Night Dragon: An Epic Fantasy Adventure (The Dragon Misfits Book 6) Read online

  Night Dragon

  The Dragon Misfits Book 6

  D.K. Holmberg

  Copyright © 2020 by D.K. Holmberg

  Cover by Tom Edwards

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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  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

  Author’s Note

  Series by D.K. Holmberg

  1

  The darkness swirled all around the inside of the forest and Jason focused on it, staring into the inky depths. In this case, it could just be the fog of night layering over everything, but it could also be something more, something unsettling. He had enough experience with the small night dragon to question why it created this shade.

  He held onto the power of the other dragons. He could feel the ice and the iron dragons’ power flowing through him as it often did. Jason added a hint of the forest dragon, that connection that allowed him to be able to shift reality. On top of that, he had a faint and distant sense of the storm dragon. That dragon was there, crackling energy, and the more that he focused on that sense of energy, the easier it was to know there was some way to use it. It was a new connection.

  He took a step forward.

  He was careful when he did so, not wanting to move too quickly, not wanting to risk the danger of the darkness. He could feel that around him, almost as if it were squeezing around him, though even now, he couldn’t tell whether or not that darkness was anything other than the shadow of night. When he looked up at the sky, he saw only a cloudless night, no moon, no stars, just the blanket of black. That, as much as anything, suggested this was supernatural.

  “I can feel you,” Jason mumbled. His voice came out muted, quiet and soft, and it came out as if it were within a fog of energy.

  It was another clue that he was right about what he had detected and how he believed the night dragon to be here. He held onto the other dragons’ energy, calling that power to him, letting it surround him, swirling throughout him.

  Jason started with the iron dragon, letting the heat radiate outward. It was one aspect that he knew the night dragon wouldn’t be troubled by, and then he added a hint of the ice dragon’s cold. By holding onto the two, the bonding pair allowed him to create a fog of his own, a cloud of water vapor that hovered over everything. Finally, he added a hint of the forest dragon. Vaguely, he noticed something different.

  It was an insidious sort of sensation, something that filtered through, leaving a trailing swirling all around him. There was a part of Jason that thought it felt cold, though cold wasn’t quite right. When he was connected to the iron dragon as he was, there was no real sense of cold anyway. Jason had long ago lost the fear of the endless bite of cold he had once known his entire life.

  What he knew now was a sense of energy. That pressure upon him was little more than a fluttering.

  Tracking through that connection, Jason could feel something more.

  He took a step. Out here in the darkness, surrounded by the energy of the night, it was dangerous to take too many steps.

  Especially as he had no idea where the dragon was and whether there was anything about the dragon that he needed to be more careful with. Jason had learned that the night dragon could hide from him all too easily. He took another step and braced himself.

  This time, he held out the ice and iron dragon connections, pulsing it away from him. That cloud of water vapor radiated around him, creating a circle.

  There was pressure upon that circle.

  There.

  Jason turned toward it and began to move more deliberately. There was a soft and persistent pressure upon him, and as he headed toward that sense, he moved as carefully as he thought he needed in order to detect the sense of the night dragon.

  The dragon was near enough that Jason thought he could reach for him.

  Gradually, he took another step, and then another.

  Jason moved toward that pressure around him.

  His heart hammered, racing wildly.

  He paused a moment to steady himself, not wanting to get too caught up in the emotion of what he was doing. He took another step.

  Now he was turning toward that energy and he could feel it crashing around him.

  He turned in place, sweeping the energy of the other dragons through him. There came a small echoing. It was faint and subtle, but because he had sent the power, he could detect its echo.

  He took another step.

  A shadowed form loomed near him: a tree, at least as far as he could tell.

  Jason ignored it and took another step.

  There came a bulging of energy, a quick reaction, almost a terrified sense, but Jason held on. He took a quick step forward and exploded power and light around him.

  Suddenly, the forest was awash in bright orange light, the energy of the iron dragon. It radiated all around, filling the space between the trees. A shadowed form loomed near him, trapped within a bubble of energy Jason had created.

  He hurried toward the dragon, squeezing a moment longer.

  The dragon struggled within that barrier, continuing to try to break free, but Jason held tightly, maintaining his connection to the dragon as long as he could. He wanted to ensure he had that dragon wrapped up with that energy. It was a test, as much for Jason as it was for the dragon.

  He paused in front of the night dragon, the energy swirling within the barrier he held. “I got you this time,” he said.

