The Spark of the Dragon's Heart: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Fantasy Romance (Harem of Fire Book 1)

by Willa Hart

  The early morning traffic on the 10 had died down, which made the drive relatively quick and quite pleasant. If the rain that was threatening had started falling, no doubt the entire freeway would have been jammed up with crashes, but only a few errant raindrops had hit the windshield. Danic bobbed his head to the gentle sounds of Jason Mraz and Adele, while I tried not to giggle. I generally preferred hip hop, but at least it wasn’t ranchera.

  When we pulled into Belevedere Bar’s parking lot, it was all but deserted being so early in the morning. I prayed at least the manager was in, getting ready for the pre-lunch rush.

  Danic once again opened my door for me, giving me a hand down out of his rig. As gentlemanly as he acted toward me, I sensed his raw emotion, power, and strength resting like a sleeping beast just under the surface, ready to be roused for a fight at any moment. I had to admit I found that power and strength unnervingly sexy.

  Instead of music blaring like the last time I’d visited “Bleed” Bar, the place was dead quiet. A single older guy stood behind the counter, counting cash. He quickly stashed it under the counter and gave us a wary appraisal.

  “Don’t open for another twenty minutes,” he said brusquely, clearly worried we were there to rob him.

  I pressed a hand to Danic’s, silently trying to communicate that he should stay put while I talked to the guy. To my surprise, he did just that as I approached the counter, making sure to keep my hands visible and a smile on my face.

  “Hi, I’m a friend of Crystal’s. She here yet?”

  The manager relaxed visibly and returned my smile. “Sorry, Crystal had to go out of town to take care of a sick relative.”

  What a relief! She’d taken our advice and got the hell out of Dodge before the Romanian dragon went back to finish what he’d started.

  “Oh, that’s too bad,” I said, pretending to look worried. “I hope everything’s okay. Thanks!”

  I grabbed Danic’s hand and led him from the bar. His fingers wrapped around mine and tingles spread up my arm and throughout my body. We exchanged shy smiles as we made our way to the SUV, and when he again opened the door for me, I couldn’t help feel as if we were in some cheesy ‘50s romance movie.

  Danic was really different from his brothers. His emotions — good and bad — simmered just under the surface, ready to explode at a moment’s notice, yet he was always the gentleman with me. So charming, so hot!

  The terrain became more beautiful and more dangerous as the SUV snaked its way up the mountain. We rode along in silence for a while longer, me sneaking peeks at his bulging biceps as he gripped the wheel. Desperate to distract myself from his ripped physique, I tried to engage him in conversation.

  “This probably won’t come as a surprise, but I don’t really know much about your history with Max.”

  In his deep sigh, I heard sadness. “Max all but raised us after our parents died. All five of us.”

  “I’m really sorry,” I said, reaching out to lay a hand on his shoulder.

  He glanced down at it, then at me, before returning his attention to the road. A smile played at his lips.

  “If you don’t mind me asking, how did they die?” I asked. I’d wanted to know ever since I’d learned about them, but no one ever seemed eager to tell me, least of all Max.

  Those lips pressed into a thin line. “Same battle took them all. My brothers and I were old enough we could have survived on our own, but the twins were just fledglings.” He glanced my way to make sure I understood. “Little kids.”

  I nodded for him to continue.

  “Max took us in and treated us like his own sons. It’s a kindness we’ll never be able to repay. Really, above and beyond. That’s why the last five years have been so hard on us.”

  I’d never stopped to think about how Max’s nephews felt about their falling out. Clearly, Max hadn’t been the only one to suffer.

  “He raised you all on his own?” I asked, wondering when Shirley had entered the picture.

  “For a while. Then he met Shirley and fell head over heels. We did too. She really is like a mother to us, even though Ryen, Kellum, and I were on our own by then. Gentle, patient, compassionate, but also stubborn as a mule.”

  I burst out laughing. That was Aunt Shirley, to a T. Danic took his eyes off the road long enough to look over at me, his gray eyes flickering with warmth.

  “Your dad set them up, you know.”

