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  Ezra’s Secret

  Smokey Mountain Dragons

  Jadyn Chase

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  Copyright © 2019 by Jadyn Chase

  In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher. All rights reserved.

  Respective authors own all copyrights not held by the publisher.

  Contents

  1. Nora

  2. Ezra

  3. Nora

  4. Ezra

  5. Nora

  6. Ezra

  7. Nora

  8. Ezra

  9. Nora

  10. Ezra

  11. Nora

  12. Epilogue

  More from Jadyn

  1

  Nora

  “Oh, you son of a stinkin’ toad!” I kicked the tent poles that refused to form the shape I wanted them to. No matter how many different combinations I tried, they wouldn’t behave.

  “Do you need a hand, Nora?”

  Ethan Burkes was the last man on Earth I wanted to see me lose my cool right about now. I blew out a shaky breath without turning around. “That’s all right, Ethan. Thanks. I got this.”

  He moved into my line of sight and bent over to grab the poles. “Here. Let me help you.”

  He did something with them down on the ground. Don’t ask me how he did it, but like magic, he strung them together and hoisted the tent off the ground. In seconds, it sprouted up and became a perfectly respectable dome.

  I blinked at it in amazement. “How did you do that?”

  He laughed. “Just one of the many skills I’ve had to acquire in my journey to becoming the world’s greatest dentist.”

  He turned around, so I had no choice but to look him in the face. Now that I didn’t have to worry about getting the tent set up, his handsome features took over my attention. I realized for the millionth time in the few weeks since I met him just how rivetingly attractive he was.

  Sea-green eyes shone out of his porcelain skin. He never seemed to take much trouble with his chestnut-brown hair, but it always looked perfect. He raked his fingers through it to comb it out of his eyes, and he looked ready for the red carpet.

  I swallowed to get my voice working. “Thanks for inviting me on this camping trip. I needed to get out of the dorm. I’ve been studying way too hard.”

  “You always study too hard,” he replied. “That’s why you’re so far ahead of the rest of your med school class.”

  I blushed and tore my eyes away. Tents popped up all over the field. Dense Appalachian forest surrounded Jacks River Fields Campground in the Chattahoochee National Forest.

  Ethan was right. Between classes and studying for exams, I hardly ever left my desk these days. I wasn’t even sure I should come on this trip. Ethan had to twist my arm to convince me to drive halfway across Tennessee from Chattanooga over the Georgia line for a few days of R&R hiking and camping in the woods.

  Now, after our first day penetrating deep into the Cohutta Wilderness, I understood what I’d been missing. Three years slaving away at the University of Tennessee Medical School made me forget what green looked like. I’d forgotten all about leaves and sky and the breeze.

  Before I could answer, Ethan slipped his fingers through mine and murmured low. “I’m glad you came. I probably wouldn’t have come if you hadn’t agreed.”

  My eyes popped open. “Really? I thought these guys were your friends?”

  “Them?” He cracked a wry grin surveying the other four members of our group. “I wouldn’t call them friends. They’re acquaintances, and they’re all in Masters programs or PhDs. They don’t understand how hard it is going for a medical degree….” He cast a sidelong glance at me. “Or, in my case, a dental degree.”

  I couldn’t stop my cheeks burning every time he made eye contact. My heart fluttered. I really wasn’t anything to write home about. He could have any girl he laid eyes on. Why he would pick a frump like me, I couldn’t tell you.

  He gave my arm a subtle tug. “Come on. I think Tina’s making spaghetti. The impending toxic waste disaster should be entertaining.”

  I tried to extricate my hand from his grasp. “I should really…. I should put my stuff in the tent and everything. I should get it ready for…..”

  “Come on,” he urged. “You can do that later. We’re not going anywhere tonight.”

  He inclined his head toward the rest of our party. Two other young men and two women set up their tents near mine, and the hiss of a camp stove drifted across the field.

  I started to relax. “All right. I guess we’ve got some time before the sun goes down.”

  We migrated to the spot where a lithe, blonde woman crouched by the stove. A pot of water steamed on the grate. I sat down cross-legged, and Ethan took his place at my side—a little too close, I thought. We’d seen each other a dozen times in the last three weeks, and he already started to act like my boyfriend.

  Okay, so I might not be as good looking as he was, but he behaved as if our relationship was already written in stone. That didn’t sit right on my mind. He acted like I ought to be grateful to be going out with him, like he knew how much higher up the eye-candy spectrum he was, and any woman of my lowly standing ought to be falling all over themselves just to be seen with him.

  He acted like I couldn’t possibly have a single reason in my head to NOT want to go out with him, or to be his chosen girlfriend, or his wife, or whatever. That’s what really bothered me about going out with him. It bothered me a lot more than going out with someone so much better looking than myself.

