Hollywood Dragon: BBW Dragon Shifter Paranormal Romance (16 page)

Jan did not know how others heard her singing. She was only aware that this performance far better than the previous day’s, and there, sitting ten feet away—so close but too far—was the cause.

Jan brought the aria to a close, the sweet sadness of the song softened by the tenderness in her voice. Then she took her place by Shelley’s side, and it was time for the ceremony.

That took mere minutes, simple as it was. Then suddenly the quiet was broken, the Willis clan hollering as Mick twirled Shelley and bent her backward in a magnificent kiss. The newlyweds were promptly surrounded by shrieking nieces and nephews and congratulatory friends.

JP held out his hand. Jan twined her fingers in his, leaning up to kiss him. They kissed again, and she began mentally moving past the rest of the wedding to an actual bedroom—at last!—and a clean, shared bed, when a little movement beyond one of the bowers caught Jan’s eye.

She turned her head, and shock hit her when she recognized skinny little Toby, muddy and bedraggled. The poor thing looked ready to run if someone sneezed at her too loud.

Jan turned, and beckoned to the girl as the wedding party, too wrapped up in their happiness to be aware, began moving slowly up out of the dell.

“Toby?” Jan said gently.

“I came. Like you said,” Toby said, and then glanced behind her, to where a couple of scrawny teens who looked even younger had pressed themselves against the rose trellises as if they wanted to be invisible. They were all muddy and filthy and ragged. “Niklos didn’t come back. Iggy and the others, they were fighting each other . . . we didn’t know where to go.”

Jan stepped toward her, hands out. “You did the right thing. We have a house right here. Let’s go inside and get you cleaned up, and some food.” Then she stopped herself, and glanced back at JP: did ‘we’ have a house or did ‘he’ have a house?

He answered the real question, his arm encircling her. “Lead on, my darling,” he said. “Lead on.”

A note from Zoe Chant

Thank you for buying my book! I hope you enjoyed it. If you’d like to be emailed when I release my next book, please
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Please click on the title to write a review of
Hollywood Dragon
. I love hearing what my readers think! It helps me decide what to write next.

Page down to read a special sneak preview of
Hollywood Bear
.

The cover of
Hollywood Dragon
was designed by Mona Midnight.

More Paranormal Romance by Zoe Chant

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Hollywood Bear

by Zoe Chant

Special Sneak Preview

“You’re an evil Goth biker chick. Isn’t that great news?”

“Great,” Shelley said to her agent, Marv. As she spoke, she gazed out the apartment window, trying to hear his voice over the police sirens and another drunken argument screeching from the building next door.

It would be great news if she actually got to do some stunt riding. In any case, a gig as an evil Goth biker chick definitely beat the fat-woman-gets-dumped-on-her-ass that she usually got assigned as a stunt actor. Being a biker chick didn’t sound like she’d have to wear the fat suit to make her big body look extra laughable.

Not that she’d ever figured out why anybody, fat or thin, tumbling down a set of stairs while spilling laundry (including gigantic undies), groceries, or briefcases was supposed to be funny. But hey, falling down in a fat suit paid the rent.

“Great,” she said again, then registered a little too much rah rah in her agent’s voice. “But . . . ?”

Marv cleared his throat. “It’s being shot on location.”

“Unless it’s in Timbuktu, I’m okay with a drive. Especially if there is some actual riding involved,” Shelley said. She’d been working with Marv for five years, ever since she left college. She knew when he was weaseling. Usually she heard the Weasel Voice when it meant the fat suit. “But?” she said a little louder.

Marv uttered a fake chuckle before saying in a cajoling voice, “They asked specifically for you—”

“Marv,” Shelley broke in. “Give me the ‘but’ or I’m going to think it’s worse than it is.”

“But it’s for Mick’s new movie.”

“Mick? As in Mikhail Mikhailovich Volkov, the Russian Bear?” Shelley groaned, then struggled to put on her Professional Voice. “I thought they cancelled his TV show.”

