Professor Dragon's Virgin (Irish Dragon Shifter Brothers Book 5)

by Brittany White

  “Thank you,” Niall said. “This means a lot.”

  Brynne chewed on her lip. “I remember you. From our clan. Before the witches came.”

  “You do?”

  “Yeah. I was ten when it happened, so you’d left already, but I remember you teaching our class one day.”

  He remembered that too. The teacher who’d handled the history lessons had been out on a hunt to gather meat for the clan. Niall had already been interested in history and geography, and he’d taught the lesson.

  “You had pigtails,” Niall said to her.

  Her eyes misted over, and she nodded. “I did. I was the only female who liked them.” She laid her hand on his arm. “We’re all glad you’re here. And if you ever want to be a Texan, we have more than enough room.”

  “We’ll keep that in mind.” He stepped into the hallway, pulling the door almost closed behind him. “I’m going to ask her to marry me.”

  Brynne’s hands came up to cover her mouth. “I’m so happy for you.”

  “Thanks. Tell the others. In case they see me leaving, they’ll know what I’m doing.”

  When he stepped back in the room, he inhaled the stew, then paced around the room. Nora was still asleep. He couldn’t sit down and relax until he had this taken care of. He left her a note, telling her that he was going for a swim, but instead, he drove into town. He slipped out the window and scaled down the side of the castle. He wanted to hurry so that she didn’t wake up and find him gone.

  Two towns away, he found a local jewelry shop. As soon as he saw it, he chose the Claddagh ring for her. Both of them were so immersed in Irish tradition that it made sense to honor their history. The Claddagh ring was a symbol of love, loyalty, and friendship. The band consisted of two hands holding a heart with a crown above the heart. It was supposed to mean that you gave your heart to someone you loved, and you crowned that love with loyalty. It was the perfect symbol for him to give to Nora.

  He paid for the ring and drove quickly back to the castle. Once he was back on the castle grounds, he could finally relax. He had just crawled back in through the window when he heard Brennon say, “Hey, man, did you get it?”

  Niall chuckled.

  The lack of privacy was reminiscent of his childhood and teenage years, growing up in the clan. Everyone knew everyone else’s business, and each shifter believed that it was their right to know everyone else’s business. He knew they would be desperate to see the ring. He went downstairs, where all thirteen of them were gathered in the dining room, playing a human board game.

  “I remember this about our clan,’’ he said. “How nosy we are. I know you all can’t stand it. So I will put you out of your misery.” He pulled the ring box from his pocket and popped it open. “Here’s the ring. Yes, it’s a Claddagh ring.”

  Shifters didn’t traditionally wear rings because they could be lost when they transformed, but Nora would be able to wear a ring. “I plan to ask her as soon as she wakes up.”

  One by one, each of the members of the Irish dragon shifter clan came by and touched the ring. Niall thought of it as giving their blessing.

  Clara was the last. She threw her arms around his neck. “I’m so happy for you both. I know we’re all so nosy, but thank you for sharing this with us.”

  “I grew up like this,” he said. “So it’s nothing new to me. In fact, now I can remember it fondly.” He would miss this rambunctious group of shifters when they went back to the United States. He figured he and Nora would visit during the spring semester break if she were willing.

  Rowan climbed into a chair. He put his little hands on Niall’s shoulders. “We are going to miss you, too, Uncle Niall.”

  Clara sniffled. “We all have plenty of room for when you visit.”

  “Yeah, we do,” Rowan chimed in. “Aunt Clara is right. She has a real life mansion.”

  Everyone laughed, but Niall assumed it was the truth. After all, Kellan had provided him and Nora with a private plane at a moment’s notice. He shuddered to think of what it would have been like to transport the werewolf on a train or commercial flight.

  Nora slept for the rest of the afternoon. She was groggy when she woke up, but she smiled at him. She showered and brushed her teeth, then got dressed, and Niall could barely control his excitement.

  “Would you like to go for a walk? Stretch your legs?” he asked.

