House Of Dragons (The Cami Bakersfield Saga Book 1) Read online

  HOUSE OF

  DRAGONS

  THE CAMI BAKERSFIELD SAGA BOOK 1

  MARIA AMOR

  Copyright ©2018 by Maria Amor

  All rights reserved.

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  About This Book

  “One minute I was a single girl who couldn’t even buy a date, the next minute I was living with four sexy weredragons who were all competing to get me pregnant…”

  When the impossibly handsome Alistair Overton approached curvy Cami Bakersfield on the dancefloor of a nightclub she could not believe her luck.

  Little did she know, there was nothing lucky about this. She had already been CHOSEN.

  And before she knew it, Cami would end up in a luxurious mansion alongside four of the sexiest men she had ever seen in her life.

  But this was NOT your typical afterparty.

  These men were the Overtons and they all had the unique ability to shapeshift into strong, fire-breathing dragons.

  However, the dragons were in danger and Cami soon discovered that she was part of a prophecy.

  In order to save the dragon species she would have to live in the house with all four men until one certain special thing happened.

  Until she became pregnant…

  Welcome to the House Of Dragons!

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER ONE

  Cami

  “Are you sure you don’t want to go home with me?” Jessica asked. Cami laughed, shaking her head. She wasn’t drunk, but she’d hit her stride with the shots people had bought for the bachelorette party of about eight women. The last thing she wanted at that moment was to catch an Uber back to her quiet, lonely apartment.

  “I am sure,” Cami said. “I’ll be good. Don’t worry.” Jessica raised an eyebrow, glancing around the last club that the party had come to. It was nearly two in the morning—almost last call—and Cami could see that her friend was exhausted. The bride-to-be had called her future husband about fifteen minutes before, and everyone else had trickled away since.

  “Promise me you’ll let me know you’re home—or, God forbid, wherever else you end up—and safe,” Jessica said.

  “I promise,” Cami told her friend, giving her an exaggerated, beaming smile. In truth, she was starting to get tired herself, but after watching yet another friend celebrate pending nuptials, Cami wanted to remind herself of the virtues of being single. She would stay until they shut down for the evening, maybe grab a couple of slices of pizza at the late-night pizzeria across the street, and then head home, her hangover—hopefully—prevented.

  Jessica kissed her on the cheek, and for about two seconds, Cami was sure that her friend would press the issue one last time. Instead, Jessica turned to make her way through the crowd of dancing revelers to the exit. Cami turned her attention back onto the bartenders and waited patiently for her turn.

  The bachelorette party had been a bar crawl of sorts, going to each of the places Cami and her friends had frequented as single girls and ending at the low-key dance club Lost Weekend, their favorite. The staff and most of the regulars knew them, and Cami knew it was only a matter of a few minutes until she was served.

  “Another shot?” Crystal, the bartender, asked. Cami shook her head.

  “I think I’ve done enough straight liquor for the night,” she said.

  Crystal laughed. “Yeah, everyone wanted to see Isobel plastered. What’ll you have, then?”

  Cami considered the question. “I think a gin and tonic,” she said. “Extra lime?”

  Crystal grinned. “Tanqueray or well?”

  Cami shuddered. “Definitely the Tanqueray. I’ll pay extra for it. Well gin is a nightmare.”

  Crystal laughed and got to work, quickly assembling the cocktail and squeezing an extra lime wedge into the concoction.

  “I’ll add it to the tab,” Crystal said. “Isobel preset it with us to close it out once the last of the party leaves.”

  “So, no 10% surcharge for her?” Cami asked, raising an eyebrow. That was the club policy for when someone forgot their card.

  “No surcharge,” Crystal confirmed, handing the drink off to Cami and then turning to take care of the next customer.

  Cami took a sip of the sharp, throat-tingling cocktail and looked around the club again, browsing with her gaze. The crowd at Lost Weekend was an ever-changing group, ebbing and flowing: the hardcore regulars, of course, in goth or grunge or punk styles; the floating regulars like herself—stylish but nothing on the glamazons that went to some of the higher-end clubs in the same area—and then the people who picked the club at random, who might eventually become regulars.

  Her gaze fell on a man off to the side of the dance floor, swaying to the Pixies and watching the more intent dancers. Cami’s interest was immediately piqued; he wasn’t a regular that she’d ever seen, but he didn’t have the slightly awkward look of someone who wasn’t sure they belonged either—the look she knew from the people who floated in and out. He was tall, probably just over six feet, and slim almost to the point of being skinny, dressed in fitted jeans and a blue dress shirt. Blond hair fell to his jaw, curling just slightly at the ends. He turned slightly in her direction, and Cami ripped her gaze away, pretending to look for her long-gone friends, sipping her drink.

