by Riley Storm
Dragon’s Second Chance Romance
Dragons of Mount Atrox (Book 2)
A Five Peaks Novel
Riley Storm
Dragon’s Second Chance Romance
Copyright© 2020 Riley Storm
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic means, without written permission from the author. The sole exception is for the use of brief quotations in a book review. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real.
All sexual activities depicted occur between consenting characters 18 years or older who are not blood-related.
Edited by Trevor Mendham – thecaringeditor.com
Cover Designs by Kasmit Covers
Table of Contents
Dragon’s Second Chance Romance
Table of Contents
Note from the Author
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Other Books by Riley Storm
About the Author
Note from the Author
Hi there!
Thank you so much for picking up Dragon’s Second Chance Romance. While this book and series are self-contained and can be read alone, if you want to get the full experience of the Five Peaks world, you would be best off starting with the Dragons of Mount Aterna series and book one, A Mate to Treasure which is linked below.
Either way, I hope you enjoy!
-Riley Storm
Dragons of Mount Aterna
A Mate to Treasure
A Mate to Believe In
A Mate to Protect
A Mate to Embrace
Chapter One
Claire
Mistakes can ruin even the best of days, as Claire Owens was about to find out.
It truly had been a remarkably good day. Perhaps that should have been her first warning that everything was about to go horribly, horribly wrong, but why should it? Wasn’t she allowed to have some good in her life? Or was she going to spend the rest of her years being punished for the past?
There were no clues, no red flags to put her on alert. In fact, the very opposite was occurring. Everything was going great.
The sun was shining on a warm, sunny day in Five Peaks, requiring little more than the off-white airy capris and sky-blue tank top that she wore. It wasn’t fashionable or ‘on-trend’, but in the tiny mountain town, nobody cared about that. It was comfortable, and she looked good in it, and that was what mattered to her.
“Not that everything is about me,” she muttered with a wry smile, walking down the sidewalk, headed toward the room in her parent’s basement where she was currently staying and a late dinner.
And a well-earned dinner at that. I certainly worked up the appetite!
That afternoon, Claire’s best friend had opened her new store to the public. As any good friend would do, Claire had volunteered to help for a bit. The crowd had been huge, and helping had turned into running around wildly trying to keep everything stocked and the line moving.
After her ‘shift’ was done, she’d gone straight to the bar to meet up with another friend and have a few happy hour beverages. Then, full of giggles, laughter, and memories properly reminisced over, she’d headed home to make dinner.
Which is precisely when everything went to shit.
“Hello, Claire.”
She froze as he stepped out of the bushes to block her path. Her blood stabbed with cold fear, drawing deep into her veins and pooling in her core, wiping out the day’s heat and any good feelings that had been buzzing within her.
“What are you doing here, Pete?” she asked stiffly, looking around frantically for help.
Anyone would do really. Anyone she could latch herself onto and stay with until Pete gave up and left.
But the creepy criminal had chosen his spot well. He wasn’t the smartest of people, but he was great at getting what he wanted, and right now, he wanted her alone. And he had it. They were on a side street, a slow residential road with few cars and even fewer pedestrians. Old houses lived peacefully under great big trees. Lawns were well cared for, and each house had a laneway that went up the side to parking in the rear.
It was a street where everyone minded their own business. Only sheer luck could save her and, given that Pete was standing in front of her, Claire knew her luck had just run out.
The fun buzz she’d had going after leaving the bar had vanished, replaced with a prickling sensation that refused to go away.
“You, of course,” Pete said, running a hand over his bald head, the tattoos on his face stretching slightly as they did. “It’s always you.”
Claire shivered, an unnaturally cold feeling sliding over her thanks to the eerie focus of Pete’s bright blue eyes. Obsession wasn’t often referred to as a ‘look’, but one glance at his face when he stared at her would convince anyone it was the right word. It was the same every time he looked at her.
She tried not to vomit from nerves.
“Come back with me, Claire,” he said. His eyes shone brightly in the early evening light, as the sun prepared to set behind the mountains to the west, leaving Five Peaks in its long-lasting twilight time.
“To Kennewick Falls?” she said in disbelief.
“Yes.”
“You’re joking, right? I told you, Pete, I’m done with that life. I’m done with you.”
Pete stepped closer. Claire stepped back out of his shadow. She’d used to enjoy the way he loomed over her. The massive size difference between them. It had given her great pleasure to relax into those thickly muscled arms and feel comfortable. Protected.
But I never felt safe. Not from him. Only from everyone else.
