Tall, Dark, and Medieval

by Barbara Devlin

  Copyright © 2013 Elizabeth Rose Krejcik

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Elizabeth Rose Krejcik

  Cover art by Elizabeth Rose Krejcik

  ISBN: 978-1-5087693-0-9

  TITLES BY

  ELIZABETH ROSE

  ♔ (Legacy of the Blade Series)

  ♔ Prequel

  ♔Lord of the Blade

  ♔Lady Renegade

  ♔Lord of Illusion

  ♔Lady of the Mist

  ♛(Daughters of the Dagger Series)

  ♛Prequel

  ♛Ruby

  ♛Sapphire

  ♛Amber

  ♛Amethyst

  ♖ (Madman MacKeefe Series)

  ♖ Onyx

  ♖ Aidan

  ♖ Ian

  ♗(Barons of the Cinque Ports Series)

  ♗The Baron’s Quest

  ♗The Baron’s Bounty

  ♗The Baron’s Destiny (Jan. 2016)

  ☀(Elemental Series)

  ☀The Dragon and the Dreamwalker

  ☀The Duke and the Dryad

  ☀The Sword and the Sylph

  ☀The Sheik and the Siren

  ✛(Tarnished Saints Series)

  ✛Tarnished Saints’ Christmas (Prequel)

  ✛Doubting Thomas

  ✛Luring Levi

  ✛Judging Judas

  ✛Seducing Zeb

  ✛Saving Simon

  ✛Wrangling James

  ✛Praising Pete

  ✛Teaching Philip

  ✛Loving John (Feb. 2016)

  ✭(Greek Myth Fantasy Series)

  ✭The Pandora Curse

  ✭The Oracle of Delphi

  ✭Thief of Olympus

  ✭Kyros’ Secret

  ♡(Short stories)

  ♡One Red Rose

  ♡My Christmas Soldier

  ♘(Cowboys of the Old West Series)

  ♘The Outlaw

  ♘The Bounty Hunter

  ♘The Gambler

  ♘The Drifter

  ♘The Gunslinger

  Wolfe of the West (New)

  ❤(Tangled Tales Series)

  ❤Lady and the Wolf

  ❤Just A Kiss (New)

  ❤Beast Lord (coming soon)

  ☂(Single Title)

  ☂The Caretaker of Showman’s Hill

  ☂Curse of the Condor

  ☂Familiar

  (Gnarled Nursery Rhymes)

  ☠Mary, Mary

  ☠Muffet (coming soon)

  ❒(Boxed Sets)

  ❒Border Lords and Ladies

  ❒Dragon Lords and Warriors

  ❒Ancient Warriors and Lovers

  ❒Cowboys of the Old West

  THE DRAGON AND THE DREAMWALKER

  CHAPTER ONE

  Nothing could repulse Brynn-Riletta more than what she’d just done.

  She pushed away from the filthy, disgusting man named Calais who’d just deflowered her and hurriedly pulled her clothes back into place.

  “Get back over here,” he commanded, crawling across the sleeping pallet with lust in his eyes. “I’m not finished yet.”

  She got to her feet quickly, her anger bringing forth her elemental power of fire, and sending the bedcovers up in flame. Calais screamed and leaned away from the fire.

  “Calais, you repulsive cur. You are finished. And now that I’ve stooped so low, I can’t help but think getting sacrificed to the dragon would have been the better of the choices.”

  With fear in his eyes, he pulled his breeches back into place and used a blanket to beat out the flames. “Witch,” he tormented her with an accusing finger to her face. “You are a witch, just like they all said.”

  “I am no such thing.” The man’s insolence infuriated her. But having had a human for a father and a mother of the faerie realm, this categorized her as somewhere in between, and people feared her and called her ‘witch’ just as they’d done to her poor, departed mother.

  She pulled tightly on each string to secure her bodice, feeling so dirty and no better than the castle whore. Her father’s castle was stormed a fortnight ago, and she’d fled to Lornoon for safety once she realized she had nowhere else to go. Once in Lornoon, she’d felt the need to help save the virgins from being sacrificed to Dracus, the infamous dragon. Her decision to lay with Calais was only to spare her own life. But now that she’d done the horrid deed, she’d wished she hadn’t.

