I THOUGHT THE day that Blake came back was going to be the day classes might get easier, but I was way off.
Blake, well he was Blake, he rebelled against everything that involved working with me, and in every class he could.
“Blake?” Professor Mia asked with a huge grin. “Think you want to show Elena how it’s done?”
He squinted and it already made my stomach turn, not from wanting him, but from knowing his reply was going to be cruel.
“Why would I want to show Elena anything?” he said, and I caught Becky glaring at him.
He was a dick.
“Blake, she’s –”
“She is nothing, Mia, and if you are going to push this, I don’t need this class, you know I don’t.”
“Still here, if you forgot,” I spoke out of turn, and tried to make it as harsh as possible.
He stared at me. “Oh, sorry for my bluntness, princess.” The sarcasm flowed through his demeanor.
“Arrogant bastard,” I said softly, but I knew that almost everyone in the class had heard me.
“Seriously, man.” George tried too.
Blake shot him a glare.
“George, don’t. There is no cure for thick-headedness.” I got up and walked to the door.
“Elena,” Professor Mia said, but I kept walking as fast as I could and out of the Parthenon Dome.
When I exited the door, I could still hear them, thanks to my enhanced hearing.
“You are going to regret all of this one day,” Professor Mia said. “Even though the other professors are too scared to say this out loud. I’m not. You are being a prick, and a crybaby for what that girl has done for you. You don’t deserve anything.”
Okay, so that I hadn’t expected from Mia, but I covered my ears and blocked out Blake’s reply.
If you look up ‘hopeless’ in the dictionary, it would say ‘Blake and Elena.’ It was never going to happen, and each day I started to realize it more and more.
I went back to my room and read one of my mother’s journals again.
It was about the time she’d met Tanya; she was trapped in a dragon’s trap, her wing was badly injured and my mom wrote how scared she was. That it emanated from her. My mother soaked up Tanya’s emotions and I started to see the pattern. My mom had been part of a dent too. She shared one with Tanya, and they’d gone through exactly the same thing we were.
My father, bless his heart, was so gentle with Tanya that it made my mom fall in love with him even more.
She wrote about Emanual too, how he’d communicated with Tanya, in his dragon form, telling her that they were the good guys.
He’d calmed her down, even if Emanual wasn’t really sure if he should trust any of them either.
My mom wrote plenty about Emanual’s dark side, a side I’d never seen before.
Her stories were the best. My mom had been brave, and I understood why my father had wanted her so much.
She always spoke her mind, and I could imagine what type of queen she’d been, what type of a mom she would’ve been. I would’ve been a completely different person if I’d had her in my life to show me how to be brave, and strong, fearless and not scared of anything.
She sure sounded like one of those. Even in the scariest moments she wrote down, she never cried. She always figured out ways to defend herself, and get herself out of her messes, alive.
The bell rang again and it was time for Aviance, a class I really wanted Blake to participate in but that was yet another wish that would never be fulfilled. Still, I went to the Coliseum and found Professor Vladimir and Professor Alexandra waiting in the ring.
They both smiled as I entered. Nobody else was there yet.
“Elena!” Professor Alexandra said. She was Professor Vladimir’s dragon and a Swallow Annex just like Constance. She was gorgeous with short, silver spiky hair and the most beautiful green eyes.
He – well he was huge: huge shoulders, huge arms, huge frame, huge everything. With brown hair and a slightly crooked nose that still made Becky, Sammy and I wonder whether it made him gorgeous or not.
“Professors,” I replied.
“You think he is going to participate?”
“Nope, we just had a moment in Art of War. That dragon is far from ready to do anything he is supposed to do.”
“Give him time,” Professor Vladimir said. “The impasse stage has never been easy for Dragonians. The Chromatics rebel for as long as they can, but they always succumb.”
“Always,” Professor Alex said too. “Seen it a million times. He will too.”
“Thanks,” I said, not very excited. To be honest, I really wasn’t looking forward to that time at all.
One by one students walked into the Coliseum. Peter entered alone without Tabitha. He plopped down right next to me as all the other dragons started to shift into their form.
We sat and watched as Dragonians hoisted saddles onto their backs.
The couple finally made their gracious entrance. Blake’s arm was around Tabitha’s neck and I could hear the vulgar words – which were probably sexy to her – he whispered in her ear. It was so cheap and disgusting.
Peter, on the other hand, seemed hurt.
