Dragon Enchanted Read online

He called to her. Summoned her to his hand. Nothing. As if last night had never happened. Perhaps for her it had not. Dreams were not mutual. Yet the emotions cascading through him made it seem improbable that he had dreamed alone. Impossible. He had had the best sex of his life, and he had awakened with the woody to end all woodies.

  He must have transformed his mate. So where the heck was she?

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Zofie~

  Just once she wanted to have a straightforward answer to a simple question. She was weary unto death of portents and omens, and of visions that made no sense. Of dreams that tantalized and promised wisdom, but were unclear.

  Her wings were carrying her straight to the Pool of Loki when Zofie realized that she wanted no part of anymore murky foretelling. She wanted control of her future. She was tired of being the plaything of fate. A new emotion boiled in her veins. She hardly knew what to make of this intense feeling. Didn’t recognize it. But it bore her aloft, as a gale carries dried leaves before it.

  She ignored the tidal pool glinting placidly in the spring sunshine. She stood on the rocks and faced the gentle waves. She spread her arms and seized the reins of her own fate. The sun vanished as storm clouds gathered dark and heavy, hanging low over her island.

  The wind whipped the calm sea into a black frenzy. The voices of the sea gods shouted encouragement over the shrieks of the long drowned. Her draperies blew out behind her in the blast. Her hair ribbons and gold pins were carried away by the gale. Unbound from its decorous confinement, her long hair streamed behind her like a curling banner carried into battle.

  She extended both arms to the heavens and let the storm sweep through her, around her. Uplifting her heart, unshackling her spirit. This new feeling was both liberating and terrifying. She ignored her fear, and let this new emotion grow until she knew what it was. Wrath. After untold years of dutiful, unquestioning obedience, she, Zofie daughter of Ulrik, was at last angry.

  Angry with being judged for what she could not have prevented. Angry at being deprived of companionship, love, children. Angry at being constrained into a smaller and smaller world. Her fury burst the chains binding her and set her free.

  How long she stood there, arms raised in defiance, and let the sea and sky feel the wrath of an elf woman she did not know. Lightning flashed and thunder rolled. The sights and sounds of the raging storm filled her with determination. With strength. With courage.

  “Is that you, Zofie?” The deep voice of Marc Valli broke into her thoughts.

  She turned and looked for him. He was an ant on the ground before her, peering up in bewilderment.

  “It is I.” Her voice was no longer silver bells tinkling gently. It was thunder warning of doom.

  She summoned her lance to her strong right arm. It was bigger around than this Marc Valli. It fit comfortably in her hand. She felt powerful, victorious. Mistress of her fate. She held out her free hand. “Come to me, Dragon,” she commanded.

  He flew up to her outstretched palm as a bird to its nest, and settled there, a small, shimmering blue creature. As dangerous as a scorpion and as beautiful as a jewel. Tendrils of smoke puffed from his nostrils, as steam rises from a pot about to boil. She planted her lance in the rocks and stroked the underside of his throat.

  His scales felt smooth and sleek. His throat vibrated under her finger. He was purring. His wings were held close to his body. His tail tucked around his folded haunches for all the world as if she held a kitten on her palm. He yawned like one and blinked both eyes. Teeth that were as sharp as tiny spears flashed ivory. His curved horns were two glittering needles. A dangerous pet.

  Was this what she wanted? To bestride the world like a colossus? To keep Marc Valli as her pet, caged as she had been caged for ten centuries? Her heart swelled. Her freedom was not dependent on keeping her lover captive, under her thumb.

  “Fly,” she said, tossing him into the breeze.

  He spread his wings and rose into the air, circled her head. And landed on the grass at her feet.

  “What do you want of me, Dragon?” she demanded.

  He morphed back into a man. Like the prince in her dream, this Marc Valli was naked. But he wasn’t bleeding. Or perhaps he was too small for her to see his wounds.

  “A wife.”

  “What sort of wife?” Her voice was still loud but no longer full of wrath.

