by Jasmine Walt
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
About the Authors
Also by Jasmine Walt
DRAGON’S GIFT
A REVERSE HAREM FANTASY
JASMINE WALT
MAY SAGE
DYNAMO PRESS
Copyright © 2017, Jasmine Walt and May Sage. All rights reserved. Published by Dynamo Press.
This novel is a work of fiction. All characters, places, and incidents described in this publication are used fictitiously, or are entirely fictional. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, except by an authorized retailer, or with written permission of the publisher. Inquiries may be addressed via email to [email protected]
Electronic edition, 2017. If you want to be notified when Jasmine’s next novel is released and get access to exclusive contests, giveaways, and freebies, sign up for her mailing list here. Your email address will never be shared and you can unsubscribe at any time.
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
About the Authors
Also by Jasmine Walt
1
“Have you thought a bit more about my marriage proposal, Dareena?”
Dareena gripped the broom handle a little tighter at the sound of Mr. Harrin’s voice. Slowly, she turned to face her employer, who had managed to sneak up behind her while she swept, and carefully schooled her features to hide her instinctive wince.
Casler Harrin was a reedy man, about six feet tall, with thinning gray hair, mud-brown eyes, and a tobacco-stained beard. His lips were stretched into what Dareena imagined he thought was a smile, though really it was more of a leer, and she suppressed a shudder at the sight of his brown teeth. What would it be like to feel those thin lips pressed against hers? To feel those rough hands, already gnarling with age, push up her skirts within the privacy of their marriage bed?
“I haven’t.” Dareena turned her back to Mr. Harrin so she could sweep beneath one of the many tables. She’d taken advantage of the unexpected lull in customers to clean up a bit—with the sudden influx of people these past few days, there had barely been space enough to move about between the tables as she served drinks and took orders.
“And why the hell not?” Mr. Harrin’s thick brows drew into a scowl.
She pulled a chair out of the way so she could get better access to the bits of food beneath the table. “Because you decided to ask two days before the Dragon’s Hunt Festival, and we’ve had so many guests to take care of that I haven’t had a chance to think about it.”
Mr. Harrin gave a harsh laugh. “See, this is why I want you to be my wife,” he chortled. He gave Dareena a hearty slap on her bottom before she could manage to get clear of him. “You’re the only one with any sense around here, Dareena. The perfect person to take over the inn when I’m too old to work anymore.”
Dareena held in a sigh. Truthfully, the prospect of inheriting the inn was a tempting one. As the daughter of a farmer who had passed away when she was only twelve, Dareena had little to look forward to. Mr. Harrin’s offer was the most advantageous match she could hope for—it came with a fairly successful business, and when he died, she would be able to run it as she saw fit until their sons were of age to take it over.
Sons. An unwanted image of Mr. Harris leaning over her in bed, panting, popped into Dareena’s head, and this time she did wince. Gods, could she really go through with it? The idea of sharing her bed with Mr. Harris was so repulsive—
“Dareena!” Tildy, one of the other serving girls, rushed in, her blue eyes sparkling. “The huntress has arrived!”
“Really?” Dareena’s pulse jumped with excitement as all thoughts of marriage flew out of her head. “How do you know?”
“I just saw her ride in with her entourage,” Tildy gushed. “She looks absolutely magnificent, with all that red hair and gleaming armor. I wish I could wear armor like that.”
“Pah!” Mr. Harrin scoffed. “Armor is meant to be worn by men, not women. The only reason that huntress gets away with it is because of what she is.”
Tildy frowned. “I never thought you would be one to speak ill of the dragons,” she said. “The royal family is all that stands between us and the elves.”
Mr. Harrin snorted. “The elves haven’t attacked us for nearly a thousand years,” he muttered, keeping his voice low, “and yet King Dragomir pushes us into this war as if they’d come in the middle of the night and slaughtered our babes. If he wants to harbor delusions, that’s his business, but he doesn’t need to keep raising my bloody taxes in the meantime.”
He stomped off in a huff, leaving Tildy and Dareena to exchange uneasy looks. Dareena didn’t know much about the War of the Three Kingdoms—the terrible battles fought between Dragonfell, Elvenhame, and Shadowhaven. And the only thing she knew about the current war was that it had started because King Dragomir believed the elves had killed his wife when she had dropped dead five years ago. But Dareena did know that what Mr. Harrin had said was tantamount to treason, and he was lucky the patrons in the corner were too drunk to pick up on it.
“Do you mind taking over for me for a bit?” Dareena asked. “I need to go see to Gilma.”
“Of course,” Tildy said. She fished a small cloth bag out of her apron pocket and handed it to Dareena. “My aunt had some cookies left over from today’s batch—take them to her for me, will you?”
