Guardian's Beloved Mate (Song of the Sídhí Series #4) by Jodie B. Cooper

Lizzie
    The whip cracked, breaking the silence in the small cell. The ten-foot rock enclosure smelled of human excrement and blood, both old and new. The blood slickened tips hit Lizzie, slashing down the back of her legs, biting into her tender flesh.
    The harsh strike of the whip jerked a hoarse cry of pain from her abused body.
    She shuddered, knowing the torture session wouldn’t last much longer. Her jailors maintained a predicable schedule. They started on her shoulders, until her once golden skin was nothing more than a slab of ground meat. Moving downward, they’d take the same diligent care with her lower back, butt, and finally her legs. By the time they reached the tender skin on the back of her thighs, her shrill screams always turned guttural and rasping.
    At that point, her screams were no longer entertaining.
    Her weekly torture sessions rarely changed, not for nearly twenty years. In the beginning, they had abused her in other ways, but whipping was their current choice of torment, and had been for fifteen years. She would take a whipping any day of the week over the other unmentionable things they had done to her body.
    Her soft gray eyes glinted with steely determination, swearing that one day she would be free. And when she gained her freedom, she would shift into her lethal dragon form and rain deadly dragonfire on every living creature that had touched her, whether by hand or whip. Lord PhñDick of the Dhark Empire and the traitorous guardian who delivered her to PhñDick would be the first casualties.
    The whip hit her again. She felt herself go past pain as her body merged with unceasing agony.
    She closed her mind to her surroundings, searching for an escape, a place away from the agony. She dredged up a memory, a memory so precious it had not dimmed in all the years of her captivity.
    She was warm, safe from harm. Curled on her side, her beloved partner for over a thousand years wrapped his muscled frame around her smaller one. His arms tightened around her, cuddling her as if she was the most exquisite piece of treasure. Cinnamon scented breath brushed her cheek as he feathered kisses across her face.
    “Lizzie, my love, you hold my heart. Not even if my synth crystal sings for another will I cease loving you. I am yours until my dying breath.” His words, said on her last day of freedom, kept her sane, gave her hope when despair threatened to overwhelm her.
    The nightly dreams began shortly after her capture - dreams of him curled around her and protecting her - they gave her a reason to survive when all she wanted to do was shrivel up and die.
     

Bait
    Guardian Alexander of the DeLeigh Dragon Clan drifted on a warm current. Hard won territory spread beneath him, bursting with the scents of growing things. Spring was finally giving way to summer, and the mountain range, passing below him, bloomed with the greens and blues of mixed Sídhí-Earth vegetation.
    Another season come and gone, but he still hadn’t found his Lizzie. His heart cringed at the thought. His mind brimmed with memories of a laughing young woman, flying at his side. Whether Lizzie was in dragon form or human she had been the light of his life, his very reason for breathing. Her disappearance had left him shattered, empty of all emotion.
    Angling his wings to the north, he glided toward his sprawling home. An occasional guard paced around the upper battlement. The weatherworn stone of the medieval castle absorbed the rays of the noon sun as efficiently as his midnight colored scales.
    The small village, near the base of his castle, bustled with energy. In recent years, it had doubled in size, both increasing his net worth and tripling his headaches. He no longer found pleasure in the daily task of running such a profitable estate. Without Lizzie to share his achievements with, the chore of increasing his hoard of jewels and treasure no longer mattered, and for a dragon, that was nearly sacrilege.
    His calm outer appearance