The corner of his lips turned up. “Haven’t you figured out I have the worst timing? Like now. Because I’m going to ask you to marry me.”
I wiped my eyes because this time it was ash that was making my eyes water, I swear. “Aren’t we already betrothed?”
“I want to hear you say it.” He got down on his knees, holding my hand. “Sophie of the Shen, will you marry me?”
And that place that had felt so cold inside me impossibly began to warm. “Your timing is absolutely terrible.”
He squeezed my hand. “I ask you this now because I don’t know what will come. I don’t know how long we will live. All I know is that from this moment forward I want to know for certain, I want to hear you say, that you are mine and I am yours.”
And with his words, a lightness felt as if it burst open within me.
I reached for my power, still entwined with his, and responded with the weight of magic. “Yes, Hunter of the Dragonlords, I will marry you.”
The wind gusted, and the air was filled with the scent of jasmine.
We looked around, and suddenly, I saw them.
Tiny flowers of pink and white were falling from the sky.
Hunter held out his hand and caught a tiny flower with a wondering smile. “Is this a shen thing? Do flowers automatically fall from the sky when you accept a marriage proposal?”
I shook my head, a peace settling over me, as Grandma’s invisible sigil tingled for what I knew would be the last time.
“No,” I said softly. “She approves.”
Epilogue
Three Months Later
“So what am I, exactly?” I said as Lana buttoned the back of my dress. It was a shimmering blue and gold, the color of the South China Sea at dawn, where my mother had been born. To the shen, white was the color of death, and thus completely unsuitable for new beginnings.
I stole a glance of myself in the mirror and looked away, because looking at myself in this dress, at this time, terrified me for some reason.
“You are what you’ve always been,” said Chloe from the corner, taking a photograph. Chloe put the camera down and walked over to me. It wasn’t that I didn’t have magic; I did, but apparently, it only functioned with Hunter’s help. It was either a mark of how diminished the shen had become, or just how many shen still shunned me, that I’d had to consult a human sorceress as to how exactly we had defeated the Devourer. But even she could only tell me so much.
“Honestly, I’m not sure. You’re shen. The thing about shen and their powers is that they always defy definition. Shen are unpredictable, in form, in spirit, and in abilities. This is why humans never suspected that demons, gods, and all the spirits they didn’t understand were actually one species.”
“We are the eldest, and we are one,” I murmured to myself, remembering Grandma’s lessons and trying to focus on Chloe’s words. It was better than thinking about what was about to happen. Why was I so scared? I wanted this, right?
“There is an element of rebalancing to your powers that are similar to the Justices that the dragons speak of. But you are no dragon, just as they are no shen.”
I placed a hand on my abdomen. I always had a bit of a curve there, and now it was just…slightly more.
“A child of shen-dragon heritage will be the ultimate defense of whatever is left of the Devourer.”
I closed my eyes for a moment and swallowed the hard knot in my throat. The thought that anything had escaped seemed impossible and left a bitter taste in my mouth. Weeks had passed since we had burned that place so hot the entire island, and those around it, had suffered falling ash for days after.
I still had nightmares, the kind that I would probably never be free of.
My belly felt warmer than the rest of me. A smile crept across my face.
There was a knock on the door.
A tux-wearing Hunter came in and swooped me into his arms, spinning me around. At once, all my tension, all my fears vanished. I shrieked his name in delight, and I couldn’t stop grinning like a fool.
“Wait,” said Lana, “you’re not supposed to see the bride.”
“That’s a human tradition,” said Hunter.
“It’s also a shen one,” I said, squeezing his hand. Whatever it was, his presence was absolutely what I needed to remember what this was about.
Us.
“Good thing I’m not shen. We dragons are immune to bad luck. We’re like leprechauns.”
I snorted. “Don’t say that to my Uncle Mike. He’ll start trying to get your treasure out of you.”
“My treasure is right here,” he said, looking at me.
I felt bubbly-warm all over.
Lana hefted up a giant gift with a dotted pink bow and thrust it at him. “Here, hold this and be useful.”
Hunter took it in one hand, looking at her in puzzlement. “Why are you handing this to me now?”
“Because you need to go put it with the gift table, and more importantly I need you out of here so I can finish with the buttons.”
Hunter heaved an exaggerated sigh. “If I must.”
“If I knew a dragon could be so easily defeated by a food processor, I would have learned how to cook a long time ago,” said Chloe.
Hunter narrowed his eyes at Chloe’s words, words that would pass for a joke from anyone else’s lips. But Chloe had a history with the dragons, one that wasn’t easily overcome, not even by my friendship with her.
Lucas’s blond head popped in. There was something about him that looked more dangerous, more severe with, his once-long mane chopped off. “Thought I’d find you here,” he said to Hunter. “The princess has questions. Something about if you really expect her to take off her shoes and officiate the wedding in bare feet,” Lucas said, carefully looking only at me and Chloe, and not Lana.
Hunter looked at me. The princess was the oldest of the dragons who had crossed over to Earth, and though her kingdom was long gone, the dragons still referred to her by the title she had been born with.
