The Golden Dynasty

Kristen Ashley

Published by Kristen Ashley

Copyright 2011 Kristen Ashley at Smashwords

Discover other titles by Kristen Ashley:

Rock Chick Series:

Rock Chick

Rock Chick Rescue

Rock Chick Redemption

Rock Chick Renegade

Rock Chick Revenge

The ‘Burg Series:

For You

At Peace

Golden Trail

The Colorado Mountain Series:

The Gamble

Sweet Dreams

Fantasyland Series:

Wildest Dreams

Fantastical

Other Titles by Kristen Ashley:

Lacybourne Manor

Mystery Man

Penmort Castle

Sommersgate House

Three Wishes

*****

Author’s Note

The land you’re about to be introduced to has its own language. In order not to disturb the look and flow of the book, I have not italicized this fictional foreign tongue. I have, however, translated within the narrative or, if not, the dialogue is annotated and the translation is included at the end of the chapter. For your reference, I have included a Korwahk dictionary at the end of the book. This dictionary includes definitions of Korwahk words as well as explanations of the different countries, regions and seas of my fictional alternate universe.

In order to move the story along, I also took liberties with the amount of time it takes our heroine to learn the new tongue and our hero to learn hers. Our Circe is a clever girl and our Lahn is fabulous but no one is that clever and fabulous… except in a fantasy.

Welcome to Korwahk. I hope you enjoy spending time there.

Kristen Ashley

*****

Prologue

Running

I was running.

Running on those stupid, flimsy little sandals.

Running for my life.

He was on his horse, I could hear the beast’s hooves pounding behind me, hear this mingled with my own, panting, ragged, panicked breaths – and they were getting closer.

I was covered in blood. Not mine. It was still warm from spurting from that man’s body.

I didn’t know where I was or how I got there. I wasn’t certain what was happening. I went to bed in my bed in a world I understood and I woke up here in a world that was entirely foreign to me, everything about it, and not one thing about it was good.

And now I was running for my life.

The horse’s hooves got closer; I knew they were almost upon me.

Frantic, I glanced back and saw I was right. Not only were they close, the man, the rider, so huge he seemed giant, had leaned so deeply to the side, his body was in line with the horse’s middle.

And his long arm was stretched out.

I faced forward and tried to run faster.

But I couldn’t go any faster and I certainly couldn’t go faster than a horse.

I cried out when the arm hooked me at the waist, closed around and lifted me clean off my feet before my ass was planted on the horse in front of him.