Love & Wrath (First Dragons Book 1) Read online

  Love & Wrath

  A.C. Ryals

  First Dragons Series: Book 1

  Copyright © 2021 A.C. Ryals

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  ACRyals.com

  Cover design by: Phillip Ryals

  Photo of cover model: Halay Alex/Shutterstock.com

  Printed in the United States of America

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prologue

  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

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  Akkad, during the reign of Naram-Sin

  Maybe this wasn’t the mountain he should die on, but he’d been pushed around enough. The boy got back to his feet, not bothering to brush the dirt off his face when he’d likely be back on the ground before he could finish.

  “You will not call me by my name,” the dragon said. He was in human form, but his dragon was just under the surface.

  Gripping his battle axe with clammy hands in the Mesopotamian sun, the boy looked up at the dragon. “Father” is what he wanted to be called. Ezzu already had a father, a brickmaker. The dragon in front of him was a kidnapper. A brutal thug. Yes, Ezzu had to stay with him, but he would never refer to him as his father even though the dragon was his sire.

  “You are Kur, you are not Father,” Ezzu said.

  Kur lashed out but pulled his punch. Ezzu still felt a searing pain in his jaw, and he fell to the ground again.

  “You will stop your insolence,” Kur said.

  Ezzu got back to his feet and held the axe as firmly in his grip as he could. It was large and he was still small, but he lifted it and smashed it into Kur’s arm. No effect. The deceptively young-looking dragon didn’t even wince.

  “Your mother was a whore,” Kur said. “The man she married was nothing. She left you here because she knew she couldn’t handle your power. You got that power from me, little bastard. I am your father, and I am the only one who can show you how to be a true dragon.”

  “Then show me, but you’re not my father. You’re an oozing wart, Kur,” Ezzu snarled.

  “I stripped your wings already. What next? Shall I rip off an arm? Be an obedient child and you will have comfort. Keep up this rebellion, and you will only have pain.”

  “Give me pain,” Ezzu said.

  For a fraction of a second, Ezzu saw something in Kur’s eyes that wasn’t anger. Was it frustration? Was it sorrow? He couldn’t tell. It didn’t matter because it wasn’t defeat. Kur would keep hurting Ezzu and Ezzu would keep willfully taking it.

  “You are still weak from having your wings taken from you. You would challenge me, even now?” Kur asked.

  “Yes, I challenge you.”

  It had been one week since Ezzu was abandoned by his mother at the home of the beast called Kur. He looked like a normal man, but inside he was like Ezzu. Only Kur was more powerful and much older.

  When Ezzu was left at Kur’s home in Akkad, he thought he was at the home of a healer. He thought he would be cured of his magic and he would be able to go home with his mother. She feared his power, even at his young age. It bothered Ezzu that his mother would protectively grip her swollen belly when he approached. Ezzu would never hurt his unborn sibling or his mother. Yes, he’d burned their reed house down, but it was an accident.

  He wanted the fear to leave his mother’s eyes. He wanted to be a good big brother. When he was told she wasn’t coming back for him, the boy Ubar became Ezzu. Named Ubar by his mother, the fire and fury that he showed made this dragon, Kur, change his name. Ubar accepted the change because ezzu, fury, was what he felt.

  But his fury had another consequence. Ezzu threw a tantrum when he found out his mother wasn’t returning. He was willing to admit that it was childish and uncalled for. The punishment was overly harsh, however. While Ezzu spewed fire in his dragon form, Kur came up behind him and ripped off his wings. It was as painful as having any limbs torn from a body, but they’d grow back.

  They hadn’t yet. Even in his human form he still felt the pain of regrowth.

  Though Ezzu was injured and in constant pain, Kur took him out behind their brick house to train him to fight. He wanted strong sons in human and dragon form.

  Ezzu just wanted to go home and be a good son to his mother and a good big brother. His father, or the man he thought was his father, had never been overly kind. He was still a good man and showed Ezzu how to make bricks and dry them in the sun. Sometimes Ezzu sped the process along with his fire. Kur, Ezzu’s biological father, was an overpowered monster.

  In response to Ezzu’s challenge, the more powerful dragon shook his head.

  “Then so be it,” Kur said.

  Ezzu tried not to flinch. He wanted to remain stoic, but he was just a boy. He squeezed his eyes closed and he felt tears coming. Then it hit, the most painful thing he’d ever felt. It was even worse than having his wings ripped off. It was fire and it baked his front. He doubled over and it seared his back as well.

  Ezzu fell to the ground, pain ripping through him from his scalp down to his abdomen on his front and down his neck to his lower back. All he knew at that moment was pain so terrible he couldn’t even scream.

  The fire from his brother Alal never hurt him. Kur’s fire was made with stronger magic.

  “You will obey, boy,” Kur said.

  Etel, Ezzu’s eldest brother, came outside. Ezzu heard every step on the dry ground.

