Chapter 25
Chapter
Twenty-Five
Realistically, there were quite a few things that someone could say when the person they’re walking through a maze with bursts out of human form and turns into a giant dragon.
Ashley imagined that most of them were far less vulgar than what escaped her mouth.
Still, because she had never considered herself to be good with words, she did a pretty good job summarizing the experience.
She didn’t flinch away from using the words that really would count.
The same words probably would have gotten her in trouble with her father, of all people.
“Holy mother fucking shit,” probably would have made a few grandmothers go green around the gills, perhaps fan themselves in the middle of a church, and wonder when their granddaughter was going to turn herself over to the priest for an exorcism, but, because Ashley didn’t have any grandparents, she felt pretty safe in saying those words.
This whole time, she had been afraid about what would happen when the Diamond King found her, that he would somehow claim his mate and then tell her that she would do whatever he said.
That he was going to take her away from Alexander, whom she had been falling for.
But then, it turned out that that wasn’t a problem.
Because Alexander was the actual Diamond King, and the Diamond King had conned her.
And by conning her, the Diamond King had put her through a whole avalanche of emotions.
But what she was feeling now? Right now, she felt extremely pissed off.
Completely and utterly pissed at Alexander.
She was mad at herself, and then mad at her brother, and then mad at just about everyone, because you know, she shouldn’t have been in this situation to begin with.
She shouldn’t have even been in this situation.
Because everyone insisted on so many secrets, she was able to be conned and believe that the man to whom she was actually betrothed was a butler of all things.
But, somehow, through a whole mess of shifter fuckery, there she was, standing in a maze next to a giant fucking dragon.
And giant really wasn’t the word. It didn’t really do any justice to his true size, him, or the fact that he was slightly beautiful in his own way, sporting giant, blue, iridescent scales that glittered all colors when the light hit them. And filling a lot of the space beside her.
Actually, she had never seen a real dinosaur.
Mainly because museums in Tennessee tended to verge on the whole dinosaurs weren’t real thing.
Because it was in the Bible belt, so, of course, dinosaurs weren’t real.
However, she could imagine the size of a dinosaur.
She would say they were smaller than Alexander was in his full form, which was concerning because she had been making out with a dragon about as big as three buses.
Which made her lady bits feel slightly less horny, even though she had heard that she was a dragon as well.
And then, to make sure that her lady bits didn’t feel horny at all and erase any and all bursts that she might have felt in her body, she saw something else.
The one thing she didn’t want to see. A giant white dragon head.
And, while Ashley wasn’t exactly the most brilliant girl in the world, she could put two and two together, and two and two together meant that the white dragon was her brother.
And, when she was thinking about sex, the last thing she wanted to see was her brother, of all people.
He was a giant fucking lizard that was breathing fire through the maze and had just about fried her.
But because her brother had warned her not to bring anyone into the maze, she supposed that she was lucky that he hadn’t killed her because she had definitely broken some rules there. But that was beside the point. Everyone was a fucking liar, that was the important part.
Wait, no, she realized then that wasn’t the important part. The important part was that everyone was busy fighting each other dragon-style, and she was there, still on two legs and still far too capable of escaping.
Say, for a moment, that Alexander had been telling the truth, that there was a way out of there via the maze?
Ashley wanted to believe it, and even if it wasn’t true, even if there was no way out via the maze, she could seize her family jewel and use it to threaten her brother.
And once she had threatened her brother, she would find her way out, she would finally escape and go back to a normal life.
The thought hit her like a ton of bricks, and the moment that that ton of bricks had settled, Ashley sprung into motion.
This was a good idea either way when one considered that two giant dragons were currently battling it out beside her.
While they were springing giant flames up and down the pathways of the maze, somehow deciding that they were going to preserve the integrity of the maze even though it likely wasn’t the logical decision, Ashley was deciding to haul fucking ass and get out of there.
“God fucking bless Tennessee,” Ashley noted to herself, thinking of everything that she had done throughout the years.
She had gone through so many cornfield mazes that she was practically an expert at navigating hedges.
She was also stubborn enough to dive through the hedges, disregarding all the branches that poked at her and using all her strength to carry on.
If the way out of the maze was real, then she was going to fucking find it.
She would just keep walking forward until she found an exit, diving through all the bushes and hardly caring about them.
That seemed like the only logical escape in her mind and the only one that she could really take.
