Moonbreeze (The Dragonian Series Book 4) (18 page)

“You know what Granddad wants to speak to me about?” August kept nagging to his mother.

“Wait, and see.”

“Why does he want Elle to be there too?” He froze a bit and just stared at his mother. “Seriously, I’m with Max, Mom.”

She threw a dish towel at him. “It’s not that.”

He chuckled as he caught the cloth while Gertrude mumbled something about teenage hormones and that the world doesn’t always revolve around that.

“Then what?”

“Wait,” Daisy and Annie both yelled at him.

“Fine,” he grunted and put away the dry plates in the cupboards.

He was like a kid on his birthday asking Gertrude if there was more to be done.

“No, go.” She looked at both of us and I followed August toward the study. “You know what this is about?”

“I think so, but you need to hear it from Charles.”

“You people are so nasty.”

I giggled. “You seriously are not good with waiting, are you?”

“No, always been like that,” he said as he opened the door to what I assumed was the study.

Inside was like a museum. There was an old table with antique stuff. Shields, the Dragonian sign, the sign of the Dents, everything was there, even pictures of all the different dragon breeds. I couldn’t stop looking at it. There were so many books on the shelves and I couldn’t stop staring at everything.

“Sit.” Charles spoke from behind his desk and August was the first to plop down into one of the two chairs.

He picked up one of those cubes where you had to match all the colors together and started turning them.

“So what is this all about?”

Charles just smiled at him. “Elle, please, sit.” He gestured with his hand toward the other seat and I took it.

August kept looking from his granddad to me. “You are killing me, out with it!”

Charles laughed.

“Your mother and father are scared that if we do tell you, you might want to know more.”

“More about what?” August asked.

“Elle, well, she’s like you and me but more.”

He squinted at me. “You were born with the mark?”

I nodded.

“What do you mean by more?”

“She was part of a Dent.”

“You’re shitting me, seriously?” His entire face lit up.

I smiled. “I was, I’m not anymore.”

“What’s your ability?” He kept asking.

“Was, August,” Charles interrupted and August finally got it.

“Your dragon is dead?”

I nodded again.

“How long?”

“Recently.” It was all I could say.

“Elle, I’m so sorry. What was it?”

“He.” I corrected the “it”. “And he was a Sun-Blast. He protected my life when they wanted to kill us. I don’t have the blue fire anymore.”

“Shit,” he said. “He transformed?”

“Son, he had no choice. Dents are different. They will do whatever is in their power to protect their rider.”

“I know Grandfather, but still. Did he have to transform?”

If they only knew Blake would’ve never…I stopped.
He saved your life twice, Elena.

“You were opposites.” Charles had a slight frown.

“Yes, it wasn’t easy.”

“Let me guess,” August asked. “They wanted to take you too.”

I nodded.

“Bastards.” He spoke with so much passion. “But it’s weird that they killed him, don’t you think? He was a Sun-Blast.”

“I know, but with a Dent. They fear Dents, August.”

“Still. It’s messed up.”

I had so many questions. Like why couldn’t they just leave, or seek help but then they would’ve just asked more questions about why I didn’t know this and I couldn’t tell them the truth.

I would find out on my own where the hell I was, and then I would bring exactly that to them. I would do whatever it took to free these people from whatever was hurting them.

We spoke more and just as Gertrude and Marcus feared, August wanted to know more about how I used to call on my ability.

“I can’t. I promised your mother. If it can get you killed, I’m not going to show you anything.”

“Pop,” he looked at Charles. “C’mon.”

“She’s right, August.”

“I can persuade people. If it can help to keep my family safe—” He started to get frustrated. “If only I knew how Elle used it. Connected with hers, then I could too,” he begged.

“That is exactly what will get you killed, my boy. You know the rules.”

“It’s not fair! I’m supposed to have become a Dragonian, Pop. Yet, I can’t do anything.”

“Dragonians are of the past, my boy. They die now.”

The past? Die? What the hell?

“Learn from Elle’s experience, August.”

“I’m not like that, Pop.”

“I know you have a fighting spirit. Ben, Samual, Rodney, all of them are dead because of it. I don’t want to lose you, son.”

“Pop,” August felt defeated. I knew how that felt.

“I’m so sorry August. Even if I could, Dents operate differently from normal Dragon bonds.”

“What do you mean by different?”

“I could never harness my ability without him being in his dragon form.”

Charles squinted. “No, that is not entirely correct. You could if he gave consent.”

“Gave consent?”

“Something you two probably never knew.”

I nodded. “Well, now it’s too late, so it doesn’t matter anymore.” I looked at August. “The magic left the day he died.”

“I can just imagine how that must feel.”

“Like I lost everything. I have to learn how to be normal again and it’s not a great feeling.”

