Dragons For Hire: A Dragon Shifter Romance

by Sadie Sears

  “Hey, mom," Zoe yelled from the foyer.

  The front door had blown open, and rain pooled on the hardwood floors as the wind rattled the chandelier in the entranceway.

  “Shut the door, Zoe. Don’t just stand there looking at it,” Gretta said as we both approached my daughter.

  Zoe closed the door but pointed to a bright yellow envelope on the entrance table. “I was looking at that.”

  "Go on in the kitchen and help clean up." I shooed Zoe out of the hallway and picked up the envelope, which I didn't recognize. I slipped my finger under the flap and lifted it—a single sheet of paper lay inside. I slid the note out.

  "What does it say?" Gretta asked.

  The paper warbled and crinkled as my hands trembled. In the center of an almost blank page, someone had scrawled two words.

  Watching you.

  "I'm getting Sam." Gretta didn't wait for me to respond before she darted off to the kitchen.

  Acid burned in my throat. I turned the deadbolt lock on the front door and peeked out the window but couldn't see signs of anything in the sudden darkness of the storm.

  “Lila?” I turned to see Sam and Gretta. Sam looked worried. Gretta looked mad. She snatched the letter from my hand and waved it between us like I hadn’t seen it.

  “What the hell is this?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I’ve been getting weird text messages for a few weeks. I assumed it started as a wrong number, then it just kept happening, so I blocked the number.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Gretta’s voice rose until it came out shrill.

  Sam put his hand on Gretta’s shoulder, probably in an attempt to soothe her. “I’m going to sweep the house room by room.” He bounded up the stairs two at a time.

  "You're being stalked, Lila."

  "No.” That was silly. Beautiful people got stalked. Famous people. People with ridiculous exes who couldn’t let go. That was more her wheelhouse than mine. No one really had a problem letting me go.

  Her expression turned angry. She waved the letter again. “What more proof do you need?”

  “All clear upstairs. I’ll take a look down here.”

  I appreciated he was sensitive enough not to alert Zoe or Shae that something was wrong. The last thing I needed was two frightened twelve-year-old girls. "Thanks, Sam."

  "I'll check the perimeter, too. We'll make sure no one is lurking around outside. Don't worry. Why don't we have Sophie take the girls back to her place, and you can come to hang out with Gretta and me tonight?"

  I nodded even though I wanted to argue, but sometimes arguing with Gretta didn’t work. She helped gather the girls and get them loaded in Sophie’s van then met Sam walking back from behind the house. I ducked outside and gave Sophie a big hug.

  "Everything will be okay,” I told her. “Text me when you're all settled in at home, so I know you made it safely. I'll call you in the morning."

  "You should’ve told me, Lila.”

  Yeah, right—because they didn’t all worry about me enough. She shook her head, and I stared into her dazzling electric blue eyes that reflected her vibrant, quirky personality.

  “There is nothing to worry about. Gretta is just overreacting.” I kissed her lightly on the cheek. “Now go, we’re getting soaked.”

  I waved goodbye to Zoe and Shae and then waited until Sophie had gone before finding Sam and Gretta.

  The two of them took shelter from the rain on the front porch. If Sam had found someone, he certainly wouldn’t have been standing on the porch with Gretta. He would’ve probably been shielding her with his body until reinforcements arrived.

  "All good?" I asked, joining them.

  "Yes, but you're not safe here,” Gretta said, waving the letter around again.

  “Don’t you think you’re getting just a little dramatic? It was a note. Not a dead animal or a severed head.” It was probably just a prank, and although I didn’t find it particularly funny, neither was I really scared. This was my house. My home. Yes, someone had been inside, but we’d left the door open. Unlocked at the very least. It wasn’t that I thought it was okay that someone let themselves in to leave me a creepy letter, but it was only a letter.

  “Can you get one of the guys to help?” Gretta asked Sam. When he nodded, she whipped out her cell phone.

