by A. C. Arthur
Also available from A.C. Arthur
and Carina Press
Awaken the Dragon
Claim the Dragon
Harlequin DARE
A Private Affair
At Your Service
The Last Affair (coming soon)
Kimani Romance
Love Me Like No Other
A Cinderella Affair
Guarding His Body
Second Chance Baby
Defying Desire
Full House Seduction
Summer Heat
Sing Your Pleasure
Touch of Fate
Winter Kisses
Desire a Donovan
Surrender to a Donovan
Decadent Dreams
Eve of Passion
From A.C. Arthur writing as Artist Arthur
and Kimani TRU
Manifest
Mystify
Mutiny
Mayhem
Mesmerize
Tempt the Dragon
A.C. Arthur
Contents
The Legion Glossary
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Epilogue
About the Author
Excerpt from Awaken the Dragon by A.C. Arthur
The Legion Glossary
Baron Drakon—dragons not born from a pure breed leadership clan, in some cases their blood was mixed with other beings.
Chameleon Cloak—the act of a chameleon Drakon’s body taking the form of any inanimate object.
Communicator—watch-like device that serves as GPS, internet, email and telephone, worn by the Legion agents and used to communicate with each other.
Drakon—dragons.
Drakon Imprint—a Drakon’s personal identity traits (similar to DNA) i.e., fingerprint, scent and heat signature. Provides vital information such as a Drakon’s clan link, color and size.
Dhampir—the mixed breed creation of an Impundulu who has mated with his witch.
Dream dust—a frosty white dust that any dream being can produce to put someone to sleep.
Dream Reaper—receives messages of death via his dreams.
Dream Watcher—keeps watch over dreams and is able to communicate with others through dreams.
Fade/fading—the act of a Drakon vanishing from one place and traveling to another.
Far Realm—home of the Drakon and other mythological
beings such as shifters (wolf, feline, etc.), gods and goddesses.
Fey Realm—home of the fey people; mystical fantasy-like land.
Heat signature—Drakon temperature that captures the intricate combination of heat from the dragon and human. Can be altered by emotion.
Hella—a combination of strong herbs spiked with hallucinogens.
Human Realm—home of the human species.
Impundulu—vampires who were found in the eastern Cape region of Africa; usually men controlled by a witch who made sure they were properly fed to keep them from turning on her.
Lords—vampires born of the Royal Blood.
Mimic—can change the structure of molecules in her body to look like someone else—human forms only.
Mind cleaning—the act of erasing memories from a human’s mind.
Noble Drakon—dragons born from a pure breed clan with leadership status.
Royal Blood—royal hierarchy of the vampires.
Soul emotion—feelings and thoughts not spoken, but felt deep within one’s soul. Only empaths and some magickal beings could read soul emotions.
Soul identity—the true nature of a being, beneath any façade such as beautification or adjustments via human bodies and other costumes.
Soul identifier—a being with the power to see a soul identity.
Spirit Realm—home of the spirits; corporeal beings; ominous fog-filled land.
The Collectors—a group of bounty hunters hired to retrieve preternatural beings.
Veils—place that separates each realm, connected by the In-Between.
Watcher—keeps watch over a clan in the present realm, also possesses remote viewing which is the power to track people or objects from afar.
Prologue
Miami
Eighty Years Ago
“I got your back.” Truer words had never been spoken to her and Mel would go to her grave believing that.
However, she wasn’t planning for her life to end tonight.
When Aiken used his telekinetic power to push the dumpster in front of the feline shifter to keep it from exiting the other side of the alley, she ran up behind it, jumping into the air to kick it in the back. The force of her kick sent the shifter stumbling a few feet forward. It made a ferocious sound and dropped to its knees before changing from the hundred-and-ninety-pound man they’d followed from the train station to a big-ass white lion!
“Shit!” she yelled, when after a few shell-shocked seconds the large beast turned and charged her. Her hand went immediately to the waistband of her jeans to grab her gun, but she’d dropped that when she was chasing the guy on the street and he’d knocked over a bunch of trash cans to stop her. She’d had to jump over each trash can to keep herself upright and when he got hip to that and picked one up, tossing it at her, she’d instinctively reached up to catch it, instead of ducking like Aiken had done. The gun had fallen from her hand in the process.
But she hadn’t stopped then and she wasn’t going to stop now, regardless of the tendrils of fear slipping down her spine. She reached down to grab her backup gun from her ankle holster, a second before the lion knocked her flat on her ass. Its heavy paws were on her chest, pressing the last breaths out of her, just before its face came closer to hers, long and sharp teeth just inches from her cheek.
