The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I

painfully. She cried out but no sound emerged. For several heartbeats she lost contact with her body and her senses. Jack seemed to dissolve beneath her grasp.
    Before she could panic, awareness of her feet returned. Spongy grass beneath her ragged slippers. Birds chirping. A roar in the background.
    Instinctively she ducked away from the sound, expecting the ceiling to crash around her. Then she realized ’twas only water rushing from the mountains toward the sea. Were they on the riverbank?
    Bright sunshine pierced Katrina’s closed eyelids. Shivering and scared, she continued clinging to Jack. His body felt solid once more beneath her grasping hand.
    Cautiously she opened one eye a tiny slit. A lush meadow filled with wild flowers sparkled with dew in the first kiss of the morning sun.
    Bees flitted from flower to flower. A pool fed by a mighty waterfall lapped at her feet. Bushes rustled, and she was certain someone or something watched her with predatory instincts.
    Born and bred in the city, she’d never seen anything like this wild valley.
    “Jack?” she whispered. “Jack, where are you?”
    He, too, opened one eye. “ You are where you are supposed to be, outside the dragon lair. I’m supposed to be back in the city, preventing Rejiia and Simeon from following you.”
    “I . . . I . . .” Katrina stammered and blushed. Only then did she become aware that her arm was still wrapped around his naked shoulders. His arm held her close against his side as if he never intended to let go. A hair’s breadth separated her mouth from his. Their hearts beat in unison as they breathed in counterpoint.
    A long moment of awareness awoke within her. She stared at the curve of his full lips surrounded by a sensuously thick beard and mustache. A part of her needed to know if the silky hair was as soft as Tambrin.
    “Jack! You’re back,” a quavering male voice called. The man, thin and stoop-shouldered, appeared from behind the curtain of the waterfall.
    Jack stepped away from her and turned his head toward the man. A chill of foreboding planted itself in Katrina’s mind as Jack removed the warmth of his body from contact with her—though only half an arm-length separated them.
    Something familiar in the approaching man’s voice brought Katrina’s gaze away from the wonder of Jack’s mouth to watch the man pick his way around the pool.
    “What happened to you, Jack? You’re a mess. Worse than in the mines. And who is this with you?” The man shielded his eyes from the increasingly bright sun with his hand. He blinked several times and then stumbled over nothing. “ Stargods, is that you, Katrina?”
    “P’pa!” Had his hair and beard always been so thin and gray? “Oh, P’pa,” she rushed to his side, still cradling the treasure of lace in her skirt.
    Father and daughter stared at each other for long moments, drinking in the sight of a long-lost loved one.
    The pain and the anger against P’pa she had nursed for three years faded at the sight of his frail body. What she had suffered at the hands of Brunix was nothing compared to what he must have endured in the mines.
    Jack had lived through the same anguish as her father and emerged strong and resourceful.
    Her father had wasted away. Dark purple shadows made hollows of his eyes. Knots of pain gnarled his finger joints. His shoulders bent under the weight of the world.
    “Katey, how you’ve grown! A beautiful woman now, tall as your M’ma and more beautiful than ever.” Hesitantly he gathered her into his arms. Tears flowed freely from both of them.
    “I never thought to see you again, P’pa. I never hoped to find . . . to find . . .” Her thoughts clumped in her throat unable to get around three years of unshed tears.
    He doesn’t know that you were sold into slavery also. Spare him, please. Jack spoke directly into her mind. His pain at having to watch his only friend waste away in a long death became her pain.
    “But for Jack I wouldn’t have survived. I owe him my life. I owe him more for bringing you to me.” P’pa coughed. A great shuddering exhalation.
    Katrina, with her ear pressed to her father’s chest, was reminded of the tremors beneath Queen’s City.
    “P’pa,” she moaned, holding him close. Frantically, she prayed that he had escaped the mine in time, that fresh air, sunshine, and rest would heal him.
    “Fraank, Katrina, I must tell you that Tattia did not commit suicide,” Jack said sadly. He didn’t want to