Moonbreeze

  “Your eye…” I touched it softly. The burn mark was gone, her eye was as beautiful as it once was. I didn’t understand any of this. “It’s healed!”

  She stared at me, then jumped up and ran to the mirror. “No,” she said and ran back to him.

  “Look at me!” she yelled at his upper body that was now resting on his elbows. Blake looked at her and she got angry immediately. He looked back at me and took the glass, but all I saw was Blake’s left eye, burned like Annie’s had been a couple of minutes ago.

  It was a selfless act and one he hadn’t even thought twice about.

  If I didn’t know anything about him, say our paths only crossed now, that would be enough for me to fall crazy in love him.

  He was different. So, so different, and I didn’t even know if it was really him or not. The old Blake would’ve made fun of her, this one had healed her.

  “Why did you do that?” Annie’s voice broke as she touched his eye softly.

  “Shhh,” he said to Annie and smiled at her. “I can’t heal dragons, only myself.”

  I looked at him. That wasn’t new, but I’d seen how he’d just healed Annie. “This is a transformation spell. I can promise you by tomorrow it’s going to look like a big shiner and the day after, I’ll be a pretty boy again.”

  She punched him real hard.

  He laughed as he rubbed his arm. “I remember your violent nature used to be much stronger, Annie.”

  He would be fine and I wrapped my arm around her.

  “I take it this is good night then,” she said to me and I nodded.

  She looked at Blake. “That was really stupid.” She punched him again. “But it’s also how I remember you, it’s like you haven’t changed one bit.” She flung her arms around him. “Thanks, Plucky.”

  Blake laughed. “I haven’t heard that name in a long time, but I’m sure Elena can change your mind in one night.” He had a teasing tone in his voice. “Sleep tight, Jumble-Bean, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  She nodded. “Good night, don’t let the bedbugs bite, and I mean it, they’re huge.”

  We both laughed.

  We left and I followed Blake to our room.

  I sat on the bed, and moved until my back reached the window. I looked at the sky. It was only the moon.

  “So it wasn’t me in your dream?” Blake asked as he walked closer to the nightstand to pour another glass of water.

  “What?”

  His lips curved slightly. “I thought that you’d hated me so much, that I became one of them. It wasn’t me, it was Will.”

  I kept staring at his eye. It didn’t matter what he did to himself, he would never be deformed. I smiled and nodded.

  He blew out a gush of air. “Would it be too blunt to say I am relieved?”

  I smiled and shook my head. “You really thought that it was you?”

  He nodded. “I hate those dreams, Elena.”

  It was silent for a while. I didn’t like the fact that he knew about that at all. “You killed two of them?”

  “Three, actually.” I felt disgusted about that. “My fire returned after Seymour, Billy and another guy left. I was so out of it.” I stroked my face hard. The bed shifted and Blake came over to sit next to me against the wall. He stroked my back. “Don’t. You were protecting yourself, Elena. I’m glad you got some revenge.”

  “Blake, you can’t kill him.”

  “Don’t, please. Don’t beg me to spare his life. Every time I see him, well let’s just say he will be a reminder for me too.”

  “He’s fami—”

  He put his finger hard on my mouth. “Family looks out for one another Elena, they try not to hurt one another, doesn’t matter what evil and what darkness surrounds them. They stand up for the weaker ones, they support each other, without asking for anything back. Even when I was dark, and my family annoyed the living crap out of me, I would never ever have hurt them like that.”

  I just looked at him.

  “Now answer me this, did Will do any of those things to Annie or you?”

  I wanted to say yes, but couldn’t. Annie had called him sadistic so he must’ve done something to her that she’d never told anyone about.

  “You don’t have to answer that. I know what kind of a person he used to be, I can only imagine what he’s like now. My aunt’s husband wasn’t the nicest person out there. My father fought with him on numerous occasions, begged my aunt to leave him, but he was her rider. He will never be good. I lost plenty of baby scales when he was around.”

  I felt bad for him.

  “He will learn the hard way that I’m not that selfless little dragon that used to hide behind Annie all the time. He will finally know what fear is before he dies.”

  I flinched as he said that. “Fine, do with him what you want, just as long as you promise me one thing.”

  “What?”

  “I never want to see him ever again.”

  “Deal.” He grabbed my hand and our fingers twisted through one another. He kissed the top of my hand softly and then he smiled.

  This felt so unreal. He’d hated my guts, now he was gently kissing the top of my hand, while holding it. “Tell me what the Dent is, please?”

  “Be patient.”

  I didn’t like that, but I was too drained from tonight’s events to push.

  “I take it there are no showers?”

  “I think there is one outside but no warm water. It must be a Creeper thing.”

  “Well, I’ll use my ability, which is a Rubicon thing.”

  I giggled and watched him walk over to my bag. He took out some of his clothes. He must have repacked it this morning. He was never planning to stay put. “You planned this?”

  “I told you before, Elena. I’d rather die than let you come back here alone.” He took out his pajamas and a shirt, with a towel and left.

  The door opened and he disappeared.

