Destined by Dragonblood Read online

  EVERNIGHT PUBLISHING ®

  www.evernightpublishing.com

  Copyright© 2019 Lynn Burke

  ISBN: 978-1-77339-937-9

  Cover Artist: Jay Aheer

  Editor: Karyn White

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  DEDICATION

  For Kelly, Beth, and Doris.

  DESTINED BY DRAGONBLOOD

  Blood Born, 2

  Lynn Burke

  Copyright © 2019

  Chapter One

  Dolyn

  My inner dragon dug its claws into my brain, fighting to break free, grab the woman I followed, and shoot into the sky, regardless of the fact Midtown Manhattan’s buildings rose high above me. Sweltering heat shimmered from the pavement adjoining the sidewalk, the honking traffic and murmurs of a million voices in the morning’s rush hour traffic unable to distract me from her.

  Unaware I followed, my fated mate, the dark-haired beauty a dozen or so paces ahead of me scurried down the crowded street as she did every morning, making her way to Tolzman Industries. Twice, she rubbed at her neck as though feeling my stare, same as the previous couple of days I’d followed her to and from work.

  Like a tuning fork, she drew me on, making me incapable of ignoring her petite perfection. Her soft, womanly curves hid beneath modest clothing much too old for her twenty-something years. A ripe peach in matronly disguise.

  Why? I wondered but received no answer.

  She walked hurriedly with her head lowered as though the ground held more appeal than humanity. Shoulders hunched as though she wished to turn in on herself where no one could touch her—or attempt to peer into her soul through purple-blue eyes I’d yet to see up close.

  A lonely one, like me, but the previous ten years of my loneliness had been my own doing. A dragonblood of the royal line, and I hadn’t been enough for the partner I’d spent fifty years trying to please. Sure that finding the female Elijah longed for would create the elusive bond of old we had both longed for, I’d gone on a quest to seek her out—without telling him. I shouldn’t have taken off without an explanation. I had wanted to surprise Elijah. Give him what he had longed for over three centuries in the hopes my falling short in fulfilling his needs alone would be soothed by her.

  While gone, I had unknowingly condemned myself, for Elijah had found her on his own—along with her husband, his beta. The circle they had created while standing before me a week earlier in his mountain home had flared with love, the type Elijah had always longed for, the type I feared I would never find.

  The woman ahead of me clutched her large bag tight to her side, like an exotic fish amongst sharks while crossing a busy street. How did her piercing beauty not draw attention from those around her? Her attempts at invisibility worked well against those crushing around us—except on me.

  Gorgeous as the first rays of a morning sun, refreshing as a placid mountain lake, untouched by man’s hand, her allure drew me in.

  I had first seen her a week earlier when Elijah’s female, Dakota, a young woman gifted with the powers of old, laid her hand over my chest, showing me the image of the two who belonged to me: One, a male I had never met with dark hair and brilliant green eyes, the other, Ashley O’Connor, one of Elijah’s secretaries at his New York office.

  My dragon craved her scent, her taste. Craved to have her beneath me, writhing in the throes of passion, her plump lips parted in ecstasy. Even more, I longed to have Ashley between me and my green-eyed male, taking us both, being the conduit between the alpha and beta as a female dragonblood ought to. Both of us buried in her heat, bound tighter together than any mere human could imagine.

  Hope had sprung to life in my heart the second Dakota’s touch revealed my female to me, but I could barely feel the draw of dragonblood in Ashley—even less flowed through her body than either of Elijah’s mates. Disappointment overshadowed my hope, but my desire for her kept me close, like simmering embers waiting for a rush of wind to flare flames to life again.

  I stayed well behind Ashley, the reins on my inner self clamped in a death grip. My dragon had yearned for Elijah not so long ago with severity enough I had submitted to the last of our royal line, the last full dragonborn of blood besides myself roaming the earth.

  Elijah Tolzman, my partner for fifty years, the man I had dropped to my knees for countless times. My flesh had hated to bow to another, but my dragon had purred with delight over every lash of his whip, every crack of his cane across my backside—every thrust of his hips that buried his long length deep inside my body.

  I had submitted out of love, out of desperation to stave off the loneliness I had wallowed in for close to three centuries before finding him. An alpha myself, I knew once bonded with my beta that I would shine in my role of offering pain for pleasure. Our female, however, would only feel the tenderness of my touch, the gentle caresses of love’s assurance.

  Ashley entered Elijah’s building, and, knowing she wouldn’t exit until after five that evening, I returned to my penthouse suite, the one overlooking Tolzman’s Industries.

  Independently wealthy from investments I had been dealing with since the stock market opened in 1792, I passed my time reading rather than working. Learning of the humans who believed themselves the first and only beings on earth. My ancestors, along with others who had become adept at hiding in plain sight, had flown the skies and walked the land for centuries longer.

  While Elijah’s ancestral home lay in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, mine was buried inside the Grand Tetons, unused for over fifty years. The third original dragonblood family on the continent used to dwell in the Grand Canyon, but their line had been decimated in the medieval ages, before learning to cloak our inner beasts, the scales and wings that shimmered in the sky, had come into existence.

