Shaw leaned back, brushed a soft kiss upon the tip of her nose, then laughed. “I agree it is a simple pleasure, Dru, but you have touched more than my skin. More than my body. You have burrowed into my heart, stolen my control, and gifted me with the treasure of your undying love.”
“Such pretty words for a simple soldier. I merely was thinking how a dragon’s talons could not enjoy the sensation my human body has enjoyed with you.” She inhaled his manly scent of salt and sea air.
“Not so simple. Major Anderson has awarded me a promotion to captain.”
“In truth? This is a good thing?”
“Yes, my love. I impressed him with my handling of the move from Moultrie to Sumter, and for getting the regiment off that ravaged rock and to safety.” He raised a hand, cupped her chin, and gazed into her eyes through the dim light of the dark alley. “I have you to thank for saving my life that night.”
“This means you plan to stay in the military, doesn’t it?” The crack in her voice had her cursing her human form. Tears threatened to fall, and her heart broke. Dru warred with clingy female attributes while urging her dragon heart not to take flight and disappear.
“Yes, Dru, but I will be taking a position alongside the major. He’s being hailed as a hero. Rumor has it he’ll be a general before long. My place is by his side.”
“His?” tears flowed freely, now, and she wiped them from her cheek while stepping away.
“Dru. Stop.” Shaw brushed away new tears, and she succumbed to his strength. Her bundle dropped to the ground at her feet and the small sack Maggie had given her rolled over Shaw’s boot. “What’s this?”
“Something Maggie gave me when I was leaving. Food, I guess.”
Shaw upended the bag. Out dropped coins, a watch fob, and a ring. Shaw smiled at her, then placed the ring on her finger. Dru melted. She wanted him. “Do ye still want me?”
“Dru, what you didn’t let me say is, I wish you to be my wife.”
Staring up at the dark recesses of his face, she read the love in his eyes. His head lowered, and he stole all her breath with his kiss. Shuddering, she broke their kiss and shoved him away.
“Do not tease a lonely dragon, sir. If you continue as a soldier, on the brink of war, a wife cannot be in your plans.”
He crossed his arms across his chest and glared.
“I cannot retreat. We are at war. I am a soldier. I promised to defend my country and my president. However,” Shaw lowered his arms, and walked closer until they stood toe to toe. “I will follow Major Anderson. He has assured me a home and a life while I serve. All you have to do is say “yes.”
She didn’t notice she was nodding until her gaze locked on the love beaming from his face. Who needed wings when love made one’s heart soar?
THE END
…and concludes with Nessía and Rory.
After centuries pass, Nessía again searches for love. When Rory Hawthorn, an American scientist, arrives under the pretext of researching the earthquakes but in reality to research his MacDonald heritage and the curse, she believes she has found the perfect mate.
Amid stolen kisses, another earthquake, a steamy night of passion, and a broken heart, Nessía returns to the murky depths of the loch. When Rory dives in to follow her, he meets the green, scaly Loch Ness Monster. Assuming Nessía is in danger, he is intent on killing the monster and saving the woman he loves.
*DRAGON IN THE MIST was awarded 1st place in the Short Story Category of the 2012 Silken Sands Self-Published STARS Contest hosted by the Gulf Coast Chapter of RWA
DRAGON
In the Mist
PROLOGUE
Loch Ness, Scotland, 1816
“Ye dare toss up my skirts, use my body, and then casually mention ye need to return to your wife?” Sudden rage caused Nessía’s fingers to shake, and she bungled her attempt to tie the laces of her bodice.
Rage gave way to pain. Ignited by the hurtful declaration of the man she thought she loved, it grasped her heart in crushing talons.
“My love, do not chastise me. Ye want more than I can give,” Montgomery MacDonald said, his tone condescending, as if talking to a child. He smoothed his plaid and adjusted his dirk and belt.
“Love? What know ye of love?” She stood to make her way toward the door, eager to distance herself from his mockery. She had pinned all her hopes and dreams on a man not worthy of her trust or love. How blind must she be?
