Kidnapped by the Dragon: A Dragon Shifter Protector Romance (Royal Dragons) by Mandy Rosko

2 stars.

tl;dr:

The hero lets her go, and arranges another mating for himself a few months later. He says he loves her but his actions indicate otherwise.

The hero is the dragon crown prince. He is engaged to his cousin. It is a mating of convenience.

More attempts on heroines life, turns out it is the scorned fiancee who everyone though was too sweet to do murder.

Heroine gets pissed off because hero comforts said ex and leaves. He sets her up in a bakery of her own.

A few months later he shows up, tells her he is arranging another mating for himself, unless she wants him back. The spar for a bit, he says sorry, she says me too and he leaves.

She chases after him. HEA.

Whooboy.

Ok, first lets tackle the engagement:

The rationale behind the engagement is this:
- Royal dragons normally mate with one of the humans from a few human lineages. These are the only humans that can provide dragon children. They prefer not to mate with other dragons because the offspring tend to be weaker than dragon/human offspring.
- The dragon in question can find his (or her, I suppose) true mate among these humans, although it is not a requirement for mating.
- The "true mate" thing goes through the families in cycles. For the current dragon crown prince, his true mate is supposed to come from a family that has disappeared (killed by one of the other lineages maybe).
- Because the current crown prince can't get his true mate, he decided on an arranged mating with his cousin.

I can understand an arranged mating if you think you won't find your true mate. But why mate with a dragon if you know that your offspring will be weak? Why not mate with a human from one of the other families? His second arranged mating was going to be with a human. Also, not only is his fiancee a dragon, she is his first cousin. Her mother is his father's sister. Eew.

Secondly.

Ex tries to kill mate. Has to be restrained. He restrains her, comforts her. She says, you were supposed to love me forever. He says, I do love you, you are my cousin.

Heroine gets pissed off about this. I do understand, sorta, I also understand family, but still, you should have been hugging your mate while you were telling your ex you loved her, not the ex.

Anyway, she tells him:

“You know, I could get over what she tried to do to my face. This will heal.” Fiona pointed to the redness still there. “But she actually tried to kill me twice. Meanwhile, you’re standing with her talking about how much you love her! I guess all that talk of torture was fine, so long as my attempted murderer wasn’t her.”

She leaves, he lets her go without a fight, or an apology, or even a realization that he was an idiot.

And then, when he comes back, nothing more is mentioned of this. She broke up with him because of it, and it just... disappears.

“You sent me away.”
“I know. I thought it was what you wanted. That it would be the best for both of us.”

...

“Everything pointed to that you wanted to be away from all of that. From people who were constantly trying to hurt you. I’d just found out there was someone in my immediate family, someone I trusted, who was trying to kill you, and using actual palace guards to do it. I’m sorry if that threw me for a loop. I didn’t want you to die.”

Yes, but what about the skank? Where is she? Seeing as you love her as a cousin, is she still in the palace? Will she be at family dinners? Well, we don't know.

And finally, the new engagement.

“Do you have a reason to be sorry for kissing me?”
Inferno rubbed at his jaw. “Yeah. I do.”
Painful needles got her right in the heart from all angles. “Are you engaged again?”
“Not yet, but it’s in the works.”

Umm, no.

So (a). Heroine was a virgin when they met because no man had ever interested her. We can guess that even after this she would be in cold storage, because probably no other man would interest her. The hero did not have this problem.

(b) The hero was prepared to give up his crown for her, if she wanted it. Why stick around to get married for dynastic purposes again? He had three younger brothers. Or maybe two, can't remember. Anyway, he did not need to sacrifice his virtue for the succession.

(c) So much for being true mates and in love. New engagement is in the works three months later. I totally feel the love.

Also, where is the king? The hero is the future king, which means there has to be a king somewhere, right?