CHAPTER ONE
Bought for the Alpha
Delyse smoothed the small pile of clothes one last time before finally putting it in the suitcase. She looked around her, sighed, then closed the bag. She had decided not to take everything with her. She had way too many clothes, and she hadn’t worn most of them in a long time, anyway. Claudia, her roommate, would be glad to give them a new home in her wardrobe. Delyse combed her long, blonde hair with her fingers, a gesture she made every time she felt nervous or insecure. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to leave Alma Venus. In fact, she had been waiting for this moment for the past three years. Three boring years during which she had tried to learn as much as possible about dragon-shifters, about the history of Clan Drekinn, and had dreamed and fantasized about her future husband, Eric Drekinn.
It was a little over 5 PM, and Delyse didn’t know what to do with herself. She stood up, walked around the room, sorted through the few things she still had on her desk, then walked to the window and opened it to let the fresh air invade the closed space. She ran her fingers through her hair again, pulled at some knots, and winced at the slight pain. “This is silly,” she thought. “I’ve been waiting for this for so long… It’s ridiculous to be so nervous.” She placed her elbows on the windowsill and glanced out over the garden, the trees, the mountains up in the distance… The view she had grown up with. Would she miss it? The garden wasn’t what it used to be, though. Delyse smiled remembering the reason for which Miss Delacroix had had to plant new trees three years ago. It wasn’t funny, actually, but it was such a long time ago, that it wasn’t tragic either. Even now, goosebumps rose on Delyse’s skin as she remembered the silver-scaled dragon descending upon the garden, covering her best friend, Avelyn, with his enormous body, and raining dragon fire over the werewolves and werefoxes who had dared to come at the Alma Venus Boarding School and put the lives of the shifter-brides in danger. Back then, they had all been frightened. Delyse remembered how her heart nearly stopped at the sight of the impressive beast, and how her brain couldn’t quite process that the shifter was there to protect them. It had been the first time she had seen a weredragon in his dragon form, and when the beast turned into the handsome Viggo, she had had difficulties matching his warm, calculated voice with the dragon’s loud, powerful roar. Viggo… The real reason for which she was so nervous now.
For all intents and purposes, Delyse was ready. Over the three years she had had to wait at Alma Venus for Eric Drekinn to wake up, the Alpha dragon’s Beta, Viggo, had visited her often and tried to prepare her for what was to come. He truly believed she was the one who could save their clan, and that scared Delyse. A lot. Eric had been in hibernation for the past 700 years, and the few times he had woken up, Viggo hadn’t been able to convince him to stay awake. The magic of the dragon-shifters was strongly linked to solar eclipses, which meant they could fall into their deep sleep only during a solar eclipse, and wake up again when another one occurred. That was why Viggo had bought her for his Fyrstur three years ago, but couldn’t take her to her new home, in Norway. Eric Drekinn would finally wake up in three days, and Delyse had to be there to convince him he did have something to live for: a new bride. The future of Clan Drekinn depended on her. With most of the members sleeping deep inside the mountains of Norway, the name was slowly dying. If their Alpha awakened, then the other Drekinn dragons would follow, and the clan would rise back to its ancient glory.
The door opened, and Delyse heard Claudia enter their shared dorm. Since Avelyn and Amelia had been bought by their Alphas, Miss Delacroix, the headmistress, hadn’t given them any new roommates even though there were two empty beds in the room. Then again, the Alma Venus Boarding School hadn’t taken in new young girls to raise and educate to become shifter-brides in a very long time.
“Here, I brought you dessert,” said Claudia, placing the tray on Delyse’s desk. “You might not be hungry, but I know you wouldn’t miss Miss Potts’ banana cake for the world.”
Delyse turned to her roommate and smiled. “Thanks. What would I ever do without you?”
Claudia walked to the window and peered outside. “It’s a pretty lovely evening. Want to go out for a stroll later? You know… Just in case this is your last day here.”
Claudia was close enough for Delyse to lean her head on her shoulder. “Sure. We can go for a walk.”
They were silent for a long while, both looking at the moon, which had appeared early on the evening sky, and the stars taking their place beside it one by one. It was a beautiful day of spring, but Delyse knew she wouldn’t enjoy the warm season for too long. The next morning, Viggo would come to take her to the small island in Norway, where clan Drekinn lived. The dragons’ lair…
“How do you feel?” asked Claudia. “You don’t seem very excited.”
Delyse sighed. “I am. I mean… I should be. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’ve been dreaming about this moment for so long, and have prepared for three years… And now that it’s finally happening, I can barely handle the stress and… fear.”
“Fear?”
“Yeah… I don’t know, it’s strange.”
