Dragon Blood 1: Pliethin

Dragon Blood 1: Pliethin

Published by

Broken Gate Publishing

PO Box 6241

Maroochydore BC 4558

Australia

978-1-925131-20-8 (Kindle)

978-1-925131-34-5 (Print)

Genre: Young Adult Urban Fantasy

Copyright 2015 © Avril Petersen

Cover design by Caitlyn Petersen

All rights reserved

For my kids. I could list a million reasons why, but there is one reason that sums up the majority of them. For being yourselves.

Sixteen-year-old Amber’s life, that was once completely normal, is dramatically changed when she is forced to move to a small Queensland town west of Brisbane. Suddenly dragons are no longer creatures of myth. Amber becomes caught up in their world of clans, survival of the fittest, ancient traditions, dangerous enemies and dragon warriors.

This novel was written by an Australian author using Australian spelling.

Like many names there is more than one way to pronounce the following ones. These are the pronunciations used in this series.

Names:

Alsandair (ahl-san-dare)

Anrai (arn-ree)

Bredon (bread-en)

Chait (single syllable, rhymes with hate)

Daray (dah-ray)

Doneele (donny-lee)

Emlyn (em-lin)

Gair (rhymes with hair)

Gethin (geh-thin)

Isleen (ish-lean)

Kiani (key-ah-knee)

Laren (lah-rin)

Maira (may-rah)

Orin (oh-rin)

Paili (pah-lee)

Queran (qwhere-rin)

Rhobert (row-bert)

Rian (ree-in)

Ronan (row-nen)

Tahmid (tar-mid)

Turi (two-ree)

Other pronunciations:

Erilan (era-len)

Feralenzi (fair-a-len-zee)

Pliethin (plea-thin)

Temolae (tem-oh-lay)

Amber swirled the dishcloth through the water in the kitchen sink and watched as the suds parted. Her chestnut hair fell in waves around her shoulders and her brown eyes remained focused on the water. There had to be a way to convince her mother to change her mind. “I don’t see why we had to move to Hicksville. How am I meant to see my friends? It’s nearly four hours to the city.” Amber looked over her shoulder at her mother. She still couldn’t believe she’d made her leave Brisbane partway through year twelve.

Donna grabbed the salt and pepper shakers from the middle of the kitchen table, putting them in the pantry. She had short blond hair and blue eyes that narrowed as she faced Amber. “Stop calling it Hicksville. It upsets your grandmother when you do that.”

“Yeah, well it upsets me being here.”

“Don’t start. Just do the dishes.”

“We shouldn’t have had to come here. Once you move a few hours away from the Australian coast you might as well be in the desert, at least as far as civilisation is concerned. Grandma could have stayed with us. She would have been able to survive the city for six weeks. Why should I be punished because she broke her arm?”

“Amber.”

She ignored the warning tone in her mother’s voice, determined to convince her. “I could have stayed behind with Dad. Jay got to.”

“Jasper’s at uni.”

“And I don’t see why I have to go to school here. My school could have given me whatever work we’d cover this term. How do you expect me to pass school and get into uni next year if you’re going to make me change schools like this?”

“Dishes! Now!”

Amber muttered under her breath as she turned back to the sink and swept the cutlery off the bench and into the water. She plunged her hand into the sink then yelped. “I cut myself. I don’t see why Grandma can’t have a dishwasher.” Nothing had gone right since her mother had forced her to move here. She fought against the anger and frustration that made her want to scream.

“Amber!”

She muttered loud enough for her mother to hear. “Stupid town. Stupid school. Stupid house.” She put the last of the cutlery in the draining rack and pulled the plug. Drying her hands on the rear of her jeans, she turned to face her mother. “I want to stay with Dad. You’re the one who wanted to come here. I want to stay at home. You don’t need me. It doesn’t take two people to look after an old woman with a broken arm.” Why wouldn’t her mother listen to her? If only she could figure out how to make her listen.

Donna opened her mouth to reply when the kitchen door opened and Helen stepped in. She had her arm in plaster and a sling, wore wire-rimmed glasses, was bony rather than slim and had grey hair. She glanced between Amber and Donna until her eyes came to a rest on Amber. “You’re not still complaining about being here, are you? Never known a kid who could whinge so much.”

Amber glared at Helen. “It’s probably hereditary.”

“That’s it. To your room. Now! I won’t have you talking to your grandmother like that.” Donna pointed towards the kitchen door.

