Fire Bride Read online

  Table of Contents

  Free Book Offer

  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

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Fire Bride

  A Reverse Harem Dragon Fantasy

  Ava Sinclair

  Contents

  Free Book Offer

  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

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Excerpt from WAR BRIDE

  About the Author

  Chapter 17

  Copyright ©2018 Ava Sinclair

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any written form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Published by Ava Sinclair

  www.avasinclairauthor.com

  Cover Design by Maria Solis Carmona

  Images by Adobe Stock Photos

  Created with Vellum

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  Prologue

  Once upon a time there was a king who had everything a king could ever want.

  He had riches, a powerful army, and a fine castle with a high parapet overlooking all the lands he ruled.

  He was King Eknor, and after years of making war, he was finally able to bask in his victories. He had defeated the kings of the valley. He had defeated the kings of the highlands. He had defeated all the kings in between. He had stormed their castles, overpowering them with such force that most surrendered right away. Of those who had not surrendered, all that remained were their severed heads, rotting on pikes.

  Each morning the king would walk to the parapet and watch the sun rise and spread its golden glow over the lands he’d conquered. Day after day he did this, but one morning he realized his pride was beginning to ebb, like the slow leak of air from a punctured lung.

  For despite his holdings, he knew there was more land for the taking, land he could not see even from the tallest room of his castle.

  King Eknor wondered what lay beyond the horizon, over the curve of the world. He imagined greater riches than he had in his storehouse, finer and bigger stags than those in his forest, mines filled with jewels and precious metals yet to be discovered.

  Day after day he stared at the horizon. Day after day he became more restless, less content. The king knew he could not be satisfied until he had more. He knew he would not be satisfied until he traveled beyond the curve of the world, to conquer what was yet unseen.

  The queen urged caution. She urged contentment. Had he not conquered the other kings? Wasn’t it enough? What lay beyond the curve of the world was not for him, she reasoned. She begged her husband to heed his Oracle, who’d warned that beyond the curve of the world lay the Wyld, its thick forests inhabited by beasts and fairie folk. The Wyld was full of magic, deep and old and unsullied by Man.

  “Stay,” the queen begged. “Rule your kingdom. Keep the peace.”

  But King Eknor would not be influenced by a mere woman, for what did women know of ambition? He ignored the queen’s pleas. He told her would take their three sons— Arok, Dax, and Yrn. He would take half the army. The other half would stay behind to keep the peace. He would journey over the curve of the world, and conquer lands he could not see.

  The queen wept, falling to her knees. She pressed her face into the king’s gauntlet, pleading, but he pushed her to the throne room floor. As she lay there, sobbing her grief, the king walked away, followed by sons who had become as cold and ambitious as their father.

  And they left. They traveled through the conquered lands, and over the curve of the world until they came to the edge of a wild, wild forest. At its entrance stood a mighty stag, blocking the only way in, his antlers as broad as a spreading tree, his eyes fierce and protective.

  “I am the guardian of this place,” the stag said. “This is a land of magic. You are not welcome here.” Some of the soldiers were afraid to hear a talking beast. They wanted to flee. But the king forbid it.

  “I am King of Men,” he snarled, “and your magic is no match for me.”

  King Eknor ordered his soldiers to kill the stag. They surrounded the creature, hemming him in. The stag tried to rush through the ring of horsemen, but could not. On the king’s command, the soldiers fired upon the noble creature. It took many arrows, and when the creature finally fell, the king dismounted, drew his sword and approached the bloodied beast. The stag looked up through weary eyes and begged for his life. But the king refused, cutting the animal’s throat.

  “Should we butcher it for meat, sire?” a soldier asked.

  The king regarded the dead stag. “No need. The wood is full of beasts. Why haul our meat when we can kill another deer closer to where we break camp? Leave it to rot. We’ll take the head for a trophy on the way back.”

  They continued through the wood.

  At dusk, they made camp in a glen. The soldiers chopped down a gnarled yew, which groaned with each blow of the axe. They burned it for fire. The eldest prince shot a doe that came to the stream to drink, sending her orphaned fawn bleating into a thicket. He and his brothers set snares in the night, and in the morning found a russet fox, its paw caught in the loop. When it looked at the middle prince with hopeful eyes, he and his younger brother clubbed it to death and cast lots for its skin.

  The carrion birds, realizing that Men meant Death, began following them, feeding on the creatures they needlessly felled. The princes’ swords and skinning knives stayed red with blood. They killed for fun, boasting of the fine trophies they would take once they had conquered whatever sovereign ruled this land, for despite what the Oracle told them, there was always a ruler, always a king. There was always someone to defeat.

  And they were right. There was a ruler of this realm, and it was angered by each senseless slaughter, each felled tree. The cries of the carrion birds, the coppery smell of blood and smoke, were an offense to this sovereign, who was more powerful than the king could imagine.

