COWBOY ROMANCE: Justin (Western Contemporary Alpha Male Bride Romance) (The Steele Brothers Book 1) (9 page)

Surrender to the Alpha Publishing

Dragon Shifter Romance

Tempted by the Dragon

Chapter One

News of the dragon in the Wyndwae province spread across the countryside like a blaze from the mouth of the beast itself. In a week’s time it reached the inn of The Dancing Mer on the southern coast, and there it found Mairead Curran, slayer of monsters.

Of Mairaed there were many legends. It was whispered that she had vanquished at last the beast of the Breywood, whose jaws had been the end of three dozen men. Bards sang of the arrows that had laid waste in fire and steel to the lair of the manticore and slain the basilisk in the western mountains.

Of her beauty too, they sang. She was tall for a woman, and long-limbed, her auburn hair streaked with copper and tawny gold by long days beneath the southern sun. They said men traveled the lengths of continents to lay their spoils at her feet in hopes of her favor.

This last, at least, was quite untrue. Mairead herself had started the rumor, well aware that men who could afford to travel continents sought princesses to wife, not women who battled monsters, but it pleased her to let people think it was otherwise. As for the rest, well, it was true as any story which had passed through a hundred hands can be.

When news came of the dragon, Mairead was sitting at a table in the fire lit common room of the inn, with a tankard of mead in her hand, debating the relative merits of the bow versus the sword with Vreden, who had once been a knight of renown. He was aging, grey in the dark hair at his temples, but his sword arm was still strong. Mairaed’s own bow leaned against the wall at her side, her quiver with it.

“Perhaps,” she said, giving Vreden a look from over the top of her tankard, “you receive some measure of satisfaction from taking the heads off of beasts at close range. I, however, am content to make my name from the safety of distance. Were I one to choose practicality over pride, I would have joined that illustrious company of men who found themselves within reach of the Breywood beast’s many sharp teeth.” 

Vreden’s eyes narrowed, but the bang of the wooden door swinging wide to admit a cloaked and hooded stranger interrupted him. Every gaze in the room turned toward the newcomer, who was pulling the hood down from over his hair, his cloak dripping rainwater onto the floorboards. He shook the dark fall of hair back from his face, and Mairead felt his eyes move over her and the others at her table. When he swept his cloak back over his shoulder, she could see the insignia of the king’s message riders on the shoulder of his tabard.

“Buy me an ale to take the chill from my bones,” he offered the room at large, “and I will share some news which has only today come in from the Wyndwae.” His eyes caught on Mairead’s again. “I believe it will be of some interest to you.”

Mairead rose from her chair with a whisper of leather against wood and sauntered over to the bar, setting a coin down on the sleek wood of its top with a clack.

“There is your ale, then.”

He took the tankard the innkeeper set before him and drank deeply before he spoke again, inclining his head in thanks.

“There is rumor,” he said, leaning against the bar on one elbow, his dark eyes looking into her own, “that a dragon has been sighted in the north of the Wyndwae.”

Mairead’s snort was decidedly unladylike.

“There has not been a dragon seen in Lyndoun in half a century.”

“And yet there is one now. My brother saw it with his own eyes, a great black shape against the full moon.”

In his eyes there was no deceit, and Mairead considered his story as she tipped her own tankard back, mead flowing sweet across her tongue and warming her throat.

“What think you?” she asked, turning enough to look back at Vreden over her shoulder. “Is there a dragon in Lyndoun?”

They had, of course, heard the tales of the dragons in the distant west, in the rocky lands of Mivreth, but none had come so far east as the bordering mountains, and certainly they had not seen any in the eastern end of Lyndoun, where the forests gave way to windswept heath. It was true, though, that there were caves in the north of the region, and that a dragon might set up home in such a place.

“I trust not the eyes of men I have not met,” Mairead said, straightening to her full height as she made her decision. “So I will go and see with my own if this be true.”

Her boots made a decisive sound against the wood as she crossed the room and took up her bow, swinging her quiver across her back. The arrows rattled against each other in its confines. She glanced once more at the stranger, and allowed herself a smile, wide and a little wicked.

“I think, though, that I will wait until the heavens are not dumping the waters of the inland sea on our heads.”

A chuckle ran through the gathered men. Vreden only shook his greying head at her, his expression grave. Mairead lifted one leather-clad shoulder in a shrug. It was more likely that there was no dragon in the Wyndwae than that there was. Undoubtedly, some over-excitable townsperson had laid eyes on a drake, one of the relatively little firelizards that occasionally set up home too near a village and harassed the locals, raiding their livestock and burning their fields. Such creatures never grew beyond ten feet from nose to tail-tip, and Mairead had found them easily dealt with.

