Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 61872 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 309(@200wpm)___ 247(@250wpm)___ 206(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 61872 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 309(@200wpm)___ 247(@250wpm)___ 206(@300wpm)
The wind whips my hair, tugging at the billowing folds of the harem pants. I walk along the castle wall, my hand skimming the merlons, sticking like jagged teeth from the outer wall. Just beyond the battlement is blue sky. In places, the lip of the outer wall has worn away, and there’s nothing between me and a sheer drop down several stories to a cliff face. But I feel pretty confident in the wideness of the ledge. Beyond the castle walls, the rampart is a steep, sloping path to the ground. I walk like a gymnast on a balance beam. There are some patches that are icy but my feet and steps are sure.
The path leads straight down into the mouth of a cave. Smoke drifts from the dark maw of the cave in silver plumes. Like Aladdin’s cave of wonders.
The dragon is waiting there. Its red and gold scales shimmer in the light. At times the scales reflect only the blue sky or stone, a camouflage that makes parts of him go invisible.
Thank you, I tell the dragon. I turn and hike back up the way I came until I reach the open window and climb through into the castle. To my right is a suit of armor. Underneath the open window is a bench. I drop onto it.
When I open my eyes, I’m back in my bedroom–the room I was in the first time I woke up in a castle. I’m in the bed alone. Gabriel didn't spend the night with me, but my body is sore from the pleasure he gave me.
I stretch my arms over the covers. Gold cuffs glint on my wrists. Gabriel kept me cuffed just like the dragon in my dream. My dream...
I gasp. It’s so obvious. How did I not understand it last night?
Gabriel is not a wolf shifter, which I had assumed last night when he told me about Rafe and Deke and Lance.
Gabriel is the dragon!
There are dragons all over this place–how did I not put it together? I think about his strange eyes–the way the pupils change to vertical slits. I’d thought it was a trick of the light, but now I understand what I saw.
My mind races back to our first meeting all those years ago. The water had been steaming hot, yet there were no known hot springs in the area. And then the wind storm… Could it have been kicked up by his wings?
My dream is still with me, complete as a recent memory. It wasn’t just a dream. It was a vision. I haven’t had one in a long time.
I used to have visions regularly when I was a kid. I’d blurt out what I was seeing without thinking. Until the day I asked my mom’s best friend why her husband liked to hug so many women without his clothes on.
She started crying. “I knew he was cheating on me!”
My mom was upset. After her friend left, I had to listen for hours to how uncomfortable I make people, how rude it is to look into their lives and minds without their permission. I was grounded all weekend and missed my friend’s birthday party.
That's when I learned to keep my mouth shut about my visions. I couldn’t stop them from coming, but I ignored them. Eventually, I stopped having them so often.
Seeing people’s auras, being sensitive to their energy is exhausting. That's why I don't hold down jobs for long. No matter how excited I am by a work environment when I start, the energy of everyone rubbing against each other tends to suffocate me. The petty squabbles, the turf wars, the annoyances, the resentments build up until they overwhelm me.
That's why I need to get away from even my closest friends on a regular basis. I need to be alone in wide-open spaces, so I can let my energy expand. I usually keep it tucked in tight.
This space is different. There’s a relaxing emptiness to the castle. My energy fills the long, echoing halls. The knot in my chest releases, like I’m able to exhale after years of holding my breath.
Then it hits me. I’m the maiden from the stories. The one the dragon snatches and carries back to his lair. The one the knights try to save with their pitiful swords that are no match for the mighty fire-breathing dragon.
Gabriel brought me here, and he has no intention of letting me leave.
He thinks I’m his mate.
While he doesn’t strike me as insane, I’m also certain he’s operating from a different set of rules than the ones I live by. You know, like giving a woman her own free will. Not flying her across the sea to a castle in Transylvania as a method of courtship.
Then again, there are other methods of his style of courtship I didn’t mind so much last night…