My Dragon Lord (Broken Souls 1) - Dragon Shifter Paranormal Romance Read online

  My Dragon Lord

  Broken Souls 1

  Alisa Woods

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  Lucian is a Dragon Prince of the House of Smoke… and he’s dying. He has to spawn a dragonling or face the death of another mate. When he rescues a beautiful woman, he has to seduce her without losing his heart, and before he turns feral forever.

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  READING ORDER

  Dot Com Wolves

  * * *

  Claiming Mia (Book 1)

  Saving Arianna (Book 2)

  A Christmas Wish (Book 3)

  Riverwise Private Security

  * * *

  Jaxson (Book 1)

  Jace (Book 2)

  Jared (Book 3)

  Wilding Pack Wolves

  * * *

  Wild Game (Book 1)

  Wild Love (Book 2)

  Wild Heat (Book 3)

  Wild One (Book 4)

  Wild Fire (Book 5)

  Wild Magic (Book 6)

  Fallen Immortals

  * * *

  Kiss of a Dragon (Book 1)

  Heart of a Dragon (Book 2)

  Fire of a Dragon (Book 3)

  Chosen by a Dragon (Book 4)

  Seduced by a Dragon (Book 5)

  Touched by a Dragon (Book 6)

  Loved by a Dragon (Book 7)

  Marked by a Dragon (Book 8)

  Claimed by a Dragon (Book 9)

  Of Bards and Witches: Leonidas’s Story (Book 10)

  Fallen Angels

  * * *

  A Deadly Sin (Book 1)

  Guardian of Light (Book 2)

  The Sin of Wrath (Book 3)

  Seraphim (Book 4)

  Prince of Shadow (Book 5)

  Tempted: Tajael’s Story (Book 6)

  Kiss of an Angel: A Christmas Story (Book 7)

  Legal Magick

  * * *

  Ever Strange (Book 1)

  Mercy Strange (Book 2)

  Verity Strange (Book 3)

  Broken Souls

  * * *

  My Dragon Lord (Book 1)

  My Dragon Keeper (Book 2)

  My Dragon Mate (Book 3)

  My Dragon Bodyguard (Book 4)

  My Dragon Lover (Book 5)

  My Dragon Master (Book 6)

  Akkan (Book 7)

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  My Dragon Lord (Broken Souls 1)

  Copyright © September 2019 by Alisa Woods

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the author. For information visit: Alisa Woods

  Cover by BZN Studio

  My Dragon Lord (Broken Souls 1)

  Ember’s stumbled into a lair of desperate dragons—and she’s just the thing the Lord of the Lair needs.

  I really messed this up.

  Pinned to the floor by a billionaire playboy, caught stealing files from his computer.

  “I’m trying to decide whether to kiss you or lock you up,” he says.

  “Kiss me, and there will be blood. Not mine, either.”

  He just smiles. Rich, powerful, probably used to getting anything he wants.

  I’m just here to find my sister—I suspect he and his band of playboys have trafficked her and who knows how many others. I’m here for them too. Eventually.

  But now I’m shackled to the wall in his dungeon—a literal dungeon in a literal castle tucked in one of the Thousand Islands at the border of Canada.

  I really messed this up.

  Ember’s a hot-shot reporter. Niko’s the sexy Lord of the Lair determined to find his soul mate… and he’ll do whatever it takes to save his people from extinction.

  My Dragon Lord is a steamy dragon shifter romance that’ll heat up the sheets with love and warm your heart with dragonfire.

  One

  Ember

  It’s pathetically easy to get in.

  The rich pay little attention to the staff. As an award-winning investigative reporter, paying attention is like 90% of what I do. The other 10% is remembering to take showers when I’m working a story. So, tracking down the catering company for reclusive billionaire Nikolais Lord’s sex parties? Easy. Bribing an underpaid single mom to let me take her shift? Simple. (And holy shit, Party Central pays their people nothing.) The hardest part is not glaring at the thirsty men drooling over the young women in barely-there dresses being paraded around the man’s castle.

  Yes, an actual castle. In upstate New York’s Thousand Islands, where it’s easy to hide all your sex trafficking. At least, that’s what I think Lord is doing here. To be honest, it looks more like an upscale brothel or even just a “party” for the rich and glamorous. The women look a little too healthy. The men are surprisingly young and way too hot to be your average rich guy looking for underage sex. Or rape, as I call it. Because that’s what it is. And I’ve been documenting the carnage from traffickers like Lord, if that’s what he’s doing, for six months now. It’s ugly, and it’s everywhere. Even—especially—in secret high-society getaways like this castle on an island near the Canadian border.

  A man in a finely-tailored black silk shirt takes the last canape off my tray. Then he does a double-take and turns back. “Hello, there…” His gaze drops to my nameplate. Maria Gomez. His ridiculously handsome face frowns because my super-pale skin is not even close to the warm brown tone you’d expect with that name. My family is 100% French Canadian, except we were all born on this side of the border. “Maria. You’re new, aren’t you?” Hot Boy’s eyes are drinking me in, and not just the v-neck cleavage that Maria’s black-and-white uniform exposes. He’s checking out my face like he expects to pick me out of a lineup.

