Dragon Tides: A Shifters in Love Fun & Flirty Romance (Dragon Island Hideaway Book 1)
Page 1
© 2018 by Rinelle Grey
www.rinellegrey.com
All rights reserved.
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Table of Contents
Blurb
Prologue
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
Epilogue
About the Author
Blurb
Four years ago, dragon shifter Damrian made the mistake of kissing his best friend goodbye when she left Dragon Island Hideaway resort to go to uni. The fact that she’s barely spoken to him since told him loud and clear that she wasn’t interested. But now she’s back. And Damrian is determined to find a way to salvage their friendship.
Zara’s back to search for evidence of a mermaid she’s sure she caught sight of before she left. Renewing her friendship with Damrian is just a plus, though she’s finding her feelings for him are greater than she’d expected. She needs to keep her distance, because she has far bigger plans than staying on the island for the rest of her life.
Zara’s searching for magical mermaids, but is she so busy looking out at the ocean, that she's missing the magic right in front of her?
Dragon Tides is the first book in the new Dragon Island Hideaway series.
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Prologue
Damrian stared at Zara, trying to memorise her face. It was hard to believe he wasn’t going to see her again for months, possibly a whole year. How much would she change in that time? Would she still be his best friend when she returned?
“I’d better go, they’re waiting for me.” Zara swung her thumb over her shoulder, indicating the loaded ferry at the jetty, which was, indeed, waiting for her.
“Let them go without you,” Damrian said, trying to keep his tone light and teasing. Trying to pretend that this was just another line in the running joke they’d had going all year, and not a desperate plea.
He knew she had to go. Knew this was what she wanted. And he didn’t want to be the one to stop her. But he couldn’t help wishing that this was enough. That he was enough.
Zara punched his shoulder lightly. “You can come with me. I think I could squeeze you into my luggage.” She pointed to the ridiculously small suitcase at her feet.
Damrian couldn’t help a laugh at the ludicrous idea, even as he felt tears prick at the back of his eyes. How was he supposed to do this? How was he supposed to say goodbye to his best friend?
There was so much he wanted to tell her.
He wanted to tell her that he wasn’t who he appeared. That he was secretly a dragon. That his family were the only ones left in his clan.
That he loved her.
Oh, he really wanted to tell her that.
As if guessing the direction of his thoughts, Zara’s expression softened a little. “I’m going to miss you, Damien.”
Damrian hid a wince at the name. A human translation of his dragon name, Damrian. The one on his human birth certificate, true, but every time she used it, it just reminded him that she only knew half of who he was. He much preferred it when she shortened it to Dam, the way his brothers and mother did.
He wanted to tell Zara, but he’d been lying for so long, he couldn’t make the truth come out. Especially not now, when there was so little time.
“I’m going to miss you too,” he said instead.
She looked up at him, her eyes a little teary too. “Well, if you’re not going to jump into my suitcase, I guess I’d better go.”
His mind screamed at him to do something, to say something, before she was gone and it was too late. He wanted to pull her into his arms and declare his love for her right there and then.
An idea hit him. A silly, crazy, exhilarating idea, and before he could dissuade himself, he acted on it.
“I know the perfect way to convince you to stay.”
Then before he could lose his nerve, he bent and kissed her.
Her lips parted as she gasped softly, but her hands against his chest didn’t push him away. For one, glorious moment, she was kissing him back.
Then her head jerked back, and she stared at him in disbelief. “Why did you do that?” she stammered, her eyes wide. “Why?” Her voice was anguished.
Damrian’s heart thudded in his chest. “I…” The truth hovered on the tip of his tongue, but her agonised expression stopped the admission.
He’d made a mistake.
He floundered for words to explain it all away. Anything to wipe the horrified expression off her face. But he found none. His mind was blank.
“I have to go.” Zara whirled around, grabbing the handle of her suitcase and hurrying up the gangway onto the ferry before Damrian could stop her.
He wanted to run after her, to shout out for her to wait. He wanted some way to make everything right again.
But he suspected that anything he did at this point would only make it worse.
Chapter 1
The catamaran sped over the white-tipped waves, the sun glinting off the water and making everything sparkle. The wind had picked up since they’d left port, and the seas were rough. Most of the passengers had gone below to find motion sickness bags.
Not Zara. She leaned on the front railing, enjoying every minute of the wild ride, delighting in the smooth up and down motion of the bow as it cut through the waves, and the feel of the wind in her hair. She’d missed this so much during the last four years. Sure, she’d been on plenty of boats, some even in rough seas, that was the life of a marine biologist—even one in training.
But this time, she wasn’t just heading out on another survey, she was going home.
