Born in Frost, Reborn in Shadow
Joy Brown · Completed · 6.8k Words
Introduction
House Veyron's Hatching Law was absolute: the first dragon egg to break shell inherits the entire Emberscale empire. My sister-in-law Celine and I were both due to deliver—our egg dates only one day apart. To ensure his brother Roman's posthumous egg hatched first, Kael made his choice.
"Roman and Celine's egg must break shell first. You owe them that!" He ignored my ruptured water, ignored the agony of the egg already pressing into my birth canal, and shoved me into that dungeon built from ancient ice-dragon bones.
Then they injected me with Frostbind Serum—an ice-magic drug that freezes the life-bond between a mother dragon and her egg. I curled up on the frozen floor carved with suppression runes, feeling my child's pulse fade beat by beat, and wept.
My baby, I'm so sorry... I can't even protect you...
Chapter 1
Elara's POV
"Let go of me! My baby is coming!"
I clawed at the dragon-bone doorframe, my nails splitting against the carved runes. The contractions hit like lightning—scales flickered beneath my skin, trying to surface, only to be crushed back down by the cold already seeping up from below.
Vance pried my fingers off one by one. No emotion. No hesitation.
"Lord Kael's orders." He dragged me toward the stairs. "The Frost Vault will suppress your dragonflame. Your egg won't hatch. You wait until Lady Celine's egg breaks shell first."
"Are you insane?" Amniotic fluid ran down my legs. "You'll freeze my baby to death!"
"Lord Roman's bloodline takes priority." His voice could've cut steel.
The Frost Vault.
Built from ancient ice-dragon bones, every wall etched with suppression runes that glowed a sickening blue. The air reeked of old blood and dragon marrow—this was where House Veyron executed traitors.
Vance shoved me to the ground. The cold hit my spine like a blade. He pulled out a communication crystal and switched it to broadcast.
"Lord Kael. She's in the Vault. Water broke. The rune array should hold her."
"She's still making a fuss?" Kael's voice came through, tired and annoyed.
Making a fuss?
"Kael!" I screamed at the crystal. "It's me! Our baby is coming NOW!"
"Are you kidding me? Right now?" Irritation dripped from every word. "Celine is about to deliver. Can't you hold it for two hours?"
"Hold it? My dragonflame is already gone—the runes drained everything—"
"You were pretty good at picking your timing when you crawled into my bed." His laugh was ice. "Forgot how to calculate now?"
The memory slammed into me. One year ago. That rainy night—the news of Roman's ambush by the Frost dragons, Kael passed out from the spiked soup, his rage when he woke...
"I was just bringing you a tonic! I didn't..."
"A tonic?" He exploded. "You laced it with Spring Desire! If it wasn't for your damn drug, Roman would never have—"
"Kael... it hurts... I'm scared..."
Celine's whimper drifted through the crystal. Soft. Fragile. Perfect.
And just like that, his voice melted into something I hadn't heard in a year.
"Hey. Don't be afraid. Breathe. The egg's almost here."
"It feels like it can't wait to meet us..." Celine's laugh was a whisper of silk.
"It'll be brave. Just like its father."
Every word was a knife twisting in my chest.
Same situation. Two pregnant women. One got tenderness. The other got a frozen dungeon.
"Kael..." My voice cracked. "My egg needs warmth too... please..."
"Your egg?" He scoffed. "You should be grateful you're still carrying one. Otherwise you'd have been fed to the blood wolves months ago." A beat. "Vance. Give her the Frostbind."
The crystal went dead.
Vance reached into a case and pulled out a syringe filled with ice-blue liquid. The glow pulsed like something alive.
"What is that?"
"Frostbind Serum. It'll keep your egg dormant a little longer."
"No!" I scrambled backward. "That will kill it!"
"It won't die. It'll just... wait." He grabbed my arm with one hand. "You don't understand what Roman meant to this clan. If the old master hadn't forced Kael to marry some no-name half-blood like you on his deathbed—"
The needle pierced my vein.
Ice flooded my bloodstream. Not cold—alive. Like a thousand frozen needles burrowing through every vessel, crawling toward the egg. I could feel the serum wrapping around the life bond between me and my child, squeezing, smothering.
"Lord Roman should never have died." Vance's eyes were full of disgust. "You're a curse on House Veyron. Every last thing that's gone wrong started with you."