  “Father, your methods aren’t working,” Etel said.

  “The boy needs to learn,” Kur grumbled. “I will teach him respect.”

  “Will you? Look at him. Even now he loathes you. Torture doesn’t help,” Etel said.

  “It’s discipline.”

  “He doesn’t have any skin left,” Etel said. Then he called out, “Alal! Make yourself useful and tend to the boy.”

  Ezzu, curled up on the ground, heard his much older brother walking away. Etel was hundreds of years older than Ezzu. Then he heard running footsteps.

  “What have you done?” Alal asked as he crouched beside Ezzu.

  Ezzu couldn’t respond, but the question wasn’t for him. He felt Alal’s magic. In a matter of seconds, he went from blazing hot to freezing cold to pleasantly numb.

  “He calls me by my name,” Kur responded.

  “Of course he does,” Alal said, lifting Ezzu into his arms. “I know you want to take an active role in training him, but you’re going to kill him.”

  “He needs to learn,” Kur said.

  “You’re right, father. But the pain he’s already in probably has him half out of his mind. He’s not ready to be trained by the first dragon, anyway. He’s only been here for a week. Let Etel and I prepare him to train with you.”

  Alal didn’t wait for a response
. He carried Ezzu to his bedroom. Dragons didn’t need to sleep as humans did, but they had beds for show. Ezzu had to admit that the bed he had in Kur’s home was far better than the mat he had to lay on for hours at a time in his mother’s home while she slept.

  Alal gently laid the boy on the bed and sat down beside him.

  Etel came in with a bowl and a lizard.

  “What are you going to do?” Alal asked.

  “I learned a new spell,” Etel said.

  “A new one? You could kill the boy.”

  “It probably won’t kill him. I really don’t know, but it’s better than the suffering he’s about to go through. You can’t keep him frozen forever.”

  Ezzu was willing to let Etel give it a try, but he found he couldn’t move his mouth to give consent.

  “He’ll heal on his own. Don’t do it, Etel,” Alal said.

  Etel looked Alal in the eyes and said, “Sig.”

  It was a Sumerian word. They were always speaking Sumerian. Ezzu gathered that the word meant “silence” but when Etel said it, it had magic to it. Now Alal couldn’t talk.

  Etel set the bowl on the bed. He began saying more words in Sumerian and then he ripped the head off the poor little lizard. He poured the blood into the bowl, all the while he chanted. He tossed the dead lizard aside and then used his own dragonfire to ignite the contents of the bowl.

  The ground shook and dust came from the walls. Sun dried brick homes weren’t the most stable.

  The numbing cold left Ezzu and his body again felt like it was burning. He screamed and then everything went dark.

  He didn’t know how long he was out, but he awoke to the sound of his brothers arguing. His skin itched terribly. It was almost as bad as the burning.

  “Idiot, you killed him,” Alal said.

  “I did not. Look. His eyes are open,” Etel said.

  Alal peered down into Ezzu’s eyes. “Are you okay, little brother?”

  “It itches,” Ezzu said.

  “Cool him a little, but not too much,” Etel said.

  Alal used his magic on Ezzu again. The coolness relieved the itching.

  “That’s better, thank you brothers,” Ezzu said.

  “Now that you’re better I want you to listen to me, boy,” Etel said. “Stop trying to get yourself killed. You will never defeat Kur, but you can survive him if you stop being stupid. In a few years, you’ll be ready to fly out of here and never return. For now, live. That’s your only goal, do you understand me?”

  “Etel,” Alal began.

  “Straighten out his head Alal. We can’t always be here to protect him, and it appears he’s too stubborn to live. I’ll go talk to father.”

  Ezzu was thankful for the help his brothers gave him. He’d only known them for a week, but they seemed like good dragons. Neither of them felt like family, though. Ezzu had a family already.

  Chapter 1

  Cybersecurity was about more than protecting clients from hackers sitting in their basements. The truth was, if someone really wanted to get into a company’s network, they would likely do a little footwork. The most secure network could fall because one employee scribbled their password on a sticky note.

  Jess entered a law firm dressed as a delivery person from a local sub shop. It was a favorite among the firm’s paralegals. No one paid attention to her in her unflattering lime green polo shirt and oversized black slacks that made her butt look three sizes bigger and as flat as Kansas.

  She left sandwiches on unoccupied desks and took pictures of closed client files left out for anyone to see. She peaked under twenty keyboards and found two password lists. One included usernames. No one questioned her, though one man snuck up behind her and asked if she had a ham and swiss. She didn’t know. She just handed him one at random.

  It was much too easy. Anyone dressed as a service worker could break into the firm’s system. No wonder they’d been hacked three times in the past month.

  Finished with the law firm, she went out to the parking garage and climbed into the back of her SUV. She had to change clothes if she was going to get into character as a personal assistant named Rhonda for her next job.

  Thank God for tinted windows.

