Her Dragon King (Book 2 of the Her Dragon King Duet)
50 Loving States, North Dakota, Pt. 2
Theodora Taylor
Contents
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Part I
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Part II
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Part III
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Epilogue
HIS TO CLAIM Excerpt
Also by Theodora Taylor
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To everyone who read Her Viking Wolf and kept on going. You mean the world to me for embracing this series from the start. This is your book, and I am your writer. I hope from the bottom of my heart that you enjoy it. Truly…
So Much Love,
Theodora Taylor
Part I
“I’ll say this once, then I won’t burden you with this subject again. Xenon wasn’t a serpent. He was my fated mate. I loved him. My flame burned yellow for him, even knowing what he was. And despite having no knowledge of what love was when we met, he somehow came to love me back.”
Fensa, Her Dragon Everlasting
Prologue
Maxwell COLBY
“Colby, come to me.”
The words appeared in his head like a thought, just a few minutes after the commotion from downstairs finally stopped. No more window banging. No more erotic screams from the woman who had morphed into a wolf when they first arrived at the house. Just quiet.
And then those words. Colby, come to me.
As with every command that had arrived before this one, obeying didn’t feel like a choice. He’d had an easier time holding his bladder for an hour-long tube ride after a night of drinking with Dyana than he’d had disobeying any of Damianos Drákon’s orders.
Dyana…
As he rose to his feet, the memory of rising from their hotel bed in Ibiza came floating back like a wave from the sea. His last image of his fiancée had been of her sleeping with a smile on her face. A smile he’d put there after asking her to marry him. A smile he knew had surely faded then completely disappeared when she woke up to find him gone.
Guilt pressed down on Maxwell Colby at the thought of how he’d abandoned the love of his life without a word of explanation. However, he was as powerless to do anything about it now as he’d been back then. He’d left his location services on, so she’d know he was still alive and where he was. But that was all he’d been able to manage with the invisible handcuffs on.
The invisible handcuffs…that was what he called his inability to perform actions such as trying to escape, returning Dyana’s messages, or asking anyone for help. In fact whenever he thought to do anything that might remove him from the sudden servitude he’d found himself in, the thought died in a way that felt biological. Like having a notion to fly, but not being able to get both feet off the ground for more than a second or two.
However, he’d seen Damianos Drákon fly, hadn’t he? With a large pair of wings. Also, he’d overheard the large black American woman, whom he was certain was some sort of werebeast, call him a “dragon” during one of their many arguments.
Damianos Drákon was a dragon in disguise. Maxwell Colby was sure of it now.
That certainty should have upset him. Burying his father’s dead body and watching a woman’s nanite dress conform to fit around her passed out wolf form should have made him question everything he knew. But he found he could not grapple properly with any of the things he’d seen or done since being called to Damianos Drákon’s side. He could only obey.
Colby, come to me.
Maxwell Colby felt nothing other than an eagerness to do his master’s bidding as he rushed toward the steps at the front of the house.
He stopped, however when more words suddenly appeared inside his mind. “I am outside, about a half a kilometer from the house toward the top of the mountain. I’ll need clothes suitable for the current weather, including shoes. And a large knife. No matter what you see downstairs, come to me outside. Talk to no one until you find me.”
Maxwell Colby frowned at the order, not understanding. But did it matter whether he understood or not? No…of course, it did not. Without any further hesitation, he gathered a set of clothes and a pair of leather boots from his master’s room, along with a heavy jacket.
However, his footsteps stuttered when he reached the bottom step.
The Master…he was downstairs not outside as he’d said he would be. Maxwell Colby could see him clearly, lying on the floor, his powerful body naked and curled around the large black woman.
Maxwell Colby opened his mouth to ask if the master would like to put on the clothes he’d requested now while he went to the kitchen to fetch the knife, but the words slammed back down like human feet trying to achieve flight.
No matter what you see downstairs, come to me outside. Talk to no one until you find me.
His master’s original command was a powerful wave inside his head, obliterating every instinct he had other than completing it through to the end.
Without a word, Colby quietly continued through the sitting room and into the kitchen. There he grabbed the largest knife from the butcher block he’d hidden away before leaving from the house’s side door.
After hiking for about a quarter kilometer, Maxwell Colby was shocked to find his master waiting for him exactly where he’d said he would be.
