Dragons & Mayhem
Dragon’s Den Casino #2
By: Blair Babylon
Dragons & Mayhem
Dragon’s Den Casino #2
By: Blair Babylon
Dragons have fated mates, but Arawn Tiamat fell in love with a woman who isn’t his.
Arawn, Duke Tiamat, absolutely, positively, definitely isn’t falling into a mating fever, and that’s the problem. A year ago, Arawn met the most bewitching woman, Willow Sage, and they hit it off. Within six months, they’d moved in together.
And six months after that, Arawn still was showing no signs of mating fever.
He didn’t tell her he was a dragon shifter, of course. Natural people have such strong reactions to learning about the hidden supernatural world, so supernatural people don’t admit anything unless they’re engaged.
And they weren’t engaged because, obviously, Willow wasn’t Arawn’s fated mate.
So, on the advice of everyone, Arawn broke it off and broke both their hearts. His fated mate was waiting for him somewhere, and when she walked into his life, he would be helpless to resist the mating fever anyway.
But now, Arawn has been blackmailed into returning to Las Vegas to take over the soft opening of the Dragon’s Den Casino. When he walks into the Human Resources division to meet the new witch who’s going to take care of the sickly sea serpents in the fountain out in front of the casino, it’s Willow Sage.
Willow Sage, the love of his life but not his fated mate, and she’s a witch.
She didn’t mention that.
They try to work together to care for the sickly serpents, but their attraction and lingering love is just too strong. Within hours, he wants to spend time with her. Within weeks, he’s hopelessly in love with her again.
But he isn’t falling into mating fever.
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Published by Malachite Publishing LLC
Copyright 2019 by Malachite Publishing LLC
Table of Contents
Title
Special Offers
~~~
Prologue
Audience with His Majesty
One Month after the Dragon Scepter Ceremony
Willow Needs A Job
Arawn at the Casino
Old Flames
Never Goes Well
Sickly Serpents
First Potion
Time to Feed the Dragons
Free Lunch
Old Habits
Potions Witch
Research
Which Came First?
Feathers
Mickey-Finning the Sea Monsters
Royal Advice
The Fated Mate
Blood and Bone
Scale of Dragon, Eye of Newt
Phone Call
Flying
Love Potion #9
A Dragon’s Lair
In the Night
Denial
Put A Lid on It
The Dragon's Den Casino
Inappropriate
~~~
More PNR from Blair Babylon
Prologue
HIS Grace Arawn, Duke of Tiamat, stepped into the throne room and surveyed the crowd to assess the threat level.
More than five hundred civilians milled around the large ballroom, tightly packed as they edged past each other to approach the food and beverage stations, for this was a celebration as much as a ceremony. He inhaled, drawing in scents as he evaluated the situation: perfume, food, musty ceremonial robes, and as always, dragon testosterone.
That was a given, considering the unusual nature of the gathering.
He did not scent upon the chemical tang of explosives or the burned smoke of anger, which was good.
Not that this would have made him angry.
Arawn never got angry.
Plain-clothes sentries stood at the doors to the throne room, restlessly watching the flow of the large crowd, the glittering chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, and the waving of green trees and blue sky outside the windows, all while doing their best impressions of merely being part of the wall.
The sentries’ unobtrusive demeanor was calculated, Arawn knew. He’d given the orders for all of them to be assigned that day and micro-managed their positions. His most reliable security personnel were at the front of the crowd, near the thrones where the king and queen would sit and surrounding a gilded but empty stand that resembled the arms of a weight bench.
More sentries stood guard outside around the perimeter of the Spanish Colonial mansion situated high on the cliffs of California. The mansion and its expansive grounds had been built in the 1930s. The staircases were all double-staircases that split to both sides and met again on the upper floors. The pool down below appeared to be ringed by a Greek temple, considering the shaded area’s forest of Doric columns. Though it appeared to be a normal Bel Air multi-million-dollar mansion, the ceremonial areas and official residence was still called the Royal Palace out of a centuries-old habit.
Many things in Arawn’s life revolved around centuries-old habits and protocols.
Some of them, he’d managed to change or escape.
But not all.
Some were not under his control, no matter how much he’d wanted to change them.
A squad of Arawn’s best soldiers stood guard at the front door to the Royal Palace, which was on the rooftop terrace. Any high ground where a dragon could safely land from flight was a vulnerable spot in their defenses, even at this supposedly gala event.
Indeed, dragons were the primary concern at this gala event, and dragons were most of the guests, too. About half the crowd present—which meant hundreds of people—appeared to be human but hosted dragon souls in their bodies. When they willed it, their bodies could shift and emerge as a dragon, but sometimes the dragon soul fought and gained the upper hand. Accidents happened. Sometimes murders or fights for territory happened. Any hothead in the throne room could start a drunken firefight.
