Abducted By The Dragons: The Complete Series Read online

  Table of Contents

  Abducted By The Dragons: The Complete Series

  Abducted By The Dragons - Book 1

  Chapter 1: Birthmark

  Chapter 2: Prophecies & Factions

  Chapter 3: The Bedding

  Chapter 4: Some Answers

  Chapter 5: Safety

  Chapter 6: Trust

  Chapter 7: Proving the Prophecy

  Chapter 8: Melting

  Chapter 9: The Dragon’s Secret

  Chapter 10: A Message From Home

  Abducted by the Dragons - Book 2

  Chapter 1: Jealousy

  Chapter 2: Cabin Fever

  Chapter 3: Escapism

  Chapter 4: The Blue Duck

  Chapter 5: Fortune

  Chapter 6: A Real Vacation

  Chapter 7: The Fish in Whitefish

  Chapter 8: Ransacked

  Chapter 9: Ambush

  Chapter 10: Uncertainty

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  Copyright

  Abducted By The Dragons: The Complete Series

  By: Hollie Hutchins

  Abducted By The Dragons - Book 1

  Abducted by dragon shifters on the streets of downtown Chicago. This was something I’d always feared, but I never thought it would happen to me.

  I’m the Chosen One. The prophecy says the birthmark on my skin proves it.

  I don’t know what’s going on, but I’ve been taken to the home of this man I don’t know.

  They call him the Master.

  Garen Karn, the leader of the dragons.

  They tell me I am to mate with him. I have no choice. And to top it all off, there's other dragons who want to kill me. Either I mate with him, or I die.

  Not much choice, is it?

  And there's another crazy twist. According to them, if we mate can we save the world. Apparently, I'm the dragon's only hope for survival. Shame not all of them see it that way, though...

  Chapter 1: Birthmark

  I left school that hot afternoon in June, not knowing at all that my life would never be the same again. I was eighteen, and like most eighteen-year-olds, I thought I had my shit together. I was young and vivacious with the world at my feet. I was about to graduate and go onto college. I was excited about going to Columbia in the fall, where a lot of my friends would be joining me. I’d been accepted into Columbia’s journalism program, so I had every reason to walk with pep in my step.

  The jean shorts and white t-shirt that I was wearing were a godsend against the oppressive heat. My long, thick black hair on the other hand… I swept it to my back in an effort to keep it off my neck. Why didn’t I bring a hair tie today? I knew what the weather was going to be like. Duh, Tatyana!

  I could be scatterbrained sometimes, especially in the morning when I was half asleep and tasked with picking my outfit for the day. I was so glad that the school day was over and I could go home and take a much-needed shower after sweating so much. Morning showers just didn’t make sense in the summer.

  As I turned a corner, I ran across a face that was decidedly unfriendly. A guy was standing in front of me, a few feet away, smoking a cigarette and staring at me. Really, he wasn’t just some guy. His face definitely had dragon shifter written all over it. My part of Chicago was like a haven for the beasts – part human, part dragon, typically all malice. They’d been around for longer than I’d been alive, so running into them occasionally was just a part of life for me. I always avoided them as if they were muggers, which to be fair, they might have been. Dragon shifters didn’t have the best reputation.

  This one in particular, the one staring at me, stared with such shock and abhorrence, that I feared he'd start shooting flames at me any moment. He had sandy hair and wore a brown leather jacket despite the heat. Not the best at trying to blend in, this guy. I guess he was going for a James Dean look, which would’ve worked, had James Dean had glowing red-brown eyes.

  I noticed that he was focused upon my exposed forearm, at my birthmark. It practically stung just from having his eyes on it. My birthmark got a lot of attention, for reasons I didn’t understand. It was a bluish-purplish color and looked more or less like a bruise. A permanent one. Shaped like a three-pronged flame that pointed towards my elbow, I’d pretended it was a tattoo when I was little. A bad-ass tattoo that proved I could do whatever I wanted because I had ‘The Devil’s Pitchfork’ on my arm. Now that I was older and had gotten so much unwanted attention because of it, I’d usually taken to wearing long-sleeved shirts or jackets to hide it from view.

