Moonbreeze

  My heart still beat frantically. The last time I’d flown with him like this, he’d dropped me into an ice cold swimming pool. I didn’t want to think of that night and pushed it to the back of my mind, forcing myself to think about whether I could trust him not to drop me.

  I kept thinking about Cara, how easy things were with her once we made peace. I knew Blake didn’t carry the Rubicon like I had carried Cara, but his dragon form was so different to his human form.

  It felt like hours had passed and this time I didn’t want to fall asleep. I was wide awake. Then the flapping grew quieter and his paw opened up. I grabbed onto the inside of his palm but noticed that it was dark again when we landed.

  I climbed out of his paw with my backpack and I walked out from underneath his body.

  There were plenty of trees again and no sign of a motel.

  “We are camping tonight. I hope you don’t mind.”

  Camping? I sighed. “It’s fine.”

  “I’ll have to bring the idiot out again or I will wreck this place.”

  I couldn’t help but smile at that comment. He was an idiot.

  I missed Cara.

  It had been less than five minutes when Blake walked out of the woods, pissed off and tired. What was his problem? Then again, I struggled with his human form. He reminded me so much of Billy, and every time I thought of Billy, I remembered what the idiot did, not finding me. I took a huge breath.

  He didn’t say anything as he passed me and went straight for the bags. He picked them up and walked deeper into the woods.

  “What is the problem now?” I finally asked as I had to run to keep up with his strides.

  “Oh absolutely nothing.” He sounded sarcastic.

  After half an hour of hard walking, he stopped. Which was good because I was completely out of breath.

  He took out two tents and threw them over where he was going to assemble them.

  I went immediately to mine. I didn’t need his help to assemble a stupid tent.

  As I struggled with the pipes and silently wished I knew an incantation that could magically assemble it, Blake walked over.

  “Give it here, you’ll be busy till tomorrow morning trying to put it together.”

  “I’m not stupid Blake. I can do this.”

  “Okay fine. Suit yourself. I’m going to look for wood to make a fire.”

  “Just go.”

  He left but I could hear him picking up wood close by.

  When he came back, I’d made a bit of progress and he just looked at me.

  I ignored it. The first, second and third time.

  “What?” I finally said.

  “Nothing,” he said, sitting in front of a beautiful fire warming up.

  An hour later, it sort of looked like a tent.

  “Elena, can I please help you?”

  “No,” I snapped back. “It’s fine like this.”

  “It’s going to rain.”

  “Then it rains, Blake. A little rain won’t kill me.”

  I rolled down my sleeping bag and crawled into my half set-up tent.

  I didn’t care if it was going to rain or not. I would not ask for that arrogant ass’s help. I don’t know why Becky and Sammy loved him so much. He was still the same old Blake Leaf. The one I would never trust.

  T HAPPENED AGAIN, I dreamed about Seymour and Billy in Blake’s place. Once again they were trying to take me back to that hell hole. When I woke up, Blake was at my side.

  I started to cry as he wrapped his arms around me.

  I sniffed hard and he released me. “Can I ask you a favor?” I looked past him.

  “Sure.”

  “Can you please get him out?” I was talking about his dragon form.

  “Elena,” he sighed.

  “Blake, I can’t do this with you, please. Just get him out.”

  “He’s going to wreck this place.”

  I shook my head. I didn’t care. I needed my dragon, not this guy that reminded me of someone I didn’t want to be reminded of.

  “Okay, fine.” He grunted slightly and crawled out.

  I waited for what felt like forever before I heard a tree crack and a swoosh sound before it fell to the ground.

  I got out and saw him crawling closer to me like a puppy. He had really gotten so massive, the horns on his face and sprouts of hair hanging from his chin really made him such an ugly dragon, but all I saw was beauty. I was in awe of him.

  His eyes weren’t red anymore, they were blue, a beautiful blue.

  “At your service, Princess,” he said in a deep voice that actually made me laugh. It was so hard not to think of Blake as the Rubicon. He wasn’t an entity inside of Blake, but they were so different. It was so confusing.

  “I’m sorry, I just couldn’t handle Blake.” I sounded so stupid.

  “Not to worry, you are lucky I’m on standby.”

  The corners of my lips curled slightly. “Thank you.”

  “So why the urgency?”

  “Easy, I don’t feel safe with Blake.” I went to the log and sat in front of it.

  The Rubicon lay flat with his paws tucked underneath his body, like a cat.

  “I’m sorry, I know it’s probably not what you want to hear.”

  “Don’t apologize Princess. I know he’s a bit arrogant at times and doesn’t always speak what is in his heart but he will show you in his own messed up way that he does care about you. Just like I do.”

  I looked at him and back at the fire, raising my eyebrows a bit, and decided to humor him. Who knows? Maybe they were different entities, sort of.

  His head was that of a giant purple reptile, lying on his paws. His eyes were still open.

  “Can you do me a favor?”

  “Anything,” he said which made me huff.

  “Don’t say that, I’m not like that. I won’t order you around and force you to do what I want you to do.” I told him that so many time.

  “Then what is it you want to ask?”

  “To not call me princess.”

