Bad, Very Bad Shifters- The Complete Mega Bundle

by Daniella Wright

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  THE END

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  Kidnapped By The Filthy Dragon

  ~ Bonus Story ~

  A Steamy Dragon Shifter Paranormal Abduction Romance

  Liz is on her own and doing fine. She likes the life she's built for herself and the career that pays the bills. She's strong, independent, and snarky, a bad mix for most men. Ro is the leader of the supernaturals, guiding them through the coming out phase of their society. He is a trained killer, an experienced monarch, and he needs to find a human wife to smooth things over for the two populations at odds. When these two meet there is attraction, seduction, and a claiming that will take Liz from the life she's known the queenship she will have to mold for herself.

  * * *

  Kiera Knightly’s face blazed on the screen, and as she accepted her Mr. Darcy’s awkward, jumbled proposal Liz did what she always did. She broke into quiet, embarrassed tears despite her being the only one in the house. Oh, to be loved like that!

  Liz should have been doing a lot of things. She should have been brainstorming her next piece for her editor. She should have been searching through her closet for something decent to wear to her lunch with Macy. She should have been cleaning up around her little cottage. When she’d finished the ice cream in the container and lobbed it at the trashcan (three pointer!) she’d set the still cream coated spoon down on an old magazine in her living room. Instead she sat glued to the movie network’s showing of Pride and Prejudice for the hundredth time, bare feet up on her reclaimed wood coffee table, and cried happy tears that Miss Bennet was getting to marry her handsome rogue.

  Screw Christian Grey (not literally, Anna had obviously already done that). She’d take Mr. Darcy’s fumbling honesty any day. Perhaps that was why she was still single. She was an Elizabeth in a world of Greys. And, if anyone asked, Liz could expound on the thousands of reasons she thought the married Darcys love life probably burned a lot brighter than the Greys. The absence of a string of little known objects meant to go into body cavities had a lot to do with it.

  Or not. Her keys, spread out on the coffee table where she was sure to lose them, had a keychain from high school that still maintained its universal truth. It said ‘keep calm and eat chocolate.’ She allowed that keychain to be her yogi anytime she needed a pick me up and an excuse to eat her feelings.

  Liz’s butt vibrated, a telling sign that she’d dropped her phone between the couch cushions again. She dove in, and it wasn’t until she had pulled up each sand colored leather seat and thrown it unceremoniously on the floor that she found the silver rectangle that held her entire life on it. Damn things needed to have wrist attachments like a purse.

  It hadn’t stopped vibrating. The last time her phone had blown up like that was when the Cubs won the World Series and both her dad and her brother had drunk dialed her in their shocked glee. She’d never heard her father say he loved her so much in her life. The memory still made her laugh. She’d called him the next day and asked if he remembered the game at all. He’d said, “I’ll never forget,” with the same impassioned promise as Rose’s “I’ll never let go.”

  This time the phone was red with alerts on her news app, she had several texts messages from a few of her girlfriends and cousins, and her mom had called twice. Whatever it was, she knew immediately, must be bad and must be global. There were very few intersections in her mother’s and some of her friends’ lives. Her stomach started to squeeze in painful anticipation of reading the headlines.

  She clicked on the first linked headline that came up, and it read Supernaturals and Paranormals Among Us- A Coming Out Party No One Saw Coming. What the hell? She scrolled to the next one, not any less ridiculous, which said Supernaturals, Ruled By Dragon Shifters, Announce Longstanding Separate Self Government. This was a joke, right? Though as a sort of member of the press she knew how cutthroat the business of breaking news could be, she couldn't think of any explanation other than every news source getting together to concoct such a ludicrous story. Dear heavens, this was the real world not X-men.

  The one that finally drew her in with a click was the one that read Dragon monarch offers to marry human woman as queen in a show of goodwill. The article outlined how the Dragon King, referred to formally as Anguis Regificum, had offered this option to the American government in his first phone call with authorities and acting under rules as leader of a consulate. Though his subjects were American citizens and non-Americans in America and abroad, it suddenly seemed as if their status as supernaturals was paramount. Could you be American and supernatural? So far it was undecided.

  From the way the article worded it, very seriously, Liz had to give them at least a little credit. It was spun like an actual news story, full of what if's, and should be's, and which way forward's. It went on to detail that the American government had been open to considering the idea of putting the two powers on friendly turf by encouraging the union between Anguis Regificum and a high ranking, government briefed and strictly vetted human woman. Yet, their assent was quickly repealed. Anguis Regificum told them that dragons had a strict tradition, one that the woman would certainly have to be subject to in order to gain acceptance from her new people. Dragons, the article said in print that somehow seemed almost contrite, took their brides. Literally. Dragon males descended upon the females, either had a struggle or not, and carried them away. Anguis Regificum stated this was an archaic practice, a way to once prove to a former potential father in law that the male was strong, capable, and healthy, that he would be able to protect a pregnant wife or the resultant young. Also, since dragon females were not necessarily weepy, fragile creatures and were bigger than the males as was common in animal dimorphism, the unions were typically to her liking. If not, the dragon female fought off her suitor, sometimes gravely wounding him in the process.

