Chapter One: Alyx
Alyx Chen woke with a gasp.
For a moment, she didn’t know where she was, feeling disoriented while the memories of her dream still lingered in her mind.
A boardwalk... A Ferris wheel... Wind in her hair and the sensation of absolute freedom...
Then she drew in a deep breath. At the familiar sensation of stale, warm air, that tantalizing glimpse of the freedom she’d once known was gone from her mind.
With a groan, she sat up on her little cot.
Her small room was lit by the tiny lamp with the broken lampshade that was one of the few amenities of her room.
Not that it was really a room. It was little more than a prison cell.
There were no windows with bars in front of them—but that was because she had no windows at all. And because she was underground.
I can’t escape. It’s impossible. There’s no use dreaming of the sky and the sun. I’m going to die here.
In the dim light of her one lamp, she stood and stretched, then hastily washed and dressed.
She didn’t have a brush, so she used her fingers to comb her shoulder-length black hair as well as she could. It fell limp and straight down past her shoulders before she hastily gathered it back in a simple ponytail. The strand of formerly brilliant turquoise had faded to a dull grey-blue.
Once, she’d enjoyed her morning routine, spending half an hour in her bathroom with a hair dryer and her large box of makeup. She’d left her apartment with a smile on her face and grabbed coffee and a bagel on her way to work.
She’d breezed into the office with a smile for the girls at reception and all her colleagues. And when she’d at last settled down in front of her sleek laptop, she’d known that she was exactly where she’d always wanted to be.
Alyx Chen, working for the hottest lifestyle magazine in town, with her own column about makeup, clubbing, fashion trends, and where to get the best organic soy whatever in the city.
Of course, that was before her boss had decided that Alyx was getting a little too old for their target audience—whatever that meant. So far she’d been able to cling to her position and her column, but the vultures in the form of gorgeous, recent college graduate Lea were already circling...
And now, two months later, here she was: a prisoner in an underground cell, her hair limp and dull, without even a mirror of her own to check if she looked as horrible as she felt.
A moment later, someone banged on her door.
“Hey, human. Firebird wants you.”
Alyx flinched.
She knew the voice well. It was one of the dragon shifters who locked her into her cell every day, making sure that she wouldn’t escape.
Not that there was any way for a human to escape from an underground fire dragon lair.
Two months ago, I didn’t even know that dragons were real...
Alyx took a deep breath, then straightened. The only thing she could do was to play along.
Pretend to be scared and docile. Do whatever they tell me to do. Be the perfect human servant.
And then, one day, there might be an opening somewhere, and she’d take it and run. But for now...
“Hurry up, I said,” the voice snapped. There was a rattling sound as her door was unlocked and then opened.
It revealed the dragon shifter who’d come to fetch her. He stared at her with his oily grin, his dark eyes moving slowly over her body with obvious appreciation.
Alyx resisted the urge to cross her arms in front of her chest. Instead, keeping her head low and her eyes on the ground, she carefully moved past him and out into the corridor.
“One day the firebird will tire of you, little human,” the shifter growled. “We’re all waiting for that day.”
Alyx didn’t acknowledge his words. Instead, she hurried forward through the long corridor, which was lit by flickering lamps.
One day, the firebird might indeed tire of her. But until then, she was useful. And as long as she was useful, she was safe...
***
“Come in,” the voice of the firebird called out impatiently when Alyx knocked on her door.
Hurriedly, Alyx made her way inside, firmly closing the door behind her. At least for a moment, she was safe from the awful stares of her dragon shifter guards.
The firebird—or rather, the lady Zena, which was what the more polite of the fire dragon guards called her—was reclining on her lounge, wrapped in a silk robe and holding one of her doorstopper novels.
“Finally,” Zena said, without looking up. “You’re late. You can start on my hair.”
“Of course,” Alyx said, making her way over to the dresser.
Lady Zena, the firebird shifter, was an honored guest and ally of the fire dragons who had captured Alyx and locked her up. At least, that was what both the fire dragons and Zena herself claimed.
To Alyx, on the other hand, it looked like Zena was in exactly the same situation as she was.
Locked up underground. A prisoner.
Just with a lot more comfort, access to makeup and mirrors, and an apparently endless supply of books.
Still, even if Alyx secretly thought that they were just the same, that didn’t make Zena any nicer.
Zena might not be able to leave—but she claimed she didn’t want to. She’d allied herself willingly with the fire dragons.
No, Alyx wouldn’t be able to depend on any help from Zena to make her escape. But at least pretending to be Zena’s maid got her out of her cell and away from the guards.
And she’d do anything—anything at all—to make sure that she’d never have to go back to those horrible first weeks of her capture.
Alyx remembered very little of them. She remembered being tied to a table, swallowing some horrible potion that smelled burnt and made her retch. She rememb
ered a darkness that crept up on her, tendrils of shadows all around her while fire rushed through her veins, burning her from the inside.
For nearly two weeks, the fire dragons had made her drink their terrible potions, as if she was nothing more than a guinea pig for them, a lab rat.