Table of Contents
REALM OF THE DRAGON
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Epilogue
REALM OF THE DRAGON
The Soul Mate Tree
CICI CORDELIA
SOUL MATE PUBLISHING
New York
REALM OF THE DRAGON
Copyright©2016
CICI CORDELIA
Cover Design by Wren Taylor
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, business establishments, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
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Published in the United States of America by
Soul Mate Publishing
P.O. Box 24
Macedon, New York, 14502
ISBN: 978-1-68291-294-2
www.SoulMatePublishing.com
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Acknowledgements
We’d like to thank our Publisher/Editor, Debby Gilbert, for having faith in us and The Soul Mate Tree Project. We’d also like to acknowledge contributing Soul Mate Tree authors: C.D. Hersh, Maggie Mundy, Tina Susedik, Mackenzie Lucas, Erin S. Riley, April Luna, S.C. Mitchell, L.D. Rose, Mikea Howard, Addie Jo Ryleigh, Cerian Hebert, and Patricia Walters-Fischer for their dedication and hard work in making The Soul Mate Tree a project to be proud of.
THE LEGEND OF THE SOUL MATE TREE
I am old, I am ancient,
my purpose is clear
To give those who are needy
a treasure so dear.
They who come to my roots,
touch my bark, stroke my leaves
Find the soul of their lives
if they but believe.
When I call and you listen,
your prize will be great
If your heart remains open
and you don’t hesitate.
Do you yearn? Be you lonely?
Is your time yet at hand?
Reach for me and I’ll give to you.
I’m yours to command.
For your trust, for your faith,
keep my secrets untold
And I’ll gift you forever,
to have and to hold.
Chapter 1
Coldstone Park, Utah
Run.
Run faster, damn it!
Lily Kiers didn’t dare look back as she scrambled up the rocky trail, afraid it’d slow her down. She struggled to take in lungfuls of frigid air as her heart pounded from the exhausting race through the park.
Must have been fate that made her wear sneakers at work today instead of her usual, zero-traction slip-ons. Maybe, somehow, she knew she’d have to run.
Since she’d first laid eyes on Zane Rath, a constant customer for the last three weeks, she’d been sidestepping every time he came into the coffee shop in Coldstone where she worked the afternoon shift. Easing back from the self-serve counter when he leaned in too close and followed her every move with an expression bordering on obsessive. Doing her best to avoid waiting on him at all.
Now she ran for her life.
“Bitch.” Zane’s rasp echoed within the trees, mocking and mean. Tears—from anger as well as fright—blurred her vision as she clumsily dodged boulders and low brush.
When he’d pinned her behind the counter two days ago, trying to force a kiss, his hands on her body . . . at last she’d had enough, and threatened him with the cops. Though he’d backed off, the glint in his narrowed blue eyes had shaken her.
She hadn’t seen him again until tonight when she realized the nutjob in the fancy Jeep was Zane; handsome, well-dressed, and an obvious psychopath. Barreling down on her beat-up Honda Civic, halfway between Coldstone city limits and the park, he hit her bumper once, twice.
She’d known he was trouble. Now she knew he was dangerous, too.
Watching him through her rearview mirror as his car drew closer, her hands tightened on the steering wheel, bracing for the inevitable impact.
Slam!
Her car spun, fishtailing into the shoulder at the turn-off for the park. The airbag exploded against her with bruising force, and quickly deflated as the car came to an abrupt stop.
Only taking enough time to suck in two panicked breaths, Lily scrambled from the car and raced through the partially open security gate. Familiar with the side trails, she tore up the first one she spotted, as fast as her feet could move.
God, did I lose him?
Working up the courage, Lily craned her neck for a quick check over her shoulder. No one was there. Yet, given the way the hair stood on her nape, he couldn’t be too far behind.
Suddenly her foot rammed into something hidden in the brush. She fell flat on her face, twigs and branches digging into her hands and knees. Pain sliced across her cheek and tears flooded her eyes. The cat-sized animal she’d almost fallen on, startled from its hidey-hole, scurried away, disappearing behind a log.
Aching all over, a shudder shook her body.
There were caves along the higher elevations where she could hide. Crevices she could wriggle into, until a park ranger patrolled by. If she could gain her feet, keep moving, she’d get there. She’d be safe at least until morning.
Get up!
He was coming for her. Lily knew that on a gut-deep level. When he caught her, he’d kill her.
