Rebel Bride_A Reverse Harem Dragon Fantasy

by Ava Sinclair

  “Thera!” Heavy footfalls accompany the sound of someone calling my name. I instantly tense. Ceril is approaching with a group of companions. I take a deep breath before turning to him. His round face softens in relief when he sees me.

  “Thank the gods. I’ve looked everywhere for you. Where were you hiding?” He shakes his head. “No, no. It’s of no importance. Everyone scattered before the white dragon. All that matters is that you are safe.” He draws closer. “You were right about the Drakoryans, Thera. Anyone who doubted you no longer does. We’ve seen to that…”

  “No…Ceril…” I begin, but he’s talking hastily now, his words coming in an angry rush.

  “The Drakoryans are false, just as you say. The dragons they warned us of can be cut down like winged dogs. They brought us here, stole our harvest, and burned our villages so we could not return. They seek to make us slaves. You exposed their trickery…”

  “Ceril, listen to me.” I try to stem my rising panic as I seek to reason with him. While my anger at the Drakoryans has not abated, I am no longer certain that they deceived us. But he is certain enough for both of us, thanks to me. I need to fix this. “I may have been wrong…”

  “Ah, Thera.” He smiles. “You are but a woman trying to be brave. You no longer have to do that. Rely on me now, on my strength.” He stares down at me.

  He is once again hinting at a future. I need to make it clear that there is none. I see Ceril only as a friend.

  “I will never be with you.” I interrupt him, blurting out the truth. Ceril’s face falls, the hopeful expression turning to one of shock. He glances at his companions, who look uncomfortable.

  “Bran is dead,” he says quietly. “Your mourning period is long past, healer. You need a husband, and you let me hope that if I proved strong…”

  “I did not mean to, Ceril.” I feel ill that he feels misled. “I cannot be with you.”

  “Don’t be foolish.” My uncle speaks up. “These are hard times, Thera. It was the Drakoryans who drove my brother and your husband into the woods to hunt. And now you refuse the man willing to stand up for you?”

  “You will marry me,” Ceril’s tone is hard. I do not like the look in his eyes.

  “I cannot,” I say.

  “Why?”

  “Because she has accepted another.” A deep voice comes from behind us.

  We all turn to see Gyrvig. Has he been following me?

  Fury replaces shock on Ceril’s face. “You’ve accepted another? Who?”

  Gyrvig looks at me. His eyes flash golden. “Me. And my four brothers.”

  Ceril is momentarily speechless. “Is this some sort of jest?”

  “The healer has been speaking against us,” Gyrvig says. “When we sought the source of her anger, we found she holds us responsible for her husband’s death. We seek peace. If she believes the Drakoryans took her husband, it falls upon us to give her back what was lost.”

  Ceril’s face grows red. “No! if you would see her married, give her to me.”

  “She is not an object to be gifted.” Gyrvig is getting agitated. I can feel the heat off his body. “She agreed.”

  Ceril turns on me. “You agreed to this?” he snarls. “You would let these five Drakoryans take you? You would become their whore? A year of mourning, Thera! That’s all that was supposed to stand between us once Bran was dead, once I….” His words falter as he catches himself, and I feel a chill not caused by the winter air.

  “What are you saying?” My Uncle Releg has gone from supporting Ceril to eyeing him suspiciously. “SPEAK!”

  “Thera was supposed to be with me.” Ceril glares at my uncle. “Bran stole her away! Don’t you see? He was nothing! A lowly stonemason who could not give her the life she deserved. I only sought to correct that wrong.…”

  “No! No!!!” Releg explodes, launching himself at Ceril. He has drawn his sword, and only the Drakoryans stop him from killing the younger man on the spot. I stagger back, unwilling to believe what I’m hearing. The Drakoryans may have sent my father and husband into the woods, but it was one of our own who brought about their deaths.

  “Ceril?” my uncle cries. “What did you do?”

  “Bran was supposed to be alone! When I killed Bran…your brother wasn’t supposed to be there, only Bran. I had to…it was the only way I could have Thera!”