The next roar she heard was Aiken’s. She knew because it not only shook the dumpster and the buildings around them, but the ground beneath her trembled, as well. When her next breath came without restriction, she saw the whir of white fur seconds after Aiken lifted the animal and tossed it all the way down to the end of the alley. The force of a four-hundred-pound lion in motion exploded into the dumpster, sending the beast and the dumpster careening to a stop, just inches before slamming into a brick wall.
The lion immediately jumped up, running toward them once more. Aiken grabbed her wrist, pulling her up to her feet and then pushing her behind him.
“What are you doing? I’ve got my gun.” Which she did have in hand now, thanks to the seconds it had taken him to remove the lion from her lungs and toss it down the alley.
“You’re gonna need more than that,” he shouted and before she could ask what he was talking about more white lions appeared. Shit was about to get real.
Where they’d come from, she had no clue, but Mel raised her arms and aimed her gun dead center between one of their eyes. She barely got off the first shot before they all charged. Forcing calm over fear, she stood close to Aiken, ready to do whatever was necessary to catch their target, just as they always did. They’d been partners for
just about a year and a half now and worked seamlessly together. There was no doubt in her mind that tonight would be any different.
“Shift!”
She froze. Her finger stuck on the trigger of her gun, arms still extended as the lions grew closer.
“Shift! Now, Mel! Now!”
His voice rang louder than the lions’ roar in that alley, sending an undeniable vibration through her body. Still, she didn’t move. She knew what he was asking and she wouldn’t do it. He knew why, dammit he knew, and yet he’d still made the command. It was hard to tell what part of that scenario pissed her off more. There was a blur of motion then and a blast of hot air as Aiken did what he’d instructed her to do. The toned body of the man, her partner and her lover, shifted into the larger-than-life body of a dragon.
Those lions had no idea what hit them.
* * *
Mel didn’t need him to speak to know that he was angry. The emotion, thick and heated, filled the room and threatened to smother her. Yet, she didn’t walk away. It wouldn’t do any good, this conversation needed to happen. They’d put it off for too long.
“You’re a Drakon, Mel. A dragon shifter born on the Far Realm and relocated here to the Human Realm at a young age. You have powers, just like the rest of the Drakon, in addition to being a killer. Your power, passed down by your clan, is that of a chameleon, and you can change your body to match any surface or thing in order to protect yourself in battle.” Aiken ran his hand down the back of his head, his lips spreading into a thin line.
Droplets of water still beaded over his face and ran down his neck, over his shoulders and chest. An ivory towel was wrapped around his waist. Another time, she would’ve pulled the towel away to stare at his amazing physique. Perfect biceps, sculpted abs, muscled thighs, and in-between...but not tonight. Not after what had just happened.
“You could’ve been killed.” Those words were spoken more quietly than the others, but held the same deadly tinge. “I know you’re a skilled Collector. You’re smart and cunning and, I... I just don’t know what I would’ve done if you’d been killed.”
“I wasn’t.” She hated the thread of fear she also heard in his tone and despised the part of herself that felt weak with the need to assuage him.
He stared at her. “You could’ve been.”
“And the world could stop spinning. The craziness of preternatural beings could not be invading the Human Realm. My parents could still be alive.” She huffed. “There’s a lot of could-haves in this world, Aiken.”
His eyes were still the deepest brown striped with bright orange. They were his Drakon eyes, not the ones he wore as a human working alongside her—his girlfriend—as a Collector.
“My only concern is you.”
Her heart pounded, her mind clouding as the love so evident in his gaze combined with the intensity of her feelings for him. Yet, despite the bond they’d built, both professional and personal, she knew what he’d want to discuss next. That knowledge caused immense pain and disappointment to spread like wildfire throughout her body. She inhaled deeply and released the breath slowly. “We lost the target.”
He nodded, a look of conquest and satisfaction pouring over his face. “I killed those rogue feline shifters. The realms are better off without them, so I’m not about to feel regret for what’s done.”
“We won’t get the bounty. And the leader of the shifters won’t get to punish them for their treason against their race. That’s what our job’s all about, catching the bad guy and getting paid to do it.”
He closed the distance between them, clamping his hands tightly on her shoulders and giving her a little shake. “Our job is to stay alive to work the next target. The plan had to be changed, and as your trainer and senior Collector, I changed it. I also gave you a directive that you disobeyed.”
There were no lies in what he’d just said. Aiken was her trainer, he’d taught her everything she knew about being a Collector. He’d patiently showed her how to balance brute strength with intellect to achieve their goals and had never, not once, played the “I’m your boss” card. Until now. But this was no longer about the job. They’d surpassed that point the moment his eyes had switched to Drakon. Anger radiated from his body in thick waves of heat that attempted to speak to another part of her, a part she detested.
“You don’t control me and neither does that beast buried inside.” It was a defiant statement, one she made with pride.
