Dragons Prefer Blondes Read Online Free PDF Page A

out, but not before thousands of dragons had killed each other. Most of the government officials had been wiped off the planet, so the council had put together a provisional government to keep the place from imploding. A government temporarily headed by their most powerful warrior, and until recently, the guy most likely to want me dead: Ginjin.
    “Doesn’t he always need something?” Jake handed me the bowie knife, and I slipped it into the other side holster. I didn’t miss his sarcasm.
    “You don’t like him very much, do you?” I turned to face him. Something in those eyes of his was indefinable. What are you thinking, Jake? Claire’s words came back to me: “I think he might be crushing on you.” Did Jake have a thing for me? Part of me liked the idea, but the other part refused to even contemplate it. I definitely had a thing for him.
    “Do you? Like him, that is?” Jake watched me like I was some kind of leper. Claire’s crazy. This guy thinks I’m so desperate I’d sleep with a murderous dragon.
    Ginjin had tried to kill me more than once. We’d never been exactly what one would call close. And while he was kind of cute in a weird way, I didn’t do dragon. Killed them, but I had no desire to date one.
    I shrugged. “Not really, but it’s my job to be the liaison. If he wants a meeting, I have to go. End of story. Why all the sudden interest? It’s not like I don’t do this every day of my life.” I raised an eyebrow and stared right back at him.
    He glanced down at the floor and then back at me. “True. I’m sorry I lost my temper earlier. Maybe, in the future, before you move into an unknown area, you could use the comm to let us know. It helps me do the job you hired me to do.”
    I smiled. “Fair enough.”
    He handed me the watch designed to open portals between worlds. It focused our powers so that we could land on the other side unharmed. Before the portals, Guardians sometimes ended up floating around the universe instead of arriving where they wanted to go. Sometimes they ended up dead. Portals, though hard on the body, made landing in the right spot much easier.
    Beings from other worlds used different types of devices, though many, including my sister Gilly’s boyfriend, Arath, didn’t need any sort of gadget at all and could use magic to travel from one world to the next.
    “Later.” I gave him a wave.
    Just as the whoosh of air opened the bluish portal in front of me, I thought I heard him say something, but when I turned to ask him what he’d said, he was gone. Great, now I’m hearing things.
    When I stepped through the haze, it felt like I was pulled apart in a million tiny pieces. It didn’t hurt, but it did make my stomach turn. Before I could think much about it, though, I had arrived in Ginjin’s lair, a large cave carved out of the side of a mountain. I’d wanted to land just outside his front door, but instead I’d ended up in his living room.
    “What took you so long?” he roared. His long, silvery hair flung around his shoulders as he turned to look at me. In human form, he was quite a sight. Well over six foot three with rippling muscles, give him a patch on his eye and he could be one of the pirates on the covers of my not-so-secret stash of romance novels. My sisters ragged on me about them all the time, but I wasn’t about to give them up. Those novels kept me sane on the really bad days.
    I turned my attention back to Ginjin. His nostrils were flared, and he was most definitely angry. What is it with men and dragons tonight? Everyone was in severe grump mode. It was enough to make a girl want to draw a crossbow and put an arrow through a dragon’s eye (which was one of the best ways to kill the tough-scaled buggers when they were in scaly form). “What can I do for you, Ginjin?” It wouldn’t pay to get angry with him. He didn’t respond well to females screaming at him. I had a scar on my back from his claws to prove it.
    He just stared at