Jasper Drake Read online

  Table of Contents

  JASPER DRAKE

  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 Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Thank you!

  JASPER DRAKE

  Emilia Hartley

  © Copyright 2019 by Blues Publishing. - 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.

  Chapter One

  Cora knew he was on the other side of the door. Her mate. Her monster.

  She couldn’t bring herself to open it. There was the rough scraping sound of his hand dragging along the outside of the door. She imagined his head pressed against it, a snarl on his lips because she’d never seen him without it.

  “Don’t make me huff and puff,” he yelled through the door.

  Cora only shook her head. She retreated further into the nearly empty house. It smelled of Griffin and his dragon-wife. Mostly of Griffin. It was a bit intrusive, but she never felt truly alone and that helped soothe her beast. Ever since she left the clan, she’d been alone. The warm comfort of family had abandoned her long ago, and she hadn’t realized how much she’d missed it until she found it here.

  Too bad she couldn’t find it with the dragons themselves.

  They were a rowdy and wild bunch headed by a demon. Cora had no way of knowing what they wanted from her. She hid her secret deep down, revealing it only to Mina, the sweet dragon woman who’d crashed into Cora’s campsite. Mina had kept her secret, apparently, because Jasper had not forced Cora into a marriage bond.

  She grabbed a box of chocolate and peanut butter puff cereal from the kitchen and went back to the door. She hadn’t meant to. Cora intended to hide in the bedroom, as far from the front door as she could manage, but her feet had led her back to Jasper. The crinkling of the plastic bag inside the box betrayed her presence.

  The door creaked and groaned. She froze, thinking he was finally going to break it down, but then she heard the distinctive thud of someone hitting the ground. Jasper was sitting on the other side of the door. It wasn’t what she expected from the demon.

  Ever since she’d entered Jasper’s mountain, he’d been inside her mind. She felt his crazed beast, the thing she’d dubbed the demon, and every sharp emotion it felt. The creature wanted to ravage the mountainsides looking for her. It wanted to vanquish all who’d ever hurt her.

  This Jasper, the one sitting outside her front door, was not the demon she knew.

  “What are you doing?” she blurted out.

  His response was muffled by the door between them. “I’m attempting to be patient and understanding. Bear with me. It’s a new experience.”

  She laughed. It was so sudden and unexpected that cereal puffs rained on the floor when she clasped her hand over her mouth. She imagined him smiling on the other side, or felt it. She wasn’t sure which. The lines between her thoughts and his sometimes blurred when they were close. It was how he’d tracked her all across the mountains.

  Cora threw up barriers in her mind. Thoughts of cute puppies, taxes, and sunsets filled the space between the two shifters until her mind became her own again.

  “I’m officially the head of Aurum Bank,” Jasper began. “My youngest knight, Ashton, had been doing my work for me until he came home. The bank was failing. I didn’t know how my involvement would help, but I figured I had to try to do something.” He laughed to himself. “You wouldn’t believe the number of keyboards I went through in the first few weeks.”

  “Did you do it? Save the company, I mean.” Cora stumbled over her words, even if there was a door between them. There was no surefire way to find comfort in Jasper’s presence. Her skin sang with it, prickling whenever he was nearby. Her mind slipped into his so easily. Pulling back, she bit on the inside of her cheek until the pain brought her back to herself.

  “Yeah,” he said. There was a bit of shuffling as he rearranged himself outside. She heard his back hit the door. “We found a couple of big shots draining money from the bank and funneling it into offshore accounts. Aurum bank went through a very quiet internal investigation and the two employees were given very stern severance packages.”

  She could only imagine that a severance package delivered by Jasper included some bodily threats and otherworldly terror, especially for employees found stealing.

  “No jail time?”

  “We decided it would look bad for the bank’s image and kept it to ourselves. Aurum keeps the clan going. I couldn’t risk it any further.”

  She smiled, despite her fear of him. “That’s quite noble of you.”

  “The noble thing was me sitting at a computer at all.”

  She inched closer to the door. Just so she could hear him better. Not because she could smell his spicy scent through the gap in the doorframe. Not because the tension between her shoulder blades that had been there for months melted away in his presence. It was certainly none of those reasons.

  Silence spilled over them. It wasn’t heavy or intrusive, but just a state of being. There were no insufferable growls from the other side of the door. She didn’t feel the need to scamper away and hide under the bed. It was…comfortable.

  Cora almost wished she’d given up on hiding in the wilderness way earlier. But Cora refused to let the universe weave her into its preordained fate. The path she’d been given was cruel and desolate. When she closed her eyes, she could still see the clan leader’s face. She could feel his bone-breaking grip on her hand as he declared they would be wed.

