The Dragon Stirs (13 page)
Authors: Lynda Aicher
Two could play it that way. “If you’re so keen on shielding her, shouldn’t someone tell her there’s a bounty on her head?”
He stopped polishing, opting to stare instead. “What? No, impossible.”
Declan wordlessly offered his hand comp once more. This time, to his immense relief, the priest took it.
After a good long look, he handed it back, looking at Declan with new eyes. “You truly mean her no harm?”
“Quite the opposite.”
“Well, I suppose if you’re lying, she’ll be the first to know.” He pointed with his chin since his hands were occupied. “The Tree and Flame. Follow the dinner crowd, you can’t miss it.”
Declan gave the man’s collar a pointed look. “Aren’t you supposed to discourage people going into pubs?”
A wise chuckle. “Far be it from me to deny anyone in this day and age a decent hot meal.”
“Thank you.”
The Tree and Flame wasn’t what he expected. Its long tables and benches were crowded with patrons, though where these people had obtained the money he couldn’t guess. They had no access to the electronic currency that replaced the now defunct paper and coin during the war, had no or non-working birth chips embedded beneath their skin. The dregs of society, hence the name.
An old man sat on a stool behind the bar knitting while a bartender hauled a stew pot of potatoes from the kitchen and dumped them with a muted rumble into a bin. It took him a moment, as she scraped the peel from a poor defenseless tuber as though it had done her personal injury, to recognize her.
Dark hair—auburn, he could see now in the fiery light of the hearth—in stark contrast to blushing ivory skin, braided neatly and bound in a knot at the back of her head. Not conventionally pretty, by any stretch of the imagination, but she did possess an interesting contrast of characteristics that pigeonholed her into the young, freshly attractive category. High cheekbones in an otherwise round face, lush curves and long torso on a figure uncompromisingly short. There was something about the way she stood beneath the sheathed sword mounted on the wall behind her that made him want to take inventory of all vital organs, so he would know if any turned up missing later.
In that moment her gaze found his in the dim room, the hearth fire threw shadows across the low ceiling of carved, thick-twining tree roots, and the entire place went dark.
The Dragon Stirs
Lynda Aicher
The energy might bind them, but their love could save us all…
When Shifter Airiana Draco volunteers to scout the enemy’s compound, her family thinks it's to prove herself. In truth, she wants answers. Plagued with doubt and a secret shame, she hungers to learn more about the Energens, the people who have opposed the Shifters since the beginning of time. But getting captured wasn't in her plans.
Energen Loukianos Aeros has always wondered about his exiled older brother who was accused of aiding their mortal enemy, the Shifters, long before Louk was born. Now, the answers Louk seeks are within his grasp when he stumbles upon a beautiful enemy spy right outside his door.
Forced together by the energy, Airiana and Louk are unprepared for the sudden attraction as they struggle to gain the answers they seek. As the danger builds and their lives are threatened, they must learn to trust the energy and each other. But are they strong enough to challenge all they were raised to believe or will the pressure cause them to turn on the one truth they can’t deny?
The time is coming when earth will be changed forever. The dragon is rising and with the joining of The Two, he stirs.
Warning: Mix two opposing forces with some elemental powers, add in a little shove from the energy and you get earth-shattering sex, one angry dragon, a world that is altered forever.
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B
Cincinnati OH 45249
The Dragon Stirs
Copyright © 2012 by Lynda Aicher
ISBN: 978-1-60928-718-4
Edited by Bethany Morgan
Cover by Angela Waters
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
electronic publication: February 2012
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