His master’s appearance also rattled him. He wore shorts and a loose tank top, two items of clothing Maxwell Colby knew firsthand could not be found in any of the closets or drawers in the master bedroom suite of Damianos Drákon’s Greek island estate. Maxwell Colby also noticed that his master’s feet were webbed…and bare, as if he’d just come from a place so warm, neither shoes nor sleeves were required. On top of that, his eyes were no longer light brown, but gold and glowing brightly as if illuminated by a fire within.
But did any of that matter? Apparently it did not. Maxwell Colby wordlessly handed this much changed Damianos Drákon his clothes. He then watched the large male put on the cold weather attire with his face perfectly composed, just as his master preferred it to remain at all times.
However, the oddest thing happened when his master was finished dressing. Instead of handing his original clothes back with a command to wash them, he looked at Maxwell Colby. Looked at him directly for the very first time.
“Sssshe would not want me to keep you.”
His master�
�s voice sounded strange. It was still resonant and deep but now held an underlying hiss.
“Master, what do you mean?” Maxwell Colby asked. Then he gasped and clapped a hand over his mouth.
A question! He had just asked his master a question! But how? He hadn’t been able to ask Damianos Drákon a question since the night he arrived at his Greek estate.
A deep groove appeared between his master’s large brows, then he said, “Your services are no longer needed, Colby. You are dismissed.”
And just like that Colby was Maxwell again. Max to his friends and family. Maxie to Dyana.
Dismissed?
Max could barely believe it. But then a few hours later, he found himself buying a one-way ticket to London. Back to Dyana. And then after several hours of flying, she was in his arms.
Max wouldn’t exactly call it a happy ever after. He could only half-explain his sudden disappearance to Dyana as a top-secret job with Damianos Drákon that had been offered unexpectedly and last minute.
That was a believable claim. There was very little information to be had about the mysterious Greek trillionaire, and no MBA grad in his right mind would turn down the opportunity to work with him. It also helped that Max had made high-six figures for his relatively short time away. That meant he had enough credits to back pay the rent he’d promised to Dyana before he’d gone missing, and even front pay it for the rest of the year.
In fact, he’d offered to do just that, but Dyana had said, “Let’s take it month-by-month for now, Max.”
Max, not Maxie.
Dyana had forgiven him but regaining her trust…that would take a while.
Their Sunday dinner visit with his mum, Fiona, a few weeks after his return didn’t help matters much in that regard.
Max hadn’t wanted to bring up his months-long absence. But his sisters kept asking about why he hadn’t returned any of their biomessages, while Fiona made several surly references to the “disappearing Kreft men,” while getting deeper and deeper into her cups.
And Dyana, perhaps thinking that Fiona would be impressed with the “real” story had told them about Max’s once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work with Damianos Drákon.
His sisters and Oli, his mother’s boyfriend were right impressed and began asking a lot of questions Max could only half-answer.
But then Fiona interrupted their friendly Q&A with a slurred observation lobbed directly at Max. “You know, your father had a big gap of life between his graduation from that Abernathy boarding school you both went to and when he met me. Had quite a lot of money in the bank as well. When my parents asked him how he’d acquired so much sterling, his answers were vague. Lot like yours. He also said he’d worked for some mysterious billionaire.”
“Damianos Drákon is a trillionaire actually,” Dyana pointed out.
At the same time, Max’s oldest sister begged, “Mum, please don’t,”.
“Yes, not tonight, please,” his other sister pleaded.
This wasn’t the first time they’d made this request when their mom was too far into her cups. She’d never liked Max. She said it was because he looked exactly like his father.
Colby Kreft had left without a word directly after Max’s birth and had never answered any of Fiona’s emails. But he had continued to post payments into their joint account, which was why she had never opted to get divorced from him on the grounds of abandonment as most women in her situation would have.
However, the payments, which had most likely stopped a few months ago with his father’s death, had made Fiona no less bitter as years turned into decades without a word of contact from the husband who abandoned her. And though Fiona hadn’t brought up the missing money yet, that night her eyes burned with even more acrimony than usual as she turned to tell Dyana, “Don’t trust he’s yours just because he’s come back. He’s likely to disappear again. Just like his father. And his father before that. Did Max ever tell you about that lot?”
Max dropped his eyes to his plate of rubbery roast and gripped his silverware tightly.
“No, actually, he hadn’t…” Dyana admitted beside him, and he could feel her eyes burning into the side of his lowered head.