Marv’s voice came from a distance, as though he held his phone at arm’s length. “It’s another of his blockbuster action films. They
asked
for you, Shell.”

She wanted to snark,
Why? So he can look down his nose and scowl at me some more?

But gigs like this didn’t come along every day. Stunt work usually went to the thin and the small, because most female actors who needed stunt doubles were thin and small. There were very few stunt jobs for big women like Shelley—except when it was fat suit time.

“Rent’s due in two weeks,” came a cheery voice from behind her. It was Jan, one of Shelley’s roommates. They’d been friends since their days together at UCLA. Jan had obviously been listening in.

Shelley sighed. “Give me the address.”

“You won’t regret it,” Marv said.

“I already do,” she muttered as she reached for a pen.

Shelley scribbled the address down, hung up, and punched it into her calendar.

Jan asked, “Bearzilla wants you again?”

Shelley spread her hands. “He’s directing a movie this time! Why he’s got me on their callback list I don’t know.”

“Of course you know,” Jan said. “You show up on time, you do good work, and you’re not high maintenance.” She added in a low voice, as if this were the clincher, “Besides. He’s really. Really. Hot.”

Shelley sighed. Oh yes, he was hot. Tall and built like Apollo, only gruff and husky, the way she liked men, rather than smooth and polished.

But.

“He can be boiling lava but all I ever get is the deep freeze,” Shelley said. “He’s never spoken a word to me. Just tells his PA or AD to give me my cues, and stands off at a distance scowling like I’m scum. Maybe he needs more little people to scowl at to support his greatness.”

“Little people. Ri-i-i-i-ght.” Jan strung out the word, looking ironically from her five-one up at Shelley’s nearly six feet.

They were both eking out an existence in the entertainment industry. Jan played bit parts at dinner theater while auditioning for more serious singing roles for her opera-trained voice, and Shelley did her stunt work. Jan’s voice was beautiful, but as an unlamented ex had called her, she was a Dutch butterball—a natural blond with a round body. Both of them were tough sells in a town where thin was in. 

Shelley didn’t mind bit parts. She enjoyed character acting, but loved motorcycle stunts the most. But she was seldom hired for that because she was big—big breasts, big hips, big bones. She was muscular from the years of ballet she’d studied as a kid, because her mom had hoped that dance would magically turn her only daughter into a swan. When puberty made it clear that thin was never going to happen, Shelley had dropped ballet to join her older brothers in martial arts, where her ballet-trained strength, stamina, and flexibility had made her a natural.

“At least you’re getting callbacks,” Jan said. “Even if Bearzilla gets his jollies sneering at you in the fat suit.”

Shelley looked down at herself in her jeans and T-shirt. In size-conscious Los Angeles, she was looked upon as too big. However she liked her body, even though one of her other roommates constantly hinted about diets and weight, and made a federal case out of it when Shelley brought home the occasional pint of Ben & Jerry’s.

Shelley felt strong and capable. Especially when she had a powerful bike under her and the wind streaming past her. Her brothers had introduced her to motocross in the San Gabriel hills in the summer, and the Mojave Desert in winter.

Shelley said, “Well, supposedly this time I’m not wearing the fat suit. Though maybe they think evil Goth biker chicks should be mega plus sizes too, for extra laughs.”

Jan wrinkled her nose. “Can you do stunt work in the suit?”

“If I have to,” Shelley said. “But it wouldn’t be any fun.”

She wondered who she might be doubling for now, or if she was playing a bit villain. The first would guarantee great clothes, but she’d be happy wearing a clown costume if it meant some fun stunt riding.

She drove out past Palm Springs to the tiny town nestled at the base of the San Jacinto Mountains where Mick Volkov was shooting on location. Shelley hoped that she’d be working with the B crew, the assistant director in charge of shooting filler, while His Russian Majesty was safely at the studio, scowling at his highly paid actors, or cavorting in his Hollywood Hills home with Oona, his beautiful megastar wife.