All Chapters of Called by the Dragon: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

 "Are you Anzi?"She leaped to her feet in one swift motion and reared up like a serpent about to strike, only to realize that the voice belonged to none other than a pretty girl wearing a pale pink chiffon gown and bedecked in numerous small articles of silver and pearl. Loose blonde ringlets fell about her pale face, giving her an innocent yet womanly look, but the pale blue eyes that stared back at Anzi were more alarmed than sweet. Her hands were clasped and folded in front of her chest, and she stood half-turned away from when she had jumped in fright.One of the harem girls. Anzi relaxed and made sure that her relieved exhale was slow and silent. No need to reveal her agitated state this morning to anyone."That's me," she said. "Are you the one His Excellency sent to see me?""To be honest, no. But she's fallen sick this morning, and all I know is that I'm to see you. I was hoping you could fill me in on what I'm to do."Anzi blinked. S

 "I don't think about him at all. Except the things I told you about him, that's all.""Oh, don't be like that. I want to help. Trust me, I know I said I've only been here a few months, but I'm very gifted at this sort of thing. As a matter of fact, you can ask any of the other girls when you see them next. They'll tell you. I've been training for this since I was fifteen, and I know how to read people when it comes to those syrupy sweet feelings they try to hide."Anzi leaned away from her. She most certainly did not like hearing all of that. As a matter of fact, she couldn't help but feel threatened, as if Violetta was saying that she could look right through her down to where she tried to quash the wild, twitching spark that was her attraction to Kai. Fine, then. So what? She was human. It was only natural that she would appreciate a fine musculature and handsome face. It didn't mean she had things like 'syrupy sweet feelings.'This was annoying, supreme

 Just as Anzi braced for a fierce dash forward so that she could intervene, nosy passersby chose that exact instant to freeze mid-step and begin clustering around the scene. They kept their distance, but Anzi ended up on the wrong side of the circle of murmuring civilians that formed around the disturbance, and she forced her way through with a savage shove that earned her several filthy curses.Just as she shouldered past the last man in her way, however, she caught Violetta's gaze. The woman was still on the ground, kneeling in the dust and twisted at the waist to the side as she shielded the lower half of her face with a dainty hand. A thick drizzle of blood leaked from her nostril, and Anzi's face tightened in hot anger. Who dared? Violetta was her responsibility. Whoever was stupid enough to lay their hand on her was going to lose it. She wouldn't even give them a chance to apologize, neither to Violetta nor to the Emperor whose charge she was -But just as s

Anzi said nothing after that, neither when she picked Violetta up from the ground, nor when she helped clean off her bloody face, nor even when they arrived back at the palace afterward. Whatever the reason for Violetta's willing subjection to such mistreatment, it was up to her to confess it on her own. She was an adult. They were both adults. And they were neither friends nor each other's confidants, so there was a certain way this had to go. Just the one."I lied to you," Violetta blurted. Just before turning the last corner that led to the harem quarters, she had whirled around to face Anzi and was now staring at her with clear, stubborn eyes. Her hands were clasped in front of her dress, their grip on each other white-knuckled tight, and her chin was raised in a semi-defiant incline."Lied?" Anzi repeated. "How.""I told you the girl who was supposed to teach you is sick. She is. What I didn't tell you is that that today, everyone

Kai came to her first. He wasn't supposed to - she should have been the one to go to his room an hour from now, according to the timecatcher that hung from the window in the sunlight. But for some reason, he was standing here and looking at her with a slow, lazy smile that almost made her close the door in his face in the compulsive need to escape from it all. He was too much. She couldn't do this. He was too early. She had needed the extra time to steel herself so that she wouldn't make an idiot out of herself in his presence, but now he had stolen that away from her."Anzi."She hated how he said her name. It made her bones shake and her eyes hot. "Yes, sir.""Come walk with me. I'm lonely.""Weren't you with His Excellency and his advisors just now?""I was. But talk of business and trade doesn't warm a man any." He extended a hand to her across the threshold, palm up, and she dropped her gaze to it with a look that was half apprehensive and hal