  I’d never quite gotten attention like I was getting now.

  Mr. Dean the dragon shifter flicked his cigarette out of his hand, not even bothering to stamp it out with his foot, and he started to come towards me.

  Nope. Not today, sir. I backed away from him and went down an alley in the opposite direction. I quickened my pace, widening the distance between us. Whatever he wanted wasn’t good. In fact, he probably wanted to fry me up and eat me.

  One thing about dragon shifters in downtown Chicago was that whenever you saw one, you were sure to find others soon. They were pack animals. People had taken to referring to them as gangs, because that was basically how they acted. They were tough, violent murderers who usually got away with whatever they wanted because no human could fight a giant, flame-blowing dragon. They didn’t exactly fit into jail cells.

  Sure enough, as I continued running along the alley, I came upon two more shifters. They looked at me with bulging, glowing eyes of gold and green. As the other shifter had done, they came towards me, but this time, they didn’t take their time – they started chasing me down the alleys!

  I ran for my life, not knowing what they wanted and not wanting to find out. It definitely couldn’t be something good. Finally, I got to West Harrison. I knew that there was a bus stop around there. If I could just jump aboard a bus, the shifters would get off my tail. Sure enough, a bus appeared. I wasn’t quite at the stop, but I hauled ass to catch up with it, waving my arms frantically in order to get the driver’s attention.

  He stopped with a loud exhale from his gas pipe and opened the door, glaring at me almost as angry as the dragons had. “If you ain’t at the stop, I ain’t stopping for you next time,” he grumbled as I climbed on and took a seat.

  “Thank you,” I said to him meekly and tired from my running. I was a thin girl, but that didn’t mean I was in marathon shape.

  My thoughts, as usual, weren’t as polite. Gogogogogooooo!

  As the bus slowly meandered down the streets, my stomach dropped. The bus had succeeded in getting me away from those guys, but it was taking me in the wrong direction from my home. I was old enough that my parents wouldn’t be watching the clock and biting their nails worrying about where I was, but I had to get home in order to shower and get my homework done for the next day. Those shifters had royally fucked up the rest of my evening.

  I sighed and leaned back in my chair, not saying anything as I periodically craned my neck to watch the shifters get smaller and smaller in the back window of the bus.

  After at least twenty minutes of riding the wrong bus, I pulled the cord so the driver would let me off. There was a stop across the street that would take me where I needed to go. Mi casa. The driver must still have been fairly pissed at me, because he took off like a shot as soon as I stepped off, not even acknowledging my additional muttered ‘thanks.’ I took my phone out of the pocket of my shorts and checked the time.

  Shit, it was practically five-thirty already. I guessed that all those detours had really cost me. Trying to mentally start the night’s essay, I waited for the walk sign so I could cross and get to t
he correct bus stop. I heard some rustling and some footfalls behind me and glanced around.

  “You've got to be kidding me,” I said to the gang of five dragon shifters that appeared as if by magic. It wasn’t even different guys; it was all of the ones I’d run into back by my school. “What, did you fly here?”

  I didn’t bother with the bus stop now, but I ran down the street in an effort to try and evade them. It didn’t work out so well, though, as I ran smack into the chest of one of the glowing-eyed creeps.

  “No! Goddammit! Let me go!” I shouted, hoping that I sounded irate, but knowing that I mostly sounded scared and defeated.

  “Calm down,” the shifter said in a deep voice. “Stop flailing. This will be much easier for you if you just relax.”

  I looked up at his face, and realized that it was the James Dean guy. He held his arm around me, keeping one of his hands tight on my wrist so I wouldn’t be able to get away from him without hurting myself quite a bit in the process. He smelled like cigarettes and heavy cologne.

  “Where are you taking me?” I asked him, trying my best to calm down enough so he might let down his guard and I could make a break for it.

  “Our leader, Garen, will be interested in meeting you,” the shifter replied as he walked along the street with me. I felt like I could’ve been in the middle of being murdered in broad daylight and none of the people around would’ve cared. Folks saw us as we walked past, but they either didn’t give a damn, or they were too afraid for their own skins to do anything to help me.

