Her Dragon Captor (Her Dragon King Duet Book 1): 50 Loving States, North Dakota Pt. 1

by Theodora Taylor

  She hoped he was similarly successful this year. The extra work would be a welcome diversion. Also, she’d get to visit with him for a little bit at the drop off. See for herself that he was safe and hadn’t been mauled by a bear or something.

  She didn’t like these solo hunting trips of his. She’d rather become a winter vegetarian than risk losing the only family member she had left. At least in this time period.

  Tears sprang to her eyes at that thought, and she gave in to the emotions she only allowed herself when Fenris wasn’t around. Her shoulders shook and sobs racked her body as she remembered that last argument with Myrna and watching the boys walk away into the swirling snow. Olafr and FJ took a chunk of her heart along with them on their journey, and it was never the same.

  Fenris didn’t understand. He couldn’t understand. In this time Viking kids set off on adventures all the time. Some of them come back, some of them were never heard from again. There were no social media updates in the Viking age, no postal service even. Occasionally news came from other traders, passing by on ships. But none of the other North Wolf parents felt entitled to know whether the grown children who went off to make their fortune were alive or dead.

  She used to find this no-technology time period charming. She’d been so happy to dedicate the rest of her life to the kind of projects she used to do purely for entertainment on her Black Mountain Woman Vlog.

  She’d managed to gain a bit of a following online, but she’d been an anomaly in her 21st century wolf town just a few miles outside of Denver. Even Rafe, her best friend and fiancé, hadn’t understood why she’d insisted on sewing all her own clothes by hand and cooking every meal from scratch with meat from chickens she’d raised and vegetables and herbs from her garden.

  For most of her life in her original time period, she’d been something either watched for entertainment purposes or tolerated by other wolves. And she knew Rafe had only been indulging her little hobby until she went into heat.

  “No way she’s going to be able to keep all this up after we have kids,” he’d insisted to their friends.

  But then Fenris landed outside their kingdom town’s time portal and everything changed.

  The Viking wolf didn’t just tolerate her strange talent set. “It was as if the Fenrir wolf designed you for me. You were fated not only to be my mate, but also to live in this time with me,” he’d insisted after he tricked her into returning to the Viking age.

  And she’d believed him. For decades she’d lived in a happy ending filled with laughter, family, and a never-ending series of DIY projects.

  But now….

  Now she cried inconsolably whenever Fenris wasn’t there to see.

  She’d taught him the concept of loving and open communication toward the beginning of their relationship. And they’d exchanged solemn vows about always using it with each other.

  She wished she could have kept that vow. She wished she could have continued to be the mate a warrior king like him deserved. But how could she communicate with him about how she’d been feeling in the years since they lost all of their children?

  Sorry, honey. I know you think this is enough, but I’m so sad, every morning it feels like I’m waking up to a nightmare. How could she tell him that she was so depressed, or that it felt like her life was over, even though he was still here? She could barely keep all the despair from radiating over their mate bond.

  She shouldn’t have screamed at the skald the other day. She’d been doing such a good job of keeping it together. But hearing Fenris and the musician talk about their children, like they were stories that had ended too abruptly, instead of real people she missed every day—she hadn’t been able to take it.

  Chloe wished more than anything that she hadn’t been so mean to Myrna before they left for their trip. Yes, Myrna had driven her crazy with her tomboy ways, but why hadn’t Chloe ever taken her side when she argued with FJ? She remembered how she insisted to Fenris that women from her time didn’t let themselves get pushed around by Viking bullies. Ha!

  After so many years of feeling misunderstood in her own time, what had she gone and done? Treated Myrna the same way because she preferred swordplay with her father to running their longhouse with her.

  She should have been nicer. She would have been nicer if she’d known she’d never get the chance to see her again…to say goodbye….

  A fresh spate of tears poured from Chloe’s eyes.

  However, she abruptly stopped crying when she heard footsteps in the far distance. Fenris was back, earlier than she expected.

  And if she was reading the light’s position through the window right, she’d spent the whole morning crying and feeling sorry for herself.

  Okay, self-pity time was over. Chloe scrambled out of bed, splashed her face with some cold water, and threw on one of her heavy prairie dresses. If she could get the stove lit, maybe it would look like she’d merely overslept and was just now getting around to making the porridge for breakfast.

  Throwing herself back into the illusion that she was not falling apart brought some relief. She imagined herself asking Fenris if he’d caught a boar as soon as he comes through the door and pretending like she was just dying to make boar bacon.

  But she didn’t end up asking him about the boar when he came through the door.

  Instead, she stared at him as he stomped his boots to clear the snow from his shoes on the fur hide she put down for just that purpose.

  However, Chloe did not greet him.

  Her mate was back, but instead of fresh game, he was carrying a wolf pup, sleeping and nuzzled inside one of his arms.

  “What is this?” she pushed into his head, too shocked to speak to him in the North Wolves’ language.

  “A present,” he answered with a huge smile, holding the sleeping pup out to her. “I brought her back from the old village. Just for you.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  OLA

  The next hour as the dragon king’s prisoner is…strange.