  “Calais, you must come with me to the Elders and tell them I am no longer a virgin.”

  “I will not. You are a witch and you must die. So be it at the jaws of the powerful Dracus.”

  “What? You cannot mean what you say. I let you deflower me to save my life.”

  “You’ve done naught of the kind, Witch.”

  Her anger once again brought forth flame, right at Calais’ feet. He jumped quickly out of the way of getting burned. This time he picked up a ewer of water and emptied it on the fire, his action causing some of the water to splash onto her.

  “Nay!” She backed away, too distracted by the water on her skin to notice Calais had gone to the door of the hut and flagged down the Elders and two men of the village.

  “She’s here!” he called. “Here is the witch. She is the last virgin left in the village. Use her to sate Dracus.”

  “What are you saying?” She couldn’t believe the man’s audacity. “I’m no longer a virgin. I should be safe from the dragon. Speak the truth!”

  The chief Elder, Hermod, looked at Calais in question. “Did you have her?”

  “Nay,” he answered much too quickly.

  “If you did have her, it is the rule of Lornoon that you marry her. You are aware of the rules of the Elders, are you not?”

  Astonished to hear this, Brynn gasped. If Calais had known this, he hadn’t told her. No one had. She hadn’t been in Lornoon long, but this was one rule she didn’t think would be kept a secret from outsiders.

  “Everyone knows to lay with Brynn, the witch, would be a curse upon oneself,” answered Calais. “I did not have her, though she begged me to take her maidenhead and make her my bride.”

  Too taken by surprise to speak, Brynn stood there with her mouth open. Hermod nodded his head and the two burly village men took her by the arms and led her up the cliff to the sacrificial post.

  Darkness covered the land, and the smell of fear permeated the air. The angry sky churned above the little village of Lornoon. The sea pushed its punishing waves crashing up against the cliffs, and all knew the wrath of Dracus was at hand. Dracus, the powerful dragon stirred beneath the sea, and with it stirred the emotions of the frightened villagers. Any minute now, the beast would rear its head from the scolding sea to claim yet another virgin. But this time, ’twould be herself tied to the stake instead.

  “Nay! Let me be. He speaks not the truth.”

  The men didn’t listen. Instead, they tied first her arms above her head and then her feet to the bottom of the post high above the edge of the cliff.

  Brynn closed her eyes and struggled in one last futile attempt against the ropes that bound her to the sacrificial post. Never had she dreamed she'd be the next victim to feed the hunger of the demon that rode the seas and haunted the hills of Lornoon. Things weren’t going at all as planned.

  Lightning slashed across the sky and the thunder strengthened its ceremonial drumming. She knew the dragon was at this very moment churning up the ocean floor arising from its slumber after having devoured the last sacrificial virgin. As the waters below her swirled in blackened fury, so did the sky above her. Rain pelted against her face, stinging like an adder’s strike. A vicious wind came from over the sea, slapping her skin and tangling her long hair. A mist rose up to meet her, snaking around her in a toying manner, teasing li
ke a cat playing with a mouse before it pounces.

  None of this was right. She shouldn’t be up on the post any more than any of the women of Lornoon. She'd thought she'd seen to the measures of protecting the women of the village. After all, it had been her idea that the virgins, herself included, sleep with the men and deflower themselves. Though they may have lost their dignity and virtue, at least their lives were safe from the jaws of the fiery beast.

  Or so she had thought.

  She pulled viciously at the ropes, willing the knots to loosen and set her free.

  "Release me!" The wind bit her flesh in a cold, angry sting. She yelled to be heard above the thunder and raging sea. Dracus was making his way to the surface.

  The Elders and villagers disappeared, hiding among the cliffs, watching, waiting for the dragon. They were protected there. The dragon wouldn’t bother them - not when he had her.

