Page 12 of Secrets of Avalon
“Yes. If that’s the way to Avalon, you have my permission. Please take me into the water.”
She releases me from the ropes binding my wrists and helps me stand, guiding me toward the pool. She steps in first and the dark seemingly bottomless water only reaches to her mid-calf. Fear and curiosity mingle in my chest.
She holds out a hand, her lavender eyes glowing with promise. “I can answer all your questions, Melinda. Every last one.”
I step into the water and grab her hand before slipping into a vortex of color and light. The sensation is alien, like being submerged in water, yet nothing is actually wet.
We’re moving. Sliding? Flying? I can’t really tell.
Her fingers are still wrapped tightly around my hand. She hasn’t let go. And a glimmer of hope sparks within me. Maybe all the pain and loss wasn’t for nothing. Maybe in Avalon, I can finally find the control I’ve longed for and ensure that no one else is harmed by my powers.
The bright colors fade as we step out of the strange non-water together. What greets us isn't another gloomy cave chamber, but something far more extraordinary.
We’ve stepped into a world that seems to have leaped straight out of the epic tales of Homer’s “Iliad” and “Odyssey”. Towering marble columns rise in the distance, reminiscent of ancient Greek architecture, rise majestically, supporting grandiose buildings that exude a sense of timeless elegance and power.
We stand in the courtyard of a massive building. Columns surround the pool we stepped from. The air is filled with the distant grunts and shouts of men playing sports on a field—huge, bronzed, muscular, tattooed men, glistening in the sun.
…and there are dragons.
In the sky. Flying above us.
Real. Live. Dragons.
CHAPTER 6
The Dragon's Bargain
Melinda Mayweather
Every instinct screams betrayal. I jerk my hand away from the water-lady and stumble backward, only to collide with what feels like a solid wall of muscle. “This definitely isn't Avalon.”
Startled, I turn to face a towering, half-dressed man covered in snake-y green dragon tattoos and tightly braided black hair.
I make an embarrassingly squeaky sound and retreat, trying to distance myself from the intimidating man who exudes ancient power.
“No, you are in Drakoné,” he says, his voice rumbling deep in his chest. He turns to the woman who brought me to the Greek-looking-dream-world and bows. “Queen Nimue, King Athanasios welcomes you to Drakoné and bids you wait here for their arrival. He granted your request for a somatophylakes and Kellan of Gilat has stepped forward to accept the bond.”
“Wait, Queen Nimue? Like the Lady of the Lake with King Arthur? That Nimue? What’s a so-mah-toe–” My mind is racing to keep up with the slew of unfamiliar terms and titles.
“All will be answered, I promise,” Queen Nimue assures me, her voice calm yet commanding. “I need you to be quiet and I need you to bow when the King arrives.”
A massive shadow streaks over the ground and I look up, watching in awe and terror as an enormous dragon, its scales shimmering like an armored jet-plane, glides gracefully across the clear blue sky.
I snap back, half in disbelief, half in shock, “Oh, because he’s a dragon and he might eat me?” The absurdity of the situation teeters on the edge of hysteria, threatening to unravel my composure completely.
I look back at her-highness-the-water-queen and my stomach sinks. She’s serious. She doesn’t correct me. And the hulking dude I bumped into before doesn’t either. My heart stutters in my chest and I struggle to suck in a breath. Everything around me looks like it’s from a mythic tale, yet here I am, standing in the fucking middle of it.
“If you’re not respectful, I’ll eat you,” the big guy growls out.
Great. Just great. The primal part of my brain screams danger and my magick attempts to unfurl. But I bite my tongue, distracting myself from my fear with visceral pain and hold it back.
I take another step further away from both of them. I can’t lose control. I can’t be stuck with a bunch of cannibalistic dragons.
“You’re not helping, Iason (Yah-shun).” Nimue hisses at the giant guard and walks toward me, beckoning me to come closer to her. “He’s not going to eat you. And the king won’t either. But everyone here is a dragon and please don’t insult them by calling them cannibals.”
I point to the big creature in the sky. “How is that a man?”
“He is in his beast form,” a new male voice announces from behind me. “We can shift back and forth between man and beast.”