Secluded

Psychic priestess to arranged marriage to paranormal broodmare, that’s the route for women like me - I know there must be another option, and if I find it, I’m taking it, no matter the cost.

I want so many things I can’t have. To see the world, to kiss a lot of men (I don’t care if some are frogs), to lose all my annoying innocence.

But when you are as valuable as I am, there is no hope of that.

While pure I am a powerful priestess with a direct link to the goddess, when no longer pure I will be a golden goose who will pop out golden talented babies for the lord who owns me.

Being valuable takes all the freedom away.  Fair enough, my cage is pretty, but I am throwing myself against the bars.

Then I am offered an out, a way to be free, and all I have to do is trust four strangers who say they have been sent to help me.  I shouldn’t trust them, but I can feel them, and they don’t feel evil, they feel more complicated than that  - the clever witch with all his knowledge that I want to suck up, the twin elementals, teasing and earthy, who have a world of experience to share, and the brooder in chief himself, the imperious dragon shifter with his burning gaze. 

They make me hot, in my head and my heart.  Their souls whisper to me of forbidden unions. I’ll take my chances with them for the opportunity to decide my own future, but I’m not swapping one cage for another, I’m holding out for more than that.