I WOKE UP SCARED out of my mind. Images of Lucian being killed by unknown men and a horrible feeling made me want to hurl. I closed my eyes tight and prayed for it not to be real, to be just a dream.
Sammy woke up too when she heard me and came over to my bed immediately when she saw me hugging my knees. “Are you okay?”
I shook my head.
“Bad dream?”
“It was Lucian.” I said.
She wrapped her arms around me tighter. “It’s just a dream, he will come back.”
“He’d better.”
She asked me about the dream and I explained to her what had happened. How real it felt as I watched them chasing him through the forest. How they finally caught him and started beating him with objects. There had been so much blood.
She looked concerned too, but knew that I had pretty messed up dreams to begin with.
“Go back to sleep. I’m going to take a shower. I’ll be fine.”
“You sure? I can stay awake with you.”
I shook my head.
When I came out of the shower the digital clock said it was 3:30. I wished that the main door hadn’t been locked. If there was one thing Paul Sutton knew what to do it was taking my mind away from Lucian and in the danger he was in.
I drifted away around four again and found the Queen once more standing right in front of those tall creepy trees.
I woke up when I felt something tugging at my bed and I found Lucian at my side.
I sighed out of relief and gave him a sweet smile but it disappeared the minute I saw the agonizing expression on his face. He opened his mouth but no sound come out.
I shook my head at his fractured image.
He repeated it again and was a bit out of focus for a couple of seconds before he came back strong.
He spoke again, and the only sound that came through was the word “danger”.
“I can’t hear you, what about danger? Are you in danger?” I said and could hear both Becky and Sammy’s gasp as they found Lucian at my bed.
“What are you saying?”
“Lucian…” Both sound happy to see him but their postures changed the minute they couldn’t hear sound coming out of his mouth.
“What is this?” Becky asked as I yelled again that I couldn’t hear him. I freaked out as he appeared and disappeared for the next four minutes.
“Elena, what is this?” Becky yelled.
“It’s a spell, Becky. It’s how Lucian and I have been communicating for the past couple of weeks. It’s never looked like this. What’s going on?” My hands were up in my hair as I waited for Lucian to appear again. He didn’t come.
“Something is wrong. My dream…”
“Calm down,” Sammy said.
“What dream?” Becky wanted to know.
“I had a dream about Lucian being killed.” I looked at her with panic in my eyes.
“It’s just a dream,” Sammy reassured me.
“Why couldn’t I hear him then? He’s in danger, I know it.”
“Just calm down.” Sammy hugged me tight as I cried and I could hear Becky saying Lucian’s name again. We both looked but there were no sign of him anywhere.
My head snapped back to Becky and I found her Cammy in her hands. There was nothing coming from it. That wasn’t new to me. His phone had been dead for the past month.
For the next three days I worried twenty-four seven about Lucian. I had a terrible feeling that he wasn’t going to come back.
I told Paul about my concerns and the dream but I left out the part about Lucian magically appearing as Sammy had told me to. Instead I said that he had phoned me and what we saw was his holograph.
Becky, Sammy and I didn’t know if that was an illegal spell Lucian conjured so he could speak to me and didn’t want him to get into trouble for using it.
“Maybe it’s not about Lucian being in trouble, maybe it’s the other way around.”
“What do you mean, the other way around?”
“It could be about us being in trouble. Maybe Lucian found something important and he wanted to give you a heads up,” Paul said practically. “You said it yourself, Elena, danger is near. Why else would I have found the Elementals so quickly?”
I knew Paul could be right. Maybe Lucian had tried to warn us of danger coming our way. He didn’t look as if he was in pain. He looked frustrated because I couldn’t hear him. “You think the hippogriff might come back?”
“It might.”
“We should tell Master Longwei about the Elementals, Paul. About everything.”
“Just give me a day or two. The Dusty and Tornado’s egg mixture are almost finished, and then we can take the Elementals to him.”
I nodded my head.
Paul tried his best to calm me down as I grew more concerned that danger might be coming our way and not Lucian’s. Still, I worried that he was wrong and that Lucian was facing death.
He even told the others what he thought and Paul decided to let Dean in on our secret for Sammy’s safety. He wasn’t going to leave my side with the thought of a hippogriff lingering in the woods.
The first time Dean saw the Elementals was more or less like the first time we saw them. He was over the moon and stared at all four of them for hours.
At night I was still worried about Lucian and the fact that he hadn’t appeared yet made it worse.
I lay on my bed with so many things swirled into my thoughts at the same time. Where was Lucian? What did he do? He was all alone on this quest to find the answer that could help Blake. Why was he doing this? Blake would turn, no matter what any of us were going to do about it. Eventually, Paul found his way in there too. What was our relationship going to be like? A part of me was crazy about Paul, but I loved Lucian. My heart ached if he wasn’t with me and I’d never felt so alone, even though I was surrounded by friends. I didn’t have any idea what I was going to do about all of this. Lucian never liked Paul and all of a sudden, before he left, he sort of told me that claiming a Wyvern might be cool.