  He laughed. “The sort that loves me as I love her.”

  “What else?”

  “That will do.”

  She lowered her arms. Felt for her ring. It lay around her neck like a necklace, the stones resting above her bosom. She pulled it over her unbound hair. The curls caught playfully at the metal but it came off easily enough.

  He moved closer. He was bigger, or she was smaller. The dragon tattoo on his chest was growing. No longer black on white skin, it was a rosy vine twisting around his torso. The dragon head now had a body that spread across Marc Valli’s back. Its legs and tail twined around his waist like ivy around an oak.

  The dragon’s serpentine tail waved in the air as tendrils do before they find a place to attach themselves. Without warning it plunged its bright stinger into Marc Valli’s heart. Drops of blood as crimson as rubies dripped onto the grass at his feet.

  “You are injured,” she said.

  He swayed on his feet. “Only you can heal me.” He held out his hands palms upward like a supplicant. She stepped forward and took the left one in both of hers. It was now the same size as hers. They stood eye to eye.

  She slipped her ring back onto his left forefinger. “I claim you, Marc Valli, by right of capture,” she vowed.

  “Do you love me?” he asked.

  “I do.”

  The stinger in his heart withdrew. The tip of the tattoo’s tail transformed into a rose that bloomed where it had wounded him. Flowers bloomed by their feet where his blood had fallen.

  “What is happening?” she asked. Her voice was softer now.

  “I think, dear heart, that you have chosen your path. Do you remember you gave yourself to me last night?”

  She didn’t want to blush. Surely a being as powerful as she did not blush? But she did. Her face flamed. “I do. As you gave yourself to me.”

  “Did I transform you, heart of my heart?”

  “Make me larger, you mean?”

  “Turn you into a dragon? As the woman in the tower became a dragon.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Marc~

  She shook her head and did not answer him. Before his eyes she grew shorter. His heart sank. Was Zofie going to return to being thumb-sized, just as she had vowed her love? But she stopped shrinking when her curls brushed his chin. She placed her hand over his heart.

  “As you see, I am transformed.” She finally answered his question. “But not into a dragon.”

  “No?”

  “I have chosen mortality,” she said.

  “And me.”

  “And you, Marc Valli.”

  “Just Marc. When we are wed, you will be Zofie Valli.”

  “Not daughter of Ulrik?”

  “You will always be the daughter of Ulrik and of your mother, but you will be called Valli, as all members of my family are.”

  “Constantina,” she said.

  “What?”

  “My mother’s name is Constantina.”

  “Ah. You know, dear heart, that storm you summoned has lowered the temperature quite a bit. I would appreciate a few clothes, if you could oblige.”

  “You do not understand, Marc Valli. Marc. Look at your right hand.”

  He flipped it over. On the palm were nine tiny purple pinpricks.

  “Do you see?” she continued touching the stains gently. “My elf marks are fading. Those are mere bruises. Thistles no longer bloom on your hand.” She put her hand back over his heart. “Instead a rose grows over your heart.”

  He glanced down, peered over his shoulder, rubbed his belly. “What the hey?” His tat had grown into an enormous drag
on. The ache in his left pec was faint, but real. Was he dreaming again?

  “I told you, I have chosen mortality. I am no longer one of the company of elves.”

  “Does that mean I have to walk back to camp in my bare skin?”

  “Yes, and this is the only garment I possess. I don’t even have a hairpin.”

  He picked her up by her waist and spun her in the air. He felt both awed by her sacrifice and thrilled that she was his. “You shall have a hundred dresses and chests full of hairpins, Zofie mine, if that is your desire. And if last night was but a dream, we shall just have to celebrate our union with our senses wide awake.”

  Her hands balanced on his shoulders. “I will walk by your side, Marc, through what years are granted us, and at the last we will lie together for eternity.”

  He kissed her. “Do not fear mortality, Zofie. We will have immortality through our children and our children’s children. So the line of Constantina and Ulrik will continue.”

  Her black eyes lit up with joy. “I would like children,” she whispered.