  "You cannot sacrifice me to Dracus. He will not want me, as I am not a virgin!"

  At one time, she never would have considered the thought of shouting out loud that her maidenhead was gone. Now she no longer cared. She wanted all to know they'd made a mistake and she was proud to say she no longer had the requirements to be a sacrifice.

  "'Tis too late. You are to be sacrificed,” answered Hermod from behind a rock. “We've no virgins other than you to suffice the hunger of the dragon. You were to blame for that, so it’s only right you give your life in their place."

  She’d heard it said that over the past months that the dragon already consumed several virgins and yet it still returned. Sacrificing lives wasn’t what would stop it. If only they could see that. But unfortunately, Brynn didn’t know what it would take to rid the village of the beast.

  A slight movement caught her eye as Hermod, Calais, and several of the Elders dared to step from their hiding place enough for her to see them. She looked down from the height of the cliff, the wind whipping her long tresses into her eyes. She cringed at the sting but knew it would be nothing compared to the sharp teeth that were about to rip at her flesh.

  "Calais, tell them the truth,” she warned, but the man remained silent. As much as she hated the idea of having to marry the wretched man, she liked it more than the idea of dying. Once they set her free, she’d leave Lornoon and the disgusting man forever. She would not marry him, nor would she die by the jaws of the beast.

  Calais was the most questionable man of the village. She knew the moment she'd set eyes on him that he wasn't to be trusted. His dark, beady stare shifted from her face to that of the Elders. He was a small man, not much bigger than herself. Homely. About five and twenty years of age. He was quick but not strong. Not at all a warrior.

  Brynn moistened her lips and waited for him to speak. He lifted one hand, minus the two fingers that he'd lost after caught stealing goods from a merchant. He wasn't going to tell them. She knew it by the look in his eyes. He wasn't going to change his mind and prove her story true. He was going to let her die.

  "Silence, Witch,” he shouted. “I have already spoken the truth."

  Brynn felt despair. Any man there would have been a better partner than Calais. Still, she hadn’t had much choice. The men of the village feared her as a witch, when she was only a Dreamwalker. Her ability to leave her body at will scared these people. They'd seen her etheric image walking the grounds while her body lay asleep, close - too close - to the fire.

  She'd asked every man in the village except for the Elders to deflower her. If she had asked the Elders, they would have probably killed her themselves, knowing the plan she’d devised. No man wanted to touch her for fear he'd be consumed by an evil force. And now she knew, neither would they touch her because they didn’t want her as their wife. It was said that the old seer, Juturna, had looked into her crystal sphere and said that Brynn was not to be touched. The man who'd take her in such a way was to be doomed forever. Cursed for all eternity, lest he, himself, could slay the dragon and save their heritage from its mighty claws.

  Brynn was doomed before she'd begun. It was only with repulsion that she lay with Calais, and left her body while he had his pleasures and done his deed. Calais didn't care about evil curses. Calais only cared about himself. He got what he wanted, never telling Brynn of the law, nor telling her he never planned to uphold it. He was such a lying bastard. She knew now the act she'd thought would save her was only done in vain.

  Lightning flashed, lighting up the faces of the villagers half-hidden in the dusky shadows. They were strangers to her. They always had been. She had no family, she had no friends. She'd never forget the night her own village was ransacked and burned by Klarens - her enemy. Her parents died that night and it was only by an act of fate that she remained alive.

  The Klarens tried to kill her, but couldn't. She'd been out of her body at the time. Her physical form was deep in the woods, asleep upon a hill of moss. She'd seen the attack on the castle in her dreams and willed her dream body to follow. She had stood in the flames that lapped around her etheric form and the Klarens struck with their double-edged swords. They'd failed to harm her, and fled in fright.

  Brynn welcomed fire. She'd even learned to walk over and through it with her physical body and not be harmed. She was from the realm of fire. Fire gave her power. Nay, she didn't fear fire when she thought about dying, but there was another element of nature that she feared with every fiber of her being.