  “Who are you calling?” But I thought I knew. Gretta hit the speaker then handed it to Sam. I tried to reach for the phone because I didn’t need a stranger in my place any more than I needed a psychopath, but he swatted my hand just as someone answered.

  “Dragons For Hire, how can we help?”

  Book 2

  The Dragon’s Healing Touch

  Dragons For Hire: Book 2

  Sadie Sears

  © 2020

  Disclaimer

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and events are all fictitious for the reader’s pleasure. Any similarities to real people, places, events, living or dead are all coincidental.

  This book contains sexually explicit content that is intended for ADULTS ONLY (+18).

  1

  Leath

  Fresh country air and lush green mountains were only two of the reasons I loved the small town of Spruce, Vermont. I could have searched my whole life and never found a place so ideal with its wide-open spaces to fly, which was helpful since not flying was similar to constipation for non-dragon shifters. And nobody liked that. After retiring from lengthy careers in the military, my dragon clan and I had come here to start new lives. The plan was to be all that we could be in a completely different way.

  So far, that plan was off to a shaky start.

  My truck speakers rang with an incoming call. Since this was technically my first real gig for Dragons for Hire, the company we’d started in this quaint little town, it was most likely Sam calling to check in. He was a fire dragon and had a vested interest in this job because it involved his mate’s sister. Sam was also a big worrier, and he’d probably been staring at the clock, waiting until it was time to make sure nothing had held me up, and I would be on time.

  “Hey, Leath. You on your way?” He was too casual to actually be casual. Even through the speakers in my truck, the nervous waver in his voice came through loud and clear. But this job was as important to me as it was to him since our kind were born protectors. I, for one, was tired of retrieving cats from trees and cooking at the old folks’ home. Although, truthfully, that one wasn’t so bad; I kinda liked my Sundays with the golden oldies. But for Sam, this job was personal.

  “Yeah. Just passed the police station.”

  Something like amusement laced his voice. “I heard you were out making friends this morning.”

  Spruce was one of those towns where word traveled quickly. Everyone knew everyone else, which made it hard to keep much private, but this town was quiet, accepting, and friendly. The striped awning over the dress shop, the always busy chessboard outside the barbershop, and the gaslight lamps lining the main streets were more welcoming than any sign they could’ve planted at the edge of Spruce, but the people were what made this place feel like home.

  I’d been in town for three months and was finally starting to get familiar with folks below the age of seventy, like Cheryl, Marsha, and Lou, who were the cashiers at the grocery store near my house. I wouldn’t have called them friends yet, but we were on a first-name basis, so it was progress.

  “You know me. Doing what I can to socialize with the people.” I wasn’t doing much else, and I was starting to feel a little lost. I was used to action, doing something, always moving.

  I checked the GPS again, and
it showed I should still be pointed north, which meant through the forest and up the mountain. A patch of wildflowers at the edge of the road filled the air with their alluring scent, which gave way to the smell of honeysuckle and pine as I entered the forest, but there was no turn-off where I expected.

  I’d only flown over the area once before, for an entirely different reason, and didn’t really remember the lay of the land. I should have scoped it out on my morning flight. Maybe I should’ve just flown in, but then I would’ve arrived naked, and that definitely wasn’t the impression I wanted to make. Still, I’d expected the entrance to be a bit closer to town than I’d already driven. There weren’t any fences or signs to indicate there was even anything out here.

  “How far up is this place, Sam?”

  “You’re looking for a dirt road. You can’t miss the turnoff. There’s a gate with some kind of big crystals on either side.” Easy for him to say. Sam had been out here several times when he and his mate, Gretta, were first getting started. Being surrounded by nature was always my preference, as an earth dragon, but I was unfamiliar with this particular area and nervous about my first real job on top of that. I clenched my hands around the steering wheel.

  “Did you pass it?”

  Did I pass it? If I knew I’d driven too far, I would’ve turned around. “GPS says no.”

