The Earl in My Bed: A Forgotten Princesses Valentine Novella (11 page)

My lip curls. “Show-off!” I call, the rumble of draki speech vibrating deep in my throat as she dives into the lake and remains underwater for several minutes.

As a water draki, whenever she enters water, gills appear on the side of her body, enabling her to survive submerged . . . well, forever, if she chooses. One of the many useful talents our dragon ancestors assumed in order to survive. Not all of us can do this, of course.
I
can’t.

I do other things.

Hovering over the lake, I wait for Azure to emerge. Finally, she breaks the surface in a glistening spray of water, her blue body radiant in the air, wings showering droplets.

“Nice,” I say.

“Let’s see you!”

I shake my head and set out again, diving through the tangle of mountains, ignoring Azure’s “c’mon, it’s so cool!”

My talent is
not
cool. I would give anything to change it. To be a water draki. Or a phaser. Or a visiocrypter. Or an onyx. Or . . . Really, the list goes on.

Instead, I am this.

I breathe fire. The only fire-breather in the pride in more than four hundred years. It’s made me more popular than I want to be. Ever since I manifested at age eleven, I’ve ceased to be Jacinda. Instead, I’m fire
-breather
. A fact that has the pride deciding my life as if it’s theirs to control. They’re worse than my mother.

Suddenly I hear something beyond the whistling wind and humming mists of the snow-capped mountains at every side. A faint, distant sound.

My ears perk. I stop, hovering in the dense air.

Azure cocks her head; her dragon eyes blink, staring hard. “What is it? A plane?”

The noise grows, coming fast, a steady beat now. “We should get low.”

Nodding, Azure dives. I follow, glancing behind us, seeing only the jagged cropping of mountains. But hearing more. Feeling more.

It keeps coming.

The sound chases us.

“Should we go back to the bikes?” Azure looks back at me, her blue-streaked black hair rippling like a flag in the wind.

I hesitate. I don’t want this to end. Who knows when we can sneak out again? The pride watches me so closely, Cassian is always—

“Jacinda!” Azure points one iridescent blue finger through the air.

I turn and look. My heart seizes.

A chopper rounds a low mountain, so small in the distance, but growing larger as it approaches, cutting through the mist.

“Go!” I shout. “Drop!”

I dive, clawing wind, my wings folded flat against my body, legs poised arrow straight, perfectly angled for speed.

But not fast enough.

The chopper blades beat the air in a pounding frenzy.
Hunters
. Wind tears at my eyes as I fly faster than I’ve ever flown before.

Azure falls behind. I scream for her, glancing back, reading the dark desperation in her liquid gaze. “Az, keep up!”

Water draki aren’t built for speed. We both know that. Her voice twists into a sob and I hear just how well she knows it in the broken sound. “I’m trying! Don’t leave me! Jacinda! Don’t leave me!”

Behind us, the chopper still comes. Bitter fear coats my mouth as two more join it, killing any hope that it was a random helicopter out for aerial photos. It’s a squadron, and they are definitely hunting us.

Is this how it happened with Dad? Were his last moments like this?
Tossing my head, I shove the thought away. I’m
not
going to die today—my body broken and sold off into bits and pieces.

I nod to the nearing treetops. “There!”

Draki never fly low to the ground, but we don’t have a choice.

Azure follows me, weaving in my wake. She pulls close to my side, narrowly missing the flashing trees in her wild fear. I stop and drift in place, chest heaving with savage breath. The choppers whir overhead, their pounding beat deafening, stirring the trees into a frothing green foam.

“We should demanifest,” Az says, panting.

As if we could. We’re too frightened. Draki can never hold human form in a state of fear. It’s a survival mechanism. At our core we’re draki; that’s where we derive our strength.

I peer up through the latticework of shaking branches shielding us, the scent of pine and forest ripe in my nostrils.

“I can get myself under control,” Az insists in our guttural tongue.

