California Imperium Read online

  Table of Contents

  Summary

  Shadow Alley Press Mailing List

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Books by Shadow Alley Press

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  Copyright

  About the Author

  About the Publisher

  Summary

  THEY WANT IT ALL, AND they want it right now.

  Steven Drokharis has built an empire that stretches across the United States and across the world. He seems unstoppable.

  But now he’ll have to deal with something deadlier than enemies: Dragonsoul allies. Exiled from America and on the run, Steven and his escort of beautiful women will have to unravel the secrets of the past to save their future.

  Friends will become enemies, enemies will become friends, and century-old feuds will bleed anew in this fifth exciting installment of the bestselling American Dragons series.

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  Chapter One

  STEVEN WAS HOME FROM visiting his Queensland Primacy in Australia. He was in his bed at the Infinity Ranch, and life should’ve been perfect.

  Zoey was sleeping on top of him, her tiny little snores at odds with her size, even when human. The bear girl had jumped on him thirty seconds after he’d come through the door. She’d kissed him, crushing him to her, and he’d loved every minute of it. She smelled so good and looked even better—those intense blue-green eyes, all that shaggy golden-brown hair. He’d missed Zoey.

  She’d dragged him into the master bedroom, where he’d thrown her onto the bed. Tessa shrieked to Aria, and they came running, as did Sabina. There was kissing, groping, and then lots of sex. Skylar stood at the doorway, watching, until Sabina enticed the older woman into joining them, and Steven got off watching her do it. Mouse had sighed loud enough for him to hear in the other room. The Wayne twins laughed. The three straight women then went outside to brave the cold Wyoming wind to sleep in the Widow house.

  Steven had saved a bit of energy for those three. And with Mouse, she did most of the work anyway, since she liked to be on top. He loved to watch her small breasts rise and fall on her chest while she rode him.

  Now, hours later, he lay in his double-king bed, surrounded by most of the women in his core Escort—that was how he saw Aria, Tessa, Mouse, Sabina, Zoey, and the Wayne twins. He hadn’t even been home for twenty-four hours. The previous night Skylar Blacke, one of the Five Widows, had flown him into the Cheyenne airport. Their jet finally had a name—Dash, after Rainbow Dash, a character from My Little Pony. Tessa had come up with it, and Bud promised he’d get the name painted on the side. Liam Strider and the other four widows had stayed in Australia to watch over things.

  As for Steven, despite the jet lag, he was glad to be home. To his left, Tessa was pressed against him. Sound asleep, she let out a happy sigh. Aria slept with her back to the barista, and beyond her, Sabina cuddled a pillow on the far edge of the bed. Skylar slept to his right, on her back, less preoccupied with cuddles than comfort. She had a whole section of the bed to herself.

  He was worn out, loved out, and tangled in warm skin and high thread count sheets. It should’ve been paradise. He couldn’t sleep, though, because of the jet lag and because Morty Flint wanted to meet.

  “Meet” was a tricky word, for dragons. It could be polite, bordering on courtly; some dragons were old and stuck in their ways. It could be a massacre. Steven had to find out, and he’d prefer to do it beforehand, not by walking into an ambush. The clock on the nightstand said it was 3:45 a.m. Might as well get up and get going.

  Silently, he retrieved his running stuff. He’d gotten in the habit of long cardio workouts with Zoey, who loved to run as a human, as a wolf, and even sometimes as a bear.

  He dressed in several layers, left the house, and stood outside. Cold starlight washed down onto the landscape. Yellow grasses and faded green sage reached from drifts of old snow. The central tower of the Infinity Ranch rose above the plains. The winter smells made him smile. But it was the low humidity that he dearly loved.

  Dicking around in the South Pacific meant a constant sweaty butt crack from the heat and humidity. As a dragon, he didn’t mind it. As a human, though, it grew tiresome. He was a child of the Great Plains, and that meant dry cold in the winter and dry heat in the summer.

  He walked over and touched a piece of iron garden art spiked into the dirt. At this touch, the bee sculpture glowed pink. That was Tessa’s work, a little static Magica Incanto lighting the way. Other pieces of iron lit up with that same pink glow, showing him the perimeter of the ranch, all thirteen hundred acres of it. The trail followed the fence line.

  Tessa hated that her magic was pink. Sabina said that before she was blinded, nearly killed, her magic had been purple. But since she’d joined them, her charms were light green, like jade. She didn’t know why. She also didn’t understand how Tessa could have such powerful magic when she’d grown up human. The third volume of the Drokharis Grimoire had promised an answer.

  They’d been on their way to the Oregon coast before Bud told them that Liam Strider had been kidnapped. Everything had been put on hold while Steven flew out there to fix things. And now with both Maria Diablo and Wyatt Gunn dead, he owned the Texarkana Primacy free and clear (See the short story THE FIVE WIDOWS for all the action).

  Steven took off running, his mind focused on how to deal with the other American Dragonlords. Two in particular troubled him. Morty Flint and Javier Jones.

