ON THURSDAY MORNING, the slamming of the bathroom door woke me. Sammy sat on her bed and glared vehemently in the direction of the bathroom.
“Is everything okay?” I croaked.
“Whatever you do, don’t look in that one’s direction.” Sammy pointed to the bathroom door.
“You think it’s got to do with the claim?”
“I think it’s got more to do with her last session with Lucian this morning. She looked highly pissed off when she stormed in.”
Becky came out of the bathroom as we were talking and yanked her dresser drawer open.
“Are you okay?” I asked. I hated to see her like this.
“Yes,” she said, as if she was about to take an exam, instead of fighting a dragon. T-shirts flew out of her drawer as she searched for something.
Sammy and I just stared at each other, perplexed.
“Becky, what’s wrong? You seem…upset.” Sammy sounded as if she’d struggled to find the right word.
“I’m fine.” She turned around and sighed. “Lucian has taught me well.” Her voice changed, sliding into deep sarcasm. So, Sammy was right about Lucian being the culprit behind Becky’s bad mood.
“Spill!” Sammy demanded.
Becky curled her lip. “He’s a ‘slave driving demon’ when it comes to fighting. I mean, the guy is good with a sword in his hands, but he has no sense of when he needs to stop. He’s driving me insane!”
“What?” Sammy said.
“Lucian McKenzie, my Lucian?” It felt great saying that.
“You heard me.” She plunged onto her bed with a pair of socks in her hand. “You only know his sweet side, Elena. He’s head over heels for you.”
“Well I hope so. Since he’s been training you, I hardly see him,” I said, irritation filling my voice.
“I’m sure he’ll spend all his time with you after today. You know, he told his parents that he won’t be going home over weekends anymore,” Becky said, arching her eyebrows.
“Get out of here!” Sammy screamed while my stomach was doing a back flip.
“It’s the truth.”
“Do you guys think he told them about me?” I asked. My gut turned into a big knot.
“Who cares? He’s going to stay.” Sammy sounded happy on my behalf.
I had to admit, as much as I loved to spend more time with Lucian over weekends, a part of me panicked when I thought about his parents. I mean, they were ruling a country, for crying out loud. What if they have certain expectations of me ? I swallowed hard. Do they know I was the girl with the dragon father? What if they didn’t approve?
Anxious, I looked for Lucian during breakfast, but he was nowhere to be seen. To make matters worse, he was constantly on my mind, so I had no idea what the professors were talking about during their lectures.
At lunch, we had pasta for the zillionth time. Riley had gotten most of the riddles lately.
“Elena, please, I’m begging you, if it’s going to be pasta tomorrow again, I’m going to puke,” Sammy complained.
I giggled and went over to the Chef’s board to see what he had in store for us today.
“All about, but cannot be seen. Can be captured but cannot be held. Can be heard but have no throat, what am I?” I tried to think. Usually the answer just popped into my head, but today was completely different. I felt someone standing behind me. When she started to tap her foot, I assumed she wanted to see the riddle. I turned around and Arianna, princess of Areeth, was all up in my face.
Long strawberry locks curled down her back and around her face. Her lips twitched as a sly smile spread across her face, and she raised an eyebrow. To her right, a girl with a pug face glared at me, and on her left was a ginger who tried to hide her freckles with too much concealer.
“Sorry,” I said, and tried to step away.
Arianna stepped in front of me, blocking my exit. “I’m not done with you, and yes, you’ll be sorry if you don’t do as I say.”
“Excuse me?”
“Stay away from Lucian McKenzie. He always goes through a mild crush on whoever is new.”
Freckles and Pug Face sniggered.
“You see, it doesn’t even matter if you two do get along. Lucian is royalty, Elena, and he can’t waste his time with a commoner. So the way I see it, is that you stop whatever ‘this’ is before you get hurt.” She emphasized “you” a little too harshly.
After all that venom, her lips turned into a perfect smile, and she turned around to leave..
