Frostbite (The Dragonian Series Book 3)

Frostbite: The Dragonian Series 3

Copyright © 2015 Adrienne Woods

Illustration: Joemel Requeza

If you purchased this e-book from anyone other than Fire Quill Publishing or a licensed FQP reseller, you should be aware this e-book is stolen property.

This e-book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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Manufactured in South Africa.

First Fire Quill publishing edition September 2015

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To my sister; Rile Freeman, for all your love and for being one of my best friends. You were the inspiration behind Cara. Love you to bits.

xoxoxo

Adrienne

First and the most important, as always, thanks is to our Father in Heaven, for blessing me every day, without Your guidance,  I wouldn’t have done or finished with this if You were not involved in this every day. You are my purpose of life and I will love You till the end of time.

Then I would like to thank my extraordinary beta readers, you know who you are, for your valuable input, patience and willingness to delve into this world time and time again.

For the endless support of my family; I would be lost without your loving support and your ability to keep me pursuing this project when I didn’t want to carry on.

To Vinique; my bestie for your love, kindness and support. Love you to bits and thank you for being such a significant person in my life.

A special thanks to my wonderful editors, Hillery, you are a true Paegeian, still, and your love for beautiful words has given Thunderlight the wings it needed to soar. Monique and Zoe, have become true citizens of Paegeia too, andyour insight to the words on these pages made Elena and all her friends so much more entertaining, and a big thank you for polishing my work to perfection.

To my cover artist Joemel. Your grace and elegance with lines, shadows and colors has made my novel cover truly spectacular. You were able to reach into my imagination, capture, and re-imagine a world I thought only I would ever see. Because of your passion and skill I truly hope my book will be judged by its cover.

To my publishing company, Fire Quill, for giving a home to my series and to the best team I ever worked with. Helen, Gerald, Sandra, Carlyle, Monique and Kelly, you are all stars for making my novels reach much further then I dream for.

Last, but not the least, a big thanks to my fans. I will always, always be grateful for your love and support. Without you this series would not have lifted off, and you have given Frostbite a chance to be seen yet again by so many readers. I hope that none of you will be disappointed with this part.

Lots of love

Adrienne Woods

Things aren’t always what they seem; the first appearance deceives many; the intelligence of a few perceives what has been carefully hidden….  Unknown

EATH WAS MY constant companion. I’d escaped its icy clutches three times in my short life.

My first brush with the spirit I now knew as Death was the night I learned who my father truly was. The night I witnessed his transformation into a dragon on Interstate 40. The night we were attacked by dragons. I lost my hero that night, and my world was completely turned upside-down when I was whisked away to Paegeia: a world where dragons and magic exist; a world located inside the Bermuda Triangle, hidden from the human realm behind a magical wall.

Humans have the ability to penetrate the wall, but if they try to exit Paegeia, they are instantly disintegrated.

I used to call it my one-way ticket to Neverland. Now it has become my home.

While the wall may be limiting to humans, dragons are free to come and go as they please, and they’ve done so for the past nine hundred years, hiding amongst the human race to protect the weak, help the poor and trade with the rest of the world.

The second time I almost died was right after I received my foretelling from the Viden. Foretellings are a type of prophecy intended to lead the people of Paegeia to their destinies, but the Viden gives them in a messed up way, in the form of a riddle.

Mine could mean anything, but I knew now that it would only bring death. What the words in my foretelling meant, I still needed to figure out. The question was, would it be worth it?

The first time I thought I had figured out my destiny was when I went to retrieve the King of Lion sword. It was formidable, magical and could slay evil in any form. Brian, a Sun-Burst dragon, died saving my life, and the lives of my friends who were dumb enough to follow me into the madness.

The second time I had the opportunity to fulfill the twisted words of the opaque riddle was when I had the opportunity to claim Paul, a Wyvern, to prove once and for all that Wyverns had the capacity to be good like all the other dragons. Once again I was wrong, and my only love, Lucian, paid the ultimate price. He died saving my life, but not before I turned into a dragon myself.

I was a dragon, I had always been a dragon, and I had never known. It was still a mystery why I hadn’t been able to shift before, and they were still studying why only my anger and fear had brought on the change.

To be honest, I didn’t care about my foretelling anymore. People I loved died, and I couldn’t stop feeling like all of this was my fault.

Losing Lucian took a huge toll on me. I didn’t want to live, but for some reason now that I wanted to die the spirit of death didn’t come to claim his prize. Instead I was left with a hollow feeling deep inside my chest, one that would never be filled. I was left with a broken heart: ice cold, as if no amount of heat could ever warm me again.
Arianna is right, I am like poison
.

No, not poison.

The people in my life, the ones I love, didn’t die from my touch, their deaths were written in the choices I made. All of them were on death’s list; waiting for the day they would take their last breath.

I’d paralyzed their lives, their futures. I was like ice, like frost freezing their hopes and dreams. I was the living embodiment of frostbite.