Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 52915 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 265(@200wpm)___ 212(@250wpm)___ 176(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52915 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 265(@200wpm)___ 212(@250wpm)___ 176(@300wpm)
“What happened to your clothes?”
“Why did you open the door?”
Our questions clash against one another with unseen yet tangible sparks. King Charming ignores mine and persists with his.
“I told you not to open the door. Why would you risk being devoured by such a creature?”
“I didn’t think I was risking that. Besides, I didn’t even know what it was, not really.”
“Emmaline, I told you it was a fucking dragon.”
The curse word jars my ear, just as I imagined he intended it to. When I look into his face, I see a brief flash of the vagrant with the van who scared the hell out of me on the night we first met. Nothing is as it seems here. Not even him.
“I thought maybe you were something else,” I explain, glad for the thought which allows me to easily rationalize my disobedience. “Nothing is what it is here. Vans are galleons, vagrants are kings, and dragons…. I don’t know. They might be fuzzy kittens for all I know.”
“You disobeyed me.”
He intones the words with a deep heaviness, as if the sentence makes him sad to say.
“I guess, yeah, technically, but…”
“You will have to be punished.”
“No! Not again! You just punished me, and it didn’t work, did it?”
“You must obey me, princess. In all things. Without question.”
“I can tell you right now, that is not going to happen.” I’ve decided this instant that he will not strike me again. Now he mentions it, I can still feel the sting and embarrassment of the first round of ineffective discipline. I do not want a second round.
“And I can inform you that it will unfortunately absolutely have to happen. You must learn obedience. It is one of the royal virtues, one I will educate you on thoroughly this instant. Come here.”
“No.”
He sighs, as if he is disappointed by me. “I just barely finished telling you that obedience was a virtue, and your first act is to defy me? Princess, if I did not know better, I might think that you desired punishment.”
“I really don’t. What I really want, your honor…”
“Highness,” he corrects me.
“Highness,” I amend my speech. “What I really want is to finish my term paper and graduate college, and make a life for myself.”
I want to go home. I want to be somewhere familiar, somewhere the worst things I have to worry about is how old the leftovers in the fridge are, and how many hundreds of words I have left on my paper. I suddenly feel very, very homesick, and very appreciative of a mundane world where dragons do not make sudden appearances.
“You have a life here. In a world where term papers do not exist. You are to be married to me, Princess Emmaline. You belong to me. And I will have your obedience. Now come here this instant, you willful little wench, and take the punishment you so richly deserve.” He finishes his sentence sternly, but not without affection.
I know very well what his idea of punishment is, and the way his forearms flex as he rubs his hands together makes me think it will be worse for me this time. His eyes are narrowed at me with determination, his dark brows drawn sternly down. There is a sexy smirk on his lips however, and I sense a certain anticipation in him. He’s looking forward to this on some level. He’s not just an alien king. He’s a sadistic alien king.
I’m caught between two worlds, and I’m stuck between being two people, Emmaline, who is falling for a far-king alien, and Emma, who is done with his shit already.
The modern woman answers for the princess. “Fuck no,” I say firmly. “I am not going to submit to your discipline. You abducted me, but I do not owe you obedience. That’s not how things work where I come from, and where I come from is where I come from, obviously, so, that’s…”
I’m babbling as he drops his crooked finger and starts taking slow, deliberate steps toward me. He is no longer waiting for me to come to him. He is coming for me.
I dash past him and dart toward the outside. He left the door to the dragon balcony open. I don’t know why I run there, because I know there is no real escape out there, but it feels like I should at least try to evade punishment.
“Don’t…”
He says something just as I exit the bedchamber. I don’t hear what he is telling me to do, because the wind has picked up outside, and his words are carried off in it, along with my own unfortunate body. A powerful gust lifts me off my feet, picks me up, and carries me out through a break in the railing most recently created by the dragon King Charming so fears.
Screaming into the indifferent wind, I am suddenly and brutally forced to confront my mortality. I am sure whatever King Charming intended to do to me, it was not as bad as accidentally throwing myself from a castle. I have fucked up royally, and I have a disturbing amount of time to consider that fuck up as I fall toward the ground which is rushing toward me in a very welcoming way, as if it cannot wait to make my acquaintance. Jagged rocks await me of the kind that seem accustomed to random, intermittent fleshy spatters of what used to be people.