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looking at a large book, but their eyes turned
    to the door the moment it opened.
    The black-haired woman at the work desks was probably the youngest woman in
    the room aside from the witch who’d escorted them. The woman’s cocoa-brown skin set
    her apart from the women next to her even more than her youth. Her light gray pants
    and smoky purple shirt also marked her as different. The elders wore long flowing
    skirts and dresses not suited for action.
    The woman noticed them then. She spoke a few quiet words to the elders, nodded
    and stepped away from them. Samiel let his eyes linger on the curves of her breasts and
    hips as she turned. He’d love to get his hands on those.
    “I’ll see what I can find here first. I’ll talk to you if I find anything of interest,” the
    woman said. She nodded to the other elders and headed for the door with barely a
    glance at either him or Jaeson.
    Determined to get at least the basic facts, Samiel focused on the elders. There’d be
    time later to discover if any of the local witches would complete their tri’inal, a mated
    triad of a witch, vampire and dragon. The last two elders took a seat behind the long,
    dark-brown wood table. He saw them looking Jaeson and him over as if assessing them
    and none of the women looked impressed or very welcoming.
    “How long has your village been under attack?” Samiel watched the women’s
    faces.
    “There have been at least five major attacks over the last few months, many other
    testing probes. A single merdanon sent to cause panic the first time,” one of the women
    at the far left of the table said. Her skin was wrinkled, her hair white, but her blue eyes
    sparkled with life and intelligence.
    “We sent for aid. Why didn’t you or any other dragon or vampire come before
    now?” A slim elder with gray-streaked hair, one of those who’d been talking to the
    younger witch eyed them warily as if she wasn’t sure they could be trusted.
    “We didn’t get any requests. Not from you or from any other town in this area. We
    came because the main sect house asked us to check on the coven and village since there
    hadn’t been any messages in months,” Jaeson responded before Samiel could.
    Every one of the elders gasped. “We sent message after message. Most of the
    messengers never returned but we thought they were too afraid of the merdanons to
    come back without aid. Those who did make it back were sent more recently and they
    never got through the pass out of the mountains. They were blocked by merdanons and
    the Sorcerer.” A short, frail-looking elder with leathery skin and steel-gray hair shook
    her head. “Now that we know that absolutely none of our requests made it through we
    have to assume that at least some of the women sent have been captured.”
    Samiel studied the woman. She might have been one of the oldest witches in the
    coven but he’d bet she’d been out there fighting with the rest of them. He could see the
    spirit, the determination in her eyes. He couldn’t help but admire their skill and
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    tenacity. There were cities and towns with many more witches and wizards that had
    fallen under such persistent attacks.
    “We’ll get them back, but first we have to discover who the Dark Sorcerer is and
    where he’s hiding. How have you survived so long and what did you do with the
    merdanon bodies?” Jaeson cocked his head to the left.
    “We were lucky, but we also have some very capable witches. Surrendering wasn’t
    really a choice.” The elder at the end of the table stood. “I’m Elder Talia Sarash. We
    thank you for coming to help us.”
    “There will be more dragons and vampires coming to help now that we know there
    is a problem. The Dark Sorcerer has to be stopped. He’s not going to stop on his own.”
    Samiel stepped forward to clasp her hand. He’d wondered for a while if their help
    would be welcomed or not. “We’ll go see what we can do to help secure the village in
    the