Burned (Dragon Mates Book 3)

  Burned

  Dragon Mates 3

  J.K. Harper

  BURNED

  Copyright © 2017 by J.K. Harper

  First electronic publication: July 2017

  J.K. Harper

  www.jkharper.com

  Cover design by Jacqueline Sweet

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the copyright owner except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Published in the United States of America

  Contents

  Burned

  Stay in Touch!

  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

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Sneak Peek! Dazzled Chapter One

  Leave A Review

  Read More by J.K. Harper

  About J.K.

  Burned

  Beauty and the beast…with dragons!

  Fire dragon shifter Ash Connolly hides his scarred body from the world. Burned in an accident, the reclusive billionaire sentenced himself to a life of solitude. Yet when he meets a mysterious sword-wielding beauty, he's tempted to bare his soul in hopes she will see the aching man beneath the broken beast.

  Tasked with repairing a priceless manuscript, geeky rare book conservator Teagan Lambert is dumbstruck by its sexy owner. A thousand illicit cravings smolder in her dreams, but an extraordinary man like Ash would never notice a bookworm like her, despite the fierce passion in her soul.

  But she is about to discover a dangerous hidden world. One with ancient magic, oracles of destiny, and a stunning dragon shifter who tempts her lonely heart. Yet even as the blazing desire between them reveals a destined shared story, a deadly enemy plots a final ending...

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  Epigraph

  * * *

  To find the key to a dragon's treasure

  From the fiery mouth of the clouded mountain

  The scorched carmine dragon must emerge

  To battle in fearless resolution for his stolen gold

  And to claim the heart of his eternal true mate

  -Ancient Connolly Clan Oracle

  1

  Narrowing one eye at her opponent, Teagan Lambert gripped her sword more tightly, then let out a banshee yell as she lunged forward with a killing strike.

  Too bad her adversary was way better at this sword fighting thing than she was. With a neat sidestep at the last possible moment, he got out of her path just as her momentum carried her too far forward. Of course she tripped over her own feet, her heavy longsword helpfully unbalancing her as well. She went down hard in a scramble of limbs, emitting a yelp of pain that sounded more like that of a pocket mouse than of a wild banshee.

  Smoothly twisting around, her sparring partner and class instructor leaped over her like the freaking ninja he and pretty much everyone else in the class was, sword tip pushed into the soft, exposed part of her neck. “Bam. You're dead.” His voice seemed to carry to all corners of the training room.

  Ears burning as she felt every eye in the place staring at her, Teagan very carefully nodded against the poke of the practice sword on her tender flesh. “I surrender,” she said, her voice coming out pretty much like, well, a mouse's squeak.

  Great. The joke of the class was providing entertainment once more. A sharp ding of old pain kicked her as past and present seemed to meld for a wobbly second. It kind of sucked.

  The class instructor stepped back, pushing up his face shield and reaching down his free hand to help her up. She took it and lurched to her feet. Automatically slumping a little bit as her height brought her almost to eye level with him, she also pushed back her face shield. Shoving sweaty hair out of her eyes, she still gasped for breath.

  “Fall of the giant,” she thought she heard someone in the class whisper. But when she flicked a quick, pained glance at the other students, everyone's attention was trained on their instructor as he discussed everything she had done wrong. Yeah, her down-talking inner voice was making things up again. Buck up, Teags, she muttered in her mind. You, too, can be a ninja. One day many, many decades from now.

  Sighing, she turned her attention back to the instructor. He was close enough that she could see his irises. They were always a little funny-looking up close, though she'd never been able to pinpoint what it was about them. Well, this was Los Angeles. In her brief time here, she'd discovered that some of the residents did funky body-morphing stuff just because they could. For all she knew, he'd had some crazy surgery to make him more like a sword-wielding warrior of ancient times, complete with special eyesight or something. Or maybe his girlfriend liked it. Who knew, in this crazy town?

  "So what happened here,” he said to the class at large, “was that Teagan forgot to allow for the fact that her opponent might use her own body space against her. You,” he jabbed a finger at them all, "need to be prepared when facing an attacker. Lose your concentration against someone who knows what he's doing, and you'll lose the fight. Remember that you hold the power when you face down your opponent, so long as you remember the first unsuspecting strike is always yours. If you don't forget that, you will always have the upper hand. Now,” he said briskly. “Let's go through it again, step-by-step and in slow motion. Everyone pair up.”

