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  Queen Of Ashes

  Fire Trails Book 2

  K.N. Knight

  Ariana Hawkes

  Copyright ©2018 by K. N. Knight and Ariana Hawkes

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events and businesses is purely coincidental.

  This is a reverse harem paranormal romance of 55,000 words. HEA guaranteed.

  Sign up to our reverse harem newsletter to receive exclusive sneak peeks and excerpts, and to get notified about future releases.

  Contents

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  Also by Ariana Hawkes

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Have you read book one in the series?

  Thank you!

  Also by Ariana Hawkes

  Your free book is waiting!

  About the authors

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  A 4.5-star rated, comedy romance featuring one kickass roller derby chick, two scorching-hot Alphas, and the naughty nip that changed their lives forever.

  The only thing missing from Aspen Richardson’s life is a man who will love her just the way she is. In the small town she calls home, bullies from the past remain, making her wonder if it's ever going to happen. But, things are about to change in a major way, as the secret Aspen’s parents have been keeping from her comes out…

  “This book definitely needs to be added to your MUST read list – you will quickly fall in love with this steamy and fast paced story.”

  Get your free book now!

  (If your device doesn’t support links, go to www.arianahawkes.com/freebook)

  Also by Ariana Hawkes

  Fire Trails

  In collaboration with K.N. Knight

  Of Ashes And Sin (Fire Trails Book 1)

  In Dragn Protection

  Ethereal King (In Dragn Protection Book 1)

  Boreas Reborn (In Dragn Protection Book 2)

  Wounded Wings (In Dragn Protection Book 3)

  Shiftr: Hope Valley Dating App Romances

  Shiftr: Swipe Left for Love – Book 1 (Dina)

  Shiftr: Swipe Left for Love – Book 2 (Kristin)

  Shiftr: Swipe Left for Love – Book 3 (Melissa)

  Shiftr: Swipe Left for Love – Book 4 (Andrea)

  Shiftr: Swipe Left for Love – Book 5 (Lori)

  Shiftr: Swipe Left for Love – Book 6 (Adaira)

  Shiftr: Swipe Left for Love – Book 7 (Timo)

  Shiftr: Swipe Left for Love – Book 8 (Jessica)

  Shiftr: Swipe Left for Love – Book 9 (Ryzard)

  Shiftr: Swipe Left For Love - Book 10 (Nash)

  Shiftr: Swipe Left For Love - Book 11 (Olsen)

  Shiftr: Swipe Left For Love - Book 12 (Connor & Lauren)

  Shiftr: Swipe Left For Love - Book 13 (Frankie)

  Broken Hill Bears

  Bear In The Rough (Broken Hill Bears Book 1)

  Bare Knuckle Bear (Broken Hill Bears Book 2)

  Bear Cuffs (Broken Hill Bears Book 3)

  Christmas Bear Shifter Romances

  Ultimate Bear Christmas Magic Box Set

  Bear All I Want For Christmas Boxed Set

  Bear Home For Christmas

  Bear Christmas Magic

  Bear My Perfect Gift

  Polar Bears’ Christmas

  Lost To The Bear

  Ravished by the Ice Palace Pack

  About this book

  Ranger and her four sexy mates' journey to restore fire to the world continues in the second book of the reverse harem series.

  The addition of Draven, her wild, amber-eyed dragon, completes Ranger’s harem of four. Four sexy, growly shifter men who’ll love and protect her to the ends of the earth. Now the five elemental affinities have the perfect bond, and the potential to restore fire to their lawless, burned out world.

  But first they must find out why the last Phoenix has died and failed to rise again. Their quest takes them on a perilous journey across an ocean, through a burned out Europe, to the dangerous lands of the dragons.

  Meanwhile, a long-lost sister enters Ranger’s life. She carries a secret that could help them all, but the trouble that follows her threatens to sabotage their mission.

  The love between Ranger and her mates only grows through their troubles, as the depth of their bond is continually put to the test. But along the way, hostile forces threaten to ruin them, and Ranger has to confront the possibility of losing two of her mates— while all the time the promise of the mythical home of the Phoenix seems farther and farther away.

  “In order to rise

  From its own ashes

  A phoenix

  First

  Must

  Burn.”

  — Octavia E. Butler

  Chapter 1

  For two weeks, my four shifter mates and I drifted through the Southern Reaches with our horses and wagon. Under clear blue skies, we followed roads of broken asphalt or red dusty earth, surrounded by lush vegetation and spiky, twisted rock formations. I was content to forget about the death of the Phoenix, and everything I’d lost and just focus on them. My men. My harem. I was no longer wandering the earth as lonely as a cloud. We were together. And they completed me.

  There was Zain, my protective, fierce, yet soft-hearted bear. Always the first to hug me when I was scared or down, always the quickest to understand my feelings. He’d lost his whole clan in the fires and thought he’d never love again until he met me.

