“To your fated mate, whoever and wherever she may be. May she bring you great happiness.” Theo emptied his goblet.
“To my fated mate,” responded Jareth. He too drank. He gulped, coughed and cleared his throat. He set his goblet down on the table at his elbow. “What do you know about Angela Fenwick?”
Theo refilled the goblets. His blue eyes twinkled and his beard waggled as he grinned broadly. “Lady Drake’s niece? Pretty girl, very English, loves horses?”
“That’s her,” Jareth sipped from his goblet and replaced it. “Angela has been to Aunt Inge’s house party for the last three years. But she hasn’t accepted anyone yet.”
There was a reverent hush in Jareth’s voice that made Iliana long to have a trident like the one Lexi had carried before her marriage. If ever a male would benefit from a good prod, this one would. Unfortunately, nixies could not conjure weaponry.
She crept down the arm of the chair and tasted his drink. It burned her throat and a delicious warmth spread all through her limbs. She took another larger sip and climbed back up to Jareth’s shoulder.
Theo chuckled indulgently. “Don’t choose with your eyes, Cousin. You wait until you’ve had some conversation with Angela.”
Jareth joined in Theo’s laughter. “I sat beside her at dinner twice last year,” he said shyly. “We spoke.”
“And what did you talk about?”
“Horses. She does dressage.” There was that reverent hush again. Iliana slid down the back of the chair, leaned over and pinched Jareth’s neck as hard as she could. He didn’t even notice. Drat the dragon. She rested on his shoulder. That potion had made her feel warm but dizzy.
Anyway, whatever was dressage? Dressing horses? That made no sense. Unless he meant this Angela bedecked her horses in fancy saddles and caparisons. She remembered mock battles when warriors competed, riding horses draped in cloth of gold.
The only other horses Iliana knew of were seahorses and the white waves of Rán’s husband, the sea god Aegir. Neither kind would be improved by clothing – even if you could get them to wear it.
“Lady Drake told me last year that Angela hopes to be accepted to veterinary school,” Theo said thoughtfully. “That might mean you could not be married for years and years.”
“If she is my fate, I will have to possess my soul in patience,” replied Jareth solemnly.
“That’s the right attitude.” Theo raised his goblet. “To the swift success of your hunt.” He stood up.
Jareth rose too. Iliana slid from his shoulder, down his chest, and into the pocket over his heart. That was better. And the steady thump was comforting, even if he was in love with another female. Oh, for Lexi’s trident!
Theo gave Jareth’s back the smack he so richly deserved. Again Jareth wobbled like an boat on rough water. So did Iliana, which was unfair. She wasn’t the one in love with the wrong person. Her head spun and throbbed.
“Here’s Lexi now,” Theo said. His voice warmed and softened.
Iliana made herself yet smaller. Lexi was eagle-eyed. She hoped she wasn’t bulging Jareth’s chest pocket. Lexi must not know she was wooing Jareth until he was won.
Lexi’s entrance was accompanied by the merry babbling of an infant. “Here,” she said. “You take your daughter, Theo. All Sofie wants to do today is eat.”
Drawn by the baby’s happy noise, Iliana peeped out of Jareth’s pocket. Baby Sofie found her papa’s beard and tugged it mightily. He removed her chubby fist, and tucked her securely into the crook of his arm. He tickled her sweet little belly.
Sofie shrieked happily. Theo chuckled and tickled her again. Iliana suppressed a sob. Lucky Lexi with such a husband and baby.
Jareth held out the ring on his palm. “Is this yours, Lexi?” he asked diffidently.
Lexi peered at it. She glanced around the room, green eyes narrowing. “Where did you get that?” Her normally lyrical voice sounded sharp.
Iliana’s heart sank to her toes. She ducked back into Jareth’s pocket and held her breath.
Jareth looked worried. “I found it in the stream in your forest.”
“Did you try it on?”
“It’s a little small.”
“It’s a magic ring, Jareth. Don’t make the attempt,” Lexi warned. “If I were you, I would put that evil thing in a locked box and leave it there.”
“I guess that means it isn’t yours?” Theo said.
“It is not.” said Lexi in the same sharp voice. “It’s full of wicked enchantments.”
