Fire Breathing Beast: Dragons of the Bayou Book 1 Read online

  “Just what the fuck are you doing in my swamp?”

  “Don’t kill us! We just wanted to come and see the swamp mon—uh—” The smaller male smelled like fear and urine, so I dunked him back into the water.

  “We’re sorry, m-mister. We’re sooo sorry. We’ll go. We’ll go right now and we won’t tell a soul! Not one single, solitary soul.” The bigger one was frightened, but he also scented of determination. He was the protector, although, from the sound of it, he’d allowed the smaller one to lure him into trouble.

  “Why did you come to my swamp?”

  The little one shivered. “My friend said that he saw a…a swamp monster.”

  I grinned, knowing my smile could in no way be interpreted as light and friendly. “You want to see a monster? You’ve come to the right place. I’ll show you a monster.”

  They both shook their heads, or tried to. With me holding their necks, the movement looked more like a spasm. The small one’s eyes filled with tears. “No, please. Let us go. Don’t kill us. Our Aunt Sky will come looking for us!”

  “And what do you think your Aunt Sky is going to find when she comes looking for you? Nothing but your bare bones picked clean after I’ve roasted you over an open flame, slathered with my favorite Cajun hot sauce, and devoured every tender morsel of your flesh.”

  They both started struggling harder to get away, but their efforts were in vain. They were helpless against my superior strength. When they tired themselves sufficiently, I dropped them back into the water. Then, I pondered what to do with them. Cezar’s voice filtered into my head again, demanding I send them home to their adult.

  “No! They are intruders and must be dealt with. I shall—”

  “They’re babies.”

  “Hah! The ruffians have broached my territory.”

  “Let. Them. Go. Release them to their adult.’

  He annoyed me sometimes. Nevertheless, I grabbed their shirtfronts and dragged them through the water. “Come on. We must summon your adult to come and retrieve you.”

  “We can just take our boat back home, sir.”

  I pulled them faster. “No. We must call.” Damn Cezar.

  “It’s late. If we call our Aunt Sky, she’s going to be majorly pissed at us. And, we took her boat while she was at work. She won’t even be able to get here.”

  “Too bad.”

  I dragged them to my house where I dug around in a kitchen drawer until I found the phone that Cezar had demanded I take. I tossed it to the older male and nodded at it. “Call.”

  “But—”

  I grabbed the little one and sniffed him. “I think I’ll start with his arms.”

  “Fine!” He screamed. “I’m calling! I’m calling!”

  Sky

  I jerked upright when my phone rang. I’d fallen asleep at the kitchen table while worrying and waiting for the boys to come home. I grabbed my phone and snapped it open.

  “Nick? Casey?”

  Nick’s voice was quiet as it came over the line. “Um…Aunt Sky?”

  I stood up and clutched at my chest. “What is it? What’s wrong? Are you at the police station? The emergency room? Oh god, where’s Casey? Is he with you? Please tell me he’s with you.”

  There was more hesitation. “We’re okay. I think.”

  “Where are you, Nick?” I was already grabbing the keys to my beat up Ford pickup. “Just tell me where you are and we’ll figure the rest out later.”

  “We’re out on the swamp. Past Bulcon Bay.”

  I stopped and dropped my car keys. “Nick, you took the boat? How am I supposed to get to you?”

  “I don’t know, Sky, but please come and get us before this guy eats us!”

  “Where past Bulcon Bay? How far?”

  “I…I don’t know.” He spoke to someone in the background and then muttered out more directions.

  I got the idea, at least enough to find the general area. I’d been raised in the bayou and knew parts of it like the back of my hand. I could navigate the swamps well enough to get me close to the place Nick described. Along with my familiarity of the swampland came an awareness and respect for it that the boys obviously didn’t possess. It was idiotic to tempt mother nature by venturing deep into the bayou at night. The swamps weren’t safe. They were chock full of gators and other creatures waiting under the surface of the water to strike out at whoever was stupid enough to disrespect its inherent danger.