“Hey, if it’s any consolation, both of them are idiots. We’re just the losers that ended up with them.”
“I chose to claim her,” he said and stared down at his feet.
“Then my advice is to do what we do best, give them plenty of space and time.”
“Time for what?” Blake spat at me, and Professor Vladimir climbed off of Alex’s back. He told her to go and she took flight, the others flying right behind her.
I stared at them as they each lifted off gracefully.
“I’m talking to you, Elena, time for what?”
“Blake, that is enough.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” he snapped at Professor Vladimir.
“Seriously,” I answered him. “You are acting like a two-year-old again. Stop being such a crybaby. You think you have it so hard,” I mocked him. “Well try living in my shoes, then speak again.” I shook my head. “All you have to do is stay away from your dark side. How hard can that be?”
“Then stop wasting your time, ’cause I’ll never be your dragon. Even if they put a gun to my head.”
“Then what do you want, what? Just tell me and you can have it.”
“Set me free!”
“Fine, you want that.”
“Enough!” Professor Vladimir screamed. “You, out of the Coliseum.” He pointed at the entrance, staring Blake straight in the eye. Blake’s upper lip twitched slightly, but to my surprise he chuckled and turned around.
“Tabitha, the choice is yours. You can go with him or become somebody,” Professor Vladimir said.
She shook her head, turned around and followed Blake.
“Elena, don’t ever give in to that. He doesn’t know what he is saying. He needs you.”
“When, fifteen years from now? Because I’m sure that door will be long closed by then. I’m sick and tired of his whining all the time about how unfair all of this is.”
“I know. This is the longest any dragon has ever rebelled, and I don’t know how long this is going to carry on, but you have to be patient.”
I stared at them. The two of them had this arrangement so easy. Alex wasn’t a Chromatic.
I took a deep breath and sat next to Peter.
He shook his head with a soft grin. “Ever since he got back, I can’t even look at Tabitha.”
“Deal with it. I sure don’t have time for your whining either.” I got up and left the Coliseum.
I found Blake and Tabitha sitting on the steps that led to the big oak door of the Academy. They were in each other’s arms. When I neared, Blake stood up and ran down the steps and came to a stop right in front of me. “Wondered when you were going to show. Running away again?”
“Bite me.” I pushed him away to get past but he blocked me again.
“Say it, Elena.”
I laughed. “You know that’s not how it works, Blake. You carry my gifts.” I spat out the ‘my.’ “I’m not going to part with that.” I sneered.
“They are mine! I was born with them. You’re just a mere human that can’t even handle these types of powers.”
“Whatever, asshole.” I tried to walk past him again.
“Say it.” He pushed me back once more.
“Let me go, or I’ll make your life a living hell.”
He laughed, which actually made him look hot.
“And how are you going to do that?”
“Don’t push me, Blake.”
“Tell me. How? You’re nothing. You…”
I couldn’t listen to him anymore and a strong jolt ran up my arm. I swung at him and an invisible force took him out of my way. He flew into the air and came crashing down hard on the turf.
I had no idea how I’d just done that, but a part of me felt good and a part of me felt bad.
“What is wrong with you?” Tabitha was up in my face.
“You want some of it too?” I yelled back, anger jolting through my core immediately.
She backed away and started running down the steps toward Blake.
“Just like I thought.”
She tried to help Blake up but he pushed her away. He was such a dickhead.
I had to get away from all of this, from the Academy, from the professors and their constant saying, “he will dent one day.” I was sick and tired waiting for his sorry ass.
I walked out of the castle toward the gate and found Julia taking a smoke break around the corner of the infirmary.
“Who spat in your milk this morning?”
“You really want me to answer that?”
“Is he vicious, huge and an ass?”
I nodded.
“Then no.”
“I need your help, please. I just need to get out for a short while.”
“Elena, I could get fired.”
“I’ll take the blame, please, Julia. Just take me down.”
“Where are you going?”
“I don’t know yet, I’ll be back later this afternoon. I just can’t be here right now. Please. I kept your smoking a secret for who knows how long.”
“Fine, before five you come back, you hear?”
“Promise.”
“Okay.”
She took off her clothes and transformed into her Night Villain form. Her dragon form was just as hideous as Sir Robert’s.
I grabbed her paw and stood on one talon as she flew with me to the forest below.
“Five o’clock, Elena.”
