by Lola Kidd
The Dragon’s Fated Mate
Shifters Brides Everafter
Lola Kidd
Copyright 2017 by Lola Kidd
Cover Design: Melody Simmons
All rights reserved.
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is entirely coincidental. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. No part of this work may be copied or reproduced without the express consent of the author.
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About This Book
Leigh Ganza knows what she wants out of life. She’s going to marry a nice human man and live a nice human life. After spending years as an outsider in her shifter hometown, she’s ready to move to the human world and live her life. But before she can leave and start her new life, she has one last job to do.
Dragon shifter Jasper Collins is ready to find his mate and settle down. He has one last job to finish before starting his search and it’s a big one.
When these two meet the sparks fly. But Leigh wants nothing to do with the dragon shifter. She’s done with shifters. Can he convince her to look past his dragon nature to the man inside? Find out in the first book of the Shifter Brides Everafter series!
Table of Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-two
Twenty-three
Twenty-four
A Note from Lola
Other Books by Lola Kidd
One
Leigh Ganza was on the edge of her seat. The room was silent as her mother and aunt stared each other down.
“You did it on purpose!” her mother finally yelled.
“You’re being dramatic.” Aunt Melly took a delicate sip of tea. “I wasn’t the one who made this food. If you want to get mad, be mad at Kim. I don’t know why you always try to blame everything on me.”
Leigh watched helplessly as her mom started another fight with Leigh’s aunt. What was supposed to have been a nice afternoon teatime with the ladies was about to turn into World War Three. Her aunt and her mother had been so good lately, too. It had been more than a month since their last outburst. Auntie Melly had even come over and helped with Sunday dinner just a few days earlier.
“Dramatic?” Her mother’s face turned bright red. She looked to her other sister for help. “Kim, are you hearing your older sister? You have to talk some sense into her.”
The teacup stopped halfway to Aunt Kim’s mouth. As always, she was caught between her two sisters.
Leigh felt particularly bad because this tea date had been Aunt Kim’s idea. They were celebrating the big job Melly had landed: she would be catering the desserts and appetizers at a society wedding. The original caterer had dropped out at the last minute and Melly had been able to pick the job up.
Aunt Kim had asked Leigh if it was a good idea before she’d sent out the invites, and Leigh had said yes. Things had been going great, so why not celebrate as a family?
Big mistake. They should both have known better. Auntie Melly and her mother were a powder keg waiting to go off.
“There are so many delicious things on the table.” Kim drank her tea serenely. “Will you be serving anything like this at the wedding, Melly?”
“Who cares?” Leigh’s mother growled.
“I’d like to hear it,” Leigh said. Looking at the desserts, which had all been made with products containing peanuts, she wrinkled her nose. “I don’t even want to have any of these desserts. I have ice cream in the freezer. Please don’t make a big deal out of this, Mom.”
“You’re such a sweet girl.” She stroked her daughter’s face before scowling at her older sister. “You may not have picked this food, but I know that Kim asked you before she ordered this. You gave her the caterer’s name, and I’m sure you talked to him about what to serve. You know Leigh is allergic to peanuts. You’ve always had it in for her. This is typical of you.”
Sitting across from Leigh was Fabia, Kim’s daughter and Leigh’s only cousin. She was also Leigh’s only friend. Because she had been homeschooled, Leigh hadn’t gotten to spend much time with other kids growing up. Even when she had, the shifter kids in Ganjis hadn’t been friendly to the “normie.” If it hadn’t been for her cousin, Leigh wouldn’t have had anyone her own age to talk to.
While they had a lot in common, the girls had wildly different opinions about their aunts’ fighting. Fabia thought it was comical. Aunties Bess and Melly would huff and puff for hours. Then it would all be over and they could go on with their family time. Leigh suspected that if Fabia lived with Melly, she wouldn’t find it all so comical. Her mother was always a pain in the butt to deal with for days after a fight with her older sister.
It made Leigh happy that she was an only child. She would never have to worry about these kinds of fights ruining her week once she moved out. Every time something like this happened, she wanted to speed up her plans to move away from the Wasteland. She was looking forward to a quiet life one day. But first, she had to survive this stupid tea.
“You’re just starting a fight to try to ruin my lunch.” Melly’s cheeks were now bright red too, and her eyes were all pupil. “You’re jealous of my big break. You wish you could be half the businesswoman I am. It isn’t my fault you decided to focus on your child and your husband instead of your own pursuits.”
“You wish you had a husband as good as mine and a daughter even half as beautiful as Leigh. After all, you did try to steal her away when she was just a baby.”
Melly jumped up, shaking with rage. “I was taking her on a walk! Sometimes I fear for your sanity, sister. I would never want to steal your child. I was just trying to spend some time with my niece after you hid her away from me.”
“I had to. You were crazy with jealousy. I didn’t want you to hurt my baby.”
“Please sit down,” Kim pleaded. “We can still have a nice lunch.”
“Fat chance,” Leigh muttered.