Dareena tucked the cookies into her skirt pocket and stepped out into the warm spring afternoon. The village was buzzing with activity—hammers clanged as craftsmen worked at their worktables and forges, vendors called in the distance as they pedaled their wares, and the smell of fresh-baked goods wafted up the street from the bakery Tildy’s aunt owned.
Humming a cheery tune under her breath, Dareena navigated her way through the narrow streets toward Gilma’s small house
on the outskirts of town. On her way, she passed through the festival area, where tents had already been erected and vendors were setting up. Merchants of all kinds had traveled from the surrounding hamlets and villages to come to the Dragon’s Hunt Festival in Hallowdale, and Dareena couldn’t wait until festival day so she could walk through the streets and admire all the wares and performers.
Not that I will be able to afford much, she thought ruefully as a jeweler opened a glossy wooden case full of shiny silver rings. Mr. Harrin didn’t pay her much since she mostly worked for room and board. Dareena’s family had been stricken by consumption, and they’d all passed away when she was only twelve years old. For some reason, Dareena herself had never caught even a whiff of the illness that had taken her parents, but even so, she’d been unable to stay on the farm by herself. Women couldn’t inherit property in Dragonfell unless it was gifted from their husband, so the farm would have passed to strangers anyway. Instead, Dareena had taken what she could and walked the twenty miles to Hallowdale. Mr. Harrin had been kind enough to take her in, and she’d been working for him for the past seven years.
And now he wanted to marry her.
Dareena truly wished she had better marriage prospects. Not that she didn’t attract her fair share of attention—her lush figure, long raven hair, and emerald green eyes, which were a rare color amongst her people, turned quite a few heads. The way her skin remained smooth and pale despite being a working-class girl also worked in her favor. But the few men she’d taken a liking to had either been drafted in the war or had been persuaded by their parents to seek someone with better connections. Other than her looks and child-bearing hips, Dareena brought very little to the marriage table.
Mr. Harrin, on the other hand, would die within the next ten years or so. His arthritis pained him enough that it was hard to do simple tasks, and his eyesight had deteriorated to the point that Dareena was doing most of the accounting. She was thankful that her position had afforded her the opportunity to learn how to read and do numbers—many of the other village girls did not have either skill. The only reason he hadn’t proposed to her before now was because, for the past ten years, all women had been forbidden to marry in view of the approaching Dragon’s Hunt. Naturally, such restrictions caused consternation amongst the population, but it had been this way for centuries, and the last thing the kingdom needed was for the Dragon’s Gift to accidentally marry someone other than the prince and start a family. But now that the hunt was approaching, families were beginning to make offers. Once the Dragon’s Gift was found, which in the past had never taken more than a year, there would be a rash of weddings throughout the kingdom.
In the meantime, Mr. Harrin would demand that she pledge herself to him, and breaking a marriage pledge was a serious crime, payable by either a steep fine or up to a year in jail. Dareena had no intention of suffering either punishment—if she was to marry Mr. Harrin, she would have to do it soon after the Hunt.
Shuddering, she pushed the unpleasant thought out of her mind as she approached Gilma’s ramshackle cottage. “Hello?” she called, rapping her knuckles on the faded green door.
“Dareena?” Gilma’s thin voice answered. “You can come in.”
Dareena eased open the door and stepped inside the dim interior. The musty smell that always accompanied the elderly, mixed with lavender, greeted Dareena as she closed the door behind her. Gilma was seated in a rocking chair by the hearth, her knitting needles in hand as she worked on a scarf. Her small, wrinkled face turned toward Dareena, her milky eyes unseeing. Dareena smiled at her even though she knew Gilma wouldn’t be able to tell.
“How are you doing?” Dareena asked as she sat down on the stool next to the old woman. “Have you eaten today?”
“Haven’t been hungry,” she said. “But now that you’re here, I could use a bite.”
“Of course.” Dareena rose from the chair and went to the small kitchen to fix a bowl of porridge. As she loaded some logs into the wood-burning stove, she thought, not for the first time, how lucky she was to still have her sight. Gilma’s eyesight had already been weak when Dareena had first come to Hallowdale, but it had deteriorated rapidly over the past seven years. With no children alive to care for her, Dareena was the only person in the world she could rely on.
All the more reason for you to have children. You don’t want to end up like this, alone and frail, with no one to care for you.
Dareena shook off the gloomy thought, then took a pot and filled it with water from the barrel that sat on the counter. There was no point in fretting about problems that had not yet come to pass.
“Are you looking forward to the Dragon’s Hunt tomorrow?” Gilma asked.
“Oh yes,” Dareena said, excitement filling her again. “I hear that there will be acrobats. There are so many people already here in town, we don’t have rooms for them all.” Indeed, many people had pitched tents in the fields outside the village.