  Anguis Regificum noted that no human woman would be able to fight off a dragon, but that didn't mean his target would be subjected to a lifetime of horrors. If she wasn't acquiescent to the marriage, she only had to live in it for a year. After a year formal custom dictated that all females were given the opportunity to leave the trial union with half of the male's estate. This, he again explained, was another holdover from days long past. It was incentive for the male to treat the female well. If not, she was fully within her rights to leave him much lighter of possessions and wealth.

  The American government was grandstanding, saying no woman would be abducted with her governing body's consent. Anguis Regificum had hit back with, "and yet fathers still are allowed to walk their daughters down the aisle and give them away as if they were exchanging property. Another archaic tradition that has evolved, yes? Think of it similarly." In addition, Anguis Regificum educated the government that dragons and many supernaturals have quite long memories. Dragons, he said, can live for hundreds of years. Archaic ways of old aren't forgotten in a few generations. IE Grandma really wanted him to continue traditional practices. Even kings, Liz laughed at the thought, are beholden to Granny's wishes.

  The article dragged on, and by a quick perusal Liz could see it did its best to maintain it's journalistic integrity while still speculating on which Hollywood starlet Anguis Regificum would take as his bride. Because, you know, if one thing is certain it's that no matter how long a man (or beast or some combination thereof) lives, he will only continue to think with his dick. Liz shook her head and turned her TV to one of the local channels she still got. The bottom line read Lock up your daughters! Dragon king is looking to overpower a human wife!

  Liz watched, still unbelieving and amused, until she saw footage of a man walking down the street. He looked up at the breaking news on the gargantuan screen in Times Square, saw that the supernaturals were out, and in a second his skin split. Split wasn't the right word. Liz had to put on her writer hat and try harder to describe what she saw. Dissolved was perhaps a shade
better. It was like his skin became puzzle pieces snapping apart, each lost in a sea of fur. One moment a normal man had been reading the news, his face awash in some emotion that mimicked every else's. The next, he was a two hundred pound wolf howling in the middle of humanity. He didn't bite or snap, didn't attack, but seeing him there was threatening. Something about a gigantic predator with human intelligence sent chills through Liz. It was real. More and more footage was coming out from every corner of the world. On YouTube someone posted a video they'd taken on a train in London. One minute a young girl, fifteen or so, had been sitting across the aisle. Suddenly, she looked down at her phone and began to slowly become more translucent. Where she had been only a haze of colors or particles remained. Even those quickly became nothing. The person taking the video hand had begun to shake while filming. After the teen was completely vanished someone on the train cursed in profane, whispered terror. It was the same on Facebook Live, on Instagram, on Twitter. Everyone knew someone who had witnessed something that shouldn't have been possible.

  Liz needed chocolate. She needed it immediately and in large quantities. She texted Macy-

  L: Are you seeing this?

  M: Part of me is so excited.

  L: It's not going to be like the books, Macy. It's going to be more like Survivor: Try Not To Get Eaten Edition.

  M: Sometimes you're no fun

  M: Does this mean we're not meeting for lunch? Too scared to leave your house?

  L: This means I'm skipping lunch and going straight for dessert. Gio's?

  M: I'll celebrate with chocolate and you can get yourself so doped on tryptophan you'll forget there's anything wrong.

  L: You're weird. I'm down.

  M: No one uses 'down' anymore. Creep

  L: Since when?

  M: Ummm, high school?

  L: I was never cool

  M:

  Liz threw a sweater sporting the words 'Only in LA' over the yoga pants and tank top she'd been wearing. She'd never been to LA.

  Gio's Hot Chocolate Bar and Confectionary was a place she had been many, many times. If they'd had a branded credit card, Liz would have been obliged to get one. Dean, who owned the shop and worked as its greeter, and she were on a first name basis. It was appropriate. He was her dealer. Whenever she called him that the round little man, his hair the same white as powdered sugar, would smile his grandfatherly smile.

  "Dealer, you draw me back in," she hailed him this time.

  "Child, I think you and everyone else could use some chocolate today," he said, his customary smile unfound.

  "Spoken like a true back alley entrepreneur," she said, refusing to be shaken. She was going to live her keychain, her motto.

  When she saw how serious he was, how his lips turned down in a very grave, very un-Dean-like expression, she moved to put an arm around him.

  "I've known for years you've had magical fairies back there, concocting the chocolate potions no one in this town or who visits can resist," she tried again, standing close to the old man.

  "I've seen wars, Liz, ones you've only read about. My daddy didn't come home from WWII. This, this seems like the start of something big, something with a lot of fighting involved," Dean sounded so old, so tired. She'd never heard him like the before. She gave him a little squeeze.

  She moved into the main dining room, decorated in reds and pinks like a chintzy, cutesy replica of a Victorian parlor. She ordered the Hot Samba, hot chocolate with a heady splash of cinnamon liqueur. Macy, her nimbus of tight blonde curls pulled back into a top knot, ordered the Blissful Bubbly, champagne served in a class dipped in chocolate syrup and crowned with white chocolate shavings.