  Tears began to rim her eyes. There was a soft warning growl from outside. She quickly wiped the tears away and built another mental barrier between them. This time, she imagined bricks and unbreakable mortar. There was a soft chuckle outside, as if Jasper was watching the imaginary wall being made.

  She’d never heard of a bond quite like this. There was no way she could deny that Jasper was her mate, though she’d long ago realized fate meant to torture her. This bond was its own unique kind of torment. It gave her an inside look at the demon. Another horrible path plotted out by fate.

  “I’ve said enough about myself,” Jasper said. “Tell me more about you. I want to know your favorite kind of birthday cake.”

  “Isn’t birthday cake its own flavor?”

  “Is it? I don’t bake, so I wouldn’t know.”

  Cora rested her head against the door. “I don’t like cake all that much anyway. I always ate my ice-cream before I finished the cake.”

  “If I’m not wrong, Griffin bought his mate a grocery store’s worth of ice-cream
before they moved out. I doubt they thought to take it with them. You can have your fill tonight.”

  The sentiment was…sweet.

  Cora hadn’t expected it. Every time Jasper opened his mouth, she was surprised. Every expectation she’d set up for him was slowly knocked over. There were larger ones, born from the demon inside him, that he would never defeat. She’d seen his beast in action, watched it fly over grove like a hellbeast.

  “I’ll go get myself some right now.”

  She scrambled off the floor and retreated into the kitchen. Something had been happening that she didn’t like. She’d been falling for him. It was a guise, a show he put onto get her to open the door. That was it. Jasper couldn’t be that nice of a guy. A good man would not house a beast like the one that lived in him.

  Cora helped herself to the pints of ice-cream left in the freezer. She grabbed one with vanilla ice-cream and chunks of brownies and cookie dough, then curled up on the futon in the bedroom.

  She wondered if coming here had been a bad idea. The walls that surrounded her offered some protection, but they’d become a prison as well. She couldn’t leave without running into Jasper. Once she was face to face with him, no doors or walls between them, he would drag her into his abode and force her to become his dragon-wife.

  Mate bond or not, Cora was doomed to one fate.

  The scales of her beast had seen to it. She’d cursed the creature more than once, bemoaning her own existence. It wasn’t like she’d asked to be born this way. Cora did not want to be the most coveted woman for miles around. She didn’t want men watching her like she was a trophy they could mount on their walls.

  Cora wanted, more than anything, a friend. She wanted to play video games with someone and truly laugh, to feel it in her soul. She wanted to go out for coffee and not be terrified of every dragon shifter she passed. But, she’d been born with rare scales.

  Like Jasper’s court, Cora had mineral scales. Hers weren’t metallic, but crystalline. When she shifted, her scales became quartz. They caught the light and reflected shades of pink, baby blue, and soft lavender. It would have made her proud if it hadn’t attracted the attention of Calvin.

  Cal wanted her to be his and only his. He wanted her to bend over and bear his heirs, producing little beasts that looked like hers. All he saw in her was the chance to create more rare dragons. That was why she’d run away from her own clan.

  She should have known they would come looking for her. There was no way Cal would let her escape his clutches. She wondered if he knew about the bond between her and Jasper. If he did, would he still fight for her?

  Cora knew the answer.

  Cal never gave up.

  ***

  He stared at the door, the only thing between them, and hated it with every inch of his being. Fantasies of ripping it off the hinges and flinging it into the sun filled his mind, but he didn’t dare. Cora deserved better.

  So, he flexed his fingers, clenching and unclenching his fists, and turned back to the main house. If she wanted space, he would give it to her.

  The beast growled at his decision. It nearly took over, claiming Jasper’s legs and halting him mid-step. Jasper stumbled. A growl left him. As he stared at the asphalt, he and the beast battled for dominance. The creature had a mind of its own. It had a will unlike anything he’d ever felt before.

  Fighting it back took every ounce of determination he had. Finally, when his body was his own again and the beast was locked in a cage, he climbed the steps to the main house. He set a path for the study, where he’d hid his whiskey from Ashton the annoying busy-body. Jasper thought himself ingenious for hollowing out every useless encyclopedia and replacing the pages with whiskey.

  Snatching one from the shelf, he then poured a generous glass and drowned the beast’s voice in amber liquor. The creature’s voice grew softer before going completely silent. It was the only time Jasper could escape the oppressive creature, for even in his dreams the beast reigned.

  He crashed into the study chair, a leather contraption on wheels, and rolled to the nearest window. From there, he could see the guest house down below. It’d always been Griffin’s home. If anything happened, he knew Griffin was nearby to help. Now, Cora was sequestered under that roof. Where once he’d felt security, he now felt fear.

  He lifted his gaze to the sky, expecting the other clan to come raining down on them at any moment. They’d been dogged about getting Cora back. He didn’t understand why, but he knew he wasn’t going to let them take her. She clearly wanted to escape them. Jasper would stand by that decision, even if it took her far, far away from him.

