Scorched Hearts (Dragons of Ember Brooke Book 1)

by Victoria Zak

  Scorched Hearts

  - Dragons of Ember Brooke -

  Victoria Zak

  Copyright

  Scorched Hearts - Victoria Zak

  Copyright 2017 by Victoria Zak

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without prior written permission of the author and publisher.

  All characters, events, and locations in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, dead or living, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Cover Design: JAB Designs

  Editing: Violetta Rand

  Proof read by ReadbyRose

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Newsletter Signup Victoria Zak

  Praise for Victoria Zak

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Epilogue

  Newsletter Signup Victoria Zak

  About Victoria Zak

  More Books by Victoria Zak

  Sign up for Victoria Zak’s newsletter to receive a free copy of her

  Guardians of Scotland novella

  Highland Destiny

  You’ll also find additional special offers, bonus content and info on new releases.

  www.victoriazakromance.com

  victoria@victoriazakromance.com

  Praise for Victoria Zak

  “Victoria Zak is an author with a great imagination. Her fast-paced writing quickly pulls the reader in to her beautiful worlds.” —USA Today bestselling author Kathryn Le Veque

  “Victoria Zak creates mystical Highlanders like no one else.” —USA Today bestselling author Barbara Devlin

  “A strong new voice is rising in Paranormal Highlander Romance with Victoria Zak.”—USA Today bestselling author Suzan Tisdale

  Scorched Hearts is dedicated to all my dragon sisters. You rock my dragon loving world.

  Scorched Hearts was previously published in the Stoking the Flames box set in 2017. If you’d like to continue exploring this world, you’ll find book two in the Ember Brooke series, Hearts Under Fire in the Stoking the Flames II box set.

  Happy reading!

  1

  Thane stood under the shower, soaking up the refreshing, warm spray while trying to accept the early morning wake up call. Another sleepless night had him wound up tight and now dragging ass. A thunderous knock coming from the front door jerked him out of his stupor. Shit. His ride was here. He shut off the water and stepped out of the shower, grabbing the nearest towel. While drying off, he made a mad dash into his bedroom where he grabbed a pair of jeans and tugged them on. The impatient knocking continued. “Christ, I’m coming.” Thane shot down the stairs while zipping up his fly. Damn, how long had he been in the shower?

  He opened the front door, ready for his best friend’s early morning, bad attitude.

  “What the fuck?” Stone gave him a look over. “You’re not ready?”

  “Give me five and I’ll be good to go.” In a flash, Thane rushed back upstairs into his bedroom, slipped on a white tee and plaid button-down, and headed back downstairs in record time.

  Stone called out from the living room, “This is twice now I’ve had to wait for your ass. What gives?”

  Thane sat down on the bottom step and laced up his hiking boots. “Nothing. I’m just late.”

  He stood and grabbed his backpack, then headed toward the door. When Stone hadn’t followed, Thane stopped and looked over his shoulder at him—a concerned expression apparent on his best friend’s face. What the hell? He didn’t have time, nor did he want to reveal the craziness running through his head. It was all speculation, and with no solid proof, it was a moot point discussing his sleepless nights with him. “Are you going to stand there and eye-fuck me, or are we leaving?”

  “Apparently, someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed.” Stone followed him out the door.

  Half the night he’d been tossing and turning, and the other half he spent on the back porch watching the mist hovering over the mountaintops. The white, wispy clouds weren’t your average early-morning mountain fog. At times, it had looked like iridescent fingers reaching out, beckoning him with an electric current sparking through the air. He hadn’t felt a shift in the earth like that in a long time. It had his dragon senses throwing out all kinds of warning signals. However, the connection was bad—please hang up and try again.

  With every fiber of his being, he knew something loomed in the distance. He could feel it, taste it. It wasn’t the crisp tingles of fall in the air, nor did he feel it was a threat from some asshole dragons wanting to challenge him for territorial rights. Dragons had lived in peace for the past one hundred years. Ember Brooke was a peaceful place, like Mayberry, but with dragons.

  Thane locked the door behind him along with his nagging suspicions of what was happening to him. As he turned around to walk to the car, Stone tossed him the keys. Thane shot him a confused glance.

  “I’m too hung over to drive.”

  What? “Didn’t you drive here?”

  “No. Jensen did, and that mother fucker is heavy on the brakes. My Cali needs to be caressed not manhandled.” He winked.

  Thane rolled his eyes, but completely understood Stone’s love affair with his convertible Ferrari California. The deep red lady-beast was impressive under the hood with a twin-turbo V8. But for him, his love affair was currently taking a spa day in the garage. Once done with the rebuild, his canary yellow, sixty-eight Firebird would be purring like a kitten.

  Since he could still smell the whiskey on Stone’s breath from the night before, Thane decided if he valued his life he should drive. By the way Stone’s hair was tousled, and the fact he could still smell sex lingering on his skin, he hadn’t made it home yet. Thane knew his best friend’s night must have consisted of too much alcohol and women.