Once the “kidnapping” had been brought up, there was no going back. This was going to get ugly.
She signaled to her cousin that it was time to head to their spot. Leigh left first. She didn’t even excuse herself. She took her finger sandwiches and left the dining room to go to the roof. Now that the fight was raging, her mother wouldn’t notice she was gone for at least an hour.
As soon as the sunlight hit her face, her spirits rose. She could never stay angry or sad when she was this high up. It was her favorite spot in the whole house. Her father never bothered coming up here, and her mother and aunts were afraid of heights. When she was up here, nobody except the maids bothered her.
She took out her beach towel and stripped down to her underwear. It was entirely too nice out to waste the sun if they were already up here. She was at least going to get a glorious tan while they waited for the storm downstairs to subside.
“Have you been working on your bikini body without me?” Fabia accused her. She stood above Leigh with her towel in hand.
They had stashed supplies up here years earlier. Fabia was the only person Leigh didn’t mind sharing her hiding spot with.
“I knew you were hiding a killer body under all those clothes this winter,” Fabia sighed. “You have the perfect body, Leigh. You have to tell me your secret.”
“Eat too much cake?” Leigh resisted the urge to cover back up. She’d gained ten pounds over the winter and had felt horrible about her body all spring. Now, she was done with that. She’d vowed to love her body exactly as it was. If a few extra pounds were her biggest worry, she should feel lucky.
It wasn’t like that jiggle was going anywhere anytime soon. She’d always been a bigger girl—much bigger than her tiny, perfect cousin. Ironically, while Leigh had always coveted Fabia’s slim, petite frame, her cousin was jealous of Leigh’s soft curves.
“I tried that all summer, and look at me.” Fabia clutched at the flat top of her shirt. “How did you get so lucky while I got stuck with this flat body?”
“I wish I could pull off tops like that,” Leigh said. “If I wore that, my parents would never let me out of the house.”
“If you wore that top, you’d have a husband before you even walked a block,” Fabia joked. “You probably wouldn’t even have to walk. All the men would offer to carry you around like a princess.”
Leigh sighed. “If that were true, I wouldn’t still be the sad, single, and crazy human of Ganjis.”
“You aren’t sad and crazy. Men are just afraid because of your father,” Fabia said. “That’s why you need to get on this dating app I was telling you about. MateMe! is seriously the best dating app. You’d have like a million dates. You can meet shifters who don’t even live in the Wasteland.”
“I don’t want to date a shifter. I’ve had enough of them for a lifetime. I’m moving on to humans. Maybe I’ll have more luck with people more like me.”
Fabia rolled over and looked at the sky. “Seriously?”
“Seriously. I haven’t told anyone yet, but I’m planning to move to a human city as soon as I can find a job. I’ve started looking already.”
“Oh, well, see—don’t be mad, but I thought you were kidding.”
“Nope. I’m not interested in mating with a shifter. I’m going to marry a human. But you can’t tell anyone about my plan to move yet! I don’t want it getting back to my parents before I tell them myself.” Leigh held out her pinky to her cousin. “Promise?”
Fabia hooked her pinky though Leigh’s. “Of course. But you have to promise not to be mad at me for what I did.”
“No way.” Leigh snatched her hand away. “Tell me first, and I’ll decide if I’m going to be mad.”
“You’re going to be mad.” Fabia showed Leigh her phone. “I already signed you up for the dating app. I even found you a match already.”
Leigh grabbed the phone. “You didn’t even ask! Why would you do this to me?”
“I thought I was helping,” Fabia said morosely. “I’m sorry, Leigh. I’ll delete your profile right now.”
“Can these men find me?” Leigh asked, handing the phone back.
Fabia shook her head. “Nope. I mean, they know you’re in the area, but they won’t know exactly where you live. I’m sorry. Please forgive me?”
Leigh stood up. “I forgive you. But I’m going for a walk. I need to get away from you for a while.”
“Okay, but be quick. If the aunts stop fighting, we’re going to be in deep trouble.”
“I’ll be quick. Did you delete my profile?”
“I will, but don’t you want to see the match first? I mean, it’s pretty good. And you know, you’ll probably have more luck with shifters anyway. Once a human man finds out about your dad, he’s going to run for the hills.”
Leigh scowled. “So, I won’t tell him until we’ve been dating for a long time.”
“Won’t make him any less scared. Can you even imagine bringing a human back here to meet your parents?”
“Not really, but that doesn’t mean I can’t. Now get rid of the profile.”
Her cousin had a point, but Leigh would deal with that once she found a human man to love. No matter what man she found, her father’s job was going to be a problem. Her father said he was a politician, but she knew that he wasn’t the regular kind of mayor. He was involved with some shady people. The rumor was that he was connected to the shifter mafia.
Leigh didn’t believe it. Her father was intimidating and successful. She imagined those rumors had been started by people jealous of him.
Fabia held up the phone. “All deleted. But if you change your mind, let me know. This thing is still in beta, but it rocks. I’ve gone on three dates already.”
