Dragon Fate
Masters of the Flame: Book 2
DRAGON FATE
Elsa Jade
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He longed for the fury of the mating fever.
She had the magic to touch his dragon heart.
Unlike the other Nox Incendi dragons, Torch Dorado never sought his treasure, the hoard that would bring peace to his inner beast. But when he hunts down Anjali Herne, he may have found the first scintillating jewel to tame his dragon heart.
But Anjali is a threat to the security of all dragonkin, and he’ll have to make her believe he is not the fire-breathing, maiden-munching monster of fairy tales. Well, there may be a little munching and a lot of fire…
Copyright © 2016 by Elsa Jade
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as factual. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be scanned, reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.
Chapter 1
Torch Dorado spread his wings and soared above the highest turret of the Keep.
He swept down hard, muscles straining in his chest, talons clenched tight to hold onto his precious burden, aiming for the heart of the storm.
Had to get above the clouds, quickly, more because of his mood than any particular necessity. No radar was calibrated to pick out his current shape, and while naked human eyes were capable of seeing, human minds weren’t able to believe.
Nobody believed in dragons anymore.
Except the girl dangling from his claws, obviously.
She
believed.
In his human shape, he’d dragged her up to the turret. She’d struggled with a lot of “let me go, you bastard” screaming, and she was strong, which provoked his dragon. She’d resisted everything he’d tried since he took her under his wing, so to speak,
after
she tried to kill him. But her weight had gone slack with shock—and lack of anything to push off of—when he’d thrown them from the heights. He hadn’t been in his dragon form at that moment, so it might have seemed to her like they were plunging to their doom.
But he was a powerful shifter, and in midair he’d made the change. Bones cracked and lengthened, skin hardened to scales, and nerves screamed with fire like they were coming awake after a thousand years of sleep.
Felt so good.
Almost as good as it would’ve been if she screamed. He’d earned only a gasp out of her, though, which had to suffice as he swooped them up through the pouring rain.
No more of that “let me go” now.
The lights of Sin City spiraled away beneath as he reached the clouds, lost in the water as if the world had drowned and only the two of them remained. Rain sleeked over his scales and across the tough stretch of his wings like cool fingertips caressing him.
What would her touch be like?
He spread his talons and dropped her.
***
Anjali Herne had told herself she wouldn’t say a word to the vile beast torturing her, no matter what.
Screaming didn’t count as words, right?
But her wide-open mouth filled with water and the ends of her dreadlocks as she tumbled through the air. The rain tasted…
Almost sweet.
The Vegas lights were a bad mushroom trip below her, but the moment she resigned herself to decorating the sidewalks of the Strip with shredded red dreadlocks and scraps of fake velvet, vicious claws wrapped around her upper arm and one leg, piercing through her skirt.
She braced herself to be torn in half, but the other half of her was self-conscious about the meat of her thigh in his clutches. He held her so easily, something no man had ever been able to do.
Mighty wings beat downward on both sides, and the scent of hot metal surrounded her.
Instead of rocketing away and snapping her neck—
it’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the sudden stop at the end
—the beast continued plummeting for a heart-stopping moment then banked sideways and up, bearing her along on the stomach-curling arc. If she’d been on a rollercoaster with a would-be beau, she’d have shrieked in delight and clutched at him, maybe copping a feel while she was at it.
Instead, she could only sob that the beast had her once again.
They were so high now the city was gone, the sky dark except for the purple-silver illumination of lightning crackling between the clouds. She gasped again as a pitchfork of white stabbed past them, so close all the little hairs on her drenched body prickled.
This was the end—
With a mighty twist, the dragon barrel-rolled out of the way. For a heartbeat, she was on top, sprawled on the powerfully muscled chest. To her shock, the scales were silky smooth and so hot—
Mighty wings snapped out wide again, catching the winds and bearing them higher into the storm.
Thunder boomed in her ears.
All good intentions lost, Anjali screamed like a little girl.
As if that had been the sign it was waiting for, the dragon arrowed toward the earth. Clouds streamed past them so fast she wasn’t sure if it was rain or tears streaming from her eyes.
The lights of the Keep—the huge, brooding casino on the outskirts of the city—burst into bright relief.