  I tried not to look at his eye. Still it was so obvious but knowing that it didn’t belong to him, that he’d taken someone else’s pain to heal it through himself, even if he knew it would heal over the course of two days, he’d still healed Annie’s deformity without even thinking twice about it.

  It was hard not to fall for this Blake, so hard. But I had to try and keep my distance.

  I really needed to try and find out what the Dent was first, before surrendering my heart to him again.

  DIDN’T KNOW how I was going to sleep, as we’d basically just woken up five hours ago.

  Still, seeing hope on everyone’s faces, who’d thought that all of Paegeia was lost to the Creepers and that they were the only surviving city, it was good to see that kind of relief. Finding out that Blake’s cousin was still alive, to see that look on her face, hear it in his voice was only the beginning. Families were going to find their loved ones. I didn’t want to think about Jimmy because dragons were not high on the survival list this side.

  I worried about all of this. How were we going to free all of Etan and kill the Saadedine? Blake had made up his mind, that was something he’d made perfectly clear tonight. But without that missing ingredient…I knew what I’d seen and I still had to speak to Blake about it.

  Blake took forever to shower, which only made me nervous and I got up from the bed and opened my door. I could hear faint voices coming from the living room and I walked down the stairs. I found Tom and August speaking to Blake about Max and Tom’s wife, Leana.

  “Oh, sorry, Elle,” August apologized. “I know it’s late but…”

  “Don’t worry, we basically just woke up. They have the days wrong here, it’s day time on the other side, not night.”

  Tom huffed. “So there is really hope?”

  “Yes, Tom,” Blake said. “There is. If my wardrobe doesn’t speak that truth, then I don’t know what will.”

  “I can’t leave without her, Blake.”

  “Do you know if she’s still alive?” I asked and Tom just looked at me.

  “She has to be,
she was a strong woman. Never gave up, always saw the silver lining around the darkest cloud.”

  “I know exactly what type of girl that is.” Blake smiled.

  I rolled my eyes.

  “So what is the plan? I’m assuming you already have one.”

  “The Feast, Elena.”

  I stared at Tom and did the calculations in my head.

  “It’s that time again?”

  He nodded.

  “In two weeks,” August confirmed.

  “We can find them, I know. From what Pop used to tell us about your abilities, you have a mean tracking ability.” Tom looked at Blake.

  “I wouldn’t…”

  “He has,” I answered on his behalf. “He tracked me here, not knowing that I had crossed over, but he knew I was here. So yes.” Blake struggled with accepting the fact that nothing was wrong with his tracking ability, so I had to answer for him until he was ready to put all his trust into it again.

  “Please, I have to know if she is fine.”

  “Okay, Tom.”

  “Blake,” I protested.

  “Elena, I need info about everything. As detailed as possible. It’s going to be fine. I promise.”

  “Can you teach me how to persuade people?”

  “August…” I started.

  “Yes,” Blake said and I just gave him the eye. It wasn’t his decision to make.

  “For real?” August smiled.

  Blake looked at me. “For real.” He looked at August again. “You need to know how to defend yourself. Persuaders are really handy riders, if they can harness their abilities as they should, then nothing can stop you.”

  “Thanks, Blake.” August got a bit of bounce back into his body.

  He looked at me and saw the concern on my face. “It’s time, Elena. All of them that are born with the mark need to know how to become riders and dragons again. This war is going to be the biggest in Paegeia’s history.”

  WE SAID GOODNIGHT to Tom and August, and were now lying in bed. The moon was always too bright, like a huge spotlight. It wasn’t natural.

  “I know what that image was, Blake.”

  He was quiet, probably sleeping. “About the Dragon and the bird?” He finally asked.

  “Yeah.” I sounded scared.

  “I do too, Elena. I’m linked to your dreams, remember. It broke it down easily.”

  I looked at him. His hand was underneath his head and he just stared at the ceiling.

  “How are we going to kill it?”

  He smiled. “Have you seen yourself in that picture?”

  “No,” I said and slightly raised my upper body, resting my weight on my elbow. “What has that got to do with everything?”

  “There is no we, Elena.” He looked at me. “There is only me.”

  “Blake, don’t be egotistic, please. You are the size of a bird to this thing.”

  “No, I’m not. That image only meant that the Saadedine is going to be a great obstacle. Irene has explained all the visions to me carefully as she spoke the words she didn’t know. I will kill him.”

  “So seeing something else while speaking this riddle, is normal for Moon-Bolts?”

  “Apparently. George hasn’t seen any glimpses of the future yet.”

  “It must be a Rubicon thing then.”

  He smiled as I said it. Still I was worried and I frowned.

  “Ever wonder what she saw with me?”

  “She didn’t see anything with you, she just spoke the words.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I asked her.”

  “When?” I asked.

  “When I discovered your foretelling inside the Book of Shadows.”

  I frowned. “When was that?”

  He chuckled. “I saw something when you started hearing me that time you thought it was Paul, and I had to investigate.”

  “So you were spying on me?”

  He smiled. “Not really spying. It was more of a keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer type of thing.”

  “Me being the enemy?” I said and didn’t look at him. This wasn’t real. This Dent could not be real.

