Page 3 of The Dragon and Her Thief
She moved over to the window, pushed the curtains aside, and stared up into the dark night. There wasn’t a cloud in sight. The midnight sky was open, with little twinkling stars. It looked magical.
Off in the distance was the castle. Her target.
Kelsey was raised by her single mother and grandmother, never having met her father. He had disappeared when her mother was pregnant with her. From the time she was a young child, her mother had spoken of the ruby medallion that was stolen by the Zinfina family.
“It was a beautiful rose made of ruby, with a real silver chain,” her mother had shared.
Kelsey had to be about eight years old when she began speaking of her family tree. Their family had once been prosperous members of the community and loved by everyone in Saxon Hills. Her great grandfather was once mayor of the town.
Over the years, their family had been hit with hard times. Her mother, Delaney, still owned the Rose Farm, a cattle ranch. Her mother and grandmother ran it and were doing well.
Suddenly, a shadow of a magnificent dragon appeared in the sky, making her gasp. She leaned forward and pressed her nose to the window.
“What did it feel like to fly?” she whispered aloud.
Closing her eyes, she imagined riding on the back of the dragon with the wind in her hair and the world at her feet.
She would be foolish to try and deny she hadn’t moved into her small apartment because of the location to the castle.
She blinked and returned her attention back to the sky, but the dragon was no longer there.
Mythia.
Kelsey had never spoken with the shifter, and had only seen her from afar. She was tall and curvaceous, with brown skin and dark hair that flowed past her shoulders.
The Zinfina family was rich beyond Kelsey’s wildest dreams.
“They better be,” Kelsey muttered. That would just be dumb if they hadn’t collected wealth through the centuries.
She turned away from the window and walked over to her closet, removed the towel, and hung it up on its hook. The cool air of her central air caused goosebumps to form on her skin and her nipples to pebble. She snagged the nightshirt off her bed and threw it on.
Her eyes landed on the black duffle bag that sat on the floor of her closet. Grabbing it, she set it on her bed and unzipped it to peer inside.
All the tools she would need to break open a vault were there. She had been collecting them for months. After her extensive research on vaults, she was confident she would be able to break into it.
No one knew what type of vault the dragon would have.
Considering the age of the castle, Kelsey was banking on the vault being old as well, which would make it easy for her to crack.
The dragon shifter’s castle had stood for centuries.
“She won’t even know what hit her,” Kelsey murmured, grinning as she zipped the bag shut.
Soon, the Rose medallion would be home. She couldn’t wait to turn it over to her mother, who had a collection of family items handed down to her from previous generations. It was like a family museum in their basement.
She smiled.
Her mother was going to be shocked when she placed that ruby medallion in her hand.
“And you’re certain of this?” Mythia Zinfina snapped, staring at the seer with a hard gaze. She had been summoned back to the castle from her evening flight, and her beast wasn’t pleased they’d had to cut their flight short.
It felt good to stretch her wings and glide through the midnight air. She would have been out for hours, but she received a message to return to the castle immediately.
Apparently, there was something Sascha had seen in a vision. What she had shared with Mythia was that she had seen Mythia’s mate.
Mythia had scoured this world over a thousand times, and had yet to find the one the fates designed for her.
After all the long years she had searched, she was ready to give up, content to fly through the skies alone for the rest of her life.
