Dragon's Curse: A Dragon Shifter Romance (Dragon Guild Chronicles Book 4) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Foreword

  Introduction

  Night’s Watch

  Visitor

  Amara

  A Meeting of Minds

  Bad Tidings

  Farewells

  The Syndicate Tower

  Plans

  Comfort

  Journey

  Perthewey

  Amends

  Intimacy

  Curses

  Memories

  Darkness

  Progress

  Sea Air

  Friends

  The Relic

  Conflict

  Protector

  Reunion

  Rest

  Curse Lifted

  A Coming Threat

  Commander

  Home

  Afterword

  Also by Carina Wilder

  Dragon’s Curse

  Carina Wilder

  Contents

  Foreword

  Introduction

  1. Night’s Watch

  2. Visitor

  3. Amara

  4. A Meeting of Minds

  5. Bad Tidings

  6. Farewells

  7. The Syndicate Tower

  8. Plans

  9. Comfort

  10. Journey

  11. Perthewey

  12. Amends

  13. Intimacy

  14. Curses

  15. Memories

  16. Darkness

  17. Progress

  18. Sea Air

  19. Friends

  20. The Relic

  21. Conflict

  22. Protector

  23. Reunion

  24. Rest

  25. Curse Lifted

  26. A Coming Threat

  27. Commander

  28. Home

  Afterword

  Also by Carina Wilder

  Foreword

  This is the fourth book in the Dragon Guild Chronicles. If you’d like to catch up, here’s the reading order:

  The Dragon Guild Chronicles:

  Dragon Hunter

  Dragon Seeker

  Dragon’s Lover

  Dragon’s Curse

  Introduction

  The Four shall come together as One,

  Water, Fire, Air and Earth

  The Circle’s final form begun.

  And to the world of Dragons, rebirth.

  Night’s Watch

  A piercing cry echoed through the curving stone passageways beneath Hampstead Heath, sending ripples of sympathy through every shifter and human who huddled together in a state of rigid apprehension. Standing in a long row along a torchlit wall, tight-lipped and tense, were most of the members of the Dragons’ Guild. Only two were absent: Kliev, the group’s oldest member, and Lumen, their Alpha.

  The latter wasn’t far off, having tucked himself some hours earlier into a bright, sterile room down the hall with his mate and their doctor, one of the few humans trusted enough to participate in the birth of the Dragon Alpha’s first child.

  From the sound of things, Neko was pushing with all her strength, trying desperately to release the baby that had been itching to introduce itself to the world for months. But for all her physical might and a normally reserved nature, she could do nothing to conceal the agony of labour. The birth of a shifter’s child was no easy task, and the little creature, it seemed, was putting up one hell of a fight. His—or her—mother’s cries were enough to make the mightiest of shifters quake in their boots.

  Minach’s nerves in particular were being run ragged by the sound, and he found himself wishing for a set of industrial strength ear plugs. Much as he wore the mantle of the Guild’s resident arsehole, the idea of one of his own in agony was almost too much for him to stomach. With each wail from Neko’s mouth, empathy ate at him like an illness, twisting his gut into a massive knot.

  Of course, he had no intention of revealing to the others how concerned he was for her well-being. Such sentiments were best left to the sorts of people who wore emotion on their sleeve like a shiny fucking badge. Minach had no use for badges; since he could remember, he’d made it his business to conceal any evidence of feeling behind a dark wall built of Dragon scale and fire.

  Though it was bloody hard to hide behind a wall, when every scream assaulted his ears like a hail of bullets from an enemy’s machine gun.

  “Curse the sodding Relics and their so-called power,” he gritted. “Thanks to those hunks of rock, my damned hearing has grown so finely tuned that Neko’s wails may as well be a mallet taking my skull apart from the inside.”

  “Well,” said Aegis, the light-haired shifter who stood nearby, “we knew it was going to happen when we got our hands on them. If you think this is bad, just wait until we find the fourth and assemble the lot of them. Our senses will be super-powered.”

  “If this is what I have to look forward to for the rest of my life, I hope we never find the fucking fourth,” Minach retorted. “It’s one thing to have impressive senses, but surely they weren’t meant to be used for this particular purpose. Someone explain to me why the hell Lumen and Neko chose to have the baby in this uber-resonant hole in the ground?” He ran a hand through his mass of dark hair, letting out a breath that had been trapped in his chest for some time. “What’s wrong with hospitals?”

  “Tradition,” replied Aegis. “It’s been a long time since the last birth, but the Dragons’ laws decree that if possible, the baby must come into the world in the Guild’s chambers.”

  “Well, the laws were likely written a thousand years ago, before sodding hospitals and horse tranquilizers were available. Besides, if we’re going to concern ourselves with Guild rules, where the fuck is Kliev?” Minach glanced about at his fellow shifters, his pale blue eyes narrowing with his mounting annoyance. “How’d he get out of living through this fresh hell? If we’re going to suffer this torment, so should he.”

