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  Abruptly her tears stopped. “You didn’t hurt me.” Ingrid wiped her face with the corner of the sheet. “I just don’t want to marry you.”

  That rocked him back on his heels. “Oh.” He ran a hand through his hair. Now what? “I don’t think we can get away with that.” He enunciated slowly and carefully. It was far too late for her to change her mind.

  She took the sheet away from her face. Despite her distress and her grief, she was still the most beautiful girl he’d ever met. “I know. But I don’t want to get married. I’m only seventeen.”

  Victor looked down at his hands. What the hell had he done? He was older than Ingrid. He was pretty sure her father and his parents would blame him. And the Eldest of his House – it didn’t bear thinking what Lord Lindorm would have to say to his nephew and youngest sword bearer.

  He swallowed hard. “I don’t think,” he began.

  “I haven’t even finished school,” she said despairingly. “I don’t want to go off to some island in Sweden to make babies.”

  This morning, Victor was by no means sure that they would be allowed any such pleasure. His plan which had seemed so clever last night, now seemed crazy. He had a feeling that after her family and his were done with him there wouldn’t be much left. Because this mess was his fault, Ingrid was only seventeen. He should have protected her. Especially if that meant protecting her from himself.

  He had no excuse – no excuse that his father or the Eldest of their house, Lord Lindorm, would care to hear. Certainly no excuse that the Graf von Schwalm would feel justified the offense against his only daughter. And his own parents would be bitterly disappointed in him.

  The rules for Lindorms were clear. You spent your adolescence learning to control your dragon and serving the head of the family. He had just begun to study at the Naval Academy. Just been accepted as one of the Eldest’s sword bearers. He and his cousins were expected to serve an apprenticeship before they even thought of courting a mate.

  He was years away from being permitted to declare a Mate Hunt. Things were looser, in other dragon families. But the Lindorms had not become a large and wealthy Dragon House by being loose. In any sense of the word. Before he had approached Ingrid, he should have spoken to Lord Lindorm, his parents, her father, and made a formal declaration before the Council of the Guild of Dragons.

  And there was no way in hell that any of them would have permitted him or any other nineteen-year-old to transform his mate. They would have his head or his balls. Or both. Shift.

  Victor squared his shoulders and stood up. “I’ll take the blame,” he told Ingrid. “I’ll tell them it was my fault.”

  Ingrid’s round blue eyes got rounder. Her rosy lips parted and then closed. She shook her head. “I don’t think they’ll care whose fault it was. My father will be delighted to see me married to you. To any dragon in fact. He’ll be thrilled that I caught myself a Lindorm.” More diamonds leaked out of the corners of her eyes.

  He moved across to the chair where he had thrown his clothes the night before and began to pull on last night’s shirt. “We’ll have to think of something then. Only there’s no going back. We can’t alter the fact that I transformed you. As soon as my family gets their first whiff, they’ll know you are a dragoness and why. My Uncle Thorvald doesn’t permit screwing around. I don’t want you to be unhappy, but I don’t see how we can deceive people.”

  He tied his bow tie in the mirror. It was a little wrinkled. But not bad. At least he had inherited the Lindorm way with clothes. He didn’t look as dissipated as he might have done. He inserted the studs in the starched cuffs and down the stiff placket at the front of the shirt. He stepped backward looking for his socks. Shift. There were diamonds all over the floor. Did he have a bag?

  Ingrid drew her feet up onto the bed and arranged the sheet more snugly around her curves. Damn, she was gorgeous.

  “If you can get me out of this castle,” she said, “I could just go home. We can pretend this never happened.”

  Victor felt old. Whether she knew it or not, Ingrid was his responsibility for the rest of their lives. Naïve or not, she was his fated mate. “Except for the part where you’re a dragoness now.”

  “If I stay away from you dragons, no one will know.”

  “I’ll know.” He felt as though his tongue was too big for his mouth. How could he explain that honor would not permit him to lie either to his father or his uncle? He tried for humor. “And I couldn’t in honor marry anyone else. Eventually, someone would notice that I was the oldest bachelor in Dragonry.”

  “Oh. Or maybe we could be married when I was older?” She sounded so young and looked so adorable that his heart turned over. He was a true fool. But he was going to try to let Ingrid have the rest of her girlhood.

