War Bride

by Ava Sinclair

  I tried to be hopeful. Bran, my husband, so big and strong. So kind. So certain and dependable. I let myself imagine our reunion, how he would hold me tight as he offered a plausible reason for his delay in returning. This was he part of my fantasy that that faltered, however. What possible reason could he and my father have for not coming home?

  My Uncle Releg broke the news, although he did not have to say the words for me to know it was what my mother and I feared. He and my father were close. And had his stricken expression not given it away, the bloody shirt he clutched would have. I had sewn that shirt myself, had made with my own two hands what was now ripped to pieces.

  “Thera. Thera the healer?” A rap at the door accompanies the sound of the voice calling my name, and I rise from the fire I had been feeding in the stone hearth of my cottage, which was —by my insistence— the last to be constructed in the village. I know who is at the door. It is Sybil, come around to bring my portion of food.

  A gust of wind enters the house along with my friend. Two years ago, I saved Sybil’s son from fever. She has not forgotten, and when the villagers line up at the storehouse for their weekly rations, she collects mine for me. This is convenient, since all too often I am nursing a sick child or away delivering a baby.

  “There’s dried figs today.” Sybil puts the basket on my table. “Oat flour, corn, turnips, potatoes, a smoked cod…” She pulls out a small crock. “I brought you butter. Fresh. Made it this morning.”

  I smile. “You shouldn’t have. I walk over to knee by a small crate lashed together from sticks I gathered on my walks. Inside are two hens. They cluck in protest as I wedge my hands under their warm breasts to retrieve the eggs. “Here. I turn back to you. Take the eggs in trade.”

  “No trade needed, Thera.” Sybil is shaking her head, but I can see in her eyes she longs to accept my offer. When the dragons were taking our men to and fro over the mountains to harvest crops the ShadowFell would eventually burn, they’d gathered small animals like chickens, ducks, lambs, and goats to bring back to this new settlement. I was pleased to learn my two young hens had been saved. But Sybil’s older chickens old hens had stopped laying and gone into the stewpot. Eggs are a treat for her children now.

  “I insist.” I put the eggs in her basket. “Come spring, I’ll pair my hens with Inga’s rooster and give you chicks to grow up.”

  “And I will put my billy goat with your Marigold once she dries off,” Sybil replies, referring to my own goat. Sybil has several. The milk from one of her nanny goats is helping to sustain her family. I keep one goat that I breed to her goats. If we were still in the village, I’d have already dried Marigold in preparation for breeding. But given our circumstances, we’ve continued to milk our goats from necessity. Sybil can make anything with goats milk, including the butter she has gifted me today.”

  “Any gossip from the village?” I ask as I put the food away.

  Sybil considers this an invitation to take a seat. “Your overheard your Uncle Releg grumbling to one of the other men. William and Grinfel are joining the Drakoryan’s army.”

  I imagine my uncle’s disappointment. I can’t imagine it is more acute than my own.

  “They’re weak,” I say.

  “They’re worried.” Sybil sighs. “These five lords, they live along us now. They have built their own cottage. At night they sit around the fire with the village men, sharing pipes filled with good leaf. They talk of the ShadowFell, of past battles. They speak of the glory from past victories. It is like strong drink, these stories. The Drakoryans say our husbands, sons, and brothers can be heroes, too.”

  “Drakoryans.” I spit the word like poison from my mouth. “They starve our bodies while feeding the egos of our foolish men. How long have we been here? Two months. It’s gotten colder, our rations have gotten thinner, and they speak of nothing but a war that is yet to come.” I cross my arms. “They lie, Sybil.”

  My friend rises from her chair, looking uneasy. “No, Thera. They are our rulers. They brought us over the mountain. They saved us. When Gregor went with the others to harvest the crops, he saw the devastation of the ShadowFell. Our houses were all burn after we left.”

  “But by whom?” I ask, exasperated. “Black dragons, they said. But the only dragons we’ve seen are the ones our rulers become.”

  “Don’t say such a thing!” Sybil is incredulous. “The Drakoryans swear it is so. And that woman, Isla of Branlock. She has told us of what she saw in her village.”

  I can’t help but scoff. “As if the bride of three dragon lords who sleeps in a warm castle would have no motive to lie…”

  Sybil looks as if she may cry. “Ceril is joining, too.”

  “Ceril?” Sybil’s brother initially shared my skepticism about the Drakoryans. I turn away so she can’t see the anger in my face, but I know she has noticed when she comes to stand at my side.

  “For good or ill, we have started a new life here, Thera. The Drakoryans can turn into dragons. Perhaps they are false as you suspect. But if they are true— if larger, evil dragons come for to do what was done to the villages of Kenwick and Branlock, who else will we ally ourselves with if not our rulers?”

  I feel weary. I think of Bran, of his easy smile and comforting embrace. I think of dragon lords who sat feasting in warm castles over the mountains as my husband and father died scrounging for meat in the woods. Bitterness rises in me like bile, but I cannot afford to indulge it. For good or ill, my role has not changed. It has fallen on me to care for my fellow villagers, even if I think them weak or misled. I turn to Sybil.

  “I understand that we do what we must to survive,” I say. “Thank you for the butter.”

  She wraps her arms around me and as I hug her I realize she feels thinner than she used to.

  “You are a good friend, Thera,” she says.

  “Thank you.”

