To Date A Dragon: BBW Dragon Shifter Romance (Weredragon Warriors Book 1) (2 page)

This was their first—and
last date.

They would probably never see
each other again. So Norbert was basically a stranger. And a
stranger didn't need to know about her past, her parents,
her...condition.

Amelia speared another fry
with her fork and concentrated on chewing. “My
parents...they've passed,” she said at last when he asked a
third time.

“I'm sorry,”
Norbert said. After a pause, he said, “How did they die?”

Amelia took a deep breath and
put down her fork. She forced her grimace into a smile and said
tersely, “In an accident.”

It was the truth. Sort of.

After all, he didn't specify
if he was asking about her biological parents or her adoptive
parents.

Norbert cocked his head and
squinted at her. Amelia fidgeted and decided that she should just
feign a headache and get out of the restaurant.

Norbert had seemed so nice
and charming when they chatted online. In person, he was an
okay-looking dude. Well, it wasn't like she was a ravishing beauty
herself. She had wild, red hair and her skin was far from flawless.
Freckles marched across her nose and over her cheeks. She wasn't
very tall and no one would ever describe her as “svelte”.
She had way too many curves, and with that small gap between her
teeth, she definitely didn't possess that dazzling, perfect Hollywood
smile.

Norbert had light hair and
fair, flat features. But she found his eyes...odd. Okay, odd was an
understatement. They were plain creepy.

His eyes were pale and had a
yellowish tinge. And it wasn't just the whites that were yellow.
His irises were yellow and when he blinked, his pupils seemed to
narrow and elongate.

“I like how you did
your hair,” Norbert said suddenly. “You made a pattern
in your hair. Did you do it yourself?”

“Oh, it's a French
braid,” Amelia said, surprised. She reached back and pulled
her long braid over her shoulder. “Yes, I did it myself. It's
not that hard to do,” she added with a shrug.

“No one did your hair
for you.”

Amelia frowned. “No.”

“Do you live by
yourself, Amelia?” Norbert leaned forward and his thin lips
curved ever so slightly. “Alone?”

Amelia stiffened. She heard
the sudden, subtle change in his voice. Norbert's voice had become
lower, raspier.

And he suddenly didn't look
so harmless any more.

CHAPTER
FOUR

Amelia gulped as the hairs on
the back of her neck prickled. Shakily, she reached for her glass
and took a swig.

“I live with a friend,”
she answered. She didn't add that her friend came with batteries and
multiple speeds.

“Sure you do.”
His smile broadened and she thought she glimpsed the tips of curved,
sharp fangs.

Amelia bit down a cry and dug
her nails hard into her palms. Fangs! No, no…

Get a grip, Amelia, get a
goddamn grip!

It was happening again.

She was seeing those monsters
again. No, she couldn't let those monsters in. She had to keep them
out. It was the only way to hold on to her sanity, her life.

They're not real.
That's what the psychologist said.
They're just projections of
your fear.

The psychologist had
been patient and gentle, but she hadn't believed Amelia. She had
nodded and smiled and said all the right things, but Amelia knew that
the good doctor didn't believe her when she said she saw those
monsters who'd killed her parents.

Monsters with fangs, forked
tongues and yellow snake eyes.

Her adoptive parents didn't
believe her either. They had been so supportive and loving, and they
had held her and comforted her when she woke up screaming almost
every night. But when she kept talking about the monsters, they
decided that they needed to get professional help for her. Amelia
wasn't coping well, and her parents' death has traumatized her and
scarred her horribly.

Take your time. You'll
recover. Banish the monsters from your mind. There's no need to
feel guilty for surviving.

Amelia had listened to them
and followed their advice. She still had the same nightmares but
gradually she learned how to scream in silence. She tried to forget
about the monsters, and she almost succeeded. For years, she never
saw them again.

Until tonight.

The monster was back. It had
found her.

“Amelia, are you all
right?” Norbert's voice cut through her thoughts and Amelia let
out a strangled cry.

“I...I'm fine...”

Norbert smiled and reached
out to take her hand. Amelia stared at his hand in horror. There
were...scales on his hand. Cold, dry, patterned scales. Like a
snake's.

Amelia let out a cry and
snatched her hand back. Norbert seemed to be changing right before
her very eyes.

His pupils were narrowing
into vertical slits and his eyes glowed with an evil, eerie light.
He smiled at her, and she saw fangs lengthening from his mouth. He
seemed to be swaying in his seat and when he licked his lips, she saw
the tip of his tongue split into two. His tongue was forked!

Screaming, Amelia jumped up,
toppling her chair in the process. The loud crash brought heads
swiveling in her direction. A waiter came rushing to their table,
and some of the diners in the restaurant shot her curious,
disapproving stares.

“I'm sorry, I'm so
sorry,” Amelia stammered to everyone and no one in particular
as she grabbed her bag. “I...I have to go...now...”

“I'll drive you home,”
Norbert said immediately and stood up.

Amelia blinked repeatedly as
she backed away. She hadn't banished the monsters. They were still
in her mind. They had always been in her mind.

Norbert looked...completely
normal. His pale eyes no longer looked predatory and reptilian and
his manicured hands were smooth. He didn't have scales, snake eyes
and a forked tongue.

She had imagined the whole
thing, hadn't she? It was just a projection. That's what her
psychologist said.

Amelia shook her head rapidly
as she stifled an angry, anguished cry. It was bad enough that she
often woke up drenched in cold sweat from the same, horrific
nightmare. Now it seemed her nightmares weren't content with just
tormenting her at night. They were creeping into her waking life as
well.

