Free The Dragon Conspiracy by Lisa Shearin Page A

once.
    “You were protecting yourself. I don’t blame you. If I’d have been in your shoes, I’d have done the same thing myself. Actually, skills like yours aren’t as rare as you’d think. People either learn how to hide it . . .” I stopped and caught myself mid-wince. I hadn’t meant to go in that direction—that people who couldn’t handle any magical woo-woo life handed them often ended up in an institution, on the streets as an addict, or else they self-inflicted themselves into a drawer at the city morgue.
    None of those were going to happen to Ben, I told myself. That was why we were here. And nothing forged trust like giving trust.
    “I see supernatural people,” I told him.
    Thank God, I didn’t see dead people. Living with that shit would send me screaming right over the edge.
    Ben didn’t move a muscle. “Supernatural?”
    “Those creatures you’ve read or heard about in fairy tales and urban legends. You’ve heard the phrase that to every legend there’s a grain of truth? Well, there’s a lot of grains out there, and they’re real. Vampires, werewolves, dragons, elves, goblins, pixies, unicorns, Sasquatch, the Loch Ness, and various other monsters and creatures—they’re all real.”
    During the few times in my life when I’d said a variation of the above to someone, I’d gotten the look Ben was presently giving me, usually combined with the step back, which Ben couldn’t do right now, or the person I was drinking with would laugh and order us another round of tequila shots.
    “And you never wondered whether you were crazy?” Ben asked.
    Ian didn’t say a word. He simply went to the door and opened it. The assessment team was waiting outside. Procedure had to be followed.
    “Caera, could you step in here for a moment, please?” Ian asked.
    Caera Filarion was an attractive human woman in her late twenties—at least she looked like a human woman to human eyes. In reality, she was much older.
    She was also an elf.
    Ian opted to go with a non-traumatizing example for Ben’s introduction to the beings who shared the city and our world with us. Caera was no bigger than a minute, cute as a button, and looked about as threatening as a newborn kitty cat. She was also perfectly capable of kicking Ben Sadler’s ass up one side and down the other, but that wasn’t part of the example Ian wanted to make.
    As a member of the assessment team, one of Caera’s tasks was to be a newbie’s first walk on the supernatural side.
    The elf lowered the magazine she’d been flipping through while she and the other three members of the team waited.
    “Need me to flash my ears at him?” she asked Ian.
    “If you wouldn’t mind.”
    Caera came in, and Ian closed the door behind her.
    The elf crossed the room, hand extended, smiling brightly. It was genuine.
    “Mr. Sadler, I’m Caera Filarion.”
    She didn’t give him any choice but to shake her hand, and Ben was too well mannered to refuse, regardless of how surreal all this had to feel.
    The handshake was more than an attempt to put a newbie at ease. It presented them with irrefutable evidence that Caera Filarion was a warm, living, breathing, and charming woman and—as he was about to find out—one who also happened to not be human.
    It made the pointy ears she was about to reveal go over a lot easier.
    “I’m an elf,” she told him simply.
    “Pardon me?”
    “An elf, Mr. Sadler.”
    “But there’s—”
    “No such thing as elves? What was your college degree?”
    “Geology.”
    “And now you’re a gemologist and appraiser, which makes you a scientist of sorts, correct?”
    “I suppose you could say that, ma’am.” Ben had no idea where this was going. I admit Caera was taking me on a walk out in left field, too.
    “And as a scientist you’re aware that discoveries are made every day.”
    “Yes,” he replied hesitantly.
    “Just because one is unaware of the existence of something doesn’t alter the fact that it is