  Me, apparently. At that moment, I was stupid enough. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  The clock on the wall was not my friend and I swore when I realized that it was almost midnight. No one would be awake to loan me a boat. My neighbor, Jude, would be pissed at me, but I’d just have to take his and apologize later. Extreme situations called for extreme measures and all that, and this was an emergency.

  I raced out of the house, the screen door flapping closed behind me, and crept back behind Jude’s house. His boat was moored to the little dock in his back yard, welcoming me. I knew he kept the key in the shed by his back porch, so I crept over and opened the door as quietly as I could, feeling around for the hook. I snatched the key and took off running out to the boat just as I heard Jude’s back door open.

  “What the hell are you doing?!” The angry voice of my nearest neighbor bellowed through the night.

  “I’m sorry, Jude! It’s an emergency. I have to go get the boys. They’ve got my boat and they’re in trouble!” I untied it and started the motor almost in one fluid motion and gunned it away from the dock.

  “When are they not in trouble? Come on, Sky. This is theft.”

  “I’m bringing it back, Jude. That’s not theft; it’s borrowing. I’ll make it up to you, I swear.”

  He stood with his hands on his hips, glaring at me—a look so fuming I could see it in the pale light cast by the sliver of a moon. I debated offering a friendly wave as I turned a corner on the little waterway behind our houses, venturing farther into the swamp. Naw, that would only piss him off. An apology and a plate of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies would probably be a better way to restore our neighborly harmony. I’d worry about it tomorrow.

  I switched on the spotlight at the front of Jude’s boat and shivered as the illumination immediately caught the eyes of a big gator. The night was as thick, hot, and as damp as I’d ever felt it and I navigated the tall grass, cattails, and murky water with the skill of someone who’d been doing it all her life. My worn T-shirt quickly soaked through and stuck to my body. The song of chirping of crickets and croaking bullfrogs was accompanied by occasional howling and grunting, the night melody of the bayou. It would have been peaceful if not for the deadly predators that awaited those foolish enough to be out at after dark.

  The swamp was beautiful at times, with its thick cypress trees and hanging moss, it’s lush presence that took you back to another time. No matter how many Walmarts and Applebees sprung up in other parts of the world, out in the bayou, you felt like you’d been transported back to prehistoric times.

  My daddy had been lost in a swamp not far from the one I was navigating. A drunk and a hapless fool, he’d gone out in a drunken stupor to kill a gator. In his brilliant, inebriated state, he’d decided that a pair of gator skin boots would bring him the good luck that always seemed just beyond his grasp. His boat had been found a few days later, nothing in it but some crushed beer cans and enough blood to convince the sheriff, and everyone else, that he’d been the meal of the very gator he’d been trying to turn into footwear. How’s that for luck?

  I shivered again as I steered the boat around a fallen log. Creepy-ass nighttime swamp. The more I thought about the boys being out there, the angrier I got. Maybe I needed to be stricter with them. That might curb these crazy stunts they pulled. Maybe I was too strict. Maybe they felt that the reigns I held on them were too tight and they were rebelling. It’s not like there was a guidebook on how to raise boys for an aunt who was barely old enough to be their mother but fought tooth and nail to
pull them out of the foster care system and give them a permanent home. Regardless, if they were alive and well, I was going to kill them.

  From the snippets of information I’d gotten on the phone, I gathered they’d run into someone who didn’t like whatever they’d been doing. Nick had sounded blatantly scared. There was no telling who they’d run into that deep out. I knew the rumors. I’d heard the superstitious tales of rougarou and curses of voodoo queens. I didn’t believe one lick of any of those crazy superstitions, but that didn’t mean that I thought there wasn’t something dangerous out in those parts. Although, my guess was it was probably something human. Like backwoods folk who preferred to stay secluded and keep to themselves. People best left alone. Maybe they were even inbred, or like those guys in the movie, Deliverance. Yeah, that was my guess.

