The Dragon's Assassin Wife

The first thing Laura notices about her new husband is how easy it would be to poison his wine, given how he doesn't even have a poison tester with him. A widow on her wedding night. How tragic. It must have been all the wine he had been drinking. Seeing as she doesn't have poison readily available under her wedding garments, she has not choice but to improvise. Can dragon shifters get alcohol poisoning? One way to find out. She moves to refill his wine glass.

He squeezes his hand that was curled around her waist and she forgets all of the murderous thoughts that had been flitting through her mind.

The actual first thing Laura notices about her new husband was how he was not at all like the dummies she had practiced killing. He was taller and broader and his eyes are very gold. She looks at her as if she is the single most beautiful thing he had ever set his gaze upon and there is a tenderness in his gaze that she isn't at all trained to handle.

She had been told countless stories of the king of dragons, that he was violent and war-hungry, only out for blood and glory, that he left nothing but ash and devastation in his wake. She had been told that she needed to be strong, that she needed to kill him for the good of the many.

She had been expecting a violent man, to be manhandled and treated roughly.

She had not expected…

This.

~~~~~ PG Excerpt ~~~~~

Once they made it through the gates, she had thrown a teasing smile in his direction and took off with the expectation that he would be on her tail.

It did not take long for him to react the way she had anticipated, though she had miscalculated how quickly it would take him to capture her. Around them, the guards bowed as they ran past, the backs of their necks exposed to the king and queen who were behaving like teenagers.

She should have also considered the location where she should be doing this. Somewhere softer would have been much preferable, especially when he lunged and tackled her to the floor. Right before her head could make contact with hard tile, he pulled them around. They rolled until he was on the bottom, her straddling his chest.

Then, just as quickly, he flipped them back around.

She made a noise of complaint when her back met the cold tile. "Your majesty!" she cried out, her tone appropriately scandalized. She pushed against his chest and tried to buck him off. She liked to believe that she was close to succeeding until he seized her wrists and pinned them on the floor with one hand over her head. His other hand stilled her hips with a grip hard enough to hurt.

The two of them stayed there, breaths heavy and chest heaving. She in particularly, was not pleased about what just happened. “Your majesty,” she scolded. “Your family rules forbid running in the castle grounds. How are you so fast? You must have cheated.”

He looked annoyed. Strands of hair fell in wisps around his face. “You shouldn't run from me,” he rasped.

“You'll catch me, won't you. My big strong husband,” she teased. “Look at you, pinning your poor little wife to the ground in a public area. For shame.” Honestly, all the time they had spent making love had turned her into a shameless sex fiend. She was goading him, trying to get a reaction out of him. She really shouldn't. He had been so patient and so kind towards her, his patience seemingly endless when it concerned her. She wanted to see if she could make him annoyed with her.

He leaned down until they were almost nose-to-nose. Rage gave his scent edges, the embers on his skin sharper enough to slice. “I should punish you,” he said.

“Ah,” she nodded sagely. “I can see why I would deserve that,” she continued. “I shouldn't run on castle grounds and I should definitely not be running from my own husband, isn't that— ah, wait!”