by Lili Zander
Draekon Warlord: A SciFi Dragon Shifter Romance
Rebel Force
Lili Zander
Lee Savino
Contents
Draekon Warlord
Are you all caught up with the Draekons?
1. Naomi
2. Danek
3. Naomi
4. Danek
5. Naomi
6. Naomi
7. Danek
8. Naomi
9. Naomi
10. Danek
11. Naomi
12. Danek
13. Naomi
14. Naomi
15. Danek
16. Naomi
17. Naomi
18. Danek
19. Naomi
20. Danek
21. Naomi
22. Danek
23. Naomi
24. Danek
25. Naomi
26. Danek
27. Danek
28. Naomi
29. Danek
30. Naomi
31. Naomi
32. Naomi
33. Naomi
34. Naomi
35. Danek
Epilogue
A Preview of Draekon Mate
About the Authors
Books by Lili Zander
Books by Lee Savino
Copyright © 2020 by Lili Zander, Lee Savino.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Many thanks to Miranda for her sharp eyes.
Cover Design by Kasmit Covers
Draekon Warlord
Top 3 Reasons I should stay away from Danek:
He’s on a super-secret, important mission for the Rebellion. He’ll be undercover on a hostile planet, surrounded by people that want to kill him.
He’s gorgeous. Entirely unattainable. Way, way out of my league.
I’m forty, but I’m supposed to pose as his fake fiancée.
And he’s a really, really good actor, because when he kisses me, it feels real. When he wraps his arms around me, I want to stay in his embrace forever. (Okay, fine, that’s four reasons.)
This mission hasn’t even started, and it’s already a disaster.
Top 3 Reasons I should stay away from Naomi:
I’m on a super-secret, important mission for the Rebellion. I’ll be undercover on a hostile planet, and I might not be able to protect her.
This isn’t the time for a pretend-relationship. With Naomi as my fake wife. There’s nothing fake about my feelings for her. She’s so beautiful. And strong. And we can’t keep our hands off each other...
This is a bad idea. I know it is.
But the first time we touched, I knew Naomi was my mate. No matter what happens on the mission, I cannot let her go.
Are you all caught up with the Draekons?
Don’t miss any of the books.
DRAGONS IN EXILE
Draekon Mate - Viola’s story
Draekon Fire - Harper’s story
Draekon Heart - Ryanna’s story
Draekon Abduction - Olivia’s story
Draekon Destiny - Felicity’s story
Daughter of Draekons - Harper’s birth story
Draekon Fever - Sofia’s story
Draekon Rogue - Bryce’s story
Draekon Holiday - A holiday story
REBEL FORCE
Draekon Warrior - Alice & Kadir
Draekon Conquerer - Lani & Ruhan
Draekon Pirate - Diana & Mirak
Draekon Warlord - Naomi & Danek
Draekon Guardian - Liz & Sixth - coming soon!
The Must Love Draekons newsletter is your source for all things Draekon. Subscribe today and receive a free copy of Draekon Rescue, a special Draekon story not available for sale.
1
Naomi
I dream of Danek again.
I’ve been strapped down on the Table of Torture. The two alien men raise their scalpels. They’re about to slice into me, anesthetic be damned, when the wall on the far side of the room bursts apart.
And the Draekon is there. Fifth. Danek. Whatever he wants to call himself. The alien that rescued me has more names than I have shoes.
Our eyes meet across the room.
When he sees me, he goes very still.
Then he raises his weapon and fires twice in succession. Two shots. Two surgically precise strikes. My captors fall to the floor, dead. No blood, no noise, no explosions. Just two neat holes, smaller than a dime, in the middle of their foreheads. It’s almost peaceful.
He walks toward me, lithe and lethal. Snaps the straps holding me down with his bare hands. Then he lifts me with infinitesimal gentleness. He cradles me against his broad chest, and we walk out of there.
Through another door. Another transition. Into another life.
In my cell, the one I shared with Cassie, I kept track of days by gouging a mark in the wall. I’m not imprisoned any longer. I’ve been rescued. I’ve been physically healed and, thanks to advanced alien medical tech, I’m probably in the best shape of my life. But I still keep track of the days. That habit refuses to go away.
I mark the wall with a piece of charcoal, and then take a step back and stare at the results.
Twelve sets of marks, each set representing five days. I’ve been here for sixty days. Two full months.
It’s not a piece of charcoal, of course, but it’s just easier to think of it as that. I’m clinging to the old and the familiar, because everything has changed in my life, and nothing will ever be the same again. Everything is different. The walls of my one-room apartment are made of a material I don’t recognize. The sheets on my bed are soft and luxurious, but they are not cotton; there is no cotton here. I have no kitchen. There is a small gadget in an alcove that looks like a microwave. A synthesizer, Alice calls it. It will magically make me anything I want to eat. There are no knives and no forks—not because they don’t exist here, but because the doctors aren’t convinced I won’t use them to hurt myself.
