Preview for The Blackstone She-Dragon

The Blackstone She-Dragon

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His Royal Highness, Crown Prince Aleksei of the Northern Isles, Jarl of Svalterheim, Dragon Protector of the Eight Seas, Admiral of the Great Dragon Navy, Lord of the Barents Islands, Chieftain of the Seven Tribes, Guardian of the Moors and a bunch of other useless and forgotten titles, stared down at the woman in front of him in disbelief. There was no other way to describe how he felt except stunned.

When he woke up early this morning, he felt different. Aleksei couldn’t quite describe it, except that he had awakened from an amazing dream. It felt like he was being warmed by a fire after a long, cold day. That in itself was strange to him, because Water Dragons didn’t exactly feel cold, nor did they need the comfort of a roaring hearth, even after spending hours in the freezing sea.

He dismissed the silly feeling, and concentrated on the task ahead. Today was the day he was making his journey to Colorado. While his wings were unable to fly him very long distances, his water dragon’s body allowed him to swim for extended periods of time and breathe underwater. He swam from the Northern Sea, all the way to the Sea of Cortez, then up the Colorado River. It was supposed to be a quick flight into Blackstone town and the castle, but apparently, the Blackstone Dragons were not at home.

And then, that idiot, Matthias Thorne, Alpha of the Air Dragons, thought it would be funny to neglect to tell him that they were meeting elsewhere. Aleksei wanted to smash Matthias’ face in until his nose bled onto his immaculate white suit. It was a good thing, though, that they were actually near a body of water, which meant he easily caught up once Dmitri had sent him the mental message about the change of venue.

Aleksei didn’t know what to expect when they arrived. There was a chance that the Blackstone Dragons would not even hear them out. Mountain Dragons were known to be stubborn, at least that’s what the lore said. Since they were cast out of the Alliance, no one bothered to keep up with them; in fact it was like their clan had simply been cut off, with no one recording their history or feats. It had been generations ago, though perhaps for the Water Dragons, it was like it was yesterday. The sting of Anastasia Lennox’s broken engagement to his ancestor, Prince Haardrad, was still fresh in his family and people’s minds.

The irony, of course, was not lost on him. But, perhaps fate was a jester, making Anastasia’s great-great-great-great grandniece his mate. The moment he rose from the lake, everyone else faded away. She was like a beacon, shining in front of him. Calling him and his dragon.

Mine. Mate.

Of course, it didn’t hurt that Sybil Lennox was exquisite. Silvery gray eyes looked at him without blinking. Her pink, rounded lips were made to be kissed. Skin as smooth as marble, but he knew would be warm to the touch. A lush body made just for him, the curves barely hidden in her short red dress.

And of course, that dragon. It roared back at him, full of possessive fury. He could sense its power and the fire burning deep within Sybil. His own dragon reveled in it, proudly preening at the thought that this amazing creature was their mate. It didn’t hurt that Matthias was standing a few feet away, watching it all unfold. His dragon flicked its tail and tossed its head, reveling in the envy of the other Alphas. He not only found his fated mate but, but she was a female dragon to boot.

The silence in the air was deafening, until she spoke. “What?” Dark lashes blinked up at him, casting shadows down her delicate cheekbones.

“You are mine,” Aleksei said. “My mate. Our dragons know it.”

“Mate?” The Blackstone Dragon Alpha, Henry Lennox, exclaimed. “Is this true, Sybil?”

“I—”

“Of course it is.” How could they doubt it? “Sybil Lennox is my mate.” He started down at her wide silvery eyes. “You will be my princess and will rule with me as the future Queen of the Northern Isles,” Aleksei stated. “At last, you will rid your family of the shame Anastasia Lennox has brought upon you by breaking her engagement to my ancestor and mating with a common bear. You will bring yourselves the honor—”

“Excuse me?” Her voice raised and she seemed to be displeasured.

He frowned. “What is the matter, my mate? Are you not filled with joy that—”

“How. Dare. You.” She poked at his chest to emphasize each word. While the first touch of her skin on his made his flesh tingle, he couldn’t ignore the way her eyes burned with the heat of a thousand suns. And not in a good way.

“What is wrong? Why are you upset?”

“Why am I upset?” Her voice trembled as she spoke. “You just insulted my family! My ancestors, my cousins, and everyone in between.”

“Insult?” Now he was confused. He just offered her the world and she claims she insulted him. There were dozens of women back in the Northern Isles who would kill to be in her shoes. Maybe she was sick and delirious. “How did I insult you, mate?”

“Don’t call me that,” she hissed.

“You don’t acknowledge him as your mate?”

All heads swung toward the source of the question. Of course, Aleksei fumed silently. Damn Matthias Thorne. The Alpha was staring at them with those eerie light eyes, his face expressionless.

“What?” she asked, the fire in her momentarily dying down.

“Do you acknowledge the Water Dragon as your mate?” Matthias’s voice was like a stiff breeze in the dead of winter. He was the one person who dared to not call him by his title.