  “Elena, it’s who you are. You are of royal blood and not just any royal blood. Flowing through you veins is the blood of the Greatest King that has ever lived. Your blood is magical, no other human being has that. It is a shame that you don’t want to be their daughter.”

  “That’s not what I said.”

  “Well you don’t like to be called princess, but it’s who you are. You are my princess, and that Sun-Blast’s princess.”

  I smiled the way he said “that Sun-Blast’s”. “You talking about Emanual?” He was really making it so hard not to see him as Blake. I made a mental note to keep reminding myself who the Rubicon was.

  “They all are the same to me when in dragon form. You are everyone’s princess, but for some reason you don’t see or accept that.”

  I didn’t say anything and it was quiet for a while. The fire was busy dying out and he blew out a ball of pink flame on top of the wood. The fire glowed brightly once again.

  “Elena, I’m sorry that I couldn’t find you. Something was so wrong with my tracking ability, still is. I really tried and I know it will never be enough for you,” he said and I just looked at him.

  I could see my reflection in his pupils through the flames from the fire. He was massive. No, massive was an understatement.

  “Everything you went through in that Wyvern city will never happen to you ever again, with God as my witness; if they have any redemption inside of them, He will hide them from my wrath, and He will never let me find them. You are safe as long as I live, and that is my Dragon Oath, Elena.”

  I grunted. “What is it with all you dragons and your oaths?”

  He smiled, or it looked like a smile, and gurgled which I knew was a laugh.

  “I’m not the Moon-Bolt that will give you his oath every day, but that is one I’m willing to make so that you know I’m here always, even if you don’t feel that you need me.”

  “I will always need you,” I said. I couldn’t b
elieve it myself, but he reminded me so much of Cara. “Blake, on the other hand, is complicated.”

  “Elena, I used to treat you worse.”

  “Maybe.” I finally saw it now. “Not anymore though. I know what is going on now.”

  The Rubicon froze, and all this sounded so stupid, but I couldn’t help thinking that Blake was just the vessel of this majestic dragon. The two were so different from one another. I couldn’t believe that I was saying this, but it was how I saw things at that very moment. “He was sort of keeping you from me. I know what I did in that ring, you did yield and the ass refused to bring you out.”

  He let out a huge huff of breath that almost blew out the fire, and lit it again with one of his fire balls. The fire spluttered again and silence filled the air. “Okay, so no Blake.”

  “That’s not what I said. I know you can’t always be here like this with me and that you need him, and I’ll find a way to make peace with him, somehow.” I stroked my face hard. His human form looked like Billy, how was I ever going to trust him completely?

  “Why is it so hard, Princess, to make peace with Blake?”

  I huffed softly. He wanted to know why I wasn’t going to fully trust him. “He reminds me of someone in the Wyvern city. Someone that pretended to watch out for me, but didn’t.”

  He stayed quiet for a while. “I see.”

  “I’ll find a way, it’s just going to take some time.”

  “Well if it’s any consolation, I know for a fact he has all the time in the world.”

  “Yeah, we’ll see.” He is Blake, Elena, I reminded myself.

  “You want to try to sleep again?”

  “I can’t. I fear sleep.” It barely came out but his super hearing heard.

  “I have a plan, go get your sleeping bag.”

  I looked at him.

  “C’mon. I just gave you my Dragon Oath, if something bad happens to you, I have to be there.”

  I smiled, got up and pulled my sleeping bag out of my sorry excuse for a tent.

  I took it to him and he took out one of his paws and turned it around. If the Iron Throne in Game of Thrones had a matching bed, this would’ve been it.

  I didn’t say anything, just laid my sleeping bag in his palm and crawled in.

  When I was inside he moved his paw closer and turned his head so that his breath wasn’t in my face. “Sleep tight my princess.”

  I smiled and closed my eyes.

  I woke up to a soft clucking noise and lifted my head. It had come from him. What was that? It didn’t make any sense but it was sort of soothing. I lay my head back down and went to sleep.

  I’D SLEPT LIKE a log and didn’t dream about anything. When I opened my eyes I was still in Blake’s paw and I just looked at his sleeping figure, admiring every horn and every sprout on his face. Why was this so hard? His dragon form was so easy to talk to, his human form wasn’t.

  It was like the dragon wasn’t just the keeper of my abilities but also the keeper of my nightmares. It was why he’d come to my rescue in almost every single one of my dreams.

  I climbed out of his paw as softly as I could and put on my boots.

  August had shown me how to make animal traps during our hunting expeditions. At first I didn’t like it much, but I saw it as a survival tool and right now, my stomach was growling.

  I took out some wire from my bag and looked for some nice thick twigs to build the trap.

  When I had all the supplies, I built a trap and waited with the end of the wire below a huge tree.

  I still didn’t like trees much, but it was something I had to make peace with as well. They hadn’t done anything to me, they’d just become part of my nightmare’s décor. They were harmless and provided life in most cases rather than death. And they had helped me that night. I remembered that part even though the other parts that took place after that were still unblocked.

  For the next half an hour I just thought about trees. What they were used for and how they were a part of life, with the oxygen they provided and how they were part of death too, the wood being used for coffins and altars, like Lucian’s.

