Dragon Fated: A Billionaire Dragon Shifter Romance (Prince of the Other Worlds)

by Kara Lockharte

  “Precisely.”

  It doesn’t matter what they attempt, his dragon told him. The curse cannot be undone.

  “What happens if your dragon escapes while you’re here and not in the Realms?” Mills asked.

  “I…don’t know,” he said, right before his dragon told him, I would open a rift and return, and he blinked.

  Is that something you can do?

  His dragon seemed to ponder this. I believe so.

  Damian frowned. If it could’ve opened a rift to go home, why hadn’t it tried already any of the other times when it’d longed to do so and was almost in control? Are you just telling me that so my friends don’t murder you on sight?

  His dragon laughed at him. I am not afraid of any weapon.

  “Damian?” Mills prompted gently.

  “Sorry,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “If it ever comes out, and you’re sure it’s not me, don’t hesitate.”

  “That’s grim, and not in the cat-sense,” Jamison said.

  “You’ve trained a gun on me before.”

  “Yes, but I have excellent trigger control,” Jamison said, making his metallic hand clack between them.

  “What if we just put you into a box that was a magic dampener?” Mills mused aloud.

  “Like some sort of Ken doll?” Austin asked.

  “No,” Damian said. “I’ll live my life. And we’ll make it work. Or we won’t. But I’m not pausing anything in the interim.” Except for these two days without Andi.

  “It’s a heavy burden,” Max said, the first time the man had spoken since Damian shared his story. He’d taken a spot on the ground, his back against Ryana’s bed, and while Damian couldn’t see his eyes what with the goggles, his weapons master’s lips were in a thin, straight line of concern. Maximillian had been part of his father’s court from before his mother’s time, until after the dragon’d taken him. He’d seen his father change, losing himself bit by bit over time to his dragon, until there was no more human left. “We’ll help you lift it, as best we can.”

  Damian nodded. “Thank you.”

  Zach stroked the dark stubble on his chin. “How did your father die? I mean, presumably, the heart was in the box over there as well, right?”

  “He died in combat, as a dragon. It was at the end of a war that he’d started as a human, and to be honest, I don’t even know if his dragon had a stake in things so much as it wanted an excuse to take a few thousand humans on.” Damian and Ryana had toured the charred pit that’d been all that remained after his father’s dragon had immolated itself to secure victory, taking out most of the magicians left on the opposing side. “I had hoped that distance would forestall things. Which it did seem to—”

  “Until your sister messed up by bringing it over,” Austin said, giving his erstwhile patient a worried look.

  “To be fair, she probably didn’t know I was going to save her,” Damian said. Although she must’ve been hoping—there was a reason Lyka had come to his mirror for help. “I don’t suppose you can talk to the bird?” he asked Grim, who had been creeping up on the cheese plate Mills had set down, scanning for crumbs.

  Grimalkin fell to sit on his haunches. “I tried, Damian, but she’s been very close-beaked. Thinking about whatever happened over there—it hurts her.”

  “Understood,” Damian told him, and then to everyone else, “Grim says it’s a no-go.”

  Max angled his limbs to rest his hands on his knees. “I still wish we knew what’d happened,” he said.

  “Me too,” Damian said. “But I really just want her to get better.”

  “What’s to stop us from opening up a mirror and throwing it back? Or launching it into space?” Zach asked.

  Everyone else present looked at Damian expectantly. “It is a sought-after thing, and it cannot be destroyed,” Max said on his behalf. “At least, that’s what your father said, Damian,” he added.

  “Well, we haven’t tried yet,” Mills said.

  Damian realized that this was yet another way that here, on Earth, he was doing the unthinkable. His father had only shown him the Heart once—after his dragon joined him. He didn’t even know which vault of the palace it’d lived in, and here he was, willing to give it over to his five closest friends to experiment on. “My fate is still linked to it. I don’t think I want it destroyed, so much as I want to be unchained. When it was in my stepmother’s control, I could trust she’d keep it guarded, due to our mutual animosity. Now, though….” Could Mills really manage it?

