Ivy's Dragon: Dragons of Telera (Book 7)

by Lisa Daniels

  “Mine,” he growled, thrusting harder into her, sweat accumulating on his face, dripping over his eyes like tears as he lost himself in her body, consumed himself in her softness.

  With a jolt of surprise, she felt herself come again, but he still wasn’t done. It took him another minute to come, and a third orgasm rippled out of Ordri like a small wave, numbing her lips in shock from the fact that she had not only come once, but three times.

  Holy shit. She didn’t even think her body was capable of that. At all.

  She lay on the covers, boneless from his efforts. She watched the strong, muscular werewolf disengage from her and position himself on her left side, breath heaving fast. They stared into each other’s faces for quite some time without words. Words. They seemed rather meaningless right now, with everything that had happened.

  The war might be won. Not without cost. Never without cost. And as long as there were werewolves, conflict existed a stone’s throw away.

  Werewolves were never meant to sit quietly and live without stirring the waters, without announcing their presence somewhere. They fought, killed, murdered and loved the same as any human. Perhaps more so, since their emotions could be rather concentrated, making them boiling cesspits of passion.

  Ordri shivered as she examined her mate, still torn between the conflict of whether he happened to be the best thing that had ever happened in her life, or the worst.

  She did know, somewhere down the line, that losing him might hurt more than expected. Certainly more than when her former husband had his throat torn out.

  Just when she thought she didn’t know how to feel, that she was callous and lacked something fundamental that everyone else possessed – Bron showed her otherwise. He taught her that she did feel. She did love.

  There might have been a strong sense of relief with the act as well.

  Everyone had survived the conflict of the old Vladomir house, though the worse wounded needed several weeks to heal from the vanadium bullets that poisoned their systems. Sebastian and Kostya fought side by side, and went down together, kicking and yelling. Filip bore one extra scar in his impressive collection. Yanus had one shattered leg, and Elinor two broken ribs. Ordri suffered the least injuries, aside from bruises that healed within a day.

  The hold out from Yanus and Elinor did massive psychological damage to the invaders, though they might have succeeded once the bullets ran out, just by piling with better organization into the tunnel. The tight confines still gave beasts like Bron leeway to scrap, but the numbers would push him back.

  Bron. What a magnificent hunk of werewolf specimen he was. Any woman would feel secure under his protection, once you got past the whole confusion and misunderstandings.

  He wanted a home, and Ordri wanted to be loved. He wanted a name, and Ordri could give him hers. Of course, maybe celebrations might have to hold off until the threat was removed from the Bulgarian mountains once and for all – but Elinor Spirova felt positive, enlightened by the idea that the Vladomir house had inflicted fatal damage to the Russian movement.

  “We lost a total of zero people,” Elinor had said. “Zero, and they lost twenty-one. That’s one hell of a humiliating defeat. I’d be hanging my tail in shame. They can’t have much left to their invasion force.”

  “Lucky we had that secret passage, really,” Ordri said. “I doubt we would have been as lucky in the open confines of the house.”

  “Lucky,” Elinor agreed, wincing as she clutched her sides, where the ribs healed and itched. “Still could have gone fucking wrong.” She groaned. “Can’t wait til I get back to my husband. He’s sick out of his mind with constant worry that one of my excursions will be my last.”

  Ordri smiled, thinking of Elinor’s crippled, wheelchair-bound husband, who quietly managed affairs at the Spirova fortress.

  She thought of how things had been. The five of them, Markus, Danniven, Arina, Luelle and her, friends with the humans in the mountains. Their friendship had been one catalyst towards the overthrowing of the flesh eaters, the clans who insisted on the ancient ways. The death of Arina’s family and her escape eventually led to Ricten’s death years later, and a new world for them to go to in North Dakota.

  Then there were the Russians who ran that hotel in Sapareva Banya, Frey and Evo, who between them managed to turn their little hotel into a moot point of resistance, taking in the wounded and helping to bring one major victory against the invaders – who came because of Luelle’s escape.

