The Sea Dragon's Lion (Fire & Rescue Shifters: Friends and Family) Read online

  The Sea Dragon’s Lion

  Fire & Rescue Shifters: Friends and Family

  Zoe Chant

  Contents

  Author’s Note

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  14. Epilogue

  A note from Zoe Chant

  Also by Zoe Chant

  Author’s Note

  The Sea Dragon’s Lion involves characters first introduced in my Fire & Rescue Shifters series.

  This story can be read as a standalone, but it contains MAJOR spoilers for Firefighter Griffin and Firefighter Sea Dragon! It is intended to be read after those books.

  For maximum enjoyment, I recommend reading in the following order:

  Fire & Rescue Shifters: Collection 1 (Books 1-3)

  (contains Firefighter Dragon, Firefighter Pegasus, and Firefighter Griffin)

  Firefighter Sea Dragon

  The Sea Dragon’s Lion (this book!)

  Chapter 1

  I am going to meet my mate.

  Heart hammering, Jane swam through the brightening water. This close to land, the sea was much warmer than her home in the sunken city of Atlantis. The sun beat down on her scales, barely diffused by the shallow water.

  Between the heat and her own excitement, she felt almost light-headed. Everything had a shimmering, shining quality, like a dream. She could scarce believe that this was really happening.

  I am going to meet my mate.

  She had never given up hope. Night after night, she had lifted her voice in the oldest tradition of her people. Calling for her fated mate; pouring out her longing into the dark, endless ocean.

  Sea dragon song could travel halfway around the world. She’d heard other dragons singing, from every part of the ocean, yet none of their harmonies matched hers. No one’s voice had ever answered: Yes. I hear you. I am yours. Yes.

  She’d kept calling, as one by one the rest of her peers either found their match or shrugged their scales and dropped out of the chorus. Not everyone could be fortunate enough to find their mate, after all. It was simply a fact of life that some must remain forever alone.

  Still, Jane had persisted. Season after season, year after year, until people had started to look askance at her for her continued optimism.

  Her stubborn search made people uncomfortable. Why could she not accept that her allotted role would never include mating or motherhood? There were many other ways of finding fulfillment and honor. To cling to an impossible dream smacked of delusion.

  But for her, there was no other dream. Strive though she might for excellence, she was always doomed to be a failure. She was too tender-hearted to be a warrior like her brother; too flighty for the single-minded focus required to master an art. True, she was a graceful enough dancer, but that small virtue was far outweighed by how graceless she was in society. Too forward, too loud, too over-enthusiastic; altogether too much.

  But her true mate would not care that she was a frivolous clownfish, the disappointment of her bloodline. He would love her anyway. In return, she would devote herself to him and their children. She would finally have a purpose.

  And so she’d kept searching, ignoring the snickers and the unsubtle comments. The pain of being a laughingstock was nothing compared to the aching loneliness in her heart. All the jeers and mocking nicknames would be worth it, if she could only find her mate.

  And now, at last, she would.

  Ahead of her, the sea dragon knights who led their small group paused, conferring. The rest of the Empress’s retinue stopped as well, as smoothly united as a school of fish. Caught off-guard, Jane overshot the rest of the group, her over-eager strokes carrying her several body-lengths past her assigned place.

  “Third Dancer of the Mirrored Void!” hissed one of the Empress’s courtiers, harmonics of censure and outrage clear in his tone. “Get back in position! For the love of the Sea, at least once can you behave with some dignity?”

  Jane, she wanted to shoot back. My name is Jane. I am more than just a rank and a role.

  But the air-name Empress Neridia had given her was in the human tongue, and as unpronounceable under the ocean as most sea dragon speech was above it. And besides, she could not risk being sent back home to Atlantis in disgrace now. Not when she was so close to her heart’s desire.

  Jane paddled back into line, doing her best to smooth her ruff into an expression of contrition. Every part of her, from talon to tail-tip, cried out in protest at the delay. She wanted to shoot for the shoreline at top speed, but she forced herself to hang meekly in the water, waiting for the order to continue.

  After what felt like several geological ages, the knights finally signaled that it was safe to proceed. Jane twitched, but kept her position. Much as she longed to start her personal quest, the tedious courtier was right. There was more at stake here than her own trivial happiness.

  This was the first state visit from Atlantis to the land in millennia. A historic moment, marking the end of Atlantis’s self-imposed isolation.

  The Empress Neridia went first, of course, shifting from great black-scaled dragon to her equally stunning human form with smooth grace. Jane felt the ocean shiver as its ruler left it. She was no poet like her brother, to command the waters, but every sea dragon was aware of the living currents of their home. The waves themselves reached after the Empress in yearning, then fell back with a sullen mutter.

  She is the Heart of the Sea.

  Jane hadn’t truly believed it when her brother had first introduced her to his mate. She’d seemed so small, so human.

