by Cara Wylde
CLAIMED BY THE DRAGONS
ALMA VENUS SHIFTER-BRIDES, BOOK 3
Copyright © 2016 by Cara Wylde
All rights reserved.
This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
CHAPTER ONE: Bought for the Alpha
CHAPTER TWO: Clan Drekinn
CHAPTER THREE: Marked by the Dragon
CHAPTER FOUR: The Disappointed Bride
CHAPTER FIVE: The Bride’s Betrayal
CHAPTER SIX: Tension and Guilt
CHAPTER SEVEN: The Council Meeting
CHAPTER EIGHT: When Dragons Share…
Alma Venus Shifter-Brides (The Complete Series)
More Books by Cara Wylde
About the Author
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
Lovely reader,
Before you dive into this story, I just wanted to let you know that Claimed by the Dragons is a sequel to Sold to the Alpha (BBW Wolf-Shifter Romance) and The Hidden Alpha (Fox-Shifter Romance). While the present book can be read as a standalone, as it is the full story of Delyse and her two dragons, Eric and Viggo, you should know that if you haven’t read the other two, there will be spoilers related to the stories of Delyse’s best friends, Avelyn and Amelia.
You can find Sold to the Alpha and The Hidden Alpha on Amazon. They are both free with Kindle Unlimited. The last book in the Alma Venus Shifter-Brides series is also available – Taming the Alpha.
Enjoy!
CHAPTER ONE
Bought for the Alpha
Delyse smoothed the small pile of clothes one last time before finally putting it in the suitcase. She looked around her, sighed, then closed the bag. She had decided not to take everything with her. She had way too many clothes, and she hadn’t worn most of them in a long time, anyway. Claudia, her roommate, would be glad to give them a new home in her wardrobe. Delyse combed her long, blonde hair with her fingers, a gesture she made every time she felt nervous or insecure. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to leave Alma Venus. In fact, she had been waiting for this moment for the past three years. Three boring years during which she had tried to learn as much as possible about dragon-shifters, about the history of Clan Drekinn, and had dreamed and fantasized about her future husband, Eric Drekinn.
It was a little over 5 PM, and Delyse didn’t know what to do with herself. She stood up, walked around the room, sorted through the few things she still had on her desk, then walked to the window and opened it to let the fresh air invade the closed space. She ran her fingers through her hair again, pulled at some knots, and winced at the slight pain. “This is silly,” she thought. “I’ve been waiting for this for so long… It’s ridiculous to be so nervous.” She placed her elbows on the windowsill and glanced out over the garden, the trees, the mountains up in the distance… The view she had grown up with. Would she miss it? The garden wasn’t what it used to be, though. Delyse smiled remembering the reason for which Miss Delacroix had had to plant new trees three years ago. It wasn’t funny, actually, but it was such a long time ago, that it wasn’t tragic either. Even now, goosebumps rose on Delyse’s skin as she remembered the silver-scaled dragon descending upon the garden, covering her best friend, Avelyn, with his enormous body, and raining dragon fire over the werewolves and werefoxes who had dared to come at the Alma Venus Boarding School and put the lives of the shifter-brides in danger. Back then, they had all been frightened. Delyse remembered how her heart nearly stopped at the sight of the impressive beast, and how her brain couldn’t quite process that the shifter was there to protect them. It had been the first time she had seen a weredragon in his dragon form, and when the beast turned into the handsome Viggo, she had had difficulties matching his warm, calculated voice with the dragon’s loud, powerful roar. Viggo… The real reason for which she was so nervous now.
