by Eva Brandt
Eva Brandt
Winter's Dragons. Frozen Flames
Soulmates of Seasons 2
Copyright © 2019 by Eva Brandt
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
The cover is for illustrative purposes only. Art by Rainbow Danger Designs.
First edition
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Contents
Winter’s Dragons. Frozen Flames
Unexpected Arrivals
Of Soulmates and Sharing
Bounties
Treasured Moments
A Ghost from the Past
Attack
Helpless
The Two Queens
True Strength
Treachery
Togetherness
Epilogue
Index
About the Author
Also by Eva Brandt
Winter’s Dragons. Frozen Flames
A firedrake, a wyvern and a ryū walked into the life of a snow queen and melted the ice over her heart. But what happens when their bond brings about some unexpected consequences?
It’s incredibly liberating to be the soulmate of three dragons. It may sound odd considering how possessive and protective they are of me, but it’s true. They make me feel like I’m a woman, not just a queen, and that is precious to me. It’s not always easy, and we’re still adjusting to our new bond, but I’m up to the challenge.
That is, until it becomes obvious that my beloved soulmates haven’t been completely straightforward with me, and their forgetfulness brings their fuming, concerned families knocking at my proverbial doors.
Suddenly I’m being assaulted by questions about hatchlings, debates on the merits of evisceration and far too many unfortunate comments regarding my decisions and how my relationship with my dragons is supposed to go.
Between the unexpected visit of my would-be in-laws and the return of a ghost from the past, I have my work cut out for me. Why do things always have to snowball in The Realm of Eternal Ice?
Frozen Flames is a 60k words reverse harem fantasy romance that contains scorching hot dragon-shifter/ content, no infidelity and a happy ending with no cliffhangers. Part of the Soulmates of Seasons series, the Winter’s Dragons arc. (Releases for the series will come out all throughout 2019).
One
Unexpected Arrivals
Cheimon
“Terry, I understand your plight, but I’m sure this is all a huge misunderstanding. Your mate would have never cheated on you with your brother.”
The young yeti gave me a mournful look and sort of half-collapsed in front of my dais. I wanted to rage-quit life simply because I’d been put in this ridiculous position.
Yes, I was the queen of this realm, but as far as I knew, that didn’t include giving relationship advice to my heartbroken minions, especially when they were yetis. Gods, I hoped my sisters never found out about this. Pandora would never let me hear the end of it.
“She constantly rejects my attempts to couple with her,” Terry explained through a series of moans and snarls that would’ve been incomprehensible to almost anyone else. “I am certain that something is very wrong, and I saw Abominable with her before his departure for the garrison.”
Releasing an exasperated breath, I got up from my throne and made my way to Terry’s side. I knelt next to him, patting his shoulder gently. “That is simply a matter of circumstances. I’m sure there is another explanation. Your mate loves you very much.”
Behind me, I heard a choked little chuckle. I twitched in irritation, nowhere near as amused by the situation as my traitorous soulmate. “Perhaps Kerryn can assist you in clarifying the issue,” I told Terry. “His senses are very keen, and I’m sure he will be able to give you a clear answer on what is going on. Should your suspicions be confirmed, we will find a way to fix the problem. You are not alone.”
Terry looked up at me with big, tear-filled eyes and launched himself in a sequence of grunts that roughly translated into, “Thank you, oh, Great Queen. You humble your most loyal servant through the gift of your attention.”
Emmerich coughed and just like that, Terry seemed to remember his position. He shuffled away from me and shot to his feet with a speed that belied his massive bulk. “With your permission, oh, Great Queen, I will take my leave.”
“Of course, Terry,” I replied, already getting up and waving him off. “Go. We shall look into the issue most urgently and let you know of our findings.”
On footsteps so heavy they almost made the walls shake, Terry retreated from the throne room, and the massive icy doors closed behind his hulking figure with a deafening bang. As soon as he was gone, I let out a sigh of relief. “Well, that was painfully awkward. And you all weren’t helping in any way.”
“Sorry, treasure,” Kerryn said sheepishly. “I just couldn’t help myself. Are you really going to make me investigate the love affair of a yeti? Because I admit, I didn’t even understand all of that.”
I arched an unimpressed brow at him. “And yet, you still laughed. Terry really is broken-hearted, you know. How would you feel if you believed I’d cheated on you?”
“You’d never do that, treasure,” Emmerich answered, so insulted on my behalf that he barreled over whatever Kerryn had been planning to say. “But I suppose we understand what you mean. Sort of.”
“It’s not just that, though. I need to keep this incident from escalating. Abby might be guarding the bridge now, but that’s only a temporary arrangement. When he comes back, their next battle might end in death. I don’t want such a thing.”
