by Maia Starr
Saved By The Alpha Dragon
(Alpha Mates Of Salem)
Maia Starr
Copyright ©2019 by Maia Starr - All rights reserved.
In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher. All rights reserved.
Respective authors own all copyrights not held by the publisher.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Dragon Shifter Island (Sneak Peak)
Other Books By Maia Starr
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Chapter One
Eliza
The wind whipped Eliza’s long blond hair around as she stomped around the side of the coffee shop. The walk was incredibly short, only ten seconds from the front of the coffee shop, yet Eliza still found herself squinting to spy the tiny wrought-iron door tucked away in the back corner. She blinked when she spotted it, almost not believing how hidden the door had been from the street.
To get to it, Eliza was forced to step down a half flight of concrete stairs that opened up into a narrow walkway, which led to another quarter flight of steps. The worst of the trek was the fact she’d had to lift and carry her suitcase down the steps. Normally, she only had to roll it, since so much of her stuff from home had been packed in nice and tight; the rest would be coming later on sometime. Now, her arms ached as she leaned over to catch her breath, straightening with a smile across her pale lips and tucking a few strands of her hair behind her ear.
Stepping up to the door, Eliza’s smile widened. “Alright,” she whispered to herself, rummaging briskly in her pockets to pull out the key one of the coffee shop owners had handed her just minutes prior. Before unlocking the door, Eliza studied the key in the palm of her hand, raising and shaking her hand around. The weight of the key was perfect, a small detail that went a long way to keep Eliza’s spirits up on the first day in Salem.
Taking another deep breath, Eliza jammed the key into the keyhole and turned the knob, the iron of the door groaning as it swung open. One step inside and Eliza placed down her luggage. Another step and she suddenly burst from her spot, running into the small apartment and prancing around, staring at everything and giggling. She was finally here! Finally able to relish in the idea that her life was moving forward.
So far, Salem had been everything Eliza had expected it to be. Gratefully quiet and serene, small in size but bustling enough to be considered lively. And the people, a mix of the elderly and pleasant middle-aged group, with a few people in their prime, like Eliza herself.
Salem was like a portrait, with blue skies, sunny days and greenery as far as the eye could see, at least with what she’d seen so far. And Eliza was loving it.
Eliza squealed as she darted in between the narrow doorway that led to her new bedroom and plopped down on the thin twin-sized bed. The soft covers had been recently made and the room smelled wonderful. Eliza rolled around, simply happy to be there and enjoying the coziness.
Rolling onto her back, Eliza stared up at her popcorn ceiling with a sweet smile, sighing and running her hand through her hair.
“This is the best,” she whispered to herself. Pushing her hand into her jeans pocket, she pulled out the letter of acceptance for the dozenth time, forcing herself to slow down and breathe unless her fingers tore the letter in half. Not that it mattered whether the letter of acceptance was torn up or not...it was just a nice reminder.
Unfolding the letter out to its fullest, Eliza read it to herself. “We are happy to notify you that we have accepted you into the Salem University Graduate Pre-Medicine School. Classes will start this fall, under the tutelage of Professor Gabriel Allard, a genius in his field…”
At that point in her reading, Eliza closed her eyes and pulled the letter to her chest. “Gabriel Allard...a genius in his field.”
Eliza, would be doctor, taught by a genius. It was hard to see why she wouldn’t be excited. Or at least she would be in the field. To become a full-fledged doctor would take time. As far as she knew, Salem didn’t have anything like a medical practice. She could start her own, possibly, like she had wanted to since her days as a happy-go-lucky kid. Dreams didn’t always work out for people, but hers was possible. Very possible. Not many could say that.
Nothing else mattered to Eliza at the moment. Who cared if she was thinking too far into the future on her very first day? It wasn’t wrong to dream, was it? Who cared if she was still friendless? She’d make friends in class, or at least future colleagues.
Because of the size of the town, Salem University probably had minuscule class sizes, meaning more and easier opportunities to make friends...and more one-on-one time with the genius professor.
Besides, Eliza had never been one to worry too much about her social life. Even if she’d been single for the past half-decade, it didn’t quite matter, did it? She’d noticed a decent amount of good looking men on her way into town, men she wouldn’t mind striking up a conversation with. All she needed was to meet one, and Eliza’s life would be complete, if not secure.
She sighed as her thoughts turned dirtier, imagining rippling muscles, long wet hair, arms wrapping around her, a sexy smile. Blushing at the thought, Eliza shook her head. Some dreams weren’t possible. There was no way there was a guy that perfect in Salem. No way. Nada. It simply wasn’t possible. But it didn’t hurt to dream.
