To Love a Highland Dragon

by Ann Gimpel

  To Love a Highland Dragon

  by Ann Gimpel

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  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination, or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Published By: Taliesin Publishing

  PO Box 155, Sanford, MI 48657

  www.taliesinpublishing.com

  To Love a Highland Dragon

  Copyright © 2013 by Ann Gimpel

  Digital Release: September 2013

  Cover Artist: James Caldwell

  All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Table Of Contents

  Dedication

  Blurb

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  About the Author

  Excerpt:

  One Way Fare by Barb Taub and Hannah Taub

  Excerpt:

  Checkmate by Chaytor Chandler

  Dedication

  It takes a village to bring a book into the world. I’m ever so grateful to Dayna Hart, my content editor, and Deidre Mursch, my final line editor. Kudos to James Caldwell, a talented—and tolerant—cover artist. I’m sure he danced a jig when I stopped asking him to change things.

  I’ve always been fascinated with dragons, time travel, and humans who can shift into animal forms. To Love a Highland Dragon gave me an opportunity to blend all of those things into a story that’s truly a child of my heart. A final thanks to Georgia Woods and Barb Wilson, CEO and CFO respectively, of Taliesin Publishing. Both women have my utmost respect.

  Blurb

  In a cave deep beneath Inverness, a dragon shifter stirs and wakens. The cave is the same and his hoard intact, yet Lachlan senses something amiss. Taking his human form, he ventures above ground with ancient memories flooding him. But nothing is the same. His castle has been replaced by ungainly row houses. Men aren’t wearing plaids, and women scarcely wear anything at all.

  In Inverness for a year on a psychiatry fellowship, Dr. Maggie Hibbins watches an oddly dressed man pick his way out of a heather and gorse thicket. Even though it runs counter to her better judgment, she teases him about his strange attire. He looks so lost—and so unbelievably handsome —she takes him to a pub for a meal, to a barbershop, and then home. Along the way the hard-to-accept truth sinks in: he has to be a refugee from another era.

  Never a risk-taker, Maggie finds her carefully constructed life changed forever. Swept up in an ancient prophecy that links her to Lachlan and his dragon, she must push the edges of the impossible to save both the present and her heart.

  Chapter One

  Kheladin listened to the rush of blood as his multi-chambered heart pumped. After eons of nothingness, it was a welcome sound. A cool, sandy floor pressed against his scaled haunches. One whirling eye flickered open, followed by the other.

  Where am I? He peered around himself and blew out a sigh, followed by steam, smoke, and fire.

  Thanks be to Dewi— Kheladin invoked the blood-red Celtic dragon goddess— I am still in my cave. It smelled right, but I wasna certain.

  He rotated his serpent’s head atop his long, sinuous neck. Vertebrae cracked. Kheladin lowered his head and scanned the place he and Lachlan, his human bond mate, had barricaded themselves into. It might have only been days ago, but somehow, it didn’t seem like days, or even months or a few years. His body felt rusty, as if he hadn’t used it in centuries.

  How long did I sleep?

  He shook his head. Copper scales flew everywhere, clanking against a pile that had formed around him. More than anything, the glittery heap reinforced his belief that he’d been asleep for a very long time. Dragons shed their scales annually. From the looks of the pile circling his body, he’d gone through hundreds of molt cycles. But how? The last thing he remembered was retreating to the cave far beneath Lachlan’s castle and working with the mage to construct strong wards.

  Had the black wyvern grown so powerful he’d been able to force his magic into the very heart of Kheladin’s fortress?

  If that is true— If we were really his prisoner, why did I finally waken? Is Lachlan still within me?

  Stop! I have to take things one at a time.

  He returned his gaze to the nooks and crannies of his spacious cave. He’d have to take inventory, but it appeared his treasure hadn’t been disturbed. Kheladin blew a plume of steam upward, followed by an experimental gout of fire. The black wyvern, his sworn enemy since before the Crusades, may have bested him, but he hadn’t gotten his slimy talons on any of Kheladin’s gold or jewels.

  He shook out his back feet and shuffled to the pool at one end of the cave where he dipped his snout and drank deeply. The water didn’t taste quite right. It wasn’t poisoned, but it held an undercurrent of metals that had never been there before. Kheladin rolled the liquid around in his mouth. He didn’t recognize much of what he tasted.

  The flavors are not familiar because I have been asleep for so long. Aye, that must be it. Part of his mind recoiled; he suspected he was deluding himself.

  “We’re awake.” Lachlan’s voice hummed in the dragon’s mind.

  “Aye, that we are.”

  “How long did we sleep?”

  “I doona know.” Water streamed down the dragon’s snout and neck. He knew what would come next; he didn’t have to wait long.

  “Let us shift. We think better in my body.” Lachlan urged Kheladin to cede ascendency.

  “Ye only think that is true.” Kheladin pushed back. “I was figuring things out afore ye woke.”

