by Anya Nowlan
Billionaire Dragons’ Fated
Treasure Lane Dragons
Book 3
by
Anya Nowlan
A TASTE OF WHAT’S TO COME…
“Nothing,” she said, pushing a devilled egg around on her plate listlessly.
“No, no. That isn’t nothing. Tell us what you’re thinking,” Alexander urged, cocking a brow at her.
They looked much more interested in whatever was going on in her head than they were in their dinners.
She looked at both of them guiltily, taking in those perfect hard jaws, chiseled noses and striking eyes. Dammit, how was she supposed to hold a conversation when she knew how Apollo would kiss a trail down her neck whenever she was in his lap or the way Alexander always squeezed her ass, making her think he’d spank it if given the chance?
Gah, torture! And that just made her blush harder.
“I guess I’m just not hungry,” she said with a sigh, putting her fork down and pushing away from the table.
Suddenly, she felt like a kid with a finicky appetite. Despite all the delicious things spread out on the table before her, the only tasty treat she wanted was a piece of the Goldplains. Was that so wrong?
By the way they were looking at her, she would have to guess the answer was no.
Apollo’s lips curved into a wicked grin, and he put his hands together in front of him. His blue eyes absolutely ablaze with the fire within him, and Jade knew that if she stared at him for too long, she might never find her way out of them again.
“Oh, I think you’re hungry alright. What do you think, Alexander?” Apollo queried, arching a brow.
Alexander leant back, one arm over the backrest of his chair and considered Jade with a matching look of need and desire. Those two sure knew how to make a girl feel like she was the center of attention. Being stuck between the two of them was like being on a stage with all the lights focused on her – almost blinding but incredibly empowering at the same time.
“I think you might be on to something,” Alexander agreed, nodding.
He licked his lips, thinking about something for a moment, and then Alexander glanced at Apollo as if for confirmation. His twin nodded, and what happened then would become one of Jade’s naughtiest, most delicious memories.
In a flash, Alexander was up, his strong arms lifting Jade out of her seat. She yelped, but he shushed her and positioned her legs around his waist, letting his hands travel her body with the kind of need that had been building in Jade since meeting the Goldplains for the first time.
“How about we skip dinner and get right to the dessert?” Alexander whispered, his voice husky.
Jade’s breath caught. She hadn’t noticed when Apollo got up, but now his hands were on her as well, and he was already kissing her neck from behind. As if it was the most natural thing, his hands reached around her and cupped her heavy breasts. It sent her body into overdrive. It wasn’t just heat and lust inside of her now, but something bigger. Like a beast being unleashed, Jade lost any semblance of self-control the moment Alexander’s lips met hers.
“Oh my god,” she murmured between kisses, Alexander keeping her in his arms while Apollo kissed and nuzzled her neck and pressed his chest against her.
She could feel their hearts pounding a thousand beats a minute, just like hers.
“Is that a yes?” Apollo growled, a barely constrained primal want in his voice.
“Yes,” she answered quickly. “Fuck, yes.”
Copyright © 2015 Anya Nowlan
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Billionaire Dragons’ Fated
Treasure Lane Dragons
Book 3
All rights reserved.
No part of this work may be used, reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means by anyone but the purchaser for their own personal use. This book may not be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of Anya Nowlan. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material is prohibited without the express written permission of the author.
Cover © Jack of Covers
You can find all of my books here:
Amazon Author Page
www.anyanowlan.com
TABLE OF CONTENTS
A TASTE OF WHAT’S TO COME…
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
EPILOGUE
MAKE HIM PURR EXCERPT
WANT MORE?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CHAPTER ONE
Jade
Jade watched silently as the streetlamps passed by one at a time, lighting the inside of the tour bus with a ghostly glow. She had one hand against the glass with her head resting on it, and her legs gathered up to her chest. It was late at night, and their sizeable convoy was rolling down the long, empty highways somewhere in Arizona. They were heading for California, if Jade remembered correctly.
She’d been on the verge of tears and panic for a day now. Jade still couldn’t believe what she’d seen. How could something like that happen at all? She ran her hands through her hair, frustrated at the turns her life had decided to take.
The bus was eerily quiet with the crewmembers huddled up on their assigned seats and trying to get some shut-eye before another grueling day of concerts and rock magic.
The Death Wing tour bus wasn’t particularly inspiring – at least not the one Jade was in. She knew that the leads of the band, Cameron and Colt Blackscale, had pretty lavish digs, but the rest of the band had to be thankful for twin seats on a rundown bus that could just as well have been a Greyhound, only with more equipment crammed into it and less space to go around.
