The Dragon's Charm (Elemental Dragons Book 4)

by Emilia Hartley

  It was her supposed fondness for dragons that’d gotten her into this mess to begin with. If she was caught leaving with them, if someone saw her entering the Territory, everything was over. It would look as though everything they believed about her was true and she would never be able to build her business.

  Not here. Not in her home town.

  “You said it yourself,” the dragon woman went on. “They already broke into your apartment. Is it even safe to stay there? Just one night. That’s all I ask. You get a place all to yourself and no one will bother you. Not if I have any say about it.”

  Morgan remembered the tears in her mattress. She couldn’t help but imagine laying on while they dug the hunting knife through it, through her. It made her shudder. Her gut clenched when she spoke again.

  “Fine.”

  The dragon woman nodded. All the while, the dragon man hadn’t said another word. He only watched her. It made her want to squirm, to duck out from beneath his gaze as it made her skin too warm to bear.

  “Kenji, take her to Noelle’s old place for me.”

  “Wait!” Morgan spun around ass the dragon woman pushed past them. “You aren’t going to take me?”

  She fought to keep her eyes from flicking toward the dragon man beside her. She swallowed the groan that rose. If anyone saw them, saw her entering the Territory with a male dragon, then there was nothing left.

  The dragon woman turned, giving her a flat stare in return. “I’m sure you saw the news. I have work to do.”

  With that said, the dragon woman turned and left them alone in the lobby. Morgan had nowhere to go, no place that was safe. Yet, on the other hand, she knew leaving with him might destroy what she had left of a life. Morgan’s feet were fused to the ground, stuck between a rock and a hard place as one might say. She looked up at him, lost.

  He made a face, one that said dealing with that woman was usually like this. It did nothing to help the feeling of helplessness inside of Morgan in that moment. Eventually, hands in his pockets, the dragon man jerked his head toward the door.

  “Ready to go?”

  No. Not at all. She couldn’t. There was no way.

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  Morgan did what she never thought she’d do. She followed the dragon man out of the Embassy. She half expected to fly on the back of a dragon until he walked up to a black truck. It was a pleasant surprise, a piece of normal amongst the crazy turn her day had taken.

  She stole a sidelong glance at the dragon man. He was even more beautiful in person. It made her feel a bit like a clod of dirt. She knew there was fryer grease on her skin and salt under her nails. She probably smelled like pickles and fries, and her hair had begun to fray from her careful plait. He, on the other hand, looked smooth. She couldn’t help the comparison to marble.

  At the museums she’d been to, the marble statues had been an unexpected obsession. Her eyes had been drawn to the carefully carved, smooth planes of human structure that seemed nigh impossible. Yet, now she sat beside a walking, talking example of one of those statues.

  He tugged his seatbelt and glanced at her, a question in his eyes. She pressed her lips together and shook her head. Morgan didn’t trust herself to speak. Her throat was already tight. Any words it might release would be damning. She shouldn’t trust the dragons, a fact she knew down to her very bones, but she’d looked at this man and found herself agreeing to leave with him.

  What was wrong with her brain. She glanced out the window, wondering if she could open the door and make a break for it. He seemed to pick up on her thoughts because he paused.

  “You can, if you want. I won’t stop you.”

  His words seemed to center her. Her hand fell away from the door handle, where she hadn’t even noticed it rise. Morgan sucked in a breath. This was okay, she told herself.

  The man beside her nodded and turned the key in the ignition. The truck roared to life and they began rolling out of the parking lot. Morgan fought to distract herself from the path her life had taken, propelling her into conversation.

  “Why are you driving? Can’t you just… fly?”

  The man smiled. It was small, but soft and genuine. Morgan wondered how those lips kissed and shook her head. That wasn’t what she needed to be thinking about, even as her gaze slid back to them.

  “We made an effort to look as non-threatening as possible during the trial. It meant all of us being ground bound if we wanted to go.”

  Morgan nodded as if any of it made sense to her. That was a lie. It did make sense. She couldn’t imagine a flock of dragons arriving at the courthouse and the chaos and outrage it might incite in the town.

  Having the trial in her hometown had been an odd decision. She knew it was probably because of the large GOE facility nearby and the new Dragon Embassy, but it seemed too small of a place for something as large as it was. The dragons sought to have all the GOE facilities across the country shut down.

  Morgan’s eyes settled on the scars on the dragon man’s arms and found her mind wandering. Who had given him those scars? Another dragon? Or, were their accusations true and GOE really was abusing them behind closed doors?

  She shook her head. This wasn’t her place. It wasn’t her place to scrutinize the truth and the lies of the situation. All she needed was a place to stay for the night. After that, Morgan would get her feet beneath her once more. She would finish her shift at the diner with her head down and set about picking up her apartment piece by piece. This was her home and no amount of bullies were going to make her leave.

  She was not a dragon lover. She wouldn’t lay with them, not even the man made of marble beside her. That just wasn’t what Morgan wanted. She told herself this over and over, even while she snuck glances at the man and found her core starting to warm.