  Strange, to see how things wrapped together, and worked out in the end. Strange to think how much their world had changed in the past thirty years.

  Strange to see the white wanderer turn up at their gate, to help them cinch one more victory in the face of potential destruction. His presence might have dragged them into the face of danger, isolating the leaders in unexpected circumstances – a bad oversight by their side, really.

  Yet, it had actually turned out to be the one thing that might have solidified their advantage, bolstered their defense.

  I still don’t know who you are, really, Bron, Ordri thought, staring at his slumbering form, which looked peaceful and happy. And I feel like we might have a long way to go yet. Because you’re hella awkward at times.

  He was, she thought in amusement, her white knight.

  “I know you’re staring at me,” he said then, directly referring back to his creepy staring a few weeks back.

  “Shh. Let me examine your pretty face for a moment longer without any interruptions. I was just on that freckle behind your ear.”

  “Hmpf.” Bron opened dark pink eyes to give her a fond, languid smile. Again, the stark contrast of his features almost took her breath away. And to think, this person really had dropped out of nowhere and chosen her to be his mate?

  We shall have strong and beautiful children, Ordri contemplated, imagining the sentence tolled out in her head in a serious tone. She held a straight face for a moment, before the absurdity of her thought made her laugh.

  “What did I do wrong, now?” Bron said, confused, his brows knitting together as he tried to work out what his next fault was.

  “Nothing. Nothing at all.” Ordri Gregorovitch stroked her new mate’s rough cheek, imagining the future panning ahead of them, and all the possibilities it offered.

  To think she would have stagnated here, too afraid to take the next step, to admit that change needed to happen.

  Sometimes, change came and bitch-slapped you in the face, whether you expected it or not.

  A change in life, in love, and attitude. “I think I can grow to love you,” she said to him at last, and his eyes widened.

  “You ‘think’? Ordri, I already love you. You’re playing catch up at this point,” he said, with a playful grin.

  Oh. Wow.

  That was slightly unexpected.

  “It’s not so fast and easy for me, Bron. I just need time. To accept that this happiness is real, you know. That it’s not gonna run away.”

  “I understand,” he said, his pale lips spreading and curving upwards. “I’m still coming to terms with things as well. And being proven wrong at every turn, apparently.”

  “Your fault, for trying to steal a Gregorovitch woman.”

  “Uh, ‘trying’? I succeeded. Unless the person lying next to me in bed is just a figment of my imagination.”

  “Unfortunately, I’m not,” she said, which prompted Bron to tackle her in bed, mock indignation upon his features.

  There was definitely no figment of imagination bullshit going on here. This was real.

  Her heart beat, and remembered how to love again. Her body reacted to his touch like a swimmer breaking the surface of water, taking in a great lungful of air, glad to be alive.

  On top of all this, it seemed the Bulgarian clans would finally be at peace.

  No more shitty conflict, at least for a good few years. Ordri intended to take full advantage of that peacetime.

  The End

  Captured by Kazak De
scription

  A dragon has his eyes on princess Marea. And she has no clue just how close he is…

  Princess Marea is one of many princesses in the Hundred Kingdoms, unmarried at the age of thirty. Dragons have been ransacking nearby villages, trying to steal the women, and a princess from a nearby kingdom was stolen, so her father ups the security around her. It’s annoying, because she can’t do half the things she enjoyed, and she wants to gain some of her freedom back. The guards don’t talk to her, and are under explicit instructions to ignore her.

  However, one of her guards, not one she remembers seeing before, has the audacity to talk back to her. To act careless and teasing of her ways. Green hides hide under a flush of red hair, and he always seems to be watching her.