  “Aye, I’m certain ye were, but…” But what? “Och aye, my brain is thick and fuzzy, as if I havena used it for a verra long time.”

  “Mine feels the same.”

  The bond allowed only one form at a time. Since they were in Kheladin’s body, he still had the upper hand; the dragon didn’t think Lachlan was strong enough to force a shift without his help. There’d been a time when he could have but not now.

  Was it safe to venture above ground? Kheladin recalled the last day he’d seen the sun. After a vicious battle in the great room of Lachlan’s castle, they’d retreated to his
cave and taken their dragon form as a final resort. Rhukon, the black wyvern, had pretended he wanted peace. He’d come with an envoy that had turned out to be a retinue of heavily armed men…

  Both he and Lachlan had expected Rhukon to follow them underground. Kheladin’s last thought before nothingness descended had been amazement their enemy hadn’t pursued them. Hmph. He did come after us but with magic. Magic strong enough to penetrate our wards.

  “Aye, and I was just thinking the same thing,” Lachlan sniped in a vexed tone.

  “We trusted him,” Kheladin snarled. “More the fools we were. We should have known.” Despite drinking, his throat was still raw. He sucked more water down and fought rising anger at himself for being gullible. Even if Lachlan hadn’t known better, he should have. His stomach cramped from hunger.

  Kheladin debated the wisdom of making his way through the warren of tunnels leading to the surface in dragon form. There had always been far more humans than dragons. Mayhap it would be wiser to accede to Lachlan’s wishes before they crept from their underground lair to rejoin the world of men.

  “Grand idea.” Lachlan’s response was instantaneous, as was his first stab at shifting.

  It took half a dozen attempts. Kheladin was far weaker than he’d imagined and Lachlan so feeble he was almost an impediment. Finally, once a shower of scales cleared, Lachlan’s emaciated body stood barefoot and naked in the cave.

  Lacking the sharp night vision he enjoyed as a dragon, because his magic was so diminished, Lachlan kindled a mage light and glanced down at himself. Ribs pressed against his flesh, and a full beard extended halfway down his chest. Turning his head to both sides, he saw shoulder blades so sharp he was surprised they didn’t puncture his skin. Tawny hair fell in tangles past his waist. The only thing he couldn’t see was his eyes. Absent a glass, he was certain they were the same crystal-clear emerald color they’d always been.

  Lachlan stumbled across the cave to a chest where he kept clothing. Dragons didn’t need such silly accoutrements; humans did. He sucked in a harsh breath. The wooden chest was falling to ruin. He tilted the lid against a wall; it canted to one side. Many of his clothes had moldered into unusable rags, but items toward the bottom had fared better. He found a cream-colored linen shirt with long, flowing sleeves, a black and green plaid embroidered with the insignia of his house—a dragon in flight—and soft, deerskin boots that laced to his knees.

  He slid the shirt over his head and wrapped the plaid around himself, taking care to wind the tartan so its telltale insignia was hidden in its folds. Who knew if the black wyvern—or his agents—lurked near the mouth of the cave? Lachlan bent to lace his boots. A crimson cloak with only a few moth holes completed his outfit. He finger-combed his hair and smoothed his unruly beard. “Good God, but I must look a fright,” he muttered. “Mayhap I can sneak into my castle and set things aright afore anyone sees me. Surely whichever of my kinsmen are inhabiting the castle will be glad the master of the house has finally returned.”

  Lachlan worked on bolstering a confidence he was far from feeling. He’d nearly made it to the end of the cave, where a rock-strewn path led upward, when he doubled back to get a sword and scabbard—just in case things weren’t as sanguine as he hoped. He located a thigh sheath and a short dagger as well, fumbling to attach them beneath his kilt. Underway once again, he hadn’t made it very far along the upward-sloping tunnel that ended at a well-hidden opening not far from the postern gate of his castle, when he ran into rocks littering the way.

  He worked his way around progressively larger boulders until he came to a huge one that totally blocked the tunnel. Lachlan stared at it in disbelief. When had that happened? In all the time he’d been using these passageways, they’d never been blocked by rock fall. If he weren’t so weak, summoning magic to shove the rock over enough to allow him to pass wouldn’t be a problem. As it was, simply walking uphill proved a challenge.

  He pinched the bridge of his nose between a grimy thumb and forefinger. His mage light weakened.

  If I can’t even keep a light going, how in the goddess’ name will I be able to move that rock?

  Lachlan hunkered next to the boulder and let his light die while he ran possibilities through his head. His stomach growled and clenched in hunger. Had he come through however much time had passed to die like a dog of starvation in his own cave?

  “No, by God.” He slammed a fist against the boulder. The air sizzled. Magic. The rock was illusion. Not real.

  Counter spell. I need the counter spell.

