Seducing the Dragon

She turned from the bar and stormed into the back room to retrieve her thick woolen shawl. Though spring encroached, Father Winter hadn’t given up His grip on the land, and the wind whistled down from the mountains east of the village with a vengeance. She wrapped her shawl tightly around her head and shoulders and stepped out into the windy night.

Her skirts billowed in the wind trying to snatch her shawl from her grasp, but she held tight and let it push her toward her favorite place outside the village. A little knob of a hill overlooking the loch held wind-sculpted trees barely taller than her own five-feet-eight inches of height. They stood resolutely against the raging northern winds funneled down through the valley containing Cameron’s Loch. She loved the little copse of trees for their protection from both the winds and the prying eyes of the village.

Her gaze settled on the loch, and she shivered in the damp air. The loch’s surface roiled from the wind as moonlight frosted the waves in the breaks between the scuttling clouds overhead. She wished the wind could blow all her worries away, but she couldn’t shake the feeling her time in the village was limited.

Would it be such a bad thing?

Her mother’s voice echoed in her head, and Isabelle paused. If it came to being sacrificed to the dragon, then yes, it was bad. But what if another solution became available? The only requirement needed for the Virgin Sacrifice was virginity. If she didn’t want to die at the hands of the village elders, she need only lose her innocence.

Of course, that presented a whole new set of problems. Instead of just being a strange and intractable virgin daughter of the tavern keeper, she’d be a strange, intractable hussy.

Isabelle snorted. From one curse to the next, with no middle ground. Either I’m dragon bait, or I’m a whore.

But the idea bounced around her head as the trees creaked and groaned in protest of the winds. Isabelle barely felt the shifting air as her eyes unfocused with her churning thoughts. Her father wouldn’t be pleased, but she’d never been in his good graces, even when a child. He’d often accused her of being another man’s bastard, particularly when she grew to stand at least a hand taller than either of her sisters.

She’d been considered a late bloomer at twenty-four years of age, damn near ancient, but Isabelle now filled out her blouse, corset bodice, and skirts well enough to entice any man.

 Unfortunately, the village men viewed her as cursed because she’d taken so long to mature. The women whispered rumors of Fae ancestry, begotten by one of the ancient elves, a race of ageless people who matured late and kept their youth until one single year before death. And Joseph Andersen only encouraged such thinking.

Tears squeezed out of her eyes, and she tightened her shawl again, wishing she could shove aside the insults as easily as dirt with a broom. She didn’t know why she’d been born so different, but she still wanted love and marriage like the other lasses in Lochmore Cott.

But Isabelle’s brash and forthright personality unsettled men, young and old, for miles around. No one had come forward to ask for her hand, despite the dowry of inheriting the tavern. She’d remained a virgin and dutiful daughter, but she’d overheard the men talking about her when they thought her absent. Most of them called her pleasing to the eyes, but only so long as she kept her mouth shut. One word, and out came what they called the Yowling Cat, with her strange ideas of things. Isabelle tried to hold her tongue as much as possible, but she didn’t tolerate insults about her mother, and she’d bloody well let anyone know it.

So I’m not like my sisters, but that doesn’t mean I cannot find a man to bed me. But who?

It’d have to be someone who didn’t know her, who wasn’t from the village or any of the hamlets near it. Someone who hadn’t heard the rumors about her or her mother. Working at her father’s tavern might help her. All those who came to Lochmore Cott stopped at the Careless Wench for a meal and drink. If there were any new travelers in town, she’d see them at the tavern.

Am I really making the right decision? Cold dread hit her as the wind sent frozen tendrils down her back. Is there no man who will ask for my hand?

Her father’s desperation to find her a husband grew stronger by the day, and no one had stepped forward to offer for her. Many men in the village saw her as a nuisance and troublemaker, and they didn’t want her near their womenfolk in case she’d infect them with whatever “ailed” her.

Why couldn’t I be more like prim and proper Mary, or sweet little Sarah?

Mary had married into another clan, and Sarah’s bans had been posted for Thomas MacArthur in Westerdale. Both had escaped the stupid tradition of the Virgin Sacrifice of Lochmore Cott.

Which leaves only me.

Isabelle had no intention of dying for the village, especially now with her mother gone. She may not have agreed to how women should behave, but she certainly didn’t want to die for her opinion. Sometimes she hated her village, but it was home and what she knew best. Her sister remained at the tavern while she waited for Thomas to gather his bride price, and Isabelle loved her. Sarah was the only one in the family besides their mother who’d accepted Isabelle for herself.

So, if I don’t wish to die in the Virgin Sacrifice, I shall have to lose my virginity.

Isabelle looked out onto the loch and sent a prayer out to her mother in the wind.

“Forgive me, Mama. I know you wanted me to be a good girl, but I just can’t let myself die for a village that scorns me. I would rather be a ruined woman alive than a good virgin girl dead.”

The wind softened for a few moments, and moonlight broke through the scudding clouds, as if her mother had heard her prayer and offered her own blessings. Isabelle squared her shoulders and nodded sharply. Now she just had to find a stranger to whom to offer her virginity. She’d choose the most handsome stranger she could. Why bother with an ugly, dirty fool when she had the freedom to choose? On the morrow, she’d begin her search for the perfect man.

With her decision made, she turned and strode purposefully back to the village.