by Cecilia Lane
Chestnuts Roasting Over Dragonfire
Cecilia Lane
A Shifting Destinies Holiday Novella
Copyright © 2020 by Cecilia Lane
Cover Art by Kasmit Covers
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Chestnuts Roasting Over Dragonfire by Cecilia Lane December 2020
Contents
Chestnuts Roasting Over Dragonfire
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Newsletter
About the Author
Also by Cecilia Lane
Chestnuts Roasting Over Dragonfire
A dragon with a frozen heart. A woman needing to mend her own. Together, can they overcome the threat clawing at their happy ending?
After an unexpected heartbreak, Izzy Howell is left dangling like a misplaced ornament. Not wanting to spend the holidays alone, she's lured into a visit to her aunt's inn in Bearden, Montana. When an overbooking disaster sees the hottest dragon shifter under the sun walking into her suite, Izzy is ready to pack it in and go home. Except her inner cougar is digging in her claws and sniffing up the dragon's tree.
Dragon shifter Zane Darkwood works hard, then works harder. As a bounty hunter, no target gets very far, and no distraction gets in the way. Which is why when his latest eludes him and he's told—ordered—to take time off, he's ready to breathe fire and melt every single snowman in the little shifter town of Bearden. Bah humbug.
When the curvaceous cougar shifter captures his target on camera, Zane's plans to fly out of town are upended. He throws himself into the wintery celebrations with an eye on the prize, using Izzy as his cover. But between the hot cocoa, sleigh rides, and sneaky mistletoe mishaps, Zane finds himself questioning his priorities. The sassy, feisty, gorgeous woman teases his dragon and tempts him to bare his soul.
After Izzy finds out what really draws Zane's attention, her bruised heart is fully shattered. Despite her cougar's insistence that Zane is her fated mate, she pulls back before his grouchy spirit can do more than freeze her out. Danger isn't done with them, for while Izzy has been distracting him, a deadly criminal has been hunting them both.
Chase the bounty or chase his mate… Zane will need a Christmas miracle to claim them both.
Chestnuts Roasting Over Dragonfire is for readers who love the redemption of a grumpy hero, a snarky heroine, and a bit of winter magic. Download now for a hot-as-dragonfire holiday romance!
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Chapter 1
Zane Darkwood circled the mountains below him. Jagged peaks sliced at the low clouds like knives, each serving as the base for one clan or another. Snow covered the ground, but that wasn’t unusual. Even in summer, patches clung to the scrub and rocks. Winter simply meant a more solid layer.
Wind hit his back as another dragon split the clouds. The sinewy beast twisted to the side at the last second, narrowly avoiding a midair collision. Zane let off a growl of warning, but it was no use. Felix was always an asshole. Expecting anything else was like expecting the sky to turn baby puke green.
With Felix’s appearance, other dragons cut through the clouds with roars and screeches of their own. None even attempted to hide their presence. And why should they? Firebend held the largest dragon population in North America, and who didn’t like seeing their brethren doing as they pleased without worry of cameras capturing them in their natural element?
Returning home usually filled him with pride, but right then, Zane could only manage irritated looks and puffs of smoke for the others. Frustration filled his belly with fire and his throat ached with the burn. He kept his flames locked away. Barely. Just barely. Somehow, he suspected setting the roost on fire wouldn’t endear him to the clan leader.
With a roar, he snapped his wings to his side and dove for the cliff edge, pulling back on his dragon at the last second. A handful of jogging steps on two legs carried him deeper into the cave and to the door leading inside.
“So, there he was, the biggest motherfucker I’ve seen in my life. And no, ladies, I’m not talking about the size of his hands.”
Laughter washed over Zane as he stepped into the locker room. Incredulous snorts, mostly, though one or two of the captive audience eyed Felix with hungry interest. They’d be another conquest of the loudmouth dragon, or him, theirs. Not his problem or concern.
He strode past the group and straight for his locker. Popping it open, he began unpacking his gear. Hunting, for a dragon, was easy. Swoop in on unseen wings, snag the target. But when two-legged concepts like buildings and innocent lives got in the way, he had to adapt to human weaponry.
“Ah, and here’s our reigning champion! Take down anyone good, Zane?”
Zane bared his teeth at the back of his locker. His inner dragon curled inside him, blowing rings of smoky irritation he felt to his core. He never should have entered the locker room. He should have gone straight to his own quarters and locked himself up tight.
Or kept on flying until he found that fucker who dared escape his claws.
He snapped the door closed, locking all his gear away. “Don’t know what to say, Fe,” he said lightly, drawing his shirt over his head. “You know it’s impolite to bag and tell.”
