by T. S. Ryder
"These are the gates to Albian," Elaine whispered. "The keys aren't a spell or a physical object. They're the ability to come here, to find this place wherever you are. It's easier via water, though. Come."
Elaine stepped from the boat and led Avalon to the gates. Peering through the worked gold, Avalon saw a land too beautiful for her to comprehend. Every fiber in her body ached to step through and be in that land. In the distance a figure lay atop a table, sleeping.
"King Arthur," Elaine said, putting a hand on Avalon's shoulder. "He sleeps for the day when he's meant to return."
"How will I know if he wakes?"
"You'll know. That's part of the magic. But you do more than guard the gates, Avalon. You guard that land. Can you imagine what would happen if the people of our world walked through them? Trampled the grass, cut down the trees, turned that beauty into profit margins? There will be people who try to tempt you to abuse your authority. There will always be those who want to take and take and take. It's your job to keep this place unsullied."
Avalon nodded. She knew she couldn't enter these gates, ever, lest she open them for others to follow. The longing to go through to that beautiful land was almost overwhelming, but a fierce desire to protect it was even stronger.
Elaine turned to her daughter, smiling. "I have always known you were strong enough for this task, Avalon. I have worried about how to let you know that."
"I know now."
Elaine kissed her forehead. "Give me your hands."
Avalon obeyed and her mother held her hands tightly. She began chanting a spell and though Elaine had never heard the words before, she was soon chanting with her.
***
When they returned to their guests, both mother and daughter were all smiles. Avalon's gaze sought out Vaughn at once as Elaine went to her husband. It seemed everybody who had waited for them had dark circles under their eyes. Though it had been dark when they had gone onto the pond, the sun was high in the sky now.
Avalon forced herself to smile and respond politely to the congratulations that came at her from all sides, but all she wanted to do was lie down and sleep. She hadn't slept for more than twenty-four hours, after all.
Vaughn led her back to the castle, putting himself between her and the press, who kept trying to ask her about what exactly had happened. Soon they were back in her room and Avalon collapsed onto the bed.
"Are you okay?"
Avalon nodded, a grin breaking over her face.
"More than okay. I'm amazing. It was amazing. But I'm also exhausted," she laughed and held out her arms. "Snuggle me?"
Vaughn grinned. He removed her dress, kissing her body as he did so, but when she yawned he slipped her under the blankets and curled up next to her. Avalon stroked the smooth skin of his chest and smiled sleepily. No words were needed for this moment. All was right, all was peaceful.
She had her dragon, she had her birthright and was ready to face the future.
*****
THE END
Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed reading “Claimed by the Dragon Shifter” as much as I liked writing it. Please consider leaving an honest review here; it means a lot to me to hear from you.
T.S. Ryder
Join the Heartbeat Reads Readers Club now if you want to receive an EXCLUSIVE hot short story trilogy for FREE and get notifications of new releases and promotions.
Read on for FREE SPECIALLY SELECTED BONUS CONTENT
Specially Selected Bonus Content (LIMITED TIME ONLY!)
Bonus Book 1: The Bear Detective's Mate
Description
A personal assistant who comes under attack PLUS a hot Bear detective assigned to protect her PLUS a conspiracy they have to uncover!
Curvy Ana Medina is sick of unlucky romances and focuses on her job - being the PA to a Senator fighting for Shifter Rights. But they have enemies and when there’s an assassination attack on the Senator and herself, she is put in protective custody.
Detective Joseph Baker has found his mate. At least, that’s what his Bear tells him. Joseph doesn’t want a mate, but no matter how he tells his Bear to shut up, he can’t help himself when he’s around her. He’s supposed to protect her, but her luscious curves, delicious scent and mocha-kissed skin call out to him.
Police rules forbid intimacy between the two, which proves to be a challenge. All Ana can think about is the muscles that ripple all over him, his dress shirt that stretches over his perfect pecs and those buttons strained to keep it closed. Too bad he’s proving himself to be a class-A jerk.
Joseph tries to protect her any way he can but the attackers will stop at nothing and Ana and Joseph have to work together to uncover a conspiracy, even if that means that Joseph has to pretend to be her boyfriend.
Can they resist the undeniable attraction to each other? Will they stay alive under the string of attacks? And can they find out who the enemy is?
Chapter One
Ana Medina turned off the video camera. Her boss, Senator Seth Fischer, was practicing the speech he would make before parliament the next day and had elected to record it so he could hear for himself how it sounded.
Everything needed to be perfect if he was going to convince the other senators that the proposed Shifter Registry was unconstitutional and posed a risk to shifter lives. It could neither be too harsh nor too mellow; he could not attack his opponents or even appear to be doing that or they'd argue his arguments were against a straw man and not the real issues; he had to deliver it passionately, but not emotionally.
