Fire In His Kiss: A Post-Apocalyptic Dragon Romance (Fireblood Dragon Book 2) Read online

  Fire in His Kiss

  A Post-Apocalyptic Dragon Romance

  Ruby Dixon

  Ruby Dixon

  Contents

  Fire In His Kiss

  What Has Gone Before

  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

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Fire In His Blood

  Ice Planet Barbarians

  Ruby Dixon Reading List

  Want More?

  Fire In His Kiss

  Bloodlust and insanity rule my existence. As a fierce drakoni warrior, this strange new world I find myself in eats at my mind until there is nothing left. There is no light or clarity...until she arrives. I save her life, plucking her from the sky.

  From that point on, she is mine.

  But the human I have chosen for my mate - Sasha - is fragile and wounded. She does not trust me and fears my presence. I will not give up, though. I will do anything to give her my fires and bond us both in body and spirit. How can I convince her that I want nothing more than her happiness if she will not let me touch her?

  How does a dragon woo a human?

  Copyright © 2017 by Ruby Dixon

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover art by Kati Wilde

  Cover photo by Sara Eirew Photographer

  Created with Vellum

  What Has Gone Before

  In 2016, the world came to an end. Not with bombs, not with war, but with fire. One day, a Rift opened in the heavens and dragons poured forth, as terrible and violent as the beasts of legend. Like ants, they swarmed over the human cities, destroying everything in their wake. Buildings crumbled, and as they did, so did society. Mankind learned that their guns had no effect on the unearthly creatures from another dimension. Riots broke out as men were forced to fight not only for their survival against the dragons, but against each other.

  The people who survived those first brutal days took to hiding. Eventually, small groups of survivors banded together and formed forts where they could live safely and securely. In the After, concrete is the building material of choice, and people freely give up their rights in exchange for protection for their families. The forts themselves are isolated and corrupt, run by a power-hungry militia. The guns they carry might not be useful against dragons, but they’re more than enough to keep the people of the fort in line.

  For seven years, this goes on, and a new society emerges.

  It’s in this world that Claudia Jones lives. She makes a hardscrabble living by scavenging and selling what she can on the black market to feed her sister, Amy. Sasha Kennedy isn’t a scavenger, so she sells what she has—her body. The three friends are able to scratch out a living for a time…until Claudia is caught and sentenced by the New Militia. Instead of exile, though, they choose to take her out into the Scavenge Lands, bait to tame a dragon. It’s a desperate effort for the failing fort that’s been besieged by violent attacks.

  To Claudia’s surprise, though, she meets a dragon that’s unlike what she expected. Kael is fierce and possessive, but can also be kind and loving. She becomes his mate and decides to rescue both Amy and Sasha from Fort Dallas and its corrupt militia. In the process, Claudia and Sasha fly away on Kael’s back, only to have Sasha fall. She is immediately snatched away by Dakh, a crazed male dragon helping in the assault on Fort Dallas. Claudia has to decide to save Sasha or her sister Amy…and ends up choosing Amy. Sasha is whisked away by the wild dragon and lost to her friends.

  Of course, there are two sides to every story. This is Sasha’s.

  1

  SASHA

  There’s a dragon nearby, waiting in the darkness.

  I’m terrified to breathe, to move, to do anything. I’ve never been so scared in my life. Fear has made the slow boil of nausea in my stomach turn into a tornado, and I’m covered in a cold sweat. Growing up and watching nature shows on TV, I never understood why the gazelles would freeze in place as the lion hunted them. I get it now. I feel very much like a gazelle about to be pounced on.

  The gold eyes whirl in the shadows, watching me. The dragon shifts nearby, and it feels as if the whole room shakes with it. It’s so...large, beyond massive in size. I bet it could eat me in a single bite—

  And that makes my panic climb a few more notches.

  I cringe in place, waiting. I’m so scared I can’t even close my eyes, because I’m afraid he might see that subtle movement and attack.

  The dragon lumbers forward another step, coming out of the deep shadows of the strange room and into a beam of light. I’m both awed and horrified at the sight of the creature. It’s the most beautiful, overwhelming, deadly thing I’ve ever seen. I hold my breath, hoping that he won’t see me.

  But then those whirling, golden eyes fix on me, and I want to cry out in terror. Please, God, let me pass out so I don’t have to be awake when he eats me.

  If God’s up there, though, he’s silent. Because I’m still conscious as the dragon moves toward me, one ground-shaking step at a time. I back up as best as I can, ignoring the pain that shoots up my broken arm and my wounded ribs. I hurt all over, but that won’t matter for much longer.

  All I can do is stare at those hypnotically golden eyes and wait for the gigantic dragon maw to open up and eat me.

