Light His Fire: Paranormal BBW Dragon Shifter Mail-Order Bride Romance (2 page)

Everything was just so much bigger and more intricate with dragons. The scales, the wings, the towering heads that were as large as the shifters’ pick-up trucks and the sheer magnitude of it all – it was enough to make even the steeliest of observers succumb to surprise. Yes, Ares sure was magnificent, no one needed to tell him that.

He’d forgotten how big of a show it was for other shifters to come across a dragon, what with them becoming so rare lately. There weren’t many of them left, and the ones that were still around rarely left their hoards. It was a blessing and a curse that Ares Goldplains came from a big family, one that had dragons to spare to guard their hoards. Now with his older brothers busy with their new mate, Ares had plenty of time to seek other ventures than guarding the family treasure.

And this time, he was after one precious gem in particular – Pearl.

Once the shift was complete, he dusted himself off, patting his hands over his worn and fashionably torn jeans and white tee. He wore wide gold cuffs on his wrists and several golden chains around his tanned neck that tucked into the collar of his V-neck shirt. He had a few haphazard piercings in both ears. All in all, he looked like a well-off surfer bum, what with his casual style and his blue eyes with gold flakes in them. But he was certainly built like a shifter – tall, broad-shouldered and carved out of pure muscle and power – and could give any shifter a run for their money, even out of his dragon form.

With quick, fluid movements he covered the ground between himself and Rush Dean, tying his longish, wheaten-blonde hair into a bun as he walked to the group of shifters. He was half-expecting Deacon to punch him and wouldn’t have really faulted the man if he had.

“Now wasn’t that fun,” Ares said with a wink, lightly punching the werebear in the shoulder.

Deacon didn’t seem to share his sentiment.

“Try to behave yourself, dragon,” Diesel rumbled, a low threat in his voice.

“I never do,” Ares promised, already extending his hand to Rush.

The werebear grabbed it easily and they shook hands.

“Rush Dean,” the werebear said.

“Dean. I think I know that name. Ares Goldplains.”

His name got another round of glances. Yup, everybody knew who the Goldplains were, but not everybody knew that they were dragons, though Ares had always thought the band’s name had been a dead giveaway.

Rush Dean looked like the kind of guy Ares could grab a drink with. The other three looked like the kind of guys he’d get his ass whooped by if he weren’t in dragon form. All in all, he wouldn’t have considered it the right kind of shifter town if there hadn’t been plenty of people that fell into both categories.

“Alright. I guess we’re going to town then,” Rush said with a shrug, pointing his thumb at his F-250.

“Lead the way!”

Ares gave a wink and a wave to the shifters they were leaving behind. He hadn’t got a single friend out of that exchange, but frankly, he couldn’t have cared less. He was in Shifter Grove for two kinds of business and neither one of those required him to get along with anybody – and he wasn’t intending on wasting any time on things that weren’t of vital importance.

I’m coming to get you.

CHAPTER TWO

Pearl

Usually, Pearl Mae Landon was not the kind of woman to find happiness hard to achieve. On the contrary, she thought of herself as a smiley, the-glass-is-half-f kind of woman. But lately, that effervescent happiness of hers was really being put to the test.

“I swear to god, if I have to tell you to come in on time one more time, Dalton, I’m going to start looking for new help,” she growled, looking the teenaged polar bear shifter right in the eye with her best angry schoolmarm impression.

The teenager seemed less than impressed – no wonder, any cousin of Deacon North had probably seen far scarier scowls than the one Pearl could muster.

Pearl couldn’t blame him for looking unfazed. She knew her mild anger came off as a fizzle of irritation at best. Now, were she really enraged,
that
would get him to notice. But Pearl had far too much to do to waste energy on getting peeved at a teenager and his antics. Besides, she’d seen the cute lynx shifter girl he’d walked to the store with, hand in hand, and if there was one thing that got her happiness levels up then it was seeing young love.

Because you can’t find any of your own, obviously,
a bitter little voice inside of her said, only to be brushed away later over a glass of red wine.

“Sorry, Miss Mae,” Dalton drawled, shuffling his feet a little.

Pearl sighed. She knew she couldn’t keep her irritation going for much longer.

“Fine, Dalton. Just don’t be late again. Go stack the fruit stands at the back. The first shipment is coming in tomorrow and I don’t want to be selling apples out of crates.”

“Yes, Miss Mae,” Dalton said, perking up immediately and stalking out of Pearl’s sphere of annoyance.

“And stop calling me Miss Mae! It’s just Mae!” she called after him.

“Sorry, Miss Mae!”’

Pearl sighed again under her breath and picked up the rag she’d been using to clean the glass surfaces of the display boxes near the register. She spritzed some detergent on the glass and started scrubbing away, doing the same damn thing for the fifteenth time in a row, all in the hopes that
maybe
this time she’d get it spotless.

That was never going to happen, of course, but hope was the refuge of the foolish and she needed all the refuge she could get.

What have you done, Pearl?
she asked herself for the umpteenth time, brushing a strand of shortish auburn hair out of her face.

She’d been in Shifter Grove for a week now and she’d never felt so elated for her future and so terrified at the same time. The area was absolutely beautiful and she already had scruffs and scrapes on her arms and legs from checking out the nearby mountains – she was an avid mountaineer and climber. It was pure heaven, right down to the little cottage she was renting not far from Slate and Teresa’s home.

