The Flame of the Dragon's Heart: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Fantasy Romance (Harem of Fire Book 3), page 1
The Flame of the Dragon's Heart
Harem of Fire Book 3
Willa Hart
Contents
About This Book
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
Afterword
About the Author
About This Book
Just when things can’t get any worse, they do.
My bestie’s been kidnapped and I’m desperate to find her…but my inability to sprout wings like my dragon shifter guys means we have to adopt a more mundane form of flight. We just have one more important task to complete before we can hop on a plane and follow the kidnapper’s trail to Romania.
With that accomplished, I have time to stew and fret over Zoe, but my guys do their best to keep me distracted until our flight boards. One in particular.
After a deeply passionate encounter with Ash, I feel more connected to him than ever. So why is he pulling away and shutting me out? All I know is whatever bug flew up his butt better not get in the way of rescuing Zoe or there will be hell to pay.
The Flame of the Dragon’s Heart is Book 3 in the Harem of Fire series.
Don’t miss the FREE PREQUEL, The Glow of the Dragon’s Heart, on your favorite ebook retailer.
Chapter One
The air hung thick with the heavenly scent of fried chicken and crisp, syrupy waffles at Roscoe’s House of Chicken and Waffles on Friday morning. The Novak brothers — Kellum, Danic and Ryen — and I had waited in line for almost thirty minutes to snag a booth in our new favorite eatery. As it turned out, no matter the time or day, Roscoe’s always had a line. It was a Los Angeles institution.
It still blew my mind that this small, slightly run-down restaurant had been happily serving up true soul food for decades before we discovered its existence, just down the street from Maximus Investigations. We’d all become huge fans overnight, which is no doubt why my boys had brought me here. They were trying to distract me with food. Not a bad idea, and while I appreciated their chivalrous attempt to keep my mind off my troubles, nothing could distract me enough to forget my best friend had been kidnapped by enemies intent on killing me.
“Favor, you okay?”
I blinked and looked up from the stain on the tabletop that had held my attention for who knows how long. Kellum and Danic stared at me from across the table, while Ryen nudged me gently with his elbow.
“Yeah, fine,” I mumbled, forcing something that I hoped would resemble a smile onto my face.
“You don’t look okay,” Danic said.
“Thanks.”
He sputtered for a moment, then clamped his lips tight in a grim frown. “You know what I mean.”
I sighed and let my head fall against the back of the booth. When would I learn that it was all but impossible to hide my feelings from them? My connection with Max’s great-nephews — especially the three surrounding me, mainly due to the fact I’d slept with them — had strengthened over the last couple of weeks to the point they could not only read my body language and expressions, but they also sensed my general emotional state. Thank god they couldn’t read my actual thoughts.
Yet.
“I’m just worried about Zoe,” I finally admitted with a guilt-laden sigh. “I keep thinking about the other day after class, when she learned dragons exist. She was so deep in denial that even the prospect of talking to me upset her so much she practically ran me over to get away. I figured she just needed some time to process it all, but I was wrong. I should have gone after her. If I had, maybe I could have stopped Titus and his merry band of assholes from snatching her.”
Kellum reached across the table and covered my hand with his. My spirits lifted incrementally, but I knew I’d never be genuinely happy until my best friend was safe. A bonus would be for her to forgive me, but that mattered a whole lot less than her survival.
“Favor, you can’t hold yourself accountable for the actions of the jadokari. They serve evil.”
“I thought they served whatshisname…Vazha. That wizard guy.”
“He was a mage, but close enough,” Kellum corrected. “And he was about as evil as they come.”
I shook my head. “I still don’t understand why they still serve a dead man.”
He shrugged. “They’re fanatics, just like any other cult, religious or otherwise. Doesn’t matter if their leader has proven himself to be a total asshole by anyone’s standards, he’s their guy and anyone who tries to talk sense into them is the enemy.”
“At least we took out four of them,” Danic growled, craning his neck to see if our food was on its way.
“Especially Titus, the worst of the bunch,” Ryen said. “May he not rest in peace.”
The light dancing in his eyes made it clear he was recalling when he and the rest of my boys banded together to bring down the Romanian dragon who’d murdered my parents, and presumably countless others. His fiery demise felt like a hollow victory to me, a terrible trade-off for losing Zoe Walsman.
I couldn’t help reliving the moment a fifth dragon had flown into the clouds with Zoe before anyone could stop him. The horror I felt watching as my best friend since childhood screamed my name and fought against the talons of the enemy would never leave me. Even if — no, when — we rescued her, I’d carry that blackness in my heart forever.
Zoe should have been in Accounting 101 at that very moment, planning her assault on the coming weekend’s parties. Now she was in the clutches of some crazy dragons, and I could barely sit still from wanting to fly to Romania immediately to start the search for her. As Danic looked for our food, I kept a sharp eye on the door.
“Where are they?” I muttered.
“They’ll be here,” Kellum said, his tone meant to be reassuring.