“That is shen tradition. And we’re on my grandmother’s land,” I said.
Hunter kissed me on the forehead. “I’ll speak to her.” He kissed me. “See you soon.” He kissed me again.
And again.
Until Lucas yanked him away with a laugh.
Lana closed the door as they left and braced herself against it, as if in relief. It was clear that something had happened between her and Lucas; now they would barely speak to each other and would almost certainly refuse to look at each other. Being mind-controlled by an alien intelligence and forced to try to kill each other might make things a little awkward.
Chloe gave me a hug as tears filled her dark eyes. “Your grandmother would have been so proud of you.”
Despite her late-twenties appearance, Chloe was one of the oldest human mages in the world. Shen and human mages historically were like oil and fire, but Grandma and Chloe’s friendship had gone back for centuries.
“I don’t care what the dragons think. You’re the oldest friend I have here. You helped Grandma negotiate this betrothal.”
She pressed her lips into a thin line, still ever so wary of dragons. “I did, didn’t I? I wouldn’t have done it if I actually knew it would happen.” She brushed an imaginary hair out of my eyes. “Still, if this is what you want…”
Lana spoke up. “This is your day. You should have who ever you like by your side. If they don’t like it, they can go fuck themselves.”
To say that Lana had been changed by her ordeal was an understatement. There was no trace of the Devourer’s magic, but for the first few weeks, she had apparently spent hours staring at things like running water and trying to kill any dragon she saw.
With help from Chloe, she was doing better. I wasn’t so sure that my wedding full of dragon guests and shen was the best place for Chloe to test Lana’s self-control, but Chloe had said it was better to figure out if any of the Devourer’s influence remained on her now.
“Otherwise, we m
ay wake up one day to find that she’s massacred a crowd of innocent people because she sensed something non-human. We need to overload her circuits, and sensitivity, so to speak,” she’d explained.
And Lana had survived the wedding rehearsal last night. But apparently that was enough for her. “Are you sure you’re not staying after the ceremony?”
“No,” said Lana, with clenched fists. “It’s better for me to go.” She gave me a hug. “I wish you well. And I want you to visit. But I…I’m still finding my limits.”
She knew her limits. Few people did. I respected that.
Lana finished with my buttons and then turned me toward the mirror. “There,” she said. “Even if you say you’re not, you look like a fairy princess—well, one from New York City.”
I had decided on no kimonos, no ball gowns, no corsets, no ancient finery for me. I had wanted something modern and new, free of the weight of tradition from either shen or dragon side. My curly hair had been tamed into waves. The dress hugged my shoulders with a streak of gold, slashing down one side asymmetrically. Underneath were thin layers of silver that seemed to float when I walked. The rest of the blue shimmering fabric hugged my waist, giving me an hourglass curve that I hadn’t even realized was within me.
For once, I did look like my grandma’s granddaughter.
I walked out of my room and into the main room of my grandmother’s rebuilt cabin.
The walls and floors looked the same, right down to the ugly dog knot in the wood, but the furniture and furnishings were all different.
I stopped at a sight I’d never expected to see.
It was the scroll that had used to hang by the front door, the one of my ancestral tree with all the names of those who had gone before me, with my parents at the very bottom.
Only now it had my grandmother’s name—well, great-great-great-great-grandmother’s name—high up in the branches up top.
Tears filled my eyes.
“Hunter did this for you,” said Chloe softly.
“But how did he—”
“I helped him,” she said quietly. She blinked and pulled a handkerchief from thin air like a magician and came at my face. “Now, now, hold still and let me get those tears before it messes up your makeup.”
Not too long later, I stepped out of the cabin onto the grassy lawn, the same lawn where Hunter and I had fought off the shark-wolves. A path of daisies was between an aisle of seats filled with figures of legend, shen on one side, dragon on the other. Great Aunt Titania sniffled as an eye-wateringly handsome man with muscles the size of bowling balls handed her a dainty white lace handkerchief from the pink Valentino handbag in his lap.
Gray snow clouds were in the sky, but it was temperately warm within the bubble around my grandmother’s land. The scent of young orange trees and jasmine blossoms filled the air.
I knew I should take it all in, remember more details of the moment. But all I could see was Hunter, staring at me like he had never seen me before. Next to him, Daniel stood there. Daniel reached over to Hunter and physically closed his mouth.
Next to him, a tall, golden-eyed woman stood. She had that timeless, ageless look of somewhere between her late forties and early sixties in human years, though she was perhaps older than the human race itself. A thin white scar ran across her face. She was the eldest of the dragons who had survived the crossing to our world.
And was standing barefoot in the grass.
Holy… I really was getting married.
The daisy path was cool underneath my bare feet. It was then I realized why the shen had probably adopted this tradition of being married barefoot, outdoors in connection with the Earth: it was harder to trip and make a fool of yourself.
Somehow, with all the eyes of the shen and dragons on me, I made it to the altar.
