The draft for Everealm, (Book One of the Everealm Series) is finished! I am in the process of doing the final proofreading/editing before publishing to ebook and also working with a graphic designer to create the cover. The journey through Everealm will begin shortly, but in the meantime, I wanted to begin sharing a few chapters of the book with you, starting with the Prologue!
Now keep in mind that this is just the draft and not the final version that will be published. Minor changes or corrections may be made later on, as necessary. And of course, this writing is copyrighted, so please feel free to share the link to this page, or the blog, but do not copy and paste to another site, document, etc.
If you have any questions about the prologue, or just want to give it a thumbs up/down, please leave a comment below! Enjoy!
~J.D.W.
Prologue
Breestlin remembered her
first kiss as if it were fresh on her lips. She took a deep breath and thought
back, to a beautiful day in early spring. She was sitting outside on a stone
bench of the castle terrace in her father’s kingdom. The leather book in her
hand was heavy, and filled with romantic stories of star-crossed lovers and
tales of wild adventure. For a girl of 14 years of age, this book was both
scandalous and marvelous at the same time.
The sun
was beaming down on her thick auburn hair, neatly braided and tied round with
beautiful silk ribbons of violet. The ribbons matched her gown, which was
gathered into her lap to prevent it from touching the damp stone below. She was reading so intently that she was able to drown out the
birds chirping and occasional voices from the servants buzzing around the
castle. Her books provided an escape of sorts from her busy and demanding life as the only daughter of King Frederick II, the ruler of Junacave. Being constantly guarded in
the kingdom had left little capacity for real adventure or romance, leaving the
stories in her books as her only refuge and sanctuary.
Bree was taken out of
her peaceful trance by the sudden sound of an object whizzing past her left
ear. Startled, she dropped her book to
the ground and fell backward off of the
bench, her skirts flailing about during the fall. The soft grass behind her
eased the landing a bit, but her head was dizzy as she sat up. She quickly tried
to compose herself, pulling her skirts down to cover her now bare legs. Looking
around, she saw an arrow poking up from the ground, several feet behind her,
which must have been the object that flew by just moments ago. She heard
footsteps coming toward her and shouting from a distance as she tried to stand.
A hand reached out and
grabbed her arm firmly, lifting her to her feet. Bree looked up into a familiar
face and couldn’t help but frown. Rowan was standing in front of her, his face
less than a foot away from hers with soft brown eyes. One corner of his thin
mouth curled up into what could only be described as a beautiful smirk. He was
almost a foot taller than her, and at nearly 16 years old, was looking more
like a man than a boy every day.
Of course, training for
knighthood at the hands of your father, the first knight of the king, was bound
to make any boy strong and lean. He was wearing a tunic, untucked and untied,
hanging over the top of his brown trousers, both of which were dirty from
training outside.
Having known Rowan all
of her life, Bree had only recently become aware of the change that she felt
when he was nearby. Before, she had mostly felt annoyance at his presence, but
suddenly his familiar face was intriguing, and his tall, solid build was mesmerizing.
She had purposefully avoided any conversation
with him over the past several months. She constantly felt foolish when she was
near him and a princess absolutely cannot be made a fool.
Realizing she had been
staring at him, Bree dropped her head and pretended to brush dirt and grass
from her skirts with her free hand. When she
heard Rowan chuckle, her head snapped up, and her eyes narrowed sharply at him,
giving him a look that would cut a steel blade in half. A look that didn’t seem
to faze Rowan at all. Bree tried to jerk her arm away, but he didn’t
lessen his hold.
Instead, he pulled her
back around to the front of the bench and sat down beside her, then bent down
and picked her book up from where it had landed. Before handing it to her,
however, he paused and turned the book over to look at the title.
“Lovers Entwined: Tales
of Adventure & Romance,” he read aloud. “Looking for romance now, are we, Princess? Aren’t you a bit young for this
nonsense?”
Bree tried to grab the
book from him, but he continued to move it around, avoiding her hand each time
she tried to snatch it away, making an almost childish game of it. When she
finally closed her hand around the book, she realized he had let go of her
other arm. She immediately jumped up and hurried away. Rowan followed quickly,
catching up to her at the corner of the terrace and the gardens. He grabbed hold
of her gown to slow her down. Then he fell into step beside her as they walked
into the gardens together.
