Mad About The Dragon: A Paranormal Shifter Romance (Dragon In My Heart Series Book 1) Read online

  Table of Contents

  WARNING: This ebook contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language. It may be considered offensive to some readers. This ebook is for adults ONLY Please ensure this ebook is stored somewhere that cannot be accessed by underage readers.

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  WARNING: This ebook contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language. It may be considered offensive to some readers. This ebook is for adults ONLY

  Please ensure this ebook is stored somewhere that cannot be accessed by underage readers.

  Copyright 2017 by Selene Griffin - All rights reserved.

  In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher. All rights reserved.

  Respective authors own all copyrights not held by the publisher.

  Mad About The Dragon

  Dragon In My Heart Series Book 1

  By: Selene Griffin

  Table Of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  The End

  About The Author

  P.S. Readers

  Chapter One

  The audience was silent with anticipation, holding a collective breath in the dark as they waited for what was going to happen next. They could only imagine and the suspense was thick. Suddenly, the lights came up, a magical and luminous lilac hue that splashed across the stage like paint. A lone dancer, elegant and poised at center stage, stood with her back to the crowd, arms aloft and her head down…still as a statue. As the music began to swell, the dancer began to move. Fluid, lingering movements that punctuated the melancholic sounds that filled the air all around.

  The story she told was one of sadness, desire and strength. Feelings poured from her and into the audience without a single word spoken between them. The music took on more force and our dancer responded in turn, seeming to become something indescribable but all together mesmerizing as she moved and commanded both her stage and her audience. The music rose high once more, building towards its final moment with such ferocity one could feel it in their soul before both song and dance came together in a climactic final explosion of passion. The dancer turned her eyes to the audience, arms aloft and waiting for the shower of praise and applause. She was met with silence. Deafening silence. Then, the audience attacked.

  *

  Maia snapped awake, sitting straight up in her bed with the air knocked right out of her chest. That same damn dream again. She had it almost every time she was supposed to start a new show over the past 10 months now and it was starting to get a little ridiculous. Obviously, her subconscious was trying to tell her something, but damned if she knew what it was. Glancing at the clock, she groaned at the sight of it. Barely past 5 AM. Why did her dreams never wait until right before her alarm went off to wake her up?

  Choosing the most popular of options, she ignored her dreams and climbed out of bed. She knew she should try to catch a few more hours of shut-eye before tackling the day but at this point she was highly doubtful that sleep would find her again. Instead, she shuffled to the living room of her shoebox apartment and started to go through her morning routine. As always, she stood in front of the large window smack-dab in the middle of her living room wall, slowly beginning her regular stretches as she stared out through the glass. And as always, the city of Vegas stared right back at her through the grimy, hazy light of morning while she let herself get lost in thought.

  Oh, Vegas. A miracle in the desert. One of the greatest entertainment cities in the world. All that is wonderful with just the right amount of wrong, as they say. If New York is considered the city that never sleeps, then what is Vegas? Well, to be honest, the answer is that Vegas is the city from hell. Or, at least, anyone who grew up there could tell you as much. The people are either fake or out to scam you whatever way they can. Everything is utterly superficial and unless you are willing to bulldoze over people to get what you want, you spend your life just floating in one spot. It doesn’t sound so bad on paper…but then again, neither does limbo. But hey, at least Vegas has glitter.

  Speaking of glitter, she had to remember to talk to the stage manager about the ungodly amount of glitter that he was addicted to using in their performances. She knew glitter was a rather important part of any Vegas show (especially one that involved women of any kind), and they couldn’t do away with it completely. At the very least, she was hoping they could try and shift away from using a solid metric ton of the stuff every time they hit the stage. She was starting to wonder if glitter lung was an actual medical condition. If not, maybe she could be the first case study within the next few years!

  She took her time stretching, making sure her muscles were toned and limbered up for the coming adventures of the day. Practice officially started at 10 AM and would go straight through until 2 PM, minus a half hour for lunch, of course. Not that half of the dancers even ate anything, which Maia always commented was the unhealthiest thing they could be doing. But the world of dancers has little room for food according to those neck-deep in it, so she was often either ignored or mocked. In the end, it wasn’t any skin off her nose. At least, she wouldn’t be the lightheaded one.

  Sighing, she shook herself out, stretching her neck from side to side to get a good few pops from each side (which felt amazing, by the way). She made her way into the little galley kitchen and put on a pot of coffee. She hummed a little tune to herself as she went about this mundane task, still-sleepy eyes half closed even as the smell of fresh coffee grounds filled her nose and tried to shake her awake.

  With the coffee on, it was time to get in a quick shower and start getting ready for the day. As she left the kitchen, she snatched up her iPod and started flipping through playlists to find something good. As she passed the small table in her hallway, she plopped the iPod down into the dock and set it to play. On cue, the sweet sounds of Lindsey Stirling and her violin came flowing out of the speakers. With a smile, Maia continued on to the bathroom to get her shower going.