“Thanks, but no thanks.”
Leigh climbed down the outside of the building and headed into the woods behind her home.
The nerve of her cousin, trying to set her up with shifters! As if she’d been kidding this entire time. Fabia and the rest of her family were going to have to accept that she wasn’t going to come around. Leigh had a plan for her future, and a shifter man wasn’t part of it.
Two
“Is the guest house ready?” Roger Sheridan asked.
Jasper Collins resisted the urge to jump across the desk and slap him. This was the fourth time he’d asked about the guest house.
“We’re going to have the caterer help us stock the fridge, but everything else is all done. They could arrive today, and all that would be missing is prepared food.”
“Good, good,” Roger said, nodding. “What about closets? Have the closets been aired out?”
“I’m sure the staff is taking care of it,” Jasper said. “Listen, Roger—let me take care of all of this. You don’t have to worry about a single thing except keeping your fiancée happy, rekindling your relationship with your daughter, and showing up to the chapel on time. Everything else, I’ll handle.”
Roger slumped at his desk. “I know I’m being demanding. But it’s been over a year and a half since I’ve seen my little girl. I’m afraid I’ll mess this up and she’ll never come home again. Or even worse, both girls will stay away. Cindy would never forgive me if that happened.”
“I understand. But don’t worry; Jessica is important to me too. I’ve never met Suzy, but I’m sure she’s a great girl. They’re coming because they’re happy for you two. Don’t worry. You can’t mess this up.”
That wasn’t entirely true. Jasper was worried about that very thing, and worse. Roger had already chased his daughter away once. It would be very bad for business if he did it again.
Not that it was really a possibility. Roger was a much different man from the one Jessica had run away from eighteen months earlier. But Jasper had failed to mention exactly how important she was in his family’s plans. If Roger had a good relationship with his shifter son-in-law and his shifter grandchild, it would make him a much stronger candidate for president one day. It would also free Jasper of his obligation to micro-manage Roger’s public image. He could hand over the entire Sheridan campaign to a seasoned manager and watch from the sidelines.
He cared for the Sheridan family a great deal, but he’d spent more than enough time with them the last few years when Rodger was running for governor. He was ready to start pursuing his own goals and looking for his mate. Both of his younger brothers had already found mates, and his mother was pressuring him to do the same. And it wasn’t like Jasper didn’t want that too. But he just couldn’t up and leave Roger hanging when they were so close to accomplishing their goal.
He’d nurtured his relationship with the Sheridan family for years, and had worked hard to change Roger’s feelings about shifters. It had taken a lot of work, but after Jess had run off with her shifter bodyguard, Alec, Roger had changed a great deal.
When she’d run away, it had cut Roger to the core and made him question everything in his life. Jasper had spent many late nights talking with Roger about it all. Very soon afterward, Jasper’s family had come out of the closet and gone pu
blic with their true nature.
Jasper hadn’t wanted to do it, but his father had been planning their coming out for decades. His relationship with Rodger was one deeper than just campaign donor and confidant. Jasper had been nurturing Rodger’s political career for the last few years. If he had lost that connection, it would have been years wasted. That was time he could have spent nurturing a relationship with a possible mate.
It had been a delicate dance after the family came out. He’d confessed his shifter status to Roger privately before the public disclosure. Roger had been pissed, and had vowed never to speak to any of the Collinses again. But they were his biggest donors and had become his close friends. It would have been too much to lose his daughter and his good friends at the same time. He’d reluctantly continued to talk with Jasper.
Jasper thought it would take years to get Roger to accept shifters. Probably a decade before he would be willing to work with shifters politically. But in a stroke of good luck, another young woman from Penicalla had run away with one of Alec’s cousins.
The girl, Suzy, was the daughter of a woman Roger knew well, a beautiful widow named Cindy. He’d gone to visit Cindy to see how she was doing. Their daughters had ended up living moving to the same shifter-friendly Caribbean island after marrying shifter cousins.
He and Cindy had bonded over this and fallen in love slowly as they worked through their feelings together. Now, she and Roger were getting married too. It had been an amazing turn of events for Jasper. The wedding gave Roger an excuse to try to rekindle his relationship with his daughter, and it would help change public perception of the formerly anti-shifter politician.
“Thanks for the pep talk,” Roger said.
Jasper glanced at his watch. “I need to get moving. Still need to finalize some of the plans.”
Roger stood up and shook Jasper’s hand. “Thanks for all your help.”
“No problem. Have a great night.”
Jasper took out his phone as he walked to his car. He saw that he had a slew of texts from his assistant. The texts became more alarming as he scrolled through them. The assistant wanted to know if they should plan for Suzy’s and Jess’s babies to be staying in the guest house with the two couples. As far as Jasper knew, the babies weren’t coming. He had asked Roger and Cindy when he’d first begun planning. Apparently, Cindy had mentioned offhandedly to his assistant how happy she was to get to see her granddaughter again.