  She looked down to the swirling black depths rising closer and closer to her feet, making her dizzy and nauseous. Her skin prickled and she took a deep breath while she still could. She feared the sea, feared drowning. Feared being enclosed in small spaces, like the stomach of a dragon filled with water. She'd welcome the fiery breath of the dragon as it warmed her skin, but she'd never welcome the dark caverns and the watery depths he'd take her to as he brought her to his lair. At a time like this, she wished for the presence of her friend, Ebba-Tyne. She was an elemental also, but not of fire. Her friend was a faerie of the water. She welcomed water the way Brynn welcomed fire. But each of them feared the other’s gift. She hadn’t seen her in years, but now wished for the girl’s presence at her side. Brynn had no strength against the ocean and its power.

  The water crested as the beast burst forth from beneath the sea. Its scaly serpent head whipped from side to side as he bellowed a deep roar that rumbled off the mountains, shaking her bones as well as her soul. The villagers and Elders scattered back to safety among the rocks. Calais was the first among them, the coward.

  The rain washed down upon her and she felt the cleansing that came before one left the world and continued on to the afterlife. A cleansing that took with it, every bit of her powers slowly.

  The dragon parted its orange wings and rose above the waves, its huge scaly tail slapping the water as its sharp claws rode over the foamy sea. Such a horrific sight. Its eyes glowed a fierce reddish-orange. Its body lurched sharply, coming straight up out of the water. Its hideous, gruesome form was more threatening than she’d ever imagined. No wonder the villagers lived in fear. One swipe of the beast’s sharp taloned claws would leave a person shredded to pieces.

  "God be merciful," she whispered.

  Fire steamed from the beast’s nostrils as it eyed her and came straight for her. She was its target and there was no escaping a hungry dragon looking for a meal. She pulled at her ropes and screamed to the Elders, but her cries could no longer be heard above the thunder of the sea and the roar of the beast. She tried to call forth fire for protection, but a wave washed up over her, and she coughed and gasped for air and life.

  Dracus rose into the air majestically and flew a circle around the churning black sky. Its jaws dropped open as he approached her. She closed her eyes, knowing what she had to do in order not to feel the pain as he devoured her body whole. Her powers were drained now, and she had no choice but to surrender.

  Brynn willed herself outside her body. She left her shell tied to the stake and raised above the dragon where she'd be safe. The air was
calm here above the storm. A feeling of peace engulfed her. She wouldn’t feel the pain now. It would be over in a flash. It no longer mattered. She was safe here. She would never enter into the physical realm or her body again.

  * * *

  Drake of Dunsbard halted his men and watched from atop his stallion as the beast lifted into the air. It was happening. Again. An innocent virgin was about to be consumed before he could do anything to stop it.

  "Damnation and hellfire!" his squire cursed from the horse beside him. "You are too late my lord to do anything to help the wench."

  Drake looked over to his squire, Asad, of one and twenty years. He’d brought the bronzed-skinned man back from across the sea to serve at his side four years earlier. Asad was the bastard son of a harem girl. He wasn’t the sheik’s son, but had been raised by the sheik in false premise. It took the man seven and ten years to learn the truth. But when the sheik discovered the harem girl’s infidelity, they were both to be executed. The woman begged Drake to save her son just before she lost her own life at the sheik’s hand.

  Because of Drake, Asad still lived, and would do anything to pay his life debt to his lord. Asad was a warrior, a lion by his own right, but Drake never before heard the man speak with such fear in his voice. But then again, this was the first time Asad had seen Dracus. The sight alone was almost enough to kill a man. And now, Drake truly wished he could change places with the doomed maiden rather than to witness her untimely demise.

  Drake’s horse danced beneath him. His soldiers behind him were ready and armed for battle but he knew he was the only one who could help. He'd not have their deaths on his mind. It was bad enough to feel the weight of every young maiden who had gone to her demise before now.

  "Nay, you're wrong, Asad. This time things are going to change. Bring the men to the far side of the ridge. Hurry. Use the archers to distract the beast. But wait for my command. Then get the men out of there as fast as you can.”