Infinity (20 page)
Authors: Andria Buchanan
Tags: #Juvenile Fiction, #Love & Romance, #Social Themes, #Self-Esteem & Self-Reliance, #Fantasy & Magic, #Social Issues, #Warrior, #Chronicles of Nerissette, #Magic, #Pennsylvania, #wizard, #dragon, #Fantasy, #Royalty, #queen
Chapter Twenty-eight
Two nights later I found myself standing on the roof of the Palace of Night, staring out at the world below. Someone cleared a throat behind me, and I turned to find Winston leaning against a chimney.
“So.” He started toward me, his hands in the pockets of his black pants. “What do we do now?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you’ve managed to save the kingdom, defeat the evil queen, almost double the size of your realm, and save your mother. All while getting rid of the wizard who was plotting against you for over a year now. So? You want to go to a movie or something?”
“I thought our first date was supposed to be the Winter Formal?”
“It was.” He chuckled. “Then you got us kidnapped, and we ended up here.” He reached over and pulled me closer, lifting one of my hands in his and wrapping his other arm around my waist, moving back and forth. “But if you want to dance, I guess we can.”
“You don’t mind?”
“Not if I get to do this.” He leaned down and brushed his lips against mine, still swaying to an imaginary beat.
“You can always do that.” I laid my head against his chest.
“Unless your father is around, of course.”
I laughed. “We’ll have to work something out, since he’s taking your job and all. He’s my dad, after all.”
Winston raised an eyebrow and then smiled at me.
My dad. Yeah, I liked the sound of that.
“Hmm. I heard about that.” Winston let go of my hand and wrapped both arms around my waist while I wove my fingers together at his nape. “Your mother is taking back the throne and demoting you to Crown Princess and Heir Apparent?”
“That was the sacrifice I had to make. Giving up the throne. Not that it’s really mine anyway. After all, she’s the true Golden Rose. The throne belongs to her.”
“She wouldn’t have a throne without you.”
I pressed my cheek closer to the thrum of his heart. “Maybe not. But I’m ready to let her be in charge for a few more…decades? Yeah, decades sound good.”
“Okay.” He stepped back slightly, and I looked up at him. “If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure.”
“Good because now that you’re no longer queen, I’m going to take you flying a lot more often.”
“Hey, Winston?” I said, smiling up at him.
“Yeah?”
“I love you. No matter what happens.”
“Even if there are years of unending peace?”
“Especially if there are years of unending peace.”
“I love you, too.”
He leaned down to kiss me, and I let him cradle me in his arms, pulling me close. It wasn’t the Winter Formal in the high school gym, but it still wasn’t a bad place for happily ever after to start. Especially when your Prince Charming happens to be a dragon.
Acknowledgments
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—no one ever writes a book alone. There are so many people to thank, but the first has to be my lovely daughter Ainsley for asking me to write something that she would be able to read. Here is something for you to read. I hope it meets your expectations. Thank you as well to my editors at Entangled Teen, Libby Murphy and Danielle Rose Poiesz, as well as all the other hardworking editors, cover artists, publicists, and writers who make every single day that I work with Entangled Publishing a good one. Without all of you I’d still be doing a job I hated instead of one I love. And finally thank you to my family for putting up with the pixies, the dragons, the wizards, and the frozen pizzas that come with having a mother who spends her days writing stories and living inside her own head instead of doing more interesting things. I love all of you.
by Andria Buchanan
Your fate is forever…
Allie Munroe has only ever wanted to belong, maybe even be well liked. But even though she’s nice and smart and has a couple of friends, she’s still pretty much the invisible girl at school. So when the chance to work with her friends and some of the popular kids on an English project comes up, Allie jumps at the chance to be noticed.
And her plan would have worked out just fine…if they hadn’t been sucked into a magical realm through a dusty old book of fairy tales in the middle of the library.
