by Maia Dylan
The Shifters of Freedom Springs 3
The Sheriff and His Air Goddess
If your blood was the price of saving the world, would you pay it? Ariana Rika is asking herself that very question. Ariana has always known what she would have to do in order to complete her portion of the prophecy. The fact that she would find her mate, and be shown glimpses of a future she would long for more than anything, was completely unexpected.
Sheriff Ryan Winters is Ariana’s mate, and he and his wolf are in complete agreement. The cost is just too damn high. He struggles to get her to admit to their mating bond, and has to fight to get her to see him as more than just a weapon in the fight against evil.
Can the two of them come together, as the Fates decreed, and solve her portion of the prophecy without having to pay the ultimate sacrifice?
Genre: Contemporary, Paranormal, Shape-shifter
Length: 43,398 words
THE SHERIFF
AND HIS AIR GODDESS
The Shifters of Freedom Springs 3
Maia Dylan
EROTIC ROMANCE
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Erotic Romance
THE SHERIFF AND HIS AIR GODDESS
Copyright © 2015 by Maia Dylan
E-book ISBN: 978-1-63259-857-8
First E-book Publication: November 2015
Cover design by Harris Channing
All art and logo copyright © 2015 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
PUBLISHER
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
Letter to Readers
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DEDICATION
On this writing journey I am undertaking, I have had the pleasure of meeting some wonderful people. Readers and authors alike who have reached out and befriended me, and I have had some great conversations during that time. This book is dedicated to a fantastic bunch of people who have opted to join me on this journey. To the members of the Sinfully More Erotic Facebook group, this one is for you.
And for my hubby too, who puts up with my giggling, laughing and crazy antics whenever I am online. Love you!
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
About the Author
THE SHERIFF
AND HIS AIR GODDESS
The Shifters of Freedom Springs 3
MAIA DYLAN
Copyright © 2015
Prologue
Our lady Olwen, on lilies she treads,
Hides in the Otherworld, from a fate that she dreads
When Carnage threatens to overwhelm,
The Elementals must rise to save this realm
Earth comes first as Spring takes hold
To altar the future and watch it unfold
A key must be found to unlock the door
Or Aeron and carnage will reign once more
Fire comes next as Summer descends
With a heat and a rage that may never end
Fire takes two to calm the beast
And extinguish the fire that burn’s in the east
Air is third when the Autumn leaves fall
The power of blood could win or lose all
A champion must rise and bring forth a shift
To hold them in light and close off the rift
Water is last as winter sets in
To fight in a battle they all must win
Carnage will know his chances are done
When Spirit and Water are united as one
Olwen shuddered as a wave of fatigue, and the inevitable nausea that came with it, rolled through her entire body. She was so tired. She struggled to see how she was ever going to survive this damned prophecy. She leaned her head back against the cold stone wall she was sitting in front of and cursed the chain of events that had brought her there.
This meant, of course, cursing her own flesh and blood. And not for the first time. It was her sister Agron’s damn fault that she was stuck in this hell, this Otherworld, cursed to be the obsession of a—how did her Fire Elemental put it? Oh yes, a demon with a fucking God complex.
Agron, blinded by a love that could never be, had turned to a black witch for an answer. What she hadn’t expected, was that the curse the witch had cast was not against Olwen, but against their loving father. If Olwen were to give in to what her heart most desired, and marry her beloved Rohan, then her father would die. And like the self-sacrificing idiot that she was, Olwen had fled to this hell and had been held here for centuries since.
All because her sister coveted her beloved. Rohan. Olwen felt her heart turn over at the thought of the man who held her heart so completely. Their love had been the real thing, forged first in friendship and then respect that quickly developed
into the all-encompassing love of two soul mates. They had weathered the storm and found each other, despite the barriers thrown in their way by life and circumstance.