A slow, predatory smile spread over Felix’s face. “Spoken like an empty-handed hunter.”
“Spoken like someone who doesn’t need to brag about his accomplishments.” Zane turned his attention to the females eyeballing Felix and touched his fingers to his forehead. “Ladies.”
The room erupted into another fit of laughter. Everyone except Felix, anyway.
The other dragon’s eyes narrowed to slits and he slashed a look to the scoreboard posted up on the wall next to the door. “Better watch out,” he growled, “my marks are coming awfully close to yours.”
“Not there yet,” Zane answered coldly, then swung open the door.
The taunts and jabs generally didn’t bother him. The competition was good for the team. They worked harder and tried to best the dragon above them, which meant more captures of the dangerous supernatural creatures that walked the planet. And after the bullshit of the Shiftermax escapes, they had a lot of cleanup to do.
Zane unclenched his jaw and relaxed his shoulders. ‘Generally’ being the operative word. But with one asshole in particular evading his every trick, he wanted to burn everything to the ground.
He entered the lower levels of the Darkwood mountain roost and blinked at the rush of color and smell of outdoors before scrubbing a hand down his face. Right. Christmas. The fresh-cut boughs over fireplaces and tables, th
e dangling wreaths and garland, ornaments and wooden figures in posed scenes, all that meant Christmas had arrived and served as a reminder of how long he’d been hunting his top target without success.
“Hey, jackass!”
Zane stopped at the sound of Felix’s voice. Annoyance bubbled to life, stronger than the frustration he already carried. If he knew what was good for him, he’d leave the trash talk to the locker room, but no. Felix had to push and push and push.
“You lost me some company for the night,” the other dragon growled.
“Probably saved them some disappointment.” Zane shrugged and started on his way again, but Felix wasn’t done with the shit talking.
“Rumor has it you’re on your way out. Can’t keep up anymore? Letting those targets slip through your claws?” Felix shrugged up a shoulder, but his scent was full of spiky anger. “Guess it runs in the family.”
Motherfucker.
Familiar anger took root in Zane’s gut and he whirled on the other dragon. His father and his multitude of mistakes weren’t up for discussion even when he had sunshine shooting out of his ass. Right then? His dragon circled in his head. Watching. Waiting. Ready to take a swing at the asshole running his mouth. All the annoyance and frustration and anger needed to go somewhere.
Zane growled a warning, “Not another word.”
Felix’s mouth twisted into a shit-eating grin. “Soon you’ll be as washed up as your old man. Where is he, anyway? Mateless and grounded, isn’t he?”
The words were hardly out of his mouth before Zane slammed a fist into Felix’s gut.
The dragon doubled over but recovered quickly and popped smoothly into the fight. Strong arms wrapped around his waist and carried him backward until his shoulders slammed into the stone wall. Sharp blows jabbed into his ribs, but Zane swung his own returning punches and sent Felix stumbling back with a crack to his face.
Zane didn’t give him time to recover. He wrapped a hand around Felix’s wrist and spun him back against the wall, forearm pressed against his throat. “Never talk about my family again,” he snarled.
“Zane.”
His name pulled him up short. Even if he hadn’t recognized the voice, one inhale would have given away Hollis, leader of the Darkwood clan.
Slowly, Zane turned. He canted his head to the side as a sign of respect and deference, but Hollis only grunted and jerked his chin.
“Come.”
Well, shit.
He let Felix loose with a final glare at the other dragon’s cocky smirk. For a moment—a very brief moment—he was tempted to ignore Hollis’s summons and slam his fist into that stupid fucking smirk all over again.
Instead, he gave the asshole his back and followed Hollis into his chambers.
Office would have been a better word. Luxurious as the room was, it was still a hub for clan business. Leather chairs faced off over a low table near the fireplace, with a matching sofa bracketing the whole area. An impressive desk dominated the room, though not so much as the dragon taking his place behind it.
Hollis steepled his fingers and regarded Zane coolly from across the desk. “I have a package that needs to be delivered into the hands of the Bloodwing clan leader. You’ll leave this morning.”
No question. No allowance for argument. Just an order that expected obedience.
Zane directed a glare to the closed doors. “So, because I put that little shit Felix in his place, you’re pulling me from duty?”
“Zane—” Hollis warned.
“I’m the best tracker in the clan! I should be out there right now, not doing a job any groundling can manage.”
Hollis slammed a hand against the desk. “You were spotted!”
In the silence that followed, the clan leader tossed a newspaper his way. Zane stared at the thing for several long seconds before picking it up. The man must have sent someone out to fetch it. Local delivery was a little hard to manage so high in their mountain lair.
The stray thought didn’t keep his eyes from bouncing over the headline. Dragon… Burn… No arrest...
