Chapter 1

1

ARIA

I rolled my eyes so hard I thought they might pop out of my skull. "Dana, I swear to God, if I have to hear one more lecture about finding a 'good man' to 'help me succeed,' I'm going to lose it."

Dana's laughter crackled through my phone. "Your dad's still on that kick, huh?"

"When is he not?" I huffed, kicking a pebble as I walked down the sidewalk. The stone skittered across the concrete, narrowly missing a pigeon that gave me an indignant look before fluttering away. "It's like he thinks my psychology degree and counseling job are just cute hobbies until Prince Charming shows up to give my life meaning."

"Ugh, that's so?—"

"Outdated? Sexist? Infuriating?" I supplied, ticking off the adjectives on my fingers even though Dana couldn't see me.

"All of the above," Dana agreed. "You know you're killing it, right? New city, new job, totally reinventing yourself. That's badass, Aria."

I smiled, warmth blooming in my chest. This was why Dana was my best friend. She always knew exactly what to say to pull me out of my funk. "Thanks. I just wish Dad could see it that way. I mean, come on, it's the 21 st century. You'd think he'd have gotten the memo that women can make it on their own."

"Maybe we should send him a strongly worded email. Or better yet, a PowerPoint presentation. 'Why Aria Doesn't Need a Man to Be Awesome.'"

I snorted, narrowly avoiding choking on my own spit. "God, can you imagine? He'd probably critique my slide transitions and tell me a husband could've designed it better."

"Okay, now you're just being ridiculous," Dana said, but I could hear the smile in her voice.

I sighed, my amusement fading as quickly as it had come. "I know, I know. It's just... frustrating, you know? I've worked so hard to get where I am. I moved to a new city, I'm starting a career I'm passionate about, I'm finally feeling like I'm getting my life together after the whole Jason fiasco. And all Dad can focus on is my lack of a ring on my finger."

The memory of Jason sent a familiar pang through my chest. Six months wasn't long enough to completely heal from having your heart ripped out and stomped on, but I was getting there. Slowly but surely. Why my father thought a man was everything I needed, I had no idea. Ever since mom had passed, he'd been even more worried about it, saying it was a vital part of life.

"Hey," Dana's voice softened. "You know your dad loves you, right? He's just... stuck in his ways. Give him time. He'll come around eventually."

"Yeah, maybe when I'm ninety and have fifty cats," I muttered.

"Fifty? Amateur. Go for a hundred or go home."

I laughed despite myself. "You're ridiculous."

"That's why you love me," Dana said cheerfully. "So, enough about your dad's outdated views. Tell me about the new job. How's it going? Any interesting clients? Ooh, any cute coworkers?"

I rolled my eyes again, but this time with fondness. "The job's good. Challenging, but in a good way, you know? Makes me feel like I'm actually making a difference. As for clients, you know I can't talk about that. Confidentiality and all that."

"Boo, you're no fun," Dana pouted. "What about the coworkers? Come on, throw me a bone here. I'm living vicariously through you, remember?"

"Sorry to disappoint, but my love life is still firmly in the non-existent category. And I'm okay with that," I added quickly before Dana could protest. "I'm focusing on myself right now. My career, my personal growth. Romance can wait."

"Fair enough," Dana conceded. "But if Mr. Right comes along?—"

"I'll be sure to run him by you for approval," I finished with a laugh. "Now, can we please talk about something else? Like, literally anything else?"

"Fine, fine. Oh! Did I tell you about Tom's latest backyard project? He's decided what we really need is a koi pond."

I couldn't help but smile. Dana's husband, Tom, was notorious for starting projects he never quite finished. After my breakup, I'd lived with them for a few months before I'd moved to this city with a new job, ready to start a new chapter in my life.

"A koi pond? Really? Does he even know how to take care of fish?"

"Oh, he's done about fifteen minutes of Google research, so naturally, he's an expert now," Dana replied with a laugh. "I swear, Aria, if I come home one day to find our yard flooded and koi flopping around in the grass, I'm calling you for backup."

"Hey, that's what best friends are for," I said. "Moral support and fish wrangling."

"Don't forget wine. Lots and lots of wine." Dana was always one to help ease my worries, and our friendship was something I adored. Ever since I'd picked myself up from the hole my breakup had left me in, Dana had been cheering me on the entire time. Now, here I was, a few months into a new job, in a brand new city, with a wonderful little apartment I loved.

"Trust me, there's never a dull moment here. You know what it's like, you were here."

"That I do, Tom's a good one though, he adores you," I said, grateful my best friend was married to such a wonderful man. Sure, he had crazy ideas and schemes sometimes, but he meant well, and they were a perfect match.

"True, and I know it. I'm forever grateful. You'll find yours too, don't you worry, any man is going to be beyond lucky to have you.'"