Now, Allie and her classmates are stuck in Nerissette, a world where karma rules and your social status is determined by what you deserve. Which makes a misfit like Allie the Crown Princess, and her archrival the scullery maid. And the only way out is for Allie to rally and lead the people of Nerissette against the evil forces that threaten their very existence.
by Andria Buchanan
Trapped in the deadly land of Nerissette, Allie has all but given up on any return to the mortal realm. Unless she can find the two elusive artifacts that have the power to get her and her friends back home.
But she’s got even bigger problems as the newly crowned queen of Nerissette: she must unite her people in the midst of a civil war and capture the Fate Maker—the evil puppet master responsible for the conflict—before he can find another army willing to return him to power.On top of it all, Allie is just a normal teenager. Her feelings are growing for the guy she’s certain is her true love, and balancing her personal life while being the queen isn’t as easy as it sounds. Allie must learn the true meaning of bravery, love, and kinship, regardless of the world—and danger—around her.
About the Author
Andria Buchanan is the pen name for Patricia Eimer, a small town girl who was blessed with a large tree in the backyard that was a perfect spot for reading on summer days. Mixed with too much imagination, it made her a bratty child, but fated her to become a storyteller. After a stint of “thinking practically” in her twenties she earned degrees in Business and Economics and worked for a software firm in southwestern Germany, but her passion has always been a good book.
She currently lives in Pittsburgh with her two wonderful kids and a husband that learned the gourmet art of frozen pizzas to give her more time to write. When she’s not writing she can be found fencing and arguing with her dogs about plot points. Most days the Beagle wins but the Dalmatian is in close second. She’s a distant third.
by Lea Nolan
Worst. Summer. Ever.
Emma Guthrie races to learn the hoodoo magic needed to break The Beaumont Curse before her marked boyfriend Cooper’s sixteenth birthday. But deep in the South Carolina Lowcountry, dark, mysterious forces encroach, conspiring to separate Emma and Cooper forever. When Cooper starts to change, turning cold and indifferent, Emma discovers that both his heart and body are marked for possession by competing but equally powerful adversaries.
Desperate to save him, Emma and her twin brother, Jack, risk their lives to uncover the source of the black magic that has allured Cooper and holds him in its grip. Faced with the horror of a soul-eating boohag, Emma and Jack must fight to resist its fiendish power to free Cooper long enough to join their strengths and face it together, before it destroys them all.
by Kelley York
Even the stars are lies…
When eighteen-year-old Hunter Jackson and his half sister, Ashlin, return to their dad’s for the first winter in years, they expect everything to be just like the warmer months they’d spent there as kids. And it is—at first. But Chance, the charismatic and adventurous boy who made their summers epic, is harboring deep secrets. Secrets that are quickly spiraling into something else entirely.
The reason they’ve never met Chance’s parents or seen his home is becoming clearer. And what the siblings used to think of as Chance’s quirks—the outrageous stories, his clinginess, his dangerous impulsiveness—are now warning signs that something is seriously off.
Then someone turns up with a bullet to the head, and all eyes shift to Chance’s family. Hunter and Ashlin know Chance is innocent...they just have to prove it. But how can they protect the boy they both love when they can’t trust a word Chance says?
by Amy Spalding
Things I know about Reece Malcolm:
1. She graduated from New York University.
2. She lives in or near Los Angeles.
3. Since her first novel was released, she’s been on the New York Times bestseller list every week.
4. She likes strong coffee and bourbon.
5. She’s my mother.
Devan knows very little about Reece Malcolm, until the day her father dies and she’s shipped off to live with the mother she’s never met. All she has is a list of notebook entries that doesn’t add up to much.
L.A. offers a whole new world to Devan—a performing arts school allows her to pursue her passion for show choir and musicals, a new circle of friends helps to draw her out of her shell, and an intriguing boy opens up possibilities for her first love.
But then the Reece Malcolm list gets a surprising new entry. Now that Devan is so close to having it all, can she handle the possibility of losing everything?
