THE FIRST TWO weeks flew by. It wasn’t becoming easier as I had thought it would, and the workload was getting heavier, but my hands were getting used to cutting grapes. The times I hacked myself, well, Charles fixed it with his ability, which only made me miss Constance so much more.
We were almost done with this month’s plucking. The rest of the vineyard was not ready to be picked yet.
If I wasn’t off with August on a hunt expedition, I was with Annie, and she was amazing. She was the pick-up August had referred to and was a few years older than me.
She had come from a place called Eikenborough, wherever that was, and Charles had found her half dead four years ago. She knew someone in the Council, but that wasn’t counting in her favor, from what I could gather. He was mean and sadistic. Still, she had the fighting spirit of a dragon, even though she desperately tried to hide it.
She spoke so many times about her fire. If only she could harness it and show August how to wield his, to help him connect with his persuasion.
“They would kill you.”
“Dying is sometimes not the worst thing. I would be with my father and mother. I would finally be free.” Annie stared at me as we found a quiet place underneath the trees, away from everyone. She’d never spoken about her mother before now, and I’d never asked. Maybe it was a tough subject.
“I love life, even though death constantly follows. I don’t want to die.”
“Neither do I, but this isn’t living.”
“I know.”
She carried the barcode, although I’d never seen it fully, I kept glancing down on her arm whenever she left it open.
She would always cover it up.
We had a lot in common; she was a Sun-Blast dragon who hadn’t transformed in the last ten years, so she was almost human. She’d lost her ability, couldn’t harness her blue flame anymore, and she couldn’t track objects of value either. It was so sad, to be something that amazing and end up being so powerless at the end.
I remembered the sky, what it felt like to fly through the clouds when Cara was still with me. I didn’t mention it, or speak about it either, as it would be cruel to a dragon, to show them their disability, the things they couldn’t do anymore.
The Council was going to come soon. For the past few days, everyone had been preparing for it.
I still wished I could just see who the members were. I knew most of them by now and I would easily put two and two together if only I could see one of them, but I had to hide, as everyone said the minute they laid their eyes on me, would be the minute they would take me. I’d imagined so many times what they would do if they knew who I was, but killing me always took the number one spot. They would do whatever was in their power to keep this a secret.
A huge siren went off. Lunchtime was over.
“Let’s go.” Annie got up and I followed her down the hill toward the fields.
We plucked grapes for another few hours and then it was time to go home.
The barns were almost full now and the fridges couldn’t hold much more.
It had been five days now since Luke, another one of the farmhands, had left with a small group to get supplies. Tom had desperately wanted to go with, but Marcus refused. They were so respectful of their elders, something I hadn’t witnessed in a long, long time. Still, plenty of them were worried, as was I, that something had happened because they had never taken this long before.
Tom wasn’t making life easy for Marcus and Gertrude because of their decision. We only saw him in the mornings, sulking over his breakfast and at night when he gulped down his dinner and went to his room.
I couldn’t imagine what it must feel like to know that your wife was out there, dead or alive.
He had a fighting spirit too, but they kept suppressing it. Something I didn’t like at all.
It made me feel so hopeless.
August was quiet of late as well. He wanted to know so much but none of us could tell him anything. His parents begged me not to tell him.
It was wrong. He should know how to defend his family, and I felt like I was betraying him. I would lie awake at night now. Sleep didn’t want to come as I worried about everything. The day the Council would come, and what that was going to be like. What would happen if they found the place where all of us were going to hide? And what about Luke and the group of men who had left more than a week ago? Were they okay? All the unanswered questions gnawed at my stomach.
Blake, and what I’d done to him that night, would always find a way in to my mind as well. A simple kiss I’d thought would make him dent, not kill him.
After the thoughts ran through my mind for hours, well that was when sleep finally came, and I would dream of nothing.
BLAKE
MY BODY FELT stiff, I could smell the fresh bread lingering in my nose, and the sweet salty smell of…I jolted up in bed as last night flashed through my head. My head spun like never before and I lay down again.
Get up, Blake. Dragons were coming and I didn’t know if they had escaped. Everything just stopped after that warning, a warning I fucking hoped he’d listened to.