He was going to have to let go of her hand eventually. Anzi found herself glancing down every hallway they passed, heart pounding harder and harder with each one. For a short while, she had been too entranced by the sensation of his fingers intertwined with hers to pay any attention to the rest of the world, but after narrowly dodging a few giggling maids who were luckily too distracted to notice them, Anzi had realized that this was too outrageous to continue.She would not be seen holding hands with a foreign chieftain like they were lovers. Maybe she was officially still only a foot soldier, but she had a reputation to uphold, a reputation that was arguably as fearsome as any officer's (more than most, even if she thought about it humbly). Not only that, but once it became public knowledge that she was the newest member of the Premier Guard, she refused to let her it be marred by some shallow rumors about illicit affairs with exotic men.It was hard enough being a w

"You're late.""I'm early.""No, you're late." Bastien pointed down the giant, sloping passageway that led down from the Cave's entrance. Anzi had just entered, but the scant light of the moon was already dying as the woven grass cover rustled into place courtesy of the posted guards. The growing darkness made Bastien's sharp, angular face look even more eerie."I'm early," she repeated, but she turned and followed the direction of his spindly finger when he jabbed it again. No point in arguing, anyway. She had come here for one reason and one reason only, and that was to continue her search for the dragon waiting for her to help it hatch.Bastien had laughed in her face last night when she suggested that perhaps there was some truth to the thing he dismissed as a mere myth, that maybe there was something such as meant-to-be. He had said she was being ridiculous, but if it made her feel better to think that way, he didn't care so long as they fou

For the next two days, everything was an uncomfortable blur. On one hand, Anzi had let slip to Letti that there would be some gala or some such thing happening soon, not realizing that it would promptly send her into deep convulsions. And on the other hand, she was still diligently pretending that she could sense no life in any of the dragon eggs whenever she and Bastien made their rounds. There was the matter of Kai, who had unfortunately noticed that there was something wrong with her and refused to leave her alone until she told him exactly what it was.She couldn't tell him, obviously. Couldn't tell anyone. She had to keep this secret and guard it closely until she could figure out what to do next...until she figured out why she couldn't expel the lingering dread inside her that plagued her from morning to night. Was it shock, she wondered, at all the gruesome things she had learned over the last several days? Maybe that was what it was. Poisonous disap

When Anzi awoke, it was in utter confusion that she found herself wrapped in hard, solid arms and pressed back into what was a very bare chest. For several seconds, she had no recollection at all of how she had ended up in this unfamiliar bed with a man's face buried in her hair and his hands perilously close to dropping below her hips. But she certainly knew who said man was in an instant - there was no mistaking the intoxicating masculine scent that she could never get out of her head.Oh. Oh, that was right. He had pulled her into his bed and all but forced her to fall asleep against him. But when had that been, and what time was it now? Her eyes widened in unadulterated shock when she realized that it had to have been hours since. She felt far too well-rested and soothed, and she was still struggling to rise out of the comfortable depths of delicious sleep even now.Wake up, she ordered herself, and she hurried to pull herself out of Kai's embrace so that she could

People stared, but that was unavoidable. Anzi drew eyes with her distinctive fringer features, but that was nothing compared to the way Kai drew the eyes of everyone they passed and everyone they didn't, either. From the moment they left the palace (with a letter to vouch for their passage this time), he was subjected to dozens of stares at a time. She was even sure that she saw several people change direction just to follow them, confirmed by Kai's brief half-glances over his shoulder whenever someone tagged along a little too closely on his heels. But he didn't care, it seemed, or at least not enough to demand that they all scatter.If he wanted to, he could have. As she walked on the stone path alongside him, she became inexplicably more aware of his imposing stature, the broad physical presence of him that she hadn't truly appreciated until now. It bothered her that she hadn't noticed it, not fully, and it bothered her that she realized it now all of a sudden, too. Especi