“Yeah, I promise,” I said and jogged down the road, took a tram and went to the port. I took an elevator to Tith and another tram to Longbottoms.
Nobody even recognized me as I hid my face under my hoody. Why would they? To them, I was in Dragonia, away from everything, training to handle my abilities and to be able to tame the mighty Rubicon.
If only they knew the truth; it would be in all the papers by tomorrow morning.
I opened the door of Longbottoms.
“Welcome, table for one?” Monique, the new manager Jimmy had hired, greeted me and gasped as she saw it was me. “Elena, what are you doing here? You are supposed to be at Dragonia.”
“I needed to get away. Blake finally came back and he makes me so furious,” I said.
“Come sit.” She led me to the bar and pushed me onto the nearest stool and ran behind the counter. “What happened?”
“He wants me to free him.”
She sucked in some air. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“I thought he was smarter than that.”
“Believe me, I really want to.”
She laughs. “Elena, you can’t free him, you must know that.”
“Yeah, I do. He just makes me so furious, that’s all. Sometimes I wish I could bash his head in with something.”
“And then what? He would lose his cool, transform and probably swallow you whole.”
“No, he wouldn’t, because then I would have access to my powers and I might incinerate his ass.”
We both laughed.
I sighed. “It’s so hopeless.”
“It’s not. I know his weakest desire.” Her eyes twinkled.
“What, other than the Snow Dragon?”
She laughed and squinted slightly. “Do I detect some jealousy?”
“Please. She can have the bastard. I just need his stupid dragon.” Which, to be honest, I didn’t because of the promise I made to my father, then why was I pushing this? Did I really want what George and Becky had, even if I knew that it wasn’t real? Or did I want a dragon to not feel like the odd one out? “So, do I need to guess what he wants, or are you going to tell me?”
“The Rubicon has quite a love for something that is extremely expensive, and you, my dear friend, can provide him with that certain thing.”
I raised my eyebrow. “Buy him over?”
“Desperate times call for desperate measures.”
“I don’t know. To me, nothing I will ever do will win him over.”
“A brand new Ducati might.”
“He does have a thing for Ducatis, doesn’t he?” I remembered the way he’d eyed Lucian’s once.
She nodded.
“It’s probably worth a try, but maybe something less dramatic, than Hey, here is a bike, be my dragon and you’ll have more.”
She laughed. “I really don’t know of anything else that might do the trick. C’mon, what could you lose?”
“He could incinerate it in front of me.”
“He would never do that to a bike.”
“How do you even know this?”
“I used to work at Andy’s Bike Shop for a couple of years and Blake was always in there looking at them.”
I smiled, thinking that it might work if Andy’s Bike Shop stopped with a red Ducati at the Academy for him, but it also made me feel sad, that he’d had dreams back then of having one and they just didn’t have the money.
“Elena?” Jimmy came from his office. “I thought I heard your voice. What are you doing here?”
“She had to get away from you know who and his bad demeanor.” Monique winked at me and I stared at her sarcastically, as I knew exactly what she was implying.
“Is he making life difficult for you?”
“Difficult is an understatement.”
Jimmy chuckled. “I heard the impasse stage is hard on both dragon and rider. He wouldn’t have been the Rubicon if he hadn’t rebelled.”
“Why me? Of all people, why am I the lucky one to have him as my dragon?”
“It’s exactly that reason. You, my dearest princess, are the only one that can bring that dragon down to his knees.”
I burst out laughing at the way he’d said it.
“Laugh. You’ll spin another story in a year from now.”
“If it’s that soon.” I was sarcastic again.
“So, what is this I’m hearing about a Ducati?” He l eyed at Monique.
“What? It’s a brilliant idea. He loves Ducatis, and Elena has the ability to get him one. Hell, I think if she asks nicely they will actually custom make one just for the brute.”
Jimmy’s unbelievable smile appeared and shook his head. “Buying him off?”
“Yeah, it will work,” Monique said. “I’m telling you.”
He laughed. “If you say so, who am I to argue?”
She scrunched up her nose at Jimmy and turn her attention back to me. “It will work. Trust me.”
I SPENT THE entire day with Jimmy and Monique. We spoke about school, about Warbel and why I wasn’t trying out for it. It wasn’t my type of game, and I doubt they would let the princess of Paegeia participate. The staff were amazing too; they were the jolly type and made me laugh so much.