He just wanted one thing from me, to wait for him to return before claiming him.
The date of Lucian’s foretelling jumped into my head. The 23rd of August. I was so glad that it wasn’t the 15th of July; then they would’ve all looked at me. It was my birthday.
I finally fell asleep and when I found the top of the hill again, the dragon stood beside the Queen. Both of them were ordering me with their pointy fingers to go into the forest.
I forced myself to wake up. Over the past few weeks I had really gotten good at it. Since I didn’t know what any of them wanted from me, I’d given up on finding the answers too.
Becky’s bed was still empty. She and George had spent last night with the Elementals. I had to say, Paul was really smart and didn’t want to leave the Elementals alone for one minute, so our shifts had changed. We didn’t leave them after their feeding; we simply waited for the next group to get there. For the past three nights all of us took turns guarding the Elementals because we were worried they might be the reason why the hippogriff decided to come back.
Lucky for us it was Saturday so we wouldn’t be missed too much.
Paul and I had the two and four o’clock shift to feed and play with the Elementals. Becky and George were scheduled to come at six and stay with them until ten when Sammy and Dean would guard them over night. Tomorrow we would take them to Master Longwei.
Around half past one, I met Paul in the cafeteria and we had lunch while we stole a couple of fruits and yogurts for both Kirby and Herby. The other two would be finished with their shell mixture tonight and they would have an early feeding tomorrow morning with real fruit before we showed them to Master Longwei.
My stomach turned just thinking about the consequences of us hiding them from him.
I took a huge breath as I zipped up the bag full of my food stash and found Blake dishing up. An urge to tell him about the cave jumped into my mind. I looked back and saw that Paul was still gone. “Look, I know you are not my babysitter, but Lucian asked me to tell you where I’m going if I leave with Paul.”
He just gave me a blank stare. It made my stomach turn as his peacock blue eyes searched my soul like they had that night we almost kissed over the summer, if it hadn’t been for Sammy walking in on us. Again, he was drunk.
I had to look away in order to carry on. “We are going to the cave that is past the lake,” I said and I left.
I plunged down onto the pillow by our table and glanced back to Blake who placed his tray of food on the table hard. He dug immediately in. When I saw Paul, I got up and met him at the door.
It was chilly outside and I hid behind Paul’s arm.
“I could get used to this,” he said as he placed his arm around my shoulder and rubbed it hard.
“Ha ha, if it wasn’t for the wind, I wouldn’t be hiding behind you.”
“Thank you wind,” he said a bit too loud. I smiled thinking he was like my own little furnace as we walked through the frigid air. His body was always warm and I couldn’t help myself but to take his warmth and transfer it over onto my cold bones.
We took extra precautions today and made sure that nobody saw us slipping to the cave. It took about twenty minutes longer than what it normally would with the strong wind blowing from the front.
“You are really quiet today.” I looked at Paul.
“I’m just on alert, Elena. If anything happens to you. I wouldn’t know what to do with myself.” He skipped over the first two rocks and held his hand out for mine.
I looked at the sky it was grey and I silently hoped it wouldn’t rain today.
He helped me up the slippery rocks to the entrance of the cave.
“After you,” he smiled and I squeezed in through the opening. I was used to the dark of the cave and could see some of the outline of the first chamber. Paul lit the torch and led the way to the second passage that led to the cave with the pond. A light shown ahead and I could hear George and Becky’s voices speaking to one another softly.
They jumped a bit as we entered the cave.
“Right on time,” George said. “Is it raining yet?”
“No, but if you hurry, you might miss it.”
“Let’s go, I so don’t want to be wet,” Becky said as she held out her hand to George.
“Enjoy,” George looked back at us as I dropped the pack on the floor.
Paul waved and had a grin plastered on his face. We fed Dusty and Tornado first. When Paul took off his shirt to go into the pond, I looked away. I didn’t want to deal with more distractions and I thought about Lucian again.
“Please, God, just let him be safe.”
I could hear Paul getting into the pond and I listened to Kirby’s clicking sounds as he took her out.
I started to make both of their meals with yogurt and watched as they lapped it up in a couple of minutes.
“I don’t have any chocolate,” I said to Herby as he rubbed up against my knee.
“You want to put Kirby back into the water? I don’t think she’s finished with her swim yet,” Paul said and I laughed as I took Kirby from his hands.
The rocks were slippery as I crouched and climbed down them with Kirby lodged in my arms. Her talons dug into my shoulder as she held on.
I held her just above the water and she glided into the pond.
I smiled as I watched her paddle slowly to the other side.
I gradually got up when I suddenly felt a rock falling onto my head. I looked up as my hand went to the spot where the rock had hit me and I put it in front of my face. Blood soaked my hands. I turned to where Paul sat with the Elementals and found him right next to me. He swung his hand fast and another blow hit me. My eyes rolled into the back of my head and everything around me turned to darkness.