Even then, as Arawn watched the crowd, the conversation between two dragon shifters over by the bar was becoming heated as they imbibed the flammable liquid. Orange flames began to leak from Abertha Deryn’s lips as she debated something with Siriol Draugar, probably about one of the governing committees they both served on. Politics were contentious.
At a ceremony like this, tempers and dragonfire might flare if someone were denied the outcome they desired.
Arawn caught the eye of one of his sentries—a corporal who transformed into a good-sized bronze—and flicked a finger at the two arguing dragons. The corporal waylaid a waiter bearing a tray of bite-sized eclairs and sent her over to the two women, whose tempers were still rising as the argument accelerated. The waiter nudged between them, holding the tray right beneath their noses.
The smell of scorched pastry wafted through the room, setting Arawn on edge, but Siriol and Abertha took the cream-filled puffs and settled down.
Besides the staff, the other half of the people in the room were dragonmates, natural humans or other supernatural beings who had been born (it was thought) to be the fated mate of a dragon but didn’t know until one day when their paths crossed, a shiver of dragon magic passed between them, and the courtship began that led to a mating and the rest of their long lives together.
Arawn watched the mated pairs, their synchronous movements and responsive touches, their strength and grace and devotion to each other.
H
e didn’t need to watch a dragon’s or dragonmate’s body language to discern whether they were mated or single, of course. He could see it the instant he looked at them by the unnatural, striking eye characteristic of the mature, mated dragon pair. When a dragon fell into mating fever and their dragonmate surrendered to the mating bond, fire and magic filled their eyes, a glorious illumination like glittering sparks inflowing from the edges of the iris toward the pupil.
Natural humans couldn’t see it, of course, or else they refused to acknowledge what they saw.
But any dragon could instantly see whether another was mated or not.
When Arawn looked into the mirror, no matter how hard and how many times he had stared at his reflection and tried to will the onset of mating fever, his own dark blue eyes remained the flat and natural-normal pools of the immature, unmated dragon.
There was no shame in this, of course. His friends were all unmated. He wasn’t particularly off-course for a dragon of his young age.
Indeed, professionally, he held high rank as the head of security for the New Wales Dragon Clan and their associated businesses, rather shocking for a dragon so young.
As of that moment, Arawn’s security preparations appeared to be adequate.
Good.
Arawn, in his official capacity, was one of the few people present who knew the reason for the summons that morning to this impromptu reception, which was mandatory for members of the nobility. People had canceled meetings and flown as fast as they could to attend the rare event. Surely, some people suspected. It would be odd if they didn’t.
He relaxed a little, though he was always watching.
His phone buzzed. When he looked at the screen, a text from Cai read, Just landed. Crowd up here. Save booze.
The long, ducal robe Arawn Tiamat wore hung heavily on his shoulders and brushed the tops of his spit-polished shoes. Woven from silver thread and dark blue velvet, the cape had been in his family for centuries, replacing one that had been sewn in the Middle Ages. All the Tiamat men had been tall like him, six-feet-four or so. Most had been as blond as Arawn, too, with sunshine-bright hair that was the color of summer wheat.
His eyes, though, were distinctive.
Arawn had been about ten when he’d realized that the bright and dark sapphire blue of his eyes meant something unusual, and everyone else on the practice jousting ground had realized it at exactly the same moment.
It wasn’t the only reason that Arawn had been awarded the distinction of Most Likely to Snap and Fry A City when he had been in high school, but it had been one of several items on that list.
Half the crowd turned when they noticed Duke Arawn Tiamat had entered the throne room.
He lifted his chin and strode deeper into the crowd, the heavy robe swinging around his legs. Even if he did not like his notoriety, there was nothing he could do about it.
Senior members of the old families came forward to greet him, holding out both hands to clasp his as they approached.
Lord Maredudd, the heir to the Earl of Tarragon, approached Arawn first. “What an interesting event, yes? Do you have any idea why Their Majesties would demand an audience with all the nobility on such short notice?”
Ah, yes. Maredudd pumped everyone he met for information. “No idea. You?”
Maredudd leaned in, still hanging onto Arawn’s hand, which was going to make Arawn jump out of his skin any minute now.
Just a note: when a dragon shifter says he may jump out of his skin, people might die.
Maredudd said, “We’re hoping it’s an announcement about the birth of a little dragonling for them. Adding a prince to the realm would be exciting!”
Arawn said, “Well, yes. That would be exciting,” though he had refrained from snorting at the comment. Firstly, the Dragon Throne was not inherited. One could call the child of the king and queen by a courtesy title such as prince or princess, but they wouldn’t be next in line for any sort of power. Secondly, the king and queen were a bit, ahem, mature to produce a dragonling at this point, as both were over a hundred and fifty. A significant number of mated dragon pairs did not produce a dragonling, either by choice or something else. King Llywelyn and Queen Bronwyn never had.
