Free The Sorcerer's Dragon (Book 2) by Julius St. Clair

and then reappeared on the left side of her hip. She grasped the hilt and yanked it from her waist.
    “I won’t kill you,” she said to them as they writhed in the dirt. “But I do want a message sent. I’m not playing around. All I want is to be left alone, and if that’s not good enough, then I’ll have to start taking heads. I will make it my personal mission to find out where the Langorans have their headquarters and I will run it into the ground. Everyone understand me?”
    All she got were groans, but that was good enough for her.
    “Excellent, now I’ll be heading out.”
    As she jogged away from the scene, her eidolon hummed, letting her know that there were two more people nearby, and they both had familiar signatures.
    “I sense you!” she yelled, and she heard a rustling above her. What was with people and hiding in trees?
    Before she could call out again, Catherine and Olivia jumped down in front of her. She was sure it wasn’t for a heartfelt good-bye.
    “Here to wish me well?” Remi asked.
    Olivia didn’t smile back. “No, I’m afraid we’re here to take you back, by any means necessary.”
     

Chapter 6 – Family
    “You’re serious?” Remi asked as her face softened. “By any means? Who gave you that order?”
    “I decided it on my own,” Olivia said. “And I asked Catherine to come with me because we’re in agreement. You can’t go out here by yourself.”
    “Then come with me,” Remi nearly pleaded. “Both of you.”
    “We can’t,” Catherine said, her curly locks sticking out of her Sage hood. “Paragon needs us, and it needs you too.”
    “No, it doesn’t. It wants to use me.”
    “That’s not true.”
    “James said I was free to go after the Sorcerers!” Remi shouted. Catherine looked around her, trying to sense if there were any more Langorans nearby. “Remi, I would keep it down if I were you. There’s a second scout group only a few miles from here.”
    “I took down the first one by myself. What makes this one any different?”
    “They’re a lot stronger.”
    “And what does that matter? If I’m supposed to be this all-powerful weapon, so powerful in fact that I can’t even leave Paragon, then why should I be worried?”
    “We don’t know the full extent of your powers, or what being a weapon of the Sorcerers actually means.”
    “And you won’t be able to unless you do tests, right? Poke me. Prod me. Treat me like an experiment. Like one of Thorn’s things .”
    “Which we will never do.”
    “You are right now,” Remi said, casting her eyes toward the ground. “Everyone in Paragon can come and go as they please. But the moment I try, a retrieval party is sent. I don’t understand.”
    “You do plenty,” Olivia said. “Come on. You know how important you are to us.”
    “I think…I think I know why the other weapons can’t be found. Or…or why they don’t show themselves in public. Because they’ll be used as weapons, and not treated like people. Just because I was born like this…it doesn’t make me any less of a person than you.”
    “You are equal to us,” Catherine replied but Remi shook her head furiously.
    “No, I’m not. And if you force me to come back with you, I’m going to leave again. And again. And again. Until you have to treat me like a thing. You’ll have to restraint me and use me and you’ll have to deal with that burden every day. Or, you can do the right thing, and let me go.”
    “That’s not going to—” Olivia began, but Catherine put a hand on her shoulder.
    “Let her go,” she said, and Olivia scoffed. She opened her mouth to retort but then decided against it.
    “Fine,” she muttered. “But remember that you’re turning your back on us too, Remi. No one’s going to be so quick to let you back in if you leave like this.”
    “I know,” she said. Catherine reached behind and under her Sage robe and presented a backpack to Remi.
    “Here,” she said, throwing it at Remi’s feet. “A