  “Launch it into the sun?” Jamison guessed in hope. “We own rockets—”

  “Anything with enough magical power could open a rift between here and the sun. That’s ninety-two million miles of opportunity, my love,” Mills said, patting Jamison’s knee affectionately. He caught her hand in his and interlaced his fingers with it.

  “So, what’s protecting it now?” Zach asked, doing an excellent job of project managing—even when that project was the object of Damian’s eventual demise. Damian gave him a rueful grin.

  “Grimalkin, and the fact that I’m sure the chaos back home is still evolving. They may not even know it’s gone yet.”

  “I’ve made headway on Ryana’s false-corpse, but if we knew what kind of attack they were under, it would help with authenticity,” Mills said.

  “Won’t they know it’s not her, though?” Damian asked with a squint and watched Mills bite her lips.

  “Not if I do it right,” she answered precisely. “But don’t ask me how yet, please. I’m still working on it.”

  One of his eyebrows quirked up, but he acquiesced to her request. “Okay. But later?”

  “Yes,” she agreed emphatically.

  “Have we gotten any more news from the trackers Andi placed?” Damian asked Jamison. The man closed his eyes for a second.

  “The boat’s parked at the harbor, and the car’s at the airport; both appear to be currently empty. So, nothing useful yet, but they’ve both got a few days of batteries left. I’ll let you know if anything comes in.”

  Damian nodded, then turned to Zach. “And any news from Stella?”

  “About that,” Zach said, giving his brother a dark look.

  “Here it comes,” muttered Austin.

  “I talked with her this evening after we returned. The Hunter we gave her didn’t know much, except that there was an important meeting coming up in two nights. No location, though. He’d only heard it from other Hunters.”

  “I don’t suppose enough of him’s left for us to interrogate ourselves?” Austin asked archly.

  “Doubtful.”

  Damian grunted. Maybe this brief separation from Andi was well-timed—he wouldn’t have to talk her out of coming to stalk Hunters with them.

  “I don’t like the idea of Stella out there on her own,” Zach went on.

  Seeing as Damian currently intimately understood that pain, he nodded. “You want to bring her into the fold?”

  “I do. As for whether she’d accept—”

  “Or whether the rest of us would let her,” Austin said, and Zach frowned at him.

  “She’s a loner. So far. But yes, I’d like to be able to ask.”

  “Is she trustworthy?” Damian asked, steamrolling Austin’s concerns.

  “I think so,” Zach said.

  “She stabbed you!” Austin protested.

  Zach shrugged with a boyish grin. “I survived.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Austin groaned, looking first at Damian, and then over at Mills and Jamison, clearly sitting together while beside him on the couch, before staring at Max. “Max, you and I are the only ones here not going soft.”

  Max quietly pursed his lips and scratched his chin. “No comment.”

  Jamison chuckled, Zach snickered, and Mills outright laughed as Austin groaned and stood, waving all of them toward the door. “Okay. Screw all of y’all. I’m tired. You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.”

  “But we are home,” Mills said, co
nfused, though moving to stand.

  “It’s a saying,” Jamison explained, sweeping the cheese plate up off the floor to follow her. Grimalkin had already licked it clean. The cat bounced back onto the bed and nestled himself in the crook behind Ryana’s knee.

  “Don’t forget I’ve got a board meeting to get magicked up for in two hours, Mills,” Zach said, filing out first.

  “I could never,” the witch told him truthfully.

  “Mills, wait a moment outside, will you?” Damian asked as everyone else made their way out of the room and to their appointed floors. Then he turned to Austin, who was stretching himself back out on the couch. “Thank you for this, by the way.”

  Austin tipped the edge of an imaginary cowboy hat at him and turned toward the bed, eyes only half-lidded.

  Damian met up with Mills in the hall, and she smiled up at him. “Did Andi like her pajamas? I like to think I have fantastic taste in cozy sleepwear.”

