The Island Of Dragons: A Paranormal Shifter Romance

  THE ISLAND OF

  DRAGONS

  A PARANORMAL SHIFTER ROMANCE

  AMIRA RAIN

  Copyright ©2015 by Amira Rain

  All rights reserved.

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  About This Book

  When Ellie O'Brien went overboard on a cruise ship her whole life flashed before her eyes.

  She woke up on a tropical island and was not sure if she was dead or alive. Was this Heaven? Hell? Or somewhere in between?

  Ellie's questions were soon answered when she found herself being held prisoner by handsome dragon shifter Warren Knight.

  Now, Warren is holding her captive till he finds out who she really is and how she found the Island.

  Ellie knows she must win the trust of her captor if she is to get out of this alive.

  And she is willing to do exactly what it takes to do that...

  Could the captive be about to fall for the captee?

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER ONE

  I’d just reached the deck railing on one side of the massive cruise ship when the ship suddenly began listing to the side, my side, to be exact.

  I clutched the wooden railing with one hand while leaning back on my heels, or trying to anyway, to avoid going over. “Whoa.”

  Almost as suddenly as it had listed, the ship righted itself, and I dared to take a deep breath, relaxing my grip on the railing.

  “Geez.”

  Because the railing was fairly high, and because the ship hadn’t tipped that far, I wasn’t sure that I’d really been in danger of falling overboard. Nonetheless, what had happened had been scary enough to make my heart race, and it still was racing. Slowly taking a few steps back from the railing, I surveyed the dark, moonlit waters of the Pacific Ocean, wondering what on earth could have possibly made the ship tilt as it had.

  To my increasing confusion, I saw that the ocean was completely calm. As far as I could see, silvery light danced on only the gentlest of waves. Although I figured I was up pretty high, six stories, actually, on the top deck of the ship, and that, combined with the fact that it was night, was maybe why I couldn’t see what had made the ship lurch.

  I wasn’t about to investigate further, though. I certainly didn’t plan on going anywhere near the railing again for the rest of the cruise. I figured I might not even go up on the top deck again. I liked the ocean, as far as the majestic beauty of it went, but I had no desire to swim in it. Or drown in it.

  Since swimming in the ocean at the various ports of call was supposedly half the draw of the cruise, I really wasn’t even sure why I’d agreed to go on it with my friends. I supposed I did it just to make them happy and get them off my back.

  Ever since I split with my boyfriend six months earlier, they’d been saying that I needed some fun and adventure in my life. Maybe I did. I hadn’t been dating anyone new or even attempting to meet anyone new, though that wasn’t because I was pining over my ex, because I definitely wasn’t. I honestly hardly even missed him, to the point that I had to wonder if I really, actually, had been in love with him.

  The reason that I hadn’t been going out much was simply that I’d been very busy, stressed, and tired. Or I had been, right up until about a month before the cruise. That was when I was forced to close the doors of my tiny dance studio in Manhattan. That was when I ran out of money and had to give up my dream and concede defeat, at least for the time being.

  I always loved dance. I started in ballet at age four, and just a few years later had proclaimed that being a prima ballerina in a large company was my destiny. However, my reality turned out to be a little different. I was talented, but not exceedingly so, unfortunately. Not prima-ballerina-in-a-large-company talented. Not even talented enough to be hired as a member of the corps.

  Despite countless hours of hard work, I turned out to be just talented enough to always be one of the top two or three dancers at the studio where I took lessons from age four to my high school graduation. But no more than that.

  I also hadn’t been blessed with a body perfectly suited to ballet. Which wasn’t to say that I was terribly overweight or weak or anything, but in my late teens, I’d developed what my mom had described as a “very womanly” body. I had an hourglass-shaped figure, with ample breasts and rounded hips, and I’d soon learned that dieting in an attempt to reduce my natural curves just made me feel ill and crabby all the time. So, I’d eventually had to make peace with the fact that my “destiny” would have to be modified a bit.

  After studying performing arts in college, I taught dance at several different studios in New York, discovering that I loved teaching. Then, after my parents had both suddenly died, leaving me a small amount of money, I decided to take the plunge and open my own studio. The grand opening was on my twenty-fourth birthday, just three years earlier.

  I’d wanted to make my parents proud, of course, and I’d wanted to do what I loved for the rest of my life. Soon after the studio opened, I realized there was much more to owning a studio than just teaching. There was bookkeeping and employee managing, and tax-figuring, and advertising and marketing to bring in new customers, all things I turned out to be lousy at. I also realized I’d bitten off way more overhead than I could chew and wished I’d moved out of the city to make a go of things. The cost of even a tiny studio space in Manhattan was astronomical.

  My friends were amazed I’d been able to hang on for even three years.

