Betrothed to the Dragon

  Betrothed to the Dragon

  The Lick of Fire Collection

  Kara Lockharte

  About Betrothed to the Dragon

  Lick of Fire is a mini-series collection from twelve best selling authors. Enter this supernatural world of fire and heat, magic and adventure, and get lost in everything DARK, delicious and FIRE.

  BETROTHED TO THE DRAGON is the FIRST in Kara Lockharte’s DRAGON LOVERS mini-series. It is the 11th series starter within the Lick of Fire Collection.

  I like to pretend I’m just another immigrant trying make her way in New York City…but I’m not.

  You may know of my family from stories of an older age. Across all nations, all cultures, my family was once worshipped as gods, cursed as demons and shunned as otherworldly creatures.

  Reality? I am shen, but the worst kind of shen there is.

  One who would rather pretend to be human than to rule them.

  One with no magic.

  One hunted by the immortal monster that killed my parents.

  And now, I just discovered how grandma found us refuge in America, how she thought she could save me.

  She betrothed me – to a dragon.

  Note: This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real life dragon shifter billionaires, or anything else is purely coincidental.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Epilogue

  Blurb

  THE BOY WHO CAME BACK A WOLF - Chapter 1

  Also by Kara Lockharte

  Get in Touch

  Series Starters from the Lick of Fire Collection

  1

  “What do you mean I’m betrothed in an arranged marriage?”

  I glanced at my phone. Only one of the connection bars was filled, indicating barely there service. I must have heard her wrong. No way my Alexander McQueen-clutch carrying, Bitcoin-gambling grandmother would say something like that.

  “Grandma?”

  I glanced at the phone again and saw that the call was disconnected.

  Of course. The museum, built in the early twentieth century, was gorgeous in its details from the hand-carved window frames to its Italian marble floors, but sorely lacking in areas with good phone service. I teetered on the stupid heels I had bought for today, dancing around a pile of dusty books resting on the floor, and navigated around the cubicle maze that passed for the doctoral student office.

  Fat gray pigeons glared at me, dodging my footsteps as I made my way down the great expanse of stone steps. Grandma loved playing games. Once she had played politics with the fate of empires, and now she invested that talent into stocks and virtual currency.

  I hit redial on my phone, and she picked up almost immediately. “You lost a bet, right? You know, I’m pretty sure it’s not legal to put up your granddaughter’s hand in marriage as stakes.”

  Next to me, Chinese tourists were having a heated discussion about the best pizza places in the Lower East Side.

  Grandma exhaled. “No, Sophie. I made the deal so that we would be allowed to come to this country. It was a different, more desperate time.”

  I had tried to assimilate and adapt to human life in America, with blue jeans, chicken nuggets, and a PhD in Museum Conservation. All of it was easier than remembering what I truly was—the reason why so many of my family had died.

  I paced trying to release the nervous energy of an all too familiar frustration. “I wasn’t even a year old. There’s no way that will hold up in court.”

  Grandma made that harrumphing, barking cough she always made when she was done listening to me whine. “Not legal by human standards, no. But by that of our people, yes. I’ve tried to let you live a life of freedom and to make your own choices as much as you could. But my protection won’t hold forever. I need to know you are safe. And marriage into this family will protect you.” Her voice hardened. “Sophie, you are the last of our line. Even if your power hasn’t manifested, the potential of your blood is still there. This is the only way to keep you safe.”

  I was a black belt in Krav Maga. I’d had extensive firearms training from a grizzled old ex-Army Ranger sniper who said I had potential. None of it mattered. I had to be protected. Unlike my grandmother, my mother, and my father before me, I had no magic.

  I stopped pacing, and pinched the bridge of my nose. As much as we pretended to be human, we were not.

  I clenched the phone tighter. “Why didn’t you ever tell me this before?”

  “I had been hoping that some of the plans I made, the champions I sent against the monster, would succeed before it would come to this.” There was a note of sadness in her voice. “But each time it fights, it learns. And every day it grows more and more powerful.”

  My alarm vibrated, startling me into dropping my phone. I tried to catch it, but it was too late. When I picked it up, there was a hairline crack on the screen. Wonderful.

  I picked up the phone, turned on the speaker, and spoke louder than I intended, so much so that it startled the pigeons around me into grudging hops. “Grandma, I have to get ready for my talk.”

  “There is more that I have to tell you. But we’ll talk more later. Good luck on your presentation, Sophie.” She hung up because she knew I was in no mood to say goodbye.

  More? What more could she tell me? Next she’d be telling me I was actually a human adoptee. That would have been less of a surprise.

  The picture of us appeared on my phone’s lock screen.

  We looked so different, her and I. Grandma with her white skin, straight hair, and me with my dark skin and wavy hair. The only thing we shared was our eye-shape that humans called Asian. In school, I had always checked off whatever box felt more convenient at the time. African, Asian, Caucasian, Hispanic—I had convincingly claimed them all. Grandma scoffed at the idea of labeling ourselves according to human ideas of ethnicity.

