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He didn’t stop her. No, Rurik was smug as she tried to release something that felt like it was building.

It didn’t seem to help.

Actually, it seemed to make that winding pressure pull tighter. She didn’t know how long she’d tried. How long she hadn’t let him leave the bed rather than the other way around, but she’d eventually become so animated that it felt like too much and she had to stop.

She didn’t even feel like eating when she cooked and pushed food around on her plate. Her muscles twitched uncontrollably, even places she didn’t know could spasm, like her shins and cheeks.

It must have been well into the afternoon when she sat at that table, trying to understand what was happening to her, when she heard the first crack of thunder.

She was beginning to become scared and confused as to why she felt like she was buzzed. Amalia wastweakingout.

The Dragon was off doing something else because she told him she’d needed to be alone for a while. It puzzled him since she’d just spent most of the morning desperately riding him to get this feeling out.

A second crack of thunder made her head shoot up in the direction of the entrance to his cave as, from the crown of her head, she felt a wave run down her body in reaction to the sound.

Perhaps the storm will calm me.She could hear the heavy pour of rain, and it was making her ears ring like they were sensitive to it.

Pushing her chair back, she walked to the front of his lair and knelt down in front of the ward to watch the dark and dreary grey sky.

The first hit of lightning she saw against the clouds made her gasp, and her breathing became shallow. The second made her put her hands against the ward, lifting her body so that she was kneeling higher. The third had her clawing at the ward, wanting out, to go into the rain.

The lightning didn’t strike often. There were long pauses in between since the storm was light, but it caused every hair over her entire body to stand on end, in places she didn’t know she had them.

Like he was unable to stay away, or perhaps it was because she’d never knelt at the ward like this before, she heard the loud footsteps of his paws come up behind her.

A fourth flash of light struck against the grey clouds followed by the loud crashing bang. She felt it all the way to the pit of her soul.

“Let me out,” she whispered, trying to dig her nails into the magic that wouldn’t let her pass.

She didn’t think he heard her because he said nothing as he came up beside her to look at her. His spiked head was just visible to her, but she couldn’t turn to it. She was too engrossed by the sky.

“Let me out,” she pleaded when she felt like her skin was sparking and could almost see electricity flickering above her skin.

“I cannot let you outside, Amalia,” he answered, sounding disappointed for her. It sounded like he wanted to.

Her breath caught in her lungs when a fifth blast of light struck before her eyes. She started bashing on the ward with panic.

She fretted, desperate to get outside.Something is terribly wrong.It was growing by the minute, growing by the second, and she was afraid. Her heart rate increasing seemed to make that pulsating energy worsen.

“Let me out. Let me out. LET ME OUT!” she shrieked, causing him to take a step back.

She could truly see could sparks of blue electricity coming from her skin now.

Then the ward opened like a curtain and allowed her through.

Amalia ran into the rain as she felt the heavy drops upon her. It soaked through her dress instantly and made her hair stick to her.

She only made it to the centre of the clearing in front of his lair when the sixth strike of light happened, and her knees wobbled and gave out. Her body clenched against her will.

And then it released, that final wind turning.

She let out a bellowing scream as lightning came from her and shot in a stream towards the sky. Amalia was suspended in a long moment. She was unable to move her body and could do nothing else but let that blue electricity fly in a release of power that was the same size as her body, the thickness mirroring her form.

Her hands were balled into fists in front of her with her head turned up. Even when she didn’t think she had oxygen left in her lungs to do so anymore, she screamed.

It was almost painful.

She thought she should feel hot. That the lightning she was expelling should burn her. It didn’t. Instead, the longer she let it go, the better she felt.