Firelight - 01 - Firelight by Sophie Jordan

Author:Sophie Jordan
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Fantasy, Children's Fiction
ISBN: 9780061935084
Publisher: Harper Collins, Inc.
Published: 2010-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

17

The next evening, Mom doesn’t bring up selling a gem again, and neither do I. Silly, but I feel like maybe not mentioning it will help her forget that she wants to sell one of them.

While she and Tamra wait on our pizza at Chubby’s, reputedly the best pizzeria in Chaparral, I walk three doors down to pick out a movie for the night. Preferably a comedy. Anything to distract me.

It happens on the way back.

Movie in hand, I’m crossing the mouth of the alley right before Chubby’s when I’m yanked off my feet and dragged inside the narrow enclosure, hauled between twin walls of concrete, the odor of the nearby Dumpster ripe in my nostrils.

I fight, hissing and spitting steam, fire eating up my windpipe. Twisting my head, I try to spin around and face my attacker, turn him into a crackling pile of bones and ash.

“Stop!”

I recognize the smoky voice instantly and feel no real surprise. In the back of my mind, I knew if the pride ever tracked me down, found me…he would be the one leading the charge.

He gives me a little shake. “Are you done? I’m not going to turn you around until you promise not to incinerate me.”

I laugh brokenly. “Not sure I can promise you that.”

After a long moment, the large hands on my shoulders relax. I stagger free and spin around.

“Hello, Jacinda,” he says like our meeting here is the most natural thing in the world.

My eyes are slower to process, to accept, what I already know. I stare up at him. The immensity of him, a looming wall. Well over six feet. I forgot about his size. His sheer presence. Somehow, with time and distance, here in the human world, he had shrunk in my mind. Now I get all over again why he’s the leading onyx of my pride. Second only to his father.

“How’d you find us, Cassian?”

He cocks his head. Purply black strands stroke his shoulders. “Did you think I wouldn’t?” he asks.

“I don’t know why you had to try.”

“Don’t you?”

“Why couldn’t you just forget—”

“I can’t do that.”

“Because your daddy said so,” I hiss, thinking of his father.

Charcoal black flashes beneath the olive hue of Cassian’s skin, his draki flesh ready to burst free. “I’m not here for my father or the pride.”

As his purple-black eyes bore into me, I feel this truth. Know what he’s really saying. He’s here for himself.

I cock my head. “News flash, Cassian. I’m not looking to go home.” At least not like this. Not with him dragging me back.

He responds to this in typical male draki fashion. His face tightens into stark lines, his nose broadening with several sharp ridges, his skin flashing, blurring in and out. Black dragon skin one moment, human flesh the next.

I brace myself, flex my toes inside my shoes. Steam puffs from my nose like warm breath on a wintry day. “Your macho display doesn’t intimidate me.” A lie. “I’ll fight you,” I warn.

He may be stronger, but I’m not defenseless.

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