  Ceril’s words are stopped by my uncle’s fist impacting his face. I hear the crunch of bone, but that is not what sickens me. My husband. My loving, gentle husband was murdered by the man who I’d thought a trusted friend, the man I’d sought to help me lead the uprising.

  I look down to realize I’ve dropped the basket I’m carrying. I begin to run, my mind burning with memories that now rush back, memories that now make sense. I remember Ceril telling Bran where to find a boar near the river. I remember puzzling that we’d never heard the Wolven we’d thought responsible for the deaths of my husband and father. I run faster, the gasping sobs making my lungs burn as they draw in the icy air. I don’t know where I’m going. I just run until I hear the sound of crunching and look down to see my boots have broken through the frozen crust at the marsh’s edge. An icy mist surrounds me. I lean over to catch my breath, not caring that my boots are soaked and my feet are numb. I am already numb all over.

  Bran. My Bran. Neither my father nor husband had been found. Had Ceril pushed them into the river after he ambushed them? I close my eyes against the image of Ceril standing on the banks of the river, holding the shreds of Bran’s bloodied shirt as he watched the current pull my love’s body away.

  I want the same peace, the same oblivion. I want relief from the weariness that comes with anger and grief. I shrug my cloak off and undo my bodice. The skirt follows. Clad only in my chemise, I kneel in the frozen water. I will join him. I will be with my husband again.

  No. I hear a voice in my head. A familiar voice. Yet this is not the voice of my love. It is the voice I heard channeled through the oracle in the Drakoryans’ cottage. A female voice.

  No, healer. Don’t give up. Look.

  I obey, and through the icy mist I see him. Bran is as he was in my dream, shreds of a bloody shirt hanging from his waist, his expression haunted. This is no dream. He is real. I lean forward, extend my hand, but cannot reach him. “My love,” I say. “You’ve come to take me.”

  No. He shakes his head. “I’ve come to ask a gift.”

  I begin to sob. “Anything.” I slur the word though lips growing numb and blue with cold. “Please…I can never be happy again…”

  “Give me peace, Thera. Embrace the protection of the five. My death will soon be avenged, but only your safety and comfort can send me to the Summerlands. It is cold where I am, my darling. How I long to go to walk the warm fields.” He moves his hand to my face. It feels like frost, even though his expression is warm. “Do this for me. Swear it.”

  “I cannot,” I say. I clutch his cold hand. “Don’t leave me.”

  “I must, Thera. Give me peace. Heal me with your vow.” There is such want in his tone, such desperation.

  “I swear it,” I say, and look up to see Bran smile. He dissolves into a white mist just as I hear another voice.

  “She’s over here!” The words come through the frozen mist. I can’t turn my head to look. The cold is twining through me, its icy fingers preparing to pull me down into the muck. “Thera!”

  Arms. Hot and hard. One winds around my back and pulls me up. The other curls under my knees. I am bundled against the wall of a broad chest. In my blurred vision, I see four more shapes, pressing in. Heat comes off their bodies like waves. Numbness turns to pain as my cooled blood begins to move again, restoring feeling. I moan, both from physical and emotional pain.

  Darkness overtakes me, and all goes black. I am floating, and when I next open my eyes, I am staring up at the heavy-beamed ceiling of the Drakoryans’ cottage. I hear a familiar voice and turn my head to see one of the old healers. I am covered in a layer of heavy furs. My legs and
arms no longer hurt.

  “Drink this.” I feel myself lifted slightly so that I can accept the cup pressed to my lips. How many times have I tended to others so? I have never been sick a day in my life. It feels unnatural to be on this side of caring.

  “One of the other healers said this will keep you from developing a cough.” I recognize the flavor. Mint. Lungwort. Chapparel. I am lowered gently back down. I stir under the furs, and realize I am naked. I blink. Once. Twice. My eyes finally adjust and I see I am where I started my day, back in the cottage of the Lords of Kri’byl.

  I open my mouth to speak. My throat is still sore from crying in the cold air. My words are raspy. “My Bran…” Tears sting my eyes. “I was wrong. All this time.” I look at the five faces hovering over me. “I am sorry.”

  “You need not apologize,” Lord Erdorin says. “You suffered a great loss. You wanted justice.”

