Her Dragon Captor (Her Dragon King Duet 1)

Pregnant….

I’m pregnant.

With the dragon king’s baby.

Memories of our last heat session flash through my mind. Dark and heavy and somehow still extremely hot. The hate when he held me in his arms…along with the unbelievable comfort. I’d felt safe. So safe and protected in my abductor’s arms.

A sickening guilt washes over my human, but my wolf whimpers. Missing him. Actually missing him.

I rub my nose with my good hand, low-key despising myself.

Usually, I’m a huge fan of being a werewolf, but at the end of the day, our wolves aren’t anything but dumb animals. Really fucking dumb animals.

And mine doesn’t care that he kidnapped and humiliated us. All she knows is that she’s his mate. She’s delighted to be pregnant with a pup of our own. And he’s not here.

It doesn’t matter, I tell myself. It doesn’t matter. My heat is done, and I’ll die before I ever have sex with him again…

I trail off at the end of that mental vow, not because I don’t mean it, but because of the object I spot on the nightstand.

The key. The old turnkey to the shackles is lying there, like “Hey, what’s up. Here’s your freedom, just chillin’.”

I take a big breath before picking the key up. Please don’t be made of silver too.

And for once my prayers are answered. The key is cool to the touch, no burn whatsoever. I pick it up…. carefully stick it into the cuffs latch, turn it…and just like that I’m out.

I stare at my free wrist, turning it all around.

That was too easy. This has got to be a trick. A trap of some sort.

But either way, it’s back to Plan A. Which is figuring out how to get me, and now my newly formed baby, out of here.

I quietly go over to the closet and put a nightgown on, then try the door.

It immediately goes red, like, Nah, bitch. Not this time.

I silently curse. I knew getting out of the cuff was too easy, and of course, he’s not going to leave the door open again after I almost escaped the last time.

Okay, new plan, I decide, once again reaching for the door. This time instead of drilling with the closet rod, I’ll wait like a ninja beside the door and when he enters, I’ll jump him and take him out.

The sound of a car brings my head up before I can pull the rod down again though. And not just any car either. An old one from the 20th century with an engine that growls instead of quietly whirring like most modern driverless cars do. There’s an old mixtape of 90s-era West and East coast rap stuck in the otherwise still working tape deck. The third track from that album, LL Cool J’s “Mama Said Knock You Out” is blasting at top volume out of the open driver’s window. And that window is open, not because the driver wants it to be, but because he still hasn’t found a mechanic in North Dakota who can fix it.

My stomach drops. I know that car. Know exactly who’s driving it. Even before I run over to the window.

And my heart soars when I see Uncle Clyde’s Ice Cream Cadillac pull up below the window.

“Uncle Clyde!” I scream, banging on the floor-to-ceiling window.

He looks up, and his eyes bug when he sees me standing there in my gothic nightgown. “Ola?”

I recognize my name on his lips, even if the word itself doesn’t carry as far as a bassed-up LL Cool J jam.

“Yes, Uncle Clyde it’s me!” I scream back.

Like, I said, I’m not a crying bitch, but I’m real close to crying.

I can’t believe he found me!

However, my heart sinks when I see the only reinforcement he brought along was Problem Solver. Problem Solver was what he calls the vintage sawed-off Mossberg 500 twelve-gauge shotgun strapped to his side. He named it that after finding out that my dad FJ had named his dragon slaying sword, The Death Maker. And just like my Dad, he takes his main weapon boo with him everywhere.

But Problem Solver is not enough. Not enough for an enemy like Damianos.

“Uncle Clyde, you’ve got to get back in the car. Run! Get reinforcements.” I frantically point at the car.

But he just shakes his head at me, clearly not understanding.

“Uncle Clyde. You must run! You must get more people!” I yell at the top of my lungs, wildly gesticulating. I’m ready to do a full-on pantomime show if that’s what it takes—

But I stop when his gaze suddenly shifts away from me. And my heart goes into to total freefall. Even without a good sightline, I know exactly who he’s looking at.

Oh no…oh no….

“Run!” I scream at Uncle Clyde, hitting the window harder than I ever hit anything before. “Run! Run! Run!”

But Uncle Clyde doesn’t run.