For all intents and purposes, Delyse was ready. Over the three years she had had to wait at Alma Venus for Eric Drekinn to wake up, the Alpha dragon’s Beta, Viggo, had visited her often and tried to prepare her for what was to come. He truly believed she was the one who could save their clan, and that scared Delyse. A lot. Eric had been in hibernation for the past 700 years, and the few times he had woken up, Viggo hadn’t been able to convince him to stay awake. The magic of the dragon-shifters was strongly linked to solar eclipses, which meant they could fall into their deep sleep only during a solar eclipse, and wake up again when another one occurred. That was why Viggo had bought her for his Fyrstur three years ago, but couldn’t take her to her new home, in Norway. Eric Drekinn would finally wake up in three days, and Delyse had to be there to convince him he did have something to live for: a new bride. The future of Clan Drekinn depended on her. With most of the members sleeping deep inside the mountains of Norway, the name was slowly dying. If their Alpha awakened, then the other Drekinn dragons would follow, and the clan would rise back to its ancient glory.
The door opened, and Delyse heard Claudia enter their shared dorm. Since Avelyn and Amelia had been bought by their Alphas, Miss Delacroix, the headmistress, hadn’t given them any new roommates even though there were two empty beds in the room. Then again, the Alma Venus Boarding School hadn’t taken in new young girls to raise and educate to become shifter-brides in a very long time.
“Here, I brought you dessert,” said Claudia, placing the tray on Delyse’s desk. “You might not be hungry, but I know you wouldn’t miss Miss Potts’ banana cake for the world.”
Delyse turned to her roommate and smiled. “Thanks. What would I ever do without you?”
Claudia walked to the window and peered outside. “It’s a pretty lovely evening. Want to go out for a stroll later? You know… Just in case this is your last day here.”
Claudia was close enough for Delyse to lean her head on her shoulder. “Sure. We can go for a walk.”
They were silent for a long while, both looking at the moon, which had appeared early on the evening sky, and the stars taking their place beside it one by one. It was a beautiful day of spring, but Delyse knew she wouldn’t enjoy the warm season for too long. The next morning, Viggo would come to take her to the small island in Norway, where clan Drekinn lived. The dragons’ lair…
“How do you feel?” asked Claudia. “You don’t seem very excited.”
Delyse sighed. “I am. I mean… I should be. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’ve been dreaming about this moment for so long, and have prepared for three years… And now that it’s finally happening, I can barely handle the stress and… fear.”
“Fear?”
“Yeah… I don’t know, it’s strange.”
Claudia turned to take Delyse into her arms. Her friend needed all the comfort she could give her, but that wasn’t the only reason why Claudia had been so clingy in the past few days. Delyse was the only friend she still had at Alma Venus, and now she was leaving too. Avelyn had been the first to be bought, and now she was living with her husband, Alpha wolf Max Blackmane, in the Black Forest Mountains, in Germany. From what she and Delyse had heard from Miss Delacroix, Avelyn had three sons now. Not long after Avelyn had left, their other roommate, Amelia, was bought by an Alpha fox-shifter, and moved to Alaska. Amelia was a bit of a celebrity now, what with the discovery that she was the only born hybrid in the world. But that was not all. Both her children, a boy and a girl, were nine-tailed foxes. Claudia was an Ursi bride, and she didn’t know much about the werefox
es and their culture, but she did know that nine-tailed foxes had been more of a myth before Amelia gave birth to her children. Now, Delyse was finally going to meet her Alpha dragon. No matter how happy Claudia was for all her friends, she couldn’t help but feel sad at the thought that she was the only one left. She had gone to many interviews, many Alpha and Beta shape-shifters had seen her, but none had decided to buy her and turn her into their bride. No, Claudia didn’t think there was something wrong with her. She was only 23 years old, and she knew that Avelyn found her soul mate at 25. She only wished it would happen sooner rather than later, because she knew she would eventually go insane alone at Alma Venus.
Delyse allowed herself to enjoy Claudia’s embrace for a minute, then she disentangled herself from her friend’s arms and walked to her desk. The banana cake smelled too good to ignore. She took the tray to her bed, sat down, and dug in, moaning at the rich taste. Claudia laughed and joined her on the bed.
“I swear to God, I have no idea how you manage to stay so thin.”
