Bride of the Emperor (The Prophecy of Sisters Book 4) by Hayley Faiman (the gingerbread man read aloud txt) 📗

He doesn’t matter.

I’m vain, but there is another pretty man somewhere out there.

They’re a dime a dozen.

He isn’t the only one who will tell me I’m hot, buy me drinks, and do me.

That’s all I use them for, nothing deeper, nothing more. When you fall in love, it screws everything up. It hurts too much and then you end up a gigantic ball of feelings, a complete disaster, and I want no part of it, not ever again.

The deeper I walk into the water, the louder the whispering becomes. I don’t know why I feel this need, why I am drawn to it, but I can’t help myself. I’m not typically someone who spends much time in the ocean, but my legs won’t stop.

Then they suddenly come to a halt. I turn around to face the shore and it’s as if I’m looking outside of my own body. I can almost see myself in the water, then everything goes black. I feel as though I’m in a dream, as if the water is swirling around me and I’m floating all at the same time.

Lifting my hand, I reach out to touch the water, but it just keeps swirling faster and faster and then everything stills.

I stretch as the warmth kisses my entire body. What a weird dream. Rolling onto my back, I let out a sigh as I open my eyes. The sun shines down on me. It’s so warm that I don’t even want to open my eyes, it feels comforting.

I’ve never been one to fall asleep on the beach, but I think that’s exactly what I’ve done.

Pushing myself up to a seated position, I force myself to open my eyes and look around. As soon as I take in the area around me, my eyes widen and I gasp.

I don’t think I fell asleep on the beach, actually. I don’t know where the hell I am. There is water in front of me, but this isn’t Florida. The water is bright green. It’s not algae green either, it’s really freaking bright green. It looks dyed.

“What the hell,” I whisper.

Turning my head, I look behind me to see where the other people sunbathing are and I gasp. There is nobody. I am alone. I’m on a beach, so there’s that, but this is definitely not Florida.

Looking down at the sand, I gasp again. Holy freaking shit. The sand is blue. It’s a cornflower blue. If I wasn’t staring at it in shock, and unable to breathe, then I would think it’s absolutely beautiful.

Because it is gorgeous.

It’s stunning, but all I can think about right now is that I’m sitting on a beach of blue sand with a green ocean in front of me and it’s definitely not home. Standing, my legs almost give out beneath me. I feel weak, physically weak as I look at the rolling hills and Greek-style stone buildings in front of me.

If I were into history, I would probably know what these buildings were exactly, but to me, they just look like fancy stone buildings with columns. I know without a doubt we don’t have these in Florida, not like this. Then, there’s the little fact that those rolling hills aren’t green, they are fucking purple—purple.

If I were someone who passed out, I would be down for the count. I spin in a complete circle, looking around and wonder what the hell do I do next? What I want to do is sit down, feel the warm sun, and hope that I wake up from this. It’s a dream. It has to be… right?

I don’t.

Instead, I get out of the middle of the beach. I don’t know where I am or what’s going on, so I need to get out of view from whoever dumped me here. Because I know without a doubt, I didn’t just appear here out of thin air.

Picking up my feet, I force myself to walk. I need to hide. I need to find a place to hunker down until I can figure out just where the hell I am, and what’s going on. My heart starts to race with the idea of some crazy guy hiding and watching me.

Walking from the beach, I make my way toward the thick trees that line the beach area. I’ve never seen anything like this before. It’s a freaking jungle just past the warm beach. The trees are all pinks and purples mixed with some oranges for the trunks.

Reaching for a tree, I touch the trunk just to make sure it’s real. It is. It’s real and I gasp at the feel of the smooth wood. The smooth orange wood. At first, I think about the Queen of Hearts, maybe these are all painted, but I don’t think that they are.

“What on earth?” I whisper to myself.

I’m barefoot, in a bikini and walking through a pink, purple, and orange forest. My entire body shivers, but not from the weather. It’s still warm, even though the sun is hiding above the foliage of the trees above me. I’m terrified.

There aren’t any places to hide, there isn’t anything at all around me really other than rocks, grass, mud, and trees.

I hear it from a distance and I don’t quite believe it. Horse hooves. Galloping. And it’s all getting closer. I turn to the left and try to rush through the brush, but I have no idea where I’m headed. Is this the lesser of two evils, or is this going to be even more evil?

It doesn’t matter the direction I turn, the hooves get closer and closer, as if I’m being followed, as if I’m being tracked.

My heart starts beating faster, it slams against my chest.

I’m completely out of breath, my lungs are burning with each step that I take, with each inhale and exhale, and I wonder how on earth I can work out on the treadmill and machines and be so damn out of shape.

Then it happens.

I let out a blood-curdling scream in surprise.