Her heart pounded and butterflies fluttered in her stomach at the thought, their movement at odds with the smooth motion of the boat. Anticipation and nerves mingled and, for a moment, she wondered if she should be looking for one of those bags, after all.
But she clenched her stomach and tightened her hands on the railing in front of her. She could do this. She could talk to Damien, and somehow make things right again. She’d put it off for too long—it was time to shop hiding.
She was stronger now than she had been four years ago, when his teasing kiss had made her question her whole life. She could see it for what it was, an escalation of the game they’d been playing for almost a year. Not a real attempt to stop her leaving.
But it had taken so much effort to convince herself to leave in the first place, that any temptation to stay had been too much. She’d been weak, that was all. Leaving Dragon Island, her family, and her best friend, had seemed like an insurmountable task. Doing it alone had been doubly hard. She’d lived on the island since she was tiny, so it wasn’t surprising.
That decision had been so difficult to make she’d deferred her degree for a year, working at the resort, hoping Damien would change his mind and come with her, and she w
ouldn’t have to do this on her own.
They’d known each other for as long as she could remember, spent their childhood running wild on the shores of Dragon Island together, climbing mountains and exploring rainforest. She’d shared all her hopes and dreams with him.
But in reality, she’d always known that they had to go their separate ways, no matter how much it hurt. Damien’s life was here, at the resort. But she’d always felt that hers wasn’t. Always felt that there was something she was missing, something better out there for her.
And after waiting a year, she’d been determined not to let anything stop her.
Damien’s kiss had just proved how weak that resolve really was. It was herself she was angry at, not him.
The memory of that day flared in her mind, almost as bright and sunny as this one. He’d seen her off at the jetty, and even at that late minute, when her bags had been packed and her ticket paid for, they’d both still been baiting each other. He’d teasingly begged her to stay, she’d teased back, threatening to squish him into her luggage and take him with her.
And then he’d done it. His eyes dancing, he’d said he knew the perfect way to convince her to stay. He’d kissed her.
That kiss had excited her, thrilled her, and terrified her, all at the same time. It had promised so much, and yet, at the same time, threatened everything she held dear—her dreams of a more exciting life, her plans to get her degree.
More than anything, it hurt that he’d even tried it. He knew how much getting her degree had meant to her. She’d known he was sad to see her go, but she hadn’t expected him to throw something like that at her to stop her.
But it nearly had.
Deep down, she knew Damien was the only one who could stand in the way of those dreams. The only one she might just be prepared to give them up for.
She’d been furious at him. And just as furious at herself for being tempted. It had taken a mammoth effort to remind herself of the truth, that there was no future for her on Dragon Island. Other than the resort, nestled in a quiet cove, it was full of nothing but wild jungle and towering mountains.
No, there was nothing for her there, not unless she wanted to work at the resort. And as much as she loved the island, and considered it her home, she wanted more than that. She wanted a career. To see more of the world. There wasn’t even any reliable mobile coverage on the island, for goodness sakes, and the internet was painfully slow.
There had been a whole world of wonders out there, and she’d been desperate to see them all.
And now, after four years of doing just that, she couldn’t help being excited, and a little nervous, to return. Would it be the same as she remembered it? Would Damien be the same?
She knew she wasn’t. She’d grown so much, she could feel it. She was no longer the shy, uncertain girl she had been, but a woman, sure of what she wanted in life, and willing to do whatever it took to get it.
She wasn’t going to let her confusion over Damien get in the way any longer. She had bigger concerns. She needed a thesis topic that was going to wow her supervisors, and she had just the thing, all she needed was enough evidence to prove to them that she had a case. That she wasn’t just imagining things.
That was why she was back here. Not because of Damien. Because she needed proof.
Twelve months ago, she wouldn’t even have considered proposing such a crazy thesis topic. Even a few weeks ago, she’d tried to pretend that she hadn’t even believed that mermaids existed herself.
Now, with daily reports of dragon sightings in the newspaper, perhaps her own sighting didn’t seem so unbelievable.
Yes, there were still plenty of sceptics about the dragon sightings. Opinion around the university was equally divided about whether the photos were elaborate fakes, or what it might mean if there was some truth to them.
Zara had been in her final exams when the dragon had supposedly flown over the city, so she hadn’t seen it for herself. But she didn’t need to. If she could believe she’d seen a mermaid, was a dragon so different?
She scanned the waves, not expecting to see anything. She’d been looking at them ever since leaving port. She’d seen some dolphins jumping, and birds hovering over a school of fish in the distance. All normal, everyday occurrences.
Not what she was looking for.