It’s been precisely sixty days since Danek rescued me.
For the first two weeks, the alien doctors worked on me around the clock. They repaired the damage my torturers had wrought. The physical damage, at least. They tried to heal the mental wounds, but some things are impossible to fix. I flinched every single time they came near me. The first time one of them approached me with a translator, Alice tells me I went catatonic. After that, they got more cautious. They used interpreters to communicate with me. Sometimes, it was Dor, and sometimes it was Olivia, but mostly, they used Alice.
He was always there in the background. Still. Waiting. Watching me with those dark, dark eyes. It should have freaked me out. It didn’t. I’m afraid of everything, but I’m not afraid of him. In my darkest moment, Danek was there, reaching for me, tugging me into the light.
It’s been thirty-five days since the doctors pronounced me healed. Whatever that means.
Thirty days since they moved me into this studio apartment. They’re trying to integrate me into their world. Alice comes by every other day to check on me. Three times a week, I wak
e up at the crack of dawn, and the two of us go for a run. I don’t talk much; I rarely do. I’m not much for social interaction, not any longer. Most days, I feel as fragile as a dried leaf. Alice doesn’t seem to mind. Like Danek, she seems willing to let me heal at my own pace.
Sixty days in the Rebellion. A milestone of sorts. My life feels marked with them. Some milestones are good, the result of choices I’ve made. The day I married Will, that was a good day. A good choice. I’d loved him deeply. I was thirty-one, and I’d sown my wild oats, and I knew myself. I’d wanted to marry him.
Other milestones aren’t planned. The cold January morning I got the phone call that would change my life—I would do anything to undo that. Will hit a patch of ice on his drive to work and crashed into a tree. He was killed instantly.
I hadn’t realized when we got married that I would only have a few short years with him. I hadn’t realized I would spend my thirty-fifth birthday at his graveside. But there it is. Life happens to us, whether we want it to or not. All you can do is control your response.
Launching myself into space—that had been one hell of a milestone. Will had been dead for four years. I was going to be forty. I was starting to feel like it was too late for crazy adventures, and so I took the biggest one, submitting my application to go to Zoraht.
That ended up not going as planned. I thought I’d spend my fortieth birthday sightseeing on an alien planet. Ending up in a torture chamber? Not my choice.
Then I’d met Danek. Most of my memories from the before-times are dim and foggy, but I remember clearly the expression on his face when he lifted me into his arms. He’d looked shocked. Shaken.
Another door. Another transition.
Setting the piece of charcoal down, I syn myself a cup of coffee. Once I empty it, I move to the closet that holds my meager possessions. The clothes I packed on Earth are long gone, and the contents of my closet are a gift from the Rebellion. I grab a grey jumpsuit before heading to the shower.
Alice and I went for a run yesterday, and I won’t see her again until tomorrow morning. The day stretches before me, a blank void with nothing to fill it. That’s a lie; there are plenty of things I could do. I could visit the recruiting office. Cassie did that last month, and now the young woman, who was a pre-med student back home, is training to be a doctor. Dor was a gamer; she’s now a pilot. I don’t really know what the Rebellion could do with me—I was a bank manager back in Bangor. I’m good at Excel, and at talking reassuringly to old people. Neither seems like a useful skillset, but Alice assures me that’s not a problem. “They’re hungry for help,” she’d said yesterday, after our run. “They’ll find you something to do. You need routine in your life, Naomi.”
She’s not wrong. I might mark the wall to keep track of days, but time is starting to blur together, and I can’t seem to care. “It’s a PTSD response,” Alice had said. “You were tortured for a very long time. You bore the brunt of it, shielding Cassie from it as much as you could. It’s going to take you time to heal.”
Cassie is only twenty-one. I wasn’t being brave, and I wasn’t being a martyr. I just couldn’t stand to see her get hurt. I’m older, I’m thirty-nine. I can take it.
Forty. You turned forty in that lab.
I could read a book or watch a movie. The aliens have hacked into the internet, and on my tablet, I supposedly have access to every book, movie, and podcast that was ever available online back on Earth.
The tablet is still in its packaging.
The bed is right there, beckoning to me. The sheets are invitingly rumpled. If I sleep, I might dream. Sometimes, they are nightmares, but lately, the dreams have been more varied. One night, I dreamed that I was flying, swooping in and out of clouds. Another night, when I closed my eyes, I was transported to my fortieth birthday party, surrounded by laughing friends and family, blowing the candles out on my cake.