  But Neridia had turned out to have a dragon’s soul after all. She’d claimed the Pearl Throne and taken command of Atlantis. And now she was gently, graciously, and thoroughly overturning generations of stupid, short-sighted traditions.

  Which was why they were here today.

  I am going to meet my mate.

  Until she’d met Neridia, Jane had never even imagined that a sea dragon might have a dry-lander mate. It had been unthinkable, like wondering if her mate might be a starfish, or a statue.

  But Neridia was living proof that it was possible. She was half-human. Her late father, the former Pearl Emperor, had found his mate on land. If the Emperor himself could have a human mate, then why not any other sea dragon?

  Why not me?

  Jane was sure her mate was on land. That was why he’d never answered her calls. Perhaps he too had cried out night after night, in the thin void of the air, where she had not been able to hear him. Perhaps even now instinct pulled at him as surely as it did her, calling him to the water’s edge. The place where their two worlds met; the place where they would finally be united.

  At long last, she would find her life’s purpose. She would find her mate, and she would finally become whole.

  Jane waited, claws clenching with impatience, as the exchange of formalities dragged on. Finally, finally, one of the knights signaled to her waiting group, gesturing them to come forward at last.

  In her excitement, Jane accidentally shifted to human form, and was tumbled head-over-heels by the backwash of the others’ fins. By the time she’d righted herself, they’d all left her behind.

  Returning to her dragon shape would just have wasted even more time. Cursing herself, Jane kicked for the shore. At least she was more pract
iced in this form than most of her kind.

  Most dragons disliked taking human shape except when absolutely necessary, for mating or dueling. Jane, however, had always enjoyed it. There was a pleasing challenge to the inherent instability of two legs; something refreshing about being small and soft rather than armored in plated scales.

  She’d even—privately, since her superiors would have tied themselves into knots of scandalized horror had they learned of it—attempted to dance in human form. That, alas, had not been successful. She was competent at her art, but there was no way to translate the fluid twists and three-dimensional spirals of even the simplest routine into movements achievable by this rigid, oddly jointed body. Plus, it was impossible to hold her breath long enough to get through more than a handful of stanzas.

  The sea grew shallower, until her flailing human feet finally found purchase on the rocky bottom. She’d expected all the other sea dragons to already be out on land, but to her surprise no one had yet taken the first step onto the sloping beach. They were all crouching in human form, only their eyes and noses above the water, like a group of nervous seals scanning for lurking polar bears.

  Jane surfaced, poking her own head out of the waves… and immediately understood the reason for the delegation’s hesitation.

  She sank back into the familiar embrace of the ocean as well. Her heart fluttered, this time with fear rather than anticipation.

  An entire army occupied the shingle beach, bright war-banners fluttering over their heads. Jane gasped, seeing the familiar tall, broad form of her brother John facing that vast host alone. She reached for her dragon form, readying herself to leap to his defense. She had no training in combat, but if she could buy him a single second to escape…

  Then he turned, and she realized he was smiling. He held out his hand to his mate, the Empress Neridia. Together, they went forward to meet a small group of men and women. One of them—a stocky man with blond hair and a broad grin—embraced Jane’s brother, thumping him on the back.

  Friends. Jane let out her breath, her blood still singing with adrenaline. That had to be John’s oath-brother Griff, who had once saved his life. She guessed the others had to be the rest of her brother’s firefighter crew. Jane had never seen them before. Until this day, contact between Atlantis and dry-landers had been forbidden, save for a tiny number of questing knights like her brother.

  Now that she was over the initial shock, it was obvious that the crowd was not a hostile force arrayed for battle. True, there were muscled warriors among them, bare chested and intimidating… but they were smiling and relaxed, carrying cups rather than swords. Most of the crowd lounged at ease on soft blankets spread over the pebbles, chatting and sharing food. There were children there too; laughing and chasing each other through the surf, kicking up glittering sprays of droplets.

  There were so many children. Jane’s astonished gaze skipped over the crowd, picking out dozens of younglings and babes-in-arms. Dozens! She’d never seen so many children gathered together in one place. Sea dragons were only fertile with their true mates, and there were scant few breeding pairs.

  Neridia had told her that the same was not true for dry-landers. On land, she’d explained, the vast majority of parents were not mate-bonded. Indeed, humans did not even feel the silent, bone-deep instinct of mate recognition. They met and fell in love and formed families, all without that instant, unmissable spark of permanent connection.

  Jane still couldn’t quite wrap her coils around that concept. How could anyone choose their life partner without knowing at first sight that they were your perfect match? It seemed a terrifying gamble. What if you got it wrong? What if your real true mate came along later? It wasn’t like you could just break all your vows and swim away from your family. Especially not when there were children involved.

  With all her heart, Jane hoped that her own mate would be a shifter. Humans might have to rely on blind luck, but surely a dry-lander shifter would wait for the surety of mate recognition? True, he must have endured many long, lonely years, just like herself, but he would have waited for her.