  The struggling continued, tendrils of darkness that attempted to swirl out, slamming into the barrier, but the energy Jason maintained through his connection to the other dragons allowed him to keep the night dragon inside.

  “You don’t have to struggle quite so much,” he said.

  The dragon settled.

  Finally, the dragon came fully into view.

  He was small. Smaller than the other dragons, little more than the size of a large dog. His wings stretched off to either side, and though he allowed Jason to see him more clearly now, his wings took on some of the shadowed form as well, stretching out in a way that left it looking as if there were shadows streaking away from them.

  The dragon rubbed up against the barrier, testing it. Wings slashed at it.

  Jason had long ago learned that they were sharp and could damage his barriers. It required he hold more firmly to his barriers, clinging to them tightly enough that he would ensure the night dragon was unable shatter them and break free.

  Jason crouched down in front
of the dragon.

  The dragon turned its face toward him. Everything was dark. It was impossibly black. The only light was a faint flicker of light within his eyes.

  “You aren’t going to be able to break free this time,” Jason said.

  The dragon started again and shadows streamed off him, slamming toward Jason. Jason held onto the barrier, solidifying it for a moment to ensure that it held, but the dragon didn’t attempt to break free again.

  Jason grinned. “What else do you want to try?”

  The dragon turned toward him and lowered his head.

  “That’s it?”

  “You have succeeded,” the dragon said. Even his voice was wispy, little more than a faint tremoring.

  “I expected you to try more than this,” Jason said.

  “Why should I try more when you succeeded in holding me?”

  “You can see if you can break free again.”

  That was the game. He would try to find the dragon, trapping him within one of the barriers, and the dragon would either try to hide or break free. Feeling the pressure from the dragon now, the way that he was no longer attempting to shatter the barrier, Jason recognized that he no longer attempted to surge free.

  “The game is done,” the dragon said.

  Jason released his hold around the dragon. There was no point in maintaining it, as he didn’t want to harm the dragon, and he certainly didn’t want to scare him. He needed to maintain that hold so that he could continue to work with the dragon, trying to get a better understanding of him.

  Even though he had spent time like this with the dragon, Jason still couldn’t use his energy. That was the next step, a part of his desire to bond with him, to gain an understanding of the power within the night dragon. He hadn’t succeeded, not yet, but he was optimistic he would do so.

  “What’s wrong?”

  The night dragon turned away, slipping between the trees.

  Now that Jason held onto the power of the iron dragon, illuminating all of the forest, he no longer struggled to see the dragon disappearing. It wasn’t as if the dragon were doing anything to try to mask his disappearance, either. Though he slipped off, he didn’t disappear in a way that made it difficult for Jason to see him.

  Jason followed.

  The dragon headed deeper into the forest, and as they went, Jason knew exactly where the dragon intended to go. He’d been here before, and knew it well.

  He shifted the illusion all around him, creating another layer, making it so that there wasn’t anything to be concerned about. He didn’t want anyone else, even from Dragon Haven, to interfere.

  Not that he thought that anybody from Dragon Haven would cause any problems for this dragon, but Jason didn’t want to startle the dragon, and he wanted to have an unencumbered opportunity to continue to work with the dragon.

  The night dragon glanced back at him, turning in his direction.

  A burst of power came from him and struck Jason.

  He squeezed a barrier around himself and waited.

  The night dragon turned toward him, radiating energy again. “I would like to leave these trees,” the dragon said.

  He stopped in a small clearing. This was where the egg had hatched, and there were still fragments of the shell remaining. Jason had one in his pocket, his way of trying to see if he might be able to connect to the dragon in a different way, but so far that shell hadn’t done anything to help Jason establish that connection. He didn’t know if it would or not, but he also worried that if the shell were to be found by someone else, there was a danger to the night dragon. The other pieces of shell were within Dragon Haven, secluded in a room that Jason had sealed off with a powerful illusion.

  “What do you hope to find outside of the forest?”

  “Something else,” the night dragon said.

  Jason leaned against one of the trees, watching the night dragon. He was so different than the other dragons.

  Of course, when it came to these dragons—the misfits—all of them were different from each other. While the night dragon might be small, there was no doubt in Jason’s mind that he was powerful. As far as Jason could tell, the dragon had considerable energy trapped within him, and he could use his power and energy in order to reach for the kind of magic that the other dragons could not.

  “The others aren’t sure it’s safe for you to leave yet.”

  “The others are afraid,” the night dragon said.