  When she was almost certain that the coast was clear, she glanced at the area where she’d seen the man. He was gone, and Cami suppressed a burst of frustration at that fact. The club wasn’t huge, but it was fairly easy to lose people in it, with the flashing lights overlaying the darkness, the general sense of disorientation, and the moving crowds—not to mention the distraction of cigarette smoke hanging around in the air, in one of the few locations smoking was allowed inside in the county. She shrugged off the man’s disappearance. It’s rude to stare at people anyway, and nothing would have ever come of it, she told herself.

  The DJ transitioned to another song, and Cami let out an almost involuntary shriek of excitement as the first notes of Franz Ferdinand’s “Take Me Out” came through the sound system. She barely remembered to bring her drink with her as
she rushed the short distance to the dance floor and threw herself into dancing. She wasn’t the only one thrilled by the selection, and Cami found herself surrounded by similarly giddy twenty-somethings, all singing along to the lyrics as they all gyrated.

  “I know I won’t be leaving herewith you” Cami felt someone brush against her from behind as she swayed and sang but didn’t think anything of it, tossing her head and closing her eyes. The DJ milked the song for all it was worth, building it up again and again, and Cami let the music flow around her, propelling her movements. It came to the last chorus, and Cami twirled, briefly—nearly—losing her balance. A pair of hands caught her and kept her upright and her drink in its plastic cup, and Cami laughed.

  “I’m sorry,” she said quickly, stepping back. She saw a blue dress shirt and fitted jeans, and blinked, taking another step back, nearly colliding with some other dancers. Her unexpected helper was the man she’d seen before. The lights flickered over them for a second or two, and Cami got a look at the man’s face: sharp, fine features, and bright eyes—¸it was impossible to tell the color—with sandy, groomed eyebrows. His lips weren’t overly full but had a beautiful, almost feminine shape to them, and one of the corners twitched upward as Cami tried to think of what to say. “Thanks for saving my drink,” she said brightly.

  “I was more worried about your dress,” the man told her, and Cami giggled before she could stop herself. She kept swaying to the music, unable to quite break its hypnosis, and noticed that the man was moving too—moving with her, though not so close that they were exactly dancing together.

  “I should probably be more careful with it,” Cami said with exaggerated seriousness. The man laughed, and Cami found herself laughing again too; the sound was so infectious. The DJ let Franz Ferdinand fade out. Cami would have made her excuses and left the dance floor then, but she heard the telltale guitar strumming opening of Foo Fighters’s “Everlong.” That brought more appreciative shrieks from everyone, and Cami saw the gleam in her helper’s eyes as she started dancing again.

  He moved closer to her, matching her movements, and Cami quickly drank the last of her cocktail as the song transitioned from the instrumental opening into the first verse. She closed her eyes and threw herself into the music, able to sense her new dance partner as he stopped just short of touching her, close enough that she could smell a strange kind of cologne on him: like incense, ashes, and evergreen trees, the smell of post-harvest, late-fall fires. Despite being more than half a foot taller than her, he somehow managed to dance up close to her without any awkwardness and without making her feel uncomfortable, crowded, or creeped out. Cami opened her eyes to catch him singing along with the lyrics and added her own voice to the crowd of people shout-singing.

  “The only thing I’ll ever ask of youyou gotta promise not to stop when I say when” The man leaned in just a little closer, somehow, his mouth only inches from her ear as they danced together, and she heard his voice, low but somehow almost more audible than the music. “Breathe out, so I can breathe you in” She laughed, unable to help herself from the giddiness of the situation, and caught the return chuckle from her dance partner.

  By the time the song ended, Cami definitely needed to sit down, and she tried to think of how to convince her new—as yet unnamed—friend to join her. She slowed to a stop and looked up at his face. Offer to buy him a drink for saving yours! Perfect!

  “Your drink is empty,” he said before she could make the suggestion.

  Cami’s cheeks burned. “I was actually going to get another,” she said. “And I wondered if I could buy you one for helping to save the last one.”

  The man smiled openly, revealing perfectly straight, neat, white teeth. “I normally don’t let people buy drinks for me,” he said.

  “Well, I have a confession,” Cami told him before he could finish his sentence. “I wouldn’t actually be paying. I have a tab—a friend set it up for her bachelorette party.”

  Her dance partner chuckled again. “You shouldn’t abuse the generosity of your friends,” he said. “Why not let me buy you a drink instead?”

  Cami looked up at him for a long moment, and then nodded her agreement, feeling a tingle all through her body that she knew very well. It didn’t happen often, but somehow, the universe had dropped a guy she could actually be interested in into her lap; she wasn’t going to do anything to jeopardize the potential.

  “Lead the way,” she said, gesturing for him to precede her to the bar.