“No,” she
whispered. “No...”

Rushing past Norbert, she
swiped at her tears and burst out of the restaurant in a stumbling
run.

CHAPTER
FIVE

Rohan turned and saw a
pretty, curvy redhead rush out of the restaurant at the end of the
street. She ran blindly towards him, tears streaming down her face.

He caught her as she tripped
and stumbled into his arms. “Get me away from here,” she
begged. “Please, get me away, now! I'm losing my mind! I'm
seeing monsters, again. I can't...oh God! Those cold, snake
eyes...”

Her last three words made
Rohan jerk, his senses on full alert.

“Slayors,” he
gritted out.

He could sense a Slayor
nearby. But with so many humans around, he couldn't kill the bastard
here. And this woman had seen the real face of a Slayor. Those
snake shifters would only drop their human facade when they were
about to kill.

This woman was in danger.

“Hold on,” he
told her but she didn't seem to be listening. Her eyes were glazed
over and she was mumbling and shivering.

Rohan gathered her in his
arms and started to run. He shifted swiftly into dragon form,
holding the woman securely in his talons. In dragon form, he was
invisible to the humans.

He soared above the
skyscrapers and into the clouds, away from curious human eyes. The
humans couldn't see his dragon, but they sure could see the woman he
was carrying.

Glancing down at the woman,
he attempted to touch her mind with his. But he didn't push too
hard. Humans were so fragile. They break too easily.

Where do you live?

To his surprise, she
responded. She could actually hear him in her mind. This female was
stronger than she looked.

He got her address and flew
towards the cluster of apartment blocks at the other end of the city,
away from the busy, brightly lit streets. The woman's eyes were half
closed, and Rohan wasn't sure if she was fully conscious. Maybe it
was better if she thought she was dreaming. If she realized she was
a few thousand feet from the ground, she might scream and struggle
hysterically.

The rows of eateries and
restaurants below them were filled with happy diners. People seemed
to like coming out on Thursday nights. Maybe Thursday was the new
Friday. Or maybe the new restaurants all decided to offer attractive
deals and discounts on Thursdays to bring in the crowd. Who knew?
It was mind-boggling trying to keep up with the various human fads
and fashions.

But he should stop thinking
of human practices as strange and alien. Humans weren't the aliens
on Earth. They were the natives. It was Rohan and his people who
were the aliens.

His people who had escaped
with him to Earth were the last of the Dracans, a dragon-shifting
race who hailed from Draca. Draca was the smaller of two continents
on the planet Korra. The other continent, Syndor, was inhabited by
the Syndorians. The Syndorians were a brutal, savage people, and
most of the Syndorians were drafted into the Syndor army at a young
age. The soldiers of the Syndor army were called Slayors.

Rohan narrowed his eyes,
scanning the streets below him. His people had been living on Earth
for more than seventy years now. They had made Earth their new home,
and had learned to adapt to the atmosphere of this strange, alien
planet.

Rohan's ship was the only one
that had made it to Earth. They had crash landed in the middle of a
desert, and once he had gotten all the survivors out, Rohan had
shifted into his dragon form and incinerated what was left of the
ship.

There would be no trace of
their past, their origin. The Dracans would live on Earth, but the
humans would not know that dragons existed among them.

They found a city, and his
people settled into their new lives. They were on an alien planet
and they had to learn a new language, assimilate a foreign culture
and try their best to blend in. His people stopped shifting and
gradually, their dragons grew dormant and the Dracans could no longer
shift.

Only Rohan and the two royal
guards who were on the ship with him kept a disciplined, determined
hold on their dragons. Their dragons slowed their aging and
lengthened their life spans, so they didn't age as quickly and lived
much longer than the humans on Earth.

Rohan, Zul and Edriq were the
only weredragon warriors left. For a while, the Dracans had been
safe. But now their enemies had found them. The Slayors had come to
Earth to wipe out what was left of the Dracans.

And Rohan and his brothers
were the only thing that stood between their people from the Slayors.

CHAPTER
SIX

Amelia closed her eyes and
felt herself floating. No, not floating. She was flying. Yep,
flying, like a bird, like a plane, like...a dragon!

A crazed laugh bubbled out of
her.

No doubt about it.

She had lost her ever-loving
mind.

Her psychologist would be so
disappointed. So would her adoptive parents, if they knew. They had
been so relieved when she finally stopped talking about the monsters,
those murderous men who looked like snakes.

Her adoptive parents had
given her time to grieve and come to terms with her loss. But they
refused to let her wallow in self-pity and depression. They gave her
a good education and told her to make something of herself. She
should not let the tragedy cast a permanent shadow over her life.

They were so proud of her
when she became a kindergarten teacher. They passed just a year ago
in an accident, and she missed them dearly. She missed them every
single day.

Amelia felt herself being
lowered gently to the ground. She felt firm, solid ground beneath
her feet and strong arms around her.

She opened her eyes and
blinked slowly. Everything looked familiar. She was standing on the
front steps of her apartment block. She was home.

“Oh.” She looked
up into a pair of mesmerizing blue-green eyes. She stepped back and
saw that those beautiful, gold-flecked eyes belonged to a tall,
handsome stranger. A dark-haired, broad-shouldered stranger who
looked like he belonged on the cover of a magazine. He was dressed
in black jeans and a leather jacket, and he looked kind of familiar.

Oh yeah. She had bumped into
him when she careened out of the restaurant like a madwoman.