school. And Dad—dad was back there too, in the house I’d lived my entire life in.

  I miss you daddy, why couldn’t I stay?

  I refused to glance at mom; her fingers ticking against the steering wheel as she drove. It was her only outward display of emotion. Mom—who’d started the end of my world months before when she’d served divorce papers to my dad.

  Irreconcilable differences? What the hell did that mean, really? Except that my life was broken, and I’d lost my family. I had a mother and a father, and they lived two states apart. I’d wanted to stay with dad. I’d begged, but in a rare display of agreement, dad had sided with mom and decided I belonged with her. The betrayal had cut deep.

  Sure, he’d promised to see me on holidays and breaks, but really, it was just one more person shuffling me off and out of the way. I swallowed and cleared my throat, reaching for the partial water bottle and tipping it back. The warm liquid slid down my throat. Gross. At least it was wet.

  Had it been my fault? Probably. Why couldn’t I have been more like my best friends? Normal and obedient—because almost always—I wasn’t. Was it my fault I wanted to experience life and everything in it at my pace? Which meant hell-bent-for-election and without permission. I’d been difficult my whole life, frustrating both mom and dad with my powerful will and loud opinions about everything. It made me interesting, didn’t it? I sighed and chewed at the ends of my fingers, the tips raw and the nails bitten down to the quick. Noticing what I was doing, I thrust my hands under my butt. Dumb habit, but I couldn't seem to help myself.

  They’d split up so they could divide the time they had to spend with their rebellious daughter. No wonder they’d only had one. Perhaps if I’d had a brother or sister? But no, they hadn’t wanted to risk having another one like me.

  A loud voice, raised and agitated, penetrated the fog I was in and I turned with a mutinous jerk, looking at the exasperated expression on mom’s face. She’d been trying to get my attention.

  That was the other thing. Long blond hair framed my mother’s delicate face, now drawn in frustrated lines. I’d even gotten the crappy end of the gene pool. Carly Cross was runway model beautiful with the perfect figure to go with her Malibu Barbie coloring. I picked at the loose shorts that hung on my too long legs and the baggie t-shirt that didn’t have to work hard to cover what I didn’t have poking out in front. My long, dark-brown hair was gathered back in a messy, ‘messy-bun’, atop my head. I never seemed to get it right. And Freckles, dammit, mom didn’t have a one. They dotted the bridge of my nose and cheeks, wild sandy dots out of control. I hated them.

  I stared at mom and shrugged, indifferent. “What?” I asked, belligerent.

  Mom gave a growl of frustration. “Are you hungry, Sadie? We’re coming up on a town in a matter of miles?”

  I turned back to stare out the window. “Nope Carly, I’m good.” Conversation over. I smiled at the sudden expulsion of irritated breath from the seat beside me. Good double- whop—mission accomplished. I think I called my mother by her first name as just one more way to dig the bones; and I was an expert.

  I pulled my hands out from beneath my shorts and worried my left thumb with sharp teeth. I didn’t draw blood, usually.

  HOURS LATER, WE ENTERED the base of the lesser hills of the Rocky Mountains. I stared at the fields of June grass, interspersed with bands of late blooming wild flowers. Red Indian Paintbrush dotted the landscape, weaving in the stiff prairie breeze. We had them in North Dakota too. At least something was familiar. As the miles passed, the landscape was changing. Meadows gave way to thicker stands of ponderosa pine and Douglas fir. They dotted the landscape here and there as the elevation rose and caused my ears to pop several times along the way.

  The Tobacco Root Mountains loomed in the distance as we headed in their direction, peaks massive and capped in white. The insignificant town of Breathless, Montana, nestled somewhere at the base of one of those peaks. We were going back home, as Mom had tried to explain when she thought I’d been listening or gave a damn. Her home—it wasn’t mine. It was where she’d been born over forty-two years ago and grown up before moving away when she was twelve.

  Not that I cared about any of that. Why were we going back if she’d left? There was nothing there but an old house on the edge of town that my grandfather, her father, had left her when he died. I’d never even met the man. Both grandparents on my Dad’s side were gone. Now my last tie on my mother’s side was gone too. Mom refused to talk about my grandmother, her own mother. I had stopped asking when it became annoying to watch her clam up and her mouth form that thin line of pissed-off.

  WE STOPPED IN A TINY town about two hours out from Breathless at a McDonald’s. My stomach rumbled, telling me it had been a long time since breakfast. But I picked at the double cheeseburger and fries she ordered for me when I told her I wasn’t hungry, just to be contrary. Mom was fond of telling me I ate like a bird. I think I did it as just one more way to annoy her. I had that down to an art form.

