Chapter One: Liana
“Can’t we do it next weekend instead?” Liana Robinson said into her phone.
She stared into the mirror in despair. Her braids were already escaping from the bun, and the new lipstick she’d bought suddenly didn’t look quite as glamorous as it had looked when she’d tried it in the shop.
“It’s my birthday. You promised,” her sister Clairice said and laughed. “Also—and this was supposed to be a surprise—but I’ve got a hot date for you.”
There was a softer giggle in the background—one of her sister’s friends, who’d probably all already gathered for a night out at one of the glitzy clubs her sister liked.
Her sister who was a successful lawyer, even though she pretty much never had an hour off.
Meanwhile Liana was a programmer. She worked on a game popular with twelve-year-old girls, where kids could breed colorful dragons, decorate them and let them compete.
She loved working in the gaming industry, and she loved the ridiculous, colorful little game she was working on—but she didn’t like her boss, and she also didn’t like the pitying looks people gave her when she admitted just what sort of game she was working for.
It’s fun—most days—and it pays the bills. And also, at 5 p.m. I get to go home and do whatever I like with the rest of my day. Unlike all those successful lawyers who work past midnight and are back at the office at 7 a.m. sharp.
“All right, I’ll be ready in half an hour,” Liana said, biting back her sigh.
She gave her wardrobe a critical look. Work had given them all shirts with their favorite dragon last month, when they’d hit 1 million downloads. Would they let her into a club in that?
Probably not.
Liana pulled out her favorite shirt and held it up to her chest in the mirror.
A Star Wars shirt. Which had glitter on it. Glitter was clubwear, right?
With a sigh, she dropped it. She could already hear her sister laughing at her.
Which left just one option.
From the back of her wardrobe, she pulled out the shirt her sister had given her for Christmas. It was golden, with a swirling pattern of white flowers.
She had to admit that it looked pretty stunning against the tawny brown of her skin—but all the same, it made her a bit uncomfortable. She didn’t like standing out, and this shirt definitely called for attention.
At least it hugged all of her generous curves in just the right way, which most shirts didn’t.
You’d think the fashion industry would eventually catch up to the fact that some of us have curves, she thought as she gave a sparkly Star Trek shirt a dark look.
She’d bought it at a convention a year ago in the hope that she’d fit into it if she’d just work out a little.
Which hadn’t happened so far. But then, there were so many other things to do in the evenings...
Like catching up on her shows and her books. And working on the game she hadn’t told anyone she was working on.
Her boss had been adamant that Dragon Heights was just about breeding dragons, period. He’d outright laughed at her suggestion to add unicorns, pegasi and griffins.
But it’s what the kids keep asking for. And I’m sure it would be successful.
She hadn’t made much progress yet, between her day job and other distractions, but she knew her game could be successful if she did it right. She’d simply need an investor who cared about what children wanted to play, instead of thinking only about how much money could be made with it.
Half an hour later, she was standing in her sister’s expensive apartment, Clairice’s friends tutting at her.
“The shirt is nice,” one of them said critically, “but what is your eyeliner doing?”
“It’s perfectly fine eyeliner,” Liana protested, even as she was pushed into a chair.
Clairice’s friends descended on her like a pack of giggling hyenas, and Liana held on to the chair for dear life as her face was pushed this way and that, pencils and brushes and paint coming out everywhere she looked.
When she was allowed to stagger out of her chair ten minutes later, she gasped as she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror.
She didn’t even recognize the woman who was looking at her.
She was Liana Robinson—just another curvy geek girl. No one who’d ever asked her out on a date had stuck around for long.
Which honestly was fine with her because then she could stop being anxious about the date and get back to catching up with her shows.
But now she looked—different. Whatever the girls had done to her face made her look as if she was a top model about to slink along a catwalk. They’d painted her lips a red she’d never dare to use. They’d put fake eyelashes on her that made her eyes look enormous, and there was golden eyeshadow and eyeliner applied in what Liana had to admit was a way more professional line than the smudged mess she was usually satisfied with.
“Wow, that is...” she breathed as she gaped at her reflection.
She could barely believe that it was truly her in the mirror. She looked amazing.
Maybe tonight would be different. Maybe she wouldn’t feel so awfully exposed in the club.
Most of the time when she’d allow her sister to drag her along she felt like the ugly duckling, while everyone else felt right at home. And it wasn’t as if she didn’t like dancing, because she did.
Liana just wasn’t a part of the champagne-drinking, designer clothes-wearing crowd that hung out in Clairice’s favorite clubs. And she was pretty sure that everyone who took one look at her knew that, too.
“He’d better be hot,” she said to her sister. “After all this trouble.”
Clairice smirked. “Just you wait. He’s a client of ours—rich, mysterious and handsome. And he asked me if I had a single sister. What are the odds?”
“Huh.” Liana wasn’t quite sure what to think about that. Rich, mysterious and handsome
never went for the curvy black geek girl, in her experience.
But maybe she’d get a fun night dancing with a handsome stranger out of it, and who knew—maybe he’d be really interested in the latest bugs of a dragon breeding game for kids.
Chapter Two: Timothy
Timothy Drago, the dragon of water, member of the council of elements, one of the most powerful dragon shifters in the world, had a problem.
It wasn’t the fact that the council was in a constant state of alarm, due to the threat posed by dangerous fire dragons, who’d recently reappeared.
No, his problem was much simpler. The master of the council, the ancient chimera Gareth, had ordered him to find his mate as quickly as possible.
And to make matters worse, Timothy had been saddled with the task of babysitting their captive fire dragon Braeden at the same time.
Things couldn’t get much worse than that.