“I’m not little,” Lexi said indignantly.
“Sure, you are. A pocket princess.” He hugged her. “Everything about you is perfect, Lexi. But you have to understand that you can’t go around hitting people.”
“I don’t go around hitting people,” Lexi defended herself. “I only hit you. And you deserve it, every time.”
“I can see I’m going to be henpecked.”
“Did you just call me a chicken?”
Theo kissed Lexi on the side of the neck. “Why don’t we start over, sweetheart?” He suggested. “I was trying to apologize for being unkind.”
“Very well,” Lexi said. “Proceed.”
She sounded so much like her old, imperious self, that Theo had to pause to suppress another inappropriate chuckle. “I’m sorry I wasn’t kinder to you. I know that this is a difficult transition. But you’re not alone anymore. My whole family will help you adjust. You’ll get used to our mortal ways. And to technology.”
“And you’ll buy me some proper clothes?”
“Of course. You shall have whatever your heart desires.”
“Chocolates?”
“If that’s what you want, chocolate is easy. We’re about to go pick chocolates off the Christmas tree. It’s one of our traditions. You and Leo can get the low hanging ones.”
“You’re making fun of me again.”
“Maybe a little.” He began to kiss her and for a long time there was no more conversation.
“You’ll share your nectar with me?” she coaxed when he lifted his head.
“Not even if you give me a daughter!”
<<<<>>>>
For a preview of the love story of Theo’s cousin Lars Lindorm and his fated mate Nicole in Dragon’s Possession, keep reading.
New Release: Preview
Dragon’s Possession
Captain Lars Lindorm of the Swedish Royal Navy is still grieving for his first wife when the Council of the Guild of Dragons deploys him to rescue the widow and fireling of the villainous Felipe Balcazar Mendez. Lars expects his mission in the Argentine Pampas to be difficult – he doesn’t expect voluptuous dragoness Nicole to awaken his heart and passions.
Alpha Male Lars is ordered to marry Nikki by the head of his clan. BBW Nikki has no choice but to accept this hasty marriage. Nikki, Lars and her son Matteo head to the lush Caribbean island of San Michaela, part of the vast holdings of the House of Lindorm and a refuge from the villains pursuing Nikki.
But despite Lars' kindness, the despicable behavior of her late husband makes Nikki distrustful. In a world where evil stalks them and shifters refuse to play by the rules, these two bruised hearts must heal each other, keep 7-year-old Matteo safe, and forge a strong dragon bond. What will it take for Nikki to find her true strength as a dragoness?
Mature content: Virile dragon explores the repressed sensuality of luscious dragoness. The graphic scenes of passionate shifter love play may be too titillating for some.
Dragon's Possession is Book 4 in Lords of the Dragon Islands. It is a standalone novel with no cliff-hangers and an HEA.
Available on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited.
* * *
CHAPTER ONE
May, Las Pampas
An elderly red scooter bumped slowly over the rutted backstreets of the sleeping town. At this hour, most houses in Santa Rosa Del Pampas were entirely dark, their inhabitants sound asleep. The streetlights were few and far apart, and the little vehicle avoided their feeble illumination as much as possible. The waning moon was only a gentle curve in the night sky. But the driver was familiar with her route. And her night vision was extraordinarily acute. She effortlessly steered between the numerous potholes that lay in wait for the incautious.
Nicole Estevan y Garcia pulled out of the hushed residential streets. She headed towards the outskirts of town where the grasslands of the province of Las Pampas began. Here the paved roads gave way to dirt trails used by gauchos herding cattle and peasants going to market. Tonight, the grassy plain was deserted.
Nicole ended her trip at a tussock of ten-foot-tall pampas grass. Her many visits had worn a hollow in the silvery stalks. The white plumes of the flowers had dried during the summer, but were still dense enough to completely conceal her little Vespa. She dismounted and hastily began to strip off her clothes. It was an autumnal evening, and the air was chilly enough to discourage any nude lingering.