  My mouth dropped open and I gaped at him, most unattractively. Of course the boys would have known my father. He’d been Max’s dragon keeper for a long time. How stupid of me to not connect the dots.

  “I see a lot of him in you,” he added softly.

  I didn’t want to cry, but if he kept on talking about my dad, I’d lose it. Right there on the side of a mountain. He saved me at the last second though.

  “Even after our falling out with Max, Aunt Shirley stayed in touch. She didn’t give a rat’s ass what Max said, she wasn’t about to give up on us. Like I said, stubborn as a mule. Or her husband.”

  I stared out my window for a long time, my eyes not really seeing the scenery change from dry, scruffy shrubs to lush, snow-dusted trees. A question burned inside me, one I’d been wanting to ask since the boys came into my life. The thought of giving voice to it almost felt like a betrayal, but I wasn’t sure to whom.

  “Why did you desert him like that? If you all were really close, how could you just leave him in the lurch?”

  Defensiveness chased away the softness in his face. “It’s complicated.”

  I wasn’t about to be brushed off so easily. “He’s the casique, the leader of your weir, yet all five of you quit on him. Why?”

  “You’re just as stubborn as your aunt,” he groused as he turned on the windshield wipers to clear away the falling snow. “Listen, Max is an obstinate old man who refuses to adapt.”

  “So what if he’s a little old-fashioned? That’s no reason to abandon him.”

  Danic looked over at me, irritation flashing in his eyes. He could scowl all he wanted — I didn’t frighten that easily. Not anymore.

  “You wouldn’t understand,” he said gruffly.

  The incline began to plateau gradually, and the SUV turned down a dirt road through the dense woods. Fresh snow nearly obscured the dark stripes showing other vehicles had passed this way recently. The GPS showed we were almost at Archibald Thrush’s house. If I wanted answers, I’d have to press.

  “Try me.”

  “Leave it be, Favor.”

  His huge hands gripped the wheel tightly, his knuckles going white as he fought to keep his own emotions in check. I crossed my arms in a huff. Talk about stubborn!

  The dense forest became less dense, and a large, beautiful log home appeared in front of us, its roof piled with snow. It was really starting to come down, and the entire scene reminded me of a Christmas card.

  Our tires crunched on the gravel-snow mixture as Danic slowed to a stop in front of the house. A muscle in his jaw flexed again and again and his lips were pressed into a thin, hard line of frustration. Grabbing his coat from the back seat, he gave me a hard look as I reached for my door handle out of spite.

  “Don’t even think about it,” he growled.

  I was tempted to jump out despite his command, but I couldn’t make myself do it. Despite the friction between us, he still wanted to be the perfect gentleman. Regardless, when he whooshed open my door, I gave him my best glare as I took his hand. I even let him help me into my own coat, tension bristling between us like a live power cable.

  When my cold fingers fumbled with the zipper, he brushed them aside and zipped me up himself, the fire in his eyes blazing hot. It really should have been enough to keep me warm in Antarctica, yet…I wanted more. There was no denying it, and there was only one thing to do about it.

  Without weighing the consequences, without so much as thinking, I lunged up onto my tiptoes and pulled his head down to meet mine. The moment our lips touched, my entire body caught fire.
He devoured me. We devoured each other, just like we’d been starving and the other was an all-you-can-eat buffet of our favorite foods. He pulled me closer, and despite our heavy coats, his heart beat in time with mine. Fast and hard, like it might explode.

  Danic’s fingers found my zipper again and pulled it down slowly, but just as the frigid air — not to mention his powerful kisses — hardened my nipples, the sound of a door slamming open caught our attention. Red-lipped and woozy, we both looked toward the sound and froze in surprise, our breath rising into the air in puffs of steam.

  A man stumbled down the porch steps toward us, one hand holding his head, the other reaching out to us. And he was covered in blood.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Help! Help me!”

  Blood sprayed from the man’s mouth when he called out to us. Once my brain managed to process what my eyes were seeing, I realized the poor guy’s face had been beaten to a pulp, and probably the rest of him too. A trail of droplets stained the snow red as he hobbled across the short expanse separating us.

