Dragons vs. Drones Read Online Free PDF

uncomfortable tingle running down her spine. It felt like someone was watching her.
    She slowly turned around, knowing what she would find.
    Behind them, rising up and closing in fast, were two crimson dragons, each almost double the size of Lourdvang and brimming with muscle. Fire was already flickering ominously from their mouths, red and hot and deadly. Dree knew Lourdvang could never outrun them. No one could outrun the Flames.
    They pulled beside Lourdvang and growled something in their dragon language: all grunts and raspy hisses.
    When they finally fell silent, Dree leaned in toward Lourdvang’s ear.
    â€œWhat did they say?”
    When he spoke, he sounded afraid.
    â€œThey’re taking us to Arncrag to meet their chieftain.”
    â€œI guess it could be worse,” Dree said.
    Lourdvang paused. “They’re taking us there to question us before we die.”

Chapter 4
    M arcus hurried into his small apartment, shutting the door behind him. It was a modest place, to say the least. His uncle Jack pretty much lived at work, and he didn’t come home until after nine almost every night, so he never cared to upgrade to something bigger. Jack had divorced his wife, Sheila, when he was thirty, and now she lived down in Miami with her new family that Jack didn’t like to talk about. As far as Marcus knew, Jack never even considered remarrying after Sheila, and he hadn’t brought a date home in the eight years that Marcus had lived with him.
    â€œI fly stag,” he always said whenever Marcus teased him about finding a wife.
    Jack wasn’t exactly a typical parental figure—he basicallylet Marcus do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. It was like living with a friend . . . who just happened to be a fifty-two-year-old member of the CIA. Jack and Marcus also had one major thing in common: Neither of them believed that Marcus’s father was a traitor. The accusation had isolated Jack at work. The two of them had worked together in the CIA’s research department for two years before George disappeared, and they had become best friends. Jack used to say that George was like a little brother: stubborn and headstrong, but brilliant. He also said they had been working on a project together, but when Marcus asked what it was, he always said it didn’t matter, as it was now defunct. Jack’s favorite line was “Classified.” Sometimes he said that even when Marcus asked how his day went, and then he would smirk as Marcus flushed. Marcus didn’t like secrets.
    When George disappeared, most people believed the stories, and they also believed that if George was a traitor, then maybe his best friend had known something too. Jack had been investigated for weeks.
    Marcus felt the heat rising again, threatening to erupt.
Idiots, all of them
.
    His eyes fell on a framed photograph in the hall: his burly father smiling as he held a two-year-old Marcus on his lap. There was no mother in the picture of course—Marcus’s mom had died when he was a baby, and Jack didn’t say much about her, except that she was already dead when he and George had met at the agency eleven years earlier. Despite that, George looked happy and kind in thepicture, just like Marcus remembered him. He wasn’t a traitor. He couldn’t have been.
    Marcus put his skateboard in the front closet and started for his room.
    The apartment was sparsely decorated with a few paintings, but Jack had never put too much effort into the place. It was neat, but hardly homey. There were no photos of Jack, since most had been with Sheila and he didn’t want those anymore. The kitchen was spotless and sterile, since they ate takeout almost every night. Dust sat like a blanket on one of the chairs they never used. Brian always said it looked more like a hotel than a home. Whenever Marcus went to Brian’s house, he noticed how different it felt. There were family photos everywhere, the