Furee Born

By Kelly Lucille

After nearly dying in the bonfire when her Village turned on her, the mage healer Riva has had a fear of fire and flame.
Furee is a Dragon Knight whose dragon resembles the heart of a flame. Even in his human form he has hair of fire and eyes that flicker and flash. Furee knows his appearance is everything Riva fears and does his best to keep his distance.
But, how long can he hold out before the dragon inside him forces him to claim his mate?
Will she ever forgive him if he does?

This is the fourth book in the Dragon Mage Series, but it can be read as a stand alone but is better enjoyed as part of the series. Expect Adult language and explicit sex.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kelly Lucille
• Release date: Jan 26, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370955688

Kelly Lucille

Kelly Lucille was born in Bremerton, Washington. April 9th, 1974.She has a B.A. Degree in Creative Writing and Literature from Naropa University.Her first book "Keeping Her" published in July of 2013."The Dragon's Mage" was release August 2013"Loving Her" (Mac and Ben's story in the Keeping Her Series) just released on August 31st,2013.Still to come: "At Ones Pleasure." and "Web of Bones" the second in the Dragon Mage series.Also in the works:Two Fantasy/Paranormal Romance novels: "The Journeys End" and "Claiming Her"and a Contemporary Romance "Beatrice and Douglas."On a more personal note- I read my first romance novel: "Shanna" by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss when I was 13 years old. I still read it every year or so just to remember how amazing a really good romance novel can make you feel.Check out more of what's coming next at kellylucille.com

Book preview

Furee Born

by

Kelly Lucille

Copyright Kelly Lucille 2015

For Smashwords

All Rights Reserved

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

Riva closed her eyes against the fearsome sight before her. The mountain peaks a good distance below looked scraggly and sharp to her eyes with their white mantles of jagged ice. But it was the dragon talons wrapped so carefully around her waist and holding her pressed against hard dragon scales that had her heart tripping a painful beat and her breath freezing in her lungs.

Being carried so by any dragon would be frightening, but Furee from head to toe was living flame. His dragon form resembled nothing so much as the bonfire of her nightmares. From his eyes of a banked flame to his dragon scales of still burning blackened char he was everything she feared. Even if his flame did not sear and blister the skin from her bones as true flames had in the moments before she was pulled from that long-ago fire, her mind insisted it would.

With her eyes closed and her mind blanked in terror, Riva could feel the warmth of Furee’s dragon power wrapping around her, creating a cushion between her and the extreme cold of the high winds they flew. If she could forget what her eyes had seen, and lose the terror that clung to her like a cold sweat, she might even be able to admit that the living warmth Furee wrapped around her was comforting. But then from the moment she met this dragon knight, the same confusing dichotomy of reactions had been inspired.

Her brother had come for her that day, a fire mage and huntsman, riding the back of a flame dragon like an avenging wind. Swooping in through the screaming mob to lift her from the flames, he then turned on the crowd in a raw blistering fury that burned people and buildings to ash in seconds — people who she had dedicated her life to healing. People who had turned on her in suspicion and fear when it was discovered her miraculous healing abilities had less to do with the herbs she collected for her poultices and healing teas and more to do with her being born a mage.

But it was not her brother Braedon sheathed in flame, his short black hair alight, his normally topaz eyes identical to her own bathed in the green power of his mage light that she dreamed about when her nightmares returned her to that place. It was the dragon he rode.

Furee, dragon knight, who when shifted to his warrior form stood a good half a foot over her five-foot-ten height. Whipcord lean and all muscle under his warrior leathers and tall boots, his hair burned through the myriad colors of fire as he moved. His eyes could shift from a banked flame to a raging fire, and finally, if he was really angry, could burn to ash in that starkly beautiful face. He was the one who haunted her dreams and nightmares alike. So she did her best to avoid the conflicting emotions and raging fear he produced in her, by avoiding the warrior, his dragon form, and definitely his fire.

