Dragon Reunion (Dragon Hearts 8)
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
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
Newsletter and Social Media Links
About the Author
Other books by Carole Mortimer
Copyright
Copyright © 2019 Carole Mortimer
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Cover Design Copyright © Glass Slipper WebDesign
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Editor: Linda Ingmanson
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Formatter: Glass Slipper WebDesign
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ISBN: 978-1-910597-80-4
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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, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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All Rights Reserved.
Dedication
My Wonderful Husband
Chapter One
Pendragon Castle, North Wales
Late Afternoon, December 22nd
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Maddox drew in a sharp breath as he once again felt a stirring of the something that had brought him to the bottom of this snow-covered mountain. Gazing up at the gray stone fortress perched halfway up that rocky terrain only seemed to increase the mental pull, urging him to go to the very doors of the edifice itself.
To Pendragon Castle.
The keeper of the local inn where Maddox had eaten his lunch had told him the castle and the mountain on which it stood had been owned by the Pendragon family for centuries.
Maddox had spotted the castle as the helicopter he was a passenger in had flown overhead. He’d had no idea that just seconds later, the helo would be forced to land nearby after its engine started to make ominous spluttering sounds and the machine began to lose altitude. Once they were safely on the ground, his pilot had called an engineer for assistance. Help was promised to them within the next two hours. The pilot had offered to remain with the helo, and had insisted, when more snow began to fall, that Maddox seek shelter, warmth, and something to eat at the inn in the village.
Maddox had done just that, but once his meal was eaten, boredom and curiosity had led him to searching online on his cell phone for the name of the castle they had flown over. Except he hadn’t been able to find any castle listed or shown on the maps of the area. Which was when he had questioned the innkeeper.
The very starkness of Pendragon Castle gave it a beauty that called to Maddox like a siren’s song.
He still had no explanation as to why that draw had been so strong, but it had been enough for him to brave going out in the snow again after pulling on his long cashmere overcoat and walking the short distance from the village to the bottom of this mountain. His handmade leather shoes would probably never recover from this trek through the four inches of snow that had completely covered the rocky terrain and blown into drifts a foot or so deep in some places.
Close up, the castle was every bit as big and imposing as it had appeared from the air. Built of those huge blocks of weathered gray stone, it had defensive turrets at the four corners of the crenellated fortification, with a flat parapet above the huge front doors. There was another, equally as imposing ten-foot-high wall built about and protecting the whole of the medieval structure.
The Welsh flag, a red dragon on a green-and-white background, flew above the two huge wooden doors at the front of the building. There was another flag beside it of two rampant golden dragons on a green background. Could that be the Pendragon family coat of arms?
Maddox instinctively knew that it was.
Those same instincts which had made him a billionaire businessman?
No, this was different.
Because the feelings he had right now went bone-deep.
It was almost as if Maddox somehow recognized the gold-and-green flag, as well as the castle in front of him.
Which was impossible. As far as Maddox was aware, when he had lived in England before his move to the States some years ago, he’d never had reason to visit North Wales. The business meeting he had attended these past few days, which had necessitated him being in the area, was the first time he ever remembered being in Wales at all.
The wisest thing to do would be to walk away and ignore whatever was urging him to cross those last few feet that would bring him to the huge wooden doors, allowing him to ring on the old-fashioned bellpull beside them.
Most especially so when Maddox still had no idea why the desire to do so had gripped him so strongly and refused to let go.
He doubted that any of the Pendragon family would welcome a complete stranger ringing their doorbell in the middle of a snowstorm. Especially as Maddox had absolutely no explanation as to why he felt compelled to do so.
He really did need to turn around and leave.
There was nothing for him here. Sadly, there had never been anything for him anywhere. He had no parents living, nor any siblings or other relatives. Nor had he ever married or had children of his own. He was alone and had been so for a very long time.
As a consequence, there had never been anything or anyone that gave purpose or anchor to his life. Oh, there had been plenty of women he bedded over the years, but he had never cared enough for any of them to feel he wanted to spend the rest of his life with them. Over time, even those transient relationships had begun to pall until he simply lost interest.
Possibly because somewhere inside him, Maddox knew he was waiting for something?
Or someone.
The one woman who would complete him.
If he couldn’t have that, find her, then he would rather not bother.
Instead, he spent most of his time accumulating millions upon millions of dollars from his many successful businesses, until those millions had become billions and billions. Which, as Maddox had no one to leave the money to, would ultimately be received by numerous charities around the world he had named in his will.
