“My family. Your father. Your brother.” He sounded cross. “Don’t play games, Ingrid.”
“I’ll go to bed early. Come to my room. We’ll…talk.”
His smile made her feel feminine, powerful, grown up.
* * *
Ingrid had cocooned herself in the top sheet. She huddled sobbing and trembling on the edge of the bed. With each shudder, her pearly shoulders peeped tantalizingly through the pale hair that cascaded over them.
Victor stared helplessly at his mate. Her tears made his heart cramp. The harder Ingrid cried, the faster her tears trickled down her face and tinkled onto the floor in a flood of tiny crystals. He had no idea how to make her stop.
He rolled out of bed and grabbed his pants, stuffing his legs into them commando style. He rounded the ornate footboard to sit beside his mate. “It’ll be all right,” he said as comfortingly as he knew how.
If anything, Ingrid cried harder. Her tears made a small and musical backdrop to her sniffling. He edged closer to try and put his arm around her and trod on a great pile of them.
“Damn.” His mild expletive frightened Ingrid. She shrank further away.
This was dreadful. He had not expected her to be so frightened and sad. He knelt before her and tried to take her hands. She clutched the sheet and shook her head. Blonde waves bounced. The diamonds, for she was weeping diamonds, cascaded faster. They bounced off her lap and puddled on the carpet.
Victor tried again. “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he said desperately. “I’m sorry.”
Abruptly her tears stopped. “You didn’t hurt me.” Ingrid wiped her face with the corner of the sheet. “I just don’t want to marry you.”
That rocked him back on his heels. “Oh.” He ran a hand through his hair. Now what? “I don’t think we can get away with that.” He enunciated slowly and carefully. It was far too late for her to change her mind.
She took the sheet away from her face. Despite her distress and her grief, she was still the most beautiful girl he’d ever met. “I know. But I don’t want to get married. I’m only seventeen.”
Victor looked down at his hands. What the hell had he done? He was older than Ingrid. He was pretty sure her father and his parents would blame him. And the Eldest of his House – it didn’t bear thinking what Lord Lindorm would have to say to his nephew and youngest sword bearer.
He swallowed hard. “I don’t think,” he began.
“I haven’t even finished school,” she said despairingly. “I don’t want to go off to some island in Sweden to make babies.”
This morning, Victor was by no means sure that they would be allowed any such pleasure. His plan which had seemed so clever last night, now seemed crazy. He had a feeling that after her family and his were done with him there wouldn’t be much left. Because this mess was his fault, Ingrid was only seventeen. He should have protected her. Especially if that meant protecting her from himself.
He had no excuse – no excuse that his father or the Eldest of their house, Lord Lindorm, would care to hear. Certainly no excuse that the Graf von Schwalm would feel justified the offense against his only daughter. And his own parents would be bitterly disappointed in him.
The rules for Lindorms were clear. You spent your adolescence learning to control your dragon and serving the head of the family. He had just begun to study at the Naval Academy. Just been accepted as one of the Eldest’s sword bearers. He and his cousins were expected to serve an apprenticeship before they even thought of courting a mate.
He was years away from being permitted to declare a Mate Hunt. Things were looser, in other dragon families. But the Lindorms had not become a large and wealthy Dragon House by being loose. In any sense of the word. Before he had approached Ingrid, he should have spoken to Lord Lindorm, his parents, her father, and made a formal declaration before the Council of the Guild of Dragons.
And there was no way in hell that any of them would have permitted him or any other nineteen-year-old to transform his mate. They would have his head or his balls. Or both. Shift.
Victor squared his shoulders and stood up. “I’ll take the blame,” he told Ingrid. “I’ll tell them it was my fault.”
Ingrid’s round blue eyes got rounder. Her rosy lips parted and then closed. She shook her head. “I don’t think they’ll care whose fault it was. My father will be delighted to see me married to you. To any dragon in fact. He’ll be thrilled that I caught myself a Lindorm.” More diamonds leaked out of the corners of her eyes.