“I wasn’t even a twinkle in my father’s eye during the last Dragon’s Hunt,” Gilma said sadly. “I had always thought I would be able to experience it with my own eyes, but instead I have to be shut up in this old house.”
Dareena’s stomach sank at Gilma’s forlorn expression. She abandoned the pot on the stove and went to take the old woman’s hand. “I promise I will tell you all about it when I return,” she said. “I will give you so much detail, it will seem like you were there yourself!”
“If you return,” Gilma pointed out. “There is always a possibility you might be Chosen.”
“No, there isn’t.” Dareena laughed, patting Gilma’s shoulder as she stood up again. “I’m the wrong color.”
“Nonsense,” Gilma protested. “The Dragon’s Gift has been a blonde before.”
Shaking her head, Dareena returned to the kitchen to check on the pot of water. She didn’t bother to correct Gilma on her hair color—she would likely just forget anyway. Even though most of the residents from Hallowdale and the surrounding area had come out to enjoy the festivities and take advantage of the influx of full purses, the Dragon’s Hunt had nothing to do with acrobats and merchants.
No, the Dragon’s Hunt was exactly what it sounded like—a hunt. Every hundred years, the dragon king sent his daughters across Dragonfell to bring back three fertile women from each town. These women, the Chosen, were brought back to the Dragon’s Keep, where they participated in a secret ritual that would identify if one of them was the Dragon’s Gift—the sole woman in all of Dragonfell selected by the gods to be the next dragon king’s mate.
Legend had it that long ago, during the War of the Three Kingdoms, the dragon king of the time did something to anger Shalia, Elvenhame’s patron goddess. In retribution, the elven goddess rendered the female dragons of Dragonfell infertile with a terrible curse, with the intention of wiping out the entire dragon race.
Drogar, the dragon god, had been unable to undo Shalia’s terrible curse, as the three gods were equally matched in strength. But out of sympathy for his people, he chose a human named Faria and imbued her with the ability to bear dragon sons and daughters. He presented her to the late dragon king’s son and told him she was a gift and to treat her well, as another one of her kind would not be born for a hundred years.
And thus came about the Dragon’s Hunt, a holy festival held every century to find the next Dragon’s Gift.
Every woman dreamed of being selected by the huntresses to go to Dragon’s Keep and participate in the sacred Selection Ritual, but Dareena had never held any illusions that she would ever see the inside of the Keep, much less become the Dragon’s Gift. Throughout history, the Dragon’s Gift had always been a flame-haired woman, with two exceptions, and those two had been endowed with golden tresses. Black-haired women like Dareena were never chosen, and in general were considered the least desirable. If not for Dareena’s figure and startling eye color, she likely wouldn’t attract male attention at all.
Of course, this year was a little different than most. F
or the previous nine hundred years, the Dragon’s Gift had produced many daughters, but only one son. But the gods had smiled down on King Dragomir’s late wife, for she had birthed not one, but three, dragon sons. They were all rumored to be exceedingly handsome and powerful, and because they were triplets, there was no guarantee as to which would inherit the throne.
“I suppose Lord Tirin’s daughter will be amongst the Chosen,” Gilma said, interrupting Dareena’s musings. “Not that a selfish twat like that deserves to bear the next dragon king’s sons.”
“Gilma!” Dareena stifled a laugh as she stirred the pot of boiling oats.
“You know I’m right,” Gilma said, completely unapologetic. “Lyria Hallowdale may be dragon born, but she behaves no better than a harpy. The way she shrieks at even the tiniest slight, I’m surprised her father has any hearing left.”
Dareena gave in to her laughter as she brought Gilma’s porridge to a boil. “It’s a good thing she’s not around to hear you say that.”
“Or what, she’ll have me whipped?” Gilma scoffed. “Lyria might be cruel, but she’s not stupid enough to do something like that. The whole town would be in an uproar if she whipped a poor old woman like me.”
“True enough,” Dareena said as she scooped up a spoonful of porridge and blew on it. The Hallowdales, just like every other noble family in Dragonfell, all had dragon’s blood in them. They were either descended from dragon born or were dragon born themselves—offspring that came from the union of a dragon male and a human female. The dragon born could not shift or breathe fire like true dragons, but they were incredibly strong, impervious to most illnesses, and very intelligent.
Naturally, the Hallowdale family was inordinately proud of their dragon born ancestry, even though it came from an ancestor born nearly four hundred years ago. That didn’t stop Lyria Hallowdale from strutting around and practically breathing fire on anyone who even remotely displeased her. But with her hourglass figure and flame-red curls, it was a given that she would be chosen by the huntress. It was only a matter of time.