Silence - By Kailin Gow Page 0,11

to get herself into this time.

So she’d found a family on a different world.

That didn’t mean much when her new father was dying, her new adopted brother clearly hated her, and she was about to be dropped into the middle of some kind of battle for succession. Even the vampires of Wicked were better than that. In fact, Briony decided in that moment, the best thing she could possibly do right then was to get as far away from the whole place as possible.

She needed to go home.

Chapter 5

Perhaps Archer sensed how Briony was feeling right then. Perhaps he had simply spent enough time watching her to guess. Either way, he moved forward to take her hand. Briony started slightly at the sudden contact, as wel as looking around at the crowd of Hugtandalfers occupying the royal apartment.

What would they think, seeing the dragon shifter rush forward to comfort her like that?

Right then, with Vigor stil looking at her with less than friendly eyes, and her Hugtandalfer father staring up at her from his sickbed, Briony wasn’t sure that she cared. Archer might technical y have been just as much a part of this strange world as any of the others, but right then, he felt like a link back to Wicked.

Back to home.

“Your majesty,” Archer said, “forgive me, but with the Princess so soon arrived from her home, she must be tired by now. Perhaps we could have your permission to retire so that she might rest?”

Briony had never heard anyone speak quite that formal y before. Then again, that was probably the kind of thing that you had to put up with around royalty.

Which could be a problem if she was supposed to be royalty now. Briefly, Briony had a vision of courtiers flocking around her, speaking to her like something out of a Jane Austen novel. This was too strange, and it felt like she was acting out some kind of role in her theater class, but one look at the dragon shifter besides her, the fanged elf brother glowering at her, and the crowd of royal fanged elves in the room, she knew as much the first time she realized vampires were real in her world, that al this was real, too.

After al , she had entered this strange new world, this beautiful, but somewhat dangerous world straight from Wicked Woods. And from everything she’s experienced since coming to Wicked Woods; if it was possible for vampires and werewolves to exist, then it was possible for dragons and fanged elves to, too.

She’s seen the crossover with her own eyes…Archer the dragon flying over the trees of Wicked and Aunt Sophie… that was a hard one to digest, but now that she realized what she was, everything about her made sense. Everything here made sense… especial y since Palisor was a part of the Wicked Woods.

She looked over at Archer, who in human form looked to be one to two years older than Fal on.

Archer, in his golden skin and amber eyes, who have been nothing but protective throughout. He was now her dragon, and she was his royal elf. He had been sent to bring her back, and he had done it. So why was he standing up for her now? Unless it was this business of the connection between a dragon and a Hugtandalfer? What was Archer not tel ing her? What role was she to play in this?

Briony didn’t get the chance to think it through though, because Prince Vigor chose that moment to laugh.

“Tired? Oh, is attending the sickbed of her father too much for the poor little human?”

“I think, your highness,” Archer said to the Prince, “that it might have something to do with the Princess’ previous exertions.”

“Previous exertions?” The Prince raised an eyebrow, getting a smal laugh from some of the courtiers. “Wel , I suppose we’re al worn out after that.

Some of us, anyway.”

“Hey!” Briony exclaimed as she got that. “That was not what Archer meant.”

“Real y?” Vigor’s eyebrow arched stil further, his silver eyes looking at her up and down with the appreciation of what? A man appreciating the form of a woman? Briony couldn’t help but blush under his scrutinizing glaze. His forwardness was infuriating, and he was supposed to be her adopted brother.

There was a line she was not going to cross with that.

Vigor’s look of appreciation quickly changed to cockiness. “And yet you blush just at the mention of it.”

It seemed that there was no way