I wasn’t aware of what was going on around me for a very long time. How long, I couldn’t say for sure, but I knew, when I finally tried to open my eyes, something was very wrong and had been that way for a lengthy amount of time.At first, I couldn’t open my eyes. I felt a lot like I did anytime I completely used up all of my energy from the forest. But this was different. This was… painful. I wasn’t just depleted of energy, my body felt like I’d gotten hit by a semi-truck. Not only was my head throbbing, but every time I breathed, my ribs hurt. I didn’t know what Cody Buzzard had done to me, but if I ever learned to move again, I was going to remove his nuts--with a spoon.“Harlow? Can you hear me?”It was his voice! Did this guy want me to remove his nuts with

 The next morning, before I opened my eyes, I fully expected to feel my own bed underneath me and to know that this was all just a crazy dream, that I hadn’t really been whisked away into another realm made by a delusional person by her equally delusional cousin. His crazy half-brother wasn’t attempting to kill me, my entire pack, and wipe out the council of mages. No, I’d open my eyes and be back in my bed at Grandma’s house.Bonus points if Grandma was still alive.Extra bonus points if I’d never actually met Starla, too.But while my eyes were still closed, I felt the grass beneath my fingers and knew that I was still there, that I hadn’t been taken home, and that I’d never left this strange world.I sighed and ro

Have you ever seen the movie “The Hours?” At  the beginning of that movie, Nichole Kidman reenactes the suicide of Virginia Woolf, who killed herself in 1941 by filling her pockets with rocks and walking into a river. I can’t imagine what that must be like, to weigh yourself down so much that you can’t possibly float back up again. Of course, I suppose a person could empty their pockets quickly, but she was clearly resolved to end a life she didn’t quite understand. You could probably say the same about Holly Hunter’s character in “The Piano” when she tries to let that instrument suck her down into the water when it’s tossed overboard.I didn’t have any rock or a piano to weigh me down when I dove into the river looking for my own sanity, looking for a way back home, but I did have resolve.

Riding on Sam’s back through the woods was cathartic in a way, even though I was worried about everything that had happened, and everything that was about to happen. Not only did they have Sean and Starla, but they had other mages, too. I could only assume that Starla was being tortured. I wished Cody had never told his cousin she was me. I would’ve rather he told him I disappeared or that he didn’t know where I was.I wondered if I could use my magic from there to break Cody’s spell so that Starla looked like herself, but then, there was a chance Jason would get really mad when he saw that it wasn’t me and kill her. If she wasn’t dead already. Poor Starla. She just couldn’t catch a break.I had no idea if Sam and Ben actually knew where they were going or were just wandering aimlessly, but about an hour after we left o

Jason was shocked to see a dragon even larger than him flying at him from out of nowhere. He hadn’t seen me down there before since I had been using my invisibility technique to hide myself. Now, here I was, flying right toward him. I also sprayed the tops of the trees with water so that the forest could be spared. I felt a lot more powerful at the moment than I had before. My staff had been incorporated into my dragon body as a jewel in the top of my head, so he probably knew it was me. Considering that he thought that I was in his cabin, he had to be confused.I let those mixed emotions keep him from focusing and hit him with another blast of not only fire but electricity. I aimed for his wings instead of his vitals and did my best to burn them off of him so that he would fall. His left wing burst into flames, and Jason started to spiral out of control, nose diving for the tops of the trees.