“Everyone here has lied to you from the beginning. We’re immortal and we never age once we hit twenty-five. We have lived in this cursed place for five hundred years, never aging, never changing. We just exist here. We live forever and it’s her fault. She did this to us and claimed it was some great chance for us to survive. The princess made a mistake in the name of sacrificing herself.” His voice is empty of any emotion. “Years ago, there were so many of us and our numbers were dwindling, and if we didn’t agree on peace, we would have killed each other off. It was agreed upon that when a female was born in the Sun Dynasty or the Moon, we would marry the children off, uniting the biggest lands to make one royal family. The same would happen for the Twilight and the Dawn, and eventually even their children would marry the children of the Sun and Moon combined. Unfortunately, only male heirs were ever born for the Sun and Moon Dynasties. The same for the Dawn but not the Twilight.”
His laugh is hollow as I stand in shock. Stunned by his story. “No. There was a sole princess born, and her mother died in childbirth. Her father refused to remarry, but no one would have thought any other children were true heirs, anyway. The first marriage is all that counts in fae royal families. Her father, the king, was ambitious. He wanted more than the Dawn Dynasty for his only daughter. He had the only princess to trade, so he made sure that we all spent time together. I fell in love with her, and she fell in love with me. Ziven…they became best friends.”
“But in the book, she said she loved the moon.” My whisper only angers him.
A flame burns across his eyes. “She was delusional, and we all knew that in the end. The princess believed we were both entwined mates to her. It wasn’t true.” His smile is too quick, too nasty, and it surprises me. He’s never spoken to me like that. He never seemed to have spoken to anyone like that, but what would I know? They have all lied to me…even Catherine.
“My father would not have it. He did not want me marrying her. He was waiting for one of his heirs to marry the Moon Dynasty, and nothing was going to change on that. I ended my relationship, and there was no relationship between her and Ziven, so she married the Dawn prince.”
I remember this from the book. She wasn’t happy. She wanted one of them to save her from the marriage. “It was a good move on my father’s part. Ziven’s too as his mother birthed his sister only days after the marriage. The Twilight princess had problems. She could not have children. She could not breed any heirs. For years, every healer in the world tried to help and failed. There was no heir to take the Dawn or Twilight Dynasty if they did not have a child. There was a distant cousin, Mazzis, but he was weak and did not want the throne.”
The fairy tale that Ruelle told me is coming back, the words echoing. What if it was all true and no fairy tale? What if they were trying to tell me the truth the whole time? “The Dawn prince was a power-hungry asshole, and he found books that had been promised to the Dawn Dynasty for a long time. No one else knew they existed, what power they had. In his attempts to change his wife’s failure, the magic rebounded onto him instead and turned him into a vampyre, the first vampyre, who is now the king of everything outside this mansion.” He rolls his eyes. “He locked his wife away, unsure why the magic would not work on her, but it would not. He began turning the people of the Dawn Dynasty into vampyres. Nearly all of them, to make an army. Mazzis took a group and ran to us, and we hid them. The vampyre king was ruthless and did all of this in a matter of days, before even any of us knew what was going to happen.”
It took five days for the vampyres to conquer the world. Ruelle’s story wasn’t a tale at all, it was real. “There was war like nothing I’d ever seen in my life.” I watch the memories of the horrors shine across his eyes. “Millions died within a day. Millions on the next day, and we all knew by nightfall on the fifth day, we would be dead. The vampyre king’s book had magic on how to stun our dragons so he could murder and kill them. He never did the Decidere, and he hated dragons. The princess stole the book, along with her dragon, and flew here.” He spits the words out. “With the cost of her life, she made this trap, binding us here and the dragons below. She sacrificed herself using dark magic from the book. The other book was lost out in the world.”
“If you have this magical book, can’t you use it to get out?”
He crosses his arms. “The magic in the book is very clear. A sacrifice of love locked the doors, and only a sacrifice of love from the princess can unlock them. The magic made sure the Decidere would not begin until you came back to us. I didn’t wish to lie to you, along with everyone here, but you are our only hope of escaping.”
I have so many questions. “Why are you telling me all this? Why lie to me since I got here? And what about Hettie? You said you don’t change. Is that why there are no children here? You didn’t hide them for the Decidere, did you?”
“There are no children other than Hettie. She is a miracle. One that none of us understands. No child was born until her or after her.” He pauses.
“I don’t get what all this has to do with me.” I back away slowly from him. Ziven told me to run from him, and everything is screaming in me to do just that. He was protecting me. “Ziven said that you…”
“Ziven is the reason I’m telling you all of this now. He is the reason you won’t survive tonight.” His threat makes me feel sick. “Do you know why he calls you a traitor? Do you know why he hates you? Why he’s hated you since you got here and wanted you dead?”
I shake my head before he continues. “Because it’s you. You’re the princess reborn, just as the book vowed. On a storm, the saviour who is a traitor to her race will arrive. On a storm, the princess will return and, with her death, one chance of freedom.” He throws a page down on the bench, those sentences written over and over on it. “How do you think you just walked in here? You’re her. Reborn once again. Only you can get us out. I never lied to you about that, but you need to love someone in here before dying to sacrifice yourself; otherwise, it won’t work.” He sneers at me. “I wanted it to be me, for everything you cost us, but Ziven…it’s him you love. I saw you both tonight and knew it was time. You should have listened to him, but I’m glad you didn’t.” Daegan laughs at me. “Ziven, somehow you made the cold bastard grow a heart. He has been helping you since the beginning, getting his man to push you off the cliff and into the better pillars so you’d win the first Decidere. Training you to fight, protecting you from even his own people, and going as far as sending his dragon to protect you in the Decidere. The fool even went into the Decidere and pulled you out of the water, saving your life.”
