Page 130 of Make Me Queen

She was excited for our first shifting. I imagined that would be nice.

“Mm,” I said. “Maybe I don’t want to live long enough to find out my soul-creature is a field mouse.”

“What’s wrong with being a field mouse?” She raised both eyebrows at me, reminding me—too late—that Calla was from a proud family of chipmunks. Perhaps field mice and chipmunks were cousins in her eyes.

“Nothing,” I said, too late to be convincing.

“You want to be something fierce.” She put her hands up beside her face and imitated claws. It was adorable. It was charming. It was not remotely fierce.

“Hey, when you’re an orphan, the first shifting moon is an exciting gamble.” Although our soul-creatures were supposed to be manifestations of who we truly were, most times, they ran in families. Only males shifted into dragons, the highest of creatures, but their royal sisters tended to shift into lions or wolves.

And servants like Calla and me tended to be smaller, meeker, and far more edible.

“It’s an exciting gamble for everyone,” Calla reminded me. “Greta Sandstone discovered her real father was a hawk.”

I groaned. “What a terrible day.”

Calla had squawked and run away from the temple as if her true soul creature were an angry chicken.

One of the Royals whirled, throwing his sword—and a long, horned head and a powerful tail whipped out of his body as he grew long and scaled. The next second, his transformation was complete and he was an enormous dragon. He let out a long, blast of fire at the other royals, who threw up magical shields to block the attack and jumped over his wicked tail.

Their power was incredible, I had to admit. The Scourge had recently surged right outside the gates of the city. The royals had stopped them as the rest of the city cowered in their houses.

Calla propped her chin on her hand, forgetting to eat as she gazed at the royals. “You know, Lara got her hands on thisamazingstory being passed around about the dragon royals.”

“A true story?”

“No, it’s a fantasy. A romance. One of Lara’s cousins wrote it.”

I groaned. “Look at those men down there. They might be the heroes of the kingdom, but they are wildly arrogant. They’re probably terrible in bed.”

Calla looked considering. “They’re really good with those swords.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve fallen victim to their fan club, too.” I had regrets about being so condescending about the Royals’ fan-fiction now, because part of me was a little curious. Did they always have tails? Some Fae did, although our race of shifters looked more mortal than the Fae in the storybooks I’d read.

Ever since the Scourge began, our island had been sealed away from the rest of the Fae world. Storybooks were the only glimpse I’d had of the bigger world beyond.

“Come on,” Calla swept her arm toward the door. “We should get out of here. We’re not supposed to linger in their rooms once we’re done.”

The military students training here were apparently too precious to wash their own laundry or scrub the hallway floors. Worst of all, though, were the royals, who were too important to even clean their own rooms.

“But I like the view,” I pouted, then added, “of the mountains.”

I glanced down at the empty yard only to realize the royals had left the yard as we were chatting, and sudden disappointment dropped like a stone.

“Mm-hmm.” Calla gave me a knowing smile.

Maybe every girl in Rylow secretly dreamed of winning the heart of a dragon prince.

Maybe that was even true for me, even if I also fantasized about kicking their asses.

They were a pretty fine-looking group of men.

A voice in the hall called for Calla, summoning her out of the room, and Calla scrambled toward it. I grabbed half her handful of cake before she could go.

“You’re going to get in trouble,” she hissed at me.

“Is that a promise? Because I’m so very bored,” I answered, even though the truth was, I needed the money. Which meant I needed the job.

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