Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 75539 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75539 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
I think you need to check up on your client, Dawn chided me. Dragons who were part of the same family had a telepathic link when they were in their scaly forms and close by, which was what allowed my sister to butt into my peaceful thoughts.
I lifted my head. Worry rushed through me. Had I been too lax? Did someone come and try hurting him while my guard was down?
Blake was by the tents, flailing his arms in the air as he ran in a wide circle. I rolled my eyes. Huffed a breath. It was a bee.
“Get it away from me!”
“Stop moving,” my brother Damien said as he pulled a fresh beer from the cooler, “You’re making it angry.”
“It’s making me angry—whoa!” Blake ducked down to the floor to avoid an aerial swipe from his assailant.
No wonder they had decided Blake could use a bodyguard.
I stretched out, flexing my claws into the dry dirt and flicking my tail a few times. The long, silky white hair hanging off the end looked more reddish brown now that it had collected some of the desert’s essence. I went to Blake, who had a difficult time getting back onto his feet. It appeared as if the bee kept watch over him. It hovered in the air above Blake one second and was snapped up by my jaws the next.
Blake blinked up at me, my large form blocking out the sun. He smiled awkwardly and gave me a wave from the ground. “Thank you.”
I chuckled. The sound came out like a distant rockslide beginning to form on one of the beige rock formations that made up the landscape. Blake got back to his feet, and I decided to get back to mine.
Shifting from dragon to our human forms came as easily to us as breathing. All I had to do was will it to happen. Golden mist swirled around me. My bones painlessly rearranged themselves, my organs following suit, my male form taking shape in under a minute. All of it happened under a veil of gold. The mist dispersed once the shift was complete. I stood there in my gray gym shorts, black T-shirt, and backward LA Dodgers baseball cap as if I’d been like that the entire time.
Blake brushed the dust and dirt off his pants. He still had some across his shoulders and back. “Turn around,” I said. I cleaned off his back. He felt firmer than I had been expecting.
This wasn’t in my job description, but I didn’t entirely mind. I’d been protecting Blake for about a few weeks now and found him pretty enjoyable to be around. When I picked up the job, I thought I’d be dealing with a prickly and snobby politician’s kid. Albeit an extremely influential politician.
I’d expected Blake to be out of touch with the real world and had no inclination to fix that.
I’d been completely wrong. That had been a pleasant surprise.
“Are you allergic?” I asked. It’s something that should have been told to me from the beginning, but I understood things slipped.
I did have to keep him far from strawberries, though.
“No, just a little scared of them.” Blake’s cheeks had a rosy tint to him. He was a funny guy. I normally stayed disconnected from my clients. They were usually all young, coked-out starlets or hypermasculine and entitled sports players. Sometimes I’d get the occasional rich businessman or sex-starved housewife. It came with the territory of being a highly sought-after bodyguard working in Los Angeles.
Blake was different in a way that intrigued me. He was shy and grounded and had quite the humor. It didn’t hurt that he was also cute. Extremely so.
“What happened?” It was Robby, Damien’s partner, coming back from a hike with my other brothers, Maddox and Warrick. Robby didn’t have a single drop of sweat on him. Maddox and Warr had sweat darkening their T-shirts. “I heard yelling. Didn’t sound too serious, though.”
I winked at Blake. “It was,” I said. “Blake had a duel to the death with a spear-carrying foe.”
“Seriously?” Warrick asked. “What happened? Where’d they go?”
“I took care of them,” I answered and faked a burp.
“You ate someone? You never do that.” Maddox sounded impressed, the blue scales above his dark brow rising along with it.
Bless him.
“It was a bee,” Blake said. That made Robby laugh, his fangs shining white. “And it’s fine. It’s all fine.”
“You ate a bee?” Warrick stuck his hands in the pockets of his shorts. “Couldn’t you have, like, I don’t know, guided it away?”
“I’m paid to protect Blake, and he was clearly in distress.”
Blake put a finger in the air. “I wasn’t that distressed. I could have handled it myself.”
Dawn joined the group, having shifted out of her dragon form. Her wavy brown hair was tied in two tight braids that landed right at her shoulders. The residual white scales of her true nature glittered like the world’s most expensive necklace. “Now that we’re all back, can we talk about dinner?” As our only sister, she wielded the power to shut down any silly conversation we were having and put us back on track.