“What do you mean by again?”
“You already showed me that.”
“No, I would’ve remembered if I had.” He had a sheepish, yet confused smile on his face.
I laughed, but it disappeared. It had to be real. “That day in the forest. I thought you were going to say goodbye to me. It looked as if you were hiding something.”
He squinted.
“I even told you that it didn’t make sense. That if you were there.” He put his finger on my mouth this time and closed his eyes. Images of that dream flew into his mind.
“Yes, that.”
That was you?
“Who else would it have been?”
He showed me something else. That it was him or he’d thought it was him imagining that. I saw the picture of me lying on a bed, with a machine breathing for me. The emotion with that was hard to explain, it was tormenting, it made it hard to breath. He was lying next to me as day and night kept moving fast.
“I don’t understand.”
I did that so many times in that first month, wanting to connect with you, to bring you back. I needed to hear your voice, even if it was my own doing. I didn’t care.
An image of that day and that kiss I’d given him, it had felt real to him, so strong. He should’ve known that it was real. He’d left that day.
I just looked at him, “You really tried that more than once?”
“Every time I possibly could,” he spoke out loud.
I closed my eyes and our lips touched again. I could kiss him forever. It became harder and faster.
He grunted as a promise, flashes really flew through his mind, and broke our kiss.
“What was that?” I laughed.
“I can’t,” he smiled. “I made a promise to keep my hormones at bay until our wedding day.”
We both laughed as he spoke in rhyme again.
“And your father just told me that it is too soon, so it’s going to be hard for me but I want to try, Elena.”
“Who did you promise?” He hid his thoughts from me as I didn’t get it. He was so good at everything. A master.
“Your mother.”
I squinted. I was there and he hadn’t promised her anything like that.
“When?”
He stared at me and looked at me with so much love. Flashes of another place entered his mind. It was so beautiful, so bright, and Lucian’s face flashed fast through his mind. He tried to hide it but I saw Lucian’s face.
“When I used half the orbs’ powers to go talk to him.”
“To who?” Lucian?
“Lucian. I thought he had you, Elena.”
I stared at him. Lucian was dead, and then I got what he was saying. “You called Lucian the way you called my mom?”
He chuckled again and shook his head. “No, he didn’t want to speak to me, which only confirmed my fears, so I had to take a trip to go beat his ass.” His grin still stayed on his lips.
More flashes of this serene place went through his mind. I saw Helmut and Queen Marguerite too with an unknown girl. Goosebumps broke over my skin. “You were on the other side?” My voice broke.
He nodded. “Time works differently that side. I struggled to track him down and promised that if I found him with you, I was going to scorch him, didn’t matter how saintly he was, until he gave you up. When I finally found him, had was surrounded by girls.” He smiled. “He told me that it wasn’t the reason he didn’t want to speak to me. He wanted peace. He said that you were not there, and that was how I met your mother. She’s a lot like you, Elena. When she discovered who I was, she scared the living crap out of me.”
“You told her that you didn’t treat me like crap anymore, right?”
He chuckled. “Not about that, Elena. About taking advantage of you. She’s very traditional and didn’t want you doing things with me you were not supposed to be doing until your wedding night.”
I laughed just watching his image of her pushing him against the tree. She was scary. “You didn’t mention...”
“Hell, no,” he whispered and we both laughed softly.
Our eyes met again and he looked at me. Really looked at me, as if he could see straight into my heart. I hated that look. He made me feel everything at once with that look. “I’m sorry I couldn’t give you more time. It turns out I still needed to learn how to be patient too.”
“Shhh, I have that same problem.”
“And now I just went and made it even worse.”
I hugged him again. “We’ll see it as a learning experience.”
I buried my face deep in his shoulder and just breathed in his Essence.
“You really went to the other side for me?” It wasn’t a question, more of a statement. One that was struggling to sunk in.
He lifted up my chin to look at him and smiled. “When will you get it, Elena? Not even death can keep me away from you.”
THE END
The Rubicon
Don’t forget to look out for the spin off series.
Starbeam
Moonbeam
Darktbeam - The Rubicon’s tale.
Coming Soon
(a chapter of each of what to come included below)
moonBEAM
a DRAGONIAN SERIES NOVEL
It’s been said that the greatest love that ever existed in this world was God’s love. He sent his only son to die for our sins. A son that had done no evil and would never do evil. A son that had risen from the dead and was alive for eternity, and that everyone who believed in him, would gain that same life.
My great, great, great, great nanna and her beloved Rubicon shared the second greatest love. A love for one another that would last for thousands and thousands of years. They would die for one another without giving it a second thought. You don’t find a love like that anymore.
The saddest part was that she had to say goodbye to him 1022 years ago. It was his time, but because of his Essence inside of her, she couldn’t go with him. She was in some ways stronger than him.
