Page 3 of Protector Dragon's Shattered Mate

“Taisiya.” She gave Sofia a hint of a smile. “I chose it myself. It means Egyptian goddess.”

“Why did you need to choose a name for yourself?”

Taisiya frowned. Her eyes swept around the room. “That’s enough. No more questions.”

She took Sofia by the elbow and led her to a chair. “Sit.” She placed a bowl of dumplings in front of her. “Eat that. Then we’ll get started on spell work again.”

After Sofia was done eating, Taisiya had Sofia copy Latin spells onto a piece of parchment.

She started to pay attention to the words:mortem,occidere, caedes, sanguis.

She’d never gotten to go to school. But she’d snuck into plenty of bookstores and libraries, and when they were in Rome, she’d made a point to learn some Latin after hearing it in a Catholic ceremony. Horror dawned in her mind. Those words… They meant, death, kill, murder, blood.

What was she doing when she said those words, or wrote them down? Their plans had sounded sinister. And so did these spells.

“What do these spells do?” she asked Taisiya.

“Don’t ask any more questions,” Taisiya snapped.

At that moment, Sofia knew her own skill. She got a flash of Taisiya, reciting the spell to a group of humans, who then handed over all their possessions and went straight to a cliff and jumped to their death.

Sofia gasped.

She got another flash, of Koryak using a spell on a group of Fae, who walked away from their ancestral lands and straight into the sea and drowned. Koryak took their land. There were more, many more, slamming into her head. She couldn’t take it.

Had she been that easy to manipulate? Yes, she had. She’d been homeless, alone in the world, desperate for someone to cling to. She’d walked right into whatever trap this was. But she knew one thing; she wasn’t going to stay. She wasn’t going to be the reason anyone was harmed.

She didn’t ask any more questions, but she plotted her escape.

She would not stay with these wolves. She would not help them hurt anyone else.

That night, she climbed the fence.

I want to make it to the other side.

She expected the razor wire to slice her skin open, but nothing happened.

Was this her magic? Was it her blood that allowed her to scale the fence and move over it completely unscathed?

She hit the frozen ground with a thud. She landed on her shoulder. It cracked, but she didn’t have time to linger. Her stomach lurched as she popped it back in place.

Then she ran.

2

Levi

“Your mare is doing great,” Levi said as he finished up his work on Kellan’s ranch. As a large animal veterinarian, Levi took care of all the horses in Cedar Lake.

Kellan put his hand on the horse’s neck, rubbing over her shiny coat. “I’m glad to hear it.” He picked up an apple slice and offered her a piece from his hand.

Kellan was a dragon shifter, and he was originally from Ireland. Well over twenty years before, his clan had been destroyed by witches. He’d escaped with his best friends Quinn, Liam, and Brennan. The three of them were not biologically related, but they were brothers in every way that mattered.

Kellan was also a billionaire. He’d been running a corporation for well over a decade, but over the last few months, he’d devoted his time to his ranch. Quinn and Liam had joined him recently, and they were all taking care of the cows and the horses part time.

“Come have dinner with us,” Kellan said. “It’ll be a full house tonight, but we always have room for one more.”

There was no way Levi was going to pass up the opportunity. “Did you finally get Brennan out here?”

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