  The enormous head moves in slowly, and I gaze at it in awe. I’m transfixed, like a cobra before a snake charmer. I try to remember what Claudia said about dragons, but I can’t think straight. All I remember is that hers was scary, but not as panty-wetting terrifying as this one. Maybe because he wasn’t looking me right in the eye like this one is.

  Claudia. Oh God. Is she here? Is Amy here? Am I getting my dragons mixed up and this is hers? The friendly one? I look for familiarity, but this one seems darker than the last one, and when he leans in, I see one of the frill-horns on his head is broken. Claudia’s dragon didn’t have that. He wasn’t this darker shade of gold that’s so deep it’s almost amber.

  A flash of memory slides through my terrified thoughts. Of Claudia, trying to hold m
e behind her. Of losing my grip and sliding off the side of the dragon. Freefalling through the sky into nothing, only to be snatched in mid-air before I hit the ground. The impact of it had knocked the air out of me and jarred my bad arm so badly it knocked me unconscious, but not before I saw a vague, massive shadow of a dragon.

  Vomit rises in my throat. I fell off of one dragon and got snatched by another.

  This is really, really bad.

  I’ve never been so afraid. Not even when Tate lost his temper. Dealing with a soldier that likes to use his fists is different than a wild creature that wants to swallow me whole.

  The dragon steps a bit closer, and then the great head lowers. It’s almost majestic—a cross between a snake and a cat, really, with elegant bones and a long muzzle that gleams golden in the low light. If I wasn’t so scared I’d be fascinated, because it looks just like the dragons out of legend, right down to the long wings, muscled legs, and wildly flicking tail. It leans in a bit closer.

  Then I’m gazing right into the plate-sized eye, watching as it whirls from black to gold and back to black again. Watching me. Considering me.

  “If you’re going to eat me, just do it,” I whisper. “Because otherwise I’m about to pee myself in fear and I won’t taste as good. Though I don’t know why I’m telling you that.”

  The eye flares gold, and for a moment, the dragon focuses in on me again. It’s weird, but it’s almost like he understands me. Which he should, I guess, if Claudia is dating one. She said they were shapechangers. She also said that hers was interested in mating. I shudder. I can’t imagine anything more terrifying at the moment. Terror sweeps through me again. I hope he was in his human form when he and Claudia…when they…

  Nope, I can’t picture it.

  The eye goes black again, and the dragon rears back, head lifting. Oh God. Oh God. This is it. My mouth goes dry, and I stare up, unable to move.

  But the head only moves side to side, almost undulating back and forth. It’s not shaking its head in an effort to communicate. I…I don’t know what the fuck it’s doing, and that’s just as terrifying as anything else. As I watch, he curls his mouth back, revealing jagged teeth, and then snaps at the air, like a dinosaur in one of the movies I used to love as a kid. I’m not loving it now. The scent of char washes over me, mixed with a strange, spicy smell. I sob, hunching over and wrapping myself protectively around my bad arm. My ribs burn with pain, and there’s a fresh injury on my leg that I’m too scared to look at.

  “Just kill me already,” I sob. “Do whatever it is you’re going to do. Just quit torturing me.”

  DAKH

  My mate. Mine.

  The thought tries to break through the darkness, but the bad thoughts keep flickering forward and I am unable to push them back. They are like ravens, flocking. No, like buzzards. They sense I am weak in thought, and they wait for me to die. I snap at the thoughts, the air, the buzzards, trying to make them flee. My teeth close on nothing, and the bad thoughts flutter close by again.

  Kill things.

  Kill her.

  Destroy.

  Hurt. Hurt like you are hurting. Take your anger out on her. Your world is destroyed. Your life, destroyed. Your people, destroyed. It’s her fault. Her, and her people. Over and over, the ravens and the buzzards repeat these things, moving closer and closer until the light that the human female provides is nearly blacked out once more. I curl my lips back, and I can feel the steam rising in my lungs.

  Killing is so easy. It is what the voices want me to do.

  But then the female sobs and waters from her eyes. She speaks, her voice soft and sweet and terrified. Like a splash of water in my face, consciousness returns and the ravens flutter back to mutter their evil in the back of my head. I do not listen. I am fixed on the human.

  My human.

  I rumble low in my throat, pleased at the sound of her voice. I want more of it. More of her. More of everything.

  Mine. I want to curl my claws around her and draw her close to my breast. I want to protect her and hold her close. I want to bury my nose in that soft-looking mane of hers and breathe in her scent.

  The fear-smell she is emitting makes me pause, though. I do not want for her to be frightened. I want her mating scent to fill the air. I want for her to snarl and confront me, to challenge me like a drakoni female would. If she challenges me, I can conquer her and mount her, claim her as my own.

  Take her as my mate.

  The thought fills me with a burst of joy, and I realize how long it has been since I felt…happy.