I opened my mouth to respond, but the words died in my throat. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and a chill raced down my spine. Something was wrong. Very wrong, and I glanced around uneasily.

"Dana," I said, my voice barely above a whisper. "Something's wrong, I don't feel…" I let the words hang as a shudder coursed through me and I slowly turned around, my heart hammering. I knew something was there, I could feel it.

"What? Aria, are you okay? What's?—"

The phone fell from my ear as I stared, my eyes wide.

Holy shit.

A... thing hovered a few feet away in the middle of the road. Shadowy, barely visible, like a ripple in the air. But as I stared, it started to take shape. Claws. Teeth. Eyes that glowed with something unholy.

My heart jackhammered against my ribs. This couldn't be real. I had to be hallucinating. Maybe I'd finally cracked under the pressure of my dad's expectations. Or maybe I hadn't really gotten past my breakup and now I was crumbling.

The creature – because what else could I call it? – seemed to solidify with each passing second. Its form was vaguely humanoid, but twisted and wrong. Limbs too long, joints bent at impossible angles. And those eyes... God, those eyes. They burned with an otherworldly hunger that made my skin crawl.

I took a step back, then another. My mind raced, trying to make sense of what I was seeing. A costume? Some kind of elaborate prank? A psychotic break?

The creature's mouth opened, revealing rows of needle-sharp teeth. A low, guttural sound emerged – not quite a growl, not quite a hiss, but something in between that set every nerve in my body on edge.

Run , a voice in my head screamed. Run, you idiot!

I turned to flee, but my foot caught on a crack in the sidewalk. I stumbled, arms pinwheeling as I fought to regain my balance.

My clumsiness would be the death of me, I'd always known that.

A car horn blared. Tires screeched.

The shadow creature lunged.

I stumbled in my attempts to catch myself, my foot slipping off the curb. The world tilted. A sedan barreled toward me, the driver's eyes wide with panic as they took in the sight of the creature and me falling.

This is it , I thought. This is how I die. Taken out by a Honda Civic while hallucinating shadow monsters. Sorry, Dad. Guess I'll never find that good man after all.

Then the world lurched.

Claws wrapped around my arms, yanking me skyward. My stomach dropped as the ground fell away. Wind whipped my hair. I screamed, the sound torn from my throat as I clung to the monstrous hands holding me.

"What the fu—" The curse died on my lips as I looked up.

Scales. Red scales, gleaming like rubies in the sunlight. A long, serpentine neck. Wings that blocked out the sky.

I was being carried off by a dragon.

A goddamn dragon.

As the city shrank beneath us, one crystal-clear thought cut through the chaos in my mind:

Dad was going to be so pissed I'd gotten myself kidnapped before finding a husband.

The absurdity of that thought startled a hysterical laugh out of me. Here I was, dangling from the claws of a mythical creature, possibly hallucinating, definitely in danger of becoming a pancake if said creature decided to drop me, and I was worried about my dad's reaction?

Maybe I really had lost it.

But just as quickly as that thought hit, my fear of heights kicked in as we continued higher and higher.

The dragon – and I still couldn't believe I was using that word unironically – banked sharply to the left. My stomach lurched, and I squeezed my eyes shut. Heights had never been my thing, and being several hundred feet in the air with nothing between me and a very messy death but a scaled hand was not helping. My chest tightened, my breaths coming out in sharp gasps as I trembled.

Fuck. I was going to die of a heart attack before anything else. All it took was this creature opting to release me and it was all over.

"Okay, Aria," I muttered to myself. "You're okay. This is fine. Everything's fine. You're just having a very vivid, very realistic dream. You'll wake up any second now, laugh about this over coffee, and then call your therapist to get some anxiety meds."

The wind rushing past my ears almost drowned out my words, but the act of speaking, of hearing my own voice, helped ground me. A little. Sort of.

I cracked one eye open, immediately regretting it as I caught sight of the ground far, far below. Cars looked like ants, buildings like toy models. My breath caught in my throat, and I squeezed my eyes shut again, instinctively covering the scaled hands with my own. They were oddly warm to the touch, which made it all the more real to feel.

The dragon's grip on my arms tightened slightly, as if sensing my distress. Great. That was probably not a good sign.

I forced myself to take a deep breath, then another. Panic wouldn't help me here. I needed to think, to try and make sense of what was happening.

Fact: I had been attacked by some kind of shadow creature.

Fact: I was now being carried through the air by what appeared to be a dragon.

Fact: Neither of these things should be possible.

Conclusion: I was either dreaming, hallucinating, or the world had gone completely insane. Or I had finally gone insane.

None of these options were particularly comforting.