  That simple act of sitting down inside my personal space zone made me want to recoil from him. I wanted to run screaming back to Chattanooga and never see him again. It sure as hell made me want to never touch his hand again—or any other part of him, for that matter.

  He even put up his tent right next to mine. He never thought for an instant I would want to be anywhere else.

  Tina turned one way and then the other searching for something with both hands spread out. “Now where did I put the pasta?”

  “Right over there.” Chad pointed behind her.

  She snatched the package and cracked the noodles into the now boiling water. “Too bad we only have one burner. I won’t be able to do the sauce until the pasta is finished.”

  “Shouldn’t you have done it the other way around?” Chad asked. “Shouldn’t you have done the sauce first and the pasta last? Then the noodles wouldn’t be sitting around getting cold and sticky.”

  Tina’s head shot up, and an expression of sheer horror covered her face.

  “It’s all right,” I chimed in. “I’m sure it will be fine.”

  Ethan smirked at me from the side. That smile didn’t endear him to me, either. I could have slapped him for making a joke out of someone else’s discomfort. The more time I spent with him outside of school, the worse I liked him.

  I’ll admit I was a little star struck when he first asked me out. No, wait. I was really star struck. I fawned on him like a puppy dog. I even probably thought, as he did, that I was lucky just to have him notice me.

  Now that we got outside the school walls and the fresh air cleared my head, I realized my mistake. He wasn’t a nice person at all. He was just a pretty face, a sharp brain for memorizing facts, and a stunning pair of white teeth.<
br />
  I kept quiet while Tina struggled through making the rest of our meal. Chad, Ethan, and the other couple, Matt and Michelle, added comments of more or less value at convenient and inconvenient times.

  The longer this went on, the more I withdrew in on myself. I didn’t know these people from Adam. I went back to admiring the surroundings. A few other people camped nearby. They tethered their pack horses to graze on the lush grass. Birds and squirrels chattered in the tree branches.

  I let my senses play over the colors and impressions all around me. How did I convince myself to spend so many years of my life without this? Even as far back as high school, I obsessed about getting into medical school. I gave up my social life, my interests, and even spending time outside to make sure I got straight As.

  When I looked ahead to the rest of my life, I didn’t see that changing anytime soon, either. I had to finish another year of med school, followed by internships, residency, and then who knew how many years of working as a doctor. I didn’t really foresee having any time off until…. well, until I retired.

  My soul cringed at the very thought. Part of me didn’t want to go back to Chattanooga at all. I’d proven to myself and everyone else that I could do it. I could pretty much waltz through the rest of med school without even trying. I was certain to graduate and get a very prestigious internship somewhere that would guarantee me a noteworthy career, a healthy pay package, and all the praise I could stomach.

  All at once, looking around the campground, none of that meant a thing. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t me. It was some cooked-up dream I had in grade school about becoming a doctor. It couldn’t hold a candle to the startling reality of these forests, the streams and clouds, the birds and the beauty all around me.

  What could I do about it, though? I had to go back to Chattanooga. I couldn’t quit. I couldn’t walk away from more than ten years of work to get where I was. The thought made me want to cry. The thought of walking away made me want to cry, and the thought of going back made me want to cry, too. I was trapped. I couldn’t win.

  At that moment, a deafening boom shook the ground under me. Everyone jumped and spun around in all directions searching for the source of the noise. Another concussion rattled the forest and Tina’s tent collapsed, but no one noticed it. The sky blacked out and something massive covered the field. It extended from one dark fringe of trees all the way to the other.

  Chad and Ethan scrambled to their feet. Tina overturned the pot of boiling pasta and the noodles squiggled into the grass. Michelle screamed.

  I sat rooted to the spot, unable to move. In front of my stunned eyes, a dragon the size of a mountain descended on the field. It flexed its leathery black wings, and its snake head bobbed on its long neck to inspect the area.

  Its slit eyes came to rest on our party. Tina staggered backward with a petrified cry and pitched over one of the tents. Matt dragged Michelle away, but I couldn’t move. I stared into the depths of the creature’s monstrous eyes.

  The next minute, it let loose a torrential jet of fire. It sprayed its demonic breath across the campground, and Chad and Tina went up in smoke.

  2

  Ezra

  My brother Kylen slapped my shoulder. “Don’t you want to take this with you?” He held out a loaded shotgun.

  “Naw.” I scanned the trees. “It wouldn’t do any good, and it might spook him away.”

  “Suit yourself.” He laid the gun on the floor of the back seat where it belonged. “Take it easy, son. See you in a few hours.”

  I climbed out of the Jeep. He threw the vehicle into gear and skidded onto the road. In a matter of seconds, he disappeared in a cloud of dust.

  I puffed out my cheeks and squared my shoulders to the forest. Here went nothing. The sooner I got to Jacks River and made contact with my supplier, the sooner I could get back home.

