Starlight by Adrienne Woods
Sir Robert was busy with him for a long time and around ten I went to my room.
I couldn’t sleep and heard when Sir Robert said goodbye to Blake and closed his door.
His footsteps were soft but not as soft as his son’s and I could hear him pass my room.
I listened to the night sounds, how people were whispering softly in the darkness. How everyone started to fall asleep.
Then I got up. I don’t know why, but I needed Blake more than I think he needed me right now and I tiptoed back to his room. I knocked on his door as softly as I could, and heard him get out of bed.
He wasn’t as quiet anymore, and I knew it was because he was still weak.
The door finally opened and he smiled. He didn’t say anything as he stepped out of the way for me to enter.
I suddenly felt embarrassed as I crawled onto his bed. His father would kill him if he knew that I was here and he would probably take extra measures and let Master Longwei know that things between us were the opposite of what they used to be. But I was pretty sure Master Longwei had figured that out already.
He fell on top of his bed and my stomach flipped a million times as he wrapped his arms around me. I never thought that in a million years I would feel safe with anyone of the opposite sex ever again, or want to be with anyone ever again as much as I wanted to be with Blake.
His chin touched my forehead softly. He still smelled slightly of sulfur, but his own dragon scent was starting to seep through.
“Are you okay?” I had to know. He more or less told us what he went through, even if none of it was making any sense.
“I’m still a bit jittery, but I will be fine, Elena.”
I looked up at him. “You gave me the biggest scare of my entire life. When I only saw Tom and August with Nicky and Max, I knew immediately something had happened. It felt as if I couldn’t breathe.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered softly and then sighed. “Who would’ve thought that you’d actually give me another chance?”
I laughed softly. “I don’t think that I was actually given that choice.”
He chuckled.
“Everyone sort of pushed you on top of me, in a non-sexual way.”
“Sorry about that too. I actually tried for the opposite, to give you space and time. I needed you to trust me on your own turf and not through any of what the others said or wanted.”
“Why, why didn’t you show me that you had changed back then?” I pushed myself onto my elbow and looked down at him.
“Because you didn’t know this Blake and I didn’t want to scare you.”
I just smiled, and thought about what he’d said. It was actually extremely sweet and so selfless. “Well, I’ve got news for you. I actually like this Blake, a lot.”
He gave me a huge grin, one that showed his canine and I lowered my head closer to his and our lips touched slightly.
At first it was soft, gentle, as if I was scared that I was going to hurt him, but after a minute or two, the kiss grew stronger.
His lips caressed the skin on my neck, which flushed my entire body. Goosebumps rippled over every inch of my skin. It felt nice.
His hand slid over the side of my body and over my thigh. My leg shifted over his hip and our lips met again. The kiss was hard, greedy, as if he wanted to make me feel how much he needed me right at this moment, how much he had missed me when he was stuck in his pool of misery. His hand rubbed hard over my thigh again and he pulled me closer to his body until I was snug against him. His temperature still felt wrong. He wasn’t as cold as he used to be, a bit warmer, but it wasn’t his normal temperature. I missed that. Still, he was showing some progress.
My mind was going insane with need. How could this ever be happening?
A small grunt left his mouth and he stopped.
We were both out of breath. “Sorry, I got carried away.” He smiled and just looked at me with the softest stare.
He kissed me once more, softly on the lips. “You want something to drink?” he said and got up, making his way to his fridge.
“Let me,” I said.
“I can do this, Elena.”
I smiled. He was always pushing his limits. “Sure,” I said and sucked in my lip. What the heck was that?
I blew out a breath softly. He was driving me insane. Literally.
He handed me a glass filled with brandy and ice again and I took a sip.
“Okay, so why are you here?” he asked, with a slightly raised eyebrow and a huge grin on his lips. He sat down on the chair where I’d spent the past five days, watching over him as he slept.
“I couldn’t sleep.”
He smiled.
“That’s it.”
“No, I have been sleeping here the past five days. The minute Emanual forced me out of the room to get some proper sleep, well that was when you decided to wake up.”
He smiled. “I know the feeling Elena. When they found you, I stayed with you, but Matt wanted my statement and I had no choice but to leave your side. You woke up and found Sammy and Becky. I guess it was a good thing too, as I would’ve just scared you if you’d found me next to your bed.”
“Matt took your statement, why?”
“Because of what I saw through the two that found you, well actually through the dragon.”
I remember those two. Well, I don’t know what they looked like but in my mind they were the strangest couple I’d ever met. I chuckled as I remembered that the dragon was the softy that didn’t like being a dragon at all.
“What’s so funny?”
“The dragon.”
Blake chuckled too. “I left him with a mother of a headache and I’m still in his debt so I hope they don’t ask me to kill someone.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it.
“So you saw Billy?” I tried to change the subject.