Olwen smiled as she remembered the day Rohan had finally kissed her. She had been trying to force his hand in this matter for weeks. But begging and shy coercing had not worked, so Olwen had employed that age-old hand forcer that women and men alike had been using for millennia. She used another man to make him jealous. And in a fit of rage, and no doubt fear of losing her, he had given in. She had stormed off yelling that she was finished trying to get him to take notice of her as a woman, a little overdramatic, sure, but it had worked.
She had no sooner taken three steps away from him than he grabbed her upper arm and spun her back to face him. The look on his face had her entire body throbbing with a need that was frightening in its intensity. Without a word, he held her gaze and walked her backward to the wall.
“Milady, if you think that I have ever not noticed that you are a woman, then you are very much mistaken.” Rohan’s voice was all but a whisper, and it made her shiver. It was filled with a deep, dark intensity that had her nerve endings tingling. “I notice everything about you, and have done since the day I joined your father’s guard. To not notice you would be like not being able to feel the sun on my face, or as easy as forgetting how to breathe. Impossible.”
That last word he had whispered against her slightly parted lips. And then he had kissed her. His lips, his mouth, his very soul devoured her and claimed her as his. His body pressed her tight against the wall, and she had softened and whimpered at the show of strength. Her head had spun, and she felt so light-headed that for minutes after he ended the kiss and simply held her there, pressing soft kisses over her face, he had to hold her up as her legs threatened to buckle.
Just the thought of him and how much she loved him brought a smile to her face. She prayed that she would lay eyes upon him one more time before she passed from this life, hopefully to meet with him in the next, and live with him as they should have been able to live together in this life. As partners, as lovers, and as soul mates.
“It pains me to see you ailing like this, my love.” Olwen felt her blood freeze within her veins at the sound of the demon’s voice at the front of her cell. “Why do you insist on fighting me?”
Her Elementals had once again thwarted Aeron’s insidious plan to enter the Earth realm, with the help of Ealadha, the moon god, but not without cost. They had all been injured, but Fiona had withstood the onslaught Aeron had thrown at her, and saved them yet again. Gods, she was one fierce fighter, and she had won the battle for the Elementals on the day. Even after sending Aeron back into the Otherworld realm, she had managed to find the strength to save her sisters.
“How can I not fight you, Aeron?” Olwen kept her voice calm and infused as much boredom into the tone as she could manage. “You do nothing for me, you have nothing I want, and I have a group of Elementals who are fighting for me and my release with everything they have. You will not have the Earth realm. You will die at the hands of my warriors, and I will be there to watch.”
“Silence!” Aeron screamed, throwing himself at her cell door. After that final battle, they had both fallen back into the Otherworld realm unconscious, which was unfortunate for Olwen, as that particular portal had been forced open within Aeron’s temple. So now she found herself caged in his dungeon. “I will have you, because if I can’t have you, then no man shall. That I promise you, Goddess.” He spat her title at her like it was a curse, and she tightened her jaw to keep from jumping at the bait. “I will take that Earth realm, and I will bathe in the blood of your cursed Elementals. That I promise you! Guards! Bring me my whip!”
Olwen bit down on the whimper that threatened to escape. When Aeron was this enraged and reached for his whip, the lashings felt a hundred times worse. Lucky for her, as a goddess she would heal, but she would not be saved from the pain or the scars. She would survive. And she would live to see this next phase of the prophecy fulfilled.
At the thought of this next chapter, and what was to come for her beloved Air Elemental, Olwen felt her heart bleed. There was so much that could go wrong for Ariana within this part of the prophecy that all might be lost. And if the Elementals fell, then the world would fall with them.
Olwen’s entire being filled with despair, despair so intense and so overwhelming that she felt her heart stutter within her chest, as if she were on the verge of simply giving up.
“Don’t give up, my beloved. I am here. I am with you. We will be together again, in this life and in the next.” The voice was distant, and her heart ached at the sound. It was the second time she had heard Rohan speak to her in all the centuries she had been in the Otherworld. He was coming for her, too.
Thinking about what Ariana must endure on the day that her portion of the prophecy was at stake, and then hearing the voice of her beloved Rohan, had Olwen doing something she had never done even once since being in this putrid place, in spite of the punishments and the sleep deprivation.
