A Fate Forbidden (Great Plains Dragon Feud Book 3) Read online

  A Fate Forbidden

  Emilia Hartley

  All Rights Reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, places, businesses and incidents are from the author’s imagination, or they are used fictitiously and are definitely fictionalized. Any trademarks or pictures herein are not authorized by the trademark owners and do not in any way mean the work is sponsored by or associated with the trademark owners. Any trademarks or pictures used are specifically in a descriptive capacity.

  Copyright 2021 © Emilia Hartley

  Emilia’s Heartlies

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  Contents

  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

  What’s Next In the Great Plains Dragon Feud Series?

  More Emilia Hartley Series

  Heartlies Box Sets

  Thank you!

  1

  Jensen Barnes knew not to stick his nose where it didn’t belong. This fight between Logan Montoya and the current Montoya clan leader was one of those places. The moment Quincy Montoya showed up with a bone to pick, Jensen said goodbye to his sister and slipped out the back door.

  He rolled his shoulders and sucked in a deep breath. Both his sister and his cousin had done the unthinkable. They’d chosen Montoya mates despite the feud that still lingered between their two families. Had Callum shown up, Jensen would have stepped up to defend the girls from a fellow Barnes dragon.

  But the fight about to start behind him had nothing to do with the feud. This was Montoya business. Logan and Quincy could duke it out without Jensen’s help.

  The house shook behind him. Logan’s voice rattled every window. Jensen took that as a signal to leave. He leapt down from the porch and pulled his shirt over his head. The November air couldn’t chill him. He had a furnace burning inside him at all times.

  The fire burned as bright as his dragon’s lust for adventure. He let that beast unfurl from him. Scales flowed over his skin. His tail lashed through the air and thumped the ground. He stretched his wings, testing them a few times. Once he settled into his larger form, he took off at a gallop and flung open his wings.

  The air lifted him into the sky. The night stars winked around him. If he had his sister’s scale pattern, he would have blended into the dark canvas above. Instead, his dalmatian spots were dark against white scales. That meant his flight path steered clear of the town proper, which he didn’t mind. Jensen was good at avoiding conflict.

  He wanted nothing to do with the mating trend that had started. Though he was happy for Baylee and Ember, he didn’t want to fall for a Montoya girl. That was more trouble than it was worth these days. The foundation of everything they knew had been shaken, and both families were feeling it. Jensen wasn’t about to make things worse.

  Jensen didn’t have to worry about that for a long while. He wasn’t going to let his mother match him up with anyone, and he wasn’t going to fall for a Montoya. His future was wide open and free. Perhaps he should plan a trip to get away from this chaos for a while. He wouldn’t have to worry about Montoyas or Barnes dragons on the top of a mountain peak in Colorado.

  A dark form moved below. Jensen circled around, trying to figure out what he was looking at. The lower he circled, the more the form became clear. The red scales came into focus. Wings spread wide, the lithe dragon leapt from one crushed pumpkin to an unscathed one. It crumpled beneath the dragon’s weight.

  This wasn’t Ember, Jensen realized. Ember had red markings, but this dragon was red from head to toe. He landed nearby and watched, intrigued by the Montoya dragon trespassing on Barnes territory.

  The Montoya dragon froze.

  Jensen cocked his head before realizing she’d sighted him. She lowered herself to the ground and backed away. His curiosity piqued, Jensen hopped forward. The dragon panicked and tripped over her own tail to get away.

  She fell on her face and stayed there.

  That wasn’t enough to knock a dragon out, so Jensen circled around her and nudged her with his nose. She was, in fact, out cold. He sat back on his haunches and stared at her in confusion.

  What the hell?

  River Montoya had fucked up.

  The black and white dragon had caught her on his territory, and her first instinct was to play dead? Well, that hadn’t been her first instinct. She’d wanted to run, but in her panic, she’d tripped over her own damned tail and landed on her face.

  Her embarrassment and fear had shut off all common sense and left her where she’d landed. Eyes closed, she felt the Barnes dragon nudge her. Her heartrate skyrocketed. Could he hear the hitch in her breath? Could he tell that she was faking it?

  River waited for a chance to make a break for it, but his scent remained close by. She didn’t dare crack open an eye to see where he was. If he caught her faking it then…

  Oh, her mother had warned her not to do stupid things like this. River had been warned time and time again that the Barnes dragons could easily overpower her. As part of a set of triplets, River had been born small and weak. It meant she had to be more careful. She was supposed to fly with her brother and sister, not go out on her own.

  She knew better!

  River took a chance and opened one eye. She leapt back, startled to find the Barnes dragon nose to nose with her. He rose from the ground and tilted his head inquisitively—an odd gesture for a dragon trying to chase an interloper off his territory.