  Maybe I don’t. He stood, took a deep breath, and walked into the huge rock. The air did more than sizzle; it flamed. If he’d been human, it would have burned him, but dragons were impervious to fire, as were dragon shifters. Lachlan waltzed through the rock, cursing Rhukon as he went. Five more boulders blocked his tunnel, each more charged with magic than the last.

  Finally, sweating and cursing, he rounded the last curve; the air ahead lightened. He wanted to throw himself on the ground and screech his triumph.

  Not a good idea.

  “Let me out. Ye have no idea what we’ll find.”

  Kheladin’s voice in his mind was welcome but the idea wasn’t. “Ye are right. Because we have no idea what is out there, we stay in my skin until we are certain. We can hide in this form far more easily than we can in yours.”

  “Since when did we begin hiding?” The dragon sounded outraged.

  “Our magic is weak.” Lachlan adopted a placating tone. “’Tis prudent to be cautious until it fully recovers.”

  “No dragon would ever say such a thing.” Deep, fiery frustration rolled off Kheladin.

  Steam belched from Lachlan’s mouth. “Stop that,” he hissed, but his mind voice was all but obliterated by wry dragon laughter.

  “Why? I find it amusing that ye think an eight foot tall dragon with elegant copper scales and handsome, green eyes would be difficult to sequester. A hesitation. “And infuriating that we need to conceal ourselves at all. Need I remind you we’re warriors?”

  “Quite taken with yourself, eh?” Lachlan sidestepped the issue of hiding; he didn’t want to discuss it further and risk being goaded into something unwise. Kheladin chuckled and pushed more steam through Lachlan’s mouth, punctuated by a few flames.

  Lost in a sudden rush of memories, Lachlan slowed his pace. As a mage, he would have lived hundreds of years, but bonded to a dragon, he’d live forever. In preparation, he’d studied long years with Aether, a wizard and dragon shifter himself. Along the way, Lachlan had forsaken much—a wife and bairns, for starters, for what woman would put up with a husband who was so rarely at home?—to bond with a dragon, forming their partnership. Once Lachlan’s magic was finally strong enough, there’d been the niggling problem of locating that special dragon willing to join its life with his.

  Because the bond conferred immortality on both the dragon and their human partner, dragons were notoriously picky. After all, dragon and mage would be welded through eternity. The magic could be undone, but the price was high: mages were stripped of power and their dragon mates lost much of theirs, too, as the bond unraveled. Lachlan had hunted for over a hundred years before finding Kheladin. The pairing had been instantaneous on both sides. He’d just settled in with his dragon, and was about to hunt down a wife to grace his castle, when the black wyvern had attacked.

  “What are ye waiting for?” Kheladin sounded testy. “Daydreaming is a worthless pursuit. My grandmother is two thousand years old, and she moves faster than you.”

  Lachlan snorted. He didn’t bother to explain there wasn’t much point in jumping through the opening in the gorse and thistle bushes and right into Rhukon’s arms. An unusual whirring filled the air, like the noisiest beehive he’d ever heard. His heart sped up, but the sound receded. “What the hell was that?” he muttered and made his way closer to the world outside his cave.

  Finally at the end of the tunnel, Lachlan stepped to the opening, shoved some overgrown bushes out o
f the way, and peered through. What he saw was so unbelievable, he squeezed his eyes tight shut, opened them, and looked again. Unfortunately, nothing had changed. Worse, an ungainly, shiny cylinder roared past, making the same whirring noise he’d puzzled over moments before. He fell backward into the cave, breath harsh in his throat, and landed on his rump. Not only was the postern gate no longer there, neither was his castle. A long, unattractive row of attached structures stood in its stead.

  “Holy godhead. What do I do now?”

  “We go out there and find something to eat,” the dragon growled.

  Lachlan gritted his teeth together. Kheladin had a good point. It was hard to think on an empty stomach.

  “Here I was worried about Rhukon. At least I understood him. I fear whatever lies in wait for us will require all our skill.”

  “Ye were never a coward. It is why I allowed the bond. Get moving.”

  The dragon’s words settled him. Ashamed of his indecisiveness, Lachlan got to his feet, brushed dirt off his plaid, and worked his way through the bushes hiding the cave’s entrance. As he untangled stickers from the finely spun wool of his cloak and his plaid, he gawked at a very different world from the one he’d left. There wasn’t a field—or an animal—in sight. Roadways paved with something other than dirt and stones were punctuated by structures so numerous, they made him dizzy. The hideous incursion onto his lands stretched in every direction. Lachlan balled his hands into fists. He’d find out what had happened, by God. When he did, he’d make whoever had erected all those abominations take them down.

  An occasional person walked by in the distance. They shocked him even more than the buildings and roads. For starters, the males weren’t wearing plaids, so there was no way to tell their clan. Females were immodestly covered. Many sported bare legs and breeks so tight he saw the separation between their ass cheeks. Lachlan’s groin stirred, cock hardening. Were the lassies no longer engaging in modesty or subterfuge and simply asking to be fucked? Or was this some new garb that befit a new era?