Loched in Love (Monster Bae #4)

Prologue

LACHLAN MACBETH

Three hundred years ago…

Be small. Be small, like a wee sea dragon. I squeeze my gaze shut until pain radiates through my skull and tiny black dots bleed into my vision, while trying with all my considerable power to stay small as the witch queen attempts to turn my monstrous form back to humanoid.

“Stop waving your tail around and just stand still!” Odette shouts, the sharpness in her tone telling me she’s reached the end of her already short patience.

I become immobile just outside the entrance doors to castle Tepesh, but the sounds of my clothes tearing continue even as I clench my hands together so tightly my claws stab into my palms. I never should’ve touched that blasted water hag.

“I’m not moving,” I tell her honest, as I imagine my form shrinking as it usually does when I wrangle my power into obeying me, my body evolving to that of a man and—

“Dammit Lachlan, just tell me who did this, so I know what magic I’m dealing with!” she says, her tone harsh and full of disgust.

My ears flatten to my head as I wince, praying to the auld gods she doesnae do something drastic like turn me into a newt for daring to not answer her.

The witch queen has never been known for her restraint nor her patience, which I’m surely trying since she’s been attempting to stop my magical shapeshifting for the past hour. “Is it not working?”

“He’s still growing,” Connor, the Lycan remarks, his voice sounding oddly far away.

I frown, knowing he wouldn’t lie, but I’ve no idea how to stop whatever the Lady of the Lake did to me.

Sweat spreads across my forehead as I strain with all my might, wishing with everything I can to turn back.

My scaly skin is already beginning to dry out, and annoyance licks down my spine through the end of my tail.

The outdoors quickly becomes uncomfortable as my monstrous form dislikes being above water, and the Romanian air is far too warm this time of year.

“I’d really love to know who’s magic this is,” Odette snaps, her voice like the crack of a whip.

My stomach flips with distress as I try and fail to hold steady and await her magical repair of my body. The witch queen is known far and wide as the most powerful witch in the world. If she can’t fix this, no one can.

“Bloody hell, he’s almost as big as the castle,” Vlad mutters, interrupting my disillusion that my efforts are being rewarded.

I’m as big as what?

I peek open my gaze and the ever-increasing pit in my gut grows when I get a look at the size of myself. Fuck, I’m right in for it now. I glance down at the faces I’ve known for years.

Vlad stands several feet away on the stone bridge outside his castle abode alongside his new compatriot, Connor O’Doyle, while Odette floats in the air above me.

The witch’s slender arms are covered in expensive lace, her big dress making her look like a wraith with her hands outstretched and aimed at me, while a pissed off expression plays across her bonnie face.

“It’s not going to work is it?” I say, giving up on shrinking myself when I’m almost to my maximum size as it is. The Lady of the Lake has cursed me truly, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

“You’ve gotten yourself into a right bloody mess this time,” Vlad offers, shoving his pale hands into the pockets of his brown trousers as he glares up at me.

I don’t know what he’s so pissy about, it’s not as if he’s the one out of doors with his bits flapping in the wind. I gaze down at myself, at my long serpentine torso covered in blueish green scales close to the color of the nearby castle moat, and sigh.

“Who did this to you, Lachlan?” Odette asks for the fifth time since I arrived at the castle, the white paint on her face and big dress making her look like a ghost dancing in the sky.

I purse my lips to keep from telling her she looks bloody ridiculous in her frilly lace dress, and that her hair looks like a bloody beehive.

The French and their silly fripperies and fashion make me glad Scotland is so far away.

Not for the first time this day do I wish I’d never left my loch.

“I cannae tell ye, ye ken,” I answer, ashamed of the blunders I’ve made.

She gasps, and I follow her wide gaze to where she stares at my chest and notice the bright shimmery glop of magic that’s slowly spreading and coasting along the rest of me.

“Fucking hells Lachlan, tell me you didn’t bed my cousin,” Odette snaps.

“I didnae mean to,” I say, my voice wavering on the end as my face fully forms to snout, my voice deepening to that of a monster. I shudder unexpectedly when my tail dips into the moat accidentally, the cool water soothing some of my panic.

“You have a cousin?” Vlad questions Odette, as if the tidbit is news to him.

“Vivian, The Lady of the Lake, the mother of sirens,” Odette sneers.

I wince again when Vlad whistles, while O’Doyle questions who the sea witch is, and realize he’s probably too young to remember the tales or know of the old gods.

“Ugh, just don’t touch any water until I figure out what spell she used,” Odette says, muttering under breath about how much of a moron she thinks me to be.

My gaze widens, and I blink up at her still hovering in the air. “Umm why?” I ask her, slowly removing my tail from the water behind me, hoping she doesn’t notice my error.

“Because you’d likely be cursed to the next body of water you touch. It’s what she does,” the witch queen states, like it’s common knowledge.

Embarrassment slams into me like a tidal wave, and I don’t need a mirror to know the green of my ear fins are turning red.

“Bleeding hell,” I curse, just as sharp pain registers at my rear end. I glance back, horror washing over me as I realize my tail is being pulled in the opposite direction —down into the murky water.

“Dammit Lachlan, tell me you didn’t just curse yourself to the moat,” Odette snaps, as if it’s her that’s been cursed.

“I forbid it! You can’t stay here,” Vlad intones, rage in his words.

“He doesn’t have a choice,” Odette states, floating away from me with a curious expression on her painted face.

“Well, it’s not as if I’d pick this dung heap as my home,” I announce, frowning at the vampire. I’d much rather be locked down to my own loch if given the choice, but with the way the lake enchantress’s magic continues to pull me, it’s apparent I have none.

