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CHAPTER ONE
“Krista, come over here and dance!” Marcia called to her best friend, who was doing the same thing she usually did, sitting in the corner with a bored look on her face.
Krista sighed. She wasn’t in the mood for being out at the bar; she had only gone to offer her best friend some moral support. A man Marcia had a crush on was celebrating his birthday and she had been invited, but she had been too afraid to go alone and so she had begged Krista to come along. Krista wasn’t sure why she should be there anyway; not when Marcia would simply end up hanging all over the guy and leaving to give him a private gift.
“I’ve really got to be going,” Krista called back, shaking her head and pointing toward the door in case Marcia didn’t get the hint. Marcia gave her an exaggerated frown but disappeared back into the crowd, and Krista sighed in relief. She was free.
Or so she thought.
“Hey baby,” a drunk man said with a slur, blocking her way to the exit. She’d been heading toward the back door where she could sneak through the alleyway and toward the parking lot without running into any more of her friends. She didn’t recognize the drunk man and tried to push her way past him. “Feel like getting lucky tonight? I love that ass!”
She rolled her eyes in disgust and finally made her way past him. Despite being a virgin, Krista was used to men leering at her, and although she would have loved to go a night without being pestered, it appeared that tonight just wasn’t going to be her lucky night.
“Hey!” he protested as he was shoved aside and the people around him tittered with laughter. Fortunately, there were enough people between them that it didn’t matter what he said. She was able to get safely past.
Krista finally made it out into the dark, cool night and inhaled a deep breath of delicious fresh air. Sneaking out through the alley had been a good idea.
Suddenly, she felt a searing pain on her head and saw a flash of white in front of her eyes.
“Got her, tie up her hands!”
“What the hell?” she mumbled, trying to push herself to her feet. But before she was able to regain her balance, another searing flash of pain brought spots before her eyes and she collapsed again.
“Don’t move!” an angry man shouted down to her. She was surrounded and terrified, but decided not to move. They had her outnumbered.
“Finally, we’ve been waiting so long for this!”
“What…” Krista brought her hand to her head, wincing in pain and confusion.
Suddenly, she heard a growl, unlike anything she had ever heard before, and cowered into the crook of her arm.
“Don’t touch her!” a man’s voice boomed. She tried to open her eyes, but what she saw just made her want to faint. A giant black dragon was standing at the end of the alleyway. At that point, she passed out cold.
CHAPTER TWO
Clayton scowled down at the woman passed out on the ground and cast a challenging glare to the group of men who had been trying to kidnap her. He knew exactly who they were, and the knowledge infuriated him.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he growled, furious that they had the nerve to come anywhere near the woman most sacred to his clan.
But Clayton knew exactly what they were doing. Krista had been the main focus of both the self-proclaimed Guardians and the Kersh clan – and for good reason. She was extremely valuable, and the last living heir young enough to guarantee the continuance of the Kersh dragon clan.
“The girl is ours!” the small group’s leader hissed, leaping at Clayton and drawing a weapon from his side. Clayton flinched and jumped away, slapping the large gun out of his hand. Only Clayton knew it wasn’t just any gun – it was fully loaded with ammunition that would bind his powers and make it impossible to shift into his dragon form. From there, he could be killed as easily as any other mortal human.
“I don’t think so,” he growled, allowing himself to shift all the way into his dragon form. He normally restrained himself when he was in human areas, only shifting enough to take advantage of his powers while unleashing his fury on his enemy. But when he was protecting the one woman alive who was capable of ensuring the continuation of his race, he couldn’t take any chances.
The men’s eyes grew large and they all fumbled for their guns as Clayton let out a mighty roar. It shook the ground they were walking on and made everybody cower in terror. The heat from his breath was enough to singe off their eyebrows and they scrambled away, worried they would not be able to survive his malice, as he began to inhale and a burst of flames flickered from his mouth.
Krista was lying on the ground between his massive legs, totally limp, and now that they were alone, Clayton returned to his human form. He put on his cape to conceal his nakedness and picked Krista up, jumping into the air and flying her back to her apartment a few blocks away. He couldn’t let anybody see them, and his cloak helped to hide them from the people who might be glancing up at the night sky. It was imbued with the powers of his own world, a place he missed dearly.
Kaldernon, his home planet, was deeply missed by everybody in the clan, in fact, but they had been unable to find their way back to their own world. After a life-altering earthquake, the world seemed to open up and several of the dragon-born members of the Kersh clan had toppled through an invisible portal, landing in a world full of commotion.
They were concealed by a growth of trees near a ravine, and were able to see Kaldernon glimmering above their heads, haunting them with their inability to find a way through the portal. If they shifted into their dragon forms and tried to fly through, but they were knocked back violently and forced to recover for days from a blow unlike any other they had ever experienced.
Kaldernon had shimmered in the sky above their heads for hundreds of years as they perfected their underground settlement to protect themselves from the humans, and the Kersh clan watched as pioneers began to settle in the wilderness and construct a civilization of their own right next door. People were always drawn to the area for some inexplicable reason. It was as if they were seeking the immense power they sensed coming from Kaldernon and the group of dragon shifters that had made their home there.