  “Hey Jensen,” Thane called out as he walked to the car. “You’re riding bitch.”

  Jensen stepped out of the car. “Wait. I thought I was driving.”

  Stone swung the passenger door open and folded the car seat up, giving Jensen his invitation to the backseat. “Cali needs a slow, easy touch. Besides, with your heavy braking I’m going to end up with whiplash.”

  “Fuck you. Next time you can drive your drunk ass to work.” Jensen climbed into the back, struggling to cram his big body into the bucket seat. “You need a bigger car.”

  Thane chuckled at their bantering as he placed his bag in the backseat. It was a good thing the top was down. The three of them looked like oversized sardines stuffed in a tiny can.

  Thane backed out of the driveway and onto the winding road heading toward the other side of the mountain. He breathed in the crisp air, taking in the beauty of Serpentine Falls, his mountain filled with an array of treasures nestled in the quiet town of Ember Brooke. Ah, yes, every day on his drive to work he was reminded how lucky he was to live in a dragon’s paradise. Ember Brooke had it all, from gentle peaks for the high fliers, pristine lakes for the aquatic enthusiast, and plenty of nooks and crannies for the solitary dragon type. There was plenty here to meet all their needs.

  However, dragons can’t control the change of seasons, which at times, left them vulnerable. Especially when the temperature dropped too low. A century-old shifter
, Thane’s dragon had time to adapt to the harsh winters. He was one of those high-flyers, so living on this mountain is where he thrived, cold days be damned.

  “Hey,” Thane called over his shoulder to Jensen. “Do you have today’s flying schedule?”

  “Sure do. We start the day off with three college girls with no hang gliding experience.”

  Thane’s brows creased in confusion. “I thought the Smith family was scheduled.”

  “Yeah, about that.” Jensen paused.

  Thane’s hobby of hang gliding had turned into Ember Brooke’s most popular tourist attraction. He was always booked at least two weeks out. So how in the hell did three college girls get on the schedule? And what happened to the Smith’s? As he thought about it, it was no coincidence. He did the math—one instructor per student, and the students happened to be college girls. Yeah, this had Stone’s signature all over it. And by Jensen’s hesitant reply, something had gone down last night.

  “What did you do last night?” Thane looked over at Stone, sleeping with his head propped against the window. He shoved him.

  “Fuck.” Stone huffed and shrugged him off, struggling to wake.

  “Jensen.” Thane warned as he eyed him through the rearview mirror. “Were you with him last night?”

  “Fire and Ice, he’s my Maverick…that makes me Goose.”

  Thane watched as the dastardly duo fist bumped. “Goose died asshole. Now tell me who fucked with the schedule?”

  “We met three girls last night.” Stone yawned and stretched. “They wanted to go hang gliding, so I booked them. You’re welcome.” He smirked, a slyness Thane knew all too well.

  This wasn’t the first time Stone had pulled something like this. Pure and simple, this was his way of getting laid after the flying rush. And because his friend thought of himself as generous, he always brought enough ass to share. “So, who’s taking the Smith family out?”

  “Don’t worry.” Stone shrugged. “I rescheduled them. They were cool with it.”

  They were cool with it? Thane shook his head. “I can’t believe you did that.”

  “What? You’ve been wound up tight.” From the corner of his eye, he saw Stone shoot him a concerned glare. “You need to do something with that unspent energy before you explode. You need to stop being the old man on the mountain and get laid.”

  Thane’s jaw clenched. “And since when do you know what’s good for my dick?”

  “When you are about to be blindsided with some heavy shit.”

  Thane chuckled. “You’re something else. I don’t need your help to get laid.”

  “See.” Stone sat up and faced Thane. “You don’t realize what’s happening, do you?”

  Irritated that his sex life was the topic of their morning discussion, Thane kept his focus on the road ahead and thought it best to stay quiet and just get to work. He didn’t want to talk about what was going down.

  “My man,” Stone chucked. “You better clean house, because your mate is coming.”

  Thane lost control of the Cali momentarily, turning Stone and Jensen into a pair of bobble-heads. He cranked the steering wheel away from death, barely making it back on the road.

  “What the hell,” Stone grumbled, “are you trying to kill us all?”

  Thane stared ahead. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

  “Too bad. It’s happening. Deal with it.”

  Thane sucked in a breath and was hit with an enticing exotic scent. It crossed his wires, and his dragon roared to life inside. Shit, is Stone, right? He white-knuckled the steering wheel, taking his frustration out on the damn thing. This couldn’t be happening. After years of nothing on his mating detector, not even a blip, he thought his mate had passed him by. This had to be a mistake.

  Another surge sparked the air, hitting Thane between his legs like lightening. From the corner of his eye, he saw Stone stiffen in the seat and heard a growl coming from Jensen behind him. There was no denying it; they smelled it, too. Mother Fuck!