  Unlike mortal men, the ruler of the Wyld had no need of bows and blades. Its weapons were in nature itself. It sent driving snow so thick that the king, the princes, and the soldiers lost their way in the wood. It sent knives of icy wind that pierced furs and armor and the woolens beneath them. The men shook with cold. Their lips cracked and bled. Frost clung to their lashes and beards. Some begged to turn back.

  But the king pressed on, refusing to admit defeat even when first horses, then soldiers, began to die from hunger. With each loss, he fancied he could hear laughter on the wind, and this enraged him. He rallied his dying men, not realizing he was leading them in endless circles.

  When his own horse fell beneath him, he demanded the mount of his most loyal knight and left him stranded, for no horse could carry two by this point.

  It was only when he and his sons – the sole survivors – were killing their last horse for food tha
t King Eknor realized the folly of his pride. He’d betrayed his best knights. He’d lost half his army.

  “What have I done?” he thought, and with that one question, the weather calmed.

  The king and his sons, on foot now and weak, discovered a path that led from the forest to a cave. They entered, leaning against one another for support. They needed shelter. They needed warmth. They were tired of eating snow. They needed water. They could hear it dripping, and stumbled through the dark passages, following the sound.

  When the cave opened to the cavern, what they saw made them cry for joy. It was a warm pool, the surface smooth and glassy. The king stumbled towards it, beckoning his sons to follow. But their legs gave way before they could reach it, and they lay on the stone floor, helpless.

  It was then that the king looked up to see a woman sitting on a stone by the pool. How had he missed her before?

  He reached up and beckoned her to him. “Woman,” he called, “my sons and I are dying. Bring us water.”

  The woman did not move. She just stayed where she was, on the rock.

  “These are no ordinary waters you ask for,” she said. “They are healing waters.”

  “More’s the better,” he replied. “I am no ordinary man. I am King Eknor. And you will bring me and my sons drink.”

  “A king you say?” She smiled but did not move.

  The king lifted his head. Was she mocking him? Why wasn’t she obeying? He gritted his teeth in fury and tried to crawl forward, but his legs were as lead. Beside him, his sons groaned with thirst and pain.

  “Bring me water!” His command echoed off the walls of the cave. “I demand it! Bring me water or…”

  “Or what?” The woman stood. She was clad in blue and had long silver hair. She walked over and knelt beside him. “What will you do if I refuse to obey, great king of men? Will you shoot me full of arrows? Hack me apart with an axe and burn my body? Catch me in a snare and strip me of my skin?” She reached out a warm hand and cupped his chin. “You may have been a king once, but no longer. Now you are but a beggar.”

  And King Eknor was afraid, for he realized she was right. He could not move. His life was ebbing away. His three sons, lying beside him, were barely breathing.

  “Would you like to know how long you wandered in my forest?” she asked.

  “I know how long I wandered.” He licked his dry lips, looking longingly at the pool. “Days and days.”

  She shook her head. “No. It was years. Years and years. Time moves differently here. Would you like to know what has happened to your kingdom while you’ve been away?”

  The king felt a chill run through him, a chill deeper than any he’d felt in the forest. He was afraid now. He did not want to know. She told him anyway.

  “When you didn’t return, those you conquered banded together to wage war. They defeated what remained of your army. They sacked your castle. One of them took your wife. He was a kinder man than you. She grew to love him, and bore him children.” She paused. “But that was a hundred years ago.”

  “You lie,” he said through gritted teeth, but she moved her fingers to his temple, and he saw all she’d told him flash through his mind, and knew it was true. His cries filled the cave.

  “All this?” he sobbed, spittle running from his mouth. “Because I felled a tree, killed a beast?”

  “Did you?” She stood and turned, looking across the pool. From the shadows the stag emerged.

  “My consort,” she said. She curtseyed to the stag. “My lord.”

  The stag bowed in return. His voice was the deep voice of the earth, the sound of wind and water. “My lady.”

  The woman turned back to the king.

  “We are two parts of whole. We are Lord and Lady. God and Goddess. Duality. It is how the Wyld keeps its balance. You have a duality, too, I think. You are a man, but also a terrible monster. As punishment for what you’ve done, you will die, King Eknor. And your line will be cursed forever more with the task of balancing the beast within.

  She lifted her hands. “Come,” she commanded, and the three princes rose, not by their own will, but as in a trance. Like puppets dancing on invisible strings, they lurched past their father to the pool. There, they knelt like dogs and drank.

  “Behold,” the lady said, and the princes began to shiver and then to scream.

  “Father!” they cried. “Father!” But the king could not aid them. He could only watch as his sons burst into flames of different colors – one fire white, one sunset orange, one purple – that shot to the ceiling. Then the flames began to shrink and reform into something solid, and there, where his sons had stood, were three small winged beasts.