At least she avoided him when he was not dragging her against her will away from battle. Not that she was alone this time. In his other talon, he carried Clare. A mage with transformative powers, the young titan haired child/woman was still struggling, and slippery if the way the dragon was chuffing and snarling above them was any indication. The one and only time Riva had opened her eyes, it was to see the girl shifting from one flying creature to another in an effort to escape him, her green mage fire blending with the dragon flame surrounding them, while Furee did his best to hold on. Since the sight of both the struggle and the dragon flames froze her blood, Riva closed her eyes just as fast as she had opened them. Abusing her power like that, the girl would eventually exhaust her magic enough that she would shift back to her usual long-legged coltish girl woman shape for good. Only by then would she be nearly as powerless as a full human.

Not that Riva blamed the girl for trying. At the words of the dragon seer Asha, her brother’s half dragon, half mage mate, Furee had grabbed them both and flown off, leaving her brother and the rest of the mage and dragon alike in Seatown to face the coming hoard of unnatural beasts attacking. As a healer, Riva was going to be needed, and Clare could shift into any animal she saw. But even if she could get Furee to listen to her he wouldn’t turn around. He was told they would be safer in Dracon, so Dracon was where he would take them. She would get angry with her brother later about the high-handed treatment. She was not anywhere near brave enough to take on a dragon. Especially one made of fire, whose presence always brought with him the memory of what her own skin smelled like cooking.

Riva felt the difference when they started to descend, until, with a smooth whoosh, she dropped to her feet with ease. The thump to the ground she hardly felt, and luckily, her legs consented to hold her. Riva took her first deep breath since the flight began and opened her eyes, surprised to see that they had not returned to Forsaken Mountain where she had been living since her rescue. Instead, they stood in a wild field. She knew they had passed the North Gate into Dracon because she could feel the dragon magic that lived in every blade of grass and playful tug of wind, but they were not home.

Riva turned to find Furee had shifted to his warrior form, his eyes on something in the distance. He turned and she saw the smoldering flames in his eyes burn brighter as he looked her over. Clare was so weakened by her fight that she sat in her tunic and pants upon the ground, her long boot-clad legs curled up under her bowed head. Riva saw as much as felt the toll Clare’s sporadic shifting had taken on the other mage and went to her side. Healing mage light started to glow at the tips of Riva’s fingers even before she reached for her. Furee’s grim words averted her attention before she could touch Clare.

We have dragons between us and the border of Kinkaid land. They come.

Clare looked up and the exhaustion on her face was eclipsed by the fear there. Riva bit her lip, knowing exactly what put that look in the girl’s eyes.

When Eben Kinkaid and Prince Ladon had found a mage mate hiding among the humans, it had started a political squabble that resulted in the dragon council proclaiming all mage were subject to mating at merely the declaration of a dragon. Both Eben Kinkaid and Prince Ladon of the combined House of Fire and Water were fighting the law on behalf of their mage mate and her family, which consisted of the wind talker, Melisande, who had since mated to General Solan Fire-Eater of the dragon knights, Rhune, a young transformative and healer mage who was ten, and the youngest sister, Clare, who stood before Riva, a beautiful seventeen-year-old woman child, but the law had not been overturned yet, and they all knew it.

Are they knights? Clare asked without any real hope in her voice. If they had been dragon knights of the Light as Furee was, he would not have stopped here. Under General Solan, the dragon knights fought for the Light always. They abhorred the new mage laws, and vocally defended against them.

House of Earth security forces, Furee answered, his eyes leaving Riva to travel with obvious concern to the exhausted young girl. Can you transform and hide until this is done?

What color was left in Clare’s face drained away. She shook her head, looking both ashamed and angry, probably as much at herself as Furee. I burnt myself out. This meant it would be hours before she was able to access her power again. Riva blew out a hard breath and moved to the girl. I can heal the burn out; it will take a while for your powers to return but not as long, and you won’t be exhausted and sick while you recover.

Do it, Furee said. "I have sent out a call to other knights, but I can feel no one close enough to help.

Asha will know to come, Clare said, brightening up almost as soon as Riva started healing her. The mage-green light that radiated from Riva’s hands and traveled deep into Clare in search of injuries flared with the mention of the dragon seer that had sent them here, to safety.

