Page 85 of Duke's Daring Bookworm
“I always will.” I buried my head in her now dirty hair and breathed in the salty warmth of her. We were safe. We just had to make it through the storm.
Chapter Thirty-One
In a way, being trapped in this helicopter with lightning cracking all around us was beautiful. Duke had his arms around me, his low, soothing voice promised to always take care of me, and I could dream that it was true.
As the storm danced on, its beat fast and heavy, I turned in Duke’s arms—feeling safe and content—to watch the light show nature made just for us. Despite the throbbing in my head and ankle, I was no longer shivering, and I didn’t think my injuries were worse than a minor bump and a sprain.
Another round of thunder, deep and resonant, rumbled overhead. Lightning rolled along the clouds, providing a flashing back light, highlighting how dark the sky had become. The lightning slowed, and the storm seemed to die down.
Just as hope bloomed, a series ofcrackling lightning strikes hit the ground mere feet from us. I jumped back into Duke, temporarily blinded and disoriented by the intensity of the light.
Another strike, this one so close I could feel the hair on my arms rising.
One more, this time instead of seeing the strike, I felt it. Electricity surged along the frame of the helicopter, crackling as it danced and jumped, making its way to the ground below.
“Shit.” I yelped. Duke pulled me tighter to him.
“We’re safe,” he said in my ear. I could barely hear him over the deafening sound of the thunder as lightning continued to strike all around us. The bolts came so fast and intense that it was as if some god hurled them at us with burning fury, vibrating the very air around us, daring us to defy him as he raged around us.
The rain picked up, fast and hard against the window, as if it just remembered to show up. Trees bent at unnatural angles from the roaring wind, and the helicopter shook violently, threatening to pick us up and blow us away.
“Are we sure this isn’t a hurricane?” I shouted at Duke over the cacophony of the storm.
“We would have seen a hurricane building over the ocean days ago. They keep close track of those things.” His arms wrapped tightly around me, as if he was afraid that the wind would pull us apart. His voice was steady and calm, and I wanted to believe him.
“Right.”
“Tell me a story,” Duke murmured in my ear during a quiet moment.
I thought about all the things I wanted to say to him, everything I’ve been holding inside forever, and all the stories crowding in my head, yelling to be let out. None ofit was right for now. I couldn’t say them, the things that needed to be said.
“You know all my stories.” I turned in his arms and traced his tattoos, finding comfort in his warm, firm body pressed firmly against mine.
“Then make one up. You read so much, there must be millions of words in this beautiful head of yours, just waiting to be put to use.” He played with my hair as he spoke. The rain fell heavy, plinking and plunking on the metal of the helicopter, but the lightning had slowed, the thunder now distant, and the wind gentled to a hum.
“There was once an Orc Princess that didn’t have a tongue,” I said, the thunder rumbling, setting my scene. “When Glydral was fifteen, she refused to marry a Fae Prince to unite the warring kingdoms. She told her father of this, exclaiming that she was too young to marry and could never love the man. In anger, her father pulled out her tongue in the middle of her speech, silencing her forever. That night, she slipped from her room. Running would be better than being married to a man she couldn’t love. For you see, she already loved someone, her best friend and closest confidant, Amlendy, the daughter of the highest Duke in the land, and a pixie.”
Duke kissed my forehead as I melted into the story.
“The Orc Princess and her Lady searched every corner of the realm for safety, but their fathers had put a bounty on their heads, and mercenaries hunted them at every turn. Along the way, though, they caught the eye of a mage, one with great potential, but whose power had been locked away, just as out of reach for him as speaking was for Glydral.”
I stopped then, unsure of where the story should go. I wanted Glydral and Amlendy to be together forever, to gettheir happily ever after, but I couldn’t see how.
“What happened then?”
“Pain, betrayal, heartache. What always happens in stories like this, somehow the worst things imaginable, and when the reader finally loses hope, the lovers find a way.” I wished we were in a story now, that we could find our way, but real life didn’t work that way. What we want and what we get are very different things. There weren’t happily ever afters or daring rescues in the final hour. Life was messy, unpredictable, and rarely included happy endings.
I hugged Duke tight. I couldn’t finish it.
“I see why you like them so much,” he said as he ran his hand along my back. “The lure of happily ever after. Of knowing that no matter what, the lovers could be together in the end.”
“Yeah.”
Neither of us spoke again after that. The storm dying a slow, painful death, its last cries fierce and angry in the fading light. Like all things, though, the storm came to its end, the sun peeking out behind the clouds, low on the horizon, giving us one last glimpse of hope before disappearing completely.
“I need to go find our bags,” he said, pushing me back gently until our bodies were no longer one. “See if anything is salvageable. Stay here.”
“No. Stay with me.” I grabbed his arms, a sinking feeling settling in my gut. “We don’t need anything in those bags.”
