IT HAPPENED AGAIN, I dreamed about Seymour and Billy in Blake’s place. Once again they were trying to take me back to that hell hole. When I woke, Blake was at my side.
I started to cry as he wrapped his arms around me.
I sniffed hard and he released me. “Can I ask you a favor?” I looked past him.
“Sure.”
“Can you please get him out?” I was talking about his dragon form.
“Elena.” He sighed.
“Blake, I can’t do this with you, please. Just get him out.”
“He’s going to wreck this place.”
I shook my head. I didn’t care. I needed my dragon, not this guy who reminded me of someone I didn’t want to be reminded of.
“Okay, fine.” He grunted slightly and crawled out.
I waited for what felt like forever before I heard a tree crack and a swoosh sound before it fell to the ground.
I got out and saw him crawling closer to me like a puppy. He had really gotten so massive, the horns on his face and sprouts of hair hanging from his chin really made him such an ugly dragon, but all I saw was beauty. I was in awe of him.
His eyes weren’t red anymore, they were blue, a beautiful blue.
“At your service, princess,” he said in a deep voice that actually made me laugh. It was so hard not to think of Blake as the Rubicon. He wasn’t an entity inside of Blake, but they were so different. It was so confusing.
“I’m sorry, I just couldn’t handle Blake.” I sounded so stupid.
“Not to worry, you are lucky I’m on standby.”
The corners of my lips curled slightly. “Thank you.”
“So why the urgency?”
“Easy, I don’t feel safe with Blake.” I went to the log and sat in front of it.
The Rubicon lay flat with his paws tucked underneath his body, like a cat.
“I’m sorry, I know it’s probably not what you want to hear.”
“Don’t apologize, princess. I know he’s a bit arrogant at times and doesn’t always speak what is in his heart, but he will show you in his own, messed-up way that he does care about you. Just like I do.”
I looked at him and back at the fire, raising my eyebrows a bit, and decided to humor him. Who knew? Maybe they were different entities, sort of.
His head was that of a giant purple reptile, lying on his paws. His eyes were still open.
“Can you do me a favor?”
“Anything,” he said, which made me huff.
“Don’t say that, I’m not like that. I won’t order you around and force you to do what I want you to do.” I told him that so many time.
“Then what is it you want to ask?”
“To not call me princess.”
“It’s who you are. You are of royal blood, and not just any royal blood. Flowing through you veins is the blood of the greatest king that has ever lived. Your blood is magical. No other human being has that. It is a shame that you don’t want to be their daughter.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“Well, you don’t like to be called princess, but it’s who you are. You are my princess, and that Sun-Blast’s princess.”
I had to suppress my smile the way he said “that Sun-Blast’s”. “You talking about Emanuel?” He was really making it so hard not to see him as Blake. I made a mental note to keep reminding myself who the Rubicon was.
“They all are the same to me when in dragon form. You are everyone’s princess, but for some reason you don’t see or accept that.”
I didn’t say anything, and it was quiet for a while. The fire was busy dying out and he blew out a ball of pink flame on top of the wood. The fire glowed brightly once again.
“Elena, I’m sorry that I couldn’t find you. Something was so wrong with my tracking ability, still is. I really tried, and I know it will never be enough for you,” he said, and I regarded him.
I could see my reflection in his pupils through the flames from the fire. He was massive. No, massive was an understatement.
“Everything you went through in that wyvern city will never happen to you ever again, with God as my witness; if they have any redemption inside of them, He will hide them from my wrath, and He will never let me find them. You are safe as long as I live, and that is my Dragon Oath, Elena.”
I grunted. “What is it with all you dragons and your oaths?”
He smiled, or it looked like a smile, and gurgled which I knew was a laugh.
“I’m not the Moon-Bolt that will give you his oath every day, but that is one I’m willing to make so that you know I’m here always, even if you don’t feel that you need me.”
“I will always need you,” I said. I couldn’t believe it myself, but he reminded me so much of Cara. “Blake, on the other hand, is complicated.”
“Elena, I used to treat you worse.”
“Maybe.” I finally saw it now. “Not anymore though. I know what is going on now.”
The Rubicon froze, and all this sounded so stupid, but I couldn’t help thinking that Blake was just the vessel of this majestic dragon. The two were so different from one another. I couldn’t believe I was saying this, but it was how I saw things at that very moment. “He was sort of keeping you from me. I know what I did in that ring, you did yield and the ass refused to bring you out.”
