Married To The Dragon: Shifter Paranormal Short Story

By Selina Coffey

However, it seems that her new husband is the one man she cannot enchant. Neither beauty nor diplomacy will sway him… especially when he leaves straight after the wedding service and retreats to the elven monastery. What is wrong with him? Not to be put aside, desperate to maintain the alliance that protects her people, Ellieth goes after Savin. But what she does not know is that behind Savin's cold manner lies a passionate heart—and a secret that could destroy Elfhame.

 

Author's Note: This is a stand-alone with HEA story, no cliff-hanger! Story contains mature language and themes, intended for adults only.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lovy Books Ltd
• Release date: Aug 27, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223076391

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

Oh, Ellieth… Her sister’s voice was hushed. "You look like an angel. Look—look!" Her hands guided Ellieth to turn around.

I do not look—oh, my. Ellieth gasped. She had been sure that her sister was only giving customary compliments to the bride, but her appearance was indeed otherworldly.

The wedding dress floated around her like something from a dream, layers of white seeming to drift in a breeze that touched no one else; Elven magic, her mother said with a sniff. The bodice glittered with diamonds so small that Ellieth could have sworn she was dressed in fresh-fallen snow— and so convincing was the illusion that she shivered.

Her white-blond hair fell free over her shoulders, its waves adorned with pearls and blue gems that caught the light of the magical light globes, and her eyes seemed almost to glow. Ellieth was accustomed to dressing in dark blue, to accentuate her color, but she now regretted that she did not dress in white more often. She looked luminous, a creature of snow, as magical as the Elven palace that surrounded her, with eyes that spoke of old magic.

Well, her mother said at last, sounding pleased, "they won’t have seen something like this before."

She sounded satisfied, as proud as any mother to see her daughter be married, but Ellieth knew the woman well enough to hear the tremor of fear in her voice. Everything hung on this marriage. Everything.

They will treat me well, Mother. She turned, clasping her mother’s hands in her own.

If they do not—

They must. Ellieth smiled her reassurance, hoping that her racing pulse did not give away her own fear. She thought, with some annoyance, that her mother should be comforting her and not the other way around, but she knew it must be difficult to see one’s child walk into the danger of a hostile court. They need us, Ellieth reminded her.

It was true, although she feared that the fact made the Elves more resentful than anything else. They were a proud race. Elfhame—or whatever unpronounceable name they called it in Elvish— was guarded by warriors who wielded bows, staves, and swords with equal precision. For millennia, the Elves were the most feared fighting force on Earth. And for centuries, they existed with humans in an uneasy truce borne of mutual desperation. The Elves, if they so choose, could crush the human nations in a moment… if they had not needed their troops for the increasingly ruinous battle against the dragons.

The war had raged between the two nations since before Ellieth’s family took the throne in the human lands. She wondered if the Elves were aware that it had been their armies who placed her family in the seat of power, however inadvertently—when King Savin IV of the Elvenkin had slain Darius, the last of the royal line. Ellieth’s great grandfather, an archduke, had been chosen as the successor.

And now Ellieth was to marry Savin’s namesake, so that the humans could aid the Elves in a battle they now, to their shame, needed humans to help them fight. As necessary as her presence was, signaling military aid, Ellieth knew it might not be welcome. She had crept to her father’s door while he conversed with her mother, and so she had heard him repeat the slander they said against humans: weak, terrified little creatures. Too easily crushed to be worth the crown Prince’s hand in marriage.

When Ellieth asked her mother, a bit desperately, if they should go through with the marriage, her mother had reminded her simply that with Savin’s goodwill, no one else could touch her. And so Ellieth, whose concerns the week before had been centered on grain prices and the other tedious business of learning to rule; now found herself with the task of enchanting an Elven Prince. She had spent the ride to the castle trying to forget that she did not think she could do it.

Do you think the Prince will be nice? Ellieth’s younger sister