  There was Oran, my proud, magnificent eagle, who was so wary of trusting and opening his heart. Things hadn’t been easy between us at first, and we’d clashed a lot, but the bond between us was deep and passionate. I knew he’d fight to the death for me.

  There was Rael, my intense, sexy, smart tiger. An ex-Seal, the workings of his brain dazzled everyone around him, but when he turned his attention on me, it was like being in the beam of a searchlight. I’d never felt like there was anything special about me, but he was endlessly fascinated by my thoughts, my opinions, my abilities. And he was romantic, too, always holding my hand when he walked at my side, always holding me in his arms when we spent a night alone together.

  And then there was Draven, my wild, possessive, and slightly crazy dragon. He was the last to join the harem and the slowest to accept the concept of sharing, but we were getting there. He’d lost his human family in the fires, then spent the ensuing five years alone in a cave, slowly losing his mind. Until he saw me and knew right away we were destined for each other. If he had his way, he’d snatch me away from the others and keep me all to himself, so it meant a lot to me that he stayed and made a commitment to sharing with three other guys.

  Together we formed a perfect elemental bond—Zain the earth, Oran the air, Rael the water, and Draven the fire affinity. While I, an Ethiopian wolf shifter, represented the fifth element, the ether. Because a shifter with the affinity of ether cr
eates the space that other elements occupy—as Rael never got tired of telling me. I was automatically the queen, apparently.

  Being loved by all these men was bliss, but sometimes it seemed too good to be true, and on those days, the whole thing scared the hell out of me.

  Shifters mate for life. They were mine; I knew they were mine. But sometimes I’d wake up alone in a cold sweat, believing everything that had happened was all just a beautiful dream and I was alone again.

  Then the tent flap would unzip and a warm, strong body smelling of rain-drenched forests would slide in beside me. I’d realize that Rael had just slipped out for a moment, but he was back again, taking me in his powerful arms. Keeping me safe.

  As one dreamy day slid into another, I even let myself forget that the potential for restoring fire to the world lay in our hands. But the tighter our bond became, the closer we came to moving onto the next step in our mission, and the thought of that turned my bones to jelly.

  Five years ago, the Phoenix perished in a huge blaze—as it did every five hundred years—and it set half the world alight, burning it to a crisp in devastating wildfires. But for the first time in known history, it didn’t regenerate from its ashes, and fire was extinguished from the world altogether. Flames didn’t catch any longer. If you struck a match, flicked a cigarette lighter, or rubbed two sticks together, there’d be a spark, but there was no way to turn it into a flame. So there were no energy sources, no electricity, no heating, no lighting, no cooked food. A few people had solar or wind power, but most of us lived like we were back in the Stone Age.

  According to some old books on shifter lore that Rael’s grandfather had passed onto him, there was a way to restore the fire, and our perfect elemental bond was the first step. Beyond that, the old tomes didn’t offer much advice on what we should do once we were bonded. Our plan was to go right to the source, find the home of the Phoenix, and find out why it had failed to regenerate.

  But first, we needed to get Draven used to civilization again. We were making progress. He wasn’t yet at the point where he was comfortable sleeping in an inn, but he would eat in canteens, and sometimes he even went into stores and picked up supplies for us. Each time it took a lot out of him, I could tell, but it was important to keep him socialized and quell the shifter madness that always threatened to tear him apart.

  As we went from one small, burned-out town to another, we turned over ideas, speaking to people we met along the way, trying to glean snippets of information that might help us.

  Draven was still having trouble sharing me with the others, but his fits of possessiveness were dying down. I could tell it cost the guys to be calm and not respond to him aggressively, and I was proud of them for their maturity and the trust they put in me to care for all of them equally.

  On the fifteenth day of our wanderings, I woke up in the wagon sandwiched between Oran and Zain’s sleeping forms. I sighed contentedly. Draven had let me go with them last night with virtually no huffing and snorting, and I’d missed sleeping between the two of them. My face was cushioned by Zain’s broad, deep chest, his scattering of chest hair soft against my cheek, while he cradled my head in one of his huge hands. At the same time, Oran’s pelvis nestled against my ass, his smooth, brown torso pressing the length of my back, one of his arms slung around my waist. Heaven. Pure heaven. I had to be the luckiest girl in the world. Sometimes I had to pinch myself to see if this was all really happening.

  But I needed to get up before the others and do something to reward Draven for his maturity. As carefully as I could, I extricated myself from the guys’ double embrace, slid to the end of the mattress, and pulled myself up into a crouch before opening the door flap very quietly and sneaking out. It was just getting light, and my bare feet sunk into long grass, still wet with dew. We’d set up camp in a lush field, surrounded on two sides by uncultivated corn that had grown wild and a partially burned deciduous forest on the third side, giving us plenty of privacy. On the fourth side was a stretch of scrubby grass that eventually led to the main road of the region, but it was screened by clumps of bushes.