“You were spotted,” Hollis said, more gently on the second round, “and you let your target get away.”
Zane ground his teeth together. ‘Let’ implied he wanted it to happen, or that he hadn’t tried his damnedest to capture Erik Halvorsen. ‘Let’ assumed mistakes had been made.
He didn’t make mistakes.
And yet, Erik was still on the run.
One of the last felons still on the loose after the Shiftermax breakout, Erik was a tough fucker. He’d been busted for the slaughter of one family but suspected for at least two others. He kept his mouth shut, that was for damn sure. Not a word spoken during his trial or shared with his fellow prisoners when he found himself collared and caged. One of the few recorded statements was a sick joke about towns up north carrying guns not for protection against natural polar bears, but for him.
He’d been chasing the asshole for two months now. Erik seemed to have a sixth sense for being hunted. Every time Zane caught a lead or inched a little closer to taking him down, Erik disappeared.
Two nights before had been the closest to an actual capture. He’d had the bear in his sights, ready to swoop in and snag him from the air. Caught between a fast-flowing river and the barn he’d been using as a hideout, there’d been nowhere for Erik to go.
He’d tried anyway. One blast of fire cut the escape short.
Then… something happened. Zane still couldn’t explain it. The air seemed to thicken, or time froze or… something. Something happened, and Erik got away.
Again.
Fuck, maybe he was more like his old man than he wanted to admit. He’d just skipped a few steps and gone straight into seeing shit that wasn’t there.
His dragon unfurled inside him. The twisted little shifter needed to pay for his crimes, and no one was better capable of doling out that punishment than dragonkind. Erik’s fate would end in ash, one way or another.
“When was the last time you left the roost?”
Zane blinked and found Hollis watching him closely. “I was just—”
“I meant for anything but business.”
Zane shrugged and looked away.
Hollis let him pout in silence for a very short moment before shoving a packet across the desk. Happy figures on two legs and four dotted the cover of a brochure advertising that tourist trap of an enclave, Bearden.
“Deliver my package, and take a vacation, Zane. Clear your head. You’re no good to me when you’re this wound up.”
“And if I fly right back?” he seethed.
Hollis’s eyes turned to slits. “Then you’re grounded. Permanently.”
Zane descended from the cloud coverage with slow swoops of his wings. The mountains of Montana weren’t that different from his home in Firebend, but the two dragons that lifted off peaks gave him pause. Gideon Bloodwing was a known loner, going so far as to refuse his place at the head of his clan and leaving his dragons rudderless.
Or so everyone thought. The two scaly beasts buzzing past hinted at a different story.
The two circled around and kept pace with him as he neared the town. No rumbled greetings, no flashes of flame, they simply flew alongside him in cold appraisal.
Keeping his form shielded from unwanted eyes, Zane spiraled on one wing and surveyed the enclave. The town itself sat in a high valley, but roads cut through the mountains and into the gentler hills on the edges of the territory. A river flowed along one side of the town and ran into a decent sized lake that he suspected was as popular a destination in the warm months as the ice skaters made it in the freeze.
Zane made another slow circuit, but his companions were growing impatient. One snaked a head around and let off a growl, while the other buzzed past close enough for his tail to nearly whip Zane in the face. Zane rumbled in answer, wanting nothing more than to let a slash of fire roast the fucker’s backside in retribution.
Just as he folded his wings against his body
and plunged for the ground after them, he caught a new scent. Wild and crisp, it zinged right along his nerves and made his mouth water. He snapped his wings open and slowed his descent. Need. He needed to find that scent.
The delivery to Gideon didn’t matter. Neither did getting back on the hunt for Erik.
He turned to trail after the alluring scent, but his chaperones flashed fire on either side to block his path.
Zane gave himself a shake. Nothing but the chill of winter air and the residue of dragonfire filled his nose. Whatever he thought he’d scented, whatever idiocy his dragon was on about, he was there for a reason. He just needed to make it through the week, then he could get back on the hunt.
Nothing mattered more than bringing that fucker to justice.
With another look over his shoulder, he spiraled down to a small clearing near the top of a mountain, pulling back on his beast before he hit the dirt. Time to get on with his delivery.
“You’re a long way from the roost, Darkwood,” one of the Bloodwings called out to him as soon as he landed.
Zane shot him a glare as he dug into his pack and drew on his clothes. “I heard there was some sort of party. Couldn’t resist crashing it,” he said with a twist of his mouth.
The other dragon grunted and folded his arms over his chest. “Better talk to Gideon, then. He doesn’t like visitors in his territory.”
“Well, isn’t this just a warm welcome.”
The dragon grunted again and jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “You want warm? Try the inn down the mountain.”