“She does!” Aleksei’s inner dragon roared a challenge at the other Alpha. Matthias merely smiled at him.

His mate looked flustered. “What do you mean acknowledge?” She looked around. “Are you going to force me to marry him?”

“Of course not.” It was Caesar, the Air Dragon representative to the Dragon Council, who spoke up. He looked positively appalled. “My dear, what do you think we are? Savages?”

“I thought that was what you were trying to do to Anastasia Lennox?” Jason quipped. “That’s the story, right? Her family was forcing her to marry some prince?”

“Perhaps that’s the version you were told, but it’s incorrect.” Caesar scoffed. “There was an agreement between the clans. She was already betrothed to Prince Haraald, and she broke dragon law by running away from the engagement without so much as a by your leave.”

“But you don’t forbid dragons from mating with other shifters?” Matthew asked.

“We highly encourage matches between dragons or powerful human allies.” Caesar straightened his shoulders. “After all, we must look after the survival of our species, since, as you know well, we can only produce dragons with other dragons or human mates, if at all.”

“What my esteemed colleague is trying to say,” Dmitri began, “is that our kind looks at the best matches possible to strengthen alliances, mates or not. When Anastasia ran away to her bear lover, the kingdom of the Northern Isles demanded justice for the insult and so the Dragon Council banished the Lennoxes and stripped them of their title of Mountain Dragon.”

Smoke curled out of Sybil’s flared nostrils. “So it’s your family’s fault my family was ‘dishonored’ in the first place?”

There was no denying her accusation, but he couldn’t control his anger either. There was more to it than just a broken engagement, of course, but obviously she was not informed of all the details. “Well, it was your ancestor’s fault for falling in love with a common bear.”

A deep growl came from her throat and the fury of her dragon was evident. “You conceited piece of—” She whipped her head around. “There’s no way I’m going to be with you.”

Rage burned inside him and he was barely able to leash his dragon. In an instant, Matthias appeared beside Sybil, his mouth curling into a feral smile. “If she doesn’t accept him, then she is fair game.”

“I’m—what?” Silvery eyes grew large as boulders. “Wait a minute. No one said—”

“It is true.” Caesar added. “Until the female acknowledges Prince Aleksei as her one fated mate, then she is open to entertaining other suitors.”

The other Dragon Alphas looked at each other, then turned their sights on Sybil.

“What?” Sybil’s tone was incredulous. “I’m not—but I didn’t—” She let out half-strangled scream. “This isn’t what I wanted.”

“If you acknowledge me as your mate, then this will all be solved,” Aleksei said. Her words had stabbed into his chest like a knife. But all wasn’t lost yet, not according to dragon law. Not until she formally rejected him. She had to actually say the words. No, this was not an outright rejection.

But Matthias turned to him with a look that said: not yet.  “Perhaps this is a good thing. After all, she is the only eligible female dragon in the world. Why should we all not have a chance?”

Damn Matthias, Aleksei cursed. Must this also be a contest between them? Why could he not be satisfied with ruling his city from his tower in the sky. Stupid Air Dragons and their quest for power and dominance.

Kal, the Alpha of the Rock Dragons, spoke up. “This is dishonorable,” he stated in his low, gravely voice. His dark brows furrowed together. “They are fated to be together and to get in between them would be a disgrace and abomination of nature.” Kal was the tallest and largest of them all, nearly seven feet tall and dressed similarly to Aleksei in leather pants, though he had leather straps that crossed around his massive chest and held the gigantic axe on his back. Tribal tattoos ran down the tanned skin of his chest and arms, and crawled up his neck and the left side of his face.

“I agree,” Tarek, Alpha of the Desert Dragons, said with a nod. Lithe and slim, Tarek was the quietest and most secretive of the Alphas. His eyes were the color of bright Saharan sand, a contrast to his dark tawny skin. “But, I also agree that the lady has a right of refusal, and she may choose whoever she wants, fated mate or not.”

Matthias turned to the last Alpha. “Your Grace?”

Ian Henry Alastair MacGregor, Duke of Rothschilde and Alpha of the Silver Dragons, chuckled. “Don’t be throwing my title around like that, Matthias. They’ll think me fancier than I am.” His Scottish Brogue wasn’t as pronounced as it usually was, though he added just enough to make himself sound charming. If course, when he wanted to assert his dominance, he used the upper class English accent from his mother’s side. “She’s a fine lass. Perhaps I’ll be throwing my hat into the ring.”

Aleksei’s dragon roared in fury at Matthias, Ian, and Tarek. “How dare you all try to lay claim to what is mine? Do I even attempt to try and take your hoards and—”

“Shut up!” Sybil held up her hands. “I’m not a prize to be won.”

“I agree.” So did his dragon, who nodded enthusiastically. “Because you are already mine.”

“No, I am not!” Sybil stamped her foot down like a petulant child. “This is insane. I don’t want a mate and I don’t want suitors. I’m going to the cabin.” She wagged a finger at him. “Don’t even try to follow me. You—all of you—stay away from me.” She stormed off, disappearing into the log cabin behind her with a loud slam of the door.