  As he motioned her to step back into her opening stance, then proceeded to take them through the sequence step by incremental step, Teagan made herself pay close attention despite the remaining faint burn of embarrassment. Well, overcoming her fear of being put on the spot had been one of several goals she'd had when signing up for this class. That, plus the fact that hello, she was learning how to fight using a sword. How freaking cool was that?

  Pretty darned cool for an oversized academic nerd who'd never had a boyfriend. She might not be date material, but she could at least learn how to swing an ancient weapon, courtesy of the Institute of Ancient Battle Arts.

  After a few more practice runs with everyone paired off, Teagan felt somewhat more confident about her ability to perfect this particular move without giving her power over to an opponent. Okay, maybe not quite yet. Eventually, she would master this move. But at least with each new practice, and new resulting face plant, she was getting somewhat better at understanding what she was doing wrong. That had to count for something.

  When the class was over, it dissolved into small knots of chattering people. Teagan went to put her practice sword away, carefully placing it into its carrying case. She'd use it at home to drill in the moves they'd worked on during this session before class next week.

  As she slipped her bag over her shoulder, zipping up her hoodie in anticipation of the cool air that would greet her in the late evening outside, she gave a single wistful
glance back at her classmates. Maybe someday she'd get close to them. After all, she'd only been coming here for a few months now. Many of the students had attended classes at the Institute for years.

  Swallowing her sigh, she headed out the side door to the dimly lit parking lot at the back of the building. As she walked to her car, pushing aside the familiar, oddly comforting sensation of aloneness that pretty much had been a part of her entire life, her thoughts moved ahead to what she still had to do before she could go to sleep tonight.

  Feed Mouser as soon as she got home. She'd be doing that under her cat's baleful golden-eyed stare and indignant meows at her lateness.

  Take a quick shower to get rid of the sweat and stink she'd accumulated during class, then grab dinner for herself.

  Finally, sit down to her computer to answer some work emails. The nights she had sword class were the only ones during the work week that she didn't head back to her actual workplace to keep pushing through to the wee hours. Teagan not only really loved her job, she'd immediately realized the day she started it how competitive it was. She had to work extra hard just to keep up. Anyway, tonight at home she'd have to answer the five emails that had come through on her phone just before class had started, all of them from her bossy, occasionally mean coworker about their current joint project. Teagan wrinkled her nose at that thought, pulling her sweatshirt a little more tightly around her as a breeze sashayed through the parking lot. Her coworker was an unfortunate drawback to what was otherwise her dream job. Oh, well. At least the woman wasn't Teagan's boss.

  Then, of course, she would have to check back on the work she had sent to said bossy coworker earlier that day. Oh, yeah, and then she'd have to remember to—

  A door angrily slammed. The sound of heavy, menacing footsteps echoed in the otherwise empty parking lot.

  Teagan stopped short, her gaze shooting toward the sound as she abruptly cut off her thoughts. The Institute was in a reasonably safe area of town, but this was still L.A. Teagan had just moved here over the summer, straight out of her internship back at the museum in the placid Midwestern town where she'd gotten her master's degree. While it was exciting to live in L.A., she'd been pretty darn scared by all the big city horror stories with which her somewhat nervous family and friends had regaled her prior to her move here. Granted, their stories came only from watching TV shows, since none of them had much experience living in a really big city either. But still.

  Abruptly, she saw a dark shadow moving through the parking lot.

  Teagan almost stopped breathing.

  The tall, broad figure of a man wearing a hoodie pulled over his face strode through the quiet, empty lot.

  Directly toward her lonesome self.

  Crap. Double crap. Holy freaking crap. She was about to be murdered.

  Teagan tried to swallow, but her throat was so dry and tight she couldn't manage it. Her hand gripped convulsively around her practice sword, which not only wouldn't be really useful in the event of an actual attack, but also was securely tucked into its soft-sided carrying case. It wouldn’t pack much of a wallop.

  Oh, god. He was getting closer. Walking with purpose straight for her.

  She'd be spirited away to some creepy basement where he would perform deviant experiments and other horrible things upon her helpless body. She'd never see her family again. Mouser would never forgive her for leaving him alone, foodless and with a dirty litter box.

  The figure drew even closer, the man's steps cracking loudly as he pounded along over the pavement. Almost as if he was massively enraged and just itching to shed someone's blood.

  Barely twenty feet away now and still heading toward her like a wall of hideous doom.

  Teagan felt a tiny, alarmed noise work its way out of her throat even as she stood still frozen. Then the words of her instructor drifted through her head. Remember that you hold the power when you face down your opponent, so long as you remember the first unsuspecting strike is always yours. Remember that, and you will have the upper hand.