At least someone would benefit from his death.
Except, as Maddox had discovered, even dying wasn’t as easy as everyone seemed to think it was, and a life lived alone could become a burden rather than a pleasure.
But it seemed fate, or whatever other deity might be in charge of his future, had decided Maddox would continue to live on in this solitary purgatory until they decreed otherwise.
He couldn’t say he was unhappy with his life per se—how could he claim that when he had enough money to buy and do whatever he wished!—he just felt as if he was living in some sort of limbo. Waiting. Always waiting. Not just for that one woman to complete him, but for something else. What that something could be, he had no idea—
Home.
Maddox froze as the sound of that deep and familiar voice resonated inside his head.
He could go for months, years sometimes, without “the voice,” as he had come to call it, making so much as a murmur. Then, out of the blue, he would hear random words advising him what to do. Buy. Sell. Walk away. After a time, he had learned not to dismiss those instructions, because they were invariably valid ones.
But “home” wasn’t an instruction. It was a statement.
Home, the voice repeated firmly.
Surely it couldn’t be referring to Pendragon Castle? A place Maddox had never seen before today couldn’t be called home.
The Welsh flag.
The Pendragon family crest.
Chapter Two
A loud pounding sounded on the bedroom door of Grigor and Gayle’s suite within Castle Pendragon.
“Oh for fuck’s sake!” Garett swore loudly on the other side of that door when the couple ignored him. “Will you two stop fucking for five minutes and open this bloody door!” This last demand was accompanied by Garrett’s fist beating repeatedly against the wooden barrier.
“How does he know that’s what we’re doing?” Gayle didn’t budge from her position of straddling her husband’s naked thighs, Grigor’s cock buried to the hilt inside her heat.
“All the brothers’ emotions are linked,” Grigor reminded with a smile, his hands on her hips urging her continue to ride him harder and faster.
Gayle looked horrified. “I know that but it never occurred to me— Does that mean they all know what we’re doing?” Her green eyes widened. “That they’ve always known?”
Grigor shrugged. “We can sense each other’s pleasure as easily as our other emotions, yes.”
“We’ve been together for two years, and I’m only just learning this?” Gayle buried the heat of her blushing face against his throat.
Grigor and his brothers’ emotional link existed because all eight of them were dragon shifters. There had been ten brothers originally, born fifteen hundred years ago to their ten goddess mothers and their human father, Uther Pendragon. At the age of thirty-five, they had come into their power to shift into their dragon and leave Annwn, the Welsh Underworld, in order to become the dragon army of their human brother, King Arthur.
One of their brothers, Gideon, had died during those bloody battles fought alongside Arthur. The remaining nine had continued to live on for centuries after Arthur had died, having fulfilled his destiny to Wales.
The brothers had continued to fight on wherever their service could be of use to the oppressed and needy. Then they had lost a second brother during Queen Victoria’s reign, when the dragon and vampire hunters had been all the fashion and a group of them had captured and beheaded Rufus with his own sword.
Being beheaded with their own sword, or his mate denying their mating or dying, were the only ways in which a Pendragon dragon shifter could be killed.
But the eight who were left had continued on, century after century, fighting and protecting, and ever hopeful of finding their fated mate. That mate would prevent them from eventually turning completely feral and remaining in dragon form, wreaking havoc and destruction wherever they went. Their brothers, in order to prevent the discovery of dragon shifters, would then have no choice but to end their lives.
In the twenty-first century, the brothers hid their dragons and their desire to protect behind the shield of their company, Pendragon Security.
Miraculously, two years ago, after fifteen hundred years of the eight brothers being alone in the world, all of them had been blessed with meeting their fated mates before claiming them.
Unexpectedly, all those mates were human, and so most of them had also been joined in a human marriage ceremony.
The mating, along with the small amount of dragon DNA in the human mates’ blood, meant they would now live as long as their dragon shifter mates.
Grigor still remembered the shock of realizing that Gayle was his fated mate. She was only twenty-two human years of age at the time, whereas he was fifteen hundred years old. He was also stern and demanding, and Gayle was possessed of a fierce and modern independence that had often gotten her in trouble. As such, she was far from the obedient mate Grigor had envisaged for the head of the Pendragon family.
She was, he quickly discovered, far more than that.
Gayle was beautiful inside as well as out. She was fiercely loyal to those she loved, which, thank Goddess, included Grigor, their son, her sister Holly, who was mate to Dylan, another Pendragon brother, and also the rest of the Pendragon family.
