by Bonnie Vanak
George’s expression darkened and smoke poured from his nostrils. “You do not wish to even entertain that thought. This match is far too important to too many people, including dragons like your friend, Emma. Only through you and Sabrina ruling Clan Ciamoth can you make the changes to bring equality to all dragons of every class.”
His shoulders sagged. The old man was right. Didn’t make it easier, but he was right.
The king’s expression softened. “I’m sorry, Alex. I know how you care for Emma, but it is best to forget her.”
As the king turned to head back to the castle, Alex stared at the immense stone castle, wishing he was born someone else.
Forget Em, the only person who ever allowed him to be himself, who turned him upside down and inside out with desire? Never.
Not for all the gold in the kingdom.
Maybe this time, the girls would let her eat lunch with them.
Emma Kantris took the brown sack containing her vegan burger and headed for the picnic table where nine girls dressed in black and white uniforms laughed and gossiped as they ate char-grilled hamburgers and extra-crispy French fries. One spotted her and all of them suddenly quieted. Her stomach tightened and her chest felt hollow, but she pasted a bright smile on her face and pointed at the empty seat.
“Mind if I join you?”
One of the girls slid over and poof! The empty space was filled. “Sorry, no room,” she chimed.
The tight smile remained on Emma’s face. “Right.”
Her gaze flicked to Dandee, the one who had moved over. “By the way, you have ketchup on your blouse and you know how Sabrina hates stains.”
Dandee glanced down and colored. She scrubbed at the spot with her napkin.
“Why don’t you go eat sprouts? That’s what your kind does,” Dandee snapped.
Your kind. Emma calmly gazed at the vapor pouring out of the girl’s nostrils. Dragon breath. “Sprouts are actually quite good for a dragon’s digestion. And smoking is bad for your health. You really should quit.”
With that, she turned on her heels, feeling their bright gazes fixated on her back, as if she sported a target mark. Emma walked back to her car, parked near the array of picnic tables just outside her clan’s compound. She felt a rush of magick in the air and turned, seeing all 9 girls shift into their dragon forms and lift into the air, leaving the picnic table littered with greasy papers and cups. Her Fae half bristled with indignation. Emma went back to the picnic table and cleaned up the trash, then headed to her 1990 Corolla, parked beneath a shady tree in the deserted parking lot.
She didn’t want to eat alone out here where anyone could see she was a dragon without friends. Or rather a half-dragon.
Half-bloods in Clan Ciamoth were lowest in the social structure, lower even than lizards.
She really didn’t want to eat with those bitches, anyway. Asking to join them had become a game. Still, it would have been nice to fit in with the other handmaidens to Princess Sabrina.
After sliding into her car, she locked the doors and unwrapped her veggie burger. Emma savored the aroma of freshly grilled fake meat. A glop of mayo dripped onto the napkin she’d tucked into the collar of her starched white shirt. She inhaled the smell of the burger, and then took a big bite. Yum. Emma munched and glanced at the cheap chrome watch on her left wrist. Fifteen minutes left.
The glittering blue dragon’s egg necklace swung gently from her neck as she leaned forward to scan the parking lot again. Shiny as an opal, and more valuable, the egg was Emma’s passport to clan acceptance.
This afternoon, she’d only have to shell pistachios for Princess Sabrina. Sabrina liked her pistachios shelled and replaced in the bag so she could nibble on them at her leisure.
A dragon of royal blood, Sabrina acted spoiled, though only Emma knew Sabrina’s true nature. Emma stopped eating. Sabrina was engaged to Crown Prince Alexander Tremaine of Clan Drakon. The match would take place next week at sunset. Heart heavy, she set aside the burger.
Alex, mated. Her dearest friend, the dragon she adored above all others, mated. Despite his lofty status, he treated her like, well, a princess herself. Not like the lowly servant she was, a commoner who was half-Fae, half-dragon. Fit only to be the servant of the royals.