“Do not leave yet. Someone will see ye.” He reached out and grabbed her around the wrist.
She turned to face him, and hissed.
He dropped his arm, and stepped back.
A life-saving move.
“Why should I care who sees us? My reputation is lost. As lost as my heart and my innocence. I lay with ye because I thought I loved ye. My quest for a normal life among humans is all for naught. I see now how my foolishness has blinded me to yer ways.”
“Ye speak in riddles, love.”
Pushing away from him and the larder table, where he had so easily thrust himself inside her eager flesh, she brushed flour and grain from the back of her dress. Trembling hands swept down her apron, then smoothed loose tendrils behind her ears. Her brown braid whipped across her left shoulder as she spun and gazed at Monty, her last chance for salvation.
And freedom.
Nessía longed to explain why she succumbed to his flirtations, yet saw no advantage. His disclosure of a wife, waiting at home for him, put an end to such wishes.
“Love is for the weak, woman. My wife knows her place and is grateful for the nights I deign to lay beside her. I promised ye nothing but pleasure.” He winked at her, increasing the pain spreading through her body.
The change surged and fell upon her in a thrice, all because she had trusted a mortal man. She yanked open the door, and let the loch’s cooling breeze caress her human skin. Blood pulsed through her veins while she tamped down the rising urge to shape-shift. She turned to face him for the last time.
“I loved ye, Monty. Can ye not see what ye have done? Have ye no conscience? I was an innocent maid. I looked up to ye, and ye took advantage.” A sob threatened to escape her swollen throat, but she kept her dignity by standing straight on her human legs. An odd sensation, to say the least.
“Nessie, do not fool yourself. Ye felt passion, ‘tis all. ‘Tis natural. Ye did enjoy it, did ye not?” His smile did not reach his eyes. In that singular expression, she knew. He never meant to use her for more than a few minutes of passion.
One rakish eyebrow quirked under wavy hair the color of the night sky. Eyes she once considered as warm as the green grass covering the hills beside the loch each spring transformed to molten glass, as he gazed upon her chest. His actions made Nessía believe he needed to memorize each part of her.
Makes sense. He knows I shall not lay with him again.
To look at him, and his handsome features, made her human heart crumble into fine grains of sand, smaller and much finer than the muck lining the bottom of Loch Ness.
I should never have left the safety beneath its surface.
Nessía had viewed Monty’s seduction as the catalyst to aid her quest to stay on land forever. A way to live upon the shores of the loch she had called home. The long, thin, deep loch nestled in the foothills near Urquhart Castle. She endured the centuries alone.
I will continue.
Her loneliness changed the day she spied Monty fishing the lake’s depths in a rickety wooden boat. Only now did she regret not frightening the man more with her tail flaps, large wake, and eerie call. Of course, he had turned a lovely shade of white, before the waves tossed him into the chilly water. When he flailed, splashing and crying for help, she had taken pity on the handsome human.
Stupid dragon.
Drenched and sputtering from a mouth filled with water, Monty failed to see the creature that pushed him, and his overturned boat to shore. Nessía had glanced from him to her tail—long and sleek with glistening blue-green scales—then watched him
walk away. His waterlogged clothing dripped onto the rocky shore, and she overheard him curse the wind. Clothing clung to the handsome man’s muscular form, and something deep inside her belly made her scales quiver. Perhaps the current’s gentle kiss had caused the odd sensation. Interest sparked.
Sexual interest.
While the intriguing fisherman meandered toward the town of Na Cearcan Bã Na without glancing back at her and the loch, a new plan formed in Nessía’s serpentine brain.
Nessía felt the change, and shivered when the cool late afternoon breeze swam over her new feminine form. She slipped beside a quiet cottage.
Thievery never came easy, but her conscience rested when, after snatching a dress, apron, and worn undergarments from the clothesline, she left a jewel-hilted sword in their place. She had not thought to bring up other riches from the bottom of the loch for her own use, but where there grew a town, she planned to find a pub. A thrill sizzled beneath her new human skin as she enjoyed a sense of purpose, so long denied her. Nessía marched off to seek employment.