In return, she was Grigor’s world. His life. The very air he breathed.
He smiled at the memory of trying to persuade Gayle that he would be a suitable husband for her. Fifteen hundred years old, set in his ways, and arrogant in the extreme.
But somehow, despite their initial arguments, they had managed to fall in love with each other. Their beautiful son was the embodiment of that love.
It had never occurred to Grigor until now that Gayle didn’t completely understand the depth of his emotional link with his brothers, but her reaction now said she obviously hadn’t.
Garrett gave another loud knock on the door. “We have an emergency out here.” His increasing frustration could be heard in the rising of his voice.
“We have an emergency in here we intend dealing with first.” Gayle gave a pointed undulation of her hips even as she answered Garrett.
Grigor groaned his physical and emotional pleasure. Gayle was as fierce as any dragon, and he was proud to have her as his mate and mother of his son and any future children they might have together. She also had the power to arouse him to a depth of passion more powerful than anything and everything else. “My wife wishes for you to go away, Garrett,” he chuckled.
“I. Said.” Garrett, now half shifted into his silver dragon—his hands had become claws and his face sharper angles, and both were covered in iridescent silver scales—crashed through the locked door, splintering it off its hinges. “We. Have. An. Emergency,” Garrett repeated in a guttural boom.
Gayle gave an indignant squeak, not at having the half dragon in their bedroom, but because of the intrusion itself. She was used to seeing her husband and all her brothers-in-law in their twenty-foot-tall dragon form, but not to having Garrett see her naked.
She instinctively bent down, her red hair falling like a silky curtain across her husband’s chest. The move had hidden her bared breasts and also the point at which Grigor’s cock was buried inside her heat. There wasn’t much she could do about her bare arse sticking up in the air. “What the hell, Garrett?” She turned her head to glare at him.
Silver eyes narrowed. “I need Grigor.”
She gave a derisive smile. “Well, obviously, so do I.”
“I need him now.”
“So. Do. I,” she repeated, mimicking Garrett’s earlier method of emphasized speech.
“You’re going to fix that door before you do anything else,” Grigor warned his brother as he pulled the bedcovers over Gayle and himself.
“I’ll do it later.”
“You most certainly will.”
His brother snorted. “We have something else, far more important than your modesty, to deal with. A…situation has arisen requiring your attention.”
Grigor’s scowl was even darker than his wife’s. “As you can see, we plan on doing other things for a while.” The mating barb on his cock hadn’t embedded itself inside Gayle yet, but it would very soon, and when it did, it would ensure not a drop of his seed was lost when he released inside her. Possibly impregnating her? Grigor hoped so. Their son was almost a year old, and Gayle had expressed a desire for them to have more children sooner rather than later.
Garrett bared very sharp and pointed teeth. “This situation is urgent—” He broke off as the sound of the bellpull at the front doors resounded throughout the stone castle. “Make that immediate,” Garrett added in a doom-laden voice.
“Carys will answer the door,” Gayle dismissed.
Grigor winced. “Is that wise, love? I realize it’s taking her a little time to adjust to being temporary housekeeper here while her mother recovers from having her hip operation, but our security is paramount. We’re all aware that last week Carys invited in a man she had only assumed was a new client for Pendragon Security. It took Dylan ten mi
nutes’ conversation with the man before he realized he was actually a door-to-door salesman trying to sell us tablets to correct erectile difficulties. Not that there’s anything wrong with providing medical help with that condition. I just don’t think any of us have a use for those pills right now.”
Gayle tightened her inner muscles about Grigor’s steely hard cock. “Or ever.” She chuckled.
“I—”
Mine.
Grigor froze, every muscle and sinew of his body on immediate alert. “What the hell was that?”
Garrett sighed, obviously having felt that mental link too. “I believe that is connected to the urgent situation I’ve been trying to tell you about.”
If it was, then it was far more serious than a situation.
Because Grigor had recognized that growled claim as coming from another dragon. A dragon that did not have permission to enter Pendragon territory.
The only other dragons they were aware of were the seven Romanov brothers, but as none of them were due for a visit from Russia, he doubted it was one of them.
Besides, that wouldn’t explain why Grigor had been able to sense the emotional need through a mental link that shouldn’t even exist with someone outside his immediate family. Even the Russian dragons, despite being their allies, couldn’t contact them in this intimate manner.
Garrett was obviously aware of Grigor’s concern as he strode across the bedroom to shove a laptop in front of his older brother’s face. “I’m in charge of checking the security cameras today, and this is something you really need to see.”