Becky and Sammy were approaching us, and Arianna slammed into Becky violently. It was a miracle Becky remained standing.
“Get out of my way,” Arianna spoke down to them.
“This is not Areeth, Arianna!” Sammy yelled after her.
“Are you okay?” Becky said.
I nodded and felt tears clog my throat.
“Elena, whatever she said, ignore it. She is a big biatch.”
“Yeah.” What she’d said had stumped me.
“What was that all about?” Sammy asked, as we sat down at the table.
“It doesn’t matter.” I sulked and started to eat my bowl of Alfredo pasta. I’d totally forgotten about the riddle when Chef rang the bell.
Lucian mimicked Becky with her happy dance and the entire cafeteria cheered.
Could he be sexier?
I closed my eyes and pushed away my tears. What do I do now? Arianna was right and had only said what I already knew, but how could I stop what we had?
“Hey, beautiful.” Lucian sat down next to me.
“Not now, okay, I have to go,” I said quickly. I rose to leave as one tear lurked in the corner of my eye.
The fact that he was royalty wasn’t going to change, and having a commoner for a girlfriend was probably against the law or something. How was I supposed to get rid of my feelings for him? Ever since he’d kissed me, I’d felt as if I could fly. Now whatever had made me feel so powerful had died painfully with Arianna’s words.
I tried to push Lucian to the back of my mind, but struggled as I made my way back to our room and fell onto the bed.
Sammy and Becky came into the room a little while later.
“What’s up, Elena?” Becky stood with her arms folded, and I knew I wasn’t getting off the hook that easily.
“It doesn’t matter, Becky.” I picked up my brush and pulled my hair up in my usual ponytail.
“Lucian is asking if he did something wrong.” She just kept talking as if she hadn’t heard my reply. “Is it about what I said this morning?”
“No, Becky, just leave it, please.”
“Elena, come on, I can see something is bothering you,” she said.
“It’s not that, okay. Just leave it.”
“Oh my word, it’s Arianna, isn’t it?” Sammy gave an I-don’t-believe-this-crap giggle.
“It’s Arianna?” Becky asked, confused. “Elena, what did she say?”
“It doesn’t matter, she’s right. Lucian is royalty, Becky, and I’m not.” My voice broke, and my hands somehow found the top of my head. This was so wrong. Why can’t he choose who he wants to be with?
Becky paced, her lips pressed hard in a thin line.
“Don’t listen to her, Elena. She’s always had a thing for Lucian and my brother. Believe me, she’s been trying her luck with both of them. Don’t let her get under your skin.” Sammy folded her arm around my shoulder.
“He’s royalty. Someone is going to get hurt in the end, and I know it’s me.”
“If Lucian finds out about this, she’s going to see her ass.” Becky fiddled with her necklace.
“Don’t tell him, please.” I hated confrontations.
“Fine, one condition,” Becky said, and stopped pacing. “You forget what she said.”
“Becky?” I sighed.
She lifted her index finger for me to stop.
“She scares the living crap out of me!” I yelled.
Both girls laughed.
“Elena, she’s got a big mouth, that’s it. She’s just like Tabitha.”
“Sammy’s right.” Becky came over and hugged me too.
The bell rang and we were forced to head back to class.
We still had a full hour of Arts of War left, and I wasn’t in the mood to fight with a sword, pretending to be the greatest gladiator who ever lived.
Unfortunately, Professor Mia had the opposite idea and drilled me even harder. I slouched to my room, stumbled into the shower, and fell onto my bed. I’d only briefly shut my eyes when Sammy stormed in.
“Elena, what are you doing?”
“What?” I said, sleepy, and looked at the clock. Somehow, I’d dozed off until four o’clock. Becky was about to claim George. I jumped up, slipped on my flip-flops, and darted for the coliseum.
Goosebumps covered my entire body as we neared. I couldn’t believe I’d almost missed it.
