Dragon Moon

By C.L. Bevill

Kale was once half-human and half-something magical. Now he’s a grizzly shifter and the world is a very different place. He was also trapped in a shadow realm where he found the love of his life and the mate of his dreams. In order to save her, he stayed behind to an uncertain fate.

Tatsu is a dragon princess, the only daughter of the King and Queen of the Drakken. She is also Kale’s mate and once she’d escaped from the shadow realm where they’d been imprisoned, she knew that Kale had to be dead.

Instead both are free and the clock is ticking down to the ceremony for Tatsu’s arranged marriage. In order to get to Tatsu in time, Kale has to use a whole lot of moxie and quite a bit of help from a motley crew of shifters and otherworldly beings. In the meantime, Tatsu is only beginning to realize that the Kale she thought was dead is back and all new and improved, while she’s having to deal with the politics of being part of a royal family, as well as finding her long-lost mate.
Dungeons, a catacomb of bones, and misunderstandings all abound in this novella of paranormal romance of about 40,000 words.

• Language: English
• Publisher: C.L. Bevill
• Release date: Nov 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463053126

C.L. Bevill

C.L. Bevill is the author of several books including Bubba and the Dead Woman, Bubba and the 12 Deadly Days of Christmas, Bubba and the Missing Woman, Bayou Moon, The Flight of the Scarlet Tanager, Veiled Eyes, Disembodied Bones, and Shadow People. She is currently at work on her latest literary masterpiece.

Book preview

Prologue

Dragon Moon

Dragon Moon: The full moon in May

wherein the dragon symbolizes

divine protection and vigilance.

---

Touch not the dragon nor the bear,

lest ye be bitten. – Proverb

To Wit…

T here was a boy and a girl and a shadow realm, the redheaded individual said in a somewhat loud voice before pausing to allow a wry smile run across his face. I should say there was a boy shifter and a girl shifter and a shadow realm from whence no one was ever supposed to return. You know, because shadow realms are like that.

The various occupants of the dimly lit bar perked up as they listened to the redhead tell his story. There was nothing like a good story, and everyone loved it when it involved shifters and no little amount of romance.

But before I get to that, he went on, the boy wasn’t always a shifter. No, then, he was half human and half branwyn. You do know what branwyns are? They have control over portals. Wicked bad control.

I didn’t know they could interbreed, someone whispered in French. Aren’t branwyns, like, completely alien?

I heard they come from a shadow realm on another planet, someone else whispered, like they’re martians. They don’t have an animal shape at all, and isn’t that weird?

No, they’re not martians, the redhead snapped in English because while he understood the basics of what they said, his French sucked the great donkey dick. Jeez, where do you hear this stuff?

One of the individuals pointed at the other one. The other one shrugged contritely.

Well, the boy was half and half, but he had the branwyns’ mojo. He could make portals and kick ass, but he never wanted to be magical. He was raised in the human world and he wanted to be…normal. Baseball, apple pie, and Mario Kart. You know, normal.

Meh, someone said. Normal is overrated. Then he whispered loudly, And Halo is better than Mario Kart.

Well, the boy didn’t think that, the redhead growled warningly. Everyone in the bar shut up. Someone burped loudly and then muttered an excuse in French. The boy did what every red-blooded boy wanted to do.

He became president?

An astronaut?

He won the lotto?

He joined the U.S. Army, the redhead interjected with an expressive sneer. Several souls sighed cynically. He did the military thing. He did it and then something bad happened.

Was the girl the bad thing? I think it was the girl. Don’t you think it was the girl?

Who’s telling this story? the redhead asked.

Sorry, someone said quietly.

He got cancer. Branwyns are prone to it, the redhead said. The Army kicked him out so fast his mama’s butt spun. Then something else happened. One night he was drinking in the family’s pub, which is a place a lot like this one, except they have a pool table and a Wurlitzer that plays all of Elvis’s best hits. Even ‘Blue Moon.’

The bartender leaned over the bar and said authoritatively, "Our Wurlitzer has both Nina Simone and Billie Holiday."

Pshaw, the redhead said. So, this one night while the boy was getting drunk and not worrying about his liver in the least because he was like, already dying and who cares how much alcohol he drank, in walks the hulking hatchet man of the Council. Broad, black hair, blazing eyes, and a mean disposition. A shifter of legend. A great big grizzly bear with a perpetual chip on his shoulder and the inclination to hand out pain should the unwary make him angry. Or even a little irritated.

They say he carries a war axe on his back, someone whispered.

"It’s a war harpoon, the redhead corrected because he had coveted that weapon on more than one occasion. (Once he’d even touched it while the grizzly shifter had been out of the room.) And his mate had been sucked into a portal made by the rat witch, Scarlotte."

Everyone shushed. Several of them shifted uncomfortably. Even though Scarlotte had been killed, no one wanted to even hear her name because she had been just that scary.

That’s right, the redhead said. Right into the very same realm where the Council threw all the undesirables, humans and weres alike. He waited for a long moment, And Shade, the right-hand grizzly shifter of the Council, was pissed the fuck off. He went looking for a branwyn to help him, but all the branwyns were scared, plus they were really afraid of him in particular. Seriously, Shade is not the kind of shifter one wishes to meet in a dark alley, or a bright alley for that matter, or in any alley anywhere at any time.

And the boy with cancer, did he help?

