Sacrificed to the Dragon (28 page)

Since Dacian was already several feet ahead of her, Evie tried her best to both walk quickly and sway her hips in what she hoped was a seductive manner. Her two-inch heels were less than ideal for a lengthy walk to the main living area, but first impressions were important. She would gladly risk sore feet if it meant Stonefire’s leader would take notice of her.

Of course, her feet were the least of her problems. Evie had sacrificed a social life, hobbies, and even love to earn a place with the DDA, but those sacrifices now paled in comparison to the task that lay before her. In order to stay alive, she would have to give up not only her body, but also her freedom and her future.

~~~

Bram Moore-Llewellyn attempted to sign his name on the last bit of paperwork for the DDA inspection when he heard a “whoosh” followed by a little baby hand slapping against his desk. With a sigh, he tossed his pen aside and turned wee baby Murray around in his lap before raising him to eye level. “What did we say about knocking papers off the desk?”

Murray looked at him with wide eyes and drooled.

Bram chuckled. “Right, I know you’re bored, but the inspector should be here any time now and she needs to see you’re doing well.”

The baby waved his hands around and started to squirm, clearly not caring about any DDA inspection. Bram lifted the boy above his head and said, “Just another half hour or so, lad, and I’ll drop you off at my brother’s house where you can play with my niece. You like Ava, remember?”

Murray made some incomprehensible baby noises and Bram took that as a yes. He lowered Murray down and cuddled him against his chest. His inner dragon pushed to the front of his mind and said,
We should keep this young. He is ours.

He wanted to agree with his dragon, especially since Bram’s chances of having children were less than one percent because of infertility issues, but it wasn’t what was best for the lad.
He deserves someone with time to take care of him. We are too busy.

His dragon huffed and Bram resisted a sigh. He’d been having this inner argument for months now. Taking care of a clan with nearly three hundred dragon-shifters was enough of a challenge, but it became infinitely harder to manage his people when his dragon became grumpy and uncooperative.

So much for Bram being bloody good at controlling his beast.

There was a knock on the door and Bram looked down at Murray. “All right, lad, I bet that’s the inspector. Be on your best behavior, okay?”

While all the boy did was blink as he gnawed on his fist, Bram hoped the undertone of dominance in his voice would do the baby some good. Like most young, Murray had good days and bad.

Bram hoped today was one of the good ones or no doubt the inspector would make his life hell. Hate was too tame a word for what Bram felt about being beholden to the British government for his clan’s survival.

He reached the door and opened it to find one of his guards, Dacian, filling his front stoop. Bram nodded to signal all was well, and Dacian stepped aside. His actions revealed a red-haired human female wearing a light blue blouse that hugged her small breasts, and her wide hips were encased in a black form-fitting skirt. Her dark blue eyes reminded him of the Irish Sea.

As she glanced between him and the baby, surprise flickered and Bram fought a smile. According to his contacts, this woman had been dealing with Marcus, Skyhunter’s bastard leader, for years and would never expect a clan leader to answer a door with a baby in his arms.

However, the surprise in her eyes was gone in an instant, replaced with a smile and a look of heat that took both the man and the dragon by surprise. Even his cock twitched at the fiery look.

The redheaded female gave him a slow once over and he came back to his senses. Sure, she was pretty and plump with striking dark blue eyes, but he didn’t need this right now. Between selecting a male from his clan to breed with the next human female sacrifice and doubling his clan’s efforts against the recent spate of dragon hunter attacks, he didn’t have time to bat off a female’s attentions. When Bram wanted sex, he found it. He didn’t need a mate.

His inner beast growled.
Liar.

Ignoring his dragon, Bram shuttered his face, hugged Murray closer to his chest, and motioned with his head. His voice was full of dominance when he said, “I have the necessary paperwork inside. Follow me.”

He turned without another word. The sooner he finished this interview, the sooner the DDA inspector could leave and become some other male’s problem.

——————————————

Want to read the rest?
Seducing the Dragon: Boxed
is now available on all major online retailers.

Check out an excerpt from
Reclaiming the Wolf
(Cascade Shifters #1):

Chapter One

Cascade Mountains, Eleven Years Ago

Kaya Alexie kept crouched low behind the thick underbrush of the forest, careful to keep still in her human form, making no more noise than what it took to breathe. If the male cougar-shifter found her before she reached the target, she would lose, and she needed to win if she wanted to claim her prize. Only then could she get what she’d wished for these past few months.

She strained her ears for the slightest sound that might give away the male’s hiding spot, but even though her hearing wasn’t as good as in her wolf form, all she could hear was the rustling of the leaves and branches and the small scurrying of the ground mice. Apart from the occasional bird cry, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

Maybe, just maybe, she had finally lost him.

Not that she would be celebrating anytime soon. She’d been secretly dating Sylas Murray, the cougar-shifter from a neighboring clan, for the last six months and she was well aware of how skilled he could be. His tracking skills were damn good, and definitely her biggest obstacle to winning.

Still, she wasn’t too bad herself. She could outsmart the other eighteen-year-old wolf-shifters in her pack when it came to tracking and evading drills; it was only a matter of time before she could beat Sylas too.

Maybe even today.

A bird chirped and then flew right past her. She looked up into the trees, but since the sun had set half an hour ago, it was too dark to make out any recognizable shapes. If Sy had made his way into the branches up above, the sneaky cat would use his feline grace to pounce on her. She needed to move.

She itched to shift into a wolf and feel the wind against her fur, but they’d agreed to stay human to make the challenge more difficult. Of course, moving her nearly six-foot tall body through the underbrush without making a sound was no easy feat. Autumn was nearly here, which meant the thick foliage of the understory had turned into a maze of sharp sticks.

She finally broke through the last of the trees at the edge of the clearing and felt a sense of giddiness. Victory was nearly hers for the taking. If she could just make it to the big rock outcropping on the far side, she would win, and Sy would have to give her anything she wanted. That was their deal.

And she knew exactly what she wanted to ask for.

She was tired of looking over her shoulder or finding a way to sneak past her clan’s guards and sentries to spend a few stolen hours with her boyfriend. She wanted to show off Sy to the world, and if she won tonight, she was going to invite him to her clan’s autumn celebration next week.

Sy accompanying her to the celebration and facing the scrutiny of her entire clan was a big step. Interspecies pairings were still considered taboo among most shifter clans, Kaya’s included. Yet, if Sy felt as she thought he felt about her, he wouldn’t care about her clan’s objections and old-fashioned bullshit. He would stand with her against anything.

But she was getting ahead of herself. First, she needed to make it across the wide-open clearing and be the first to touch the rock.

Kaya sprinted as fast as her long legs would carry her. She had ten feet to go when she heard a cougar growl behind her.

This was the border between her clan and his, and her heart skipped a beat as a million questions and worries raced through her head. Had someone from Sy’s clan discovered them? What would Sy do if they had?

Stop being a chicken shit, and see who’s following you.
She took a deep breath and looked over her shoulder, only to find a naked Sy chasing after her. She stumbled at the sight of his broad chest and strong, lean muscles, but Kaya quickly regained her wits. They had both started this game dressed in clothes and his nakedness could only mean one thing: Sylas Murray was a cheating bastard who had shifted into his cougar form back in the forest.

Despite months of these little games, he’d never cheated before. His shift and disregard for their “human only” rule signaled that he was afraid she could finally beat him.

Her inner wolf growled at his deceit and her human-half agreed with that sentiment.

Well, fuck him. I’m still going to win.
She pushed her body harder. It was just a few more feet to the rock, and now more than ever, she was determined to beat her man.