When I heard loud cheers and chants, I made a run for it. I gasped as I saw how packed the colosseum was. There were people sitting in the stands other than the students and professors, and I finally understood how big of an event this was. Thankfully nothing had happened yet.
George threw a show for the crowd. He ran up and down the sides where all the dragons sat, touching people’s hands as he passed. Loud music boomed through the coliseum, and he ripped off his t-shirt. The girls screamed wildly.
I had to admit, he was very muscular, with an eight pack bulging from his stomach.
I still hated his arrogance. The Chromatic dragons cheered the loudest and instructed him to show Becky what he was made of.
“They’re wasting their time,” Sammy said in a singing tone. She led me to the side where all of the Dragonians sat.
“Why?”
“That down there is Dr. Jekyll, and Mr. Hyde will come out in a couple of minutes.”
I understood that analogy and should’ve known that she would take me straight to Lucian’s seat.
He seemed agitated as he stared over at the small entrance where Becky would emerge.
Arianna’s words were still fresh in my mind, making me fidget.
“Aren’t you supposed to be on the other side?” a girl with short mousy blond hair snapped at Sammy.
“Oh, bite me,” she snapped back and squished through to the only two empty chairs in the row, right next to Lucian. She took the first one and forced me to sit down next to him.
I stared at the crowd, anywhere but him.
“Are you okay?” he asked, looking at me.
I gave him an assuring smile, and he gave me a quick kiss on my temple. His hand folded over my leg. He smelled amazing, but by his clenched jaw and his firm grasp around my leg, I could tell he was uptight.
“Where’s Becky?” I stretched my neck to see if I could spot her somewhere.
“She’s still inside going over some strategies with Mia.”
“So, she helps?” I asked.
“Not really, but she gives one hell of a pep talk.”
I giggled. A hint of a smile appeared on his face too. I remembered how big George was that first day when he’d stood in his dragon form in front of me, and then there had been the one that had killed my father. I didn’t have faith that a pep talk would do much good.
We Will Rock You by Queen started to play, and it didn’t take the crowd more than a few seconds to get up on their feet and clap their hands with the rhythm.
“What’s this?” I shouted.
“It is Becky’s song. We each have to choose one to be introduced by before a claim,” he shouted back.
Just as the music started, George exploded into his huge dragon form which made me stare like an idiot. Again.
He looked so evil it struck fear into everything that owned a soul. I still thought the humans were crazy to even consider doing this.
The crowd went ballistic when the coliseum’s walls vanished. Sand dunes appeared in the distance and the air became humid. I gawked and pulled my tee away from me to fan myself. The coliseum’s floor changed into sand, and George growled.
“What’s this?”
“The dragons can choose any type of scene they’re comfortable with. Moon-Bolts are desert freaks,” Lucian explained. “Like their temperament isn’t enough.”
“Is this going to turn ugly?”
He didn’t reply because Becky had appeared. The Dragonians jumped to their feet and started to cheer and whistle like mad. A traditional gladiator outfit, modified for girls, hugged her body perfectly, and the tiny metal skirt showed off her slender legs. Knee-high boots and a black tee under her vest made her look sizzling hot. The guys hooted, and I rolled my eyes. Typical.
The music stopped, and Professor Mia walked right to the middle of the arena. She had a white flag in her right hand, and when she lowered it, a big lightning bolt came shooting out of George’s mouth.
Becky blocked it with her shield, but it didn’t look like the wisest choice, as electricity ran through the metal. If she hadn’t been immune to it, she would’ve been on the ground shaking like she had that night at the lake.
George kept breathing lightning bolts aimed directly at Becky. I hid behind Lucian, unable to handle seeing one of my best friends take such a beating.
“C’mon, Becky, get up!” Lucian yelled. “Use your lightning.”
“Her lightning?”
He didn’t answer.
