Seven
The land that the Tannagens owned was vast, Ashley had to admit to herself, and went far further than the eye could see. But what was far more impressive about the land was the fact that it was populated so well that just about every corner of their castle happened to have a servant.
To say that Ashley was surprised was an understatement. She was shocked beyond belief and could hardly come to terms with the notion that people, even half as rich as Val claimed to be, would ever think she was a part of their family. She was more shocked that her father would go along with all of this.
If it weren’t for the fact that just about everyone seemed so serious when they were talking, she might have dismissed it as some long con on her father’s part. He’d done things like that before, swindling people out of their hard-earned money. Not because he wanted to, but rather because he felt like he had no option other than to do so.
But…again, Ned seemed so serious, and every time she looked his way, he’d look away, making the fact that he couldn’t look her in the eye more than apparent. That meant this situation was serious and he wasn’t exactly proud of himself.
But it wasn’t until Ashley was escorted up the stairs and into a room tucked just off the main hallway that she almost began to believe Val. She blinked in surprise when she was led into a large, well-furnished white room that seemed like a little girl’s fantasy bedroom come true.
“This should have always been your room. I hope you like it. I wish you a good rest, my sister,” Val said, his voice sounding almost genuine as he paused in the doorway to look at her. His eyes scanned her features, almost like he didn’t believe that she was there. And then, just as he was about to turn and leave, he surprised her, pausing in the doorway.
“There will be celebrations tonight, just so you are aware. Many are excited about your return.”
She couldn’t wait for him to leave so she could have some time alone. To think. To try to find a shred of sense in everything she’d been told. She nodded at Val and he finally left her alone. She ran straight to a window to look out at the world that still didn’t seem to be real. But there were people out there, calling out to each other, living their lives as the sun sank beneath the horizon, tending to jobs that needed doing. And if that made this world real, did that mean she was really a princess? With a fated mate?
When she’d been a little girl, she’d often pretended to be a princess, destined for a Prince Charming who would sweep her off her feet. Ned had even bought her a pink princess gown as a Halloween costume one year. She’d worn it until it fell apart.
And then there were her dreams, where she was whisked away to a strange land, much like this one, to be ensconced in a castle and protected from the world. But those had only been dreams. Now, no matter how hard she pinched herself, she couldn’t wake up. She was close to admitting that this was all real. But how?
She leaned out of the window as she stopped trying to wake herself up, certain that this world couldn’t get any stranger. She’d been certain that she couldn’t be any more confused than she already was. But she’d been wrong.
Her eyes narrowed as she tried to focus on it, or rather, them. There were little flickers in the night that she wasn’t fully certain were real until one of them came racing up near her window and revealed itself to her. Ashley gasped but the creature hardly spared her a glance as it continued whirring through the sky. A dragon.
Or rather dragons.
There were real, honest-to-goodness dragons out there.
The realization of that made Ashley freeze entirely, her whole body seizing up. All the things that she had once thought impossible were now proving themselves to be completely and utterly possible.
And then, just when she thought that the whole situation couldn’t get any weirder the dragon came back.
Large, black, and dangerous, the scaled beast twisted in the sky, using its massive wings to turn and face her. It dived towards her window, making Ashley jump back from it with a yelp, no longer sure what to make of the situation.
It slowly dove and twisted outside her window, staying in place just long to force Ashley to meet its gaze.
The second that Ashley’s small blue eyes met that of the giant, black dragon currently flying outside her window, she felt something.
She swore that she felt something greater.
Not a confirmation of the very unreal reality that she was slowly beginning to admit she couldn’t escape, but rather a large and very specific connection to that dragon in particular. One that went beneath the skin and the very reality of what Ashleyhappened to be. This went to somewhere deeper into her soul and the very fabric of her being.
At that moment, as she looked at the dragon out there, she knew that she belonged to him, which…
Ashley couldn’t help but blink as she moved to the windowsill, her hands bracing against it as she looked down at the black dragon that once again rolled away from her window. It seemed almost playful as it met her gaze. With what seemed to be a smile of all things, the dragon winked and dove downward, back through the thick fog that had begun to roll across the night landscape and out of sight.
Whoever it was, whatever it was, they’d wanted to make sure that not only did Ashley see them, but that they saw Ashley as well.
The reality had her shaking, her pulse racing, and a small part of her unable was to deny the excitement that was slowly but surely beginning to grow in her. Whoever that dragon was, she hoped to meet them tomorrow.
Chapter
Eight
“You don’t understand, Val, there were dragons…” Ashley tried to tell her brother the very next day, unable to come to terms with the reality that he wasn’t half as excited by this notion as she was.
Sure, he was a dragon and was capable of actually turning into his dragon form, unlike her, and had spent all of his life around other dragons and probably saw dragons just about every single day of his miserable god-forsaken life. But couldn’t he understand, or at least try to understand, being astonished for just a moment? Until the night before, Ashley had been an ordinary waitress, working in the middle of nowhere Tennessee.
