Moonbreeze (The Dragonian Series Book 4) (2 page)

Epitome

My name is Elena Malone-Squire-Watkins. I’m eighteen years old. I started out my ordinary life as just Elena Watkins, but my journey has lead me on so many life-changing adventures and revealed so much about my past that I can’t even begin to explain the name change.

My life hasn’t always been easy, considering I grew up with a dragon for a father. That was a small piece of information he declined to share with me.

Ever since I could remember, we’d moved every three months. I never knew why until the night I finally got my answers, the night I discovered who my father really was: a dragon. That night my father died saving my life.

That was how I came to be in Paegeia. A world hidden behind an enchanted wall inside the Bermuda Triangle. It used to be part of our world, my old home realm. Magic, dragons, shifters, you name it, roam free behind the enchanted wall now, living alongside gifted people who can tame dragons; bonding with them in order to share their abilities.

They are born with a special mark and are known as Dragonians - dragon riders.

I was born with that mark too, and a pretty darn dark one at that.

A mark no one thought really belonged to me, including me, because of what my father was.

It turns out that only children born from humans can become Dragonians.

Still, that mark was my ticket straight into Dragonia Academy, an elite school for dragons and gifted dragon tamers.

The teachers at the Academy taught me everything that I know today. Magic, the art of fighting and handling weapons – two axes to be exact – but most importantly, learning about dragons and their riders.

While the whole idea of dragons and their riders threw me for a loop, things were about to get a whole lot stranger. I soon learned that some of those dragons and tamers were actually meant for each other. Their souls were somehow connected, coded in each other’s DNA, before birth. Their destinies and what they would achieve together had been written in the stars before time even existed and this future could only be seen by Moon-Bolt dragons that could reveal them in a form of a riddle.

These bonds are known as Dents.

How it all works is still beyond me, it’s extremely complex and not something that can be easily explained, but needs to be experienced. Dents are extremely rare and are revered as the oldest form of magic, even in a world as magical as Paegeia.

So you can just imagine how lost I was in this new world, having to deal with the fact that dragons weren’t just fairy tales and learning that magic really did exist, on top of losing the only man I knew as my father.

That was when I’d met Becky and Sammy. Becky was a human and fellow Dragonian, like me, and Sammy was a Fire-Tail dragon. She is kind and the bravest of all dragons and I was honored to call them both my best friends.

After a few months of living in my new world I fell in love with a boy named Lucian, the Prince of Tith, who stole my heart and my very soul. He was everything a girl could ever want, but it was not meant to last. He died almost a year ago saving me from Paul Sutton, a Wyvern who’d claimed to be my dragon. I believed him because of my foretelling, a destiny the Viden had predicted.

A day will come and a day will go, a choice I will have to make otherwise the truth will never be known.

It was a mouthful, and gave no inkling of what it was I needed to do. That’s what had propelled me on all my journeys and how my life suddenly lead to so much death.

I’d really thought Wyverns could be tamed, but I learned the hard way that it was not possible; by sacrificing the love of my life.

The worst part of it all was, on the day he died, I changed into a dragon myself.

A small detail no one had ever shared with me.

The dragon inside of me was named Cara and she shared my body. She gave me freedom; she helped me get over my fear of heights and gave me courage I’d never thought was possible. Her presence also made losing Lucian a bit more bearable.

During my journey to find out who I really was, I learned that Cara had died a long time ago, saving my life as an infant, and she had awoken when Paul tried to kill me.

Her mother, Tanya Le Frey, had been Queen Catherine’s dragon. It turns out Queen Catherine is my biological mother. Shocked? Not as shocked as I was.

Many years ago, Tanya had sacrificed her six-year-old dragon, Cara, so that I could live.

Cara wasn’t supposed to wake up, but I guess being in such grave danger at the hands of Paul gave her no choice.

This brings me to my final revelation. I am the Princess of Paegeia. The daughter of King Albert and Queen Catherine. This meant I had to kill the dragon part of me; I had to kill Cara, in order to claim what was mine. The Rubicon. A dragon that was all ten dragon species combined who was predestined for evil. If I hadn’t discovered who I was, he would’ve turned dark, taking my soul with him.

His human form was named Blake Leaf. He was my best friend Sammy’s brother.

He was the kind of guy that would make your legs turn into goo by just looking at you, but he was as arrogant as they come and as stubborn as hell. And the worst part of it all was that he’d loathed me ever since I was brought here, but for an unknown reason had ended up saving my life on more than one occasion.

I guess I finally knew why he’d done it. It was the part that was fighting the evil in him – because he’d known from the beginning who I was – how big that part was, I didn’t know.

Unfortunately we shared one of those special bonds, a Dent, and our destinies were written in the stars.

