Lord Dragon's Conquest

When archaeologist Keltie Clarke comes across a stunningly strange cave painting during a dig in the Rocky Mountains, she realizes that it’s a find that could make her career. But she doesn’t know what to make of the man who surprises her as she considers her find....

Larkan is surprised, too. He’s a shapeshifter, trained to protect his dragon kin from the outside world. But Keltie is...different. She’s a warrior, just like him. And even though it’s his role to mate with the dragon queen, Larkan’s desire for Keltie provokes a battle between his love and his sovereign lady. What none of them knows is that Keltie is the only one who can see a new future for the dragon tribe.

Lord Dragon’s

Conquest

Sharon Ashwood

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Dear Reader,

I love a good dragon.

I love them because they are so extravagant. There’s no tying it up in the backyard—though it might come in handy with the barbecue. Dragons are bold and fiery and creatures of infinite variety. They are the very stuff of high fantasy. What better material for a hero than that? And so it was that Larkan came to life—a shifter from an ancient culture so isolated that time has passed him by.

And who better to unleash him than an archaeologist? Keltie is a junior professor struggling for recognition. When she digs up more than she bargains for, she has to find her inner warrior—and fast. It’s up to her to free the dragons from brutal laws that have bound them in darkness for centuries. At stake is a love that spans worlds and a discovery that will shake the foundations of human belief. Like I said, dragons do nothing in a small way, especially not romance.

Enjoy,

Sharon Ashwood

Dedication

For Clara, who was a dragon in her dreams.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

About the Author

Copyright

Prologue

A long time ago, when the world was freshly born, the dragons made a rift in the air. This shimmering wheel in the sky was a doorway between worlds, and so it was that they came to our skies from the Summerland. They loved it here, for there were curious beasts and tall mountain peaks and all the new horizons they could wish for. Best of all, there were men and women—proud, curious and filled with passion—whom many of the dragons came to love as their own kin.

Time passed, humans prospered and the Age of the Dragons drew to a close. One day, the vast majority of Old Ones and their children returned home to the Summerland, their adventures done. But a few remained, including their king, and he had plans. He had grown weary of ruling a people who flew where and when they liked. He was even more bitter because his subjects were loyal to their mates first and to him only second. He decided it was time that they learned to serve at his beck and call.

And so it was that the king of the dragons abandoned the sky and convinced his people to dwell beneath the hard rock of mountains. In time, he thought, dragons would forget that they had once tasted the wind.

The king was correct. Because they had always lived with free and open hearts, the loyal dragons never once suspected treachery.

Chapter One

The cave gaped as if some giant had thumbed a hole into the mountainside. Keltie Clarke shone her flashlight around the dark maw, looking for signs of animal habitation. Merkton University’s archaeological team had already been over the area and had found nothing, but she probed the darkness anyway. The team wouldn’t have checked caves this far from the dig site, and the southern Rockies had no shortage of bears and mountain cats.

The air cooled as she stepped from sun into shadow, creating an instant chill along her arms. It smelled stale and dusty in those black, black depths. Every one of these ancient sites had its own presence—call it an aura, a spirit or a personality. She could feel this one like the press of fingertips against her skin.

These were the moments she lived for, the moments when she might, just might, discover a fragment of the forgotten past. Professor Switzer and his adoring minions were over the hill and far away, wrapping up the excavation for the year. Keltie, junior professor and third in command, wrangled the newbie students, a job Switzer considered well beneath him. Keltie didn’t mind—she liked teaching—but she wasn’t needed for a few hours. This time was hers alone.

She moved steadily forward, her dark braid swinging across her shoulders. The light played against the cave walls, pooling and slithering like a live beast. She followed the curve of the wall only to find the opening widen into a second cavern. After a moment’s hesitation, she went through. This space was larger than the first, but the floor was strewn with large boulders.

Although she smelled none of the telltale odor of animal habitation, that sense of a watching presence grew thick enough to touch. Her heart speeding a little, Keltie moved the flashlight’s beam along the wall. A faint pattern on the rock made her freeze and then blink, not quite sure that her eyes were telling the truth.