  The lady reached down to pet them one by one. “See what you put inside your sons? The dragon is the greediest of creatures. A dragon is never satisfied. Its appetite can be controlled only with the strongest will. I have used the old magic to draw out what you put inside them, to make it manifest. From this day forth, your sons will not be fully human, but a new race – half drake, half man. They will possess the fullness of their terrible dragon might, but their human side will grieve over how this destruction further removes them from all they love. They will war with man and dragon alike, never accepted by either, but dependent on what they deign to be the weakest – human females — for only through human woman can their line continue.”

  King Eknor understood now. The God and Goddess had tested him. He had failed. This was the awful price. He used the last of his strength to plead then, to plead for mercy he knew he did not deserve.

  “My lady. My lord…” Tears coursed down the king’s cheeks as he looked towards his sons who were hissing and backing away, all recognition of him gone from their yellow eyes. “Let them…be redeemed. If you’ve any mercy, grant them the capacity to find peace, to make it.”

  The Goddess looked up at the God, who glanced at the three juvenile dragons. He considered them dispassionately before giving a barely perceptible nod. The lady had a merciful side, and her consort could not deny her.

  The lady knelt again, took the king’s face in her hands and fixed him with eyes of kindness.

  “I will fulfill your dying wish,” she told him. “I will grant the Drakoryan the will to learn, although the path will be very long, and very hard. I will grant them protection through my priestesses, the witches of the Wyrd. In time, they will become a great and mighty race, so long as they keep the balance their father could not.”

  The king nodded. “I am tired,” he said. “So tired.”

  “Then take your ease,” she said, cradling his head in her lap.

  And there, in the cave, the king closed his eyes for the last time.

  Chapter 1

  LYLA

  When I can’t sleep, I read.

  One would think sleep should come easily to a woman of my circumstance, a woman with not one but four mates to please and be pleasured by night after night. One would think that continuous bed sport would leave me exhausted.

  It starts at dinner. I feel the tension as soon as I enter the dining hall. My mates, who arrive in the dining hall before me, stand as I walk in and do not sit until I take my seat at the head of the table.

  They are patient as the maids arrive with food and always quick to compliment me on my menu choice. I’m getting used to running a household, even if it can sometimes seem overwhelming. In the village, the best I could have hoped for was a three room hut to sweep. Now, as the mate of four powerful Drakoryan lords, I manage a staff of hundreds and carry several heavy rings of keys that open a myriad castle doors. My favorite task is planning the meals. Tonight, the table had been laden with pheasant pies — the savory juices still bubbling under the crusts— bowls of greens seasoned with shallots, a thick soup made from freshwater mussels, apples stewed in brandy butter, and round loaves of piping hot bread.

  My portions were dainty compared to those of my mates, but dinner only marks the beginning of their appetites. As they ate they cast hungry looks
in my direction, and I could start to feel the tension as they looked to me for cues.

  Whom would I choose? It is never easy.

  The youngest, Zelki, didn’t even try to hide his thoughts. He stared boldly at my cleavage the entire time. Tythos, the second born, glanced up occasionally, winking when he did. Drorgros, the eldest, flashed me a kind smile. And then there was Imryth, third born. When he didn’t look at me, I stared until I caught his eye, smiling at his blush. On any given night, he wants me as badly as the others. But Imryth prides himself on being more refined, and feels ashamed that he and his brothers can’t take a meal now without their cocks rising to touch the bottom of the table. He wishes they could all be more restrained.

  But I do not blame them. They are half dragon, after all, and dragons are always hungry for one thing or another.

  Tonight, I chose Drorgros.

  Drorgros, the defacto leader of his brothers. Drorgros the father figure. Drorgros, who assumed the form of a green dragon that snatched me from Altar Rock. Drorgros, who took my virginity with merciless efficiency and — in retrospect — when I was still numb from shock.

  Since then he’s taken his time with lovemaking. Tonight, after dinner we walked to his bedchamber. There he undressed me slowly as if I were a precious gift to be unwrapped. His huge hands were careful as he slid the gown down over my breasts. He cupped each one before crowning the tight nipples with tender kisses. He did not have to ask what I want, how gentle, or how rough. He has learned to read the signs of my body. On this night, I wanted it fast and hard. Do Drorgros and his brothers know that the silent rivalry at dinner has become part of foreplay for me? Do they know that the thought of their cocks, hard and stiff under the table, is the reason I shift in my seat at dinner? I sometimes think of what it would be like to take two of them at once. Or all of them. But that would never be a safe scenario. I’m convinced that standing by while another brother pushed his cock into my ready body would be enough to awaken the dragon in any of them. It is not a fantasy I can afford to indulge. And my night with Drorgros proved it unnecessary, anyway. One dragon lord at a time is enough.