The two yeti brothers had been fighting on and off for years, with their most recent conflict caused by Jack prior to his exile in my sister’s domain. In the past, the only lasting damage they’d done had been to my furniture, but this was different. It would have been far more reasonable for them to handle their own affairs without needing my interference of all things, but I could hardly turn Terry away when he had come to me for aid.
“That does make sense,” Raijin offered, “although I must admit that when we came here, we didn’t expect your job to involve dealing with yeti love triangles. We tend to handle such disputes privately. Leadership is very different in Chronikos than it is in Terra Dracones.”
“This has never happened before,” I admitted. “I wonder if I look more approachable now that I’m involved with someone.”
Technically, I was involved with three people, not just one, but that was just semantics. I loved my dragons equally, so the unconventional nature of our bond didn’t matter.
Our relationship had been a whirlwind from the very beginning, and we’d gone from being strangers to acknowledging a soulmate link between us within the expanse of a day. I had never admitted it to my dragons, but on occasion, I still had trouble with that, still asked myself a million questions about the validity of the decisions I’d made since meeting them. And yet, paradoxically, even
if I sometimes felt that I was stumbling through the dark, I wouldn’t have had it any other way. My dragons were precious to me, and if we made any mistakes because of what we shared, we’d just have to deal with them.
My brief moment of pause didn’t go unnoticed. “Treasure?” Kerryn asked. “Is everything all right?”
The thick note of concern in his voice immediately made me feel guilty for letting my thoughts stray in foolish directions when I was with my soulmates. They worried a lot about me, and I could not blame them for it, not really, not after what they had been forced to face after Jack’s enchantment. “I’m fine,” I assured them. “I was just thinking.”
Kerryn frowned, still looking just as concerned as before. Nevertheless, he didn’t prod for more information. He knew better than to push me when I didn’t willingly elaborate on whatever I was thinking about.
It was in moments like these when I struggled most with the conflicting emotions bubbling inside me when I wondered why I felt so reluctant to open up to my dragons despite the fact that they had been nothing but supportive. Honestly, sometimes, I was more exasperated with myself than I had ever been with my minions.
In any case, this wasn’t the best place to discuss my personal problems or to express my less than generous opinions about the love lives of my yetis. Since I had no more audiences scheduled for the day, it was time to head back to my office and start making some progress on the huge pile of paperwork cluttering my desk.
I was getting increasingly tempted to just ask Emmerich to burn everything to a crisp, as the files kept multiplying faster than the entire population of my realm. As much as the idea appealed, though, I knew ignoring the problem wouldn’t make it go away, and the paperwork, while tedious, was necessary for the efficient rule of the kingdom.
Leaving aside my little task for Kerryn, my dragons had their own separate jobs, important matters that required their attention as much as bureaucracy required mine. “January is probably waiting for you in the training ground,” I told them. “I shall be in my office. We will see each other for dinner, yes?”
All signs of Kerryn’s previous reluctance vanished. “Of course, treasure. Thank you for trusting us with this task.”
“We will miss you,” Raijin said, “but rest assured that it won’t keep us from completing our mission.”
As always, Emmerich was just as determined to assist me as Kerryn and Raijin. “You can count on us.”
I was pleased to see their enthusiasm. My dragons were in charge of a new training module I had decided to set up. While the incident with the soulmate enchantment had been caused by an internal threat, it had drawn my eye to the fact that security measures in my realm had grown a little lax, and I’d decided to fix that. My dragons had been happy to contribute to my project.
It was as I leaned forward to kiss Raijin goodbye that Fiske popped up by my side. As soon as his eyes fell upon me, he dropped to his knees and bowed. “My apologies for disturbing you, Queen Cheimon. Lord February has arrived with the supplies from The Realm of Eternal Youth.”
Finally. That had taken him longer than expected. Due to my agreement with Eranthe and my still existing, if tentative, affinity with the realm of my birth, things tended to go smoothly in my dealings with my youngest sister. I didn’t lack provisions, but I always felt better when the granaries were full and we were stocked up with all the supplies necessary to share with the people.
“Thank you, Fiske. That is excellent news. Come, my dragons. We must see to this at once.”
I didn’t bother leaving the palace the boring way. Instead, I waved a hand, and the balcony doors burst open, the blizzard already beckoning me to join it outside. I had no reason to resist the invitation, and I exited the building, with my dragons following me.
The icy winds carried us down, toward the bailey. Like Fiske had said, the caravan led by February had already arrived. The produce would temporarily be kept in the enchanted storage facilities on the palace grounds before they could be distributed to the smaller settlements in my realm.
As I landed in front of the caravan, I couldn’t help but notice that the number of wagons was somewhat larger than I expected. Eranthe must’ve been talking to Pandora then.
“February,” I called out, “report. What’s all this then? Why were you delayed?”