I ground my teeth as I dared to open my eyes again, praying everything would suddenly change and I'd be on the sidewalk after having some psychotic break with crazy hallucinations.

No such luck. I was still being carried over the city, the dragon's wings beating heavily as I shook. I glanced around, the world swaying with the frantic beating in my ears, my heart ready to give out as panic tried to claim me.

A strange shimmer in the air caught my attention, making me forget my fears momentarily. At first, I thought it was just a trick of the light or something in the air. But as we flew closer, I realized it was something else entirely. A... tear in the sky? A ripple in reality?

Whatever it was, we were heading straight for it.

"Um, excuse me, Mr… Dragon?" I called out, feeling ridiculous even as I did so, but my pounding heart and the fear threatening to consume me had me needing to speak. "I don't suppose we could, I don't know, not fly into the weird space anomaly? I'm really not dressed for interdimensional travel."

Sarcasm had always been my coping method, a trait I'd inherited from my beloved mother. God rest her soul.

The dragon, unsurprisingly, didn't respond, its wings beating steadily as we kept hurtling toward the ripple.

I squeezed my eyes shut again, bracing for... well, I didn't know what. A collision? Disintegration? A wormhole to another universe?

Was this how I died? Turned to mush in a weird space-time ripple? This whole thing was impossible.

"God, if you're there, please…" I whispered, my entire body now trembling like a leaf in a storm, ready to fall apart. I clung to the dragon's scaled hands, holding on for dear life and praying.

I wasn't ready to die. I wanted to maybe meet Prince Charming finally, experience real love, and have the life I wanted.

What I also wasn't prepared for was the sensation of passing through a wall of cold jelly. It lasted only a moment, a full-body shudder of wrongness, and then...

Warmth. Sunlight on my skin, different somehow from the sun I'd known all my life. The air smelled strange – sweeter, lighter, like nothing I'd ever experienced before.

I opened my eyes.

And gasped.

Gone was the city with its towering skyscrapers and bustling streets. In its place was a landscape straight out of a fantasy novel. Rolling hills covered in grass that shimmered with an almost metallic sheen. A forest spread out past them, with a few lone giant trees that reached for the sky, larger than any I had ever seen before. Their massive trunks and sprawling canopies dwarfed the surrounding vegetation, standing as ancient guardians in this strange new world. And in the distance, rising from the heart of this foreign world, was a castle. One we were quickly drawing closer to.

No, not a castle. A fortress. Its spires reached toward the sky, twisting and turning in defiance of physics. The walls gleamed like mother-of-pearl, shifting colors as I watched.

"I don't think I'm in Kansas anymore," I whispered.

The dragon began to descend, spiraling down toward what looked like a massive courtyard at the base of the fortress. As we got closer, I could make out figures moving about. People. Thank God.

My mind reeled, trying to process everything I was seeing. This couldn't be real. It had to be a dream, a hallucination, something. People didn't just get plucked off the street by dragons and whisked away to magical realms. That kind of thing only happened in books and movies, not to slightly neurotic twenty-seven-year-old counselors with daddy issues.

And yet... the wind in my hair felt real. The dragon's claws around my arms felt real. The growing knot of fear and excitement in my stomach felt very, very real.

As we neared the ground, a new thought occurred to me, one that sent a fresh wave of panic through my system:

What if I couldn't get back?

What about my job? My apartment? My dad? Dana?

Oh God, Dana. The last thing she'd heard was me dropping the phone and then all the commotion of the car and dragon whisking me away. She was probably freaking out right now, calling hospitals and the police.

And my dad... for all his faults, he loved me. The thought of him waiting for a call that would never come, wondering what had happened to his daughter...

Tears pricked at my eyes. I blinked them away furiously. Now was not the time for a breakdown. I needed to keep it together, to figure out what was going on and how to get home.

The dragon's wings flared out, catching the air and slowing our descent. With surprising gentleness, it deposited me on the ground before landing beside me with a thud that shook the earth.

I stumbled, my legs wobbly from the flight and the sheer impossibility of my situation. As I struggled to regain my balance, sucking in mouthfuls of steadying air, a strange shimmer surrounded the dragon. Its form seemed to ripple and shrink, scales melting away to reveal skin. In a matter of seconds, where the massive red dragon had been, there now stood a man.

A very naked, fine as fuck man.

I gaped, my brain short-circuiting as it tried to process what I'd just witnessed. The man – tall, muscular, with the same ruby-red hair as the dragon's scales – looked around imperiously before his gaze settled on me.

"Cloak," he called out, his voice deep and resonant as he stretched his arm out to the side.

A figure rushed forward, draping a long, dark cloak over the man's shoulders. He fastened it with practiced ease, finally covering his... everything.

All I could do was stare at one of the most beautiful men I had ever seen standing before me.

Just what in holy hell was going on?