Turning her back on Vreden’s warning look, she climbed the stairs to her rented room, laying her weapons with her pack against the wall. Her things were already prepared. She needed only to take them up in the morning. In the flickering glow of the fire, she stripped out of her hunter’s leathers and stretched herself out on the bed, asleep almost as soon as her head touched the pillow.

Chapter Two

Dawn came clear, stretching itself out along the horizon all gold and pink, chill with the first touch of winter. Farther north, Mairead knew, the summer would be ended already, and in the mountains beyond the northernmost border, the first snows would be falling.

The stranger who brought news of the dragon in the Wyndwae had already ridden out. Though the message he shared with them was but rumor and speculation, the rider himself was a king's messenger bound once more north and east. He, and news of her coming, would reach the Wyndwae well before she did. Vreden too was gone, in the grey light before morning, taking his two young apprentices with him.

Mairead rode out as dawn turned on toward morning, slinging her pack over the back of the fine-blooded bay stallion that had been a gift from a grateful lord. There were, after all, some perks to being a hunter of monsters. She was in no hurry to reach the Wyndwae. If the dragon had razed a village already, they would have heard of it. For now, at least, the beast seemed to be leaving well enough alone, another indication that it was more likely to be a drake than one of the great white dragons of the west. Of course, there was little treasure to be found in the poor villages of the Wyndwae, so perhaps it was only biding its time until a shipment of gold came through. If so, it would be waiting long. For a beast rumored to be so intelligent, it had not chosen its lair well. Only a hundred miles west, the king's city sat in a low, open valley, its houses and its people gilded and jeweled. 

The land through which she rode as morning became midday was familiar, the low, rolling hills of the southern province. It was said that once there had been unicorns in the lowland woods, but if there ever had been they were gone long ago. Mairead had certainly never seen one. It seemed, at times, that Lyndoun had all of the darkness and none of the beauty. It was for that she hunted down the creatures that terrified the simple people only trying to go about their lives. Surely they had right to some light in their lives, to some escape from fear and worry.

Her father had taught her the use of the war bow which she carried behind her. Though her own was modified, its draw much lighter than those carried by the king's rangers, it was a formidable weapon, capable of piercing an armored hide at a hundred yards. She had turned her first herself, under the guidance of her father’s hand, when she was only seven summers old. This was her fourth, each of them her own work. Her father had always said that the first step in using a weapon is to know it from end to end.

He had never spoken of it, but Mairead sometimes wondered if he had expected a son, but had taken what he could get when he was given instead a daughter who grew too tall too quickly, all lanky, ungraceful limbs. If he had, he had done well with what he was granted. She had never missed the mother who died in her birthing bed. Her father had been all she needed.

When the sun was at its zenith, Mairead stopped to let her horse feed, settling down on a flat-topped rock set into the side of one of the hills with her own lunch. It was pleasant, the chill of the morning worn off in the light of day. She sat enjoying the breeze and the little noises of creatures moving through the grass for some time, the quiet, contented sounds of Embarr grazing a welcome companion. When she mounted once more, she rode slowly, eyes searching the landscape. To her left, an arm of the forest rose, trees lifting banner upon banner toward the horizon. In time, it would curve westward, and then she would turn into it. It was slow going, but faster than the days it would take to go around. The king's road, which the messenger would have taken, lay farther west still, and she did not wish to take the time to follow it up toward the royal city before turning toward the Wyndwae. Nor, in truth, did she much care for king's roads or his city at all. She preferred the solitude of the woods.

---

On the third day since she had set out from The Dancing Mer, Mairead made camp at the edge of the forest. She lay in her bed roll, looking up at the scatter net of the stars in the sky over her head, so bright it seemed she might reach up a hand and take one in her fist. Among the noises of night in the forest, she could hear the occasional soft snort from her horse, the sound of his tail swishing away the flies. Her eyes slid shut, and she slept.

She woke abruptly, sitting up and looking out into dim grey dark of the night. Beside her, the fire had burned to ashes, and the coals were a faint glow beyond the edge of her sleeping place. The sound that had taken her from sleep came again, high and frightened, the sound of her horse throwing back his head to call out in panic, and his hooves drumming against the ground in impatient attempt to escape. Mairead flung herself from her blankets and to her feet, but she did not run.

"Hush, my love," she said, moving slowly toward him, one hand outstretched. The other was curled around the hilt of a dagger. He tossed his head, rolling his eyes so the whites showed, pulling against his tether. "Hush," she said again, her own eyes searching the grey shapes around them, but she could see nothing except the trees and their shadows.