“Get up, dammit,” she muttered aloud.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are.” His words echoed with a singsong quality in the still, cold night. “You can’t escape me.”
“You’re a bastard.” Hatred warred with fright and thickened her voice to a rough growl. Locking onto her anger, Lily staggered to her feet and searched the ground for anything she could use as a weapon. A thin, fallen tree limb lay a few yards away and she grabbed for it, ignoring the rough bark scraping against her palm. Not much of a defense, but she wasn’t going down without a fight.
Swiping her damp forehead with the back of her sleeve, she gripped the branch, cupping her aching side where she’d either bruised or broken a rib
or two.
I can do this.
As she paused to gather her wits, a whisper slid through her mind; strange and almost otherworldly . . . I am old. A pause, then, I am ancient.
“What the—” She spun, confronted by a steep hill she didn’t recognize, bisected by a narrow dirt path.
A caress, like a summer’s breeze, wended through her hair.
“Who are you?” Her voice quivered. Determined to keep going, Lily limped up the hill as more words twined around her . . . They who come to my roots—
“Stop that,” she cried aloud, now trying to run as the climb pitched at a tighter angle, struggling to watch where she stepped so she didn’t trip. A heavy footfall in the distance behind her warned Zane was getting closer, and she didn’t have a second to spare.
Still, she couldn’t rid herself of that relentless whisper in her head. As she struggled uphill on trembling legs, it murmured on the wind, Touch my bark, stroke my leaves . . .
“Oh, God,” Lily sobbed aloud. Was she going crazy? Cresting the top of the hill, she shook her head in an attempt to clear it. Could she have a concussion? Why else was she hearing voices as she ran for her very life?
Then, right up against her ear, more words, spinning like tiny whirlwinds.
“Stop it, stop it.” She dug her fingers into her hair, yanking on the strands, but the litany wouldn’t go away.
If your heart remains open and you don’t hesitate.
Was she losing her mind?
“Lily.” The sibilant hiss made her hair stand on end. “You’ll never get away from me.”
Zane. He was too close. Her fury grew, overriding her fright. Lily grated out, “The hell I won’t,” as she fought to hurry over grassy terrain that stretched out in front of her. There was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide.
She ran as fast as her bruised body would allow, refusing to consider the damned voice in her head as anything more than post-accident trauma. Yet a niggling doubt remained, a strange feeling of premonition becoming a kind of mantra—
Do you yearn? Be you lonely? The droning words made no sense to her.
“No—” She sounded too weak, so she cleared her aching throat. “No more.” Her body grew heavy, the air clogging as her movements slowed. It felt like a dream, one she couldn’t wake from. A dense silence descended, until her heart was a cottony pounding in her chest. No birds sang, the breeze stilled, and thank God, no sounds of Zane chased her. Only a nightmare, that’s all.
She needed to wake out of it. Lily scrubbed at her burning eyes and her knuckles came away wet with tears, as heat warmed her from the inside out, a sense of calm flowing into her.
Reach for me and I’ll give to you—
The last of her fear dissipated as the whisper vowed, I’m yours to command. Wrapped as if in a comforting hug, her shivers ceased. Her quivering muscles stopped cramping.
That’s when she saw it, only a few feet in front of her, shimmering on the very edge of a steep drop-off like an image from an oasis in the desert. An old gnarled tree, at least twenty feet tall, its thick roots erupting from the ground. Majestic was the only word to describe it. With a trunk of pale brown, almost a golden color, the bark was smooth in some places and rough, darker in others. Utterly breathtaking.
Scattered with brilliant green and silver foliage, Lily felt compelled to stroke the small oval leaves, releasing a joyous sigh at the soft, velvety texture. Maybe this dream wasn’t so bad after all, if she could only sit beneath the tree’s protective canopy, and rest.
As the last low utterance faded on the air, a wave of dizziness hit her and the ground shook under her feet. Crying out, she fell.
And fell.
Fog surrounded her as she frantically grabbed at anything to stop the fall. Terror tightened her muscles to stone. Any moment now, she’d hit the ground and break into a thousand pieces.
She opened her mouth to scream.
Nothing came out.
The air crystalized as a dead silence descended. The atmosphere itself closed in, stealing vital oxygen from her lungs.
What the hell?
This was no dream.
It was a nightmare.
High above the trees of home Kord flew, free and easy, content as always when one with the sky and the air. He needed time to think, away from family and responsibility. Away from duty.
