WE LEFT BECKY’S house around midnight. Lucille offered to have the Leaf’s stay the night, but I guessed Sir Robert was too proud to accept.
I messaged Lucian, knowing that he would get it in the morning, but the need to tell him about tonight and my little episode with the Fire-Powder became my number one priority. I wondered what he would say when I told him that I was going to be able to resist and wield fire. It was so frawesome.
I went to the bathroom once we got back to the house and sat down on the edge of the bath. I started to have a conversation with my Cammy as it would transform it into words and Lucian would be able to read it in the morning. “Love you, see you soon. Message end!” I said the command and then it beeped again, asking for the person’s name to send it to. “Lucian McKenzie.”
I put my phone down on the basin carefully and looked in the mirror across from me. My hair looked like a mess and my face had a dirt spot just below my chin. Isabel had taken care of all the scrapes and I opened the tap to wash the dirt off with soap. When that was finished I took down my hair, pulled a brush through it and tied it back into a pony.
My phone rang just as I was finishing and Lucian’s name blinked all over the screen.
I opened it and worry lines appeared around Lucian’s eyes and mouth. His brows furrowed as he looked at me. “What do you mean hippogriffs attacked you at the Warbel games?”
“Calm down, it wasn’t hippogriffs, it was the Warbel dragons. They were compelled.”
“Elena, dragons can’t be compelled.”
“I know, we think it is Goran or someone that is becoming just as powerful as him.”
“That can be, are you sure?”
“You think I’m lying?”
“I didn’t say that. It’s just never happened before.”
“Says the boy who grew up with dragons. Now there are hippogriffs too.”
“How does the hippogriff fit into this?” He ignored my previous comment.
“Blake chased one, he’s grown ten times bigger than the last time we saw him. He’s huge, Lucian.”
He bit the side of his mouth and looked at something on the ground. When he finally glanced up again he asked, “Is Blake there?”
“No, he’s with the Viden.”
“I’ll phone him. Don’t drink Fire-Powder again. You’re not a dragon.” He’d said the same thing as Blake before his face disappeared.
“Yes, Mom,” I spoke to the black screen annoyed.
After our conversation, I went back to Sammy’s room. We spoke for another two hours about everything that had happened. She told me about her conversation with Dean, who had also been there, they had a VIP box so he saw everything. He wanted to help so badly but the VIP Boxes locked whenever anything bad happened and only an elevator leading out of the mountain opened. She spoke again about what it was like when her and her Dad had tried to push the dragons away with their gifts. Hearing her version of it did make it sound as if they were aiming straight at me and Blake.
“Lucille was right,” Sammy spoke carefully. “They wanted to kill all of us, starting with you. Now that I think about it, it makes sense. Goran said he couldn’t have wannabe’s running around when he finally broke out of Etan. So eliminating us would be the first thing he would do.”
I’d never felt this confused before. I’d thought he was dead, and tonight I’d discovered that he was still out there, trying to kill us all over again.
We’ll never be safe.
A shiver went up my spine as I thought about the day he had thrust the knife into my stomach over and over again. The image it conjured in my head was too much and I rolled over onto my side and closed my eyes
MY CAMMY RANG early the next morning, waking me from my restless sleep. I picked it up, and Lucian’s face with perfect hair and everything smiled back at me. Who else would it be? “Are you still asleep?”
“How can you not be?”
He chuckled. “I told my father what happened. We’re coming home. The Council is going to meet at the castle around twelve. They’re going to get to the bottom of all this.”
“You phoned me just to tell me that,” I said pushing the sleep from my eyes.
“I’ll see you around twelve.” He grinned and his face disappeared. I tried to go back to sleep but I couldn’t so I went into the bathroom.
The bath I took worked, it woke me up and my mind started to think like a normal person’s once again. The reality of Lucian coming home had finally sunk in. I couldn’t wait to see him.
Twelve o’clock couldn’t come fast enough as I waited in anticipation. The clock on the wall was dragging and each second that ticked by felt like hours.
At eleven forty-five, Sammy and I walked to the park near her house.
We found Dean waiting for us under a tree. His Ascending had turned him into a god, I didn’t want to imagine what Lucian would look like when he Ascended. It wasn’t like their appearance changed that much, it just enhanced the beauty they each carried and for some reason made others struggle to look away.
