Where Sleeping Dragons Lie (Skeleton Key) (10 page)
Read Where Sleeping Dragons Lie (Skeleton Key) Online
Authors: Cristina Rayne,Skeleton Key
“Why am I not surprised to
find you out here instead of where I left you?” Taron said with a chuckle as he
stepped up behind her and slid his arms around her waist.
“Your suite was a bit
too gloomy for my current mood,” Briana replied, turning around in his arms so
that she could look up at his face.
She was dressed in a
multi-layered robe-like dress in white and gold that Taron informed her was
worn by the nobility for celebrations. It was both comfortable and beautiful,
two things that were not usually true when it came to formal dresses. When she
had first seen it, she had been immensely relieved that no corsets were
involved.
With the dress and
standing out on the extensive balcony outside Taron’s living room, looking out
from the side of a high mountain with several dragons flying overhead as the
sun had begun to set, Briana had felt as though she had entered the pages of a
fairytale.
“Considering that no one
has lived in these rooms for over two centuries, I’m not surprised that it
feels a bit stuffy,” Taron agreed. “A little airing out should fix that
particular problem within a month or two.”
“That’s assuming I’ll be
here long enough to enjoy the end results.”
He instantly went rigid.
“You are still unsure about staying? Unsure about
me
?”
Briana pulled out the
skeleton key from where it hung on a new chain of gold under the collar of her
dress. Might as address the enormous elephant in the room now while they were
still alone.
Taron recoiled from it
as though it were a cobra.
“Honestly? I just don’t
know.” She took a deep breath and forced herself to continue, “The part about
you, about us? Surprisingly, that’s the easy part. I’ve only known you for a
couple of days, but it already feels like we’ve known each other for a
lifetime. Now, I just have to decide if I can bear giving up all of the people
I care about in my world forever for a life here in this world, a world I
hardly know at all. I’m not sure if I can ever make that decision.”
“Then don’t make it
tonight,” Taron said firmly. “Let me show you the joy of my people, the beauty
of my kingdom. What better way to start than a celebration of victory? A celebration
of a kingdom starting on a path of healing?”
Briana looked down at
the key resting in her palm. If, in the end, she decided that she couldn’t bear
to leave her home world behind, the longer she stayed here and the more time
she spent with Taron would make leaving him hurt that much more. She looked
back into Taron’s earnest eyes. She didn’t want to hurt him, but she would be
doing just that, even if she left tonight.
Suddenly, the weight of
the key in her hand disappeared. Startled, her attention instantly shot back
down to her palm, but only the gold chain remained. She stared at it for
another few seconds, her brain unable to comprehend what she was seeing.
“The skeleton
key—disappeared…”
Hearing the bewilderment
in her own voice gave Briana an absurd urge to giggle.
“What?” Taron asked sharply,
looking down at the hand that now only held a chain with a look as though he
thought she was yanking
his
chain.
“Well—Granny Ruth was
always nagging me about going out into the world in search of adventure rather
than spending my days hovered over an old tome,” Briana said slowly, the
beginnings of a smile forming on her lips as she released the necklace and let
her hand drop back down to her side. “It seems the universe agrees.”
When the implications of
what she said finally sank in, Taron gathered her more tightly into his arms
and spent the next few minutes kissing her senseless. “I promise we’ll have
great fun together, Absorption Girl,” he said once he allowed her to breathe
again.
She laughed. “No doubt.
Royals are always a magnet for trouble, remember?”
“That’s why you will be
needing this.”
A burst of incredible
heat suddenly stabbed into her chest, making Briana cry out and clutch hard at
the back of Taron’s tunic. It was immediately followed by the largest surge of
adrenaline through her entire body that she had ever experience, making her
feel as though she could suddenly
fly
.
Her pulse racing, Briana
squirmed within his arms, the urge to do something,
anything
, was
suddenly almost overwhelming. She had never felt so
alive
! She wanted to
run through the forest again with Taron, to dance, to make love, to soar the
skies. Then in the next breath, that strange euphoria abruptly disappeared,
leaving only dizziness and a sense of confusion in its wake.
“What—did you just
do
to me?” she panted, looking up at him with wide eyes.
