The Dragon's Charm

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The Dragon's Charm Page 1

by Emilia Hartley




  Table of Contents

  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 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 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 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 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  EPILOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  Epilogue

  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

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  EPILOGUE

  The Dragon’s Charm

  Elemental Dragons Book 4

  Emilia Hartley

  © Copyright 2017 by 9591451 CANADA INC. - All rights reserved.

  The contents of this book may not be reproduced, duplicated or transmitted without direct written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Legal Notice:

  This book is copyright protected. This is only for personal use. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the author’s permission.

  NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is
entirely coincidental. The author does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.

  The Dragon’s Charm

  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

  Thank you!

  Mated to the Dragon

  Freed by the Dragon

  Seduced by the Dragon

  Protected by the Mountain Wolf

  Adored by the Mountain Wolf

  Mated to the Mountain Wolf

  Alpha Wolf Protector

  Alpha Wolf Guardian

  Alpha Wolf Champion

  Adored by the Alpha Bear

  Saved by the Alpha Bear

  Loved by the Alpha Bear

  The Timeless Curse of Lord Dabney

  AUTHORS NOTES

  The Dragon’s Charm

  Emilia Hartley

  Chapter One

  The diner was humming with activity. It was still early morning, the sun a beacon just over the horizon that blinded Morgan if she glanced in the wrong direction. Carafe in hand, she ducked around the counter and reached for the pulley to lower the black blinds in the window that kept blinding her. As it lowered, it cast a shade over her face that made her shoulders relax.

  She should have known better.

  Vic Munson threw his bony hand into the air and summoned her over to his table with a sharp call. Still facing the window, she rolled her eyes and steeled herself for the interaction that was about to come. After a moment, Morgan plastered a smile onto her face and spun around with a bounce in her step. Coffee flowed into Vic’s shallow cup while he looked up at her with amazingly clear, if not a bit red, eyes for a man in his late eighties.

  “Can you believe these monsters?” he asked, his rotten breath creeping over her cheeks.

  Morgan fought not to gag as she turned to look at the television screen hanging above the bar counter. On the screen, the events of the trial played out. It seemed the Guardians of Existence, an organization funded worldwide to protect humanity from the supernatural, had been up to no good on American soil. The dragons claimed the Guardians had been enacting illegal experiments on them.

  On the screen, a woman with gaunt cheeks and sad, almond shaped eyes looked at the camera. Morgan almost felt bad for the girl. As it panned around her, gold flashed across the small woman’s eyes and Morgan realized the girl on the stand was a dragon. Her back straightened. It was all too easy to mistake one of them for a human, she noted. It made her shiver.

  She didn’t know what to believe of the accusations against the organization. It had nothing to do with Morgan, so she kept her nose out of the opinions of others.

  “I think these monsters are gunning for our government,” Vic continued on when she didn’t reply to his question. The old man grabbed her wrist, bony, arthritic knuckles clamped down on her.

  The old man across from Vic nodded with enthusiasm before turning to glare at the screen.

  “They want the whole world to feel bad for them while they work on shutting down the only thing standing between them and the government.”

  Morgan found herself standing a bit straighter. “What if they really were hurt?”

  Vic’s bald head fell back and his bushy brow shot upward. “Do you really believe that? If GOE did anything, they did it to protect this country and our freedoms.”

  Morgan sighed. There was always such a gap between her and some of her customers. It was a struggle everyday just to smile at people like Vic as he continued to slam those who had it worse than him. All she wanted in that moment was to crawl back into the kitchen for a moment to gather herself and build up the veneer she had to wear every day.

  “You damn right,” another, male voice piped in.

  Morgan glanced over to see that Jack Beaty had joined in on Vic’s conversation. Across from him, Jack’s wife glared at him. Her eyes slid back to the screen where they were now showing a row of smiling dragons outside the court room.

  Morgan had to admit, they were beautiful. Each and every one of them would have been show stoppers on the runway or on the big screen. The leader of the nearby Territory had a strong jaw and piercing eyes that seemed to see through the TV and into her soul. Beside him stood his wife, a Welsh woman she’d heard, with long, wine colored hair and a cocky smile that echoed the spark in her dark eyes.

  Beside them stood an Asian man, his high cheekbones carved from marble and his broad shoulders engulfing the screen. He smiled to the camera, to the world. Morgan only shook her head. On the television, they didn’t seem that awful, but Morgan knew nothing about them. She’d heard, a few months back, that Wales had seen an awful uprising between the nation’s red and white dragons. It’d left the city of Bangor in shambles and forced the GOE offices to rebuild from the inside out after the white dragons turned on them.

  “They’re just… they’re just people,” Morgan made the mistake of saying. She knew, the moment the words fell from her lips, it was the wrong thing to say.

