DEVOTED TO A DRAGON
All Lee longs for is to return home, find his mate, and not disrupt her life. He doesnotlong for a front-row seat to her happily ever after with someone else.
Lee fell in love with Esme when they were both teenagers, but he was unceremoniously ripped from her life and dropped in the middle of an Antarctic dragon colony. Now, years later, he has found his way back to the small magical town of Folk Haven and the harpy he never stopped loving. But he’s a different man than he used to be, inside and out. Will Esme recognize him? Will she still want him?
Or will his sudden reappearance ruin her life?
1
Fresh Feathers DryCleaners used to be owned by an old male griffin who enjoyed roaring at kids who skateboarded on the sidewalk outside his shop. Now, the store belongs to a beautiful harpy I’ve thought about every day since I left this town.
I’ll be lucky if she remembers who I am.
“You sure you want to do this fake-name shit?” Xavier asks as he walks around the front of his truck to meet me on the curb.
The dragon has designated himself as my Folk Haven liaison. Up until this moment, I’ve been grateful. But I can’t have him letting people know who I am. Not yet.
There’s still a chance I’ll leave.
“Not fake,” I rasp. The damage to my vocal cords makes speaking difficult, but I don’t much notice the pain anymore. At least I’m still alive. There were a lot of days I had to remind myself that was a good thing.
“Fine,Lee.” Xavier puts more emphasis on the nickname than he needs to.
“You swore,” I remind him, and the towering Black man grimaces.
“Yeah, fine. Just sayin’.” He doesn’t push again, letting the disapproval ease off his face, replaced by curiosity. “You ready for this?”
Glancing at the storefront’s large glass window, I catch a hint of my reflection in the surface.
I don’t recognize the ragged stranger staring back at me. Brown hair, roughly shorn at the shoulders; beard, grown scruffy enough to obscure the bottom half of my face; and thick glasses, distorting the top. My body is strong and lean from living too long on the edge of survival, fighting claw and fang to find my way back to Folk Haven—this small town in northern Georgia. I’ve traversed continents with nothing more than stolen clothes and a killer instinct.
All to get back to her.
“No.” I smooth a hand down the flannel shirt Xavier gave me to replace the threadbare T-shirt I’d shown up in. The material is too hot for September in the South, but I’d asked for something with more coverage, and this is what he gave me. “Let’s go,” I mutter.
Coward that I am, I let him lead the way into the shop. A tinkling bell alerts anyone inside to a new arrival. The first thing I smell is cleaning supplies. Lots of cleaning supplies. Makes my nose itch until I’m forcefully holding back a sneeze. But after another breath, the industrial scents fade away.
All I smell isher.
Flowers, baked in the sun and caressed by a breeze. Gentle, comforting, and a memory I held on to as long as I could. It took years for the harsh bite of frost to obliterate the fragrance from my mind.
I breathe deeper, then choke on air when Xavier strolls farther into the shop, his large shoulders shifting enough to revealher.
Esmerelda Sharpwing.
Esme.
“Hey, big man. What’s up? You got your nice suit smelling like smoke again?” Esme stands behind a counter, barely glancing up from where she’s bent over a notebook, pencil scratching away.
She’s changed.
Of course she has. It’s been a long time, and neither of us is a teenager anymore.
The girl I once knew is now a woman. She used to be soft with rounded cheeks, but years have honed the angles of her face, somehow crafting her into a more beautiful creature than the image of perfection I held in my mind. The same shade of dark blonde hair falls in curls over her naturally tan shoulders, but I spy a handful of white strands.
Bleached by the sun or age?
I couldn’t have cared less if I’d returned to find her stooped and wrinkled with a head full of white. Only that her changed appearance would mean she had lived a lifetime without me.