  Danic was the first to react. Neither of us needed special powers to sense danger, and he moved in front of me. It seemed silly to protect me from an old man who’d just had the shit kicked out of him, but I appreciated that he was protective of me.

  Then the real danger emerged. A big, burly dude dressed in worn jeans and a cheap bomber jacket bolted from the front door of the house. He paused for less than two seconds when he saw he had an audience, clenching his blood-covered fists. In that brief moment, he turned his gaze on me and hatefire burned so brightly in his yellow-flashing eyes I thought I might be incinerated.

  It wasn’t until his gaze shot back to the old man — presumably Archibald Thrush — and he bolted after him that I recognized him. The last time I’d seen him, only the dim light from nearby apartments had illuminated his ugly mug, but the way he moved was unmistakable.

  “That’s the guy who attacked Crystal,” I cried, pointing at the man, as if I could have been talking about anyone else.

  Danic didn’t hesitate. Almost before the words were out of my mouth, he darted forward, running at the same breakneck speed as the Romanian dragon. Danic sprinted past Archibald and leaped into the air just as the Romanian did the same. Their bodies collided mid-air and sounded a bit like an explosion. Two unstoppable forces meeting each other head-on.

  I rushed to Archibald and helped him to the other side of the SUV, settling him against the front tire. His face looked like hamburger, the injuries fresh enough they hadn’t even started to bruise. Not that purple would have shown through the blood cascading down his face from the top of his head. I quickly checked his scalp laceration, but I couldn’t see bone. I hoped it was simply one of those wounds that looked far worse than it was.

  “Ver ees eet?” the Romanian bellowed in his heavy Eastern European accent. Where is it? Whatever “it” was, he was hell-bent on getting it.

  Archibald flinched and buried his face in his hands. I’d met enough dragons in my time working with Max to know they weren’t normally a fearful bunch. When he wiped some blood from his face, I realized just how old he was. Or looked, at least. He appeared to be even older than Max, which seemed impossible. He was thin and on the frail side. Even if he somehow managed to shift into his dragon form, the Romanian would have followed suit and still been stronger, not to mention faster.

  The unmistakable sound of a fist meeting bone reached me and I peeked over the hood of the SUV. Danic had landed a solid blow that the Romanian was still stumbling from. A jolt of pride and adrenaline punched through my fear and I almost felt as if I was the one fighting the asshole.

  The Romanian wasn’t stunned for long. He quickly got his bearings and lunged for Danic. But this wasn’t like Ryen’s fight with the brute. Danic was another beast altogether.

  A one-man army.

  Fists flew — mostly Danic’s — followed by grunts and curses — mostly the Romanian’s. Danic had winded the guy, tired him out, so when he pulled back and put all of his considerable strength into his next punch, the Romanian flew off his feet and landed in a drift of snow. Just as Danic jumped on top of him, the Romanian pulled his knees up and out, landing a hard blow on Danic’s abdomen.

  I was the one to wince that time, but I shouldn’t have worried. Danic absorbed the blow and wrestled with the guy until he had one hand twisted up behind the man’s back. Danic held him facing me, and when the brute’s eyes flashed bright yellow and his pupils turned into vertical slits, my blood ran cold.

  “He’s shifting!” I screamed.

  I half-expected him to release the Romanian and jump back, to prepare himself for a dragon fight. Instead, an expression of grisly delight crossed Danic’s face and his own pupils turned to slits inside eyes the color of glowing embers. Together, they grew and broadened, their clothes tearing from their changing bodies, their voices turning from deep-throated shouts to inhuman screams that made my bones shiver.

  Then it happened.

  One second they were half-monsters, reptilian in many ways — scales, claws, elongated snouts — but still visibly human. The next, their bodies ballooned into two impossibly massive, full-sized dragons. Each stood as tall as the two-story house behind them and as wide as Danic’s SUV was long. Every step they took felt like a small earthquake, every murderous roar sounded like certain death.

  For a moment, I feared the ruckus would draw the attention of local law enforcement, but then I remembered how far out in the boonies Archibald lived. There probably weren’t other humans within miles. The seclusion was good for a dragon, but not as good when another dragon wanted to steal from you or beat you to death.