Taron planted a teasing
kiss on the end of her nose. “You didn’t think the length of a human lifetime
with you would be enough, did you? I just merely gifted you with a portion of
my Dragon Fire to ensure we will have centuries of fun together.”
The look on his face was
smug.
“
Merely
?” Briana echoed
a bit shrilly. “You just essentially granted me immortality like a damned genie
handing out wishes and you act as though it’s no big deal! What if you just cut
your own lifespan short by doing that, you big, reckless lizard! Or—”
Briana yelped as she
suddenly found herself tumbled onto her back with a darkening sky overhead and
a wickedly-grinning dragon-shifter prince between her legs looking down at her
with eyes of flame.
“Perhaps I need to
reenact our activities from last night to teach you the meaning of the word, ‘fun,’”
Taron growled.
A burst of heat rose to
her face even as her sex began to throb in sudden arousal. Briana raised her
hands to cradle his face lovingly. She had a sneaking suspicion that he would
win a lot of future arguments this way.
She could always worry
about eternity tomorrow.
Briana wrapped her legs
snugly around Taron’s waist and thrust her hips up to rub teasingly against his
hardness. “Then teach me, for the rest of our lives.”
Needless to say, they
were super late to Dagon’s victory banquet. In the years to come, it would
become a regular occurrence.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read my
Skeleton
Key
novella!
All reviews are appreciated
.
If you would like to read more from the
Skeleton
Key
series, please click on the link below:
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—
The
Elven Realm Saga
Click to
buy:
Claimed
by the Elven King
*or Download
the first 5 chapters for FREE
here
.
Claimed by the
Elven Brothers: Decision (An Elven King Novella #1)
Claimed by the
Elven Brothers: Fate (An Elven King Novella #2)
Shadows
Beneath the Falling Snow (An Elven King Prequel Story)
Claimed by the Elven King: Date Night (A Bonus
Short)
Memories
of an Elven Prince (The Elven Realms Book One) *coming Summer 2016
For Emily Ford, being
awakened in the dead of night by what seems to be the very shadows in her
bedroom come to life is the least of her worries as she is spirited away to
become the new wife of an elven king for the purpose of bearing his heirs.
Entranced despite herself by his ethereal beauty, Emily surrenders willingly to
his seduction and is introduced to a new world of sensual pleasures she had not
thought possible outside of a dream.
But can a human ever
really win the heart of an elf or have a place within the elven court,
especially when the biggest obstacles to both are her new husband's barren and
resentful queen, who makes no qualms about wanting Emily gone and is prepared
to do the unspeakable to make it happen, and the whispers of anti-human
sentiments within the elven court, itself?
—
Riverford
Shifters Series
Download
Book 1 for FREE:
Tempted by the Jaguar
Tempted
by the—Lion? *coming Fall 2016
Kylie Moore has a secret,
one she and her adoptive father have carefully guarded for over a decade since
the night her parents disappeared. However, when she is randomly attacked one
night in her apartment complex's parking lot, that one violent act sets in
motion events that reveal not only her long-dormant shifter heritage in the
worst possible way, but could also railroad her efforts of finding out what
really happened to her parents.
Suddenly finding herself
the center of attention among Riverford's shifter clans, Kylie's only hope of
navigating such a dangerous minefield of politics and perpetual battles over
territory is Hunter, a too-sexy-for-her-peace-of-mind jaguar shifter that might
be her key to gaining insider access to the hidden and secretive shifter
society.
Now Kylie must decide
whether to integrate more deeply into Hunter's jaguar clan in order to take
advantage of this rare opportunity or to run while her secret still remains
uncovered. To stay would mean deliberately putting herself in more danger than
Kylie may be prepared to handle, especially when Hunter, the person she must
rely on, may be hiding something as well.
—
The
Vampire Underground
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Buy:
Blood
Escort: A Short Story (Tales from the Vampire Underground #1)
An Impossible Gift: A Short Story (Tales from the
Vampire Underground #2)
When college senior, Abby,
accepts the offer of a drink from a gorgeous stranger, she has no idea that he
is one of Crimson's Men, secret escorts of a certain club that she had believed
to be only rumor. Turning him down was the easy part. However, getting him out
of her mind may be a little trickier. Who would have thought such an innocuous
item as a business card could cause her so much grief?
