The Earl in My Bed: A Forgotten Princesses Valentine Novella by Sophie Jordan

lips. I just hate that they’re not giving me a choice.
    But it’s a long way off before anything has to be settled. I won’t think about it now.
    “Let’s go.” I relax my thoughts and absorb everything humming around me. The branches with their gray-green leaves. The birds stirring against the dawn. Clammy mist hugs my calves. I flex my toes on the coarse rasp of ground, mentally counting the number of pebbles beneath the bottoms of my feet. And the familiar pull begins in my chest. My human exterior melts away, fades, replaced with my thicker draki skin.
    My face tightens, cheeks sharpening, subtly shifting, stretching. My breath changes as my nose shifts, ridges pushing out from the bridge. My limbs loosen and lengthen. The drag of my bones feels good. I lift my face to the sky. The clouds become more than smudges of gray. I see them as though I’m already gliding through them. Feel cool condensation kiss my body.
    It doesn’t take long. It’s perhaps one of my quickest manifests. With my thoughts unfettered and clear, with no one else around except Azure, it’s easier. No Cassian with his brooding looks. No Mom with fear in her eyes. None of the others, watching, judging, sizing me up.
    Always sizing me up.
    My wings grow, slightly longer than the length of my back. The gossamer width of them pushes free. They unfurl with a soft whisper on the air—a sigh. As if they, too, seek relief. Freedom.
    A familiar vibration swells up through my chest. Almost like a purr. Turning, I look at Azure, and see she is ready, beautiful beside me. Iridescent blue. In the growing light, I note the hues of pink and purple buried in the deep blue of her draki skin. Such a small thing I never noticed before.
    Only now I see it, in the break of dawn, when we are meant to soar. When the pride forbids it. At night you miss so much.
    Looking down, I admire the red-gold luster of my sleek arms. Thoughts drift. I recall a chunk of amber in my family’s cache of precious stones and gems. My skin looks like that now. Baltic amber trapped in sunlight. It’s deceptive. My skin appears delicate, but it’s as tough as armor. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen myself this way. Too long since I’ve tasted sun on my skin.
    Azure purrs softly beside me. We lock eyes—eyes with enlarged irises and dark vertical slits for pupils—and I know she’s over her complaints. She stares at me with irises of glowing blue, as happy as I am to be here. Even if we broke every rule in the pride to sneak off protected grounds. We’re here. We’re free.
    On the balls of my feet, I spring into the air. My wings snap, wiry membranes stretching as they lift me up.
    With a twirl, I soar.
    Azure is there, laughing beside me, the sound low and guttural.
    Wind rushes over us and sweet sunlight kisses our flesh. Once we’re high enough, she drops, descends through the air in a blurring tailspin, careening toward the lake.
    My lip curls. “Show-off!” I call, the rumble of draki speech vibrating deep in my throat as she dives into the lake and remains underwater for several minutes.
    As a water draki, whenever she enters water, gills appear on the side of her body, enabling her to survive submerged . . . well, forever, if she chooses. One of the many useful talents our dragon ancestors assumed in order to survive. Not all of us can do this, of course. I can’t.
    I do other things.
    Hovering over the lake, I wait for Azure to emerge. Finally, she breaks the surface in a glistening spray of water, her blue body radiant in the air, wings showering droplets.
    “Nice,” I say.
    “Let’s see you!”
    I shake my head and set out again, diving through the tangle of mountains, ignoring Azure’s “c’mon, it’s so cool!”
    My talent is not cool. I would give anything to change it. To be a water draki. Or a phaser. Or a visiocrypter. Or an onyx. Or . . . Really, the list goes on.
    Instead, I am this.
    I breathe fire. The only fire-breather in the