  I step back and stand in silence as she takes the basket and leaves my cottage and heads for home, where she will divide what little food she’s been given between herself, her husband, and her three hungry children.

  Chapter Two

  ERDORIN

  There are no dried apples in the village storehouse. I gave them to that village woman to take to Thera the Healer.

  Two reasons motivated me to do this. First, I have seen how much this healer does for others. Second, I have not been able to stop thinking about her since she defiantly faced down me and my brothers the day we first laid eyes on her.

  “What’s your name, woman?” I’d stopped the village woman as she was on her way to Thera’s cottage. I’d seen her go there each week.

  “Sybil, my lord.” She’d seemed surprised that I’d spoken to her, and a little afraid. She would barely look up to meet my eyes, and had clutched the basket she held to her chest, as if she were afraid I’d take it. I’d gentled my tone to ease her fright.

  “You take food to the healer?” I’d inclined my head towards a small cottage set apart from the others, and Sybil had nodded.

  “Take this to her,” I said, reaching into a pouch at my side for the fruit. “Tell her not who it comes from, understand? Tell her it is part of the rations.” I’d narrowed my eyes. “Obey me on this.”

  The last order was not really necessary. I knew she would.

  “Yes, my lord.” She did not ask why I did what I did, and I watched her hasten away.

  “What was that about?” My brother Gryvigg appears at my side. Like me, he is clad only in his leather skirt as the villagers around us shiver under capes and skins. We draw curious glances, even now, for the hot blood that keeps us warm in conditions that test regular men.

  “I had her take something extra to the healer,” I say.

  Gryvigg doesn’t immediately reply. We just stand and watch until Sybil reaches the little stone cottage and knocks on the door. There’s a sliver of light and I glimpse the pleasing silhouette of the healer.

  “They say she’s a widow,” my brother says when she shuts the door
.

  “You’ve asked about her?”

  “I’m hardly alone in my curiosity, or am I wrong in assuming you’ll seek further information about the healer from the woman taking her your gift?”

  It irks me that Gryvigg has so easily discerned my motive. “I don’t trust her.”

  “Neither do I, but I do enjoy watching her walk through the village.”

  I frown. “Watching is all we can do. The serving women of our households have always been at our disposal, but the king was clear. We are not to touch the village humans. Once the ShadowFell are defeated, perhaps things will be as they were, and then…”

  Gryvigg looks back at the cottage. “Even then it would make no difference. Not with her. She’s no virgin.”

  I turn away. I do not want to talk about the healer. In a time of change, the defiant beauty represents one more thing we can no longer have.

  It is an honor to be chosen by the king for duty. When King Vukrucis singled out me and my brothers at the War Council, it was because he trusted the Lords of Kri’byl, trusted in our strength and ability to build alliances and keep order.

  The Drakoryan Empire is not a political realm. For centuries, we have ruled our subjects from afar. The king held any one house in higher favor over others. True, there were some respected more than others, but it was usually because the lords distinguished themselves in battle. In peacetime, the lords were equal, keeping to and tending our own castles.

  In wartime, things are different. Armies need leaders, even armies led by half-dragons. For Drakoryans used to autonomous rule, peacetime requires an adjustment for those who must now answer to others.

  In the last battle of the ShadowFell, King Vukurcis relied on House Kri’byl to navigate the thorny landscape of egos and will to decide who would lead and who would follow. Not every Drakoryan can be a commander. We decide who serves, and where. And given that we are not only larger in size, but in number compared to other families, most our fellow Drakoryans defer.

  It makes sense that we would be tasked now with keeping the peace here, too. But what I would not give this night for a warm bed, a roaring fire, and a hot, slick, serving woman’s pussy to send me off to sleep.

  The latter need is made all the more pressing by persistent thoughts of the healer. Each morning she walks past our cottage before the rest of the villagers are even stirring. I watch her unseen, from the window as heads to the creek to draw water, or makes an early visit to some woman close to giving birth. She is not like other women. There is purpose in her stride, as if she seeks to prove something through the very act of walking from place to place.

  She intrigues me further with her aloofness. The other villagers either steal stares of admiration at our size or look away in fear when we pass. Yes, the resentment the king knew the villagers felt for us remained, but our presence meant few were willing to show it. Even the healer’s uncle, Releg, does not dare direct his defiant gaze our way. But the healer? She ignores us altogether, which is somehow more galling. The more she treats me and my brothers as if we are invisible, the more I wonder about her. What color is her hair? Is her body straight and sleek, or soft, full curves.

  She is a widow. Did she love her mate well, and he her? Does she miss a man’s touch?

  I should not think on such things. The king sent me here to keep peace among living men, not fix my mind on the wife left behind by a dead one. If I shared these musings with my brother, they would chide me, and rightly so.

  We’ve an army to raise, and no time to spend thinking on village women.

  If you enjoyed this excerpt, you can pre-order Rebel Bride HERE.

  Other Books in this Series

  The Drakoryan Brides Series

  Sacrifice

  Fire Bride

  War Bride

  Rebel Bride

  Standalone Books in the Drakoryan World

  Night of the Drakoryans

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  About the Author

  USA Today bestselling author Ava Sinclair has been making up stories longer than she can remember. She prides herself on crafting books for smart women who want it all - strong characterization, imaginative world building, engaging plot, and just the right about of heat.

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