She cried silently, letting the tears fall unchecked down her cheeks to slide from her chin.
Chapter 1
“Ariana! Stop fucking around and blow this motherfucker into next week!” Casey’s voice echoed around the forest, and Ariana whirled to face her. Casey was lying on the ground beneath one of Aeron’s demons, and she was currently holding the filthy thing by the throat.
It was hard to describe what this thing looked like. She, Casey, and Fiona had settled on them looking like a cross between a Nazgul from The Lord of the Rings, all floaty robe and gnarled, skeletal bones, and a B-grade movie werewolf, with elongated jaws, fangs that dripped with saliva, and crazed red eyes.
They had been tracking these assholes for the past three weeks and had learnt quickly that they could be killed only by incinerating them, which came with the risk of a forest fire, taking their head, or piercing their heart. Can anyone say predictable vampire throwback? The fuckers came back if you tried to drown or shoot their asses, so once they struck on the two successful kill methods, with no risk of destroying acres of forest, they stuck with them.
Ariana called on her powers and drove the demon up and off her sister, then flung him into a tree, making sure to aim him so that he was impaled by one of the sharp branches. The demon screeched so loud, Ariana winced and placed her hands over her ears. After a few earsplitting moments, the demon burst into an explosion of black dust that dissipated into the air, leaving behind it the putrid smell of sulfur that burned her eyes and nose. Bloody things! Why the hell did they have to die so fucking dramatically? On a brighter note, at least there wasn’t anything that needed to be buried or picked up afterward.
Whipping around to continue fighting, she sagged with relief that they had managed to dispatch all three that they had come across that morning. She and her Elemental sisters had been training in their usual spot, just south of the Pagan Stone, as the demons had been steering clear of that area. But for some reason, these three had death wishes and had come looking for them.
Staggering over to where Casey and Fiona were currently lying on the grass, Ariana threw herself down beside them. She let the adrenaline crash that a fight like this always triggered take hold. She was so damn tired her body ached.
“How many have we killed this week?” Fiona panted from her sprawled position on Ariana’s right.
“I want to say three million, but I think it is more like five,” Casey muttered, then groaned as she moved to sit up. “It just fucking feels like three million. How many of these demon assholes actually escaped the rift, Fiona?”
Fiona groaned as she, too, pulled herself up into a seated position, and Ariana saw frustration flashing in her eyes. “What the fuck are you asking me for?” Fiona snapped and pointed a finger first at Casey and then at her. “You two were there as well! How many of those spectral things did you see come flying out of that damn rift?”
“Um, hello?” Casey threw
back, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Ariana and I were a little busy being dead right at that moment, remember?”
Ariana shuddered remembering all too well what it felt like to be struck by Aeron’s magic. It was strong and fast acting, and stopped her heart almost immediately, but she had been aware of what was going on around in her in the moments before she drifted away, turning toward a light so beguiling it couldn’t be refused.
Just before she drifted off, she felt Ryan Winters’s strong arms wrap around her and pull her up against his chest. She had felt his heart thundering against her, and heard his harsh breaths, but it was the words he spoke in a pained tone that she would never forget for as long as she lived.
“Ariana! Baby, please come back to me, please. You are my mate. Don’t leave me, please. My life will only work with you in it. Please…”
Ariana closed her eyes at the memory of Ryan’s words. They had only just met, hadn’t really gotten to know each other on any other level than the most basic, and yet to hear him say that his life would not work without her in it had her feeling both elation and despair at the same time.
She was ecstatic that he felt something for her. They were fated mates, after all, and Ariana would have had to have been dead not to feel the mating bond snap into place within her the moment they first laid eyes on each other. But recognizing that he was starting to feel more than just a fated connection between them, and knowing that she would need to make the ultimate sacrifice to solve her portion of the prophecy, made her want to roar at God, the Fates, and every deity she knew. It sucked, and life was unfair.