by Kimber White
Claimed by Fire
Dragon keepers - Book Four
Kimber White
Nokay Press LLC
Claimed by Fire
Dragonkeepers - Book Four
By
Kimber White
Copyright © 2018 by Kimber White/Nokay Press LLC
All Rights Reserved
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 the written permission of the author or publisher, except where permitted by law or for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
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
Epilogue
Up Next from Kimber White
About the Author
Books by Kimber White
Chapter One
Loch
Blackfoot, Yukon
It was him. It had to be him. My dragon stirred as he came into view. Tall, confident, with a ready smile for everyone he passed on the street. He wore faded blue jeans and a red and black checkered shirt. Easy. Casual. But still, I sensed the predatory nature of his gait.
I slipped my phone out of my pocket and slid it open. My mother, Avelina, had sent a picture of him, but I didn’t need it. I could smell a tiger a mile away. But, it was him, all right. Tanned skin. Blond hair with just a touch of silver at the temples. Big. Broad like a linebacker.
“You can’t leave anything to chance,” she’d said. “It’s too important. Not even your brothers know. They can’t. Not this time.” The echo of her words stabbed through me. Her pain came with them. She let herself be vulnerable to me. In my three hundred and seven years of life, she rarely did.
There had been such desperation in her voice. Tears spilled down her cheeks and she could barely breathe. I’d never seen her like this. No, that’s not true. I’d seen her like this only once before.
Almost two years ago, she’d been struck by a dragonstone arrow. It nearly killed her. My four brothers and I had felt the life begin to drain from her. But, before she died, she relived the memory of the day my father was murdered. Until that moment, I hadn’t known she witnessed it. She never told us. It was too painful for her to talk about. Except, I knew now that she’d relived it over and over again for nearly seven centuries.
“But, how can she be sure?” I asked. We were still in Durness at the time. It had been the day after my brother Finn’s wedding to Gemma. I was happy for him. Elated, really. But, I couldn’t deny my jealousy. Finn was safe. Cured. He would never have to wake with the nightmares of losing control. He’d found his mate and she’d made him whole. Now, it was only my brother Kian and me in the grip of madness.
Mating sickness. It can happen to all shifters, but for dragons like us, more is at stake. I’d never seen a rogue dragon. I’d never seen any other dragon save for my brothers and my mother. The others are dead now. Wiped out centuries ago by shifters and witches who stole our power to further their own war with each other. It was just us now. The Brandharts are the last of our kind, and my mother raised us to do whatever we had to to survive. And that’s why I was here, sitting at a counter in the only diner in this backwoods, ends-of-the-earth Yukon town.
Weeks ago, my mother had taken a meeting with the oldest witch in Durness, California. Delia Bradbury. The woman had a deep pedigree, leading all the way back to the Salem Witch Trials. Before my mother even said it, I knew Delia had no reason to lie. We’d done something for her. Helped her root out a traitor in her coven. Because of it, Delia felt she owed my mother one last debt. It’s a dangerous thing to owe a debt to a dragon.
“Yeager,” Avelina said, sharing the information Delia gave her with only me. “His name is Yeager. He’s moved around a lot. I lost track of him in South America over thirty years ago. I made a bargain with a pack of jaguar shifters he was working for on a mining crew at the time. They promised to deliver him to me, but they got sloppy. Couldn’t keep their own affairs in order. He disappeared.”
“Jesus,” I whispered. “Do you even think he knows?”
“It doesn’t matter what he knows,” she said, her voice barely more than a hiss. “It only matters what’s in his blood. Of that, there can be no doubt. This is family business, Loch. Retribution. With your father’s dying breath, he made me swear one thing. Vengeance. It’s the only thing he asked for. It’s the only thing that kept me going for all those years. Every time I thought I was safe, the tigers found me. Generation after generation. They swore their own pact and the sons and grandsons of Christoph Jeger kept coming to kill me. I went into hiding for centuries because of it. They’ll never stop coming, so I won’t either. Now, it’s up to you to keep this promise to the father you never knew. I don’t ask much of you. But, you will do this one thing for me, or you are no son of mine.”
My heart turned to stone as she touched my cheek. In an instant, she showed me her pain. My father’s pain. He lay frozen, bound by magic as the tigers closed in and ripped out his throat. I felt their hatred, their lust for the power that flowed through my father’s veins. Dragon blood has deep magic. One small drop of it can heal a lesser shifter and bring him back from the brink of death. Weapons forged with Dragonfire can kill a shifter almost instantly. And dragonstone, the fossils made from our own eggs, are what they used to kill us.
If I closed my eyes, I could see my father’s killer. A tiger, bigger than any I’d ever seen. His golden eyes glowed with malice as he took one, last, graceful, almost balletic step and delivered his coup de grace. He sliced my father’s jugular with his claw. Christoph Jeger’s dragonstone arrow had ripped my father’s heart in two.
