The Dragon's Lover Read online

  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 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 Lover

  Elemental Dragons Book 2

  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 d
oes not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.

  The Dragon’s Lover

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  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 Lover

  Emilia Hartley

  Chapter One

  “What do you think?” Quinn bounced in front of her friend, her lush hair bouncing along with her.

  Almond shaped eyes inspected the changes she’d made, following the trail of the blue and green extensions she’d had added to her blonde waves. She liked the color they brought to her life. She felt a little more like the dragons she’d been surrounded by her whole life.

  It wasn’t easy being a human living among dragons. As a small child, Quinn expected her human body to sprout wings any day. She’d expected scales to flow across her skin. When none of that happened, she’d been heart broken.

  It made Quinn into something different. It fostered the restless gene she inherited from her mother and made her search for the thrills of being a dragon in everyday human things. The motorcycle parked outside the rental house hadn’t made her aunt and uncle very happy, but it sent a thrill through her each time she mounted the wild machine. It was the only way she got around, other than hitching a ride through dragon flight. Either way, the wind tore at her hair and the world blurred past her.

  “Why would you do such a thing to your hair?” Ken asked as his hands gravitated towards her hips so that he could pull her closer.

  Quinn’s lips twisted into a frown. She danced out of his touch and turned toward a mirror on the wall to inspect her newly colored tresses. Her fingers threaded through the waves and she watched the strands of blonde and blue and green fall.

  “You’re just a boring stick in the mud,” Quinn informed the dragon man who was supposed to be her mate.

  She didn’t know how she felt about the bond that was between them. This bond, a tie that fate wound, supposedly pushed the two of them together. Ken claimed it was always meant to be. He claimed it was why she’d become part of their dragon family to begin with.

  Quinn wasn’t so sure. She didn’t feel anything that felt particularly… magical when she looked at her friend. Sure, she’d had feelings for Ken, feelings that she’d explored in her college years. The exploration had been fun, but the shiny new-ness of it had quickly worn off for her. Ken, on the other hand, had petted her hair and admitted the mate bond. That small confession had Quinn hopping out of bed and running as fast and as far as she could.

  That had been five years ago. Ken let her run, let her pursue her career. At least, that’s what she’d told him she was doing. And, she had written a good number of articles on the Guardians of Existence, the global organization that claimed to protect the world from dragon shifters. But, that time had also been her trying to escape this one-sided magic binding her to a man she wasn’t sure if she could love in return.

  She wished she could feel the same for him. Quinn wished she could look Ken in the eye and feel what she saw looking back at her, but the feeling never rose. She could tell that her return to the family pained him, but he made no effort to give her the space she wanted. It made it all too easy to fall into old patterns with him. Not the sex. She would not be so horrible to lay with Ken if she wasn’t willing to fully commit to the bond he said was between them.

  Quinn frowned into the mirror. When she spoke, her voice was smaller than she would have liked. “Is it always like this?”

  Ken pushed up from where he sat. His tall frame was made imposing by the muscle the wound around his arms and shoulders. He moved to stand behind her, the reflection of his gaze filled with pain.

  “What do you mean?”

  Quinn pressed her eyes closed. “Do the female mates feel the bond the way the men do? Or, do we have to fall in love all on our own?”

  Quinn thought this was a question she should have known the answer to. Her own aunt had fallen for a dragon man, the mate bond tying them tighter than anything she’d ever seen in her life. It made sense for Quinn to have a similar bond with a dragon, but this wasn’t what she expected it to feel like.

  “The bond of mates,” Ken began as he knelt beside Quinn. He liked to do that, putting her above everything. She wasn’t a damned princess. She wanted to be his equal. “The bond is fate’s way of saying that person in particular is a dragon’s best chance at happiness and children. It isn’t immediate love for most. Love can take time, just like it does in any relationship.”

  She looked down into Ken’s face. She wished he would stop being so friendly with her. She wished she felt anything when his skin touched hers, when he looked at her like she was the only thing that mattered. But, she didn’t. It made her worry that she was broken. What if she was incapable of love? What then?

  “I should be getting home.” Quinn backed away from Ken and turned toward her purse. She didn’t know what she thought she was doing here. Falling into old patterns, perhaps. It was too easy for her to treat him like the friend she’d known before they tried making it more than that. She shouldn’t be friend-zoning her mate; that seemed wrong.

