Dragons and Mages: A Limited Edition Anthology

by Pauline Creeden

“I love you, Puppy,” Aesa said, falling asleep. “I love you too, Sissy.”

  “I love you, Sillybean,” Dyrfinna said.

  THE END

  Don’t miss the second book – A FIRE OF ROSES. You can expect the same action and adventure as the first book … and some romance. Finally!

  And some really evil people. A handful of stellar dragons.

  And yet another war … against zombie dragons.

  I won’t lie, it’s spectacular.

  Connect with the Authors

  Melinda R. Cordell:

  Website: http://melindacordell.com/

  Pauline Creeden:

  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PaulineCreeden

  Air to the Court: A Winds of Change Dragon Shifter Story

  Margo Bond Collins

  Air to the Court © 2020 Margo Bond Collins

  All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

  Chapter 1

  The first time my Queen’s Guard showed up on my doorstep, I slammed the door in their faces. Literally.

  Or at least, I tried to.

  I had tickets to a show at Lincoln Center that night, so when someone rang for me to buzz them into my apartment building, I didn’t even check—I assumed it was my date.

  It was a stupid move, one that showed I’d grown far too comfortable in my human skin, my human life in New York.

  When I opened the door, I didn’t find my human date waiting. Instead, three male dragon-shifters stood there in their gorgeous human forms.

  My welcoming smile faltered.

  I had barely enough time to realize that if they had wanted to kill me, I would already be dead.

  And then one spoke.

  “Brennan O’Neill?” The one in front—presumably the group’s alpha, though he was physically the smallest of the three—took a half-step forward. That’s when I realized what else this could be.

  “Oh, hell no.” I whipped the door closed as fast as I could, but I wasn’t quick enough to stop him from shoving one boot into the crack between the frame and door. The heavy door crashing into his foot didn’t faze him at all.

  I leaned my back against the door and pushed as hard as I could. It didn’t budge. Neither did he.

  “Ms. O’Neill?” the alpha continued, his voice calm and polite—and implacable.

  “No. Sorry. You must have the wrong address,” I babbled, even though I knew my instant reaction had already given me away. “I’m busy. Come back later. Or never. Never is good. In fact, never is best.”

  The alpha’s voice dropped into a different register, one that was much quieter. Almost intimate. “You need to talk to us. Your kingdom is in danger.”

  Damn. I was right. They were here to try to make me go back.

  “No,” I practically wailed. “I can’t. I won’t.” But as I slumped a little in my despair, I let up the pressure on the door just a tiny bit.

  It was enough for the alpha to push the door open more.

  With a sigh, I stepped away and turned to open the door wide. “Fine. You might as well come in.”

  As they filed in, I got my first good look at all of them. Physically, they were about as different as it was possible for three men to be. Yet, there was something about them—a kind of heat shimmering off them in waves—that had given them away as dragon shifters instantly, and that also clearly marked them as connected to one another, despite their human forms. I was willing to bet their dragon forms all carried the same clan markings.

  The alpha only seemed small in comparison to the other two. Compared to me, he was still pretty solid—and I was far from being a small woman. His dark hair and thick black eyebrows contrasted with his pale skin.

  The second man was probably the team’s enforcer. He was an enormous man with dark skin and a bald head, and he wore a serious expression.

  The third one, I had a harder time getting any real sense of beyond simply dragon-shifter. His hair was wavy, a dark reddish-blond, and his blue eyes sparkled with suppressed amusement as he passed me.

  Fenwick, the advisor who had saved me from the castle coup when my parents had been overthrown, had done his best to continue my education after we’d come to New York to hide in the seething masses of humanity. But there was only so much I could truly learn without examples to reinforce the information. So although I’d memorized the possible positions in a dragon squad, I wasn’t sure where this guy fit.

  I silently ran through the possibilities. Alpha, Enforcer, Wielder, Protector…

  As the last of the shifters moved into my tiny New York City apartment and I turned to close the door behind them, my actual, human date came bounding up the stairs.

  My silent list stuttered at the sight of him. …Designer, Defender, oh no.

  “Hey, Bren,” he was already saying as he hit the top stair. “Sorry I’m late. I—” He skidded to a halt in front of me, his eyes wide as he took in the three men I could now feel standing in a semicircle behind me.

  Enchanter. The third guy had to be a magic-user.

  “Jordan,” I said, trying to keep him from hearing the shaking in my voice. “I am so sorry.” Holding the door open with my foot, I fumbled to gather up the tickets from the small table where I’d placed them next to my keys. Smoothly, one of the dragon-shifters handed them to me.

  “I’m not going to be able to go tonight,” I continued. “My cousins came to town for a surprise visit, so I need to spend some time with them.”

  Jordan eyed the shifters up and down, clearly suspicious. “You sure?” He made careful eye-contact with me. “You want me to stay? Or maybe call someone?”