Pearl looked up from the annoying spot she couldn’t scrub out of the secondhand furniture, letting her gray gaze roll over the contents of her small store. It was stocked with every manner of haphazard furniture, featuring shelves and tables and cabinets that would soon house groceries and common goods. No two items seemed to go together and that was no surprise, seeing as she’d driven round all over Idaho and parts of Montana to buy up the furniture from yard sales and consignment stores.

But it didn’t matter how it looked, all that mattered was that it was all hers and hers alone. Well, hers, and 60% Rhett Dean’s, seeing as she only had enough money to rent the space from him, but that would have to do for now. She’d build it up and buy Rhett out eventually. He seemed like a reasonable enough guy.

For a billionaire Mississippi black bear shifter, anyway,
Pearl thought with a grin.

She’d never thought she’d end up in a place like Shifter Grove. A year ago, she’d barely even known that shifters existed. She’d been working as a hostess at a cigar club (of all places!), going about her rather unintriguing life in Delaware, when a weretiger came in one night and changed her whole life.

He was an elderly shifter by the name of Andrei Feodov, a Siberian tiger, and he took an immediate shine to Pearl. He was never crass, never lewd, but just the kind of gentleman every woman needs in her life – showing her that there were better things to strive for than making minimum wage at a foggy hole in the wall. They quickly became friends.

They’d got to chatting that same evening and he came back every night after that, sharing his life stories with Pearl and making her dream of more. Andrei worked himself up from nothing, coming to the United States when he was a teenager and starting out as a shoeshiner – a job far beneath any shifter. Not only had he divulged the semi-secret lives of shifters to her, but he’d also told her that she could be more than what she was.

When he passed a few months later from cancer, he managed to surprise Pearl yet again. This time, by leaving her a small inheritance. It wasn’t much and he had shared most of his moderate wealth with his family, but he’d remembered the curvy woman who’d liked hearing his stories and kept him company when his family was scattered all over the world. She couldn’t have been more grateful to him for his kindness, pushing her to do better and reach higher even when he was gone.

So, here she was now, in Shifter Grove, about to open up the only grocery store within a hundred mile radius and follow the path she’d always dreamed of – being her own boss – and she was terrified.

Pearl wasn’t even entirely sure what it was that she was so afraid of. Failure? That couldn’t be it. She’d fallen and got back up plenty of times in her life to not be swayed by a few scrapes and bruises along the way to success. No, it wasn’t failure. Pearl scrunched her nose a little, glaring at the spot that just wouldn’t budge on the gleaming glass, the rest of it mirroring back her reflection. The look in her eyes told her exactly what she was afraid of, what she wouldn’t admit to herself in public or private.

She was afraid of disappointing herself, and Andrei. Pearl was sure he was keeping an eye on her from whatever version of shifter heaven he believed in, and she was absolutely horrified of the possibility of not living up to her own potential, or the faith he’d put in her.

Though that wasn’t the only thing that had been plaguing her mind lately.

As if it wasn’t enough to deal with opening her first ever business and moving to a strange (albeit super friendly) new town where she didn’t know anyone, she also had to deal with her heart being an asshole, and all that in a matter of a few weeks.

Her phone beeped next to her on the counter and she groaned inwardly. There it was again. The reason why her heart was threatening to commit suicide over a combined emotion of excitement and utter disgust in what she was doing.

Reluctantly, she pushed the power button and saw the familiar glow of a new message on SassyDate. She knew exactly who it was from and she was going to absolutely hate herself for replying, but of course she was going to reply.

GoldenBoy:
So, Pearl. Do you miss me? Can’t be without me? I bet you can’t.

PearlPlease:
I thought we talked about this. I’m not interested!

Pearl put the phone down with a snort and grabbed for the rag, eager to get back to work and ignore the oh-so-sexy shifter who was laying all his best material on her. He was a cocky bastard. Impossible, really. She’d met him at the cigar club, The Top Hat Bulldog, about a month ago, and he had made a complete and utter fool of himself. Not only that, he also hadn’t left her alone for a moment since then.

Somehow, between making the girl who was giving a concert at the club squeal with giddy joy and then complete horror when he put his hand up her skirt, and then crashing into a table via the courtesy of the bouncers, he’d noticed her at the bar and that was that. She still remembered the mischievous, almost predatory smirk and wink he sent her as he was carted off by the two burly bouncers, and the words Andrei had said when he saw him.

“He looks like trouble,” he’d said with a chuckle, sipping his drink despite looking so frail that he might crumble to dust right around the glass.

“He sure does.”

“I bet someone like that would be good for you.”

Pearl remembered she’d huffed and laughed at his words, cleaning a whiskey tumbler at the same time.

“Sure. Someone who shows up, makes a complete and utter mess of everything and then trundles off to go make someone else’s life hell. You think that’s the kind of guy I need?”

Pearl remembered Andrei’s deep chuckle and his casual smile, showing a row of perfectly white teeth – the chompers of a beast who could still hold his own if he needed to.

“Someone who shakes you out of your cocoon, makes you dizzy with excitement and yearn to live again? Yeah, I think that’s the kind of guy you need.”

“I’m not a love ‘em and leave ‘em kind of girl,” she said, making a sour face.

“He wouldn’t leave,” Andrei had said seriously, surprising her.

“How do you figure that?”

“Look at him,” Andrei said, making Pearl glance after the strong, wild-eyed man who was arguing at the door with two bouncers twice his impressive size (it was only later that she found out that both of them were werebears).