  There’s no other way to describe it. It starts off with him drawing me a bath. Like, an actual bubble bath, complete with a pearly perfumed soap poured out of a bottle and flower petals he produces out of nowhere.

  “Reverencccce, pleasssse dissssrobe, sssso that I may help you into the bath,” he says after switching off the faucet.

  “Okay, fine, I can’t take the hissing anymore,” I answer. “You were right. Let’s go back to you talking inside my head.”

  He gives me a grateful look, then my mind fills with him saying, “Thank you, Reverence. It is difficult for me to speak your language without my tongue cap. I believe this will be much more comfortable for both of us.”

  “There is nothing comfortable about any of this shit,” I answer out loud.

  “Yes, I can feel both your mental and physical discomfort over our mate bond,” he answers with an apologetic tilt of his head. “Only time and patience will cure the mental discomfort, but if you like, I can tend to your muscle soreness by removing your clothes for you, Reverence.”

  “Nah, Supervillain, back right the hell up. I’ll do it myself,” I reply. Only to end up grimacing as I perform the now super achy task of pulling the old-fashioned nightgown over my head.

  Standing there with him after I’m done is weird. He’s fully clothed in another trillionaire-at-leisure trousers and sweater ensemble, and I’m totally naked. And just in case I think he’s not noticing, his glowing eyes scroll up and down my body. Like I’m a meal, and he’s a very, very hungry dragon.

  I feel totally exposed.

  And a little turned on.

  Which is fucked up. So, so fucked up.

  I’m no longer in heat. And he’s still the guy whose ultimate goal in life is to psycho-murder my fathers. How had he put it before he decided to start putting on this act? Only their slow and painful deaths will satisfy my thirst for vengeance.

  I quickly step into the tub and lower myself down into the water. And it feels like
I’m hiding from those glowing eyes when I slip down so that my breasts and everything else is hidden under all the pretty smelling bubbles.

  However, that’s not enough to get away from him. I find that out when he produces something I haven’t seen since the invention of wash-and-dry shower systems, when I was, like, ten. A yellowish-brown sea sponge and some soap.

  “I brought this sea sponge with me from my home in Greece,” he says, dipping the sponge in the bathwater. “I hope it pleases you.”

  Seriously? I ask inside my head. While out loud, I say, “I can do that.”

  “Please allow me,” he answers, soaping up the sponge. It is my duty to pay you reverence in this manner.”

  There goes that P-word again. Less than an hour ago I wouldn’t have figured he knew the word even existed, and now he’s used it twice. Also… “What do you mean it’s your duty? You weren’t acting very reverent last night.”

  “No, I have not acted as I should have since the moment I realized you could and would become the mother of my progeny. And for this, I will never be able to apologize or punish myself enough. But I plan to spend the rest of your time upon this Earth reversing that error. Starting with this bath.”

  I’m so stunned, I don’t protest or pull back when he lifts my arm out the water and starts to clean it.

  Reverence…. that’s what he’s been calling me ever since he came through my bedroom door after Uncle Clyde left in one piece.

  And reverent is the only word I can think of to describe the look in his golden eyes as he moves the sponge over my arm. The emotions riding over our mate bond…I can’t help but feel valued and so, so cared for as he washes first my left, then my right arm. Like I’m the most precious thing on earth.

  But that doesn’t mean I’m going to let him keep going. “I’ll take care of the rest,” I say after he dips and re-soaps the sponge. “I don’t need you cleaning my breasts.”

  He bows his head, his eyes lowering in what looks a lot like deference.

  Deference from Damianos Drákon. All the exploding head emojis.

  “Of course, Reverence,” he says inside my head. “I would not want to make you more uncomfortable, knowing how much you’ve already suffered my presence.”

  His acquiescence sounds so sincere, I feel like I’m being churlish when I take the sponge from him and start cleaning myself underneath the bubble layer, much more efficiently than he did.

  But instead of leaving, he just sits back on his heels, his eyes devouring me as I work.

  “Could you stop that?”

  “Stop what, Reverence?”

  “Looking at me, like I’m giving you a show.”

  He immediately lowers both his head and his eyes again. “Forgive me, Reverence. It is hard not to bask in the glow of your beauty. I meant no offense.”

  I stare at him, not even a little sure how to respond to that.

  “May I wash and tend to your hair?” he asks into my gaping silence. “That way, I will not be tempted to stare upon your magnificent flame.”

  I close my mouth…swallow…then find myself saying, “Okay.”

  I mean, it’s better than having him stare at me like he was before. Burning up my body with his eyes and giving me the ideas that are the opposite of never having sex with him again.

  Big, gigantic mistake. I’d never had my hair washed in the bath by someone who wasn’t my stressed-out mom. And I find out the hard way that having a man do it, is much, much different.

  The dragon king’s fingers on my scalp as he shampoos my hair feel better than any electronic head massager I’ve ever tried. And when he uses those large hands of his to pour water over my head and rinse the shampoo out? Let’s just say I didn’t know that hairgasms were a thing before that.

