" She grabbed the enclosed letter of congratulations from the envelope and jumped onto the phone. I heard only her side of the conversation. "Yes, I'd...like to exchange two tickets for the Ruffles Show-" "No, I don't want to return them and get back on the list. We waited fifteen years for these." "Yes, we're very happy you sent them to us. It's just that I have a conflict with the date and I was hoping-" "I wasn't planning on selling them, thank you very much, so whether or not that's legal. I moved, trying to heave myself out of bed to shut my phone up when the heavy, warmth across my abdomen tightened into an unbreakable band of steel.Talon pulled me back into him, holding my bare body against his own, obviously not open to letting me go. I wasn't minding in the least. The phone could wait, as far as I was concerned. A nagging worry inserted itself as I snuggled back into my lover: what if it was my father? What if something else had happened?With a groan of defeat, I resigned. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Acolyte SophiaMy eyes opened. I liked the taste in my mouth. Sweet, creamy breast milk. Such a lovely—The roar shook the ground beneath me, shocking rational thoughts back into my brain. I sat up in a puddle of my own blood. I shivered. The thick, sticky liquid was an inch deep in places, coating the cave floor.But I was alive. Someone had saved me.The dragon fought with Angela. Her severed tail swung back and forth, blood raining across the cave as Thrak chased. I resolved from that time forward to just stay in my room and work on my Apple Computer whenever my parents went out on Thursdays, and make sure Stephanie was with me.Of course, that played right into Jeff’s hands, because he now had complete run of the house. But I wasn’t willing to risk a repeat of that incident. I became more and more convinced that going to Sweden was a great solution to the problem. The only problem with the plan was that I had to come back home for a year before.