Taken by the Dragon King by Caroline Hale Page A

you’re all so worried about will sense my return and attack us. I can’t do this for you, not until we’re sure our powers will last.”
    “Yes, you can.” I pull out the portal bracelet. “ When we go, I can hide us, but you can see it just fine from right here.”
    “How?”
    My finger traces the emerald, circling outward in a ring of smoke. “Like this.” I let out a puff of air and the smoke clears away, revealing the window I’ve created so we can look at the Underground Forest. It’s so green and lively, with birds chirping, water flowing, and flowers blooming.
    “This can’t be…”
    “It is. The Underground is basically an oasis. It was difficult for me to leave this when I moved Uptop. You forget that you’re in the desert down there.”
    “But… how?”
    A lion maned fairy boy runs past us, tears streaking down his face as his parents chase after him. “The Fae. They had to leave their forests when Magic broke, so they made their own. It’s magnificent.”
    Asher is dumbfounded, curiously watching the fairy parents chastising their progeny. The mother wipes his tears away as the father tries to distract him by making a tree grow taller. “That child… What’s wrong with him? Why does he keep pulling away from his mother?”
    “He’s probably not accustomed to her yet.”
    “Accustomed to his own mother?”
    “Yeah, he looks like he’s around three. They probably just took him.”
    “Took him from where?”
    “His human parents,” I reply, unsure why Asher is so confused.
    “That child is human?”
    “He was. Now he’s one of the Fae.”
    “How?”
    “That’s where faeries come from, Asher,” I laugh.
    “No. Fairies are born from fairy mothers, like every other form of life, magical or otherwise.”
    “The Fae can’t reproduce. They convert humans, that’s the way it’s always been,” I explain. Based on Asher’s expression, it hasn’t. “Right?”
    “No,” he whispers. “No, that is most certainly not the way it’s always been.”
    “Oh. They can’t have their own children now, Asher. This is the only way.”
    “So you’re telling me that every single one of these fairies are humans?”
    “Well, not anymore.”
    “But that’s what they are. Little human toddlers, snatched from their human mothers, brought down below and… converted.”
    “Yeah, something like that. Geez, Ash, it sounds so depressing when you put it like that.”
    Asher’s lips curl into a disgusted grimace. “This is so unbelievably wrong… Is there any way to turn them back?”
    “I don’t know. Why would anyone even try?”
    “Because they’re innocents!” Ash snarls. “No one has tried to protect them? After all these years?”
    “No... I don’t know.” I admit sheepishly. “I never even thought about it until now.” After what we’ve learned in the past day, I think I am starting to understand. It is wrong, so wrong. And no one does anything about it, no one even questions it. Rage slowly filters through me. “Everything the Fae have done is so utterly terrible and there is no one to stop them from continuing their depraved reign. Neither humans nor Magicfolk should have to pay the price for their perversions, but who will protect them? That council can barely protect themselves. Magicfolk don’t have enough power to revolt. The Underground needs a champion.”
    “Yes. Yes, I suppose it does,” Ash says, staring at the hysterical Fae child. He taps the stone on my bracelet, opening a true portal to the Underground Forest. Then he grabs my hand and pulls me through.
     
    Asher and Lindy’s story continues in the next installment, Bound to the Dragon King , available here www.amazon.com/Bound-Dragon-King-Kissed-Fire-ebook/dp/B00R0SM2NI   Sign up at http://eepurl.com/2e9k1 to receive a reminder when the final installment Claimed by the Dragon King is released, and for a chance to win a copy!
    Thanks for reading!
    -Caroline Hale