Claire Visits The Dragon, Part 3
Hi, folks. I missed you guys last week while I
was a bit under the weather. But, I’m back now, none the worse for wear, and
ready to continue with Claire Deerfoot’s last visit to The Dragon.
But first, let’s check the old TBR list…
What I’m Currently
Reading…
…is nothing. Well, not nothing. I’ve been reading over my first novel, The Draculata Nest, in preparation for a
re-edit, which may include an additional story line and even a re-release under
a different title. At any rate, I don’t know if that counts as reading. (I did enjoy it, though. It’s a
good book. J
)
I finished Devyn Dawson’s The Legacy of Kilkenny. I’m only giving it three stars. I honestly
liked the story, its characters and pace, but I can’t recommend it due to some
major flaws, all of which could have been corrected with a bit of editing.
The novel is written from the first person,
present tense, point of view. So (so, so, sooooo) many writers are using this
POV these days. It has to be difficult to have a story unfold before the
reader’s eyes as it happens while
still providing background information or looking through a different
character’s eyes. Dawson stumbles with it, often changing tenses, sometimes
within the same sentence. She flips back and forth between the two main
characters by titling each chapter with the character’s name, but since both
characters have such a similar voice, I found myself regularly turning back a
few pages to figure out who was doing the narration.
The author also came up with her own rules
of punctuation, or often abandoned them altogether. Sentences were separated by
commas or simply run together. I got used to it after a while, because the
story grabbed my interest, but I had to stop regularly to puzzle out who was
saying what and how.
Here’s an interesting footnote to the above
criticisms. There’s a sneak peak chapter or two of the sequel at the end of the
Kindle version. With the second book, the author has abandoned the
present tense, although she still uses a first person POV, and the punctuation
problems have been completely erased. I even found –low and behold – a
semicolon in one of the first few pages!
Next up on my TBR list is Douglas Preston and
Lincoln Child’s Brimstone. It came highly recommended by my
know-it-all-friend David, but I haven’t started it yet.
Okay, now…
When we left off last week two weeks ago, Claire Deerfoot had
found the entrance to The Dragon’s lair, and Sethmus The Smith was about to
lead her within…
Claire Visits The Dragon,
Part 3…
The lair was
mostly as she’d remembered. A maze of tunnels connected small rooms and
cavernous halls for miles under what was today Doughton Park, a favorite
recreation area along the Blue Ridge Parkway.
“You’re lucky,”
Sethmus informed her as he led the way through enough twists and turns to
thoroughly destroy her sense of direction, “since we didn’t know you were
coming. Pieter’s hardly ever here these days, but it just so happens he dropped
in this week to use the lab.”
“Lab?”
“Yeah, it’s new
since you were here last. Really something, too. Dr. Pet… I mean, Pieter…” He
stopped in mid-sentence. His expression suggested he’d said more than he
should. “Uh, he probably ought to be the one to fill you in on the details.
Suffice it to say, you’ll be impressed.”
And impressed
she was, when she found herself there a short time later, wrapped in a
too-large robe Sethmus had hastily pulled from a storeroom along the way. She
sat at a long work table, surrounded by banks of computers and laboratory
equipment that looked like it might be intended for some kind of medical
research.
Pieter had
chosen to receive her in his true form instead of the Doctor Pet-something
persona Sethmus had almost let slip before. The huge green dragon sat folded
comfortably on the floor across the table from her and spoke in a rich
baritone. His voice made a strange echo. She heard it both in her ears and in
her mind.
“This is an
unexpected pleasure, Claws-On-The-Foot. I had given up hope of ever seeing you
again. You look well.”
“Thanks,” she
said. “You can call me Claire. It’s easier. Sorry to show up un-announced, but…
well, I wouldn’t know how to go about announcing it anyway.”
The Dragon
nodded. “It’s not a problem. You seem to have chosen a serendipitous time, what
with the moon and stars aligned correctly to reveal the trail and myself having
dropped by on a whim. Perhaps,” he spread his wings in an odd shrugging
gesture, “it was meant to be.”
“Like, part of
the Prophecy?”
Again the shrug.
“Whatever the reasons, it is good to see you. Ah, he’s back.”