  Outside the window, rolling farmlands slowly turned into copses of trees. The road beneath them gave way to crushed stone and a much bumpier ride. Morgan found her teeth chattering inside her head and decided she would have preferred an airborne ride, instead.

  “Sorry about this,” the man managed to bite out between bumps and holes. “Since we’re… you know, the local leader told me no one wants to finish paving the road into the Territory.”

  “What if someone makes a wrong turn and finds themselves here?”

  He laughed, a small bark of a sound. “Then this shit road probably serves to tell people they’ve gone in the wrong direction.”

  Morgan found herself smiling. She couldn’t help it as her hand rose to grip the handle on the ceiling. Her butt rose from the seat as the tires crashed into potholes made from years of rain.

  “I think Dane needs to have someone maintain this nightmare,” the dragon man said.

  “Well, it isn’t that big of a problem if you all just fly in and out all the time.”

  He nodded, a gesture that was mangled by the effect of the road. “Yeah, but there are human mates like Anya and Quinn that come and go. They can’t fly on their own, so they’re stuck using these roads.”

  “Quinn?” Morgan searched for the reason the name felt familiar. “You mean Quinn Jenkins? The journalist who wrote that big piece on the Guardians not too long ago?”

  He nodded. She could see his jaw clench and she wondered what kind of button she’d managed to press. Morgan kicked herself. She shouldn’t piss off the dragon man she was stuck in a truck cab with. It wasn’t smart at all.

  “It was, uh, a great piece. Really. She explained everything.” Morgan couldn’t dig the hole around herself any faster if someone had handed her a shovel. She closed her eyes and mentally kicked herself. She sounded like an idiot, but what else was she supposed to say?

  “It was a good piece. Quinn was… is a friend of mine. She lived with my family for a while before she finally met her true mate here.”

  True mate.

  The words seemed to reach out and cling to Morgan. They were a clue to something she wasn’t able to understand yet. She tucked them away for inspection
later, or more likely, to forget about after she left the Territory in the morning.

  “Oh, that’s cool,” she managed to say in response.

  The man gave her a look that was half confusion and half humor. Morgan felt her face warm beneath it.

  “I’m Kenji, by the way. Kenji Miyazaki, but you can call me Ken if you like.”

  Her nose crinkled. “Ken makes you sound like a doll.”

  Although, his level of perfection wasn’t far away. Her eyes dropped to the zipper of his slacks and she caught herself thinking of the what separated him from a child’s doll. He most likely had a lot more to offer than the smooth expanse of a doll.

  She sucked in a breath and quickly looked away. Why was she looking at him like this? Why was she considering what he held in his pants? The long day and the crazy events had jumbled her brain. That was the only explanation for the direction her mind kept travelling in. If she let it, her mind would slither right back down into Kenji’s pants.

  “Morgan,” she said in return. “Hayes.”

  “Hayes isn’t the kind of last name I would have thought. I would have suspected something like Yazzie.”

  Morgan nodded, catching his meaning. She found herself glancing out the window at her reflection in the side mirror. “Hayes was my dad’s last name, but I got most of my looks from my mother. She was Cherokee.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “Is it that clear in my voice?”

  “The way you talk about her,” he began. “It’s like you’re talking about a memory.”

  Morgan nodded, her mind settling into something somber. “Breast cancer last year. It came fast and hard. No one was prepared for what happened. My dad took it the hardest.”

  She hadn’t even thought about calling him, telling him she was okay, but he wouldn’t have known to worry about his daughter. He was still off, somewhere in the desert trying to recover from a broken heart through some spiritual connection to the world. Morgan didn’t understand it, but if it helped him grieve then she could live with his ways.

  Beside her, Kenji nodded. A small town appeared outside the windshield. A dark colored cabin came into view. Planted beside it was a stack of shipping containers that had windows carved out of the sides. Together, the two homes looked like friends that no one thought would get along. The whole town looked that way, actually. There were all sorts of homes gathered around a firepit.

  Kenji turned the truck toward a small house that looked like nothing more than a shed on wheels. It was cute, she had to admit. The shed was made to look like an old Victorian, a miniature version, of course.

  “Another dragon lived here until recently, but she moved out to live with her mate.”

  Morgan eyed the shed again. “That’s where you want me to stay?”

  Kenji looked between her and the shed before offering an apology, even if he didn’t understand what she was bothered about. She’d expected a small apartment, a bedroom with a bath attached, even. This…

  “It’s fine,” she said, convincing herself at the same time.

  It was only for a night. She slid out of the truck, feet hitting the ground a little harder than she would have liked. The echo of her long day came back, pain stabbing through the muscles that held her upright.

  This would be fine for the night, she told herself.

  Chapter Four

  “What are we going to do about this?” one voice cried over the rest.

  Kenji’s eyes darted over the faces around him, trying to pinpoint the direction the sound came from. His stomach tightened. There was not a happy face in the whole crowd. He couldn’t blame them, but with this many dragons in one area, he worried what might unfold.

  Dane approached the edge of his porch as if it were a podium from which he could lay down commands. Instead of reciting law, he raised his hands and beseeched them for a moment of quiet. Dane was a gentle leader, but Kenji knew the dragons he’d arrived with were not used to his ways. They were not used to listening to one voice be an absolute.