  For four hundred years, only Elijah and I had remained, but fate had secretly kept the dragonblood alive—just not to the fullness I desired for my mates.

  As though a timer clicked inside, my dragon roused promptly at five, and I made my way back down to the hotel’s lobby, out into the late summer heat to wait for Ashley. To follow her to Penn Station, ride in the noise and stench of a train into New Jersey, then amble along behind her as she walked the few blocks from Walnut Street station to her condo.

  I sat, using my dragon’s abilities to blend into the neighbor’s bushes, and watched over her windows long after darkness closed off the sun and her curtained windows no longer glowed from inner light. I used to trust my judgment once upon a time, but choices and devastating consequences in the past made me wary.

  I want her.

  Refusing interaction with my dragon came easy—not hearing him proved harder.

  I yearn for the love Elijah found.

  Closing my eyes briefly didn’t lessen the heartache of being set aside for a mostly-human male and female.

  I want to share in the touch of skin, the heat of arousal, the euphoria of climax.

  Temptation to do as he said tensed my body. The thought I could break into Ashley’s condo without raising alarm and claim her before she thought to scream, trembled my muscles—and swelled my cock. I had yet to breathe her unique scent into my lungs. I had yet to taste her sweet breath. But, the thought of both hardened me to the point of pain and swelled a bead of pre-cum on my crowned head inside my jeans.

  “Control,” I whispered as my dragon hissed and clawed, desperate to own what belonged to us. “We will learn her ways. Learn about her life, those she surrounds herself with, those she loves. Then we will decide on a course of action—if indeed one is to be made.”

  Curses over my flesh’s dominance rose in my mind as my dragon shrieked his displeasure, but I cloaked my body to appear as nothing more than a bend of light, slipped off my clothes and shoes, and stuffed them into the small backpack I carried everywhere. Only then did I allow him to shift my body. Centuries of practice made keeping hold on my mind easy, much to his dismay.

  One leap upward and a flap of wings shot me into the night sky, the backpack held tight between my claws. Night caressed my scales in humid warmth, but I didn’t mind the heat. I welcomed the warm tendrils of air caressing my flexing body as a lover might, something I hadn’t had the pleasure of enjoying for over ten years.

  Evading a few aircraft eased my dragon’s need for action beyond mere flight and occupied my thoughts for a time, eased the heartache that plagued me.

  I returned to my hotel’s rooftop and my human form, redressing before heading down the fire escape to my suite. A long, hot shower eased the tension in my shoulders, but sleep eluded me as my dragon grumbled about the short flight time and the female I withheld from us.

  Steal her away.

  Eyes and jaw clenched shut, I rolled, ignoring the voice of my inner beast and the same argument he’d carried on for a week.

  She belongs to us—is destined to be ours.

  “I thought that of Elijah, too,” I grumbled into my pillow and punched the fluff that wilted too quickly beneath the weight of my head.

  She is a fragile thing, isn’t she? Like a spring flower risin
g out of the frozen depths of the earth.

  I growled, hoping he would shut up so I could get some sleep.

  Soft, supple … she would taste like the finest wine, the sweetest honey on our tongue.

  My cock swelled again as I imagined my face between her thighs, lapping at the arousal her body wouldn’t be able to help but produce from my scent, my touch—her alpha.

  Addictive nectar. A wet, tight pussy to ease our ache.

  My balls drew up, and giving into my body’s need, I wrapped my hand around my swollen length.

  Imagine the clutch of her inner walls around us, drawing us deeper against her womb.

  Erotic imaginations flooded my mind, the fantasy of her, my female, and I slid my palm over the welling pre-cum, slickening my length. A tight grip while working myself ensured a climax within a few strokes.

  Yes…

  Growls rumbled in my chest, and I bit my tongue to keep from roaring as spurts of white shot across my abs in sticky ropes, jerking my cock in my hand, releasing my seed into the air—instead of inside Ashley’s womb where it belonged.

  I had fucked myself by leaving Elijah, and although fate offered me what I longed for, I feared the results.

  Claim her. Take what is ours.

  Forearm over my eyes, my hand still wrapped around my softening cock, I sighed. “I can’t.”

  Chapter Two

  Ashley

  The hairs on my neck stood on end—again. For five days straight, every time I left for work, I swore someone watched me. The feeling remained throughout the hour-long commute into Manhattan, but no matter how much I scanned the crowds around me, no matter how much I watched in my periphery, I never saw who followed me.

  Once inside the building I worked at, the feeling faded, but it always arose once I left in the evenings. Fear of a stalker should have kept me on edge, but I found the feeling … pleasant, almost arousing, and that fact worried me.

  The last time I had experienced true arousal, I’d made a very wrong decision, and no amount of meeting with a shrink and sex therapy had healed the brokenness in my mind. I should have shared about my unseen stalker with my therapist, but withheld. I enjoyed the rush of knowing someone watched me. Desired me. That feeling of power hadn’t faded, no matter how much I’d tried to squash it since that fateful night my innocence had been stolen.