  Shit. “Oops! Time for more canapes.” I twirl away with my tray, hustling back to the kitchen. Rich Boys don’t pay attention to the staff—unless they’re predators. I momentarily forgot that part. Everyone here—even if they don’t fit the profile of a buyer, which is literally anyone but mostly middle-aged men—is potentially trawling for young flesh to abuse. I fit the bill on that. I’m a conventionally-attractive female who looks a lot younger than her twenty-eight years. The muscle tone from kickboxing is covered by the uniform, and I left my black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu at home. That’s the kind of thing guys like Rich Boy discover when they make the mistake of touching me.

  I drop the hors d’oeuvres tray in the used pile, snag another one off the rack, then pretend to inspect it so I can delay and regroup. I’m on a mission here, and it’s not to punish pretty rich boys for their sins—not yet, at least. I’m here to find my sister. She’s been missing two days, and it’s killing me. Cinder holed up in that crappy apartment of hers in the city, but I didn’t think… I’d hoped she would come out of that horrible depression she’d fallen into. At least tell me what was wrong. I mean, I know what’s wrong—I put her in a horrible situation, and things went terrible, fast. It’s my fault. I own that. But to shut me out for a week? Then simply disappear? Something’s not right, but I can’t get anyone to take that seriously—so I’m doing my own investigation. And the last entry in her planner said Party@Lord’s Castle, Thousand Islands.

  So I’m here.

  And
she has to be, too. Maybe she was picking up the project again—the documentary we were making together about sex trafficking in America. Rumors have circulated about Nikolais Lord’s parties for years—everything from orgies to sex trafficking to psychedelic Burning Man style events on his privately-owned castle island. No one seems to know what he really does up here—or is willing to go on the record. Which says trafficking to me. Given my soft-hearted, quiet sister wasn’t the kind to party in her hometown of New York City, no way she’d travel six hours north to an island just to—

  “You going to count those or move them?” the head caterer snaps at me as he strides past, quickly finding someone else to bark at.

  I grimace and follow the next server out the swinging door to the main hall. The place is insanely big—three stories high in the hall, which is topped with a stained-glass dome—with couches and at least three fireplaces on the main floor. Sweeping staircases lead up to dozens of rooms along interior balconies that overlook the main floor, almost like a hotel. There are marble and mahogany, crystal and wrought iron everywhere. The place screams money, which doesn’t mean there’s not trafficking—just that the worst of it probably isn’t the well-dressed girls on the main floor with the healthy glow in their cheeks. Maybe high-end escorts? Or maybe Lord lures in vulnerable girls with promises of money or fame, gets them behind closed doors, and then they’re trafficked from there.

  There are a hundred ways girls get trapped by men like him.

  I haven’t seen him yet among the young men shopping tonight. I did my homework—Nikolais is American, but his ancestors came from the Greek Isles, and he’s got that dark, sexy look, like many of the Hot Boys here tonight. He would stand out, but he hasn’t been on the floor for the hour I’ve been serving. Maybe he’s already in one of the rooms? Which works for me. I don’t need him—I need whatever secrets he’s got in his files in his office. Some clue as to whether he’s trapped my sister into whatever hidden operation he’s running here.

  Time to make my move.

  I pick my way through the main hall, stopping to dispense snacks to a couple making sexy eyes at each other, then work toward the stairs. If Cinder came here, she couldn’t whip out her camera without raising suspicion. Maybe she brought that spy cam she wore as a necklace during that undercover operation we had in Buffalo with a buyer. Or maybe she posed as one of these young women mingling with the Rich Boys, waiting to get trapped. But that would have been reckless. Dangerous.

  Cinder was in a dark place, but that?

  Once I reach the stairs, I set down my tray on an ornately carved wooden table, as if that’s normal, and I calmly stride up the stairs. I’m looking for an office. Probably not behind one of the doors along the balconies. My guess is those are in use—a theory confirmed by a couple slipping out, faces flushed, clothes rumpled. They’re smiling and striding back to the party, taking the stairs on the far side from me. Strange. This is looking more like a frat party than a brothel. Unless there’s a weekend package Lord has for his guests.

  I head up to the third level, hoping for something that looks more office-like. A couple more doors line the short railing, but past that is a hallway that leads to some kind of gaming room—pool table, some old-fashioned arcade games, a table set with crystal chess pieces, and a big screen with a bank of recliners lined up like at the movies. I dead-end with that, and I’m about to back-track when I see a door next to a bar tucked in the corner. Sure enough, that opens into an office. The light automatically comes on. It’s more of a den—floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, windows out into the breezy summer night, and an ostentatious desk opposite a couple chairs and a big leather couch.

  Bingo.