  She paused, confused. He lowered his front end and lifted his haunches into the air. Her heart jumped into her throat. River started to turn, getting ready to run, when the Barnes dragon…wiggled.

  He shook his haunches back and forth like a cat getting ready to pounce. She dropped to the ground when he leapt over her and landed on a pumpkin. The gourd flattened beneath his massive claws, and chunks of pumpkin splattered her face.

  A bubble of relieved laughter would have spilled out of her had dragons been capable of laughter. She licked the pumpkin from her face and stood. The Barnes dragon twisted and jumped to the next pumpkin, as if this were a game of the-floor-is-lava.

  River had no way of processing what she saw. All her life, she’d been told that Barnes dragons would rip out her throat if they caught her. The thrill of playing in the Barnes pumpkin patch had made her blood pump. It was usually just enough thrill without too much of a risk since River only ever saw Cash’s mate out this way.

  How could she have been so stupid, though? River knew better. She knew not to even come this way. It wasn’t like her to be defiant. River had lived her life according to her mother’s wishes. All Alice Montoya had ever wanted was safety for her children.

  Yet, River had thrown it all away for a moment’s thrill.

  At least, this dragon man didn’t seem interested in starting a war. He playfully pounced on his own crops before looking back at her. He seemed like a guy doing tricks in front of his crush. But she didn’t know this man. She didn’t even know which Barnes dragon she was interacting with.


  It certainly wasn’t Theo, who had disappeared after getting caught in the middle of her uncle’s fight with his fae ex-wife. It could have been Adrien, but he seemed too solemn for this kind of interaction. She knew Callum by sight because all Montoya dragons were warned to steer clear of the clan’s enforcer.

  That left Jensen, Gale’s new brother-in-law.

  River had never paid much attention to him. Not because she found him unappealing, but because she had only ever seen the Barnes as threats. She never saw him as much of a threat, compared to Callum or Theo.

  What was Jensen doing out here, though? She knew better than to pry into matters that weren’t her business, but her curiosity got the better of her. She pounced after him, trying to catch up.

  The dragon turned and lowered, shaking his rear again. Fear spiked through her system. He jumped and landed right in front of her. Confused, she looked down at him just as he rose and rubbed his muzzle against hers.

  The interaction made her heart tumble out of control. She stood there, completely unable to function. The dragon, however, went about his business and squashed another pumpkin. River glanced back at him. She found him watching her, waiting for her to join him.

  They did this for two more hours. Like a game of leapfrog for dragons, they flattened the whole field without sharing a single word with one another. When exhaustion started to set into her body, she didn’t want the night to end. She fought back against the wave of fatigue trying to slow her down.

  He noticed, because he approached her and nudged her with his nose. She realized he was gently pushing her back in the direction of the Montoya territory. When she hesitated, his tail thumped the ground. He licked her nose, his rough tongue dragging over her snout.

  River blinked, surprised.

  Before she could stop him, he turned and lifted into the sky. She watched this mysterious man leave. He wasn’t really all that mysterious. She had an idea of who he was. What she didn’t know was why he’d been so kind to her.

  Had his sister’s mate bond with Gale softened Jensen’s opinion of Montoya dragons? Or had he simply been in a good mood tonight and spared her? She didn’t think it had anything to do with the second idea.

  This felt…different.

  River opened her wings and flew back home. Tired as she was, she kept dropping out of the air. By the time she got home, she shifted mid-air and landed on the manor’s roof, so she could crawl through the window and straight into bed. Sleep refused to come, though.

  The brush of her sheets against her bare skin made her come alive. It was all at once too much and not enough. She craved the touch of a man’s hands like never before. River had eschewed men out of fear of her mother’s reaction, but now she wanted to throw caution to the wind and find the kind man who’d kept her company tonight.

  River wanted to see if what she felt was real or if the rush of attention would fade. But she didn’t know how to do that without attracting her mother’s attention. River had lived under her mother’s hawkish watch for too long. Sneaking out to the Barnes pumpkin patch was one thing, but meeting up with a Barnes dragon was a new level of rebellion that River had no experience with.

  She shook her head and turned onto her side. Though her skin still ached, she pushed away thoughts of the Barnes man. She couldn’t…

  He wouldn’t…

  2

  Sleep had escaped everyone under the roof. Jensen had spent half the night awake, his thoughts hopping between his sister’s predicament and the red dragon woman. Both Jensen and his mother, Marjorie, wandered the house like zombies the next morning. Even as the day slipped into the afternoon, it seemed like neither could recover.

  Jensen watched his mother’s lips form Baylee’s name before she caught herself. Her face fell, brows crashing together in disappointment. He knew that meant his mother’s machinations would turn toward him, but he didn’t want to run away and leave her all alone. The house was already too hollow without Baylee’s chaotic energy.