~~~

Sylas Murray noticed Kaya’s glare and realized he might actually lose. The woman was beyond determined to beat him.

Normally, he loved the way she challenged him and tried to outsmart him. She being a wolf-shifter and seeing the world differently because of the wolf inside of her was part of the reason he loved her.

From raising her chin in defiance to her grand plans on how to improve relations between shifters and humans, he loved all of it. On top of that, just a hint of her scent drove both him and his inner cougar crazy. His body was always on fire for her, to the point he spent most of his time with a hard cock and a blood-deprived brain.

That was why he needed to win tonight because if he did, he could finally claim Kaya as his own. He was pretty confident Kaya would say yes to his request and allow him to finally make love to her.

As Kaya picked up her pace and raced across the clearing toward the victory rock, Sy drew on the last of his strength to run as fast as he could before he jumped and just barely caught her waist with his hands. As they tumbled to the ground, Sy was careful to take most of the impact. She might be tough, but the thought of her getting hurt because of him made his inner cat snarl.

Once they stopped tumbling and he managed to get Kaya pinned face-down on the ground, he leaned down and nuzzled her neck. He took a deep inhale of her womanly scent, and his already hard cock turned to stone.

Since he wasn’t able to pound into Kaya’s wet heat just yet, he settled for nipping her earlobe. When she didn’t make the little noises of pleasure like usual, he knew she was angry. He wished he could shift into his cougar form and purr to calm her down, a trick he’d learned early on, but she would bolt the second he released her.

He nuzzled her neck again and gently kissed the place where her neck met her shoulder before he said, “Losing isn’t the end of the world, Kaya-love. You nearly beat me this time.”

Her body went tense below him. She turned her head and narrowed her warm dark chocolate eyes. “I would’ve beaten you if you hadn’t cheated, Sylas Murray.” Her voice went low. “Now, let me go.”

He wasn’t afraid of her cool, simmering anger; he was used to her notorious temper. He simply laced his fingers through hers and squeezed. She tried to tug her hand loose, but with him on top of her, she didn’t have enough range to accomplish it. “Cede defeat, and I’ll let you up.”

She growled. “Why should I? You’re the one who cheated. By all accounts, you should cede.”

He decided truth was his best option. He gently bit her ear and whispered, “I wanted you too badly to play by the rules. Will you cede, Kaya-love? All I want is you naked and willing beneath me.”

Kaya remained motionless under him, but he could smell her arousal.
She wants me, too.

But he had hurt the woman’s pride, and he needed to ease it a little before she would acknowledge her desire.

He’d planned to tell her tonight anyway, but if he told her he loved her, she just might let him off the hook. While he’d said the words a thousand times in his head, he’d been afraid to say them out loud.

Of course, some people, such as his twin brother Kian, would say telling a woman you loved her when she was angry and face down in the dirt might not be the best strategy. But nothing between him and Kaya had ever followed the rules. His gut said it was time.

He lifted his head and looked his wolf-shifter in the eyes as he said, “Please, Kaya. I want to show you how much you mean to me. I love you.”

~~~

Kaya’s anger eased a little as she heard the words she’d yearned to hear for weeks, if not months, and a plan started to form in her head. There was a chance they might both get what they wanted.

Still, she wasn’t about to let her cougar off easy. If she said it was okay to cheat now, the male would do it again. She was going to make him work for it this time. “I don’t know if I should believe you. For all I know, you’re just trying to get into my pants.”

He moved one of his hands from her back to her cheek. As his fingers stroked her skin, it became harder and harder to stay mad at him.