  “Sure. That sounds lovely.” She cocked her head to the side, listening. “Where’s everyone else?”

  “They’re all taking a nap.”

  Nora’s eyebrows drew together. “Everyone?”

  It was a preposterous claim, but it had been Declan’s idea. The little boy had been so excited about participating that Niall was willing to go along with it. “That’s what they said.”

  Niall had said that part especially loud, to signal to the clan that it was time to get moving. They had planned to all run to the second floor, to Quinn and Juliana’s room, and watch from their window. Clara was going to record it. He only hoped that she’d say yes and that there’d be no record of him getting rejected that would survive forever.

  It was nearing sunset when they walked outside, hand in hand. “Liam found a little fishing boat,” he said. “We could watch the sunset from the lake.”

  Her cheeks flushed pink. “Just like we did at your house. The first time we kissed.”

  “Yep. Just like that.”

  He leaned down and kissed her nose. Then he wrapped his arm around her shoulder, and they strolled toward the lake. The sky was a beautiful blend of yellow and orange. A cool breeze chilled the air. In the distance, the hills were a lush, vibrant green.

  He was glad she didn’t have enhanced hearing without a spell because he could hear each member of his clan. The kids were shoving each other, and the adults were whispering about camera angles and lighting.

  He snickered. “It’s not a photoshoot,” he said under his breath.

  Her head came up. “What?”

  “Nothing,” he said.

  Right at the water’s edge, he stopped and turned to face her, taking her hands in his. He made sure they were visible from the castle window. If he didn’t, he had no doubt that several dragons would come sailing over to spy on them.

  “Nora. You are my mate, and you are the love of my life. I want to spend every moment with you.” He dropped to one knee. “Will you marry me and accept me as your mate?”

  Nora’s eyes went wide, and her mouth dropped open. She stood there, silently, for so long that Niall grew antsy.

  How long should he stay on one knee? There was no guidebook for a dragon shifter proposing to the witch who was his mate on the same day they’d vanquished an unpleasant werewolf and while an entire clan looked on from a centuries-old castle. It was all so absurd that humans would make a reality show out of it.

  Niall started to get up when Nora squeaked. She put her hands on his shoulders. “No! I mean, yes! I mean, no, don’t get up.” She fanned her hands over her face, which was growing redder by the second. “The answer is, yes, I will marry you.”

  Niall could breathe again. He pulled the ring box from his pocket and pulled it open for her. “I chose the Claddagh ring from a local jeweler to represent what we mean to each other.”

  Nora’s eyes filled with tears, and one spilled over, running down her cheek. She patted at her face with her sleeve. “I love it.”

  He slipped the ring on her left finger, and she held it up, admiring it in the waning sunlight. He finally got up, and he lifted her into the air, holding her close while spinning her in a circle. He put her back down on the ground and kissed her soundly.

  In the distance, cheers erupted.

  Understanding registered on her face. “They weren’t really napping, were they?”

  He shook his head. “No. I told them all what I was planning. They’re recording right now.”

  She laughed out loud. “Of course they are.” She threw her arms around him. “I’m glad we’ll have it fo
rever.”

  23

  Nora

  “Congratulations!” The shout came from a huge chorus of voices, all screaming at once.

  Fallon came forward first, just as she had when they arrived at the festival. She held her hands out once again, and Nora took them. “We are so happy to welcome you into this clan. You were already a member, but your marriage has only strengthened our bond.”

  Next were Clara and Juliana, who hugged her tightly, and then Brynne, who kissed her cheek. The kids couldn’t wait either. They all ran forward at once, tumbling over each other to get to Niall and her. Niall put Quinn’s toddler, Isleen, on his shoulders so that she could see everyone.

  The four brothers came forward next, and each of them hugged her too.

  “You two have to come to Texas soon,” Quinn said.

  “Yes!” Clara cried out. “It will be another big family event for us to all get together. When’s the big day?”

