WORRIED WAS AN understatement and Blake was missing in action. What Blake had done was called Intervening and by law, Nicole could claim me as her dragon without any further ado.
How it all worked was still Greek to me, but the one thing I got was unless you’re Blake, if someone interferes with a claiming, the dragon automatically becomes that Dragonian’s property. I didn’t know if it went for me too, since I was what he was, but I wasn’t going to tell anyone and find out.
I hate the word claiming now even more, and I had never thought so much about it until now. I guess seeing everything through a dragon’s perspective was a whole different world.
The rest of the day I searched everywhere for Blake. It was hopeless and I had a restless night.
The queen still somehow managed to jump in-between a giant Nicole claiming a baby Rubicon, which I assume was me. She dragged me to that forest and then turned into the queen. I could hear her saying my name, but it wasn’t directly, it was floating on the wind.
I woke up the minute she burst into flames again. Cold sweat ran down my back as I remembered Lucian telling me about Queen Catherine being strapped to her bed and set on fire. No person should die that way.
The next day, class couldn’t move fast enough. Every subject dragged and I kept staring at the clock. Each second that ticked by felt like an hour.
When the last bell rang I ran to my room to change. I pulled on my robe over my naked body and ran to the trees close to the lake. When the coast was clear I shifted and flew to the mountain where I’d met Blake for the past five weeks.
He wasn’t there and I shifted back, pulled on the robe and waited by one of the boulders. If it was him who had put that image into my head….he’d lied.
I racked my mind for any other explanation, but none came. It was just an image, but I knew for a fact it wasn’t mine. It had that same familiar feeling as the image I’d gotten that day in Professor Gregory’s class when we covered the Green Vapor.
Could Blake really do that? Lucian said he didn’t own that type of ability, but then again, Lucian only knew about four of Blake’s abilities.
“Sorry I’m late.”
I jumped but didn’t look at him. I could see through the corner of my eyes his hands fiddling with getting the robe over his head. I closed my eyes.
I could feel the heat from his body radiating as he sank down onto the boulder next to me.
“Are you okay?” he bumped me softly.
“I don’t know.”
“Elena, she didn’t claim you.”
I gave him a stern look. “Was it you?”
“Was it me, what?”
“You know what I’m talking about Blake.” I got up, scared to speak about this, afraid someone else might hear.
“No, I don’t.”
“The hell, with the evil patsies and everything,” I spat at him. “It wasn’t me, and it sure wasn’t Cara, so I don’t know who the hell imprinted that scene into my head. Paul was the only one, Blake.”
“It’s not Paul, okay,” he said fast. “The desert wasn’t scary enough, Elena.”
“I don’t care.
“She wasn’t afraid of it. It was as if she expected it, so I wanted to change it… and it happened.”
I kept staring at him. “She could claim me if she ever found out.”
“They won’t, you’re a Rubicon, Elena.”
“You don’t know that.” Nicole was Lucian’s cousin, but she was far from Lucian. The total opposite to be exact, and I so didn’t want her to become my rider.
“What is going on with us? I don’t get this.”
“I do.”
“Please share.”
“We’re the same, Elena. We’re bound to have some sort of link with one another that makes us different from all the other dragons.”
“All my life I’ve been different, but never in a million years did I expect to be this.” My hands gestured down my body.
“You still don’t like being a dragon?”
“That’s not what I said. I love my dragon. She has helped me with a lot of things that I would never be able to make peace with on my own.” I went back to the boulder and sat down. “Why did you help me?”
“She’s not worthy enough to claim you,” he said.
“Why do you care who is worthy enough or not?”
“You’re a Rubicon. Only the best of the best should be able to claim you, never forget that.” He looked at me in such a way that I thought he was going to be able to see my deepest secret. The one where I’d broken his promise and crashed madly in love with him. I hid my face inside my hands.
I looked back at him, he was still staring at me and I could feel his peacock-blues. His face came closer to mine and for a short moment I couldn’t breathe, then he snapped his head away, got up and walked to the nearest tree.
