Shifters, Secrets & Surprises

by Lowe, Anna

  “Thank you. How did you think you would look?” Theo asked humbly. He fortified himself against his impulse to laugh. To Lexi this was not in the least amusing.

  “Like a princess, of course.”

  “I’m sure we have a tiara somewhere.”

  She doubled one small hand and made a fist and clouted at him in the chin. “Hey.” He grabbed her hand. “None of that. You are such a violent little thing.”

  “I’m not little,” Lexi said indignantly.

  “Sure, you are. A pocket princess.” He hugged her. “Everything about you is perfect, Lexi. But you have to understand that you can’t go around hitting people.”

  “I don’t go around hitting people,” Lexi defended herself. “I only hit you. And you deserve it, every time.”

  “I can see I’m going to be henpecked.”

  “Did you just call me a chicken?”

  Theo kissed Lexi on the side of the neck. “Why don’t we start over, sweetheart?” He suggested. “I was trying to apologize for being unkind.”

  “Very well,” Lexi said. “Proceed.”

  She sounded so much like her old, imperious self, that Theo had to pause to suppress another inappropriate chuckle. “I’m sorry I wasn’t kinder to you. I know that this is a difficult transition. But you’re not alone anymore. My whole family will help you adjust. You’ll get used to our mortal ways. And to technology.”

  “And you’ll buy me some proper clothes?”

  “Of course. You shall have whatever your heart desires.”

  “Chocolates?”

  “If that’s what you want, chocolate is easy. We’re about to go pick chocolates off the Christmas tree. It’s one of our traditions. You and Leo can get the low hanging ones.”

  “You’re making fun of me again.”

  “Maybe a little.” He began to kiss her and for a long time there was no more conversation.

  “You’ll share your nectar with me?” she coaxed when he lifted his head.

  “Not even if you give me a daughter!”

  The End

  Glossary

  I used a lot of Norse words that I thought readers might like to be able to look up.

  Bujold: Norse variant of a name that means ‘launder’ or ‘lye vat’.

  Erikki: Peaceful island ruler.

  Far: Father (Swedish)

  Fröken: Miss

  Haltija: Forest Elves

  Hrothgar: Ancient Danish King from the saga of Beowulf.

  Jörmungandr: A monstrous serpent from the Norse sagas.

  Joulutonttu: Christmas Elves

  Lindorm: Swedish for ‘dragon’.

  Loki: Blood brother of Odin, trickster and master of lying and betrayal.

  Mor: Mother (Swedish)

  Njord: God of the Oceans

  Örlogskapten: Major

  Snorre: Norwegian male name, chosen for its sound.

  Thor: God of Thunder

  Valkyrie: The females who choose those warriors who may die in battle and those who may live. Traditionally thought of as armor-clad shield-maidens.

  Thank you!

  Thanks for reading Dragon’s Christmas Captive. Read the other four books in the Lords of the Dragon Islands series and find out more about these fierce Dragon shifters and their curvaceous destined mates.

  Read on to hear more about Theo's family. In Dragon’s Pleasure, Book 3 of Lords of the Dragon Islands, Christina of Severn has her HEA with Dragon Lord Ivan Sarkany.

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  Click here for a sneak peek of Dragon’s Pleasure by Isadora Montrose.

  Shh – Sneak Peek Ahead...

  Shh – Sneak Peek Ahead...

  See what these four authors get up to between the covers of their other books

  Desert Moon by Anna Lowe

  Book 1 of The Wolves of Twin Moon Ranch series

  Lana Dixon knows well enough to steer clear of alpha males, but Ty Hawthorne is as impossible to avoid as the sizzling Arizona sun. Her inner wolf just won’t give up on the alpha who’s tall, dark, and more than a little dangerous. One midnight romp under the full moon is enough for Lana to know she’ll risk her life for him — but what about her pride?

