Page 11 of The Forsaken Heir
When she closed the door, the smile slipped from my lips. Not only did I have no human friends, I had noshifterfriends either. Part of the stipulation of my exile was that I not bring attention to myself or meddle in the world the Laurent family tried to control. They were always worried about what the dragons were doing. The Decimus royal family was our mortal enemies. I never really understood why. You’d think two magical species would be better off as allies than enemies, but what did I know? I was the worthless, rejected eldest child of a great house. Who cared. I had Delphine and my cheesecake. What else did a girl need?
Delphine went to bed early after dinner. I said goodnight to her, then scooped up a thick, wool blanket and walked out onto the balcony. The sun had fully set, and the city lights and car headlights below looked like diamonds flickering across the inky blackness of the night. Whenever I stood out here, I appreciated how nice my apartment was. The high-end penthouse would have been impossible to afford on the meager salary I received at the sewing shop.
I wrapped myself up in the blanket and sat in one of the patio chairs. I’d tried all night to forget my mother’s letter, but now it crept back to the forefront of my mind. What would it be liketo be back in the world of shifters? I’d been gone so long that I wasn’t even sure I could fit in again, even if my family changed their minds. While my thoughts worked through a hundred different possibilities of how I’d make my way in that world, my eyelids slowly slipped lower and lower until sleep claimed me.
I flinched awake sometime later and glanced around, completely discombobulated until I realized where I was. Sitting forward, I winced at the ache in my neck and back. I must have been asleep for a few hours. Below, the city was quieter. Fewer cars moved down the streets, and most businesses were dark.
“Jesus,” I muttered as I stood. “I need to go to bed.”
Before I could grab the door handle, a strange, musky scent caught my attention.
“What is that?” I whispered as I sniffed the air.
A silky, nearly silent sound rang out above.Fwap-fwap.Before I could look up to see what caused it, something dropped onto my head. Letting out a yelp of surprise, I tried to shove at the thin ropes woven into a web.
A net?
Panic shot through my heart as the net cinched around me, and I was lifted into the air. I never even had time to scream for help as I was carried away into the night.
3
BRIELLE
The sudden lurch of not having my feet on the ground lifted had my stomach flipping madly. My stomach wasn’t the only thing that flipped. With the sway of the net, I was turned upside down, my face pressing painfully into the rope. Below, the city passed by, calm and serene, oblivious to the fact that I was being hauled through the sky against my will.
Fwap-fwap-fwap.
That sound again. It was deep and sonorous, yet somehow also subtle. The only thing I could imagine that would make such a sound was broad, thin, membranous wings.
Dragons!The thought slammed into my skull like a sledgehammer.
A dragon shifter had kidnapped me? What theactualfuck? Thousands of thoughts rippled through my mind as I tried to figure out why they would have done this. Had tensions escalated between the wolves and the dragons? My exile had kept me blind to the politics of the magical world. Had my family pissed the dragon clans off enough that they’d do this? I’dassumed my exile and separation from my family would keep me safe from any aggression between the species. It appeared I had been wrong about that.
Twisting and turning, I tried to look up through the net and see if I could spot my captor. Unfortunately, they were too far up to see. The rope attached to the net must have been pretty long. That distance plus the black and cloudy night sky made it impossible to see them.
The cold wind roared in my ears as we flew along, my body dipping slightly each time the creature above me flapped its massive wings in that slow and pendulous up-down-up-down. If I hadn’t known how powerful and strong dragons were, I would have been terrified of being dropped.
As the initial shock faded, my panic increased. Would the dragons hurt me? Hold me hostage? Assault me? God, there were any number of awful things that might happen.
For one psychotic moment, I thought about trying to gnaw or tear my way through the ropes of the net, but a glance at the ground some thousand feet below sent that thought hurtling into the furthest reaches of my mind. Even a wolf shifter couldn’t survive that fall.
“Sir!” I shouted. “Sir, I think you have the wrong chick.”
If the dragon heard me, he didn’t respond. Of course, he wouldn’t.Dumbass, I thought, chastising myself. How would he respond in his dragon form?Idiot.
The lights of the city slowly faded into the dark of the countryside beyond. Soon, I couldn’t see anything to tell one way or another what lay beneath.
Without warning, we began to lose altitude. I gasped, pulling at the ropes until I was in a sitting position. The dragon circled in a winding, swirling pattern, going lower and lower with each rotation. Finally, a faint glint of moonlight broke through the clouds, and I could see that he—or she, for that matter—was lowering me toward an open grassy field.
We were only a hundred feet above the ground when I remembered the box cutter in my pocket. I’d used it to break down the boxes at work. I quickly pulled it out and slid the blade out. With frenzied urgency, I sawed through the ropes, separating several before coming to rest on the ground. I’d give the dragon one thing: they knew how to land. I wasn’t slammed into the grass. Instead, I came to rest with a gentlethudon the ground.
I cut through two more ropes, making an opening I could squeeze through. In my haste to drag myself free of the net, I dropped the knife. Rather than search for it in the dark, I pushed through the net. My shirt caught on something and tore as I tumbled onto the grass.
Free!
Scrambling to my feet, I took off at a dead sprint, not sure in which direction I was going. I didn’t care. I just wanted to get away.
“Wait,” a deep, male voice called out. “Hang on.”