“I actually smelled him first. And when I found him, he looked straight at me. I wanted to kill him so badly then but I made a promise to wait, but the oath doesn’t work like that. When I chose not to, I disappeared.”
I nodded slowly. “It’s my fault. You should’ve never made that oath.”
He came over and sat on his haunches in front of the bed. “It’s not your fault, okay? I made that oath all by myself, Elena. You didn’t put a gun to my head, and you didn’t force those words out of me either. It’s my fault. I didn’t know you were in Etan, and I should’ve known better that it wasn’t some sort of a death wish, but that my tracking ability was one of the strongest in Paegeia.”
“It’s the strongest,” I corrected him.
He grinned. “Okay the strongest.” He looked at me. It was so intense. “It wasn’t your fault, and I will make them pay. When the right time comes. I actually can’t wait to meet this Seymour.”
I flinched as he said his name just remembering all the bad things he’d put me through. “They got him on the buyo.”
“Wait, what?”
“One of the guys that went in with Emanual, when they gathered intel, the caught both Seymour and Billy on one of the buyos.”
Blake hugged me. “He will never harm you ever again. He won’t even see you again.”
“Still, Billy is your family. You must’ve seen it.”
“I told you before, Elena.” He let me go and looked at me again. “He’s no family of mine. Sure we have the same blood running through our veins, but he’s not family. And yes, I have seen his face.” He shook his head. “I thought you turned me into one of them the first time I started experiencing your dreams. It’s why I used my true form in all your dreams and not this one. It was his fault.”
My lips curved slightly and I nodded. He took my glass from me and put his own down, climbing back onto the bed.
We spoke about plenty of things that night, especially about the time I wanted nothing to do with him. How it’d made him feel, and what he’d gone through and done to make me feel safe and secure.
He told me about how they’d staged my release. I
I couldn’t believe he’d done that for me. Me. And it was a stage that I didn’t want anything to do with him.
I also desperately wanted to know how the hell he’d gotten Becky and Sammy not to tell me the truth.
“I’m a nice guy, people like doing things for me.”
I laughed.
When his watched beeped for the third time, I knew it was three o’clock in the morning and finally started to feel sleepy.
Then both of us became quiet, just like that and fell asleep. It was so easy now with him.
I dreamt of nothing but the soft purring noise of a cat that woke me.
I opened my eyes but found no cat. It was faint and I lifted up my head to see where it was coming from.
I turned around and looked at Blake’s sleeping figure as the cat was close to him.
I bent over his body, and stopped. I looked down at his chest. The noise wasn’t coming from a cat; it was coming from him.
I rested my head on his chest and started to smile.
It sounded so amazing and I was amazed by how little I really still knew about dragons even if I’d been one for a couple of months. I knew for a fact that I’d never done this.
My lips curled and a small giggle escaped, but it didn’t wake Blake one bit.
I just kept staring at him, at his beauty, and wished I knew what it would be like if I’d grown up this side, if both of us knew that I was his rider and he’d my dragon. Would he have been the same, or could it have been like this from the beginning? Acquaintances turning into friends, and later friends turning into something so much deeper…
For what it was worth, I knew I had just found my favorite sound in the world, as I could listen to him for hours.
THE SPOT NEXT to me was empty the next morning, but I heard soft voices coming from the table by the fridge.
He was speaking to someone. It sounded like Master Longwei, but I couldn’t see because his back was blocking the holograph.
“I’m glad you’re awake, Blake.”
“I think it’s time to start with the campaign, war is coming and we need all the people we can find to help.”
“We will, don’t you worry. I will set up a meeting with the Council and get you the publicity you’ll need to get all this started. Just rest, get your strength back.”
I lay my head back on the pillow. There was no resting with him. I wished that sometimes he could be like a normal person and just wait until he was one hundred percent ready before trying once again to save his world. Well, our world.
I heard Master Longwei say his goodbyes and closed my eyes again.
I could feel the bed shifting as Blake climbed back in and could feel his breath close to my face.
“Please don’t tell me you are one of those creepy stalkers who watch people sleep,” I said and he chuckled.
His lips brushed my cheek. “I knew you were awake.”
My eyes opened and I found his dark eyes on me.
I remembered the purring noise and smiled at him.
“Why are you smiling like that? You look like you just discovered my deepest secret.”
“Maybe I have.” I raised my eyes and he chuckled.
“Okay spit it out, what did I say?” he asked.
“Nothing, it is more like something you did.”
He squinted. “Did?” he asked.
“Something I only thought cats could do and now I know dragons do as well.”
He stared at the wall a couple of seconds and then looked back at me with a hint of a smile. “I purred!” He sounded surprised but excited.
I smiled. “You purred.”
He laughed.
“You didn’t know you could do that?”
He laughed. “No, I did, and it’s not the first time that you’ve heard it either.”