  It was a little bit of a drive to Tech Ridge, in Austin Texas, but she should be there in time to scope out a bar and prepare to take on her next target.

  She ate a sandwich she’d set aside for herself and headed up IH-35 to North Austin. She got off on Parmer Lane and made her way to the bar. Her target’s boss was on vacation and he tended to take off early when that was the case. This was his favorite bar. He had a thing for one of the bartenders, but she had the night off. He wouldn’t know that.

  Arriving at the bar, she ordered a club soda with lime. She’d have to drink real alcohol when he arrived. She was standing outside surreptitiously watching for her quarry. Her excuse for standing around outside was an imaginary phone call. She spoke in hushed tones to the heroine of the last book she read, explaining to her that she was stupid for leaving the protection of her husband’s castle over a tiff. The woman knew there were killers after her.

  The target entered the bar half an hour after Jess arrived. He was in his mid-twenties, but already had a receding hairline. He was on the short side in height, but about average in weight. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up and his tie loosened. She ended her imaginary phone call feeling a little better for having talked through her frustration.

  Back inside, she set down her glass of club soda on the bar and ordered a glass of red wine. The bar wasn’t crowded yet, so she sat one stool down from the target.

  She wore no makeup, and her clothes were cheap. She knew she looked pretty, not unapproachably beautiful. The guy was a five and she looked like a seven. Rating people by appearance was rude, but it helped when targeting someone. He wouldn’t believe an eight would be interested in him. Seven was a safer number.

  Jess rested her forearms on the bar and hunched forward. She was taller than the target and had to make herself look less imposing.

  Halfway through her glass of wine, it paid off.

  “You work around here?” he asked.

  Her first goal was to get the location of his employer.

  “Yeah, GM. My boss is out of town, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have to put up with his crap all day,” Jess said.

  “Same here,” he said.

  “Your boss is out of town?”

  “Yeah, not for long enough, though,” he replied.

  “My boss is in Paris so now my hours are all screwed up,” Jess said.

  “It’s not that bad for me,” he said. “My boss is in New York. His wife wants to see something on Broadway.”

  He was perfect. He gave out information about his boss’s private life so casually. Now she had to get the name of his boss’s son’s school.

  “My boss isn’t married,” Jess said, “but he’s got a daughter. She’s okay, just kinda spoiled, you know? She’s got a car that costs more than my house and she goes to this uppity private school. I forget the name.”

  “St. George?” he asked. “That’s where my boss sends his son.”

  “That’s the one,” Jess said cheerily.

  Now the kid’s grade.

  “She’s in high school. Maybe she knows him,” Jess said.

  “I doubt it. He’s in sixth grade.”

  “I guess not, then.”

  “He’s a good kid. He’s dyslexic and the school has been great for him.”

  “Really?” Jess asked. “My niece is dyslexic. You say they have a good program?”

  “They’re really good. Josh’s teacher, Mrs. Mulveny, is a Godsend.”

  That was it. Jess was done for the day. Damn, it was easy.

  Conversation recorded, Jess pretended to get a text and said she had to go. She paid her tab and headed out to her SUV. She sent the audio file to her supervisor and then headed back down Parmer Lane to MOPAC and then toward her home in Southwest Austin. She’d supplied p
roof for two of her firm’s clients that they had security problems. One was concerned with network security. The other was concerned about privacy and the safety of his family after someone sent threatening messages to his son on social media.

  No employee should be telling people where their employer’s children go to school, much less the name of the child and their teacher. Kidnapping was unlikely, but online harassment was already taking place. He deserved anonymity.

  The suspected dirtbag threatening the child was connected to the personal assistant on social media. Could he have gotten the information from the personal assistant? Yes.

  She was happily singing along to the Foo Fighters song “Chasing Birds” when the music stopped, and she was informed of a call from her boss over the car’s sound system. She answered it with a press of a button on the steering wheel.

  “This is Jess,” she said.

  “Good job today. I have a special assignment for you all the way from the top,” Clarence said.

  “The top? You mean the mysterious Mr. Drake?”

  “The same. It’s unusual, but the pay is good, and you’ll get a fifty-thousand-dollar bonus when it’s over.”

  “That’s a lot of money for one job. Is he wanting me to plan a Thomas Crown level caper?”

  Clarence’s laugh rumbled through her sound system. “No, nothing so interesting. You’re going to work at a coffee shop turned bistro. You will act like any other employee. It’s not an investigation, he just wants one of our people there.”

  “In a bistro. Why the bonus?”

  “No idea. The man wants what he wants and that’s you in a bistro. He asked for you by name.”

  That was surprising. She didn’t know the recluse who owned the company even knew her name, but she supposed it shouldn’t be a shock. He was in the security business. He had extensive files on all his employees.

  “There has to be more to it than that,” Jess said.

  “I asked. He said you just have to be there. It’s a favor for a family member. That’s all I know.”

  “I’m one damn expensive barista. Would you take this job?”