  “He said he’d be here,” his twin brother Lyre signed with rapid hand gestures as he locked eyes with those of his sibling. “He’s probably stuck in traffic.”

  “Of course,” Minach shot back. “There’s ever so much traffic preventing a fucking Dragon from making it to the Heath. No doubt a slow-moving 747 is making his life miserable.”

  Lyre shrugged as if to say “It’s all I’ve got, ya wanker” and put an arm around his mate, Trix. He was the only shifter in the place who looked relaxed, and it was no wonder. Lucky bastard can’t hear the screams, thought Minach. For once I envy him his deafness.

  “I’m surprised we haven’t seen Kliev, actually,” said Aegis. “I would have thought he’d be the first to arrive. He was excited about the baby; he’s been witness to a lot of these births over the centuries.”

  “Witness to a lot of births? Poor bastard,” Minach grumbled. “Well, it’s no wonder he stayed home. He’s probably watching a slasher film. That would be more soothing on the nerves than this insanity.”

  “It does seem odd that he’s not here,” Trix interjected. Her right hand was sitting protectively on her slightly rounded belly as she leaned into Lyre’s chest. No doubt Neko’s cries of pain were serving to remind her of the experience that would be coming her way all too soon. She and her mate were three months along, and another Dragon baby, Minach’s niece or nephew, would be tearing her apart from the inside before six more months had passed. “I hope Kliev is around when this little one makes his or her way into the world.”

  “Looking forward to this madness, are you?” Minach growled at her after another drawn-out cry erupte
d from the room several doors down, all but shattering his last nerve. “Neko sounds like she’s being strangled, beaten with a mallet, and clawed by a wild cat all at the same time. I can’t imagine the appeal of childbirth. Why would any woman put herself through this torment? For that matter, why would any woman put me through it?”

  “You’re only being a jackass about it because you’d be toast if you had to give birth, Minach,” Ashlyn shot him before Trix could reply. The only female Dragon shifter present was relatively new to the Guild, but like the others, she loved sticking it to Minach when she got the chance. “You’d beg for every painkiller in the book if you had to expel a baby through your nethers.”

  “No I wouldn’t, because I’d insist on being either unconscious or dead before the ordeal began,” he replied. “No fucking way would I ever put myself through such torture. And for the record, I’ve never denied that women are stronger than men in almost every conceivable way. Superior beasts, you are. I don’t know why you even let us breathe the same air as you.”

  Another wail rang through the tunnel, and it was all he could do not to cover his ears and wince like a small, frightened child. Christ, make it stop.

  “We are superior, and don’t you forget it,” said Trix. “Our power lies in our mighty woman bits.” She leaned towards him and whispered in a deliberately foreboding voice, “Otherwise known as…”

  “Thank you, I’m familiar with their name, and I’ve long suspected that women control the universe with those things,” Minach replied. “At any rate, I’m ever so glad to be sharing this moving experience with all of you as per the dictates of the Dragon Guild. Memories of Neko’s screams will echo through my nightmares, a grim and constant reminder of just how much crap the fairer sex tolerates because men use your unfortunate bodies as receptacles for their seed.”

  When he’d concluded the rant, he looked around again, searching in vain for Kliev’s face in the crowd. It didn’t make sense that he wasn’t here yet. Something was wrong, he could feel it.

  For once Minach missed Tryst’s presence. The shifter known as the Red Dragon had been a longtime Guild member. Her visions had, for many years, been a very reliable source of information. Had she still been among their ranks, she might have been able to reassure him.

  But after her traitorous acts, she’d been kicked out of the Guild, never to be welcomed back. Tryst had alienated herself from the organization a few months earlier by aligning herself with a rogue Dragon shifter named Mardoc, and no one had heard from her since his death at the hands of the Guild members. No doubt Tryst was currently off sipping tea in some resort on the coast of Spain while enjoying vivid psychic visions of Neko writhing in absolute agony. She’d never been overly fond of humans, particularly women. To witness this ordeal would have given her a certain amount of sadistic pleasure.

  “Kliev will be here, and Neko will be fine. Don’t worry,” Aegis said, seeming to read Minach’s thoughts.

  In response, Minach shot his fellow shifter a narrow-eyed glance, trying to convey raw annoyance but failing. The truth was that all he felt in the moment was a deepening concern. Neko’s bloody screams still penetrated the air around them like shrapnel, and until they stopped there was no way that his heart would slow its relentless racing. God, he hated the all too familiar feeling of helplessness that came with the suffering of a loved one. Helplessness was too much like weakness, and nothing disgusted him more.

  If he could have helped her, protected her, he would have done it in a second. Not just for Lumen or even for the Guild, but because allowing someone to writhe in pain was almost more than he could bear.

  Of course, he was far too proud, far too damned stubborn to admit such a thing. Maybe he deserved to suffer, for that reason alone.

  “So, what do you think it’ll be?” Ashlyn asked, trying to distract him from his torment, and no doubt attempting to lighten the mood for the others as well.

  “Oh, I’d say it’s most likely going to be a goddamned baby,” Minach spat out in an ornery tone.

