One Dragon's Dream
Page 11
She could almost hear her mother’s voice sharp with exhaustion. ‘Pull yourself together, Anna, for your brothers’ sake.’
She wiped her tears in the sleeve of the scratchy crepe mourning frock that had been her mother’s. It was too long for her and the hem trailed, dragging across the dirt in the yard. She caught at the skirt, pinched the cloth between her fingers, lifted it out of the muddy water around the pipe, and began pumping.
When she changed the full bucket for the empty one, she saw the head of a single white daisy beneath the archway. She had the strangest feeling it was a last and final gift from her mother. She abandoned the buckets and ran towards it. As her fingers closed over it, a shadow moved in from John Street. A hand clamped across her mouth.
Her head was wrenched back. She stared up into the pockmarked, salivating face of Ianto Paskey.
‘Your brother owes us and he hasn’t paid his debt, Missy. As we can’t get to him, we’ll collect it from you.’
The Tsar’s Dragons series
by
Catrin Collier
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CATRIN COLLIER
One Dragon’s Dream
ISBN 9781783754106
Published by Accent Press 2014
Copyright © Catrin Collier 2014
The right of Catrin Collier to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the without the written permission of the publishers: Accent Press Ltd, The Old School, Upper High St, Bedlinog, Mid Glamorgan, CF46 6RY.
All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.