Urban and Epic Fantasy, writing as C.G. Garcia:
Fractured
Multiverse
Click to
Buy:
The
Supreme Moment
Black
Crimson (Blood Fire Chronicles Book One) *coming soon
A New Adult Urban Fantasy
Novel with Elements of Sci-Fi and Romance
What would you do when
every choice is the wrong one?
The moment a bunch of men
with guns kicked in the doors of her house, eighteen-year-old Avery Morgan knew
her estranged father's gambling addiction had finally caught up with her family
in the worst way. On the brink of doing something unspeakable to save her
little sister from being taken, she is interrupted by the sudden arrival of
Darrien Stathos, a billionaire business mogul whose true persona is rumored to
be the lord of the criminal underworld known as Kairos. Darrien announces that
he is also there to collect on a contract with Avery's father—for Avery.
As she struggles with the
reality of being the property of an alleged crime lord and the constant
harassment of two FBI agents, several disturbing observations about Darrien's
eyes and the frightening, inexplicable ways he stops a couple of would-be
assassins make Avery rethink her initial dismissal of some of the more
outlandish gossip that questioned his humanity.
Add to that learning a
disturbing and dangerous truth about herself, and Avery is ready to break,
especially when the truth of Darrien's identity is something that will shatter
the very foundation of her understanding of reality.
—
Old
Souls
Click to
Buy:
Old
Souls
The Name
Within His Soul *coming soon
Issai has had enough. For
the past five thousand plus years, he has been successively reborn hundreds of
times with all his previous lives’ memories intact, all the while relentlessly
compelled to wander the earth in pursuit of an elusive something he has yet to
even identify. Over the centuries, whispers of others similar to him began to
surface, and his kind became known as Old Souls.
Unable to find answers for
his seemingly endless existence and no longer willing to play in what he fears
is just a game for the gods’ amusement, Issai abandons his wanderings and
questions and settles in an isolated town in the kingdom of Sarim, determined
to resist the strong urge to be on the move that has dictated his entire
existence. However, he is attacked shortly by the Shi, hunters of Old Souls
that believe they can steal their “immortality” by consuming parts of an Old
Soul through various rituals.
Forced to flee, Issai soon
encounters Hahri, a loud-mouthed Old Soul with the same compulsion and inhuman
speed to rival Issai’s own, inadvertently triggering a painful reaction to each
other that is aggravated by the distance between them. When escaping Hahri
proves futile and the other offers him a hint to the mystery behind their
compulsion, Issai not only reluctantly finds himself once again in pursuit of
the very answers he had forsaken, but also running from a relentless enemy
whose unprecedented numbers suggest that immortality may not be their only
goal.
—
The
Golden Mage Trilogy
Download
Book 1 for FREE:
The Kingdom of Eternal Sorrow
After waking to find her
teenaged sister at her apartment in California begging to be allowed to stay
after running away from home, Allison McNeal thought her biggest problem that day
would be to keep her former stepfather from finding out before she could talk
sense into her sister, not the series of strange, unnerving incidents
throughout the morning that suddenly have her second-guessing her sanity, and
especially not the brilliant light that abruptly flashes in front of them when
the two sisters are walking in a nearby park as a hole is seemingly ripped into
the very fabric of reality, sucking a terrified and screaming Allison within
and ultimately into another world altogether.
Found within the kingdom
of Lamia and suddenly manifesting frightening abilities she hasn’t the
slightest clue how to control, Allison learns that the locals believe that
she’s the Golden Mage, a figure of legend with the ability to perform powerful
and terrible spells that haven’t been seen for centuries and destined to
fulfill an ancient prophecy where a single decision will ultimately decide the
fate of not only two warring kingdoms—one her new home and the other ruled by a
cruel mage-king obsessed with Lamia’s conquest—but also a world moving closer
to a prophesied time of possible annihilation.
In a world where many see
her arrival as a curse and others as a powerful means towards a dark end,
Allison’s only guides are a young Mage-general struggling with his own dark
past of secrets and betrayals and the Brothers in Divinity, a secretive order
of priests and mages whose only loyalties lie with their god and whose divine
laws must be followed above all others.
War is swiftly
approaching, and if the prophecy is to be believed, only she has the power to
determine which kingdom will fall.