Everyone thought that she would die of a broken heart but her family, a long, long line, loved her so much and she them, that they brought some sort of spark back into her existence. She’d found a way to make peace with it, and to wait for the day when he would come and fetch her.
I never knew the Rubicon my nanna spoke of personally, but I’d heard a great many stories about him.
I was born twenty-eight years ago, but I knew what he looked like, because her face would light up every time I entered her room, whenever I came to hear a story about the big guy. I called him that, just like the way she called him.
Her eyes would sparkle as her stories continued and I knew she loved him truly and I wanted so badly to have a love like that one day too. For someone to love me the way she loved the Rubicon.
When I was six, I was still a young boy, but I remembered that day as if it was yesterday: a very special egg hatched.
Nanna could hear the dragon living inside that egg’s thoughts before the shell even cracked.
It was the new Rubicon entering this world. She still had that connection with it, even after so many years since the previous one died.
Her name was Morgan and she was the ugliest baby dragon I’d ever seen, but I remembered the way nanna stared at her with so much love, so much admiration.
She helped Morgan into this world, guided her to the light. She treasured her always, and soon I saw that I was the lucky one that would claim her on her sixteenth birthday.
The Viden couldn’t even see that. So many of them had come and gone, all of them Moon-Bolts. Their fortellings had guided many of this world to do great things, and some would magically appear in a book that was connected to each and every one of them, that was inside the same old library that still held thousands of those books. Nanna had her own special book. The words didn’t appear magically but what she said, she always spoke clearly, never in tongues and never in riddles, and they always came true.
She had guided our family throu
gh all of them as the Viden’s minds couldn’t see a glimpse of our bloodline’s futures, only nanna could and a Moon-Bolt named George, who had died thousands of years ago.
He was one of their greatest friends and they all said when he died, his Dragonian left our world a few days later. They shared that special bond too, the kind that was so rare, just like nanna and her Rubicon.
Morgan had finally got her human form and it was quite the opposite of her dragon form. She was a beautiful, blonde haired little girl, with the most beautiful red-brown eyes.
She had a sweet soul too, smart as hell and as naughty as they came, and although we never went to Dragonia Academy together, I was one of her friends from birth and had claimed her six years ago when the dark inside her started to claw its way into her soul.
She knew that I would become her rider, or her Dent as Rubicon’s could never be good without their light, as my nanna used to call me.
The pain in my heart grew stronger as I saw her fragile body lying on the bed. She still had that spark but her body was finally giving up. Her mind was speaking about things that I didn’t know if they had passed or were yet to come. About an evil so strong that it ripped her entire family apart. It scared me so much as I couldn’t find anything in the library about that. She was so old and it would cost me my Essence too to finally discover what she’d been talking about the past week.
She was close to her time. She was going to go home, back to him.
I couldn’t imagine life without her, she was the only thing constant in our family tree, and yet it was coming to an end. I knew that she was not going to be around anymore.
A knock came on the door and Morgan appeared. “How is she?” she whispered and came over for a kiss.
I wrapped my arms around her as she sat on the sofa next to me and although I couldn’t hear her heartbeat, I know it was beating the same pace as mine.
“In and out of it. She thought I was him a couple of times today.”
Tears welled up in her eyes as she walked over to nanna’s bed.
She smiled and I knew nanna was awake. “My sweet, sweet Morganna,” she spoke.
“Don’t leave me, please.”
“Shush, child. You know you are not the only Rubicon that needs me.”
Morgan gave a soft laugh as she made nanna comfortable. “What am I going to do without you?”
“You have Theo. Just think when I’m gone, the two of you will drive one another insane.”
I chuckled as I would start hearing Morgan’s thoughts when nanna passed. She turned her head and that sparkle was in her eyes once more. She looked at Morgan again.
“You will be fine. I’ve taught you everything that you need to know. The rest you must discover together.”
She nodded.
“Do me a favor?” she asked.
“Anything,” Morgan said.
“Go see if his star is still gone.”
She rushed to the windowsill. For the past week the Southern star had been missing. It had been written that the day the Rubicon died a star appeared in the South. It was the brightest star, even brighter than the Northern star, something I doubted was even true, but books spoke about the Northern star that guided everyone, even the Bible spoke about the Northern star, never the Southern star.
It hadn’t left the sky for the past 1000 years.
They all believed that it was his star. His soul watching over her. I would always laugh at it, it was so farfetched, so silly. But seven days ago, that star just vanished. Did it fall? I didn’t know. But nanna believed truly that it was him coming to fetch her. It wasn’t so silly anymore.
Since that star disappeared, nanna had grown weaker and weaker. It was as if she was just giving up.
She’d just made peace with it. We hadn’t. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye. Who would keep the peace in this world, who would they go to if they couldn’t find a way to make a decision? Nanna was that person. Sure there were other old Dragonians, but nanna was the wisest of them all.