  Though Marjorie Barnes had approved of Baylee’s relationship in the end, Jensen could see that the mate bond had taken a toll on their mother. It was less about who Baylee loved and more about the control Marjorie had once held.

  He watched Marjorie try to relearn how to interact with the world. Every time she began to ask for something, she would stop and shake her head, then go about it herself. More often than not, he took the task away from her and flashed a broad smile to assure her that he didn’t mind helping.

  Today, his thoughts kept pulling him away from the present. They brought him back to the night when he and the strange red dragon demolished the last of the Barnes pumpkin patch. He missed this woman he knew nothing about. His beast craved more of her scent. Every time he came across anything pumpkin, his heart would do a backflip in his chest.

  Marjorie touched his shoulder. “Are you alright today, darling?”

  He shook himself and snapped out of his thoughts. Once again, he pasted on that big smile. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

  His mother scowled. Her lips twisted to the side. She was his mother. She always saw right through him.

  But she didn’t say anything. Instead, she went on about the match she was trying to make for his cousin, Adrien. Marjorie had long since given up on Theo. If Cash thought he was feral, then Theo was downright monstrous. The fight Theo had broken up had taken a toll on him, one that no one seemed able to break through.

  Adrien, on the other hand, was fair game to Marjorie.

  She’d been hard at work on making this match. Jensen suspected it was a welcome distraction. He watched his mother make phone call after phone call to the other dragon clans across the country. If Jensen mated with anyone, then the house might feel hollow to her.

  So long as Jensen kept his head down and his nose out of the business of others—mostly his sister and her crusade to end the feud—then he could stick around and make sure nothing else changed.

  But Marjorie set the phone down and smiled at her son. Jensen paused, a dripping pickle halfway to his mouth. It was making a mess on the floor, but he used the toe of his sock to clean it up after popping the pickle into his mouth.

  His mother scowled. “That’s not what socks are for.”

  “It worked, didn’t it?”

  Her sigh was one that he’d heard time and time again in his life. It made him smile. Things almost felt normal. But the silence settled in again. It reminded him that his mother had something on her mind.

  Jensen was pretty sure he knew what it was.

  “No,” he said before she could bring it up.

  “You don’t even know what I was going to say!” She laughed. “What if I was going to suggest ordering pizza tonight? Now you’re going to miss out on breadsticks, and it’s all your fault.”

  “I can order my own breadsticks,” Jensen said, plucking his phone from his pocket. He opened the delivery app and added his favorites to the cart just to prove a point.

  His mother couldn’t make a match for him. If she did, then she would have to stay here all by herself. Jensen wouldn’t have to go far. As a male dragon, he got to stay with his namesake clan when he married. His mate would have to integrate into the Barnes family. But that would leave the house empty save for Marjorie.

  “Hold off on matchmaking.” Jensen finished placing his dinner order and looked up over his phone. “Wait until Baylee starts having kids. Then I can leave knowing that you’ll have a screaming dragonling or two running through the halls while I’m gone.”

  Marjorie clucked her tongue. “You don’t have to stick around here for me. If you let your dear old mother hold you back from living your life, I’ll be tempted to smother you with my love, and you’ll never get to leave.”

  She joked, but there was a bit of truth to it. His mother had never known the love of a mate. She’d given everything she had to her kids. Now, they were leaving. He suspected she had to fight every instinct in order to let them go.

  “
I don’t want to date right now,” Jensen said. “There’s too much going on all the time. I don’t have the energy to handle a woman and a war.”

  But his thoughts tumbled backwards again. He thought of the red dragon and wondered what she looked like in her human form. Would her hair be red? Would it tumble down her back, hiding her pale and freckled skin so that he had to sweep it aside to count the constellations?

  When he snapped back to reality, his mother grinned wide. “You say you’re not interested in dating, but I know that look on your face. There’s a woman on your mind right now.”

  He shook his head. “I’m not talking about this with my mother.”

  Jensen wanted to maintain the balance. His sister’s romance had turned their worlds upside down. Sometimes, it felt like nothing he did could ever make things go back to the way they were.

  He knew now that the things he’d said about some of the Montoyas had been unfounded. They didn’t deserve the hatred that had been instilled in Jensen. But he had reservations about being pulled into the crumbling state of the Montoya clan.

  That meant staying out of the fights at his sister’s house. It also meant staying far, far away from the red dragon woman.

  3

  River hadn’t seen the Barnes dragon in days, much to her disappointment. She’d really hoped to run into him again to see if that spark of infatuation would flare hot again. Her girlish fantasies wouldn’t come true, though.