Sethmus entered
the room carrying a small tray, from which he took a steaming cup of soup and
placed it in front of her. She wrapped her still-cold fingers around it
gratefully. “Thanks,” she said. Sethmus nodded and took a seat at the far end
of the table with a cup of his own.
“So you believe
you’ve found the Red Wolf of Prophecy,” said The Dragon, raising a scaly brow
ridge.
She nodded,
taking a sip of the soup and sighing appreciatively. “You sound skeptical,” she
said.
“It is a bit of
a surprise, at this late date.” He sighed. “I want to believe you. But, I’m
afraid to get my hopes up.”
“Then we’re kind
of on the same page. It’s why I came here.”
The Dragon
slowly nodded his huge head. “Please, go on.”
“I left here
last time, after you gave me the prophecy, assuming the white omega was me,
that Swifter-Than-Deer and I would bring a son into the world who would be the
male omega. That’s what you led me to believe.” She looked to him for
confirmation.
The Dragon
shifted his position, took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly through his
nostrils. The temperature of the room rose slightly, and Claire detected an
odor of sulfur. “That’s how I interpreted the Prophecy, too… at the time.”
Claire waited
for him to elaborate, but he didn’t. “Okay,” she continued. “Uh… so I knew the
two boys I already had weren’t omega wolves. I expected to get pregnant again
soon, but I… never got the chance… after…” Unexpected emotion closed her
throat. She tried to dismiss it with a wave of her hand. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be,” said
The Dragon. “Our tears are the purest eulogy.”
His kind, gentle
tone invited a flood. But she blinked back the tears and cleared her throat.
“When I lost my husband and sons, I believed, in time, I would find another
mate.” She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe I didn’t look hard enough? Anyway, it
never happened, and eventually I figured I wasn’t the one, after all. I
accepted it, but I thought… maybe one of my descendants?”
The Dragon
nodded. “Yes, I followed that same line of thought. And when other omega
females were born I wondered if the chosen one was not to be Uwharrie after
all. Then I wondered if the white
part in the prophecy referred to purity instead of color. To this day, after a
thousand years, you are still the only omega with white fur.”
“And the only
Uwharrie omega,” she added. “But I have a niece - or, rather, a
great-great-great grand niece – who I suspect may be omega. She’s only sixteen,
and her wolf has not yet emerged. At least I don’t think so. She ran away from
home a few years ago. I was trying to find her when I ran across Clifford
Crane.
“It was
completely by accident. I was out hunting along a greenway in Charlotte, just
before dawn. He was out jogging. I was drawn to him…”
A snigger came
from the end of the table.
“It wasn’t like
that, Sethmus,” she glared. “I thought I explained that before. Why do you
assume I have the hots for this guy?”
“Whoa, easy
now.” Sethmus threw his huge hands up like a shield, chuckling. He grinned at
The Dragon. “Pieter, me thinks she doth protest too much!”
The Dragon’s
expression might have been one of amusement. It was hard to tell. Nevertheless,
he admonished his companion, “Sethmus, please. Let her tell us what she’s
found.”
Sethmus gave a
what-did-I-do shrug. He started to say something, thought better of it, clamped
his mouth shut, and folded his arms across his massive chest.
Claire cleared
her throat. “Anyway,” she continued, “once I met him in person, it was obvious
he was a wolf.”
“Ah,”
interjected The Dragon, “you are able to see that in someone before the wolf
comes out? That’s a rare gift, isn’t it?”
“It’s unusual,”
she confirmed. “I do know a few others who have the talent.”
“Are you a
hundred percent accurate?”
“Noooo… not
always. I mean, I don’t always see it. It’s more obvious in some than others.
When I see it, I’m never wrong. With Cliff, it’s very obvious, like his wolf is
trapped and screaming to come out.”
“Hmm,” he
rumbled, “interesting. Remind me to get a blood sample from you before you
leave. I’d love to run some tests. But… go on.”
Claire frowned. Blood sample? Tests? The way he said it was
incongruent for a dragon, such a quintessential creature of magic. She glanced
around at all the modern laboratory equipment, and a thousand questions popped
into her head.
----------------
My Books
The Draculata Nest -----------------------------------------------------------------------
Click on the link to order:
The Dragon of Doughton Park ----------------------------------------------------------
Click on the link to order:
ebook for Kindle in Paperback
ebook for Nook in Charlotte
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ebook for Kindle in Paperback
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