When she sprang upwards into the sky, Nicole’s body had already completed its shift. Her powerful hind quarters launched her high above the pampas grass. She spread her wings wide and flapped hard, since the thermals that would have supplied lift had died in the cold night air. The restlessness that had plagued her all day eased. She drew in deep lungfuls of fresh air as she beat her wings and rose higher and higher. Once she was aloft and gliding, serenity replaced her agitation.
Below her the grassland was bleached of color, but Nicole’s dragon vision could make out every blade of grass, see every rodent scuttling through the rustling stalks. Here and there, in companionable clumps, cattle slept out the night. When she passed overhead only a few raised their curious heads. These particular cows had long since discovered that this great flying beast was not after them or their young. They dropped their heads again and closed their eyes.
Far above them the air was fragrant with the breezes that came down the slopes of the Andes. The pampas stretched as far as even dragon vision could see, tall grasses waving in the brisk wind. Nicole loved to fly. It was the one compensation for her unwilling transformation into a scaly, fire-breathing monster. When she flew she felt strong and free, as she never did when she was a dumpy, ungainly woman.
Now she indulged herself in vigorous aerial acrobatics. She spun her muscular body in a complex pattern of barrel rolls and plunging dives until she was breathing hard and every exhalation was accompanied by a long flare of brilliant light. When the tightly wound feeling in her muscles and mind smoothed out into fatigue, it was time to go home. She angled her wings in a great downward spiral that ended in a graceful landing beside her scooter.
Her hind feet took the force of her return to earth. Her tail balanced her until she could drop to all four legs. The shrinking of her gargantuan snout, the retreat of her scales, and all the rest of her return to human form, was as rapid as her shift to dragon had been. Nicole dressed just as swiftly as she had undressed.
The trip home always seemed shorter, even though she held her little bike to a snail’s pace in both directions to minimize the noise of her engine. She knew it was because returning to her bed and her humdrum life was far less exciting than anticipating a flying session.
Since she had found out that Felipe was dead, the urge to fly had come upon her almost nightly. She’d been driven to take dragon. Fortunately, at night the pampas was a great deserted arena. No one had ever caught her coming or going. No one but the animals had ever observed her. She couldn’t really understand why Felipe’s death had made her so restless. Her body so tormented with sensations she did not recognize. She only knew that she had to fly.
Nicole clung to the shadows as she puttered back into town. There was a light on in the house that shared the narrow alley behind the Villa Mendoza where she lived. But no one looked out. Doubtless, Señora Johnson was up with one of her children and had no interest in spying on Nicole. The paying guests were all sleeping on the other side of the Villa, well away from any windows that overlooked its courtyard. Nevertheless, Nicole kept to the shadows and moved as unobtrusively as possible.
The wooden door into the private, enclosed garden moved easily on well-oiled hinges. Nicole let it close softly behind her. No one except the residents of the Villa Mendoza could see into the courtyard. Her bedroom and Matteo’s overlooked it. But her son had been fast asleep for hours. Tia Evita slept on the other side of the big, old house. There was no one to see her lock the scooter in the shed. It was beat-up and no prize to any thief. But it was seven-year-old Matteo’s greatest ambition to ride
it. Best to keep temptation away from him.
The back door was shut, but not locked. In the almost eight years that Nicole had lived in this house it had never been locked. She toed off her shoes to walk quietly through the house. The house was cool and the terracotta tiles almost icy but she didn’t want to wake Matteo. The refrigerator hummed. The kitchen faucet dripped. Nicole tightened the tap and water stopped splashing into the deep, old-fashioned enameled sink. Moving quietly, she went through the dark, quiet house and up the stairs and along the hall to her bedroom.
There was a jug of water and a bowl on the antique dry sink in her room. The house had indoor plumbing, but it had been furnished in the nineteenth century. It took Nicole only a moment to wash the pampas dust from her face and body. Only a second to throw her nightgown and robe on before she went to check on her son
Matteo had started the night lying on his back with his covers under his arms. Now he was sprawled on top of them on his stomach. Nicole lifted her boy and turned back the coverlet and sheet. She tucked her boy up. In sleep he looked angelic. His curls gave him the appearance of a dark cherub. His eyelashes lay like two black crescents on his cheeks. Had it only been a few months ago that those cheeks had been round? Her boy was stretching out and growing up. And every day he looked more like his late, unlamented father.