  Vic’s grip on her wrist tightened to the point of pain. She could feel Jack’s eyes boring into the side of her head. Those were not the words the men wanted to hear.

  Morgan pulled her wrist out of Vic’s grasp and turned away without another word. She ducked into the kitchen, the sulfuric smell of eggs greeting her nose. Behind the griddle, the cook looked up with a question in his eyes, but Morgan shook her head. The cook’s eyes slid to the door and landed on Vic and no explanation was needed. Morgan couldn’t count the times Vic had called the cook out to complain about the state of his sunny side up eggs.

  She rushed toward the orders piling up on the counter, reading the tags and sorting the tables in her mind. It kept her busy, it kept her from thinking about the smiling dragon man on the screen with almond shaped eyes and cheekbones she wanted to run her fingers over.

  What was wrong with her? She didn’t need to be thinking of dragons. She needed to be smiling for her tables so she could line her pockets with enough cash to escape her pointless job. All Morgan wanted was enough to start her own business. She wasn’t going to get there if she didn’t do the job she had.

  ***

  Kenji had looked into the gleaming glass of the camera lens and smiled. He put on a good show for those watching on the other end, he could at least do that. It wasn’t like he’d been any help during the trial. No one could see the scars on his body when the tie was tight around his neck. They didn’t hear his voice when he explained what happened to him.

  Hell, Kenji could hardly hear his own voice. His eyes had sought out Quinn in the crowd again. He knew she wasn’t there, but hoped, maybe, she’d show up to show her support. It was smart, he considered as he yanked the tie over his head and flicked the button at his throat open. It was for the best she keep her space.

  Just because he still loved her, didn’t mean she had to give him anything in return. He thought it would be easier, watching another man love her and know that man was her mate. Isaac was destined to love Quinn, but it didn’t mean the ache in his chest was any lesser.

  He jerked open his door and tossed the tie into the truck when a figure appeared beside him. He spun around only to find the Territory leader’s mate standing beside him. He raised a brow at Liana.

  “What else do you want from me?” Kenji asked.

  She pouted, her forehead furrowing in mock offense, before her lips parted.

  Kenji held a hand up before she could speak. “Save it. I really don’t want to buy in.”

  “Well, bollocks. I only came to give you something to do with your free time,” Liana purred.

  Her voice had him looking over his shoulder. He weighed her words in his mind, the same min
d that slid back to Quinn whenever he wasn’t busy. His shoulders dropped and his chest deflated.

  “What do you want from me?” Kenji gave in, resigned himself to the need to keep busy. He needed to find something to do with his time that might help him start over. The life he’d lived, the path he’d thought he would travel was gone now that his family had integrated with Dane’s. There was no longer a council. There was no longer a place for his voice to be heard or leadership to be had.

  Kenji was just another soul in the ocean and it left him adrift.

  Liana stood up straighter at his response. Her eyes glinted with a thought that passed through her mind and Kenji wondered if he should be worried while in this woman’s clutches. She’d rightfully cornered him in the parking lot.

  “With GOE currently out of commission, I wanted to use the Embassy to show the country we mean no harm. The first step toward that was an idea I may or may not have had.”

  “This was Dane’s idea and you’re taking credit for it. Am I right?”

  She shifted from foot to foot with a small smile on her lips, but didn’t offer a response. Instead, she went back to her new idea. “I want to start a task force. It will be a joint effort between the dragons on our Territory and some of the agents and officials form GOE that we trusted.”

  Kenji’s head perked up. He slowly turned to face her, the prospect of this job now creeping in to fill his mind. Liana’s smile widened. She knew she had him hooked.

  “I’m going to need someone to organize and lead the dragon side of the task force. On the human side, I have Nathan Forrest coming in to help us. We won’t be patrolling the streets where anyone can see us, but I want dragons to be able to police themselves. When a dragon acts up, I want a dragon to be the one to take care of, show the world we aren’t here to hurt them.”

  Kenji nodded. “I don’t… I don’t hate the idea.”

  “Good,” Liana laughed.

  “You’re a vixen,” Kenji reminded her. The woman was smarter than many gave her credit for. She was also driven, stubborn to the end. It was amazing the welsh dragons had let her go after their uprising. Kenji heard they’d lost their last leader, the one who’d risen during the Occurrence.

  His eyes slid upward. Around them, the trees were changing. Leaves were falling to the ground and the world was a mix of green and yellow. He missed the red of New England, but Nebraska wasn’t all that bad. No, this was a place he could live with. He’d yet to find a good body of water, though.

  “Fine,” he breathed. “Count me in on your little scheme.”

  Liana said nothing, only nodded with the smile she didn’t bother to try hiding. He had a feeling she had more planned for him than he would have liked, but there was nothing he could do. It was either sit home and stare at the walls while his chest ached for something he couldn’t have, or he got up and started to do something with his life.

 

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