  Since I’d been forced to close the studio, I’d been waitressing to pay my rent. I hated it. I missed dance, and I missed the kids. Though at the same time, I wasn’t quite ready to teach again at a studio that wasn’t my own. The thought of that just hurt for some reason, even though I told myself that it shouldn’t matter who the owner of the studio was as long as I was teaching and making a difference in the lives of children. Nonetheless, I just wasn’t ready yet. I honestly wasn’t positive that I’d ever be ready to teach dance again.

  My friends each chipped in for my cruise ticket, telling me that I could pay them back “whenever.” Which I appreciated, though I still had reservations about the cruise, which was specifically a “singles’ cruise.” I hadn’t met any men I liked very well, though I had met a lot of guys just looking for immediate, casual sex. I wasn’t into that; and now, instead of enjoying some fresh salt air on the top deck of the ship, as I’d intended, I was trying to slow a hammering heart brought on by the ship seeming to have a mind of its own.

  Most everyone on the ship was apparently at various restaurants, bars, and dance clubs on the third and fourth decks, and the top deck was nearly empty. I’d only seen a few other people when I’d come up, and now, as I dashed across the wide deck on shak
y legs, I didn’t even see them. I did see, however, that I was still holding a little paper plate that had contained a slice of chocolate cheesecake with dark chocolate drizzle and sliced strawberries on top, which I’d brought up from one of the restaurants.

  Amazed that I’d somehow held onto the plate even when the ship had tilted and I’d grabbed the railing with my free hand, I glanced down at the plate.

  “Damn. Really wanted that.”

  I could only guess that the slice of cheesecake had fallen overboard when the ship had tipped. Which made me think that maybe I had actually been in real danger of falling overboard myself. Which made me just a touch embarrassed that I’d unconsciously been trying to protect my precious cheesecake instead of instinctively putting both hands on the rail in a full-out effort to protect my own self.

  I continued dashing across the deck to the stairs, muttering to myself, as I had a tendency to do. “Well, it’s damned good cheesecake.”

  I’d had several slices of it already on the cruise.

  Still mystified as to what had made the ship list to one side, and still thoroughly rattled, I intended to go find my friends and see if they or any other passengers knew what had happened. But I didn’t quite make it to the stairs. Maybe only a dozen feet from them, the ship suddenly tilted to one side yet again, sending me skittering toward the railing opposite the one I’d been holding before.

  White plastic deck chairs and lounges slid across the deck, a few of them missing me by inches. Water splashed over the side of the large oval-shaped swimming pool. Now I dropped my little paper plate. Now I knew I was in serious and very immediate trouble.

  Gripping the railing with both hands, I turned my face in the direction of the stairs, shaking like a leaf. “Help! Someone! Please help!”

  After that, everything happened within a split second. A sliding deck chair slammed into my leg, causing me to let go of the railing with one hand to push it off me. At the same time, the ship began to right itself, just as it had earlier. But not before listing just a bit further to the side in one quick motion, almost seeming to give me a little shake. That did it. That was just enough to make me lose my one-handed grip and tip me over the railing.

  The fact that I was falling from the sixth deck gave me just enough time to contemplate and fully realize what had happened and was happening currently. Those precious seconds were just enough time for my life to flash in front of my eyes, which I always thought was just an expression.

  As I flew by white-and-blue striped awnings and long white lifeboats, I didn’t really see them. Instead, I saw the faces of my parents, friends, and everyone I’d ever truly loved.

  Curiously, I didn’t see my ex-boyfriend’s face or the face of any other man I’d ever dated. I pondered this for the briefest of seconds with a sharp stab of pain in my chest. As I quickly neared the dark water below, I had just enough time to marvel over the fact that I was going to die the same way my parents had—by drowning in the ocean. If my impact with the water didn’t kill me first, that is. I squeezed my eyes shut, murmuring a lightning-fast, near-unintelligible prayer-slash-goodbye to the world.

  Very strangely, despite the fact that I’d fallen from the sixth deck, which should have made my impact with the water feel like colliding with concrete, I landed in a way that could have almost been described as softly. My impact had actually felt just about the same as the impact a person would experience when jumping from a diving board into a swimming pool. My descent seemed to have been somehow slowed just a bit, just enough to keep me from being killed by the fall.

  Too stunned to even tread water, I bobbed around in the dark, gentle waves for a few seconds, sinking slightly. “What... what the....”

  “Don’t worry! I’m coming for you!”

  Still miles beyond stunned, I surveyed the dark water surrounding me, looking for whoever had called out. The ship was already chugging away, its bright lights fading.

  “Just sit tight! But say something again, so I can pinpoint you better!”

  Through my dazed shock, I was able to comprehend that someone was trying to help, and they wanted me to say something.

  After a long moment, I finally made my mouth work. “Please.”

  My voice had come out in a near-whisper, and I cleared my throat to try again, treading water now.

  “Please. Please help me!”

  “Don’t worry! Coming right over!”