My body forcibly submerges itself, pulled until my long snaking tail is in the waters and my hind legs follow. Whether I like it or not. The cool water is as comforting as it is horrifying while I uselessly battle sinking beneath the gloomy depths.

“What words did she use when she cast this magic?” the witch queen asks, hands on her hips.

“How the hell should I ken? I was in the middle of trying to escape her when I felt it strike me,” I tell her with a shrug of my shoulders.

There was far more to it than that, but I’ve no intention of explaining how the woman started yelling like a banshee once I told her she wasn’t my mate and how I narrowly escaped with my immortal life.

Odette starts cursing and I ignore her, allowing myself to be tugged down until the Lady of the Lake’s magic takes hold and, I assume, locks me magically to the moat.

The cool water soothes my dried scales, and I let out a sigh of relief.

I fully relax in the pool, and glance around realizing I’ve plenty of room to swim.

And at least I won’t have to be fully submerged all the time if I’m stuck here, or so I tell myself.

I turn and flinch, Odette inches from my face, a scowl full of fury, her gaze swirling with magic. “Dammit woman, ye given me a fright,” I scold, backing away from her annoyed and baleful stare.

“If she used her most powerful magic, how did you escape?” she asks, her normal gray eyes a multitude of colors.

My brows scrunch at the question, my middle seizing at the reminder of what I’ve lost and an echoing pain in my sternum follows. My poor trident.

I conjure a bubble of water, encasing my broken trident inside of it and pull it slowly above the moat’s surface to show her, hoping she can fix it easier than she can turn my form back.

The large golden spear is missing one prong, its metal broken and twisted where it was whole just this morning. It’s no matter to me which of my forms I reside inside. I’m comfortable with myself. But without my trident I can’t return home. “Can ye fix it?” I ask gingerly.

She purses her lips, and her hands move in front of her as she magically grabs the floating water orb holding the broken trident.

I wring my clawed dragon hands in front of me as she twirls the water bubble every which way, a hard squint on her pixie-like face.

But ultimately, she shakes her head. “No, you need Vivian’s magic to fix your trident, but I can at least twist her magic and should be able to stop the moat’s curse from being permanent. ”

“Do it.”

Anything.

There has to be something that can keep me from being stuck here for eternity.

As a sea dragon with more than a millennium behind me, eternity is a long time.

I prepare myself to be touched by her spell, an icy chill spreading across my scaled skin when it does.

The force of it penetrates deeply I can tell, but is ephemeral, the touch light and not altogether abhorrent.

Odette’s magic is almost pleasant in contrast to her cousin’s, and much more powerful than my own.

“Here,” she says, and waves her hands at my trident.

With a flash of multicolored magic, the spear fashions itself into a small bronze key, but even it is broken. Half of the key bit is missing on one side, and it lacks the luster and shine it once had.

“So how the bloody hell do we get him out of my moat?” Vlad queries, peering down from the bridge railing, his lip curled in disgust as Connor stares at my tail curiously.

“A true mate bond will break the spell. It’s the only thing that can be done, and with the strength of whatever curse she barbed you with, I’ve no doubt Vivian thought to keep you in her lake forever,” Odette states, stealing my attention and giving my key back.

I tuck the broken key away to hopefully get it repaired later.

The idea that the enchantress tried to ensnare me doesn’t surprise me. In fact, I’d been trying to work up to telling her I needed to get back to my loch, and when the Lady of the Lake brought up the idea of spawning together, it was all the incentive I needed to leave.

I tried to explain to her that it wouldn’t be right and told her in no certain terms I’d only beget bairns with my true mate, which is what led to her attacking me in the first place.

But a true mate…

A true mate is something every supernatural creature craves. After being alive as long as I have, I’d almost given up on one.

The one being meant for you above all others, and to find such a treasure is a blessing that should be protected and cherished at all costs.

I glance up at the gray brick of the castle and out across the expansive moat that wraps around it like a lover, watching the fading light of the sun dance across its iridescent surface.

Aye, this will be as good a spot as any for my mate to find me, and perhaps a change in scenery won’t be so bad.

“Dinnae get yer knickers in a twist, Vlad. I’m sure my lass will be along any time now, and you’ll be free of me soon enough,” I say, stretching my serpentine form along the deep waterway beneath the vampire’s castle.

“Fine, but she’d better find you sooner rather than later, and if you think I’m inviting humans to try on your moat like some bloody Cinderella story, you’re sorely mistaken,” Vlad announces from the bridge.

“What human would take an invitation from you?” I say, unbothered by the blighter. Vlad is the most pessimistic creature I’ve met in my long years and is put out by almost everything.

“I don’t know why I continue to be pulled into your little magical games, but if all of you could stop needing me for a few months that would be grand,” the witch queen counters in response to our exchange.

She stands several feet from Vlad and Doyle, magic pooling together in her palms, no doubt to leave us to our respective lots.

I notice how she calls it to her as if it’s as easy as child’s play, unlike anyone I’ve seen.

I spent most of the day searching villages near Vivian’s lair before reaching out to my selkie cousins.

But the magic of a seal shifter can’t battle the Lady of the Lake, and so they sent me here to the one witch that could help me.

Luckily, Odette was here soothing one of the werewolf Doyle’s episodes, and not in King Louis of France’s court, when the selkies sent me here.

The heaviness of the day’s deeds and assortment of magics touching me in the last twenty-four hours takes its toll, and the fatigue of it all spreads.

“Always a pleasure, Odette. I’m off te nap.

Wake me up in a few years will ye?” I nod to Connor and close my gaze.

My mate will come soon, I’m sure of it, and a wee bit of shut eye sounds just the thing.