He packed up the syringe and left without looking back.
The iron door slammed shut.
The serum took hold fast.
The steady pulse of my egg—that warm, rhythmic heartbeat I'd felt every day for months—stuttered.
Slowed.
Faltered.
I pressed both hands against my belly, curling into myself on the frozen dragon-bone floor. The runes around me hummed with blue light, drinking whatever warmth I had left.
"Baby..." I whispered. "Don't give up. Mama's right here."
Thump.
Weaker.
Thump.
Weaker still.
"Please... please keep fighting..."
Almost nothing now.
I couldn't feel my fingers. Couldn't feel my legs. The only thing I could still feel was that tiny, fading pulse—my baby slipping away from me one heartbeat at a time.
I closed my eyes. Tried to push my dragonflame toward the egg. Nothing. The runes had eaten it all.
I'm sorry, baby. Mama can't even keep you warm.
The tears froze on my cheeks before they could fall.
Time blurred. Minutes. Maybe hours. The cold devoured everything—thought, hope, fight.
I was almost gone when the iron door groaned open again.
Heels. Sharp, deliberate, clicking against dragon bone.
I forced my swollen eyes open.
Kael's sister Nyra stood over me. In her right hand, she dragged a weapon across the ground—a whip braided from frost-dragon fangs, its chain links gleaming with pale, hungry light.
The Frostbone Lash.
She tilted her head and smiled.
"I heard you were making a fuss." She cracked the whip once. The sound echoed off every wall. "Big brother sent me to teach you what 'hold it' really means."
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Ethan Ryder was a disaster waiting to happen. Hot-headed, reckless, and constantly one bad decision away from ruining his career. I was supposed to hate him. Instead, I memorized him. I learned exactly how to push his buttons on the ice just to see the fire in his eyes.
When he grabbed my jersey in that locker room and kissed me in front of twenty cameras, it wasn't a mistake. It was the moment the line between hatred and obsession finally snapped. The media called it a scandal. They called us a divorced couple. But they didn't see the way Ethan trembled when I cornered him in the hallway afterward.
"You're staring again," he whispered, his back hitting the wall.
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He thought I was cold. He thought I was controlled. He didn't realize that every time he looked at me, I was fighting the urge to completely destroy the distance between us.
Now, the league is forcing us to live together, train together, and smile for the cameras to fix our public image. But the more time we spend alone in my apartment, the harder it is to pretend I just want to play hockey...
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Blake Atlas scents his mate the moment Charlotte arrives. The bond hits hard and unmistakable, but Charlotte doesn’t recognise it. She doesn’t know why her chest keeps pulling toward the one boy she absolutely cannot afford to want. Blake is Charlie’s new hockey captain. Charlie’s chance at making something good. Charlie makes it clear; his sister is off-limits and Blake tries to do the right thing, but secrets don’t stay buried forever. Rogues prowl the edges of town. The ice cracks. The bond tightens. Then Charlotte’s rare white wolf awakens, the very thing that makes her powerful, also makes her a target.
Shanti needs Shakti. (Peace needs strength.)
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Let Them Kneel
Cast out by her pack. Forgotten by the Lycans.
She lived among humans—quiet, invisible, tucked away in a town no one looked at twice.
But when her first heat comes without warning, everything changes.
Her body ignites. Her instincts scream. And something primal stirs beneath her skin—
summoning a big, bad Alpha who knows exactly how to quench her fire.
When he claims her, it’s ecstasy and ruin.
For the first time, she believes she’s been accepted.
Seen.
Chosen.
Until he leaves her the next morning—
like a secret never to be spoken.
But Kaelani is not what they thought.
Not wolfless. Not weak.
There is something ancient inside her. Something powerful. And it’s waking.
And when it does—
they’ll all remember the girl they tried to erase.
Especially him.
She’ll be the dream he keeps chasing… the one thing that ever made him feel alive.
Because secrets never stay buried.
And neither do dreams.
The Pack: Rule Number 1 - No Mates
"Let me go," I whimper, my body trembling with need. "I don't want you touching me."
I fall forward onto the bed then turn around to stare at him. The dark tattoos of Domonic's chiseled shoulders, quiver and and expand with the heave of his chest. His deep dimpled smile is full of arrogance as he reaches behind himself to lock the door.