  Kill her, the ravens mutter in my ears. Kill. Hurt like you are hurting.

  But…looking at her makes me hurt less. Looking at her makes the maddening sounds, the constant cries of the birds pecking at my mind, go silent.

  She is mine.

  She is also frightened, and I do not know how to fix that. How do I please her and have her stop making the fear-smell and change to the arousal-smell? Drakoni females are aggressive. They find a male dragon and approach him, claws bared and fangs exposed. Perhaps she needs time to do so.

  I settle on my haunches and wait for this female to show me a sign. A flash of claw. A hint that she will change to battle form. Something. Anything.

  So I stare and wait.

  Time passes. The small female continues to drip water from her eyes, her breathing gasping and choked. She sounds distressed, and this bothers me. Is she sick? Injured?

  I watch her closely, looking for blood or limbs bent the wrong way. There is a darkness on one side of her face that concerns me, but it is hard to tell because her features are small and delicate. When she shifts her weight, pressing farther back against the wall, I see that one limb is bound tightly and she favors it.

  She is injured.

  Have I done this to her? Horror fills my gut. I have wanted nothing more than a mate all this time, and I have injured the female I have chosen as mine. Even a male challenging a female will not harm her. There might be light bites or pressure on her limbs to make her give in, but never injury. It makes no sense to harm the one you wish to carry your young.

  As if sensing my thoughts, the ravens dive in again, their thoughts twittering in my ear. This one is weak, they cry. Kill her and choose another. Pluck another female from the human hive—one that is strong and brave.

  Compelled, I step forward, lowering my head. The ravens talk sense. A mate should be bold in body and spirit. This one is not. Would it not be kinder to rid this world of such weakness and select another? I lean in, ready to bite, to destroy and dismember.

  The female cringes back against the wall, averting her face and pushing flat against the stone. She closes her eyes and makes no sound, waiting. She knows.

  I hesitate. The scent of her—female, gentle, soft—tickles at my nose. Even though she is weak…I like her scent. I rub my nose along her skin and find it soft and pleasant. Lust rushes through me, and I growl low in my throat with the pleasure of it even as the ravens scatter back again.

  It does not matter if this one is weak. She is mine.

  Mine mine mineminemineminemine.

  I flick my tongue against her skin, tasting her, but the acrid scent of her fear overwhelms my senses. It fills me with frustration. Why is she so frightened of me? I watch as she twists her body, trying to get away from my touch, and as she does, again she favors her side. It is then that the scent of blood washes over me.

  A sinking, awful feeling shakes me, and I rear back.

  Is she afraid because I have injured her? It was me that caused her wounds? I try to think back to when I snatched the female from the air, of how I held her, if anything snapped, but the ravens and buzzards cry out in my thoughts, laughing at me, mocking me.

  I wounded my mate.

  I hurt her.

  I almost destroyed her. She bleeds because of me. She hurts, because of me. The thought fills me with horror. Even now, the ravens urge their awful suggestions in my ears, telling me to harm her. To rid myself o
f her before others see how weak my mate is. She is small and fragile, wrong for one as strong and mighty as myself.

  But…because she is small, should I not want to protect her? Even now, I feel a fierce need to shield her from the vultures in my thoughts. To keep her safe. I bite them back, snarling. I will not listen to their lies. Not this time. I take another deep breath of her scent. It is tinged with fear-smell, but underneath it is a sweet, pleasant scent that makes the bad thoughts retreat. I inhale deeply again, and the ravens scatter.

  She will keep them at bay, I think. And once she is my mate and I claim her—like Kael claimed his mate—the ravens will go away forever.

  I settle on my haunches to wait.

  2

  SASHA

  He’s not leaving. The dragon just stares and waits, a few feet away from me.

  I…don’t know what to do.

  I ache all over, and my mind is a scattered mess. I feel dizzy, though I know a lot of it is because of fear. I can’t seem to catch my breath. I’m hysterical, my thoughts flying in every which direction, and I keep waiting for the dragon to move forward and eat me, but he doesn’t. He waits. And that makes me crazy with anxiety—what is he waiting for?

  Calm down, Sasha, I tell myself. You’ve been in bad situations before. You’ll live through this, and if you don’t, at least you’ll stop hurting. You’ve survived Tate. You can survive a dragon. If he wanted to eat you, he would have done so already.

  Strangely enough, that realization helps. I focus on calming my breathing, taking deep lungfuls of air. I don’t look at the dragon, because if I do, I’m going to freak out again, and I can’t do that. Calm, I remind myself. Relax. I exhale slowly and go to the place in my mind where I’m detached and safe, like I do when I have to visit Tate. I pull myself out of my surroundings. I tell myself that everything is temporary, and all I have to do is get through this. My breathing slows down and I calm. The tears stop pouring from my eyes and I’m able to think clearly.