My heart clenches. I was wrong, so wrong about him. Daegan is still ranting. “I made sure he wouldn’t interrupt us tonight. He can’t do what needs to be done to save us all. One life…it is nothing in comparison to the world. You owe me. You owe your race your life.”
A beam of light shoots straight through my stomach. The world freezes for a second, right before I scream, falling to my knees in pain that blurs my vision. I grasp my stomach as blood pours out, a slow way to die. Daegan sighs as he walks over to me, leans down, and cups my cheek. “You look just like her, the very image of the princess who cursed us all to save us. For what it is worth, I am sorry you end like this, but you die in here, looking at the sky. I will get my army ready to fly. The Decidere made me sure this was the right way. It found you unworthy of a dragon. This is the only right thing to do for my people.”
The pain is unimaginable, and I can’t focus. I can’t breathe as he walks away from me. “Help, stop, please!”
“Goodbye, Story Dehana.” He walks away, leaving me alone to die slowly in the greenhouse like I mean nothing to any of them. I guess I don’t. For a long time, I hold my stomach, feeling my blood pouring through my fingers as I look up at the stars and the moon, high above, waiting for a little bit of strength. Only I grow cold by the second, and I can feel the darkness creeping in, death waiting for me with an open hand. I don’t want to die. Please, don’t let me die from this.
With a groan, I turn over onto my stomach and crawl forward towards the doors. Hot tears stream down my face as I keep going forward, closer and closer to the greenhouse doors as black dots float across my vision. I’m not sure how I make it there, but I use the handle to pull myself up to stand, wrapping my arm tightly around my stomach, feeling even weaker by the second as I slide through the door. I stumble outside, dizzily walking onto the dragon wing. I swear I’m seeing things as the dragon’s head turns towards me, tilting its head to the side, rock cracking with the movement.
A soft female voice fills my mind. “Come to me.”
I know it must be death talking, not the stone dragon statue that I’m imagining moving and talking to me. I’ve lost too much blood, and I have nothing to lose anymore. My blood drops onto the stone as I walk across the bridge to the middle and stand on the back of the dragon, climbing off the bridge onto a small ledge. I don’t even have the strength to be scared of falling. “You’re not alone.”
I collapse forward, slamming into the stone as it crumbles, and I can’t find the power to even lift my head. The sound is deafening, but all I see is the rock fading away underneath me, revealing nothing but the shining red crystal body of a dragon. All the rock falls away from this gigantic dragon, revealing beautiful red wings that look like rubies, clear and see-through, shining as hard as any diamond. This beautiful creature, not a stone dragon but more like a crystal dragon, turns its head back to meet me. Its eyes burn like purple fires as her voice echoes in my mind. “You were tested in the Decidere, and I watched. You were brave like your mother when you believed in your soul you couldn’t be; you were a warrior like your father when you have never been trained to be one; you were a survivor when you knew your body was broken; and you are now my rider. You were found to be stronger than any dragon below, and I have waited for your rebirth, Story Dehana. Now we ride to save this world.”
My dragon flies up and shatters the glass ceiling.
EpiloguePrince Emyr
He finally wakes.
I glance at the betraying man lying on a slab, who cost me her. My favourite blood slave, the only woman I will ever love. Story Dehana. I can imagine her in front of me every time I close my eyes, her hair the same shade as her blood, her curvy body I love to sink into at the same time as my teeth do. I trained her to please me, and she tastes like what I imagine a deity would. She is mine and I will get her back. This man took her, but letting him die wasn’t going to get her back. His entire body shakes, and he screams in pain like he has done for weeks in a deep slumber. This is usually how they wake up, and sometimes they die. I’ve turned so many of them now. Some of them survive, some of them do not, but this one…this one, I think he will. He has to serve his prince. He shakes and shakes, sweat glistening all over his body as the colour drains from his skin. I enjoy this part. His hair drains of the brown, blending the deep shade to a silver until his blue eyes pop open and he turns his head to me.
He touches his chest where there’s a scar where his heart used to be. I’ve never brought one back without a heart before. My father said it was possible. “Story.”
I nod as I roughly grab Kyrell’s chin, turning him towards me. “You are going to go find Story Dehana. Hunt her. Tell her I have her mother, and if she doesn’t come back to me…I will turn her mother into a vampyre like you.”
Keep reading here with book two.
From the Author.
Hello! Thank you for reading my book, A Vow of Dragons and Storms. The next book is called— A Book of Royals and Deities. It will be out later this year. I can’t wait to continue Story’s
Thank you as always to my family, my editor, my writing side kicks aka my dogs and the lovely beta readers.
If you wish to pre-order book two, the link is here—
Finishing with some artwork of my favourite scene with Story and Ziven at the ball—
G. Bailey is a USA Today and International Bestselling Author of fantasy and paranormal romance. She is an avid reader, with her own library, where she spends her days pushing her cat off her laptop.