“Theo thought it might be intended for my fated mate’s hand,” Jareth said uncertainly.
“I suppose it might be.” Her voice expressed nothing but doubt. “It’s not a thing to leave carelessly around to tempt a child. Or to offer some innocent maiden.”
“Since you are the elven princess, and the expert on magic rings, I will do as you suggest, Lexi.” Jareth returned the ring to his breech’s pocket.
Drat Lexi. She did not have to make Iliana’s ring sound worse than it was. She had infused it with just the tiniest of spells. A spell that would have no effect on a maiden or a child. A mere love charm designed to ensorcell a warrior.
“Do you need a lock box, Jareth?” asked Theo.
“No thank you. I have a casket with me. I wonder you don’t tell me to put it back where I found it, Lexi.”
“So it can ensnare someone else? No. It should be locked away where it can do no harm.”
Harm! Why should it harm Jareth to have a wife? Iliana would be a good wife. Probably.
“When you have it secure, Jareth, it can go in my vault where it will be safe from childish fingers.” Theo handed Lexi the baby. The two men left the warm room.
Iliana was carried out in Jareth’s pocket. She hoped she would be able to have a nap and rest her aching head.
*Dragon’s Confession
Read the rest of Dragon Ensnared now!
Lord of the Dragon Islands series page
DRAGON’S CHRISTMAS CAPTIVE
A VIKING DRAGON FANTASY
LORDS OF THE DRAGON ISLANDS BOOK 6
by
Isadora Montrose
One dragon lord, one pixie princess, a magical ring and 1000 years of history. Christmas was never this hot, this funny, or this star-crossed. Fate may have the last laugh unless Theo Lindorm can come to a meeting of minds with his elven princess Lexi.
This is Lexi and Theo’s love story. It happened one Christmas...
CHAPTER ONE
Örlogskapten Theodor Lindorm allowed himself to be pushed about as his mother adjusted the sweater she had been knitting for him. Long pins at the shoulder and her curved knitting needles threatened to puncture him. He gritted his teeth and endured while she fussed and scolded.
Anna Lindorm smacked him when he tried to fold his arms across his chest. “Do stand still.” Her hands smoothed the rippled wool. “Your shoulders are broader than when I measured you in March,” she muttered. “Have you been working out?”
Theo chuckled. “The Navy expects me to stay fit, Mamma.”
Lady Severn clucked absently. She settled the sweater across Theo’s back. “I think you’re taller too.”
“Comes with the territory. Haven’t you always said that Papa didn’t stop growing until he was forty?”
Mamma’s voice was muffled by the four straight pins between her lips. She moved him once more and tugged gently at the neckline. “I’m going to have to cut this open and give it a collar. I do wish you and your brothers would stay the same size for twenty minutes together.”
“Then you shouldn’t have married a dragon shifter.”
“The sleeves are not going to sit right. The armholes are too small.”
Theo yanked the bunching sweater down over his flat stomach. “It seems fine to me,” he murmured. “Even if the sleeves are a little short.”
“Stop that. I’m going to have to knit day and night to get it done for Christmas,” his mother scolded.
“If it’s not d
one by Christmas Eve, my life will be over,” Theo said in a falsetto. “It’ll completely spoil my Christmas if my sweater isn’t finished.”
“Don’t you be sarcastic with me. You can take it off now – be careful not to let any stitches drop.” Anna pulled the sleeves down over his forearms and set them aside. “I’ll try to finish it before your furlough is over.”
Theo’s reply was mangled by a couple of pounds of dark blue wool that caught on his shoulder-length hair and bushy beard. “Thank you for making me a sweater, Mamma,” he said solemnly. “I’m the envy of my comrades.”
“I thought it was your socks they envied,” Anna’s good humor was restored.
Theo regarded his size seventeens which were encased in hand-knitted black socks. “That too. There’s nothing like real wool socks, and there’s nothing better than ones that are long enough.” He lifted his mother up to his face and kissed her on both cheeks. “I’m a lucky devil. Thank you, Mamma.”
“Your Uncle Thorvald wasn’t happy that you didn’t come to his house party,” she said out of nowhere once she was on her feet again.