He let out a huge huff of breath that almost blew out the fire, and lit it again with one of his fire balls. The fire spluttered again and silence filled the air. “Okay, so no Blake.”
“That’s not what I said. I know you can’t always be here like this with me, and that you need him, and I’ll find a way to make peace with him, somehow.” I stroked my face hard. His human form looked like Billy. How was I ever going to trust him completely?
“Why is it so hard, princess, to make peace with Blake?”
I huffed softly.
“He reminds me of someone in the wyvern city. Someone that pretended to watch out for me, but didn’t.”
He stayed quiet for a while. “I see.”
“I’ll find a way, it’s just going to take some time.”
“Well, if it’s any consolation, I know for a fact he has all the time in the world.”
“Yeah, we’ll see.” He is Blake, Elena.
“You want to try to sleep again?”
“I can’t. I fear sleep.” It barely came out but his super hearing heard.
“I have a plan, go get your sleeping bag.”
I looked at him.
“C’mon. I just gave you my Dragon Oath. If something bad happens to you, I have to be there.”
I got up and pulled my sleeping bag out of my sorry excuse for a tent.
I took it to him and he took out one of his paws and turned it around. If the Iron Throne in Game of Thrones had a matching bed, this would’ve been it.
I didn’t say anything, just laid my sleeping bag in his palm and crawled in.
When I was inside he moved his paw closer and turned his head so that his breath wasn’t in my face. “Sleep tight, my princess.”
I smiled and closed my eyes.
I woke up to a soft clucking noise and lifted my head. It had come from him. What was that? It didn’t make any sense but it was sort of soothing. I lay my head back down and went to sleep.
I’D SLEPT SOUNDLY and hadn’t dreamed about anything. When I opened my eyes, I was still in Blake’s paw, and I studied his sleeping figure, admiring every horn and every sprout on his face. Why was this so hard? His dragon form was so easy to talk to; his human form wasn’t.
It was as if the dragon wasn’t just the keeper of my abilities, but also the keeper of my nightmares. It was why he’d come to my rescue in almost every single one of my dreams.
I climbed out of his paw as gently as I could and put on my boots.
August had shown me how to make animal traps during our hunting expeditions. At first I hadn’t liked it much, but I saw it as a survival tool and right now, my stomach was growling.
I took out wire from my bag and looked for nice thick twigs to build the trap.
When I had all the supplies, I built a trap and waited with the end of the wire below a huge tree.
I still didn’t like trees much, but it was something I had to make peace with as well. They hadn’t done anything to me; they’d just become part of my nightmare’s décor. They were harmless and provided life, in most cases, rather than death. And they had helped me that night. I remembered that part, even though the other parts that had taken place after that were still blocked.
For the next half an hour I just thought about trees. What they were used for and how they were a part of life, with the oxygen they provided and how they were part of death too, the wood being used for coffins and altars, like Lucian’s.
It was so ironic.
I glimpsed a small rodent that had just entered the trap. I looked away then pulled the string, really hard. When I looked back, he’d been pierced by the spear of death – that was what August had called it – that was the main part of the trap.
The squirrel was dead. I removed it from the device I’d built, then quickly fixed the trap and caught another squirrel.
When I had three, I picked some wild herbs. Another thing August had showed me.
Rosemary grew everywhere in the wild. It would just have to do, and I hoped it went well with squirrel.
I went back to the camp. The Rubicon was still sleeping while I started to skin the squirrels.
August had taught me well during those first four weeks living with them. I just wished he’d showed me how to assemble a tent, but we’d never camped.
I cleaned the squirrels next then pushed a long stick through each one. After that, I made a fire with my pink flame. It came easily now and I watched the three sticks of meat roasting over the fire. As I sat there, I lost myself in memories of conversations I used to have with August that felt like a lifetime ago.
BLAKE
THE SMELL OF roast squirrel with some sort of a wild herb – rosemary – pierced through my nostrils.
I beamed as my eyes opened and I found myself still in my dragon form. I’d done it. At first I’d thought it was a stupid idea when Leo suggested it. I was the Rubicon, more than I was human; my dragon wasn’t exactly like Cara, but Leo had suggested I act as if he was. Elena would relate and connect with my dragon form, as she had with Cara.
