Dragon Awakened(15)
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 Prince stood 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 mountaintop, watched him and his army of Dragons knock them back. 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 tall-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.”
He turned into a Dragon and 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 sucked in 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?”
Chapter 5
Cyntag opened the 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 meaning Bring 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. “What would be easier?”
He released a resigned breath. “Exactly.” Then he pulled her against his hard 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 to trust you, 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.
Cyntag continued to grip her, though it wasn’t necessary. She’d stopped struggling.
“What…is it?”
“That’s Allander. He’s a salamander.”
“Doesn’t look like any newt I’ve ever seen.”
“Not an amphibian-type salamander. He’s a fire spirit. An Elemental. Didn’t Moncrief include them in his stories?”
“He had fire, water, earth, and spirit faeries and elves.” Anything else she remembered fled her mind as she stared at Allander.
The creature lifted his lip in a snarl, revealing cat-like teeth.
“They don’t like being stared at,” Cyntag murmured, guiding her to the mirror. Her gaze zeroed in on him first, his sharp features and then his dark eyes…except they weren’t dark. An ember like the flame atop a candle flickered in their depths, just what she thought she’d glimpsed.