  I laughed, but to my own ears, it sounded forced, too high and nervous to be real at all. “No, I’ll be fine. Seriously. Here.” I shoved the tickets toward him. “Take these. I know it’s last-minute, but maybe you could find someone to go with you. Or scalp one, maybe.”

  Jordan frowned, but he took the tickets from me. Before he left, though, he stepped up closer and took both my hands in his. “You absolutely sure you’re okay?”

  I had to hand it to Jordan—he was brave to keep following up in the face of three huge dragon-shifters. Even if he didn’t know what they were, he sensed the danger they posed.

  I forced my shoulders to relax. “I’m sure. It was just a surprise to have these guys show up. I was worried you’d be upset. I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”

  That finally seemed to convince him I was being honest. “Sure. I’ll talk to you then.” He leaned in and kissed my cheek.

  One of the shifters behind me growled, the sound so deep and low that I more felt it as a vibration through my body than heard it as a sound.

  Jordan frowned, so I distracted him with a quick kiss on the lips, the first time I had ever done that, then all but pushed him out the door. “Talk you to you tomorrow,” I called out as I shut the door.

  “You shouldn’t have kissed that human,” said the enforcer in a deep, resonant voice.

  Great. I’ve got James Earl Jones in my apartment lecturing me on my love life.

  I didn’t mention the similarity out loud, though. Depending on where these three had spent the last twelve years, they might not even know what I was talking about.

  “Why don�
�t you all have a seat?” I said instead.

  They did, though they all sat with a kind of quivering vibration that suggested they might leap into action at any moment. In the confines of my New York apartment, they took up all the space—and, it felt like, all the air—with their enormous presence.

  I, on the other hand, crossed my arms over my chest and leaned back against the table by the door. No way was I going to sit down around these three.

  We stayed that way for a long, silent, tension-filled moment. I didn’t want to be the one to break it, but I finally spoke up. After all, I also didn’t want them to stay in my apartment for one second longer than necessary.

  I let my gaze move from one to the other, pinning each of them with a serious stare for a second before I asked, “Who are you, exactly, and why are you here?”

  The one I’d already gauged as the alpha leaned forward. “We’re your Queen’s Guard, your highness, and we’re here because if you don’t retake your place as the ruler of the dragonsrealm, the entire kingdom will be destroyed.” He paused, more like he was trying to find words than for effect—but it still sounded dramatic when he spoke again.

  “If you won’t be our queen, all dragonkin will die.”

  Chapter 2

  Brennan O’Neill wasn’t my real name.

  Hell, it wasn’t even my first alias. Or my second.

  None of the names I’d gone by since I’d arrived in New York City were my birth name. That was Brionna Drake.

  When my mother Kayda, Queen of the Dragonsrealms, and my father Cadman, Lord Consort to the Queen, were overthrown by Nico, the leader of Clan Smoak, I survived.

  But only barely. Fenwick, a member of my mother’s Queen’s Guard and one of my parents’ favorite advisors, raced straight to my quarters as soon as he realized what was happening.

  I don’t remember much of the coup. I was only five, and Fen sheltered me from the worst of it, even as he smuggled me out of the realm and into the human world.

  What I do remember is coming home from school eleven years later and finding Fen slumped across our tiny kitchen table in a pool of his own blood. His throat had been slit. I always assumed Nico’s people had done it, though I didn’t stick around long enough to find out.

  So I meant it with pretty much every fiber of my being when I turned to the dragon shifters who had invaded my living room and said, “So what?”

  All three of them looked like I’d hit them over the head with…well, with something heavy enough to daze even a dragon shifter.

  I shook my head and sighed, then moved to the only open seat remaining in the room—the straight-backed chair belonging to my desk in the corner. I pulled it out, turned it around so I could face them, and dropped down into it.

  “Look,” I said, clapping my hands together so I looked like I was praying and tapping my lips with them before finally leaning forward. “The dragonsrealm has killed everyone I loved. It took my parents from me before I turned six. Not to mention the child my mother was carrying.”

  My voice started shaking. I hadn’t realized how much all of this still hurt. But it did. Just listing all my dead made my stomach hurt.

  “It took my mother’s Queen’s Guard—all the guardsmen who spent my childhood making sure I knew I was loved and cherished.” I stood up and began pacing. “It took all my childhood playmates, and my family, and in the end, it even took Fenwick.”

  I stopped in the middle of the room, turning to face the shifters. “It took my hopes and my dreams, burned them up, and left me with nothing but ashes. So, no. I don’t care if the dragonsrealm disappears in a puff of smoke. As long as it leaves me the hell alone.”

  All three shifters gazed at me assessingly, but in the end, it was the alpha who stood up. He reached toward me, holding out both hands to take mine.

  I wasn’t even sure why I let him. But it had been so damn long since any of my own kind had touched me.

  As soon as his fingers curled around mine, I felt it—that frisson of heat zipping from the point of contact through my skin. It was a distinctly dragonish sensation. One I’d missed.