It wasn’t a bad life. The royal princess had nine other handmaidens, so Emma was assigned easy, tedious tasks that left plenty of time for reading. She didn’t adore the limelight like Sabrina did and she certainly didn’t have waist-length dark curls, big brown eyes and a slender figure with boobs the size of Arizona. Sabrina’s looks drove men, both OtherWorlders and Skins, the term they used for Humans, quite wild.
Being tall and chubby and having golden hair suited her better. But sometimes, Emma found herself wishing she weren’t so invisible. Well, invisible to all but Alex, and that had landed her in trouble last month.
Though the car doors were locked, locks provided little protection against determined dragons who wished to hurt her again.
Her attackers warned if she told anyone who attacked her, they would return and kill her and chop her into tiny pieces, burying her in the forest.
Emma had no desire to be buried in the forest. Or chopped into tiny pieces.
Her cell phone chirped. She glanced at the text and little dragonflies of anticipation fluttered in her stomach. Alex.
Free 2 talk?
Yeah, she was free to talk. She shouldn’t be responding. Best to cut off their friendship now, before he married Princess Sabrina. But a little texting couldn’t hurt. It wasn’t the same as having him here in person. Or rather, in dragon.
What’s up? She typed back.
TOY.
Alex was thinking of her? Bad idea, though the text sent another flutter of dragonflies through her stomach.
What you doing? She typed back.
Drilling ’n grilling.
Emma laughed. Drilling ’n grilling was Alexspeak for military drills he was required to perform as crown prince. Only those drills included frying test dummies with dragon flame.
U OK? Where RU?
Parking lot of park near Main. Sitting, eating on break.
Alone?
She sighed. Ever since last month when four dragons had assaulted and nearly raped her, his overprotective streak ratchetted to turbo levels. Alex went a little berserk when he found her, bruised and bleeding, her clothing torn, on the ground outside her clan’s compound.
Tapping the phone, she debated on answering the text. This was a bad idea. In one week, Alex mated her clan’s future ruler. Then the King and Queen would retire and Alex and Sabrina would reign. After two years, Alex’s father would step down and the two clans would unite, with Alex and Sabrina ruling over both.
With the new rulers would come the changes Emma had dreamed of her entire life—ending the dreaded caste system in Clan Ciamoth that ostracized all half-dragons like herself.
The cell chirped again. A photo was attached to the message. FYEO.
Oh dear. For Your Eyes Only meant something quite naughty. “Alex,” she murmured.
She opened the attachment and burst into laughter. On her smart phone’s screen was the photo of a bare-assed man shooting a blue flame out of his flat buttocks. Not Alex. Alex had a terrific bottom, all taut muscle.
Nice, she typed back, smiling. U?
Hell no. Drillmaster Vernon. Chili 4 lunch. Dragon farts.
She stopped laughing. How she’d miss this, their little secret world they’d created out of boredom with their respective roles. But he was the crown prince, a dragon destined to rule.
Her ennui resulted from a much lower status and duties.
GB, Alex, she typed. Good-bye. I can’t do this any longer.
FIMH. Forever in my heart.
Oh Alex, don’t do this. You know we can never be together. Don’t break my heart making me think it could happen because it’s impossible. We belong to two different worlds.
The crown prince and the peasant dragon who liked veggie bu
rgers and couldn’t shoot flames out of her butt, or her mouth, no matter how hard she tried.
Then as she set down her phone, it rang. Heart racing, she picked it up. Must be Dandee. As chief handmaiden to Princess Sabrina, the woman had a high opinion of herself and she yelled if Emma was a nanosecond late. I have ten minutes left, Your High-Anus.
But caller ID said it was Alex. The phone shook in her hand as she thumbed it on.
“Alex, I can’t talk. I have to get back to work.”
“Em.” His deep voice, all velvet and sexy, grumbled over the wire. Her heart did a little flip. Alex had the sultriest voice, good for issuing commands.
Like a command she’d never hear—for her to get naked and have sex with him.
