by Rinelle Grey
Just like Morian.
Would they spend all their time sending her away? Hiding who she really was? Protecting her by never letting her see the real world?
Of course Karla was going to side with her parents. They were the ones she felt an affinity to. She wasn’t going to help Morian at all.
No, there was nothing she could do but accept she was going home.
Morian loved Dragon Island. It was her home. But right now, it felt more like a prison. There was no excitement there, no adventure at all.
Everything would be calm and peaceful on Dragon Island.
It always was.
Chapter 1
Finn hung back near the rear of the ferry, camera around his neck, trying to pretend he was just another tourist. Just another person on his way to Dragon Island Hideaway Resort for a relaxing, beachside holiday. Except he wasn’t on holiday, and this was going to be anything but relaxing.
No matter what his bosses had said.
He was a bad choice for this job. A bad choice for any job right now. But apparently he’d been the best choice, the only one able to get here on such short notice anyway. He’d been home, sent home in disgrace really, meaning he was a local after a fashion. But he’d always lived and worked on the mainland. He’d never visited the islands, despite them being so close.
Yet today here he was, undercover, a single man on a boat full of couples.
There was no way Finn could avoid standing out like a sore thumb.
He wasn’t the only single person on the ferry though. His target, a young woman up ahead, stood at the front of the line waiting to step onto the jetty.
He’d read her file, the hastily pulled together one anyway. He knew her mother owned Dragon Island Hideaway Resort and lived there with Mora and her three older brothers. She had no record at all, not even so much as a speeding ticket, though she did have a driver’s licence. He’d even seen her photo, albeit one of those dodgy licence pictures where you weren’t allowed to smile.
From all that, Finn could already guess a surprising amount about her. And his short observation only served to confirm it. Any woman with three older brothers and a mother who owned a resort would be used to getting what she wanted. Probably a little stuck up.
She’d stood in line alone, not talking to any of the other passengers, not even seeming to notice them, just staring out over the water, giving Finn plenty of time to observe her, though he could only see her back from here.
She was petite and willowy, almost as if a light breeze would blow her over, yet she didn’t even so much as sway in the stiff ocean breeze. Her blond hair glinted in the sun, although her skin showed little evidence of the tan he would have expected from someone who lived on a tropical island.
Maybe she hadn’t spent much time here recently?
Maybe she’d been spending a lot of it at the dragon lair. That thought sent a shiver up his spine. He couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to get close to those giant beasts, let alone a delicate woman like Mora. Then again, he’d also heard that women were very attracted to the male shifters. Maybe she had a mate there.
That wasn’t a crime. Not yet anyway. But it was enough to put her on the radar, especially since she’d left and travelled over a thousand kilometres away. It was enough that his superiors wanted to know more. Who she was, what her connection to the dragons was. Mostly they wanted to know if she was a threat.
And it was his job to find out.
As he watched her, he couldn’t see anything even remotely threatening about the young woman who greeted the men tying off the boat by name. They greeted her back with an easy familiarity.
It did make him rethink his opinion though. If she was a stuck up princess, they wouldn’t be so friendly. Her mother might be their boss, but their smiles said they liked and respected her.
Finn casually lifted his camera and pointed it towards the shore, framing the waves on the beach, the palm trees, and making sure he caught the woman in the edge of the image. She made a pretty picture, her hair flying in the breeze, her movements sure and steady.
Right as he was about to snap the picture, she swung around, looking straight at him, giving him his first glimpse of her face. Finn depressed the shutter almost as if his finger convulsed with shock.
For a moment he thought she recognised him. That was the expression on her face, as though they were friends, and she hadn’t seen him in a long time. But he was certain he’d never seen her before in his life. He would have remembered if he had.
And yet, there was something familiar about her. Not familiar like he’d seen her before, but like he’d found something he’d been searching for his whole life. He couldn’t help lifting his face from the viewfinder to stare at her. He knew he shouldn’t, knew it was risking his cover. But it was the strangest feeling he’d ever felt.
His heart thudded in his chest, and he wasn’t quite sure if his imagination was running away with him or not. He wasn’t sure if he was afraid of being caught staring at her or exhilaration that she was staring back.
Perhaps this job wouldn’t be so bad after all.
That thought caught him by surprise. He usually had no trouble keeping his thoughts purely professional when he was working. But there was no denying there was something different about her.
What was her story? What had she been doing at the dragon lair, and what was she doing here now? Was one of the dragons her partner? Was it a coincidence that the name of this resort was Dragon Island Hideaway?
Was he going completely crazy?
Like everyone, Finn’s life had been turned completely upside down a few weeks ago when he’d heard the first reports of a dragon flying over the city. He’d been sure it was an elaborate hoax. It was far easier to believe that someone could create a hologram or something than it was to believe that dragons were actually real.
But then he’d seen them, face to face. And now the whole world had changed. Everything that had previously been a fairy tale, was now suspect.