  “Did you get to the clearing yet? The road is right after the clearing.”

  Sam would have taken the job himself if not for the fact he knew I was desperate to get my hands dirty, so to speak. I continued zigging and zagging up the mountain. Finally, the line of trees thinned into a clearing with said turn-off to the right. It wasn’t that I’d been driving long, I just preferred to know where I was going without an electronic voice leading my way.

  “Found it.”

  I pictured Sam nodding with relief, a sentiment I echoed. “All right, man. Call me when you’re done there and let me know how it goes.”

  “Yep.”

  I hung up, focused now on reaching my destination. Beech and birch trees lined the narrow dirt path leading to two tall pieces of amethyst alongside an iron gate. I wasn’t alive when the witch trials happened down in Massachusetts, but this gate looked like it had been ripped out of an earlier era and transported here. Though weathered by time, it was ornate and curled along the top and behind where it disappeared into the shrubs on either side. And like she was inviting danger to her door, the woman who needed protection had left the security gate wide open.

  I drove through. If an actual witch lived here or was the reason for the unrest here, I would’ve known. I would’ve sensed it—kind of like a bad taste in my mouth. But so far, not even a tingle on my tongue. Most shifters had a thing that made them notice magic in the area.

  The first thing I noticed about the turn of the century colonial was the twenty or so windows along the front of the house, all wide open with the curtains billowing through in the warm summer wind. Instead of modern vinyl siding, cedar shakes scalloped the front, and a tall brick chimney sprouted out of the roof, smoke-free since we were almost into July. There was a small garden at the side of the house that had seen better days.

  I pulled the truck through the U-shaped driveway to the center and stopped at the steps to the wrap-around porch. The front door was hanging open as wide as the windows, but I knocked anyway, then squared my shoulders and listened for a reply.

  My dragon’s pull to this house was strong enough it churned in my gut. He needed to go in. I needed to go in. I’d never felt an urge so strong and purposeful. Usually, I controlled the dragon. I made our decisions, but right now, I didn’t have a choice, and I couldn’t deny the longing to go inside.

  I stepped through the rounded-top front door and took a deep breath. The smells of lemongrass and sage transported me back to Asia in the late 1800s. I breathed deep, wanting to savor the memory and the scent, but my dragon hadn’t calmed yet, and this place wasn’t Asia.

  The foyer was a clutter of mismatched décor. Ornate and rough carved statues along with various crystals in all shapes and sizes sat in a line on floor-to-ceiling shelves across from a mirror with black scrolled ironwork. An orange quarter moon hung in a circle from the center of a door frame, and of course, what house in Spruce was complete without the requisite dragon tapestry.

  This one hung above a doorway to my right and portrayed a puny little air dragon in flight while another sat guard over a night sky. I shook my head. Typical. Humans thought they could hang a dragon picture or tapestry and a shield of protection would magically fall over their houses. Little did they know.

  Lila, my client, obviously should have known, considering she was the victim of a horrible wizard attack only a few weeks ago. They’d placed spelled crystals around and inside her property to make her feel ill, to make it look like her MS was getting worse—all to manipulate her sister into experimenting with dragon blood to ‘find a cure’. What the wizards were really doing was trying to find a way to drain our power and kill us.

  I ducked under the hanging moon into a living room with windows on three sides and a woman holding a book above her head, trying to place it on a high shelf between the windows. Maybe I made a sound, or maybe she felt the air in the room change, but she spun, hurled the book into the air, and screamed. I wasn’t The Rock or anything, but rarely did my presence earn such a fearsome reaction. Unless I wanted it to, of course.

  As I was about to introduce myself, my dragon sighed with longing, deep, and soft but powerful enough that I knew. I knew. This woman, this beauty in a short, flowered dress and hair the color of chocolate, was my destiny, my mate. She was the one I was sent here, in more than one way, to protect.

