Negotiation — Jeffe Kennedy

A short story prequel to the award-winning Twelve Kingdoms fantasy series, where a shapeshifting sorceress uses magic to beguile a warrior to save her kingdom.

A wounded warrior trapped by the sorceress who knows him better than he does himself…

General Uorsin escapes the last devastating battle, only to find himself alone on a mountain, feverish and no closer to finding the paradise that drives him on. Salena, greatest shapeshifter and magic-worker of her people, springs the trap she's set to protect her land -- and to prevent the ravager Uorsin from ever reaching it.

Together, they spend a night setting the terms that will determine not only the rest of their lives, but the fates of the peoples of the Twelve Kingdoms -- and the thirteenth.