Aleksei turned to Henry Lennox. “You must talk sense into your daughter.”

“Oh no.” The Blackstone Dragon shook his head and held his hands up. “Do you know how many times I’ve tried to persuade her to do anything? Too many. When Sybil sets her mind on something, there’s no stopping her.”

Damn stubborn Mountain Dragon. He looked to his mate’s brothers, hoping maybe that they would see reason. While the two men were identical, they gave him two different expressions. One looked at him curiously, while the other crossed his arms over his chest and scowled at him.

“Look,” Henry said, wiping a hand down his face. “While my daughter’s love life is a fascinating subject, I think we better get back to the real business in hand. You said that we needed to band together to stop The Knights of Ari-Ariste—”

“Aristaeum,” Dmitri provided.

“Right. The Knights of Aristeum. They want to kill all of the shifters in the world and they have some weapon that can help them, yes?”

“Yes,” Caesar answered. “You have tangled with them before, so you know their ways. And, if we were all to fight together, we can stop them.”

“What is this weapon?” Hank asked.

The Dragon Council turned to Aleksei. He clenched his teeth tight together. “They have the Wand. The Wand of Aristaeum.”

“And what does this wand do?”

Aleksei’s blood turned cold, and for a moment, images flashed in his mind. A limp body on the floor. Cold, dead eyes. The wails and cries. “The wand separates a man from his animal.”

Henry’s eyes began to glow, signaling that his dragon was surfacing. “It turns a shifter into a human?”

Aleksei swallowed hard. “In a way.”

“It makes us easy to kill.” It was Matthias who spoke, and for a moment, his dragon’s fury matched Aleksei’s. “Once a shifter is separated from their animal, they become weak and vulnerable as a human.”

Henry looked at his sons in disbelief. “This is … a lot to think about.”

“Magic, wizards, wands.” One of the Blackstone Dragon’s sons shook his head. “I don’t know where to begin.”

“So, will you join us?” Dmriti asked. 

Henry paused, then took a deep breath. “I’m willing to hear you out. You will tell me everything that you know, so we can come to a decision.”

“There is no time for this,” Aleksei said, his hands curling into fists at his sides.

“We will need to plan,” Henry said. “Once you convince me that there is a threat—”

“We have already lost a lot,” Aleksei interrupted. “We must act now.”

The Blackstone Dragon rose up to full height, his chest puffing out in challenge. “I nearly lost my son and my entire town to these bastards. What have you lost?”

“We have lost the Ice Dragons.” Aleksei’s voice was tight with barely contained fury. “An entire clan of dragons, obliterated. Not to mention the men, women, and children under their protection. Hundreds of lives lost.”

Henry’s face faltered. “I didn’t—” He shook his head. “I will need some time to talk to my family. Let’s convene in forty-eight hours.”

The Dragon Council members and the Alphas looked at each other, convening silently through their mind links.

*Your Highness, are you all right?* came Dmitri’s question in his head. As dragons of the same clan and kind, they were able to communicate without words.

*I am* he replied. *But my patience is wearing thin.*

*As is all of ours* Dmitri looked at the other Council members and Alphas. *But it seems we have no choice.*

*You may be right. We are stronger together than apart.* Aleksei had been one of the supporters of the idea to approach the Blackstone Dragons. *What do you think the others are saying?*

*I think they are coming to the same conclusion*

When Caesar and the other Council members nodded, Dmitri broke off their mind link. The Council members whispered amongst themselves, and then turned back to Henry Lennox.

“We accept,” Dmitri said. “If you allow us to stay in your town’s borders, then we will not have to travel so far.”

“Fine. You may stay in Blackstone town. But,” his gaze turned to Aleksei and Matthias, “if I hear of anything from anyone about you misbehaving or disrespecting any human or shifter in my town, I’ll kick you all out.”

“Of course.” Dmitri bowed his head. “Thank you for generosity.”

“Now, get out of my sight and out of my lake.”

The command of the Alpha to leave his territory was difficult to ignore. To another Alpha it was an irritation; like an itch. But to other shifters, it was a compelling order. It made the Dragon Council members uncomfortable, to the point of pain. Sensing Dmitri’s distress, Aleksei Cloaked himself, and bid him to do the same. They both shifted into their dragon form, and Aleksei’s dragon flapped its wings and lifted off the ground. While it would have been easier to leave by water, Henry Lennox’s command had to be followed literally.

*Go find us some suitable lodgings* he commanded to Dmirti. *Send me the location as soon as you can*

*As you wish, Your Highness.* Dmitri’s dragon bowed its head. *But where are you going?*

*To take care of other business.* He flapped his wings and veered away from the rest of the dragons.

If Sybil Lennox thought he would be giving up easily, she was mistaken. He would find a way to convince her to see reason. His dragon nodded in agreement. There was no way any other man or dragon would lay claim to what was his.

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