  “Justice.” I draw a ragged breath, then remember. “Ceril…”

  “It will be served. A life for a life. The villagers demanded it. They build gallows as we speak. Your husband and father were well-loved.”

  I nod, thinking of my father’s merry face, my husband’s broad kind one. I struggle to sit up, pulling the furs around me.

  “You still intend to take me, knowing now who killed my husband?”

  “We still bear responsibility,” Jareo replies. “And the words of the witches stand. Nothing has changed.”

  I ponder this in silence, remembering how Bran came to me in the marsh. Was it real?

  Gyrvig kneels down, and I feel he’s read my thoughts by the question he asks. “Tell us of your man, healer. It will hurt, but tell us.”

  I close my eyes, summoning Bran’s face. It’s been one of my deepest fears that I will forget the little things about him.

  “He was big,” I say. “Not as big as you, but big. He had blue eyes that crinkled at the edges, hair the color of wheat. A beard of the same color. His mother’s hair had turned white early, and he said his would, too. By his thirtieth year, half was already the color of moonlight, but I did not mention it.” I smile at the memory. “He was gentle and strong. He cut stone. He never tired. He built our cottage by hand. He made me a loom as a wedding gift. He would pick flowers for me on the way home. He was not the smartest man in the village. He was not the wealthiest. But he was true and honest and lived each day to make me happy.” I begin to cry. “Even unto that last day when he went into the woods so we would have meat to share.”

  “And what would he want for you now, healer?” My eyes are still closed. I do not see which Drakoryan speaks. I hold my husband’s face in my mind. I think of his warning in my dream. He looked so tortured then. Now he looks at peace.

  “He would want what he wanted for me in life. He wanted me to be happy, to be protected, to…love.”

  “You are young, healer. You have much to give. He sounds like a fine mate. We will devote ourselves to you as he did.”

  I open my eyes to see them all kneeling now. They join hands around me. “To the villager Bran, we promise to care for, to protect, and to love this woman in your memory.”

  I am speechless. Whenever I spoke of Bran, Ceril would become angry or change the subject. I know now it was because he had always been jealous of the man I grieved. However, these five Drakoryans who I’ve called enemy not only embrace Bran’s memory but honor it with conviction. And in my mind for the first time since my husband’s death I can hear his voice, gentle and kind and reassuring, as he utters two quiet words: Be happy.

  Chapter 14

  JAREO

  We do not question the witches. They are wise. The magic comes from the God and Goddess who made us what we are. Even in our cursed state, we are protected by the guardians in the Mystic Mountain. They advise us, warn us of what is to come, and—when it is time for us to bond—name our mates.

  For the first time, Drakoryan lords are not given a virgin, but a woman who has experienced passion. This claiming will be different. There will be no need to battle for first rites, given that we will not be her first. Was this part of the witches’ wisdom when they named her? Now that we are under attack, it is likely they do not want us to fight ourselves, not even for a mate.

  This has not lessened our desire, however. We burn for Thera; I believe we burned for her before she was named.

  Yet the timing...the ShadowFell have already attacked once. They will attack again. How can we give our mate the time and attention she needs? And will she truly be able to accept us after the loss?

  “Perhaps this is why we were given a knowing woman instead of a virgin. She will not need time to train.” Gyrvig tells me. We are standing by one of the village halls we have been working day and night to build since the ShadowFell attacked. Located throughout the villages, the halls will house women and children should the village next come under siege. With the serving class and some of the lords pitching in, construction moves quickly. The tightly-spaced beams of the roofs are covered in woven lattice that will be coated in a combination of mud and wet straw that will not catch fire so easily.

  I ponder Gyrvig’s words as I think of the serving girls I have tumbled. They needed no special instruction, no coaxing. I try to imagine Thera lying on soft furs, her strong white thighs spread. My cock stiffens almost painfully. When we’d taken her back to our cottage after pulling her from the marsh, she was dangerously chilled. We’d stripped her of her wet clothing, and as our eyes fell upon her, the room had heated so that we’d had to crack the door to cool it. We’d cleaned her with a warm wet cloth and hastened her under the covers, but the image of her nakedness was burned into our minds by then—generous pear-shaped breasts crowned with ruby nipples, a narrow waist flaring to full hips, firm, springy buttocks. The sparse fleece at the apex of her thighs covered plump pale lips, the seam deep. A woman’s body, built for pleasure.