Trifoils cawed as they flapped tiny wings in an effort to avoid crashing into him. He smelled their fear. On a good day a trifoil was a tasty snack, but Kord’s appetite had been nonexistent since that last, frustrating argument with his parents earlier.
His father paced the hard-rock floor with quick, pounding strides. “You will choose a mate, Kordlith.”
In the far corner Kord’s mother crouched, scrubbing the supper bones, a placid expression on her face as she half-listened to her mate’s diatribe.
For now, every nerve in Kord’s body told him not to bend. Not yet. Something comes. For me, it comes. More than once in the past weeks, the certainty had given him pause before obeying his father’s command.
“I’m not ready, Father,” Kord retorted in a voice every bit as forceful and deep as his sire’s. “Until I am, your directive is pointless.” Rising from the flattop boulder, Kord stretched his powerful limbs and strode to his mother’s side, leaning down to kiss her soft cheek. Against the velvety skin, he murmured, “You understand, Mother. Don’t you?”
She cupped his ear, her thumb tracing lovingly over the sensitive point. “Of course.”
With a light tap alongside his jaw, she’d sent him on his way. “Fly and ponder. Come back before the moons rise.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Let me deal with your father.” Fire sparked slowly in her red-tinged eyes, before banking to a smoky charcoal smudge.
Kord knew that look all too well. The desire one mate held for the other was unmistakable. “I do not need the details.”
He shuddered and headed outside before his father could round on him and further pin him down.
Clouds gathered here and there, yet glimpses of sun told him the day would eventually clear to its customary blue. Kord dropped a hundred feet, until he skimmed the very tops of the lintel towers that sparkled in shades of orange over the forest bog. The soft, feathery tips caressed his belly like a murmuring lover.
In the distance, Vining Lake appeared calm and smooth, and Kord dropped another twenty feet, enjoying the sporadic dance of the nibblers as they leapt up from the water in hopes of catching zimn-bees. The wily zimns knew how to use their venomous stingers, and easily kept the hungry nibblers at bay.
Free to ponder, as his mother had urged, Kord shook off the troublesome feeling of being torn in several directions. He knew his parents worried, and he couldn’t avoid the inevitability of choice much longer.
Royals had strict duty to family and kingdom. Kord’s mate had been near her time of majority when he’d traveled to Anglican to meet her. The kingdom in an uproar, her tearful parents had met him with the devastating news of her death. Instead of a joyous announcement of impending joining, he’d returned to Draconian alone.
His dragon had been uncharacteristically silent since that fateful day, and Kord missed his beast’s conversation.
Enough, he thought bitterly, saddened and angered by the loss of a mate he never knew.
Refusing to dwell on things he couldn’t control, he cleared his mind of the memories and dove lower, seeking what enjoyment he could muster from the day.
Suddenly, something dropped onto his back, between his wingspan.
Something cold and soft.
Something that had limbs . . . and smelled unfamiliar. Not of this realm.
“What the demon?” He banked quickly as he felt the lightweight, chilled lump slide precariously to the left. Worried it might fall—w
hatever it was—Kord maneuvered gingerly, until he could descend safely into an open pasture.
He touched down lightly over the bumpy ground-scrub, careful to avoid jostling his unknown burden, turned his head to glance behind him . . .
And stared disbelieving at a vision from a dream.
A young female. Undeniably lovely, with red-gold curls that tumbled down her back. Slender, dressed in tattered pants and a mud-stained shirt, she lay pale and still upon his wide back.
Kord inhaled deeply, scenting human. In Battle Draconian?
Impossible.
Even more impossible, he recognized her delicate face, the color of her hair. For the last three weeks, he’d dreamed of a beauty with sunset locks and river-clear eyes, long, luscious limbs, and a heart as sweet and pure as the limpid blooms that gathered around Draconian Tower.
Something comes. Hadn’t he just thought it, said it aloud to his parents, not an hour ago? And here that ‘something’ was.
Elation rushed through his dragon, and for the first time in months, he spoke to Kord.
Mate!
Excitement swirled in Kord’s gut as he willed her to open her eyes, needing to know if they were the same hue of Battle River—
And there his thoughts stalled, as the human female on his back—who’d dropped from his very dreams—opened her clear hazel eyes, took in his dragon body . . . and screamed.
Chapter 2
This can’t be real.
Lily slammed her lids shut, then opened them cautiously. Her heart seized.
Wings. Membranous and huge, shimmering like fire, and she was cradled between them.
Realm of the Dragon (The Soul Mate Tree Book 1) Page 1