CHAPTER THREE
One day, a distant relative of Clayton’s had an encounter with one of the village girls. Her eyes were a shimmering, smoky blue, and he hadn’t been able to resist her. They had been so powerfully drawn to each other that they had ravished each other right then and there, the woman’s legs splayed out with her back against a mighty oak.
When he brought her back to the clan, the others were astounded. It was clear that she was from Kaldernon, whether by some strange twist of fate or pure chance. The Kersh clan suddenly knew that other rips in the dimensional fabric separating Earth and Kaldernon must have opened up, letting in a group of people from their world who were renowned for their ability to carry the dragon-born children; the Lonis. They were exceptionally intelligent and artistic, and had created a civilization in Kaldernon that brought great joy and culture to those who lived there.
The young maiden was completely oblivious to the importance of her bloodline, but when she looked to the sky and saw Kaldernon for the first time, her eyes widened in disbelief and they knew it must be true. Nobody but descendants of Kaldernon were able to see it shimmering in the sky, taunting them from above, almost like a vision from a dream.
But when asked what she knew of her relatives, she had grown quiet and unhappy.
“It is only my sister and I,” she had said woefully. “Everybody else died onboard the ship.”
This meant that nobody had told them about Kaldernon. She quickly became infatuated with the dragon shifter and bore many of his children. The bloodline stayed strong with her descendants after that, but then,
they had begun to die out. Now, it was only her sister’s heirs who lived on, oblivious to the dragon-born, living their lives and doing their part to ensure the prosperity and culture of Earth’s civilization.
The Kersh clan was thinning out, though, and everybody had turned to Clayton for answers. He had been the descendent of the original leader of the Kersh clan, and his bloodline was not crossed with the Lonis. However, it was only a Loni that would be able to help them to ensure the continuation of their race, and he was terrified that if he couldn’t find the last woman of Loni descent, everything they had worked for would be lost. There would be no dragon-born left to ensure the survival of their beautiful lore, and all the progress they had made in researching the rift of time and space that kept them from Kaldernon was useless. Everyone who had lived before him would have died in vain.
And so the dragon-born had become extremely determined to protect the Loni descendants. They had tracked them through the ages, but had never needed their aid until now, when there was only one woman left who was capable of doing what needed to be done. But how could they approach her and ask the impossible of her? It was unfair, and odd, to approach a woman simply to ask her to be the unwitting carrier of a dragon-born child. She was coveted and precious to the Kersh clan, and had been secretly protected ever since she was a child.
Clayton had gotten his first glance of her when they were both around ten years old. She was walking down the sidewalk, secretly singing a quiet song that gave him a wistful feeling. It reminded him of the musical stories that had been shared with the Kersh clan before they had been spit out of Kaldernon. The imaginative Lonis had created many beautiful songs that still survived in his clan, and they were blessed with so many musical gifts that her little song immediately struck him as the most beautiful thing he had ever heard.
She didn’t see him and continued walking, but she dropped a little piece of paper out of her backpack. Clayton saw it and gasped. Should he retrieve it for her or should he run away and pretend he hadn’t seen anything? But what if it was important? He wasn’t supposed to interact with any of the humans, and most especially not the Lonis, just in case he roused suspicion. He was dressed in loose black pants and a red vest, but it was his eyes that would give him away. They were a true sign of the dragon-born, illuminated by green and gold specks. Sometimes his pupils would contract into slits, giving them an abnormally reptilian look that made the humans uneasy. What if she screamed?
But he couldn’t bear the thought of her missing the piece of paper, and ran behind her in his bare feet and retrieved it. He chased her down.
“Hey!” he called, panting and waving the paper in the air. “You dropped this!”
She turned around and fixed her beautiful eyes upon him, a look that had made his heart thud painfully in his chest. He quickly averted his eyes and stared down at the ground. Not only was this a safety measure, but it guaranteed that she wasn’t disturbed by his reptilian gaze.
“Thank you,” she said, turning to tuck the paper back in her bag. She had wanted to continue the conversation, but when she turned back to the sidewalk, the boy was gone.
She had no idea that he had been doing his best to keep her safe, in the background, for the majority of their lives. He tried not to learn anything much about her, but it was difficult. He knew she spent a lot of time and money at art supply stores. He knew she worked at a library and enjoyed shopping at an organic foods store. And he also knew that she was the most beautiful singer he had ever heard, and would often hum to herself as she moved throughout her day from one destination to another.
Other than that, he had hoped to get to know her naturally and did his best not to act too much like a stalker. But he had to keep an eye on her, especially with the Guardians on the move. They would stop at nothing to destroy her and learn the secrets of Kaldernon, and if they succeeded in their mission, Clayton’s people would be lost forever.
CHAPTER FOUR
“We’ve been waiting,” the handsome man’s full mouth whispered, his breath hot on her neck. Krista moaned as his broad hands roamed up and down her body, his strong fingers trailing over her every curve. It had been so long since she’d been explored like this, and she couldn’t remember a man ever taking his time to be so surprisingly intimate.