  “You shall have your heart’s desire.” A fragment of his dreams returned to him. “And, if it is within my power, dearest, I will search the world to find your cousin for you.”

  He had had an inkling of where to look ever since he had heard Lexi’s name, but he told Zofie nothing, in case he was wrong. He might suspect where Örlogskapten Theodor Lindorm of the Swedish Royal Navy, his cousin and counterpart in Swedish Special Ops, had found his bride, but better not to raise hopes that would be dashed.

  Her face became even more joyful. “That would be a gift greater than hope.”

  “My mother was Sami, Zofie. All her tribe consider themselves my family, and they will be yours too, Zofie. You will have companionship in this life you have chosen.”

  “And you are content, my love, even if I am not a dragoness?”

  “Perhaps dream sex was not enough to transform you. Will you make love with me and become my dragoness?” He did not tell her that without this transformation, there would be no children. What was the point? He had made his choice. Elf, woman, or dragoness, she and only she, was his fated mate.

  “Here?” She looked around at the trees and rocks. “I do not think this place will be comfortable.”

  He laughed and spun her in circles again. “My strength is as the strength of ten, Zofie, because you love me. I will be careful of you and of your only gown. We will stand.”

  Her eyes were huge in her flushed face. She balanced her hands on his bare shoulders. “Very well,” she said primly. “There is no one to see but the birds.”

  He chuckled. “Who are scarcely going to be shocked to see two people do what they do in front of their neighbors.”

  Her lips curved. “I had not thought of that, Marc Valli. Marc. You better put me down. This gown fastens under the bosom.”

  “I think we will just leave it in place, and raise your skirts, Zofie. Unless you have started wearing undergarments?”

  “I am wearing stockings, of course,” she said indignantly. “And shoes.”

  He looked down. Her shoes were delicate, barely-there slippers. “Are your stockings tied with garters?”

  “Naturally.”

  “Oh, boy.” Later he could tell her of such modern inventions as panties and bras, right now, he would enjoy the uncovered bottom and pussy of his medieval maiden.

  “When will I become a dragoness?” she asked.

  “I have heard it happens during the wedding night.” Crap. She had to be naked before she transformed or she would be wearing his clothes until he got her back to St. Peder. “Maybe we should undress you.”

  “I preferred dreaming,” she announced. “We did not have to have all this discussion.”

  He kissed the top of her head. “I wish you had made yourself a wardrobe before you decided to be mortal, Zofie. But we will manage with reality. And it will be better than our dreams. I promise.”

  She stroked his chest. “Your dragon looks at me so strangely,” she murmured shyly.

  “He is dying of lust, Zofie, and wants to see your breasts again. And your naked belly and lovely thighs.”

  “Oh.” She ran her hands down his belly and traced the first curling hairs around his cock.

  It was sticking straight out. Probably going to drip on her dress. Reality could be a bitch. He caught her hands. “Dearest, I am going to explode if you tease me. Let me take your dress off so you will have something to wear afterward.”

  She pouted but she allowed him to untie her ribbons and remove her layers of clothing. The fabric was so gossamer fine that it was astonishing how many garments she had on. It was like unwrapping an endless Christmas present. Each removal ramped up his already intense arousal.

  “Hurry up,” she urged him.

  Teasing her was such a joy. He grazed her peaked nipples and watched them furl into tighter, rosier buds. Her face was growing fierce. “I have to fold these carefully. We don’t want them to tear.”

  He folded her clothes into a tiny package and tucked them under a rounded stone. “And now we have to take your shoes and stockings off.”

  She pressed her thighs together. But her fragrance could not be held in by any such maneuver. “You’re enjoying this,” she accused.

  “Very much.” He knelt before her and removed her right slipper. He untied her garter, kissed the dimpled knee he revealed and rolled it down her supple calf to her pretty toes. Lifted her foot to his lips and kissed each pink tip. “Like that?”

  She clutched his shoulders and dug in her fingernails. “I do. But you shouldn’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Toes are not proper,” she informed him.

