Free Light His Fire: Paranormal BBW Dragon Shifter Mail-Order Bride Romance by Anya Nowlan Page B

hadn’t been that many options for it in Delaware, after all.
    Pearl had left her phone home and, for all it was worth, thought she was better off that way. At least then she’d stop checking the damn thing every few minutes, right? Wouldn’t do to be clinging to her phone when on her tiptoes, keeling precariously over some gorge, now would it? She had told Dalton where she was going, but Pearl seriously doubted whether the young werebear had paid any notice to it between texting his girlfriend and pretending to know what was going on in the store. Sweet kid but, damn, teenagers were tough to work with sometimes.
    As much as Pearl was completely annoyed with herself and Ares, she couldn’t deny that her life was certainly looking up. She was beginning to cultivate friends who cared about her, and people in Shifter Grove genuinely needed her to set up the store, so completely failing wasn’t all that likely. Living so close to nature felt much better than Delaware ever had and she felt like she was really making strides towards becoming the kind of person she wanted to be.
    Now if only that pesky dragon would get out of her thoughts already.
    Pearl grumbled to herself as she heaved her body up another few feet of solid rock. She glanced downwards, tracking the path a pebble made as it bounced against the rock and then skittered lower until she couldn’t see it anymore. She was a long, long way up, but that just made her grin and take another step. Pearl loved the danger, the slight uncertainty that came with every climb.
    She didn’t consider herself a daredevil. All her climbs were planned and she rarely ever climbed alone. In Shifter Grove, she hadn’t found anyone quite into the sport yet and, frankly, she doubted she’d be great company with a dragon on her brain anyway. But that didn’t mean that she was any less safe – in her mind, anyway.
    Suddenly, the mountain trembled a little. It wasn’t even enough to shift Pearl’s grasp, but it certainly made her stomach knot and her hands push against the stone a bit harder. She clung to the rock until the shuddering stopped, feeling the wobble go right through her. A frown crumpled her forehead and she looked around, as if expecting to see the source of the disturbance.
    All day, she’d been hearing odd noises and loud clattering sounds. It was almost as if the earth was being turned somewhere, mountains being pushed and pulled and giant boulders being displaced. But that sounded silly even to her. She’d figured it must have been a series of small rocky avalanches further on in the mountains and she’d be safe as long as it wasn’t too close. But if it was close enough to shake Lying Dragon Peak then it had to have been something more serious than just noises in the distance.
    With a bit of a pout, she looked up. Her destination was just another fifty or so feet above her – a good while of climbing – but she couldn’t risk it.
    “Not this time, Lying Dragon,” she said, grinning a bit at the name she’d given the mountain.
    She was just beginning to take her first steps downwards in an attempt to lower herself to the ground, when the mountain quivered again. This time, it wasn’t just a gentle shake but one that grew more and more violent.
    “Fuck,” Pearl cursed, looking around frantically for a place to secure herself better.
    She clicked her second safety carabineer to a hook she’d attached to the cliff and hung on for dear life as the mountain groaned and creaked below her. Pearl felt the little ledges under her feet give away one after the other, leaving her hanging only by her hands and the harness hooked to the side of the mountain. She scrambled to find another foothold.
    Pearl glanced down again and the sight that greeted her kicked the air out of her lungs. The mountainside she had climbed up was rapidly disintegrating into dust below her, somehow falling inward and away from her into the belly of the mountain. She screamed as she felt