If Asha had seen what was to come, surely she would have warned us, Riva murmured, her mind, as usual when she healed, on her patient with very little regard for anything else. Truth be known, it was a comfortable place to be. There was no room for fear and doubt when she healed.

She sent more of herself into the girl and found Clare’s center of power shriveled and dark. Riva lost what hold she had on the outside world and sent her own light into the girl until the shriveled ball at her center was once again expanded to its full size, healthy and mage green, resembling an empty cup rather than a crumpled ball.

Riva could not fill the girl up with her own power, as the power of a healer came from a different place than the more earth-bound power of transformation the girl connected to. But the cup itself was healed and ready to be filled, something that might have taken days to heal on its own before Clare’s power could return. Even as Riva watched, power began to flow again, trickling into the girl in a steady stream.

Riva pulled her healer power out of Clare and turned to find that enough time had passed that the House of Earth dragons were almost upon them.

Furee started talking as soon as Riva was back in her own body, as if he could sense the exact moment of her return without a single move on her part. Take Clare far back into the trees; the dragons will not want to hurt you, and I will try to keep them busy until more help arrives – unless they force a fight. He did not say that the real danger was that the dragons would try to declare the women their mates as claimed under dragon law. They all knew what was at stake. If anyone gets around me, keep them talking as long as you can. I will deal with the rest and come for you.

Furee’s eyes burned to ash and touched her from head to toe in one long sweep, leaving a warm brand that felt like a mark all on its own. Don’t come back until I call you, no matter what you hear.

It wasn’t until Furee looked away from her that she could move to follow his instructions. Riva took a calming breath and turned to find Clare already standing, waiting for her, an anxious look in her eyes. Riva could practically feel her yearning to bolt for the safety of the trees. The problem was, without her powers, the safety of the forest was questionable; Riva might be a powerful mage in her own right, but healing was not exactly an offensive power, or even a defensive one at that. Not in a fight.

Catching sight of the dragons approaching in the distance, Riva was as dismayed as Clare to note there were five of them. The last glimpse Riva had of the flame-haired dragon knight, before Clare propelled her into the forest by her arm, appeared to be an unstoppable force of nature. He did not pull the broad sword at his back or shift to his fire dragon to face the oncoming beasts. He waited patiently as a warrior, whipcord lean and solitary as a mountain peak, seeming a part of the nature that surrounded him.

As a healer, Riva had never been able to read the emotions of dragons as she did the mages and humans, but just then she got the impression of an indomitable will to protect and defend those he considered in his charge. Riva knew as sure as she knew her brother loved her that this man would die to keep them safe, and he would do it alone, without even another dragon knight to take his back.

She watched that broad back as long as she could; something in the way he stood so alone and inviolable struck a chord deep inside her as she lost sight of him. If Clare had not had a tight hold on her arm, Riva might have run back to him, incapable of leaving such a fiercely noble creature so very alone.

***

A noise had Riva gasping and waking from the dream/memory. She looked around blinking sleep from topaz eyes, unaware that they shined mage green. She took in the flower gardens surrounding her, so different from the wild overgrown forest she had been running through a moment ago. She looked down and saw a similar set of tunic and trousers, but these were clean and crisp, the soft weave unmarred by bramble from a headlong rush through the brush. Her boots, polished to a gleam, were not mud encrusted and scratched. Her black hair was up and out of the way, not braided and snarled down her back. She blinked as the image from two years past was slowly superimposed by the present.

She rubbed at the remembered ache that echoed in her heart. She had been dreaming, strangely enough of just before the attack on Clare that had been the catalyst that brought about the break-up of a united Dracon. In the two years since the event, she had never had the dream before, certainly never dreamed of the last indomitable sight she had of Furee when she and Clare ran from the fight. Her nightmares tended to be of fire and scorched earth.

The furtive sound of something not meant to be there came again, and Riva realized it was that small wrongness that woke her up. Sitting snuggly comfortable as she was with her back against a tree, she could see very little over the overgrown and wild symphony of flowers that surrounded her. She doubted anyone could see