Legion: Alpha Dragon Shifter Romance (Dragon Rules Series Book 1) by Tia Didmon (books to read for self improvement .txt) 📕

heart fell like a stone to his stomach. Had he made a mistake? There was another player in the game that he had missed. He failed Adara. He touched Mara’s cheek. “Where is the temple?’

She lay her hand over his. “I don’t know. I don’t recognize the surroundings, but I don’t think that matters.”

“You could see outside?”

Mara gazed toward the sky. “Yes. I saw rolling hills, but there was a blue mist in the distance.”

Legion glanced at the pedestrians walking past them. “We need to find it.”

Mara touched his arm. The slight pressure as she squeezed his bicep caused a jolt deep in his soul. “That’s the thing. It isn’t located anywhere. We need the key.”

Legion’s body stiffened. “What key?”

“I don’t know how it works, only that it brings the temple to the seer.”

“You are the seer.”

Her eyes dulled to match her sullen tone. “Yeah.”

He held back his dragon’s fire. The beast was like a young gelding attempting to break free of its corral. “You can bring the temple here?”

She nodded. “It can be anywhere I am, if I have the key. It no longer exists in the human plane.”

Legion’s eyes went wide as the realization hit him. “Adara made another world. Another dimension, for the temple to exist?”

Mara nibbled her lip. “It’s like another layer on this world.”

“How do you restore the temple to our... layer? This plane?”

Mara glanced down the street. “I don’t know. I need the key to figure it out.”

Legion ran his hand through his hair. “What does the key look like?”

“She is...”

“She? The key is a person?” His voice grumbled with the undertone of his beast.

Mara shivered. “Yes. The key. The gatekeeper is a druid. One that sees magic and alternate dimensions, but she is blind in this one.”

“Blind? A druid could heal such an injury,” he said.

Mara motioned toward three girls in their late teens. They were laughing and whispering beside the street sign. “She is young, maybe nineteen.”

“Can you see where she is?”

“No. Her world is dark. I will feel her when I am close to her, but I can’t tell you what she looks like. I can tell you she is happy and not in any danger.”

Legion looked up to the heavens. The weight of leadership, a stone upon his chest. “She will be, if we don’t find her.”

Mara blinked, clutching his shirt. “Legion, I don’t feel so...”

He caught her as she fell into his arms.

Mara’s eyes fluttered as she inhaled the smell of cedar and wildflowers. It took a moment to focus on the log cabin walls, adorned with old tapestries and tartan decor. The picturesque mountains gleamed in the sun, outside the arched bay window. She pulled the soft blanket around her, trying to remember how she had gotten into the large cozy bed.

The vision came back to her in a rush, as did her falling into Legion’s arms before the darkness enveloped her. She had the sense of flying, the world rushing beneath her, but her eyes wouldn’t open. Had Legion flown her here?

Her phone beeped, causing her to glance at the message. “Shit! I was scheduled to relieve Natalie an hour ago.” She scrambled out of bed, grabbing the side table when the room spun.

Legion strode into the bedroom as if the world belonged to him. The bare skin on his chest mottled gold before returning to the tanned dark hue of his human form. His jeans were unbuttoned as if he’d thrown them on in haste. Still, he looked like a golden Greek god. “You shouldn’t be up yet.”

Mara pointed to his chest. “What was that gold shimmer on your skin?”

Legion sighed. “My dragon was showing off. I had forgotten how vain the big bastard can be. It has been centuries since I have had to deal with his... antics.”

Mara glanced between her watch and the Adonis in front of her. How could she pass up learning about dragons, specifically the sexy one standing before her? “What’s it like, being a dragon?”

Legion knelt down in front of her, alleviating the kink that was forming in her neck. “We are two beings and one soul. Both see to the needs of the other. It was difficult while he was dormant.”

She fought the instinct to run her hands over the tanned skin. To trace the defined muscles in his shoulder. To run her hand through the silky locks of his hair. “Why was he dormant?”

Legion rolled his shoulders. “Our species is long-lived. We don’t age, but another creature that possesses magic can kill us. We also lose the drive to live, if we do not find our mate. The one woman in the world to bind our magic with.”

“Why do you need to bind your magic?”

The fire in his eyes dimmed. “It is the only way to stop from going numb to the world.”

She frowned. “I don’t understand. If magic is powerful and wonderful, how could you go numb to it?”

Legion glanced down. “Have you been to the beach? Lay upon the warm sand, basking in the sun?”

Memories of the lake property filtered through her mind. Running in the water. Laying on a towel to dry under the blanket of the afternoon sun. “I love the beach. My family spent most summers at a lake house.”

“Excellent. You are lying on the wharf. The water is all around you. When you get too hot you jump in, and the cool water feels amazing. You swim for a while, enjoying that feeling, but do you stay in the water forever?”

Mara shook her head. “No, the refreshing feeling wears off. I would go back on the wharf and warm up again.”

Legion’s eyes flickered. “What if you can’t get out of the water?”

Mara picked at the tartan blanket on the bed. “Are you saying that magic is the water?”

“Yes, after a time you become numb to the surrounding magic. You seek the one person to bring balance to your world.”

She winked. “You go looking for a wharf?”

The fire behind his eyes