  It is not the first time we’ve looked upon a naked female. But this time it had been different because this was no ordinary woman. This was to be our woman. I look at my brother, pondering his words.

  “True. She will need no special training, yet something tells me that we will still want to take her slowly.”

  He grins. “I think of little else. We need to take her soon. The promise of her is too much of a distraction.”

  I nod in agreement, grateful for the activity that helps burn off some of the dragon energy we’d rather spend on sex. Since Ceril of Darly’s confession to the murder of Thera’s husband and father, much has changed. Both men were respected, not just in Darly but surrounding villages. The murders, along with the pain they visited upon the beloved healer, caused an uproar. Humans who had been ready to revolt against us now turned their wrath on the man who’d been prepared to lead the rebellion.

  When they made it clear that they wanted to decide punishment, we let them. As Ceril had sat chained to a wall under guard in another cottage, Thera sat by the window of ours, looking towards the village where men erected the gallows where Ceril would hang. She said little, and when I asked her what she was thinking, she would only say that she had not thought revenge would ring so hollow.

  “No matter what happens, Bran is gone,” she’d told me. “When we were newly married, the dragons came in the night to burn the fields we weren’t allowed to plant. We could hear the rush of wind from the wings as they flew over the village. Bran held me close and told me not to be afraid.” She’d deepened her voice, mimicking her husband. “’They’re only dragons,’ he’d say, and kiss my cheek.” She’d put a hand to her face, as if longing to feel the warmth of his lips once more. Then she’d looked at me. “Have you ever lost someone you love?”

  “Magic gives us an exceptionally long life,” I’d replied. “Drakoryans age slowly, and a woman who mates with us receives that same gift upon the Deepening.”

  She’d looked back towards the window. “If I live a long life, it will mean an even longer wait until I join Bran in the Summerlands.”

  “The
ra…” I’d reached my hand out carefully to take hers. I thought she would pull away, but she did not. She just looked down at my large hand clutching her small one, and while she did not acknowledge my gesture with so much as a squeeze, I considered it progress when she did not pull away.

  “Are you going to tell me now how I need to move on?” she asked. “Are you going to tell me how things change, and how you can make me happy again?”

  “No.” I’d given her hand a gentle squeeze. “I’m just going to sit here and hold your hand.”

  The briefest shadow of a smile crossed her lips then. It was a sad smile, and I’d have thought it imagined save for the slight pressure of her fingers against mine. Every time I think of that moment, I realize that while we will not need to train this woman, we will need to take her slowly if she is to be healed of her sorrow. Will five men be enough to fill the void left by the loss of her mate?

  “Come, they are ready!” Yrko’s call interrupts my thoughts, and I rise to head to the fields where the villagers have been prepared to train. This, too, is another change. With the leader of the uprising revealed as the ultimate betrayer of his people, those who followed him agreed to join our fight.

  We could give them no more food, but promised that should we defeat the enemy, come spring we would divide the one large village into the original smaller ones, and come to some system of government that allowed them both protection and agency. Releg and some others will appoint a council to negotiate terms with us. Soon, we will be lords in more than title alone. We would have a system of rule, and how we handle it now will determine future success.

  We have Thera to thank. Even if she had been wrong about us, she was not wrong about the villagers’ desire for independence. Now that they understand that they will be allowed autonomy, they take up arms with a measure of guarded trust.

  There are five regiments, and we work to make up the progress we’d lost when the villagers had refused to fight. As lords in dragon form soar overhead on patrol, we teach the villagers how to man the ballista to fire spears, and how to launch the huge metal nets designed to hold ShadowFell long enough for us to swoop down and burn them. While all Drakoryan lords learn archery, it has never been any good against ShadowFell. But Releg and the others now believe it may help against the smaller dragons, should more return. I appoint him and several others as master archers.