Leia Stone

I swallowed hard. “What … was that?”

He sighed, releasing my chin, and ran his hands through his hair. “Give me time to look into this.” But I could see it in his face … he knew. He knew something and wasn’t telling me.

“Sawyer. What am I?” My voice was firmer this time and I could see the pity in his eyes.

He tucked a lock of blond hair behind my ear, looking sad, like he’d just received bad news. “You’re amazing.”

Sawyer?” I called to him, and he looked over at me, eyes still orange. “I’m okay.” I placed a hand on his chest and his eyes flickered blue. “I’m okay,” I repeated again.

His breath shuddered, and then he leaned forward, touching his forehead to mine. His eyes slowly faded from orange to blue. “Demi, I will never let anyone hurt you. Ever.”

My throat went dry. I believed him.

Could you fall in love with someone who you hadn’t even kissed? Because I was falling for Sawyer Hudson, hard.

“But I don’t worry anymore,” she said matter-of-factly. “Something about being gone in those woods has changed you. You’re more capable now than ever. I pity the person who gets in the way of you bringing Sawyer home. You can do anything, Demi. I see that now.”

Her words knocked the breath out of me, lighting a fire inside of me that had gone out last night when I’d heard the bad news. She was right. No one was taking Sawyer from me, not before he got to meet his son, and not before I got to love him at least eighty more years.

The Dark Woods had turned me into a wild woman, and the Magic City Prison was about to suffer my wrath

I didn’t stroke the king like he was a horse! What in the Hades was I thinking?

“She was trying to escape,”

“With great duty comes great responsibility,”

“If I don’t make you my wife, I might have to put you in my army.”

“I do not know, but if you’re looking for someone to carry a child for you… she should be a top contender.” I heard her shuffle closer to him. “She smelled pure-blooded.”

“I’m trying to find out how a girl who claims to be a quarter dragon-folk explodes like a magic bomb in one of my washrooms. A girl I very much like and am interested in.”