DragonSpell Read online

  Kindle Books by Natalie Lougher

  New / Young Adult

  Final Summer Co-Op

  Reunion; A Deana & Cole Sequel

  Romance

  Running Away

  To my friend Heather for letting me pitch this book idea to her over lunch and drinks one day. And to my friend Sara for catching the typos and errors my brain just kept refusing to see!

  I love you ladies!

  DragonSpell

  By: Natalie Lougher

  This is a work of fiction.

  Names, characters, organizations, places, events and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2018 Natalie Lougher

  All rights reserved.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Epilogue

  The wind blasted my face so hard that it made my eyes sting and I narrowed them down to slits, staring out at the crashing waves that rolled towards the cliff that I stood on. A storm was blowing in, I had already felt a drop or two of rain land on my skin even though the darker clouds were still far out on the horizon. What would it be like to fly in a storm like the one I knew was coming? To ride the wind, let it buffet and push back at me as I tried to cut through it?

  Only one way to find out.

  With a deep breath, I leapt off the edge, barreling towards the base of the cliff and the sea spray that was so heavy, it obscured the view of the rocks until the wave dragged itself away, only to roll back in with another deafening crash. A moment before I hit the rocks, I spread my wings, and just like every dream I’d ever had, I was suddenly soaring.

  But this time it was no dream.

  Chapter 1

  The wind buffeted against my body, pushing me back away from the cliff’s edge, the sea’s waves crashing noisily against the rocks far below. I didn’t care about the wind, about the sting on my cheeks from the salty air that blew over the water and up the escarpment, or the roar of the waves so far below as I stood with my arms outstretched like I was ready to take flight.

  “Lani, oh my god, are you crazy?! Get back from there!” A panicked voice called from somewhere behind me and I reluctantly took a deep breath, and on the exhale, I lowered my arms and turned to my friend.

  “Don’t panic, there’s a very solid wall between me and the cliff’s edge so I’m not going anywhere.” I assured her with a teasing smile and my friend blushed slightly as she joined me on the viewing deck. “Do you ever feel like you could fly? Like, if you just spread your arms wide enough, and caught the wind just right, you could soar up and over everything?” I turned back to gaze out at the choppy sea one more time, feeling the immense power of it draw me closer.

  “Sure, when I’m dreaming. But then it changes to me falling, and that just freaks me right out because I know that is exactly what would happen if I stood that close to a freaking escarpment with the ocean right below me, wall or no wall! For someone who is always fretting about the rest of us not being careful, there is something seriously wrong with your desire to fly.” My friend, Rachel, took my arm and pulled me closer to her, away from the edge, and the wind seemed to encourage the movement, pushing us closer to the rest of the tour group that was starting to form at the rendezvous point, getting ready to get back on the bus.

  “What is wrong with my desire to fly?” I asked indignantly, pulling the elastic out of my wind-blown hair and combing the long, brown strands back up into a fresh ponytail.

  “Nothing, if it didn’t seem like you were trying to kill yourself. Do you remember when we did that trip a few years ago, touring the volcanoes on all of Hawaii’s islands? You were ready to jump off the peak of the highest one, feeling like you could just swoop down the side and out to the ocean like a damn seagull.” At that I nodded a bit ruefully with a laugh.

  “Okay, you’ve got me there. I just….I must have been a bird in another life and my desire to take flight came with me to this one.” The two of us got on the bus and found our seats and I started scrolling through the pictures I had taken on my camera while we had been visiting this latest castle. Rachel went through the little bag of souvenirs she had picked up in the gift shop and she pulled out a few decorative spoons and postcards that she’d picked for her mother and grandmother and I glanced over my shoulder at the postcards that she held.

  “This is such a beautiful place. Your Mom will love those.” I grinned and pointed at one in particular that showed the rocky landscape of the Scottish Highlands. Rachel and I hailed from Maui, the second largest island of Hawaii, and we were both cousins and best friends. Ever since we were teens, we had tried to get away for a week or two on a big vacation somewhere; one year we had done a volcano tour on all of the Hawaii islands, another year we had gone skiing in Vermont, then we had vacationed in the rainforest in Costa Rica.

  This year, it was an end-of-summer, end of September trip to the UK for a castle tour. I had wanted to travel to Scotland to see the castles ever since I was a little girl, but my father had forbidden me to ever come here, even though I had never known why. My parents had passed away two years ago in a car accident and now here I was, feeling like a little girl rebelling against her parents’ rule but loving every single minute of it.

  The salty sea air, the wind, the open expanse of water that surrounded the island, the rocky shorelines and cliff-faces, everything spoke to me, called to me and I wished that we had been able to stay for more than one week. As I scrolled through my pictures, one after the other of castles and spires, crumbling stone towers, moats, lush green gardens and drawbridges, I bit my lip, painstakingly scrutinizing each one. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was missing; something that I would know the minute I saw it, but that was absurd because I’d never been here before and didn’t know anyone who might have recommended that I look for a particular attribute at a particular location.

