“So, you must be really into her, I guess,” Michelle went on.
“Yes. I am.”
“Lucky girl.”
“I’m sure a woman such as yourself will not struggle to find a mate of her own.”
“Mating isn’t the hard part,” she said. “It’s love that doesn’t come naturally to men.”
At this, I bristled, but we had reached the final set of stairs, and I could not lose myself in a disagreement with this girl.
The torches were aflame, and splashed the interior cavern with their warm light. Oh, what relief washed over me in that moment; the room was filled with fire dragons of all ages, all in human form. Men, older women, and children, maybe even hundreds of them. I rushed forward, forgetting to drop Michelle’s hand, and scanned every face for any member of the royal family.
“Khem!” I gripped the shoulders of a member of my court. Khem had unruly auburn hair, bright green eyes, and an exceptional talent with matters of mathematics and physics. He could fix anything which adhered to non-magical laws. “It’s such a relief to see you.” I hugged him tightly. “What happened? Is my father—Is my mother—Is everyone all right?”
“Theon,” Khem replied just as heartily. “It was the ice dragons, not three weeks ago, who sprang a surprise attack on the palace. The guards had been compromised—we do not yet understand how—and by morning, the townspeople awoke to find their family overthrown and new guards patrolling the street.” Khem shook his head at the memory, wild-eyed. “We… and some others… were able to escape. Some are imprisoned in the city. And some…” Khem pursed his lips and shook his head. He took a deep breath, exhaled, and regained composure. “Some are dead. But your mother—”
Khem turned to scan the crowd of refugees, and his eyes froze on Michelle. He began to utter a low, nonsensical string of vowel sounds.
I punched his shoulder. “Khem. My mother?”
“She’s in the kitchens. My name is Khem, fair maiden.”
Michelle bit the tip of her tongue and grinned, eyes shimmering the way I only saw them do when she was receiving male attention. In truth, it saddened me to think that she never experienced happiness through any other means.
Khem frowned and slanted his eyes toward me. “Did you find a mate back on Earth?” he asked.
“Yes,” I answered shortly. “But this is not her. This is Michelle, a visitor from Earth who will return shortly. My chosen mate was kidnapped at a portal and imprisoned in the palace. It was this which alerted me to the uprising. I have come to secure her, first and foremost, from their clutches.”
“Shortly?” Michelle pouted off to my right.
“My lady,” Khem interjected, stepping forward and scooping her arm from me. I had forgotten I was holding her hand. “Might I provide you with a tour of the facilities?”
I rolled my eyes and allowed them to go; it would be easier to get things done if someone else preoccupied Michelle. I strode toward the kitchens, bypassing shouts and hands from townspeople rejoicing at my return. People had died. People were imprisoned. Nell was one of them. And the kingdom had been lost. I had a lot on my mind.
The kitchens were a series of rooms which began even lower, in an icy den where food was packed and frozen, then ascended by pulley to be thawed, and finally advanced to become what I was just seeing now: breakfast. I passed several broiling vats of oil and spices, mysterious lumps floating in the juice. Cooks were elbow to elbow, working hard to deliver the soup before it cooled. I spotted Mother quickly; she was wearing bedclothes. That confirmed Khem’s account of the insurgency. Mother would never be publicly seen in bedclothes if she hadn’t been dropped into an emergency. In that way, she was much like both Penelope and Michelle.
“Mother,” I greeted her, gripping her shoulders from behind.
She whirled, eyes wide, and screamed with joy, throwing her arms around my neck. My mother had always been a woman of integrity, a true queen. “Oh, Theon, I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again,” she gasped, pulling away. Her face was much like my own face, stern, but her golden eyes were softer and brighter than mine could ever be. She was a beautiful woman. “Where have you been? It’s been almost three weeks—”
“I went in secret to Earth. I found myself a mate there, but she was kidnapped by Lethe, the grandson of the rebel; this alerted me to the conditions here. I’ve seen her imprisoned in the castle and have come to retrieve her, and return her, before we retake this country.”
“Perhaps she is with your father,” Mother said, her eyes tilting away from mine, though she let not a single teardrop spill. “Perhaps they may keep each other safe.” She sniffed. “Retake the country, you said? Theon—you weren’t there. They didn’t kidnap and murder indiscriminately. They took our strongest out from under us—and now use your father to weaken our spirits. Somehow, they’ve plunged our beautiful country into this blasted eternal winter now—as if killing so many of our daughters wasn’t enough…”
“Did you think telling me that was going to discourage me?”
“I don’t want to lose you, too! Altair . . .” Her eyes clouded with tears at the mention of my younger brother, and she could not bear to go on. “He became swarmed with them—and we were separated in the street—I think—I think they—I saw such blood flowing in the gutter.”
I tried to embrace her, to comfort her, but she fought me off as if accepting comfort was confessing that it had happened.