  “Our family spans the Earth,” she had said. “A shen does not identify themselves by the tribal groupings of humans any more than a lion distinguishes itself by the particulars of ant kingdoms.” As much as we looked like and pretended to be, we weren’t human. We were the first intelligent life forms on this planet and connected to the deep magical nodes of the Earth. Humans had many names for us: fae, yokai, djinn, apsaras, gods, demons, and monsters. But years and years of intermingling with humans had dissipated most of our legendary magic.

  And for the remaining shen with magic? None of it was enough to fight the Devourer when it had entered this world, seeking new victims.

  Including my parents.

  They had died to save me, not knowing how they had thrown their lives away for the unforgivably flawed shen that I was.

  My phone buzzed again with the alarm I had set to prepare for the one event I had been dreading and anticipating for the last six months. It was time for my post-dissertation fellowship presentation on religious motifs in East and Near Eastern art at the museum.

  Giving the public lecture as required by my fellowship put worms in my stomach so much more than defending the actual dissertation in front of a panel of peers and experts. I had to simplify things, touch upon other areas that weren’t necessarily my specialty, and make the topic more appealing to the public; even I could admit that a discussion over the proper application of persimmon juice in scrollwork conservation could get pretty dry.

  I swiped at the tablet in my arm, changing the slide display. A collage of a Tlin
git wood carving of a woman with closed eyes, surrounded by mouths and dripping with blood, was juxtaposed with that of a Heian Japanese scroll painting.

  “And as you can see, the image of the Devourer is one found across several cultures from ancient Rome to Heian Japan to the totemic carvings of the Tlingit peoples of the First Nations of Canada.”

  I clicked through the slides, kept moving, kept talking, even as I tried to ignore the striking gaze of the man in the back of the room. He had entered about five minutes into my talk, and I couldn’t figure out why I was so aware of him.

  It was foolish of me to include the Devourer. But I had felt a strange streak of defiance that Grandma had said was the lot of the young and reckless.

  And yet she had, oddly enough, given her blessing for me to speak of the monster.

  “Little fox, as difficult as things are, I want you to bloom as you can, not in fear.”

  He couldn’t be working for the Devourer, could he?

  Long ago, there had been good reason for people not to call the names of gods or monsters in vain. In a sense, I was doing that here.

  I walked across the stage, my heels clicking loudly.

  “Of course, it is not only the only common motif across cultures. Dragons are another common motif…”

  For all my fear and worry, the actual talk went by faster than I expected. As the crowd dissipated, my future boss, the assistant curator of the renowned Metro museum, came up to me. Even in heels, I still found myself looking up at the tall black woman. Her British accent was as crisp as the pleats in her trousers. “That was excellent, Sophie,” You handled those questions quite nicely.”

  The tall, broad-shouldered man dawdled in the back of the room, leaning against the wall, swiping at his phone as the crowd flowed around him. Why was he hanging around? There was something extraordinary about him that I couldn’t quite figure out, yet the dark business suit with an open collar and loose tie made him seem like he was just another worker on a lunch break.

  “Um, thanks.” Though the suit looked as if it were tailored to him, I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was more disguise than truth. No, he wouldn’t be just another worker, not with that confidence and stance. More like a CEO.

  She followed my line of sight, and smiled. “That one is rather fit.”

  He glanced upward, and saw us looking. He smiled. It was as if the sound in the room fell away for a single heartbeat.

  Sound filled my ears and I realized my future boss was giving me a playful smile.

  And then I realized he was walking over towards me.

  “Oh um, I uh –”

  She winked. “Oh to be young again. He must have a question.”

  I blinked. “What?”

  “Answer his questions. It’s part of the requirement that you answer questions from the public after all.” She winked. “I’ll see you later.”

  I felt my heart speed up as he approached me.

  “Hi.” My voice came out higher than I’d intended, and I looked up at him. “Did you have any questions about the talk?”

  He looked at me with golden light-brown eyes. He had runway-model cheekbones and the kind of chin that jutted from the bands of Roman centurion helmets.

  I had the strangest feeling that his gaze was stripping me, not just of my clothes, but to some invisible core. My muscles felt unreasonably tense, ready to fight or flee, maybe both at the same time.

  His smooth bass voice rolled across my skin like a caress. “I have many questions, none of which I have time to ask.”

  “Well, umm, there’s going to be another talk in, umm—” I glanced at my watch, even though I knew precisely when the next talk would be. “About an hour?” Dammit, why had I made that sound like a question?

  The corner of those full lips quirked up into a smile. “Will you be leading it?”

  “No.”

  “A shame.” He turned, looked over his shoulder, and nodded at me. “I enjoyed listening to you.”