“It’s not?”
“You heard it in Aviant the very first time you flew with me.”
I tried to remember that day.
“When Becky asked me what the hell that was?”
I remembered the clucking noise and laughed as I remembered the very first time I’d heard it.
“No, that’s not the first time I’ve heard that sound.”
He looked at me with a broken smile. “It’s not?”
I shook my head. “I heard it on the mountain, scared the living crap out of me too,” I lied. “That is why George laughed.”
He nodded. “I used to tease him about it, that he was weak.”
My body shook.
“That was my dragon purr. The human one sounds similar to a cat.”
“You purred when I touched you,” I teased him and rolled with my body slightly on his. “You are so weak,” I goaded him.
He smiled with closed eyes as he played with my hair again.
“Yes, your touch makes me weak.”
I laughed and kissed his lips softly.
TOO SOON WE crawled out of bed. Blake got ready and came down with me to breakfast. Everyone was surprised to see him.
He was wearing his shades as the black in his eyes still made him self-conscious.
Whatever he wants, I kept telling myself over and over, knowing it was probably the best thing because if any of them recoiled, I would’ve incinerated their ass on the spot.
Connie made us breakfast. It was amazing, like always, with flavors I had to write down, because I had to find a way to recreate her recipes one day.
Not that I think they would ever let me near a kitchen because of the history that flowed through my veins, but I wanted to know the ingredients.
The worry and darkness surrounding Blake’s state and disappearance were starting to fade as George and Emanual made everyone laugh.
I could see a twinkle in Annie’s eyes every time Emanual opened his mouth to say something.
He’d promised her that he would help her getting in touch with her true from again.
When that was actually going to happen I didn’t know, and I silently wished that it would evolve into something more than just friendship, but it had to come from the heart.
Emanual had made it pretty clear he had given up on it.
I hoped it wasn’t the truth because Emanual and Annie were perfect for one another in so many ways.
After breakfast we helped Connie with the cleaning. She started to protest as I grabbed a towel, but Constance, Isabel, Becky, Sammy, and I helping make her work so much lighter.
Blake’s figure appeared in the doorway, as we were finishing up.
“I don’t need more help, go rest,” Connie scolded him and he smiled.
“I actually wanted to know if Elena would like to take a walk with me.”
“Please, take her,” Connie joked and I hopped off a tall chair at the long serving table.
I followed him outside the lodge and he took my hand in his. His temperature was slightly warmer than yesterday, which brought a smile to my face. It meant that he was finding himself again.
“So, why do I get the pleasure of your company on this walk?” I asked as I rested my head on his arm.
“I just needed to get out. Everyone keeps staring at the shades, wondering how bad it really is.”
“Is that your assumption or do you know it for a fact?”
His lips curled. “I’m good at reading people, Elena.”
“Assumption then.”
He chuckled softly and it turned into a sigh.
“Blake, it will heal. Your temperature is coming back too, I can feel it. And if it doesn’t heal, then we’ll deal with it. I’m with your mother on this. I’m not going anywhere.”
He smiled again and I brought my hand to his shades and took off his stupid glasses.
He didn’t like that at first, flinching as his body tense
“I meant what I said. I’m not going anywhere. It seems to me that you are the one struggling with this and not the others around you.”
“Yes, I’m starting to feel like an idiot again.”
“Well, you are.”
He laughed and pulled his hands through his hair as he looked around.
We entered the trees, walking towards the lake.
“Please tell me we are not going to fish again. My back and muscles ached for days.”
“No,” he grinned, “no fishing yet.”
“Good. So what is on your mind?”
“How do you know something’s on my mind?”
“I can sense there is more to this than just taking a stroll, wanting to get away.”
“There is something on my mind, you are right.”
“Then spit it out.”
He stopped beneath a huge tree not far from the lake and sat down.
I took the spot in front of him.
“You’re not going to like it.”
“Try me,” I said, but a part of me knew what he was going to say. If it was that, he was right. I wasn’t going to like this one bit and would order him this time not to do it.
“I have to get back into Etan, Elena.”
“No,” I said without thinking.
“Not now, but in a few weeks.”
“I don’t care Blake. The next time we go back is the day we free Etan, not a day sooner. I’m not going to lose you like that again.”
“Then come with me.”
I froze as he said that. I never thought that he would actually give me that opportunity. “It will be in and out.”
“Why?”
“We need to see what the reaping is all about, Elena. See who is alive still. Those were your father’s men. Maybe, just maybe we can see your father.” He spoke that last part softly. “It will only be you and me, nobody else.”
“And if you see them again?”
“We won’t go to Eikenborough, we will go to one of the other cities nearby that the parade travels through.”
“Blake, they know what I look like, we are going to stick out like a couple of sore thumbs.”
“Not if we use magic, Elena. I can transform our appearance.”