The Dragon’s Kingdom by Martha Woods

Try as he might, Ynder simply can’t escape the ghosts of his past.
The eldest son of a King, and the rightful heir to his father’s throne, Ynder’s life was changed forever at the young age of twelve. Having struggled for some time against the influence of a rival dragon shifter named Ryl, as well as his army of servants known as the Dark Ones, Ynder’s father Alza decides at last to confront the problem head on. He challenges Ryl to a battle for dominance, for control over his noble Kingdom, a race of dragons then known as the Protectors.
A young Ynder looks on, hopeful, certain that good will prevail in the end, that his father will come out victorious, and that peace and harmony among his father’s kingdom will be restored.
Instead, he watches helplessly, as his father is brutally murdered, right before his very eyes.
Twenty years have passed since that horrible night, but Ynder’s wounds are still as fresh as they’ve ever been.
Ynder and his brothers, Fri and Nol, have spent the ensuing decades subjected to mistreatment and abuse at the hands of Ryl and his Dark Ones, but at Ynder’s insistence, they’ve never before now lifted a finger of resistance against their oppressor– at least, not until recently.
Still traumatized by his father’s death, and his own helplessness to stop it, Ynder can’t help but begrudge his younger brothers for their recent departure from the kingdom, leaving a path of destruction and chaos in their wake, and leaving himself to suffer the full brunt of Ryl’s wrath.
He’s even more furious, then, when the two brothers return to him after two years’ absence, asking him to lead them in a rebellion against the Dark Ones, alongside a group of allied dragon shifters, known as the Earthdragons.
Furious at their nerve and with no desire to risk his neck for a lost cause, Ynder throws his guests unceremoniously out of the house for the suggestion– though not before Ryl and his Dark Ones manage to catch wind of the rendezvous.
The illicit King’s patience with Ynder at last reaching its limits, Ynder finds himself ambushed, attacked and overpowered by two Dark Ones, brought to within an inch of his life at their hands.
His broken body lands in the middle of the highway, and is promptly discovered by an alarmed, yet duty bound nurse– a human female named Penny.
Unlucky in love and with a traumatic past of her own to contend with, Penny discovers a renewed sense of purpose in caring for her curious new charge.
There is an instant, undeniable attraction between the two of them once Ynder awakes– an attraction which neither of them can deny for long, and which seems to give both of their lives a much needed semblance of meaning.
But will Ynder’s past, and the Dark Ones’ vendetta, end up endangering Penny’s life, as well as his own? Or will the two of them finally manage to set aside their devastating histories, and learn to embrace their true destinies at last?