Biting his lip, he stalks toward me, his hand going to the seam of his pants and the thickening bulge there.
"Are you sure you don't want me to touch you?" He whispers, untying the knot and slipping a hand inside. "Because I swear to God, that is all I have been wanting to do. Every single day from the moment you stepped in our bar and I smelled your perfect flavor from across the room."
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Especially - Rule Number One - No Mates
When Draven meets Domonic, he knows that she is his mate, but Draven has no idea what a mate is, only that she has fallen in love with a shifter. An Alpha that will break her heart to make her leave. Promising herself, she will never forgive him, she disappears.
But she doesn’t know about the child she’s carrying or that the moment she left, Domonic decided rules were made to be broken - and now will he ever find her again? Will she forgive him?
Iron And Glamour Just Don't Mix
Well… Sometimes you just might turn out to be right.
It turns out, the fae stole my little brother. In his place? A pixie with boundary issues and a talent for home repairs.
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Iron is how I keep people out.
Glamour is how he draws them in.
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One Weekend with the Billionaire
I open my mouth to respond, but all that comes out is a staggered breath and a small sigh. He chuckles, a low, rough rumble and then leans down and kisses the middle of my back.
I feel the tip of him again at my entryway. He pushes in slightly, and my body comes to life again. My muscles react to his presence, contracting and loosening, as if my body is trying to suck him deep inside.
He's my husband's boss, so this is supposed to be wrong.
So why does it feel so right?
Braxton Merriweather always gets what he wants. Now, he wants her--Julia Thompson, the wife of one of his workers. From the moment he first laid eyes on her, he knew he had to possess her in every way.
When Jeff Thompson takes him up on the bargain he proposes, Braxton is shocked. He's even more surprised when Mrs. Thompson agrees.
But now that he's had a taste of her, he wants more. How can he possess a woman who's already married to someone else?
Julia feels trapped by her marriage to her high school sweetheart. In the two years since they've been married, he's changed, and not for the better. When billionaire Braxton Merriweather shows interest in her, she's flattered. And intrigued. Is it possible that one of the richest men in the world could really want her?
And if so... what does she do about her husband?
One Weekend with the Billionaire is a sexy story for mature readers.
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Dangerous Love with the Mafia
Driven out by her adoptive mother and sexually harassed by her boss, she stumbles into a seedy bar, desperate to drown her sorrows. There she meets Alex: sharp, devastatingly handsome, and impossibly charming.
What starts as a wild one-night stand blossoms into a tender, almost surreal romance—art galleries, riverside walks, and whispered promises that feel too perfect to be real. But when Alex vanishes without a word after a morning of gentle intimacy, Sarah is left with a hollow ache and a creeping doubt.
Their encounter was no accident. Behind Alex's blue eyes and skilled touch lies a darkness far deeper than she ever imagined—and the love that burned so bright may come with a price that could destroy her.
Bella and Her Beast
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Locked in her frozen tower, Bella dreamed of warmth, of touch, of freedom and of love. Cursed with the power of ice and snow, she’s spent her life alone. A secret they tried to protect the world from. Her only escape comes in the form of the books she reads. Stories of heat, desire, and the kind of love that could melt even her frostbitten heart.
Damien is the Beast. A dragon King with a temper forged in flame and a soul hollowed by duty. The world fears him. The people call him a monster. But beneath the scales and the rage lies a man who has never been touched by love.
When frost meets fire, the world shatters. She was never meant to leave her tower. He was never meant to find her. But destiny doesn’t bow to kings or care for cages and now the question burns through them both: Can Bella have her Beast? Or will the girl of snow melt in the heat of his desire?
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"I’m keeping her."
"What?"
Before I can react, he scoops her up. Her small body fits easily in the cradle of his talons. For a split second, she looks startled, but not afraid. Her hand rests against one scaled finger, and she stares up at him with that same curious wonder, as though she’s already forgotten she was ever meant to fear me.
"Put her down," I try to command, panic threading through my thoughts. "You’ll hurt her."
"She’s ours," the beast insists, possessive and fierce. "Our snowflake."
“Burn those who burned me!”
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Story #1 The Ballad of Rabena Price.
Story #2 The rebirth of Clara Granger
Story #3 The violin of Graceland Teague
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