by Selena Scott
“Come on, Beverly. You can frickin do this,” Lucy whispered under her breath as she watched the older woman tremble on one foot.
Lucy wanted to reach out and steady her, but she knew it would mean more to Bev if she did it on her own. With a little groan, Beverly gripped the rails on either side of her and shifted her weight, stepping fully on her other foot.
“Hell yes!” Lucy whooped and couldn’t stop herself from hopping up and down. “Bev, you did it!” She helped the woman ease back into the chair behind her. It was her first full step since she’d tripped and broken her leg two months before. Beverly stared up at Lucy; disbelief, joy, and fatigue all materializing on her face.
“I can’t believe it, Lucy. I thought I might never- that I would be in the chair f-forever.” The woman’s voice broke as she finally gave words to the fear that had been plaguing her for weeks. She proudly wiggled her toes before reaching up and clasping Lucy’s hands.
It was moments like those that had Lucy coming to work every day. Not every patient was as lucky as Bev, but Lucy made sure they all worked just as hard, and healed as well as their bodies possibly could. She kneeled down and pulled Bev into a hearty hug.
“Bev, that was the shit. Now let’s do it again.”
The two women grinned at one another, their joy filling the whole room.
Amos couldn’t tear his eyes away from this woman, Lucy’s radiant face. But he quickly straightened up as he realized he was leaning toward the television screen where they watched her.
“That’s her?” King Dalyer asked from beside Amos, his voice dripping with skepticism.
“What?” The Oracle looked up from the game he was playing on his cell phone. He squinted at the television screen on which he’d summoned up the feed of the woman at her work. “Oh. Yeah, that’s her.”
“But she’s so ordinary,” the King said.
King Dalyer wasn’t dumb. Actually he was searingly smart. But that was the dumbest thing Amos had ever heard someone say. Ordinary? The woman on the screen was hot as fuck.
“Shit!” A sad womp womp sound came from the Oracle’s phone and he jammed it back in his pocket. Seeming to remember that he was currently performing a duty for the most powerful being in the human or dragon realm, he turned back to the television screen.
“You think she’s ordinary?” The Oracle scratched his stubbly blonde beard. “I think she’s kinda cute.”
Again, really dumb. Amos thought. Even in her loose scrubs, this woman was like walking viagra. Not that dragon shifters ever had to take viagra.
“Well,” the King said as he tossed his hands up in the air. “If that human is really my only option, I’ll just have to make do. How do we get to her?”
The Oracle stared dully at a space about a foot in front of him and swiped a finger over his temple a few times, like he was scrolling through information he didn’t need. Images flew past on the television screen.
“She lives… here,” he said and a dingy brownstone appeared on the screen.
“Brooklyn?”Amos guessed and both the King and the Oracle turned and looked at him in surprise, as if they’d forgotten he was even there. It was one of the things that made Amos such a good bodyguard, being able to disappear in a room.
“Yeah,” the Oracle responded. “Which makes it a lot easier to get her to the dragon realm, considering the portal is less than 5 miles away.”
He did the temple scroll again and brought up another image on the screen. Free tickets to an art show at a museum in Queens.
The King turned to the Oracle and raised an inquisitive eyebrow, asking what the tickets were for.
The Oracle shrugged. “She’s into art. And that museum is three blocks from the portal. I made sure she got the tickets this morning. She’s planning on going.” The Oracle’s eyes unfocused. “No, wait. She decided to go to the bar with her friend Courtney. No, wait, she’s back to going to the art show. No. Wait.”
The King tossed his hands up in frustration.
“Ok, she’s definitely going to the art show.” The Oracle leaned in to stage whisper. “Apparently Courtney hasn’t been the greatest friend lately.”
Amos rolled his eyes and focused back in on the King. The Oracle was too much for him. Useful, sure. But worth the trouble? Nah.
“Fine.” The King’s voice was sharp as he turned to Amos. “Just make sure she gets here as unscathed as possible. I need her here by the harvest moon.”
