Lilly: Dragon Clan

by Skye Jones

  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

  Brenin: Fae Dating Agency, Book One

  Lilly: Dragon Clan

  by

  Skye Jones

  Copyright 2017 Skye Jones

  All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced or used without the written permission of the publisher.

  All events depicted are fictional, and any resemblance to places and persons is coincidental.

  This work of fiction is intended for adults age 18 and over.

  Editing by Silently Correcting Your Grammar

  Proofread by Sheri Williams

  Cover Design by DW Art and Design

  Interior Layout by Rachel Medhurst

  Thanks for reading and taking a chance on me! Read on at the end for a sneak peek of the first in my new bear shifter series.

  This book is dedicated to my husband—for putting up with me while I was writing it!

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Brenin: Fae Dating Agency, Book One

  Chapter One

  The sight of dragons stomping about around her should have thrilled Lilly, but it didn’t. It scared her and confused her. She was supposed to be one of these dragon people, but she’d never changed form, and she’d never been able to call forth fire.

  The huge silver dragon bowed its head, and her sister Claire patted it as if petting a friendly dog. A stunning blue and green beast walked up to them and blew out a long breath of steam from flared nostrils. They were both her sister’s mates. The silver one was Nathan, leader of the dragon clan, and the blue and green one was Dom.

  Claire spoke to her, but Lilly missed some of what she said. She was lost in thought as she watched another dragon come in to land. It thrilled her, but then she’d feel the sharp twinge of sadness and disappointment. She had grown more and more frustrated as the days passed and her so-called magic refused to appear. She hadn’t asked to be brought to this strange place, and she missed aspects of her life back home more and more as time went on. Worried about the animals at the shelter where she volunteered, and whether she missed out on any news about her errant ex-boyfriend, Zach.

  Her bestie, Missy, kept in touch, but no news on Zach so far. Lilly sighed and scratched her arm.

  “You can ride on one of them. Don’t you think it’ll be fun?” Claire’s gorgeous eyes shone at her, full of hope.

  The idea of riding a dragon was kind of cool, but Lilly didn’t want to show too much enthusiasm or she’d give her sister false hope that she’d join her in living a dragon’s life. Lilly’s home would be in Connecticut, with Zach and her parents and her work at the animal shelter. Once Zach came to his senses and dumped the girl he’d run off to France with.

  Claire’s bright smile lit up her face. God, her sister was a looker. Lilly didn’t have the same gorgeousness going on. She saw the similarities in their coloring and features, for sure, but Claire came built all slim, toned, and tanned, whereas Lilly tended to lean more toward dumpy and too curvy. One thing about being stuck in the Scottish Highlands which did thrill her was finding out she had a blood relative alive in this world. It was the only reason she’d journeyed here in the first place. She’d been shocked as hell to see Claire standing waiting for her outside work one day. It had been like looking at a slimmer version of herself in a mirror, and she’d known immediately the young woman was her blood.

  Lilly had already been aware of being adopted because her first adoptive mother had died when she was only nine. She’d hit the lottery, though, after a period languishing in a foster home near Leeds, and she’d been taken in by the Franklins. How some wealthy American couple wound up on her doorstep in rain-sodden Yorkshire, she had no idea. From then on, her life had been golden—on the surface, at least. Twenty-room house, pool, staff. But now her sister wanted her to give it all up and stay here for months on end, learning the ways of her people. Worse, there’d been an endless parade of pairs of men brought in to meet her by her brother-in-law Nathan, who seemed to think the answer to all her problems would be to mate with two dragons. No pressure there, then! They honestly seemed to expect her to swoon over a couple of dragon males and then settle down to live her life here. When she already had a life back home…sort of.

  Not that it didn’t tempt her a little. The setup the women had going on here. Wow. Two men for every female—talk about cool. And these guys did everything for their women. Lilly could dig it, if only any of the endless parade she’d met did anything for her. When her sister and her mates came to talk to her in Connecticut, they’d cleverly kept the whole dragon part of their story on ice until she’d returned to Scotland with them.

  Once they shared their little secret, they’d seemed to expect her to be impressed with the fact that dragons were real and her supposed heritage as one of them. But she hadn’t been. More scared and perturbed to begin with, then it grew old kind of fast. These people didn’t do anything. They puttered around this forlorn, endlessly green hillside, doing God knew what, and every now and again, they changed form. After a few nights of it all, she wanted to scream.

  She followed her sister off the hillside and back toward the home Claire shared with Nathan and Dominic. Claire still chatted, too bright, too awkward, and Lilly hated upsetting her. They reached the house and headed straight for the kitchen where Claire held up the coffee jar. Lilly nodded. A cup of coffee would be great. Maybe a cookie, too. Although… She glanced down at her hips. She shouldn’t.

  Nathan and Dominic walked into the room, already changed back into human form and dressed, and smiled at Claire. Just like that, the air changed. Lilly picked up on the current flowing between the three of them and fought off a twinge of sadness. She wanted what they had, but with Zach.