“It’s too soon!” she went on. “We must stay . . . and make a plan—”
“On what rations?” She knew it as well as I; in this climate, there would be no growth of plants, no running water, and without those things, no beasts to hunt. The shelter was meant to be temporary. “You’re not thinking rationally. And I understand. But the numbers don’t support that conclusion. We cannot wait another day. How long will you have left at this rate? A week? Maybe two?”
Mother nodded. “It’s true,” she breathed. She dropped her head and allowed more tears to fall. It must have been hard for her, to contemplate sending one of her own back into the fray. Her favorite son, some said. “Will you tell me you love me before you go, at least?”
I grabbed her chin and pulled her eyes to mine. “Look at me, Mother,” I commanded. “Of course. I love you.” I dropped a peck on her damp cheek. “I will say it again before I go.” I turned toward the crowded cavern and then hesitated, looking back. “Is there a list of the declared missing and dead?” I wondered.
Mother shook her head and closed her eyes. “It all happened so quickly,” she whispered.
“I know. And it will be quickly undone. I love you.” I kissed her cheek again. “Do you happen to have a pen?” Of all the people in this shelter, she was the most likely to have one.
She nodded and pulled it from her apron.
“Thank you.” I took it and waved goodbye, receding into the crowd.
“I’ll see you soon,” she called at my departing back.
I would need to find Michelle next, and return her to the Earth dimension—but it would take another ten to twelve hours to return, at that rate, and the thought of all that could happen in twelve hours… Maybe Michelle would be willing to stay at the shelter? For just a day or two?
I circled the cavern twice and was unable to find Michelle, but there were many off-shooting rooms to this system, and as thronged as it was, being unable to find someone was normal, not a cause for alarm.
I located a flat surface and settled, digging through my satchel and extracting the “love letter” Pythia had given me: the scroll of yellowed paper, blank.
Bracing over the sheet, I wrote, I’m coming. Although it felt like it wasn’t enough, it also felt like it was all I needed to say. I braced over the sheet again to ask her what she could tell me—landmarks, eavesdropping, weapons—but was interrupted by a hand slithering around the back of my neck and tousling my hair.
Shaking off the assault, I whirled on a giddy and quite self-satisfied Michelle. “You may not l
ike me, but I certainly can get you all riled up.”
“I am not ‘riled up,’” I informed her tersely. “In fact, it is time for me to be returning you, my lady.”
Michelle’s jaw dropped. “You can’t just tell me what to do.” One manicured hand framed each hip. “You might be a dragon prince, but I’m not a dragon, and it kind of looks like you’ve been dethroned.”
For the first time in my life, I fantasized about grabbing a woman in an infuriated manner. Why did she have to say such ignorant things? Could she not respect a mourning period for the fallen empire, for lost companions? Her own friend, Nell, possibly?
At the livid expression on my face, Michelle beamed. “Finally, he notices me. Look, Theon, I really like this place. I mean, what was I going to do last night? Andrew Hardy, Netflix and chill? And instead… I’m in another world, and there are dragons, and there’s a war, and my best friend has been kidnapped! Of course I want to stay.”
“She’s not your best friend,” I reminded her.
“She was,” Michelle countered. “I’m not completely useless, you know. I can help you. I helped you already, didn’t I? I was the one who broke the ice on the door, wasn’t I?” She moved closer, eyes beseeching. I could see how she always got her way. She could appear quite vulnerable—if she tried. “I want to go with you. I want to go to the city. And you can’t tell me no.”
“Oh? And why is that?”
“Because you’re an honorable man, silly.”
I was taken aback. I’d been expecting her to say, Because no one tells me no. “An honorable man would not allow you to follow him into danger.”
“An honorable man accepts free will. You have to let me come with you. And if you do, I’ll return quietly to Earth and never mention this to another soul.” A wicked smile leaked over her lips. This was the Michelle I’d been anticipating all along. “But if you don’t—”
“You’ll broadcast any information you can gather together,” I finished for her.
“Even better; I’ll convince Nell to go public with it. There are certainly downsides to nobility, aren’t there? She’ll tell the truth because she believes that the truth matters. But no one will ever believe it… and her life will be ruined.” Michelle broke into a grin. “So you see, Khem and I are really the perfect companions for your journey.”
Nell “going public” worried me for a different reason than Michelle was angling at. The realm of supernaturals was fast spilling over into the human realm. Even if Nell did as Michelle claimed she would after I managed to reclaim her, knowledge of our kind was already entering public consciousness. What concerned me was the attention she’d draw to herself from third parties desperate for inside information, like those who hunted our kind. Of course, Michelle didn’t need to know this.
“Khem?” I muttered. It wasn’t a bad idea to bring others, though I hesitated to travel with too noticeable a convoy.
“Did I not mention that he was part of the package? I like him. He likes me, and I need at least one person to like me. If it can’t be you, it’ll have to be somebody.”