  “We’re thinking it will be next summer at least,” Niall said. “Maybe May or June. Nora wants to finish her first year of college first.”

  “Oh,” Clara said, clearly hoping it would be sooner. “Well, if you need any help planning, the four of us have all done this before, so we’d be happy to help.”

  Brynne nodded. “Clara and Juliana are master decorators and planners. If you’re not into that, they can handle it all.”

  “I don’t have anyone to invite, other than you all,” Nora said. She wasn’t ashamed of that. It was the truth.

  Clara smiled. “That’s okay. Small, intimate weddings are the most fun. If it’s just the fifteen of us, then we can go anywhere and do anything you want.”

  “I’d like that,” Nora said.

  Once the rest of the clan had wandered off, Clara stayed close. She wrapped her arm around Nora. “Listen, don’t feel like you’re obligated to go along with our ideas just to humor us. But I do love planning, and I love parties and weddings and all the details that go along with them. So does Juliana. So if there’s anything you need help with—cake, wedding, invitations—just let me know.”

  Nora turned to face her. “I’ve never been to a wedding. Witches, at least the ones from my coven, don’t get married. They think it’s the height of stupidity to bind yourself to a male. They don’t form lasting relationships, even when they have a child.” She still felt the absence of her own father from her life. Maybe she’d try to look for him again one day. Or maybe not. It had not ended up going well for her last time.

  Clara put both arms around Nora and squeezed for a second. “If you don’t want any of the wedding stuff ,that’s okay too. I just wanted you to know that we’d help.”

  “I do want a wedding,” she said quietly. She wanted to make her mating with Niall special. She also wanted it to be legal. “We’re going to live among humans, like you do. He’s going to keep teaching, and I’ll have several more years of school before I graduate. So, yes. I want it.”

  Clara beamed at her. “Then you’ll have it.”

  Around mid-December, as the first semester of her university career came to an end, Nora closed the wedding magazine with a snap. “Now I see why Clara offered to help. Weddings are crazy!”

  Niall kissed her on the top of her head. “We could elope.”

  Nora flopped backward on the sofa. She let her eyes focus on the large Christmas tree she’d put in the corner of the room. She and Niall had decorated it with pinecones and berries, and it was the happiest tree she’d ever seen. “We could. But they’d all be so upset.”

  “We aren’t getting married to appease our clan,” he said.

  Nora would never get tired of hearing him call them our clan. She leaned her head over on his shoulder. “No, but they welcomed us so easily. I want to share this day with them.”

  They had already been disappointed that she and Niall had chosen to spend their Christmas holiday alone in Ireland. The clan had really pushed for them to spend the three-week break in Cedar Lake, Texas. Nora promised they’d consider it next year. This year, she wanted Niall all to herself.

  “As long as that’s what you really want. If you need them to back off, let me know.”

  “I can handle them.” In fact, she welcomed their intrusion into her engagement.

  As soon as the brothers and their wives had returned home to Texas, Clara started a group chat for the five of them. They texted, emailed, called, and video chatted with her daily. Some days, she received a text every hour from one of them. Clara was the most frequent, but Juliana was a close second, and Fallon was third. Brynne seemed more interested in the honeymoon. Often, the texts were simply a photo of a location, a dress, or a cake that had struck their fancy, and they couldn’t wait to share it with her.

  She was okay with technology, but it didn’t come as easily to her as others her age. The witches had kept a few phones for necessities, like ordering items online or booking flights, but mostly, they sat unused. The werewolves had only had two phones, one for the alpha, and one for the beta. Things like video chats were not second nature to her yet.

  During her final biology class for the semester, a photo of a bride’s bouquet popped up on her computer screen. They’d convinced her to connect her phone to her laptop, and now she wasn’t even safe during class.

  She quickly closed the screen, hoping no one had seen. The image was innocent, but the professor was all business. She would not appreciate one of her students planning a wedding during her class. Nora would have to disable that function immediately. For the rest of the class, she took notes with her pen and paper, just to be safe. She was fortunate they’d already finished their exams, and this class was just in preparation for the next level of biology.