He moved across to the chair where he had thrown his clothes the night before and began to pull on last night’s shirt. “We’ll have to think of something then. Only there’s no going back. We can’t alter the fact that I transformed you. As soon as my family gets their first whiff, they’ll know you are a dragoness and why. My Uncle Thorvald doesn’t permit screwing around. I don’t want you to be unhappy, but I don’t see how we can deceive people.”
He tied his bow tie in the mirror. It was a little wrinkled. But not bad. At least he had inherited the Lindorm way with clothes. He didn’t look as dissipated as he might have done. He inserted the studs in the starched cuffs and down the stiff placket at the front of the shirt. He stepped backward looking for his socks. Shift. There were diamonds all over the floor. Did he have a bag?
Ingrid drew her feet up onto the bed and arranged the sheet more snugly around her curves. Damn, she was gorgeous.
“If you can get me out of this castle,” she said, “I could just go home. We can pretend this never happened.”
Victor felt old. Whether she knew it or not, Ingrid was his responsibility for the rest of their lives. Naïve or not, she was his fated mate. “Except for the part where you’re a dragoness now.”
“If I stay away from you dragons, no one will know.”
“I’ll know.” He felt as though his tongue was too big for his mouth. How could he explain that honor would not permit him to lie either to his father or his uncle? He tried for humor. “And I couldn’t in honor marry anyone else. Eventually, someone would notice that I was the oldest bachelor in Dragonry.”
“Oh. Or maybe we could be married when I was older?” She sounded so young and looked so adorable that his heart turned over. He was a true fool. But he was going to try to let Ingrid have the rest of her girlhood.
He shrugged his jacket on and combed his hair with his fingers. He ran his hand over his chin. His beard was as pale as his hair. He could pass muster in the hallway – as much as one of Lord Lindorm’s sword bearers still wearing last night’s tuxedo would pass anything. No. If he was spotted by his father or his older brother they would instantly know that he had been up to some mischief during the night. Mischief!
He found his clean handkerchief and laid it on the corner of the bed. He stooped and began to pick up the diamonds.
“What are you doing?”
“Removing the evidence.”
“What do you mean?”
“Only dragons cry diamonds. Do you have a really good explanation for why you have a hundred thousand euros worth of uncut gems in your bedchamber?”
“A hundred thousand euros? Truly?” Her tears halted instantly.
Victor shrugged his shoulders. “Give or take.”
“They’re my tears. Don’t I get to keep them?”
He struggled to remember the correct words. “They are a Treasure of our House now. I will have them strung into a necklace to adorn you when you are my bride.” He knew he sounded more than a little stiff, but it was hard to remember the formula when his brain was reeling.
“Can’t I sell them?”
Victor sniffed the air. Ingrid was just as sweet as she had been when he had seen her at the beginning of this week. Pretty much just as innocent. But her sincerity in wanting the diamonds or their value in cash was equally clear. “You could sell them,” he said slowly, “But how would you explain where you got them from?”
Her face fell. Her mouth drooped and so did her lint blonde eyebrows. Her shoulders slump
ed. His pretty bride was the picture of desolation.
A lightbulb went on in his fuddled brain. He cleared his throat. “Do you need money?”
“If I had a hundred thousand euros I could go to university and I could keep skiing for Austria. Even Father wouldn’t expect me to get married if I was rich enough to pay his debts.”
Victor sat down hard on the carpet. “Say that again,” he begged.
But her hands were over her mouth and her blue eyes were round and appalled. “I don’t know how I forget and say such things. To you of all people.”
Victor sighed. He knew exactly why she had forgotten to guard her tongue. His little mate had no judgment where he was concerned. He had bespelled her. Another crime.
“How much do you need?” he asked. “The whole hundred thousand?”
She nodded. “It’s not the tuition, of course. Not in Austria. But skiing takes a lot of money. And I’m not sure how much money father lost when the stock market tumbled. Probably a hundred thousand euros wouldn’t make a dent in it. But there’s no money now for my skiing.” She shrugged and her bare shoulders peeped out further from the white sheet and reminded him of how he had gotten into this trouble in the first place.
