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For as long as Bas Greatdrakes could remember, he had been dreaming of flying. All the dream books and websites would say that flying in dreams represented freedom and new beginnings. And in other people’s dreams, it probably did.
Bas knew that his flying dreams were because his ancestor had fucked a dragon. Now, he had a dragon part of him who longed for the wind rushing over its scales and the sun on its wings.
Unfortunately, he had wanted to dream about libraries growing in woods and strange, beautiful women who threw books at him (like he had on Midsummer’s Eve) and not bloody flying.
It was now the beginning of fall, and while Bas still hadn’t managed to find his way back to the library in the woods, that didn’t mean he had stopped thinking about the stranger he had met there.
You didn’t even ask her what her name was.He had been so surprised by her appearance that he didn’t have the sense to introduce himself.
Bas had the most sense of all the Greatdrakes boys, but he had failed to have any when it mattered. It annoyed him, and when a magician got annoyed, he got obsessed. He was definitely obsessed with the beautiful woman in the woods.
Bas’s magic had manifested when he was a kid, and he had read his father’s mind before asking him telepathically to take him to the library. The day his mother died was the first time he went to the astral plane.
Like all Greatdrakes, his abilities had been prodigious, and now anything to do with minds and magic were his purview. Dreams, telepathy, telekinesis, and astral projection were as easy as breathing for Bas. Every night, he swam in the waters of the collective unconscious and manipulated the astral planes to dance to his will.
That was why Basknewhe hadn’t created the woman or the library in the woods. They were her creations, and yet he had wandered right in. A magician who was experienced enough to build such a sanctuary in the astral plane should have been smart enough to build protection wards too.
That was what his mind couldn’t stop chewing over. She was brilliant...and unprotected. His overprotective side, which his Uncle Taranis had assured him was all dragon, was worried about the woman he had met. So what if she had thrown a book at him? It could have been a lightning bolt.
In the astral plane, you had to be careful how you reacted to fear, lest you manifest something greater and more terrifying than the thing you were trying to defeat or create.
And it wasn’t just your fear you had to worry about. Monsters lurked in the liminal spaces of the world. Bas had often seen them and avoided confrontation as much as possible. They had been rare in the past, but when the fae kings had restored magic the year before, all sorts of bizarre shit began waking up and roaming the worlds again.
The astral plane, which had always been a weird place, had become infinitely more dangerous.
Bas had tried to find the library in the woods again to warn the woman about what was lurking out there but hadn’t been able to.
Maybe she had moved it to a different part of the plane? She believed they were in her mind palace, but Bas knew otherwise. Mind palaces were contained and anchored to the creator. Sure, he could have walked into her mind palace, but only if he had touched her or, at the very least, been in the same room.
The library he had stumbled on was out in the open, and he had walked right in. Much to his professional annoyance, he hadn’t been able do it again.
So now Bas was flying through the astral plane, letting his inner dragon free to hunt her down once and for all. The woman he had met had shifted into a hawk before flying away. Hawks were also flying predators, and Bas’s dragon side wanted to find the creature and show it who was boss.
She is hiding there, the dragon prompted him, and Bas looked down. Through misty clouds, he could make out a crumbling stone tower. He couldn’t see the woman walking about, but he trusted the dragon’s instincts.
Bas dived through the mist and landed on top of the tower. The mist had been acting as a roof, and as it cleared, he saw the raven-haired woman standing with her hands on her hips, glaring up at him. Bas tried to say hello, forgot he was a dragon, and spat fire instead.
“Have you lost your mind? There are books down here, you fucking jerk!” the woman yelled.
Cursing, Bas shifted back into his human form. “Sorry!” he called down. “Wait right there! Don’t run. Or fly!”
He climbed down the crumbling stone wall and found a winding staircase. Like the rest of the ruins, it felt like thewoman had pulled them out of a fairytale book. Bas filed that fact away for future examination.
The woman was standing by a set of bookshelves and didn’t look even a little bit happy to see him. Now he was closer, he could see her eyes were a mahogany brown color like dark rum.Beautiful.
Bas tried hard not to stare, but he couldn’t help it. She was all black hair and golden-brown skin. Like a hawk, with a glare that was twice as sharp. She had a scar cutting through one dark eyebrow that made her expression even more disapproving.
“Not another step, nerd boy. I know Krav Maga, and I will not hesitate to kick you in the nuts so hard, your physical body feels it,” she warned him.
Bas stopped walking. He didn’t know if she could really do it but wasn’t about to take the chance. “Firstly, ow. Secondly, I’m Basset. Bas. Not nerd boy. What’s your name?”
The woman crossed her arms. “Like I’d be dumb enough to tell some stranger my real name in a place like this,Basset. A named thing is a tamed thing, after all.”
Shit. She’s right. Dumbass. Stop staring at her like a creeper.
“That’s wise of you,” Bas blundered on. He really did know better. Cosimo would murder him if he found out. His mouth, however, seemed determined to plunge on without him. If she could give him nicknames, he would play that game too. “I’m so glad I finally found you, Hawk Girl.”