Christoph’s face dissolved in my memory. Another replaced it. The eyes were the same.
“Yeager,” my mother had said, holding up the photograph. “It’s Yeager now. Clint Yeager. He’s the last of Christoph’s line. It’s a simple thing I’m asking. Avenge your father. Take him out. End the war once and for all.”
Clint Yeager. Seven centuries had passed, but the power and malice in his gaze were the same as his ancestor’s. Yeager had that tiger swagger as he crossed the street, heading for the hardware store. I took a slow sip of coffee and flipped the page of the newspaper I’d picked up. My spine tingled. I could smell his blood as I watched the life leech out of him. It would be my coup de grace.
I folded the newspaper. The diner was nearly empty now. Too late for the breakfast crowd. A bit too early for lunch. Two old men sat across from each other in a corner booth. I felt their eyes on me, though their conversation stayed pleasant, disinterested.
The owner of the diner worked behi
nd the grill. One waitress wiped down menus at the end of the counter. She gave me a polite smile as I turned on my stool.
I closed my eyes and inhaled. Blackfoot was a dangerous town, crawling with shifters of every kind. The old-timers in the booth were both wolves. Betas, but still able to sense someone like me if I wasn’t careful. They would never guess what I was. Their kind didn’t believe in dragons anymore. But, they would feel the fire magic around me and know I wasn’t human. A mage, perhaps, they would think.
The diner owner was a cat of some sort. He didn’t throw off power like Yeager did. He was no tiger. Panther, maybe.
Yeager was almost across the street. Someone out of my sight line drew his attention. Yeager raised a hand and waved. He was casual. Easy. In command. It seemed everyone in Blackfoot knew him. God, how did they all live like this? Tigers. Panthers. Wolves. In the distance, I even caught the unmistakable, pungent, earthy scent of some bear shifters. Where were the boundaries?
The sooner I did what I came for and got the hell out of Blackfoot, the better. The shifter stench was starting to get to me. The longer I stayed, the harder it would be to control my dragon.
I slid off my stool and put a twenty on the counter. Today, I would just follow Yeager. When I took him out, I’d need him to be alone. Not that I couldn’t handle any shifter around him, but the less attention I drew, the better. Avelina gave me nothing more than his name and this town. I needed more.
I planned to follow him for just a little while today. Find out where Yeager worked. Where he lived. Later, I’d begin studying his routines.
Yeager stopped in the middle of the street. He scented something. It made him tilt his head to the side, but he didn’t take a defensive posture.
As I made my way to the front of the diner, a thunderbolt hit me straight in the chest. A roar ripped out of me. Yeager froze and sniffed the air. He caught my scent now, but didn’t know what it was. I gripped the mug so hard I cracked the handle. Fire gathered in my belly. The easy conversation from the wolves in the booth stopped.
Fuck. I couldn’t draw this much attention this early. But...there was...something...
The air shifted, and my senses heightened. A beat-up red pickup pulled into a space right in front of me, momentarily blocking my view of Yeager. My spine chilled as a new scent took hold.
A woman slid out of the driver’s seat. As she slammed the door shut, her dark hair swished around her shoulders. My vision tunneled as I narrowed in on her. I could see every strand of her hair. Darkest at the roots and where it framed her face. Then, it grew lighter at the ends, becoming golden blonde.
She dropped her keys on the ground and bent to pick them up. My jeans tightened and I went on high alert. I’d never scented anything like her before. Sweet, primal, intoxicating. She was gorgeous, with high, strong cheekbones, full sensual lips. She had a small waist but ample cleavage that nearly spilled out of the white tank top she wore beneath her flannel shirt. She was strong and toned, an athlete, for sure. She moved with a familiar, easy grace.
Her legs were sculpted muscle in cutoff jeans. She wore battered work boots. She seemed to rise in slow motion as she straightened and flicked her hair over her shoulder.
I wanted her. A growl ripped from my throat. It was too low for someone like her to hear. She was human. And yet...there was something...other about her.
Clint Yeager was heading straight for her. My fingers turned to talons. I was losing control. I saw Clint’s tiger eyes glint as he focused on her. He was after her. His look was unmistakable. Protective. Possessive. Alpha male.
I rose, ready to get between them. If he so much as touched her…
I existed outside myself. The men in the booth, the diner owner, even the waitress stopped to watch me. This was bad. Disastrous. I was about to blow my cover within the first hour of getting here.
The woman’s step quickened as Yeager crossed the distance between them. She let out a lilting laugh that warmed my blood. A vision flashed behind my eyes. Her soft hair tickled my chest as she hovered above me and licked those luscious lips.