“I’m sorry, Bree. I
didn’t mean to upset you,” he said, “I know you’re a dreamer, always have been,
and—“
“You don’t know
anything!” she interjected, shouting at him. Rowan put his hands up as if to
surrender, and smiled at her. His gorgeous smile was almost enough to make her
forget that she was extremely irritated with him. “I will be 15 years old next
month and my father is already receiving tenders for my hand in marriage! I
could be wed as early as one year from now. Do you know what the chances are
that I will marry someone I actually like?” she demanded.
Rowan shook his head, too
afraid to answer at this point.
“And
worst of all,” she said with tears beginning to gather in her eyes, “is that my
first kiss would be with a hairy old man, likely twice my age and not a care in
the realm for me! Is that how you think
my memory of that moment should be?” she looked down and shook her head. “No. I
would rather live in this dreamland you speak of than the reality of my future
to come…”
Bree was now quiet and
looking down at the ground. Rowan liked the shouting
better than the quiet between them.
“Well, why don’t you
just kiss someone you love first?” he blurted out. “Then you would always have
that memory… umm, instead of the... old and hairy one.”
He felt silly once he
finished speaking. What was this effect
she seemed to have on him that none of the other girls did? Every time he spoke,
he sounded even more ridiculous than before.
His shoulders relaxed
when he heard her giggle, and he breathed a sigh of relief that she appeared to
be calming down. He didn’t like the way he felt when seeing her upset, but
especially if it was his fault. She was so delicate,
like one of the fine vases in the main hall. He knew first hand that if
you broke one, the pieces would never quite fit the same way again. He didn’t
want to be the one to break the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. Her long
dark red hair was shining in the daylight. The loose waves spilled out around her, having come undone from the fall.
And her perfect sun-kissed skin was finally showing now that the angry redness
was fading from her face.
Even though her dress
was dirty now, and he certainly preferred her in red or deep green to match her
eyes, she was still the most amazing thing he had ever laid eyes on. Womanhood
was treating her very kindly with a body that would soon be the envy of all
women of Junacave—maybe even Everealm. And those perfect round breasts were
sitting on top, snug in her corset, just
waiting for someone to…
Snap out of it, he told himself. She is the princess, not your plaything!
Bree had been silent for
several moments, studying him.
“And what if the person
I love doesn’t love me back?”
She watched his face to
see what reaction, if any, she would get from him. He looked nervous and unsure
if he should answer.
She smiled and said, “I
guess you will just have to do, for
now.”
Rowan looked around to
see if they were alone. Thankfully, they were, and the tall rose covered
trellis surrounding them would be an adequate
cover.
He
stepped toward her until they were close enough that he could smell her floral
perfume oil. No matter how much he probably shouldn’t be
doing this, when the most beautiful girl asks you to kiss her, you damn well
better.
She didn’t seem nervous
to him, but under her skirts were two legs just barely able to stand up for all
of the shaking. He put a hand up on the
corner of the trellis behind her to steady himself and bent down to her.
Bree held her breath.
His large body was shadowing over her, but it wasn’t fear that she felt as much
as excitement. If she could see herself, she probably looked like an
over-anxious child about to open a present. She tried to relax her face to look
calm and mature. This was the time to act like a woman, not a girl.
Rowan was so close that
she could feel his breath on her skin. When he finally closed the gap and
placed his mouth on hers, it was as if a wave of heat had washed over and her stomach twisted into knots that she thought would
never come loose. After a moment, Rowan began to pull away, but Bree
wasn’t ready for it to end, so she rose up onto her toes and put a hand around
his neck to pull him closer.
The next thing she knew,
Rowan had his arms around her waist and was lifting Bree off of the ground, pinning
her to the garden trellis behind her and smothering her body with his. Instead
of trying to free herself or pull away, she melted into him. The kiss seemed to
go on and on, only ending when their
mouths broke apart so they could gasp for air.
With their foreheads
still touching, Rowan slowly lowered her back down to the ground while attempting to catch his breath. For
a moment, he feared that she might think he had taken advantage of her, but
that thought quickly vanished when she leaned in and rested her head on his chest.
The two of them stood
there, still wrapped in each other’s arms, swaying lightly in the breeze. When
Rowan could finally find his voice, he said, “Well, that should make for a good
memory, I guess,” and kissed the top of her head before pulling away. A good
memory for both of us, he thought.
Bree couldn’t believe
how peaceful she felt at this moment. She wanted to pull him back to her again,
but she couldn’t make her arms move. She may very well have been in shock.
Blissful shock. Instead, she smiled at Rowan and said, “Thank you.”
~*~
One year later, Bree and
Rowan would share another magical moment, when on the eve of Bree’s sixteenth
birthday, she had given Rowan something she could never again give to another:
her innocence.