I was inside a room. Drawn, black curtains covered the window. The room seemed familiar, like a dream, a memory, and then at once, everything I’d forgotten for such a long time entered my mind like a tidal wave.
I remembered everything, my father, my mother, Samantha, everyone that used to matter to me.
I was in my old room. The room at the manor.
Nothing was making any sense. What am I doing here? I shouldn’t be here.
Then another part I’d forgotten entered my mind. The way I’d treated her – the way she used to make me feel. It nauseated me and I jumped up from my bed and ran toward the bathroom.
I barely made the toilet as I vomited. Bile, it was all that came up, as I technically hadn’t eaten for who knew how long. My entire body felt weak. It trembled slightly as I hunched over the toilet seat.
“Blake?” My mom’s voice came from the bathroom door. “Thank heavens you are awake.”
“Awake?” I turned my head slightly toward my mom. This wasn’t right, none of it was. “What are you talking about, where the hell is Elena?”
She gasped and closed her eyes. “It worked.” She gave a sweet soft smile.
“What worked, where is she?”
“Calm down. We found you two weeks ago, Sunday, on her carpet, there was blood everywhere and I thought you were—” She took a deep breath as tears filled her eyes. “Dead, but Constance put two and two together real fast, said it was the bond, one that needed to be made a long time ago. She would’ve been worried if you hadn’t shown any side effects, but we hadn’t expected this.”
“Side effects, Mom what…” I remembered the day she was speaking about. The night I’d kissed Elena in her room. Something I thought I would never do.
I remembered wanting to be free. I didn’t want a rider at all. But when she’d finally spoken the words – that was when I’d realized I didn’t want to be free. I never wanted to hear her say those words ever again. I remembered the kiss and then – the blood. A cold finger traced down my back. I stared at my mom. “Where is Elena?”
She didn’t say anything, she didn’t have to. I could see it in her eyes.
“Mom!” My voice broke slightly.
“We don’t know where she is. She has been missing for the past two weeks. King Helmut has a search party out looking for her round the clock. Nothing.”
“Why didn’t you wake me?” I got up not knowing what the fuck was going on. My mind spun like a vortex, it made me dizzy and I leaned on the wall with my hand. Still, I was going crazy with thoughts about dragons that were near, wanting to kill her, and me warning Herbert like I always had. I’d spent sixteen years with them, without them even knowing it, invisibility is a bitch. And now my mom was rambling about two weeks. What was this?
It hit me like a tidal wave. The dent.
This is why George never spoke about the procedure. I thought it was a life sentence of slavery, a spell. Never in a million years had I thought it was like this. To live with your dent, to see her life like it was yours, to love her, first like a brother, then a protector, and then – it’s like you know nobody in this world is better for her than you, yourself.
Falling in love wasn’t easy either, as I couldn’t touch her or speak to her or tell her how I felt. She couldn’t see me then, for twelve years to be exact.
Still, I had spoken to her nonstop, even if she hadn’t heard a single word, and now she was gone. I understood now why we followed them everywhere they went, like puppies. Sixteen years of them not noticing us, pent-up feelings that could never be spoken, never be shared. It wasn’t a spell. It was real, and a bond that formed through years and years. Almost a lifetime.
Then the fear came again. I’d lived with this feeling for the past few years. When all the others found out about her and came to pledge their lives to protect her, when they started to die one by one, I knew something was wrong. Someone else who didn’t want her alive had found out about her existence, and that was when I realized I wasn’t useless after all. It was my fear of losing her that did it. My fear formed some sort of a force, one that connected with Herbert. Sure, at first it scared him when he was watching a TV show and the actor would suddenly address him and tell him that danger was near, that they were coming. That had been me.
I had no idea how I’d done it, but I had, and was glad after a while that he didn’t question it. The killings always ended up on the news, and he would know I had saved them.
If anyone knew how we felt about our dents, they would kill them to get back at us, and our lives would be over.
I had plenty of enemies.
Still, George was out for a day, not two weeks.
Tears lingered in my eyes. I had to find her, fast.
“Blake?”
I strode to my closet, pulled out a shirt and jeans, and covered my body with things I used to hate.