It was a headache, but Ana was more than happy to help him perfect his delivery. After all, the Shifter Registry Act was just one step away from a Shifter Detainment Act and she wasn't going to just sit around and watch American citizens have their hard-earned rights stripped from them. Ana wasn't a shifter herself, but that made little difference to her. People were people.
"Let's see the playback," Seth said. He sat in his chair, loosening his tie. "Politics are going to be the death of me."
"You're making the world a better place," Ana replied comfortingly. "Little shifters all over the country are watching you on television, thinking that they can be anything they want to be, because you are standing up to the voices that would tramp them down."
"Thank you, Ana. It means a lot, especially these days." He smiled at her.
But before she could return the smile the window shattered. Glass sprayed every which way. A flower of blood bloomed on Seth's shoulder.
Ana acted on instinct, throwing herself over the senator's desk to tackle him to the ground. Bullets ripped holes in the wall where his head had been and Ana spread her body out over her boss, trying to shield as much of him as possible. He tried to shift her off him, but she held tightly. A PA was replaceable. A senator with Seth's popularity was not.
The door burst open and two security guards rushed in. Both zeroed in on the window, standing on either side with their guns drawn, but the bullets had stopped. Not that their handguns could do much against a sniper rifle. One of them drew the blinds, blocking the room from the shooter.
It was only then, after the immediate danger was over, that Ana actually realized what had happened. It wasn't some random shooting, it had been as assassination attempt. Her limbs began shaking and her throat went utterly dry.
Somebody had just tried to kill the senator. She had no doubt that they would have had no problems killing her, too, if she happened to be in their way.
"Are you okay?" Seth gripped his arm but peered up at Ana with worried eyes.
"I'm fine."
She realized she was still laying over him and pulled herself up. If she and Seth didn't have the brother-sister relationship that they did, that could have been very awkward.
"You were hit," Ana said. "We need to get you out of here and bandage that up. I'm going to call 9-1-1."
She fished her cell phone from her pocket and reported what had happened, still crouched behind the desk with her boss, peeking
warily at the window. But with the blinds drawn and the two guards in the room, it seemed like the attack was over.
Seth winced as he clutched his injury. He attempted to stand and Ana had to loop her arm around his waist to support him. She might be in shock, but from the pallor of his face and the fact that he had been shot, Seth was clearly off worse. He wasn't letting that stop him, though.
"Ward, call up the captain of the seventh precinct. He's an old friend of mine and I want his team handling this."
One of the guards nodded and whipped out his phone. Ana helped Seth to another room, this one without windows. The guards cleared everybody out of the surrounding rooms, just in case. Ana helped Seth lay on the floor and went to her desk of get her first aid kit.
Until the buildings around them were cleared and it was determined that there were no more snipers in the area, Seth wouldn't be leaving the building. She had to get the bleeding under control.
Snipers.
Ana choked back bile. Just our luck that there would be an assassination attempt now when shifter tensions are running so high...
"Do you think this is going to help my case?" Seth asked as she finished wrapping his arm with a bandage. "Assassination attempts on a senator… we might be able to swing a few fencers to our side on their American pride alone."
"If anybody can do it, it's you."
They were safe now, and that Seth was still thinking politically helped her know he was going to be okay. It was only an arm shot, after all.
"So you want to work it into your speech? Maybe replace the cultural section?"
Seth shook his head. "I'll give the media a separate address about this. We will not be intimidated and all that. Reminding people that the way Western culture sees shifters is fairly rare is important to refute the necessity of the Registry."
Ana nodded.
Different cultures the world over had different approaches to how shifters were seen, but during the European colonialization period, the attitude that they were devil-worshipping witches took hold, and shifters were slaughtered wholesale–burned at the stake, hanged, hunted down. It was sickening, but what was even worse was that there were still people out there with that attitude.
Overall, though, the tides were changing, especially with other countries like China decrying the treatment of shifters in America. Seth's election was proof of that. He was only the third shifter to ever be elected to a senator's position and had so far served longer than either of his two predecessors.
It helped that before he came out as a shifter, he was an insanely popular movie star. Admittedly very hot, he was the epitome of the all-American man. He had even been used as the poster boy for an anti-shifter group before he came out as a shifter. This wasn't the first attempt on his life since he went into politics, fighting for shifter rights.
But he had been elected and that meant a lot.
Of course, the fact that he turned into a golden retriever, man's best friend, probably helped his cause. Ana doubted he would have been so successful if he had been, say, a tiger or even a deer, let alone something like a fox.
Nobody really knew what determined what sort of animal a shifter could turn into. There was a genetic disposition towards shifting. Children of shifters tended to be shifters, and it was rare that shifters were born to non-shifter parents. If one parent of a shifter child was a predator, that child would tend towards predation as well. But there hadn't been a lot of research into the area and many people held onto damaging stereotypes.
Anti-shifter hysteria groups especially liked to spread false assumptions. Their most popular one was that shifters could actually choose whether they had an animal side to them or not, given that the actual shifting was completely voluntary, but it wasn't true. It, unfortunately, led to many "therapies" that advocated the suppression of the animal side, which was incredibly damaging to a shifter's mental state.
