The Turquoise Dragon

By Jane Toombs

Cozz: A dragon who fears becoming an outcast lays a wrong color egg. It's not in her nature to destroy it. Is that alien machine outside her cave her answer?

Earth: What happens when a young woman born to die and an impossible beast fall in love?

• Language: English
• Publisher: eXtasy Books Inc
• Release date: Feb 11, 2012
• ISBN: 9781554879205

Jane Toombs

Jane's Silhouette Special Edition, The Missing Heir, is her 19th book for Harlequin and Silhouette, and her 69th published book, counting print and electronic books. Though she does write paranormal fantasies, mysteries, and horror, most of her stories are contemporary or historical romances. Jane began writing as a child, encouraged by her father, who was a published non-fiction author. He was a marvelous editor, praising what was good before pointing out the flaws needing correction, giving her confidence in her ability. He became totally deaf at the age of 35 and, since Jane wasn't born until he was 40, his deafness also helped her as a budding writer. The only way to communicate with her father was in writing. In order to encourage her-and others-to talk to him, he became adept at asking questions that made people want to take the trouble to scribble on the yellow legal pad he always had at hand. For example, she remembers him asking her what she'd seen while walking to school. This caused her to take notice of what she did see in order to be able to have something to tell him. So at an early age she learned specific observation, a necessary tool for any writer. Jane grew up in a small town in Michigan's Upper Peninsula on the shore of Lake Superior, one she's recently returned to after many years away. She has five children by her first husband and collected two stepchildren when she married her second husband. These seven have produced seven grandchildren. One of the grandchildren just had a baby boy which makes Jane-gasp!-a great-grandmother, something she isn't quite used to. She and Elmer, who went to school with her, now live together very happily in their old hometown. They were acquired by a calico cat named Kinko three years ago, and she rules them with an iron paw. Jane enjoys hearing from readers. She can be reached by email at [e-mail].

Book preview

Cozz: A dragon who fears becoming an outcast lays a wrong color egg. It’s not in her nature to destroy it. Is that alien machine outside her cave her answer?

Earth: What happens when a young woman born to die and an impossible beast fall in love?

The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

The Turquoise Dragon

Copyright © 2011 Jane Toombs

ISBN: 978-1-55487-920-5

Cover art by Martine Jardin

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

Published by Devine Destinies

An imprint of eXtasy Books

Look for us online at:

www.devinedestinies.com

Smashwords Edition

The Turquoise Dragon

By

Jane Toombs

Prologue

When Taz realized what the heat within her had to mean, her heart leaped with joy. Her first mating cycle! And no one to share the good news with. Her friend Nex, another blue female, had mated last year and when all her eggs hatched, had waited till the three dragonets could fly and taken them to the male who asked her to partner with him once the mating had proved fertile and the offspring healthy.

That was the rule on Cozz. No permanent matings until healthy offspring came first. Even then, both female and male had to want to be with only each other. When Nex left a year ago, Taz was all alone. Some dragons preferred this, but she wasn’t one of them. She already had chosen the male she wished to mate with, and if it worked out, maybe a permanent match. If all her eggs hatched healthy, that is.

Zar was an older male who’d lost his mate in an accident over a year ago. He was also a Regent, chosen for his ability to keep the peace. And she’d noticed him watching her during the last Games Festival.

She left her cave, noticing the alien device was still nearby. The Regents had examined it without touching the device and decided it was nothing but a collecting unit and since it had flown here from some alien place, when its collection was complete, likely it would fly away. Alien metal devices that came from elsewhere were best left alone, as the Blues had discovered many years ago, when one they tampered with had blown up and destroyed many of them.

Once aloft, she flew toward the mating grounds of the Blues, taking the long way around that narrow corridor where the territory of the Greens came nearest to the Blues. She was too young to remember the Great War between the two colors. All had been peaceful in her lifetime, each abiding by the rules the Regents of the two colors had set up. Or mostly. There was the cautionary tales told to every female before she even neared her first mating cycle about male dragons in rut, and how a male Green in rut might lay in wait for a female Blue