Starlight by Adrienne Woods
“Where the hell are you going?”
“You’ll see,” he said as we went higher and higher until we broke through the clouds and were on top of a bed of white fluff.
I gasped at its beauty. The fluff appeared solid, like one could actually stand on it and not fall through. The sky was the most beautiful blue with the sun sparkling slightly off Blake’s scales.
We flew past a flock of wild geese. I couldn’t stop staring at them, seeing how the wind beneath their wings kept them afloat.
My heart stammered from pure excitement.
“You missed this?” Blake asked.
“You have no idea.”
Silence followed for at least a minute.
“I’m sorry about Cara, Elena,” his voice was coarse, but different. I knew he meant it.
My heart clenched as I thought about her. I missed being with her, in the sky. “She was never supposed to wake up, Blake.”
“It’s not what I mean,” he said. “I’m sorry that you had to kill her in order to claim me.”
I thought about that night immediately. The night I had to say goodbye. I hated him so much back then. “It’s in the past,” I simply said and he left it there.
None of us spoke for a long time and for the first time ever I wished that I could hear what was going on in his mind. To know what he was thinking, what he was feeling, the way he used to connect to my emotions.
I closed my eyes, and tried to embrace this feeling. It was our very first flight and I really didn’t want it to be a sad one.
I opened them again when I felt a change in the direction and saw mountains.
I noticed they weren’t any that I remembered as he aimed for a landing. The treetops were right below his paws, and then he just disappeared, revealing an opening where he could land.
He stopped in midair, and his wings flapped once again, making a huge whooshing sound until we were safely on the ground. It was a graceful landing, even if he was a hulking giant of a dragon, and I slid off his wing, which was extremely fun and much easier than climbing on.
“That was fun!” I said and turned away from him to look around. It was a meadow and the sun shone brightly on all the boulders around us. The sound of a stream could be heard nearby and the scent of wet moss lingered in the air.
Trees covered the rest of the mountain. It was simply beautiful and I hated the fact that I didn’t know all of Paegeia’s beauty yet. “Where are we?”
He didn’t reply, and when I turned back to him the dragon was gone and I was in his arms.
His lips brushed mind softly, and then it broke into a kiss.
I wasn’t even afraid. I felt safe with him, like nothing on this earth could ever harm me again as long as he was alive. His kiss grew, not vigorously like that time in my room, but deeper. His kisses were AMAZING.
It made me feel all sorts of things at once. It made my stomach flip, it made me want more, and I forgot where and who I was. Nothing mattered anymore.
The strong smell of fire and acid mixed with sweet musky essence filled my nose. It was a real dragon smell, and so strong, but I couldn’t stop kissing him, and when our breathing became heavy, he stopped.
My back was against a tree, something I hadn’t even felt when he pushed me against it. My eyes were still closed and I knew he was buck-naked.
A chuckle escaped his lips. “Sorry about that.” He spoke softly, which made me smile, but I refused to open my eyes.
“You really need to get used to me being naked, Elena. It’s the most natural thing in the world,” he said close to my ear, which brought on a million goose bumps.
“You clearly haven’t been on the other side of that wall.”
He laughed. His lips brushed mine softly and he gave me a peck on the lips.
He inhaled deeply. “Fine, I’ll only be a minute.”
I opened my eyes when I heard his feet breaking twigs and leaves and I couldn’t help but watch his retreating figure.
I blushed scarlet as he was really buck-naked.
He disappeared behind another set of trees and I sat down and leaned against the one behind me.
It was really peaceful. The only sound was the sun baking on beetles.
Twigs snapped and I looked toward the direction Blake disappeared a few minutes ago. He was walking with a backpack in his hands, wearing a shirt and a pair of jeans.
“How did you…?”
“I told you before, I’m always prepared.”
“You planned this, didn’t you?”
“I’m a guy of many talents, and had free time in Art of War.”
I laughed as he came to sit next to me. “About that, everyone wants to know how long are you planning on staying a dragon?”
“I told you before, Elena, dragon is what I am.”
“So for a long time?”
He cocked his head and took a water bottle out of his pack, opened it and took a couple of gulps. “Until you break that stupid Tabitha promise.”
I smiled. “Blake, I feel really bad about that. She really loves you and I know you love her too. I’m not stupid.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Elena, I broke up with her about five months ago.”
“What?” Why did she ask me…? My jaw muscles jumped slightly as I thought about her interrogation. “But you are always with her.”
“To give you space. I couldn’t hang with you guys because of how you felt, so I hang with them.”
“No, I saw you guys.”
A huge grin broke over his face.
“Not what I meant, okay? But yes, I looked in your direction from time to time and you guys still looked like the happy couple you always were.”
“We were never a happy couple, Elena. Sure she has been one of my friends for a long time, but that was about it.”
“One of your friends?” I raised my eyebrow.
“Fine, friends with benefits, but it wasn’t real. She knows how I feel about her and how I feel about you.”