Indeed, Delyse was very thin. In fact, she was downright fragile, her bone structure so sharp and frail, her skin so white that it was almost translucent. Her blonde hair reached her waist, and her big blue eyes made her look so young and innocent. She had been 18 when Viggo of Clan Drekinn had bought her for his Fyrstur, but even though she was 21 now, and ready to become a woman, she still looked incredibly young. Claudia envied Delyse sometimes, but then she looked into the mirror and realized that her friend’s blonde hair and fair complexion wouldn’t have gone well with her personality, anyway. No, she would never trade her chocolate skin, big brown eyes, and curly hair for anything in the world, but Claudia did ask herself sometimes whether these specific traits could be the ones which caused the shape-shifters who came to Alma Venus to choose someone else every single time.
“Oh, and I’m probably going to be even thinner in a few months,” said Delyse. “Viggo told me it’s freezing cold most of the year on Svartvinge Island. I think I’m going to lose weight simply because the weather will make me so depressed.”
“Nonsense! You’ll get used to it.” Claudia hesitated for a second, then she finally built up the courage to ask her friend something she had been meaning to ask her for some time. “So, Viggo… How are things going with him?”
Delyse set the fork back on her plate without finishing the cake. Suddenly, she didn’t feel like eating anymore.
“The same.”
Claudia only nodded. She waited for Delyse to gather her thoughts and continue. They hadn’t talked about Viggo for almost a year, since Delyse had confessed to her that she had started to develop feelings for him. The situation was so weird, unusual, and even dangerous, that they hadn’t opened the subject ever again. But now that Delyse had told her she was more than nervous, Claudia figured she hadn’t gotten over the Beta dragon.
Delyse placed the tray on her nightstand and folded her arms over her chest. It was a defensive position, although she didn’t know what she was defending herself from.
“Things are as they should be,” she said.
“He did visit you more often in the past six months,” Claudia insisted.
Delyse shrugged. “Because he had so much to tell me about Eric. The total solar eclipse is approaching, the other members of the clan are anxious, so Viggo had to make sure I am perfectly prepared. Every time he came, we talked about Clan Drekinn and about Eric. He…” Delyse swallowed hard. Even though she hadn’t met her future husband yet, it still felt odd to talk about his ex-brides. She wasn’t jealous. How could she be? “He told me everything about the other brides and how much Eric suffered when he lost them. All I have to do is convince him it will never happen again, that there is no way he will ever lose me. No matter how important the clan’s affairs are, Eric will never choose to stay awake just for the sake of his people, so I will have to work the other angle. Don’t you think it’s weird? An Alpha abandoning his clan like that…”
It was Claudia’s turn to shrug. “Some people are selfish like that. But what am I saying? I don’t know the guy. He’s probably amazing, and he’ll sweep you off your feet the second you meet him.” Claudia chuckled and punched her friend’s shoulder lightly. “He sounds like a dark, broody kind of guy. A sad past and a broken heart that only you can heal…”
“Oh, shut up! That sounds so silly! You should really stop reading so many romance novels.”
Claudia realized Delyse was trying to distract her from the main topic. She wasn’t ready to give it up that easily.
“Okay, so… You and Viggo only talked about his Fyrstur and what you’re going to tell him to convince him to come back to his clan. Nothing else?”
“No.” Delyse sighed deeply. “I don’t think he knows that I… You know, like him. And it’s better this way. It would just make things unnecessarily complicated.” She shrugged again. “It’s not mutual, anyway.”
“How do you know that?”
“I just do. If it were, he would have said something by now, or given me a clue. It’s pretty clear I’m not his type, and even if I were, Viggo is so loyal to his Fyrstur that he’d never do anything that might even rhyme with betrayal. In three days, I will become his Alpha’s bride, and then he’ll be free to find a bride for himself.”
