Daughter of Dragons

  A Dragon Queen Novel

  A.J. Flowers

  Daughter of Dragons Copyright © 2018 by A.J. Flowers

  * * *

  All Persons Fictitious Disclaimer:

  This book is a work of fiction. Any similarity between the characters and situations within its pages and places or persons, living or dead, is unintentional and co-incidental.

  * * *

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system.

  Published in the United States.

  Contents

  1. Where Am I?

  2. The Day of the Blast

  3. Home, Nimrock Arizona, 3 Weeks Before the Blast

  4. Somewhere in my Dreams, Time and Place Unknown

  5. Somewhere in my Dreams, the Ember Pit

  6. Somewhere in my Dreams, Time and Place Unknown

  7. Home, Nimrock Arizona, 17 Days Before the Blast

  8. Home, Nimrock Arizona, 16 Days Before the Blast

  9. Home, Nimrock Arizona, 13 Days Before the Blast

  10. Nimrock High, Arizona, 12 Days Before the Blast

  11. Home, Nimrock Arizona, 7 Days Before the Blast

  12. Nimrock High, Arizona, 5 Days Before the Blast

  13. Home, Nimrock Arizona, 3 Days Before the Blast

  14. Nimrock High, Arizona, 1 Day Before the Blast

  15. Home, Nimrock Arizona, The Day of the Blast

  16. Emerald Manor, House of Dragons, 16 Years Ago

  17. Vyorin, The Dragon Realm, 7 Days After the Blast

  Thank You for Reading

  The worst day of my life. That’s what this was. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.

  “Quit being so dramatic!” Tess chided from the other end of my phone.

  “I’m not!” I whined, not helping matters. But I didn’t care. Nimrock Arizona was hot as blazes in the day, but it was the middle of the night, freezing, and I was all alone in an empty parking lot. I clenched my teeth as an icy breeze swept up the thin protection of my cheerleader’s uniform.

  “Why, exactly, are you at school?” Tess asked.

  An excellent question.

  “Just come get me, okay?”

  “Okay, fine. I’m on the—”

  My fingers clenched around the phone as Tess’ voice blipped into silence as my battery died.

  Well, not complete silence. Nothing was much creepier than Arizona at night with its distant wind howls and chitter calls. I forced the phone into my pocket as I opened my eyes wide. The parking lot didn’t have any streetlights, just the silver bask of the moon on speckled gravel. There wasn’t even a single car. How the heck did I get here?

  A crunch sounded and I swirled as my heart leapt into my throat. A dark silhouette framed by shadow watched me, sending a flurry of goosebumps across my naked arms.

  Wielding my cellphone as a weapon, I raised it above my head and filled my lungs with air. “Stay back!” I shouted, more of a wheeze than the threatening boom I was going for.

  The silhouette, unimpressed, lingered just out of sight. Every bone in my body said I didn’t want to move closer, but my legs disobeyed, that intangible spirit of curiosity driving me forward.

  Nothing bad ever happened at Nimrock High.

  The masculine form didn’t move as I approached. Arm shaking with cold and adrenaline, I lowered the cell as I drew closer.

  Frost bit my nose.

  Headlights blared, wiping out the shadows as if they were a game on my old Etch A Sketch. When the dazzling sparks of black cleared, no one was there.

  “Lily, I swear—” Tess began.

  I swirled to face her and my skirt slapped against my thighs. Perfect Tess, perfect hair, glistening heels. But, there was a smudge on her lipstick. I frowned. “Did you get dressed before you came out here?”

  She smirked. “No, silly. I was with—”

  I shot up a hand before she could finish that sentence. “Nope, don’t want to know.”

  When I didn’t move towards the car, her manicured brows scrunched. “Did you fall asleep in the gym or something? I didn’t even know you had cheerleader practice today.”

  My mouth bobbed open like a fish, but I had no answers. So my jaw moved as I worked out what little information I could. My blackouts weren’t just blips of my life. Now they were taking entire days.