Maredudd asked him, “And how are you this fine afternoon?”
“Satisfactory. Thank you for asking. Yourself?” This conversation was going nowhere, and Arawn needed to go somewhere, anywhere, else.
“I can’t complain, and neither can my mate.”
Arawn would not have put money on that. He’d already seen Druantia slip away into the crowd to grab a cocktail with friends.
Maredudd said, “Since I have you here—”
Here it came.
“I’ve heard you have certain friends who can convince other people to do certain things.”
This was new. “I beg your pardon?”
“You know, like your strong, young friends over by the wall? Perhaps they could have a conversation with a business partner of mine who unfairly negotiated a contract with me and suggest that he reconsider the income split?”
Arawn’s jaw dropped.
He snapped it closed, feeling his teeth become slightly more fang-like. “No. You’ve heard wrong. My personnel only manage security concerns for the den and its businesses, and they don’t do anything like that. If you’ll excuse me, Lord Maredudd.”
He stalked into the crowd and breathed slowly through his nose, lest he leak fire from his nostrils and set the tablecloths aflame.
Lord Colwyn, the Earl of Marduk, cut Arawn off next. “Hello, Your Grace.”
“Lord Colwyn, a pleasure to see you.”
They exchanged aimless pleasantries, right up to when Colwyn said, “While I’ve got you here, I was meaning to ask you—”
Arawn hoped he would not be asked to have two people murdered in one afternoon. Fire swirled in his chest.
“—if you’d consider donating a bit to sponsor my dragonling’s polo league? They’re going to the inter-den finals in Germany this year, so we’re taking up a collection to help along those families who might not be able to afford the travel.”
Arawn deflated, relieved. The Tiamat family was one of the oldest noble families, and as such, Arawn’s dukedom and fortune were significantly greater than the wealth that even the king and queen had access to. Of course, people asked him to sponsor charities and causes, but those had to be researched to make sure they were effective and properly managed. Children’s events were Arawn’s personal favorite, so he was known to be a soft touch. “Certainly. Email the link for where I should donate.”
“Thank you so much, Duke Arawn.”
“The pleasure is all mine. Enjoy the reception.”
It was only a kids’ event this time, but everyone wanted a piece of the young duke with far too much money. It was one of the reasons Arawn ventured out into the natural world so much, where he was more anonymous.
Arawn moved through the crowd, looking for friends or people he needed to attend to. He did wend his way toward the dais and the thrones because he was going to end up near there, eventually.
He was getting closer, but many statuesque dragons and mates wearing the heavy robes of nobility stood between him and the dais. He pressed on.
Lord Dyl, the Earl of Ladon, intercepted Arawn as he was so close to establishing his position near the thrones and insisted upon introducing Arawn to his daughter Nerys, who was home from university for just a few days. Dyl extolled Nerys’s many virtues while Arawn and Nerys gazed at each other, each silently laughing with their eyes at how uncomfortable the other was becoming during the astonishingly long introduction, while her father specified that Nerys was majoring in English Literature and French, was a member of the university speech and debate team with very many accolades, and also ran track, with a recap of her last three cross-country races.
When the honorable Earl had to either inhale or pass out, Arawn said to Nerys, “It sounds as if you are doing very well in your studies. Do you know Pr
ofessor Lancaster in their poli-sci department?”
Nerys did, and they had a very nice conversation for several minutes about people they knew in common before they briefly clasped hands to say goodbye.
Arawn waited with Nerys’s hand in his, anticipating and yet dreading the tingle that might have come but did not. Her eyes remained an attractive shade of pale green with no particular sparkle.
No power passed between their palms.
It didn’t mean that it would never happen, and it didn’t mean that Nerys wasn’t the one he should be looking for. However, it did mean Arawn should keep looking. “It was very nice to meet you, Nerys.”
She smiled back, understanding exactly what hadn’t happened between them. “Likewise.”
When Arawn turned to resume his quest, he saw a familiar man standing head and shoulders above the crowd of tall dragons on the other side of the throne dais.
“Math!” he called, relieved to see someone who wasn’t having an argument that might lead to herpicide nor attempting to get in his pants. “Mathonwy Draco, get your head out of your scaly butt and look over here!”
Math’s posture straightened, listening, but he looked the wrong direction, frowning.
Purposely, Arawn assumed, because they were often jerks to each other for amusement’s sake.
Arawn yelled, “Math, I know you can hear me!”
Mathonwy Draco bobbed his head as if he were trying to hear faint music. “Arawn, Arawn Tiamat? Is that you? I could barely hear your reedy little voice—”
Arawn fought his way through the crowd. This would have been a lot easier with a broadsword or by singeing the elbows that got in his way. He swallowed a tendril of fire in his mouth. “Can you believe this crowd? They must think we’re wolf shifters or something, packing us all in here like this. I can’t believe no one’s freaked out and gone reptilian.”
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