Dragon Guard: Book 1: Prophecy of the Dragons (10 page)

The guest room had a homey feel, with a country farmhouse vibe. The bright, cheery colors and countryside landscape paintings made her feel at home. She'd lived in a few places similar to this. Maybe she could suggest to Mom that they decorate their guest room the same. She made sure to tell herself when, not if. They'd find a way. Somehow.

Ben's eyes darted to the stairs and back to her, and then he planted a quick kiss she didn't have time to return. "Don't worry," he said, fire smoldering behind his eyes. "We'll save them."

She nodded, grabbed his hand, and lifted it to her lips for a kiss. "Thanks. Goodnight. Or good morning, I guess." They both chuckled, and then he headed for his bedroom. She watched him go, and they smiled at each other one more time before heading inside their respective rooms. Despite everything, Andi floated to bed.

*****

Cassie catapulted over a half-dozen zombies, decapitated a ghoul, and ran her sword through a vampire's heart. With a quick warning from Lee, she ducked out of the way, and he melted them all with his acid breath. Before she could let out a sigh of relief, she turned to face the next wave.

"Such entertainment," came a cackle from the rocky throne. Derian hadn't thrown any of his spells into the mix, instead hurling comments and insults down their way. She and Lee agreed this was nothing but theater to him. He was toying with them before taking them to one of the cells, and then who knew what horrible fate awaited them. With no way out now that the escape spell was gone, it was more a question of when, not if.

She held a brief hope Andi and Ben would come back, but Lee's logic had crushed that. Since they weren't properly bound, the kids couldn't expect much help with her and Lee still alive. The pride of dragons saw to that. Someone would bind them, but only when she and Lee were dead, and no doubt Derian had plans for them other than death.

A dozen ghosts made up the next wave. Hoots of deranged laughter spilled from the throne. This was another sign he was just playing with them. If he wanted them captured now, he'd send all of his undead minions at once like he did with the zombies when Andi and Ben were here. Once the kids escaped, Derian sent his minions a few at a time.

"Behind you, Cass," Lee said into her mind. She spun into a whirlwind, bringing the evil spirits down. Though she couldn't destroy the undead like Ben, her blades were blessed to take them out of commission for awhile. And here, when she did, they sank back down under the earth instead of regenerating on the spot. Yet another indicator Derian was prolonging the entire procedure.

Lee took out the next wave, a few skeletons, some zombies, and a mummy, with his acid. Cassie appreciated the short – way too short – break. Her thoughts, her wishes, returned to rescue, but harsh reality interrupted. Even if the kids somehow got Max to reveal the incantation into Rico's realm, there was no way the demon would help. It first went back to the fact that they weren't bound, something Rico would see as a weakness, but would ultimately come down to that they were already in his debt. She couldn't imagine a demon, and Rico in particular, offering a double debt to an unproven duo. He might do it for her and Lee, but even that wasn't a given.

Another group of zombies approached. With Lee's acid not yet built back up, she launched herself into them. He flew above and picked some off with his sharp teeth. Though none of these monsters proved much of a challenge, even in their large groups, their nonstop attacks would eventually wear them down. She wasn't yet close to surrendering, but the time would come. With the unknown horrors of captivity after that, she and Lee needed to prolong the fight as long as possible.

The next wave of undead, more ghosts and skeletons, shuffled forward.

Ben's cell phone woke him with the text message alert. He grabbed it, first noticing it was almost 3:30 in the afternoon. Good thing Mom and Dad called the school because he slept right through the day. When he viewed the text, which was from Melissa, his heart sank. Crap. It read, "Even your friends think ur an a-hole."
No-no-no. This is bad. Very bad
.

About a minute later, Andi came in. She had on the same clothes from yesterday. They'd have to go back to her house later to get her packed. Some of his stuff was still in her guest room, too.

"What's the matter?" she asked, concern on her face.

He didn't say anything, just handed her the phone. She read it, her face weary, but when she finished, she laughed. "I already told you not to worry. It'll blow over."

"Easy for you to say," he muttered.

She handed the phone back and kissed him on the cheek. That brightened his day a bit, and he grabbed her hand.

"She must really like you," Andi said. "Poor girl. You broke her heart, and now she wants to make you hurt as much as she is."

"Hey, you helped," he pointed out. "Besides, I don't think that's it. She's mad I didn't choose her. I was an object, a way for her to say she had a boyfriend without all the give and take. All she did was order me around."

"So why did you stay with her?"

He shrugged. Good question. "I guess it was kind of cool to say I had a girlfriend. Besides," he added with a smirk, "sometimes she let me kiss her."

Andi rolled her eyes and smacked his shoulder. "Nice," she said.

"I was just …" teasing, he was going to finish, but she didn't give him the chance. She pounced on him and assaulted his mouth with hers. He tried to kiss back, or even breathe, but she was in firm control. It didn't last long, but wow.