My heart started to thump and I didn’t know what had just happened. I could feel we were almost there. I could sense that Tabitha was far from his mind and Lucian was nowhere near mine. It was only us.
“There are rumors that Arianna is going to try to claim one of us next. I’ve got a feeling that it’s going to be you, so we should start preparing for it. She’s a bit more fierce than Nicole.”
“Are you shitting me?”
“I can help you.” He was back in front of me in a crouching position.
“Blake, you can’t. If anyone finds out what it is you can do…” I closed my eyes and shook my head. “I can’t become Arianna’s, she’s even more evil than Nicole.”
“You won’t, just trust me.”
“I take it you know her fears too?”
“All of them.” He gave a seductive smile.
“You know when she’s planning this?”
“The way some of the Dragonians spoke about it, soon.”
“Then we should get started.”
FOR THE NEXT couple of days I froze every time Master Longwei’s voice came from the speaker system. He hadn’t once mentioned my name or Arianna’s, or the word claim, but it’d led to a lot of restless nights and I somehow missed Paul’s stupid voice inside my head. He sure had a way of calming me down.
The afternoons with Blake were the only things that helped, even though he trained me harder than ever; I somehow forgot what it was he was preparing me for.
I was drained every afternoon and barely had the strength to notice anything else that was going on around the Academy.
Becky and Sammy disappeared after dinner and I took a long bath. I would wake up every single time when my gills appeared and realize that I had fallen asleep in the tub.
When I got out, I would usually be wide awake and have a bit of strength left to do my homework for the next day.
When I left the bathroom that night the most beautiful dresses were strewn on Becky’s bed. Not the modern fancy type of dresses but the princess kind, with undergarments and corsets.
“Is Halloween coming early this year?”
Becky laughed. “No silly. It’s for the Testrial ball.”
I gave her the best confused look I could muster.
“Seriously Elena, where is your mind lately? You know what?” she said with her hand in the air. “Don’t answer that.”
I giggled.
“The school has banners everywhere,” Sammy said.
“I guess my mind is not on balls and …okay, that did not come out the way I wanted it to.”
The two of them laughed after they gasped.
“My brother is seriously rubbing off on you.”
“You guys are talking about balls?”
“No,” somehow I managed to blush which made them laugh even harder. “Whatever.”
Becky got up and put her arm around my neck. “Not to worry, dearest Elena. I got you a ticket and a dress.”
“You are the best,” I said and gave her a kiss on the cheek.
“I know, I’ll be here all week.”
She guided me to the bed and for the next couple of hours we tried on dresses with all the undergarments and corsets. It took about half an hour just to get in and out of one, but it was the most fun I’d had in a long time. I’d gotten lucky with a dress that transformed me into some type of frost princess. It was gorgeous. It snugged my torso beautifully, even pushed up my breasts and showed a bit of cleavage, but not the slutty kind.
The fabric reminded me of snowflakes, and the bottom of my white dress fanned out in a beautiful ice-blue color.
“Elena, that dress was made just for you,” Sammy said with admiration.
“I love this. It is gorgeous.” I looked at my figure in the mirror and then at Becky. “Where did you get these dresses?”
“Mom dropped them off about an hour ago. She’s been in Elm for the past couple of days shopping for the ball and everything. She even said she will make our masks, if we decide on the dresses.”
“Elena is going to be the snow queen.”
“I should really try to harness my frost.”
“Tabitha is not going to like that.”
“Screw Tabitha. She’s not the only frost princess in town,” I said with a twinge of jealousy in my tone.
The girls laughed.
Blake popped into my mind. I wondered if he would even be there. Maybe he was one of those guys that didn’t even like dances, that would be a shame.
I crawled into bed thinking about the ball and really started to wonder if Blake had some sort of a link with me. If he could hear and see what I was thinking. That would be just my luck.
I closed my eyes and in a couple of seconds I started dreaming about dresses and knights hiding behind different masks.