One day she might have to tell Matteo about his parentage. But for the present he showed no sign of becoming a dragon as she had. Hopefully, the curse had bypassed him and he would never need to know his mother was a monster. And now that Felipe was dead, she no longer had to fear that he would appear to take Matteo away from her, or tell her innocent child about his dragon heritage.
Tia Evita was sleeping as soundly as she ever did. Her breathing was loud, but not labored. The doctor had said she might go at any time – or live for years. Nicole didn’t want her elderly aunt to die, but Tia was nearly ninety-five, and since her sister Luisa’s death five years earlier, Tia Evita’s zest for life had drained away. Even her indomitable spirit couldn’t go on indefinitely. Nicole closed the door and tiptoed away to nurse her sorrow.
* * *
June, Baltic Sea, Swedish waters
The little two-man submersible moved sleekly through the inky waters of the Baltic Sea like the shark it so nearly resembled. It nosed its careful way above the sea floor tracking its prey by sonar. The twenty-two-foot-long Russian submarine it was following meandered obliviously on along the Swedish coastline.
“How they dare!” declared Löjtnant Anders Magnusson hotly. His young face was a lean mask of fury.
Beside him, Kapten Lars Lindorm watched his screen impassively. He made no reply to Löjtnant Magnusson’s passionate outburst. What was there to say? The Russians had illegally entered Swedish territorial waters. They were spying – illegally mapping the coastline. Nothing else accounted for their presence. In one way or another, Lars had been shadowing them for six months from the North Atlantic to the Baltic. He reserved his anger for those who had sent them to spy on his homeland.
He had been ready to act for months. But only recently had he and Magnusson been tasked with eliminating the Russian spy submarine without creating an international incident. Lars had been selected for the original mission from the ranks of those officers of the Swedish Royal Navy trained in covert operations. Of course, that wasn’t the only reason he had been chosen.
The elite force Lars had the honor to be enrolled in boasted many other officers as well trained and as fit as he. But he was also a dragon shifter which gave him a broader range of talents. He and Anders Magnusson were also brothers of another sort. Magnusson was a wolf. Admiral Hammond Lindorm had maneuvered to ensure that on this take-down mission Lars had a teammate who would keep his secrets.
“What’s our timing?” asked Magnusson eagerly.
Lars shrugged. What did it matter when? He had his orders and their execution was up to him. Now was as good as any other moment. On the other hand, if he disabled the submarine during daylight hours, while shipping plied the busy Baltic Sea, there was more chance of discovery. He struggled to care about the consequences of getting caught. As always duty won. They would wait until dark.
“Sir?” pleaded Magnusson.
Although these days his apathy felt like a comfy sweater, Lars drew on his self-discipline. “Continue to track the target, Löjtnant. Our program will proceed at zero two hundred hours.”
“Yes, sir.” Magnusson was visibly relieved. He relaxed fractionally. A moment later he tensed again. “They’re halting.” He peered dubiously at his screen. “What are they doing?”
“Dead slow, Magnusson,” Lars said calmly. “No wake. They are too far from any port to be up to much mischief. And this behavior is typical of this sub.”
“Typical?” Magnusson asked.
Of course, Magnusson had not been briefed by Command. They operated on a need-to-know basis. “Mechanical defects.” Kapten Lindorm suggested prosaically.
He tried to explain. “I don’t think those thugs who run Russia are above stealing the military allotment. Those poor bastards were probably sent to do their spying in a broken-down sub. They don’t seem to be able to go longer than a few days without a problem. They have been back and forth to Russia since we detected them. Presumably for repairs.”
The two sailors looked at each other. Neither one said the obvious. Going to sea in a submarine that was not in perfect order was a death sentence. Both spared thanks that their own equipment functioned at peak efficiency courtesy of the Swedish Navy. After an hour, the Russian sub had neither hidden itself further nor moved on.
“We will use the fishing port of Holick as a base,” Lars informed his junior. “I suggest we head there. It almost directly above the Russians.”
“Yes, sir. Will you sleep before you leave, sir?” Magnusson inquired tentatively.