How the fuck did I get here, Jade wondered for the umpteenth time, honestly confused as to how her life had manage to take such a sharp turn into the fantastic.
Visions of last night still danced in her mind. Leathery, shiny black scales, red eyes that burned like the flames of hell, bodies that looked like a cross between long lost dinosaurs and the most fearsome snakes… Jade shook her head.
Dragons. How dumb is that? Dragons aren’t real!
Jade tried desperately to convince herself, but it didn’t seem to stick. She’d been telling herself the same thing ever since she’d snuck into the arena where her band had played that night and paid witness to Cameron and Colt Blackscale morphing from towering, handsome men into terrifying monsters that lorded over the arena like something out of fairy tales. Her stomach churned.
What the hell was she supposed to do after something like that?
Sure, she knew shifters existed. And she knew that they liked to keep out of the public eye just as much as the public at large wanted to forget all about the fact that they ever existed. But dragons? Y
ou’d think someone would at least write a sensational headline if there were actual dragons out there, wouldn’t you!?
Fuck, she concluded.
She wasn’t usually quite so foulmouthed, even in private, but shit like that made a woman lose her cool head and calm manners.
Jade van der Kamp was the bassist for one of the biggest names in dark rock – Death Wing. The band was built around the dangerously charismatic personae of Cameron and Colt Blackscale, and what the duo lacked in musical prowess, they made up for in rabid fandom. To say that their fans were loyal was a massive understatement, and for a plethora of reasons, Jade knew that she didn’t want to be on the bad side of said throve of fans.
She’d thought her gig was good enough. It paid solidly, the guys were complete jerks, but they mostly let her be, and she got to live her dream – being a musician, and a damn good one at that (even though sometimes she thought that the stuff Death Wing produced was about as pleasing to the ear as a bunch of screaming cats in heat). Yet, here she was, rocking herself back and forth in her seat, trying to plot a way to quickly and effectively unravel herself from Death Wing’s fame.
You can’t just go. They’d know something was wrong… And they’re fucking dragons. Do you really want to risk that? But the alternative is staying here…
Jade let her head fall against the glass with a thud. What a mess. In one fell swoop, she’d found out that the men she’d been touring with were shifters, dragon shifters, and that all the stuff that had been bothering her about Death Wing’s shows might be a lot darker than she’d originally thought.
The way the fans worshipped their every move… The way they would turn concerts into riots, ransack stores and beat up anyone they didn’t like, all in the name of Death Wing… The way the crowd got nothing less than terrifying whenever the black fog spread over them at concerts…
Jade shuddered. Yeah, okay. She had to get out.
She wasn’t sure what she was going to do once she made a break for it, but bile wanted to crawl up her throat every time she thought about playing even one more show with them. It was only made worse by the fact that she was pretty sure Cameron had noticed when she made her hurried exit from the stage that fateful night. He hadn’t said a word yet, but the looks he’d given her in rehearsal earlier in the day had told her that things weren’t quite right between her and the band’s vocalist.
As if on cue, the bus slowed down and pulled into a small, dimly lit gas station off the interstate.
“5 minutes!” the driver yelled, waddling out of the bus after he’d opened both the front and back doors.
No one stirred. One of the roadies changed position on the narrow seats and snorted through his sleep, but that was it. It seemed that besides the bus driver, Jade was the only one up. Carefully, she uncurled herself from the seat, her heart pounding in her chest. She peeked out of the front window, expecting to see Cameron’s and Colt’s bus right out in front of them, but they were nowhere to be found.
This is it, she thought.
Driven only by her will to survive, Jade got up and gingerly fished out her suitcases and bass case from the overhead compartments. She set them down carefully, trying to move as fast as she could without making any noise. She took down two more suitcases and put them on her seat, covering them up with the duvet she always travelled with. Jade considered it critically and shrugged. It would have to do. She’d have to hope that the bus driver was too lazy to make a thorough check of his travellers, as was usually the case.
Jade slung the bass case over her shoulder and grabbed both of the suitcases. She inched through the spiky alleyway of legs sticking out of the seats and gear littered all over the floor, praying that she didn’t wake anyone. For a moment, it was touch and go when she bumped into Jim the drummer’s outstretched arm, but he just murmured something through his sleep and retracted his arm.
She slunk down the stairs, and when her feet touched the pavement, she let out a breath. Jade glanced around, trying to decide where the hell she was going to go.
Not the best plan ever, she chided herself.
But beggars couldn’t be choosers, and Jade was just about ready to beg.