  I heard him before I saw him. I heard the soft, rhythmic splashing of someone swimming arm-over-arm, and after just a few seconds, the pale outline of a person heading toward me came into view. He was maybe only twenty or thirty feet away, and he reached me quickly. Though I couldn’t see very well in the gloom, the silvery moonlight assisted me well enough that I could at least see that the man was wearing a life jacket.

  He immediately grabbed one of my hands and put one of the straps of the life jacket in it. “Now, hold on tight, and don’t let go, okay?”

  Not intending to let go for anything, I nodded mutely, and the man continued.

  “I’m so, so sorry about this. I was not planning to get anyone else involved. It was a total accident.”

  “What was? What happened? What made the boat tip?”

  “Well, I didn’t mean for that to happen, either. Additionally, I did not mean for the air to get bizarrely thick like it is. Whatever it is doing probably saved your life when you fell. It probably slowed your descent a bit. See, there’s a lot about opening a wormhole that I still don’t know.”

  “A lot about opening a… a what?”

  “A wormhole. Kind of like a tear in the very fabric of the universe itself. And this tear, the one I created with my special vibration equipment, will take us directly to a special island only accessible by wormhole. And that’s because this island actually doesn’t even exist within our universe; the island literally only exists within the wormhole.”

  I stared at him for a long moment, vaguely horrified, as well as mystified almost beyond comprehension. “What?”

  The man frowned, the expression visible even in the dim, silvery light. “I’m sorry. I really never meant to drag anyone else into this with me, and I know I have a lot of explaining to do. I’ll have to be quick about it, though, because if my calculations are correct, the wormhole we’re going to travel through will be opening fully in about two minutes. Then, we’ll be hurtling through to the island so fast that talking will be impossible.”

  “But... what are you talking about? The only island we’re even remotely near here is Hawaii.”

  The man shook his head silently. Then, surprising me, he lifted a hand out of the murky water and extended it to me. “We’re in for a heck of a ride together, so I feel like I should introduce myself. I’m Dalton Barrett. I’m a scientist.”

  Still treading water while continuing to hold the strap of his life jacket, feeling as if I was in some incredibly strange dream, I took my free hand, the one I was using to tread water with, and gave his own hand a brief, feeble shake. “I’m Ellie O’Brien. Dance teacher. Well, former dance teacher. I’ve been waitressing lately.”

  Everything was beginning to feel positively surreal. I could hardly believe I was stating my current occupation while bobbing in the ocean with a man I’d never met who’d told me that we’d soon be sucked into a wormhole. All the while, the massive cruise ship in the distance was chugging farther and farther away. I could now only see the faintest glimmer of its lights.

  Dalton said it was nice to meet me and then continued speaking, pulling some small, glinting object from inside his life jacket. “This little metal box is something of my own invention. What it does is somewhat difficult to explain, but basically, it creates vibrations powerful enough to open a wormhole in a particular spot. I went on this cruise specifically because I knew the ship would be traveling across the particular coordinates that I needed to vibrate in order to open the wormhole to the special island I want to travel to visit.

  Although, of course, like I
said, I never meant to take anyone else along with me. The ship tilting and you falling overboard was a complete accident. See, again, kind of hard to explain, but the vibrations that my invention produces are vibrations on such a micro-scale that they shouldn’t even be felt. But sometimes, after I cause them to happen, they produce some sort of a weird little aftershock—like after an earthquake—that makes inanimate objects a little unsteady.

  Unfortunately, in this case, that happened to the boat, sending you overboard. And now... you’ll have to come with me to the island....” Pausing, Dalton glanced over at the fading lights of the ship. “Because I don’t think you have any other choice.”

  It certainly didn’t look as though I did. I was coming out of my stunned daze and experiencing something closer to panic, a feeling that was increasing as the ship began to fade completely from view.

  Heartbeat racing, I suddenly turned my gaze from the direction of the ship to Dalton. “I don’t want to die in the ocean. Please don’t let me. My parents drowned in the ocean on vacation in the Cayman Islands, and I just don’t want to go down that way. They were pulled under by a rip current, and after, all I could think about for weeks was how scared they must have been...

  How scary it must be to literally be buried by water. Just, please... don’t let that happen to me. I’m really not a very strong swimmer, and I’ve never liked open water... not even before what happened to my parents happened. I know I’ll never be able to swim to Hawaii or wherever the closest landmass is.”

  Making some sort of shushing noise, possibly intending to be comforting, Dalton pushed his wire-rimmed glasses up on the bridge of his nose. “Don’t worry. I won’t let you drown. We are just going to take a trip to the island together, that’s all. Which is not to say that the trip is going to exactly be a walk in the park, but... well, just hang onto my life jacket very tightly, and we’ll be just fine. And in fact, if you want to wear the life jacket, and I’ll hold on, we can do that, too.”