To Date A Dragon: BBW Dragon Shifter Romance (Weredragon Warriors Book 1)

by Natalie Kristen

  “No,” she whispered. “No...”

  Rushing past Norbert, she swiped at her tears and burst out of the restaurant in a stumbling run.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Rohan turned and saw a pretty, curvy redhead rush out of the restaurant at the end of the street. She ran blindly towards him, tears streaming down her face.

  He caught her as she tripped and stumbled into his arms. “Get me away from here,” she begged. “Please, get me away, now! I'm losing my mind! I'm seeing monsters, again. I can't...oh God! Those cold, snake eyes...”

  Her last three words made Rohan jerk, his senses on full alert.

  “Slayors,” he gritted out.

  He could sense a Slayor nearby. But with so many humans around, he couldn't kill the bastard here. And this woman had seen the real face of a Slayor. Those snake shifters would only drop their human facade when they were about to kill.

  This woman was in danger.

  “Hold on,” he told her but she didn't seem to be listening. Her eyes were glazed over and she was mumbling and shivering.

  Rohan gathered her in his arms and started to run. He shifted swiftly into dragon form, holding the woman securely in his talons. In dragon form, he was invisible to the humans.

  He soared above the skyscrapers and into the clouds, away from curious human eyes. The humans couldn't see his dragon, but they sure could see the woman he was carrying.

  Glancing down at the woman, he attempted to touch her mind with his. But he didn't push too hard. Humans were so fragile. They break too easily.

  Where do you live?

  To his surprise, she responded. She could actually hear him in her mind. This female was stronger than she looked.

  He got her address and flew towards the cluster of apartment blocks at the other end of the city, away from the busy, brightly lit streets. The woman's eyes were half closed, and Rohan wasn't sure if she was fully conscious. Maybe it was better if she thought she was dreaming. If she realized she was a few thousand feet from the ground, she might scream and struggle hysterically.

  The rows of eateries and restaurants below them were filled with happy diners. People seemed to like coming out on Thursday nights. Maybe Thursday was the new Friday. Or maybe the new restaurants all decided to offer attractive deals and discounts on Thursdays to bring in the crowd. Who knew? It was mind-boggling trying to keep up with the various human fads and fashions.

  But he should stop thinking of human practices as strange and alien. Humans weren't the aliens on Earth. They were the natives. It was Rohan and his people who were the aliens.

  His people who had escaped with him to Earth were the last of the Dracans, a dragon-shifting race who hailed from Draca. Draca was the smaller of two continents on the planet Korra. The other continent, Syndor, was inhabited by the Syndorians. The Syndorians were a brutal, savage people, and most of the Syndorians were drafted into the Syndor army at a young age. The soldiers of the Syndor army were called Slayors.

  Rohan narrowed his eyes, scanning the streets below him. His people had been living on Earth for more than seventy years now. They had made Earth their new home, and had learned to adapt to the atmosphere of this strange, alien planet.

  Rohan's ship was the only one that had made it to Earth. They had crash landed in the middle of a desert, and once he had gotten all the survivors out, Rohan had shifted into his dragon form and incinerated what was left of the ship.

  There would be no trace of their past, their origin. The Dracans would live on Earth, but the humans would not know that dragons existed among them.

  They found a city, and his people settled into their new lives. They were on an alien planet and they had to learn a new language, assimilate a foreign culture and try their best to blend in. His people stopped shifting and gradually, their dragons grew dormant and the Dracans could no longer shift.

  Only Rohan and the two royal guards who were on the ship with him kept a disciplined, determined hold on their dragons. Their dragons slowed their aging and lengthened their life spans, so they didn't age as quickly and lived much longer than the humans on Earth.

  Rohan, Zul and Edriq were the only weredragon warriors left. For a while, the Dracans had been safe. But now their enemies had found them. The Slayors had come to Earth to wipe out what was left of the Dracans.

  And Rohan and his brothers were the only thing that stood between their people from the Slayors.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Amelia closed her eyes and felt herself floating. No, not floating. She was flying. Yep, flying, like a bird, like a plane, like...a dragon!

  A crazed laugh bubbled out of her.

  No doubt about it.

  She had lost her ever-loving mind.

  Her psychologist would be so disappointed. So would her adoptive parents, if they knew. They had been so relieved when she finally stopped talking about the monsters, those murderous men who looked like snakes.

  Her adoptive parents had given her time to grieve and come to terms with her loss. But they refused to let her wallow in self-pity and depression. They gave her a good education and told her to make something of herself. She should not let the tragedy cast a permanent shadow over her life.

  They were so proud of her when she became a kindergarten teacher. They passed just a year ago in an accident, and she missed them dearly. She missed them every single day.

  Amelia felt herself being lowered gently to the ground. She felt firm, solid ground beneath her feet and strong arms around her.

  She opened her eyes and blinked slowly. Everything looked familiar. She was standing on the front steps of her apartment block. She was home.

  “Oh.” She looked up into a pair of mesmerizing blue-green eyes. She stepped back and saw that those beautiful, gold-flecked eyes belonged to a tall, handsome stranger. A dark-haired, broad-shouldered stranger who looked like he belonged on the cover of a magazine. He was dressed in black jeans and a leather jacket, and he looked kind of familiar.

