Title: Frostbite (#3)
Author: Adrienne Woods
Series: The Dragonian Series
Publisher: Fire Quill Publishing
Release Date: 9th March 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9946641-1-2
Losing Lucian McKenzie, the Prince of her heart and discovering her true identity has made Elena Watkins' life almost unbearable. However, new trials will test the 17 year-old's strength and push her to limits she didn’t think were possible.Only a mysterious offer from Blake Leaf, the Rubicon and a dragon predestined for evil, reveals there may be a light at the end of Elena’s dark tunnel.With the life she thought she knew crashing down around her, Elena will have to face a monumental decision about the fate of Paegeia. She can either make peace with Blake’s demands or try once again to unravel the Queen’s secrets that lie deep within her dragon, Tanya La Frey’s, heart.The third heart pounding novel in The Dragonian Series by Adrienne WoodExcerpt
I WAS BACK INSIDE that cave, the one where Lucian lost his life. I looked around but I knew he wasn’t going to come for me, he was dead. Then what the hell am I still doing here, staring at a psycho who claims to be my dragon?
“You really thought that I was your dragon, Elena? Seriously?” He laughed that sadistic laugh that made my insides twist and turn in all directions.
“Get away from me you freak,” I spat.
His hand connected hard against my cheek, it burned and my ears rang for a couple of seconds.
“I’m not a freak, I’m a patriot.”
“Patriot?” I laughed as loud as I could. “You are a murderer!”
Another strike. The Elementals clucked like crazy, they could feel the danger all around them and must have felt helpless. It was beginning to drive me insane.
“Stop it you mongrels, or I’ll skin you alive,” Paul yelled and for some reason they listened. He looked back down at me again. The point of his knife was close to my throat. “It’s funny how everyone around you knows who you are, Elena, except you.”
“What are you talking about?”
He laughed again. “I guess they like to play mind games with you, like to keep you in the dark.” His eyes met mine. “Some friends you have.”
“Stop that, you know nothing about my friends, or what friendship is.”
“Why? Because they all end up betraying you at the end of the day. Take it from me; it’s better to live in the dark. You can do whatever you want, be whatever you want. Your friends don’t give a shit about you, and neither does your dragon.”
“You are not my dragon,” I yelled again.
“Oh, I know that, and for some sick, twisted reason your true dragon wasn’t bothered one bit that I claimed you as my rider.”
“You are lying.”
“Am I?” He looked around. “Then where is your dragon, Elena? Why isn’t it here?” The Elementals’ clucking noises drowned the rest of Paul’s words. I could see his lips moving, but their sounds of pure panic drilled through my brain, making it impossible to hear what he had to say. It grew louder and louder and then a cannon shot rang through their cries.
I jumped up in bed, soaked with sweat. It was like, the gazillionth time I’d had that dream. I could still hear their clucking and it made me feel like I was going crazy, but still, no tears came. My heart felt as if it was bouncing inside my ears. No matter how many times I had the same dream, I could never hear Paul’s last words as the Elemental sounds kept interrupting him. But there was one thing that I knew was a lie, I didn’t own a dragon. I was a dragon, and that was one piece of information I still struggled to deal with.
Bonus Excerpt
DEATH WAS MY constant companion. I’d escaped its icy clutches three times in my short life.
My first brush with the spirit I now knew as Death was the night I learned who my father truly was. The night I witnessed his transformation into a dragon on Interstate 40. The night we were attacked by dragons. I lost my hero that night, and my world was completely turned upside-down when I was whisked away to Paegeia: a world where dragons and magic exist; a world located inside the Bermuda Triangle, hidden from the human realm behind a magical wall.
Humans have the ability to penetrate the wall, but if they try to exit Paegeia, they are instantly disintegrated.
I used to call it my one-way ticket to Neverland. Now it has become my home.
While the wall may be limiting to humans, dragons are free to come and go as they please, and they’ve done so for the past nine hundred years, hiding amongst the human race to protect the weak, help the poor and trade with the rest of the world.
The second time I almost died was right after I received my foretelling from the Viden. Foretellings are a type of prophecy intended to lead the people of Paegeia to their destinies, but the Viden gives them in a messed up way, in the form of a riddle.
Mine could mean anything, but I knew now that it would only bring death. What the words in my foretelling meant, I still needed to figure out. The question was, would it be worth it?
The first time I thought I had figured out my destiny was when I went to retrieve the King of Lion sword. It was formidable, magical and could slay evil in any form. Brian, a Sun-Burst dragon, died saving my life, and the lives of my friends who were dumb enough to follow me into the madness.
The second time I had the opportunity to fulfill the twisted words of the opaque riddle was when I had the opportunity to claim Paul, a Wyvern, to prove once and for all that Wyverns had the capacity to be good like all the other dragons. Once again I was wrong, and my only love, Lucian, paid the ultimate price. He died saving my life, but not before I turned into a dragon myself.
I was a dragon, I had always been a dragon, and I had never known. It was still a mystery why I hadn’t been able to shift before, and they were still studying why only my anger and fear had brought on the change.
To be honest, I didn’t care about my foretelling anymore. People I loved died, and I couldn’t stop feeling like all of this was my fault.
Losing Lucian took a huge toll on me. I didn’t want to live, but for some reason now that I wanted to die the spirit of death didn’t come to claim his prize. Instead I was left with a hollow feeling deep inside my chest, one that would never be filled. I was left with a broken heart: ice cold, as if no amount of heat could ever warm me again. Arianna is right, I am like poison.
No, not poison.
The people in my life, the ones I love, didn’t die from my touch, their deaths were written in the choices I made. All of them were on death’s list; waiting for the day they would take their last breath.
I’d paralyzed their lives, their futures. I was like ice, like frost freezing their hopes and dreams. I was the living embodiment of frostbite.
Proudly brought to you by
 |
Adrienne Woods was born and raised in South Africa, where she still lives with her husband and two beautiful little girls. She always knew she was going to be a writer, but it only started to really happen about four years ago. In her free time―if she gets any because moms don’t really have free time―she loves to spend it with friends, whether it’s a girls night out, or just watching a movie. She’s a very chilled person. Her writing career started with Firebolt, book one in the Dragonian series. There will be four books in total, including a further two to three books, which will be stories that take place within the Dragonian series. Her other series, Dream Casters, will be released mid 2015. She also writes in different genres, and her woman’s fiction, The Pregnancy Diaries, will be published under a pseudonym. And then, she has a paranormal series by the name of the Aswang series, which will consist of about ten novels. And if that wasn’t enough, there is another series, Guardians of Monsters, which will be released in 2016.
No comments:
Post a Comment