Dragons and DestinyAnimage Academy: Year One
Michelle Wilson
Dragons & Destiny is copyright © 2019 by Tulip Poplar Publications. Published 2019 by Tulip Poplar Publications. Cover design is copyright © 2019 by Under Cover Designs.
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, folklore, mythology, people, or places are used fictitiously. All other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any similarities to actual events, locations, or persons, living or dead, are entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Created with Vellum
For my teachers who encouraged my dreams and always made sure I had a book in my hands.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Animage Academy: Year Two
Also by Michelle Wilson
Leave a Review
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Chapter One
The din of conversation floated into my bedroom. I needed to hurry.
“Simon! Help me zip.” The footsteps coming down the hall paused but there was no response. “I can hear you breathing. Come on.”
“Don’t order me around. You sound like Dad,” he grumbled as he pushed the door open. He stopped short and his eyes grew wide when he caught sight of the pink and fluffy catastrophe of a dress I was wearing.
“It gets worse,” I said, hauling up the floor length tulle skirt and sticking out a foot to show him the bejeweled heels strapped to my feet. I was a prisoner. Or a trophy polished and ready to display. I couldn’t decide which was worse. As I put my foot back down, I turned my ankle and lost my balance. Simon stepped forward and grabbed my elbow, righting me. Part of a laugh escaped him. I glared at him. My wrath was wasted, he succumbed to laughter anyway.
“Go away, I’ll do it myself,” I told him as he tried to compose himself. I turned my back to the mirror and once again tried to grab at the zipper on the white flowery bodice. I groaned when I couldn’t reach it.
“Let me help,” Simon said. He grabbed the zipper and pulled it all the way to the top. I pushed my dark brown hair back over my shoulder when he was done. Great. I couldn’t walk in these shoes. And now I couldn’t breathe either.
“Guys have it easy, everything you wear is the same thing in different colors.” Simon shrugged and straightened his tie in the mirror. I turned him around and grabbed a comb to flatten the cowlick in his brown hair.
“Mom will never let you wear makeup like that,” he said. I rolled my eyes.
“It’s her fault for making me wear a dress a pre-teen wouldn’t be caught dead in.” He just shrugged again.
“Not nervous, are you?” I asked.
“How can you tell?”
“Simon, I know everything.” He raised an eyebrow at me in the mirror.
“You sound like Dad, again,” he told me. I ignored that comment.
“You’ve barely said two words all day. You always go broody when you’re nervous.”
“I can’t help it, Sophie.”
“Seriously?” I dropped the earring I was trying to put in and turned to look at him. “You’re the only person guaranteed to have a spot at the academy. Dad’s been prepping you for this since we were born.”
“You know it doesn’t matter what Dad wants.” Simon stood up and paced back and forth in front of my bed. “Nothing can affect the spell. I've had no signs. For years I’ve hoped for something. But I don’t have talons for fingernails, no scales, I haven’t grown a tail. You at least have that hearing thing.” He threw himself backward onto the bed and stared up at the ceiling.
I scoffed. I was trying to ignore the small part of my brain that knew Simon was right. Most animages had some kind of sign before their Revealing Ceremony. I woke up on my fourteenth birthday with superhuman hearing. Simon’s didn’t. He hadn’t changed at all.
“You know as well as I do, not everyone has physical traits of their animals before they shift the first time.” Simon just lay on the bed.
“Simon, get up you’ll wrinkle,” Mom popped her head into the room. “Both of you come downstairs now. We need you to greet the guests.” Her blonde hair was swept into a beautiful updo and long earrings full of gemstones hung from her ears. The earrings danced as she shook her head when she saw me. “Sophie, take off that ridiculous makeup.”
“But Mo—” I tried to protest. She held up her hand, and I fell silent.
“Do I have to stand over you to make sure you’re presentable? This is not a game.” Just as quick as she appeared, she left, heading back to her party prepping.
“Told you,” Simon said before grabbing his suit jacket and heading downstairs.
I sat down in my vanity chair and sighed, staring in the mirror at the heavy eye makeup I had painstakingly applied. I snapped a photo of it and then grabbed a cloth to take it off. If only I’d made it down to the party before she saw me.
The sounds of conversation grew louder. I picked up the pace. Mom would be back to chase me out of my room if I took too long. Hosting the Revealing Ceremony for this region of the country every year put her on edge. I didn’t want to test her patience. The makeup I put on this time was a little more subdued.
Once I was done, I smoothed my dress one last time and hurried down the stairs. As I came around the curve in the mahogany staircase, I felt people’s eyes on