  My worry made it feel like a lifetime to get past Bulcon Bay and then another lifetime to continue on as far as Nick had told me to go. Rustling of leaves and branches overhead in the canopy of trees jangled my already thinly stretched nerves. Then there was the worst—the abrupt plunk and splash. Something that was nearby, something unseen, had just entered the water. Probably a gator. Maybe a turtle or a snake, but probably a gator.

  I’d never been this far. No one came out this far. A turn through an arch made by the root system of a very old, very dead tree marked my last leg of the trip.

  The light on Jude’s boat cut a path through a narrow channel, surrounded on both sides by looming cypresses. Massive roots jutted out, mute warnings of what peril lay ahead. Then, abruptly, the path opened to the mouth of a small lake.

  Up ahead through the mist, I could just make out a large silhouette taking up the night sky like some sort of—was that a castle? The closer I got to the immense structure, the more I was half certain it was a castle. Some sort of modern castle, with sleek stone walls and lots of glass that didn’t offer a view of the inside of the place. Okay, so maybe these weren’t backwoods inbred bayou folk.

  My boat was there, tied to a small dock at the head of the expanse of swamp. I steered up next to it and tied Jude’s boat to mine then climbed onto the dock. A stone path led to what looked like a patio. A castle with a patio? For some reason, maybe my jangled nerves, that seemed funny to me and I let out a little snort.

  My humor was short lived. On the patio, an ottoman was knocked over on its side, reminded me that my boys had sounded scared. Whoever had them might even have roughed them up for trespassing. I pounded on the large metal door. Hard. Well, it was huge and the size, along with the fact that it was made of galvanized steel, seemed to warrant a hard knock. Plus, my boys were in there somewhere, possibly hurt, certainly scared. I knocked harder. My knuckles ached, but I kept knocking.

  Finally, the door opened and on the other side loomed the largest, most muscular, well-built, handsomest man I’d ever seen. Oh, lordy, he was not inbred at all. No siree. Not at all. In some freakish turn of events, my body reacted to him, heating instantly, and I practically drooled as I gaped at him. Every delicious inch of him.

  I forced myself to pull it together. I didn’t have time for gawking at sexy strangers. The man had my nephews somewhere in the place. I pushed past him. The light brush of my bare forearm against his sucked the breath right out of my body. Shivers. Delicious shivers. What the holy hell was wrong with me?

  “Nick! Casey!” My voice shook, quivering with emotion. I bit my lip and looked around. The immense house felt even larger on the inside because of all the open space. The ceilings were at least three stories high. More smooth stone and modern design. The windows were one-way glass and offered what must have been, in the daylight, an amazing view of the surrounding wetland.

  “Little human. Come here.” His voice was a deep growl that I felt in a tingle from the top of my head all the way to my toes. It stopped everywhere in between.

  I looked back at him, despite my better judgement. He was still at the door, his big body blocking the exit, his eyes burning into me. Had his just referred to me as a little human? “Where are they?”

  “You smell amazing.” As if to prove his point, he tipped his head back slightly and took a deep inhale.

  I stepped back. What the...? My insides were still doing cartwheels, but my brain was working out something—something niggling just out of its reach. Something was weird about the hottie. I nodded at him, trying to placate him so I could find my nephews and get the hell out of there.

  “Come here.” He put his hands on his hips and stood there, apparently expecting me to obey him.

  “Um…no.”

  He growled. “Mate, come here.”

  Nick and Casey picked that exact moment to run into the big open area. They didn’t look too scared, though. They looked excited and—mesmerized. “Aunt Sky! Isn’t this place awesome?”

  I was going to kill them.

  Beast

  I was going to bite the heads off the little human males. What the fuck were they doing, interrupting my first meeting with my mate? My human mate. That was entirely unexpected. She was little, so little. How would she be sexually compatible with a man as large as me?

  The younger male, who I’d learned was called Casey, had gotten over his fear. He was awed by me. He spoke non-stop—dragon this and dragon that—naturally impressed. Maybe I should’ve hidden my nature from him, refrained from disclosing the truth, but I wasn’t ashamed of it. I was proud of my strength and great stature, both as a man and as a dragon. I wouldn’t hide it.

