Free Reawakening the Dragon: Part One by Jessie Donovan Page A

never get enough.”
    He met her eyes again and his smile grew wider. “Well, love, this is your lucky day. Me and my mates would love to have you over at our table. We’ll say whatever you like.”
    The glint of desire in the man’s blue eyes made her stomach churn. But Jane was prepared. If anything went wrong, she had an illegal can of pepper spray in her purse. Not to mention that ever since the dragon hunter attack on Stonefire earlier in the year, she’d been taking advanced self-defense classes, which would come in handy if needed.
    With a nod, she answered, “I’d love to meet your friends. Maybe you can teach me how to sound British.”
    “Then come with me. My name’s Jason.”
    Jane had long ago picked a fake name similar to her own. “I’m Jenn.”
    As the man guided her toward a table with about eight blokes, Jane catalogued their faces. While she didn’t have an eidetic memory, she had always been good with faces. Even if she didn’t find out any information about the dragon hunters from these men, she could later cross-check them with known dragon hunter associates and see if she was on the right track.
    Of course, Jane was getting ahead of herself. She had to survive chatting with the slimy men at the table first.
    The stench of beer, cigarettes, and stale male sweat hit her as she stopped next to the long table with Jason. This was going to be a long ten or twenty minutes with these men.
    Remember, these men can lead me to my next clue. Even as they leered at her breasts before looking back to her face, Jane never stopped smiling. She waved. “Hello.”
    One of the men whistled. Since she’d spent the last decade focusing on her career, it’d been a long time since she had interacted with men in a pub. If whistling was the way to win a woman these days, Jane would remain single for the rest of her life.
    Under normal circumstances, she would probably glare and give him the double finger salute.
    However, these weren’t normal circumstances, so the mental image of kicking each of the men in the balls would have to do for the present.
    Jason placed his hand on her lower back. His touch made her want to take a long, hot shower. “This here is Jenn. She’s an American looking for sexy accents. I told her we were it.”
    A dark-skinned man with black hair and brown eyes spoke up first. “Is that so? Then mine is the best.”
    A Birmingham accent.
    A man with brown eyes and a pale, bald head spoke next. “Don’t listen to him. Yorkshire is better. After all, we’re the Texas of England.”
    With three accents identified, Jane’s gut said this group of blokes might be the right one.  
    Keeping up her act as an American, she put her hands up and shrugged. “They all sound the same to me.”
    “Oi,” the bald man said, “sit yourself down and we’ll teach you properly. Next thing you know, you’ll say we sound Australian.”
    Putting a finger to her mouth, she tried to look coy. “Well, you kind of do.”
    The man at her side motioned to some of his friends. “Move your arses and let the lady sit down. I think it’s time we teach her the difference between us and the criminals.”
    Jane’s mother was Australian, so she was familiar with how some Brits called Australians criminals—after all, the British had sent a lot of their convicted criminals to Australia and America back in the day.
    She couldn’t defend her mother, though, so she bit the inside of her cheek to prevent her from saying something out of turn. Playing the part of a clueless American was going to take more concentration than she’d thought.
    Once Jane scooted into the booth and Jason slid in next to her, Jane was trapped between two possibly dangerous men. The reminder of exactly where she was and who these men could be calmed her mind. If she fucked up, more than her story would be on the line.  
    Her life could be, too.
    Jane upped her charm and went to work.

    ~~~

    Kai Sutherland tugged the sleeves of his new