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)
I have been following odd yet strong impulses this entire time. Now I want to be closer. I want to touch its scales. I want to come to know it. I am feeling an intense curiosity as I move through the doorway and very nearly out onto the balcony, just as the creature roars and lets a great plume of fire shoot skyward.
Where are Charming’s defenses? Is everybody so terrified of this beast they don’t dare fight it? I’m surprised that none of the king’s archers are loosing their arrows at the beast. No knights are appearing with swords to try to cut its massive head from its even larger body. I can see marks on the balcony which suggest that this beast has landed here time and time again, great gouges of claw in relatively soft stone.
Another glut of fire is projected into the sky, making the air shimmer with heat. The dragon is calling me, and I cannot resist.
It must sense me staring because it sweeps around, massive tail lashing around in a serpentine coil as it faces me, lowering a head three times larger than my entire body.
Two bright green eyes lock on mine. It opens its mouth, replete with massive sharp teeth, each one the very length of my body, and speaks in a great booming tone.
“GO.”
The word resonates through me, finds my marrow and shakes me to my core. It is not a voice to be ignored. It is one of pure command, issued from a creature that exists only in mythology and directly before me. I can smell it, sulphur and gold. Metal and power. It is scaled and it is leviathan in size. It is very, very real, and it sees me for who I am. It called me forth, summoned me, and now it is commanding me to leave its presence. I have misunderstood, somehow. I have angered it.
I obey instantly out of pure fear, rushing back inside, and bolting the door. I retreat to the bath chamber, doubly removing myself from the presence of the wild and fascinating creature.
Fear infests me, leaving me weak and trembling. I’ve dropped my phone somewhere between the bathroom and the dragon, and I’m not going back out there to find it.
Something about the dragon’s shout has broken some part of the spell I must be under. I’ve been carried away by the magical strangeness and deep romance of King Charming’s abduction, but I’m suddenly remembering everything that is actually real. Things like my term paper. I’m going to miss the deadline. I’m going to miss a lot of things. Tomorrow people will start looking for me. My friends will be worried. My clients will leave negative reviews because I’m not showing up for their bookings. Mr and Mrs Weston will miss their anniversary dinner because I am not there to watch Casey and there is no way to tell them that I can’t come…
“EMMALINE!”
My name is roared, shaking me out of my stress spiral. I stand back, away from the bath chamber door, remembering something else. Charming said he would call my name three times when he returned. Instead he shouts it once, in a voice only slightly less thunderous than that of the dragon.
I do not respond. I have the very uncomfortable and unfamiliar feeling of being in trouble. I want to hide in the bathroom well clear of royal irritation. The door has a bolt upon it, which I see I have already drawn shut, though I do not remember doing it.
A firm knock comes at the door. “Emmaline. Open this door this instant.”
“You’ve only said my name twice,” I reply through solid oak. “You said you would say it three times. How do I know it’s really you, now that I’ve told you the secret?”
“Emmaline,” he says. “Open the door.” I can hear exasperation of the kind I know does not bode well. I am sure it is him. He has a rich baritone of a kind I have not encountered before in the voices of other men. He would make a killing announcing movie trailers back on Earth.
But he is speaking more quietly now, more reasonably. I consider my options. If I leave the door closed, it is quite likely that I will have to eke out my existence in the bath chamber, which contains quite a lot of soap, and not a lot of food. I don’t really have a choice. It’s not a matter of if I open the door. It’s a matter of when. I suppose the sooner the better, the more compliant I appear, the more of his favor I might earn.
When I open the door, I see him standing there, entirely shirtless. His pants are on, but one side of them is lower on his hips than the other, almost as if he pulled them on in a hurry. His boots are not laced. If I did not know better, I would say he was recently entirely naked. He looks as though he pulled clothes on as fast as possible in order to come and confront me. It is a very carnally distracting sight, for his chest is broad and strong and his torso is narrow but powerful. The green hue and the light scaling only serves to enhance his physical charms.