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

pride in more than four hundred years. It’s made me more popular than I want to be. Ever since I manifested at age eleven, I’ve ceased to be Jacinda. Instead, I’m fire -breather . A fact that has the pride deciding my life as if it’s theirs to control. They’re worse than my mother.
    Suddenly I hear something beyond the whistling wind and humming mists of the snow-capped mountains at every side. A faint, distant sound.
    My ears perk. I stop, hovering in the dense air.
    Azure cocks her head; her dragon eyes blink, staring hard. “What is it? A plane?”
    The noise grows, coming fast, a steady beat now. “We should get low.”
    Nodding, Azure dives. I follow, glancing behind us, seeing only the jagged cropping of mountains. But hearing more. Feeling more.
    It keeps coming.
    The sound chases us.
    “Should we go back to the bikes?” Azure looks back at me, her blue-streaked black hair rippling like a flag in the wind.
    I hesitate. I don’t want this to end. Who knows when we can sneak out again? The pride watches me so closely, Cassian is always—
    “Jacinda!” Azure points one iridescent blue finger through the air.
    I turn and look. My heart seizes.
    A chopper rounds a low mountain, so small in the distance, but growing larger as it approaches, cutting through the mist.
    “Go!” I shout. “Drop!”
    I dive, clawing wind, my wings folded flat against my body, legs poised arrow straight, perfectly angled for speed.
    But not fast enough.
    The chopper blades beat the air in a pounding frenzy. Hunters . Wind tears at my eyes as I fly faster than I’ve ever flown before.
    Azure falls behind. I scream for her, glancing back, reading the dark desperation in her liquid gaze. “Az, keep up!”
    Water draki aren’t built for speed. We both know that. Her voice twists into a sob and I hear just how well she knows it in the broken sound. “I’m trying! Don’t leave me! Jacinda! Don’t leave me!”
    Behind us, the chopper still comes. Bitter fear coats my mouth as two more join it, killing any hope that it was a random helicopter out for aerial photos. It’s a squadron, and they are definitely hunting us.
    Is this how it happened with Dad? Were his last moments like this? Tossing my head, I shove the thought away. I’m not going to die today—my body broken and sold off into bits and pieces.
    I nod to the nearing treetops. “There!”
    Draki never fly low to the ground, but we don’t have a choice.
    Azure follows me, weaving in my wake. She pulls close to my side, narrowly missing the flashing trees in her wild fear. I stop and drift in place, chest heaving with savage breath. The choppers whir overhead, their pounding beat deafening, stirring the trees into a frothing green foam.
    “We should demanifest,” Az says, panting.
    As if we could. We’re too frightened. Draki can never hold human form in a state of fear. It’s a survival mechanism. At our core we’re draki; that’s where we derive our strength.
    I peer up through the latticework of shaking branches shielding us, the scent of pine and forest ripe in my nostrils.
    “I can get myself under control,” Az insists in our guttural tongue.
    I shake my head. “Even if that’s true, it’s too risky. We have to wait them out. If they see two girls out here . . . after they just spotted two female draki, they might get suspicious.” A cold fist squeezes around my heart. I can’t let that happen. Not just for me, but for everyone. For draki everywhere. The secret of our ability to appear as humans is our greatest defense.
    “If we’re not home in the next hour, we’re busted!”
    I bite my lip to stop from telling her we have more to worry about than the pride discovering we snuck out. I don’t want to scare her even more than she already is.
    “We have to hide for a little—”
    Another sound penetrates the beating blades of a chopper. A low drone on the air. The tiny hairs at my nape tingle. Something else is out there. Below. On the