“Harvest moon?” Amos asked, the date seemed arbitrary to him.
“A dragon can only get a human pregnant on a harvest moon,” the Oracle clarified.
“Be careful with getting her here, Amos. I need her in perfect breeding condition,” said King Dalyer.
Amos’s eyes froze on the woman’s face as it all tumbled over him once again, like cold water down his back. He thought about exactly why they were plotting to snatch this woman out of her life. Shit, out of her entire realm. So that King Dalyer could mate with her.
CHAPTER ONE
You win, hair. Lucy thought as she gave up trying to knot it on her head. She dropped her hands and her curly black hair sprang all down her back. She could never get it to do that fancy twist thing that actresses did for the red carpet. Not for a lack of trying. She wanted to look nice for the art show, and, she guessed, for Dale. But mostly for the art show.
He was gonna be here any minute and she knew he’d be pissed if she was late again. No, not pissed, she corrected herself. Disappointed. Dale didn’t’t get angry. He just got quiet. And then the next time they got together he’d have another self help book for her to read. Gifts, he called them. So far she’d cracked the spines on exactly zero of them. But all stacked up they made a great footrest for watching TV.
“Lucy!”
She heard Dale’s voice holler up to her apartment from the street and she winced. He was gonna give her shit about getting her doorbell fixed again. He was always on her about calling her Superintendent for all the fixes her shabby apartment needed. But her Super, Kristof, was like 99 years old and she'd always felt bad asking him to come all the way out to Brooklyn.
Giving her dress one last pull in the mirror, Lucy knew she looked good. Royal blue always made her light eyes look even brighter. And the dress hugged her generous curves.
“Lucy!” he called up through her window again.
His annoyed voice made her jump as she wiggled into her heels and locked the door behind her. She refused to run in heels, no matter how irritated Dale was with her. She caught sight of him through her gated front door and his wavy blonde hair and classically handsome face sort of soothed her frustration with him. No denying the man was a perfect ten. Looks-wise at least.
He distractedly grabbed at her hand as she came down the stairs. “Did you call the super about your doorbell? You know I hate yelling up to you like that. It makes me feel like a teenager.”
“Not yet.”
Dale rolled his eyes and tugged her down the block toward a waiting cab. “Then maybe it's time you just made me a key. So I wouldn't have to go through that whole embarrassing ordeal every time I come over.” He tossed his hand back toward her brownstone as if her home wasn’t even worth wasting words on.
“I can't afford that,” Lucy said, without shame.
“To get your keys copied? Jesus, Lucy, it costs like 5 dollars.”
“No, I mean I can't afford to take a cab.” Lucy pointed toward the street. She made good enough money as a physical therapist, but NYC living was expensive and she had her school loans. She usually just took the train.
“Well, I guess I’ll just cover it, Lucy. As usual.”
She sighed at his clipped tone and planted her feet. She'd hoped they could have lasted a little longer, he was super hot. But recently Dale had gone from mildly, and persistently, annoying to being an out and out dick.
“I don't let people talk to me like that, Dale.” She crossed her arms over her chest.
“We’ll talk about this in t
he cab, Lucy. The meter is running.”
The cab driver peeked his head out the window, a curious expression on his face.
“Nah,” she said, shaking her head. “We don't have to talk about it at all. I'm not getting in the cab.” She let her arms drop and rearranged her purse on her hip. Dale’s eyes widened. Obviously he’d never been dumped before. “We’re done here, Dale. I deserve to be with someone who’s nice to me.”
“Lucy!” he admonishingly exclaimed.
“I’m real tired of you saying my name that way, Dale.” She turned and headed toward the train station. “I’ll bring your stuff by your house in a few days.”
She didn't have to turn around to imagine the irate expression on his face.
“What are you looking at?” she heard him screech at the cabbie as he slammed the door.