Lars sighed. He did not want to sleep. No. Scratch that. He wished to sleep. It was his dreams he wished to avoid. But shifting took energy. Swimming in the Baltic was a chilly business even in summer. There were places where the sea ice had only just finished melting. Lars would need to be well fed and well rested for this mission. The Lindorms were lucky because they made their luck. Since puberty, he had been taught to make sure he kept his dragon fighting fit. And Magnusson was supposed to keep tabs on Lars’ fitness.
“I will sleep aboard, Löjtnant.” Lars glanced at his watch. There was plenty of time for the slow ascent required for safe decompression. “Return us to the surface. I want this vessel berthed and seen in Holick before I start.”
“Yes, sir.” The other man began to flip switches and press buttons. Over the next twelve hours the little sub would rise to the surface ten feet at a time. This would ensure that the nitrogen the men had accumulated in their blood could out-gas safely. Fast ascent meant fast decompression, which was dangerous as it could lead to the bends or even death, as dissolved nitrogen formed bubbles in the veins.
Magnusson looked relieved. Lars vowed to buck up. If even the youthful Löjtnant had noticed his malaise, it was time he pulled himself together, before his grief got this promising kid killed. There would be time for indifference when this was over. Right now his objective was disabling the Russian sub so as to leave no trace. Lars folded his arms across his chest, reclined his seat, and willed himself to wake in seven hours.
At twenty-two hundred hours Lars and Magnusson disembarked at Holick’s weathered wooden docks. Magnusson was twitchy – the enormity of the task facing Lars had finally registered on the lad. “What if they’re not where we left them?” he suggested as they walked along the wooden dock towards the lights of the village.
Lars clapped a giant hand on Magnusson’s shoulder. “The odds are good,” he said feigning cheerfulness, “That those bastards will be exactly where we left them. The sorry buggers are probably scrambling to do repairs.”
They had left the Russian sub idling between the rocky shelf of the mainland and the small island of Fårö. It wasn’
t dead in the water – yet. But Lars had been keeping an eye on it for six grueling months. This was not unusual behavior for this vessel. He suspected that whenever the Russians limped home for emergency repairs and to resupply, the poor devils were sent back without adequate amounts of either.
At zero two hundred hours Lars left Magnusson in their room above the local tavern where they had eaten and drunk under the eyes of the locals. He slipped down the backstairs and made his solitary way through the unlit streets to the dock. There he stripped to his skin aboard the sub. He was not going to use a dive suit or tanks, but he would use its dive chamber.
He was going to perform this entire operation in dragon and with only the air he could hold in lungs and bones. Leaving via the submersible’s hatch would conceal his change from any human eyes up before dawn. He had practiced this. The Russian sub was seventy-five feet down. Lars had more immunity to the bends than most, and more when he was in dragon. But still the dive was not without danger. He wished he gave a rat’s ass.
He accomplished his shift without haste or fuss. One moment he was a large, blond man swimming naked and shivering in the oily sea beneath the sub, the next he was a long blue-green dragon floating in the frigid water. He rose cautiously to the surface and began to swim to the location of the sub. He did not know why or how he knew where it was, but its location was as plain to him as the route from his home to work was when he was in human form.
It took only minutes for him to be hovering above the Russians. Even his dragon vision could not see their cream-colored vessel in the black water, but he knew it was there. He drew air deep into his lungs again and again, making sure his bones were also well-oxygenated. Like the birds from whom dragons descended, his race had hollow bones that could help him work longer. When he was ready, he used his enormous forepaws to thrust downward and counter his load of air. He forced his huge body down to the sea floor.
The Russian sub hadn’t moved much if at all. It listed slightly to starboard. Maybe Lars need do nothing to ensure it never moved again? He could hear a dim metallic clanging, coming from the interior. Those bastards were doomed. But spying was inherently dangerous. He swam around the vessel assessing it at point blank range. He was not concerned that he would be seen. If he was, who would believe their eyes or the tales of their comrades?
Dragon's Christmas Captive (BBW / Dragon Shifter Romance) (Lords of the Dragon Islands Book 5) Page 9