  I never liked going into this part of the forest. Leaving Kelly territory always made me jumpy—not that I was going into enemy territory, you understand. I had as much right as the next man to go to Jacks River. My supplier wouldn’t have arranged to meet me there if I didn’t.

  Still, one man alone with no protection never boded well, even when you were going to meet a friend. Maybe I should have taken that gun after all.

  No, that wouldn’t work. Who takes a loaded shotgun to meet a friend? It might give the guy the impression we weren’t really friends at all, and I couldn’t have that.

  I braced myself and plunged into the thicket. I broke into a run and dodged fallen trunks and bramble patches. I ran for ten miles before I slowed to a walk.

  Long before I got anywhere near Jacks River, I heard the noise. I halted to listen but only for an instant. No Kelly could mistake that sound for anything else. I bolted ahead and dove behind some bushes to peek out.

  Sure enough, a dozen full-grown dragons stalked through the campground torching everything in sight. Men and women dashed everywhere, but I couldn’t hear their screams over the noise.

  A huge green-black monster hopped to cut them off before they got anywhere near the trailhead. He spread his wings and, with one powerful blast, blew them back into the field. They sailed off the ground and crashed onto the grass, where the other dragons pounced on them.

  The tethered pack horses shrieked and plunged against their picket ropes. One of the ropes snapped and the horse charged for cover. In a fraction of a second, the biggest reptile of them all rounded on the creature. He let loose a wicked barrage of flame that incinerated the horse in the blink of an eye.

  The fire woofed around the horse and hit the trees. Five big pines burst into flame. The crackles and pops of exploding sap joined the din.

  I flattened my belly to the ground. I couldn’t let them see me or I was as good as dead. Not even Kylen’s shotgun could help me now.

  The big black menace took another lumbering step in a circle. He calculated his next move and plastered the rest of the horses with his fire. The other dragons hunted down every person in the campground, but they didn’t kill anybody—not that I saw.

  They moved with deliberate slowness. They fluttered here and there to block anybody from running away. The campers screeched and ran from them, but that only played into the dragons’ plans. The campers fled back the way they’d come until they all gathered in the center of the field.

  The dragons surrounded them. They extended their wings to form a ring none of the campers dared to cross. One big red fellow lowered his head close to the terrified people and bellowed at them loud enough to shake the ground.

  The women burst into tears. Two of them cowered against their men for comfort. Even the men clamped their eyes shut to hide from the noise.

  Only one person on the field stood still. A short, curvy woman stared at the black dragon and didn’t move. Its breath gusted her dark, curly hair back from her face. She narrowed her eyes at the thing the way she would have facing into a stiff breeze, but she didn’t cry or flinch.

  She might have been just as petrified as the rest of them, but she reacted differently. She stayed still and quiet instead of screaming and hiding. She commanded all my attention above all the other chaos going on out there.

  Then the dragons changed. They shrank in on themselves. Their necks and tails retracted into their bodies. They folded their wings against their backs and their pointed muzzles flattened into faces. Their scales vanished to become regular pink human skin.

  A burly red-headed man advanced on the campers. He waved his arm. His rumbling voice drifted across the field, but I couldn’t make out the words. His friends laughed and hooted.

  The campers blubbered and cowered more than ever—all except that dark-haired woman. Her clear skin shone in the dusk. Nothing disturbed her glacial calm.

  All at once, the red-haired man noticed her and strode over to her. He pressed his nose right up against hers. His jaw moved, but he spoke so quietly I couldn’t hear him.

  She didn’t react. She stared straight in front of her, right
into his face. After a few seconds of one-sided dialogue, the bastard hauled back his fist and clubbed her to the ground. He flattened her with one blow, and she didn’t rise.

  My hair rose on the back of my neck at the sight, but I stuffed down my mounting temper. No man alone could win this fight, and I had the whole rest of Clan Kelly to think about.

  Another woman screamed and tried to jump forward to help, but her man dragged her back and clutched her in his arms. The red-haired leader whirled away. He swept his hand sideways and said something to his boys. Just then, three ATVs bounced out of the undergrowth. They rumbled to a stop in front of the campers, and the men slid the doors open.

  The campers kicked and struggled, but they couldn’t stop so many men from manhandling them into the vehicles. In a couple of seconds, the attackers slammed the doors, and the ATVs burned rubber out of the campground.

  I stayed hidden long after they left. I had to gauge my next move with care or the jig would be up. I fought to keep my head calm measuring the quickest way back to Kelly territory.

  At all costs, I had to avoid those men seeing me. They had trucks and guns, and I was alone and on foot, not to mention completely unarmed.

  At last, I broke cover and ran. I ran a lot faster than I ran getting to Jacks River in the first place. I ran until my lungs burst and my legs turned to jelly, and still I ran. I ran until I found the road and set off down it to overtake Kylen.

  He would have gotten home long since. He was probably sitting on the front porch cracking a brewsky right now. I didn’t expect to find him on the road, and I didn’t.