by Selena Scott
“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 o
ne 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…
Lucy lost her shit. With a war cry that would have made Xena proud, she scratched out at her kidnapper, catching him on the neck. Kicking her legs wildly, she beat her fists against him as hard as she could. After a few furious seconds she realized he hadn’t even broken stride. She felt like a toddler throwing a tantrum, dwarfed by his size and manner. She turned her face toward his chest. Well, let’s see if he could ignore this.
CHAPTER FOUR
Amos held Lucy a little further from his body as she kicked and punched and screamed. He couldn’t take her warm body writhing around against him. Her dress was even thinner than it had looked on the television screen and as she threw herself around, it was working its way up her thighs. He refused to look down.
The minute he locked her in her chambers, he was gonna have to take a private moment for himself.
She sagged for a second. He hoped she’d tired herself out. King Dalyer would not think this was cute.
Amos, on the other hand, definitely thought it was a little cute. Watching her try to get out of his hold was like watching a kitten try to fight a black bear. She was just so fragile and little. So delicate like a-
“Fuck! Did you just bite me?” Amos was caught completely by surprise and bobbled her, losing his grip.
Taking her opportunity, Lucy slid down his body, stomped his foot with her high heel, and took off running.
Amos pressed his hand to his chest, checking to see if she’d drawn blood. Damn. That had hurt! So why the fuck was he at half mast? Shaking his head at himself, he figured she had enough of a head start. She was about 200 feet away from him at this point. Coming up fast on the fortress doors.
He beat her there and lazily leaned his back on the gate. She pulled up short, realizing he had cut her off and looked around wildly for another exit.
“This is the only way out,” he said.
Her ice blue eyes snapped to his and he felt it like an electric shock straight to his groin.
“That’s what you’d say no matter if it were true or not,” she snapped.
He shrugged. Pretended that hearing the husk her voice had taken on from screaming didn’t affect him.
“Of course.”
“Soooo. In that case,” she said and turned to sprint in the other direction.
She’d gotten approximately four steps before he was standing in her
path again. His feet planted and his arms crossed. She turned yet again but this time his arm darted out and gently looped her waist. She tried to scratch him again so he grabbed her by the wrists and whipped her arms up over her head. She tugged away from him and it drew her very full breasts up and almost out the top of her dress.
He dragged his eyes up to her parted lips. He licked his own, felt
himself pulling her a little closer. But when he looked up at her brilliant blue eyes, he saw fear in them. Mortal fear.
He sighed. “What if I promised I would never hurt you.”
She glared up at him, anger joining the fear in her eyes. “Stop lying
to me.”
“I’m not lying. I’m promising.”
She stopped tugging and looked up at him, thoroughly confused.
He thought of how important she was to the King. How much the royal line completely and utterly depended on her.
“What if I swore that I would never let harm come to you. That I’d die for you if it came to it.”
He felt the air change between them and knew that the rawest of the
fear was leaving her. It was replaced with racing thoughts, a desperation to understand what the hell was going on.
He continued on. “If you can accept that promise then I can start
explaining where you are why you’re here.”
“And you’ll let go of me?” she asked, her eyes big and gentle and, God, was she weepy? Shit. He really didn’t’t want to see her cry.
“I’ll let go of you,” he agreed.
“Ok. Then in that case, I believe you won’t hurt me. I accept your promise.”
He held on to her for another second. Just the briefest of moments. He didn’t want to let go of her. He wanted to touch her more. He wanted to see if the skin on her neck was as soft as the skin on her wrists. He wanted to lift her up again the way he’d carried her from the portal. With her pressed so firmly into him. Her beautiful face against his chest. He wanted to have a reason to keep on holding her. But he didn’t have a reason. She wasn’t his to touch or hold. She was the King Dalyer’s. From the moment the Oracle had tracked her down in the human realm, she had become King Dalyer’s most important possession.
Amos’s stomach curdled slightly at the thought. He settled for swiping his thumb across one of her wrists, just once. Committing the feeling to memory.
The second he loosened his grip she yanked herself away from him. Growling, he chased after her, tiring of the game.
“What the fuck, little hatchling.” He growled deep in his chest and snared her wrists again. “Quit doing that.”
She yanked at him. “Well, promising not to hurt me pretty much makes it a no brainer for me to keep trying to escape.” Her eyes sparked with an internal fire and he realized that she had never been close to crying before. She’d been playing him. And he’d let himself be played.
This was ridiculous. He was one of the fiercest warriors in the entire dragon realm. The freaking KING trusted him above all other people. And here he was unable to get this tiny little human from one room to the next. Fed up, he bent down and tossed her over his shoulder. He strode across the great hallway and toward the King’s chambers. Amos was careful to hold her in such a way that she couldn’t bite him again.
“Hey!” she screeched. “You said you wouldn’t hurt me!”
“Am I hurting you?”
Her staunch, irritated silence told him that he wasn’t.
“I didn’t promise not to restrain you. And actually I’m keeping my promise by not letting you escape from the fortress. It’s not safe out there for you, hatchling.”
Click here to check out the rest of The Dragon Realm series
Danil’s Mate
(Secret Shifters of Spokane Series – Book 1 Preview)
PROLOGUE
20 years ago
“That guy right there, Dora. The one in the back of the line. What do you notice?” Pandora Katsaros’s dad asked her as he passed his eight-year-old daughter a pair of binoculars.
Dora balanced up on her knees in the front seat of the unmarked car, careful to keep her head out of the line of sight, just like her dad had showed her. She focused the binoculars and zoomed in on a man in a red cap.
“He’s got one hand inside his coat. And there’s a bulge there. I think,” Dora said as she zoomed further with the binoculars, “I think he’s stealing something. Yup. See,
there he goes out the side of the building. He definitely stole something.”
Stavros Katsaros fired up the car and followed the man in the red cap as he skittered down the block to his own car. The two cars got on the highway.
“Theories?” Stavros asked his daughter as he trailed the man’s car at an inconspicuous distance.
Dora thought hard, putting some puzzle pieces together in her mind, then shifting them when they didn’t fit quite right. “Some. But I need more info.”
Stavros inwardly grinned at his daughter’s response. He’d taught her well.
About twenty minutes later, the cars pulled off the highway and into a very white-bread neighborhood. Every house looked the same. Even the kids playing in the yards all looked the same. Tossing balls and playing with dollies. Not for the first time in her life, Dora was glad that her dad wasn’t like all the other dads. She never wanted to have a normal life. Not if it was this boring.
Stavros pulled the car off to the side of the road, under a shady tree, and again passed the binoculars to his daughter. He already knew what the man was up to, but he was curious if Dora could put it all together.
She furrowed her brow as she watched the man in the red cap bound up a carefully kept lawn. He called out something to a boy who was drawing with sidewalk chalk on the driveway. The boy looked up and sprinted over to him. The man bent down and pulled a brand new catcher’s mitt out of his coat. The boy lit up like it was Christmas and held the mitt in the air.
Dora could hear her father snapping picture after picture with his high definition camera. The one with the lens a mile long.
“It was a baseball mitt. And he gave it to that kid,” Dora muttered to herself. She thought about how she might run to her own dad across a lawn like that. “But that’s not his kid. I don’t think. They’re greeting each other like they’re still getting to know each other.”