I shook my head, finally giving words to one of my many worries. “It’s been too long. They should have been back by now. Are you sure they haven’t texted?”
We all checked our phones. No such luck. I kept my eye on the door, willing the Campbell twins to appear in the crowded doorway. Sad as it sounds, my quickly developing dragon keeper skills did not include manifesting two handsome dragons at will. I could have tried calling to them, but since I hadn’t been intimate with either of them, I was pretty sure we wouldn’t be able to communicate like I could with their cousins. Besides, they were on a very important mission and I didn’t want to interrupt them.
“Don’t worry, Party Favor,” Ryen said, rubbing a little of the tension out of my neck. “Ash and Hale wouldn’t dream of missing breakfast, especially when Kellum is buying.”
“Hey!” Kellum scowled at his brother good-naturedly.
“But how long could it take for them to find this guli thing? They left last night, and Ventura County is less than two hours away by car, half that flying. What if—”
“Stop,” Kellum interrupted. “Don’t catastrophize, okay? You’ll just drive yourself crazy with ‘what ifs.’ The fact is that Titus and three of his goons are dead. The last one flew off with Zoe, and as painful as that is, at least we know he won’t be lurking around some burned-down shack on the edge of a strawberry field. He’s long gone, which leaves Ash and Hale as safe as two bugs in a rug.”
“I dunno,” Danic said, growling as a waiter hurried past our booth with a massive tray of food. “I still don’t understand why we’re waiting for some trinket. We should just hop a plane to Europe as soon as possible. Ash and Hale can fly over once they find the Dragon’s Heart.”
That’s exactly what my own heart wanted to do, but as antsy as I was, we had to wait. “Because that’s what Max told me to do in my last vision of him.”
“But why?”
Ryen snorted. “Yeah, Uncle Max is a pro at doling out commands. Explaining his reasoning, not so much.”
“I just wish that for once in my life things would make sense,” I said with a miserable sigh. “I can’t even imagine how it would feel to understand what’s really going on.”
“I’m going to let you in on a little secret, Favor,” Kellum said, leaning forward and looking around like he was about to lay down some ancient dragon wisdom. I leaned in so I wouldn’t miss a word. “Nobody knows what’s going on. Everybody is confused and lost and bumping into each other. We’re all just trying to make sense of a world that doesn’t follow the rules we make up for it.”
“Thanks, Confucius,” Ryen said, giving voice to my frustration at his motivational poster nonsense.
“I’d like to think Max has some idea of how everything’s supposed to work out,” I said. “Then again, he doesn’t even know how to send a text message, so I might be expecting too much from him. It feels like a waste of time to look for the Dragon’s Heart when Zoe’s in danger.”
“They won’t hurt her,” Danic said, his gaze solid and sure.
“How can you possibly know that?” I wanted to be as certain as them, I truly did, but my fear kept bringing me back to all the terrifying possibilities.
“She’s more valuable to them alive and healthy,” he answered. “They may be lunatics, but they’re smart enough to know Zoe is the key to capturing you, and thereby capturing Max. Without Zoe, they don’t have any leverage.”
Ryen slid his fingers between mine and squeezed. “Don’t worry, she’s more valuable to them alive.”
“Alive isn’t the same thing as safe. They could still be hurting her. Torturing her, even. Would any of you put it past the jadokari?” Not one of them would meet my gaze. “At the very least, she must be scared out of her wits.”
Tears of rage and guilt and fear and desperation burned my eyes. I sniffed them back, trying not to let them see how upset I was — not that it mattered. No doubt they felt it.
“If only they knew what you did to the last guy who messed with your best friend,” Ryen teased gently, giving me a wink that made me smile.
I hadn’t thought about good ol’ Chadwick Von Dystryl for a while. I’d broken his jaw, dislocated his shoulder, and pretty much beaten the shit out of him after he’d roofied Zoe at a nightclub. I still had no clue how I’d managed the slightly superhuman feat, but the memory of the fear in his eyes as I threatened to inflict even more damage if he ever did it again broadened my smile.
Ryen leaned over and pressed his warm lips against mine. My body reacted instantly, despite the stress I was under. Images of us making love the night before — twice! — flooded my brain, and his kiss became more insistent. I broke away, trying to catch my breath and ignore my body’s need for comfort, no matter what form it came in.
I shot a nervous glance to Ryen’s brothers, but they simply exchanged wry smirks. It still blew my mind they all seemed so content with sharing me. No drama, no fighting, no jealousy. Our group dynamic flew in the face of everything I’d ever seen or heard about love triangles — or hexagons, in this case. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for one of the nephews to suddenly puff up in a fit of jealous rage and start a potentially fatal fight. But so far, it was all smooth sailing. I couldn’t believe this was my life. Not only did I live in a beautiful, crazy city full of dragons and magic, but I was falling in love with five of them.