  Shifter boy shoved me along, into an alley. My feet stumbled over the blanket of old, partially wet newspapers that lined the pavement. Gross, I thought. Is this Garen homeless, living in a dumpster or something? I didn’t know if that made this predicament worse for me or not, really. If I was going to be fed to a dragon, it didn’t exactly matter where the dragon lived, did it?

  I didn’t have too long to pity myself and think Why me? because soon I was brought into a tall, nondescript apartment building. The dragon shifter and I breezed right past the concierge and the lobby, and went right to the elevator. He forced me in and let the doors close, then punched in a floor number and stood there, still holding onto me. The elevator didn’t play any music, which made this whole experience even more awkward and nerve-wracking. After staring at me so much out on the street, this guy didn’t seem to be able to make eye contact with me anymore. I was clearly of deep interest to him, but maybe it wasn’t a personal interest that he had in me.

  Maybe I was simply valuable to dragons. To this Garen person.

  It seemed that I didn’t have long before I would find out for myself.

  “What’s your name anyway?” I asked this leather-clad thug in an effort to make some conversation since my mind was racing with unanswered questions. “And who’s Garen?”

  The guy smirked a little, still looking straight ahead of him and not down at me. I could see some day old stubble on his chin. It was an interesting shade of reddish blond that didn’t quite match the hair on his head. “My name’s Brock,” he replied, his deep voice sounding a little gentler, now that he was inside a small space and not in hot pursuit of me. There was nowhere for me to go, and that clearly put him more at ease, even if his grip was still tight on my wrist.

  Aww, what a shame, I thought. I’d still been imagining that his name was James or Dean just to make the comparison even funnier for me. I hadn’t even seen a James Dean movie; that was the dumbest part. “Hi Brock,” I said in a stupid, extra chipper sounding voice as if I wasn’t been held against my will. “There are a lot of floors in this… apartment building?”

  “Condos,” he corrected gruffly.

  “Oh,” I replied. “Garen must be loaded.”

  We became silent again, and soon the doors opened. I was glad to be out of that elevator. It’d become stifling, mainly because of awkwardness. Brock clenched my wrist and escorted me down the hallway. The carpet was red with little orange lines cutting into it, making diamond shapes. The walls were this yellowish white that made me think the designers had been going for gold but couldn’t find the right color of paint for some reason. It was garish, but in a sophisticated enough way. I didn’t imagine that the leader of a dragon shifter gang would be anything other than wealthy and powerful.

  We stopped at one of the red doors in the hall. There was a gold 688 on it, above the peep-hole and the gold knocker. There was also an emergency exit a few doors down. Brock must’ve noticed that I saw this, because he smirked again. “Don’t start getting any ideas,” he muttered, knocking on the door. “You try to run, you’ll regret it.”

  Another leather-clad guy opened the door. His jacket was a bluish gray, and his eyes matched. He also had sandy hair, a few shades lighter than Brock’s. “Is this her?” he asked, gesturing a finger without looking at me.

  Brock nodded his head, and then this new guy looked at me, right into my eyes. I wished that he wouldn’t. His eyes were icy fire, piercing and judgmental. He’d heard about me by now. I had a feeling that all of the dragon shifters in this gang had heard about me by now. News traveled fast in the gangs. This was why I’d always done my best to stay away from them.

  God, I thought. What do they want with me?!

  The two gang members led me into the condominium. The interior was surprisingly stark white and clean. It didn’t look like it was lived in very much. Maybe they made sure to clean it for me, because I mattered so much to them for some unknown reason. I was getting more and more annoyed as the moments passed with them, and they still didn’t tell me anything. So far, all I knew was some names. Maybe this pristine condo was just a front and they all actually lived in some cave somewhere along Lake Eerie. That made more sense to me than dragons living in a pricey condo.

