Free Jack Templar and the Lord of the Werewolves (Book #4 of the Templar Chronicles) by Jeff Gunhus

your companions would not have given the money as you did. Admit it. You give your race too much credit, Templar. It will be your undoing.”
    I bit my tongue. I wasn’t here to argue the nature of man. I was here to find the answer to only one question.
    “Do you know where I can find Kaeden, Lord of the Werewolves?” I asked.
    “I see everything,” Pythia hissed. “I see the thousand pathways each one of your movements obliterates. I see the birth of a thousand new ones stretching out into time eternal.”
    “Sooo… is that a yes?”
    Pythia snarled at me, the elegant beauty disappearing for a second to reveal a wrinkled, shrunken face of an old woman. “You dare to mock me, boy?”
    The Templar ring grew warm once again on my finger. It filled me with foreboding. Danger was near. “I thought you can see the future,” I said. “It’s what all the history books say.”
    “I can see all futures,” she replied, regaining her composure. “You were born with free will – I do not take that from you. I do not take what is not mine.”
    I remembered her saying that minutes earlier and at the temple with the German. “You don’t take what’s not yours, but you ask for it.”
    “Yes,” she said.
    “So, what do you ask for in return for this information?” I asked.
    “Belief,” she said. “Belief that you could be the One. Will you give it to me, Templar? Will you give me this thing that I cannot take?
    It was a curious request, and I should have been more alert to the venom in her voice. But I was eager to get the information and get out of there.
    “Sure,” I said. “How do I do it?”
    She grinned and nodded to the space behind me. “Just by agreeing, you’ve already done it,” she laughed.
    I spun around. The marble dragon I’d passed on the way in was moving, slowly at first, but gaining more agility and speed by the second. Its wide scales slid over one another as it slithered from the shadows into the light of day.
    “This will be fun,” Pythia said.
    I didn’t need to be able to see the future to see that I was about to have anything but fun fighting this monster.

Chapter 11
    I drew my sword and held it in front of me, cursing my big mouth. I had no clue why my belief that I could be the One meant anything to her. Or how giving her that belief gave her permission to test me. Still, I should have seen that the Oracle was searching for a way to get me to agree to this confrontation. Obviously, she operated under some kind of warped system where she couldn’t force people to do things, only accept what they were willing to give her.
    And I’d just accidentally given her the fight she wanted to see.
    This dragon was very different from the ones I’d faced before. I mean, even outside the fact that the others had been made of flesh and blood and this one still appeared to be made of stone.
    It was smaller than the dragons at the Academy. Those had been like prehistoric creatures, the size of small buildings. This one was on more of a human scale, the head like that of a large lion, with a thick, serpentine body and long tail that tapered off into a nasty barbed spike. I took special note of that and all the other parts of the dragon’s body that might kill me. Its enormous fangs, curved claws, hooks on its elbow joints and probably the ability to breathe fire.
    Piece of cake.
    “This is Python,” the Oracle said. “Once faced by the god Apollo himself. Can you defeat him, Templar? Do you think of yourself as a god?”
    “Uh, no. But I am pretty good in a fight,” I replied.
    She scowled. I guess she didn’t like my sense of humor. And neither did the beast coming toward me.
    The dragon let out a deafening roar, so loud that I opened my guard to cover my ears. This move was exactly what it wanted me to do, and it charged the second I did.
    But I was ready. Covering my ears was just a feint to lure the monster in. I spun to the side and brought down my blade as hard as I could.
    As the