Book excerpt: A dragon's treasure turns traitor when secrets ignite. Fee is a fire mage on an impossible mission. After cutting her teeth on tales of dragons' dastardliness, she willingly straps explosives to her belly and sets off to infiltrate the home base of the shifters who rule over all mankind. Mason is the Lord Dragon tasked with protecting ordinary humans from harm. As part of his duties, he squashes a forest fire...then stumbles across a comatose woman who triggers his urge to collect and preserve rare beauty. The world Fee wakes into is very different from the medieval society she'd imagined would exist within a dragon's lair. But can she protect these well-fed, happy people when her overbearing father is in charge of her bomb's detonator switch? This 24,000 word novella is a standalone set within the Dragon Mage world.