My heart skipped a beat when the thought passed through my head, but I knew it was true. I genuinely loved each of the five nephews. I had already been intimate with the Novak brothers, and that had served to strengthen the bond between us. If not for the fact that Max was AWOL, Zoe had been kidnapped, Ash and Hale were MIA, and there was a weir of ferocious Eastern European dragons out to get us, my life would be picture perfect.
As if on cue, the Campbell twins strolled through the front door and sauntered over to our booth, shit-eating grins on their faces. We made room for them to sit next to us, and as soon as he sat, Hale said, “We found it!”
“I found it,” Ash corrected, his smile faltering slightly.
My boys high-fived each other in triumph, but after everything that had happened, I needed proof. “Let’s see it then.”
Ash’s eyes narrowed. “What, you don’t trust us?”
Good lord, why did guys have to be so testy? “Of course, I trust you, but I’m the only one here who’s actually seen the thing, remember?”
The others turned expectant gazes on him, so he finally relented. Digging in the pocket of his jeans, he pulled it out and set an object in the middle of the table. It looked nothing like the thing Max had hidden in the toilet tank. I had stuffed a clear-ish blob the size of a grapefruit in my backpack that fateful day. What lay before me basically looked like a rock someone had picked up on the beach. Gray granite in the rough shape of a heart.
“What’s that?” I asked, looking at them both.
They exchanged a confused glance. “The Dragon’s Heart,” Hale answered.
“No, that’s not it,” I said, shaking my head.
Their expressions fell as we stared at the rock. I picked it up, the smoothness of it surprising me. Then I felt something else. A faint pulsing, in tune with my own heartbeat. Now that felt familiar. A wave of nausea swept over me, and before I lost whatever was in my empty stomach, I set it back down quickly.
“My bad,” I said, swallowing hard and shoving it away toward Ash. “That’s it. That’s the Dragon’s Heart. Or as Titus called it, the guli. It doesn’t look the same though. It used to be a big block of clear acrylic or something. That thing must have been inside it.”
Ash quickly scooped it up and shoved it deep into his pocket. “You mean like a mosquito encased in amber?”
“Yeah, like that. Only it was white and cloudy. Not clear and golden like amber.”
“Was it exceptionally hard material?” Kellum asked, a frown line digging into his brow.
“Very.”
“Sounds almost like…” he started, then stopped. He hesitated and glanced at the others before continuing. “Sounds like that rock was encased in a dragon’s tear.”
“A what?” I asked as Ash chuckled and rolled his eyes.
“Sure, Kellum,” he said. “And it was delivered by Santa Claus, right?”
While Kellum looked troubled, the others looked confused. Except Ash, he just looked fed up.
“I don’t get it,” I admitted. “What are you talking about?”
“Dragon tears are a legend in our world,” explained Danic. “Like Santa Claus.”
“Or the Dragon Mother,” Hale added.
“Or hobbits,” Ryen said, grinning.
Kellum waved them down. “Whether it’s a myth or not, legend has it that a dragon tear can only be formed by an extraordinarily powerful dragon who suffers some kind of devastating loss.”
“And they look like blobs of Lucite?” I asked.
“No idea,” Danic said, his eyes lighting up as he looked past us toward the kitchen’s pass bar.
“Never saw one before,” Ryen added at the same time.
Ash laughed, shaking his head. “That’s because they don’t exist. Duh.”
Our waiter appeared at the table’s edge, two massive trays loaded with plates balanced on his arm. Danic practically drooled in anticipation. I grabbed a bottle of Tabasco from the condiment caddy and tried to be patient as the waiter doled out the meals. My stomach growled so loudly as a plate of chicken and waffles slid in front of me that Ryen laughed. Ironic, since our night of athletic lovemaking had given me a ravenous appetite.
To my surprise, the waiter gave me a bashful, flirty smile, before Danic and Ryen growled softly, and he scurried away. All discussion ceased as we tucked into our food. Honestly, I was surprised I could choke down anything, but there was something about having all five of my boys with me that helped me feel whole and healed. I needed that if I had any hope of getting Zoe back.
Chapter Two
“Oh, god, I think my food baby just kicked.”
Danic stopped mid-stride across the parking lot and clutched his distended stomach, moaning like he was in pain instead of ecstasy. A couple of people standing in the long line to get in shot him envious looks.
“Maybe next time you won’t order seconds before you’ve finished the first plate of food,” Hale said as he gave his burly and overstuffed cousin a shove toward our cars.
“Hey, you don’t know my life,” Danic growled.
“Yeah,” Ryen said, clapping his brother on the back, “Danic’s a growing boy. If he keeps eating his weight in waffles, maybe one day he’ll be as tall as Kellum.”
Ryen easily dodged Danic’s slow, lumbering ball slap, dancing away like he was Muhammad Ali. He grinned all the way to his SUV, taunting his brother. Under any other circumstance, I might have laughed, but I was far too tense and worried about Zoe to find humor in much of anything.