  There would be no awkwardness when they finally met. He would recognize her as his mate, just as she did him, and their lives would be permanently bound together from that point on. It would all be so simple and easy. Everything would be well, if only her mate was a shifter.

  She scanned the beach, searching faces as best she could at this distance. From the thick crowd, she could only assume that every shifter in England had come to see the Empress. Surely her mate had to be among them.

  She longed to stride out and start searching… but she was by far the most junior sea dragon in the delegation. It would be a grave insult to her superiors to precede them onto land. Her already rock-bottom reputation couldn’t withstand even more disapproval.

  To her frustration, no one else seemed to be in any hurry to leave the sea. The courtiers who by right and rank should have gone next were having a hissed, heated debate over etiquette. To be the next to follow in the Empress’s footsteps would be a great honor, but curiously, no one seemed eager to claim it.

  Happily, John broke the deadlock. Leaving Neridia chatting with his dry-land comrades, he waded back into the shallows. He shaded his eyes, his gaze picking out Jane.

  “Frightened, little sister?” he called to her. “I thought you were eager to finally walk on land?”

  He’d called her little sister ever since he’d overtaken her in length as an adolescent, even though she was a full three minutes older. The familiar teasing nickname straightened her spine. She couldn’t let her little brother get away with taunting her like that. Not if it earned her six months scrubbing the coral floors of the Dancers’ Hall as punishment.

  Ignoring the scandalized looks of the higher-ranking dragons, she splashed her way to her brother’s side. Despite her best formal sea-silk wrap, she felt exposed and naked in thin air. She was uncomfortably aware of the void above her head. No glimmering air dome; no comforting blanket of dark water. Nothing but bright, endless sky.

  Jane swallowed hard, fighting down a surge of vertigo. She was not going to appear nervous in front of half the Atlantean court and an entire nation of dry-landers. Not to mention her little brother.

  Still, when John held out his hand, she took it. His strong, sword-calloused fingers squeezed hers; a slight, subtle gesture of understanding and reassurance.

  “There are so many people here!” she whispered to him. “Why has the entire city turned out to greet us?”

  “I am afraid this is just a small gathering, my sister.” John guided her out of the surf, toward the crowd. “I was overwhelmed too, when I first walked on land and realized how numerous the dry-landers truly are. Do not be intimidated. I will be here to help you adjust.”

  She knew his heart was in the right place, but that insufferable I-know-better-than-you tone set her teeth on edge. Her brother was a paragon of Knighthood and a celebrated warrior, which meant she often had to restrain an urge to beat him over the head with a live haddock. She might not be able to wield a sword, but that didn’t make her a quivering jellyfish needing to shelter under his fins.

  “Let us go up to the house,” John continued. He gestured at a strange, blocky structure perched atop a low cliff overlooking the cove. “All should be in readiness. You can rest. You don’t have to plunge into the human world all at once.”

  “Thank you, little brother, but no.” Jane released his hand, throwing back her shoulders. “I’m not going to waste a single day. I’ve come onto land to find my mate, and that’s what I’m going to do.”

  Thrusting down a flutter of nerves, she faced the crowd. Behind her, John let out a deep, long-suffering sigh.

  “Jane,” he said, still in that infuriating big-brother voice. “You have not yet quite grasped exactly how many people there are on land. The chance of you finding your mate here is…”

  She stopped listening.

  The crowd had parted, like the tide drawing
back. And there he was.

  Even from this distance, she knew him. The very air around him glowed. He was gold and treasure, warmth and light and home.

  He saw her too, and everything else fell away. As if pulled by an undertow, she walked toward him. He moved too, coming to meet her. His every step mirrored hers, as though this was a dance that they had practiced together thousands of times, every day of their lives.

  In unison, they halted, not quite close enough to touch. His eyes never left hers. They were the most incredible shades of tawny brown and rich earth tones, like nothing she had ever seen before. Everything about him was bright and warm, from his summer-kissed skin to his gleaming gold hair.

  She had lived all her life in the cold blue depths of the sea. Now, finally, she saw the sun.

  Jane had imagined this moment a million times. She’d planned the song she would sing, down to the last grace-note. She’d worked and reworked every stanza, every word, to fully express the joy and awe that she would feel.

  All her careful poetry was no match for the reality. The practiced notes flew out of her head like sand swept clean by the tide.

  The silence lengthened, both of them just staring into each other’s eyes. Oh no. She was doing this all wrong, like she did most things. A refined, accomplished sea dragon was supposed to impress her mate with her eloquence and elegance, not gape at him like a stunned flounder. She had to say something.

  “I’m Jane,” she blurted out.

  “Jane,” he breathed, and she had never heard sweeter music than her name on his lips. “I—I’m Reiner. Reiner Ljonsson.”

  Oh, how she wanted to touch him. She found herself reaching out, her fingertips yearning for his skin. Embarrassed, she stopped herself, starting to draw back.