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DESCRIPTION:

Dangerous. Tortured. Desperate. King Ryker of the Draquonir will make one last sacrifice to save his people and his kingdom before he loses control of the raging beast inside him. Dragon kind are dwindling, no longer able to hunt for their true mates in this contemporary, high-tech world.

Ryker must do something no dragon has ever done before; have a child with a human woman he has no desire to touch, a woman his dragon refuses to take as a mate. Arrangements have been made. A queen chosen. A loveless, chaste marriage of convenience. No passion. No dragonfire. Nothing but contracts and medical procedures to sire an heir. This is the only way his race will survive.

Katy Toure is tired of cleaning up her identical twin’s messes, but when her sister calls in a panic, unable to get to an important business meeting worth millions of dollars, Katy just can’t say no. All Katy has to do is walk out of her dead-end job, grab her sister’s passport, fly to Italy, pretend to be her sister for a few days, sign some contracts and take the vacation she’s always dreamed about.

No one will know she’s an imposter. No one ever knows.

But Katy has never tried to fool a dragon who scents his mate...

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CHAPTER ONE:

Mate. Chains. Kill.

Pain.

Ryker of the Draquonir roared. Thrashed. Fought against the heavy weight of enchanted chains holding his massive and deadly dragon form under lock and key. He’d chosen this prison, done what he needed to do to protect his people. The restraints were the only thing keeping him from smashing his way through the cavernous, dungeon-like holding area below his family’s ancient estate.

A large mahogany desk, the only furniture inside the dark dungeon room, caught fire and turned to ash with a blast of his fiery breath. His scales flashed like black diamonds in the firelight. In his rage he cared nothing about destroying one of his favorite treasures. His only thoughts? Primitive. The human within buried deep inside the dragon’s agony. Its need.

For her. His mate. A female he had been unable to find despite centuries of searching. Without a mate he would lose himself forever in the dragon’s torment. Become a monster in truth. A savage killer without remorse or mercy.

He would become the horror human myths and legends had named his kind.

“Hang on a few more days, my king. All the arrangements have been made.” A disembodied masculine voice came through a speaker buried somewhere in the rock, somewhere the dragon would not see. Ryker had invested in a high-tech surveillance system. This was not medieval times, even if the dungeons were far older than even that. His family estate was ancient, but the interior was modern, updated to include every amenity. In a world where humans believed dragons and shifters mere myth, every precaution was taken to appear human.
The dungeon. The chains. The gatherings of his people were kept underground. Hidden.

Ryker swung his massive head toward the familiar sounding voice. Struggling to understand the human words through the haze of unwavering pain, he shifted on his clawed feet, craned his long neck and cursed the chains wrapped around his body, layered over his back and wings. The metal was laced with Elven magic. Not even a dragon could break them, which was why he’d begun wearing them, both as a dragon and as a man, several years ago. Or perhaps a decade had passed. He honestly couldn’t remember. The only way to remove the chains was by shifting back into his human form. As a human, he could make the choice to remove them. That was not an option for Ryker. Without the chains he would lose control, whether in the form of his dragon or a man would make no difference. Not anymore. Years had passed since he’d been in complete control of his dragon and the beast was intelligent. Cunning.

Impatient to hunt for a mate.

Now it was too late.

His dragon hissed at the thought, breathing fire at the voice that dared disturb him.

“Ryker? My brother?” That voice again.

Ryker bellowed, his roar shaking the foundation as he struggled in vain to regain control, to shift, his dragon more and more resistant to the change. He was nearly immortal, yet without a mate his dragon would slip over the edge into madness. There would be no last-minute salvation. His time was at an end. He was in pain.

He was ready. Better to die an honorable death than become a merciless killer.

His giant claws scraped the floor, the sound echoing eerily in the empty room.

“Arrangements have been made. Brother, listen to me. She is coming.”

Brother? What arrangements? Who was coming? He fought to understand the human words. To remember.

“Ryker,” said the voice grimly. “I’m coming in. Don’t eat me.”

Ryker lowered his massive head toward the small, human sized door, his dragon’s eye narrowed suspiciously as the thick, Elven metal panel swung open without a sound. The voice seemed familiar, but was the owner of that deep baritone dragon or man?
Memory fragments of a large crimson dragon flashed through Ryker’s mind.

Dragon.