He’d been down in the city, finishing up his intelligence training course, and had been thrilled to be called in to join the op heading out to the dragon lair. He’d wanted to see, with his own eyes, if the reports were true.
Or he’d thought he had.
The reality had been very different. Oh, sure, the dragons had all been in human form when they’d arrived. They shouldn’t have seemed terrifying at all. But when a naked man had walked out of the bush with a woman’s bleeding body, claiming it was the result of a dragon attack, and one of the dragons had healed her, Finn had started to get more than a little uneasy.
When his superiors had expected him to get into the car to drive back to the station with the dragons’ silver haired leader, he’d tried to convince himself he could handle it. After all, the dragon had turned himself in, surely that meant he wasn’t a threat.
But just as he’d been about to slide into the back seat, the dragon had looked at him. Its pupils had narrowed into slits, and its eyes had, honest to goodness, whirled.
He’d sensed that the dragon was playing with them, that it was only pretending to be compliant. For a moment there, he’d almost felt like the dragon was warning him to keep his distance. It was as clear as if it had spoken to him. Finn could have sworn he heard the words, though the dragon’s lips hadn’t moved.
Finn had been frozen, half in, half out of the car, freaking out.
Two other officers had pulled him out of the way, and someone else had taken his place inside the car. He’d never been so embarrassed in his life. He still went all hot whenever he remembered, and he wasn’t sure if it was shame at being so frightened or fear all over again.
Either way, he’d been sent home in disgrace. He hadn’t expected to have anything more to do with dragons. Until he’d received the call that morning.
The call that had brought him here, back into dragon business.
This woman wasn’t a dragon though, just someone who associated with them, so
he should be fine. He was determined to be. How could he be a police officer if he froze up at the thought of dragons? He suspected that avoiding them was going to be impossible in the world from now on.
No one knew yet if these dragons were a threat or not, but it was becoming clear they weren’t just going to go away. Despite his fear, or perhaps because of it, Finn had read every report that came into the station, and the evidence was clear—dragons wanted a place in the world, and he didn’t see how anyone could keep them from having one.
That wasn’t his job to figure out though. Finn’s job was to learn all he could about this woman and find out what she’d been doing in the dragon lair.
And right now, his lead, the one who wasn’t supposed to be aware he was tailing her, was staring at him as though she could see into his soul, freezing him for an entirely different reason. His heart beat faster than normal, and his skin flushed. Fear mingled with exhilaration, and Finn wasn’t quite sure which this was.
All he knew was he was making a fool of himself again. He needed to snap out of this and quickly. She was just a woman, and he’d never had any trouble with women.
Finn lowered his camera and stepped forwards, towards the ramp off the boat where the woman stood, still staring at him, her expression suspicious now. As though they hadn’t had that moment of heart stopping connection a few seconds ago.
He gave her his best stunning smile. “Are you on holiday by yourself too? I’m feeling kind of out of place here. I didn’t realise that I’d be surrounded by couples.”
Her eyes narrowed, staring at him. That wasn’t the reaction he usually got.
That wasn’t the reaction he’d expected after the way she’d been staring at him a moment ago.
Finn wasn’t arrogant, but it was certainly rare that a woman didn’t smile back when he smiled at her. He tried not to take it personally. It probably indicated she had a dragon mate somewhere back at the lair. He’d heard dragons mated for life, that they formed some sort of magical bond that couldn’t be broken. If so, that would certainly explain why the woman had no interest in him at all.
That thought caused a spike of disappointment, one he quickly pushed away. He needed to save his cover before it was blown. He needed to stay professional.
“I’m Finn.” He held out his hand.
She stared at him guardedly for a moment before taking it. Her grip was warm and firm, but that wasn’t what surprised him.
What surprised him was the spark of… not electricity, but… it was almost a wave of heat that washed over him as soon as her skin met his. And for a second, he felt the same recognition he’d felt earlier, as though he’d felt this before.
It was only determination not to make a spectacle of himself that kept him from pulling back in shock.
“I’m Mora,” she said, her voice almost hypnotic. “What are you doing here?”
Finn felt a sudden impulse to tell her, to blurt out the truth without any attempt to hide it, to admit he was here to shadow her, to figure out what she was up to, to find out if she was a danger.
It took all his willpower just to keep his mouth shut, let alone think of a suitable cover story.
Luckily he’d prepared one on his way here and had rehearsed it enough it almost felt like the truth. Some of it was close. The best cover stories always had a little bit of the truth threaded through them. Enough to convince his brain to substitute it from the real story anyway.
“I’ve had a rough year,” he forced out. “You know how it goes, under a lot of pressure at work, not sleeping well, the whole shebang.” The more he said, the easier it came. “I needed some time off, to get away from it all.”
He hadn’t intended to say all that at once. He’d planned to drip it out over time, save some bits for when he needed them later. But for some reason, he’d just blurted it all out.