He was twenty times the fool that he had thought he was. Ingrid’s father the Graf von Schwalm had set a fine trap for him and he had tumbled into it like the greenest of greenhorns. It wasn’t Ingrid’s fault that she was the bait in the count’s trap. Victor had seduced her. As his Uncle Thorvald, the Thane of Lindorm, and the eldest of his house was fond of saying, a dragon was responsible for keeping his fly zipped.
In theory Uncle Thor and the Graf von Schwalm had equivalent ranks. In reality the title of Thane was of such antiquity that it had long ago been supplanted by that of Greve, which was what Swedish aristocrats of the rank of earl or count called themselves. But Dragonry was a community that clung to their ancient prerogatives and traditions.
When he had seized Ingrid, Victor had broken one of the most important and ancient of customs. The Graf von Schwalm wanted a bride price for his daughter. Apparently needed one. And when he had seen that this year’s crop of mate hunting bachelors was not particularly interested in Ingrid, he had laid a snare for Victor. All the same, trap or no trap, there was going to be hell to pay and Victor would have to settle up.
“If it’s money that you need, that’s not a problem, sweetheart. But it’s a long way to Austria from France. I don’t think you should go all that way by yourself in a car. It’s not safe for young girl.”
“It is for a dragoness.”
Victor shut his mouth with a snap.
Read the rest of Dragon’s Confession on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited.
DRAGON BEWITCHED
A VIKING DRAGON FAIRY TALE
LORDS OF THE DRAGON ISLANDS BOOK 8
Modern dragon knocks up beautiful thousand-year-old Viking witch.
Dragon shifter Darius Lindorm never dreams an ice climbing mishap will thrust him back into the world of his Viking ancestors. Freya has been waiting a thousand years to be revenged on the Viking dragons who stole her sisters and cursed her with perpetual youth.
How can she give up her vengeance in exchange for her enemy’s love and a child?
This playful, funny fairy-tale combines steamy romance with adventure and a dash of Old Norse myth. Enjoy a break from the humdrum with curvy sorceress Freya and her virile, utterly bewitched fated mate.
Only available in the Shifters in Love boxset Hot Shifter Nights
CHAPTER ONE
Balder Island, The Pool of Loki
Previous Summer
Freya~
The stranger ignored the storm clouds gathering above the smoking mountain. Even when the savage wind blew him into the ice wall and bloodied his handsome face he continued to move steadily upward. He had to be crazy. Only a lunatic would climb the mountain when Bradur breathed smoke and steam. Only a fool would defy the gods to scale a sheer cliff that led nowhere.
He was wearing strange clothes and stranger shoes, but they would be no protection from the wrath of Bradur and Loki. How could any man challenge the mountain and win? Bradur released another warning blast of black smoke. Still the stranger continued to beat iron spikes through the ice into the rock below.
This handsome youth was stronger than his slim frame looked. His face was alight with joy. His blue eyes sparkled. He looked like a man well pleased with himself. He reminded her of the heroes of old going forth to face the monsters alone. A warrior battling his foes, ready to die. He had to be quite insane.
He replaced his hammer in his belt and smashed his ax into the ice once more, stood on his spike, and effortlessly pulled his entire weight upward another arm’s length. Finally, he reached a ledge with an ice outcrop the size of a milking stool. He sat and refreshed himself from a strange-looking, bright red flask.
Perhaps his red container held mead? That would explain his blithe disregard for common sense. But if it was perilous to scale Mount Bradur at any season, it was doubly perilous to do so full of strong drink. There could be only one outcome when a mortal challenged the mountain.
Bradur lost patience. The ledge yawned open. The youth fell backward into the black abyss. The mountain shot another burst of smoke that mingled with the black clouds overhead. Rocks and ice tumbled down the cliff to the snowy beach below turning it black.
The falling rocks severed the ropes that the youth had used to tie up his boat. In moments the unmoored craft was blown out far out to sea. It rode the white-capped waves like a seagull, until its slender masts snapped like twigs under a wave higher than a man.
