Playing the Game — Nina S. Gooden

James Diesel has been a fighter all his life, but now all he wants is peace. Years ago, he rose up in the ranks of competitive swimming, only to be knocked down by a vicious attack that left behind the kind of wounds that never heal. He expected that working on Dice and Ice would be a helpful distraction from the chaos of his mind, but when he wakes up in a strange new world, the only way he can quiet the noise is beside the dangerous and irresistible dragon Quan.Quan has his own wounds that he keeps hidden from the world. Behind the lenses of his darkened glasses, he’s holding onto a rage that threatens to ice over everything around him. Blind from birth, Quan sees the swelling challenges of freeing the Yellow Dragon as a river to wade through—just another thing he has to get through in order to crush his enemies. What he doesn’t count on is Diesel and the way the controlling human makes him want to submit his focus…and his body.Together, human and dragon are thrown into the game world with nothing but their wits and fists to get by. Their pasts threaten to drown them, but with the future of man- and dragon-kind on their shoulders, it’s time to sink into one another—or swim through the game.