Rising from the bed, Eliza swung her legs out and stood, placing her letter of acceptance back into her pocket and rushing out to get her luggage. Her first class was a few days from now, meaning she had days full of free time to explore the rest of Salem. Plenty of time to get herself to cool down, ready to start her new life. But the question was, what would she do first? Where would she go? She knew virtually little else about the town, except for the strange rumors that surrounded it. Rumors that were nonsensical, tales by word of mouth only. If there were any truth to them, Eliza might have chosen to try another university to apply to.
As she stripped her current clothes off, standing in front of a full-length mirror barely looking at her curvaceous body, she puckered her lips and tried to think of how stories of people shapeshifting into animals came about. Wolves running through the forest alongside cars, bears entering town on one side and by the end of a street, will be entirely human, dragons soaring above the forest that surrounds Salem...it was all crazy. Not worth her time.
But it was fun to think about. A man who could shapeshift into a dragon, V-shaped and starry-eyed with a smile to kill and a body to rock her world. It was enough to make Eliza sigh as she slipped on her walking shoes and stomped to the door.
“I can’t set the bar too
high just yet,” she whispered to herself.
Pushing open her front door, Eliza slipp
ed outside, her thoughts of Salem’s rumors drifting from her mind.
Chapter Two
Ethan
With the wind soaring at his sides and whistling in his ears, Ethan barreled over the tree line almost too close for comfort. The tips of the treetops brushed against his massive, scaled belly, the sensation a little more than a barely noticeable tickle to him. Given his sheer size, and his single-minded ability to ignore everything other than what was on the ground beneath him, it made sense Ethan didn’t notice how close he came to crashing.
Dragons didn’t concern themselves with something so minuscule, though, or they usually didn’t because only a rare few were dumb enough to fly so low. And of those few, most were bad flyers, and the others were simply distracted. Of the two circumstances, Ethan was the latter, his reptilian eyes scanning the areas in between the trees, searching, unwilling to stop flicking left to right as he wheeled up and above a cliff he narrowly missed. The maneuver was instinctive, not at all caused by his recognition of his surroundings.
Though he roared in annoyance anyway.
Where? Where is he?
Ethan had been flying around ever since the sun had come up, endlessly flapping his wings as he rode the currents of the wind, ignoring the humans that gawked at him below and the other shifters that watched him diligently, waiting for him to land or do something else. But Ethan refused to land or do whatever the other shifters he saw wanted him to do. He wouldn’t stop until he found Arthur, even if it took him all day, or all week, or months or years.
Ever since the alpha shifter had left, Ethan had been searching daily, looking for crashed or marooned dragons or unconscious shifters laying in some ditch. It was the only thing he could do now, the only thing that would keep him sane for the moment. Unlike Maia, this could have been a mistake.
But it’s been a month. If he were unconscious out here...
Ethan didn’t want to go further than that thought. If anything, Arthur was alive, living somewhere with fewer shifters around. Hopefully.
Unconsciously, Ethan had drifted closer to his territory, gliding over the edge and noticing the lack of creatures going through the forest below. It wasn’t shocking. Dragons shifters were powerful, commanding, especially the Cave Dragons, Ethan’s clan. They were nothing like the petty Gray Rock Wolves or those smelly bears from the Woodland Bear Clan. Dragons were feared by their very presence so other animals would naturally steer clear of the area.
Down below, Ethan spied the series of caves that marked the homes of his people, and after another few minutes of flapping his wings he came within sight of his cave, hidden beneath myriad foliage and densely surrounded by trees. And a figure, small and waving, beckoned him to land. Ethan circled as his dark chestnut eyes squinted at the man, and then plummeted, shifting midair to land with a start on the forest floor. The impact sent dirt flying up in all directions; the man deftly avoided the dirt and twigs that flew up, hiding behind a tree until the wave of air had blown by. By the time the man looked back around, Ethan was crouching over a log and pulling out a medium-sized bag.
“I’d rather you land and then shift, Ethan,” the man called out, his voice level and hinting at some displeasure.
“Too bad,” Ethan said as he pulled out a pair of underwear from the bag and slipped them on. “I like the rush.”
“The rush will kill you one day,” the man continued, sauntering forward. He had the gait of a confident doctor, almost tedious in his stride. “It’ll leave you reeling one day if it isn’t already. Eventually, you’ll make a mistake in the landing. Break a leg. Smash your head in on a rock you didn’t see. Snap your spine in an unexpected twist—”
“Any wounds I sustain from landing awkwardly will heal, Gabriel. Shifters are great at the whole self-healing thing. Especially us dragons.”
Gabriel Allard flashed a hard look on his fellow shifter, his steely eyes holding back a bitter retort. Instead, the older shifter stepped closer until he was hovering just above the crouching Ethan. “A snapped spine won’t heal. Neither will a snapped neck. And neither will this obsession of yours with finding Arthur.”