  Before his family had arrived, Kenji had been part of a council that ran the nomadic family of dragons. It helped the family be democratic and showed the weaker dragons they were cared for.

  There was no arguing that the dragons were still cared for when they looked up to where Dane stood. Behind him was a small army of dragons ready and willing to lay down their lives for the family, even the newest members. Liana cradled Miri, their adopted child, in her arms, but her eyes said she was ready for a fight. If anyone had fighting spirit, it was that woman.

  Beside her was a shorter dragon woman who stood like she was three feet taller. Noelle might be a small woman, but Kenji had seen her dragon. He knew the Asian dragons were larger, but she was the largest he’d ever seen and her fire burned like molten gold. Flanking either side of Dane were the Avila twins. Neither had an elemental power that was very great, but they were survivors in their own right. Kenji knew their father, had respected the man and knew his sons would be as great as he was.

  They stood as a united front before the crowd now that news had gotten around about the failed trial. Fear and alarm had been rampant, especially among those Kenji had arrived with. They were wondering what would happen next. Since they’d stopped moving around, anxiety had reached an all-time high.

  They were no longer a moving target.

  “This changes nothing.” Dane’s voice boomed over the crowd and they quieted. His eyes danced over them to make each person feel like he recognized them, even when he might not know their name.

  Kenji wondered if he would have been as good of a leader? Maybe, he would have fumbled in the beginning, but he would have learned and grew over time. Now, he would never know. He no longer stood to inherit a position of importance in this family. He was simply, Kenji.

  Liana’s job gave him a new sense of purpose, but there was a bitter poison in it. He would never become the man he thought he’d be.

  “The Guardians have no claim over your body or soul,” Dane reminded them. “While the legal route may not have gotten us far, the seed of doubt has been planted. The truths have been revealed and it is up to the country to see them for what they are.”

  “That doesn’t change shit!” someone shouted. No one could pinpoint a voice among all these dragons. There were far too many now.

  Dane’s shoulders tightened. He could tell frustration was setting in, but it was Noelle who spoke first.

  “Unless you’re out there trying to change the world, shut your damn maw.”

  There was a round of nervous laughter, like perhaps some of them wondered if she had the power to back up the venom in her voice. Noelle had a point, though. None of them dared step off the Territory for fear of what might happen to them away from its safety. They left the tough work up to those standing on Dane’s porch.

  “We are working to make changes in this world, to make it better for our kind. For this family,” Dane announced. “We’ve begun a task force employed by the Embassy. A mixture of dragons and humans will work to be first responders when policing our own and help cut down on GOE interference. This task force will be headed by one of our own, Kenji Miyazaki!”

  A murmur slithered around the crowd. Kenji met a few eyes and was given a few approving nods before his gaze settled on a face standing apart from the crowd. Morgan watched the group with worry. There was a paleness to her skin that told him she was partially afraid. She could have retreated to the little home they’d set her up in. She didn’t have to stay and watch their little council meeting.

  He found he was a bit proud of her for standing her ground, for staying and seeing who they really were. He found this odd desire for her to know him on a personal level. She was nothing to him, simply a human woman, yet there was an attraction to her that pulled him back, time and time again.

  The crowd seemed to be pleased to hear his name assigned to Liana’s latest project. His family trusted him. He sought them out in the crowd and seemed to plead for rea
ssurance. Could he do this?

  Yes, he could.

  He had to.

  ***

  Morgan felt repulsion hit her stomach. It was a wave that crashed into her and threatened to bring up the contents of her stomach. There were so many dragons. She knew the American Dragon Territory was large, taking up a good chunk of Nebraska, but she never imagined there would be this many dragons in one place.

  She was only grateful they didn’t take to the skies and raze the world for the vengeance some of the crowd members called for. The country would never survive if they did. A rough estimate, taking in the sheer size of the crowd before her, made her think there might be over three hundred dragons.

  Her eyes flicked to the sky above. She couldn’t imagine what it would look like if all of them took to their dragon forms. If they were so angry, why hadn’t they done so already? Dragons clearly had the upper hand against humanity with their size and firepower. It was all too easy to kill a human with their jaws or by simply dropping fragile bodies through the air. They could drop fire and death from above, as easy as Morgan might cough.

  If they were so angry at GOE, then what were they waiting for?

  Then, Morgan remembered how Kenji had stepped in when the boys confronted her. Kenji didn’t know her. They weren’t friends or even acquaintances. Yet, he’d protected her when humans threatened her life.

  Morgan didn’t know what to think of the world anymore. There were so many muddy areas of life that weren’t worth the time they took to clear. Morgan decided she would rather take a nap than contemplate the end of the world via dragon army. There was no point in dwelling on a future she couldn’t control.

  About to turn, her skin prickled and she held her place. Her eyes met Kenji’s and an electric zing crashed through her body. It was as if a string between them had suddenly been pulled taut. The invisible string threatened to pull her toward the dragon man on the cabin porch, if that giant house could be called a cabin at all.