Sometimes late at night when she lay in bed, staring at the moonlight wistfully, she wondered what it would be like get naked with Alex, to hear his husky voice whispering the very naughty things he planned to do with her…
“Em, what’s wrong. Why do you keep shutting me out?” He paused and she heard the worry deepen his tone. “Is it what happened last month?”
He couldn’t even address the incident, only said “it.” Emma swallowed hard. “Alex, you have to stop contacting me. I can’t see you.”
“The hell with that.”
The line went dead.
She set down her phone with a sigh. Alex didn’t know what a living hell her life had been before Sabrina. She didn’t dare lose this position. Emma had worked as a maid to a wealthy dragon lord, who barely paid enough for her to afford food. Her room had been a closet that stank of mold. Not to mention the beatings, the kicking and the punches by his eldest daughter, who took out her unhappiness on Emma.
Sabrina found out what happened and made Emma her personal handmaiden. She reprimanded the dragon lord, but Sabrina was powerless to do little else. Not until she married Alex.
Two minutes later, the dragon’s egg warmed against her skin, warning of the approach of another dragon. Emma’s jaw dropped as a silver dragon descended into the parking lot, the ground shaking beneath the impact of his landing.
Alex.
Thank the goddess dragons were invisible to Skins. As always, he’d made his dragon form smaller than normal, as to not intimidate her. She could barely shift into a dragon as big as a Smart car.
Alex was a Cadillac, even in his smaller form.
She watched warily as he shifted into Skin. Emma caught a flash of tanned, muscled flesh before Alex conjured khaki trousers and a forest green polo shirt. Expensive leather loafers covered his feet. A gold Rolex, worth $47,000, glinted on his left wrist.
Alex did love his gold, and as the crown prince, he had plenty of it.
Aware of the half-eaten burger in her lap, she shoved it into the paper bag and set it on the seat beside her. Alex approached the car and braced his hands on the door as she rolled the window open.
“Em, talk to me,” he urged.
Her heart did another little flip as tendrils of his spicy scent wrapped around her, more tantalizing and delicious than the abandoned burger. At six feet, four inches, Alex was tall and muscled and every inch the prince. His ebony hair was clipped short and his face was patrician and aristocratic. Blue-green eyes filled with worry.
More than anyone else she’d ever known, even her long-departed mother, Alex cared. Too much.
“There’s nothing to talk about. You’re marrying my employer next week, Alex. You shouldn’t be here.”
He narrowed his eyes. “I can be anywhere I wish, Em, and I wish to be here with you. I am the Crown Prince of Clan Drakon and no one tells me what to do.”
Such arrogance. She wished she could afford to be as confident. Everyone tells me what to do. Except you.
“Oh yeah? You’re so special, but can you blow blue flames out of your ass?”
He stared for a minute and then burst into laughter. She grinned. Then Alex sobered. “Damn Em, I miss you. I miss you so much. I’m worried about you.”
His deep, husky voice stroked over her like smooth velvet. A shiver raced down her spine. So sexy. Her gaze dropped to the dark hair dusting his strong forearms and hands. His hands were calloused, despite his social status, with long fingers that probably knew how to stroke and touch a woman to make her scream and beg for more.
Alex had to stop worrying about her. After next week, he’d be mated, with a princess in his bed and an heir to conceive to unite their two fractious clans.
She didn’t know which hurt worse—the thought of Alex making love to Sabrina, or the thought of the princess bearing his children, creating little dragons and a family of their own.
All things she’d resigned to never having, due to her half-breed blood. Half-dragons circulated on the fringes of clan society. Especially in Clan Ciamoth.
“Go away, Alex. I don’t want to speak to you.” She started to roll up the window, but he put a hand upon it.
“Em, please.” A hint of vulnerability shaded his eyes. “All I can think about is you, and those bastards who hurt you. I promise, they will pay for it.”
A lump clogged her throat. My dashing prince. A fantasy for the next few days, until reality sets in.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” She turned away.
He reached through the opened window and caught her chin with one firm hand. Gently he turned her head toward him. The warmth of his palm sent all her senses jumping, and stirred her erogenous zones. Gods, he was gorgeous.