  “You could stay,” Ken offered. There was a hopeful look in his eyes that made her chest hurt.

  She shook her head. She wasn’t ready for that and she’d told him plenty of times. Perhaps, Ken was right. Perhaps, they were meant to be together. Quinn wanted to figure that out on her own time and if that meant keeping him at a distance until she felt the bond, then that was what she was going to do.

  “You and I aren’t together. At least, not by my definition. That means I can’t stay here and you know it.”

  “You can’t blame me for trying.” His smile was contagious. It was one of the things that brought them together five years ago. It was still something she loved about him. It made her smile, too.

  “I guess I can’t. See you tomorrow for the visit?”

  “Sure thing,” Ken said to her back as she stepped out of the room.

  Quinn was going to have to work harder to put more space between them. It was a thorn in her side that she had to work with him tomorrow. Ken was probably the most enigmatic of all the survivors in the dragon family. It made him the most likely candidate to send as an emissary. Considering that Quinn was the driving force behind the family’s new decision, she had to accompany Ken to the American Dragon Territory tomorrow.

  Outside, the sky was clear and didn’t at all mimic what she felt. Uncertainty and fear gripped her in a way she hadn’t felt since she was a child, first introduced to her aunt’s dragon mate.

  “It feels a little odd,” a sweet and gentle voice said, grabbing Quinn’s attention. She looked up to find an older dragon woman before her. Ruby, an older dragon whose age no one could quite put their finger on, had been Quinn’s babysitter as a child until they learned the old dragon could barely handle her PTSD and had locked Quinn in a closet for hours in an effort to ‘protect her from GOE’.

  “What is odd?” Quinn always spoke gently with the old dragon woman. She still loved her, despite the closet situation. Quinn understood after living most of her life surrounded by dragons dealing with the same issues.
/>   The old dragon woman cocked her head to the side, her eyes going distant. “Well, we’ve been doing well so far. Why change our patterns now?”

  Quinn took in what the old dragon said, digesting her worlds. They were oddly on point for a woman who could barely maintain her grasp on reality. Why were they announcing their presence? Why were they reaching out to the American Dragon Territory and its leader?

  “You’re still safe, Ruby. I promise.” Quinn made sure of it when she chose this location. There were no GOE facilities for miles around and she’d found out the construction on this housing development had been halted because the company ran out of money. No one would be coming to where they were hiding.

  “And Casper?”

  Quinn smiled. She like Casper. He’d come to them, lacking any memory of his own name, so she’d dubbed him Casper after her favorite childhood movies. It suited the sweet and quiet dragon who floated around only to slightly startle people. His whispered apologies were always the sweetest and helped him worm his way into Quinn’s heart.

  “You and Casper will always be safe.”

  The old dragon woman smiled and released a breath before continuing her walk. It seemed Quinn’s words had a bolstering effect on her old nanny. It made Ruby’s smile contagious.

  Quinn pulled her motorcycle helmet from where it hung on her bike and jammed it over the colorful extensions she’d been so excited to share with the man that’d been her best friend. The machine rumbled between her thighs and rolled forward. Tomorrow would be a testament to their bond, she thought. Perhaps, flying with Ken and watching him interact with the spoiled and unhurt dragons would inspire some kind of flame inside of her.

  All Quinn felt at that point in time was a storm.

  ***

  The house had become much quieter in Luc’s absence. Isaac had taken to leaving small pranks around the house just to hear Marc’s surprised outrage fill the silence. Isaac wasn’t as blunt about his pranks as Luc had been. Instead, Isaac would change the Wifi password and send Marc on a treasure hunt around the house to find the clues that would lead to the new password. There had been one time that Isaac left a foam dart gun near the front door in an invitation to foam dart war in an effort to release the silence gripping their home.

  Unfortunately, Marc hadn’t accepted. The lonely half of the twins was moody and quiet in his brother’s absence and it made Isaac restless. There was nothing he could do to fix the issue. He couldn’t rewire anything, couldn’t download a new driver to fix the issue. He just had to deal with it until things changed once more.

  Change was in the air; Isaac could feel it like a coming storm made your bones ache. So much had happened in the past weeks that it was really no surprise to anyone. Not only had Luc found himself a pretty, human mate and left their so-called ugly, modular home, but his mate had discovered one of GOE’s dark secrets and brought an entire family of dragons they hadn’t known about out of hiding.