  Hunted by the Alphas: Part One by Lily Thorn

  Find out where it all began for Val and her Alphas…

  Val doesn’t have time for love. If she wants to become a monster hunter, she needs to focus. Any lapse in concentration could get her killed, so the attention of a tall, handsome man is especially inconvenient on the way to her first mission. His amber eyes are hard to get out of her mind, and they might just prove fatal.

  Liam’s Bride by Emma Alisyn

  Book 1 of the Clan Conroy Brides bear shifter series

  Curvy Meredith is hiding in plain sight. A gardening teacher for troubled teens, she needs the new owner of the old YWCA building to renew her lease. Her non-profit after school program can’t fund a more expensive location. Steeling herself for a confrontation, she discovers the owner is Liam Conroy, the Alpha Bear whose father was murdered fifteen years ago…

  Dragon’s Pleasure by Isadora Montrose

  Book 3 of the Lords of the Dragon Islands series

  Smoking-hot dragon shifter Ivan Sarkany has spent his adult life dallying with beautiful females. His new mission: find a virgin (and it must be a virgin), transform her into a fertile dragoness, and produce sons to carry on the dwindling Sarkany dynasty.

  Sneak Peek: Desert Moon

  Book 1 of The Wolves of Twin Moon Ranch series

  by Anna Lowe

  Desert Moon

  The scent of destiny... The danger in desire.

  Lana Dixon knows well enough to steer clear of alpha males, but Ty Hawthorne is as impossible to avoid as the sizzling Arizona sun. Her inner wolf just won’t give up on the alpha who’s tall, dark, and more than a little dangerous. One midnight romp under the full moon is enough for Lana to know she’ll risk her life for him — but what about her pride?

  Ty puts duty above everything — even the overwhelming instinct that says Lana’s the one. She’s the Juliet to his Romeo: forbidden. And with a pack of poaching rogues closing in, it’s hardly the time to yield to his desires. Or is love just what this lonely alpha needs to set his spirit free?

  Chapter One

  Lana fidgeted next to her grandmother as the plane banked over the harsh landscape and slowly descended. Arizona. She almost muttered it aloud. She’d vowed never to return, and yet here she was.

  The desert. All that open space, that sky. It had taken something out of her on her first visit, long ago, leaving her with a thirst she could never quench. So why go back?

  The plane landed, and she moved stiffly to baggage claim, already wishing for a flight home. Catching herself grinding her teeth, she willed her jaws to relax. She would be calm and serene, damn it, even if she had to fake it. For one week, she could manage that much. She’d get her grandmother settled into her new home and then return to the East Coast. The desert had nothing for her.

  She glued on a smile as an older woman hugged her grandmother, then turned to her with sparkling eyes and a secret smile.

  “Lana, you look just like your mother!”

  She gave a little internal sigh but didn’t drop the forced smile. This must be Jean, her grandmother’s old friend. She’d met Jean once before, but her memories of that time were hazy. All she remembered was the sense of loss her first visit had left her with. Which was crazy, because how could you lose something you never had?

  “The eyes of her mother, the nose of her father,” her grandmother winked, and Lana couldn’t help but wonder what private joke they were sharing. But the older women breezed right over the subject and started chatting away about friends and family and times gone by. Lana tapped her foot, waiting for the baggage to roll past. The sooner she got this visit started, the soone
r it would be over.

  Twenty minutes later, she wheeled the luggage cart toward the exit, trailed by the older women. She sucked in a deep breath before stepping into the furnace outside the airport doors. The heat smothered her like a wool blanket, and the dry desert air seared her nostrils.

  “One of Tyrone’s boys is coming to get us,” Jean said, looking up and down the road.

  Lana looked too, gnawing her lip. It figured the kid would be late. While the two older women stood in the shade of a bus stop, catching up on twelve years of news, she paced. Out into the piercing sun, then back into the muted shade. Out and back, out and back again, each footfall a step into the past, then a determined about-face into the future. She tried to numb her senses, but they kept darting around, tasting the arid flavor of this place, listening to its emptiness. Everything felt so familiar, yet so strange, like visiting a childhood home after someone else had moved in.