And I dream of Danek. He rescues me, over and over again, and when he cradles me in his arms, a prickle of something that could almost be arousal runs through me.
It’s been sixty days, Naomi, a voice whispers to me. It’s long enough. Pick up the pieces.
I’ve heard this voice before. She spoke to me when Will died. She made me sell our house, get into my car, and drive across the country to start over. She made me apply to the space lottery. I don’t know if I hate her or love her, but when she speaks, I’ve learned to listen.
Pick up the pieces, she says. As if it’s that easy.
Take the first step, Naomi.
I make myself walk to my closet once more. On the top shelf, shoved into a far corner, is a tiny translator. My fingers tremble as I pick it up. My throat feels dry as I bring it up to my ear. And when the mild shock lances through me, it resurrects memories of torture I’d prefer to keep buried, and it brings me to my knees.
My heart races. My forehead erupts with sweat. My skin breaks out into goosebumps, and I huddle on the floor in a ball.
Deep breath. In and out and repeat. Then, when you can, count backward from a hundred to one.
One hundred. Ninety-nine. Ninety-eight. Ninety-seven. The people that hurt me are dead. Ninety-six. Ninety-five. I saw Danek kill them. They can’t touch me here. I am safe at the Rebellion.
By the time my heart slows its hammering and I feel okay enough to push on, my count is at twelve. I pick myself off the floor and unlock the door.
I’m not a prisoner in my apartment. I leave regularly. I go to the doctors for my follow-up visits. I go running with Alice. But today’s the first day I’ve left of my own volition.
I step into the empty corridor and pull the door closed. If I turn left, I will soon come to a door that will open onto a square park. Squat buildings flank all four sides of the grassy clearing, each three stories high. Housing, hospitals, stores, restaurants, everything is made from modular prefab material, designed to be pulled down quickly if the Empire comes calling and we need to evacuate. The park is small but nice, covered in a bright orange grass that is soft to the touch and fills the air with a gentle fragrance. If I continue past the door, the corridor will end in a stairwell. If I climb two flights of stairs, I’ll end up at the hospital. Again.
I’ve always gone left. I’ve never once turned right. Never once explored the place that is now my home.
It’s been sixty days, Naomi.
I turn right, taking the road less traveled. I follow the corridor past numerous sets of closed doors. And then I slow down, because on the other side of yet another closed door, I hear a voice I recognize.
Danek.
I haven’t seen him in weeks, not since I was discharged. Is he even real, or is he a figment of my imagination, a fantasy man I’ve hallucinated to avoid the darkness of my reality?
A sudden need to see my rescuer fills me.
I hesitate in front of the door. I contemplate knocking, and then I stop myself. Do people even knock here? I’m about to turn away when, all by itself, the door slides open.
A silent invitation.
I walk in.
2
Danek
I glare at the three people that have invaded my living space. “Raiht’vi, Tarish, and Dariux. My three favorite people.” My voice is saturated in sarcasm. “Why are you here?”
Dariux takes a seat at the window ledge. Raiht’vi remains standing in the center of the room. Tarish hesitates for a split-second, and then settles on the nearest couch. “I need your help.”
I thought I had made it clear that I wasn’t one of Tarish’s pet soldiers. The Commander of the Rebellion has left me alone since I rescued the human women, and I thought the message had sunk in. But here he is anyway.
Looks like it’s time for a refresher. “I’m done running missions for you.” I transfer my attention to Raiht’vi. “Is that why you’ve brought your scientist with you? To persuade me with the aid of another lethal drug?”
Tarish clenches his hands into fists but doesn’t take the bait. “I don’t have a lot of options, otherwi
se I wouldn’t be here.”
It’s like he hasn’t even heard me. Let’s try this again. “We’ve been over this before. You want to end the Testing. You want to bring down Lenox. You want justice for the Draekons. Those are all admirable goals, but your cause isn’t mine. All I care about is First.”
My conscience pangs. I am focused on First—we all are. That part is true. But the rest of it is a lie.
Every Draekon who has been torn from his home after failing the Testing—it’s my fault. If only I hadn’t talked the Draekons into rebellion... If only they’d told me their plans... If only I’d been with them when they fought…
It’s too late for regret. I’ll carry my guilt to my grave.
“Nobody has heard from First for more than a month,” Tarish responds. “Blood Heart seems to have gone dormant. We’ve been able to rescue eight sets of Draekons without interference.” He leans forward. “First now knows what we know—that every Zorahn in the Empire carries a version of the Draekon gene in them. He can’t reverse it. He can’t repopulate the Empire with ‘pure’ Draekons. Maybe he’s given up.”