My third lieutenant manifested in front of me, a contrite smile on his face. “My apologies, Your Majesty, but Queen Eiar insisted that we stay a little longer until her most recent crops were in bloom. She wanted to provide you with some herbs from her collection, in celebration of the good news you recently sent her. I could not deny her.”
Of course he couldn’t. My youngest sister was always like that. She took shameless advantage of her apparently innocent look and ended up convincing my minions to do all sorts of crazy things. On the bright side, she was discriminating enough to keep her crazier experiments to herself, something which I was incredibly grateful for. If February had returned from The Realm of Eternal Youth floating on a hallucinogen-induced cloud of happiness and bliss, I wouldn’t have reacted well in the slightest.
For the moment, what mattered was that he was back and Eranthe had been generous due to her enthusiasm over my new and interesting love life. “I see,” I replied. “Get everything into storage and be quick about it. We don’t want a repeat of the last time the yeti stumbled into Eranthe’s herbs. And give me the inventory ledger for everything. I’ll need to check it over before we start distributing the goods.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” February answered, producing the requested ledger from his coat and offering it to me with a flourish.
After one last bow, he gestured for the nearby nisse to join him. Before long, the wagons containing the supplies provided by Eranthe were on their way to my granary.
As February worked on securing the produce, I approached the group of amaroks still present in the bailey. They had acted as February’s escorts on his journey to Tis Ánoixis and appeared to be waiting for further orders.
“Any problems on your trip?” I asked Alpha Panuk.
“No, Your Majesty,” the gigantic wolf rumbled. His golden eyes shot toward my dragons, and he tensed as he acknowledged the presence of the larger, more dangerous predators. Still, neither he nor the rest of his group departed. “We’ve seen no sign of any disturbances. Nothing out of the ordinary, at least.”
I nodded, understanding what he wasn’t saying. Even on trips that went perfectly well, there were always disturbances when my envoys traveled to any of my sisters’ domains. Theft was rare, as people knew better than to attack an official trading caravan from Tou Cheimóna, but my subordinates unavoidably ran into some creature that wanted attention, most often of a sexual kind. I didn’t mind them indulging, as long as their dalliances didn’t get in the way of their duties, and the amaroks were no exception.
My one concern regarding them was something that had been on my mind for some time now. Amaroks had not originally been pack-oriented creatures. They’d only begun to gather in such groups since I’d ascended to the throne of The Realm of Eternal Ice. As far as I knew, it had worked out for them, but I’d believed the same thing about Jack’s compatibility with his assignment as the guardian of The Bridge of Frozen Leaves.
February’s escort was actually part of the pack that guarded The Bridge of Melting Snowflakes. I’d already checked up on the remaining amaroks, but it wouldn’t hurt to make sure everything else was in order. Perhaps Panuk had some information I did not, even if he had been away for the past month or so.
“Are there any other issues you’d like to report?” I swept my glance over the whole group, scanning their furry faces for signs of deception or displeasure. “Is everything going well in the pack?”
Much to my surprise, Panuk perked up at my words. “Yes, Your Majesty,” he replied, wagging his tail in a way that made him look alarmingly like a huge dog. “We are actually most content. We have been blessed with a generous number of newborn
pups, and several more of our females are due to have litters soon. If you so desire, we would be honored to receive you as a guest in our dens.”
Uh. All right then. That had not been what I’d had in mind when I’d made my inquiry, but it was nice to hear. I wondered why the others hadn’t mentioned the influx of newborns when I’d looked into the state of the garrison pack. “Thank you,” I belatedly managed to say. “As soon as I can spare a moment, I will be sure to visit.”
“We are most grateful, Your Majesty,” Panuk answered. “Our females will surely rejoice at having our pups blessed by your majestic self.”
What? Where had that come from? I’d never been asked to bless pups before.
I wasn’t sure what I found odder, Panuk’s request or Terry’s insistence that I help him with his love life. Actually, I was. Terry’s problem still ranked highest on my “why do I have to deal with this?” list.
Before I could make further arrangements with the excited amarok, a jolt of protesting magic erupted over me, echoing within my core through my bond with the realm. It wasn’t painful per se, but it did feel a little overwhelming. I instinctively clutched my chest and struggled not to keel over. It wouldn’t do to swoon like a helpless maiden in front of my people.
My dragons were instantly by my side, ready to support me. “Treasure?” Raijin asked, his voice thick with concern. “What is it?”
“The wards around Chronikos have been breached,” I gasped out. “We’re under attack.”
* * *
Kerryn
Ever since our unusual move to Chronikos, Cassia had told us several times that part of why she’d found our arrival so odd was due to the magical barrier that protected The Land of Time. She had not gone into detail on what this magic involved, but whatever it was, it appeared that it would not be enough to protect our home.