  “Good call, grumpyface,” she replied. “Fine, then. What manner of genitalia do you think it’ll have, if you’re going to demand that I go into specifics? An innie or an outie?”

  “From the sound of things, it’s got to be male,” said Trix over the sound of another wail. “Only something with stacks of testosterone could inflict that kind of pain on a woman without feeling any sense of remorse.”

  “Well played, my friend,” Ashlyn replied, letting out a chuckle. “Men do suck. With the exception of my Aegis, of course,” she added, turning to her mate, who’d gone temporarily silent by her side.

  “Thank you, Lovely,” he said quietly.

  “You’re welcome, sexy Dragon.”

  “Women,” Minach sighed, hoping their affectionate jabbering would stop before it went any further. “Can’t live with ‘em.”

  “There’s more to that saying, you know,” said Aegis, leaning back against the wall, his massive arms crossing over his chest.

  “I don’t subscribe to the last bit of the expression,” Minach grumbled. “I’ve done very well for myself, living without a lady.”

  A scoffing guffaw erupted from Aegis. “No you haven’t. You’re a miserable tosser. It’s a sad life, that of a man who chooses to make a hermit of himself,” he said, pulling a hand free to stroke his mate’s back. “Much nicer to have someone around who’ll listen to your constant griping than to have to push it all deep into your gut and walk around with frown lines a mile deep between your eyebrows. Not that I’m speaking of anyone in particular, of course. Oh, and p.s., who has frown lines as deep as the Grand Canyon, two thumbs, and a giant stick up his arse?” With the question he pointed towards the subject of his mockery.

  “I’ll have you know that I have a wonderful life,” Minach snarled back, the lines between his brows deepening with ironic irritation. “While you lot are all tied down like prisoners to your balls and chains, I get to flit about my flat in my underpants, blasting rap music and watching football for hours on end.”

  “I happen to know that you’re more likely to be blasting Beethoven and watching Downton Abbey,” Aegis replied. “But either way, the right woman wouldn’t deny you that pleasure, you know. Ladies aren’t prison wardens.”

  “You didn’t let me finish. I also make a regular habit of drinking two beers at once and issuing the odd earth-shaking belch as I sit on the couch with a hand down said underpants. It would take a special sort of female to tolerate my vile habits.”

  “Minach, please,” said Trix, gesturing towards the other end of the hall. “Don’t regale us with tales of your gaseousness and junk-grabbing while our friend is—” She stopped talking and turned towards the room down the hall where Neko lay.

  “What is it?” asked Aegis. “I don’t hear anything.”

  “Exactly.”

  Minutes later, the entire Guild surrounded Neko, who sat propped against a sea of pillows in her makeshift hospital bed, a tiny blanketed package in her arms. The baby’s eyes were shut tight, its mother smiling so calmly that it was hard to believe now that she’d been in so much agony all night.

  Lumen stood by her side, the expression of a very proud father and mate on his face as he looked about at his fellow Guild members.

  “Thank you all for being here,” he said quietly. “We appreciate it. Now, I know you want an answer, so I’ll tell you that Neko’s given birth to a very healthy little boy. That said, you should all go home to bed, for God’s sake. You lot look like the walking sodding dead.”

  Visitor

  Minach’s solitary Dragon soared through the chilly night air towards London’s distinctive skyline. The colour of an icy alpine lake, his scales shone like an errant star, beautiful, powerful and graceful all at once. Massive wings stroked the air, translucent like frosted glass. A series of pale spikes lined the back of his neck, a sleek mane of rock-hard scale. Armour shielding him against the few threats in the world that could take on a Drag
on.

  To look up at him, a passerby might have assumed that his silhouette was nothing more than a gliding bird of prey. Of course, he was far larger than any eagle. A jetliner would have been a more apt comparison.

  A jetliner with a chip on his shoulder.

  For decades, Minach had shielded himself behind his majestic déor, holding his Dragon at bay just beneath the surface of his human form, ready to burst out at a moment’s notice. Raging at times, emotionless at others, he had gained a reputation as a difficult, angry man, hostile to friends and enemies alike.

  In recent months he’d calmed down somewhat, mostly due to the quiet truce that he and his twin had formed on the grounds of Glastonbury Tor after years spent locked in cold, quiet animosity. After their reconciliation, Minach had learned to keep his anger in check, at least a little. Sometimes, he even felt like a reasonable, rational man, his demons temporarily calmed. His Dragon, too, settled down on occasion.

  Tonight, despite his earlier ranting and raging about Neko’s cries, both man and Dragon were calm and content. A brilliant night sky was where a winged beast belonged, not locked away in some underground fortress. This was a much-needed, peaceful flight after the long, gut-wrenching hours that he’d left behind under the Heath.

  But while his déor soared happily onward, Minach began to turn over cynical thoughts in his aggravatingly human mind, his all too brief bout of contentment turning quickly to bitterness. All good things must come to an end, he told himself, sneering at his own inability to embrace anything positive for long.