by Willa Hart
The Glow of the Dragon’s Heart
Harem of Fire Prequel
Willa Hart
Contents
About This Book
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Afterword
Excerpt from The Spark of the Dragon’s Heart
About the Author
About This Book
Who knew dragons could be so…hot?
I grew up as a trashbag kid. I don’t want to even try counting how many foster homes I’ve lived in since I was orphaned at the age of five.
When some long-lost relatives take me in during my last year in the system, I’m careful to remain on my best behavior. Finding family and living happily ever after has always been a secret fantasy, so getting the boot would be devastating.
But these perfect strangers are turning out to be perfectly strange. Like when they tell me dragons are real and my great-aunt’s husband just happens to be one.
Um…
But before I can pack my few belongings and bolt, I see the evidence with my own eyes. Then I catch sight of my new uncle’s five gorgeous nephews and decide…maybe dragons aren’t so bad after all.
The Glow of the Dragon’s Heart is the prequel to the Harem of Fire series. Find Book 1 here ➡ The Spark of the Dragon’s Heart
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Chapter One
I bounce up and down in my booster seat, the tips of my toes just barely grazing the back of the passenger seat where Mommy is sitting. I know I’m not supposed to. Mommy and Daddy tell me all the time I need to sit still when we’re in the car, but sometimes I just feel so happy I can’t hold it in anymore.
Daddy always asks me where I get all my energy from, but that’s a silly question. I don’t have to try very hard — it’s just there, all the time. In fact, I don’t really know why he isn’t as wiggly and giggly as I am. When there are so many new things to see and smell and hear and touch, how could anyone sit still for very long? There’s just too much to do!
Mommy likes to tell me to slow down, that there’s all the time in the world to see everything, but some things will have to wait until I’m older. So that’s what I’m looking forward to — getting older. One day, I bet I’m going to be as tall and as strong as Daddy, and I hope I get to be a princess as beautiful as Mommy.
Life is exciting, and every day it only seems to get better.
When I’m this happy, I like to bounce. The silliness bubbles up from inside me and I can’t stop it. I do my best not to kick Mommy’s seat, but one of my sparkly pink jellies slips off my foot and flies right into the back of it.
“Oopsie!” I giggle and cover my mouth with both hands.
Mommy spins around in her seat to peer at me, her yellow hair bouncing around her pretty face. Her eyes are so squinched I can’t see how brown they are and one of her eyebrows is poking way up. She’s trying to look mad, but she can’t stop smiling long enough to make an angry face. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her look really mad. My parents always seem so happy, even if they can hold in their happiness a little better than me.
“Favor, remember what I told you about kicking the seat?” she reminds me. Her voice sounds like a bell, one of those pretty ones made of sparkly crystal.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”
“Are you sure?” she asks, dragging out the last word as if she doesn’t believe me.
She’s only teasing, I know that, but I nod vigorously, just in case.
“Okay, then,” she says as she starts to turn around.
Then she spins back and reaches out to tickle me, her fingertips brushing gently behind my ear, where she knows I’m the most ticklish. I squeal so loudly that Daddy sticks a finger in his ear, but Mommy doesn’t stop.
Not that I want her to. I love it when she pays attention to me, especially on long car rides. She and Daddy usually talk to each other about boring grown-up stuff, so I end up staring out the window. Unless I remembered to bring my Bratz dolls with me. Then I have all sorts of fun.
But staring out the window can be fun too. Oregon is so pretty, with all the tall trees and big birds soaring into the endless sky. My preschool teacher told us the ones with dark bodies and white heads are bald eagles. Silly name, if you ask me. They’re not really bald at all!
Finally, Mommy stops tickling me, but I can’t stop laughing for a long time. By the time I open my eyes and breathe normally again, my parents are giving each other that look. The gooey one they give each other sometimes that makes me gag. Then they lace their fingers together and Daddy raises her hand to his lips.
“Ew!” I cry, slapping my hands over my eyes, in case they decide to kiss. Why are parents so gross?
“Just you wait, short stuff,” Daddy says, turning long enough to give me a smile and a wink. “One day you’ll fall in love, just like Mommy and me.”
“Nuh uh,” I snort.
Mommy tries to tell me that every princess needs a Prince Charming, but I ignore her and stare out the window. I could never understand why a princess had to wait for the prince to save her. Most of the time they could have saved themselves, if they’d wanted to. I want to be the kind of princess who slays the dragon herself, instead of waiting around for some dorky boy to do it.
The sky is getting darker as the sun sinks behind the trees, and I wish for the bajillionth time I hadn’t forgotten my Bratz before we left home. But the orange and pink streaks in the sky hold my attention, mostly because they remind me of a banana split. Maybe, if I ask nicely enough and bat my eyelashes, my parents will take me to our favorite ice cream shop. As I practice fluttering my long eyelashes, all the windows in the car roll down and I’m blasted with warm air.
“Hey!” Mommy says, slapping Daddy’s hand away from the air conditioner.
“Fresh air is so much better for Favor than canned air.”
