Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 61872 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 309(@200wpm)___ 247(@250wpm)___ 206(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 61872 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 309(@200wpm)___ 247(@250wpm)___ 206(@300wpm)
A primordial roar shakes the trees and almost knocks me off my feet. I fly down the trail, my legs pumping and my arms flailing, my body half falling and out of control. My heart careens around my chest, bursting with painful adrenaline. I can’t get the man’s eyes out of my head. It feels like he’s right behind me, about to catch up.
A great blast of wind gusts over me and sends me careening into a brace of mugo pine. I grab the trunks and hold on. Rocks bounce over the dirt. The earth is shaking like gravity’s about to throw me off.
The taller trees’ branches thrash the air like a great hurricane has blown up. A giant wind, an earthquake and a tornado all rolled into one. The air high above ripples, and another roar blasts the trees and sends more rocks crashing down from their heights.
I hug the earth and crawl until I make it to a thick cluster of Norway pines. The earthquake has stopped, but great gusts of wind roll through the forest, tearing at the trees and flattening the flowers and long grasses in the meadows. A great shadow appears, gliding over me, blocking out the sun and disappearing as fast as it came.
I don’t know how I make it down the mountain. When I get to the village, I’m still shaking. I’ve lost my backpack and my jacket. When I try to explain in broken Italian what happened, the locals look at me like I’m crazy. No one else experienced an earthquake or a hurricane.
I don’t mention the man to anyone. His presence remains my secret.
I give up on my plans to hike the Dolomites, and head south to Tuscany instead. After two weeks of looking over my shoulder, I’ve convinced myself the event never happened. It was a dream. Some sort of vision, my psychic powers going berserk. I stepped on a funny mushroom, inhaled some psychedelic spores, and bam! Hallucinated a crazy sexy man and a weird weather event.
But, over the years, some nights I wake with a start, my chest flushed and my core throbbing from the recurring dream. He comes to me in my sleep, the man I’ve tried to forget. Wild hair, amber eyes, speaking a beautiful cascade of poetry in a language only my heart understands.
And every time, I wake with the strangest sense that he’s the only thing that's real, and the rest of my life is the dream.
1
Ten years later…
Gabriel
I stare down at the sleeping angel in my castle. Her caramel-colored hair fans out from her head on the soft goose-down pillow I had covered in a scarlet linen for her. She’s not in my bed–not yet.
I had a room of her own made up for her, so she’d feel more comfortable in her new surroundings. Her new home. She’ll move into my tower bedroom with me once she’s used to me. But I thought it was important that she have her own space during our courtship.
She stirs, and every cell in my body electrifies. Smoke billows from my nostrils, my dragon celebrating her presence as much as I do.
She’s really here. After searching for ten years, I’ve found her.
The one female on the planet who belongs to me. The one who will make me whole again. My mate.
She’s not a dragon in this lifetime. She wasn’t in the last one, either.
No, fate gifted me with a delicate human flower. A cruel twist that nearly destroyed me last time. Drove me underground to slumber for hundreds of years.
But my sweet Tabitha woke me from my sleep, and I scoured the edges of the Earth to find her. Now I have her here, in my lair.
My beautiful bride.
I have this second chance, and I won’t let any harm come to her this time. That’s why I lured her away from the wolves she runs with. I couldn’t chance any interference. I needed to get her to my castle where I can keep her safe. Protect her with my soldiers, not my dragon.
But, of course, he came out the moment I caught her scent in the wind. The pure joy of being near her again created chaos within me. I changed form, and when Tabitha saw my fiery side, she fainted.
I need to take care with her. Keep my reptilian eyes covered with sunglasses and the dragon in the cave until she’s ready. Let her get used to me first, to fall in love and feel secure before I show her the beast.
I plan to court her properly. Show her my treasures. The armies under my command. The beautiful castle where she will reside. I have had a millennia to amass everything it takes to dazzle and woo her.
I lean over to fill my nostrils with her scent. Honeysuckle and spring. Morning dew. I lightly trace the outline of her rosebud lips. So perfect. It’s no wonder she was paid to show off designers’ garments in her youth. Countries go to war over women like her.