I shake my head. “Even if that’s true, it’s too risky. We have to wait them out. If they see two girls out here . . . after they just spotted two female draki, they might get suspicious.” A cold fist squeezes around my heart. I can’t let that happen. Not just for me, but for everyone. For draki everywhere. The secret of our ability to appear as humans is our greatest defense.

“If we’re not home in the next hour, we’re busted!”

I bite my lip to stop from telling her we have more to worry about than the pride discovering we snuck out. I don’t want to scare her even more than she already is.

“We have to hide for a little—”

Another sound penetrates the beating blades of a chopper. A low drone on the air. The tiny hairs at my nape tingle. Something else is out there. Below. On the ground. Growing closer.

I look skyward, my long talonlike fingers flexing open and shut, wings vibrating in barely controlled movement. Instinct urges flight, but I know they’re up there. Waiting. Circling buzzards. I spy their dark shapes through the treetops. My chest tightens. They aren’t going away.

I motion Az to follow me into the thick branches of a towering pine. Folding our wings close to our bodies, we shove amid the itchy needles, fighting the scraping twigs. Holding our breath, we wait.

Then the land comes alive, swarming with an entourage of vehicles: trucks, SUVs, dirt bikes.

“No,” I rasp, eyeing the vehicles, the men, armed to the teeth. In a truck bed, two men crouch at the ready, a great net launcher before them. Seasoned hunters. They know what they’re doing. They know what they’re hunting.

Az trembles so badly the thick branch we’re crouched on starts to shake, leaves rustling. I clutch her hand. The dirt bikes lead the way, moving at a dizzying speed. A driver of one SUV motions out the window. “Look to the trees,” he shouts, his voice deep, terrifying.

Az fidgets. I clutch her hand harder. A bike is directly below us now. The driver wears a black T-shirt that hugs his young muscled body. My skin tightens almost painfully.

“I can’t stay here,” Az chokes out beside me. “I’ve got to go!”

“Az,” I growl, my low rumbling tones fervent, desperate. “That’s what they want. They’re trying to flush us out. Don’t panic.”

Her words spit past gritted teeth. “I. Can’t.”

And I know with a sick tightening of my gut that she’s not going to last.

Scanning the activity below and the choppers cutting across the sky above, I make up my mind right then.

“All right.” I swallow. “Here’s the plan. We separate—”

“No—”

“I’ll break cover first. Then, once they’ve gone after me, you head for water. Go under and stay there. However long it takes.”

Her dark eyes gleam wetly, the vertical lines of her pupils throbbing.

“Got it?” I demand.

She nods jerkily, the ridges on her nose contracting with a deep breath. “W-what are you going to do?”

I force a smile, the curve of my lips painful on my face. “Fly, of course.”

Also by Sophie Jordan

Lessons from a Scandalous Bride

Wicked in Your Arms

Wicked Nights With a Lover

In Scandal They Wed

Sins of a Wicked Duke

Surrender to Me

One Night With You

Too Wicked to Tame

Once Upon a Wedding Night

A
BOUT
THE
A
UTHOR

New York Times
bestselling author SOPHIE JORDAN grew up in the Texas Hill Country where she wove fantasies of dragons, warriors, and princesses. A former high school English teacher, she lives in Houston with her family. When she’s not writing, she spends her time overloading on caffeine (lattés and Diet Cherry Coke are preferred), talking plotlines with anyone who will listen (including her family), and cramming her DVR with true-crime and reality-TV shows. Sophie also writes young adult romance novels for HarperTeen. You can visit her online at www.sophiejordan.net.

Visit
www.AuthorTracker.com
for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

COPYRIGHT

Excerpt from
How to Lose a Bride in One Night
copyright © 2013 by Sharie Kohler.

Excerpt from
Firelight
copyright © 2010 by Sharie Kohler.

THE EARL IN MY BED
. Copyright © 2013 by Sharie Kohler. All rights reserved under International and Pan American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

EPub Edition FEBRUARY 2013 ISBN: 9780062222466

Print Edition ISBN: 9780062222473

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1