  Brock gestured to the white leather couch in the living room, and then the other shifter just pushed me down onto it. Rude asshole, I caught myself thinking, At least Brock’s polite enough, before reminding myself that none of this was polite or nice. I needed to get out of here, preferably before being smoked to death or chewed into tiny pieces. I always heard horror stories about what these dragon gangs did to people. No one exactly knew, of course, because the only people who experienced it first-hand were obviously dead. Sure, dragon shifters could rough a person up on the street, but that was more like normal gang activity. They never killed while out in public. If they did, the stories would likely be more realistic, and more graphic.

  Brock stayed there in the room with me while the other shifter went off down the condo’s long, white-carpeted hallway, knocking on the white door at the end of the hall. Then he went inside, which was extra ominous to me, because it meant that he was meeting with their leader before he bothered to come out and actually meet me. They’re probably discussing the different ways they can cook me, I thought, starting to let pity creep into my consciousness. There was a clear escape just down the hall outside, but I’d have to escape in order to make it to the escape. This sucked.

  I could see the afternoon slipping into evening outside the condo’s large, uncovered windows. Apparently nothing went on in this place that they felt that they needed to hide, though they were so fucking high up that it wouldn’t be easy to peek in on their activities. The buildings next to this one weren’t as tall. A passing helicopter might be my only hope of salvation, if I couldn’t make a break for it on my own. Finally, before my fear turned into insanity, the door opened again and the blue-gray dragon shifter re-appeared, followed by an extremely tall man with black, gelled-up hair and glowing green eyes.

  Like the others, he was pale and not quite human-looking. He didn’t wear a leather jacket, but instead wore a nice, black suit, which again said that he had a lot of money. His dress shirt was crisp and white, and he wore a long green necktie that matched his eyes, no doubt on purpose. He could’ve easily been a businessman.

  But he was a mob boss, essentially. And I had to remember that. I wasn’t safe with Brock and his ilk, and I
was even less safe with this guy.

  He smiled and clapped his hands together for a moment. His smile was more like a sneer. Even in his human form, his fangs showed. “Very nice,” he said as he looked at me. Well, actually, his eyes were focused solely on my birthmark for the moment. “Well done, boys. You’ve found her.”

  Shifting his eyes from my arm, he looked into my own dark brown eyes. I wondered what it was that he saw there. Hopefully he saw hate and anger, not the confusion and terror that I mostly felt now.

  “Hey, and she’s pretty,” he added as if my appearance was an afterthought to him. All that seemed to matter to these monsters was that I had a birthmark. I despised this Garen and I hadn’t even said anything to him yet.

  “She’s the one,” he said with mounting enthusiasm, his voice booming and echoing around the large, sparsely decorated room. “She’s the one who’s going to change everything and save us all!” He looked to Brock and the other guy. “Prepare her for the bedding,” he told them, still grinning his half-crazed, half-fanged grin. With that, he left the living room. In fact, he left the condo altogether.

  “What the fuck?!” I demanded, finally finding my voice again. “What is that supposed to mean? What’s going on? Let me go! I don’t have anything to do with whatever sadistic ritual you’ve got planned here.”

  I tried to fight Brock’s vice-like hold on me, but it was no use. I was going into that bedroom whether I liked it or not.

  Except I had one thing that these dickheads hadn’t planned on.

  I pulled a ballpoint pen out of my pocket and jabbed it as deeply as I could into Brock’s hand. Not expecting that, the big dummy yelped in pain and let go of my wrist so he could grab onto his wounded hand. Now I had my chance! Distracted by Brock’s pained shout, the other shifter missed me as I ran past him and out the front door of the condo.

  Chapter 2: Prophecies & Factions

  I ran faster than I’d ever run in my life before, opening the emergency door and rushing down the mesh staircase on the side of the condominium building. Normally, I was afraid of heights, but at the moment I had bigger fears to deal with. I climbed down and down, waiting to hear the burly dragon men in pursuit of me, but not looking back to see if they really were there behind me. When I got to the bottom of the fire escape, I looked around the alley that I found myself in now. I’d had enough of alleyway exploration of the city at this point. I just wanted to get home.