Embarr let her lay a hand against his neck then, and the beast seemed to settle somewhat, though she could still feel him trembling against her touch. She stroked him with slow, even motions of her hand over his flank, and he let his head drop forward, still at last. Though she listened, she could not hear any sounds that told her what had frightened him, still could not see anything moving through the night. Whatever it had been, it was long gone.

Chapter Three

In the morning, Mairead searched the earth around the campsite for some sign of prints, but there was nothing, and she gave up the hunt. Whatever had frightened her horse in the night had not been large enough to harm either of them if it was not large enough to leave prints behind. She saddled Embarr in the dawn light and rode out once more. In the afternoon, she met another traveler.

He rode in from the west on a great black horse, and when he saw her he lifted one hand in greeting. Mairead lifted her own in return, and he drew nearer, reigning in only a yard from her, and moving along parallel to the course she rode with Embarr.

“A fine day to you,” he called across the little space between them.

This close, Mairead could see that he was tall. It was not only the horse that made him look so. He had enough height, she thought, that he could look down on her easily, and his shoulders under his tunic and leather vest were broad. Hair so pale it seemed almost white in the sunlight that fell across them. Mairead found herself wondering what he looked like beneath the layers of his clothing, and when she met his gaze, she let the thought edge her smile.

“And to you.”

She saw the beginnings of a smile in the curve of his lips, and his eyes, brown to her green, swept her from head to toe with a single look.

“I confess that I noticed you from some distance,” he said, drawing nearer and letting his voice drop low, though there were none around to hear them. “And I thought perhaps I might offer myself as company, for I find myself grown weary of lonely travel.”

Mairead herself had not, but he was pleasing to look on, and across his back he carried a heavy blade with an intricately worked hilt. An expensive weapon. A warrior’s sword. It seemed that he was the type of man who could make himself useful in a fight. And so, after a moment, she simply nodded. Some company might not go amiss for a time.

“If we are to be companions, I would know your name.”

              He smiled over at her, a wide, genuine sort of smile that set her somewhat at ease though she hardly knew him. “It is Fintan.”

              She took note that he did not give a surname, but did not press for it. It he wished to give it, he would have.

              “And mine is Mairead Curran.”

              His brows lifted. “
The
Mairead Curren, I presume.”

              “The one and only.”

              “A true pleasure indeed to meet you, then. I have always followed your exploits with interest.”

She cast a sideways glance at him, uncertain whether he was mocking her or not. Some did, when they knew who she was, and the tall, muscled warrior type was the most prone to such an attitude. But when she turned enough to look at him, she found the expression on his face was as genuine as his tone.

“And what have you discovered?” she asked. “In your scholarship?”

His laugh was low and warm. “I have discovered,” he said, “that I would be a fool to cross you.”

Mairead flashed a grin in his direction. “Then you have learned your lesson well.”

In the evening, they made camp, and Fintan offered to share bread from his pack. Mairead shared cheese from hers, and they sat together in companionable silence as they ate. The horses too were settled down, grazing quietly side by side, their tails swishing. It was a peaceful night in the glow of the fire, the wind rustling through the leaves overhead.

When they had finished their fare, Mairead unrolled her blankets and slipped off her high leather boots, settling down cross-legged in the center of her bed roll.

“Where is it you travel?” she asked, meeting Fintan’s eyes across the space between them. In the fire’s glow they seemed almost amber, and his pale hair was chased with gold.

“Northward,” he replied. “To the Wyndwae. Beyond that? I cannot say.”

“Do you go to see the dragon, then?”

He grinned, then, wide and full of teeth. “Is that what you seek in the Wyndwae? To slay a dragon?”

“We shall see.” Mairead lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “I am not certain I believe the tale. It seems far-fetched. Most likely it is only a drake, and as I have heard no stories of towns burning, I am not much inclined to do any slaying.”

His head tipped slightly to the side, and then he nodded, his manner seeming to offer respect for her words as well as agreement. The conversation for a moment ended, and he unlaced his own boots, dropping them to the side of his bed roll. Mairead pulled the leather jerkin she wore over her head, then stood to shimmy out of her leather trousers, not caring whether Fintan watched or not. Beneath, she wore green tunic and hose.

When she looked up, he was watching her. A faint flush rose in her cheeks. She was not some shy maiden, to be so flustered by a look, but there was something in the intensity of his regard that heated her blood and her face. She dropped her gaze.

“Do you look away because you wish me to stop looking, or because you wish me to continue?”

He sounded nearer. She looked up once more to watch him move carefully around the fire, and then he was stepping onto her bed roll to reach out and brush the hair back from her face. She turned into the touch, and when she lifted her eyes to his, she saw that he was smiling, slow and hungry. 

“Say it then, if you wish it.”

She answered his smile with one of her own. “I wish it,” she said.