  “Elena I was a mess back then, had this craving for all dark things. So yes, I saw you as my biggest enemy.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She laughed when I asked her about it. She asked me how I knew about that and I told her, that it was yours and that it was linked to me.”

  “You told Irene that I was your rider?”

  He smiled again. “I told you too, Elena.”

  “No you didn’t. I would’ve remembered it.”

  “That night at camp, when I was drunk. I knew when you just stared at my lips that you didn’t hear a thing I was saying.”

  “You told me?”

  “Yes.” He smiled again.

  “How did the others not hear that?”

  “My shield. Sammy walked into it when she interrupted our little session.”

  I huffed. “That was your persuasion, that’s how it works, isn’t it?”

  “Yep, Irene sang like a bird, but she didn’t remember a thing afterward. She said she didn’t see a thing, even told me that it made sense why she didn’t see anything because it worked the same way with your bloodline.”

  “Weren’t you scared that it could backfire?”

  “Nope, because she would’ve doubted herself afterwards.”

  “Doubted herself?”

  “It was right after the hippogriff incident. She was kind of a mess back then.”

  “And you took advantage of it?”

  “I was dark, what don’t you understand?”

  “Okay,” I said as I lay back down on the pillow and stared at the ceiling too.

  “How are we going to find this special ingredient? And I do mean ‘we’, Blake. I am going to help.”

  “You have done your part Elena.”

  “What?” I turned my head and glared at his nonsense.

  “The foretelling said both of us would free Etan, but the Creepers weren’t as kind to me as they are to you. That was your responsibility, mine is killing the Saadedine.”

  “I’m not going to let you do this alone.”

  “Elena.” He sounded annoyed.

  “No, you said bond is cast. The bond is us, Blake. We have to find the missing ingredient and kill the Saadedine. Maybe if Goran is dead, he would—”

  “What, play nice?” He huffed. “Goran has nothing to do with the Saadedine, Elena. He can only control it, because he is that powerful.”

  “I know Goran is powerful, the things he did on that mountain were unbelievable and that was through someone, Blake. I can’t imagine how it must feel facing him directly.”

  “I’ll find the missing ingredient, Elena. I will find it.”

  He didn’t sound so sure, but we left it there and I tried to sleep.

  I lay next to him for hours, not saying a word and then just as I was about to surrender to sleep, one of the alarms in the house rang.

  Blake got up, thinking that I was still asleep. I opened my eyes as the sun was coming up and could hear him unzipping the bag and taking out some clothes to wear.

  He was so quiet, I didn’t even hear him stepping into anything, or moving around.

  The door opened and closed.

  I felt tired all of a sudden and forced myself up after half an hour of nestling in the bed.

  When I went downstairs, Blake wasn’t in the kitchen. But Gertrude and Daisy were, and they were still in high spirits.

  “Morning, Princess.”

  “Don’t call me that. I’m still Elle.”

  “That’s not what that dragon of yours calls you.”

  “I’m Elle, here,” I said to Gertrude.

  She smiled and carried on with the eggs.

  “I wanted to tell you your eyes are his. Your father’s.”

  “Have any of you seen him in the past few years?”

  “No, we haven’t seen him in a long ti
me, Elle.”

  “So he could be…”

  “Don’t, don’t think that. He held on for a long time, if he dies now…” Gertrude’s voice broke. I’d only met him once, and had seen plenty of pictures of him, saw what he’d done, but it was as if I was learning more and more about him through these people. The way they spoke about him, their voices broke just imagining him not being in this world anymore. They truly loved him.

  “Mom?” Daisy put her hand on her mother’s shoulder and squeezed it tightly.

  “I know I’m not being sensitive enough. I never knew him the way you did. I only found out recently who I was, so I’m still dealing with many things.”

  “You never knew he was your father?”

  I shook my head and told them the story of my life and who Marcus reminded me of.

  Gertrude had that knowing smile.

  “You knew Jako, didn’t you?”

  “No, but there used to be lookalike contests and Marcus, well he won the one that looked like Jako.” She smiled again. “He was a really clever dragon, Elena. You were lucky to have known him as a father.”

  I smiled again.

  Speaking about Herbert, made me miss him again. I would always miss him as we’d never gotten that final goodbye. I always wondered what it would’ve been like if he’d come with me to Paegeia. They obviously knew who he was, but would they have truly believed his story, who I was? At least I wouldn’t have been so alone, but then again, I would’ve never been friends with Becky and Sammy, never fallen in love with Lucian, and Blake, well…I didn’t want to think about it as it’d never happened. What ifs didn’t exist.

  “Elle!” Cassy ran into the kitchen with Annie right behind her. The women gasped when they saw Annie and just stared at her.

  “My stupid cousin took it upon himself,” Annie said and her voice broke.

  “He said it’s going to heal, Annie,” I said as Cassy’s arms were still around my neck.

  “He can do that?” Daisy asked.

  “Believe me, we aren’t each other’s biggest fans. He’s loathed me since the day I set foot in Paegeia.”

  “Loathed you? Blake?” Annie asked with a raised eyebrow.

  Blake walked into the room. His eye did look better, like a big shiner. He bent down to kiss Annie on the temple. “I told you, Elena can change your mind.”