The princess welcomed the gathering, first in Draconic, then in English, though if we were doing traditionally it would have been done in Shen, but I had never been a good speaker of that either. Words of reconciliation and love were spoken, but with the clasp of his hands on mine, it all passed me by in a blur.
All I could see was Hunter, the dragon, the man, who was my fire.
“I take you, Sophie of the Shen, to be my partner, my wife, my love by my side for all of the days to come.”
“I take you, Hunter of the Dragons, to be my partner, my husband, my love by my side for all of my days to come.”
I was lost in his gaze until I heard the princess cough. “Isn’t a kiss traditional here on Earth?”
“Your husband isn’t going to wait forever!” floated Great Aunt Titania’s voice over the crowd.
Roars burst from the crowd and cheers, and a rolling, thundering wave of applause as shimmering rain fell from a suddenly clear sky.
“Fox rain,” said Hunter, lifting his face to the gentle benediction.
I stepped in close and slid my arms around him. “Too late to back out now, Dragon.”
He wrapped his arms around me. “I’ll never leave. I love you, Sophie.”
My throat was suddenly too tight to talk, and I could only smile, but I knew Hunter understood. He kissed me, and the rest of the world began to fade until I heard someone whisper loudly, “Can I put my shoes on now?” Hunter tried to keep a straight face, but he lost it when I burst out laughing.
We hugged and kissed and waved to the crowd of shen and dragons. And down under my heart, our child radiated love and fire.
###
Dear Reader,
The Dragons will return with Lucas and Lana’s story in BELONGING TO THE DRAGON, on August 28, 2018.
For now, you can get a FREE glimpse of what’s to come.
(As in the far far future of this particular version of Earth).
"Xavier was a predator. It was evident in every line, every movement of his hard masculine body. I touched his forearm, felt the muscle tense. He looked at me. His eyes shifted from grey to gold, and back. I could see the beast inside him, raging against the veneer of humanity, barely held in check. There would be no reasoning, no hiding, no escape from his singular intense focus on what he wanted.
Me."
If you liked BETROTHED THE DRAGON, check out my free short story, THE BOY WHO CAME BACK A WOLF. Turn the page for an excerpt or
click here to download FREE on bookfunnel.
He wasn't what she wanted.
He wasn't right for her.
She was wrong--so wrong.
When Lauryn Daring rejected skinny Xavier Stone's advances in high school to build an empire in the big city, she had no idea the mistake she was making. But after years apart, the man that walks back into her life is far from the geek she once knew. Xavier changed--in all the right ways. After being stationed on a dangerous planet of werewolves for nearly ten years, the tall, rugged, ferocious, and undeniably sexy soldier is back for what he's wanted all along: Lauryn.
And this time, Lauryn won’t be able to resist.
THE BOY WHO CAME BACK A WOLF - Chapter 1
Day 397, Year 2256
An unexpected name scrolled across my screen: First Lt. Xavier Stone.
I couldn’t breathe.
Compared to on-planet services, communication between systems was practically Stone Age technology. There was no video, no sound, only text chats that were supposed to be real-time but often were not.
For once, it was shockingly fast, like seeing an asteroid a second before it hit you. I couldn’t talk to him just like that. But it was already too late.
27:37
Lauryn. How long has it been?
I hadn’t seen Xavier in years, not since he pulled out on a military transport to Alzar-4 after graduation. We had been best friends growing up, all the way through graduating from high school, when he ruined it by trying to kiss me.
I turned off voice dictation. I was losing my voice from talking and networking all day, so I had a keypad projected onto my desk.
Too long, I typed back. To say I hadn’t thought about him would be a
lie. Regret balled itself in my stomach. Growing up, he had been the person I had connected with the most. He had risked his life to help me save my sister. And regrettably, through my own foolishness, he was not in my life anymore. I deeply regretted our final parting. Once you enter the real world, it’s hard to find friendships as deep as the ones you had when you were young.
And I had missed him.
27:38
Have you forgiven me?
I had been so angry with Xavier when he kissed me because I knew it would only fuck up the closest friendship that I had ever had. And it had. I didn’t want to be hiding in a nameless town like my mother for the rest of my life. I was going to do things, go places, and make sure we would never have to rely on our absent space pirate father for protection ever again. I knew I couldn’t do that if I was with Xavier. I knew what he was really asking, but for some reason, I couldn’t answer him.
27:38
For not writing me for so long? That might take some time.
27:39
You could have written me.
I did. Several letters, in fact. But I never sent them. I had moved out and up of the nowhere backend town we had grown up in, and once my company was successful, my family followed. There were very few who remembered the small town girl I once had been.
He was one of them.
27:40
I’m not the same girl you used to know.
I’ve lied. I’ve cheated, and yes, once I fucked someone in order to get a real estate deal done, but it was a gamble when I was starting out that paid off. I’ve also blackmailed (those who deserved it), broken laws, and crushed my opponents in ways that were far from fair. A better person would feel guilty, but then again, I wouldn’t be in a position where I could protect my family. In short, I had become as bad as my father.
Betrothed to the Dragon (Lick of Fire) Page 11
