by Juniper Hart
“No,” she retorted. “It makes me jealous as hell. You get a rich, sexy, dragon prince and I am your nanny.”
“You are not my nanny!” Brooklyn snapped hotly, but she instantly saw the evil glint in Audrey’s eyes. “Why do you insist on pushing my buttons?”
“Because you always take the bait,” she replied, laughing. “Anyway, I’m serious. Get your man in line to find me a good dragon of my own. He promised.”
“Maybe he’s worried you will eat his brothers alive,” Brooklyn said dryly, opening the cupboards to ensure they were empty.
“I wouldn’t mind the opportunity,” Audrey agreed, and they both laughed.
Brooklyn felt a pang of loss. She had opted to leave Audren with Kirra, but she was starting to regret it. She felt like she was missing a limb.
“Hello?”
The front door opened, and the women eyed each other curiously. A tingle of apprehension shot through Brooklyn’s body.
I know that voice, she thought, hurrying toward the front door with Audrey. Standing at the entrance of the house was the one person Brooklyn never wanted to see again.
“What are you doing in my house?” Audrey roared. “Get out of here right now before I call the cops!”
“I am the cops!” Ryan spat back, entering the house in his uniform. “I just need to talk to Brooklyn.”
Brooklyn felt a newly familiar sensation crawling through her body.
“What are you doing here, Ryan?” she demanded.
“I’ve had people watching out for you, and one of the guys told me that they saw you in town this morning,” Ryan replied with a shrug.
“You had me followed?” Brooklyn asked.
“Yes! I want to see my son!” he snapped. “Where is he?”
“He’s not your son,” Brooklyn replied evenly, willing herself to be calm. “I have nothing to say to you. Get out of here.”
“You can’t withhold my kid because you’re jealous and spiteful!” Ryan yelled. “You disappeared with my boy. I should have you arrested for custodial interference! You don’t want to mess with the LAPD, Brooklyn!”
She felt a smidgen of fear course through her.
“Are you deaf?” Audrey screeched. “He isn’t yours!”
“This isn’t about you!” Ryan screamed, advancing towards them. His face was red with fury. “So help me God, Brooklyn, I will—”
“Get away from her.”
The words were flat but chilling nonetheless, and Brooklyn exhaled as Cass strode into the room.
Ryan looked at him in shock.
“Mr. Williams!” he cried, his face contorting in confusion. “What are you—did you buy this house?”
Brooklyn could see Ryan trying to reconcile what the real estate mogul was doing in Audrey’s living room, and it gave her a spark of pleasure.
“I thought I recognized you pulling onto the street, so I turned around,” Cass replied, slipping closer to Brooklyn.
“You remember me? From the restaurant in San Francisco?” Ryan asked, and Brooklyn found herself confused by the conversation.
“Oh, yes,” Cass answered casually. “Didn’t I spill wine on you and your fiancée?”
Brooklyn and Audrey exchanged a look, and they both held back their laughter as Ryan continued to struggle with what was happening.
“Uh, yeah,” Ryan murmured.
“I see you’ve met my fiancée,” Cass said, “but I believe you already know her. Brooklyn, you know Ryan, right?” Brooklyn’s body melted into a puddle of relief, and she sank against him.
Ryan’s eyes finally widened as he gaped at them.
“You—you—” he sputtered, looking from Cass to Brooklyn and back again. “You’re engaged?”
“I told you the kid isn’t yours!” Audrey yelled. “Now get out of my house!”
Ryan shook his head, appearing dazed as he slowly backed out of the front room. He turned and fled without another word, and when the front door closed, Audrey began to howl.
“I wish I had a video recording of his face!” she chortled, but Brooklyn barely heard her as she looked at Cass.
“You spilled wine on him and Elena?” she asked. “How did that happen?”
Cass widened his eyes with feigned innocence.
“It was an accident,” he replied in a voice that clearly told Brooklyn he was lying. She cocked her head to the side and stared up at him.
“You knew right away too, didn’t you?” she whispered, and he smiled.
“Didn’t you?” he replied. “So, what do you say?”
She furrowed her brow in confusion. “About what?”
Cass kissed her sweetly on the lips. “Will you be my fiancée? I would hate for Ryan to think I was lying to him.”
Brooklyn’s face turned red, her heart furiously pumping blood through her body. “Is that why you’re proposing? Because you don’t want to appear dishonest?”
“I’m proposing because I want to spend eternity with you,” he said, his eyes boring into hers.
Brooklyn’s head grew light as her beautiful features erupted into a smile.
