Soul Scorched

Edinburgh, Scotland

Darcy sat straight up in bed, her chest heaving from her gasping breaths. She clawed at the hair that clung to her face with her sweat and blinked several times to make sure the dragon who had been bearing down on her with its mouth open wasn’t real.

She hunched over and buried her face in her hands, her entire body shaking. It was the same dream from two days earlier. For the past month, the dream kept recurring every few days. There was no rhyme or reason to when the dreams came or when they didn’t. All Darcy knew was that the dragon was after her.

She lifted her face to peek out her window. Dawn had arrived. She took several deep breaths before she threw off the covers and rose to walk to the bathroom. After a quick shower, she pinned up her hair and pulled on a sweater, jeans, and boots before she walked to the kitchen of her flat. A quick inhale of the smell of coffee brought some semblance of a smile to her face.

Darcy poured the dark liquid into a tall thermal container and screwed on the top. She put on her coat and pulled her purse over her head, settling it across her body. As she made her way to the door, she grabbed an apple from the basket.

The few blocks she walked to work was done slowly. She wasn’t in a mad dash like others in the city heading to their corporate jobs.

By the time she reached the black door of her shop, she had finished the apple. Darcy opened the door and stepped inside. She shut and locked the door behind her. It was a few hours yet before she would officially open, but she always came in early.

She walked past the round table painted black set in the middle of the floor. All around the front of the small store were decorations that people expected to see like a crystal ball and crystals of various sizes and colors hanging from the ceiling.

Simple was best, and it was what she liked. Darcy didn’t put up any brightly lit signs announcing that she read palms. People always found her, and her clients returned again and again.

Although she could read palms anywhere, she preferred the place kept darkened. So the lights were dimmed and candles lit. The walls were painted a dark purple, and the hardwood floor was covered with black rugs of various sizes and shapes.

She walked through two sets of dark hanging curtains to the back of the store that held boxes of different tarot cards, runes stones, and books about reading the tarots and runes, as well as palm reading. She made the bulk of her money from her clients, but she made a nice chunk with her online sales.

This was the place she called her mini-warehouse because of all the boxes. She had a small desk that housed her computer and printer. All her shipping supplies were in cabinets hanging on the wall above her desk, which meant it was as neat as it was going to get.

Darcy hung her purse on the coatrack, and her coat soon followed. She tapped a key on the computer keyboard to wake it up as she walked to the back door.

She quickly threw open the door and sighed. This was the place she craved to be. This is what the money from her palm readings and online sales allowed her. She was finally able to find some semblance of comfort since the dream woke her.

The conservatory was long and narrow, going back as far as it could until it reached the building behind hers. Darcy took a deep breath, the air filled with the fragrance of dozens of flowers. This is what calmed her. It was the place she went to ease her mind and find peace that eluded her out in the world of crazies.

Darcy didn’t bother with gloves. She pushed the sleeves of her sweater up her arms and put on the apron that held the tools she would need to tend to her flowers.

She looked over the tables of plants to the planters in the back that held the tallest flowers. Then she walked to the table to her left.

One by one Darcy lovingly touched their leaves and inhaled the fragrant flowers while she checked the soil and pruned as needed. She went down the first row, moving to her right until she reached the end.

She was at the middle table working her way back to the front when she noticed the Scottish primrose she had planted from a seed. It had sprouted well enough, but yesterday it began to look as if it was struggling to live.

Darcy leaned close and cupped her hands around it. She let her magic fill her before she released a small portion of it through her fingers into the plant.

She didn’t normally use her magic with her plants, but the primrose had been a gift from her sister. It had taken her six years to get up the courage to plant it, and now that she had, she didn’t want it to die.

As she watched the leaves of the flower begin to brighten, she dropped her hands to her side and straightened. She didn’t need to turn around to know who had come into the area. There was only one person who would dare to intrude upon her privacy.

“I honestly didn’t expect to see you again.”

“And I didna expect to see you cheating by using your magic,” came the masculine reply in a deep, soft English accent.

Darcy turned and faced the man who had first walked into her shop three years earlier. She looked over his long black hair that hung loose about his shoulders to his gold eyes. As usual, he was in a dark suit, the crisp white shirt beneath the jacket left open at the collar.

Ulrik.

Her first foray into a world she hadn’t known existed—the Dragon Kings.