This destiny was something I didn’t really believe in because of this messed up love-hate relationship I shared with him.

So now I am coming to grips with the knowledge that the man who raised me was not my father and that my mother had never left me, she died. Also that my real father was the greatest man who’d ever lived and that I am unable to free him or the people of Etan from the spell of an evil sorcerer because of a promise I’d made to him during my ascending.

A promise that wasn’t mine to make alone. But none of that matters as my dragon is the last person/creature in this world that would ever Dent, even if his life depended on it. That knowledge wasn’t an easy pill to swallow.

Blake wants absolutely nothing to do with me, he’d made it clear on so many occasions, and I know everyone blames his dark side, but I know better. It isn’t his dark side. For some reason he just doesn’t want me as his rider.

But I know I will get there; somehow I will find a way, as I always seem to do. I have no choice, as I am, and will always be the Princess of my new world.

UMMER WAS HARD, but never in a million years had I thought the beginning of my third year at Dragonia Academy would be harder.

I had a new schedule, again, one that would instruct new riders on how to connect with their dragons. The only plus side to this was that I was sharing classes with Becky and Sammy again.

To make matters worse, I was now being forced, this time by the two ruling kingdoms, to sit with King Helmut and King Caleb to discuss Paegeia’s projects. The royals ran a couple of charities, which Queen Margerite loved, and from that money they found ways to help the less fortunate or fund a project that would produce enough income to sustain their charity work. But not all of those projects were good. Some of these projects were dodgy, and they were conducted on the other side of the world. So every Wednesday and Thursday after school, I was either taken to Tith or Areeth to sit with them and just talk politics.

Blake was still missing, for more than two months to be exact, and if not for his love of booze, I would have thought he was lying in a ditch somewhere without a heartbeat.

Whenever he consumed too much alcohol, well, it was the only time that he ‘tuned in’ and actually spoke to me inside my head, a conversation that was only meant for us. But it was usually vulgar, dirty and always below the belt, and far from the truth as I know he hated my guts, but for some reason it was the opposite whenever he was drunk. It was the only time he really wanted me.

He was my Dent. A bond so strong that it actually made people who had to watch it on a daily basis want to puke. Becky, my best friend, shared a Dent with her dragon, George, who was a Moon-Bolt. The kind who could see into the future as they aged.

I remembered how he’d loathed her those first couple of weeks after she claimed him. It was before he’d Dented. And when he finally went through the process, a process that no one can explain because the stupid idiot will not reveal it to any living soul, he’d become like her shadow. A limb which she couldn’t function without and her soul mate. They drove everyone around them nuts with the way they stared at one another, giggling and cooing sweet words in each other’s ears.

It was unnatural, not the real kind of love I’d once shared with Lucian, the Prince of Tith. To me it was a spell that these dragons were put under. It wasn’t something I treasured the way the rest of Paegeia did.

Sammy and Dean, one of Lucian’s best friends, had fallen in love in our second year. When I’d started to show signs that I was close to ascending, we actually thought about teaming up, but then Paul, a Wyvern, came into the picture and said he was my dragon. After that she and Dean had made it official and they became a team. They didn’t share a Dent but they were really close.

“Elena.” Sir Edward called my name and I cringed.
Shit
, not paying attention in these classes was surely going to make me fail all of them.

I cleared my throat and looked at him questioningly.

“You’re free to go,” he said and I narrowed my eyes not knowing where it was I should go.

“For heaven’s sake.” Becky spoke softly, but everyone laughed, as the entire class had super hearing abilities. “Master Longwei, the Council.”

“Oh.” I started to pull all my stationery and my books together and put them into my backpack, closed the flap, and got up.

“Thank you, Sir Edward.”

He gave me that look, the one that told me he was seriously concerned about my lack of concentration lately, and nodded.

I walked as fast as I could out of the Magical Variances class and ran to the office where Master Longwei was waiting for me.

I pulled hard at the oak door. I remembered when it’d felt like a regular door, but my strength was one of the first things that’d left me when Cara died, and also one of the things that I’d never gotten back after I claimed Blake. I missed my strength.

Master Longwei was already waiting for me at the dragon statue inside the lobby.

There was no time to change into something more adequate to meet the Ancients, but they needed to get used to who I was.

Ever since those horrible three weeks of summer learning – no, let me rephrase – forcing everything about Paegeia down my throat, I’d refused to become this dressed up doll whenever the Ancients or Council wanted a word with me.

Master Longwei gave me a slightly raised eyebrow and glanced at his watch.

“Yeah, I know. I’m late. Sorry. I forgot about the Ancients.”

“Elena, you cannot….”

“I know.” I sounded irritated. I just hated everything about being the princess because I really sucked at it still.

