Dragon's Ward by LeTeisha Newton Page A

way to go.
    She didn’t know who Roach was or how she’d come into contact with him. All she knew was that she’d had a good life that had suddenly come crashing down. Dead flowers on her doorstep, one time a sliced up cat in her bed, and notes expressing love and death at once appearing in her mailbox had become normal events in her life. After going to the police and realizing that there wasn’t much they could do as the stalker hadn’t actually committed a crime against her, she’d chosen to run, run as fast as she could and never look back. She’d named him Roach in her mind because he was just as abhorrent and hard to get rid of like the critter. She’d kept running until it led her to windy and open White Peaks, Colorado, and next door to a man who could save her. If she could just reach him.
    The blast of cold that shot over her when she raced out of her door was bracing but she kept moving. Kept running despite not having closed her door. She didn’t have much in her temporary housing. It was furnished with the bare necessities to live. She leaped smoothly over the bushes separating her from her neighbor’s land. Running from Roach had taught her to be athletic, to trust in her power enough to know how to get away, to hide. She just couldn’t beat him. Each of her muscles worked as a well-oiled machine as she ate up the distance between their houses. She’d chosen her location for its wide-open spaces. It was surrounded by woods, and she could only see the back of the dragon’s door and another neighbor to the opposite side if she was on the other side of her house.
    Some may have thought she should have purchased housing around people, something in the low-rent district where she could work in cash only, or near to a police station. She’s learned though, not too long after she’d first started running, that she was safer where she could hide. If she was farther of the grid, it took longer for Roach to find her, and there were more places to hide when she had to escape. Places way out of the way like this could also come free of rent. Abandoned and hard to sell, she could take up residence for months before anyone knew any better. She knew how to survive.
    Brook pushed her body faster, somehow more hopeful than she had been in a long time. If she could just reach that door, that seemed miles away when it was maybe only half a mile, she would be okay. She tucked her chin against the cold and ran right up to his back door. She pounded on it with stiff fists, tears freezing her face. She didn’t know what she would find but at least trying would be better than taking her fate lying down. She didn’t know when she had started crying. She just knew she couldn’t stop it. She felt like she was cracking inside, shattering into a million pieces, all because she wanted to hope. All because she wanted to live. To be free of Roach once and for all. Something in her was dying, something in her that said she didn’t even have the humanity she’d once had before because she wanted Roach dead. She wanted him to go out with the fear that he had given her, as painfully as he could into that dark night.
    If she didn’t get help she may lose her very soul.
    A light blared on and the door opened. She lost her balance as she’d been leaning on the door and fell into a wall of a chest. It was warm. So very warm, and she hadn’t been warm in forever. Strong hands gripped her shoulders, steadying her, and, somehow, she wanted to lean into that strength. She wanted to wrap it around her like a security blanket so that she could wake up and realize this was a dream. All of her fear, depression, and loneliness nearly overwhelmed her as she leaned into his touch. His heat was warming the cold center of ice that had become her insides. She felt something deep inside flare, right under her skin, like the brush of feathers reaching for this man. She felt his body tense as he sucked in a breath, and she feared he would turn