  “Come on, boys. We’re going home.” My little mate reached for the young males, but they slipped away from her.

  The smaller male was argumentative. “No. Come on. You’re already here. Look around. It’s so cool.”

  Her pale skin flushed red and I scented her frustration. It came off of her in waves tainting the delectable scent I’d previously detected—the faint aroma of arousal. I was again tempted to eat the smaller male.

  “Casey. You snuck off, stole the boat, got stuck out here, and called me to come get you in the middle of the night. I don’t want to look around. I want to get you boys home and get us all to bed. I work in the morning.”

  “You don’t even get it.” He crossed his arms and scowled at her. “You would ruin it. You suck.”

  Before I even gave it a split second’s thought, I was across the room growling an ominous warning in the small male’s face. “You do not speak to my mate like that.”

  He paled, but just sighed and shrugged. “Fine. Can we come back, though?”

  The older boy, Nick, was still on guard, more apprehensive of me. He looked from me to Casey and shook his head. “Come on, Casey. Listen to Aunt Sky. We have to go.”

  My mate was giving me a strange look. I didn’t care how she looked at me as long as she remained there, in my home. She smelled like heaven, reminding me of the sweet scent of the tiny blossoms that bloomed only once every hundred years in the old world, and only after a rain shower. Her beckoning lips were turned down in a frown and I found myself yearning to touch them. She was plump and soft in all the right places and I could already feel myself hardening, readying to mount her. I drank her in with my eyes, studying her delectable curves from inch to inch.

  A step closer to her, and I was certain I smelled the beginnings of her arousal once again. Her nostrils flared and the stunning pale brown of her eyes was eaten up by the widening of her pupils.

  “You will stay, mate.”

  That strange look returned and she took a step away from me. “Why do you keep calling me that? We’re not friends. Are you Australian? I just came to get the kids. Now, we’re outta here.”

  I growled from deep in my chest, startling all of them. The sound was low and rough, an audible claiming of this human female in front of me. I wanted my mate. I needed her. I longed to sink my teeth into the soft flesh of her shoulder, to couple with her and pleasure her for hours. I wanted to taste the blood that rushed through her veins so hard that I could practically see it thrumming under her
skin. The bloodlust that arose when a dragon found his mate was something evolutionary that I’d never understood fully before. I wanted to taste her blood because it would mean that I’d pierced through her delicate skin and marked her as my own. That taste meant forever.

  My mate took another few steps back dragging with her another growl from deep in my body. She couldn’t get away from me. She was mine.

  “Boys, get outside. Now.”

  Nick tugged Casey, but the smaller male was digging in his heels, showing a stubborn streak that I would have appreciated, if he hadn’t been directly disobeying my mate’s command. “Come on, Sky. I want to stay and look around more.”

  “Do as she says.”

  “Don’t yell at them!” My mate grabbed Casey’s arm and pulled him towards the door. “Go wait outside, Casey. I’m not kidding. Get in that boat and wait on me, or you’re going to be grounded for the rest of your life.”

  “You can’t ground me. I don’t have to listen to you. You’re not my mother.”

  “Casey! Go!” Pain, anger and frustration created a sour scent from her and when she looked back at me, her eyes were shiny with moisture.

  I closed the gap between us and slid my hand to the back of her head, tilting it and staring down at her. I traced my finger under her eye. Wetness. Tears. A stabbing pain like I’d never experienced before shot through my chest. She was crying. Not only was she crying, but it was tearing my heart out.

  “What are you doing?” Her voice was quiet, but rushed, as she stared up at me with wide eyes.

  “He made you cry. I shall kill him.”

  Her eyes widened and she jerked away. “That’s enough crazy talk, Mr. Looneytunes. We’re going. I’m sorry they bothered you. I can assure you that they will get a long, stern talking to about trespassing.”

  “You can’t leave. You’re my mate. You must stay.”