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  The Dragon Shifter's Babies

  A Paranormal BBW Romance

  By: T.S. Ryder

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One - The 13th of the Moon

  Chapter Two - Potentially Bright Future

  Chapter Three - How to Find a Dragon

  Chapter Four - The Odd One Out

  Chapter Five - How To Escape A Dragon

  Chapter Six - The Crushed Butterflies

  Chapter Seven - Every Nook, Every Cranny

  Chapter Eight - Take Me Away

  Chapter Nine - The Moon Dance

  Chapter Ten - In Love With You

  Chapter Eleven - Erin Vam

  Chapter Twelve - Head In The Shitter

  Chapter Thirteen - The Storm

  Chapter Fourteen - The Dragons

  Chapter Fifteen - The Wicked Witch

  Chapter Sixteen - The Last of It

  Chapter Seventeen - The Sapphire

  Chapter Eighteen - The Epilogue

  Specially Selected Bonus Content (LIMITED TIME ONLY!)

  Bonus Book 1: The Werewolf's Secret Baby

  Bonus Book 2: My Shifting Billionaire Boss

  Bonus Book 3: Taken by Two Hockey Dragons

  Bonus Book 4: The Dragon Shifter's Twins

  Bonus Book 5: Claimed by the Dragon Shifter

  About T.S. Ryder

  Selected Other Books by T.S. Ryder

  Join the Heartbeat Reads Readers Club now if you want to receive an EXCLUSIVE hot short story trilogy for FREE and get notifications of new releases and promotions.

  Chapter One - The 13th of the Moon

  Cyrene

  I stop for a second while crossing the road to light my cigarette, when a blue Fiat Punto screeches to a halt and starts honking. I get it, the signal was red and I should have waited, but there is no need to honk like your life depends on it—such behavior pisses me off. “Learn to be patient,” I shout at the woman inside, louder than I intended. I flip her the bird and then walk away. Just so you know, I never walk away, I only walked away because that’s what I was already doing. With three kids in the car, you’d expect a woman like her to have more patience. She honks again as she passes me by.

  “Fuck you,” I shout back in return. What a bitch!

  I am cranky, I know, it’s that time of the month. No, it’s not what you think. It is the night before the full moon, the night of the coven meeting. I absolutely despise coven meetings. I loathe all the other witches—more like bitches, especially Minerva, the head witch. I don’t see the point of these meetings, what they accomplish and why the fuck are they always held on the night before the full moon. At this point in time, in this century, all witches know that the phase of the moon has no impact on the meeting, none whatsoever. Yet I’m the only one who has the balls to say it. And, obviously, all witches are required to attend.

  As I wait for the bus at the station, another bus waddles away and my eyes land on the ad on it: ‘Models Wanted - Apply Now.’ I save the address from the ad on my phone and wonder whether or not I should apply. I know I am beautiful, I have always known that, but I am not sure if I am “model beautiful.” For starters, I am not stick-thin, or thin, at all. I workout and I am fit, have a stunning bosom that makes people gawk, a flat stomach, and long red hair that make me stand out. I also have light freckles on my face, nothing that I can’t cover with some powder. When my bus arrives, I shoulder my way in and head home.

  After I am done with my household chores, I get to my computer and type in the address I saved earlier. It turns out that the ad was from Glance, a prominent modeling agency. And I meet the minimum height requirement: I am 5’11! All they ask for is a photo, so I pull out my phone and take some photos. None of them satisfy me and I take some more. I finally settle for a very neutral one because I think that’s what they will really want to see: not pouts, not me flipping birds, just a neutral expression. I email the photo and head to bed, tired down to the bone. Working two jobs isn’t easy. Try it sometime if you don’t believe me.

  At about three in the morning, there’s some fierce knocking on my window. I lazily open my eyes and see Bats in the window.

  “I am not going,” I say, pulling the duvet over my head.

  “That’s not an option, Cyrene,” Bats says. “Come on, honey, it won’t be long.”

  “Go away! I have to wake up for work in three hours.”

  “Then let’s get going. I’ll have you back within the hour.”

  “Tell the head bitch I quit being a witch.”

  Bats taps on the window full force, rattling the window frame. “Open up or I’ll break the glass.”

  I ignore her, curling up in bed. She smashes the window with the back of her broom, shattering the glass to pieces.

  “Bathilda, WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?” I scream as I jump out of the bed.

  “Told you. Get your broom before I break the rest of the stuff here,” she warns in a saccharine way.

  I know by now that she means it, so I whistle to my broom and it flies to me.

  “God, what did you do with your broom,” Bats asks, “don’t you ever clean it?”

  “No, Bathilda, I don’t clean my broom. I clean with my broom. You know, that’s what brooms are for.”

  Since I am calling her Bathilda instead of Bats, she knows I’m pissed, so she doesn’t make any more conversation. As I step out the window, she sighs loudly. I know she can’t hold it in, and she finally speaks.

  “Are you really going to go in your pajamas?”

  “I only dress up for Halloween,” I say, hopping aboard my broom.

