Page 5 of Firedrake Betrayal
The blank spot in my memory.
A big one.
“I’m not your wife. We were…” My voice trails off as my head pounds. I lift my fingers to my throbbing temples.
Dominik touches his lips to mine and strides toward the wall of floor-to-ceiling windows.
I barely feel his fleeting kiss. I’m still struggling to fill the blank spot in my memory.
Something happened. Something bad.
“This is not the place I should be,” I whisper.
“You are exactly where you belong,” Dominik says. “With me.”
But I’m not.
I don’t remember how I got here, so how can I be so certain he’s wrong?
I blink.
Air blows my long chestnut brown hair into my face. Bright green eyes peer down at me. Something tightens around my waist. Then I’m soaring. Up and up, breaking through white clouds, and I can’t breathe, the air is too thin.
I blink again.
I’m sitting upright in an unfamiliar bed, and a man is calling me his wife.
Nothing makes sense.
“Why don’t I remember?”
“Your memory will return in time.” Dominik picks up a slim white remote from the top of a white dresser and presses a button.
The floor-to-ceiling blinds sweep open soundlessly.
I stumble out of bed, nearly falling as I stare out through the windows at the dusky blue-black sky. I’ve never been to New York in my life, but I recognize that skyline.
“We’re in New York,” I breathe.
“In my penthouse, yes.” He crosses over to me as I gape at a view.
Back in Atticus’s compound, he said he was from New York.
Now I’m here with him. No wonder things felt so wrong.
He’s two feet away from me when I back up, determined to keep him at a distance. “No. Stay away from me.”
“Jade…” He slows his steps, but he doesn’t stop.
“No.” I keep on backing up. “We shouldn’t be here. I was…”
The blank spot in my memory suddenly opens up.
I have the strangest sense that I’m falling as memories rush past me.
We were in a tiny town in Wilkerson, Oklahoma where someone rammed by dad off the road. Hours or days later, I woke up in a white and glass cell, the newest captive to a wealthy southern man called Atticus Chira who liked to collect supernatural beings.
I returned to Atticus’s compound to free Dominik after he gave me a chance to escape. Dad transformed into a red firedrake and set fire to his compound, freeing Shep, Isaiah, and me from a trap we walked into.