When she broke off, she gave a "hurumph" and turned away from him. "I bet she never kissed you like that."

Ben started to apologize, but stopped himself. Instead he chuckled and put his arms around her. When she didn't respond, he kissed her neck right above her shirt and ran his tongue up to her earlobe, which he gave a quick nibble. Her shiver proved she enjoyed that.

"No," he whispered in her ear. "She never kissed me like that." She giggled and turned to hug him back.

"Maybe I ought to get you jealous more often," he said with a laugh. She smacked his shoulder again, but this time while laughing herself.

After a minute of sitting there and cuddling, Ben asked, "How are you doing?" He meant her parents and figured she'd get that. She did.

"Okay, I guess. I'm scared, but they're still alive."

"You can sense them?"

She shrugged, and then put her head down on his shoulders. "I didn't think I could, and it doesn't work like it does with you, but I know they're still alive. And that they're not in this realm." He could hear the tears in her voice and feel the sudden rush of sadness on her. "At least I hope so. It may just be wishful thinking."

He squeezed her tighter. "It's not. They're fine. Keep up the hope, and we'll save them. I promise."

She didn't say anything, just nodded. He held her for a minute before another thought jumped into his mind.

"Do you need to call their work? Like I did for my parents?"

"No." Her voice sounded normal again. "They don't work, so no need."

"Really? What do you guys do for money?"

"My dad's a dragon. He's been collecting treasure his whole life. Just like his dad before him, and so on and so forth. And me, too, though treasure's not as easy to come by anymore." She winked at him. "Shiny pennies don't add up like gold coins."

Ben's mind flashed back to Orangeville Acers when she and her father were mesmerized by the jewelry store. "So that's what your mom meant when she said you guys were easily distracted by shiny objects."

"She said that?"

"Basically," Ben said, and then grinned. "Maybe not in those exact words."

She rolled her eyes. "You're already too good at being with a dragon."

He laughed and kissed her neck again, which brought out a purr from her. "So you guys live on treasure?"

"Now we live on interest. Remember, we've been alive a long time. My parents are excellent at investing our money, and I'm learning. Plus we don't live extravagantly, since that draws too much attention. But we're always comfortable."

"Nice," Ben said. Then his eyes went wide. "Wait. Does that mean we won't have to work, either?"

"Nope. I've already got us a nice nest egg that's going to grow. And you're lucky. Other than needing to occasionally buy jewelry and other sparkly stuff, I'm pretty low maintenance." She scoffed. "Unlike your other girlfriend. She sounds pretty high maintenance."

Ben was about to defend himself, say Melissa wasn't still his girlfriend, but instead got a better idea. "Way high maintenance. Jealous enough to kiss me like before?"

Instead of a kiss, he was rewarded with a third smack to his shoulder. It proved lucky, though, as Dad walked into the room.

"Hey, guys. Good, you're both up." If he didn't like how close they were sitting, he didn't mention it.

"Hi, Dad. How are you feeling?"

"Fine. Much better." He still looked pale and skinny, but nothing like this morning. Most people wouldn't notice anything wrong. "Anyway, we were all too tired earlier, but now would be a good time."

"For what?"

Dad gave him a look like, "Get a clue," but instead said, "To let your mother and I know what in the world is going on. What do you say you two join us downstairs?"

"Sure," they both said.
Oh boy, this should be interesting
.

*****

Like Dad, Mom didn't look perfect, but much better than before. She sat on the couch, and the two armchairs, usually spaced out in the corners of the living room, were now positioned right across from the couch, like this would be an interrogation rather than a friendly chat. That brought a few butterflies to his stomach, but those were eased a bit when Dad kissed the top of Mom's head and sat down right next to her. When was the last time he'd seen him, or her, do that?

"Sit down, kids," Dad said, motioning to the armchairs.

"Nothing to be nervous about," Mom said. "We just want to figure out what's going on."

"Yeah. We're lost."

Ben looked over at Andi. What was he allowed to say? Could they know anything?

Andi picked up on his question and shrugged. "The truth," she whispered. "They'll need to know sometime."

After everyone sat down, Mom got the ball rolling. "We've both talked it over. Like I said earlier, we know it wasn't a dream."

"You two rescued us," Dad said. "What do you know?"

"It was a demon realm," Ben said. Heck, they wanted the truth, so there was no need to sugar coat it.

Mom and Dad looked at each other. "That thing that shriveled us up was a demon?" Mom asked.

"Not exactly," Andi said. "He was a sorcerer who my parents banished to that place, but he ended up taking the demon's powers. Now he's a necromancer."

"A necromancer?"

"Yeah," Ben said. "He controls zombies and the undead and stuff."

Both his parents turned even more pale. Which wasn't good. They hadn't even gotten to the hard parts yet.