  We shoot straight for the pitch-black sky and stop a little above the clouds. The rest of the coven is already gathered. There are eleven witches to be precise, standing in rows of three like an assembly at school. Minerva is sitting on the opposite side, facing them.

  “So good of you to finally join us, Cyrene,” says Minerva in her calm, therapist-like voice that makes me want to pull my hair out. What’s worse is that she isn’t being sarcastic at all. As Bats and I take our place, there are only two witches standing out: Minerva with her green velvet cloak, her polished broom, her old-hag botox-hungry face and her floral crown with a mix of thirteen ever-fresh flowers; and me, with my straight-out-of-bed hair and pajamas, standing in stark contrast with the other eleven witches who are all dressed up in black cloaks and hats.

  Minerva completely ignores me. I know she’s a prude and hates me for not dressing up, but she doesn’t say a thing about it. Although I can see her disdain for me in her violet eyes. She drones on and on about things that I have no interest in so I doze off. Then she clears her throat loudly, waking me up before she finally gets to the important stuff—all witches are given a task during every meeting that they have to complete before the next meeting. Given that my coven is the guardian of nature, our tasks are usually stupid so I won’t bore you with them.

  I am the last one in the last row and I hadn’t paid any attention to what the meeting was all about, so Minerva decides to hand me the death sentence.

  “Cyrene, as you know that the only remaining and the most important ingredient is—I have no idea what she’s talking about—dragon hairs, it falls upon you to procure them for the potion before the next meeting of the coven.”

  “What?” I say, unable to believe what she had just said.

/>   “Dragon hair, my dear, it’s not that hard of a task,” Minerva says.

  “You are kidding, right?”

  “No,” she says seriously.

  “That’s a death sentence. Why not just kill me now?”

  “Cyrene, my love, I would never put you in danger. I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t know you could—”

  “How am I supposed to find a Dragon Shifter? How do I know it won’t kill me?” I begin protesting.

  “I am sure you will find a way,” she smiles. I know she’s cackling inside, the evil bitch that she is.

  “Why don’t you give me an easier task? Ask Bats to get dragon hair. Ask someone else. Give me an easier task.”

  “Have faith in yourself, my dear Cyrene.”

  “But I don’t know how to…” I begin to protest again, but the bitch turns her broom around and swooshes away.

  “Fuuuucccckkk!”

  Chapter Two - Potentially Bright Future

  Cyrene

  I know a lot of girls would give anything to become a witch and that I sound ungrateful when I say I don’t want to be one. Here’s the thing: Being a witch is hard. There’s no school of magic, no Hogwarts or a special academy where you can go to learn the art of magic. Witches are witches by birth, skipping a generation, so there’s nothing you can learn from your momma and the generation gap is even wider with grandmas. That is, if I had a grandma. You are supposed to figure things out all on your own or find them in a grimoire. All families of witches have grimoires, but they are HUGE, old, fragile and un-indexed. If you want to find something, there’s no spell for it. You have to manually go through hundreds of pages until you land on the one you are looking for. And, even then, you have to find weird-ass ingredients to make potions. And I respect myself too much to ask Minerva or any other witch for help.

  I spend the next three days wracking my brains to figure out a way of getting dragon hair. On the fourth day, I get an email from Glance.

  Dear Ms. Redwood,

  We are happy to inform you that you have been selected for an audition.

  You are requested to visit Glance Modeling Agency (GMA) tomorrow, between 3:00 - 5:00 for a portfolio shoot.

  Please do note that this is only the first step. Should your shoot capture our interest, you will be signed by us. If the decision is otherwise, you will be informed via email.

  Best wishes,

  Erin Vam

  I call Bats the second I get the email.

  “Batsy! You won’t believe what just happened,” I squeal with delight.

  “What, you’re not calling me Bathilda anymore?”

  “You broke my window.”

  “I am sorry. I had to get you to the meeting.”

  “Whatever,” I say, not wanting to talk more about the incident. “I might be becoming a model. I have been selected for the audition. If I make it, we are so going to take Hollywood by storm.”

  “Good for you,” she says, not even trying to hide her indifference.

  “Bitch, you’re jealous.”

  “I am not bothered in the least,” she says. “If I wanted to be a model, I would have come up with a spell for it ages ago.”

  “Is that even allowed?” I ask, not knowing whether she’s serious or just fucking with me.

  “Is love potion allowed?” she retorts, taking a jab at me. It’s the only potion I use—I am hot, I know, but I can’t play games so I use the love potion instead when I need to get laid.

  “Just tell me!”

  “You’d know if you listened to Minerva, or listened to any of us in general.”

  I hang up the phone. I am happy, excited and have no tolerance for a buzzkill right now.

  That night, I find the grimoire in the kitchen, in the cabinet under the sink where I keep the broom, cauldron and other crap related to magic. I try to read, skim through a few pages, but then I get bored and just turn a few more pages without looking at any of them until I finally put it away. That shit is boring.

  The next day, I head to GMA for my audition. I lean against the brick wall outside, pull out a pack of Marlboro from my purse and light a cigarette. I flick the cigarette butts out on the pavement as I wait for my name to be called. The other girls wait inside, in the waiting room, giggling together, taking selfies, caking their faces with makeup and preening. Suddenly I remember that I forgot to put on base to hide my freckles, but I ain’t going to ask any of those stuck-up bitches for it. If I don’t make it, it won’t be the end of the world.