“The Eldest said nothing to me at Chrissy’s wedding – or when he gave me instructions in September,” Theo pointed out.
“Well, of course not. He was busy at the wedding. And he had Guild business to discuss in September.” Anna held up one hand. “I know,” she continued, “that you don’t want to discuss how your cousin Lars found his bride.* But I fail to see why, if a widower can find a second fated mate, you cannot find your first.”
Theo shrugged. He knew Mamma meant, ‘Why didn’t you grab Nicole for yourself?’ He tried to explain. “Lars was incredibly fortunate. And Nikki is a wonderful woman. But she was not my destined bride.”
“I wonder,” Mamma continued, “If it is not time for you to widen your net?”
“How do you mean?”
“Maybe you should look at some older women,” she suggested with a scarlet blush.
Theo smiled behind his beard. He guessed that by ‘older women’ Mamma meant ‘not-a-virgin’. He raised his eyebrows at her. “I don’t think I’m ready to abandon the idea of having a family, just yet.”
Firelings were important to him. He didn’t know if children weren’t a possibility, if marriage was worthwhile. Dragon shifters could only get dragonesses pregnant. Lars had been lucky beyond believing to find a widowed dragoness. Theo was still seeking a virgin to turn.
“Maybe you are being too fussy,” she continued.
Theo bit back a sharp reply. “All I want is my fated mate,” he said. “Is that too much to ask?”
“Not at all. But maybe your fated mate is not one of your Aunt’s pretty virgins.”
“Probably not. Aunt Inge’s nieces get younger every year.”
Anna chuckled. “They do not. You get older. But the Van Waals girls are not the only source of virgins in the world.”
“I know. And I have looked, Mamma, believe me.” Theo sighed. “Lady Drake has introduced me to any number of tender young women.” He shook his head. “Nice girls, but not mine. I have never met any woman I wanted for a lifetime. Maybe I am just destined to be an old bachelor.”
“Thirty-four is not old,” she scolded.
“I’m thirty-five,” he reminded her dryly. “I declared my Mate Hunt when I was twenty-five. That’s a long time to be on the hunt.”
“Not really.” Anna cleared her throat. “If you aren’t interested in women,” she said, “Well, your father and I just want you to be happy.”
“That’s not it either, Mamma. I just haven’t met the right woman.”
“When you do, you bring her home, son.” Anna squared her shoulders. “Even if she’s an older woman.”
“I love you too, Mamma.” Theo went whistling on his way.
* * *
“We’ll go after breakfast.” Lord Severn’s affectionate glance took in his entire family.
“We need a taller tree this year. Twenty feet will be about right,” Lady Severn announced. “But not too big around. I want a slender tree.”
“If we get a twenty footer, it will scrape the ceiling in the sitting room – and be twenty feet around,” Theo objected.
Anna nodded absently at her eldest son’s words. “The star should just miss the ceiling. We need plenty of room for the ornaments. Christina and I went shopping in Oslo.”
Across the table, Theo locked eyes with his only sister. “I might have known you were to blame.”
Christina** chuckled and nudged their nephew who was next to her. “Do you remember last year, Leo?”
Leo’s round blue eyes got even more round. He wriggled on his booster seat and only his aunt’s swift grab saved him from falling. “We cut down the biggest tree.” He banged his spoon on the table.
His mother captured his flailing wrist. “Spoons are for eating,” Ingrid Lindorm said softly. She removed her hand from her son’s smaller one. “Are you ready to finish your porridge?”
“Yes!” shouted the four-year-old.
“Sorry,” mouthed Leo’s father Victor, across the table to his mother. He winked at Theo who grinned back. Leo’s antics never failed to delight him.
Anna’s blue eyes twinkled. “Only people who have eaten all their porridge can come with us. If you don’t eat your breakfast, Leo, you won’t have the strength to chop down a Christmas tree.”
Her grandson returned to his bowl of mush with renewed energy and began shoveling it in as fast as he could. Now it was Anna’s turn to silently apologize to his parents.
“All the trees on this island seem so huge, how do you find one that’s only twenty feet tall?” asked Christina’s husband Ivan Sarkany. “Do you have a special plantation?”
