Monster Dragon Read online

  Savannah appeared, and she cleared her throat nervously. She looked at the dragons standing around Brian’s office. Brian could practically feel the anxiety rolling off of her in waves. She needed to calm down, and fast.

  "Mr. Monster?"

  All three men turned to her.

  "Yes?"

  "Oh, um, uh..." Savannah looked nervously from one man to the next. "I meant..."

  "Just spit it out," Brian said impatiently. He knew he needed to be gentler, but for fuck's sake, she was working with dragons. She had to get over her fear eventually.

  Yes, Savannah might be a cat, but the three owners of the company were dragons. They were big, even in their human forms, and they could be intimidating. If Savannah couldn’t handle it, then they’d need to start considering the possibility of hiring someone else.

  Only, Brian didn’t want to deal with training yet another person to work for them.

  "Mr. Declan has a meeting," she whispered.

  “Anything else?"

  "And Mr. Christopher has a phone call."

  “Ah,” Declan nodded. “Thanks for the reminder.” Without another word, he left the office, and Christopher followed close behind. Savannah had no interest in being around Brian alone, so she, too, left the office.

  Relieved that his brothers were finally going to be off of his back, Brian took advantage of the opportunity to sneak out of the office before anyone could stop him. It was Friday, after all. He really did have the entire weekend to do fuck-all, so he was going to use that time to just chill.

  He skipped the elevator and took the stairs all the way to the first floor. Once he was outside of the building, standing in the grass that surrounded their corporate building, he took a deep breath.

  He was fine.

  He was going to be fine.

  Nothing was wrong with him. He was just feeling a little tense. Everyone felt tense from time to time, and it wasn't a big deal, right?

  Only, it kind of felt like a big deal.

  It kind of felt like Brian was always tense these days. No matter what he did, he could never shake the feeling that life was about to get him. He wasn’t sure when he started feeling anxious all of the time, but it wasn’t a feeling he appreciated or enjoyed.

  So, instead of going to his home, Brian decided to do something a little bit different.

  He decided to take a walk.

  As a dragon shifter living on Sapphire Island, Brian could fly anywhere he liked. The Chrysolite Isles were a beautiful place where shifters could be themselves. There were hundreds of islands, and some of them had specific shifter communities on them. Dragon Isle, for example, was one of the biggest and most famous islands, but Brian enjoyed Sapphire Island.

  While Dragon Isle was mostly jungles and forests, Sapphire Island had some huge cities on it, and Brian’s company was located in the heart of the biggest one. Now, as he walked, he looked up in the sky to see dozens of dragons all flying around. Everyone had somewhere to be, someplace to go.

  They all had someone to fly to.

  He didn’t, though.

  Brian didn’t.

  He wanted someone.

  He’d never spent much time thinking about mates before his brothers each found theirs. Now, it was all he thought about. He wondered if there really was a mate for everyone. Even to Brian, it sounded like nothing more than a fairy tale. Even to him, the idea seemed insane.

  One mate for every dragon?

  Brian shook his head. He’d be lucky to get laid this year, much less find someone to bond with for all of eternity. That stuff was great for Declan and Christopher. Truly, it was, but Brian...

  Well, he was kind of a loner.

  As Brian looked around the city, eyeing the big, beautiful buildings, he suddenly felt like his chest was tightening. He needed to get away from it all, if only for a little while, but he had nowhere to go. He couldn’t exactly have a nice vacation, not with only the weekend to himself, so he went home.

  He made it there in record time. He didn’t even bother going into the house, didn’t go into the gated yard, didn’t do any of that.

  He simply stripped out of his clothes, dropping them in the sand as he walked, and made his way toward the ocean. The waves were crashing against the beach, and he smiled as he started walking toward the water.

  “Beautiful,” he whispered.

  Beautiful.

  He loved living on an island for many reasons, but his very favorite reason was the fact that the air always smelled fresh, like salt and fruit. Brian started running, hurrying toward the water, and he kept moving until he was in the waves, beneath the waves, and sinking down, down, down.

  He kept his eyes closed, and he held his breath.

  He would just hide under here for a little while.

  Chapter 2

  Winter watched from her position on the lawn as the tall guy ran toward the ocean. He was a beautiful-looking man: muscular, lean, cut. She felt herself growing excited when she watched him moving. He was hot as hell, and she was wildly tempted to touch herself as she watched him swimming. Soon he sunk beneath the waves, and she lost sight of him, but that was probably for the best.

  After all, she didn’t want to be a weirdo who masturbated to strangers like some sort of peeping tom.

  She wasn’t trying to peep. Not at all. She was only on the island until Tuesday, at the very latest. She was just here for a story. Winter was a writer for a newspaper – not a reporter – and she was working on a story about dragon-owned businesses. The world knew all about shifters now, and Winter wanted to show the world exactly how powerful dragons could be.

  Humans still liked to view shifters as less-than-intelligent creatures, but Winter knew perfectly well that you should never underestimate a shifter.

  They might bite you, or fuck you, or make you want to forget your own name.

