Valkyrie's Conquest: A Dragon Lords Novella: Dragon Lords, #2

By Sharon Ashwood

Can a dragon's fire warm a reaper's heart?

Tyra is a Valkyrie, a winged warrior who reaps the souls of dead heroes. Her kind experience no emotions—not joy, nor anger, nor pity for the fallen. Not even love. Yet now the powers that bind her sisterhood are weakening, and Tyra's heart is coming to life.

Bron of the Flameborn is a dragon shifter. When he sees Tyra flying through the city night, he instantly follows. At first, he is curious—and captivated—though even as Bron melts Tyra's icy reserve, he learns that defying the gods has its price.

War rages between Tyra's masters and their demon foe. Bron has no part in the conflict until Tyra is betrayed, and he must take a side. But some fires are too hot to bear, even for a dragon. If he means to save Tyra, he must sacrifice all.

Second edition. Previously published in 2014 by Harlequin Nocturne Cravings

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rowan & Ash Artistry
• Release date: Apr 16, 2024
• ISBN: 9781738257317

Sharon Ashwood

Sharon Ashwood is a free-lance journalist, novelist, desk jockey and enthusiast for the weird and spooky. She has an English literature degree but works as a finance geek. Interests include growing her to-be-read pile and playing with the toy graveyard on her desk. As a vegetarian, she freely admits the whole vampire/werewolf lifestyle fantasy would never work out, so she writes paranormal romances instead. Sharon lives in the Pacific Northwest and is owned by the Demon Lord of Kitty Badness.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Awoman who could fly? Now that interested Bron even more than a pretty face.

His lips parted in fascination, Bron watched her from atop his perch on the cathedral roof, where he sat lounging against one of the large stone gargoyles. She swooped from the sky with the swiftness of a comet, her translucent wings sending rainbows through the purple twilight.

Details were sketchy at this distance, but Bron could see the soaring figure was shapely with a mass of long golden hair streaming behind her. The fading light glinted on a breastplate made of silver links. Beneath that she wore a leather tunic and supple boots that left her lithe limbs bare. To borrow a human term, she was hot—and in response, Bron felt the dragonfire within him smolder with interest.

What do you think? he asked the gargoyle. Should I say hello, one winged creature to another?

The gargoyle, being no more than a stone statue, did not reply but remained hunched on the rooftop, sticking out a forked tongue at no one in particular. Bron watched as the woman streaked past the half-finished condominiums across the way, past the construction cranes and flashing billboards and old-fashioned neon signs that crowned the streets.

The sword makes a statement, he muttered, eyeing the enormous blade slung across her back. "I think it might be go away."

Her wings stretched wide as she banked and dove toward the rivers of cars below. The city lights were coming to life, spangling the darkness like a sudden scattering of stars and turning those wings into glowing, insubstantial veils. Before he realized it, he had risen to his feet, wanting, needing to keep her in sight.

Don’t be a fool. Whatever she was up to, it wasn’t Bron’s affair. He was a dragon shifter, a creature of scales, fire and fang. He was master of his own wanderings and had left the claustrophobic tangle of dragon politics behind. Why get mixed up with anyone else’s wars? But cutting ties with his den meant leaving everyone he knew behind, and the solitude was getting to him. A pretty woman—even one brandishing a weapon—would be an improvement on talking to statues.

I’ve been told a touch of risk adds spice to a liaison. Bron gave the stone gargoyle a pat on its cold, hard flank. And who can resist a dragon when he chooses to be charming?

With that, he began running along the rooftops, leaping from one to the next with a strength and agility that would have made humans gape had they looked up to see it. Even so, he barely kept the winged woman in view as she dove into the crevasse between sparkling towers. It would have been easier to shift, but dragons were nothing if not obvious. This close to street level, it made sense to remain in human form.

He followed her down, springing to lower and lower rooftops until he too was deep in the valley that stretched between skyscrapers. Traffic surged beneath, noisy and stinking but vital as blood to the sprawling metropolis.

Bron followed his quarry to a pocket of shadowed streets, one thick with refuse and danger in equal measure. She finally landed in a parking lot behind a diner, her boots thumping on the roof of a beat-up sedan. The lot was surrounded by a square of grimy brick walls tagged with graffiti. Garbage drifted along the base of the walls as if an invisible tide had left it there. On the north side, among the crumpled paper and crushed beer cans, sprawled a bleeding man.

Bron’s mood swerved. He’d come to flirt, but this wasn’t the time. He took another leap, landing on a flat roof two stories above the pavement. The winged woman, still atop the car, was directly below. She stood with the sword gripped loosely in one hand, looking fixedly at a corner between the buildings. Something dark was moving there—something that was slinking away.

He dropped lightly to the ground, landing in a crouch. Then he wished he hadn’t. Now that he was on the ground, he detected the stink of demons—a peculiar dry smell that spelled the absence of all life, like dry rot and old, shriveled-up snakes. Was that what he’d seen vanishing into the shadows? His body tensed, an instinctive growl rising from his chest. Dragons weren’t afraid of much, but hellspawn made him wary.

Bron ran to the figure sprawled on the ground, turning him over. Blood soaked the man’s uniform, obscuring detail, but Bron recognized the badge of one of the human police. The cop was in his prime, fit and muscular, but no match for the monsters who’d torn him open. A dull, flat anger surged through Bron, knotting his hands into fists. With a curse, he tore the man’s bloody shirt apart, scattering buttons across the dirty pavement. The savage wound beneath made his stomach sink. The man was alive, but barely.

Please stop. It’s too late, said the woman, who was now standing a few feet away.

Bron jerked his head up, surprised by her silent approach. Her wings had vanished, as if they melted to nothing when she didn’t need them.

Too late? he repeated. We interrupted the hellspawn’s kill.

Yes, they fled. Lesser demons are easily frightened by someone with more than human power. Her fine-boned face was grave. Nevertheless, he will be dead in seconds. There is nothing you can do.

How do you know that? Bron asked, seized by a sudden, stubborn need to contradict her. But she was right. His beast-self could already smell death in the air.

I can help him, she said.

How? You just said he was beyond our aid. Reluctantly, he rose to his feet. She was nearly as tall as he was, but she still had to tilt her chin up to meet his eyes. They stood like that for a moment, facing off across the dying man. She was every bit as beautiful as he’d expected, her bright hair tumbling around an oval face with large, luminous eyes and a softly kissable mouth. But everything had changed since he’d seen her from the church roof. A moment ago, she’d been an enticing curiosity. Now, despite her claims of help, he wondered if she might be a foe.

I’ve come for his soul. She shifted her grip on the sword and brought the point up until it rested against Bron’s chest. Please step away. I wouldn’t want to cut away yours by mistake.

The stranger brushed the blade away as casually as if it were made of straw. Tyra caught her breath, though she