Dark Heart

Chapter One

Justin lay hidden, watching, as the girl entered her room, shut the door, and locked it. He sighed inwardly. She wasn't really a girl, but to him, she seemed so young. All of them did, all the girl-women who filled this modern world.

Her fairy face could transform from child to woman and back again in half a minute, allowing him to peer through her thin veneer of adulthood to the child beneath. The cosmetics she applied, the clothes she wore, the airs she affected, these were her defenses: the thorns of a rosebush that thought itself invulnerable, safely ignorant of the world's sharp shears. Shears to which youthful thorns were no threat at all.

She paused in front of the mirror and stared at her image. Standing behind her, he knew the silvered surface would show nothing but her own reflection against the wall ... read full excerpt from Dark Heart: Book I of Dragon's Disciple ebook