  As her playlist cycled through an impressive array of songs, she got herself washed, dressed and put together for her day ahead. Lindsey Stirling’s Phantom Of The Opera medley sang from the speakers as she showered, Simply Three came next, rocking out their cover of Avicii’s Wake Me Up to help put a pep in her step as she dried off and got dressed. As she started to do her hair, pulling those dark curls back into a tight bun, she hummed along to The Piano Guys’ mash-up of Vivaldi’s Winter and Let It Go from Frozen. She would never deny her love of the songs from Disney movies, and this mash-up was one of her favorites.

  When 8 AM rolled around, she was ready to take on the day…and had two whole hours to kill before she actually had to be anywhere. With her bags at the ready by the door and her music still floating from the iPod dock speakers, she made her way into the kitchen and poured a cup of
coffee for herself. A splash of butter-pecan creamer was all she added to it before heading back into the living room again, though she avoided plopping down on the gray, overstuffed couch in the middle of the room. Instead, she idly wandered around, coffee in hand, toying with various lumps of what looked like thick, opaque rocks of glass in various shades of brown, yellow, and red that decorated her entire apartment. Many were small, only the size of quarters or half-dollars. But a few were as large as her fists and had been given places of prominent display in her home.

  She ran her hands gently over her little treasures as she walked around sipping at her coffee. To most people, they just looked like hunks of weird rock, but they were so much more than that to Maia. It was called desert glass and it was one of those strange and wonderful phenomena that, while we understand its creation, still somehow managed to hold a hint of that old mystical and magical feel. There was just something so insanely cool about it that Maia had fallen head over heels in love with it from the moment she found her first one. She still had that piece, having placed it on the nightstand in her bedroom. It was a little piece she had found when on a middle school trip taken to learn about rock formations in the desert. It was small, barely larger than a nickel in diameter, but she loved it nevertheless.

  Standing beside the window in her living room, she picked up one of the more notable pieces in her collection. More often than not, the glass she found was in little rock shapes or even occasionally blob-like. But this piece had formed strangely, with a nearly flat and narrow base she could stand it up on which led up to what she could only ever describe as a mushroom cloud at the top. The shape wasn’t the only interesting thing about it either. This piece must have been formed from more than just silica, the basic component in desert glass. Her guess came from the fact that while most of the piece was that typical hazy yellow color, inside of its center appeared to be a burst of brighter yellow colors. Almost as if another type of rock or sand had gotten trapped inside of it when it formed.

  Maia loved everything about it. From its shape to its colors to the way it caught the light through her window as it sat there on the sill. The fact that it looked like a nuclear bomb cloud of death, frozen in time forever, was one of her favorite aspects about it. The cynical side of her thought of it as a wonderful, natural artistic rendition of the current state of…well…everything. But no one wanted to talk about that stuff, so with a silent smirk, she set it back onto the window sill and moved on. But that simply left her standing in the middle of her living room, doing nothing but staring out the window as she sipped at her coffee.

  When the music changed and the sound of 2Cellos’ cover of Welcome To The Jungle came raging into the air, she snapped out of her little daze. It was just shy of 8:45 when she looked at the clock on the wall.

  “Eh… may as well just go…” She muttered to herself with a sigh before turning to head back to the kitchen.

  There wasn’t much point to keep hanging out at home. Anything she might get into to entertain herself would probably have her running late for practice. Not that she wasn’t aching to finish reading the Christopher Moore book she had just picked up. That man had a way of writing stories that had her zipping through his books every time she picked one up.

  As these thoughts fumbled through her head, she went about filling a travel mug with what was left in her cup, plus a little extra from the pot to top it off. Five steps later, and she had her iPod in her pocket and was loaded down with her various bags while locking her front door. Every practice day, she left the house feeling like one of those pack mules they used for Grand Canyon tours. She carried her regular purse, a duffle bag, and a bag with her various dance shoes in it. Nothing crazy heavy by any means…but it was a bit cumbersome, nevertheless.

  As always, she opted for the stairs to make her way down the five flights to the main lobby. Without fail, Celia from apartment 102 was sitting on that ratty old red lawn chair outside of her front door in the lobby. Celia was about 74, and liked to hang in the lobby rather than inside her apartment because she liked people watching, or at least that’s what she had told Maia. Maia, however, guessed that Celia was just lonely.

  “Morning, Celia. You’re up mighty early today. That stray cat still banging around outside your windows?” Maia asked the older woman with a smile on her face, pausing in her trek to the door as she spoke to the woman.

  “Don’t you know it, Missy!” Celia responded with all the vigor of someone half her age. “That mangy old bastard seems to have moved into the alley, and refuses to budge!”