  He shrugged his jacket on and combed his hair with his fingers. He ran his hand over his chin. His beard was as pale as his hair. He could pass muster in the hallway – as much as one of Lord Lindorm’s sword bearers still wearing last night’s tuxedo would pass anything. No. If he was spotted by his father or his older brother they would instantly know that he had been up to some mischief during the night. Mischief!

  He found his clean handkerchief and laid it on the corner of the bed. He stooped and began to pick up the diamonds.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Removing the evidence.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Only dragons cry diamonds. Do you have a really good explanation for why you have a hundred thousand euros worth of uncut gems in your bedchamber?”

  “A hundred thousand euros? Truly?” Her tears halted instantly.

  Victor shrugged his shoulders. “Give or take.”

  “They’re my tears. Don’t I get to keep them?”

  He struggled to remember the correct words. “They are a Treasure of our House now. I will have them strung into a necklace to adorn you when you are my bride.” He knew he sounded more than a little stiff, but it was hard to remember the formula when his brain was reeling.

  “Can’t I sell them?”

  Victor sniffed the air. Ingrid was just as sweet as she had been when he had seen her at the beginning of this week. Pretty much just as innocent. But her sincerity in wanting the diamonds or their value in cash was equally clear. “You could sell them,” he said slowly, “But how would you explain where you got them from?”

  Her face fell. Her mouth drooped and so did her lint blonde eyebrows. Her shoulders slumped. His pretty bride was the picture of desolation.

  A lightbulb went on in his fuddled brain. He cleared his throat. “Do you need money?”

  “If I had a hundred thousand euros I could go to university and I could keep skiing for Austria. Even Father wouldn’t expect me to get married if I was rich enough to pay his debts.”

  Victor sat down hard on the carpet. “Say that again,” he begged.

  But her hands were over her mouth and her blue eyes were round and appalled. “I don’t know how I forget and say such things. To you of all people.”

  Victor sighed. He knew exactly why she had forgotten to guard her tongue. His little mate had no judgment where he was concerned. He had bespelled her. Another crime.

  “How much do you need?” he asked. “The whole hundred thousand?”

  She nodded. “It’s not the tuition, of course. Not in Austria. But skiing takes a lot of money. And I’m not sure how much money father lost when the stock market tumbled. Probably a hundred thousand euros wouldn’t make a dent in it. But there’s no money now for my skiing.” She shrugged and her bare shoulders peeped out further from the white sheet and reminded him of how he had gotten into this trouble in the first place.

  He was twenty times the fool that he had thought he was. Ingrid’s father the Graf von Schwalm had set a fine trap for him and he had tumbled into it like the greenest of greenhorns. It wasn’t Ingrid’s fault that she was the bait in the count’s trap. Victor had seduced her. As his Uncle Thorvald, the Thane of Lindorm, and
the eldest of his house was fond of saying, a dragon was responsible for keeping his fly zipped.

  In theory Uncle Thor and the Graf von Schwalm had equivalent ranks. In reality the title of Thane was of such antiquity that it had long ago been supplanted by that of Greve, which was what Swedish aristocrats of the rank of earl or count called themselves. But Dragonry was a community that clung to their ancient prerogatives and traditions.

  When he had seized Ingrid, Victor had broken one of the most important and ancient of customs. The Graf von Schwalm wanted a bride price for his daughter. Apparently needed one. And when he had seen that this year’s crop of mate hunting bachelors was not particularly interested in Ingrid, he had laid a snare for Victor. All the same, trap or no trap, there was going to be hell to pay and Victor would have to settle up.

  “If it’s money that you need, that’s not a problem, sweetheart. But it’s a long way to Austria from France. I don’t think you should go all that way by yourself in a car. It’s not safe for young girl.”

  “It is for a dragoness.”

  Victor shut his mouth with a snap.

  Read the rest of Dragon’s Confession on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited.

  About the Author

  Isadora writes feel-good PNR stories about heroic shifters and the sexy, sassy BBWs who are their fated mates. She is the author of over 30 books. Join her for some rousing adventures and some spicy loving.

  Take a vacation from the humdrum. An Isadora Montrose Romance will instantly transport you to a thrilling world of sizzling passion and transcendent love. A guaranteed happy ending every time.

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