It had taken Claire a long time to come to the conclusion that she was still scared of Pete, that she only stayed with him because she was scared of him. Once she’d realized that, combined with who she was becoming around him, she’d left.
And she wasn’t going back.
“Nobody leaves the life Claire,” Pete said, his tight white undershirt emphasizing the muscularity of his upper body. “You know that. It’s not that easy.”
Despite herself and the situation, Claire snorted. “Yes Pete, it is that easy. I’m out,
and that’s that. You need to get that through your head.”
“Nobody just gets out,” Pete growled, face darkening with anger as she continually defied him.
Claire knew him well though. Pete wasn’t a genius, but he was well aware that they were in public. That anyone could be watching through the windows. He wouldn’t do anything to endanger her, which in turn emboldened Claire.
“What do I have to say to tell you that I’m done, Pete? That you and I are done?”
She should have known better than to say yes to going out with Pete. But Claire had always been a sucker for tattoos, muscles, and boys who broke the rules. It was a combo that always seemed to get the best of her.
Until Pete, however, she’d never let herself get involved in whatever it was they were doing. She had a strict rule against that, but Pete…Pete had just been so convincing. Now he wasn’t letting go.
“We’re not done unless I say we’re done,” Pete snarled at her, his chest swelling as he puffed it up like a peacock, thinking it would perhaps intimidate her into coming back.
“I’m not going back. End of story,” she said, standing her ground, trying not to let her nerves show as she swallowed around the lump in her throat.
Stand your ground, girl.
“Yes, you are,” Pete hissed. “You’re coming back with me, or else.”
Claire’s blood turned to ice. It was the first time that Pete had ever threatened her so blatantly. He’d yelled and screamed before, he’d guilt-tripped her, but never had he been so direct about it.
“Or else what?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper.
Pete sneered. “Or else I show everyone how ‘not innocent’ you really are. I’ll show them what you were really doing with me up in Kennewick Falls.”
Claire sighed. “You know what Pete? Honestly. Go ahead. If you want to release a tape of us having sex to embarrass me, go ahead. At least then it’s out there and done, and I don’t have to have it hanging over my shoulder anymore.”
He laughed in her face. “Oh no, those tapes stay with me. Nobody but me gets to see those.”
The urge to vomit came rushing back at the thought of what Pete did when he watched those videos.
“What the hell are you talking about then?” she asked, unnerved by his reaction.
“You come back with me, or this makes it out to the news stations,” he said, holding out his phone and hitting play.
Claire watched stony-faced as the video played. “Shut it off,” she said quietly.
“How do you think your lawyer daddy will take it when he sees that, hmm?” Pete said, all but crowing with victory. “Or that precious little BFF of yours who you never told about me? How will she judge you?”
“You wouldn’t,” Claire said icily, trying to intimidate Pete.
It was hard, given that she was a full foot shorter than him; 5’3 wasn’t anyone’s definition of an intimidating height. Not to mention where Pete was built like a tank, she was rounder. Softer.
She’d never understood what he saw in her, but Claire had fallen for the attention, and now he had a huge amount of leverage over her.
“You have two days,” Pete said with icy calm. “Then we’re heading back to Kennewick Falls together. Or you’ll be in jail after this gets out.”
Claire shivered.
“The choice is yours.”
Then he was gone, leaving her to ponder her choice.
God, dating him was such a mistake.
Chapter Two
Pietro
Embarrassing memories were the worst. They never went away, and they insisted on popping up at the worst of times. In the shower. Late at night while trying to sleep. Or while utterly bored doing nothing.
Pietro was bored out of his mind. He shouldn’t be, of course.
Guarding a Gate to the Otherworld wasn’t boring in practice. The oval-shaped tear in reality in front of him could spew forth any number of evil creatures, at any point in time. The dark inky black haze of energy, occasionally shot through with deep hues of purple or blue, was surrounded by a gray-white sparkling border of energy where the Gate met reality and blended together.
It was both quite beautiful and quite unnerving. If looked at for the first time. Or the tenth. But Pietro was in his mid-thirties now and had been pulling Gate duty since he was twenty-one, like every dragon shifter. It was part of their way of life. Most did their five-year mandatory guard duty and left it behind. Others became fixtures in the Gate Guard, the permanent force assigned to ensure no creatures from the Otherworld got through.
Then there were those like Pietro, who simply volunteered their time when it was needed. He didn’t mind volunteering for a shift here or there, but that didn’t stop him from being utterly bored out of his mind when he did.
Nothing happened with the Gate. If it did, the dragons stopped it. This gave him all the time in the world to think, ponder, and ultimately relive one of the most recent embarrassing episodes of his life.