I’d laughed it off, thinking she wasn’t going to buy it, but she had.
I still couldn’t believe it’d worked. Guess Night Seekers really were geniuses when it came to matters of the heart.
I lifted my head and found her sitting at the fire with three squirrels roasting over the flames.
“She hunts?”
Elena flinched a bit. “I’m not completely useless.”
“Never thought you were. Where did you learn all of this?”
“My experience in the wyvern city wasn’t all bad. I had a friend that taught me how to hunt in my first month.”
“A friend?” Seriously Blake.
“It’s not like that, so no need to go on a killing spree.”
I laughed, which sounded like someone drowning. “Not what I meant. I just wanted to find out about this friend, so that one day I can thank him properly.”
She remained quiet.
“You know, if you want to go and find that wyvern city, I will help you.”
She shook her head. “You have no idea what they do to dragons.”
“And here I thought that you remembered what it is I can do.”
She smiled. “I know you are a badass, but I’m not going to take that chance. It’s no use anyway.” She sighed.
“Why do you say that?”
“I tried to find it on the map but,” she sighed. “It doesn’t matter.”
That is why she’d searched the maps. She was trying to find the city. Of course she was trying to find it, but now I knew for sure. “They had the wyvern names wrong, I’m sure they have the city names wrong too.” I tried to put her at ease, to tell her to never give up. She cared about these people – about the one who had taught her how to hunt – the least I could do was support her and encourage her to keep looking.
“Yeah, that’s what I think too.”
“Tell you what, when you are ready, we can go to one of the wyvern cities and look around.”
“No,” she said and looked at me. “They…”
“Elena, I’m the Rubicon. I stopped them that night from killing everyone at the Academy, and there’d been many more of them than of us.”
“There were?”
“Yip, they fear the pink kiss.”
She laughed.
“What, you don’t like the name?”
“No, it’s just ironic. It’s not a kiss at all, it’s actually the opposite. You die if it touches you.”
“Yeah, you do, but I love all these abilities, and they needed cool names.” I lifted my butt and stretched out my torso.
She looked away with a curve in her lips. “One day, okay, not now.”
“One day it is.”
“I know this is probably going to sound stupid, but do you want to eat?”
“I’ll eat on the way, dig in.”
“C’mon. I’m not going to eat alone in front of you. One is probably enough.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“I know they won’t fill you up, I’m like what, three hundred squirrels short.”
I laughed again. “Something like that, but it looks like a good appetizer; it smells really good.”
She touched one of the squirrels gently to see if they were ready and took them off the flames.
She then stopped, shifted her gaze on me and a small unsure smile appeared on her lips. “How are you going to eat this?”
I chuckled. “Just throw one in the air. I’ll catch it.”
She took it off the stick and picked it up by one of the legs, throwing it upwards in my direction. I snapped my head backward and it landed perfectly in my mouth. It was hardly a crunch and then I swallowed it whole.
The other one followed, and it was a repeat of the first. She ate hers in a few minutes then stomped out the fire.
I sighed. “I have to get Blake to take over now, otherwise packing up, well, I will destroy everything, and I’m done with destroying things.”
She shrug. “It’s okay, I guess I’ll see you soon.”
“Yes, we have a good couple of flying and camping days still ahead.” I hoisted my body slightly so that I could crawl back behind the trees to transform.
“See you later then.”
I sighed as I crawled deeper into the woods, away from her. She was going back into her corner, and I hated that my human figure was the source of that. I really did fear that she was never going to trust the part I wanted her to trust the most, but trusting my dragon form, well, it was a start. Guess I’ll just have to become a dragon more often, until she is ready to fully trust me.
ELENA
I COULD HEAR the crunch of twigs and leaves as he was exiting the tree line. I sighed as he reached me, still sitting on the log, busy picking squirrel out of my teeth with a small twig.
“You okay?” he asked in that arrogant tone of his.
I frowned and wondered again about the two entities thing. Blake had looked at me funny that time on the mountains when I told him about my dragon form, not remembering. I sighed. “Yeah, I’m fine,” I said and got up to pack up my tent. I started taking out one of the supporting beams and my entire tent collapsed.
“Please, just let me assemble it for you tonight. You never know what could happen, and then we would be stuck with only one tent.”