The woman… Mora… was scrutinising his face, and again Finn couldn’t help thinking that she was seeing far deeper than the surface of his skin.
He usually wasn’t the superstitious sort. He didn’t believe in magic. Or he hadn’t. Not until he’d stared into a dragon’s eyes. That had a way of changing your view. He wasn’t sure what to believe anymore.
But even if the reports claimed dragons had a variety of different magical abilities, like fire and lightning, he hadn’t heard anything that suggested they could see into someone’s soul. It wasn’t possible.
At least, he didn’t think it was.
Even if it somehow was, this woman wasn’t even a dragon. There was nothing at all in her history to indicate such a thing. She had a driver’s licence, and that meant she had the rest of the ID to go along with it. She was just as human as he was.
Finn kept repeating that fact to himself as he gave the woman his best friendly smile. “Sorry, I tend to overshare,” he said apologetically.
That earned him a laugh. The suspicious stare was gone, and suddenly she looked normal. “Well, I hope you have a very relaxing holiday. Dragon Island Hideaway is certainly good for that. It’s always calm and relaxing here, never the slightest risk of excitement.”
She spoke as if she knew from experience and as if she was a little disappointed about that fact. Before Finn could even formulate a question that might give him some more answers, she turned and walked away.
And he had no excuse to chase after her.
But despite all that, he couldn’t keep his eyes off her as she strode down the walkway and gave one of the resort workers a big hug.
A growl rose in Finn’s throat, and even though he swallowed it before the sound could emerge, it still surprised him. The stab of jealousy and sense of possessiveness he felt made no sense, and Finn berated himself for it even as his brain kept rolling scenarios over in his head.
Was that one of her brothers? If so, did her family know about her involvement with the dragons or not? That was an angle he might be able to use.
It was unlikely the man was her boyfriend, because the only reason he could think for her being at the lair was that she was visiting a mate. That thought sent him hold and cold at once.
Maybe she had some other tie to the dragons? Maybe she was just looking for some excitement. Her earlier comment about it being calm and relaxing here seemed to fit with that possibility, though Finn couldn’t see anyone wanting excitement badly enough to go near a dragon.
None of his questions had any obvious answers, so Finn pushed them to the back of his mind. No doubt he’d find answers in the next few days. That was why he was here.
And despite his reservations, the thought of hanging around this unusual, fascinating, beautiful woman who made his heart race—well, he wasn’t going to object to that.
Somehow, he suspected that this ‘holiday’ wasn’t going to be very ‘relaxing’ at all, no matter how good the resort’s reputation was.
Chapter 2
Morian was shaken by her encounter with the strange human man. She’d turned to look because she’d sensed something different about him, sensed a frustration and loneliness that didn’t seem to fit on the ferry full of honeymooning couples.
She hadn’t expected to find him staring back at her.
As soon as she’d seen him, she’d felt a spark, almost as if her heart knew his heart. She’d never felt anything like the way her body reacted when he’d stared at her. And his eyes, so dark and brown, had captured her, and she’d found it impossible to turn away.
It took all her willpower to walk down the jetty towards Damrian without looking back. But she made herself do it, even though she could feel his eyes boring into her back the whole way.
After all her parents’ fears, her first thought had been that he was up to something, especially with the way he’d been staring at her through his camera. And for a second, she’d sensed some sort of deception from him.
Or she’d thought she had.
But when he’d moved closer, held his hand out to her, and they’d touched, any suspicion she’d had melted away to be repl
aced by something else—the feeling that she was connected to him somehow.
That had shaken her more than any other manifestation of her life dragon magic. Because it had to be something to do with her magic, didn’t it? What other possible explanation could there be for it?
She’d never believed in love at first sight, even after she’d heard stories about it from almost all the mated dragons while she’d been back at the lair. How could you love someone you didn’t even know? Love wasn’t about what someone looked like, it was about what was in their heart.
So why did she feel like she already knew his heart? Like she’d already seen inside it?
That bit wasn’t hadn't come from her life dragon magic, she was sure of it. In fact, she’d deliberately used a little of her life dragon magic to try to make him confess the truth, and it had seemed to work. The story he’d given her had been believable, and nothing her senses told her belied it.
And yet, for some reason, she still couldn’t shake the feeling that he was hiding something.
That somehow, her life dragon magic had failed.
That shouldn’t be possible. The only person she couldn’t affect was her mother, and they’d always joked that that was some sort of protection, because how could you parent a child who could influence you the way life magic could.
Even her father and brothers she could usually sway.
So it made no sense that he could have resisted her magic. There was no way he could be hiding something.
So why couldn’t she shake the feeling he was?
Was it because she’d felt so strange when she’d looked at him? Had the spark she’d felt when they’d touched muddied the waters?
Morian shook her head, still confused, and brushed the experience away. Only time and more interactions would help her figure out the conundrum. She’d deal with him if she saw him again. Right now she had other things to worry about.