  What she doesn’t know is what’s lurking under his skin, and the plans he has for her…

  Captured by Kazak

  Dragons Take a Princess

  (Book One)

  By: Dalia Wright

  Chapter One

  Princess Marea walked out into the royal gardens. She looked around for an appropriate place to settle, an easel tucked under her arms, and a paint holder and a box of paints. Behind her, about ten guards followed, all intent on protecting her. And, also, to not allow her any privacy whatsoever.

  Really, she thought, irritated as the guards trumped around, generating noise, scaring away the birds and other objects of interest. Talking to them did nothing – they were under orders from her beloved father to not speak to her, or take any orders, since she had a tendency to give them insane instructions – and it took all the fun out of her already excessively dull life.

  “I doubt any other princess gets guarded this much,” Marea muttered, stubbornly setting up her easel, and propping herself on the perfectly trimmed grass. Her red dress crumpled beneath her, more like an elaborate wedding gown than a practical dress for walking around the grounds, but her mother insisted on a princess always looking her best.

  “You never know when that handsome prince is going to walk through the door,” her mother said, with a wide smile and a glint of her baby blue eyes.

  Not exactly hard to find a prince in Marea’s world, given that they hosted at least five other kingdoms in their castle per week, and she was always up to her eyeballs in princes and princesses. One hundred kingdoms, one hundred extra reasons to find being royalty a drag. Even the downright pampering irritated her. She didn’t know anything. A servant was more skilled than her, because sky knew if she could figure out how to change a bedsheet without getting tangled in it.

  Of course, Marea was edging close to her thirties, unheard of for a princess, except she also had six other sisters to marry up ahead of her, and she never failed to mess things up for any visiting prince which she suspected her mother and father was trying to hitch her up with.

  Now, with the recent bate of dragon attacks on all the border kingdoms, with princesses being carried off at least once a month, her father had upped the security, and ordered them to stick to her like glue, so she didn’t slip off into some dark alley and sneak along the general population, like she was prone to do anyway. Her mother forced her to take courtesy lessons, embroidery, learn all the fashions going through court, and which big marriages or knight quests had hit the news.

  She was also supposed to know how to appropriately act and scream when taken by a monster. (With a dragon, you were supposed to flap your arms and wail.)

  “You’re getting awfully old,” her mother would say, in that familiar upturn way she held her nose, and glared disapprovingly at her daughter. “I was married at sixteen. I was a proper princess, and your sisters are good examples, too. Where did I go wrong with you?”

  Everything, Marea thought. She didn’t know why she was unable to click. Why she refused the princes, even though she had such a vast pool to choose from. They were stupid, they were fake. Reasons and excuses she gave, but really – she just didn’t find the polite smiling attractive. She wanted something rough. Like that time when she went to the taverns, disguised as a wench, and saw the way the men laughed raucously, and the women were bold, taking who they wanted and whenever they felt like it.

  Marea desired that freedom. To be able to let go and just laugh, instead of worrying about being abducted by dragons, or an invasion from the Dark Clans, or whether the other princesses would mock her choice of outfit or not.

  She raised a paintbrush with green smeared over the tip, and pressed it to the canvas. She couldn’t paint, of course, but it gave her an excuse to sit out in the garden without appearing out of place. One of the guards gave her an odd look, breaking the normal custom of staring resolutely ahead and pretending to be invisible. She examined the man through her straw yellow hair, noting his strong physique through the rigid uniform, and the way his green eyes seemed to glow in the sunlight. He had such good cheekbones, too, and a malleable curve of the muscles in his face, along with the hint of a red trimmed beard, giving him a Wilderness look.

  She wished at that moment she could paint him. Something about those eyes arrested her. Just a shame he was a lowly guard, and not a prince. She wondered what words those plump lips might say, what kind of life he led outside the job in the castle. Maybe he even lived in the castle, in the lower chambers.

  The guard gave her a thin, predatory smile. Marea blinked. Had she just imagined that expression? The guard now appeared neutral, though his eyes still bore into her.

  Licking her lips, allowing some of the paint to smear over the canvas, Marea stated, “Are you supposed to be looking upon a princess like that?”