  She brought her hand to her heaving chest. “I’m sorry. I don’t usually scream at my customers like they’re scary movie villains. Did I forget a massage or a class?”

  “Customer?” I knew the answer to the question I hadn’t quite managed to ask, but a haze formed over my mind, and I couldn’t think past her big hazel doe eyes or the fact she’d asked if I wanted a massage. Which I did. Very much—from her.

  I moved closer, fully prepared to sweep her off her feet. Literally. Figuratively. Freestyle if she’d let me.

  Her fingertips fluttered against the collar of her dress, long slender fingers I knew would be strong and powerful against my skin despite being delicate and dainty.

  “Yoga. I, um, I teach yoga.”

  Yes, she did. “Right. Yoga.” Now I remembered. She had some hooey New Age business model and worked it out of her house.

  I opened my mouth to tell her who I was, but she picked up a candlestick made of some sort of sparkling crystal with a silver banding. She held it out in front of her body at arm’s length with hands wrapped around the base as if she planned to use it in a swordfight. Her body language said she wanted to hit me. Hurt me. The fuck?

  Oh, right. She was a human. And I’d walked into her house uninvited and without introducing myself, like the kind of creepy stalker that I’d come here to stop. Way to make a first impression. I held up a fist like an idiot and demonstrated. “I knocked. But I guess you didn’t hear me. Sorry. I’m, uh—” I sure as hell hadn’t forgotten my own name. “Leath. Leath Lane. Gretta said she was going to tell you I’d be stopping by.”

  Stopping by, moving in, loving her until the day I died. A rose by any other name. Whoa, Shakespeare. Really? Before I could embarrass myself further, she breathed out a relieved laugh and rolled her eyes, the dangerous candlestick dropping to her side.

  “Don’t mind me. It’s not a deadly weapon.”

  She cackled at her joke, and I smiled. To be honest, I probably hadn’t stopped smiling since I got my first eyeful of her long legs, chestnut hair hanging loose around her shoulders, and those delicate hands trying to be tough holding her weapon of choice. And if the beauty of her face wasn’t enough to have my heart doing double time, her soft, melodic voice would have been.

  “You’re the dragon for hire.”
She laughed, and the sound was intoxicating enough if she dared one more chuckle, I’d dissolve. With fingers no longer trembling or fluttering, she replaced the candlestick on the table and moved around to hold out one of those beautiful hands. “Yeah, of course, she mentioned you. I’m sorry, my nerves are just strung a little tight right now. I’m Lila Kipling.”

  Lila.

  I rolled her name around in my mind. It was smooth, like maple syrup, and perfect for her. And if I didn’t pull it together and quit staring, she was probably going to end up using that candlestick. Desperately looking for something to say, I nodded to the tapestry.

  “I suppose you were expecting someone smaller. Maybe more magical?” Because in all the lore, dragons had powers. I suppressed an eye roll, barely, and smiled. I might have also flexed my shoulders.

  Then she pursed her lips. “You don’t like my décor?”

  I shrugged. “I’m more of a real-world kind of guy. Crystals and talismans are a little Fantasy Island for me.”

  She flashed the tip of her tongue against the corner of her lips. I was one palpitation away from a heart attack. Pulling it together might have been too much to hope for, but I did manage to stay upright and not humiliate myself.

  “Fantasy Island? Really?”

  “Eccentric, then.”

  “You mean weird.”

  “If that’s the word you wanna use.” But yes, I meant weird.

  She narrowed her eyes, and if she were the type, she probably would’ve flipped me off. Instead, that tongue poked out again, which somehow seemed way more potent than a flying finger, and I felt the ice thinning under my feet.

  “That’s rich coming from a dragon.”

  Feisty on top of beautiful. Witty on top of charming. My mate was a total package, and I was in way over my head. That was probably why my mouth kept slipping past its filter. “There’s a difference between supernatural and whatever New Age bullshit that’s about.” I jerked a thumb over my shoulder at the relics in the foyer.