  That was the strange part. Arizona had never been her home and it never would be. She’d only visited once before. She went stiff at the memory, as if the old emotions might creep up and carry her away. Emotions like hope and love and unexpected passion, blazing bright. She’d been so young and impressionable back then. Only twenty, and that was the problem. Too young to know better than to fall in love with a vague scent in the hills. For a while, she’d even imagined the scent came with a man.

  But it had been a siren song at best, and it had ruined her. There was no man, no promise, only a ceaseless whisper that stirred her during the day and haunted her at night. And now she was back again, right in the thick of it: the heat, the dust, the lying air.

  “Oh, there he is,” Jean called.

  A faded Jeep Wagoneer pulled up to the curb and creaked to a stop. From what Jean had said, Lana had been expecting the driver to be a newly licensed teen—a kid delighted for any excuse to get out on four wheels. The type with narrow shoulders, a pocked complexion, and gangly limbs.

  She was not expecting this.

  Lana gaped as the “boy” emerged from the car with a smooth, easy step. Evidently the state of Arizona was now issuing driver’s licenses to rugged, six-foot-two slabs of muscle and raw power. Authority bristled off him in waves, as if he were facing an entire platoon and not just a couple of guests. Dark. Sensual. More than a little dangerous. This was their ride?

  “Hello, sweetie.” Old Jean gave him a cheery peck on the cheek. The gesture made Lana’s inner wolf hiss so fiercely that she wobbled and took a step back. Since when did a man affect her like that?

  Since right now, apparently.

  But why? She didn’t want or need a man in her life, especially one who was so…so…alpha.

  And yet every molecule in her body was screaming Mine!

  # # #

  The last thing Ty needed was to play chauffeur to a couple of old women. He had a million things to do, not only in town but home on the ranch.

  It always seemed like things came to a head when his father was away and he was on watch—a role he was taking on more and more often in a gradual changing of the guard. This time his father was in Utah for a week, give or take. Not that Ty minded the old man’s absence or his chance to finally take charge. He was born to stand down the dangers threatening his pack: vampires, rogue wolves, and even humans. The latter were weak, but their overwhelming numbers and powerful fears made them an unpredictable risk.

  Lately, though, it seemed as though the only problems he was being called upon to solve were petty quarrels that called for people skills, not power. Not his forte. Ty almost wished a real problem would arise to put things back in perspective. Then he could step into action and show them all.

  He rejected the thought with a sharp shake of his head. His job wasn’t to prove himself; it was to lead and ignore the rest. So what if it seemed that everyone was waiting—hoping, almost—for the first son of the alpha to show some weakness? It had been that way for as long as he could remember. The fact that he hadn’t screwed up just upped the ante: now they expected perfection. Was he a wolf, or a magician?

  Ty forced himself to take a deep breath. He was his father’s son. He would do a good job—even better than his father, if that were possible.

  So what the hell was he doing as taxi driver to a couple of old women?

  That question, he could answer. Aunt Jean—his great-aunt, actually—had practically raised him. She was the only person other than his father who could give him an order, even though hers came covered in cream and honey and with a tickle of the cheek as if he were still a cub. So ninety minutes ago, he had dropped her off at the airport to await her friend before going off on his own errands, gnashing his teeth the whole time. Now he pulled up outside the arrivals area, tapping his fingers on the wheel. Where were they?

  Then he spotted Jean with a heap of luggage, chatting in the shade of a bus stop with another gray-haired woman. He stifled a yawn, picturing the cobwebs of their conversation. Too bad they weren’t with that leggy brunette who was pacing nearby. The one with the chiseled calves and no-nonsense stride. Now that would be his kind of chauffeuring. Or more like his womanizing brother’s kind of chauffeuring, because he wouldn’t allow himself to be affected by any woman again.

  Not even this one.

  Except that he sniffed as he drove past, trying to tease her scent out of the complex symphony of city smells.

  What if…what if… his wolf tried.