“I can relate.”

I left it there, got up, bid both of them goodnight and told August that I was sorry that I couldn’t help him again before I left for my room.

I found Gertrude and Marcus in the kitchen.

“Elle,” Gertrude called me back and I retreated until I could see both their figures sitting at the table. “How did he take it?”

“You were right to be concerned. He wants to know how I used to harness it, called for it, wielded it, but I told him I couldn’t.”

Gertrude closed her eyes and Marcus let out a huge breath.

“Thank you, Elle.”

“You are welcome.” I smiled and said goodnight too before I rushed up the stairs.

I found a pair of flannel pajamas on my bed and a new bowl of hot water, not a bath. This time I dressed down and wiped myself clean. It wasn’t a bath but I felt as clean as I could before I pulled the pajamas over my head and climbed into bed.

Thoughts, so many thoughts about today jumped through my mind.

HE FIRST TWO weeks flew by. It wasn’t getting easier like I thought it would and the workload was getting heavier, but my hands were getting used to cutting grapes. The times I hacked myself, well, Charles fixed it with his ability, which only made me miss Constance so much more.

We were almost done with this month’s plucking. The rest of the vineyard was not ready to be picked yet.

If I wasn’t off with August on a hunt expedition, I was with Annie and she was amazing. She was the pick-up that August had referred to and was a couple of years older than me.

She had come from a place called Eikenborough, wherever that was, and was found half dead four years ago by Charles. She knew someone in the Council, but that wasn’t counting in her favor from what I could gather. He was mean and sadistic. Still she had the fighting spirit of a dragon, even though she desperately tried to hide it.

She spoke so many times about her fire. If only she could harness it and show August how to wield his, to help him connect with his persuasion.

“Annie, they would kill you.”

“Elle, dying is sometimes not the worst thing. I would be with my father and mother. I would finally be free.” She just stared at me as we found a quiet place underneath the trees, away from everyone. She’d never spoken about her mother before now, and I’d never asked. Maybe it was a hard subject.

“I love life, even though death constantly follows, I don’t want to die.”

“Neither do I, but this isn’t living, Elle.”

“I know.”

She carried the barcode, although I’d never seen it fully, I kept glancing down on her arm whenever she left it open.

She would always cover it up.

We had a lot in common; she was a Sun-Blast dragon that hadn’t transformed in the last ten years so she was almost human. She’d lost her ability, couldn’t harness her blue flame anymore and she couldn’t track objects of value either. It was so sad, to be something that amazing and end up being so powerless at the end.

I remembered the sky, what it felt like to fly through the clouds when Cara was still with me. I didn’t mention it, or speak about it either as it would be cruel to a dragon, to show them their disability, the things they couldn’t do anymore.

The Council was going to come soon. For the past couple of days everyone had been preparing for it.

I still wished that I could just see who the members were. I knew most of them by now and I would easily put two and two together if only I could see one of them, but I had to hide as everyone said the minute they laid their eyes on me, would be the minute they would take me. I’d imagined so many times what they would do if they knew who I was, but killing me was always the number one spot. I knew they would do whatever was in their power to keep this a secret.

A huge siren went off. Lunchtime was over.

“Let’s go.” Annie got up and I followed her down the hill toward the fields.

We plucked grapes for another few hours and then it was time to go home.

The barns were almost full now and the fridges couldn’t hold much more.

It had been five days now since Luke, another one of the farmhands, had left with a small group to get supplies. Tom desperately wanted to go with, but Marcus refused. They were so respectful of their elders, something I hadn’t witnessed in a long, long time. Still, plenty of them were worried, as was I, that something had happened because they had never taken this long before.

Tom wasn’t making life easy for Marcus and Gertrude because of their decision. We only saw him in the mornings, sulking over his breakfast and at night when he gulped down his dinner and went to his room.

I couldn’t imagine what it must feel like to know that your wife was out there, dead or alive.

He had a fighting spirit too, but they kept suppressing it. Something I didn’t like at all.

It made me feel so hopeless.

August was quiet of late as well. He wanted to know so much but none of us could tell him anything. His parents begged me not to tell him.

It was wrong. He should know how to defend his family, and I felt like I was betraying him. I would lay awake at night now. Sleep didn’t want to come as I worried about everything. The day the Council would come, and what that was going to be like. What would happen if they found the place where all of us were going to hide? And what about Luke and the group of men who had left more than a week ago? Were they okay? All the unanswered questions gnawed at my stomach.

Blake and what I’d done to him that night would always find a way in to my mind as well. A simple kiss I’d thought would make him Dent, not kill him.

After the thoughts ran through my mind for hours, well that was when sleep finally came, and I would dream of nothing.

