Romance: Wanted by the Alpha Lion (A BBW Paranormal Suspense Romance) (Heroes of Shifter Creek Book 2) by Clara Moore

Author:Clara Moore [Moore, Clara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-02-18T05:00:00+00:00

Tempted by the Dragon

Chapter One

News of the dragon in the Wyndwae province spread across the countryside like a blaze from the mouth of the beast itself. In a week’s time it reached the inn of The Dancing Mer on the southern coast, and there it found Mairead Curran, slayer of monsters.

Of Mairaed there were many legends. It was whispered that she had vanquished at last the beast of the Breywood, whose jaws had been the end of three dozen men. Bards sang of the arrows that had laid waste in fire and steel to the lair of the manticore and slain the basilisk in the western mountains.

Of her beauty too, they sang. She was tall for a woman, and long-limbed, her auburn hair streaked with copper and tawny gold by long days beneath the southern sun. They said men traveled the lengths of continents to lay their spoils at her feet in hopes of her favor.

This last, at least, was quite untrue. Mairead herself had started the rumor, well aware that men who could afford to travel continents sought princesses to wife, not women who battled monsters, but it pleased her to let people think it was otherwise. As for the rest, well, it was true as any story which had passed through a hundred hands can be.

When news came of the dragon, Mairead was sitting at a table in the fire lit common room of the inn, with a tankard of mead in her hand, debating the relative merits of the bow versus the sword with Vreden, who had once been a knight of renown. He was aging, grey in the dark hair at his temples, but his sword arm was still strong. Mairaed’s own bow leaned against the wall at her side, her quiver with it.

“Perhaps,” she said, giving Vreden a look from over the top of her tankard, “you receive some measure of satisfaction from taking the heads off of beasts at close range. I, however, am content to make my name from the safety of distance. Were I one to choose practicality over pride, I would have joined that illustrious company of men who found themselves within reach of the Breywood beast’s many sharp teeth.”

Vreden’s eyes narrowed, but the bang of the wooden door swinging wide to admit a cloaked and hooded stranger interrupted him. Every gaze in the room turned toward the newcomer, who was pulling the hood down from over his hair, his cloak dripping rainwater onto the floorboards. He shook the dark fall of hair back from his face, and Mairead felt his eyes move over her and the others at her table. When he swept his cloak back over his shoulder, she could see the insignia of the king’s message riders on the shoulder of his tabard.

“Buy me an ale to take the chill from my bones,” he offered the room at large, “and I will share some news which has only today come in from the Wyndwae.” His eyes caught on Mairead’s again.

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