Dragon King's Forbidden Mate: A Rejected Fated Mates, Enemies to Lovers, Age Gap Dragon Shifter Romance (Dragon Kings of Ashenmoor #1)

Three hundred years of ruling a hidden dragon kingdom. Not once has Kael Stormcrag lost control. Then she walks through the Veil.

"You're telling me I'm magically bonded to a man who breathes fire and has the emotional range of a granite cliff."
"I have excellent emotional range. I am currently experiencing irritation."
"Fascinating. Is that before or after you kidnapped me?"

Kael Stormcrag has kept his kingdom hidden for centuries. Five dragon clans, an ancient Veil separating their world from the human one, and a political balance held together by his refusal to show weakness. He doesn't need a mate. He especially doesn't need a human mate -- a woman who smells like rain and ink and asks questions he can't afford to answer, whose presence in Ashenmoor threatens every alliance he's built. His dragon knows what she is. His dragon can burn.

Rowan Ainsley was mapping Highland walking trails when the world cracked open and dropped her into a volcanic valley full of apex predators with bad attitudes and no concept of personal space. She's a cartographer, not a fantasy heroine. She doesn't swoon. She doesn't simper. She documents. And what she's documenting is a crumbling supernatural barrier, a king who runs hot in every sense of the word, and a so-called fated bond that makes her skin hum every time he's in the room. She didn't ask for any of this. She's staying because the data is fascinating. That's her story and she's sticking to it.

But the Veil between worlds is failing. Ancient ward-roots are dying. Something is wrong with the boundary that has protected Ashenmoor for eight centuries, and the clans are fracturing over what to do about it -- and about the human woman their king can't stop watching. When Kael is forced to choose between his throne and the bond he never wanted, the cost isn't just personal. If the Veil falls, two worlds collide. And the only person who can map what's breaking is the woman he just denied in front of five kings.

Hidden in the Scottish Highlands, Ashenmoor is a kingdom of fire and stone -- five dragon clans, centuries of politics, and a civilisation older than human memory. This is a world big enough to get lost in. Rowan intends to map every inch of it.

She didn't ask for a dragon king. He didn't want a human mate. The bond doesn't care what either of them wants.

* Dragon shifter romance
* Fated mates / rejected mate
* Enemies to lovers
* Age gap (centuries)
* Forced proximity
* Explicit heat / steamy
* Guaranteed HEA
* Dragon Kings of Ashenmoor (interconnected standalones)