"Okay," Dad said. He drew the word out, but Ben couldn't tell if that was because he didn't believe them, or if he was having trouble wrapping his head around it all. "But if your parents banished him, Andi, how come nothing like that made the news? Sounds serious."

"It sort of happened before the evening news," she said.

"But they report things at all times of the day."

"No, Dad, she doesn't mean before as in time of day, but like years ago. Andi's older than she looks."

His parents both shifted their gaze to her. "I'm 758. But that's in human years. In this form, I'm 15, same as Ben."

Neither of his parents said anything, so Ben jumped in. "She's a dragon. So when it happened before the news, it was centuries before cable news."

Mom was the first to nod. "Alright. So you're a dragon. Does that mean your parents are dragons, too? And how does Ben fit into all of this?"

Dad, meanwhile, just sat back and listened. Ben couldn't believe the looks of acceptance on their faces. Everything they were saying was true, but how were they buying it? It didn't even sound plausible to him, and he'd lived through a bunch of it.

"My dad is a dragon," Andi said. "My mom is a Dragon Guard. Same as Ben is to me. Or will be, once we're fully bound."

"Wait," Dad waved his hand. "Dragon Guard, fully bound? Slow down, you're losing me."

They went into an explanation about what Ben could do, what Andi could do, and what they'd be able to do together once they were fully bound. They hit on what they'd already done, and how the rescue had gone down. Then, inevitably, talk turned to Andi's parents. Ben glanced at Andi to make sure she was okay.

"We left them fighting zombies," she said, "and presumably that's where they still are. I hope they're still fighting, anyway. Who knows what the necromancer will do when he catches them."

Ben clutched her hand and was pleased that although he felt the sadness, she held the sorrow that brought tears at bay. She squeezed his hand and gave him a smile.

"Wow, that certainly is an outrageous story," Mom said. Dad agreed.

"Did you buy it?" Ben asked.

Dad raised his eyebrows and said, "Should we not?"

"I doubt I would," he said, and everyone laughed.

"Besides your parents being in danger, Andi," Mom said, "what I don't like about this whole situation is the explanation of how you two are basically engaged. You're way too young. Even you, Andi. You may be seven-hundred-and-whatever, but if what you say about dragons is true, you're still just a 15 year old girl."

Ben groaned, but Andi barked out a laugh. "You sound like my parents. My dad is against us being bound until we're 18, and even though my mom wants us bound, she says they won't let us be married until we're 18. Even though we'll be considered mates in the dragon world. She's just saying it because of my dad, but still."

Dad nodded. "Sounds like your parents have good heads on their shoulders. I think we'll adopt that rule, too." He turned to Mom. "What do you think?"

"I agree. Bound is fine, but it'll be bound and dating until you're both 18."

"Yeah, in 150 years," Ben said with a groan. But secretly he was quite pleased. Mom and Dad were not only being nice towards each other, but they seemed to enjoy getting along.

Andi frowned at him. Confusion and annoyance fought to be her primary emotion. He guessed that was because he felt so happy after just being told they couldn't get married when they were bound as was supposed to happen. That, and the fact that his parents, like hers, were meddling in their personal life. He'd clear it up with her later.

"So what are we going to do about your parents, Andi?" Dad asked.

"I guess we'll have to retrace our steps. We need the spell from Rico, but we can't go straight there because I don't know the incantation to get to him. So we'll have to go ask that Max guy at the Newport pier. I'm guessing he'll know it."

"Do you think he'll help?" Ben asked.

"I'm not worried about Max," she said. "He wasn't happy about all of this, but he seemed nice enough. It's the demon, Rico, who might not cooperate."

"Yeah. He didn't seem to like us very much."

Dad threw his hands up and waved them around. "Wait, wait, wait. A guy at the Newport pier? A demon? What's going on now?"

"Yeah," Mom said. "Why are you going to ask for help from a demon? Especially if he doesn't like you. Aren't all demons evil?"

Andi shook her head. "Rico isn't evil. He's not good, either, but he helped us rescue you two. He will want a favor, though."

"A favor?"

"We don't know what, but Andi's parents didn't think there was any problem paying it."

"Besides, what choice do we have? Let's hope he'll even consider it."

Both Ben's parents started to say something, but they swallowed their words. Instead, Dad said, "What do you need from us?"

"A ride to the Newport pier tomorrow morning. Sounds like Max fishes there everyday. And then to Orangeville Acres."

"The amusement park?" Mom asked.

Ben chuckled. This sounded so insane, didn't it? "Yeah, we have to ride Reach for the Sky to get to the demon."

"That super-fast one that loops and shoots into the air?" Dad asked. "I've always wanted to go on that."

Mom patted his knee. "Some other time, Trent."

"You can go on it while we visit the demon. My parents will pay you guys back for all the tickets."

Mom waved her hand. "No need for that. It's the least we can do. But I do have a problem with your timetable."

"What do you mean?" Andi asked with a frown.