Page 69 of Spark of Sorcery
Anything has done until Briony.
I scrub my hand through my hair.
This is my duty. There is no refusal. I go willingly or I go reluctantly. It makes no difference. Go I will.
And yet, things have changed. I don’t want to leave the academy and I don’t want to leave her. Partly, because the girl has a propensity for winding up in danger and ultimately hurt. It’s more than that though. According to that note, we’ll be away for at least four weeks.
I groan. That sounds like a lifetime.
It’s pathetic, stupid, ridiculous, but the idea pains me right in the center of my gut.
I stare down at it now.
I laugh.
Who are you kidding, Lincoln?
That isn’t your gut paining at the idea of this separation, it’s your damned heart.
You care for the girl.
And it’s more than the sex. It’s more than the way her snarky words and bratty looks turn you on.
It’s more than that flash of a vision. It’s more than what the future holds.
She’s wormed her way under your skin, infected your blood and infiltrated your heart.
I raise my gaze and lose it in the flickering flames of the fire.
Am I falling for her?
Chapter Twenty-Five
Thorne
The glowing stone splits open and something organic, leathery, and slimy slithers out onto the hearth.
Briony squeals and scuttles backwards across the floor.
“What is that?” she cries.
“A creature of some sort,” I answer, examining it more closely. The thing is covered in a thick slime similar to the yolk of an egg and it’s difficult to make it out as it wriggles beneath the translucent goo.
“Is it alive?” Briony asks, venturing a little closer.
It appears so. The creature struggles in the goo, twisting and turning its sinewy body until finally a small head breaks through. It takes a lungful of air and then it squawks.
“Is it a bird?”
It has a pointed beak so the guess is reasonable and I canmake out a pair of wings folded in the slime. But I don’t think it’s a bird. Or a griffin.
“A dragon.”
“A dragon?” She laughs. “That’s impossible.”
“A rock calling you towards it sounds impossible, don’t you think?”
She tuts and leans over the creature. “Do you think it’s dangerous?”