“That beast is a part of you.”
How many times had he said this to her and how many times had she denied it? Apparently, not enough. “It’s not a part I claim, and you know that.”
Still, he looked at her imploringly, asking her to do something she knew she never could. “You can’t continue to hide. You have to be who you are.”
“And what if I don’t, Aiken? What happens if I continue to deny what you believe I should be? Huh? Can you tell me that?” Because she’d been doing just fine living in denial—as he liked to believe—for plenty of years before he came along.
His grip on her shoulders lessened, but he kept his hands on her, the touch a steadying force between them. “I’ve never known of a Drakon who completely denied their heritage. Who kept their dragon half locked away indefinitely. But based on what I know of the beast itself, there’ll come a time when it takes charge, when it will break free whether you want it to or not and if it happens by force, there’s no telling how much damage could be done to those around it.”
Fear circled in the center of her chest, but she wouldn’t let it win. She hadn’t when her parents left her and she wouldn’t now.
“I know you feel it, Mel.” He moved a hand up to cup the back of her neck. “You feel it inside you, reaching out, trying to claim its mate.”
Again, no lies were spoken. She had felt something easing just beneath her skin. In the hundred and ninety years she’d been alive, she’d never felt this inside her before. Or if she had, ignorance had been her bliss and she’d chalked it up as indigestion or some other ailment. She’d known her parents were preternatural, knew they’d come from the Far Realm where there were others like them, but all she’d learned of this Drakon legend had only come to her through Aiken. The guy who’d waltzed into her life just about two years ago, and who was now insisting that she change everything she thought she was.
“No!” She pulled away from him, stumbling back but still keeping eye contact. “I choose, Aiken. I choose who and what I am, not you and not any damned animal.”
He blinked fast at her words and his eyes switched back to their solid brown color. “What about me, Mel? Are you choosing me?”
The next question she wanted to scream was, why did whether she chose to be a Drakon matter to whether she loved him and wanted to be with him? Because she did want him, for the first time in her life there was someone that she liked being with, someone she’d been able to share her thoughts and dreams with. But now, she knew exactly what he was asking her. He’d asked her weeks ago and she’d wished every single night since then that he’d forget the question.
The time they’d been together had been wonderful, romantic and adventurous with them traveling all over the realm in search of their targets. Then, one day, six months into their two-year relationship, that movement beneath her skin had done something odd. It had reached for Aiken, or something like that, because he’d felt it too, and from that point on, he’d begun telling her about the Drakon.
During the next year and a half, they’d been extremely busy with work as an insurgence of preternaturals had arrived on the Human Realm. They’d been at their best during that time, her life had been more enjoyable than she’d ever imagined, working alongside someone so fearless and strong, intelligent and funny. He was everything to her, until he’d asked her to be what he was, to change the life that she’d made for herself to accommodate the legend only he believed. Why couldn’t they j
ust stay the way they were? A part of her had known that wasn’t going to happen. Aiken wouldn’t forget something he wanted, and he wouldn’t settle for less. He wasn’t built that way.
“I’m choosing me.” Her voice sounded so small and frail. She hated it. Clearing her throat, she squared her shoulders and tilted her chin. “I’m choosing to live my life, my way. As a human.” Just to be clear, so there were no misunderstandings from here on out. “Wherever I was born or to whichever family on this realm or another, it doesn’t matter. I’m Melody Kane, a Collector.” Clasping her hands together because her fingers dared to shake at this moment, she continued to stare into eyes she loved with every fiber of her being. “Can you love her, Aiken? Can you be content with loving her?”
For a split second he looked wounded, like that one word and its implications somehow worried him. It was a silly thought, she knew, because Aiken was always talking about the two of them being in love and all he thought that meant.
“It’s not who I am,” he said with a shake of his head. “I’m a Drakon. We select our mates. I selected you.”
“And I choose to love you, Aiken. Why can’t that be enough?”
“Choosing to love me is not selecting me to be your mate, Mel, and you know it. Claiming who you are, being what you were born to be, and selecting one who is doing the same, that’s what’s ahead of us, not a life of denial.”
She would never be a Drakon. That race, her parents, they’d all rejected her when she was four years old. They never came for her. Even after her parents died, no Drakon came to save her, to bring her back to that place she was supposed to consider her home. Nobody bothered to show up to teach her about this so-called heritage, to give her the tools she’d need to be this thing that lived and breathed inside of her. They’d just left her here among the humans, so that’s where she was going to stay. Even if it meant ripping her heart out, because that’s what it felt like. That’s what she knew was going to happen the moment she said the words.
“I choose me, Aiken.” Shaking her head and daring the tears to fall in front of him. “I’m always going to choose me.”