The past resident of the cave wasn’t an animal, but a person. Maybe many people. They’d abandoned it long ago, and they’d left their artwork behind.

“I don’t believe it,” she said under her breath, drawing closer oh-so-slowly, as if the images shimmering in the play of light and shadow might suddenly disappear.

Back out in the sunlit meadow, Merkton U’s team was investigating a newly discovered settlement that was probably a few hundred years old. Even at a glance, Keltie could tell these images were older—and very different from anything else documented in these parts. She’d seen the cave paintings of the Chumash people near Santa Barbara, and she’d been to the caves of Lascaux and Chauvet in France, but these were unique.

She released a reverent sigh—half gratitude, half disbelief. The images were painted in washes of red and ochre, at once crude and beautiful. Sweeping lines and spirals showed a confident hand, as if the long-ago artist had been certain of his message. Keltie’s fingers gravitated toward the images as her breath caught on an almost painful surge of awe. Her fingertips hovered close enough to feel the coolness of the rock, but she didn’t dare touch it. Darkness had preserved those stunning hues, they were enormously fragile.

The images were at eye level. Farthest to the left was a series of squiggles, then a strange-looking bird with wings outstretched, a ribbonlike line streaming behind it. The ribbon was interrupted by bumps and more swirls before the image faded to nothing. I wonder what those squiggles mean? But interpretation would have to come later. The first task was documentation.

Excitement made her fingers clumsy as she unzipped her backpack and rummaged through it. Switzer was going to have a stroke when she, a mere junior prof, came back to camp with a find like this. The dig season hadn’t produced anything of note, and she was going to need to fight like a mountain cat to retain credit for the discovery. This could make your career. And yet part of her didn’t care. She was happy simply to find and share an amazing gift from the past. She stood, propping the flashlight on one of the large boulders. Then she positioned a ruler next to the paintings to establish scale. Then, with deep reverence, she raised the camera in her other hand and took a series of photos, the shutter loud and the flash blazing in the darkness.

The brightness was just fading when something scuffled behind her. Keltie wheeled around, blinking the brightness of the flash from her eyes. It took her a moment to find the still figure on the other side of the boulder-strewn space. She could only see him from the waist up—there were too many rocks in the way—but what she saw arrested her.

At six feet, Keltie could look most men in the eye, but she had to crane her neck to meet this one’s gaze. As she did, she noticed a set of broad shoulders in perfect proportion to his towering frame. Somewhere deep inside she felt a primitive twist of satisfaction that here, finally, was a man whose body would fit with hers, but caution quickly swept that feeling away. She was alone, he was a stranger, and there were no campgrounds this far into the mountains, to explain his presence.

“Who are you?” she demanded with businesslike authority.

No answer. He remained still for a long moment, camouflaged by the shadows, and then slowly began to move closer. Although he carried no light, he navigated the stony floor with graceful ease. Either he knew the cave well or had eyes like a bat. Uncertainty tugged at Keltie, and she slipped the camera she’d been using back into her pack and gripped the hard rubber handle of her flashlight. It would make a decent weapon.

He stopped when he was a dozen feet away, just at the edge of her light. His face was strong-boned, with straight brows and a long blade of a nose. Thick, dark hair swept back from a wide forehead. He might have been handsome, but his expression was too forceful. Somehow it put him beyond common good looks. The only softness was in the curve of his lip, a sensual fullness that sparked Keltie’s imagination. Who was this guy?

“Are you looking for Dr. Switzer’s team?” she asked, less self-assured this time. He didn’t look like someone in search of archaeologists, but what else would he be doing here? Her gaze worked its way up from his mouth to his eyes, and she felt hot prickles flood her skin. He was giving her the same once-over, eyes glittering in the uncertain light.

“I do not know Dr. Switzer,” he replied. He spoke softly, his voice low and clear. He had an unfamiliar accent—not French or German, but something in between. And sexy as hell.