  After almost an hour, my name is called. A tired receptionist points me in the right direction without even looking up. The second I step inside the audition room, it is as if I have been transported to a different world, possibly third world. It is nothing like I expected.

  The room is starkly simple. There’s a huge green screen serving as the backdrop. A guy is hunched behind a camera while another is adjusting lights. An old man with pale blonde hair is standing opposite the screen, probably to tell girls how to pose and a small woman is flitting about, doing god knows what.

  “Go stand there,” says the blonde-haired guy, pointing toward the center of the screen. I am offended by the way he orders me, but I do as I am told. My light auburn hair is long, slightly rough, with natural curls that reach my ass. I always leave them open, untied.

  “Tie it up,” he says.

  “Tie up what?” I say, defiant.

  “Your hair, dimwit.”

  “Take that down a notch, will you,” I say, pissed at his condescension.

  “Yael, throw this one out,” he shouts to the small woman.

  “I’ll walk out,” I say, glaring him in the eyes, then start walking toward the door.

  “Come back,” he calls after me.

  “What?” I look at him square in the eyes.

  “Too much attitude,” he says, suddenly calm.

  I hold my head high, my straight-edged nose cheekily returning his earlier condescension, “Deal with it.”

  “Patrick, that’s the one. That’s what I am looking for.”

  The blonde-haired guy suddenly becomes nice, calls Yael—who is his assistant, I find out—to help set my hair the way he wants. Then he comes to me and adjusts my face and posture, using his hands on me like I am an inanimate object.

  “Ready,” he says to the cameraman. I flash a smile for the photo.

  “Don’t smile,” he says. “Not what we are after. Show us that attitude.”

  Once the shoot is done, the blonde-haired guy—his name is Fred—escorts me outside and tells me that I will hear from him soon. Apparently he’s second only to Erin and his chief job is finding new talent and signing models.

  I saunter my way home, happy to be a potential candidate for a job where I won’t have to work.

  Chapter Three - How to Find a Dragon

  Cyrene

  The week that followed the audition is a blur. Erin, I heard, loved me and I was presented with a contract that I readily signed. The offers were coming in and the agency was booking some serious gigs for me. The days were spent with shoots in studios, shoots at different locations and more shoots. I got fired from my morning job because I had to go for shoots.But I was still working, juggling shifts with my other job. I wasn’t making any money from the modeling yet and the rent wasn’t going to pay itself. I told myself the Sufi adage “This too shall pass,” constantly. I knew good times were right around the corner, that things were about to change. I just had to wait a little while longer.

  After my evening shift at the coffee shop, I come back to my apartment, ready to crash. It has been a long day with shoots all morning and work right after it. I get in bed, wrap my arms and legs around two pillows and stare out the broken window. And then it hits me: I have to find dragon hairs! The next coven meeting is in seventeen days and I have to score a clump of dragon hair before that. But the question is, how do I find a dragon?

  I think hard, really hard, return to the grimoire, flip a hundred pages and then decide
that this task should be left for the weekend when I finally have some time off.

  During the next three days, I end up getting to know three other girls who have also been signed by GMA. They are all as fake as anyone can get, but they pretend to be friends with me and I play along. They plan to go to Greystone Manor, a place where the Hollywood royalty and the elite come to party. One of the girls, Maya, comes up with a bet to see which one of us can land the hottest guy when we go to the club. I pretend to not be interested, but I am determined to show them what I am capable of.

  I check my purse and see that I am all out of love potion, so I make an excuse with the girls and tell them I can’t go with them today. They don’t mind either, naturally, they need hours to dress and doll up before heading to the club. We agree to go the next day, which happens to be a Saturday night. It buys me enough time to brew a love potion.

  When I get back home, I instantly remember my dragon hair quest and I postpone that to Sunday because I have some serious business on Saturday night. I head to the kitchen and lay the ingredients for the love potion on the counter:

  5 grams of moonstones

  A cup of moonshine

  A spoonful of rose thorns

  A handful of nightshade

  Adder’s fork

  A strand of my own hair—this makes sure that whoever drinks it falls in love with me

  I may not like being a witch, but I am a pro at brewing potions. This recipe is my own, a modified version of the original love potion. With this recipe, the charm wears off in just twelve hours, so by the time you wake up, the guy is already gone.

  I place the Adder’s fork and a strand of my hair in a pot and place it on the stove, turning the heat high, until the tongue is absolutely burnt to crisp—this is for deception, a key ingredient. I crush the burnt Adder’s fork with the back of a spoon, turning it to smooth powder, turn down the heat and pour moonshine over it. The pot hisses as cold moonshine dances over its silver surface. Then I throw in the nightshade and rose thorns and let the mixture boil; meanwhile, I crush the moonstone in a grinder—they aren’t that hard. As the mixture comes to a boil, I turn off the heat and sprinkle the moonstone powder over it, twirling the mixture with a spoon. Perfect!