  In the last hour of our trip, the meadows and open flatlands all but disappeared, giving way to more mountainous terrain. We were into the Rocky Mountains, and we left any open prairie behind us as we drove into the Tobacco Range. Spruce and tamarack dotted the landscape more often, along with rocky outcroppings that twisted and lay stacked one on another like dominoes. Clustered in the cracks and recesses I saw blue lupine that grew in clumps on the flatter spaces, and occasional glimpses of blue forget-me-nots that sprung up between the rocky cracks despite the unforgiving terrain. My eyes pulled often to those tiny perfect flowers, so tough and determined. I liked to think if I were a flower, I would be a forget-me-not.

  I shook my head, pursing my lips. Stupid. We drove through another pass and rounded the edge of another mountain peak. I strained to catch a glimpse at what came next, despite my determination to seem disinterested. I didn’t
like the mountains at all. I couldn’t see for miles through them—they were in the way of everything. Still, I was curious to get my first glimpse of the town my mother talked about with something more than fondness whenever she thought she had my attention.

  Of a sudden, one more curve and it was just there. Breathless lay spread out before me.

  It was so much less than I’d been expecting.

  An attractive billboard, listing on the side of the road as we drove past, flashed a photograph of the entire town at dusk; back-lit against the base of Tobacco Root Mountain Range. If I was into that kind of thing, it might have been a pleasant welcome. I read the statistics that boasted a population of 3,500 as of the 2010 census. How that could be true, I didn’t know. As we drove through the main drag, I noted several roads wandering left and right with many houses lining each. Small, they interspersed boxy houses among more stately mansions on long sloping lawns that I knew couldn’t be natural.

  The major thoroughfare was a study in ones. One grocery store, one gas station, one sporting goods store where my eyes pulled and lingered past two seconds. The rest whirred by as we slowed to a stop at the single functional traffic-light. Are you serious? This was a one-stop town? We moved through the light and continued until I worried we might drive right into the mountains, when mom slowed. She turned right down a road labeled appropriately, Dead End Boulevard. Down the winding side street that faded to dirt past the first 100 yards. I frowned, just where the heck were we going? It was a long road, and the houses decreased as spruce and American larch increased until we stalled to a stop at the very end—just shy of the circular drive that led back out. Hands gripping the wheel, mom turned to look at me with hopeful eyes.

  I could tell she wanted me to like her home, her roots. I followed my mother’s eyes to the aging ranch-style house that sat back from the road, with the heavy woods looming behind and wandering up a steady slope to the mountain in the backdrop. Faded cedar shingles, dull gray, sided the less than impressive home. A long wrap-around porch skirted the front with several mismatched chairs and a table that had seen its best come and go. It was larger than what I’d imagined it might be, and the backyard looked to be the entire Tobacco Root Mountain range.

  Noticing the direction of my gaze, she added. “Shephard’s Mountain.”

  It filled my entire vision, and I hoped that my bedroom would be in the back and look out over that vast expanse of trees climbing almost straight up. My expression dour, I turned and looked at her.

  “Looks like it’s about a hundred years old and ready to fall down.” Mom’s face fell, and I told myself I was glad. I waited until mom pulled the rest of the way into the driveway and parked before opening the door and getting out, unfolding my long body and standing to my full 5’10”. I shuffled my over-sized backpack to my left shoulder. My ditty bag, I called it. It had almost everything I cared about jammed inside. I waited for mom to pop the trunk so we could start unpacking.

  Why did I feel the need to be so vicious to her? It was like a crushing need that I couldn’t resist and that always came with a smidgen of guilt. Didn’t stop me, though.

  I grabbed my suitcase, a scuffed and beaten bag with rollers I started trudging up the dirt path that led to the front steps, swearing when the wheels twisted and I had to yank it back up. The path was over run with rocks and wheat grass all the way to the porch. The wheels of my case made a clickety-clacking sound as they bounced up over the steps, and I hoped the porch held. I waited, impatient for mom to join me, staring up at the rise of the sloped woods behind the house. It lifted towards the darkened peaks at the top, dusted white with snow at the tips.

  I told myself I stared because I didn’t want to face my mother’s wounded eyes, not because I found their sheer size and wildness fascinating.

  I wondered what kind of wildlife wandered those mountains. I should have spent the ride here reading up on them. I followed my mother into our new home, pulling my eyes away from the largess. An odd feeling crept along my spine I couldn’t identify, and I shivered. My fingers itched with the need to have my cross-bow in hand.

  A HEAVY MUSK ASSAULTED our noses as soon as the door groaned and slid back on its hinges. Something was dead.

  My mom had an odd look on her face as she dropped the bags and started opening windows. I did likewise, wandering from room to room as I did. It was larger than it looked from outside. The kitchen opened into the living room and formed the largest part. A long hall led to the back and a guest bath off the side. Two guest rooms and a master bedroom with a separate bath finished the rest. There was little furniture, and I knew I’d be missing the moving van until it arrived behind us tomorrow. We’ have to make do.