The water in the Pool of Loki blurred. Her vision vanished. Freya came back to herself. She dried her eyes. She asked pardon for disturbing the pool with her tears, and made an offering of her best hairpin, breaking the bright gold with a rock before throwing it into the water.
It had been dawn when she arrived at the pool. Now the sun was overhead. It was always so when she came up the mountain to the pool. Time had no meaning here. What had become of the fair-haired stranger? Loki had been tantalizing her for years with his face and form. But she had never seen him on the island in the flesh.
Had Loki shown her the future? She did not know. For a time she had believed this beautiful boy was to release the spell that had held her and her brothers in its grip for so long. But the mountain had eaten him. No mortal could survive plunging into that fiery maw. He had been swallowed by the molten heart of Bradur.
Was her vision a warning? A prophecy? Or just Loki up to his usual tricks? She only knew she grieved for the stranger’s death.
Freya peered into the pool’s crystal depths. Her own grimy face gazed back. Her red hair was dulled by her dusty trek up the mountain. She was thirsty and wanted a wash. But drinking or washing in the pool was also forbidden.
Only once was drinking the water permitted. Long ago she had dipped the water with the silver scoop her mother had handed her and Loki had granted her the power to see his visions. But she had brought a goatskin flask with her. She took a sip from that while she calmed her breathing and her heart.
Then she stood and raised her arms to the blue sky and appealed to Loki again. Thunder rolled in answer to her cries. But no lightning flashed. A good omen. She bent over the pool. The water stirred as if it were boiling, but no steam rose.
The Pool of Loki was worth the trouble it took to get to it. When the surface smoothed out, the images were still and clear, reflecting the bright blue sky and the wispy clouds overhead. She could see all the way to the bottom. From the great depths, smooth gray rocks peeped out beneath a thick layer of gold and silver offerings. The water in the pool was sacred. To the women of her lineage it showed the future – and the past.
It was death for profane hands to touch the water. Yet the dragons had not died when they had tried to steal Loki’s treasures. They had sailed away unharmed with her sisters. She and her brothers had been left alone on their island to mour
n their dead kin and their lost sister. And await their revenge.
Suddenly she beheld a night sky. Against the white-faced full moon an enormous glittering dragon spread great blue wings and flew with others of his kind. The breath caught in her throat. She knew again the terror of the day the dragons had raided Balder and sacked and burned their homestead.
These dragons circled over boats much different from the dragon-prowed ships that had sailed up the fjord to raid the homestead. She had often seen how the snow-white, three-sided sails propelled these narrow boats over the waves many times faster than the hundred-oared, square-sailed vessels of the dragons.
The sight of those red and white checked sails had sent her running into the mountains to the safety of the pool. Her father had trusted in his power and greeted them as if they came as friends, not foe. He had ordered a feast prepared and bargained with these pirates. And doomed them all.
Elsa the fair, with hair like butter, and eyes bluer than the summer sky, had gone into the ships. Hilde the honey-voiced, whose skill with shuttle and loom knew no equal, had likewise been taken. And Gerta, sweet Gerta, barely a woman, with eyes that could see visions and who possessed more power in her little finger than Freya had in her whole body, had been carried off to be bed-slaves to the raiders.
Only she had disobeyed her father. When Loki had warned her, how could she believe the lies those dragons had told? Her rebelliousness had been punished. Her entire family had been slaughtered and the homestead burned. She and her brothers had survived only to be cursed by the accursed dragon Snorre.
The flying dragons of her vision must be the sons or grandsons or at least the descendants of those brutal thieves. She watched them whirl and spin through the sky, as radiant as the stars they flew with. Why had Loki shown them to her? Were she and her brothers to have vengeance at last? The water began to move once more. Again it cleared.
The dead stranger entered a room with whitewashed stone walls that were hung with strange devices of many brilliant colors. He was wearing trousers as his forefathers had. But his breeches were slim and fitted tightly. Instead of a tunic, he had on a garment heavily patterned with vines and ropes. It strained across his broad shoulders and thick arms, but did not rip. Had he survived his plunge into Bradur? Or was this the past?
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