  “She did like them. Very much.” He decided not to tell her what he’d done to them, for her sake. “Can you buy her a few extra for me? Also, she needs a purple velvet sectional, although I have no idea what that is.”

  Mills laughed. “I’ll have Jamison pull up her apartment’s blueprints for measurements and send one to her.”

  “Thanks,” he said.

  She turned, walking for the stairs, assuming her audience was over, and he hesitated. There was already so much on her plate, he felt selfish asking her for more, and yet….

  She turned around. “You can just ask it, you know.”

  “Is my aura a needy red right now?” Damian asked, gesturing to himself.

  “No. It’s more of a guilty green,” she told him. “Whatever it is, I won’t be mad at you, I promise.”

  Damian started walking with her until they were in the entry hall, and he could sit down on the stairs. Mills sat a few stairs up from him, moving the long braid of her hair, so it cascaded down the stairs beside her like a sturdy rope. “I was thinking when you were talking earlier—”

  “I am sorry about Michael, Damian, really,” Mills said.

  “No, I get that. Michael wouldn’t have wanted you to injure yourself to save him. Neither would Jamison, though,” he said, giving her a stern look. “But let’s not cross any bridges before their time; it was more about the breathing thing. Andi was very unhappy the other day when I had to go and leave her behind. And, as she took the time to remind me in exquisite detail, while there are a million ways that she could accidentally die when it comes to me, there’s a million and one.”

  Mills nodded as he went on.

  “So, I was wondering if there was something you could create or spell for me, to give to her—some sign of life. Just so that she knows I’m okay, even if I’m not with her.”

  Mills picked up her braid and started playing with the end of it, pondering. “What were you envisioning?”

  “Something small. Smaller, the better, probably. And easily carried.”

  She nodded deeply. “Jewelry, then. And what are you willing to trade for it?”

  He blinked. The question was very unlike her. “I can pay you, obviously, but—”

  “I mean life-wise,” she interrupted him. “A spell would just be like one of Jamison’s trackers. Eventually, it’d run out of charge. If you really want her to know how you are, you will have to give up a piece of yourself to it.” She paused to search for words. “It is a strange kind of magic you’re asking for, Damian. On the verge of dark, almost, only you’re doing it out of love…and don’t tell me you don’t love her. Remember who it is you’re talking to. No, this is the kind of thing that has to be freely given, and in whatever quantity you deem fit. It’s not prescriptive…it’s unquantifiable.”

  Damian considered this. “When you say a piece of me…what precisely do you mean?”

  “That’s also up to you. It’s the kind of thing you’ll know when you know.” She waved her hands with the braid in them. “I hate to be so vague, but this is that kind of magic.”

  Damian grunted. “How long would it take you to make?”

  “A day or so. My part’s easy, really; yours, not so much.” Mills stood as he did, giving his chest a pat. “Just don’t give her your actual heart. We need that to stay inside of you.”

  “I wouldn’t want to curse her,” he said with a snort.

  Mills inhaled to say something, and then he could almost watch her swallow her words, as her friendly smile went close-lipped and tight. There was an instant in which he could’ve pressed her to make her say the thing she was sorely tempted to, but he had a feeling he already knew what it was.

  That regarding himself and Andi and curses, it was already too late.

  * * *

  She should’ve known that without Damian around, the nightmares would come back. That might’ve been the only thing that could’ve changed her mind earlier if only she’d remembered. But she hadn’t, so she woke up that morning after hours of being chased in her dreams by a half-skinned hound, sweaty and exhausted and alone.

  She heard Sammy puttering and the scent of brewing coffee wafted underneath her door. Andi got out of bed and went to a dresser to pull out an older pair of pajamas that she now knew were sadly insufficient and went out to see her roommate.

  Sammy was surprised to see her. Her curly red hair was already up in a professional bun, and she was wearing her work uniform. “I didn’t make enough coffee for three, missy,” her roommate said, pouring the remnants of a pot into her thermos.