  At least, that had been her experience with shifters.

  Now she was on Sapphire Island, and she was hanging out on the beach like a total bum. That was fine with her. She worked too much anyway. The hotels on the island had been full this weekend due to some sort of conference, but she hadn’t minded. She’d taken a ferry to the island, found a nice, empty beach, and set up a little tent in between a cluster of coconut trees.

  Nobody was going to be the wiser.

  She was close to a couple of big houses, but the owners hadn’t been around, and besides, nobody could see her from her little spot tucked between the trees. The coconut trees themselves didn’t offer a lot of shade or invisibility, but the grass that grew near them offered at least a little bit of protection. Besides, each of the houses on the beach was surrounded by these huge, high fences.

  Nobody was going to see her.

  Nobody was going to know.

  Winter turned back to her computer and started writing. She was already halfway through her story about dragon businesses. On Monday, she’d be able to finish her story. She just had the final interview with Brian Monster of Monster Brothers Security. She had no idea what the guy looked like – he was notoriously camera shy – but judging by the way he’d sounded on the phone, she had a feeling he was going to be melt-your-panties off hot.

  Good.

  Winter could deal with hot.

  As she typed, her phone rang. It was her boss at the newspaper, and even though it was the weekend, Winter knew better than to ignore a phone call from the tiger shifter.

  “Leon,” she said. “What can I do you for?”

  He sighed.

  “Don’t talk like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like you’re a 1970s dad on some canceled sitcom,” Leon said.

  Winter only laughed. Leon was barely 30, and he was the only cat shifter at a newspaper full of bears and penguins and birds. Winter was human, but she was the only human at the press. In some ways, that gave her great insight when she was writing, but mostly, it just felt lonely.

  She’d been thinking about quitting the paper for a wh
ile and taking some time off to write her own book. That was what she really wanted to do. She wanted to write young adult books about life as a shifter. If human teenagers felt lonely, then Winter guessed it was about a million times worse for shifter teens.

  “I’m not talking like a dad on a sitcom,” she said.

  “You are.”

  “Okay, Leon, cut to the chase.”

  She didn’t really have time for dilly-dallying. Winter considered her job to be something very serious. She worked hard as a writer, and she did her best to make sure that her work was always up to par.

  Sitting around talking on the phone sounded like a wonderful way to spend the day, but it wasn’t going to do her any favors when it came to getting her work done.

  “I need to know where you’re at with the story.”

  “It’ll be done Monday night.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  Leon had never harassed her about a deadline before: probably because she always got her work turned in on time. Why now? She sensed hesitation in his voice, and she knew there must be something else: something he wasn’t saying.

  “Just spit it out,” she said.

  “Okay, okay,” he told her. “Word on the street is that Dragonette Daily is doing a similar piece.”

  “So what?”

  “So, they’re looking for dirt on Brian Monster.”

  “And?”

  “And they’re willing to pay us.”

  Winter’s heart sank.

  Dragonette Daily was a tabloid newspaper. She hated the group with a passion. Winter often felt like she had to work twice as hard to get anything done because people always heard of Dragonette Daily, confused it with Dragons Daily, and then didn’t have any respect for Winter or her colleagues.

  “I hope you told them to suck your dick,” Winter told Leon.

  Silence.

  “Leon?”

  “I did not.”

  Shit.

  “Leon, what did you tell them?”

  “I said we’d consider their offer,” he said, sounding exasperated.

  She sighed, pissed. She wasn’t going to do it. She wouldn’t. There was no chance in hell she was going to screw over Brian Monster like that.

  Winter knew very little about him except that he was one of the three owners of Monster Brothers Security. The firm had a reputation as being one of the best in the damn world, and she had been wildly lucky to find Brian’s work phone number. It had cost her two hundred dollars and a coffee date with a hot nerdy girl who spent most of her time playing dragon adventure games, but it had been totally worth it.

  She had an interview with the man behind the company.

  Well, one of the men.

  And now Leon wanted her to screw over her source.

  Well, Winter had more integrity than that. She had a lot of integrity. Her parents had raised her to believe that you were only as good as your word.

  Winter looked out at the ocean and sighed. The waves were beautiful, and there were birds flying around, flittering in the sunlight. It was a beautiful world.

  Could she really be the reason for more darkness in the world?

  Could she really sell someone’s terrible traits to a tabloid for money?

  It probably wouldn’t even be a lot of money. Dragons Daily was just having a hard time. The economy sucked, after all, and everyone knew it.

  “Leon, I won’t do it.”

  “You don’t have a choice,” he said. “I’m your boss.”

  “So, you just get to tell me to screw over the people I interview? That’s going to reflect badly on me, Leon.”

  If her reputation as a writer was destroyed, she’d have nothing. She didn’t do typical reporting. She was rarely sent out on stories. She was, by all means, a writer who hid behind a desk all day.

  She was the one who had come up with the idea to do a feature on shifter companies, and now Leon was trying to hone-in on that and use her knowledge for evil. Well, that wasn’t happening. Not at all.