Claudia turned to take Delyse into her arms. Her friend needed all the comfort she could give her, but that wasn’t the only reason why Claudia had been so clingy in the past few days. Delyse was the only friend she still had at Alma Venus, and now she was leaving too. Avelyn had been the first to be bought, and now she was living with her husband, Alpha wolf Max Blackmane, in the Black Forest Mountains, in Germany. From what she and Delyse had heard from Miss Delacroix, Avelyn had three sons now. Not long after Avelyn had left, their other roommate, Amelia, was bought by an Alpha fox-shifter, and moved to Alaska. Amelia was a bit of a celebrity now, what with the discovery that she was the only born hybrid in the world. But that was not all. Both her children, a boy and a girl, were nine-tailed foxes. Claudia was an Ursi bride, and she didn’t know much about the werefox
es and their culture, but she did know that nine-tailed foxes had been more of a myth before Amelia gave birth to her children. Now, Delyse was finally going to meet her Alpha dragon. No matter how happy Claudia was for all her friends, she couldn’t help but feel sad at the thought that she was the only one left. She had gone to many interviews, many Alpha and Beta shape-shifters had seen her, but none had decided to buy her and turn her into their bride. No, Claudia didn’t think there was something wrong with her. She was only 23 years old, and she knew that Avelyn found her soul mate at 25. She only wished it would happen sooner rather than later, because she knew she would eventually go insane alone at Alma Venus.
Delyse allowed herself to enjoy Claudia’s embrace for a minute, then she disentangled herself from her friend’s arms and walked to her desk. The banana cake smelled too good to ignore. She took the tray to her bed, sat down, and dug in, moaning at the rich taste. Claudia laughed and joined her on the bed.
“I swear to God, I have no idea how you manage to stay so thin.”
Indeed, Delyse was very thin. In fact, she was downright fragile, her bone structure so sharp and frail, her skin so white that it was almost translucent. Her blonde hair reached her waist, and her big blue eyes made her look so young and innocent. She had been 18 when Viggo of Clan Drekinn had bought her for his Fyrstur, but even though she was 21 now, and ready to become a woman, she still looked incredibly young. Claudia envied Delyse sometimes, but then she looked into the mirror and realized that her friend’s blonde hair and fair complexion wouldn’t have gone well with her personality, anyway. No, she would never trade her chocolate skin, big brown eyes, and curly hair for anything in the world, but Claudia did ask herself sometimes whether these specific traits could be the ones which caused the shape-shifters who came to Alma Venus to choose someone else every single time.
“Oh, and I’m probably going to be even thinner in a few months,” said Delyse. “Viggo told me it’s freezing cold most of the year on Svartvinge Island. I think I’m going to lose weight simply because the weather will make me so depressed.”
“Nonsense! You’ll get used to it.” Claudia hesitated for a second, then she finally built up the courage to ask her friend something she had been meaning to ask her for some time. “So, Viggo… How are things going with him?”
Delyse set the fork back on her plate without finishing the cake. Suddenly, she didn’t feel like eating anymore.
“The same.”
Claudia only nodded. She waited for Delyse to gather her thoughts and continue. They hadn’t talked about Viggo for almost a year, since Delyse had confessed to her that she had started to develop feelings for him. The situation was so weird, unusual, and even dangerous, that they hadn’t opened the subject ever again. But now that Delyse had told her she was more than nervous, Claudia figured she hadn’t gotten over the Beta dragon.
Delyse placed the tray on her nightstand and folded her arms over her chest. It was a defensive position, although she didn’t know what she was defending herself from.
“Things are as they should be,” she said.
“He did visit you more often in the past six months,” Claudia insisted.
Delyse shrugged. “Because he had so much to tell me about Eric. The total solar eclipse is approaching, the other members of the clan are anxious, so Viggo had to make sure I am perfectly prepared. Every time he came, we talked about Clan Drekinn and about Eric. He…” Delyse swallowed hard. Even though she hadn’t met her future husband yet, it still felt odd to talk about his ex-brides. She wasn’t jealous. How could she be? “He told me everything about the other brides and how much Eric suffered when he lost them. All I have to do is convince him it will never happen again, that there is no way he will ever lose me. No matter how important the clan’s affairs are, Eric will never choose to stay awake just for the sake of his people, so I will have to work the other angle. Don’t you think it’s weird? An Alpha abandoning his clan like that…”
It was Claudia’s turn to shrug. “Some people are selfish like that. But what am I saying? I don’t know the guy. He’s probably amazing, and he’ll sweep you off your feet the second you meet him.” Claudia chuckled and punched her friend’s shoulder lightly. “He sounds like a dark, broody kind of guy. A sad past and a broken heart that only you can heal…”
“Oh, shut up! That sounds so silly! You should really stop reading so many romance novels.”
Claudia realized Delyse was trying to distract her from the main topic. She wasn’t ready to give it up that easily.