  He grabbed her hand, and Cami felt a jolt from her hand through her arm, seemingly right to the center of her body—something more than just the impulse of an attractive man touching her. She shook it off, letting her new acquaintance steer them both to the bar, through the throngs of people. The clock above the neon and glass behemoth that was the club bar told Cami that they were about to announce last call, and from there, the club would wind down, closing maybe thirty minutes to an hour later.

  “Last call is in five minutes,” Crystal told her and then glanced at the man who’d accompanied her, raising an eyebrow in a quick, interested twitch. “What’ll you have?”

  “I’ll have whatever she’s going to get two of,” the man said, and Cami turned to give him a doubtful look.

  “Buying me two drinks at once?”

  The man shrugged. “It’s almost last call,” he pointed out. “Don’t want to miss out on the last drink of the night, right?”

  Cami shrugged and saw Crystal grinning. “Two Tanqueray and tonics, then,” she said.

  “Extra lime,” Crystal added, and Cami nodded.

  She looked around for a chair, hoping against hope she could get off of her feet for a few minutes. The club boasted couches along one wall, and there was an outside seating area with picnic tables, but Cami didn’t want to waste any time trying to find a convenient spot or risk her new acquaintance losing interest.

  “Here,” the man grabbed a chair that Cami hadn’t even seen and pulled it toward her, gesturing for her to sit.

  “You are just on top of all my needs tonight,” Cami said, giving him an appreciative smile.

  “I figured it was the best way to stay close,” the man said.

  “You want to stay close to me?” Cami asked. Crystal put the drinks in front of them, and the man passed her a fifty-dollar bill. Cami realized she hadn’t even seen him take out a wallet.

  “Keep the rest,” he said, and Crystal’s eyes widened slightly. The Tanqueray was on the pricier side, but a $20 tip or better was—Cami knew—on the remarkable side.

  “Thanks,” Crystal said. “That’s really nice of you!”

  The man smiled again, flashing his bright, straight teeth; there was something about the expression that almost unnerved Cami in the brighter light around the bar, but she couldn’t say what. The next second, though, he turned his attention back onto her, and the smile faded to little more than an upward curve of his lips.

  “You know, I should probably ask your name,” Cami said, picking up the first of her drinks. She raised it to her dance partner, and he picked up his own.

  “Alistair,” he said. “Alistair Overton. And you?”

  Cami clinked her plastic cup against his and took a long drink of her cocktail. “Camille Bakersfield,” she said. “But everyone calls me Cami.”

  Alistair inclined his head slightly toward her, taking his first sip of his drink. “I saw you dancing, Cami,” he said. “I justcouldn’t not be close to you, I guess.”

  Cami felt her cheeks warming up again. “You did?”

  Alistair nodded. “I don’t usually dance much,” he told her. “But I felt drawn to you. And well, if you were dancing, I should be dancing too, right?”

  Cami grinned. “Are you intentionally being devastatingly charming, or is this just how you are naturally?”

  Alistair laughed out loud, and the sound was just as delightful as it had been before, prompting Cami to giggle with him. “Some of both, probably,” Alistair r
eplied. “What brings you out tonight?”

  “Oh—well, like I said before, my friend,” Cami said. “We did kind of a bar crawl for her bachelorette party, ending up here.”

  “Last call!” The music cut out just long enough for the bartenders to make the announcement, and people started heading to the bar to make sure they could get one more drink in before the night ended.

  “So, your friend,” Alistair said, moving closer to her as the bar became a crowded territory. “This doesn’t seem like the usual bachelorette party location.”

  Cami shrugged. “I guess not, but we spent all of our single days here,” she said. “And well, I guess I am still single, so I stayed after everyone else called it a night.” Cami yawned. She felt sleepy—sleepier than the late hour and the alcohol should have made her feel.

  “Night owl, eh?”

  Cami nodded, suppressing a second yawn. When did she get so sleepy? She sipped her drink, knowing it wouldn’t actually help but hoping against hope that the cold liquid would at least trigger some kind of effect. “Although, apparently, walking to five different bars takes it out of you,” she said, blinking a few times rapidly and sitting up a little straighter.

  “Oh, definitely,” Alistair agreed. “I could never do that—in heels, at least.” He glanced down at her feet, and Cami shrugged.

  “After a certain point, your toes go numb,” she told him. “Of course, later on, the pain comes back with a vengeance.”

  Alistair chuckled and sipped his drink. They continued talking, Alistair asking Cami about herself, and Cami pressing him for reciprocity. But somehow, as she consumed her drinks, she kept losing the thread of the conversation, the sleepy feeling rising up again and again. After a little while, the music slowed down and cut off, the DJ playing the last song to get everyone to finish up and leave. Crystal checked in with her when they were closing out tabs.