MY BODY FELT stiff, I could smell the fresh bread lingering in my nose, and the sweet salty smell of….I jolted up in bed as last night flashed through my head. My head spun like never before and I lay down again.

Get up Blake
. Dragons were coming and I didn’t know if they had escaped. Everything just stopped after that warning, a warning I fucking hoped he’d listened to.

I was inside a room. I looked at drawn black curtains. The room looked familiar, like a dream, a memory, and then at once, everything that I’d forgotten for such a long time entered my mind like a tidal wave.

I remembered everything, my father, my mother, Samantha, everyone that used to matter to me.

I was in my old room. The room at the manor.

Nothing was making any sense.
What was I doing here? I shouldn’t be here.

Then another part that I’d forgotten entered my mind. The way I’d treated her – the way she used to make me feel. It nauseated me and I jumped up from my bed and ran toward the bathroom.

I barely made the toilet as I vomited. Bile, it was all that came up, as I technically hadn’t eaten for who knows how long. My entire body felt weak. It trembled slightly as I hunched over the toilet seat.

“Blake?” My mom’s voice came from the bathroom door. “Thank heavens you are awake.”

“Awake?” I turned my head slightly toward my mom. This wasn’t right, none of it was. “What are you talking about, where the hell is Elena?”

She gasped and closed her eyes. “It worked.” She gave a sweet soft smile.

“What worked, where is she?”

“Calm down. We found you two weeks ago, Sunday, on her carpet, there was blood everywhere and I thought you were—” She took a deep breath as tears filled her eyes. “Dead, but Constance put two and two together real fast, said it was the bond, one that needed to be made a long time ago. She would’ve been worried if you hadn’t shown any side effects. But we hadn’t expected this.”

“Side effects, Mom what…”

I remembered the day she was speaking about. The night I’d kissed Elena in her room. Something I thought I would never do.

I remembered wanting to be free. I didn’t want a rider at all. But when she’d finally spoken the words – that was when I’d realized I didn’t want to be free. I never wanted to hear her say those words ever again. I remembered the kiss and then – the blood. A cold finger traced down my back. I looked at my mom. “Where is Elena?”

She didn’t say anything, she didn’t have to. I could see it in her eyes.

“Mom!” My voice broke slightly.

“We don’t know where she is, Blake. She has been missing for the past two weeks. King Helmut has a search party out looking for her round the clock. Nothing.”

“Why didn’t you wake me?” I got up not knowing what the fuck was going on. My mind spun like a vortex, it made me dizzy and I leaned on the wall with my hand. Still, I was going crazy with thoughts about dragons that were near, wanting to kill her, and me warning Herbert like I always had. I’d spent sixteen years with them, without them even knowing it, invisibility is a bitch. And now my mom was rambling about two weeks. What was this?

It hit me like a tidal wave. The Dent.

This is why George never spoke about the procedure. I thought it was a life sentence of slavery, a spell. Never in a million years had I thought it was like this. To live with your Dent, to see her life like it was yours, to love her, first like a brother, then a protector, and then – it’s like you know nobody in this world is better for her than you, yourself.

Falling in love wasn’t easy either as I couldn’t touch her or speak to her or tell her how I felt. She couldn’t see me then, for twelve years to be exact.

Still, I spoke to her nonstop, even if she hadn’t heard a single word, and now she was gone. I understood now why we followed them everywhere they went, like puppies. Sixteen years of them not noticing us, pent up feelings that could never be spoken, never be shared. It wasn’t a spell. It was real, and a bond that formed through years and years. Almost a lifetime.

Then the fear came again. I’d lived with this feeling for the past couple of years. When all the others found out about her and came to pledge their lives to protect her, when they started to die one by one, I knew something was wrong. Someone else that didn’t want her alive had found out about her existence and that was when I realized I wasn’t useless after all. It was my fear of losing her that did it. My fear formed some sort of a force, one that connected with Herbert. Sure, at first it scared him when he was watching a TV show and the actor would suddenly address him and tell him that danger was near, that they were coming. That had been me.

I had no idea how I’d done it, but I had and was glad after a while that he didn’t question it. The killings always ended up on the news and he knew I had saved them.

If anyone knew how we felt about our Dents, they would kill them to get back at us, and our lives would be over.

I had plenty of enemies.

Still, George was out for a day, not two weeks.

Tears lingered in my eyes. I had to find her, fast.

“Blake?”

I walked with huge strides to my closet, pulled out a shirt and jeans and covered my body with things I used to hate.

“We tried,” Mom said again. “You didn’t want to wake. Constance thought it was best to leave you.”

“Best to leave me? Elena is out there alone, Mom. I don’t even know if she is okay!” I stopped, closed my eyes as my head spun again. I couldn’t think of anything right now. She just had to be alive. “I need to find her,” I said and with that I willed my strength back and left my room.