Spellbound (15 page)

“
A
re
we really going to do this?” Lydia hugged her arms and eyed the other MacGregor women.

“A bet is a bet,” Cait said, not looking too happy as she unbuttoned her sweater. “If we don’t, we’ll never hear the end of it. They seem to think this will excuse their constant midnight mischief.”

“Or explain it enough so that we no longer protest their fun,” Margareta added.

“But are they going to watch?” Jane glanced to the men standing on the front lawn. She refused to take off her clothing in front of Iain’s male relatives.

“Oh, don’t ya worry about that, love,” Margareta said. “I baked a little something special into the cookies and left them on the table with a note that said not to touch them. I guarantee every man over there stole at least one.”

“Hey, everything is blurry.” Malina weaved on her feet and began waving her hand slowly in front of her face and giggling. “I taste like purple sunshine.”

“And apparently my daughter did as well.” Margareta gave Malina a disapproving look. Malina didn’t notice.

Jane glanced behind her to the men on the lawn. They were in various states of distraction. Rory sat on the grass, petting the shards and calling them Jim. Murdoch and Euann chased imaginary butterflies. Niall stood with his arms crossed, looking very sternly…at a tree. Erik and Iain pretended to sword fight.

“Did you drug them?” Jane asked.

Margareta chuckled. “A little magick in the cookie dough. It’s perfectly harmless. And the best part is Euann won’t be sending out a mass video text message to the family of our activities.”

Cait took Jane’s hand and lifted her palm toward the men. She borrowed energy from Jane to make vines grow up from the ground to create shackles around their legs. The men didn’t notice. “They’ll be tethered to their areas until we get back. No wandering off.”

“Ladies, shall we run?” Margareta asked. …

Cait, smiling a little more now, shrugged out of her pin skirt. “Into the night with us.”

“I’m a unicorn rainbow,” Malina yelled, running in circles. “Follow me into the forest! I know the way!” She didn’t change course as she continued to loop.

Jane shook her head, even as she pulled off her shirt. What did she get herself into falling in love with this family? She glanced back at the sword-fighting Iain and smiled. Perfection. That’s what she had. Pure and utter perfection.

Grabbing Malina’s hand, Jane said, “Come on, unicorn rainbow. You heard the lady. Into the night with us!”

N
ew York Times and USA Today Bestseller

Michelle M. Pillow,
Author of All Things Romance™
, is a multi-published, award winning author writing in many romance fiction genres including futuristic, paranormal, historical, contemporary, fantasy and dark paranormal. Ever since she can remember, Michelle has had a strange fascination with anything supernatural and sci-fi. After discovering historical romance novels, it was only natural that the supernatural and love/romance elements should someday meet in her wonderland of a brain. She’s glad they did for their children have been pouring onto the computer screen ever since.

Michelle loves to travel and try new things, whether it’s a paranormal investigation of an old Vaudeville Theatre or climbing Mayan temples in Belize. She’s addicted to movies and used to drive her mother crazy while quoting random scenes with her brother. Though it has yet to happen, her dream is to be in a horror movie as 1. A zombie or 2. The expendable screaming chick who gets it in the beginning credits. But for the most part she can be found writing in her office with a cup of coffee in pajama pants.

M
ichelle Online

She loves to hear from readers. They can contact her through her website.

M
ede
of the Draig knows three things for a fact: As the only female dragon shifter of her people, she is special. She can kick the backside of any man. And she absolutely doesn’t want to marry.

Mede has spent a lifetime trying to prove herself as strong as any male warrior. Unfortunately, being the special, rare creature she is, she’s been claimed as the future bride to nearly three dozen Draig—each one confident that when they come for her hand in marriage fate will choose them. When the men aren’t bragging about how they’re going to marry her, they’re acting like she’s a delicate rare flower in need of their protection.

She is far from a shrinking solarflower.

P
rince Llyr
of the Draig knows four things for a fact: He is the future king of the dragon shifters. He must act honorably in all ways. He absolutely, positively is meant to marry Lady Mede. And she dead set against marriage.

Llyr’s fate rests in the hands of a woman determined not to have any man. With a new threat emerging amongst their cat shifting neighbors, a threat whose eyes are focused firmly on Mede, time may be running out. It is up to him to convince her to be his dragon queen.

There were three things Medellyn knew for a fact. She was special. She could kick the ass of any boy. And she did not want to marry and have babies.