“Not exactly, although we are always planting.” Lord Severn wiped his mouth. “But we’ve been scouting out the best trees for months. We put tags on the ones we thought most beautiful back in the summer. So today we only have to decide which one will make the best Christmas tree.”
“I haven’t been out in the forest since March,” Theo said.
“That’ll give the rest of us a head start,” Christina cut in merrily.
“Yes, but,” began Gunnar, the youngest of Anna and Severn Lindorm’s children. Whatever he had been going to say, his uncertain bass was smothered by its abrupt transition to reedy treble. He ducked his red face and concentrated on eating.
“It’s a family tradition, Ivan,” Christina explained. “We all want to be the one to find our tree.”
“So it’s a contest?” Ivan looked around at his in-laws. He reached for Christina’s hand.
“Certainly not,” said Anna serenely. Her placid murmur was drowned out by raucous laughter.
Christina patted her husband’s knee. “We Lindorms are a touch competitive.”
The room rocked with the laughter of happy dragons.
It was good to be home, Theo decided. Good to see his parents. Victor and Christina were obviously happy with their fated mates. Victor and Ingrid’s*** new son was asleep in his cot. Their eldest son was as sturdy and naughty a fireling as had ever borne the Lindorm name. Christina was glowing in her first pregnancy. Ivan adored her. Gunnar had grown another six inches. There was nothing to compare with being surrounded by family.
Only he, the eldest son, was still unmarried and unmated. He and little Gunnar. It looked as though his fourteen-year-old baby brother and his nephews were all the children he would ever have. But it was Christmastime, and he needed to put his private disappointments away and join wholeheartedly in the family rituals.
They gathered in the back hall of the sprawling house to put on their winter coats. Leo was coaxed into his puffy red snowsuit and padded gloves. Ingrid announced that she was staying home with little Thorvald. The rest of the family went laughing and chattering into the white and frozen beauty of Severn Island.
Theo drew in the frigid air delightedly, enjoying the smell of pine trees and ocean. The scent of home. After months at sea, bein
g here was a treat. He loved Severn Island, even in winter when the wind blasted off the freezing waters of the Gulf of Bothnia, and snow lay waist high. The Gulf and the archipelago that made up Severn Island or Islands, lay between Sweden and Finland, a dragon-shaped cluster of hills and rocks that had been a Lindorm refuge since the Middle Ages.
In front of him, his father and mother immediately began to fill the crisp air with song. Everyone joined in. Even Gunnar, who couldn’t trust his changing voice, bellowed out the familiar carols and, in forgetting his self-consciousness, achieved a powerful baritone. The songs they were singing were new to Leo, but his piping treble did its best. Theo added his bass as counterpoint, as the family entered the wooded ridge of the island, where the deep snow changed to a mere dusting over a springy carpet of brown pine needles.
Four-year-old Leo was riding on Victor’s broad shoulders. His clutching hands threatened to pull his father’s hat off. Leo only stopped tugging at the tassel to knock snow off passing tree branches. Anna and Severn walked behind their son and grandson, amused by his mischief.
Ivan stalked watchfully behind his wife. Despite her pregnancy, Christina was moving briskly, dodging tree roots and stepping across holes dug by animals. But Ivan was plainly alarmed by the uneven trail. Lord Severn nudged his arm and shook his head once. Correctly interpreting this to mean that he shouldn’t offer assistance that would be resented, Ivan kept his hands off his bride and his eyes on the terrain.
Theo brought up the rear, keeping his eyes peeled for the perfect tree. The song of a trilling redstart lured him off the path and into a grove of trees he did not recall. This wood seemed to have sprung up overnight – although the trees were too tall and large for that to be the case. He stood amidst the column-straight grove, unaware that he had abandoned his family.
These tall trees were wind-defyingly straight-limbed and symmetrical. Theo couldn’t believe that the others had missed them. He had only to choose the loveliest specimen, and he would have won before lunch.
The hush was absolute. Peaceful delight and happiness filled him. He neither saw nor heard his noisy family. Not a bird called. Earlier he had seen the distinctive red plumage of several pairs of pine grosbeaks, and heard a redstart. Now, not even their fluting calls disturbed the silence.
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