I hated not getting an answer; this was so confusing. My tee crinkled up inside my fists, and my skin started to feel baked from the sun’s heat. I flinched every single time the lightning zapped her shield. It sounded like thunder, and when I had finally gathered enough courage to peek, I hid again as George threw Becky to the ground. It wasn’t a fair fight, and I wished somebody would help her. Sammy shouted things for Becky to watch out for, but I doubted Becky could hear it.
George blew out another thunderbolt and hit Becky directly in her gut. She flew through the air and fell on her back. My heart stopped. She just lay on the floor, lifeless.
She did a back flip, righting herself once more, and I took a deep breath. My heart started to pound heavily as the whole coliseum went crazy.
She egged him on, showing him with her index finger that she wanted more.
George growled and breathed out another lightning bolt. It bounced off her body and headed straight back at him. He released another one and repeated it over again. Every single one backfired on him. She finally took control, catching the last lightning bolts in her bare hand. The entire crowd gasped. She then threw it back at him. After that, the lightning bolts only seemed to harm George. She was so fast he couldn’t block or dodge them as he was pelted with his own weapon.
“That’s it, Becky!” Lucian roared with a huge grin.
George stammered as Becky went Zeus on his ass. She gained more confidence with every counterattack, or maybe she’d just realized George didn’t have anything over her anymore. It wasn’t natural to see such a small person like her fighting against a beast of George’s size, and winning.
He flew toward the crowd, trying to escape, but smashed against the invisible force that protected us. His talons made a screeching sound as he struggled to grab onto something solid.
“Yeah, it sucks when your perfect little place bites you in the ass!” Lucian yelled, and nearby students laughed.
George landed on the sand again and Becky gave it her best. She dodged and slid just like the gladiators in the movies. She caught most of the lightning bolts, and George eventually went down. The crowds cheered and she raised both arms in triumph.
She collapsed, as if a sniper had taken her out.
I jumped up while everybody booed.
“What happened?” I shrieked. “Is she okay?”
“Relax, Elena.” Lucian held me back by the arm. “He’s such a coward.”
“What happened?” I demanded.
“She’s fine. She’ll be out for a couple of hours, maybe a day,” Lucian said.
Sammy cussed right next to me.
“He forced her ability on her. Our human form is too weak to carry them. That’s why your dragon is the keeper or what some would call the ‘carrier’,” Lucian explained, not taking his eyes off Becky’s motionless body. “The lightning he breathes out is actually Becky’s. He was born with it, but it never belonged to him. Becky is the true possessor. He just gave her the full dosage of what it feels like to carry that kind of power, and it always knocks humans out stone cold. She’ll be fine, Elena.” He gave me a side hug, as I just stared at her still lying on the floor. “But it’s very cowardly for a dragon to do that, and you’ll see this behavior only around the Chromatic ones.”
“Do all of them do that?” I asked, still shaken.
“Only when they know that the battle is lost,” he said.
The Dragonian side still cheered as Constance and another student carried Becky away on a stretcher.
“So what’s going to happen now?”
“George is Becky’s. Doesn’t matter how bad he’s going to resist at first, if he’s part of a dent, he’ll end up as tame as a lamb. We don’t know what it is they are going through, but it’s some sort of transformation that makes them stay together forever.”
“You mean like a couple?” I wanted to know if it was what Becky spoke about on my first day.
He chuckled. “Yes, Elena. She’s part of his foretelling. It’s just a matter of time before he dents. I would give my left arm to be part of a dent.” He smiled. He was really nuts, but then again he had tried to claim Blake twice.
I had to admit, the term “to dent” was still confusing. I mean George hated Becky, and now they expected him to do the opposite. It didn’t make sense.
“Let’s go, Elena.” Sammy grabbed my arm when George finally shifted back into his normal body. They had to cover him with a blanket because he was butt naked. He was carried out on a stretcher too, but he wasn’t nearly in the same physical state as Becky.
“Where are we going?”
“To go and see how Becky’s doing. I can’t believe George just did that!”