Lucy felt a dull twinge as she heard the cab pull away, but she had to admit that she wasn’t very bummed to have Dale out of her life. He wasn’t ever anything more than a warm body to her. And recently, he hadn’t been worth the trouble. She sighed and waited for the crosswalk light to change. Same old story, new day. All the dudes she’d dated in the last few years had all seemed so special at the beginning, and had all ended up either boring, or just plain assholes. She needed a change. A big one.
CHAPTER TWO
“Dude,” the Oracle said to Amos through a mouthful of popcorn. “Chill out.”
Through the TV screen, the two of them watched Lucy hurry gracefully down the stairs of the subway station. The King slept in his chambers behind them, but the Oracle had called up the images on the television screen so that Amos could supervise Lucy’s capture. Nothing could go wrong.
“What?” Amos asked distractedly. He’d been trying to pretend the Oracle wasn’t there, difficult with all the loud popcorn chewing.
The Oracle gestured to Amos’s hands and looking down Amos saw that his dragon claws had unsheathed. God, what the hell was wrong with him? He’d been in control of his shifting since he was ten years old. He snicked the claws back in, his human fingers appearing. Why was he getting so worked up watching Lucy interact with that dumbass piece of human garbage?
Amos took a deep breath and ignored the Oracle’s gaze on the side of his face. He just didn’t like to see a woman get treated badly, that was all. He’d been strangely proud of Lucy when she’d severed ties with that loser. Which didn’t make sense considering he hardly knew her. It also didn’t make sense how unholy pissed he’d gotten when he’d realized that the dumbass was escorting her that night because he was her mate.
Well, not her mate anymore, he thought and a thrill shot through him. She’d, what did humans call it? Kicked his ass to the curb. But the feeling rising through him extinguished as he remembered who her new mate was going to be. The King. Amos glanced behind him at the King’s locked chambers.
Concentrate, Mos. He thought to himself angrily. He hated this newfound wandering brain he was battling with. His whole life he’d been single minded in his pursuit of one thing –protect the royal line. Just like his father and grandfather and his father and on. He came from an endless line of Protectors, the most loyal of all the dragon breeds. And the most fierce.
Even in the ancient stories, it had been his family who protected the royals. When he’d been a boy, he’d been assigned to safeguard the young prince, along with an adult bodyguard, of course. But that had been the cushiest assignment that bodyguard had ever had, because nothing had gotten past Amos. More than eating, more than sleeping, or playing, or laughing, he’d been compelled to protect the prince. Just like he was compelled to protect the King now. There was nothing he wouldn’t do to maintain his post as the King’s personal bodyguard. He remembered the few years he’d spent as a teenager without a job assignment. It was after the young prince had fallen to the royal sickness. Amos had watched helplessly as the emaciated boy got skinnier and skinnier. Amos had been by his side as his eyes had gone glassy with death. He’d been the one to carry his body to the graveyard. He’d laid the boy in the ground himself.
And then he’d spent the next four years with no one to guard. Out of his mind with boredom and a racing in his chest that told him he was always in the wrong place, not doing enough, slacking, slacking, slacking. At the end of those four years he’d been able to run a mile in 4 minutes and 30 seconds and could drag a Buick behind him. And that was just in his human form.
He’d been devastated when his father had been killed in the line of duty, protecting King Dalyer. His father had pushed the King from a boat seconds before the explosion that took his life. Amos would have gone his whole life living in limbo, without another assignment, if it meant not losing his father. But what happened had happened. And it meant that Amos was promoted. King Dalyer’s personal bodyguard.
Protecting the King meant something different everyday. Some days he shadowed him through the streets of the Kingdom, eyeing strangers suspiciously and ushering him into safe zones as fast as he could. Some days it meant tossing out food that didn’t’t smell quite right. And today it meant making sure that that woman made it through the portal safely. That gorgeous woman. That gorgeous woman with an ass that could make a man forget his own name.
“For fuck sake,” he snapped at the Oracle when Amos realized that the reason he was staring at the woman’s ass was because the Oracle had zoomed in on it. “Act like a professional.”