I ate lunch at the bar, which made Jimmy shake his head, as princesses didn’t eat at bars, but I didn’t give a crap.
Around four, it was time to go back to prison. I was sure Master Longwei would rip off my head for going AWOL today, but I didn’t care.
Monique gave me a tight hug. “The Ducati will work,” she said and handed me the bag that contained my dinner in a beautiful take-away box.
“Yeah, I’ll go think about it. He really doesn’t deserve it, you know.”
“Desperate times,” she whispered as we both finished with, “call for desperate measures.”
We laughed. “I know.”
“Bye, Elena.”
“Bye.”
I left and was super grateful that once again nobody noticed me. I jumped as I found Master Longwei in the forest where Julia was supposed to wait for me.
“Enjoy your day?” he asked.
“I had to get out. I can’t do this anymore.”
He put his hand on my shoulder. “I know it’s not easy. In fact plenty of books say it’s the hardest stage for a dent and the rider. So, you are not the only one that went through it.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not what I meant. How long did the others wait for their dragons to get enchanted?”
He frowned. “What do you mean by enchanted?”
“C’mon, Master Longwei. Don’t any of you see what the dent is about? It puts the dragon under some spell. It’s not real.”
“Don’t say that. I’m sure that’s what it looks like to you, but the dent isn’t like that.”
“Yeah, well then explain it to me, so that I can understand.”
“I can’t, as I simply don’t know what it is.”
“You’re three thousand years old. Surely someone must have said something.”
“No one has.”
I stared at him for a few seconds then it hit me. It was so clear. “Why do you think that is? Because they don’t know themselves, which only tells me it’s not real.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“Yeah, well I do.”
“Do you want me to take you back or would you like a couple more days off?”
I squinted this time. “What?”
“You seem like you could use a break.”
“No, I refuse to run away.”
“Okay, then let’s go back.”
“Just like that. No scolding, nothing?”
“You want me to scold?”
“Well you have all the right. I left without you knowing where I was.”
He laughed. “Jimmy phoned. I knew you were safe.”
I smiled. “Traitor.”
“He just cares about you. After all, you are his business partner. What you did was the best thing you ever could do for that boy.”
“It was the right thing to do.”
“Let’s go, before others see that you are getting away with this, and then chaos will break out.”
I chortled and turn my gaze away as he took off his robe. When the plop sound came I found the most beautiful golden dragon I’d only seen once in the Museum of Etan staring at me. He was big, extremely friendly, kind with two long sprouts of hair hanging down from his chin. It made him look like a dragon version of Mr. Miyagi.
“What are you staring at?”
“Never saw a Fin-Tail,” I replied.
“Well, that explains the admiration.” He bowed his head.
I grabbed his paw and noticed he had fur mixed with golden scales at the bottom of his paws. The fur was so soft and he smelled of sunshine.
He lifted off gracefully and we landed right in front of the gate.
“Next time, when you feel like it’s getting too much, let me know.”
“Thank you, Master Longwei.”
I smiled at his dragon figure one last time, just before it started to shrink, and turned away, as I knew that image would have scarred me for the rest of my life.
I was happy that there was no sign of Blake as I walked up the stairs to my room.
Only Becky and Sammy were in our room, lying on their beds as I entered the room. Becky stared up from the novel we had to read for Latin and raised her eyebrows slightly. “You enjoy Longbottoms?”
“You enjoy your flight?” I said sarcastically.
“Ouch, okay didn’t expect that.”
“Did you really throw my brother into the air?” Sammy asked.
I stared at her. How the hell‒
“We heard via Peter, who was also on his way out. Professor Vladimir laughed so much when he told Alex.”
“He made me furious, okay,” I said and looked at Sammy.
“Elena.” She sighed.
“Don’t. I don’t want to hear it. I was this close today to saying those words.”
“You can’t,” she begged again.
“Well, he doesn’t make it easy for me either, and to be honest, I really don’t want to spend the entire night talking about that idiot of a brother of yours.”
“Okay, fine, subject changed. I just wanted to know how on earth you managed to do that.”
“I don’t know. I just felt powerful and took it out on him.”
She smiled. “I’ve never seen him that upset before.”
“Yeah, well, then you should have seen me.”
Both girls laughed. “Thank heavens it didn’t happen in our room,” Becky said.
We all burst out laughing. The rest of the night I kept listening to them talking about tryouts. It was going to be the highlight of their days for weeks to come.