But the moment that Ashley decided on this, the world decided to shift.
And by shift, she meant that her father had decided to show up.
He’d decided that he was going to stop her from leaving, which, because he currently had an iron circle around his neck, wasn’t exactly something that she could blame him for.
But regardless of whether or not she could blame her own father, she could blame herself if she didn’t manage to leave, and so Ashley hightailed it out of there, pulling her knees as high as possible as the giant werewolf stumbled into the maze, tearing through a hedge and turning its snout towards the air, trying to sniff her out among the mess that was currently going on.
“Giant fucking dragons, werewolves, and magic,” Ashley said to herself, unable to stop from shaking her head at the very idea, “does anything else want to go wrong today? Are there any other elements that I need to know about this story?”
In fact, she promised herself that if she survived this, if she somehow managed to escape the werewolf that she called her father, who was currently chasing her down, then she was going to live a normal life.
She was going to become a rancher somewhere, live off-grid, and not be involved in any of this.
She was going to take back what little sense there was in this world, and she was going to claim it for herself. All she had to do was somehow survive.
“Easier said than done,” Ashley noted to herself, hating the fact that this might be how it all ended, and that she was going to die as a result of everyone else’s actions.
She had never wanted to become a queen. She had never wanted to become a princess.
She had never meant to meet her brother.
She’d always meant to take care of her father and nothing else, but now if she wasn’t quick enough, then he was going to be the one to kill her.
She was going to lose everything to him.
And so, she ran until her body almost gave out.
She ran until her bones screamed at her to stop until her mind was worrying until she could hardly breathe.
In the background, Ashley could hear the dragons roaring out, their voices shaking the ground beneath her feet with every step that she took.
She could feel the heat from their fire begin to clip at the hedges, tearing down the hedge maze even though her brother had tried so hard to preserve it.
She could feel the earth protesting their every move and feel the wind shift beneath their wings, sending massive bursts in her direction.
And yet, she kept running, tearing through branch after branch and trying to ignore the way that it tore her skin, her eyes closing, her heartbeat just about to go through her chest.
But the one thing she couldn’t hear was the wolf running behind her. The one thing she couldn’t hear that she needed to hear more than anything was her father.
And that realization was what terrified her more than anything else.
Because out of all the things in this place, out of all the things lurking in that maze, out of her lover and her brother and all of that, only one of them was a werewolf trained to protect the dragons.
There was a reason why he had been put on the guard, to begin with, and while he had been gentle with her before, she couldn’t imagine the way that he would act now that she was threatening his peace.
The small light that her brother had gifted him was the happiness he had just found.
Ashley imagined that before she had come into his life, her father had had a life of his own.
He must have had lovers, and he had things to leave behind, but he had chosen her over everything.
And now she was repaying him by choosing herself, running as hard as possible, and wishing for a moment that everything would work out if she could become her own person.
And then, just like the world was taunting her for dreaming, she saw it. The world knew that it had to dangle a carrot in front of her nose to make her run.
The opening at the end of the hedge maze.
The place where the bushes broke was where she could finally see the light.
Her one chance to escape. Ashley could hardly believe that it was actually right there, just in front of her, and more than she could hardly believe was the fact that not that far from it was a fucking car.
And the moment that she got in that car, she knew that there would be no way that anything could catch her.
She was going to explore it and go a hundred mph. All she had to do was make it that far.
Which was why, of course, the only thing that she couldn’t do was to manage to make it that far.
She felt him before she saw him, feeling the heavy weight that crushed her down to the ground and wincing as she realized that she was trapped. Her scream caught in the back of her throat. Her whole body fought against it, and yet, try as she might, she couldn’t get out.
She could feel her father above her. She knew that there was no escape, that a feral sense now ruled the wolf that had pinned her down. That much was clear by the way that he tore at her skin, fighting her back every time that she struggled.
And yet, Ashley continued to try. She kept reaching for that borderline, and she choked, trying to get out, to save herself.
And, as she reached for that borderline and began to cry, she heard her father’s voice fill her ears once more, the monster above her finely shifting from that of a werewolf into an actual man.
“Ashley,” he pleaded.
“Ashley,” he said, and finally, with the softness of her father’s voice, the fight died out of her. Thick tears rolled down her face as Ashley came to understand exactly what her lot was in life, and that this was it.