  Several of the other guards appeared nervous at the statement. The man with the emerald eyes, though, shrugged. “It appears to me that you’re the one staring… princess.”

  The audacity of his statement made her temporarily hang her mouth open. Why, no one dared speak to a princess like that. Especially if they were lower class, like this man.

  “I could have you executed for speaking like that to me.”

  “Why? I’m only answering to what you say to me. Unless you like to kill people who are brave enough to talk to you.” His emerald eyes trailed up and down her body, taking in the blood red dress with all the ruffles and frills, gaudy and elegant, two things Marea was not. Heat flushed in her cheeks. How dare he?

  She almost gave the order. It bubbled up to the tip of her tongue, waiting to unload the man’s fate. Everyone knew that you weren’t supposed to lip a princess, and she sensed insubordination. Apathy, even. At the same time though, it felt refreshing to be stood up to like that.

  How much normal conversation have I been missing out on?

  Some of the green paint had dripped all the way from the brush onto her hand. “Oh!” Her shame, embarrassment, and the other thing turned to surprise. She ordered the guard to fetch her a cloth, and he did as bid, not saying anything else, but smiling at her with a half smile. A mocking one. And with a look that made her feel as if she were being undressed. Inch by inch, from the top of her lacy gown to the bottom of her black, high heel shoes.

  What’s wrong with me? She shook her head to clear away the steam that heated her mind, sped her heartbeat up. She must be starved for affection. Yes. That would be it. Starved due to the polite arm distance she always needed to keep from everyone. Starved because her parents offered her no affection other than duty.

  She pointedly ignored the green-eyed guard for the rest of her monotonous day, though when she thought of him, if was as if her gray day had been painted a little extra color. Certainly better than the atrocious mess she splashed on her canvas.

  She attended the evening feast, where a prince and two princesses from their neighboring kingdom, Yaltine, commented on how they were stepping it up with the border guard.

  “We’re getting more raids on the villages from the Dark Clans,” princess Esmer said, when elbowed in the ribs by her older sister, Hallie. Marea liked Esmer – she wore the princess mantle better, with a vibrant fire mane sprouting from
her head, instead of the wet yellow straw that stuck out at awkward angles from Marea’s.

  I could have a bird’s nest in my hair, and no one would notice. Marea ate her food in her normal silence, only speaking when spoken to, observing the royals and nobles from both kingdoms laughing and discussing with one another. Her father, clad in golden robes, entertained the king of Yaltine, who stood several inches taller, with a ferocious red beard jutting out from his chin. So many red heads. First the guard, now this family. Plenty of people with a touch of the Wilderness.

  Esmer spotted Marea, who was slightly hunched over her squid rings, plucking at them. The distinctive aromas of each dish flooded the room, from the salted fish dishes, to the juicy red meat dishes, and roasted vegetables, all creating a musk that blended together perfectly. Marea pressed the fork in her hand hard, so that little lines formed in her skin.

  “I notice you have a lot of security following you nowadays,” Esmer said to Marea, pointing to the ten guards who even stood in the room with them, though they leaned against the wall edges. “Have the dragon attacks been getting worse?”

  Marea shrugged. “They say they spotted one swooping around the castle, trying to reach one of the princesses. My father is a cautious man, and I am of course, an unmarried woman.”

  “Same,” Esmer said, with a trilling laugh. “I just have the one guard, though. I suppose when you’re the twelfth child in a very big family, protection isn’t quite as important.”

  “Don’t say that!” Hallie scolded her sister, a scowl knitted over her brow. “You know perfectly well we’re safe in our palace. It’s the villages the Dark Clans are scavenging, and we have a big army.”

  “We have in total one mage,” Esmer pointed out. “And an army is useless against a really determined dragon. Marea, how many mages does your kingdom employ?”

  “Uh…” Marea didn’t want to talk, though she appreciated Esmer’s effort to include her. “We have around eight. Ice and fire mages.”