  "When do you think I'll meet my supernatural lover, huh?" Macy asked, eyes glazed over in a dramatic, intentional display, "and do you think that their stamina is supernatural too?"

  "Mace, this is serious," Liz frowned at her friend, "these people are acting as a consulate government, although they were never given that official status. They could be treated like illegals, like terrorists if there's any violence or misunderstandings at all. Everything, every murder that happens or missing person, they are going to be blamed for it whether or not that's fair."

  "So that's going to be your take on it? You're going to prepare for doomsday like so many of the other people commentating?" Macy said, her disapproval emanating in invisible but thickly noticeable waves.

  "No," answered Liz, "I'm going to sit here, get half drunk with you, and then I'm going to act as though this is just another thing. You know, a thing like the advent of Twitter or taking Buzzfeed quizzes to find out if you're more Ariel or Belle. I'm going to leave this place acting as if next week I'll be thinking- how could we have lived without this before?"

  "Cheers to being open minded!" Macy raised her glass.

  "Cheers to something like that," Liz agreed.

  And she proceeded to do just as she set out to. She got half drunk, warmed by a pleasing buzz, and smiled all the way home as she thought up corny bylines to submit to her editor at the fashion blog. The best one, which hit just as her sore feet brought her within sight of her cottage door, was Is snakeskin still in if dragonskin is royal? Oh yeah, she was using that one for sure.

  Oh the puns and the innuendo that existed in this new world! She stumbled into the house, kicked off her shoes by the door, and was thankful once again that she lived close enough to walk to and from the downtown area of her little burg. She thought of some of her best work while walking.

  Liz woke the next morning, her phone still giving every indication of a moderate panic continuing in the outside world. However, inside her house was business as usual. She jumped in a hot shower, brushed the taste of sour chocolate and booze out of her mouth since she'd been too tired to the night before, and threw on shorts and a sweat wicking tee. Her battered running shoes and Bluetooth headphones completed the look. Every morning, before sitting down at her computer to write out her day's articles or features, Liz hit the streets of her neighborhood.

  Liz wasn't a fast runner. She had no delusions of talented athleticism. Instead, Liz had a very real sense that her ass would grow to astronomical proportions if she continued to drink, snack, and snooze the way she enjoyed best. She'd learned that lesson in college after, never thinking of her weight while playing junior lacrosse in high school, she'd suddenly become two sizes too big for her favorite pair of jeans. She'd thought the new curves were sexy too, but she hadn't felt like herself. To remedy that she'd trained for her first marathon her sophomore year. After that, she'd caught the bug.

  Liz listened to really shitty music when she ran, the kind of music that she'd be embarrassed to play in front of friends. If it was old, repetitive, and too happy to have any basis is an angst ridden real world it was her jam. As the lyrics "oh baby, baby, how was I supposed to know," played in her ear, Liz ran her mile and a half circuit down the streets of her neighborhood.

  People, mostly the retired folks who were home during the day, waved as she jogged past. She raised her hand in greeting or flashed them a quick smile. This was her time, her version of meditation, to not be social, to not be working or preparing for work, to be completely zoned out.

  However, even she couldn’t leave reality behind enough not to notice the flash of scarlet overhead or to ignore the puff of air that passed her, a puff created by very large, very fast wings. Liz stopped in her tracks and searched the sky for the enormous, irrationally quick culprit. She was met with only blue skies and wispy white clouds. She started up again at the same loping pace, chalking it up to a new experience that would eventually come to feel as familiar as a passing airplane, and returned to her cottage.

  She pulled out her laptop which she'd left charging overnight. She went to the refrigerator, gathered premade vanilla coffee and whipped cream, popped the drink into a mug that went into the microwave, topped it with whipped cream and a drizzle of honey from the pantry, and sat down at her white and blonde wood kitchen table. Papers spread arou
nd her from the day before, her proof that what she did was actually work. She sat the laptop atop the clutter and opened up her emails.

  The first message she clicked on was from her editor. The jist of it was a warning that the blog and quarterly magazine with the most visited articles printed within was a fashion review. It was not a political zine, a place to rant about personal opinions unless they were asked for, nor was it a place that would shut out parts of the population. Liz read into it what she assumed she was meant to: no one says supernaturals don't or won't be buying our products. Don't shit on them. Also, don't shit on the people that will come out of the woodwork to hate them. They probably buy stuff too. It brought to mind the memo her editor had sent out to deal with the 'Is it okay the new Covergirl is actually a dude' drama. If you don't have anything nice to say, write about shoes.

  The second email was a note from a political party, and she again questioned how they ever got her contact information. They'd pounded her inbox daily during the last election, which had degraded them in brownie points if anything. The email was short, detailing the events from the day before, and included a poll. It asked-

  Supernaturals and paranormals reside among us but, in your opinion, how long should that continue?

  1) Not for long. They have innate advantages over us, as they may be stronger, faster, or far older.

  2) Before making that decision we need to find a way to test if they are, in fact, human at all.

  3) For as long as they want. We should welcome them.

  4) It should be determined where will better suit them, and then moving them to that location should take policy precedence.