  “I am so sorry all that happened to you,” he said, his voice as gentle as his touch. “If I could go back and change it for you, I would.”

  Oddly enough, I really believed he would.

  “But since I can’t, would you be willing to sit with us long enough to hear us out?”

  “How can I be sure you weren’t followed?” I glanced around the apartment as if I might find intruders lurking inside it, crouched in a corner behind my ficus tree or something.

  “We took every precaution to ensure no one followed us,” the alpha said, leading me gently to the space on the sofa where he had been sitting. “Please, have a seat, and hear us out. That’s all I ask.”

  His voice soothed me, almost against my will, and I found myself sinking down to the couch.

  When the alpha let go of my hands, I felt almost bereft for just a second.

  “First,” he continued, “let me introduce us. My name is Rayce, and I’m the alpha of our squadron. This is Draven, and he’s our enforcer.” As I had anticipated, he gestured toward the tall, bald black man, who nodded gravely in my direction.

  “And this is Lanzo. He’s our enchanter.”

  I nodded. Just as I had suspected—a leader, a fighter, and a magician. The perfect combination for a Queen’s Guard.

  Rayce’s next words, though, caught me completely off guard.

  “And we are all from the Smoak clan.” There was no way to hide my startled reaction. The Smoak clan had been the main force behind usurping my parents’ rulership of the dragonsrealm. I had been taught to avoid them at all costs.

  Rayce saw my confusion. “We’re from a faction of the Smoaks who believe Nico never should have taken over.” He gazed intently at me, his own dark brown eyes intense and serious. “There are more and more dragonkin coming around to our point of view every day.”

  Draven spoke up. “Especially now that Nico has grown intent on a course of action that will absolutely destroy the realm.”

  For the first time, Lanzo spoke up. “If you don’t agree to help us, we’ll all die, too. If we must die, we would rather it be in your service.”

  All three of them stood up and formed a half-circle in front of me. Then they dropped to their knees, clapping their fists to their hearts. It was the traditional sign of fealty from dragonkin to their ruler. It was also the first part of the Queen’s Guard’s oath.

  I shot to my feet and edged around Rayce. “I can’t.” I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry. “I can’t go back. I have a life here. I have hidden that part of me for so long, I don’t think I could access it now. I don’t even think I could shift anymore. I don’t remember how.”

  The dragon shifters stood.

  “We can’t force you to help us,” Rayce began.

  “Damn right you can’t,” I interjected.

  Rayce continued as if I hadn’t spoken at all. “But our allegiance remains with you. We abandoned our posts to come here, to find you. If you refuse to help us, we will attempt to dethrone Nico ourselves. But without a clear successor, we are certain to fail.”

  “You weren’t listening to anything I just said, were you?”

  Lanzo stepped toward me. “None of those objections will dissuade us. We may not be able to convince you, but if we do, I promise we can teach you everything you need to know.” The sparkle I’d seen in his eyes earlier was gone, replaced by a kind of fervent light. “You carry your clan’s strength within you. I could show you how to access it, how to use the magic you hold inside.”

  “I could teach you to fight,” Draven said.

  “And I would make sure you knew how to deal with court politics,” Rayce added.

  “And none of that addresses my core concern, which is that I don’t want to be queen.” I emphasized each word separately as if I were spelling it out slowly for idiots. I took a deep breath and turned brusque, in my best New Yorker fashi
on. “I’m very sorry, but I can’t help you. Now, will you please leave?”

  Rayce gestured subtly, and they all moved toward the door. The alpha turned back, though. “If you change your mind, you can contact us here.”

  He pressed a card into my hand, and then they were gone.

  Hopefully forever.

  Chapter 3

  I glanced down at the card Rayce had pressed into my hand. It simply said Queen’s Guard, followed by a phone number.

  I won’t be needing that.

  I dropped it into the wastebasket under the entry table.

  Then I fished it back out and set it carefully in the bowl with my keys.

  Just in case.

  I spent the rest of the evening doing everything I could to avoid thinking of Rayce, Draven, and Lanzo.

  But it took a long time for me to fall asleep that night.

  When I first woke up in the middle of the night, I was convinced I was dreaming. By the time I figured out that my dream of intruders was not a dream at all, whoever was breaking into my apartment was already in the living room.

  Part of me almost hoped it was the Queen’s Guard dragons because at least I was fairly certain those guys wouldn’t try to hurt me.

  Slipping out of bed as quietly as I could, I pulled on a pair of sweatpants over my tank top and boy shorts sleepwear. Luckily, I had shut my bedroom door before I went to bed. Grabbing a sweatshirt off the bench at the foot of the bed, I pulled on my tennis shoes without any socks.

  I wasn’t stupid. I was not about to try to fight anyone off. But the fire escape outside my bedroom window wasn’t in the best of shape. The one off the living room window was only a little better. My best bet was to get to the hallway outside the apartment. There was a window there with a newly restored fire escape—the super had been repairing them one at a time, and that was the closest one that was easily usable.