Dragon Keep Me

Chapter One

Natalie

I swiped at the bug who’d made it his priority to buzz around my face for this entire stupid hike. I sighed and looked at my phone. No bars. I had so much work to do, and what does my boss decide is best for me? That asshole, Kellen, sends me on this team building weekend— just because I told Greg, who drives the Prius, that a six-year-old could put together a better presentation than he did.

I wasn’t lying. It was a shitty presentation. I didn’t have time for low-grade work, and I didn’t have time for team-building-hand-holding-let’s-all-be-friends-weekends. I had a quota to meet, and if people weren’t on board with my standards, then they needed to get the hell off of my ship.

“I hate you, Kellen. And I hate you, Greg.”

Thanks to them, I was pretty sure I was lost out here in the dense forest. I smacked at the bug again, and groaned as I climbed another steep embankment. How the hell had I gotten separated from the group? One minute we were all together and the next I’d looked back and they were gone. I shuddered, trying to remain calm, but the sun was going down and I might be stuck out here all night.

It’s not that I hated the outdoors, it’s that I hated being forced to come out here.

"Be kinder. A leader, not a boss," I mocked Kellen’s words to me when he told me I needed to work on my "people skills".

Puh-lease. I was the most productive department manager at that place. I was a young woman climbing the corporate ladder in a man’s world. That meant I had to be tough on my team. I had to be ruthless.

I stopped and turned my ear forward. What was that? There was a buzzing that had nothing to do with my stalker mosquito.

Curious, I followed it into an open clearing. In the middle there was a large square stone. A perfect cube. It hummed, and I glanced around, looking for anyone or anything else.

When I got closer, I noticed there were small markings all over it. The hair on my arms lifted, pulling towards the stone like static electricity.

"This is weird, right?" I said aloud, glancing around the empty clearing.

The hair on the back of my neck lifted. I didn’t want to touch it, but something inside me said that I should. My brain gave me a thousand reasons not to, conjuring up every image of every scary movie I’d ever watched in my life, but my hand reached forward.

I stared at my fingertips as they made their way towards the buzzing stone. When I touched it, it cracked with electricity and there was a bright flash.

Then nothing.

Cass

I tightened my grip on her hips, pushing faster and harder. My lower stomach slapped against her, the sounds filling the room along with her wild moaning. I brushed my hand down her back. I stopped at the top of her ass and held her hips down, anchoring her in place. Both of her hands were back, trying to push against my thighs to lessen the depth of my thrusts.

I had been a little more rough than usual lately. Normally, I liked to be more sensual, but I’d run into another dead end in my hunt for the dark witch Morga today, and this was how I liked to vent.

I looked down at her, she was a fae girl from the nearby city. Pretty. Nice subtle curves. Goddess knows I couldn’t remember her name, even if she’d told me five or six times. Daisy? Dahlia? All of these fae women were named after flowers. It was hard to keep them straight.

The wolf shifter pack was much closer, and I used to frequent there more often, but wolf women…yikes. They were possessive. Clingy. Always seeking commitment.

It wasn’t that I had anything against women. I liked women. A lot. However, I couldn’t love them—ever. Not the way they wanted me to.

That f*****g dream, the one of the day Elizabeth and I had been torn away from each other, came more often all the time.

The girl cried out and dug her nails into my wrist. I’d tightened my grip too much, and I let off the pressure, grunting, "Sorry." I had to be careful of my strength. We were both supernaturals, but being a dragon, I was much more powerful than a fae.

I focused on the task, ready to be done. A few more deep thrusts and I was able to finish, backing away from her, and relieved to see I hadn’t bruised her when I’d grabbed her too hard.

I slipped the condom off and tossed it in the trash. With my genealogy, half human and half dragon, I didn’t know if I could actually get anyone pregnant, but I wasn’t taking any chances with that. No child deserved to have me as their father.

The girl rolled over, looking at me through her lashes with a cat’s smile curling on her lips. At least she’d enjoyed it.

'It’s still early, we can go find another tonight. The clubs are still open,' Crux, my dragon, suggested.

'Another? You’re a gluttonous prick,' I answered, even though I was tempted, and probably would.

Dragons were greedy. Notoriously so. I had trouble suppressing those urges. To take. To collect. To possess pretty and valuable things. Treasure was the most obvious, and I had plenty of it. Women were pretty, too. Crux liked it, sleeping with all the different women. It satisfied some of his greedy hunger, and we played off of each other. His need to possess and my need to forget.

He snickered. ‘We’re the same, you and I, Cassian.’

I clenched my teeth, not willing to argue with him. I was Cass, and he was Crux. We may share a body, but I was not him. Most dragons took their dragon name when they turned eighteen. My father, Typhon, had just been Typhon as both human and dragon. I was not willing to give up Cassian. My mother had given me that name.

The fae girl frowned when she saw I was pulling my pants back on.

"You’re not staying?" she asked, her bottom lip pushed out in a small pout.

"Oh, uh no," I said, glancing around for an escape from this repetitive conversation.

My phone started ringing in my pocket, saving me. I pulled it out with a sigh and looked at it.

"You can sleep here if you want, help yourself to anything you need," I said, "but I’ve gotta take this."

I didn’t look at her again. I didn’t like to see the hurt that I caused.

Instead, I buried the guilt and stepped out into the hallway, smiling as I answered the phone. "Gideon! You have no idea how well timed this call is."

He sighed. "I doubt I even want to know, Cass."

Gideon was the Alpha of the nearby wolf shifter pack. He let me stay here in a watchtower on the edge of his packlands. We’d been allies last year when the other dragons started a war in an attempt to regain control of the supernatural realms. They raised a dark beast that was prophesied to end the world as we knew it. We’d won, but the dark witch who’d started it all, Morga, had escaped. Hence the reason I was hunting her.

They were my friends, the wolves, and I enjoyed my time with them. Gideon was a serious, hardworking man. And so, so, easy to fluster because of it.

"Are you…busy?" he asked, clearing his throat.

He knew what I would be doing on a Friday night.

"Not anymore."

"Something went wrong with the ward stone on our border. No one can get in or out of the realm for some reason. Can you fly out there and see what’s going on? You can get there faster than anyone else."

"Ooh, a mystery," I said, chuckling.

"It's an important matter. If you can't be serious, I'll just go—"

"Oh, calm down, grumpy. I’ll go."

"Let me know what you find."

"I will."