Amber turned her glare on her mother. She had not started that. Her grandmother had. “Might as well sit in my room the whole time we’re here. Nothing else to do. All my friends are back home. So even if there was something to do, I’ve got no one to do it with.” She pushed the door open and stepped into the hallway, the door closing behind her. She stomped up the stairs, her anger carrying her halfway up the stairs before she noticed a droplet of blood had formed on her finger. Sighing, she started back down the stairs to ask where the bandaids were kept. About to push the kitchen door open, she froze as she heard the raised voices. Did she really want to step into another argument between her mother and grandmother?

“Don’t take that tone with me, Mum. Amber is having a difficult time here. She’s missing her friends. She’s not usually like this.”

Amber grinned. No, she was sometimes worse. She pressed her ear against the door as their voices lowered.

“You’ve been here nearly a week and that girl has sulked or carried on the entire time. I kept telling you the way you were raising your kids would turn them into spoilt, inconsiderate brats. And you haven’t even told her yet, have you?”

Amber held her breath, waiting to hear what her mother would say. The silence stretched out long enough she began to wonder if they were whispering. The sound of a chair scraping on the floor had Amber tensing as she wondered if her mother was headed towards the door.

“I’m waiting for the right moment.”

“You’re an idiot, Donna. She’ll figure it out eventually. Or is that what you’re waiting for?”

“I just know she’s going to take it hard.”

“That’s not an excuse. You were always lacking in backbone. I sometimes wonder if I brought the wrong baby home from the hospital when I had you.”

There was another silence and Amber fought the urge to burst into the kitchen and make her grandmother apologise.

“I’ll tell her when she’s settled into her new school.”

Helen snorted. “I’ll believe that when I see it. She’s not interested in fitting in. And what about the bedrooms? She whined you had the bigger one and you handed it straight over. No backbone. And now you have no ensuite.”

“It was unimportant.”

That was news to Amber. She hadn’t cared about the size of the room, or having an ensuite, she’d just been looking for a way to convince her mother to let her go home.

“I might as well go to bed. I’m wasting my time trying to talk to you, Donna.”

Amber scurried away from the kitchen door and up the stairs as quietly as possible. The last thing she needed was for her mother to catch her listening at the door. Even if it had started out as an accident. She closed her bedroom door behind her and leaned against it in relief.

She didn’t think Helen knew how to be a grandmother. Her best friend, Crystal, had a grandmother who baked biscuits and cakes and called her ‘love’. She was stuck with a grandmother who terrorised small children, glared more than she smiled and always listed people’s shortcomings rather than their achievements.

Amber locked the bedroom door and grabbed a tissue to dab at her bleeding finger. She watched the blood stain the tissue before she crossed the bedroom to the French doors and flung them open. Stepping onto the small balcony that wasn’t much wider than the doors, she scrunched up the tissue and pushed it into a pocket of her jeans.

Leaning on the balcony rail, she wished she was back in her own room. It had only been six days, but it felt like so much longer. She just wanted to go home. The only benefit of being here was that when she looked at the stars, they seemed closer. If she were into astronomy she’d have been happy to move. But she wasn’t. She had a life. One she liked very much. And it wasn’t here. She’d lost count of the amount of times she’d told her mother those words. It had made no difference. Nothing had.

Amber stared up at the stars, her mouth dropping open. Silhouetted in moonlight were two large… birds. At least she guessed that’s what they were. They were a blur of rapid motion as they attacked each other. She turned to hurry inside and grab her phone to take a picture. A crash against the roof of the house made her spin back. She looked up in time to see a man slide over the edge and land in a heap at her feet.

Amber stumbled backwards into her room, opening her mouth to scream. The man lurched to his feet and lunged for her, covering her mouth with his hand. Meeting his gaze, she recognised him. It was a boy she’d caught staring at her in class today. One she hadn’t minded staring back at. Her fear eased slightly, only to increase again as she noticed the blood streaking his left arm. Four long, deep gashes ran down his flesh.

He staggered. His hand left her mouth as he grabbed her shoulders to steady himself, looking like he’d collapse at any second. Amber seized him by the arms and nearly let go as the blood from his wound made the cut on her finger burn. And not just burn. It felt like acid shooting through her finger, quickly becoming a dull ache. Putting her shoulder under his arm, she slid an arm around his waist and helped him further into her room. She paused, unsure what to do next.