“Well, I hope you’re on birth control, dearie,” his mother answered, her tone tight and practical. “Otherwise he’ll be out the door soon as you give him a boy to send on to Abernathy. It’s a sickness with these Krefts, I swear it is.”
“Mum!” both Max’s sisters said, together this time.
Then came many apologies from Oli before he told Fiona, “Time to kip off now,” and physically removed her from the table.
The ride home in the driverless was very, very quiet. Until Dyana asked, “The billionaire your father worked for…was that Damianos Drákon’s father?”
“No.” Max couldn’t tell her the truth, but he could still lie. Easily. And that answer was both a truth and a lie. No, the billionaire his father worked for hadn’t been the father of Damianos Drákon. They’d been one and the same.
Max wanted to tell her the truth during that car ride home—the one he could afford now because of all the new money in his account. But when he opened his mouth to explain, the words fell right back down his throat and landed in his stomach like feet slamming into the pavement after an attempt to fly.
“You and your sisters should have a little chat about Fiona, I think,” Dyana said after another long, quiet while. “Your mother really should be seeing someone.”
So that truth lie was enough. She wouldn’t be dumping him on the spot. Max took her hand but somehow couldn’t feel relieved.
Perhaps because his mother had introduced a new possibility. That the dragon hadn’t let him go but was toying with Max as he did his father.
After all, Damianos Drákon had never taken off the invisible handcuffs.
Would he be called back?
Even more disturbing, would it perhaps not upset him to return to Damianos Drákon’s side? He’d had such a strange feeling since returning to London. As if there was something he should be doing but wasn’t.
“Incoming call from North Dakota, USA. Incoming call from North Dakota, USA.”
Max nearly jumped in his seat when his biosystem announced the call. He didn’t know anyone who still used a phone as opposed to finger comm rings or bio-hails these days. Well, he used to not know anyone like that. There was one man who Max had only ever seen use a phone, even though he could speak directly into his head.
“Accept the call,” Max said clearly out loud, purposefully drawing Dyana’s attention.
He didn’t want to keep on half-truthing her. He’d long prided himself on being different from the other boys in her #richkidsoflondon (formerly #richkidsofoxford) gang. No lying. No hustling. No hair and makeup. From the start of their relationship, he’d strived to be just Maxwell Kreft, exactly as presented.
Maybe talking to Damianos would finally allow Max to tell her the truth. No wings required to lift him off the ground.
“Hello?” he said after accepting the call.
“Hi…is this Colby?” a voice with an American accent asked.
Could it be the last American woman he’d talked to before leaving that house in North Dakota? The one hiding a wolf underneath.
“No, this is Maxwell Kreft. Colby was my father,” he answered. “Who is this? How did you get my number?”
“The person you were talking to has disconnected the call,” his biosystem informed him in the next moment.
“Who was that?” Dyana asked.
He looked at her. “I’m not sure. Someone looking for Colby Kreft.” Another sort of truth.
Over the next few months both the call and his mother’s words continued to echo in his thoughts. And he was certain that night stayed in Dyana’s thoughts too. She accepted his rent payment at the beginning of every month, but as for wedding plans…
Well, neither of them brought up that topic again.
Chapter One
DAMIANOS
&nbs
p; “Damianos! Damianos! Where are you!”
I slowly awaken to the sound of Ola calling out that name.
Where am I? Oh yes…shackled to a wall in the basement of the North Dakota gatehouse. Still.
This is the same place I’ve woken up every single morn since being ambushed by a most unexpected assailant. Eighty-four days ago by my count. But that count could be wrong.
Neither my mind nor my body are what they used to be after months of withstanding my own torture protocol.
My three-pronged approach to torturing other drakkon has remained the same for thousands of years. Starvation paired with consistent mental and physical abuse. It’s designed to break a drakkon in a relatively short time. My cousin only lasted for a few weeks before his mind was completely overtaken by mental disease, rendering him incapable of unshelling to escape his chains.
I have been down here almost three moons. There is no reason to believe that my mind has remained intact. So now, I can only guess but not completely trust that this is the eighty-fourth morning I’ve awoken shackled, muffled, and powerless.
“I will starve you and beat you every day until I am allowed to murder you as you deserve,” my jailer announced on that first morning after waking me up with a deep stab into my chest, just a few inches north of my heart.
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