  “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she added.

  Looking back over my shoulder, I half expected that dark form to still be sitting there, but I only found the harmless splatter of asphalt glittering in the head beam’s rays.

  “Another dream,” I insisted, even though I could never remember the dreams I had during my blackouts. Somehow, though, I knew that I dreamed. Something told me that I was going to start remembering them… soon.

  “Lils,” Tess said with a warning tone, “it’s getting worse.”

  She was right. I’d been losing consciousness here and there, finding myself in the kitchen when I’d just been upstairs, or missing chunks of time at school, but it had never been like this.

  We climbed into the car, neither of us wanting to talk about something we couldn’t fix or explain. She thought it was all about Damian, and maybe it was. Damian Dawson, Nimrock High’s heartthrob that I called my boyfriend. As a senior, he was about to go off to college.

  But I knew there was more to this than my own lovesick emotions. Something dark and dangerous had always lingered at the edges of my nightmares. Tonight, I was going to have to face it.

  2

  The Day of the Blast

  I’d never fully grasped my dreams. They were wisps of flitting memories and my darkest terrors that swept out of reach the moment I was awake. Even then, I knew they were far too real to ever be called a dream, and now I know to call them visions. I’ll never forget the first that came to me that night after Tess picked me up from Nimrock High—in all its horrible clarity.

  He was there.

  The sky rained fire while what was left of my high school steamed in an uneven pile of rubble and ash. This was all my fault. I was a monster and, because of me, everyone I loved was dead.

  The incessant heat leached all of the moisture from my skin. It billowed around my feet and wafted ash up the shreds of my dress. The lengthy sash had been outside the force field when the blast had descended, and now it flapped around my calves like a whip.

  James snatched my fingers in a painful grip before I could go into a frenzy. My eyes darted to him, almost forgetting that I wasn’t the only one who’d survived. As if enraged by our forbidden contact, dragons’ cries rumbled across the landscape, their warning a boom in my belly.

  “Lily,” James said with a steady tone, as if talking to a frightened child, “let’s go.”

  The tingling warmth of his breath so close to my face sent unwanted shivers through my body. His bold, blue eyes begged me to obey, to go with him, even though after what he’d made me do, I hated him.

  Another roar hit and rocks sprang into the air at our feet. A winged shadow swept across red embers and I snatched free of James’ grasp. Letting him touch me had always felt wrong, but now it was blasphemy.

  He drew his sword at my rejection. It sang as he pointed the blade directly at my face. An icy fog danced around it, rebelling against the dry air, sending drizzles of silver hissing to the ground.

  Rage spread across my chest. “Really?” I asked, my voice cracking. “Put that thing away before you hurt someone.”

  As if irritated, his sword pulsed with unnatural light, forcing James’ eyes to glaze over as it gave him a command. Terror filled me. Damned sword had been itching for a chance to impale me again. Without thinking, the flat of my palm shot out with inhuman speed and pushed his blade away.

  Although it hadn’t cut me, blisters snapped across my skin as if I’d touched liquid poison. The silver wisps clung to me and burrowed, making me fall into the cushion of ash with a cry.

  His sword flinched, the silvery fog hissing in the dry wind, reminiscent of laughter. I closed my eyes, bracing myself for a killing blow. I’d survived James once. I could do it again.

  “Lily,” James said, his voice strained.

  Slowly opening my eyes, I found that his gaze had cleared of fog and the tip of his sword now sizzled in the charred dirt. He swept it away from me, creating a line in the ash between us.

  “It’s time to choose a side,” he said.

  I’d never truly understood what that’d meant until now.

  I indicated his sword with a blistered finger. “If I don’t choose your side—” choose you “—do you intend to stab me with that thing?”