“When have I ever claimed to be a professional?” the Oracle asked, popcorn stuck in his beard. “She’s cute, this is boring, and we’ve gotta pass the time somehow.”
“We’re kidnapping this woman -to a different universe no less- to get her pregnant with another species by someone she’s never met.” Amos wasn’t sure why he was yelling. “The least we can do is allow her a little dignity, here.”
“Alright, alright, big guy.” The Oracle raised his hands palm up. “Take a breather.” The image zoomed out as she got off the train at her station and jogged up the stairs to street level. “Looks like the action is starting anyway.”
It was. Amos clenched his jaw as two of the King’s soldiers approached her in their human forms. Seeing two men walking swiftly toward her, Lucy darted to the other side of the street, hurrying now to get closer to the museum. She was smart and fast. She disappeared in the shadow of a building and the two soldiers ran to catch up with her, no longer trying to be stealthy.
For one confusingly hopeful moment, Amos thought she might get away. She shouldn’t have to come here as a prisoner and be forced to breed. But the other part of him knew that the moment she was caught and dragged through the portal she’d be there in front of him. Living and warm and real. Not just an image on a screen anymore. He cleared his throat and adjusted his cock in his pants.
Control. Control. Control. He chanted to himself. He had to be under control when she came into the dragon realm. He’d have to wake the King and get down to the portal to receive her in a matter of minutes. But for now, heart in his throat, he watched the two soldiers catch up to Lucy. The men flanked her on either side and dragged her, screaming and fighting, into the night.
CHAPTER THREE
Lucy had always wondered how far she would go to protect herself. What she’d do to stay alive. As the two humongous men on either side of her kicked open a chained, wooden door and dragged her down an abandoned set of subway stairs, she finally had the answer to that question. The first chance she got, she was gonna murder these two shit heads.
She took advantage of their precarious footing on the stairs and lifted her feet, swinging her weight to the side. Catching the one on the left directly in the gut, he grunted as the three of them slipped down a few stairs. But they were too strong. They easily regained their footing and gripped even harder onto her arms.
“Comply with us,” growled the other one in an accent she couldn’t quite place. He pulled something shiny out of his coat. A syringe. “Or we’ll be forced to subdue you.”
Fearing whatever drug was in that
syringe more than the bodily harm they were sure to inflict on her, Lucy went still.
She was desperate to know where they were taking her, but she refused to ask. She took a deep breath and tried to observe every detail about both of the men that she could. She’d want to tell the police anything that could help them track down these assholes as soon as she got away. Because she was getting away. There was no way she was dying in an abandoned subway station.
She observed them from the corners of her eyes. Plain black clothing, matching buzz cuts. They both wore diamond studs in their ears. Weird.
She craned her neck to catch sight of their faces, but it was too dark in the abandoned subway tunnel. Suddenly, they stopped, in complete unison with one another. The tunnel was so dark that Lucy couldn’t see the end of her own nose. But in the darkness something glinted, like moonlight over a lake.
“On the count of three?” one asked and the other one shook his head, checking his phone.
“They’re ready immediately.”
“Wait, what? NO!” Lucy screamed as the two men lifted her clear off the ground and tossed her into thin air.
She was nowhere. She was nobody. There was only blackness, expansion, compression. She was growing and shrinking at the same time. Maybe this was death.
But then she had arms again, she felt them around her own ribcage. And she had legs, she could feel those too. She felt something strong and warm against her. Heard a heartbeat against her ear. Felt the solid step-step-step of someone who knew where they were going. Something smelled good. Like freshly dug earth and baking bread.
She opened her eyes and they ached all the way to the back of her head. She blinked the blur out of her eyes and realized she was cradled in someone’s arms. Someone’s gigantic arms. Like serious python arms. She tilted her head back and saw a black t shirt, the bottom of a sharp jaw, a buzzed head, and just a glimpse of a diamond earring…