A few nights later, when Monty strode into Mac’s drinking house, Biadhadh nan Cearc, Nessía’s heart went thump. As she stared at him in his well-fitting day clothes, heat spread across her new human breasts and raw need dampened the sensitive crux between her new-fangled legs. Walking and standing proved easy to manage, but she missed her dragon’s sense of smell and hearing.
When he sauntered up to the bar, his rich, masculine scent solved the problem and triggered an irresistible need to lick his cheek. His silky black hair, deep green eyes, and muscular build made him the perfect prospect for a life partner. She and the fisherman would fall in love, marry, and raise a bairn or two. The cursed life she had led up until that time would fade into memory, a story to tell their children at bedtime.
Until Montgomery MacDonald made love to me, then made excuses to return home. To his wife.
As Nessía stared, at the man she had planned to take as husband, she shoved pleasant memories of his flirtation, kisses, and loving aside, and recalled today’s thwarted mission. Only true love would end her dualistic life: two distinct parts, two wholes fighting to overcome the other. She yearned to walk on two legs and feel the heather between her toes for the rest of her natural life. Montgomery MacDonald’s duplicity had swiftly banished the idea.
“Bastard. I should have known no man talks true when he thinks a lie will gain a woman’s favors.”
“I did not lie. I live life in the here and now. I like my life easy as pie, and polite as rain. I simply neglected to mention my wife. Or, my two sons.”
Monty’s cheeks pinked and his eyes dropped to stare at her bare feet, proving he knew he spoke hurtful words. Nessía inhaled deeply as the fires of Hell slashed beneath her skin, as if her own dragon’s tail had whipped her across the face.
“I will never forgive ye, Montgomery MacDonald. Instead, I curse ye and your sons. I curse their sons as well. No man born into your family shall win the heart of their soul mate with ease. Let them all fall in love, and when their intended denies them her heart, they shall feel this pain.”
“Nessie, do not do this. I believe in curses.”
“This I know. ‘Tis why I said it.” She strode toward the larder door, swung it open, then turned. His eyes were wide as dinner plates, the terror keeping the very air of life deep within his lungs.
“I am sorry for ye, and for your family, Monty. Sleep well, if ye can, for ye alone have condemned them all to pain and loneliness.” She paused and pointed a finger straight at his heart. “A reprieve I offer.”
“What? Tell me this instant, Nessie!” With clenched fists held tight to his hips, he stepped toward her, then hesitated.
Coward. How could I be so blind?
“An act of pure selflessness will save your kin. Since the concept is foreign to ye, I doubt they shall survive to produce many sons.”
Monty crept closer, but her glare stilled his advance. The tingle of dragon fire rose in her throat, but she beat it back.
Best not to shape-shift in front of a mortal.
The coward, frozen and dejected, finally turned his guilty face away. If she found him fishing, one day soon, she might take a swifter revenge upon his soul. Licking her lips, she wondered how he would taste.
“One more thing, Monty.”
His head snapped up, but he took a step back when he must have noticed the savage glint boring into him.
“Nessie? What more?” he whispered.
“Don’t call me Nessie!”
CHAPTER 1
Loch Ness, Present Day
A shadowy figure strode into the pub on the cold breeze of early spring, his backpack hefted over one broad shoulder and his gaze searching for danger. Or, he simply wanted an empty seat. Such spots were scarce on a busy Friday eve at Biadhadh nan Cearc Pub. Nessía poured three shots of Glenfiddich Scotch whisky, her attention split between the golden liquid spilling from the heavy bottle and the stranger’s sparkling green eyes. She had loved a man with eyes like his many years ago.
She exhaled a slow, calming breath and set the filled shot glasses on a rimmed serving tray. Nessía had a passion for green-eyed men, probably because the color reminded her of the surrounding Highland meadows and hillocks, places she longed to visit for longer than a few months.
Taking care not to open her emotions to another fair-of-face, green-eyed man, Nessía bent to her tasks. Ever since her tussle with Montgomery MacDonald centuries ago, she promised to guard her heart with her life. A smile tugged at her mouth when she realized Monty—and his wife—had died centuries ago.