  It wasn’t just her scent coming in loud and clear, her electric pulse was booming like a bass drum through the airwaves. Thane turned up his dragon radio and tuned in to his mate’s location. His heartbeat pumped to the salacious rhythm, lighting his body up like the fourth of July. The beast inside awoke, relentlessly pacing, clawing for release, and persistent on tracking her down. Steel chains that held his dragon were breaking link-by-link, which was bad news for him as he was defenseless in fighting against the shift.

  Thane looked at Stone with apologetic eyes.

  “No…no,” Stone grounded out. “You’re not shifting. Not in my car. Pull over.”

  “There’s no time.” Thane bit back as his mate’s station came in clearer, and went straight to his dick. “It’s happening.” His spine popped, vertebra-by-vertebra. His sweat-slicked skin curled into green scales. Pain shot up his arms as black claws ripped through his fingertips. Holy hell, he wished he knew how to turn off the dragon radio or at least turn the damn thing down.

  “Someone better grab the wheel,” Thane growled as he snapped free from the seatbelt.

  “You better not jump, Thane. I swear to all that is sacred, I’ll kill you,” Stone gritted through the electrical charge in the air.

  “For the love of God,” Jensen shouted and reached over the front seat, grabbing the wheel.

  “He’s not going to jump.” Stone pushed Jensen’s arm back.

  “The fuck he isn’t.” Jensen pointed to Thane standing in the driver’s seat, perched like a bird ready to take flight.

  Thane leapt out of the car and dived off the cliff, disappearing below the mountain.

  “Fuck,” Stone exclaimed and filled the empty driver’s seat.

  In a flash, Thane shifted into a massive green dragon, swooping up into the air in a spiral spin. Hearing the call of the wild, being one with the earth—there was nothing like it in the world. He pumped his wings, gaining more altitude. The warmth of the sun on his scales felt like a day at the beach. He could smell the coconut oil and taste the salt on his lips.

  He inhaled, and a rush of wild jasmine set off another round of fireworks. A hiss filled with need surfaced. Mine. Through his enhanced vision, he saw smoke snaking across the horizon. The balefire inside him blazed into a lustful fury of arousing hunger. There was no way of dousing that carnal need, nor did he want to. Shit, he was already balls-deep and he hadn’t even seen her yet. Hang on, my man, your world has just been rocked off its axis.

  2

  Bex St. James opened and hurried through the double glass doors of the Supernatural Research Institute an hour behind schedule, which was unlike her. Her friends, hot flash and abdominal cramping, had overstayed their welcome, leaving her miserable into the early morning. Hitting snooze one too many times on her alarm clock, had now left her in a mad dash to her lab.

  Late into the night, she’d realized she’d left the serum in her lab locker the day before. If she had the she-dragon suppressing concoction at home, it would’ve been able to control the side effects which always made her temperature rise and left her stomach in knots. But hey, that was a small price to pay to keep the she-beast chained up tight.

  Bex raced down the hall toward the elevators, her heels clicking on the white marble floors. With her hands shaking, she pressed the elevator button once to grab its attention and then twice warning the damn thing to hurry the hell up. The silver doors hissed open, depositing a group of male doctors wearing blue scrubs onto the main floor. One of the good docs gave her a toothy smile, definitely with sexual undertones. Shit, she didn’t have time for this. She averted her gaze and stepped into the metal box, pushing the button to close the doors like she was sending out a distress call. Mayday, mayday, close the fucking doors.

  Once she was safe from distractions, she took a deep breath. She leaned against the cool metal wall, finding relief for her scorching skin. Never again would she be so carless and leave her injections at the lab. Intelligent and driven, she u
sually wasn’t absent-minded. She’d busted her ass to stay on the academic path to achieve her goals. Furthermore, it wasn’t easy living in a world without her dragon kin.

  Given up for adoption as an infant, she never knew her mother or father. She didn’t know if they had been married or if she had been a product of a one-night-stand. Time-to-time, she asked herself these types of questions, but in all honesty, she didn’t care who they were. If they didn’t have the heart to love her, she didn’t want to waste her time and tears on them.

  Obviously, she wasn’t worth the effort, and she was okay with that—really. She was one of the lucky kids, and had been adopted right away to a nurturing couple who wanted nothing more than to have a family. In their eyes, she was the dream kid every parent wished for. She was the sparkling confirmation of her parents’ love and devotion, that they had raised an accomplished young woman.

  The elevator doors slid open on the third floor, shaking her free from memories of home sweet home. She strode down the hallway, her lab straight ahead on the left. A nameplate mounted on the door marked where she was going, Dr. Lars Valstrath, Founder and Director of the Draco-sapien Life Science Research Lab. She walked in, confident Dr. Valstrath would be nowhere in sight. The man was like the great Oz behind the curtain, running the show but seldom seen. In her specific field of study, there were only two assistants, herself and her best friend Mel who was a wolf shifter. In fact, Bex was the only she-dragon at the institute.