“We tried,” Mom said again. “You didn’t want to wake. Constance thought it was best to leave you.”
“Best to leave me? Elena is out there alone, Mom. I don’t even know if she is okay!” I stopped, closed my eyes as my head spun again. I couldn’t think of anything right now. She just had to be alive. “I need to find her,” I said, and with that, I willed my strength back and left my room.
I could hear her follow.
“You need to eat something, please.”
“I don’t have time.”
“I’ll make you something for the road, but you have to eat. Otherwise.”
She’d threatened me. “Otherwise what? You can’t contain me, nobody can.”
“Just eat!” she yelled, “Then you can do whatever you want for as long as you want, please.”
I chuckled. Her caring for me wasn’t a laughing matter, but doing whatever I want, that was. “I need to find her.”
“You are not going to succeed if you are not well. Eat, please.”
I took a deep breath. She was right. I was not going to be able to fly in my condition. I nodded, and heard a conversation that was taking place between Sammy and Becky.
They were worried too, that much, I could tell.
I entered the kitchen and four pairs of huge round eyes stared back at me.
“You’re awake?” George asked and got up.
I stared at him for a minute. My body was still trembling.
George saw it. “You need to eat, dude.”
“I’m working on it, just keep him here, please,” my mom begged as she made a huge racket taking out pots and pans and scurrying around the kitchen. It was driving me mad.
“Why didn’t you tell me it would be like this?”
“You know why, Blake. The walls have ears,” George answered.
I took a deep breath and blew it out. “I need to find her.”
“You need to eat first.”
“Yes, fine,” I barked at my mom. I marched to the bread bin and didn’t care about having something to put on it. I broke huge chunks out of it and just pushed it into my throat.
“Blake!” my mother yelled.
“I don’t have time for a five-course meal. I’ll eat on the way,” I mumbled through the food that was in my mouth and swallowed the lump down.
George ran to the fridge and handed me a bottle of juice. I drank straight from the bottle as if my life depended on it. It burned my throat, and I only just then realized how thirsty I was.
I could feel my sister’s and Becky’s eyes on me, but I couldn’t look at them. The old Blake had treated Elena like shit. And now I must look like an idiot. Still, they would never understand.
A cup broke as I finished the bottle. I found Tabitha standing in the doorway.
What was she doing here? Tears lingered in her eyes. She glanced at my mom. “You said it wasn’t going to be like this.”
“We had no choice. You of all people knew that he had to dent. He was getting darker by the day.”
“No!” she yelled at my mom and came rushing over to me. I retreated. It was a reflex. It made her stop, and she sucked in her lips with tears rolling over her cheeks.
“So it’s only her now?” she asked. “It’s not real! You said it yourself. Fight this.”
I felt sorry for her. I knew how she felt about me, and I wished it was different, but it wasn’t. “It’s not what you think.” I spoke to her softly. Her lower lip quivered. “I’m so sorry.”
“Then please explain it to me, because we’ve spoken about this for months. It’s a spell, you feel nothing for her. You love me, remember that.” She tried to touch my face, and I pulled away.
“It’s not a spell. I can’t, you just have to take my word for it. It’s over. Whatever we had, I can’t do this anymore with you. Now if you will excuse me, I need to find Elena.”
I turned around and walked out the door with her softly sobbing in the background.
Chairs screeched, and George was the first one to catch up to me.
“We tried to find her too, but when the first rain came, it washed away her scent. The last place we had her was on the border of Areeth.”
I frowned and we all stopped. “On the border of Areeth?” Those stupid elevators.
George shrugged.
“We will help you,” Becky said.
“Thanks, Becky.”
“Oh, so it’s Becky now.” She had that tone in her voice. One I couldn’t figure out if it was sarcasm or if she actually enjoyed this.
“Please, just don’t.” I knew I sounded rude.
“Take it easy, Blake,” George said.
I sighed. Closed my eyes, and knew exactly how he felt. I looked at Becky again. “Sorry.”
Both girls froze, and Dean’s eyebrows arched.
“Yeah, well, you all better get used to this because it’s not going to change anytime soon.”