The boy said, ‘Fuck it, since I’m about to kick the bucket, I’ll help.’ The redhead shrugged. "Platinum was also involved, and since he really was dying, he wanted to go out with a big bang. Furthermore, it meant a trip to gay Paree, so all gravy there. So yeah, he helped. There was a whole thing about the Catacombs and the recent insurrection, too. The Bloodletter, whom we all know is the baddest badass whoever badded an ass, and his family had traipsed into Paris and shown the Council that they couldn’t be nasty without consequences. They called him Mr. Bloodletter. He paused to see if anyone got the movie reference and then decided since they didn’t, he would go on. The boy managed to get the portal open, but the rat witch had been tricky, and Shade and the boy got sucked in, too. One-way trip, too. The good news was that Shade found his mate, but she was royally ticked at him for being a secret spy in the insurrection and not telling her. There might have been something about keeping her in a dungeon and lying, but I think I shouldn’t go there in case one of you repeats too much and this gets back to the big guy and he decides to go wild and wooly with his war harpoon. He added in a conspiratorial whisper, and he can get wild and wooly with it."

The redhead paused and glanced at his audience. They were focused on his every word. The boy also found a special girl. Beautiful. Curvy. Smart. Special. He sighed wistfully. Even before he became a shifter, he knew the girl was special. You see, she was royalty. A real live noble from the infamous House of Drakken. He paused again for effect, and then added, A drakken princess.

Everyone exhaled simultaneously. They all knew about the drakkens, which were generally dragon shifters from Japan. The best thing that could be said about them was that they didn’t play well with others. In addition, they were dragons, and did anything else need be said about that fact?

To make matters worse, the shadow realm was deteriorating and had shifters in it that were batshit crazy from the Council’s experimentations. One of them was some type of saber-toothed thing that liked to eat other weres like they were steak tartare without the Worcestershire sauce. Also, he was a former CEO or something like that from a company that organized more experiments on weres, so when he stole some money from the Council, which was supremely stupid, he got a little something something, and then when the Council was done playing with him, they tossed him through the portal. No body, no crime, you see. The mafia needs to hook up with some branwyns, am I right?

The redhead stopped to sip from the large glass in front of him. He took a gulp, made a face, and said, Sorry, but I like American beer better.

What about the boy and the girl? someone asked insistently.

Well, the boy was still dying, and they were all trapped in a shadow realm where something was going to eat them if they lingered. So, the boy delved deep into his super-crazy branwyn skills and got busy with making a way out. Chop chop, bunny hop. He got to know the girl a little and found out that he liked her. He wasn’t going to let himself lurve her but maybe, just maybe, he couldn’t help himself. In any case, he knew he was a goner, but he also knew he could get the girl out along with all the others and then he could die happy knowing that he’d saved her from the nutjob shifter with an appetite for were a la mode. Except without the a la mode because there wasn’t a cow to be found in the shadow realm and there certainly wasn’t rock salt or ice, either. Or sugar for that matter. You get the idea. The redhead paused to take another drink of the beer in front of him. This isn’t bad, he said.

So? someone prompted impatiently.

Don’t rush me, the redhead said. The boy worked his ass off and made a portal. Regardless of his imminent demise, he was a demagogue supreme in the art of branwyn mysticism and spell work. He figured that most of the other branwyns couldn’t have done what he had done, and if he lived, he was going to rub their faces in it except in a more tactful manner. Although that was true, he did have some help from the girl because drakken bones were used in the creation of the original portal. Nevertheless, just as the shit was hitting the fan, the boy and the girl pulled it off, and the portal opened. Shade and his mate fought and killed the cannibal shifter just as the portal was initiated and all the trapped ones made their way through. Shade was very nearly mortally injured, but he had enough strength to toss his mate and the dragon princess through the portal before it closed. I imagine there were two very pissed off were girls on the other side because he stayed with the half-and-half boy. The portal closed, and they were stuck in the shadow realm. His lips flattened into a weary smile.

Why didn’t they go through, too? someone asked.

It doesn’t work that way. My right hand to the gods, the redhead said. Branwyns control the portals. It’s something in their makeup. If there isn’t someone to keep it open, then it flickers out like a dead light bulb, and no one really knows what happens to someone who’s in the portal when it flickers out. Since the boy was dying, it was all he could do to keep it open long enough for the rest. He thought he might have been saying too much because the branwyns had their secrets, but he was also a little too tipsy to really care.

So he sacrificed himself, someone murmured. He really loved the girl.

A few other things happened, the redhead said. Shade’s mate had figured out in the very last seconds that there was another portal in the realm and tossed out a clue as she went because she’s a smart hottie. And Shade didn’t die. He didn’t feel so swell for a bit, but he didn’t die.

Then Shade bit the boy, someone guessed. Passing the shifter DNA onto a human was a hit or miss scenario. More often than not the human died, but since the boy had already been dying…

Bingo, the redhead said. Bit him. Then waited to see what happened. Once the boy survived the change, they went looking for the other portal. It took them a while. There was an old body that pointed the way. The man had been a Civil War soldier, an American Civil War soldier, and in some long ago battle he’d had a misstep. The poor guy couldn’t take it and used his 1851 Colt revolver to take care of all his pain and confusion. The really good part was that he hadn’t wandered far from the portal, and Shade sniffed it out. They didn’t even hesitate to use it. He stopped and sighed. They came out in Pennsylvania not far away from a place called Cemetery Ridge, and they surprised the hell out of some Civil War reenactors. The local authorities might have been called, but the two had already amscrayed.

What about the girl?

"When the other portal was opened and all of