About this ebook
He wants to prove Tajss can be home.
Penelope has never needed a man to tell her who she is.
On the generation ship, she had a career, purpose, and a life she understood. On Tajss, everything is sand, heat, danger, and Zmaj warriors who think protection is an acceptable substitute for control. She is tired of feeling fragile on a planet determined to remind her how easily it can kill her.
So Penelope clings to the thing that still feels like hers.
Knowledge.
She is building an encyclopedia of Tajss, cataloging dangerous plants, strange animals, landmarks, and every scrap of information that might help the survivors understand their new world. She is also holding on to one secret hope no one else seems willing to chase.
Maybe Earth survived.
Maybe there is still a way home.
Bashir sees the woman behind the careful notes and guarded smile.
The Zmaj warrior is patient, skilled, and far too perceptive. He works beside the humans, helps build the walls that may keep them alive, and handles tense moments with a diplomat’s restraint and a warrior’s strength. He also wants Penelope with a focus that makes her pulse race and her defenses snap into place.
He thinks she is his treasure.
She thinks wanting him could destroy every bit of control she has left.
When Rosalind sends Penelope and Bashir as ambassadors to the New Village, there is no avoiding each other. Their mission is delicate: bring supplies, ease old fears, and build a bridge to the exiles before hunger, resentment, and anti-Zmaj anger turn survival into another war.
The journey is dangerous from the first step.
Penelope nearly walks into a carnivorous cvet. A meteorite storm drives them into shelter. Bashir’s knowledge saves her again and again, while her sharp mind, stubborn courage, and compassion begin opening doors in the hostile village. Jackson may be willing to listen, but Elmer is spreading Gershom’s old poison, and every kindness to the Zmaj risks becoming a spark.
Then Tajss bares its teeth.
Guster tracks them across the desert. A deadly beast attacks the village. Picard must be recovered for Sarah. And as Penelope and Bashir fight to protect people who may never fully trust either of them, desire becomes the one truth neither can catalog, argue with, or control.
Bashir is not trying to trap her.
He is trying to show her that being claimed does not mean being owned.
It means being seen, chosen, protected, and trusted to choose him back.
But Penelope has spent too long fearing anyone who wants too much from her. If she cannot let Bashir past the walls she built around her heart, she may lose the one male who makes this impossible world feel less like exile.
And more like the first place she has ever truly belonged.
Dragon's Claim is a steamy alien dragon romance featuring a reluctant heroine, a patient protective Zmaj warrior, fated mates, forced proximity diplomacy, New Village tension, dangerous alien wildlife, meteorite-storm shelter, guster danger, found family, emotional trust, and a guaranteed happily ever after.