  Finally, she had finished her first semester. A swell of accomplishment rushed over her as she headed home to their cozy cottage. That evening, she had thirty unread texts from her Texas friends. She settled on the sofa while Niall started a fire in the fireplace. She laughed every time he breathed fire to do it. She sat by the crackling wood and opened the text thread to see that it had been named Wedding Planners Extraordinaire.

  She couldn’t suppress a giggle.

  “What’s funny?” Niall asked. He sat down and pulled her legs into his lap, massaging her muscles. His strong hands dug into her calf muscles, and she relaxed against the couch cushions.

  “Texts from the Texas dragons.” That’s what she’d taken to calling them, and Niall always grinned when she said it. “They named the group chat.” She turned the phone so that he could see.

  He just shook his head and kept rubbing her legs. As she was trying to scroll through the long deluge of texts, her phone rang. Fallon’s name flashed up on the screen. Nora answered it immediately.

  “Are they driving you crazy yet?” Fallon asked.

  Nora smiled. “Not too much.”

  She couldn’t imagine ever minding having so many friends. Not when she’d gone so long without. This was really her first time to have a family too. Her mother had never been more than an overseer and a taskmaster, and a cruel one at that. Now Nora had a group of women who wanted to talk to her all the time and were genuinely excited about her big day. She could never be too annoyed.

  “So, the wedding planners extraordinaire have a plan,” Fallon said. “And before they caught you off guard, I wanted to run it by you first. You know I adore Clara and Juliana, and I consider them my sisters, but they grew up in the human world. You and I did not. Even Brynne was more immersed in the human world, starting at twelve, because of her time in New York City with the vampires. I know Fae ceremonies are different from human ones. They’re also different from dragon shifter ceremonies. I just want to make sure we’re not overwhelming you with our own wishes.”

  It was very kind of Fallon to have thought of this, but Nora wasn’t overwhelmed. She closed her eyes as Niall’s hands moved up to her knees.

  “You’re right. They are different. Witches don’t have marriages. And witches don’t have weddings. I�
��ve never known a witch to stay with the male for longer than a few weeks. Dragon shifters have a near perfect record at maintaining relationships. Humans don’t always, but it’s far better than the witches. So for me, a group of humans, a shifter, and a Fae all planning my wedding? It sounds pretty good to me.”

  Fallon exhaled. “That’s a relief. You’re sure?”

  “Yes.” Nora covered a gasp as Niall’s hand strayed farther above her knee than she’d expected. Not wanting to discourage him, she twisted on the couch, squirming as his warm hands rubbed over her thighs. “I really am fine with sitting back and letting them just go wild,” she said.

  She took one look at the heated blaze in Naill’s eyes and realized her conversation with Fallon wasn’t going to last much longer.

  Fallon laughed. “Now that I have that assurance from you, I have to tell you they’re planning a trip to visit in about three weeks. Well, we all are. All four of us want to come.”

  “That sounds amazing. I can’t wait to see you.”

  “We can’t wait to see you either. They want to take your dress shopping, and they want to handle the cake tasting. And they want to find a wedding location.”

  Niall had told her he didn’t need or want any input into the wedding process. If it were up to him, then they’d have a minister come over the following day and pronounce them man and wife. He preferred simple, but he was happy to go along with a big wedding if that’s what she wanted.

  “We would get married here,” Nora said. “Or if Niall wanted to get married on the Cliffs of Moher, we could do that too.”

  She looked up to see him shaking his head. “Leave me out of it,” he mouthed. “You know I don’t care.”

  She blew him a kiss and refocused on what Fallon was saying.

  “Kellan’s providing a jet, so we basically have the entire world at our feet,” Fallon said. “They told me Brynne had a human wedding first, then got married on that remote island that was once a volcano, and they did a traditional mating ceremony. Because she’s a shifter, too, they wanted to incorporate dragon shifter traditions into the wedding.”