  I left the master bedroom for mom. I took the bedroom next to it that had a large bay window opening into the backyard with two dormer windows on each side. I cranked them open all the way to let in the fresh air.

  The source of the stench was in the pantry. We held our noses, sweeping the large dead rat with the sunken in eyes into a dustpan and tossing him behind the house. He’d been dead a while.

  I figured it would take the better part of the day with everything wide-open to get rid of the smell.

  I stored my belongings in the large closet in my room, I leaned my prize possession, my TenPoint Viper S400 crossbow in the corner. I swept the floor before unrolling my sleeping bag on a pad in the middle of the room. There; I was unpacked.

  I left the room to go look for my mother.

  Carly wasn’t in the kitchen or living room where I had expected to find her. Instead, I wandered down the hall to the doorway of the master bedroom. Mom stood stock still, staring out the sliding glass doors that led from her own bedroom into the back yard and an ATV trail that was visible leading up into the woods and then the mountains themselves. I’d missed it from my room, the angle wrong. An odd look flitted across her face, a lot like fear.

  I spoke into the silence, and she jumped a mile. I’d startled her bad. For once, it didn’t make me feel so good.

  “We need food. There isn’t a damned thing to eat in the house.”

  She cringed. “Watch your mouth!”

  I looked at her. For real? “Sorry. Crap, I mean there isn’t crap in the house and we need cleaning supplies. Place is a dump.”

  She wasn’t amused. She slanted a hard look in my direction.

  “Let’s go then, everything in Breathless closes down at dark.”

  THE FIRST TIME I WALKED the length of Breathless, it took me less than a half hour end to end if I didn’t pause. The second time I walked slower, stopping to look in the windows of several shops. My original assessment had been correct. Breathless seemed to contain just one of everything. The only store that snagged and held my attention for a passing second glance was the sporting goods store, which was way out of the ordinary huge. I struggled to imagine the need for that much outdoor equipment in such an insignificant town. But there you go. I wandered into Shephard’s Mountain Sporting Goods despite myself to check it out.

  I’d never been the normal, preppy, play-with-your make-up-gotta have the newest designer jeans kinda girl. I liked my faded Levi’s with the holes at the knees and my favorite collection of graphic T-shirts from various sports teams to go with. My feet would have screamed uncle in high-heels. Who wore those things? Instead, I favored my trainers just in case I needed to run.

  It just stood to reason that I didn’t do dances or play sports. No, I liked to hunt. It was something dad and I had done together. I felt a twinge near my heart and wandered along the back past too many cases of handguns and a long wall of every make and model of rifle and shotgun I might imagine. They didn’t hold my attention. That had been dad’s thing. He’d loved gun season, and he was a crack shot. Me? I was abysmal at gun sports. It kinda made me ill when I held one.

  Nope, for me it had always been the bow. I moved past the firearms. Instead, I headed for the rack of bows with a content sigh. There on a large rack was every popular mak
e and model of compound bow. My eyes scanned the labels. Bear and Diamond and more. A few traditional bows hung there too. I moved past the accessories; the quivers and bows and gloves and more. I stopped on what really interested me. A separate rack of cross-bows hung on the wall behind the first rack. I hoped I didn’t drool. More Bear and a few Wicked Ridge, and several TenPoint Nitro’s in various sizes. It was an impressive collection. My eyes pulled to the same bow I had sitting home in my closet, a present from dad last Christmas. My fingers itched as I stared at the Viper S410, with the trigger and release technology that made it easy and fast to use. I was wicked lethal with a bow. I couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn with a gun. But a bow? I never missed. I stared at all the bells and whistles and heavy hitting equipment associated with them, and it made me wish I’d brought money. Still, a girl could look. With a sigh, I forced my feet to move on before someone thought I was planning a robbery. On my way out, I swung by the trapping, hunting, and fishing sections.

  The freakishly tall sales clerk with awkward legs and a fine crop of pimples followed me with interest as I left. I wasn’t biting.

  At sixteen, I was only just starting to think not all guys might be dweebs.

  I left Shephard’s behind, continuing down the street, wandering into a nice cream parlor along the way. They had those little round wire-backed chairs with the red cushions that so many ice-cream parlors seem to favor. I sat on one of the empty round spinning stools at the counter instead. I spun around once, remembering daddy when I was little. I remembered him spinning me so many times once that my tummy hurt and I couldn’t finish my superman cone.

  I ordered a double dip moose-tracks in a waffle cone. While I waited, I looked around. The place was more or less deserted. Three girls about my age sat at a table in the corner, giggling and talking. They’d looked me over when I first came in, spending several moments whispering and speculating on who the unfamiliar girl might be. I imagined my dark clothing and heavy hand with the eyeliner, the only makeup I couldn’t resist, had branded me as a goth. I wasn’t, but I liked the anonymity dark clothes and colors gave me. At sixteen, I was into blending in, not standing out.