Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 107619 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 430(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107619 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 430(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
I remember now. I remember why seeing the queen fills me with such sadness and frustration. She is a prisoner of the Salorians, her mind corrupted by them. It is her that traps us…
And now you are mine.
Azar.
31
EMMA
Home. This is home.
Zohr’s strong, melancholy thoughts rouse me from my sleep. I sit up in bed and put a hand on his shoulder. I can’t see his face, but his mind races with flutters of images. Deserts. Mountains. Home. He jolts in bed, his body shivering.
I give him a little nudge. “Zohr? What are you doing?”
My people, he tells me. They are here. They are fine.
“You’re dreaming,” I say to him, feeling guilty. Poor guy. “Wake up.”
But his thoughts only swirl deeper and more intense. He’s seeking something, and it worries me. I watch him shift in the blankets restlessly, and when I touch his arm again, he stiffens, still caught in his dream—or nightmare. I will be back.
Back? Where does he think he’s going? “No, Zohr.” I’m worried now, especially when the images of the beautiful, sad female fill his mind. I feel a stab of jealousy at the sight of her in his thoughts, but there’s no affection there, only curiosity. She’s beckoning him.
I begin to feel uneasy. This isn’t a regular dream.
“Stay with me!” I call to him, shaking his shoulder. I don’t like this. I don’t like how his thoughts feel thick and almost…syrupy. As if they’re muddled…or being muddled by someone else.
Oh no.
Wait for me. I will return soon.
Zohr? I send. I’m panicking. This time I shake him harder, doing my best to rouse him from his unnatural sleep. Zohr? Are you in there?
His eyes fly open. There’s no warm gold, no troubled black. They’ve gone completely and utterly gray.
Fuck.
“Zohr?” I try again. “Are you awake, babe?” I touch my mind to his, waiting for the mental caress that always follows. Even in his sleep, he responds to my mental touch. It’s one of the things I find most reassuring about him, that he’s always with me.
But this time, I encounter nothing.
I choke back my panic. Somehow Azar’s gotten to him. “Zohr. Talk to me. Please.”
My dragon sits up, the vacant look on his face. He gets to his feet, ignoring my touches and paces away, only to immediately shift to dragon form. His head tilts and he studies the trap door that leads to the roof. It’s human sized and just large enough for Zohr to fit through while in two-legged form. He hesitates a moment and then slams his massive body into the roof.
A scream rips from my throat. I shield my head with my arms as debris rains down. I can hear Zohr clawing at the roof with his talons, and when I look up, he manages to squeeze his enormous body out of the hole he’s created. Then, with a swish of his tail, he leaps onto the roof and out of sight.
No! Zohr! I cry out. I can’t let him get away. If he does, I’ll never see him again. I have to stop him from leaving. I don’t know how, though. Disable his wings again? God, no, I can’t do that to him. But what if it’s the only way? Agonized, I grab my bug-out bag and sling it over my shoulder. I don’t even care that I’m naked. There’s no time to get dressed. I shove my feet into my padded slippers and then crawl over the rubble of what used to be our home.
Luckily for me, the buckets of tacks and broken glass haven’t spilled down from above. I manage to drag the tall ladder out from under the rubble and prop it up. The floor isn’t even, but I don’t care. I wobble my way up the shaking ladder and grab a piece of the broken ceiling, hauling myself onto the roof. I stumble to the edge of the building and grip the cement lip, scanning the starry sky in search of my dragon.
“ZOHR!” I scream out into the night. “Where are you?”
Instinct makes me turn around, and when I gaze to the south, I see the outline of my dragon against the night sky. He’s flying, which makes my heart race—and makes me terrified at the same time. He wobbles again, and his wings falter for a moment before he flaps awkwardly to the ground. I hold my breath, waiting to see what he does. To see if he turns around and comes to his senses. Instead, he continues plodding onward, to the south.
Toward Azar’s hideout.
“Zohr!” I bellow again, and grab my rope ladder, lowering it off the side of the building. I scramble down—well, more fall than scramble—and manage to rip all the skin off my palms. I don’t care. All I care about is getting to my dragon. I race down the street after him, as fast as my legs can carry me. I climb over the cars blockading the street, avoid the barbed wire pitfalls, and leap over the places I know I’ve set up booby-trapped wires. Tonight I’m wishing I hadn’t been so damn thorough, because it’s all slowing me down and I won’t be able to catch up if Zohr goes aloft once more.