Losing patience, I gripped her arm and we moved through the crowd. “Let us take up a collection for some spare clothes,” I commanded her. “Remain quiet, and we will depart at nightfall for the city. Tell a soul and your word is meaningless, and I will return you to the land of Maine posthaste.”
Michelle nodded. “I’d never do that.”
I had my doubts. “Let’s get you some soup and a cot. It’ll do you well to rest.”
Epilogue: Nell
I gazed out the frosted window to a bleak and terrifying landscape below. The sun had risen, but I could hardly tell. The sky was opaque and milky, not unlike the pendant the black-haired man—Prince Lethe, he called himself—had torn from my throat and hurled against the wall. It had not worked since, and still lay in a pile of shards at the corner of the room.
Blowing warm air into my palms, I turned from the window. The window had an arctic draft coming off of it, and it crept over everything.
This room was extravagant and luxurious: leather-bound books, a feather down mattress, windows which dominated the northern wall. Prince Lethe and his female companion—Thalissa, I’d overheard—had stripped the sodden, freezing clothes from my body upon our arrival and forced me into some velvet gown of sky blue. It was a beautiful dress, but I felt limp and hopeless inside of it.
There was a fireplace in my room, and I tried to stay close to keep warm. This castle was frigid.
Gazing into the crackling, popping flames, I wondered where Theon was… and why on earth Michelle was with him. We’d only had that fleeting moment—he’d been surrounded by sand, but the sunlight on that sand had been bright yellow, not the icy gray sun Maine would see in January. Where were they? And why the hell were they together?
But I shook the thought from my head. I couldn’t let my old insecurities awaken at the first hint of trouble—and I had much bigger problems than Michelle’s flirtatious nature.
The door thrust open and banged into the wall; I jolted up from where I had been leaning into the fireplace.
Prince Lethe entered the room with a swagger and slammed the door behind himself.
I stared at him in terror; he stared back with mirth. I bolted to the right, and he followed my movement. I dove to the left and he was already on top of me; he swept me up against his chest and pinned his arms around me. I thrashed and kicked to no avail, any impact dampened by the petticoats of the gown.
“It’s time to talk, human girl.”
“I already told you, I don’t know anything!”
At this, he snatched my chin up and gazed into my eyes. His own were a savage gray-blue. “Oh, is that so?” A smile quirked the corner of his lip, and I thought of Michelle. She got the same look on her face when she had someone right where she wanted them. “When I’m through with you, mate of Theon, you’ll talk. Oh, you’ll talk.”
* * *
WHAT’S NEXT?
Dearest Shaddict,
With the holidays and the new year coming up, I have two exciting releases for you to mark in your calendar!
1st Release:
BEN & RIVER'S STORY CONTINUED!
Ben and River's story will continue in A Shade of Vampire 21: A Vial of Life!
A Vial of Life releases just in time for Christmas: December 22nd 2015!
Tap here to pre-order your copy now.
And here’s a preview of the awesome cover (you may need to turn to the next page for it to be visible):
2nd Release:
THEON & NELL’S STORY CONTINUED!
Get your next Theon fix in A Shade of Dragon 2, releasing January 6th 2016!
Tap here to pre-order your copy now.
Here’s a preview of the epic cover (again, you may need to turn to the next page for it to be visible):
I’m super excited to spend the holidays with you back in The Shade!
See you soon…
Thank you for reading.
Love,
Bella xxx
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Read More by Bella Forrest!
The million bestselling A SHADE OF VAMPIRE SERIES
Derek & Sofia’s story:
A Shade of Vampire (Book 1)
A Shade of Blood (Book 2)
A Castle of Sand (Book 3)
A Shadow of Light (Book 4)
A Blaze of Sun (Book 5)
A Gate of Night (Book 6)
A Break of
Day (Book 7)
Rose & Caleb’s story:
A Shade of Novak (Book 8)
A Bond of Blood (Book 9)
A Spell of Time (Book 10)
A Chase of Prey (Book 11)
A Shade of Doubt (Book 12)
A Turn of Tides (Book 13)
A Dawn of Strength (Book 14)
A Fall of Secrets (Book 15)
An End of Night (Book 16)
The Shade continues with a new hero...:
A Wind of Change (Book 17)
A Trail of Echoes (Book 18)
A Soldier of Shadows (Book 19)
A Hero of Realms (Book 20)
A Vial of Life (Book 21)
A SHADE OF DRAGON
A Shade of Dragon
A Shade of Dragon 2
A SHADE OF KIEV TRILOGY
A Shade of Kiev 1
A Shade of Kiev 2
A Shade of Kiev 3
BEAUTIFUL MONSTER DUOLOGY
Beautiful Monster 1
Beautiful Monster 2
For an updated list of my books, please visit my website: www.bellaforrest.net
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