  Still shaking, she blindly raised her sword, still in its case, and briefly positioned herself into an attack stance. Then she abruptly plunged forward, a shaky yet audible banshee cry tumbling out of her mouth at her parking lot assailant.

  * * *

  Ash Connolly gripped the steering wheel of his car so tightly he was half afraid he might crack it. Well, the left side of it at least. His stupidly useless right hand could barely hold onto the wheel, let alone break it. Inside his mind, fairly close to the surface because of how annoyed he currently was, his dragon loosed a softly echoing bellow of irritation and frustration, batting his good left wing against Ash's mind while his right wing sort of fluttered and trembled in a pale imitation of its former glory.

  At the weak beating of his damaged wing, Ash felt incensed, which was amplified by the fact that he generally was an easygoing guy. But right now, he was annoyed simply by the fact that he was annoyed. Grinding his teeth, as turned the car into the parking lot behind the Institute of Ancient Battle Arts, slipped into a parking space, and killed the engine.

  The second he stepped out, the late evening's chill hit his bare head with a brief ripple of the breeze. Slamming the door shut, he pulled his hood up around his face, then stalked across the parking lot toward the private back door to Nick's office.

  The hood wasn't against the cold, however. Feeling a glare stretch and pull against the scar tissue on the right side of his face, Ash scowled even more as he headed toward the building. If only he hadn't given Eamon an extra day of vacation because the man apparently had gotten more serious about the woman he was on vacation with. He had called a few days ago to tell Ash he was staying in the Caribbean a few days longer—yes, tell, not request, because that's what an employee, father figure, and lifetime fealty man wrapped into one did with his young charge, even a charge who was now in his thirties and perfectly capable of taking care of himself. If only the new sword that Ash had been very impatiently waiting to get his hands on hadn't finally been repaired, and Nick claimed he was too busy to deliver it, Ash wouldn't be here himself tonight.

  In public. Forced out of the sanctuary of his home that he virtually never left anymore. Except, he allowed himself to grudgingly snort in some self-deprecating amusement, for the fact that he had an admitted obsession with the Irish history that had been an interest of his since childhood. Yes, conspiring events as well as the emergence of an ancient sword that had once belonged to a centuries-old dragon king of Ireland, one in Ash's family lineage, onto the antiquities market had propelled him out. Still, he was currently being pushed past his comfort level, and both his old friends were the ones doing the pushing. His dragon warbled irritated agreement inside his mind.

  Eamon's highly reasonable voice echoed in his head from their brief conversation the other day. You're more than capable of driving over there on your own, he'd said calmly. It will be dark anyway, Ash. No one will see you. You can do this, his longtime fealty man, childhood protector, and beyond loyal employee had quietly added, a depth of understanding welling in his voice. He didn't offer any sympathy, though. He knew well enough that Ash wouldn't accept that. Not from anyone.

  Ash had more than enough sympathy, even the occasional bout of pointless self-pity, for himself.

  He straightened his shoulders, irate at the usual twitching as the irked muscles of the right one were stretched. His steps fell even more heavily as he marched toward the back office, annoyance still propelling him along. In fact, he probably—

  In the space of a single heartbeat and a wild cacophony of noise, Ash became aware of two things.

  One, he'd been so engrossed in his own thoughts he hadn't paid attention to his surroundings, which meant that he was about to walk right into someone else.

  Two, a nervous yet determined scream abruptly battered his eardrums as the figure charged at him, waving some sort of long object around as she dove toward him.

  She? His dragon rumbled an equally bemused agre
ement at the certainty that it was a woman. Then she was almost on top of him. She landed a blow across his left arm, one delivered with surprising strength, if not quite enough accuracy to bowl him over.

  Startled, instinctively defensive, Ash stumbled to the side. "Hey!" He threw up his hand before him, warding off another blow. "What the hell are you doing?"

  The woman also stumbled back a step, the stick thing still raised threateningly in her hands. The image unfortunately was ruined by the fact that her hands were shaking so violently she was probably about to drop her weapon at any second. Even so, she stammered out in a surprisingly firm voice, "I h-have pepper spray in my purse, and I'm n-not afraid to use it! And I'll s-scream, and everyone inside will come running to c-cut your head off with their swords!"

  Ash blinked. He couldn't help a startled burst of laughter. The lights in the parking lot were dim enough that he could just make out the bottom half of her features beneath the shadow of her own hood. Full lips, strong chin, and a wash of creamy skin that seemed to sport a constellation of beautiful, small golden splotches, like a sunburst.