“A beautiful smile to warm a man on such a chilly day,” the newcomer said.
He had aimed his words in her direction, so she dropped the smile. Nessía filled another two shot glasses with whisky, slid them down the bar, then casually turned to look her fill.
Why not?
His wavy, ink-black hair crowned a face all too familiar. Her breath caught at the symmetry of his square jaw, bushy brows, and straight nose. The dark beauty of his days old beard tugged at her heart.
Nonsense. ‘Tis a stranger, not Monty.
Inside the murky pub mostly unchanged since the last time she had worked there, her imagination made her stomach cramp. Candles and a roaring fire lighted the ancient pub, so she squinted to watch his profile as he glanced to the door then back at her. Her tongue swiped her bottom lip. A sudden dryness made her swallow, a reaction seeming out of place. The man was definitely not Monty, and his voice sounded foreign. Not English, either.
“American?” Nessía asked, wiping the bar with a rag before tucking it in a pocket. She had never met an American human male, but she watched television.
“Guilty as charged,” he said. When an old-timer bid his friends goodnight, the stranger shimmied onto his vacated stool and tossed his backpack to his feet.
“What is your drink tonight, stranger?”
“Whisky. My feet are numb, among other parts.” He laughed and his eyes crinkled with good-natured fun at himself.
So unlike Monty.
The man in front of her owned a handsome face, as delicious as the deceased Monty’s. Subtle differences in the stranger’s high cheekbones intrigued Nessía. His honest openness made her giggle. Or, did she laugh because she gained perverse pleasure from his misery? With a quick sweep of her tail, she could toss him in Loch Ness before he knew what hit him. How would the foreigner’s private parts like to experience the water’s ice-cold numbness?
A wee bit of fun is long overdue.
Nessía poured expensive fifteen-year old whisky into a glass. As she set the potent liquor in front of him, he brushed his fingers against hers. Startled, she pulled away, but not before a prickle of sensation sparkled up her arm. She clasped her hands to her stomach.
He stared at her with an eagle’s gaze, tossed back his head, and downed the whisky in one, quick gulp. His Adam’s apple moved up and down his neck before he leaned forward, slammed the glass on th
e bar, and gasped.
“We distill it strong in these hills. I should have warned ye, sir.”
“Yeah,” he whispered.
Shame threatened to break her stride, but she tamped it down. The newcomer looked too much like Monty for her to allow him to get on her good side. Anything that reminded her of that sneaky devil did not long survive.
“Here,” she said, pouring a local draft beer. The rich, dark brew should remove the sting from his mouth and throat while it cooled the burn. Am I going soft?
The stranger’s left eyebrow wavered at her, as if asking if the offering promised further pain.
“Trust me,” she said.
Without releasing his pointed gaze from her face, he sipped. He stared at her over the rim of the glass, then shrugged. “Not bad.”
“ ‘Tis made from locally grown heather and flavored with meadowsweet. Smooth, aye?”
He nodded as his gaze wandered about the small centuries-old pub. The building was of sturdy stone and timber, with a high ceiling that Mac had recently reinforced to withstand the heavy spring rains around Beltane. This early in the spring, the flowers thirsted.
As did Nessía.
She kept her eyes lowered. Emblazed across his wide chest, on the front of his sweatshirt, were the words Raleigh Museum of Natural Science. He had clipped a pair of sunglasses to the curved neckline.
No scarf. No wonder he is frozen.
When he strode through the door, she had spied his well-worn jeans and muddy hiking boots. Curiosity rose and swept over her with memories of newfound love and all its giddy passion and heat. Memories of another man who she watched as he fished in the stiff breeze off the loch. A man who lulled her into loving him. Montgomery MacDonald had captured her heart then stomped it into the dirt.
“Snap out of it,” she muttered. The man sitting in front of her was not Monty. Monty was dead and buried, along with his wife, sons, and their sons. Had she not risen from the loch to try again? Centuries had passed and gave her hope. Hope that men of this era had changed their ways. She had no great desire to curse another family.
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