To Wed an Obsidian Villain: A Fated Mates, Enemies-to-Lovers Romantasy

Chapter 1

Lenora Tashe had never before regretted not having tumbled in the sheets, half-drunk after a harvest celebration with some farmer’s son.

Not until it meant that the village decided her intact maidenhood made her a perfect sacrifice for the dragon tyrant.

“Come on, Nora, don’t be mad at them,” one of said farmer’s sons whined from the horse trotting beside her. “You know they didn’t have a choice.”

Nora kept her gaze straight ahead. Her hands were bound to stop her from fleeing. It was obvious she was the victim of this arrangement, and she was under no obligation to absolve Garth of his guilt.

“Do you really want to go there mad?” he continued, his nasal voice grating on her.

“‘Go there’?” Nora repeated before she could stop herself, her temper fraying. “By there, perchance you mean into the maw of that great beast?”

“Someone had to,” Garth protested. No doubt the boy was unused to people being angry with him. He passed for good looking in their village, with long blonde curls and blue eyes that twinkled when he tried to flirt, skin that was tan from honest labor, but not so tan that you couldn’t see the blush on his cheeks. He did, however, possess the last attractive quality a man could have in Nora’s view: he had no problem selling her off to a dragon.

“Someone? It could’ve been some sheep the way it had been the past fifty years!”

Every year the dragon demanded his due: clothing, livestock, precious jewels, piles of gold. The village of Mossley had nothing more to offer than a paltry amount of animals each year, but even that offering was almost prohibitively expensive. A dragon might devour a dozen animals in one sitting, if the rumors were true. But that same livestock kept the village alive through hard seasons.

The life of one girl? Well, it was worth less than the half-dozen sheep she took the place of.

“You know what Bess said. It had to be someone pure, someone to appease the beast. You’re our best hope, Nora. You should be proud to serve the village this way.”

If she heard the word pure again, she might very well use her bound hands to lean over and strangle the man escorting her. She had considered it more than once on their journey.

But the truth of the matter was, even if she left, she had nowhere to go. She had lived in Mossley her whole life, and they had voted to send her off based on the ramblings of a madwoman.

Her own stepmother had been the first to put her up, boasting Nora’s untouched maidenhood. Who knew having more of an interest in books than village boys would be a death sentence?

Because that is what it was. No matter what Crazy Bess had claimed, the dragon would eat her. Beasts did not wed, not as humans did.

He seeks a maiden, pure and blessed. No simple mutton will satisfy his carnal needs. If we give him this, a bride, we will finally be spared this tragedy. I have seen it!The old woman had raved for weeks leading up to the tithe.

Never mind the strange words she’d said in parting, whispered only to Nora.

“Of course, this is the time everyone decides to listen to her,” she muttered under her breath.

“Hmm?” Garth had been distracted as he turned his attention to the map. Because the boy needed a map to make the half day’s journey to the meeting spot.

Nora was silent the rest of the ride.

They reached the meeting point and were among the last to arrive.

Woe be to any who attempted to skip out. The sun would be blocked out by a span of wings, and whatever unlucky villagers would find themselves without homes when the dragon was through.

And any who dared be miserly with their offering?

The dirt was littered with scorch marks as evidence of past years’ dissatisfaction.

Mossley was one of the smaller villages in the area. Other towns offered as they usually did—sheep, cattle, any manner of livestock would do, though word was the dragon was not overly fond of poultry. But this was the meeting spot for everyone who was tithing, including the highest powers in the land. On the other side could be none other than His Majesty’s representative. Nora tried to make out what they had brought this year.

An ornately carved golden chaise with jewels embedded on the edges. Any one of those jewels could buy her entire village.

She supposed she should be flattered.

A figure emerged from behind the metal couch. He was dressed more finely than any of the others and rode his horse with an air of presumption that was foreign to everyone in her village except perhaps her stepmother when she had a choice bit of gossip. It was the stance of someone with a measure of power.

“People of Wyrdova! We thank you for your sacrifices this year. The great obsidian beast will arrive shortly. Do not fear, for the demon will delight in it! Know you are safe, so long as your offering is suitably impressive.” The Prince of Wyrdova not-so-subtly indicated the heap of precious metal next to him.

His eyes snagged on Nora. There was nothing remarkable about Nora’s flaxen hair or the simple smock she wore. Nothing that should warrant a prince’s interest.

He trotted over to Garth and Nora all the same. “Tell me, villagers, where do you hail from and what bounty do you offer? Tell me you did not forget.” This was directed to Garth more than Nora. For one, she was a woman, and not an authority on anything so complex as where she hailed from, in the eyes of the prince. And secondly, her hands were bound, marking her as the tithe rather than another representative.

“Uh, Your Highness.” Garth dipped his head in acknowledgment, then bobbed again, as if doing an impression of a clucking hen. “We are from Mossley. And, well, our seer suggested our suffering may end if we offer up a maiden, pure and chaste.”