  The former had offered a welcoming hand to Steven before, in Chicago, and he’d been friendly. As for Javier Jones, the Dragonlord of the Sonoran Desert Primacy had sent Steven the head of an enemy as a Christmas present. Despite the grisly gift, Steven wasn’t sure he could ever trust Javier Jones. He couldn’t trust anyone, except for his Escort and a few close friends. Steven ruled over more square miles of the United States than any other Dragonlord Prime. Which was probably why Morty Flint wanted to meet.

  Then he started thinking about his core Escort and their issues: Zoey clinging to him, Tessa’s secret origins, Prudence Wayne’s lust for power, and Sabina’s desire to become a full Dragonskin.

  And then there was Uchiko. She lived on the outskirts of his life, in the shadows, but then that was what she preferred. She was a secretive person, full of self-loathing. She didn’t think she was worthy of Steven’s attention. How could he ever hope to change that?

  Women were complex, everyone knew that, and now he had over thirty wives to take care of. Or maybe it was forty. He was losing track of them all. He hadn’t thought that was a problem until Pretty McGillicuddy had told him about her tragic life. It troubled him, but
then, Pretty’s past should’ve troubled anyone with a fucking soul. After a certain number, a Dragonlord’s wives just became names, pawns to send on suicide missions or trade to other Primes. It pissed Steven off, and he swore he’d never treat these wonderful, smart, and often damaged women as things.

  Steven took the corner and fell into a faster pace. He liked to take the western fence fast, the northern trail slower, and then speed up for the eastern section, so he was huffing by the time he reached the southern path home. Welcome to interval training.

  A piece of Tessa’s pink garden art, this one a stylized dove, threw light onto the track. The snow was muddy and beaten down from his and Zoey’s exercise. He noticed his shoe prints and her paw prints. He sighed in wonder, frustration, and worry—his relationship with the bear girl was intense.

  Speaking of which, he smelled her perfume. He turned, and sure enough, a massive golden-brown wolf streaked by him. As she passed him, she turned to smile, showing long white fangs. Animus glowed in her blue-green eyes, giving her a spectral look.

  She raced away.

  He stopped, so she stopped, about fifty feet from him. Zoey’s eyes shined through the fog of her breath, giving her an even more ghostly appearance.

  Steven kicked off his running shoes and stripped off his layers. Then he took after her in his socks. Zoey yipped and flashed away, bolting out of sight. Well, Steven could fix that.

  He took three steps and turned into his True Form. His remaining clothes shredded. He shot through the air, pumping his wings until he overtook her. She leapt to nip at his feet, but he zoomed out of reach. She streaked after him, but she couldn’t keep up.

  Steven banked above the turn south and then floated down onto the eastern path. As he shifted into his Homo Draconis form, he imbued his muscles with SerpentGrace, giving him an added boost once his clawed feet struck the snow. He kept his wings tucked into his back.

  He reached the south gate and slowed a bit as the SerpentGrace faded, and he found himself winded. He jogged past the Widows’ house and turned up the driveway to the outdoor living room shrouded in snowdrifts.

  He turned to see if Zoey had caught up to him. She had. Though as she ran toward him, she didn’t slow. The motion-detector lights in front of the castle-like Infinity Ranch winked on.

  The Morphling leapt as a wolf but came down on him as a naked girl, and he wound up on his back, in the snow, turning human so he could feel her soft skin on his, and so he could kiss her.

  Zoey pulled back and gazed down at him. Their eyes met, and Steven didn’t look away, and neither did she, and that was okay. They were comfortable with each other. And Steven loved the blue-green depths of her eyes.

  Tessa had said the rules for Zoey were different, since as a Morphling, she was as much animal as she was human. Steven felt that now. The heat in her eyes, the absolute adoration, the unconditional love... it wasn’t human. Or maybe it was the best of what it meant to be human, when their overactive brains didn’t get in the way.

  “My back is getting cold,” Steven said, though he didn’t care about that, because Zoey was warm on him, straddling him.

  Zoey stood and pulled him up. She was unbelievably strong. She then transformed into bear. Bigger than a Kodiak, she was nine feet long and two thousand pounds. He kept a hand on her warm fur as they walked to the hot tub. The paths had been cleared, thanks to Mouse, who was breathing ShadowFlame now. She had to be careful or she’d melt the concrete.

  Steven sank into the hot tub. Zoey shifted and joined him. She slid up next to him. “I hated that you were gone.”

  She kept saying that. His absence had really disturbed her. When he’d left them to fly to Australia with Skylar, staying had almost killed Zoey.

  He felt bad, but he also knew that, realistically, he couldn’t be with Zoey all the time.

  He brushed a shaggy curl of hair from her face. “I love that I’m back.”

  “But you’ll go again.” That intense stare never left his face.

  “I will,” he replied. “I have to. But Zoey, you have Tessa, and you have Mouse. Sabina adores you. Aria can be prickly, but even she likes you.”

  “The Wayne twins laugh at me,” she said, though it didn’t come across as hurt. It was matter-of-fact.

  “No, Prudence laughs at you.” He knew Pru wasn’t fitting in very well. Chazzie, yes, that twin was going above and beyond the call of etiquette. Her sister? She was like a popular girl in high school having to sit with the pimply losers.