She heard the wail of sirens and squeezed Seth's hand. "Sounds like the police are on their way."
"Good. The sooner this is resolved, the sooner we can get back to work."
Ana was hoping the case would be resolved soon too, if only because catching the perpetrators would decrease the risk of a new attack on Seth. She cared deeply about him. They'd known each other since childhood and were just friends. It was why Seth had hired her for the job despite the fact that she had no credentials. He'd approached her about taking the position, and when she protested she didn't have the training, he told her that she was an intelligent, courageous woman who always made sure she got her own way when it mattered. Plus she was passionate about shifter rights, and those were the qualities he needed in his staff. And so she had taken the job.
They had been dealing with a lot of hate mail and an increased amount of threats recently. Some people simply couldn't understand why a shifter would be against a shifter registry unless he was trying to take over the world, apparently. But none of it had seemed credible enough that she thought there would be an actual attempt on his life!
***
Not much later, Ana found herself sitting in an interrogation room, waiting for a detective to come take her statement. It was a non-descript room with that one-way mirror reflecting her image. Her hair was a little wild and the red lipstick she favored faded, but other than that, she looked okay. She sat at a wide table, a chair on the other side the only other item in the room. The door stood ajar and a uniform stood just outside, ready to bring her anything she needed.
"Detective Baker," she heard the uniform say in greeting and turned to the door.
Ana's eyes widened and she had to stop herself from drooling as a detective strode in. He was, without a doubt, the yummiest man she had ever seen. First off he was huge, in that 'take up the whole room' kind of way. Muscles rippled all over him. He had to get his suit from the big and tall section, but even then it was just a little tight around his shoulders, and his dress shirt stretched over his perfect pecs. The buttons strained to keep it closed and she wanted to pop them off one by one as she—
Whoa, what am I doing? Ana swallowed hard, adverting her eyes back to her image in the mirror. Good, her heating cheeks were barely visible against her mocha-kissed skin. She wished she had worn a blouse with a lower cut, though, something to show off her ample cleavage—
Ana mentally slapped herself. She always fell for the same kind of guy, the football quarterback type that wanted to have fun in bed, but was never interested in anything else. Certainly not interested in listening to her talk about her cause. So she needed to just stop thinking about the detective like that–his type was all wrong for her.
She'd had her heart broken enough, thank you very much, and wasn't about to start into the dating scene again until she was certain what she wanted. Despite what her mother said, twenty-seven was not that old.
The detective cleared his throat. Apparently, he had seen Ana's reaction and was giving her time to collect herself before he conducted the interview. She ducked her head as he sat. It was an instinctual reaction, from high school when she went from flat to curvy in three months. It seemed like one day she was worried her boobs would never start to grow, and the next she was spending all her allowance on bras. It hadn't been lost on the boys… and her string of unlucky romances began.
"Miss Medina."
Lord save me! His voice was just as sexy as the rest of him, deep and raw. Sitting this close she could smell him; like Applewood smoked bacon, but less greasy. Mouthwatering.
"Miss Medina?"
Ana's eyes jumped to his–deep brown, like chocolate–and she swallowed dryly. She knew that this was a completely inappropriate reaction to the situation. Reminding herself that Seth could have died, she nodded to the Detective to continue. He coughed, clearing his throat, and shifted in his seat. No doubt her staring made him uncomfortable. She gulped down the glass of water that had been given to her.
"I'm Detective Joseph Baker." He shifted again, staring at the voice recorder that he set on the table
between them.
"Baker? Like—"
"Like Baker Street where Sherlock Holmes lives, yes." The detective looked up, eyes narrowing at her.
The glare was so intimidating that Ana instantly wanted to run. After half a heartbeat, though, that desire fled; her body urged her to crawl onto the table and kiss him. His hands are huge. They'd cup my ass perfectly.
Ana shook her head. What was wrong with her? Adrenaline? A crisis of spirit because I could have died and now I don't want to waste any more time?
"Can you tell me about the shooting?" His voice was angry now and Ana couldn't stop herself from flinching.
She recounted everything she could remember, filling in small details when the detective prompted her. As they spoke, his voice continued to get gruffer and gruffer, until he was practically snarling out his questions at her. Well, this interview wasn't going anywhere. Ana wanted to ask what his problem was. If he was one of those anti-shifter crazies, they weren't going to get anywhere in this case.
It seemed like hours later that he nodded and turned off the recorder. "I think that will do it."
"Don't you want to know if there is anybody who comes to mind who could have done this?" she asked. Of course he didn’t want to know. Just as she suspected–he was the total Alpha Male type. And not the kind that was sweet and protective, he was the kind who thought he was better than anybody else. Probably punched people out in bars for not liking his football team, too.
The Detective gave her an annoyed glance. Ana could only assume it was because she was better at his job than he was. "Do you have—"