I took a huge breath and stretched out my arms in front of me. I told myself that I wasn’t going to fall for this and still felt that the Dent was a stupid spell. I buried my face on my knees. “Tell me how it works, please,” I mumbled.
“You need to be patient, Elena.”
Our eyes met again. “There is nobody here. Wield your shield or something.”
“Shields can be penetrated.” He looked with huge eyes and a slight smile at the trees.
“They don’t have ears.”
“We are inside Paegeia.”
“Then how do I trust this, Blake?”
He frowned slightly. “Trust what?”
“You can’t be mad at me. I can’t trust this.”
“You want me to become my old self again? I might just love the dark again and then you’ll have to spank me,” he joked.
I wanted to laugh, I really did, but this was a serious matter. “It’s not a joke. I’m serious.”
“I’m too, it’s real,” he simply said and touched my fingers. “And if you don’t believe that, then give it time.”
I just looked at him. “Time!” I pulled my fingers out of his hand and pushed myself from the ground, wanting to leave, but I couldn’t. I was here with him. I turned around. “For what, so that I can fall even harder for you and for you to just tell me again you don’t want me whenever this wears off?” My hands were everywhere in the air. I shook my head and pulled my hands through it, just to calm down.
I turned away from him because I couldn’t look at him. Pissed at myself again for telling him how I felt about him and about all of this. I was just opening myself up for more disappointment. I couldn’t trust this, I shouldn’t. I needed to know what the Dent was all about before I opened myself to him again. I needed to know how it made them change, where their love for their riders came from.
His arms wrapped around my waist from behind and his breath was in my ears. It really felt so good having him so near me. I grew so used to this, so quickly.
I turned my neck and looked at him. Whatever I need? Who was this guy?
“Give it time, I’m sure that the bond will mend, hopefully soon, and I’ll show you that the Dent isn’t some spell or enslavement. Okay?”
I nodded and took a deep breath. I turned around and rested my head against his chest. I could feel his lips brushing my head softly.
“Now, there are a couple of things I have to get off my chest,” he said and I looked up at him.
“Like what?”
He didn’t say anything. “Blake?”
“About who I used to be, Elena, the way I treated you ever since that night I woke up when Matt brought you here.”
I knew about that, it was the story he’d started to tell me a couple of months ago when he’d trained me to kill him. It sounded so stupid now thinking about it.
“You don’t need…”
He pressed his finger on my lips. “Shhh, just shhh,” he said and led me to the nearest boulder.
I sat down and he took the ground below me. His arms rested on his knees and for a few seconds he didn’t look at me.
“What I said on that mountain was the truth.” He looked to the ground. “I woke up that night, I went to investigate. I had no idea why I woke up and I couldn’t understand this feeling that was inside of me.” Our eyes met again. “Matt told me about you, how you looked like King Albert, all the professors were gossiping about that. Wondering, Constance was the worst. Many had their features, Elena, many and not one turned out to be some sort of a descendant. I told myself over and over, it wasn’t the reason I woke up.” He smiled and then he sighed.
“There were others that looked like them.”
“Not the way you do, but yes. They either shared one of your mother’s features or your father’s eyes. It was always his eyes, never anything else.” He rubbed the side of his mouth hard, as if he was thinking. “He told me about how he found you, that your father had phoned him. He didn’t even know how he had his number. He was about to meet the both of you at some sort of destination on the other side but you never made it, and then Herbert phoned saying that dragons were attacking and that you guys needed help.”
I nodded.
“He used to tell me about Fox way before your father found a way into the picture, and wondered if it wasn’t linked to you, but I told him it couldn’t. My father would’ve known. To be honest, it scared the living crap out of me, the way he spoke about you, the way it worried him.”
“Tanya told me about Fox, how many came and vowed to keep me safe.”
“Fox knew, Elena. He was older than Irene, at least three times her age.”
“He was a thousand years old.” I remember the guy of that night on Interstate 40. He looked in his mid-twenties.
“He wasn’t like Irene, he was dark. Didn’t want an alliance with the humans. We would never know what he did, but we can easily put two and two together. None of that mattered, though, as nobody born this side could leave—well, no human.”
He smiled softly. “That should’ve put some ease on my mind, but it didn’t. I lay in bed, wondering why the minute he brought you here, I woke up.”
This was intense. Was our bond really that strong?
“I wondered about that the entire night and the next day, I knew why.” A grin formed on his lips. “When you walked out of the cafeteria and stood next to Becky, in awe of everything around you, the feeling of what had taken place inside of me was so intense. It felt as if I was getting crushed, I couldn’t breathe, but I hid it from all the others, and I just knew. I didn’t even worry about how they’d gotten you to the other side. They were King Albert and Queen Catherine, the smartest people I ever knew. Everything that they’d done for me in the past, the warning glares, even the soft ones, it all made sense.”
“You saw me that day?” I remembered that day clearly. He’d stood out from all of them and I’d stared like an idiot.
He smiled as if he could read my mind. “Yes, and I have to say that little moment you had before Tabitha flipped you off, it was extremely hard not to look back, Elena.”