Just then, she heard a door creak open somewhere, and she let reactions take over where rational thought couldn’t. She darted around the small, squat off-white building and ducked into the women’s bathroom just as the bus driver rounded the corner and headed for the bus. Her back against the grimy, dark wall of the gas station bathroom, she froze in place, listening.
Any light she saw came from the small window high above the sinks, looking out onto the interstate. There was a thin glow from one of the lampposts that cast eerie shapes on the bathroom stalls.
“We’re going!” the voice of the bus driver called, cranking up the engine.
Jade held her breath. Only when she heard the doors close and the bus take off did she finally relax. When she heard the bus shift gears and tear onto the black tarmac, she let the suitcases drop from her hands and slid down the wall to sit on the floor.
Jade stared at the barely lit tiled walls, dirt and years of scarce cleaning glaring back at her. She was stuck in the middle of nowhere in Arizona, with two suitcases and her bass, and quite possibly, two furious dragons after her. In the span of twenty-four hours, she’d gone from having a stable, if not successful career in an up and coming band, to huddling on the floor of a truck stop bathroom, wallowing in her personal misery. She felt completely lost and aimless, like nothing she could ever do would give her life the kind of direction she wanted, like everything she did just made things worse.
So, how are you going to fix this? Jade asked herself.
Frankly, she had no idea.
CHAPTER TWO
Alexander
Alexander closed his eyes as Apollo dove into the verse alongside him, taking the crowd with them. Every word they uttered, every note they strung, the fans were right there with them. It was hard to tell where the teeming mass of people ended and where the rest of the world started, and frankly, Alexander didn’t care to know the difference. His dragon basked in the unfaltering love and devotion the crowd bathed them in, the golden giant within him yearning to break loose, but subdued enough by their adoration to remain dormant.
Whenever you need me,
I’ll be there
Whenever you want me,
I’ll be there
Alexander opened his eyes, his voice joining Apollo’s and garnering an excited scream from the first row of fans – mostly women in their twenties, pretty and more than willing to go to the ends of the Earth if the Goldplains brothers asked them to. And often, they would. The guitar strings underneath Alexander’s fingers felt like home, like he could talk better through them than without.
With Apollo’s voice as the current in his ocean of sound, Alexander watched with quiet pleasure as an invisible golden shroud spread across the arena, taking everyone underneath its protective shade.
It was what the Gold Dragons were known for – not only their ghostly, almost ethereal rock, but the fantastic shows they put on. Countless rivals had tried to poach their lighting and special effects guys over the years, believing that it was they, who accounted for the brothers’ insane success. But it was hard to steal dragon magic. Alexander smiled to himself as he saw a sullen looking man perk up as the wave hit him, bathing him in the healing rays.
He knew what it felt like, to be taken by the ancient dragon powers without even understanding what they were. It felt like being lost in a sea of sound, taken and elevated by the music and the crowd to the highest state of concert nirvana. Sure, it was a bit unfair to their competition, but hell, he wasn’t about to care.
Casting his gaze over the packed arena, Alexander’s smile faltered just slightly. In the far corners of the crowd, he could see the golden wave of light flicker and stop, not reaching the very last rows. His face hardened slightly, and he stepped closer to Apollo, still lost in the song and giving the crowd the show they
had known to expect.
“Reel it in,” Alexander murmured, motioning towards the far end with his head.
Apollo’s light blue, gold-flaked eyes met Alexander’s and then took in the sight before them, his expression unchanged.
“If you say so,” Apollo said under his breath.
Alexander could feel the way his brother tensed, even if his body language and expression betrayed nothing. The joys of being dragon twins – one’s feelings were rarely lost on the other.
Alexander leant towards the crowd, letting his fingers play the strings for the finale – a roaring, fast solo that was only backed by the drums. Alexander’s keen ears heard the bassist struggle and falter, and his mood fell further.
Another thing to deal with, getting a new bassist, he thought darkly, casting a look at the replacement bass they’d had to drag along with them on the tour.
Their original bassist had had some family troubles even the Goldplains couldn’t solve, and the aftermath wasn’t particularly pleasing.
When the music quieted with the last chords echoing over the crowd, Apollo raised his hands in a good-bye wave that was met with pleading cries and ranting cheers. Alexander couldn’t help but smile. Underneath all the problems, at least their fans remained true.
“Good night, San Antonio! You’ve been a fucking awesome crowd!” Apollo screamed.
“Good night,” Alexander added, his deeper voice mixing with the cheers.
With a heavy heart, Alexander took off his guitar and set it next to one of the speakers, giving one last wave and seeing the golden wave flicker and then disappear as he and Apollo stepped off the stage.