  2

  Perhaps it was the news about my supposed betrothal, or maybe it was just relief that my talk was over, but afterward, I felt restless as if electricity lurked under my skin.

  And I couldn’t stop thinking about the way that man had looked at me, like…he saw me.

  Shen have control over the physical appearance of their descendants’ human form, and Grandma had designed mine to be perfectly ordinary. Wavy dark-brown hair; brown skin in the perfect blend of my mother and father’s coloring in human form; and brown eyes hidden behind glasses. When Grandma had realized I would have no shen abilities, she made sure to give me enough proportionality to my features that with some clever makeup and clothing, I could gain attention should I wish it.

  And he had looked at me as if he could see through it all.

  I shook my head as if I could shake the image out. New York City had more than nine million people in it: the chances I would see him again were immensely small.

  Besides, I had more important things to worry about, like the fact that Grandma’s magical protection was weakening.

  I felt a tingling on my shoulder, where Grandma had placed her hand and traced the sigil of protection on me so long ago. It still held.

  For now, I still had my freedom.

  I leaned back in my squeaking chair, my feet finally free of the stupid heels. I was alone in the doctoral student office. Late-afternoon sun streamed through the window in bars of light so sharp they were almost solid, save for the dancing dust motes. At this time of year, there would be plenty of light to run, and plenty of people running as well.

  Safety was to be found in the human herd.

  I grabbed the bag underneath my desk, changed in the bathroom, and in minutes, I was out under the trees, running, running, running.

  I ran as fast as I could, as if I could escape my troubles. I focused on the charging beats pounding in my headphones, yet Grandma’s words kept coming back to me.

  Betrothed.

  Arranged.

  Marriage.

  My heart pounded, blood thumped, and my breath quickened, but my mind held on to those words like a woman holding on to a pole for balance in a crowded subway.

  I turned the corner and headed down an empty stretch.

  A long time ago, Grandma had advised closing my eyes and letting out mental screams. It was a good way to relieve stress, release emotions, and of course to temporarily disorient any nearby mind readers.

  For just a moment, I closed my eyes and screamed in my mind, the way my grandmother had taught me.

  Pain exploded as I slammed into a wall. I found myself sprawled on my ass, hard bits of gravel digging in and cutting skin.

  “Are you okay?” a familiar resonant male voice asked.

  I looked up and found black running shorts against a defined set of abs, flanked by rippling striated muscle up to a wall of pecs. His sunglasses were askew, and I could see his tawny golden eyes looking at me with an indescribable expression.

  Immediately, my cheeks flooded even warmer. I knew exactly who he was—the man from the museum—and my breath hitched in my throat, as I couldn’t think of a thing to say.

  He repeated his question, offering me his hand. “Are you okay?"

  I squeezed my eyes shut in embarrassment, as if I could somehow pretend that I hadn’t just made a giant fool of myself. “I’m sorry. I didn’t see you.”

  He knelt and looked me over. His scent of salt and man and something else unexpectedly alluring was surprising. “You don’t look injured.”

  He picked up something beside me, and slowly handed it to me. “Unfortunately, I can’t say the same about your phone.”

  I stared at my shattered phone. I tried to turn it on. There was a bright flare and then it died.

  “Be careful,” he said. “Broken edges can be sharp.”

  I let out a low groan. “I didn’t even know phones could break like this. I just downloaded a digital subway pass.”

  “Let me guess, without the subw
ay app on your phone, you’re stuck,” he said.

  Another jogger ran by, and belatedly, I realized that I was still on the ground. I shifted to get up, and he offered his hand again. Without a thought, I took it and found his big, warm hand closing around mine, pulling me up effortlessly.

  “Listen,” he said. “I’m sorry about your phone. It was my fault it broke. Let me write you a check for it. I don’t live far from here. If you need to, you can use my phone to call someone.”

  “Thanks. But I’ll be fine,” I said, the words automatic and tumbling out of my mouth before I could stop myself. I didn’t like accepting help from strangers. Especially handsome ones.

  He looked at me with his unfiltered golden gaze that held an impossible temptation I knew I couldn’t indulge in now. Fuck, why couldn’t I have met him yesterday?

  “Let me make it up to you.” He was hot, beautiful, and he looked at me like I was too.

  The invisible sigil on my shoulder tingled, reminding me of my grandmother, the secret betrothal, the determination of my future without so much as a what-do-you-think-Sophie. Just because I didn’t have magic didn’t mean I shouldn’t have a say in who was going to be my husband.

  Arranged marriage, my ass.

  “Actually, I might take you up on that offer.” I wiped my hand on my shorts and offered it to him. “I’m Sophie.”

  He looked at my hand for a moment, before taking it. “Hunter,” he said, almost expectantly, as if I should already know his name.

  “Are you on TV or something?”

  He laughed and squeezed my hand. Strangely enough, I had the oddest sense that I had just been caught.