Part one
Chapter 1
The world has become a place of gray and black, with nothing in between. Every day resembles the hour before a storm-torn night, when the sea is dark and the sun has all but vanished.
Should the curse persist, future generations may never know sunlight’s warmth, nor look upon a sky glittering with stars.
-Anonymous, two years after the curse.
I dream of starry night skies often, but chances are, I’ll never see that sight in my lifetime. I only know them from the paintings I’ve seen, from the drawings in books I’ve read.
It’s what I see now, behind my eyelids that are squeezed shut. When I finally open them, a vicious, hate-filled face looks down at me.
The stranger has a black stud through his eyebrow.
How strange, I think, as he straddles me.
I’ve never seen such a thing before. The dragon lands are so far from my homeland, and many of their customs are unfamiliar to us. And I’m already learning that some of them are… odd.
His face is the only thing in clear focus as I lie frozen beneath him, meeting his gaze. He has cold, dark blue eyes that are unlike anything I’ve ever seen. It’s hard to look away from them. The blue almost seems illuminated… as if there’s a flickering blue flame behind each of them, lighting them up. His hair is a shade of light brown that reminds me of something, but I can’t think of what. I’m a little preoccupied.
As my gaze trails the waves of it, it clicks anyway, as I’m transported to the dark sandy shorelines of my kingdom. It’s almost that same shade. Somewhere between beige and the color of chocolate.
I hate the sand. It gets stuck in everything. I don’t spend much time there if I can help it.
And I hate this bastard holding a knife to my throat as his knees and heavy frame hold me pinned to the ground. I’ve already tried fighting, but I’m helpless against the strength of this dragon shifter. He doesn’t look as strong as he feels. Sure, he’s muscular, but this is… impressive. Slightly terrifying. And he can’t be more than a few years older than me. He barely just became a grown male. Probably. But his height towered over mine, before he swooped me to the ground in one easy motion.
I’m not a skilled fighter. I’ve never claimed to be.
I did not pick this fight.
So how did I find myself in this situation? Wrong place, wrong time, I suppose. Seems to be the story of my life.
“What the fuck did you hear?” he says with a cold, even tone. As if he’s holding a tiny fairy on the ground by the wings with one finger, and not a full-grown female elf. An average-sized one, but still. Grown. Almost twenty-one years.
“Nothing,” I reply, my voice puffing out in a strained whisper.
“Liar.”
“No. Please.” I barely sputter the words out. The cold steel against my throat is only getting deeper. The pressure causes a tear to slip free from my eye and fall down my temple at an excruciatingly slow pace, eventually dampening my hairline.
Damn it.
I watch his eyes as they track the traitorous drop of liquid all the way down. And yet, his eyes still do not soften as they return to meet mine.
“I’ll ask you one more time.”
“Maybe we should let her go, Daegan. I think she’s telling the truth. She looks a bit pitiful,” his friend drawls from somewhere behind him. Another bastard dragon. No wonder our people don’t get along. They’re making a horrible first impression.
“Only a fool underestimates their enemies, no matter if they’re male, female, elf...” He tilts his head as he studies me. There’s no mercy or pity there. Only stone-cold assessment. “Perhaps she’s a talented actress.”
I have an urge to slap him in the face, but I’m incapable of that with my hands still pinned by his knees.
“Look at the ears,” he remarks to his friend, a humorless chuckle escaping his lips, not a hint of a smile there. “They’re so strange,” he adds as he glances at one of mine and flicks the pointed tip.
His friend laughs behind him.
“You can’t kill me,” I finally say. “You’re here so our people can have peace again. How would the king like it if you killed one of his own people on his soil when he graciously invited you here?”