  While I expected a cruel smile to spread across his face, reveal this all to be a sick game, he surprised me by looking pained. “I should,” he admitted, his cheeks flushing, “but I won’t.” He pressed his weight onto his sword, pushing it deeper into the ground as if he could pin it there and shut it up. I had no doubt it was screaming orders in his head. “I made myself a promise. I’ll never kill you. No one’s going to make me break my promise.”

  “No,” I hissed, unable to hide the venom in my voice, “you can’t kill me.”

  My accusation echoed like the dragons’ shadows sweeping across the remnant

s of my high school. James was a knight. His promise not to kill me held no value when everyone around us had been burned to ash.

  James’ gaze looked longingly into mine, the line between us a chasm I could never cross. Filled with rage and hopelessness, I broke eye contact and craned my neck to search the skies. Hinting teases of scales and flashing teeth disappeared into the clouds, their roars gone silent now that I’d separated myself from James. They were waiting for me.

  I closed my eyes and felt their longing, their unspoken words that trilled in my mind.

  Why was it, even amidst the promise of safety with James, I felt such a connection to the beasts that destroyed everything I’d ever known?

  The answer, one single breath that resolved all mystery, formed like a wisp from James’ sword, and stung just as fiercely. Perhaps, I realized with the chilling thought, it was because… I was meant to be one of them.

  3

  Home, Nimrock Arizona, 3 Weeks Before the Blast

  “What do you mean you aren’t coming home?” I shrieked into my cell. She had no clue I was losing my marbles, so my parents had gone on their business trip without too much of a fuss. Now I regretted keeping my issues to myself. I hadn’t expected to be alone on my sixteenth birthday. “Mom, are you serious? Like, you won’t be here, not even for tomorrow?”

  “I’m so sorry, sweetie,” she said as laughter chimed in the background, not confirming or denying if she’d actually forgotten. To make matters worse, she was still in some ritzy Nevada hotel schmoozing foreign investors. “This merger is important,” she insisted, as if that would explain everything. “We’re going to have to stay a few more days to work it out. We’ll make it up to you when we get back, I promise.” The words sounded too forced, a strained smile behind the distortion of the phone.

  “Yeah, all right,” I said as evenly as I could.

  “Love you, sweetie. And listen, if you need anything at all, Mrs. Hamilton is right across the street.”

  I rolled my eyes at the mention of my childhood babysitter. “Mom!”

  “There’s my good girl. I’ll see you soon, okay?”

  Ensue kissy noises, and click.

  At first, hurt tears wanted to prick at the edges of my eyes. Stupid tears. Sure, it did kind of suck that my own mother forgot my birthday. But, rolling back my shoulders, I reminded myself what this meant. Alone. The whole house. All weekend.

  My fingers sped across the screen as I texted Tess. Hey girl, guess who’s having a birthday blowout! You gotta get your man-harem and set me up.

  Tess, my best friend since forever, had the entire high school wrapped around her pinkie finger. If I wanted a last-minute party bash, I’d need her, and her hot reinforcements, to pull it off. A wild grin spread across my face as she texted back. Whoa, seriously? Way to go lame parents. Don’t worry. I’m on it!!!

  This was going… to… rock.

  I tried not to stare as shirtless guys rolled beer kegs into my living room. The three hottest guys in school, aside from my boyfriend, were now flaunting their muscles like there was no tomorrow. It almost made me forget that I had a first-class ticket to the loony bin.

  Tony, Jeremy, and Blake were an eye-candy trio. Dubbed Tess’ man-harem because she’d dated both Tony and Jeremy over the summer, and now was into Blake. It was a miracle they all got along. But, somehow, Tess had won them all over and now they were some kind of weird mishmash of a lover-team.

  Working her usual magic, Tess had gone all out and no expense was to be spared for the parent-free birthday bash, starting with the early birthday present of the hottest jocks in school flexing their muscles in my house to set up some keggers. Tess had insisted on it after all her European exploits where the drinking age was sixteen. I’d never even had a beer in my life. Elevating to drinking-age-European-style was going to be crazy.