I couldn’t say goodbye to her yet. Not with a world looming over my shoulder. I was the next in line as she’d given it to me and not my father to take over from her. I had no idea if I could do it the way she had with her Rubicon.
She said that it was the reason she’d given it to me. A great king never knows he is a great king.
I wasn’t so sure.
Elena
It was late at night, I was so in and out of it. I’d said goodbye so many times to loved ones. Saw how they went back into the ground, became the dust they were made of. So many had died before my eyes. First my father, then his wife, I couldn’t even remember who she was anymore.
Then my friends, their faces long forgotten, the memories weak.
Blake was always at my side, making it easier, and then he went too. I thought I was going to die myself, but I found love again through so many things.
Especially the new ones that came into this world.
New ones for me to love and to hold, to guide and to say goodbye to again.
One might say it was cruel and that it must be so tired to open your heart again to love another. But for me, it was natural. It was my life and it felt full.
I’d helped many, I’d guided plenty and loved many, but never truly loved another the way my father had, or had he?
I was so out of it, in and out of different timelines. I didn’t know anymore what had truly happened and what hadn’t and where they fit together. Morgan came tonight again. She confirmed it. His star was still gone. He was finally coming for me.
I heard a sniff and opened my eyes.
Theo was sitting on his haunches at my closet. The sweet boy was the spitting image of my Blake and yet he would laugh it off every time I told him that.
What is he doing here, why doesn’t he go to bed and sleep? I had taught him the most. He was ready even if he didn’t believe it himself. He was ready.
He finally looked up, it felt as if my soul was on fire. A new kind of life filled it, and my stomach fluttered.
His eyes were soft, with so much compassion, and I hadn’t been looked at like that for a thousand years. “What took you so long?”
“I told you before, time works different on the other side,” he spoke softly and came over to me.
He was so handsome, always was, till the day he left my side.
“I’ve missed you so much,” my old voice said. Lucky bastard had gotten his young body back.
“I missed you more,” he whispered.
“How long do I have?”
“One more day, Elena.”
I smiled. One more day then I was going to go home.
“Your mother is quite the organizer up there,” he joked and I smiled. “I had to keep on helping her get things ready for you.”
“Our first shopping spree?” I said and his face fell. “Why the long face, my love?”
He touched my old wrinkled cheek with his one hand. “You need to remember what truly happened, Elena.”
I swallowed. I knew what he was talking about. I’d struggled with that for the past week.
“You need to tell Theo what it is he has to do, otherwise they will be stuck with a future they should never have been stuck with.”
“What do you mean?” I spoke softly.
He touched my head softly and the timelines, different stages of my life all jumped back into place with his touch. The one that had truly happened but only the two of us remembered it, and another everyone else believed was the truth.
“They can’t be stuck with that past. You need to tell him what he must do, otherwise they are not going to have this life.”
It didn’t make sense and then it came back to me. That night Blake ran into our room and told me that horrible truth.
“That was Theo?” I asked and he nodded.
A tear welled up into my eyes.
“But you said it was you?”
“I was wrong. I wished I wasn’t.” He stared at me with so much compas
sion.
“So I did….” My lip started to tremble, I couldn’t even finish my sentence.
He nodded again.
“She was an innocent baby, wasn’t she?”
“Shhhh, she understands Elena. She knew why we had to do that. Siloh is waiting for you too. She cannot wait to finally meet her mom.”
I sniffed hard.
“Will I remember this tomorrow?”
“It will hold,” he spoke and smiled again.
I returned his smile although it didn’t reach my eyes. “Still a master at everything. I hope I don’t have to kill other women up there.”
He laughed. “It’s a killing free environment. And I only have eyes for you. You know that.”
I smiled.
“Sleep, my sweet love.” He kissed me softly on the temple. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”
I closed my eyes and couldn’t wait for the last day of my life.
The time had finally come. Was I going to choose my daughter or my entire family tree…
STARBEAM
Queen Catherine and King Albert’s story
KATIE
It had been a chilly morning as the wind howled outside our two bedroom house that was barely holding up this winter. A house where my father was lying in bed, sick. A house where I had to share a room with four of my siblings, the two smallest slept in my parent’s room.
I took a deep breath as the house creaked.
The worst of the winter was over, the snow was starting to melt and nature was blossoming through in patches. Still the wind was not resting, bringing in more of the cold from up north.
I was fifteen years old, and hadn’t been spoken for. At my age it wasn’t a good thing. Even Marguerite, or Maggy as we all called her, was spoken for. A woman was good for only a few things, cooking, cleaning, and bearing children, and I didn’t fall in any of those category. I was born barren, or that is what my mother thought as I still hadn’t received the signs of womanhood yet and I had a problem with saying what was on my mind. There wasn’t a filter between my mind and tongue. It got me into so much trouble, and plenty times out of it too.