It took a valiant effort to not roll her eyes. Though it hardly mattered, since she would likely be dead by sunset.

Instead, she helpfully lifted her bound wrists to show it was hardly voluntary madness.

The prince opened his mouth to protest, but his words were drowned out by the thunderous sound of ocean waves.

No. Nora would have smacked herself if her hands were free. It was not the ocean that roared around them. The rush of wind that blew through the field was as powerful as any spring storm. Her hair was tucked in plaits across her crown, the only thing that stopped it from whipping around her the way the prince’s golden locks now did.

It had been bright, not a cloud in the sky, with still a smattering of hours until sundown, yet the sun was suddenly blotted out by a massive figure.

The effect was terrifying.

The dragon slammed down to the ground in the center, fifty horse-lengths away.

It was an effort not to quake atop her own, which whinnied in fear.

She’d grown up with tales of the obsidian dragon who extorted Wyrdova. It was the horror story told to keep little children in line; it was the terror told over a few pints of ales in an increasingly dramatic fashion.

But none compared to the sight before her.

Wings as wide as several houses spread as the beast landed, first rearing on its hind legs before stomping forward. They reflected the light with blistering intensity. Gazing at the beast was painful until it folded its massive wingspan against itself. But the retraction made the beast no less terrifying; instead, it highlighted the rest of its features. Black scales rippled across its skin, with long fangs fitting over its maw as it faced them.

Nora’s heart nearly stopped as it fixed its gray, reptilian eyes on her.

It’s just examining its haul, she assured herself.

On silent cue, people began to present their offerings to the dragon. The prince had moved back, grandly presenting the golden chaise—from a safe distance, twenty paces behind the servants, His Highness had ordered it carried forward.

The pile in front of the dragon grew and grew: a crowd of livestock, more gold bars from the wealthier territories, books that Nora would never have been able to find in her small village, textiles even the mayor would not have been able to afford in a lifetime.

And then Nora was pushed forward on the pile.

Just Nora. Garth aided—forced—her to dismount from her steed. The village was not willing to lose a horse in this exchange.

Where all the rest had been able to keep a distance from the dragon, Nora was now a mere dozen steps away from it, amidst a mass of sheep and cows.

One eye seemed to follow her to her position.

Be brave, Nora. For once in your life, be brave. She would not cower as she faced her death.

Even when its maw suddenly snapped forward, devouring in one solid bite several animals that had been next to her, she forced herself to stand, locking her knees in determination.

But when it suddenly rose and grabbed Nora with a three-pointed claw, she screamed. Her heart pounded in her throat, choking her as it became impossible to breathe.

The dragon was airborne with a flap of its wings. Higher and higher they went. Garth and the horses grew smaller until they were specks, and then they were nothing as the dragon flew away from the villages and towards the mountain range.

Her screaming stopped as she gasped for breath and looked below her. It was the most terrifying, exhilarating thing Nora had ever done.

The sun began to set, and if not for the fact she was near being sick, she would’ve marveled at the colors at this close distance.

But the sunset was not long as the mountains drew closer and closer. Even in her distant village, she knew this was where the dragons made their nests. Kept their troves.

The dragon flew into a cave that seemingly appeared from nowhere. Nora was unceremoniously dropped onto the cave floor, along with whatever the dragon had pulled from the tithe. Books; textiles; the garish chaise. It had not been able to take everything, but the dragon was known to return at its leisure for the offerings. Save on one day each year, all knew to steer clear of the field where the taxes were left.

One did not steal from a dragon.

It landed, its tail swaying about as it rounded back to face Nora and inspect its haul.

Nora barely breathed. Only stared.

And stared.

And stared.

The dragon regarded her with a blink and then began to flip through the piles with one massive claw as if the beast could read and consider.

Finally, she could take it no longer.

“Well?” she demanded. “Are you going to eat me?”

The dragon huffed out some smoke, what might have been amusement, and settled down on the ground, resting its massive head on crossed forelegs. Massive, scaled eyelids settled shut over those unnervingly intelligent reptilian eyes as if the beast now desired a nap.

It was an odd thing, to be so ready to die and then to be dismissed. It wasn’t relief that flooded Nora.

It was rage.

Rage that this creature had tormented her people for years. That it bled them dry of their meager wealth. That it had cost Nora her own home. Made the people she’d known her entire life willing to cast her out on a mad woman’s words.

A mad woman who had whispered more to Nora on the way out. Words she’d discarded because she’d expected her death to be swift.

Death would come. Nora didn’t doubt that. But it need not be hers.

When you wed the beast, you may save us all, girl, Crazy Bess had said. A dragon never lowers its guard save when it retreats to its trove and sheds its scales. Only pieces of its own self can pierce the beast’s heart. You must get close when it least expects it, and when you defeat the beast, we will all be safe.

So that was what Nora would do.

She would kill the dragon.