The Owner

The Owner (Dalvegan Dragons #1) ©Xavier Neal 2022 Cover by Dana Leah, Designs by Dana All Rights Reserved License Note No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without authorization from the author. Any distribution without express consent is illegal and punishable in a court of law. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Subscribe to my newsletter! TABLE OF CONTENTS Title Page Dedication Warning Playlist Selects 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 Epilogue Other Works Gratitude Follow Me!!! Full List of My Works To the Universe…Thank you for letting me OWN my writing career. This novel contains EXTREMELY foul language (from both men and women), EXTREMLY graphic sexual content (including some that may differ from your own), adult situations and an abundance of hockey references. Some readers may find the content triggering or disagree with it entirely. It also contains a combination of factual information regarding the game, players, and the league(s)/organization(s) (from research done with online sources as well as direct now retired players) however, there have been creative liberties taken that are entirely fictional to fit the fictitious world I have created. Please keep all these things in mind and proceed at your own risk. Thank you. —Xavier Here are five songs from the The Owner playlist! Feel free to follow the playlist on Spotify to find more songs I felt related to the book. 1. Jealous (Remix)—Nick Jonas, Tinashe (R&B) 2.p B.I.G.—X Ambassadors (Rock) 3. Bad At Love—Halsey (Pop) 4. if I could I would feel nothing—blackbear (Rap/Hip-hop) 5. Starstruck—Years & Years (Electro Pop) More songs Harlow This is how normal people mourn the death of their favorite person on the planet, right? They hop on their private plane with their anal-retentive assistant best friend less than four hours after the funeral of their father—the only real parent to give a fuck about them—send one of their best friends since childhood money for a plane ticket—since he couldn’t make it for the funeral because of a tight cash situation—and tell him to meet them in Vegas where they’ve rented the penthouse suite of The Frost Luxury Hotel for their get royally fucked up adventures. All of that is…totally…run of the mill…ordinary. Just like having a Wilcox and coke—or six—during the aforementioned jet setting from Texas to Nevada prior to pounding back shot after shot after shot the instant their best friend and his hot tagalong walk through the door is quite reasonable. And it’s probably safe to assume that the average grieving individual would also throw cash around the casino like they just won The Cup versus sucking so fucking hard that they’re dead last in the league. The. Whole. Fucking. League. Our team sucks so much fucking ass that it gave my dad a stroke. Okay. That’s a lie. The preference for high dollar steaks, fried cheese curds, and refusal to even look at salad contributed to the attack as well as the excessive drinking, smoking, and inconsistency in bringing down his high blood pressure. But like…owning and having a hand in operating the worst team in the league was probably a factor too. And while all the shit that I’ve previously listed is obviously acceptable bereavement behavior for a rational, reasonable, emotionally balanced person, I know without a doubt blacking out and waking up with a goddamn mood ring on their left hand is not. I slowly rotate my warm, honey brown skinned palm from one side to other, glaring at the piece of tacky jewelry. Black probably isn’t the best sign. Maybe it means I’m dehydrated? That I’m malnourished? Fuck, maybe that I need to take a shit? Both hands promptly fly over my face on a heavy sigh. Forfuckssake, it’s not the latest Fitbit. Its job probably isn’t to help regulate my life or remind me how unregulated my life is. Clearly, its sole purpose is to…well, to be honest, I don’t know what the fuck the point of these things are or why on Earth I fucking have one. And whose idea was it to get one?! And why would I agree to wear it? What part of me—skates with the boys, drinks with boys, titty bar hops with the boys—suddenly screams trashy middle school accessories?! I didn’t even wear those things in middle school! I would’ve been the laughingstock of the whole fucking barn. It was hard enough getting them to take me seriously as the only girl on the whole fucking team; however, that shit did change when they realized I was a sniper. In and out of the uniform. Audible grumbles suddenly appear next to me not only fanning the dull throbbing I was hoping would be gone by now but drawing my burning gaze over to the stirring movement beside me. Please let that be a person. Please let that be a person. Please let that be a person and not some random baby farm animals Geoffrey Winslow—my childhood best friend from my mother’s home country, Doctenn—convinced me to adopt again. Ugh. I can’t believe I have to say the word again. Although, I’ll admit it. Life wouldn’t be the same without Cookies and Cream, my Nigerian dwarf goats. Getting those two cuddle bugs not only made turning thirty-five a lot more fun, but they also gave Dad a reason to finally get me out of my downtown condo and into a huge house he had built for me right on the outskirts of Dalvegan. Of course, said house came with obnoxious conversations about me settling down. Getting away from the league—the only thing I fucking live and breathe for. And of