The Driftling

Published by: eXtasy Books

Author : Gabriella Bradley

ISBN :978-1-4874-4332-0

Page :99

Word Count :27700

Publication Date :2025-06-11

Series : #

Heat Level :

Available Formats :

Category : Fantasy Romance , Science Fiction , Fantasy , What's New

BrandsExtasy Books
Product Code: 978-1-4874-4332-0

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Love is never meant to cross dimensions… but fate has other plans.

When Lizzy Ferguson runs for her life from a brutal raid on her family estate, she escapes in a dinghy into the teeth of a violent storm.

Phogantu is a place of beauty and danger, where energy pulses through the crystal earth and skies split with Void Storms. Reclusive artist Lucianos lives in solitude—until the sea delivers an unconscious driftling.

As Lizzy recovers, she and Lucianos uncover an ancient mystery buried in her father’s stolen art collection. A force tied to the growing instability between their dimensions. A truth others will kill to control.

Their connection deepens. The danger intensifies. And the storms are closing in.

The wind wailed like an injured wolf, the sound battering the windows of Lizzy’s bedroom. She stood taut in the faint light, her fingers drawing anxious patterns on her arm, a habit she’d developed during all her hospital visits. The storm had taken out the power an hour earlier, and the only light was the sporadic burst of lightning that caused the familiar shapes of her furniture to appear as crouching monsters. She had been preparing to light another candle when she became aware of noises that were not part of the storm.

A thud.

And another.

Coming from downstairs.

Lizzy wrapped her cardigan closer around her slight figure. At the age of twenty-five, she still had the waiflike figure of a child, her body never having fully regained strength after the aggressive chemotherapy that had saved her life. Her naturally curly, blonde hair had grown back softer than it was originally, framing a face that strangers sometimes mistook for that of a teenager. She put her ear to her bedroom door and listened.

“Just the wind,” she told herself. “Just a branch hitting the house or—”

Another thud, followed by the sound of shattering glass.

Lizzy’s heart pounded hard against her chest. The Ferguson Estate was far enough from town that unexpected guests were not the usual occurrence, especially not during a storm of this intensity. Her parents had said nothing about expecting anyone, certainly not this late at night.

The grandfather clock on the floor below bonged eleven, its usual melodious chime now bordering on ominous in light of the odd creaks and sighs that echoed through the house. Lizzy walked over to her nightstand and grabbed her cellphone. No signal—the storm had apparently seen to that. The landline might still work, but that would involve a trip downstairs. No, it wouldn’t. No electricity…the landline needed power.

A floorboard creaked in the hallway.

Footsteps.

Heavy feet.

Neither her father’s footfall nor her mother’s gentle steps.

Lizzy’s breath stuck in her throat. She took a step back from the door, colliding with her dresser. The little ceramic ballerina her father had bought her after her last and final treatment fell and broke on the hardwood floor.

The footsteps stopped.

She bit down on her lower lip to keep herself from making a sound. Years of fighting cancer taught her survival and how to endure the unendurable. But this was different. This was an imminent, unpredictable danger.

“Look upstairs,” a loud, rough, raucous voice ordered from downstairs—a voice she did not know.

More footsteps, this time on the stairs. Two sets, maybe three.

Lizzy’s mind raced with options. Hide in the closet? Under the bed? Try to climb out of the window? Thinking about the twenty-foot drop to the rock-hard ground below…no, not an option.

Her parents’ bedroom. She needed to wake them up.

She quickly blew out the candles. She opened the door a crack. The hallway lay before her, dark, except for the emerging light at the distant end. Her parents’ door was open a crack, and a sliver of candlelight spilled into the hall. They, too, had lit candles after the electricity failed.

Thunder boomed above, shaking the walls of the mansion. As lightning struck again a moment later, Lizzy saw two shadowy figures stepping into the hallway, their faces hidden. Something metallic reflected in one of their hands.

She crouched behind her door, her heart racing like a trapped bird. Her rational mind yelled at her to hide, be quiet, wait for them to take what they wanted, and go. But her parents…they were probably unaware. They would be fast asleep. Her father took sleeping pills on nights when he couldn’t sleep, and her mother always wore earplugs to bed.

Lizzy counted to three, then stepped out into the hall and headed toward her parents’ bedroom, silent-footed. The heavy carpet runner deadened her step as she flattened herself against the wall, advancing in the dark between lightning flashes.

She was just about to reach their door when the first shot rang out.

The noise paralyzed her, suspending her breath. One heartbeat later, a scream came from the room—the voice of her mother, high and awful.

Another gunshot.

Then silence.

“Mom?” The name escaped Lizzy’s mouth in a shaking whisper. “Dad?”

Through a haze, she heard additional men downstairs. Shouting. Something regarding “finding them” and “the vault.”