  “It’s not screwing people over,” Leon argued.

  “You want me to interview the Monster guy, tell him that the information will be used for good, and then sell it? Not happening.”

  A sigh.

  A hiss.

  Leon was getting agitated, and he was letting his kitty-cat side show even through the phone. Winter could picture him pacing in his office, walking back and forth as he tried to find a way to convince her. Finally, he tried to hit her where it hurt.

  “You interview the guy. You write the story. You hand over your notes – all of your notes – to me. Do it, or you won’t be paid.”

  “I’ll do you one better,” she said. “I quit.”

  Winter ended the call, dropped the phone on the blanket beside her, and looked back at the ocean. She was sitting just outside of her tent on a soft little beach blanket with her laptop in her lap. She looked down at the computer and wondered what the hell she’d just done.

  How was she going to pay her rent?

  How was she going to buy groceries?

  For fuck’s sake, she needed health insurance, and she’d just thrown that away, too. She reached for her inhaler and brought it to her mouth. Two carefully timed puffs of the medication, and her chest loosened. She had been dealing with asthma her entire life, and it never really got easier.

  “At least I stood up for what was right,” she muttered to herself.

  Winter closed her eyes.

  “You can do this,” she said out loud. “What’s the worst that’s going to happen?”

  “Well, you could be arrested for trespassing,” a deep voice said.

  Winter’s eyes flew open and standing right there in front of her was...

  “A penis!”

  “Eyes are up here, love,” the deep voice attached to the naked body growled.

  Winter slowly dragged her eyes up the most beautiful body she’d ever seen to see the angriest face she’d ever seen.

  “Care to tell me what you’re doing on my beach?”

  She was in serious trouble.

  Chapter 3

  When Brian had come out of the water, he’d been surprised to hear someone talking. His beach was private and secluded. Each of the homes on the beach had a large fence surrounding it, which meant there would be optimum privacy for everyone at all times. He could see his home from the space where he was swimming, as well as little clusters of palm trees here and there.

  Most of the groupings of trees had little sand banks and patches of grass that meant little animals would have an easy time finding spots to hide.

  Apparently, a little human had found a spot to hide, too.

  Brian had glanced around only for a second before his eyes had locked on the tiny little khaki-colored tent. It blended in almost perfectly with the sand, and as he marched over to get the woman off his beach, he’d grown more and more irritated.

  His week had already sucked.

  Now this?

  No.

  No, this wouldn’t do.

  The last thing he wanted to do was finish his swim to have to be the bad guy, and when he’d gotten close, he’d been frustrated to see that the woman was, apparently, also having a bad day. At least they had that much in common, he reasoned.

  Brian knew he should have grabbed his clothes before he marched over, but he hadn’t been himself lately. He’d been unfocused and he’d had a hard time paying attention to anything at all, much less work.

  “Let me ask you again,” he said, staring at the woman. Brian tried not to notice the way he could scent her arousal. Apparently, she liked the fact that he was naked. She seemed to enjoy staring at his cock, in any case. “What are you doing on my beach?”

  “I...um...your beach?”

  “My beach.”

  “I thought this beach was free for public use,” the woman said quietly.

  “No.”

  “Oh,” she bit her lip and looked around.

&nbs
p; “Why are you here?”

  “Well, the hotels are full, and I needed a place to stay for the weekend.”

  “So, you chose to sleep in my backyard?”

  “It’s a beach,” she whispered. “It’s not a yard. I didn’t think anyone would notice me. I’m not bothering anyone.”

  “What’s your name?” Brian asked, keeping his voice tense. He resisted the urge to be gentle with her.

  Maybe if he could find out who she was, he could figure out what to do with her. He didn’t actually want to call the cops. The police would inevitably boot the human off the island, and they’d probably ban her from returning since she was here trespassing. He didn’t think they’d jail her. They’d just send her away.

  “Um...”

  “You don’t know your name?” Brian raised an eyebrow. That was new.

  “I know my name.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “I don’t want to tell you,” she whispered. The woman looked at him and jutted out her chin, as though that was supposed to sway him.

  Was she for real right now?

  Oh, she was fucking cute, he thought.

  If she were his girl, he’d yanked her over his knee and give her a proper spanking for that attitude, though. Instead, he’d have to do with being growly and rough with her. Maybe his unfriendly mannerisms would scare her off.

  “Why not?”

  “Because you might call the police,” the woman spoke carefully

  “That’s exactly what I’m going to do,” Brian lied, staring at her.

  He didn’t want to call the cops on this woman. Fuck, she was cute as hell. She had long, soft-looking hair, and a freckled nose, and she had these pouty lips that he just wanted to nibble on.

  Shit.

  What was wrong with him?

  Brian wasn’t the guy who got excited about women. That so wasn’t him. Ever since he’d seen his brother’s nasty-ass breakup with Monique more than a year ago, he’d been hesitant to date. No, the lady hadn’t broken his heart, but she’d hurt his brother wildly, and as a triplet, Brian felt the pain of his womb-mates deeply.