Read For the Heart of Dragons for Free Online

was the limp form the dragon hunkered down next to that held his attention. He stood there in shock as he studied the scene. He couldn’t see the face of the woman who lay untouched in the carnage, but the long strands of dark hair that curled around her body gave Daniel an idea who she was. Raven. Dread settled its claws into him. She was much too still to be alive.
    Swallowing hard, he turned his attention to the dragon. Its scales were so black they almost shone purple in the light from the broken window. The only dragon he knew with that deep of a color was Raven herself. The dragon was small. Its body was barely the size of a medium dog. The creature practically lay on top of Raven’s body, with its face buried in her chest. The glitter of tear-shaped diamonds were scattered over everything.
    Daniel brought his hand up to his face and wiped it over his mouth as he took in the horror. The diamond tears of a dragon hurt like hell to cry. The only time he had ever seen a dragon cry was when it lost a mate, and that was usually only one or two. He had never known a dragon to cry this much. Besides, Raven didn’t have a mate. Pulling himself together, Daniel stepped into the room.
    The dragon’s head popped up from where it had been resting on the woman’s body. Another tear fell to the floor with a soft click. The creature turned dark eyes towards Daniel and glared.
    Daniel froze so as not to startle the dragon. “Hello,” he called softly to the creature.
    The dragon growled at him and kneaded the floor with its claws. Long strips of wood curled away as the sharp talons rent the polished surface.
    Kneeling down, Daniel offered his hand to the dragon. “We’re here to help.”
    The dragon growled again and moved closer to Raven’s body. It was clear she had been something special to the creature.
    “Tell me who you are,” Daniel said, trying to coax the dragon into talking as he inched closer to the pair.
    The beast tensed as the distance between them narrowed. Finally, when it felt Daniel was too close, it launched itself at him.
    Having practiced this before, Daniel was prepared for the attack and twisted to avoid the creature’s powerful jaws. He grabbed it by the front legs and wrenched it around to slam it on the ground next to him. Even though the thing was small, it thrashed violently under him. Two of the men standing in the doorway were on the dragon in a heartbeat. It took all three of them to wrestle the thing to the ground.
    The dragon let out a heartbreaking keening as two more men came in to tie the poor thing up.
    Daniel sat up and moved away from the struggling pile of men and dragon. Now that the creature was taken care of, he was free to examine the scene. Looking back at the mess in the center of the room, he crept closer to the fallen woman. It was most definitely Raven. Carefully, Daniel rolled her over. The front of her dress was soaked in blood, but it wasn’t hard to find the hole in her chest where the knife had punctured her heart. “Oh, Raven,” he said softly as he caressed the hair back from her face. “What happened here?” he asked.
    His only answer was a high-pitched wail from the dragon.
    Daniel turned to look at the thing still struggling under the men. They were doing their best to hold it down until the medical team could get there with sedatives to calm it. As he turned back to Raven’s body, Daniel’s eye caught on something unusual next to her. He reached out to get the strange item and stopped as soon as his fingers touched it. Pain raced through him as the residual energy slammed into his mind, washing it with the recent memories of the dragon. They ripped through his brain, setting off a seizure that dropped him to the floor thrashing.
    When Daniel regained his senses, he was stretched out on the floor of the foyer with a medic standing over him. “The dragon?” he gasped as the sound of his own voice echoed through his head, making it ache.
    “It’s all