  My whole body feels limp as a noodle by the time he conditions my hair. And to my surprise, he was serious about tending to my hair, too. He leaves the conditioner on and starts finger-detangling my curls slow and easy, no rush. Definitely not like Mom at all. There are no painful tugs at my scalp, no ripping of ends, or constant questions about what I was doing outside to make my hair get this bad. Just quiet work until my curls are knot-free and it’s time to rinse out the conditioner.

  But wait, he’s still not done. The next thing I feel is the pointy end of a wide-tooth comb to my scalp.

  I frown when I realize he’s making a part. Then I just about faint when he ties off the rest of my hair and starts braiding the parted-off section in a neat and efficient cornrow.

  What. The. Fenrir. Wolf.

  “Are you…? Are you braiding my hair?” I ask him.

  “Yes, Reverence.”

  I sit in shocked silence for the next fifteen minutes as he throws my wet curls into five braids like it’s no big deal.

  And from what I can feel with the tips of my fingers after he’s done, they’re neat and straight. “Like, I don’t know how to cornrow, how do you know how to cornrow?” I demand.

  “It was but a simple matter of research and practice. During the preparations for my reverent apology, I discover that tired soon-to-be mothers often have a hard time with grooming their hair. This inability to groom, I read, might then lead to a depressive state. I want nothing but comfort and happiness for you during your gestation period. For this reason, I studied how to make styles that would frame your great beauty and also keep the hair out of your face. I hope it is to your liking. If not, I have also learned to prepare a few other simple hairdos, including French braids, twists, and Bantu knots.”

  A few shocked beats go by, then I have to ask him straight up: “Okay, is this a trick to score a VIP pass to the party in my pants?”

  “Score a VIP pass to the party in your pants…?” He tilts his large head. “Are you referring to sex?”

  “Yes,” I answer, turning my freshly braided head around to regard him frankly. “I just don’t understand why you’re being like this if you’re not trying to get it in.”

  He shifts uncomfortably and looks down at something below the tub line. I find out what it is when he says, “Tis a new wonder. At just the mention of performing the mating act with you outside of breeding reasons, my male works have descended.” But then he looks back up at me to say, “However, the answer to your question about whether I am angling for one of these pants party VIP passes is no. It would never occur to a drakkon to expect such a thing from his mate, even if she survived her birthing.”

  “Hold up…” I displace a bunch of water, bringing my hands up to grip the edge of the tub. “You think I won’t survive this birthing?”

  A shadow passes over his face. “I am not certain…” he admits. “But I have consulted with my cousin on this matter, and he has instructed me upon what would be needed for you and our progeny to survive a live birth after three months of gestation. I have great hopes that if I follow his instructions, the three of us can make a life on this planet as he has with your sister and their three offspring.”

  I blink. So many questions popping off in my head. “Wait, you’ve been in contact with Xenon? And he told you about…?”

  Damianos was a good 50% of why my sister and her family had to go into hiding, but the twins were the other 50%. When Fensa and he announced their plan to go somewhere where neither Damianos nor any other drakkon would be able to find them, I’d cornered him alone to ask why they couldn’t just stay here and fight.

  “There’s a ton of us wolves and like, a very few of them,” I pointed out. “We could take them on.”

  “No, I cannot rissssk it Twin Ssssister of Treasured Mate,” Xenon had insisted. “If any of the drakkon were to disssscover Treasured Mate had given birth to not one but two biologically compatible drakki, it would start a ccccivil war among the drakkon, many of whom are on the short list of this planet’s trillionairessss.

  “Even if we managed to best Damianossss, more drakkon would attempt to kidnap Golden Twin Daughterssss. Their lives would not be their own but that of their captorssss. And drakkon do not
have the concept of mental age as you do. If captured, they would be forcccced to breed as ssssoon as their fertility workssss developed. And that is a fate I could never abide for them. For those reasonssss, I would rather hide than fight.”

  It made sense, even to a hothead like me. And I would have died myself before telling Damianos or any other of those dragon bitches about the twins.

  But now here the supervillain is, casually dropping mention of them like they’re a known secret.

  “You have no need to worry about me telling anyone about the Betrayer King’s golden drakki twins. You forget, they are my family, too, and I would not wish harm on them.”

  “How did you know I was worried about that?” I demand. Is he reading my actual secret thoughts now? Is this some weird side-effect of our cross-species mate bond? I’d heard all sorts of wonky things happened when wolves got with humans, which is why Knud’s and Layla’s romance is yet another long story in our family cannon.

  “’Twas a simple guess,” he answers both my spoken and unspoken questions. “I can feel your upset over our mate bond and your flame has become incredibly agitated.”

  “My flame,” I repeat, not understanding.

  “Ah, yes, drakkon see the world in what would most easily be described as thermal vision. Though, this is the first time I have been able to see your flame. About a century ago, one of my drakkon subjects designed contacts for our shells that allowed us to not only mask our eye glow but also to see the world as anthros see it.”

  Okay, so many questions. Like, all the questions. But I start with, “So wait, Xenon not only knows I’m here but also talked you through how to help me give birth…in three months?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does Fensa—”

  “No, she is not aware I have taken you as my mate, or even that my cousin and I are in contact. The Betrayer King was afraid that if she knew what he’d kept from her, their mateship would suffer.”