THE EARTH AND everything around me felt as if it was being pulled from under me. “Are you insane? I’m not going to kill you.”
“You have no choice Elena. I don’t want to destroy my home, or the people I care for. The Rubicon doesn’t give a shit about any of them. When he fully takes control of me, I will no longer be. It will only be him.” Tears glistened in his eyes. “I don’t want to belong to Goran.”
“He’s trapped behind Etan.”
“And I would find a way to free him. I’m sure you know more or less what it is our blood contains.”
I nodded.|
“Believe me, I would do anything to free him from Etan,” he said softly. He lifted his head and stared at me with those peacock-blues. “That can never happen. We will destroy this world.”
We just stared at one another for a short while. His eyes were filled with begging. My mind searched desperately for other ways than me killing him. “There has to be another way, someone will claim you.”
“No one is going to claim me!” He took a huge breath and closed his eyes to calm down. “I made peace with that, you have to promise me…”
My hand struck his face. “NO! I WILL NOT KILL YOU. I LOVE YOU.”
His eyes flew open and the look in them changed from begging, soft, to hard and angry. I felt regret for finally admitting it, but I decided not to take it back. I did love him, the part that was kind and the part that was fighting to hold on, fighting to stay good.
“I told you not to fall in love with me. I specifically said that the first time we started with this.” He spoke through a clenched jaw.
“Well you didn’t make it easy for me, Blake.”
“I was being nice, Elena.”
“Oh and those almost couple of kisses we shared?” A small sarcastic laugh escaped my lips.
“I was being me. Nothing strange about that.”
I struggled to swallow as he said that. “So what, you don’t feel anything for me?”
“NO! I don’t. You are not a match against Tabitha.”
That struck me hard. Tabitha hadn’t been mentioned for such a long time. I took a deep breath and realized that both of us were still naked.
I darted past him and fetched my robe, pulled it over my head and just stood there. I could still feel his presence behind me.
“Elena, I told you…”
“Yeah, I know. Don’t worry about that.”
“You’ve got to promise me.”
“I can’t do that. You might not feel the same about me, but I do care for you Blake. I can’t.”
I ran past him and pulled off my robe. I struggled to see the edge and realized that the tears had finally come. I didn’t understand it. He was so mean and had just rejected me, why now! I wiped them away and pushed myself off the mountain.
Cara came out immediately and it only took a second for her to realize that something wasn’t right. I could hear her gasp as I thought about everything he’d told me, and she took over the flight.
THE TRAINING WAS over. I found Blake after one of my classes resting against the wall like a Greek god. He said that I knew everything there was and that he didn’t see why we should carry on with our training sessions.
I knew it was a lie because I still had to prepare for Arianna’s claim, but I understood why he wanted to stop and to be honest, I didn’t want to be around him knowing how I felt about him and that it wasn’t a mutual feeling. I was so stupid telling him all those things.
The worst part of it all was that I’d fallen in love with a version of him, not the real him. Still it hurt.
Why was my dragon so weak? Cara was really strong, but we couldn’t deal with the dark and we needed Blake close to us to stay calm. What was it going to be like without him?
I thought about what he’d asked for the next couple of days. That task was too big, I couldn’t kill him. Sammy and Becky got really worried again as I just stayed inside my room.
They learned really fast not to mention Blake or the training in front of me as the dark inside of me crept slowly into my heart. The back biting came and the snapping heads off by saying the wrong things.
Even my irises turned red around the edges. I could feel their concern and it was really starting to piss me off. I didn’t need their pity or worry. I had enough shit to deal with.
Talking to Sammy about why her brother trained me burned at the edge of my tongue, but a part of me couldn’t. I guess it was the old me that kept me from yelling it in her face. But I knew what it would mean, I would lose her friendship and the old Elena was still fighting hard to keep it.
“Elena, please tell me what happened?” I found Becky next to me on the couch. It’d started to snow as December grew nearer and she threw a blanket over our legs. “Sammy isn’t here. Please. Why aren’t you training with Blake anymore?”
I stared at the window and I felt nothing but hatred toward his name. Becky wrapped her arms around me. “What happened?”
I flinched at her touch. I didn’t like this at all and I gave her a glare but releasing the information was all I’d wanted for a couple of days now. It had to come out. “He wants me to kill him.”
“What!”
“His darkness is starting to consume him. It was the reason Paul found the Elementals so fast, and when they were gone, I turned. It makes sense if you think about it.”
“Elena you can’t kill him,” she whispered loudly and her nostrils flared.
“Why not? He would destroy Paegeia, Becky.”
“What is wrong with you? It’s the dark, come.” She grabbed my hand and yanked hard for me to follow her.
“Don’t.” I yanked it out of her hand. “He can’t stand to be near me. I’m not going.”
“You need him, otherwise you will turn dark yourself.”
“I don’t. I have to make peace with this, the way he did. I can’t do this anymore.”
She looked at me with a gaping mouth and disappointment laced her eyes, lips and entire body. “You’re giving up? After everything that we went through, you’re giving up.”
“It doesn’t matter, Becky.” I got up and walked past her.
A pillow hit hard against my back.
“Don’t ever say that!” she yelled. “It does matter. It matters to me, and George, and Dean. Not to mention Sammy or the fact that Lucian died to save your life. You can’t give up.”
“I am what I am, Becky. I can’t change it.” A tear rolled over my cheek. They came easily now.
“Fight, Elena. You can fight it.”
“It’s not that easy. The feeling inside of me feels…”
“Powerful.” She finished my sentence.
“Seductive.”
“I don’t believe that. You don’t want to be evil, Elena. You will always fight for what is right. It is why you went after that sword and saved us from a terrible fate, Elena. You were the sixth woman to get out of a Cavern that no one even dares to go into. You can’t give up now,” she begged me. “Just come with me. He wouldn’t know.”
“I told him.”
“What?”
“He knows what he does for me.”
She nodded her head slowly. “And, what did he say?”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s over. He despises me.”
She frowned. “I don’t believe that.”
“Well he does, okay.”
She gasped. “You fell for him, didn’t you?”
“It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t feel the same for me.”
“He told you that.”
“Yes. I’m no match when it comes to Tabitha,” I said in a sarcastic tone.
“He is lying.” Becky’s jaw muscle clenched. “Tabitha isn’t a match against you. The way you guys calm each other down…”
I shook my head. “He said it isn’t like that with him.”
“What!”
“It’s the truth. If I was to him like he was to me, he wouldn’t have begged me to kill him.”
“No, you can’t kill him.”
“I have no choice.”
“You do.” She started to pace with her hands tangled in her hair. “There’s got to be another way.” She stopped and looked at me. “Someone will claim him. Arianna is busy training…”
“To claim me.”
She stared at me with her huge brown eyes. “You gotta be shitting me.”
I shook my head.
“That bitch.” Becky spoke softly. “Then someone else will claim him.”
“Who, Becky? The only one that was brave enough was Lucian. Nobody is going to claim him. He knows that. I know that.”
“Lucian found something, Elena. I know it.”
“Whatever it was, it wasn’t linked to Blake.”
“Elena, then why did he get that foretelling from the Viden?”
“I don’t know. The Viden hasn’t been herself lately.”
“She’s still the Viden and her foretellings still matter. Lucian found something.”
“We’ll never know what.” I started to lose my patience with her.
She could hear it and she just stared at me with a hint of fright in her eyes and then I saw it. It was like a lightbulb shining bright above her head. “Unless we discover what he found.”