Dean gave me a wave and wrapped his huge arms around Sammy, giving her a soft kiss. They really made a beautiful couple. We started to speak about the Warbel games as we waited for Lucian and he sounded so upset that he wasn’t able to be there for Sammy.
“Dean, you didn’t have a choice, besides, the mayhem would’ve been over by the time you reached us.”
“Still, Sammy, I could’ve helped.”
“I know you could’ve,” she said in a sweet voice and gave him another hug.
I glanced at my watch and it showed twelve.
Where the hell are you?
My stomach started to ache. Something’s happened. Lucian wasn’t the type of guy that ran late.
Before my mind could conjure up any scenarios, a pair of arms grabbed me by my waist and turned me around. When I smelled the cologne of my favorite person in the entire world, all my worries evaporated. Our lips touched and he lifted me from the ground. My legs twirled around his waist like a pretzel. Now I know how Becky felt that day when George finally had his arms around her.
Our lips parted and I laughed because he was wearing a hoody too. Only his nose and chin stuck out from the soft cotton fabric. “I’ve missed you so much,” he growled and hugged me tighter. He kissed me again as if we needed to make up for all the days and weeks we hadn’t seen each other.
“Please tell me there isn’t a fishing trip or fairy hunting coming up in the next few days,” I spoke against his lips playfully.
“Nope, I’m all yours.”
“YAY!” I said and my arms grabbed him around his neck tighter and I smacked my lips on his again.
Sammy cleared her throat, breaking our embrace suddenly.
Lucian chuckled. “Sorry Sammy,” he looked around and I saw Dean leaning against a tree as my feet found the ground. “Dean, what are you doing here?”
Dean just chuckled as he pulled Sammy closer to him and reached out his hand to give Lucian a slap shake.
“What else did I miss?”
“Nothing, I kept you up-to-date daily.”
“You’re up-to-dates suck.”
I punched him playfully in the gut as his arm found its way around my neck.
“So did your Dad find anything yet?” Sammy asked.
“They are busy as we speak,” he explained as we sat down underneath the nearest oak. “Master Longwei and your father had just arrived as I was sneaking out.”
“Still sneaking out?” The tone of my voice was soft.
“Hey, they’ll come around. I promise.” Lucian gave me a soft squeeze on my leg. His parents, who were the King and Queen of Tith, still hadn’t approved of me yet. I was starting to think they never would, but I had to be as positive as Lucian.
“They’d better. I’m not going to give you up to that cow.”
He hugged me tighter. “That won’t happen, my parents will love you the minute they meet you.”
“Lucian, they don’t want to meet me.” I gave my sarcastic laugh to hide what I really felt; pain, anger and not to mention how unfair the whole situation was. They didn’t want to give me a chance with him because two years from now, he needed to marry Arianna Kingsley, the Princess of Areeth, so that Paegeia could have one ruler again. It was so stupid. We didn’t live in the dark ages anymore.
“Well, they won’t have a choice, Elena. They’ll meet you at the revealing.”
Urgh! I forgot about the stupid revealing. It was going to take place in a couple of days.
“It’s going to be okay,” he said for the umpteenth time.
A bell rang not far from us and I saw my favorite thing in the entire world. Where Lucian was my favorite person, Bernie’s Ice Cream Wagon had my favorite thing. They had the most delicious flavors of ice cream imaginable.
“You guys want ice cream?” Lucian already had his wallet in his hand and was taking out a wad of money.
“I’ll go,” I grabbed the money from him and took a mental note of what everybody wanted. “Don’t disappear.” My finger lingered a couple of inches from his face.
He smiled as I went to “Bernie’s All Flavors Ice Cream” chart. I bought four cups for the group. The cones had some magic ingredients that once you took a bite, it grew back. The first time I tried one I ate so many cones that I had felt sick, I hadn’t eaten them since.
Sammy wanted a Fire-Powder one, and Dean had a raison-mint with a shot of rum. It smelled nice as a draft blew some of the aroma into my nose. Lucian loved his chocolate and had requested the one with chocolate bits inside. I was a strawberry freak. Pieces of real strawberry and another type of purple berry made this flavor my kind of Fire-powder. It was addictive.
“So, Fire-Wielder,” Lucian asked as we sat underneath a big oak eating our ice cream.
“You’ve Ascended too?” Dean asked with a twinkle in his big brown eyes.
“No, not yet, but apparently I’m one.”
Dean just frowned, clearly not getting it. Sammy told him about the Fire-Powder incident last night and the reason she’d had to cut their conversation short.