  “Yes,” Jason said. He stepped forward and crouched down next the night dragon.

  He swished his tail, the only part of him that was enormous. It was incredibly long, snaking out from him, long enough that he could wrap it all the way around the entirety of his body.

  “There is someone out there who would try to control the dragons, and she has already attempted to do so with the others.”

  “But she has failed,” the night dragon said.

  “So far, she has failed,” Jason agreed.

  “Then she would fail with me,” the night dragon said. He looked over, and those dark eyes held Jason. Power seemed to swirl into him, trapping him. “You haven’t been able to hold me with only the energy of one dragon.”

  “I haven’t,” Jason agreed.

  That was part of the game, their way of trying to work together to see if there was anything that Jason might be able to do to hold the dragon, and in all the times he had attempted to trap the dragon, a single connection wasn’t enough. The night dragon could break free when Jason held him with the energy of the ice dragon or the iron dragon or even the forest dragon. Jason hadn’t attempted to do so with the storm dragon, though his connection to that dragon was different, not nearly as potent as it was with the others. Regardless, only in mixing had he been successful in holding the night dragon.

  Part of that might just be a failing of Jason’s, not necessarily a sign of how powerful the night dragon could be, though he couldn’t help but wonder if it truly did demonstrate the true strength of the night dragon, of the power that existed within him.

  “You’re right, but the person we worry about can command hundreds of dragons,” he said.

  “You have freed most of those dragons,” the dragon said.

  “I’ve freed as many as I can, but there remain hundreds still trapped.”

  “There are others that need freed.”

  “From her?”

  Jason created an illusion, holding an image of Jessica. She stood on the far side of the clearing, her arms crossed, a dark tilt to her jaw. She had dark black hair, deep brown eyes, almost black, and pale skin. She was dressed in a dragonskin jacket and pants, much like she had the very first time he’d met her.

  Despite the illusion, there was an anger and energy that filled her, and Jason couldn’t help but feel as if there was something within the illusion that he needed to be careful creating. Every so often, he wondered if the illusion had more power than he suspected.

  He knew illusions, especially those illusions that shifted reality the way that he had the ability to do, could call upon power that brought more energy into existence. When it came to Jessica, he worried about giving it too much power. So far, they had defeated her, pushing her back and preventing her from probing toward Dragon Haven. For now. Eventually, he worried that would change, and when it did, he wanted to be ready to protect Dragon Haven.

  “She doesn’t look too powerful,” the night dragon said, swishing his long tail toward her. Shadows streamed off the tail. They swirled around the illusion, shattering it.

  It was a physical sensation when the illusion shattered. More than that, there came a surge of power that exploded, and it sent a shiver radiating up through him.

  He tried to ignore it, trying to focus only on holding onto the illusion rather than trying to use it as an opportunity to combat the night dragon, but he couldn’t help feeling as if there was something that made it difficult. He struggled with it.

  The more power that streamed off the dragon, the more he could feel the
change, the way that energy shattered.

  “Not only from her, though,” the night dragon said. It seemed to Jason that he became more confident each time they spoke.

  He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. He noticed the energy the night dragon held onto, and as he did, he tried to hold onto something different, attempting a different approach. Rather than fighting through the burst of energy the night dragon used, Jason tried to solidify the illusion in a different way, shifting it.

  He allowed the shadows to slide through the illusion, but once they were through, he added a hint more of power, connecting to the illusion again. Doing so, he felt the power that he’d been holding onto shatter, but then it reformed in a way that allowed Jason to maintain it again.

  The night dragon looked over at him. “Why do you hold this image?”

  “Practice,” Jason said.

  “Why must you practice?”

  “Because you continue to test me,” Jason said, smiling, though he didn’t feel much humor. The night dragon would be too great a prize were Jessica to claim him. Jason needed to protect him—all of the misfits—from Jessica and Lorach.

  He took another step toward the dragon and reached toward him.

  He hadn’t touched the dragon yet, either. As much as he wanted to feel the night dragon’s skin, to see what the scaled surface of his body might feel like, the dragon had avoided any contact.

  Jason didn’t even know if the night dragon was substantial or whether it consisted of shadows swirling around. As far as he knew, it could be either.

  The night dragon continued to move, writhing around, and as Jason held onto the sense of the night dragon, he felt power flowing from him. There wasn’t anything more that he could detect coming off the dragon, just a certain anger and energy that suggested his irritation with Jason.