  Part of him quivered in hope; the other part snorted in disgust. Give it up. It wasn’t as if the woman he’d lost his heart to so long ago would simply walk back into his life.

  He killed the engine and unfolded himself from the cab.

  “Ty, sweetie, this is my dear friend Ruth,” Aunt Jean said.

  “I remember you as a little cub!” Ruth exclaimed. “My, how you’ve grown.”

  He squeezed his lips and endured.

  “And this is my granddaughter, Lana.” She gestured to somebody standing behind him.

  He turned and found himself stuck midway between inhaling and exhaling. It was her—the brunette, wearing light capris and a V-neck T-shirt that offered the barest hint of an athletic figure. She looked to be about thirty, a little younger than him. There was neither a brush of make-up on her face, nor a speck of jewelry in sight. She didn’t need any. She was perfect just the way she was.

  Luckily, she was a little slow to react, because his joints seized up along with his breath. When her hand finally reached out to grip his in greeting, all his synapses fired simultaneously.

  “Hi,” she said in that clipped East Coast way. Her eyes locked onto his, wide and blue as the desert sky after a welcome rain. He felt dragged in, dropping like a skydiver. The hand she offered was warm and fit his so perfectly, he couldn’t let go.

  A voice vaguely registered behind the roaring in his ears. “Get the luggage, sweetie,” Jean called, one foot already in the car.

  Luggage? Right. He snatched a bag off the cart and loaded it into the Jeep. Then he turned for the next one, taking it from Lana’s hand. It was a light, sporty duffel, not a girly thing; either she packed ultra-light or she wasn’t planning on staying long. The layers of muscle surrounding his ribs tightened at the thought.

  “I can get it.” Her protest came too late. When he spun back to face her, her eyes were swirling like the sky before a summer storm, angry as all hell.

  He got caught up in that tempest for a moment before she let out a muffled growl that snapped him back to the moment. Crap. She must be one of those stubborn, independent types capable of opening her own doors and giving herself a hernia carrying heavy things just to prove she could. One of those stubborn women who…who had the most enticing scent. Fresh. Promising, like a west wind. Familiar, almost.

  He was still savoring her scent when Lana pushed past him and heaved another bag into the car. Great. He’d managed to antagonize her already.

  He pulled his lower lip in tight and clenched his jaw. He was good at that—pissing people off. Keeping them
safely at arm’s length. Too bad she was one of the few he might be interested in keeping close. Very close.

  He slammed the door a little too hard, cursing the long drive home.

  # # #

  Within minutes, he was shifting around and wishing for his own truck. But since his open-bed pickup was hardly the vehicle for chauffeuring old ladies, here he was, stuck in one of the ranch cars.

  It wasn’t just the vehicle, though. Lana was driving him crazy, sitting right behind him while the older women crooned on about old times. With the wind whipping through the open window, he couldn’t quite capture her scent. Her posture was stiff, her expression carefully schooled. Everything about this woman spoke of discipline and control. She was pretty, too, in her wildcat kind of way that made him hungry to know more.

  He wanted to say something, just to hear more of her voice. But words had never been his thing, so he tightened his hands around the steering wheel and resigned himself to a long drive.

  As they left the heat of the city for the cooler, higher altitudes of the north, Lana sat as taut as an over-tensioned spring. She appeared to be caught between wanting to inhale all of northern Arizona and forcing herself to hold back. He knew that feeling intimately. Keeping passion a slave to self-discipline, never letting too much of yourself show. He knew why he did it, but why did she?

  “Maybe when we get to the ranch, you can show Lana around,” Aunt Jean chirped.

  I can definitely show her around, his wolf murmured. And I bet she can show me a thing or two, too.

  He leashed his inner animal and dragged it kicking and screaming into one of those stupid pet crates provided by his imagination. He could practically hear the scrape of claws across a slippery linoleum floor. Then his eyes strayed to Lana’s in the rear view mirror, and promptly vaulted away. He would definitely not be showing this woman anything.