Pausing in the middle of yanking on a simple shirt, Ethan grimaced and then poked his head through. Anger flickered across his handsome features and disappeared as a cool breeze whipped by to wipe the sweat from his cheeks when he glared up at the doctor. He wanted to say something, anything, to get rid of the pain lingering in Gabriel’s wrinkled eyes, but he found his mouth dry and his voice gone. So instead, he rose and marched off towards his cave, Gabriel hot on his heels.
“Arthur is gone, and the not the dead kind of gone,” Gabriel continued. “He chose to leave, Ethan, for reasons he never told any of us. Not even me.”
“I don’t need to be reminded.”
“Apparently you do, because you still don’t get it. I know how you must feel. After Maia—”
The dragon inside of Ethan flared up, surging his anger back into his voice, and so he rounded on the older shifter following him. “What about it don’t I get? He’s gone! She’s gone! I know what the word means. But that doesn’t mean I can’t still look for Arthur. Maybe he’ll come back, unlike that bitch.” He turned to regard anything other than the man before him. “I need to bash his skull in for just up and leaving—”
Then he spasmed and dropped to his knees, clutching at his chest with one hand and propping himself up with the flat palm of the other on the ground. Insanity gripped at Ethan’s mind and body, and he snarled in response, shaking his head and trying to rise again. Looping his arms in Ethan's, Gabriel brought the dragon shifter up, only to be shoved away a moment later.
“You’re our alpha, Ethan! Arthur made it clear you were the only one strong enough to fill the title in his absence.” Stepping closer, Gabriel peered deep into Ethan’s feral eyes. “And that title now makes your true nature unbalanced. You need a mate, a better mate than Maia, and you need to find her quickly. There’s not time to look for him anymore. You don’t need his guidance. Stand on your own two feet, son.”
Ethan reigned in his feral nature quickly after Gabriel’s words rattled him. Taking a deep breath, Ethan turned and sauntered off again. “Fine! I hear you.”
“Do you really?”
“Yes, Gabriel. You don’t need to treat me like a kid. I’ve always intended to find a new mate sooner or later.” And it was true. Ethan had given it thought. There hadn’t been any women in his clan that had interested him since Maia had decided to leave, and he didn’t want to find a mate among other clans. That left human women, from Salem more than likely.
“But you need her now!” Gabriel continued as if the older shifter was hearing everything Ethan thought. “Go to Salem. Go—”
Barging into the open entrance of his cave, Ethan climbed up a steep slope, knowing Gabriel would follow. He walked the twisting path in his home and came to a small, warm room tucked away, only covered by a tarp that had been nailed into the rock wall. Inside, a blanket covered a few, oval-shaped objects, and Ethan quickly ripped the blanket off to reveal eggs.
Dragon eggs. What the hell was that woman thinking, leaving these things to me?
Gabriel grew quiet as he shuffled in to stand beside Ethan, his eyes staring down at the eggs. “Even more reason to find a mate: to find a mother for these four.”
“Maia should have taken them with, Gabriel.”
“She made the right choice by leaving them behind...the only good decision she ever made.” His steely eyes flickered up to meet Ethan’s. “But Arthur has been making good decisions all his life. You were his choice, and so that’s enough for everyone else.
“Are you sure about that?”
Gabriel swung his gaze back to his alpha. “Of course, as is the rest of our clan. Arthur’s mate is probably why he left. She vanished, just like him, leaving him curious as to where she went...they’ll hatch soon enough,
your children that is, and Arthur knew it was the right time to leave and push you forward again, to give you something to work for.”
Ethan frowned. He frowned despite understanding. After so many years of knowing the old bastard, it made sense the previous alpha chose Ethan. But Ethan wasn’t parent material. He didn’t even know where to begin!
“So find your mate quickly,” Gabriel finished. “It’s important every child, even shifter children, have a strong mother figure in their lives.”
Grunting, Ethan scratched his head and threw the blanket back on the four eggs, imagining the day the four hatched. “I’ll start to look after work since I’ll be in town.”
“If I find anyone,” Gabriel said, following the alpha dragon out. “I’ll let you know. I’ll be at the university in the meantime.”
“Thanks, Gabriel.”
And so the duo left Ethan’s cave, the alpha dragon watching as Gabriel disappeared into the forest before clawing at his chest again. He felt the power of his feral nature return, though weaker than before. It nagged at the back of his mind.
Find a new mate? Maybe that isn’t such a bad idea, after all.
Chapter Three
Eliza
Finally ready to push out into the rest of Salem and let loose and wander, Eliza started on the south side, winding her way in from the edges of town.