I felt so embarrassed. Of course he knew that I’d stared at him.
“Well the dick part of me knew about what had happened as Matt had told me everything. And I know I told you I didn’t know, but I did know that dragons attacked and that one was Fox. I wanted to scare you. I wanted you to lose your mind so that you wouldn’t gain confidence to do what it was you had to do. I wanted to break you.”
I swallowed hard as he said that, knowing that he’d lied, said that he didn’t know when I’d asked him back then.
“I was messed up back then, Elena. The dark had its claws inside of me already and I didn’t want you close to me.”
I stared at him with soft eyes. He was staring at the boulder again and then looked at me.
“Remember when I told you that Lucian made me sick whenever he was near? That light, that pure heart he carried, his good intentions.”
I nodded.
“It was worse with you, so I had to do everything in my power to make you keep your distance.”
“I made you sick?”
“It wasn’t like that. I don’t know how to explain it. It was pure hatred, because I knew who you were and I didn’t want to be claimed. I thought I didn’t need a rider and that the beatings would be so much better than you claiming me.”
I took a deep breath through my nostrils. I loved the honesty but I didn’t like that it was so direct, and coming from him, well it hurt knowing that I’d been right. He did hate my guts.
“When my mother told me that a Wyvern was attending Dragonia and claimed to be your dragon, I was out of my element. I knew that it would throw you off, but I also knew that Paul’s intentions were wrong. Still, I didn’t care.” He shook his head.
“Why are you…?”
“Just listen, you need to understand what it was you did for me, Elena.”
I nodded, but I really didn’t want to hear this.
“I watched how everyone started to trust him. It was like a game, one I loved so much. And then you just had to say THAT.”
“What?”
“That you were hearing a voice in your mind.” He shook his head. “I didn’t like that one bit and I had to know if it was mine, so I kept tabs on you, in class and in that one lecture about the Green-Vapor, well I knew the answer and I knew you didn’t, you couldn’t, so I sent it to you and of course you answered.” He smiled. “I can’t recall if I’ve ever felt so disgusted with everything we shared as I did that day.”
“Disgusted?”
He closed his eyes. “Elena, just listen.” He sounded slightly annoyed and I kept my mouth shut. He opened his eyes again. “I never wanted this. I am the Rubicon, for crying out loud.” He chuckled once. “They had to kill Quito because he couldn’t be tamed. And here they send me a girl that didn’t even know that dragons exist. You know how unworthy that felt?”
I could relate to that. Nicole had tried to claim me once, she wasn’t worthy either.
“But then out of the blue, Lucian told me the crazy mission you were planning after the King of Lion sword was stolen, and I had to go and see if you were serious about finding it. So I told him I would come with.”
He chuckled softly. “You pissed me off so much when you told me that no man could enter that cave, and I silently wished that you would fail, even if it meant that the sword would be lost, but then you came back out, seconds after you went in. I didn’t understand any of it. It was like you just couldn’t die, that fate was forcing this upon me.” He sounded frustrated, and spoke a lot using his hands. His voice fell octaves lower and he sounded calm again. “But it was also the first time I felt that you were worthy. Something I’d only felt with Lucian.” He sighed again.
“Still, I fought against this, as I didn’t want to become a pathetic lamb, to succumb and become someone’s property. I was the Rubicon, the baddest dragon out there.”
Yeah, so you’ve said a couple of times. A part of me was pissed off with him. So many people had died. “So you lied to everyone, even to me that night when I asked you if maybe there was someone out there?”
He chuckled. “Didn’t you hear what I just said? I had to say that so that you wouldn’t put two and two together, Elena.”
I nodded.
“Lying to everyone wasn’t my biggest sin, and I fear one day you would discover all the shit I’ve done, you won’t want anything to do with me.”
I felt bad again for him. I would never judge him like that, or turn my back on him because of what he had done in the past, I’d killed three people for crying out loud.
“My dark side didn’t want you. It didn’t want to go back to being good, but I still carried a bit of good. That night, I didn’t know how much. But when that Dragonian stabbed you, I wanted to scream like Lucian because he was killing my last chance of fulfilling my destiny. I knew your axes would kill him because they had your blood all over them.” He looked at me. “Yeah, I believed Cheng’s theory too. Even if everyone thought it was far-fetched, to me it wasn’t. I knew your parents well and they were magical, Elena. I hope that one day you will get a chance to see the man your father is.”
I didn’t want to hope. I wanted to meet him for real so badly, but what were the chances? One of us was going to die. I didn’t want it to be him, and if it was me, I would never get to meet my dad for real.
“It became evident when your axes hit his chest and turned him into a pile of dust who you were. Even though I knew, I always had that doubt. It was why I didn’t think twice when it was all over to get you the help you needed.”
“Master Longwei told me about that. He said that you almost died flying so hard to get me back to Dragonia, and then you refused to let me thank you.”
He flinched as I said that. “Elena,” he said, rubbing his face. “It was the time I really regretted it.”
I huffed. I always knew he never really wanted to save me, but hearing it out loud was different.