“Don’t use our daughter as a pawn in our AC wars, Franklin Fiske!”
“It’s September, Lyssa,” Daddy says. “We never need the AC this late in the year.”
“It’s never this hot this late in the year.”
The wind whips my fine, blonde hair around my face and I laugh. Daddy hooks a thumb back toward me and looks at Mommy like he’s won.
“See? Even Favor likes it. Don’t you, short stuff?”
“This is fun!” I shout into the roaring wind, giggling at how bouncy my voice sounds — like I’m talking into a fan.
“Fine,” Mommy says with a heavy sigh, “but I’m going to adjust the windows so her hair doesn’t turn into a rat’s nest. Because we both know you won’t be the one to comb it out.”
The windows move up a tiny bit and my hair stops flying around so much. I’m not sad, though. The gentle breeze feels nice on my bare skin, plus it smells good. Like a forest jumped into our car. Too bad princesses couldn’t have extra-strong eyesight, like a superhero. It would be so much fun to see through the thick tree trunks and bushes to watch animals scamper around in the wilderness. But I’m not a superhero. And as much as I don’t like it, I’m not a princess either. I’m just a girl. A girl who’s getting bored.
“So Favor,” Daddy asks, looking at me in the mirror with blue eyes just like mine, “are you excited to start kindergarten tomorrow?”
Oh my gosh, I’d totally
forgotten! I squeal to show them exactly how excited I am. Once they take their fingers out of their ears, I shout, “I’m going to be a big girl!”
Mommy laughs. “That you are.”
As they go back to their grown-up talk, I decide that since tomorrow isn’t very far away, I’m probably already a big girl. And big girls don’t ride in booster seats. The big flat strap presses hard against my chest every time I move, but luckily I know exactly which button to push to release it.
My fingers creep toward the button as my eyes carefully watch my parents and my brain thinks about what will happen if I’m caught. I don’t want to make them angry, but I really, really hate the stupid strap. Maybe if I only push a little bit, they won’t notice. The rush of air blowing into the car is so loud they don’t hear the small click as the buckle loosens, but I sure feel better.
It’s getting really dark now. All the yellows and oranges and pinks have been chased away by pale blues and medium blues and dark blues. I blink in surprise when a dark shadow moves across the sky. Teacher didn’t tell us bald eagles flew at night.
My parents stop talking and give each other funny looks. Daddy leans in close to the steering wheel to peer out of the windshield. Mommy does too. I’m too far away to look out the windshield like they are, so I lean over and look out my window, but the wind catches my hair so I can’t see anything. My little fingers have a hard time grabbing all of my hair, but I finally manage to pull enough out of my eyes to see once more. The shadow swoops past again, this time much closer. It’s so big! Much bigger than a bald eagle.
“Stan?” Mommy asks quietly.
Daddy shakes his head without a word. Of course it’s not Stan. Daddy’s boss isn’t a bird, he’s a man! Silly Mommy!
“Maybe it’s Big Bird,” I shout helpfully.
Mommy shushes me, though I don’t know why. I stick my head halfway out the window again, but I can’t see Big Bird anymore. It must have flown home for the night. As sad as this makes me, it seems to relieve my parents. Slumping into my booster seat, I sigh in disappointment. Why couldn’t it have soared by earlier, when there was enough light to really see it?
Something catches my attention out of the corner of my eye. When I glance to the left, I forget to breathe. A very large, very round, very yellow eyeball with a thin black slit running down the middle is looking inside the car. It’s almost the size of the window itself, and it’s staring directly at me!
My parents are too busy looking out the windshield to notice, so I grin and wave at my new friend. No one ever told me birds could get so big. Except…the closer I look at it, the more I realize it doesn’t look like any bird I’ve ever seen. Birds have beaks, not leathery snouts. They have feathers, not scales. And they’re definitely not green. Big Bird looks more like my best friend Zoe’s pet lizard, Shakira — only much, much bigger.
And with wings.
I reach out in his direction, imagining what the scales and ridges and bumps on his skin feel like. The eyeball blinks and I snicker. It’s funny to watch such a big eyelid go down and then up again. Too bad Shakira’s big brother smells so bad — like fireworks and ashtrays. Still, I like my new friend. And from the way his lips move up into a smile, I’m pretty sure he likes me too.
But those lips reveal a row of gleaming white teeth that look more like fangs. As much as I want to believe he’s smiling at me, that grin doesn’t make me happy like when Mommy grins at me.
It scares me.
Heat pours into the backseat and I yank my hand away, like when I burned it on the stove that one time. I must have gasped, because Mommy turns in her seat to ask if I’m okay. Before she finishes, she screams so loud I clap my hands over my ears. It doesn’t help.
The scream grows louder and louder until it feels like it’s stabbing me. That’s when I realize the flying lizard is the one doing the screaming and my little hands can’t stop the sound from tearing me in half from the inside out. I try to scream back at it, but I can’t even hear myself. Through my tears, I see Mommy screaming, Daddy screaming, the lizard screaming. The whole entire world is screaming.