For an instant, Switzer’s name meant nothing to her, either. Then she dragged her thoughts back into some sort of order. She sucked in a deep breath, suddenly needing air. “Then where are you camped? I didn’t think anyone else was up here.”

“I belong here,” he said. “I am Larkan.”

He stepped forward into her beam of light, and for the first time she noticed his clothes. They looked more homespun and leather than department store—issue, and he hadn’t bothered to button his shirt, leaving bare an expanse of muscular chest. She’d grown up on farms and in work camps and recognized this kind of build as one that came from hard work rather than a weight machine. Maybe he was one of those back-to-the-land types and he had a cabin somewhere deep in the forest.

She wet her lips, suddenly feeling the dryness of the cave. “I’m with the archaeological team. My name is Keltie Clarke.”

“Keltie,” he said the name experimentally, making it sound like an exotic dessert. Then he folded his arms across his chest. The gesture did things to his biceps that, for an entire thump of her heart, made her forget about the paintings.

Heat flooded her skin. She should be worrying about protecting the site. Diagramming. But instead she was staring like a tween at a man in a cave. A caveman. She had a horrible urge to laugh.

Green eyes held hers in a direct, considering regard. “Your team should leave.”

His words snapped her back to reality. “Why do you say that?”

He reached out a hand, his fingertips just shy of brushing her shoulder. “This place is perilous.”

“Oh? Where is your safety gear? You don’t even have a flashlight.”

A wry look crossed his face, almost as if she’d said something amusing. “I’m used to working in the dark.”

“Doing what?”

“You ask a great many questions.” He waved a hand toward the cave entrance. “I come here often for the view.”

“I thought you worked in the dark.”

“Ah. But on a clear day, it is possible to see all the way across the far valleys.”

This time he smiled widely, and it was heart-stopping. Even brain-stopping. Keltie’s tongue refused to work for long, painful seconds. This was awful—she hadn’t felt this awkward since she’d been twelve. Something save me! An avalanche would do.

Her curiosity came to her rescue. “Speaking of the view, do you know anything about these paintings?”

Larkan followed her pointing hand and shook his head, seeming completely uninterested. “They’re old. No one knows who made them.”

She was about to ask who he’d talked to, but a dry, slithering sound came from somewhere behind Larkan and made her jump. They both turned toward the deep shadows at the back of the cave. In the same instant a new scent filled the air. It was leathery, reminding Keltie of the worn pilot’s jacket her father used to wear. And then there was a scraping noise like bone against rock. Something in that rasp—so much like claws or the slide of fang on rib cage—sent panic jolting up her spine. She recoiled a step, her mind scrambling to put an image to that sound.

Larkan spun to face her, and before she could react he was pushing her back to the outer cave. “You must leave. Now.”

He was strong, but Keltie wasn’t about to be manhandled—not this way, anyhow. She shoved back. “Let go of me. What’s back there?”

“I said there was danger.”

Behind Larkan, she caught a glimpse of wings, webbed and angular like a prehistoric bird’s. They seemed huge, melding with the gloom of the cave as if they were made from shadows. From at least ten feet in the air ghastly yellow eyes glared into the beam of her flashlight. Keltie felt her jaw drop for an awful moment as every muscle froze in terrified astonishment. She’d faced down bulls, angry sows and even a bear, but this was more menacing. “What is that thing?”

“Run!” Larkan commanded.

This time she obeyed, snatching up her backpack. She spun and bolted for the passage to the outer cave, her pack banging against her side. She didn’t stop until she’d burst into the sunshine, feeling the heat of it surround her like armor. Whatever lived in that dark place wasn’t meant for the light of day. She was safe.

Or so she hoped. She ran and ran, making it halfway down the mountain before she realized that she was alone. Panting, Keltie stopped, letting her backpack slide to the grass. Where was Larkan? What had just happened? She remembered his command to run. Had he come with her partway and stopped somewhere along the winding trail?

