Did his arrogance know no bounds?Dumb question, Ruby.“What do I have to give you for that?”
“You assume there’s a price?”
“There’s always a price.”She could see that he had one, too.
He stepped closer, again breaching boundaries.She wouldn’t move away.If only she didn’t have to look up at him.Even being five-foot-eight, he was way taller.His heat reached out, beckoning her.She stiffened her stance.The dragon tattoo eyed her, but no, she didnotsee it move.
He waited until she drew her gaze back to his face.“The price is that once you see, you can never go back to being blind.Once you know, you can never forget.Once you experience your true nature, you can never ignore it.”
“Ignore what?”
He released a breath.“We’d better start with the small stuff.”
The Book of the Hidden
The Dragon Princestood before Garnet as a man now, though she knew the dark beast lurked inside him.His hair was so black that it was nearly blue where shafts of sunlight fell upon it.Eyes just as black, eternal wells where shadows dwelled beyond her ken.In the days since she’d come here, she had watched intruders try to storm his stone castle high on a mountain top, watched him and his army of Dragons knock them back time and again.Had they been her people come to rescue her?She did not know.
He had summoned her to a room of colorful marble and glittering chandeliers for their first real meeting.The kind of sitting area where one entertained important guests.
He sat like a king in a high-backed chair of rich tapestry and carved wood.“Welcome to my castle, princess.I hope you find it to your liking, as you will dwell forever more with me.”
“You cannot keep me here as a prisoner.”But he could.She saw in his eyes that he could do whatever he wished.“Why?Why did you save me, only to enslave me?”
“Your destiny lies with me.When you come of age, you will become my wife.”
Before she could protest, he morphed into a Dragon before her very eyes, at once beautiful and frightening.And smelly, a musty scent emanating from him.He gave her a moment to absorb him perhaps, and then he approached her.She stood tall and strong even as her knees quivered.He opened his mouth and released a dark mist that enveloped her.She tried not to breathe, sensing the magick in it.The spell.
Finally her lungs burst, and she exhaled, then sucked in the life-giving oxygen… along with the mist.She felt it slide down her throat and change her very cells.Like the New Year’s fireworks, flashes of images blinded her.Dragons, small and large, bright and dark, filled her mind.
“What have you done to me?”she screamed, trying to push away the images.
“You are mine, and so you must become Dragon like me.You’ll have time to embrace your magick, to see the wonder of what you now are.”
She felt it inside her, the coiling energy of something foreign and dangerous.“You are evil!I will never be your wife, never!”
She ran, but there was no escape.This castle, like herself, was a jewel set in the middle of treacherous thorns.So she went back to the only sanctuary she knew: her chambers.She hurried to the window, far above the ground, and let the sun warm her cheeks while the breeze chilled the tracks of her tears.
A flutter made her eyes open.“Opal!”
The dove landed on the sill, stepping onto Garnet’s finger as easily as before.It rubbed its cheek against her palm, the heartwarming gesture it had done from the first time it landed on her hand.“I must not be too much a monster if you still come to me.”She nuzzled the bird.“Or have you come to remind me of who I really am?”
5
Cyntag opened his office door, leaned out, and yelled, “Allander!”
He held it open for several seconds, watching her for some reason—probably to make sure she didn’t dash out—and then closed it.
“What does that mean?”Probably some Spanish word meaningBring the knives; we have dinner.
“This would be much easier if you trusted me,” he said, moving up beside her.
She leaned away, narrowing her eyes.“Whatwould be easier?”
He released a resigned breath.“Exactly.”Then he pulled her against his body, one arm across her chest, the other on her forehead.
She jerked, but his hold was as tight as a locked seat belt.A seat belt with muscles.“Let me go!You want me totrustyou, then you grab…” The rest of her words disintegrated as she stared at… she had no idea what it was, only that it hadn’t been there a moment before: a creature only two and a half feet tall, skin burnished red with a pointy face and black hair as wild as a flame.It perched on the corner of the desk looking at her.
Cyntag continued to grip her, though it wasn’t necessary.She’d stopped struggling.