  For the first time in years, my body responded without the pain I usually needed to become aroused. I grew wet between my thighs, nipples tightening from the presence that followed me. But, no attempts at self-pleasure got me off. Strung tight and needy to a point I wept more than once, I couldn’t make myself climax. No vibrator, no dildo, no amount of finger-fucking myself sent me tumbling headlong into relief.

  Once a month, on insistence from my sex therapist, I met with a man who tried to help me through the sickness in my head. He was a Dominant and the owner of a small sex club in Midtown, and although I allowed him to inflict the type of pain my body craved to get off, I never allowed him to fuck me—or even touch my skin in an intimate way because of sensory issues shooting me back to my teenage years and fucking with my head.

  Just the thought of a dick thrusting inside of me tightened my chest and airway. I’d been celibate for ten years, and I knew a lifetime of the same lay in my future.

  Five o’clock on Friday, I shut down my computer, so ready to meet with my Dom that my hands shook. I needed release from the week-long buildup of sexual tension riding my body due to the stalker I’d yet to see. Rather than head north toward the station, I sat in a nearby café, facing the window and sipping a green tea latte to waste time until my monthly appointment.

  People hurried past the window, most on phones, a few abnormal meandering souls checking out the sights rising high overhead. I scanned them all, hoping for a glimpse of eye contact, a hint of whose stare I’d felt walking the mere two blocks from work.

  A couple stood across the street on the far corner to my left reading a brochure. Another woman lingered far to my right, just outside the window casing, a frown on her face as she mouthed into the cell held between her cheek and shoulder.

  The soft music overhead was lost in the buzz of voices as people came in for an after-dinner coffee same as every Friday I visited the establishment. Usually, I read on my eReader to kill the time, but I found myself unable to focus, my gaze flitting to the glass before me, my skin tingling as though being watched.

  I gave up on my fairytale book of happily-ever-afters and turned my attention on the crowded sidewalks. The stationary couple and woman had disappeared, but others had taken their places, lingering here and there while others pushed past.

  Elbow on the table and chin resting in my palm, I scanned toward the left. A solitary figure leaning against the building across the street snagged my attention. He stared in my direction, and even though I couldn’t make out his eyes, my breath caught at the rush of arousal sweeping over me. I straightened in my chair, my hand falling to my lap.

  Wide shoulders encased in a gray t-shirt drew my gaze first, the material clinging down the V of his body. Tight and ripped, the man appeared as though he spent his working hours in a gym rather than behind a desk.

  I craned my neck as people slipped past, cutting him from sight.

  Casual jeans couldn’t hide the powerful-looking thighs beneath.

  A bus rumbled past, and I bit my lip while shifting on my chair, cursing the slow-moving vehicle.

  He still stared my way, and my mouth dried as the moisture in my body pooled between my thighs. I pressed them together, hoping to relieve the sudden ache. Pulse thrumming, I took in his dark blond hair, wishing like hell I could make out the color of his eyes.

  My hand itched to wave, motion him across the street to join me, but I knew better. Initiating was a thing from my past.

  Tearing my stare from him didn’t come easy. My chest ached and breaths came choppy. For fifteen minutes, I wished the man away. For fifteen minutes more, I wished him to cross the street, flitting my gaze his way on occasion to find him unmoved. Hands in pockets and focus on me.

  My appointment drew near, and my entire body trembling, I made my way out onto the sidewalk.

  The man had disappeared.

  I jerked my head side to side, feeling as though a piece of me had been stripped away and tossed far into the ocean. Where had he gone? Swallowing back disappointment, I turned and hurried away, no longer as excited for my appointment as I’d been a half hour earlier.

  Knowing I needed treatment, I forced myself onward rather than turning and heading toward Penn Station to return home and wallow in the depression of my life. Orphaned at a young age and alone emotionally ever since, I had difficulties opening up to people other than my shrink. Building trust outside of a doctor’s office was impossible, but I had no one to blame but myself. Bad choices, and all that.

  Heaving a heavy breath, I grabbed hold of the handle of the club’s entrance, and my hairs stood on end once more. Breathing deeply, I soaked in the rush of excitement. Rather than turn to look for my stranger, however, I walked into the building’s lobby and made toward the elevators that would take me to the third-floor club.

  I pressed the elevator’s up button and waited, my skin prickling as the doors behind me swished open and shut twice. The ding of the elevator flinched my shoulders, and I scurried inside, eyes shutting briefly before turning.

  He stood across the lobby, hands fisted at his sides, the tension in his shoulders reaching across the distance and hitching mine higher. My lips parted on a gasp as our gazes collided.

  Mine.

  The word whispered in my head as the elevator door slid shut, sealing the vision of his beautiful face from view. I sagged against the back wall, my heartbeat thrumming in my ears. Would he follow me upstairs?

  I wanted him to.

  I wanted him to follow me into Master Vanni’s domain, wanted him to watch how I got off. I wanted him to learn what I needed so he could collar me, so he could be the one to inflict the pain I needed in order to find release.