  The bus jerked slightly as we started moving and I glanced out the window at the rolling, rugged countryside, not really listening to the voice that was speaking over the intercom about the history of the castle we had just left. Instead, my gaze snagged on an ornate iron gate stuck in a tall stone wall that ran parallel to the road, and I turned to watch the laneway disappear behind us.

  “Excuse me!” I called out to our tour guide, raising my hand to get the woman’s attention and the bored voice over the speaker stopped and the young woman, she had to be about twenty, carefully walked up the aisle to talk to me.

  “Yes?”

  “The properties that are along here, do you know anything about them?” at the vague question, Rachel shot me a quizzical look that I ignored, and the tour guide shrugged.

  “There are private estates that run all along the coast, some of which have been owned by the same families for centuries, much like the castles. Is there one in particular that you’re inquiring about?”

  “We just passed a laneway that led to a big iron gate, and the entire property appears to be walled off. In fact, the wall is still going, and I was just curious I guess because that’s a lot of land for one family to own.” And protect, I thought and then wondered where that thought came from. Must be my background as a security guard kicking in.

  “Oh, that’s the Cameron estate. Something like one-hundred
acres of land and while I don’t know much about them, they apparently have quite the little community that lives within those walls.”

  “Community?” Rachel asked in confusion. “You mean, like a town?”

  “Like I said, I’ve never set foot beyond the gate, but I know there is the main house where the Camerons live, they have stables and a small house for the stable master to live, blacksmithing, a few massive gardens with housing for everyone who tends to those. They either come into town for supplies and groceries or get the stuff delivered to the house directly, depending obviously on what it is.”

  “Wow, that’s quite the setup.” Rachel sounded impressed and I nodded slowly, mulling over everything that the girl had told us.

  “I’ve heard they’re expecting a baby soon, the whole town is buzzing about it.”

  “Why?” I asked a little more sharply than I intended and instantly wondered why I cared so much.

  “They’re huge benefactors to the community. Always giving to the local churches and schools, the shelters, food bank and hospital. Mrs. Cameron has some paintings hanging in the local art gallery. For a little while all anyone talked about was that old man Cameron was going crazy, talking about black magic and was essentially under lock and key. But now with the baby coming, it’s exciting.” The girl excused herself to make her way back down to the front of the bus and Rachel nudged me with her arm.

  “Why do we care about this particular family and their massive estate?” she whispered, and I shrugged helplessly, my gaze riveted to the stone wall that eventually made a sharp right and disappeared toward the coast while we continued straight on the road that would lead us back to our quaint little hotel.

  “I have no idea.”

  When we got back to the inn, Rachel turned on her laptop and sat down to do a Skype call with her mother and our grandmother while I had a quick shower. I couldn’t get the thought of the Cameron estate out of my mind and it was driving me crazy. Why did I care so much about people I had never met or heard of before the bus ride back? And why did it absolutely terrify me that Mrs. Cameron was pregnant?

  “Girl, you have got to get a grip. I’m sure they are very nice people, but it is absolutely none of your business.” I told myself, toweling off and running a brush through my hair before padding into the bedroom for some fresh clothes. Rachel was still on her Skype call and I called out a hello to my family with a wave.

  “Hi Lani! Rachel says you two are having an amazing time!” Rachel’s mom Debbie said cheerfully when I got closer to the laptop and I nodded and laughed.

  “The castles we’ve seen are everything I had hoped they would be. Everything is just so gorgeous here!” I agreed easily, buttoning a blouse for dinner and Gran crowded into the frame with a wrinkly grin and cackle.

  “You best be careful the fairies and dragons don’t keep you there, Lani!”

  “Gran, don’t be absurd! There is no such thing as dragons or fairies!” Rachel scoffed indignantly

  “Just because no one has seen a modern-day dragon dear, doesn’t mean they don’t exist. And you mustn’t forget, you are visiting the land of the fairies and Kailani’s ancestors hail from there. She may choose to turn into a fairy or dragon herself and stay there.” The old woman was talking nonsense and Rachel’s mother tried to shush her but something about what she said stayed with me after Rachel ended the call and we went down for dinner.

  “Don’t listen to Gran, you know she’s always talking crazy. If she had it her way, everyone would be changing into animals or fairies or witches! The woman isn’t stable.” Rachel assured me as we sat down and accepted the glasses of wine that were presented to us, and I nodded slightly with a smile.

  “I know sweetie, don’t worry. She knows I love all things that fly so she’s always giving me a hard time about becoming something with wings. I don’t take any of it to heart.” I assured her, and Rachel relaxed.

  “She’s right about your family being from over here though. Do you ever think about that?”