  Once fully shifted, Danic — whose scales were a pale grayish-green that almost matched his human irises — snapped his jaws at the Romanian’s much darker green neck. The beast evaded Danic, but that evasion cost him precious seconds in which Danic threw his bulk at him. The Romanian dragon stumbled sideways until he tripped over a beautiful Rolls Royce and crushed it with his weight. The ground under my feet trembled from the impact.

  “What was that?” Archibald whimpered, too afraid to look for himself. Not that I could blame him.

  I ignored him and edged around the front of the SUV for a better view, my heart thundering in my chest. The Romanian righted himself and screeched his rage to the sky, flickers of fire erupting from his open maw. Danic took the chance to snap at the other guy’s neck again, but the Romanian snapped back.

  The great beasts buried their razor-sharp teeth into each others’ necks, their leathery wings wrapping around the other in what might have looked like a hug had blood not been flying every which way. They were locked in a death grip and I felt utterly helpless.

  I was supposed to be a dragon keeper, dammit, but no matter how hard I focused, I didn’t seem to be helping Danic in the slightest. Of course, I had no idea exactly how I was supposed to help. I just hoped some innate magic would happen. When it didn’t, I screamed out of rage and frustration.

  The Romanian pushed Danic away with enough force to send him flailing backward, then he kicked off from the ground. His leathery wings beat the snow into big eddies around Archibald and me as he jetted into the darkening sky. Danic flew after him in an instant.

  As the two dragons circled each other, gaining altitude with each pass, I marveled at their power and majesty. No wonder medieval artists had been obsessed with portraying them. Too bad they’d failed so miserably. No charcoal pencil or oil paint could capture their magnificence.

  Within seconds of ascending to the heavens, they disappeared into the falling snow. All that remained was the sound of gnashing teeth and roars that any other human would mistake for thunder. I searched the white expanse, but I couldn’t even make out their shadows.

  With the eerie noises drifting down from above, it was no wonder I didn’t hear Archibald until he shouted at me.

  “Miss!”

  I rushed to him. “Are you okay?”

  “
I-I’m c-cold,” he stuttered, his teeth chattering.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” I breathed, helping him up and into the passenger seat.

  I reached across him and started the engine, then cranked up the heater. Thank god Danic had left the keys. Digging around in the glovebox, I found a wad of napkins from a fast food joint.

  “Here,” I said, gently laying the wad on Archibald’s head wound. “This should help stop the bleeding.”

  He took over holding the napkins and watched me with curious eyes while I used a wet wipe from a barbecue joint to clean some of the blood from his face.

  “Who are you?” he asked, his voice thick with shock — or maybe blood.

  “My name’s Favor Fiske, Mr. Thrush. I work for Max Novak.”

  “C-call m-me Archibald,” he said, his voice tight with pain and fear and cold. “T-thank y-you.”

  I glanced to the sky to see lightning — only it wasn’t lightning at all. What streaked through the sky looked like flame throwers, and it terrified me.

  “Don’t thank us yet, sir.”

  The sound of the fight drew closer, so I closed the door to protect the hurt old man as much as possible. Keeping my eyes trained upward, I searched for shadows and fire until two dark figures soared into view. They were still partially obscured by the heavy snowfall, but I clearly saw one dive bomb the other, sending the target tumbling back to Earth.

  The body hit the ground with a thunderous impact that sent snow flying twenty feet straight up. Instinct took over and I screamed. I screamed at the freakishness of it all. I screamed at the noise that sounded like a ton of dynamite exploding just a couple dozen yards away from me. But most of all, I screamed because I couldn’t tell which dragon had just plummeted from the sky. If it was Danic…

  I screamed again.

  When I stopped screaming, another scream pierced the stillness. Danic’s paler form barrel-rolled down and performed a classic pro wrestling elbow-drop on the other guy. The Romanian dragon screeched in pain, then managed to roll away from Danic’s furious attack and take off again, beating his wings hard and fast. He didn’t need to tuck his tail between his legs for me to know he was on the run.