  Her ex owned her heart in some ways because of their history. The way he’d been her protector from an early age. Although, these days, he seemed determined to be her tormentor. She’d never met anyone who’d remotely been a match for him in her mind, though. Well except… She pushed the thought away, but it pushed back. Those two men, the ones she’d seen on the sidewalk that hot summer’s day out shopping with her mother. They’d made an impact, but she’d forced herself to ignore it. After all, she’d only seen them for a few seconds. A few intense seconds as her eyes met theirs, and she’d been unable to move for long moments. But then her mother had pulled her into a shop, and the strange spell shattered.

  Sometimes, she feared she was broken. Giving her heart to a guy who trampled on it, repeatedly. Lusting after two men she’d seen briefly one day and making them the center of her fantasy life. It seemed she liked the unobtainable.

  There’d been dragon pair after dragon pair coming to see her, men who wanted her and would cherish her and…nothing. Two pairs had been downright gorgeous, but she hadn’t felt anything for them. Probably partly due to her pining for Zach, despite him dumping her for Casey Evans and spending time with the bitch in France. She felt sick at the thought he might settle down with the girl, with her big fake boobs, fake hair, and faker laugh.

  “What’s the plan for this evening?” Dominic turned to her and gave a bright smile, as overly cheery as Claire in his attemp
ts to make all of this less difficult and weird.

  Nathan merely shot her a bored glance and looked away. She waited for the moment he’d tell her to get lost. Any day now, she reckoned.

  Dom kept trying, and Claire too. And bless her, her sister did try. Lilly appreciated it, truly. She wasn’t some heartless bitch, but she wanted to get back to her life. There’d been three new pups come into the shelter the day her sister had shown up, and Lilly worried about them. Her work at the animal shelter was the highlight of her life. She loved going there three days a week. It felt real, away from the fake, moneyed bullshit of a lot of her peers. And the animals were so loving, even the damaged ones, if you treated them right.

  She believed herself related to Claire. Their physical similarity screamed as much. But the rest of it, the idea she possessed some inner dragon, she highly doubted. All this magic they talked about. The power to start fires and other shit, she’d never experienced it in her life. If it weren’t for the fact that she looked the spitting image of Claire, she wouldn’t believe a word they said. Well, that and the fact that she’d seen real live dragons stomping around all over the place. Her theory? She was Claire’s sister, but she possessed none of the dragon genes. Just like some siblings had red hair and others didn’t, surely some could have dragon genes and others miss out on them?

  A man scuttled into the room, one of the servants, and his flustered face caught her attention. Normally, things ran like clockwork around the place.

  “There’s a visitor. I told him he couldn’t come in, but he—”

  “He ignored your manservant.” A huge guy walked into the room, and she sucked in a breath. Holy crapola…him!

  How odd she’d been thinking of her most private secret only today, and then one of the two men she’d seen on that street walked into the room. Her mind spun, and she felt sick at the weirdness of it all. On top of the whole finding out she was a dragon and had a sister, it seemed far too much of a coincidence.

  If the guy had been handsome in her memories and fantasies, in the cold, stark light of day, he proved to be absolutely…well, not handsome. No, his features were too harsh, too domineering for such a pedestrian description. His high forehead and patrician nose were made rugged by a strong jaw, heavy scruff, diamond-sharp cheekbones, and the deepest blue eyes she’d ever seen without contacts being involved. He wasn’t handsome—he was downright gorgeous.

  He was the guy from that strange day in New York, or at least one of them, and she became surer of it as she stared at him.

  She flashed back to the sweltering day when she’d turned on the sidewalk to see two impossibly big, stupidly striking men, and they’d been looking right back at her. Masculine and powerful, they’d starred in her deepest, darkest fantasies for a while. But after a few months, the potency of the odd moment faded, and she’d convinced herself they’d been a figment of her imagination. Berated herself when she thought of them.

  She’d swear this guy was one of them, but so much time had passed, a year and a half or more, and it had been a fleeting moment of connection. She’d been heartbroken at the time, once again over Zach, and so the moment got swept up in all the emotional turmoil going on inside her. A startling, precious few seconds of clarity in her fog of despair over losing Zach. Over time, her image of the two men changed, faded, shimmered like an oasis in the desert, until it became harder and harder for her to summon their likenesses.

  Thick, dark brows sliced across the man’s forehead, and his scowl made her shrink back against the cupboards behind her. This close, he intimidated the hell out of her. His long, almost black hair hung in thick curtains on either side of his astonishing face, extending past his shoulders. He wore a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and God help her, a vest, which only showed off those broad shoulders and his narrow waist. His shirt lay open at his neck, but he had an old-fashioned gold watch in the pocket of his vest, on a chain. He looked like a steampunk cowboy come to life or something.

  The guy strode into the center of the room and placed huge fists on the granite work surface running the length of the middle of the kitchen.

  Nathan gave an odd sound, and she whipped around to look at him. The color drained from his face, leaving normally healthy tan skin a sickly, wan yellow.