  Andi waved her down. “He had to go home, and I should go back to sleep.”

  “You’re working tonight?”

  “Yeah. My schedule’s all jacked up,” she said, stifling a yawn.

  “Did you sleep at all last night?” Sammy teased. “Before he went home, that is. Wait,” her eyes narrowed, “did he go home just so he wouldn’t have to let me drive?”

  Andi snorted. “There was sleeping. And there was not sleeping. And I’m going to get us a replacement couch, I swear, and the drives are still on…as far as I know.”

  “You don’t sound definitive,” Sammy said, screwing her thermos cap on.

  “I’m…not?”

  “Oh my God, Andi,” Sammy groaned, already mourning the loss of her time in Damian’s Pagani. “What happened?”

  “He’s super intense?” Andi said, wincing. “And he’s used to getting his way.”

  “Uh, that can be kinda hot. Assuming he knows what he’s doing.” Sammy gave her a look.

  “It is, and he does, but…look, can we just hang out tonight before I go to work? Together? Like in the olden days of last month when boys still sucked?”

  Sammy fished her phone out of her pocket. “I had plans for tonight, but this is me, canceling them for you,” she said, quickly texting someone.

  “Thank you. I owe you.”

  “Plus, you go into work at ten. I can totally swing by his place afterward,” she went on, grinning.

  Andi grinned back. “I’ll take whatever I can get of you.”

  She waited until Sammy headed out the door and stood on their stoop, waving like a 1950’s housewife until she got into her car and safely headed out. Then Andi scanned the parking lot for sleek black cars holding insane cannibalistic passengers, and finding none, she went back inside and locked the door.

  She thought about plopping down on the couch, but that’d only bring back memories, plus probably make her smell like dragon. She did flip over the couch cushions. It was the least she could do until she got a new one.

  It wasn’t like Netflix could distract her with anything weirder than her own life right now, besides. She went back to her bedroom and pulled out the photo album, bringing it out to the kitchen counter and its much better light and began at the beginning of the photos.

  It was definitely her mother. In all of them.

  She’d always thought her mom was more mercurial than the mothers of her friends, but she assumed it was because of the different ways
they’d been raised. She knew her mom was from a different generation and a different country…but now, a different century, too? Andi looked at the photos, feeling hopelessly lost. This page featured her mother standing in a cheongsam amidst a pile of skulls, her hair bunned up with beautiful floral hair pins, and strange pointed jewelry covering her last two fingers like she was some sort of evil-goth Chinese princess from one of the historical kung fu dramas they used to watch together.

  Only, this had been her mother’s actual life. No wonder she’d made fun of Andi for going briefly vegan in seventh grade.

  But even though Andi knew it was her mother in each of the photos, none of them had the feel of her, until they got into modern times—until Danny and Andi started showing up in them as well. The photos then were looser, not as well framed, far more casual and blurry—but they were happier. All of them. The skulls were gone. Was that because her mother had had a change of heart, or if whatever it was they’d been killing was gone?

  Without her mother to ask, her uncle was her next best bet. She had too much history with Danny to even think straight when she saw him, plus he had far too personal a stake in whatever the fuck this was. Whereas, yes, maybe her uncle had been a liar her whole life too, but seeing him didn’t instantly send her into a blind rage.

  Yet.

  They were probably getting there, though.

  Andi sank back on the bar stool she was sitting on. After she got her answers—answers that she was almost certain not to like—what would be left? Arguably, it wasn’t even worth finding answers out if she knew it was all going to anger her. Curiosity killed the cat and all that, but at least the cat fucking knew.

  She sighed, slammed the photo album shut, and carried it back into the bedroom with her, putting it carefully onto her desk before taking an Ambien and crawling back into bed. She set her phone’s alarm for an aspirational eight hours later. There was no way she’d sleep that much, especially if she kept having nightmares, but since she was working tonight she had to try.

  Just as she was about to drift off under the Ambien’s spell, her phone screen flashed with a text.