And she wasn’t going to see it here either. If mermaids let themselves be seen by every passing boat, their existence would be common knowledge by now. Not that that stopped her scrutinising the water again.
Zara bit her lip.
Had the pink tail and what looked like pink hair really been a mermaid, or was she just chasing daydreams?
The catamaran slowed as the Dragon Island Hideaway jetty came into view, and the butterflies in her stomach intensified, until they resembled a screeching, squawking flock of lorikeets.
Questions about mermaids faded into the background beside the fact that this was it—she was going to see Damien for the first time in four years. She gave a wry smile at how easily her focus had shifted. He could still do that to her, even after four years.
It was a wonder she’d ever managed to convince herself to leave in the first place.
The difference was that now she knew the longing to see him would fade. That she could ignore it and focus on what she needed to get done.
But she couldn’t deny that right now, her mind wouldn’t be silenced. She couldn’t stop questions running wild.
Would he still be her best friend? Would they still even have anything in common?
And what exactly had he meant by that kiss? Had it really been just about trying to convince her to stay, or was there something more?
In an email he’d sent only a week after she’d left, he’d said he hadn’t meant it. That it had been an impulse, and it wouldn’t happen again.
Zara hadn’t known how to reply. So she’d written back a long-winded letter about everything she was doing, her classes, her lecturers, her new apartment, her flatmates. She’d filled the screen with news, all so she could avoid talking about the one thing she couldn’t stop thinking about.
When he’d written back, his email had been the same. He’d talked about the resort, his family, but he hadn’t mentioned that kiss again. They’d emailed back and forth a few times after that, but it had felt so stilted and uncomfortable that Zara kept letting longer and longer go in between replies, until she just hadn’t replied at all.
She’d thought that it would be easier to talk to him when she went home for the Christmas holidays. That once they were face to face, she could explain, and he would understand.
She’d intended to.
Until her flatmate had come home in tears, telling her she was pregnant. She and Lorna had become friends, in that first year, and the news hit Zara hard. She hadn’t been able to help wondering what she would have done if it had been her.
She liked to believe she wouldn’t have given up her degree to get married and have a baby. That she would have found some way to make it work. Yes, it might have taken a bit longer, but it was possible.
But she hadn’t really believed it.
So she’d stayed in the city over the holidays. Used the excuse of not being able to get time off from her new job, and she even paid her dad’s airfare so he could come and visit her instead.
He hadn’t even questioned it when the same thing happened the next year.
Her dad was going to get quite a shock that she was here this year. She hadn’t called him, she’d wanted to surprise him. And, if she was honest, she hadn’t wanted him to tell everyone else she was coming. She hadn’t wanted him to tell Damien.
Zara lingered near the back of the crowd as the boat docked. Maybe she could slip past the resort staff and find her father’s cabin out back. She could hide out there until she felt up to facing everyone.
She bit her lip. Hiding. Avoiding.
She knew once she started, it would be hard to stop. She’d already done that with the emails.
“Hi, Zara, welcome home,” Tom, one of the resort workers, said with a smile as he tied off the boat.
Zara smiled back automatically.
“Hey, Zara, how’d you enjoy uni?” Kurt, another worker, added, as he lowered the gangplank into place.
“It was great. I learned a lot,” Zara said, trying to keep her focus on the men in front of her, and not look past them, not push past to see if he was here.
Did Damien still meet each boat to welcome guests to the island?
She caught sight of him just at that moment, squinting against the sun, a smile on his face. It wasn’t for her. It couldn’t be. He didn’t even know she was coming.
She watched Damien undetected as the first of the passengers reached the end of the jetty. Her heart ached at the familiar, lopsided smile he gave them, waving his hand around, explaining all the fun activities that awaited them in the days ahead.
Zara knew his speech off by heart. She’d helped him greet visitors many times before. Even if she couldn’t hear his words clearly now, she could imagine him saying them in his warm, welcoming voice.
Would he welcome her like that?
She was about to find out. The visitors cleared the jetty, following Damien’s waving hand toward the path leading to the resort atrium, where they’d collect their luggage, and he’d hand out their room keys.
There was no one between them now and, as he scanned the jetty, probably looking for any stragglers, he saw her.
His eyes widened, and for a second, an unrestrained, happy smile flashed across his face. Then uncertainty wiped it out. And pain.
Zara winced. That was her fault.
Both of them stood there, staring at each other.
It was like the emails all over again. Stilted and awkward. And she didn’t know how to make it better.
But she couldn’t just stand there, so she made herself walk down the jetty. Every step closer to him she took, the less awkward it seemed. Damien’s uncertain smile tugged at her heart and reminded her achingly of all the wonderful times they’d had together.