It all revolved around her. Pietro was certain that if he had another memory that involved her, he would be able to focus on that one instead. However, the only one he had was beyond embarrassing to recall. And yet, he couldn’t get her out of his head.
Forgetting such a dismal showing on his part shouldn’t have been hard. It wasn’t the first time he’d made a fool of himself. Nor would it be the last, most likely. He was male after all.
We do that sometimes.
But this woman was different. Short, thick, and with hair the color of fire. He called red-hot flames into existence, flickering in his palm as he shaped it into the color and style of her hair. Long, wavy, and free.
“Got something on your mind?”
Pietro rolled his head to the side to give the owner of the voice a look. “Down here? In hour six of eight? With absolutely no change? Nah. I have got nothing on my mind.”
Gunnar Atrox, the shift leader and also commander of the Gate Guard, laughed heartily at his reply. “After the weird events recently, I am perfectly fine with zero activity.”
Peitro grunted. What was he supposed to say to that anyway? He’d not been around during the strange energy fluctuations, but those had been solved, hadn’t they? His eyes dropped to the copper pole sticking out of the ground. It ran a hundred feet deep, at least, and was a full six-inches across.
The Gate had been giving off weird energy, or so he’d heard, and the storm dragons that were now a permanent fixture of every shift had used the pole to bleed the energy off. Definitely weird, but since Pietro had started up shifts again, the Gate had gone quiet.
Leaving him bored to think about the woman. A woman whose name he didn’t even know. Yet somehow neither he, nor his dragon, could get her off his mind.
Which meant reliving the embarrassing memory of being completely, utterly, and ruthlessly shut down at the bar when trying to talk to her. The barking laughter she’d emitted as he’d tried to start up a conversation cut deep into his metaphorical skin.
“Sorry, you’re not my type,” she’d said, not long after he’d come up to her and politely initiated conversation.
Even now, the memory still burned his cheeks. Thankfully, the music had been going and he doubted too many people had heard the rejection, but nonetheless, it stung. It had become worse since, given that he couldn’t seem to forget her.
“I suppose boring is fine too,” he mumbled, realizing Gunnar was still glancing in his direction.
“Exactly, the last thing we want is for—”
Before Gunnar could finish speaking, a flash of light burst from the Gate, catching Gunnar in the shoulder and hurling him back against the wall with tremendous force.
Pietro stared in shock as the vortex cackled with energy. The storm dragon on duty leapt for the portal in an attempt to dissipate the energy, but whatever was happening, it was too fast. Feedback burned its way through the dragon’s system, and he fell to the ground twitching.
More energy came surging through, blasti
ng another dragon from his feet. That only left Pietro to face what came through. Another quartet of dragons guarded the entrance to the mineshaft where the Gate was located, but they were far, far above. By the time they arrived, it would be too late.
Roaring his anger, Pietro started to call upon the powers of his heritage, arming himself with twin balls of flame in each palm, while ruby-red scales formed across his skin, a coat of armor.
In the flickering light of the portal he saw the outline of a figure appear. Then, it came through, standing in front of him. Tall, slim, and coated in shiny black carapace armor, like that of a bug.
Pietro bellowed and launched his attack. He didn’t know what the creature was, but he knew it wasn’t friendly. He had to keep it contained while the other dragons got organized. The sounds would have alerted the dragons above, and they would be here shortly, but until then, Pietro was on his own.
Another figured stepped out of the Gate, a twin to the first. They both glanced at the incoming fireballs and then casually sidestepped them, moving faster than Pietro’s eyes could follow.
That simple movement alone made his blood run cold. The portal absorbed the fire and seemed to shiver. A moment later, another pair of the jet-black humanoid figures stepped through. Four sets of eyes focused on Pietro, dull red glows emanating from somewhere deep within.
Well shit. I think I agree with Gunnar now. Boring was good.
“Let’s go then,” he snarled, charging at them.
The quartet moved as one. They flowed past Pietro in a blur. He’d anticipated their speed, however, and started striking before they’d moved. His fist caught one of them. The black shell cracked and crimson blood flowed from the cheek of one of the creatures, even as it was shot from its feet by the impact and tumbled off to the side.
That still left the others, however, and while their blows were not the strength of a dragon’s, they weren’t weak. And there were three of them.
Pietro went down in a heap, a kidney howling, a broken rib, and stars in his eyes. He shook his head to try and clear his vision just as one of the creatures stepped up and bent over him, planting a hand on his cheek, almost cradling it. He was shocked by the warmth of the thing.