  I search the desk drawers—a couple are locked, but I pull out my pick kit, and it’s easy to spring those free. Nothing. Just some antique personal items and a journal—no names, numbers, or incriminating dates, though. Not even in code. I leave that and turn to the computer on the built-in desk along the wall. It’s password-protected, of course, but it’s not like I came unprepared. I dig out a small flash drive loaded with software to override the operating system—a college girlfriend who’s now a major security expert hooked me up, once I promised her I was white hatting, not breaking into the Pentagon. I slip it into the USB port and hard boot the computer. My friend’s software overrides the reboot, kicking it into another operating system. I type in the command script I memorized, and it starts searching for files and images—anything that might be incriminating for a sex trafficker. I’m just scraping everything; I’ll look through the files later from the comfort and safety of my apartment back in NYC.

  While I’m waiting for the download, I check for secret drawers or hidden vaults in the bookcase. A waist-height panel that looks blank actually springs open with my nudge then slides out a lit-up tray. Nestled in white satin is an ancient leather book with a dragon etched in black metallic ink. It sparkles in the warm light of the den, and it’s cool to the touch of my fingertip along the curving tail. Curiosity gets the better of me. I pick it up and unwrap the rough leather cord used to hold it shut. Inside are symbols I don’t recognize—some of it looks Greek, and the rest has to be a language, but it’s like none I’ve ever seen. I flip through the pages. The illustrations are more dragons, mostly black, but some silver and gold. There’s a battle, one page to the next, fire and swords and flaming blue blasts of energy—

  “Who the hell are you?”

  I jump inside my skin and spin around. Fuck. I could have sworn I closed the door. But no. And Nikolais Lord is standing in the doorway with a young woman who looks as shocked as he is, but only half as outraged. I clutch the book to my chest like that will somehow save me. “I… I was just curious…” Fuck, fuck, fuck. I helplessly gesture with the book. Is he armed? If he’s armed, I’m so fucked—

  “Go get Aleks,” he says in a rough voice to the woman, never taking his eyes off me. She scurries out.

  Dammit, I fucked this up. “I’m so sorry!” I say, going for the innocent catering server caught pilfering the client’s stash of… what? Dragon lit? “I just love books, and you have so many, and I’ll just put this one back, I’m sure it’s special in this nice little drawer—” I turn my back to put the book away, sneaking a glance at the flash drive. Copy Complete, it says. Fucking hell, I need to grab that—

  “I’ll take that.” The book is lifted out of my hands.

  What? Lord is right next to me. I had my back turned for less than a second, and somehow, without a sound and way too freaking fast, he crossed the room. I lean away, heart skittering with the shock. “I was just going to put it—”

  “You have no idea how precious this is.” His eyes are lit with a dark fire. His gaze bores into mine, capturing me with its heat. The pictures online don’t do him justice—the man is intensely beautiful. In a sexy, swarthy Greek kind of way. A dark scruff shadows his face, taking the edge off his beauty just enough to make him slightly rugged. And so, so sexy. Masculinity rolls off him like a wave that laps its tongue over my entire body. I take another step back, even more unsettled. Hotness is not a thing that rattles me.

  He glares and turns to reverently place the book back in its cradle of white satin. As he’s carefully sliding the drawer back in place, I edge backward, watching him, determined to yank the flash drive free. I flick my gaze to the computer and silently snag it—

  His hand locks around my wrist and hauls me away from the computer with breathtaking strength. But I got the drive. I shove up into his chest, using his strength against him, then grab his collar and lift up. Surprise lights up his face, then I drop to the floor, collapsing under him, twisting and pulling him over my huddled form for the throw. He’s insanely heavy—for a split second, I don’t think he’ll budge—but then he tumbles forward, over my hunched body, his own momentum taking him down. Then suddenly, I’m yanked with him. He never let go. Before I can blink, he’s got me pinned, that massive weight holding me, a knee across my pelvis, my arms flat on the
floor, useless. Fuck. It takes me a half-second to realize he let me throw him… just to get me here. Pinned. Trapped.

  My breath is heaving, but panic is just starting to light up my heart.

  “What the hell are you?” He says it with an open-mouthed grin like this is fucking funny, then he frowns at my hands pinned by my head. “What’s that?” One still has the flash drive.

  I’m trying to calm my breathing, trying to fight through the panic in my mind. What’s the right answer to give? How do I get out of this? “Flash drive,” I pant, stalling.

  He eases up a little on the pressure. He’s not winded. At all. His frown grows deeper. “No… this.” He hauls my hand off the floor—the one without the flash drive—and his grip is like being locked to a wall. He holds my wrist up for me to see. He’s dead serious now, but I have no idea what he means.

  “It’s… my hand.”

  “Is it a tattoo?” he demands.

  What the fuck? I don’t have any… Oh. “Birthmark.” He’s talking about the ragged half-circle birthmark I’ve had on the inside of my wrist ever since I was born.

  The wide-eyed look on his face sends a chill down my back. Why the hell does that matter? What is this guy’s problem? I imagine strange tattoo fetishes. The horrible fact that I’ve fucked all this up so badly is sinking a chill deep into my stomach.

  He drags his gaze from the marvel of my birthmark and gives me a crazed look. “I can’t decide whether to kiss you or lock you up.”