Daddy turns the wheel hard to the right and we plow right into a field of really tall grass. Bits of it fly into my window and sting my cheeks as we bounce around inside. My other jelly falls off, but I hardly notice. All I can see is a dark shape in the sky turning a slow circle to head back our way. When it gets closer, Daddy swerves again. I tumble into the footwell and smack my nose hard on the edge of my stupid booster seat.
My parents are shouting at each other, so they don’t hear me crying in pain. More than anything in the whole wide world, I want my mommy to pull me into her arms, to cuddle me, to tell me everything is going to be okay. It’s just a bad dream, she’ll tell me, then smooth my hair until I wake up in my own bed, safe and cozy and loved.
Pulling myself up on my knees so I can crawl into her lap, I can finally see out of the windshield, and what I see terrifies me, even though I don’t really know why. It’s just a bright spot of light up ahead, after all, but the way it grows bigger and bigger frightens me. I point at it, but before I can make a sound, we’re surrounded by light so bright it burns. Flames flicker in through the open windows and we all scream.
The car bounces over something so big, I fall down, and then I fall again, but this time onto the ceiling, then the floor. The next thing I know, I’m soaring through the night, almost like a bird. Except I can’t flap my wings and land where I want. Instead, I hurtle into a big bush full of leaves and sharp thorns.
I try to scream, but nothing comes out. I can’t even breathe. My chest hitches, but no matter how hard I try, no air comes in. I flail around, desperate for air, but the thorns tear at my skin so I force myself to stop moving. I’m afraid to open my eyes for fear of getting poked by a thorn or a branch, but I have to find my parents. Maybe they can make the pain stop and help me breathe again.
Peeking open one eye, I see nothing but black. When I open the other, I find a hole in the leaves and see our car. It’s rocking back and forth on its roof and all four tires are on fire. Shadows move inside and someone yells my name.
Mommy and Daddy!
I need to call for them so they can find me. They must be so worried! Suddenly my chest unlocks and I can take a deep lungful of air. As the shout travels up from deep inside me, the flying lizard swoops low over the car and blasts flames at it…from its mouth!
My own scream dies on my tongue, but I can hear my parents’ screams. They scream and scream as the lizard blows more and more fire on them. Then all I hear is the crackle of the burning car and the low whoomp of huge, leathery wings fading into the darkness.
Now I’m shaking. Shaking so hard my head flops back and forth. Someone is attacking me! I don’t know how, because I can barely move inside this prickly bush, but I must fight. Except I’m so small. I’m not a full-grown princess yet. I need help.
“Help!” I shout, doing my best to beat away the hands that hold me, but they have an iron grip on me. “Help! Help me! Please…”
“Help! Help!”
“Favor, wake up.”
The familiar voice soothed the panic racing through me. It wasn’t my mother’s voice, but the cool hand smoothing the hair from my sweaty forehead reminded me of her. Big, hitching sobs racked my body as the hand and voice soothed me.
“Shh, it’s just a bad dream,” it said. “You’re safe and sound, Favor. Now wake up for me, okay?”
I swam up from the depths of sleep and cracked open one eye to find a plump, older woman staring down at me. My eyes darted around the room, trying to remember where I was. My entire life had been a nonstop series of moves, so I was used to the feeling.
The room was dark, but enough light filtered through the open door to check out my surroundings. I was lying on a couch in an outdated den and my ratty fourth-hand suitcase sat wide open on the nearby desk, clothes jumbled just as I’d left them. My only pair of shoes — Keds that had once been white, but now resembled O
regon’s winter sky — sat neatly next to a desk chair leftover from a bygone era called the ‘70s.
I knew this room. Not well, but it was familiar. That calmed me some, but the adrenaline pumped through my veins as if I was still under attack.
“Are you awake?”
The woman looked down at me with concern in her blue eyes. Her badly dyed red hair sat like cotton candy on her head, not a strand out of place. I had no idea how Aunt Shirley managed the feat, but from the smells wafting out of the house’s single bathroom in the mornings, I would have bet good money that the woman owned stock in a hairspray company.
“Yeah,” I said, sitting up and rubbing a hand over my face, just to make sure it was the truth. “Sorry.”
Shirley pursed her lips together. She looked worried, which would no doubt wear off soon enough. Almost all of my new foster parents had looked at me the same way the first dozen or so times I’d woken them up in the middle of the night with my screams. After that, they simply became irritated.
“Is it the same dream you’ve been having since you got here?”
I bobbed my head in reply. Of course it was the same dream. It was always the same dream.
She clucked her tongue in sympathy. “That’s three nights in a row. You poor dear.”
Then my scrawny body was enveloped in a bear hug that nearly suffocated me. Shirley rocked me back and forth, like I was a baby or something. I tried to gently pull free, but she held on tight until I relaxed into her embrace.
I usually didn’t like for my fosters to touch me — for good reason — but Shirley wouldn’t let go. And for some reason my brain couldn’t fathom, I didn’t mind so much with her.
“I’m so sorry, Favor, but you’re safe now. I promise you that. It was just a dream, it wasn’t real.”