  “Pleasure is found in many places, dear heart. Enjoy the journey.” He repeated his slow undressing of her left leg. And then rose to his feet to examine the naked charms of his bride.

  Black hair curled in a lush triangle, guarding her sex. Her belly swelled ripely, temptingly below the abundance of her breasts. Their pink tips were hard and growing darker. Her thighs were round and strong. “You are the most beautiful woman in the world,” he told her.

  “And you are the most handsome, and the most potent man,” she informed him slyly, “But you are wasting your seed on the grass!”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Zofie~

  Marc’s taunting touches had made her feel as she had felt in her dream last night. He was doing it to torment her. And yet his face was so anguished, she knew their torment was mutual.

  Her impatient excitement grew while he slowly and carefully tucked her stockings and garters inside her shoes and placed pebbles over them to weigh them down. All the while checking to see if she was as eager as he was pretending not to be. She liked this new game.

  It was going to be strange, however, not to be able to change her costume whenever she wanted to. So it was just as well he was playing lady’s maid so meticulously. She hoped that he had spoken the truth when he said he would give her a new wardrobe. She was not used to looking uncouth.

  He winked at her and made her temperature soar and her body grow damp. That was another thing. Her new body seemed to be as smelly as Marc Valli’s. Of course, she adored his smell. She was just not so sure about hers. Or about this new body of hers. It jiggled a bit. Did he like it?

  He came back to her and stood before her, his face hard and intent. There was the answer to her doubts. “Put your feet on mine,” he ordered.

  “Why?” But she stepped onto his feet.

  “To keep your feet from being bruised.” He kissed the corners of her mouth. “And to bring you closer to me.” He poked his cock into her belly.

  “That’s the wrong place,” she told him sternly. But her giggle could not be suppressed. It bubbled out of her on a tide of pure joy.

  “Sorry, sweetheart.” His penitence was clearly false. “Are you ready to have me inside you?”

  “Yes!”

  “I better check. I wouldn’
t want to disappoint you.” He lifted her by the waist as he had done in her dream. But this time he did not kneel. “Put your legs around my waist,” he said gruffly. This teasing was costing him.

  She fastened her thighs around his waist and gripped him hard. He probed between her legs, sighing deeply as he found her wet pussy.

  “You are hot and wet,” he told her. “Juicy.” He slipped a finger into her passage. It was a tight fit. “Snug. Let’s see if we can make you readier.” He withdrew his finger and dabbled her juices all over her folds and at the top of her pussy where she was most sensitive.

  “Too much?” he whispered when she jumped.

  “Almost.”

  He circled instead of pressing. “Better?”

  The tightening excitement returned and wound her anticipation even higher. She was going to burst into flames in his arms. “Yes,” she gasped.

  He raised her and lowered her gently onto his cock. Her sex felt swollen and her entrance too tight and sensitive for such a great pole. Marc Valli’s arms bulged as he supported her and let her pussy and his cock barely rub. Sweat dampened his face and chest and increased the delightful aroma that was his alone.

  “Kiss me,” he whispered against her lips.

  Zofie kissed him as he had kissed her last night in their dream. Fiercely, like a mortal woman who was not afraid of what she was feeling. She ran her tongue up behind his lips and sampled his taste. He tasted musky, masculine. Delight poured through her. Why had she never known that mortals enjoyed their senses so thoroughly?

  His cock slipped another inch higher. He circled his hips. That tight feeling radiated all through her pussy and into her buttocks and legs. Her senses shattered. Pleasure flooded her being. Merged with the sunshine bathing them. She felt Marc’s hands holding her steady as the world revolved around her in a starburst.

  The aftershocks of her personal earthquake kept rippling. Her heart pounded as if it might leave her bosom. His heart matched her frantic drumbeats. His cock thrust home. All the way to the top of her womb. Her body splintered again. This time she rode the waves of pleasure with Marc. She felt his delight rebounding with hers and making both stronger.