Dean’s eyes grew wide. “Are you insane?”
“Nothing happened!” I said. “It burned like hell, but that was about it.”
“Master Longwei said she must be close to Ascending. Only Fire-Wielders can take a sip and be okay.”
“So, I’ll be able to take Fire-Powder and be okay?” He looked at Sammy with soft eyes.
“Maybe,” Sammy said.
“It really burns the living crap out of you. I thought my ears, throat and stomach were on fire. Lucky for me, Sammy’s mom was close by.”
“We decided that Elena and I are going to team up when that happens,” Sammy said excitedly.
“What about me?”
“You’re my boyfriend. It would be so weird,” Sammy spoke with a spoonful of ice cream in her mouth.
“George and Becky are together.”
“Yeah, but George and Becky didn’t date before.”
“That just sucks, Sammy.” He teased her.
“You’ll get over it.” She joked back and he smiled. “Besides, you have blue fire. You can claim a Sun-Blast.”
“I don’t want a Sun-Blast. They are vile creatures.”
We all gave him a look. Brian was a Sun-Blast.
“Except for Brian. He wasn’t so bad when he wasn’t speaking to you in third person.”
We all laughed as we all had our various experiences with Brian.
“What if Elena has blue fire?” Lucian asked Sammy.
“What does blue fire mean anyway?” I interrupted.
“All the fire breathers have a different type of fire,” Sammy explained. “Mine, is red, well orange since I haven’t mastered my red flame yet. I’m not scary enough or something.” Lucian and I laughed. “The Sun-Blast’s fire is blue.”
“There is no way I’m going to claim any dragon, especially a Sun-Blast.”
“They come with a lot of fortune, Elena,” Lucian said.
“So do you.”
A smile broke over his face at my comment. “Point taken,” Lucian took another spoonful of ice cream.
“Still she can handle mine even if hers is blue,” Sammy said in her matter of fact tone.
Dean wanted to say something but left it and pushed a spoon heaped with ice cream into his mouth.
“Are you really that bummed?”
“Yeah, you’re one hell of an amazing dragon, Sammy. You’re not scared of anything. You should hear how the Fire-Wielders talk about you.”
“Really?” both of us said in unison.
“Really.” He chuckled. “I hope you can fight, because Metallic or not, a couple of them are going to challenge you in the ring.”
“Let them come. I’m a Metallic. I’m going to choose my Dragonian no matter what it takes, and I choose Elena.”
“So you’re trying to tell me we are going to be stuck with you forever?”
Sammy started to smack Lucian a couple of times. I laughed at the way he tried to defend himself. It was hilarious.
“You can thank your lucky stars it’s me and not a Sun-Blast, Your Highness.”
Lucian pulled up his lip at her. He hated it when people call him that.
WE SAID GOODBYE to the guys around five. Lucian said he would phone me when his father had decided what the next step would be.
At six my Cammy rang interrupting a particularly interesting show I was watching with Sammy.
“They’re going to guard Dragonia.” His face looked a bit worried as he spoke.
“Is that bad?”
“Well it’s taking precaution. Everybody thinks you guys were the target. So my Dad and King Caleb just want to take extra measures with protecting all of us. I told you Arianna would have a part in all of this. If she wasn’t part of the mission, King Caleb wouldn’t have insisted on it.”
“Yay, Arianna,” I said it a blunt tone.
“Does your Dad think Goran is behind this?” Sammy asked.
“He thinks so but he doesn’t want to say it out loud. He refuses to believe that there is another magic wielder with his kind of power.”
“He broke free?” I needed to know.
“No. If he did, we would’ve known. Goran isn’t the coward type. But he definitely has allies doing his dirty work for him again.”
“That’s just great,” Sammy said.
“Blake took Emanual and my father to the site where he saw the hippogriff. The feather is real and my Dad is really worried about the fact that Irene couldn’t see what happened. He thinks it’s some sort of a cloaking spell making it difficult for her to look into the past.”
Silence filled Sammy’s room as the news sunk in.
Lucian’s holograph looked over his shoulder at someone behind him. “I’ve got to go. See you tomorrow, Sweetheart.”
“See you.”
“One thing I can say; nobody will forget the two-hundred-and-fifth opening of the Warbel games.”
We both laugh at him as his face disappeared. I fell on my bed and let all of the madness of the last few days consume me.