  The beast lashed out at him, but the creature was so distant Jasper only felt a small scratch. He downed the rest of his cup and felt the beast’s ire retreat even further.

  He’d never told anyone, of course, that he and his beast were separate creatures. His court thought the beast’s voice was a new development, like a sudden schism that ripped Jasper in half. In truth, he’d always lived with the second voice in his head. It had its own desires, own thoughts, own logic.

  Other dragon shifters had another voice, but it was mostly instinct, a collection of primal desires. What set Jasper’s dragon apart was its ability to use reasoning. The creature was intelligent in the way that people were.

  When it arose, Jasper’s head felt like a cacophonous battle arena. His beast’s voice would boom through his skull while he tried desperately to hold onto his own thoughts. The only time the beast was ever truly quiet was when it was simmering in rage.

  Like the time he checked on Griffin.

  Jasper hadn’t even seen Griffin’s mate in the bed. All he’d been able to see was the blood dried on his brother’s skin and the marks that had been in the process of healing. The beast had been quiet that moment. When Jasper left the room, the beast’s roar spilled out of him. For a second, his grief and the beast’s rage coalesced into one feeling.

  In that moment, Jasper felt whole.

  He hadn’t been able to think long on it, as he’d taken to the skies with the hope that he would come across the trespassing dragons. Now that he was alone with his thoughts and imbibed with whiskey, Jasper shuddered. He’d always wondered what it would feel like to be whole. The events that led up to that moment were not ones Jasper ever wanted to repeat.

  He was a lousy king. As much as he wanted to blame the monster living in his head and piloting his body on bad days, Jasper knew he was just as responsible. Fear of who he was kept him sequestered in his mountain home. He wasted his time replacing his parent’s furniture and décor instead of facing his people in Grove.

  Who wanted a king who could barely control himself?

  Not even his mate wanted him. She must have watched him tear through the mountain skies over and over like a demon on the loose. Cora refused to trust him enough to even be in the same room as him. She kept the door between them closed at all times.

  The only time it creaked open was at night

  Jasper hoped he’d drunk enough to offer her a reprieve. She’d been through enough. She didn’t need his beast in her head, too.

  Chapter Two

  “Are you afraid?” the demon asked. Its voice was gravelly, like rolling coals.

  Cora shuddered. She knew it was only a dream. The demon had been invading her dreams since she entered the mountain range. No matter how she tried to stave off sleep, it always came for her. As soon as she drifted off, the voice rolled through her mind.

  There’d been a week when she tried to sleep while Jasper was awake, but it left her drained after fighting for hours to even get to sleep under the high sun. After, she was forced to hike in the darkness. It’d been less than pleasant.

  At least the demon could not hurt her in her dreams. All she had to do was keep it company for a short while. She could manage that if it meant she was physically safe.

  “I’m afraid of many things,” she confessed.

  The demon growled. A scene formed around her, color
s and shapes coming to life. The demon was circling her. Its great gold body was like a pile of gold coins come to life, graceful as it slithered into existence, materializing around her. It turned molten eyes on her, regarding her in a way no beast had ever done before. It did not look at her like a treasure, but as if it truly wanted to know what she was afraid of.

  So that it could vanquish her enemies.

  Cora wanted to collapse on the ground. She wanted to sigh, to sleep normally and not have to dance around the vicious thing that entered her mind each night. It was exhausting.

  As she felt back, the demon lowered itself to the ground along side her. It rested its great head on it’s claws and regarded her with a long and inquisitive look. Cora almost laughed.

  “You’re a lot less testy tonight. Normally you’re breathing fire everywhere.”

  The demon purred. She thought she saw a slight smile touch the corners of its mouth. “I have no reason to rage because I know where you are. You will not be hurt by anyone on my territory. Not when you are so close to me.”

  “But we’re both asleep,” she argued against its logic.

  “Do you think sleep could keep me from you? I will be wherever you need me. I will always be at your side, between you and whatever danger arises.”

  It was a chivalrous thought, but Cora wasn’t convinced. There would come a day when he realized what she hid, the rare scales of her beast. Then he would not be so gentle. His greed would get the best of him. He would forget about the woman inside her and covet her glittering scales for his future generations.

  The demon blew out a cloud of smoke. It was…laughing.

  “I have scales of my own. Scales of my family.” His voice came from everywhere and from him all at once. “My kin will continue to bear gold for generations to come. It is the way it will always be.”

  Cora was dumbstruck. Then, her brow furrowed with rage. “Get out of my mind, you ornery creature.”

  He blew out another puff of smoke and dragged his gaze away from her. Her breath was ragged, something she had not thought possible in a dream. The demon knew about her beast. It knew about her scales. And it decided to feed her comforting lies.