Ryker drew back one massive forearm, ready to strike. One of his kind dared challenge the king?
Snarling in fury, Ryker let out a fiery, thunderous warning, his mind full of chaos and confusion.

The door snapped shut just in time to keep Ryker’s burst of angry flame from reaching its target, only to open again just as quickly. Before Ryker could inhale again, ready to char the other dragon to cinders, a man stepped through the door.

Ryker reared back. Hesitated. Another memory, this one of childhood, flashed to the fore.

Vector.

Brother.

Grasping for control over his dragon, Ryker held fast to the childhood memory as he stared into the emerald green eyes of the man before him. Human thoughts emerged. Human memories of them speed shifting. Accidentally setting his younger brother’s hair on fire. Ryker had laughed for hours while Vector fumed and plotted revenge.

Slowly the dragon faded, allowing his human side to finally seize control once more. Before shifting he directed one last stream of flame over his brother’s head, this time purposely aiming high. A fraction lower and he would fry Vector’s hair off again. Ryker laughed, the sound a cross between a snarl and a snort.

Vector stayed where he was, his eyes glowing dangerously. “Still not funny,” he growled, his hand combing through short silver curls. “Took a year to grow it back, asshole, and now look at it. Red dragons should have red hair. Red. Not this silver crap.”

Ryker recognized the mournful tone of his younger brother, a brother not so far away from suffering a fate similar to his own. Madness. Fury. Dragon chains holding him bound to the earth until the executioner arrived.

Sobering at the thought, Ryker finally shifted into human form, using dragon magic to dress himself in leather shoes, pressed black pants and white shirt. The massive chains shifted form with him, the elven magic designed to hide them as nothing more than casual gold chains around the neck of an average man. He looked every bit the billionaire business executive he was in the human world. “You continue to risk your life coming in here. While I am grateful, as your king, I am ordering you to stop. I fear next time I will be too far gone to recognize you.”

This time it was Vector who snorted, his suit one Ryker recognized, made by the finest tailors in Rome.

“You may have won your place as king, but you are still my brother. I will hold on as long as you do.”

“That is what I am afraid of. When my human mind goes, the dragon will have no mercy on whoever walks through that door. I do not want to kill you. You earned your place as second in line. Our people will need you to lead them through the war.”

Vector scowled. “No. You will hold on as long as we need you to. A few more days. I will not give you to the executioner’s blade, not yet. All of the arrangements have been made.”

“Ah yes. The arrangements,” mused Ryker, ignoring the tingle at the back of his head. His dragon was already pulling at him, trying to take over again. “Has the woman arrived?” The female who would carry his child. Continue his line. The female who had agreed, for a price his clan was desperate enough to pay.

“No. That’s what I came to tell you. Ms. Toure has delayed her flight again. She should be arriving late tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow.” So long when every moment was an eternity. “Very well. Once she signs the documents, you will do what must be done. Notify the executioner. Prepare the Draquonir to mourn their king. Crown a new leader. Sing the songs of his ancient royal line and prepare for war."

Vector was second in line, but the other clans would not recognize his right to rule without a display of dominance. Power. Vector would have to fight to preserve their clan’s territory once Ryker was dead. Their territory. Their dragons. The wealth and lands handed down for generations.

“I am sorry brother. I did not wish this for you.”
Vector sighed, his emerald eyes solemn. “The dragon cannot be bargained with. We all know this truth.” He took a deep breath. “Are you sure she’s not your mate?”

Ryker grit his teeth. Emily Toure. Long, curly black hair. Sultry brown eyes. There had been a brief moment when he’d thought she was his mate. Even his keen dragon senses had been fooled. One whiff of paradise and then…nothing.

His dragon, already unstable, went crazy, spinning wildly out of control with pain and heartache after their initial meeting. He’d finally lost control, the momentary joy, taken from him just as quickly, was catapulting him into an early grave.

“I am certain. Did she say why she needed to postpone this time?”

Vector shook his head. “No, but when I told her if she was not here tomorrow, you would void her initial payment, she promised she would be here.” He paused, his eyes straying sadly to what remained of Ryker’s desk. ”I hope your plan works. If it doesn’t…”

Ryker nodded. “I know, brother. I know. It’s too late for me, but if this plan works, you and the others might be able to do the same before it’s too late to save what’s left of us.”