She was special.

Medellyn was one of the only dragon shifting females in all the universe, and definitely in all of the Draig. Only once in a thousand births was a female dragon shifter born. She was rare, or so everyone kept telling her. Her childhood was a strange contradiction. Her very proper mother tried to treat her as if she were some sacred crystal that might crack. Her warrior father tried to make her train like a boy while dressing like a girl.

She could kick the ass of any boy.

Medellyn hated when boys tried to act as if she were weak and to be protected. Her dragon was just as fierce as any of theirs, probably more so. To prove her point, she’d gladly pummel any who had challenged her to the ground…and some who hadn’t.

She
absolutely, positively
did not want to marry and have babies.

Being the special, rare creature she was, in the twenty not-so-sweet girlhood years of her life she’d been claimed as the future bride to nearly three dozen boys—each one confident that when they came of the age to marry she would make their crystals glow and they hers.

Glowing crystals wasn’t just a metaphor. On the day she was born, her father journeyed to Crystal Lake like all the new fathers did. He dove beneath the waves, swam down to the deepest part and pulled her stone from the lakebed. Like all Draig children, she wore the stone around her neck, and would continue to wear it until the day it glowed telling her which of the dragon shifting men she was destined by the gods to marry. Okay, technically she might be destined to marry an offworlder like most Draig men, but no one on her planet seemed to think so.

Gods bones, she hoped she wasn’t destined to end up with any of the idiots on her planet. They had yet to impress her.

When it was her turn to go to the Breeding Festival, the crystal would glow signifying her
curse
for all to see. Well, her “blessing” as her mother called it. Lady Grace did not appreciate her daughter calling marriage a curse. Grace did not appreciate a lot of things that Medellyn liked, such as swords and bows, ceffyl riding, camping alone in the forest, hunting, sparring, smashing arrogant looks off of dragon men’s faces.

It was a fight with her mother that sent her running through the mountain forest. Medellyn hated the woman, hated what her mother wanted her daughter to be. Grace was only a human, brought to their planet as a bartered bride. She married Medellyn’s father without question and spent most of her days completely in docile agreement with whatever her husband said. Medellyn couldn’t imagine taking anyone else’s opinions over her own.

Her father, Axell, was a highly praised warrior in the Draig army and carried the title of Top Breeder of the ceffyls. The man’s whole life focused on four things: his wife, his only child, and mares and steeds. Her father was a very important man, but his work kept him away from home several nights a week as he slept outdoors with the herd. With a three-year gestation period and only about fifty percent live-birth rate, the animals were not a resource that could be easily renewed. His ceffyls supplied the soldiers with mounts and farmers used them for beasts of burden to help with the fields.

Like Axell, Medellyn was a proud dragon. Had she been born male, she would have been a warrior, too. Instead, she was
special
. How could her human mother begin to understand the wildness than ran in her dragon blood? If she had, Grace would never have asked Medellyn to tame her spirit.

Breathing hard, she came to an abrupt halt and screamed into the trees. Her body shook with rage and she tore at the pretty gown she wore. She hated her body, hated being special, hated being expected to act like a lady when she felt like a dragon. Her taloned finger snagged on the crystal around her neck and she cut the leather strap of the necklace. The crystal flew several feet away.

“I am not some man’s chattel,” she yelled, knowing she’d run far enough away that her mother could not hear her retorts. Since she was shifted her voice was hoarse and powerful, and she reveled in the fierceness of it. “I am not some breeding ceffyl to have children. It is not my place to give you fifty grandkids. I can’t help you only had one child. If you would have made me a boy, I wouldn’t be a disappointment to you!”

Tears stung her eyes as Medellyn walked aimlessly, searching the forest floor for the fallen necklace. Finding it, she grabbed the inert crystal into her fist. It was a reminder of all she was expected to be. She took a deep breath, looking at her fist and then to the stones littering the forest floor. A small smile formed on her mouth. Medellyn dropped the crystal on the hard ground and glared at it. Rage boiled inside her, the kind of rage surely only a dragon shifter could feel.

“This is what I think of your fate,” she growled as she fell to her knees.

Medellyn grabbed a heavy rock and smashed it down onto her necklace. The crystal cracked. The noise gave her some satisfaction so she hit it again. Grunting with each strike of the stone, she didn’t stop until her future had been ground to dust.

“That is what I think of your destiny.”