Burning Desire by Donna Grant
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To Steve—
For the laughter, the love, and everything in between!
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
So much goes into getting a book ready, and I couldn’t do it without my fabulous editor, Monique Patterson. Thanks to Alexandra Sehulster for being so wonderful, and everyone else at St. Martin’s Press who was involved. Y’all rock!
Hats off to my street team—Donna’s Dolls. Words can’t say how much I adore y’all.
A special thanks to my family for the never-ending support.
And to my husband, Steve. For … well, everything! I love you, Sexy!
CHAPTER ONE
Cork, Ireland
May
Pretending. Misleading. Mimicking.
Kiril and the rest of his brethren had been perfecting those acts since they sent their dragons away and set about blending in with the humans. They had honed their skills to a degree that only a handful of people in the entire world knew who they really were—Dragon Kings.
It had been difficult for the first millennia to pretend they weren’t once rulers of the realm. After that, it became a habit, a way of life. What else was a Dragon King to do when the dragons were gone?
Kiril spent many centuries deep in his cave, asleep, hidden from the world and the shockingly easy way their reign had passed from legend to myth. Even then he wasn’t free from his memories or the longing to be the dragon he was born to be.
No, in the dragon sleep, he relived the glorious time when the dragons ruled the Earth, when roars filled the air, and dragons were free to roam the skies, the ground, and even the waters as they wanted.
And then the humans came.
Kiril clenched his teeth together as he drove down the winding, narrow road toward Cork. He wasn’t sure if he would ever be rid of his repugnance for them. He didn’t blame all humans. After all, five of his fellow Kings had recently bound themselves to human females.
However, eons ago, it had been a human female who had made a vow to one of them, only to betray him and set in motion a war that could have destroyed them all. It was only the Kings banding together, and Constantine, the King of Kings, who came up with a solution—sending the dragons to another realm.
Kiril sped his sleek Sepang brown Mercedes SLS AMG Roadster along the winding roads with the top down and the wind whipping around him. It was the closest thing to flying that he could allow himself while remaining in Ireland amid the foulest enemies of the Dragon Kings—the Dark Fae.
The Dark were set on capturing a Dragon King. Recently, they had managed to hold two—Kellan and Tristan—for a short period before both escaped. Though it had been a close call, especially with Kellan.
Each time it had been narrow escapes. The Dragon Kings and their friends hadn’t escaped unscathed. There were injuries, but the worst was that Rhi had been taken by the Dark.
Rhi. Kiril couldn’t help but grin as he thought of the Light Fae. Though the Kings had waged war on both sides of the Fae, Rhi was different. For a time, she had been the lover of a Dragon King.
And no King would ever forget that.
None of them really understood what tore Rhi and her lover apart, and they likely never would. He never spoke of her, never mentioned her name. And Rhi … had returned to the Light to take up her duties. Oddly enough, it was her interference in telling a Warrior that he was half-Fae and her prince that brought her back into the fold of the Kings.
She hadn’t been thrilled about it, and had, in fact, told them all where to go. Yet, when trouble came, it was Rhi who rushed in to save Kellan and his mate, Denae. Then she did it again with Tristan and Sammi—to Rhi’s peril.
Kiril was determined to locate where the Dark were holding Rhi. It was one of the many things he was going to ascertain while spying. Every minute of every day brought him closer to danger. Returning time and again to the Dark’s pub, an Doras, only quickened the inevitable.
Not that a Dragon King ever shied from danger.
It was all worth it if he could rescue Rhi and learn who was out to reveal them to the world. The fact their faceless enemy aligned themselves with the Dark Fae as well as MI5 meant that they were prepared to do anything.
And so was Kiril. He would give himself up to the Dark before he allowed anything to happen to his brothers. It just might come to that too.