THE CARRIAGE FLIGHT felt like five minutes and then we were at Town Hall in Elm, where the Ancients were going to meet with us.

Since my dragon refused to Dent, we’d had to come up with something to keep our connection at bay in some cases.

In the history of Paegeia, no Dent had a connection between dragon and rider this strong. Whenever Blake was beaten, as he was still dark and had evil urges, a process that was on hold until he Dented, I automatically went through the beatings as well, ending up with slashes as long as the width of my back. We only discovered this a couple of weeks back when I’d dreamt about Emanuel, King Helmut’s dragon and a really good friend, getting beaten, which then turned into Blake and eventually became my own beating, which nobody could stop. Not even Constance with her magic healing touch.

Master Longwei, bless his mind, put two and two together really fast, even if it did sound far-fetched, and phoned Sir Robert to stop beating Blake to a pulp. It took weeks to heal and to be honest I think I still had the scars on my back to prove it.

This bond was
so
not frawsome at this stage.

The connection was messed up, but it was one I had to deal with.

I didn’t like the beatings, and I hoped that when it happened again, I wouldn’t feel it like the last time and would somehow be able to get to him before his father ended up killing him.

This was why we were meeting with the Council. A plan to block our bond and situations like this was their number one priority. A situation that I’d made very clear to Sir Robert could
never
happen again. But he was a dragon and who was I to give him orders, even if I was the princess.

“You are awfully quiet today, Princess.”

“I told you not to call me that, Master Longwei.”

He smiled. “It’s what you are, the day you own up to it is the day that you are ready to handle your responsibility.”

I wanted to roll my eyes, but a princess never rolls her eyes. Every time I wanted to do that, Stanley’s voice shrilled inside my head like a horrible alarm.

“You are right. Sorry, Master Longwei,” I said.

It made him laugh. “Elena, you are still Elena Watkins to me. You never have to pretend, please.”

I giggled too but it turned into a sigh as I looked out the window, upon my world. “It’s all still so confusing.”

“Which part?”

“Everything.”

“Then maybe you should speak to someone, Elena, one who was part of a Dent, a long time ago but lost her rider.”

I rolled my eyes, even with Stan’s stupid voice shrilling in my head.

“I’ll die before I walk one step up that tower again.”

“She can help you, Elena.”

I shook my head. I guess it wasn’t just my dragon who was stubborn. Every time Irene’s name, our Viden, was mentioned in my presence, I would remember her harsh words the first time she’d given me that horrible foretelling. I guess a first impression was really that strong.

She told me that I, King Albert and Queen Catherine’s daughter, didn’t belong. That my mark was just a birth defect, that I would never ascend and I would never fit in. For someone that had the ability to see into the future, she really sucked with me.

I would never see her as anyone who I could confide in, even if Blake spoke highly of her.

Yes, there was a time when he’d been super sweet to me. A part of me had fallen head over heels for him, but it wasn’t real. He’d only been trying to lure me into doing the most horrible thing ever: to kill him when the time came, since my dragon form – since Cara – had changed into a Rubicon herself.

In some way, killing him would’ve probably been easier than what he had to do now.

Even if Irene’s very first Foretelling had been about us, I would rather free Blake than hear what the Viden had to say ever again..

I saw Dents as evil, and not the way the rest of this world saw them.

Dragons have to do what their Dragonians tell them, no matter how sinister their requests are. Cheng’s father couldn’t break from his rider, who according to Cheng was just as evil as Goran himself.

Becky was controlling too, and it was disgusting how George just did whatever she wanted. He actually loved that part of her with all of his heart.

No, our love would never be real. Not like the love Lucian and I had shared. We’d fought, we’d laughed, and fought some more. It wasn’t easy at times, but it was the real deal.

Blake would become like George, and I would know that none of it was real. I would never do that to him,
never,
and nothing was going to change my mind.

We stopped in front of the Hall and Master Longwei climbed out first. Flashing lights reflected off his face and into the carriage, and I took a deep breath.

Ever since the truth came out about who I was, everywhere I went the cockroaches with their cameras were there.

I hated each and every one of them, as the one time when I really needed them, the time when I wanted to break free from all the learning how to be something I was not, none of them ever revealed what I was truly going through. They made it look like I was having a royal time without my two best friends, who’d I almost lost in the process.

These people with their cameras were only in it for the money, and Stan or one of his gang would throw bags of money at them to not print what was really going on.

They would do anything to earn that penny. It was disgusting.

I climbed out, and flashing lights blinded me.

“Princess, what will you do if there is nothing that can protect you from the Rubicon’s bond?”

Yes, that piece of information had been in all the tabloids over the past few weeks. How I’d felt Blake’s beating, every single slash of it.