“Then of course my answer is yes,” she responded, and as their lips met again, she could not think of anything she wanted more than to wander the earth with Cassius Williams forever.
THE END
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Juniper Hart
About the Author
Juniper Hart is a romance writer from the Midwest, who loves telling the insta-love tales of werewolves, dragons, and other paranormal heroes. She specializes in sweet and short alpha romances that always promise a happily ever after.
Juniper resides in Miami, Florida with her husband and rambunctious blue-eyed son.
Find out more about Juniper Hart at SecretWoodsBooks.com
Bonus Content: Shifter Romances
Shifter Stories
Text Copyright © 2018 by Alexis Davie and Lucy Penn
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.
First printing, 2018
Publisher
Secret Woods Books
[email protected]
www.SecretWoodsBooks.com
Part I
Fire Dragon
By Alexis Davie
1
Sarah’s day continued to be awful when her motorcycle broke down outside
the coffee shop that night.
She tried to fire the engine up again. Her bike puttered miserably for a little while before she felt bad for it and gave up. She tried a couple more times before realizing it was hopeless. The rain poured from the sky, leaking warm beads of water onto her clothes. She scampered back under the overhang of the shop to avoid getting any wetter, but the damage was done. Her cute pink blouse was stuck against her lithe body, exposing every single detail that she wanted to remain hidden.
She hadn’t known there was a chance of rain when she’d set off to work that morning, so she hadn’t planned for the weather. She didn’t have a car, so she would have still taken her motorcycle to work, but Sarah probably wouldn’t have left the shop so late. The sky was black, rolling with storm clouds that didn’t look like it was about to let up anytime soon.
“Oh, come on!” she said out loud, even though nobody was around to hear her despair.
She’d spent entirely too many hours at the coffee shop recently. She’d just opened the store a few months ago, and it was hard work. Coming in early. Leaving late. She worked from early daybreak to get everything fired up, to the late evening to clean everything up for the next morning. She’d been so burnt out that she hadn’t even considered checking the weather.
She pulled her phone out of her pocket and almost put her phone to her head before remembering her helmet. It had been a long, long day.
First, it was a grumpy old man that wanted a smoothie. She’d attempted to explain that the name of the shop was, Sarah’s Java Stop. They didn’t sell smoothies, nor did she know how to make them. Finally, she’d managed to convince him that he didn’t want a smoothie. Then he wanted a picture of his granddaughter’s face in the foam, just based off the little girl standing there.
He complained that Sarah’s customer service was terrible. Sarah threw up her hands in exasperation and handed him his latte. She hoped he never came back.
Grumbling, she took off her helmet and sifted through her contacts. She had lots of numbers, but very few of the contacts could be trusted to show up and take her home. An old coworker. A friend from college she hadn’t texted in two years. That kind of thing. Oh, and look, there was John… Nice guy. Handsome. Romantic.
And unfaithful.
Finally, she decided to call a taxi and waste some of her hard-earned money to drive three miles across town. She was lucky to have a house so close to her business.
The last thing she wanted was for someone to steal her precious bike. It was a wonderful little machine. It got absurd gas mileage and was just like her—quick as a lightning bolt, modern, and if she was being honest with herself, drop dead gorgeous. She tugged the bike onto the sidewalk and hauled it into the store. It dripped rainwater all over her nice, expensive floors, but she didn’t care. All she wanted was to hurry home.
The prior night she hadn’t slept well… again. The dreams kept her up.
It always happened the same way. She’d be sleeping solidly and then she’d see glimmering red scales. She couldn’t make out the details of her dream, but she did remember the scaled creature moved quickly and made her tremble. Every time, she’d hear a scream. After having the dream dozens of times, Sarah realized she was responsible for the screaming.
What made her so afraid? What was the scaled beast? She didn’t know. The same dream had haunted her ever since she was a child, but the dream never aged. It was the same nightmare for twenty-four years. It was as if she was given season tickets to a movie that she didn’t want to see.
When her taxi arrived, she hustled over from under the awning and into the car. The driver attempted to make small talk, but Sarah just wasn’t in the mood. She gave quick, terse replies. Sarah had a lot of great qualities, but hiding her mood wasn’t one of them. If she was happy, she’d show it. If she was sad, she’d show it. If she was angry, she’d make extra damn sure that everybody knew.
Finally, the taxi arrived at her apartment building. As they pulled up, she saw a new car on the street where she normally parked. If her bike had worked, she would have been forced to drive around for a while to find somewhere to park.