Delyse didn’t add what she was actually thinking. Viggo probably couldn’t wait to deliver her to Eric Drekinn and then come back to Alma Venus, or visit other boarding schools, to find a shifter-bride for himself. The dragon-shifters’ tradition said that the Beta could never take a bride before his Alpha, so Viggo had been waiting for this moment for over 700 years. It was time for him to find his mate and build a family, and no matter how much this reality made her suffer, Delyse knew this was the way things were supposed to be. As a shifter-bride, she wasn’t free to choose. If she were a free woman, maybe she would have found the courage to at least tell him she had always liked him. Scratch that. She had always loved him. She had fallen in love with him the day he had summoned her for the interview. Over the past three years, she had tried to convince herself countless times that the only reason for which she had these feelings for Viggo was that he was the only man who had given her the time of day, who had given her the attention she craved so much. It hadn’t worked. The truth was Delyse was in love with Viggo and there was nothing she could do to change that. All she could hope was for his Fyrstur, her future husband, to be just as strong, kind, and attentive as his Beta. Then, everything would be so much easier: in time, she would fall in love with her husband and forget her infatuation with Viggo.
“It sucks,” Claudia said. “It sucks so much, and I’m sorry.”
“Yeah… me too.”
Claudia hugged her friend again. “It’ll be fine, you’ll see. You deserve to be happy, and you will be. No matter what.”
Delyse smiled. “When did you start seeing into the future?”
“It’s not about seeing into the future, it’s about knowing how awesome you are. And the Universe knows it. Nothing happens by mistake, you know that. Viggo might be handsome and a nice guy all around, but there’s a reason why he’s only the Beta and Eric is his Alpha. If the Beta of Clan Drekinn is the way he is, just imagine the Alpha! The guy must be twice as tall, strong, and handsome.”
Delyse rolled her eyes. “As if these are the things that turn a woman on…”
“Aren’t they?” Claudia furrowed her brows in mock confusion. “What else is there? Kindness? Wit? Loyalty? Mmm… a sense of humor? Who needs that? Just give me a nice piece of hunk, all strong and ripped, and I’m in heaven.”
Delyse laughed wholeheartedly. “Oh, I’m gonna miss you. I’m gonna miss you so much!”
Claudia looked into her friend’s blue eyes. “I’m gonna miss you too, girl.”
***
The conversation had died ten minutes before. Miss Delacroix was behind her desk, busying herself with a couple of files. Viggo was sitting in the leather chair across from her, lost in his own thoughts,
throwing glances out the window or around the office, his right knee moving relentlessly in anticipation and anxiety. While waiting for Delyse to come down with her luggage, they had talked about the usual things: the weather, the latest news, and the changes which seemed to be constantly happening within the Council of the Six Factions since the new Fox Councilor, Blake Sylfur, had taken Jonathan Redfur’s place three years ago. It seemed the world had yet to get over it. Neither Miss Delacroix, nor Viggo wanted to talk about the battle at Alma Venus, so they graciously avoided the topic. The headmistress would have loved to ask him about his Fyrstur, but she had thought better of it. The truth was that she was concerned about Delyse and the new life she was about to start in Norway. Three years ago, she had been relieved that the Beta dragon-shifter had decided to buy Delyse, a Donation and probably the most valuable shifter-bride the boarding school had, for Eric Drekinn. Now, she wasn’t so sure anymore.
Viggo had his own concerns and his own dark thoughts. As he shifted in his seat, trying to make himself more comfortable, he thought of how much he had anticipated this moment: the day he would come at Alma Venus not to spend a couple of hours with Delyse, but to take her out of here, to take her to her new home, where he would see her every day. So many things were about to change. If everything went well, Delyse would convince Eric to return to his clan, and that meant Viggo could finally take a break. Yes, this was the most important thing right now. Viggo sighed and bit the inside of his cheek. Who was he kidding?
Miss Delacroix stood up, excused herself, telling Viggo she had some business with one of the Alma Venus professors, and left the office. She wouldn’t be gone long, and she kindly asked him to wait for her in case Delyse made her appearance. The girl was one of her favorite students, and she couldn’t imagine letting her leave the school without saying goodbye. Viggo smiled and assured her he would do just that, then groaned in relief when the woman left the room. It was as if he couldn’t allow his thoughts to run wildly and freely when someone else was around. It was as if he was afraid that the other person could hear them, or read them on his face. He stood up and started pacing the office.