  Oh yeah. She had bumped into him when she careened out of the restaurant like a madwoman.

  “I'm home,” she blurted out. How did she get home?

  She shook her head and looked around. Nope, no dragon in sight. Just one smoking hot stranger who was standing much too close to her.

  Oh, she didn't mind him standing so close. In fact, she wanted to get closer to him, preferably with their clothes out of the way…

  “No, no, no,” Amelia muttered and pulled herself away. She had met enough strange men for one night.

  This handsome, kind stranger had probably gotten her home in a cab, thinking she was stoned or drunk. What nonsense had she spouted in her delirium? She hoped she hadn't muttered anything about monsters and snakes.

  “Um, thank you,” she said and managed to smile. “Thank you for...helping me. See you around.” In a whisper, she added, “I hope.”

  The man nodded and stood on the sidewalk, watching her until she turned and clattered up the stairs. She ran straight into her apartment and locked the door.

  When she peeked out the window, that hot, handsome Good Samaritan was gone.

  Amelia stood under the shower for an hour until she felt all the knots in her body and mind loosen. Wrapped in her bathrobe, Amelia sat down at her kitchen table, her hands around a mug of warm milk.

  She convinced herself that she didn't need to make an appointment with her psychologist. She was okay. She wasn't a screaming mess. She couldn't lose her job.

  Maybe she was stressed. Or perhaps she was lonely. She had a few friends, but they were all busy with their families. She, on the other hand, had no family. Her parents, her adoptive parents, were all gone.

  Amelia ran a trembling hand through her wet hair. How could a child who had witnessed the savage, horrific murder of her parents not be broken? Could she ever heal and be whole again?

  Amelia closed her eyes and let her repressed memories flood her mind. The terrible images swirled th
rough her mind, and she saw them. Her parents sleeping in their bed, and the snake-men who had come to kill them.

  But she didn't scream. She didn't scream that night. And she wouldn't scream now.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Amelia saw herself waking up in her old house. Her parents' old house.

  She was four years old.

  Unable to go back to sleep, she slipped into her parents' bedroom and tiptoed across the carpet. She didn't want to wake her parents up, so instead of climbing into their bed, she crept into her mother's cupboard and sat there among her mother's clothes and perfumes with her rag doll. She whispered to her doll and pretended that they were hiding from some very scary monsters.

  Then she saw them.

  The very scary monsters entered her parents' bedroom and killed her parents. Amelia saw their blades flash darkly as they raised them again and again.

  Everything became red. The sheets were red. The walls were red, but the monsters didn't stop.

  Amelia stuffed her doll's foot into her mouth and kept very quiet. She didn't dare cry even though she was terrified. She watched the monsters through the crack between the cupboard doors and wished they would go away. She wished her parents would wake up, but they never did.

  Her neighbors found her the next morning. Mrs Ray carried her out of the cupboard and shielded her eyes, while Mr Ray called the police. She tried to take one last look at her parents but Mrs Ray held her tight and ran from the room.

  Mr and Mrs Ray adopted her and they gave her a warm, loving home. They had sought medical and psychiatric help for her when she woke up screaming from her nightmares almost every night and blabbered about men with scales, fangs and snake eyes.

  The police never caught her parents' murderers. Her parents were soft-spoken, unassuming people. They had few friends but no enemies. There was no motive for the murder. It was just a random, unexplained act of violence.

  The world was a crazy place, but Amelia knew what she saw. She was not crazy. The doctors never said she was either. They just concluded that her young, traumatized mind had conjured up the image of monsters to demonize her parents' murderers. She put a monster's face on the murderers as a way of dealing with her anger and devastating loss.

  The doctors, the police, everyone tried to help her. She took their advice and locked those monsters away at the very back of her mind.

  But tonight, the monsters got out.

  She saw a monster in the restaurant, sitting opposite her.

  “Norbert Brown is not a monster,” she said aloud. “He's not Mr. Right, but he's no monster.”

  Amelia gave a wry, brittle laugh. She sounded crazy to herself.

  And who would want a crazy woman teaching their precious little kids?

  Amelia sipped her milk and gave herself a good hard mental shake. She was a kindergarten teacher, and a very good one. She loved her job and she loved her students.

  She wasn't going to let the monsters win.

  Determinedly, she finished her milk and went to wash her cup. Looking out the kitchen window, she gasped and blinked repeatedly.

  Something shimmered in the sky before the clouds drifted in and the moon disappeared. The large shape disappeared together with the moon.

  Amelia shook her head and rubbed her eyes. She could have sworn that she had glimpsed a dragon in the sky.

  The same dragon who had brought her home.

  She threw up her hands and laughed in resignation. She'd always had an active imagination. Maybe it was her imagination that had kept her sane all these years.

  There were all kinds of imaginary creatures. She just had to focus on the nice ones and wish that the bad ones would go away. Forever.