  The air in the room heated and snapped and crackled at her skin. All the hairs on her wrist stood on end, and her heart hammered so hard she heard it. A tiny voice, one she hadn’t listened to much before but had been aware of in the past, whispered to her now. It told her this moment was a defining instant in her life, that this man mattered to her somehow. Seeing him before wasn’t a coincidence. Pressed up against the unyielding wood behind her, she watched the scene unfold.

  “Surprise, old friend.” The visitor spoke, and his raspy voice caressed her skin as surely as if he’d touched her with his fingers. His lips were beautiful, seriously sensual, but his deep blue eyes got to her the most. They were so full of sorrow, it made her want to run over to him and comfort him, which seemed like a stupid idea because the dude was scary huge. Taller than Nathan and built like a truck.

  “Get the hell out of my home. Now!” Nathan bellowed the last word, and she automatically cowered.

  For the first time, the stranger looked her way, and the moment his eyes landed on her, something lit within his gaze. A smoldering flame of heady lust, and she knew in an instant it would consume her if she let it. His nostrils flared, and he took a deep breath in, faltering for a moment. The same connection she’d sensed in her confused, heartbroken state on a scorching day in New York flared to life again, here in this kitchen.

  He moved forward, an inch closer to the counter his braced arms rested on, and the movement made his forearms bulge with thick muscle. She swallowed. Dear God.

  “One more fucking step, and I’ll end you.” Nathan swept his arms out and pushed Claire and Dom behind him, leaving only himself and her exposed to the man looking like he wanted to rip the granite countertop to shreds with his bare hands for shits and giggles.

  “I come to you in peace. We’ve had our differences, but I mean you no harm. I’m here for something of mine.” The man said the words calmly, but his body language screamed something else. Some barely controlled need to move and to act, and he kept darting his gaze her way as if unable to avoid looking.

  Nathan inhaled, long and slow, and blinked. He looked from the visitor to Lilly and back again, and his eyes widened. “No.” He raised one hand and pushed forward. A ball of fire shot from his palm, heading straight for the stranger. For some unknown and probably insane reason, she cried out in dismay. But the ball didn’t hit the guy. Instead, it hovered in the air in front of his face.

  A second man strolled into the room, one arm straight out, palm up in front of his face. He glanced from the ball of fire to Nathan. This second man sighed and gave a roll of whiskey-colored eyes. He grinned a shit-eating grin and tsked against his teeth. “Rhyndor, Rhyndor, Rhyndor. Always getting into trouble. And I’m surprised at you, Nathan. He said he came in peace. A dragon’s word is his bond, after all.”

  The guy kept smiling as he dropped the ball of fire to the floor, and it fizzled out.

  She stared, wide-eyed, shock eating her up. It was the same two guys. It had to be. Hot dude number two confirmed it. While all her friends usually talked on their nights out about how much they crushed on their boss, her secret crush for the last eighteen plus months of her life had been on two men she’d seen for an instant on the street. And they were here, in Nathan’s kitchen. Fear slammed into her because as she’d thought before, coincidence? No way.

  “I…” Nathan dragged a hand through his hair and scowled, but he didn’t attack again, and he looked…worried. She’d never seen him look anything but confident and in control. Her fear ratcheted up another notch as she swallowed past a dry throat, wishing the cupboard doors would open and let her hide inside.

  Her arousal didn’t dim, though, despite her terror. In fact, the second guy’s
presence only added to the strange heat filling her. She got to properly look at them, too, instead of relying on a memory of a moment. Just as beautiful as dude number one, dude number two had more conventional good looks, the sort of handsome features women everywhere responded to. But his full lips, dimpled chin, and those eyes made him almost too good to be true.

  “I thought you were dead.” Nathan’s voice shook as he addressed dude number two.

  The second intruder shrugged, still holding one palm up. “Nope. Not dead, but tired of it all. The wars, the endless shit about roles, rules, and hierarchy, and generally, the whole thing. Sorry to disappear on you, cousin. But you see, I can’t let you hurt him because he’s my male now.”

  “Will someone here please explain what the fuck is going on?” Claire pushed her way past Nathan, who tried to pull her back behind him, but she squirmed out of his grasp and shot him a glare, one perfect brow arched.

  “Who the hell are you? And what makes you think you can walk into our home uninvited?” She pointed to the long-haired man.

  He blew out a harsh breath. “It’s a pleasure to meet you finally, Claire. I am Rhyndor, and you could say your mate and I are sworn enemies. And this is Callum, my bonded male and Nathan’s cousin.”

  Rhyndor pressed his fists harder into the counter, and his arms bulged once more. God above, the two of them were insanely hot. Was it her imagination, or did the cool autumn air seem to be turning humid? She pulled her T-shirt from her body and fanned her face. Callum followed the movement with those hooded, whiskey eyes of his, and she saw something of Nathan in him then. A shadow of familiarity in the way he moved. Whereas Nathan was all dark eyes and seriousness, this guy’s gaze could light a fire if you ran out of kindling. His lips twitched at the sides with something akin to amusement.