  Zoey shrugged. “Still, that laughter doesn’t help me when you’re gone.”

  “I’ll talk to her,” he said, though he wasn’t sure if that would weaken his position with Pru, because for her, it was all a game, every kiss, every glance, and every word.

  “Mouse is going to punch her eventually.” Zoey glanced down. “I don’t want to be this way, Steven. I want to be strong for you, to be confident, even when I’m alone. But there’s this part of me that was hurt, and that part of me needs you.”

  Steven didn’t know what to say. In the end, he didn’t need to say a word. Zoey straddled him, kissing him, touching his hair, and moaning. Zoey’s moans stiffened him immediately. He was in her, her sex snug around his shaft, and she leaned back so he could nuzzle the big, stiff nipples on her small breasts, gorgeous and tight against her muscled body.

  Both glowed from the shared Animus as they reached the heights of pleasure.

  They wound up back inside, in front of the fireplace in the great room below the stone of the castle walls; the central citadel could be locked with iron doors in case the place needed to be defended. However, Sabina would see an attack long before it was launched or even planned. She was casting Divination spells constantly to see. The timing of her visions, however, could be tricky. Once he mastered AnimusChain off the Path of the Mirror-Souled Dragon, he could set wards to warn him of intruders. Then they’d be truly safe.

  Zoey fell asleep on his lap while he stroked her rough golden-brown hair. In sleep, she was peaceful. He was glad of it. Her parents had been killed in the unending skirmishes that plagued Dragonsoul culture, and then she’d drifted until a cult of Morphlings took her in. That cult, the Sounders, had no strategic importance. Morty Flint, however, owned a huge Primacy. An idea dawned on Steven, and he smiled. It would be dangerous, but doing dangerous things had become a way of life.

  Chapter Two

  STEVEN LEFT ZOEY TO stoke the fire.

  The days were going by so fast. Christmas and New Year’s Eve were weeks ago, and Super Bowl Sunday was only ten days away. That was the only holiday that Steven had taken off work to celebrate. He and his mom would watch the games—Go Broncos!—and it was kind of their thing. He vowed not to miss it this year. Yet he couldn’t say for sure where he’d be in ten days, or if he’d even be alive.

  Tessa padded out of the master bedroom. Her hair was dyed black with crimson highlights and piled high on her head. Though she was still in her Dragon Ball Z fuzzy jammies, he could see some of her tattoos on her pale skin. Zoey was snoring again, which never failed to make him smile.

  Tessa wandered into the kitchen, off the great room. It was an expanse of marble islands, an eight-burner stove, and three ovens. With the number of hungry women currently at the Infinity Ranch, along with Steven’s insatiable appetite, keeping it stocked was a full-time job. They’d thought about building another building just for cooking and eating. The twins were planning a mansion for themselves but didn’t like the idea of it having anything to do with food prep. Steven rolled his eyes just thinking about it.

  In the end, Steven was grateful that both Liam Strider and Zoey loved to cook.

  Steven left the fire burning and walked into the kitchen. He told Tessa his plans for meeting Morty Flint using a Magica Porta spell. While he talked, she started on the first round of coffees for everyone. Steven wanted drip coffee, as black and bitter as tar, and she served it to him while they talked.

  Tessa made an almond-milk latte fo
r herself with plenty of vanilla syrup. She frowned. “Steven, I don’t like the idea. Portal magic is different. It’s dangerous. Remember when Liam opened the portals so we could go gallivanting across the globe? Magica Porta put him on his ass. And then there was yours truly and our own dicking with the space-time continuum. It hurts, Steven. It hurts like nothing else.”

  Steven pulled up the Path of the Mirror-Souled Dragon. The image of it filled his mind.

  TRANSFORMATIO (Left Head of the Dragon)

  Partial Transformation

  Homo Draconis

  True Form (Dragonsoul)

  Pugna (Left Tail of the Dragon)

  DarkArmor

  DragonStrength

  SerpentGrace

  ShadowStrength

  IonClaws

  Exhalants (Left Wing of the Dragon)

  Inferno

  ElectroArc

  Toxicity

  ArcticWind

  ShadowFlame

  ChromaticFury

  Veneficium (Right Wing of the Dragon)

  Magica Defensio

  Magica Cura

  Magica Impetim

  Magica Incanto

  Magica Divinatio

  Magica Porta

  Path of the Mirror-Souled Dragon

  HeartStrike

  AnimusChain

  FleshForge

  Enchantrix

  He’d mastered both the Transformatio and Pugna branches of the skill tree, and he’d become adept at using IonClaws. There was only one more set of spells he needed to learn, and that was Magica Porta. Then he could begin working on AnimusChain.

  Yet Tessa wasn’t wrong. Portal spells were complex, and mistakes could be fatal.

  He mentally shrugged away the skill tree window. “That’s the thing, right? Nobody on Earth can really practice the Porta spells because of the Zothoric.”

  Tessa stopped cleaning the filter holder. “I know. I could feel them. I said their words.”