And not hers.
“Em, don’t shut me out.”
But I must. “Go away!”
Pushing aside his hand, she rolled up the window as he withdrew. Emma fought the compulsion to cry out after him as he backed away, and then finally walked off.
He shifted into dragon once more and soared into the skies.
“Stupid, stupid Emma,” she whispered. “Stop daydreaming about him. Why can’t you just move on and forget him? Find someone of your own class and move your ass on?”
Memories of her assault pushed at the edges of her mind. Shuddering, she reached for the keys to start the car. After Alex found her, he’d very gently picked her up and rushed her to her clans’ clinic. Though her injuries healed, her spirit had not. Others in her clan promised to find her attackers, but only Alex expressed rage, and concern, and a desire to avenge her honor.
And if Alex found out the real identity of her attackers…not the vague description she’d given of four red dragons from Clan Fury, with tattoos of flames on their necks…
The attack hadn’t been random. They deliberately targeted her, and left with a dire warning: Stay away from the Crown Prince or you will suffer much worse.
Against her skin, the dragon’s egg began to pulse with a soft bluish glow. “Alex,” she sighed. “Not again. You can’t keep doing this. You have to end this, for my sake and yours.”
She threw the car into reverse to leave. Suddenly it stopped. Something landed on the roof with an enormous THUD!
The roof began to sink in, and then the car rocked.
She looked into the mirror and her blood ran cold.
A dragon stood behind her car, blocking her from backing up. He spread his enormous wings, covering her entire back window. Mouth dry, she threw the car into drive, but her wheels spun uselessly. Another dragon obstructed her Toyota in the front. He opened his mouth, showing a mouthful of sharp, jagged teeth.
Two silver dragons, the same ones who hurt her last month.
Shifting inside the car was impossible, and even if she fled, she could never out fly them. It hadn’t worked last time. A leg muscle cramped, reminding her of the old injuries there.
Two other silver dragons stood beside the car. They shifted into Skin. On the passenger side, one broke the window with a flick of a meaty finger.
Emma fumbled for her cell phone and speed dialed Alex’s number. He was the only one who would care and take action.
Even though he was the reason why these four were after her, and had kicked her so hard she
had seen stars.
She shoved the phone under the bag with the abandoned burger.
The dragon on the passenger side chuckled.
“Look what we have here. A tasty morsel we didn’t get to fully sample.” His cruel smile filled her with dread. “Good thing we showed restraint with you last month. They like them pure and untouched at the brothel. We’ll get much more money for you now that you’re still a virgin. And then you will finally be out of our prince’s life for good, since tradition demands he marry a pure, untouched dragon.”
And then they were breaking into the car and reaching for her.
The nightmare was happening all over again.
Emma screamed.
Chapter 2
Em had shut him out and shut him down. Again.
Puffs of misty white clouds scudded across the clear Colorado sky as Alex rode the air currents. His dragon mind focused on flying, while inside the beast, his human mind raged with worry and grief.
Em, Em, why won’t you talk with me?
A jetliner roared several hundred feet above him and suddenly descended. The dragon hissed and dove lower to avoid any kind of accidental impact. Focus, Alex.
But he could not. Ever since he’d found Emma last month in bra and panties outside her clan’s compound, bleeding and bruised, her clothing ripped off, he’d been infuriated and worried. Infuriated because the stately, protocol androids who called themselves dragons were more concerned with formal investigations and following proper procedure than the woman who’d been attacked. Clan Ciamoth was reveled for their wisdom and keeping of traditions.
But they sucked at aiding victims of crime. Emma had been shuttled aside, cleaned up, asked questions, but no one seemed to care about the impact to her spirit.
Other than him. And damnit, she wouldn’t talk with him.
His father had hired Emma to teach Alex how to track Fae. Fae, like the Elves and Fairies, were good allies, but they once made formidable enemies. King George had never forgotten the ancestral tales of the Drakon Wars, when Dragons and Lupines teamed together to win their freedom from the Fae.