Frantic banging on her door shattered Shantel’s much-needed rest.
“Pastor! I know you’re here! Please come out!”
The banging continued.
“Coming!” she called. Dragging herself from the bunk, she opened the cabin door. Shantel shielded her eyes from the hot Bahamian sun, trying to remember her interrupted dream.
Charlie, Nassau’s lead immigration official,
Agabus the gnome rushed into the hallway and leaned against the wall. “That was close,” she panted, glancing over her shoulder. Another one of the queen’s booby traps Agabus just narrowly avoided. I must be getting close to her lair. To Tump.
Her eyes adjusted to the light provided by the torches.
“You know, you’ve got this all wrong.” Aloysia glared at her unwanted visitor, who’d just burst into her tiny cabin in the heart of Germany’s Black Forest and announced his intention to “rescue” her.
The knight in shining armor stood in front of the twelve-year-old girl, his jaw slack, eyes bulging.
Honestly.
Martin awoke to a few unexpected discoveries, the first of which was finding himself suspended upside down from a tree branch. Considering his last memory was losing his footing and tumbling down a sharp embankment, this predicament came as a relief. After all, he wasn’t dead or grievously injured. So that was a plus.
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As the Imperial heir, Sergei received virtually all within our mother’s possession upon her death: title, wealth, lands—even the loyalty of her Court and Council. She ordered them to raise their hands and vow over her deathbed to support Sergei. Such an oath holds more power than any law.
Yet to my mother’s…
Sir Gregory stepped out from behind the overturned table, dusted the ash off his boots, and exhaled in relief. Not even a scuff on the shiny leather. He ran fingers over his cape made from a manticore’s pelt. That, too, was as luxurious as ever. He stared through the broken wall at the departing
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Mark ducked away from a barrage of hail moments before the gunshot clacked. The bullet skimmed his shoulder as a gust, gritty and wet, kicked him to the sidewalk. The tornado slashing through the Indiana countryside was closing in—debris and trees rotating in a torrid sky like dust in a vacuum.
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Maximillion’s manners were atrocious. Clarice’s tail curled as she watched drool trail from the dog’s jowls.
“Is my Maxie hungry?” their owner Katy cooed.
He shifted from paw to paw, pressing even closer to Katy’s legs as she stirred the pot on the stove. If she tripped, both she and the stew would likely crash to the floor.
I don’t sleep anymore.
My apartment is cramped, little more than a closet. Space enough for a few childhood mementos and some clothes, nothing more. No bed.
I was ten years old when I woke one morning to a blazing house and my parents burning alive and myself unscathed in the middle of it all.
With a final cry, I swept the ogre’s foul head off his body and sidestepped as he crashed to the ground beside his two brethren. Before the dust settled, I bounded up the hill to their lair, whence black smoked billowed. They kept their ill-gotten treasures within—and their captives, who cried piteously
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I stumbled, snotty and blurry-eyed, from the smoking building. I didn’t look heroic, but I had rescued the missing child. That’s what mattered. Especially since wailing firetrucks were only beginning to pierce the surrounding commotion.
Blinking back tears, I cradled the grime-covered toddler in my arms. Her small body convulsed in a coughing fit.
Rule 44: Dragons are not heroes—do not act like one.
It’s one of the many rules I, Orpheus, abide by. One of 345, to be exact. Though please don’t ask me to recite them all—I simply haven’t the time. Cave dwelling involves much slumbering and polishing of scales.
But I’ll tell you a few.
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