Even teen evil queens need love. Right? (Or at least a handsome sword-fighting minion to do their bidding!)
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Bad things happen when Rowen is around and the worst part is, she has no idea why until a massive family secret sends her on a fantastica...
They're adaptable to the harshest environments—frozen hellscapes, burning hellscapes, regular hellscapes, they've even survived nuclear war.
Rats eat anything, and multiply faster than a computer algorithm.
By all rights humans should be in awe of their abilities.
But they hang out in sewers and spread disease.
Which makes them very hard to love.
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Have you ever had a flying dream?
The ecstasy of soaring over the world, your problems so far away, they're mere specks?
Utter freedom!
Well, my flying dream was nothing like that.
Instead, I was being kidnapped by a belligerent dragon who would not listen to a word I said. Granted, I was doing a lot of complaining and poking at his glittering scales, but did that mean he had to be a jerk? From my limited knowledge of dragons, they usually take you to their lairs, which are cold and dark, and drafty. Once there, they sit around on their piles of gold trinkets waiting for someone to rescue you. Usually a prince with a long sword.
Then the dragon got slain.
Why dragons continued in this self-destructive cycle seemed kind of dumb. Dragons needed therapy if you asked me.
But the dream got even worse because as I commanded the dragon to whoa,nelly itself, a blast of blue light hit me in the face, and I tumbled off the scaly back, screaming something about safety standards and the lack of seatbelts. As with most falling dreams, I woke up before I hit the ground.
The dream faded and the moments before the queen zapped me came rushing back.
Petronella had thought I called her Nelly, which I hadn't! But did she allow me to explain? Of course not. She just went all zap-happy.
So unfair!
Evil queens were the worst!
But not as bad as the stench surrounding me. Ick! It was like someone tossed me inside an abandoned garbage can full of dead things.
Where the heck was I?
I had a feeling I wasn't in Kansas ... er ... Coffin Ridge anymore. My face throbbed, but slowly I peeled back my eyelids.
The room was dimly lit, so it was hard to tell exactly where I was, but the floor under my back was freezing, the chill seeping through the fleece of my horse costume all the way through to my flesh to my bones.
For my next move, I needed to gather information, but I had a problem. I couldn't move. No matter how many orders I issued to various limbs, none of them responded.
