All Chapters of The Flaming Heart: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

It was a dark and dusty room. There was no fire in the hearth, as they would never allow it. Leila was laying on her tiny bed against the wall. She tried to place her bed as far away from the door and broken windows as possible. The wind chilled her to the bone at night. She was exhausted after another day of hard work. After only having a small piece of bread for dinner, she was still hungry. Yet she couldn’t sleep; the cold kept her awake. She heard a voice, then a footstep. Someone was turning the doorknob. She hid herself under her sheet. She didn’t have the courage to sit up or confront them. She believed all horrible experiences would pass eventually, if she chose to bear it all, and wait for time to heal her wounds. This had always been her way of life. She shut her eyes and pretended to be asleep. It was her uncle, her aunt’s husband. He entered her room, quietly tiptoeing. Leila felt a sense of relief wash over her. Her uncle had always been good to her. When her aunt wasn’t

Leila was sitting in a grand room. It was a much larger space than she was used to. The room was quiet, as it was facing the opposite direction from the noisy courtyard. She wiggled her toes deep into the thick carpet and played with her fingers absentmindedly. There wasn’t anyone else in the room, but she could’t help feeling like a horrid stranger might barge in at any second. Even so, she decided to tiptoe to the other side of the room and peek outside. The large, floor-to-ceiling window was absolutely mesmerizing. Leila had never seen a window so enormous. Peering outside, she realized how wonderful the weather was, regretting wasting such a perfect day on escaping. The view was simply extravagant. A sprawling field of crops stretched on without an end in sight under the crystal blue sky. In addition to a few farm houses and wandering cows, several watchtowers also dotted the lively green. Leila wondered if she might be at the edge of King’s Harbor; the view was quite different th

Leila startled awake as a loud bang resounded from somewhere downstairs. She felt her heart jump from the sudden noise. She quickly got to her feet, put on a plain cotton dress, then rushed out to the door. It had been three days since Leila returned to her aunt’s house. Unsurprisingly, not a single day had she ever got her peace back. Just as Thorn told her, the house was completely emptied by her family; not even a single pot was left behind for her. Leila guessed that her aunt must be hiding somewhere far away from the capital now, and that she wouldn’t return until things cooled off. It was better this way though. She could rest for a few days and use that time to think about her future. Staying with her cruel family was the only thing she wanted to do now. But apparently, the prince couldn’t even let her have that. Leila rushed downstairs and spotted a pile of black and blue fabric, ripped to shreds, at the end of the stairs. It was the third time she had found a pile like this

Never had Leila experienced such a complete shutdown of her mind with her eyes wide open. Even so, a subconscious level, a deadly alert was screaming inside her head. She was still completely naked! Groping around to find the towel, she felt a seething heat enveloping her. The heat was too fierce to be ignored; she wasn’t even sure if it came from her own shock and embarrassment, or if it came from the naked prince on top of her. Even though the house was crumbling around her, Leila’s surroundings were somehow muted. She was seemingly having trouble connecting reality with her own perception as Thorn’s gorgeous, dark eyes emblazoned on his perfect face utterly dazzled her. Thorn finally asked, “Are you hurt?” as he looked down at Leila. He felt his dragon blood rushing with excitement. Leila shook her head mechanically. “Good.” He nodded and tried to push off the ground and back up, yet her peach colored nipples on her soft, plump breasts were mischievously in his way. Just as he

Leila turned and saw a group of people holding trays of food and jugs full of liquid. Their skin glistened with a silver sheen under the sunlight. White robes were wrapped around their bodies, tied with silver sashes. They each wore a stack of thin, gold bracelets on both arms. The man who shouted at her seemed to be the leader of their group. “Who are you? And why you are here?” The chamberlain looked down at Leila patronizingly. “I…” Leila looked up at him tentatively. Everything about the chamberlain was graceful–the way he gestured and even the way he spoke. But there was a dangerous sneer hidden behind his thin lips. “Why have you come to the Dragon Prince’s castle?” The man asked again. Left tongue-tied by her recent bizarre experience, Leila’s mind was racing, unsure how to explain her situation. She shouldn’t have followed that butterfly and left the bedchamber after all. Upon discovering Leila’s peculiar eyes and dull skin, the chamberlain’s many years of royal domestic e