Blood dripped onto the polished timber floor and Amber groaned. “Ensuite, before you bleed everywhere.”

He breathed shallowly, his jaw clenched. “Lock the doors.”

“As soon as you’re in the bathroom.” This was crazy. He was worried about locking doors and she was concerned about blood on the floor. What she should do was call an ambulance.

He pulled away from her, pressed a hand against his wounds and stumbled across the room to the open door of her ensuite. Amber watched him for a couple of seconds before she turned and locked the French doors, trying not to get blood on them. She hesitated. Should she call for an ambulance or let him know what she was doing first? And what on earth had he been doing on her roof? A sound of falling bottles made her dash to the ensuite.

She stopped in the doorway. The basin tap ran and blood swirled in the water as it went down the drain. Lotions and bottles lay on their side on the vanity and tiled floor. Her unexpected guest sat with his back against the timber door of the vanity, his eyes closed.

Fear for herself was replaced with fear for the boy. How much blood could a person lose before they died? “I’ll call an ambulance.”

“No!” His eyes opened to stare at her. They were a golden brown, his brown hair sun streaked with a similar colour.

“You can’t expect me to let you bleed to death on my floor.” Amber took a step backwards.

He smiled then winced. “You’re Amber, aren’t you?” At her nod, he said, “You’re in my English and Art classes.”

She nodded again. “I don’t know your name.”

“Kade.”

She watched the blood drip down his arm, even with the pressure of his hand against the gashes. “You need a doctor.”

Kade shook his head. “I only need some help cleaning it up.”

They both turned at the firm knock on Amber’s bedroom door and Kade tried to struggle to his feet.

Amber knelt beside him to press him back to the floor. “Don’t be stupid. You’ll fall over.” She wasn’t sure why she whispered. She should have been calling out that they needed an ambulance.

Kade grabbed her hand. “Don’t let them in. Please.” He kept his voice as low as hers.

Amber jerked her hand out of his bloody one, ignoring the knock that came again. She stared at the cut on her finger, Kade’s blood smeared across her hand. “What the hell have you got in your blood? Acid?”

Kade swore softly, grabbing her hand. He swore again when he peered at the cut. “Wash it. Immediately.”

Amber put her hand under the still running tap. Fear slid through her. Did he have some sort of disease? Scenarios ran through her mind. Each worse than the last until she came to an image of her body so diseased it was falling apart. She grabbed the soap and washed her hand harder. “What’s wrong with you?”

“You’ll live.”

Amber looked down at him. “That’s not what I asked.”

“It’s what you’re thinking.”

“What are you? A mind reader?”

Kade tried to smile. It turned into a grimace after a momentarily successful start. “Your expression.”

Before Amber could reply, there was a harder knock at the door. “Amber? Honey? Let me in.”

“Don’t let her in,” Kade whispered urgently. “Please.”

She raised her voice. “I’m in the bathroom, Mum.”

“I need to talk to you,” Donna called through the door.

“Well you can’t. I’m not about to sit around having conversations while I’m naked.” Amber turned her back on Kade’s fleeting grin and waited for her mother’s reply.

“Come to my room when you’re finished?”

“I suppose.” When there was silence on the other side of the door, Amber turned back to Kade, lowering her voice again. “What am I meant to do with you?”

“A bit of pressure on the scratches I can’t cover would be good but don’t use the hand with the cut.”

Amber sat facing him and pressed her hand against his arm, trying not to think about the blood that quickly coated her hand. “I can’t sit here all night. My mum will be back looking for me if I take too long.” Why wouldn’t he let her call an ambulance? Had he been doing something illegal? And how had he gotten onto her roof?

“Help isn’t far away.” Kade closed his eyes.

“You’re not going to pass out on me, are you?” If he did, she was ringing an ambulance no matter what he said.

Kade opened his eyes. “Would that bother you?”

Amber met his gaze. She should have been the one with eyes that colour. They would have suited her name much better than the plain brown ones she had. But at least she couldn’t complain about her hair, which fell in rich chestnut waves around her shoulders.

“Maybe I should be worried about you.” Kade raised an eyebrow.

“What?”

“Never mind.” He shook his head. “Can you open the balcony doors now?”

“I thought I was supposed to lock them.”

“Now I want you to unlock them.”

“Don’t talk to me like I’m an idiot.”

Kade closed his eyes for a second then spoke with exaggerated patience. “Please open the doors. My friends are on the balcony waiting to be let in.”