  “Maybe he just likes you,” Maia said with a cheeky smile. “Yanno, cats always seem to like hanging around the people who don’t like them.”

  “That’s because they’re sadistic little assholes!” Celia snapped before grinning and laughing loudly. “It probably doesn’t help that I toss scraps out there to shut him up from time to time.”

  Maia laughed right along with the sassy older woman, rolling her eyes slightly at the comment about feeding the cat scraps. She knew Celia had been doing that for weeks now. It was obvious she had grown to love that scrappy feral cat outside her window. Probably because the cat was a reflection of her stubborn self. As Maia dug for her keys in her purse, clicking the remote starter to get her car’s AC running, she snarked back with a bit of a bemused snort behind her laugh.

  “Well, of course, that’s not helping! You may as well just catch him and bring him inside to live with you!” Maia had been subtly suggesting that Celia get a pet, for some time now. She thought it would give Celia the extra company she needed. “Besides, it sounds like you two are made for one another!”

  “Oh, you!” Celia huffed, waving a hand as if to brush off the comment and Maia all together.

  “Alright, alright. But you know exactly what I’m talking about, Celia,” Maia responded with a little laugh under her breath, holding up her palms in defeat. “I gotta get going now. Catch you later tonight, then?” She said as she slowly started backing away towards the glass front doors of the building.

  “You know where I’ll be, sweety. Stop by for supper if you like, I’m making stuffed peppers!” The older woman made the same offer to Maia every morning they saw one another…and every time, Maia had the same answer.

  “We’ll see, Celia. You know I never have any idea when I’ll be home. But you have a good one, yea?” Maia flashed the woman a smile and then turned to scoot out the front door into the blistering morning heat of Las Vegas to find her little car in the parking lot.

  As she drove, or rather slogged through the slow streets of Vegas, she started thinking about the upcoming show and everything that went along with it. So far, she had pretty much nailed down the routines she was involved in, her costumes were almost done being fitted for her and as far as she knew, the stage sets were prepped and ready to roll. That much was kind of obvious, of course. It was Vegas, and stage crews were top notch no matter what venue you were at. The stage crew for this venue had probably already gotten everything set up, secured and properly curtained off over a week ago if they were worth their salt. Circus Circus was one of the top ten oldest hotel and casinos on the Vegas strip, and a surefire way to add some nostalgia to your party in the desert. Since 1968, it had been offering a world of fun and frivolity to the gambling masses of Vegas in the form of a giant carnival. A midway ran through it offering games and prizes, the décor is inspired by quintessential circus styles and the massive building even boasts its own indoor amusement park. Even though it sits in the heart of one of the most entertaining cities in the world, Circus Circus was its own all-encompassing entertainment hot spot.

  Aside from the circus and carnival feel throughout the place from top to bottom, Circus Circus also offered a wide range of shows and acts to keep the masses smiling and spending their money. For the past month and a half, the Las Vegas division of Cirque du Soleil had been performing in the center ring stage twice a night, four nights per week. It was grueling w
ork…but to a performer, it was simply the 9 to 5 grind, though this grind came complete with glitz and glam by the gallons. Sparkle-encrusted costumes, bigger hair than any you would find in the state of Texas, and enough colorful feathers to fill an aviary. Never mind the destroyed feet, aching backs, and bruised egos.

  Maia found it simple enough to overlook all of the nonsense that came with her job. The one thing she had a hard time ignoring, however, was a bad venue. Of course, it was just her opinion…but when you were trying to wow an audience, you didn’t want to be battling the venue around you for their attention. That was the one part of performing at Circus Circus she wasn’t all that fond of. Otherwise, it was a childhood dream come true. Seriously, what little kid didn’t want to run away and join a circus?

  Thankfully, the troupe didn’t practice where they performed, but had a regular studio space locked down elsewhere, considering they were resident performers at a number of other hotels and casinos along the strip. Getting there wasn’t any easier than getting anywhere else in Vegas, though, and by the time she pulled her car into the parking lot it was already 9:30. A handful of performers had already arrived from the cars she recognized scattered here and there. Thankfully, she didn’t see Lori’s car. She hadn’t had enough coffee yet to be able to deal with Lori.

  Making it a quick walk into the building, she went straight to the locker rooms to get changed and maybe grab another quick cup of coffee. This was going to be a long practice session since they were planning on running through the full show of routines at least twice. Since she was early, she might as well take advantage of the extra time and get in a few warm up drills and stretch a few more times. No sense going into a battle ground without being prepared, eh?

  Four hours later and she certainly felt like she had gone through a battle ground, both physically as well as mentally, to be flat out honest. Almost four solid hours of damn near nonstop dancing was killer on the body for sure. But dealing with Lori and her snotty attitude made it way worse. The woman constantly complained about their routines, about the costumes she had to wear and was always trash talking the other dancers behind their backs.