They were going to crash…
At the last moment, the dragon backwinged, sending mini tornadoes of wind and water flowing ahead of them. The beast gave her a light toss… But instead of plunging to her death, she rolled across the marble-tiled roof of the Keep’s highest turret.
She came to a rest sheltered under the overhang of the small gazebo that housed the spiral staircase down into the Keep. A fringe of triangular gold flags decorating the edge of the gazebo roof snapped restlessly in the wind like tongues of flame that wouldn’t go out.
She huddled there as the storm intensified, seemingly pissed that they’d escaped its wrath. Lightning flashed all around. Was there a damn lightning rod on the roof above her?
Clamping her hands over her ears, she peered down the line of her elbows.
Right at the dragon.
Perched at the edge of the roof, talons clenched on the stone parapet, it spread its wings wide like a challenge to the storm. The thin, tough membrane seemed almost transparent, shimmering in the rain, and each scale on the sleek body gleamed like a cut jewel. The long, sinuous neck snaked upward, jaws gaping. When it roared, flames erupted from between shining fangs and the reverberation pummeled her chest.
The sky sent a lightning bolt in answer.
Fire—gold and white—met in a vicious dance.
Maybe she screamed again, but she couldn’t hear it over the cacophony of the thunderclap.
When her blinded vision cleared, a man stood where the dragon had been.
Torch Dorado wasn’t actually a man, she knew.
Damn it, she wanted to keep thinking of him as
it
, as the monster.
But that was impossible when he was just so fucking…
Naked. Hot. She’d never see lightning or fire again and not see
this
burning in the back of her mind.
For a long moment he stood with his arms still spread, his heels hanging over the edge of the fall.
Not that a fall mattered to him, of course. Hard muscles bunched in his arms and chest, even in this shape, a silent testament to the strength it took to fly. His dishwater blond hair—mostly water at this point—stuck straight up, as if the charged atmosphere was still coursing though him. Rain streaked down his chest, contouring around his pecs and abs, and cut darker channels into the thatch of hair around his—
She jerked her gaze away from his cock which was thrusting like another lightning rod toward the sky.
Oh god, this storm was turning him on.
She clamped her arms down to her chest and was shocked when the pressure sent a jolt through her peaked nipples. No. No, no, no. If she was high beaming and wet it was only because of the cold rain,
not
because of the monstrous, wicked, grotesque,
fucking naked shapeshifter
staring at her through the silver veil with eyes as dark and violent as the desert tempest.
Thunder continued to grumble and mutter, but no more lightning shot from the sky. He lowered his arms abruptly, flinging droplets from his fingertips, and stalked toward her. Smoke curled from his flared nostrils.
Anjali too lowered her hands and scooted backward on the slick marble tile until her spine slammed into one of the gazebo pillars. She felt pinned there by his narrowed gaze.
He swept one insolent look over her, taking in her bedraggled dreadlocks trailing over the vintage ivory-hued blouse that was now only good for wash rags. His claws had torn through her gypsy skirt, and the slashes fell open around her thighs, exposing her legs and her bare feet, her ballet slippers having disappeared somewhere over Vegas. Her skin prickled at his unspoken verdict.
Years ago, when she’d complained to her mother about all her, ah, extra curves, her mother had tsked. “Girl, those sturdy legs will take you wherever you want to go.”
Sturdy had not been her ideal, but now she didn’t even have that—her damn knees were knocking so loud it was like they wanted to let someone in…
No. No, no, no again.
He
was not getting in, not into her body, not into her head, not in nowhere, no how.
He stopped just beyond the gazebo overhang, as if he needed the rain to cool the temper she sensed still boiling in him. He’d dragged her up here in the first place because he swore he was done with her defiance.
Someone like him, with all that power at his fingertips—literally—could never understand the difference between defiance and desperation.
With his hands on his hips, he stared down at her. The stance only emphasized his blatant, threatening masculinity.
But he wasn’t a man.
“Could you…” When the words barely stuttered out of her, she cleared her throat.
He tensed, every muscle rippling in a way that made her own body clench in helpless response. “Could I what?”
“Point that thing somewhere else? I’m afraid it’s going to go off.”