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Chapter
One
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The
sudden tolling of the warning bell startled Alvaranox from his
slumber. The green dragon leapt to his paws, claws extended and teeth bared. He jerked his horned head up,
only to smash it against the rafters that stretched across the roof
of his enclosure. Pain rang out in his head, adding to the harsh,
throbbing ache of what the dragon dismayingly realized was a
hangover. The dragon pressed a paw to the base of a ridged, black
horn as if to quell the throbbing beneath it.
The
alarm bell tolled again, louder than before. The sound rattled around
inside the dragon’s skull like a beast trying to escape its cage.
The vibrant, echoing noise worsened the ache in the dragon’s head.
He took a few slow breaths, his powerful heart hammering beneath the
plates of his chest. How he hated the sound of that infernal bell.
“I’m
up!” The dragon snarled, shaking his head as though it would clear
the sound. “I’m up already! Stop ringing that damn bell!”
The
bell rang again anyway. It always did. Not that anyone else could
hear it. The terrible tolling existed only in the dragon’s mind. As
if the sound alone was not enough to jar the dragon from his slumber,
the bell itself flickered into his vision and with it the world fell
away.