  Running my fingers through my hair to ease out the nocturnal tangles, I trod through the grass to the side of the wagon. Draven was crouching beside last night’s fire, stoking it up again. We didn’t usually light a fire in the mornings, but there was a chill in the air, and I guessed he was as eager for the warmth as I was. After he piled the wood, he blasted it with a jet of fire breath, and it ignited into bright orange flames. Thankfully, dragons still possessed the ability to start a fire. It was short-lived though, and couldn’t be transferred from place to place. Fire breath, not regular fire, Draven, who used to be a bio-chemical researcher, would patiently explain. They appear to be compositionally different, and fire breath doesn’t have the ability to grow.

  I went over, knelt beside him, and wrapped my arms around his firm, muscular body. His unusual amber eyes lit with desire and affection as he gently took my head in both hands and kissed me on the lips. “Good morning, Ranger,” he murmured.

  “Just what I needed,” I said with a soft sigh.

  “The fire?” he replied, cocking an eyebrow. He was wearing a red and blue flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up that he’d bought at a roadside stall the previous day and a pair of battered black jeans. His spiky black hair was sticking up in tufts, giving him a sexily disheveled air.

  “That and the kiss,” I said with a laugh. He sat on a log and reached for me, drawing me into his arms. I sighed at the warmth of his body, his unique scent filling my nostrils. He smelled different from the others. Spicy, deep and rich, like a blend of rare essential oils, but it was his own natural scent. He said it was because he was a dragon. It made me think of volcanoes and rubies and frankincense. I shivered and, assuming I was cold, Draven unbuttoned his shirt and wrapped it around me as well.

  “Did you sleep well?” I asked hesitantly.

  “I woke a few times, but once I’d satisfied myself that you were safe, I managed to fall asleep again,” he said, planting a trail of butterfly kisses from my forehead, to my temples, my cheek, and finally my lips.

  I opened my mouth to ask how he’d verified that I was safe, then thought better of it.

  “Did you sleep well, my mate?” he murmured.

  “I slept very deeply.” An evasive answer, but an honest one. I didn’t mention how Oran, Zain, and I had made love first, silently, like teens afraid of being caught by their parents. How I’d then fallen into a delicious sleep, surrounded by their big, muscular bodies and all that velvet skin.

  “Would you like to join me in the forest?” His breath was warm in my ear, and I could feel him becoming hard against my ass.

  “Mmm,” I said, and as his hands cupped my breasts, my body warmed with a familiar glow.

  At that moment, there was the sound of canvas being unzipped and Rael climbed out of the tent, immediately followed by Oran and Zain stepping out of the wagon. Draven gave a soft growl, and I patted his thigh.

  “Hold that thought,” I murmured. The guys came over, rubbing their faces sleepily, and when Draven’s gaze was averted, they blew me good morning kisses. Rael and Oran’s hair was tousled, but Zain’s dark brown buzz cut was too short to be mussed.

  “Fire—awesome. Does this mean we’re having cooked breakfast?” Oran said, yawning and combing his dark blond hair with his fingers until it was styled into what he called his deconstructed quiff. His angular features seemed blurred, and his ice blue eyes hadn’t yet assumed their customary watchful expression.

  “Yup, sure does,” Rael said with a grin, and within ten seconds, my sexy, golden-haired, green-eyed mate had stripped off his clothes, taken on his tiger form, and was bounding into the forest. Not to be outdone, Oran undressed and shifted too, before soaring elegantly into the sky on his magnificent dark brown wings. My wolf fretted and pawed, bursting to follow them, but I wanted to stay with Draven and show him my appreciation.

  Zain stood, deliberating. He
rarely shifted to his bear form because he feared the shifter madness, having lost his first mate to it, but his huge body constantly craved meat.

  “You’ll be fine,” I murmured, and I stretched out my hand.

  He took it, eyes full of love and gratitude. “As long as I have you,” he said. Then he stripped and took on the form of a nine-hundred-pound brown bear, with sleek, healthy fur. He purred, which I knew meant I’m not worried, and strode off, his huge, bulky body so strong and agile. My heart swelled at the tenderness of the bond between us. Then I took Draven’s hand in mine and leaned my head on his shoulder.

  “Fire’s going pretty well,” he murmured into my hair.

  “Does it hurt you to breathe fire?” I asked, lifting my head so I could see his face. It was something I’d wanted to know for a while, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to ask him, and he always seemed happy to oblige.

  His eyebrows drew together, and he looked adorably confused. “Of course not. Why should it?”

  “It used to hurt me when I was shifted into a dragon form.”

  He nodded thoughtfully. “Maybe that was because you weren’t meant to be a dragon or fire elemental.”

  “I guess that makes sense.”

  “When did you find out that you had a fifth element affinity?”