  Maybe tonight she would dream of dragons instead of snakes. And it wouldn't hurt to see that hot, sexy, good-hearted stranger in her dream either.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Rohan stood in front of the woman's building and watched her window. For an instant, he regretted not going after her.

  There was just something about her, something that seemed to tug at him and his dragon.

  Scowling, Rohan shook his head to clear it and told himself that he should leave that nice woman alone. His dragon disagreed. His dragon wanted to spend all night with that female. But Rohan had a job to do. He had to keep his people safe. And that sweet woman was far safer not knowing about him and his people. If he brought her into his world, she would be hunted like the rest of them.

  But the woman had seen a Slayor tonight. And she seemed to be able to see his dragon just fine.

  Either she had Dracan blood in her, or she was a dragon's mate. But she didn't seem to know anything about the Slayors and the Dracans. Some of the second and third generation Dracans were almost fully human. To protect them, their parents and grandparents never told them about their past. They had human families, human friends and lived ordinary, safe human lives. Just like that lovely, exquisite woman he had met tonight.

  His people had settled here, for better or worse, and for a few decades, they actually experienced some peace and happiness.

  Some of the Dracans even mated with humans and had beautiful human children and grandchildren. For almost fifty years, they lived quietly on Earth. They worked and contributed to human society, but they didn't draw attention to themselves. Some of Rohan's employees were Dracans, but the large majority of his staff were human.

  In the day, he was just a regular guy in a suit. Yeah, he was the founder and owner of Draek Holdings, but still, he worked in an office just like everyone else. He attended meetings, took calls, signed documents. Then he tried to beat the rush hour traffic so he could get home on time to have dinner with his family.

  But after tucking his little girl into bed, he and his brothers armed themselves to the teeth and set out of the house. They each had an area to patrol. They had to patrol the streets and watch the shadows.

  At night, the Slayors slithered out of their hidey-holes and hunted the Dracans.

  It was about twenty years ago that the killings started. Dracan families were slaughtered in their homes and some Dracans and their mates were killed out in the open, their bodies left in pieces in drains and rubbish dumps.

  The human police thought there was a serial killer on the loose, but Rohan knew that the Slayors had found them. The Slayors had come to Earth to finish what they'd started on Korra. They had come to wipe out Rohan's people.

  Rohan scanned the quiet street and watched the moving shadows as he stepped away from the curb. When he heard soft shuffling steps behind him, he spun round, automatically reaching under his jacket. He gripped the hilt of the knife strapped to his side and tensed.

  An elderly lady was clutching a bag of groceries and the hand of a young child as they walked towards him.

  When the woman saw him, her eyes widened and she breathed, “Prince Rohan!”

  Rohan rushed to stop her from falling to her knees. He held her arm gently and said, “I'm not a prince. I'm just Rohan Draek.”

  The woman raised her eyes to him and said adamantly, “You are the Crown Prince of Draca, and now that King Rykor is gone, you—are my king.”

  She sucked in a breath and said, “King Rohan, Draca is gone, but her people are still here. Your people, King Rohan.” She placed a fist over her heart.

  “Nana...” The little boy stared at Rohan and tugged at his grandmother's skirt. “Who is he?”

  Rohan crouched down before the woman could reply and said, “My name is Rohan. I knew your Nana when she was a young lady.” The little boy was human, and Rohan guessed that his grandmother had married a human male. She was one of the young Dracans on the ship with him so many years ago.

  The boy frowned. “Nana was young?”

  His grandmother laughed. “Hard to believe, eh?”

  “So you're Nana's friend.” The boy grinned at Rohan. “I'm William. We live two blocks down. Nana and I came out to get ice-cream and chips. It's movi
e night! We're just waiting for Papa to get home. He always works late but he promised to be home early today.”

  “You should get home then,” Rohan said. “I'm sure your Papa is looking forward to spending the evening with you.”

  The woman bowed. “Your Highness...”

  She gasped when Rohan shoved her and her grandson to the ground. A knife whizzed past, spinning as it sliced the air above them. It would have sliced the woman's throat if Rohan had been a second too slow.

  “Go,” Rohan hissed to the Dracan. “Run home with your grandson. Keep running and don't look back!”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Rohan whirled round, two throwing knives in each hand. The woman yanked her grandson across the street and ran like the wind. Her paper bag lay on the ground, spilling out two tubs of ice-cream and a big bag of chips.

  Three large males emerged from an alley. They were dressed casually in torn jeans and denim jackets, and they looked human enough. But their eyes gave them away. Their slitted, glowing eyes weren't human.

  As they circled him, their forked tongues darted out to taste the air.

  As Rohan faced the three Slayors, he wondered if the Slayors had lost their ability to shapeshift in the Earth's atmosphere, like the majority of the Dracans.

  But the Slayors weren't ordinary civilians of Syndor. They were highly trained soldiers of the Syndorian army. Even if they couldn't shift, they were still lethal, merciless killers.

  “It's him,” one of the Slayors said. “The prince.”

  “Don't scar his pretty face,” another Slayor said with a mocking laugh. “The General has to recognize Prince Rohan's face when we bring him the head. Maybe we should text him now so he can get our reward ready.”