And then...she recalled a faint glimpse of the man as he had turned to stand firmly in the path of the Thing. He had been between her and it, guarding her retreat.

Stunned, Keltie remained motionless as the soft mountain breeze swirled past, smelling at once of green leaves and distant snow. Then she dropped to her knees, suddenly overwhelmed. No one had ever done anything like that for her before. She wasn’t the delicate, fragile type that men rescued.

A rush of hot emotion flooded her—a mix of guilt, fear and gratitude.

Anyone brave and stupid enough to face down a winged monster needed someone to cover his back. In an instant she was on her feet, grabbing her flashlight and a heavy branch. She left her pack where it had fallen and charged back toward the cave.

Chapter Two

As soon as the woman—Keltie—was out of sight and earshot, Larkan strode toward the massive creature. It arched a long serpentine neck, faint light gleaming on blue-black scales. Massive batlike wings unfurled with a leathery whisper, filling the cave yet more shadow. The only relief was in the twin fires of its golden eyes. As Larkan neared, the dragon bared its fangs with a rattling hiss.

“Who gave you permission to leave the den?” Larkan demanded in the dragon tongue, taking a quick glance behind him to be doubly sure Keltie was safely gone. Her absence was a comfort. His body was still tight and hot, as if being near her had ignited embers within his flesh. He had wanted an afternoon’s escape, some time alone to think about the upcoming festival day, but now he wanted to turn and follow wherever she had gone.

As he’d tried to tell her, the cave was full of perils. For him, a woman like that might just qualify. There was no place in his existence for an outsider. His role was clear: he was first among the Flameborn. Keltie Clarke was not one of them.

Distraction was a mistake. The dragon snapped, saber-sharp teeth slicing the air just inches from Larkan’s face. Larkan grabbed one of its pointed ears—not hard enough to hurt, just hard enough to show he meant business. “Calm down.”

The dragon let out a whine—or as close to a whine as a lizard the size of a bear could manage. A puff of steam curled from the flaring nostrils, but Larkan held fast. “That’s enough!”

The creature made a grumbling noise. Shimmers of greenish light played over the dragon’s hide as it began to shrink, the wings folding into its back, the lashing tail disappearing in a wisp of sparkling mist. Larkan caught a sharp, cool scent like snow on herbs, and then suddenly the light was gone. Where the great lizard had been, a boy of about seven squirmed in Larkan’s grip. He was gangly and dirty, and completely without clothes.

“Mickel,” Larkan growled. There were few things under the mountain as troublesome as an adventurous juvenile. He released the boy, who scampered a few steps away and then turned to glare at Larkan. The next moment, Mickel seemed to think better of that plan and scowled at his bare feet instead.

“Does your master know you are here?” Larkan asked, already sure that the answer was no. Dragons did not leave the mountain—not since ancient times, when the Old Ones had returned to the Summerland through the rift. At the same time, the priests and lawgivers had ordered those who remained behind to go beneath the earth, and for centuries none had seen the skies. Now an exception was made for only the strongest of the warriors. Someone needed to guard the mountain, and for the time being that someone was Larkan.

Mickel looked up, and in his face Larkan now recognized a mix of hero worship and defiance. “I wanted to see the outside. I want to fly like you.”

The words made something twist in Larkan’s chest. What would it be like to have a son of my own? He softened his voice, mixing a little kindness into its habitual steel. “The first rule as a warrior is to obey orders. You were told to report for chores.”

Mickel’s face fell. He scuffed the floor with one grubby foot. “Can’t I just look outside the cave?”

Larkan felt a stab of sympathy as he put a hand on the youngling’s shoulder. The outside was glorious, with crystal-blue skies and thrusting mountains, but there were complications even Larkan barely understood. He thought again of the woman, with her large, dark eyes and the heat she had brought to his aching skin. No human had ever drawn him in that way, and he prayed none would again. “I promise I will take you out when you are a little older. You have to fly fast and strong out there.”

Mickel stopped squirming and looked up from under his brows. “You will? Really?”