  Tony, one of the more buff guys on the rowing team and Tess’ latest conquest, caught my stare and gave me two thumbs up with a goofy grin. “This party’s gonna rock!”

  I smiled. Just what I’d been thinking.

  “Hey, girl,” Tess drawled as she swept into the room and kicked the front door closed with a graceful snap of her knee. She blew Tony a kiss. “Don’t be getting too friendly now,” she warned. He gave her a wink that made my stomach flip, even though it hadn’t been directed at me.

  Bags of strainers and confetti dangled from her arms. She kept herself balanced, even balanced on her platform heels and her thighs pinched under a miniskirt. Her outfits covered as little skin as possible. She always pulled it off. Her gorgeous black curls were pulled back in a high ponytail, poofing out the end in thick strands like she’d had a hundred hairdressers hiding in her room every morning to perfect the angles. Her emerald earrings glinted as she smiled, an adornment that she never went without.

  Taking in the disaster of the room, Tess gasped at the keg setup, complete with a stool and a funnel for chugging. They’d already gotten the place filthy by dragging in Arizona’s neon-red river mud. “Guys! If you’re going to set up a chugging stand, shouldn’t that be outside? It’s going to get everywhere!”

  Her man-harem gave Tess sheepish glances. Blake, a full head shorter than Tony but sporting a rivaling six-pack set of abs, gave Tess a fierce nod. “You got it, boss.” Tess glared and Tony amended, “Er, boss-et?”

  I giggled like an idiot as the crew wrangled the sloshing kegs and rolled them down the hall. Jeremy gave Tess a grateful nod, as if he’d tried bringing up the point to place the kegs outside but no one had listened. Jeremy was definitely the smart one, with shaggy hair that draped over intelligent eyes. I shamelessly watched him as he turned, his back muscles ripping pleasantly at the motion.

  “Nice catch,” I said to Tess under my breath. “I was far too distracted to make any logical damage-control decisions.”

  “We can’t have that!” she shrieked with mock surprise, even though she’d been the one to dangle her man-harem in front of me. She insisted it was my birthday present, not that I was complaining. My boyfriend was rarely shirtless for me to enjoy. He was too self-conscious about some stupid scar even though he was a giant ball of muscle.

  “Damian is always too modest. Figured you could use some man-skin around here.” She gave me a wicked smile and slapped me on the arm, losing one of her confetti bags in the process. Pink and silver sequins blasted across the carpet. “Oh, damn. Sorry, I’m such a klutz.”

  I laughed and crouched, thoughtfully picking up the sequins and gathering them into my shirt. “Nonsense. You’re just going overboard. Who uses confetti anymore, anyway?”

  She gasped in offense. “I’ll have you know, confetti is tiny bits of happiness and no party is complete without it.”

  I gave her a sideways grin. “Noted.”

  Having Tess here was amazing. After breaking up with Blake, then Jeremy, she’d been traveling all summer to cool places like Berlin and Paris. When she’d finally come home, I’d badgered her about any secret romances, but she’d assured me that it’d been no fun at all with her parents acting as a chastity belt. In spite of her complaints, she was different. It was subtle in the way that she held herself and rolled back her shoulders; how she now sported perfect eyeliner that made her look like some kind of Egyptian goddess. I couldn’t help but feel that she’d grown up without me. It wasn’t that I didn’t love Damian, but our relationship was so… chaste. But, I was about to turn sixteen and all that would change—at least, that was the plan.

  “There’s my birthday girl,” a husky voice said behind my ear. I squealed as Damian wrapped strong arms around my middle and lifted me off my feet.

  I’d had a taut layer of anxiety wound into a little ball in my chest, but safe in his embrace, the dreams didn’t seem like they could grab me and take me away. His fingers running down my neck, his gaze bringing heat to my cheeks, that was what would keep me grounded.

 

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