  It was so ironic.

  My eyes caught on a small rodent that had just entered the trap. I looked away and pulled the string, really hard. When I looked back, he’d been pierced by the spear of death – that was what August had called it – that was the main part of the trap.

  The squirrel was dead. I took it out of the device I’d built, then quickly fixed the trap and caught another squirrel.

  When I had three, I picked some wild herbs. Another thing August had showed me.

  Rosemary grew everywhere in the wild. It would just have to do and I hoped it went well with squirrel.

  I went back to the camp. The Rubicon was still sleeping as I started to skin the squirrels.

  August had taught me well in those first four weeks living with them. I just wished he’d showed me how to assemble a tent, but we’d never camped.

  I cleaned them next and pushed a long stick through each and every one, then I made a fire with my pink flame. It came easy now and I watched the three sticks of meat roasting over the fire. As I sat there I lost myself in memories of conversations I used to have with August that felt like a lifetime ago.

  THE SMELL OF roast squirrel with some sort of a wild herb – rosemary – pierced through my nostrils.

  I smiled as my eyes opened and I found myself still in my dragon form. I’d done it. At first I’d thought it was a stupid idea when Leo suggested it. I was the Rubicon, more than I was human, my dragon wasn’t exactly like Cara, but Leo had suggested that I act as if he was. Elena would relate and connect with my dragon form, as she had with Cara.

  I’d laughed it off, thinking she wasn’t going to buy it, but she had.

  I still couldn’t believe that it’d worked. Guess Night Seekers really were geniuses when it came to matters of the heart.

  I lifted up my head and found her sitting at the fire with three squirrels roasting over the flames.

  “She hunts?”

  Elena flinched a bit but giggled. “I’m not completely useless.”

  “Never thought you were. Where did you learn all of this?”

  “My experience in the Wyvern city wasn’t all bad. I had a friend that taught me how to hunt in my first month.”

  “A friend?” Seriously Blake.

  “It’s not like that, so no need to go on a killing spree.”

  I laughed which sounded like someone drowning. “Not what I meant. I just wanted to find out about this friend, so that one day I can thank him properly.”

  She stayed quiet.

  “You know, if you want to go and find that Wyvern city, I will help you, Elena.”

  She shook her head. “You have no idea what they do to dragons.”

  “And here I thought that you remembered what it is I can do.”

  She smiled. “I know you are a badass, but I’m not going to take that chance. It’s no use anyway.” She sighed.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I tried to find it on the map but…” She sighed. “It doesn’t matter.”

  That is why she’d searched the maps. She was trying to find the city. Of course she was trying to find it, but now I knew for sure. “They had the Wyvern names wrong, I’m sure they have the city names wrong too.” I tried to put her at ease, to tell her to never give up. She cared about these people – about the one that had taught her how to hunt – the least I could do was support her and encourage her to keep looking.

  “Yeah, that’s what I think too.” She smiled.

  “Tell you what, when you are ready, we can go to one of the Wyvern cities and look around.”

  “No,” she said and looked at me. “They…”

  “Elena, I’m the Rubicon. I stopped them that night from killing everyone at the Academy. And there’d been many more of them than of us.”

  “There were?”

  “Yip, they fear the pink kiss.”

&n
bsp; She giggled again.

  “What, you don’t like the name?”

  “No, it’s just ironic. It’s not a kiss at all, it’s actually the opposite. You die if it touches you.”

  “Yeah, you do. But I love all these abilities and they needed cool names.” I lifted up my butt and stretched out my torso.

  She looked away with a curve in her lips. “One day, okay, not now.”

  “One day it is.”

  “I know this is probably going to sound stupid, but do you want to eat?”

  “I’ll eat on the way, dig in.”

  “C’mon. I’m not going to eat alone in front of you. One is probably enough.”

  “Thank you,” I said politely.

  “I know they won’t fill you up, I’m like what, three hundred squirrels short.”

  I laughed again. “Something like that, but it looks like a good appetizer; it smells really good.”

  She touched one of the squirrels gently to see if they were ready and took them off the flames.

  She then stopped, looked up at me and a small unsure smile appeared on her lips. “How are you going to eat this?”

  I chuckled. “Just throw one in the air. I’ll catch it.”

  She took it off the stick and picked it up by one of the legs, throwing it upwards in my direction. My head snapped backwards and it landed perfectly in my mouth. It was hardly a crunch and then I swallowed it whole.

  The other one followed and it was a repeat of the first. She ate hers in a couple of minutes and then stomped out the fire.

  I sighed. “I have to get Blake to take over now, otherwise packing up, well, I will destroy everything, and I’m done with destroying things.”

  She smiled. “It’s okay, I guess I’ll see you soon.”

  “Yes, we have a good couple of flying and camping days still ahead.” I hoisted my body slightly so that I could crawl back behind the trees to transform.

  “See you later then.”

  I sighed as I crawled deeper into the woods, away from her. She was going back into her corner and I hated that my human figure was the source of that. I really did fear that she was never going to trust the part I wanted her to trust the most, but trusting my dragon form, well, it was a start. Guess I’ll just have to become a dragon more often, until she is ready to fully trust me.