“I promise, and I wouldn’t promise unless I meant it.”

The boy thumped into Larkan’s legs, giving him an awkward boy’s hug before leaping away in one elated bound. “We will fly and fly and fly!”

Mickel’s glee caught at his heart, but Larkan took a mental step away. According to ancient law, dragons belonged to the earth.

“Fly, fly!” Mickel crowed, sticking out his arms and zooming around in a circle.

“But not today, boy. Not yet,” Larkan said gently. “Now get moving. Back to your chores. And don’t leave the den without permission. There was a human in the cave.”

“Was I scary?” Mickel asked with gruesome satisfaction. “I should have roared.”

“Go.” Larkan gave Mickel a light push toward home.

With a heavy sigh, Mickel trudged forward. The cave with the paintings narrowed, feeding into a passageway set deep into the stone. Larkan strode to the end of the passage and pushed against the blank wall, speaking a word in his own tongue. There was a slight grating sound, and the wall slid away on a perfectly balanced mechanism. Beyond it was a stairway hewn into the stone.

A moment later, the wall slid closed behind them, leaving no trace that anyone had been there.

* * *

Keltie pounded back into the caves, hoisting the branch in one hand and the light in the other.

But it was empty—no monster, no Larkan. She stopped, winded, her lungs heaving for air as she looked around. A breeze skittered dry leaves along the stones behind her, a dead, hollow scrape that echoed weirdly along the walls. “Hello?” she called out softly. Her voice came back to her, sounding lonely.

Cautiously, she took one step and then another, shining the light into every corner and behind each of the huge boulders, dreading that she would find Larkan sprawled and mangled, or that she would find blood. Nothing. There was a layer of dirt and stray pine needles on the cave floor, but it wasn’t enough to show clear footprints.

Keltie found another passage angling away from the back of the cave. It was only a dozen yards long and dead-ended in a lump of stone. This was where the Thing had to have come from, but how? And where had it gone? Cold fear squeezed Keltie’s ribs, but her mind grew sharp and clear. She was a scientist. She would find answers. There had to be a hidden passage somewhere.

Swearing softly, she retreated through the string of caves, tossing aside the branch she had been carrying. She would have to return to the camp and get help. No one would believe a crazy tale of strange men and monsters, but the paintings would make up for it. Switzer would sneer, but then again, he always did.

Keltie paused, just for a single heartbeat, before the artwork. She was about to surrender it to the world, and she only had that instant to keep it all to herself. A wave of awe rushed through her, almost like the choking pain that came with tears, but she swallowed it and turned to leave. There were more urgent things than even her beautiful discovery.

And she walked straight into Larkan. Leaping back with a gasp, she bumped into one of the boulders strewn across the floor. She stumbled, dropping the flashlight. The sudden darkness made her cry out. He grabbed her upper arms to steady her. “Be careful.”

“You’re a fine one to talk.” The words came out snappishly, but her heart was pounding with fright. She’d let herself forget her surroundings, allowing him to sneak up on her. He might have been the monster, jaws gaping to eat her alive.

“You are displeased,” Larkan said, sounding amused.

“I thought you were dead. Dragged away to be eaten by that monster.”

Her eyes were adjusting to the dim light of the cave. He smiled, but his amusement was fading into something more quizzical. “Monster? I’m clearly not dead, and yet you are still upset.”

“You scared me, and now I feel like an idiot.”

“How am I responsible for that?”

Keltie started to pull away but stopped, deciding she liked the feel of his hands. Now that the emergency was over, she felt strangely limp, not to mention annoyed. “I followed you because I thought you were in trouble and might need help.”

Shock widened his eyes. “You came back to save me?” He sounded incredulous.

“You have a problem with that?”

“No. But I am sorry to have alarmed you. It seems our peril was just a large bat after all.”

“A bat?” Keltie couldn’t keep the disbelief from her voice. “Are you sure about that, cowboy?”

He did a bad job of looking innocent. “What else would it be?”