  “No, not really. I don’t know enough about my past to really dwell on it. Nana and Grandad moved to Hawaii when Nana was pregnant with Dad. They supposedly forbid him from ever coming here and he passed that warning on to me but never explained why.”

  “Do you think he knew why?”

  “I don’t know, nor do I care. I’m here now, with my best friend and I’m having the time of my life. Whatever reason they might have had passed away with them.”

  “So, what do you want to do tomorrow? We have half a day to ourselves before the bus takes us to the train and then we go to London to see Buckingham Palace on Friday! Oooh.. I can’t wait!” Rachel squealed excitedly, doing a poor job of keeping her voice down and a few people at neighboring tables shot us faintly amused looks as Rachel put a hand to her mouth and looked around apologetically. I laughed.

  “You only want to go there in hopes that one of the Queen’s grandsons will be there and they’ll take a liking to you.”

  “So? You say that like it’s a bad thing!” We giggled and chatted through dinner, comparing pictures we had on our cameras or phones and what some of our thoughts were on what we had seen so far. When I went to bed that night I had my favorite recurring dream, of flying freely over the ocean waves as the full moon turned everything to silver, but this time, instead of it being the waves that surrounded the islands of Hawaii, when I looked down at the coastline, I saw the jagged, rocky shores of Scotland.

  Chapter 2

  I sat on the edge of my bed and slipped my hiking boots on as quietly as possible, glancing over at my friend to make sure Rachel was still asleep for the tenth time in as many minutes. If she woke up before I left, I would have a lot of explaining to do on where I thought I was going at 4am and why exactly I felt the need to go there in the first place. I wasn’t willing - or able - to answer either of those questions right now and just hoped that I would be back before Rachel woke up. I was counting on her to sleep in like usual, today was a down-day for the tour so she had no reason to get up early.

  I pocketed my phone and wallet, grabbed my room key and slipped out into the hallway without anyone seeing me and as I walked quietly down the hall and then out the front door of the inn, I wondered idly if this is what cat burglars felt like. With a shake of my head and a little chuckle, I stuffed my hands into the pockets of my jean jacket and set off in the direction of the estate we had seen yesterday. It had been about a ten minute drive from where I had seen the stone wall end and when the bus had pulled into the little hamlet we were staying in so I figured, at a brisk walk, I could do it in...forty-five minutes? Maybe? I hoped.

  The full moon was still up in the sky as I walked, and it bathed everything in a silvery sheen, and between the silver light of the moon, and the dimness of the night , everything around me looked so hauntingly beautiful and surreal. Rough stone poked out of the long grass every so often and as I inhaled the salty sea air, I couldn’t help but feel like I had come home. Which was ridiculous because, while home was an island like this one, Hawaii’s climate and landscape were nothing like Scotland’s and I had called Hawaii home from day one. Sure, my grandparents had moved to Hawaii from Scotland before my father was born but they had never returned, and he had never come here and my parents and grandparents had both forbidden me to ever come here so why should I feel so comfortable? They had never given me a reason why I wasn’t to travel to the UK so realistically, I should feel guilty for being here in the first place, and suspicious that something bad was going to happen. Why else would I be given such dire warnings? Maybe the crime rate was atrociously high here or something and every young woman that came to visit was found dead on a rocky beach somewhere.

  “Or the fairies kidnap us and keep us as giant slaves.” I muttered sarcastically. Picking up my pace a little, I half-walked, half-jogged down the gravel road for a few minutes, enjoying the feel of my heart-rate increasing at the exertion. Rachel and I had become pretty lax on our vacation and hadn’t don
e a lick of exercise since we’d boarded our plane and it was my desire to hit the beach the first morning we were home and do a two-mile jog in the wet sand to get myself back into the habit. At almost six-feet tall I was blessed in the sense that I didn’t put weight on quite as easily as perhaps Rachel felt she did, but I didn’t like feeling soft, and that was the way my legs were starting to feel. I didn’t feel the tightness in the muscles of my legs when I was out walking with the tour-group, and with all of the stairs we had walked up and down at the various castles we had visited, I should have at least felt it in my buns, but I didn’t.

  “You’re letting yourself go soft, woman. One week away and look at you. Do you know what that first morning jog is going to do to you?” I berated myself, slowing my pace when I finally spotted the towering stone wall in the distance. The wall was so completely out of place with its surroundings because everywhere you looked, everything was so open and unrestricted-looking, until you laid eyes on the eight-foot tall solid stone barrier that went on for miles. Any other wall or fence that we had seen over the last few days that separated properties were maybe waist-high, making this one seem like the exterior of a fortress.

  “I guess someone likes their privacy.” I murmured, reaching the corner of the property, and as I was about to stretch a hand out to touch the stones, a horn honked behind me and I jumped in surprise.

  “What are ye doing out here at this hour lass? Are ye lost?” an old farmer called from his truck and I laughed lightly and shook my head, approaching the vehicle.