The car was sleek and looked unbelievably fast. Despite her foul mood, it’s low, fire-red frame piqued her curiosity. Her apartment complex was a nice enough place. It had some artsy types in residence, but she had a hard time believing any of her neighbors could afford that car. The owner was either crazy rich or stuck deep, deep, deep in debt.
As the taxi stopped, she caught a glimpse of a sticker on the back windshield. The image resembled a stylized dragon’s head. Part of her wondered if it was some book series or a new video game.
Most of her didn’t care whatsoever.
She paid the driver and hustled up the sidewalk to her apartment complex. She was still pretty soaked. The driver had given her a special little tarp to sit on so she didn’t get water all over his seats. He’d also given out some free candies. He was gunning for a five-star review.
Sarah surveyed the car again on her way inside the building. She’d always had a thing for anything fast and dangerous. She’d even done some dirt bike racing back in her college days before she’d wiped out a few too many times. During one race in particular, during her senior year, she’d come up to a corner and lost control, which was something she rarely did.
She’d sailed out of the course and managed to get pinned in the bleachers through abnormally bad luck. Sarah had ended up with a serious concussion from it. When she recovered, her decisions teetered between going back into the sport or putting her wellbeing first.
Her mom had smiled when Sarah had brought the coffee shop up that Christmas.
“Honey,” she’d told her. “You have a lot more going on in that pretty head than just racing bikes your whole life. I’m not going to tell you what to do, but just think about your future.”
That’s not to say that Sarah took her advice right away, thought she probably should have. However, the following year, she decided to make it work and her mom even cosigned a loan to bring her dream to fruition.
Even with the rain, standing under the front of her building, the memory brought a smile to her lips. Her mom always said whatever she thought, she had no filter. That quality was the main reason they got along so well.
She took one last look at the car and opened the door to her building with her dripping helmet in her hands. As she walked in, she heard her boots echo on the wooden floors as she walked.
She tried rather unsuccessfully to stay quiet because she didn’t want to wake up Jamie, the crazy cat lady who lived downstairs.
Sarah saw Jamie’s red door and slowed her pace. Almost there. She could see the staircases that led up to the second floor.
The floor squeaked. Sarah’s throat jumped into her throat. She took another step…and then Jamie’s door opened.
“Sarah!”
“Oh, hey, Jamie.” She tried to force a smile. Jamie wasn’t a bad person, but she was a little strange and made Sarah slightly uneasy. “Sorry to wake you.”
Jamie touched Sarah on the shoulder affectionately. Sarah pulled back, trying to avoid looking rude. Sarah was a hugger. She showed affection through touch, but Jamie didn’t know her well enough to touch her. Social norms existed for a reason.
“Mittens is eating,” Jamie said.
“Just Mittens? What about the other ones?” Mentally, she slapped herself. No! No! Why, Sarah? Why did I ask this?
“Oh, they’re all sleeping!”
Jamie had hacked up a hairball one time, which was probably the most disgusting thing Sarah had ever seen. On a merely physical level, nasty. But it meant she’d been licking her cats, and to Sarah, that was way past the line of sanity. Now, every single time Sarah saw her, she remembered that horrific moment and struggled to avoid running away.
“You’re soaking,” Jamie said like Sarah hadn’t noticed.
“Oh,” Sarah said, looking down at her clothes. “Totally. My bike broke down and I had to hitch a ride.
”
Why couldn’t she stop talking? All she wanted to do was go home, take a warm shower, and fall asleep in that ridiculously comfortable bed of hers.
“How did the date go?”
Sarah made the mistake of telling Jamie that she had joined a dating service. Bad idea. Now, every time Jamie caught her in the hallway, she wanted to know about Sarah’s dating life. Sarah didn’t want to talk about her dating life, least of all to Jamie. But now that she’d awakened that monster, it was her job to deal with it.
“The date was two nights ago. It was fine,” she lied. “He seemed like a nice enough guy.”
Well, that was true. He had been nice enough, but the guy had no backbone. It seemed as if his life’s mission was to apologize for everything. It was cold in the restaurant. Somehow that was his fault. How? She didn’t know. Her food had been just slightly undercooked. He felt just awful about that.
She needed someone who could inflame her passions and take her breath away with the slightest glance. She wasn’t interested in Joe Average. She deserved more. She deserved a freaking hero.
“Listen,” she said. “I, uh, I really want to head on up to my place and sleep. And I still have to shower. Catch you later?”
Jamie smiled and patted Sarah on her soaking shoulder gracelessly. Jamie was extremely socially awkward, which is probably why she licked cats.