But he seemed attuned to her every spark of pleasure, and knew just what he had to do to coax more from her body. She allowed herself to experience the heights of pleasure he brought to her and found herself aroused in a raw, uncharacteristic way. He was so powerful.
She became suddenly aware of her own powerful arousal, hot and tingling as he pressed the length of his impressive manhood against her. She sighed as his mouth dropped hot kisses all over her body and he teased and tantalized her, spreading her legs apart and running his hands up and down her thighs, leaving trails of fire in his wake.
She allowed herself to stare at him; the gorgeous man who felt so familiar, who had been following her in her dreams for so long. Who she had finally seen in the flesh; whose arms she had felt shielding her when she thought that nobody could hear her cries.
But now her voice had taken on a husky, animalistic quality as he touched her. Her urgent need for him to fill her was making her feel impatient, but she relished the long, sweet fires he was stoking. She felt her own body writhing with pleasure beneath him as she gazed at his perfect body. He was fully naked, and his penis was standing straight up, erect, massive, and patient, pulsing with the same unbridled desire that she felt.
“I’ve been waiting,” he said, his eyes boring into hers. And finally, he shoved himself deep inside her hot walls. Her body exploded in pleasure and she cried out so loudly that she woke herself up.
Krista groaned and rubbed her head, immediately forgetting her dream as her mind became fuzzy with pain. There was a throbbing bump on the back of her head. She opened her eyes and sat up urgently. How had she gotten back to her bedroom? She vaguely remembered a group of men waiting outside the bar to attack her, but she didn’t know why they would want to do something like that. She was innocent, after all. What had she ever done to them?
She tried to recall anything about the night before and found herself frustrated at the blankness of it all. What had happened? Did she walk home alone? She couldn’t remember driving her car, it was probably still in the parking lot at the bar. She silently cursed Marcia for forcing her to go out with her that night. She would have been happy to stay inside and practice her guitar.
Unfortunately, she had succumbed to the social pressure that her friend had put on her and had no other option than to accept that she would feel better knowing her friend wasn’t alone in meeting her crush. Fortunately, she hadn’t make plans and was able to accompany Marcia, even though she would have preferred to stay in. Sometimes, her friend had the worst taste in people, and she was always worried whenever she said that she had an interest in some man or another.
Trying to recall the night before, all that she could remember was the dream that she had been having. A man with blazing green eyes had appeared out of nowhere, and turned into a gigantic beast. It was the most intense dream that she had had in a long time, and for some reason, it made her feel nostalgic, as if she was meeting an old friend. She would have expected to feel terrified, but that wasn’t how she felt at all.
Suddenly, memories of the night before began to flood her. She felt as if she were dreaming, and yet, it felt real, as if it were a memory. The men who had attacked her in the alleyway had run away screaming as the giant beast threatened to attack them. The huge beast had stood over her protectively and flared his nostrils, producing sparks that could have ignited a gigantic fire from the dumpster in the alleyway.
She vaguely remembered the feeling of weightlessness as she was lifted, cool air rushing over her body. She remembered a deep rumbling voice. Someone so masculine that he invoked a thrill in her body that aroused her even as she was holding on tightly to her consciousness. Her body responded deeply to the intoxica
ting smell of the woods on him. Her mind lingered on the man’s long black hair; it gave her the impression of someone exotic and mysterious. And yet he felt familiar, as if they had somehow already met.
Krista stood up and realized that she found it difficult to maintain her balance. Whatever injuries she had sustained had left her dizzy and made it difficult for her to properly enjoy the morning. She stumbled into her bathroom and stared into the reflection in the mirror. Her light blue eyes looked gaunt and sunken, as if she had been punched in the face. She wasn’t bruised up or anything, but she was definitely very tired. Her long, flowing blonde hair was messed up, and she found herself feeling very annoyed that she couldn’t recall the events from the night before.
What in the world had those men been thinking? Why had they wanted to attack her? As far as she knew, she hadn’t done anything wrong. So why was it that she was being targeted? Nothing about it made sense, especially not the part where the stranger mysteriously came and saved her.
Maybe that had all been just a dream, some kind of silly fantasy that she had entered into when she was going unconscious. That would make some kind of sense, it seemed more logical that she was slightly crazy than it did for dragons to exist, particularly in this day and age. Not only that, but it would explain how she had begun to dream about the man who had turned into a dragon. It must have been some kind of strange and fanciful thing that her mind had concocted to help her cope with the inexplicable events of the night before.
But she knew that sometimes even the most absurd events didn’t have a good enough explanation. Sometimes innocent people were targeted and there was no rhyme or reason to it. That part was out of her power. But what she could do was attempt to find a way to get those bastards in trouble for the problems that they had caused her and do her best to piece together the events of the night before.
Shifter Romance: BODHI (LOST CREEK SHIFTERS NOVELLAS Book 4) Page 123