“Hey, baby girl,” Yeager said. Deep lines creased his face as he smiled, showing straight, white teeth, the canines just a bit longer than the rest. I took a step toward the door, struggling to keep my dragon in check.
As Yeager got close, the woman spread her arms wide and threw herself at him. Yeager caught her with one arm and planted a kiss on her cheek. She smirked at him. They were comfortable. Easy. Yeager was still scanning the street, aware of being watched but not yet certain where the threat was. I let out a hard breath, struggling to push my dragon way down where none of them could sense it.
“Phew,” the woman said, waving her hand in front of her nose as the two of them headed straight for the diner. “Dad, you smell like wet cat.”
I took a faltering step backward and found my way back to my spot at the counter. I picked up my newspaper again and motioned for the waitress to pour me another cup of coffee. Her words hammered through me until all I could hear was just the one.
Dad?
Chapter Two
Ash
“We need to talk.” The second the words came out of my father’s mouth, my back went up. I put a smile on my face, trying to tamp down the rise of my temper. Still, I could feel it bubbling along my spine. I knew what he was going to say. As we headed toward the Blackfoot Diner, I did a quick check inside. Was my brother already in there? Was he the one who ratted me out?
“Hey, Sonny,” Dad called. Sonny Magrum waved from the little window behind the counter into the kitchen. Sonny was old school, wearing a white t-shirt over his pot belly and a white sailor’s cap from his navy days. Sonny was a panther shifter from Arkansas. He knew my dad from way back. There was a story between them Dad refused to tell.
Dad had a hand on my lower back, guiding me to his favorite booth by the window. He always took the seat facing the door. I scooted into my seat and tried to keep that smile on my face.
Dad gave a nod to Rod and Davy sitting in their usual corner booth. Wolf shifters from northern Cali, they used to be part of Todd Dalton’s crew over in Dawson City. Now, they were too old to mine, but plenty young enough to get in everyone else’s business. Normally, I’d think they were harmless, but somebody had been shooting their mouths off about something. My father was terrible at hiding his thoughts.
When Nadine, Sonny’s niece, came over with coffee, my dad was practically nonverbal. “Just bring him a bacon cheese omelet,” I said. “Toast for me.” Nadine poured the coffee with a smile and scooted out of earshot. Even she could sense the tension in my father’s face.
There was a man at the counter with his nose in a newspaper. I’d kind of ignored him as we walked in, but now it seemed a little odd that he’d never looked up. Everyone looked up when my father entered a room. Not this guy though.
With his back to us, I couldn’t tell if he was young or old. He had light brown, thick hair that just brushed the collar of his black t-shirt. He had massive shoulders and solid biceps. He sat with his legs slightly apart, as if they were too long to really fit in the space in front of them. One of his feet vibrated on the metal ring at the base of the stool. Whoever he was, he seemed almost as agitated as my father. Shifter, definitely. Except...save for that one foot, he sat still as granite.
“How are things at Little Sister?” Dad said, drawing my attention back to him. It was a bullshit question. He wouldn’t have asked me to meet him for brunch unless he already suspected the answer.
“When are you going to let me name my own ground, Dad?” I said, smiling. This was a sore point between us. Last year, my father finally agreed to let me run my own crew on my own patch of gold-rich, virgin ground.
“Maybe when you prove you can turn a profit,” he said, sipping his coffee. There was a tiny bit of mirth in the twinkle of his eyes, but I still got defensive.
“It undermines me,” I said. “It’s patronizing.”
Dad set his cup dow
n. “Lighten up. I named that cut when you were still in diapers. It stuck. Same as Will’s first.”
My older brother Will had been mining with his own crew for over a decade. He’d started out on a patch of ground my father named Big Brother. I knew he was right. It shouldn’t matter. I was being petty.
“It doesn’t help me,” I said.
My dad’s eyes flashed gold. Here it came. “Alecia, if you think renaming your cut is what’ll keep your crew in line…”
“My crew is in line!” I said, not intending to shout it. I looked down, took a breath, then lowered my voice. “I told you if I had a problem, I’d come to you. I don’t have a problem.”
Dad sat back and draped his arm over the back of the booth. His nose twitched and his jaw tightened. I knew that look. His tiger wanted to roar. If he let it out that much, it would blow my hair back. From the corner of my eye, I saw the guy at the counter straighten. He didn’t turn, but I swore I could see the hairs on the back his neck stand on end from here. It was a reaction I was accustomed to around here. So, he was another shifter. I was usually pretty good at pegging them. Bear, probably. He had the size of one.
“What about Len, Pete, and Tommy?” My father trained those flashing tiger eyes straight at me. Dammit. “Word is they walked off the site yesterday.”
“Who told you that?” I said, again, my voice rising. God, I hated the way I sounded. “Let me guess, Will’s been talking shit behind my back.”