I waved at Lucian, since Sammy didn’t give me time to say goodbye with a kiss. He waved back with a gorgeous smile, which made my stomach flip again.
Sammy walked so fast I struggled to keep up. I almost had to run to maintain her pace. We squashed through the crowd while they were still chatting about Becky’s moves. She was a real Dragonian now.
When we reached the infirmary, Julia asked us to wait by the door while Constance tried to stabilize Becky.
My throat tightened as I saw how Constance placed a brace around her neck.
“Can a Dragonian die from this?” I asked, biting my nails while staring at Becky’s still body on the bed.
“I’ve never seen one die. Constance was close, but anything’s possible.”
I felt like crying again.
I didn’t want to claim a dragon, and I started to doubt Master Longwei’s theory about my dark mark too. I didn’t belong here. I would never have the amount of courage to do what Becky just had.
“Stop doing that.” Sammy tapped my hand with hers, and I realized that I was still nibbling on my nails. I only did it when I was really nervous.
We waited for a long time. Sammy mumbled plenty of times, and by her twentieth sigh, Julia popped her head out of the door. “You may come in, but only for a couple of minutes, okay?”
We both went in without saying a word.
We couldn’t do much but watch Becky lie on the bed with a bruised-up face. It looked as if she had been beaten by a jealous boyfriend.
This made me feel anger and other emotions I didn’t want to feel.
Her leg was splinted and her arms were full of scrapes. Her one eye was swollen shut and had turned a greenish purple color.
My eyes started to sting.
“She is going to be okay, Elena, and believe me; George is going to feel pretty bad about what he did soon.” Constance said while making Becky as comfortable as possible.
“When will she wake up?”
“It’s up to her.”
“Chromatic dragons are so stupid,” Sammy hissed.
“If you don’t mind, Becky needs her rest. You can come and check up on her later if you want,” Constance said, and smiled.
We went straight to our room, and I wondered what they had done with George. I hadn’t seen him in the infirmary with Becky.
Once we were settled, Sammy took a long bath. She always felt terrible whenever a dragon did something horrible to humans, and now that it was her best friend, she must have felt even worse.
Later that night, we went back to check up on her. This time, thankfully, she was awake. “Where is that coward?” she said.
“Becky, take it easy,” Constance said as she tried to get Becky to lie back down.
“Take it easy?” she hissed. “I was out for… I don’t know how long. He’s a coward.” She grabbed her ribs in obvious pain when she moved too fast.
“You’re not healed. Just give it a couple of hours.” Constance said then told us to go.
“That girl is not happy,” Sammy remarked as we started to leave.
“I’m just glad she woke up.” I remembered the time I had spent almost a whole week in the infirmary and shuddered.
I struggled to sleep that night and when I finally fell into a deep slumber, I was rewarded with the same dream that had haunted me since my arrival.
I woke around four a.m., hot and sweating, and opened the window to clear my head. The fresh air blew gently into our room as I reflected on all the things that had changed in such a short period. A lot of things played in my head. Becky was one, and I tried to make sense of how George was magically going to like her. My dad saving my life was something that was constantly on my mind, making everything jumbled. What did the Moon-Bolt want from us, and why did he kill Dad? What did Dad want to tell Matt that was so important he couldn’t do it over the phone? Why do I have a dark birthmark when it isn’t meant for dragon children? And why do they think I am going to show them great things? It put so much pressure on me, sometimes I just wanted to scream.
What was I going to do about Lucian? I couldn’t go back to being just friends again. I loved being with him, so Arianna’s words shouldn’t matter. I didn’t care whether I was normal, I couldn’t imagine my life without Lucian in it.
Our room started to turn a bit lighter. I looked outside my window and saw the first rays of sun peek over the mountains in the distance. For a few blessed moments, I forgot about all of my unanswered questions. There was something truly amazing about how the world woke. For the first time ever I watched the sunrise and felt completely at peace.
