Finding the Wolf(The Dragon's Hoard #1) by Mell Eight

a lofted sleeping area in one corner.  A small fireplace and kitchen area dominated one wall. Storage trunks and the kitchen table took up the rest of the space. 
    "When I was first brought here," Leon said softly, pointing to a spot beside the fireplace set with logs in preparation for the night, "I was given a blanket and that spot. When I couldn't say no to the Alpha all I had to wear was a chain around my ankle and I had to do his every bidding. Do your every bidding," Leon added in a stronger voice as he turned to look at Reese. "I didn't see that you replaced me with anyone when I tried to escape the first time and they locked me up, and I don't see a new cub at your feet now. Why?"
    Reese just shook his head. "They came through the Wilds. From the South well beyond where the woods end."
    "That's far," Nyle murmured. He wouldn't have been able to fly that distance within one day. The woods were extensive and housed many different creatures that made it unsafe for a dragon to land for the night before continuing on to the farther territories. To Nyle's knowledge, no dragon in recent dragon history, at least a hundred thousand years, had flown past the Wilds.
    "We ignored them at first. They were like us, a people who needed a home. The Wilds provide for all creatures, or so we thought. To these people, the Wilds were the next big thing to be conquered. They systematically began to enforce their control over all the denizens of the forest. No matter how much we disliked it, we did as we were told. Even me, the Alpha, bowing to some human seeming man like the newest of pups."
    "So they have something like the presence of an Alpha about them?" Nyle asked.
    Reese shook his head in denial. "We hardly saw them. They made us build them a house then vanished. Even without all the tricks Alpha wolves use, they cowed us. They called themselves magi and used magic to subdue us." Reese was having a slight problem keeping his face from shifting into fangs and his eyes were glowing yellow in anger. He paused in his story to regain control over himself.
    "What happened after I left?" Leon asked once Reese seemed composed again.
    Reese shook his head again and took a seat at his kitchen table. "It happened because you showed up. The magi learned that there was something the creatures in the Wilds avoided; humans and their weapons. They saw your power, Leon. You could disobey my orders, which meant you were bitten and became an Alpha—you went from the lowest position in the pack to vying for the highest—and you managed to disobey their orders—their compulsion. The humans were the more powerful species, something you proved when you left against express orders.
    "One morning we woke up and the magi were gone. Their thrall over us had vanished. We freed all the slaves and destroyed the evidence of our cruelty. But we knew the magi were not truly gone, only moved on."
    "You think they went to the human court and found that the power of the dragons backing the human's rule to be the ultimate challenge," Nyle mused out loud. "My kind are the next great conquest."
    "So the question is," Leon continued, "how do we stop them?"
    Nyle nodded agreement. "Their magic is the key to their control over others. So if we break their magic we break their hold over innocents. I wonder if the Eldest has heard of them?"
    "All I know about them," Reese added, "is that they had to have some sort of communal focal point. They all lived in that one house together and when they left the house came down on its own."
    Nyle leaned back against the wall to think. Dragons used focal points garnered from the shine of something sparkly, their own eyes included, for their magic. It seemed fair to reason based on Reese's idea that the magi also needed something to gather and focus their power.
    "I will bring all this to the Eldest," Nyle said finally. "Once we find their magical focus we will bring down this threat."
    "That may take an army," Reese added with a