We surely wouldn’t want that, I snapped inside my head.
“Did something happen last night?” he asked, and I turned my head. Seriously. What was he doing?
“What do you mean?” I humored him again. This was seriously so confusing. He was so different from all the other dragons.
“I feel different this morning,” he said, and looked nervous. He closed his eyes and shook his head slightly. “He did it, didn’t he?”
“Did what?”
“Made an oath,” he said as he started disassembling his tent.
“I didn’t force him, if that is what you want to know.” I really struggled with this. Why was he doing this?
“Well, it doesn’t matter anymore. I’m bound to whatever it is.”
I just stared at him. I really wished I didn’t have to deal with this arrogant side of him all the time. We packed in silence, and before I knew it, we were ready to move.
I followed Blake as he walked on a near-invisible path. I had to run-walk to keep up. He was really fast.
We walked for hours, not saying a word, and I couldn’t stop looking at all the massive green trees around us. We stopped at a peak and Blake took out a bottle of water and gulped it down. He handed me one too.
“We can rest here for a while,” he said as I put down my backpack.
I sat on top of it, just staring at the world below us. It was high, but beautiful, with mountains all around us.
Blake didn’t say a single word, which only made me more confused about his dragon form. After ten minutes, he picked up his pack again. He surely had one thing in common with Lucian; they didn’t know how to take a proper break.
Eventually, I couldn’t take the silence anymore.
“Can I ask you a question?” I said, and he didn’t even stop.
“Shoot,” was all that left his mouth.
“How are we going to get past the Creepers?”
“I don’t know. My ability to see into the future is just as messed up as my tracking ability.”
“Queen Margerite said‒
“It’s all far-fetched, believe me.”
Great, not the answer I was hoping for, but at least for now I knew none of his other mental abilities worked either. Especially the one that could’ve shown us that. Just add it to the Pile of Things to Hate Elena For list.
“We’ll figure it out,” he eventually said.
He was so in control, and I hated that about him. He made me feel as if I was a damsel in distress, utterly useless, which his dragon form didn’t. I hated being this confused.
We walked for hours and hours and rested three times. When it got dark, he finally decided to find a place for us to camp for the night and discovered a small cave. I had to wait outside while he made sure that it was safe.
When he came out he picked up the bag and went inside.
We didn’t have to set up the tents, just our sleeping bags. He made a fire again and went hunting. He came back with something that looked like a hog and a couple of fish.
“There is a river below, if you want to go and wash up, it’s not far from here.”
“Thanks, a bath would be great.”
“It’s the wild. There are no baths here.”
I just gave him my sarcastic look, rolled my eyes, and glanced away.
I took out my track suit and a towel. “Which direction?”
“Out the cave, follow the path, and you’ll find a spring.” He didn’t even look up.
I followed the path and found the spring. I washed, and once I was done, I went behind the trees to change.
I didn’t like knowing that Blake was so close by, or that he could be around, keeping an eye on me. I felt eyes on me, and as soon as I pulled up my pants and zipped my jacket, the creepy feeling of being watched disappeared.
I walked back to the cave and found him busy roasting the hog and the fish. We ate in silence, and after he tried to find reception outside the cave so he could phone Master Longwei.
The conversation was quick; he merely told him where we were and where we were headed tomorrow, and that was it. I crawled into my sleeping bag before he entered and pretended to have fallen asleep.
I could hear him crashing down onto his sleeping bag and then it was quiet.
I eventually fell asleep too, and was surprised that I didn’t dream about anything, which was a miracle in itself. I guessed I was way too tired to dream about Seymour and his crazy psychopathic plans.
I still couldn’t believe he’d killed his father, and knew there must have been a million reasons behind it, but Clive had been so kind – to me anyway.
When I woke, Blake was busy heating up leftover hog and handed me some. We ate in silence after I thanked him, and then it was off into the wilderness once more.
I discovered a long walking stick along the way and picked it up. It was easier walking with the damn thing, so I kept it.
I gave a deep sigh and stopped just in time before walking into Blake.
“What is it?” I asked as he kept looking to his right.
“Blake?” My heart started to beat faster remembering that dream I had in the SUV.
“It’s fine, it’s nothing to fear, Elena. It’s just that I think I found one of my orbs.”
