The Dragon's Gem (4 page)

“Your
choice, but there are others who would not care that she has been deemed your perfect match. Not all of our kind believes, as we do, that our mates are exclusive to us. I have noticed a lot of interest from the Blues whenever she’s around.” He pointed to a large group of male teens who were laughing loudly across the hall.

Anger roared to life inside of me. I despised the Blues. They were, if possible, more cocky and arrogant than I was and their leader Soran and I often butted heads. “It would be just like Soran to go after Aurora to get to me.”

Nate looked uncomfortable. “Dude, I don’t think it would be all about you, he really seems to like her.”

That
comment drew my immediate attention and hand me clenching my fists. “When have they had time together?”

“He’s her lab partner in chemistry
. They see each other every day for an hour and forty-five minutes. You don’t think they’re just mixing chemicals, do you?” He grinned, but it faded when my fist slammed into the locker behind him, bending the door into the frame. Everyone turned and looked at me, their eyes wide with fear, waiting to see how far my anger would go. “Dude, calm down, it’s not like they’re dating or anything.”

Belynda walked up
, scanning the locker with a haphazard smile. “Guess you heard Soran is coming to the party tomorrow night.”

“What party?” I asked
, my fist throbbing where it had struck the metal.

She sighed and gave me a look that clearly showed her irritation. “
You know
. The party for Aurora? The one everyone is talking about?” I shook my head. “Have you been under a rock? I left you, like, ten messages about it.”

I turned and looked at Nate
, who was nodding in agreement. “I told you about it too, but obviously you weren’t listening.”

I supposed I wasn’t; since a certain little female had arrived in town I found myself wholly occupied by what she was doing. “Why would you invite him to a party for my…” I halted mid-sentence and corrected my words. “Why would you invite him at all? I didn’t think you two were friends.”

“Aurora asked if he could come,” she grinned, as if she knew something I didn’t.

“And you just agreed?” I sneered
, immediately regretting my quick words when she turned her sharp eyes upon me, her anger easy to read.

“Well, I could have told her that he was the leader of the Blue dragons and that you hated each other so it wouldn’t be wise to invite him, but she doesn’t know we exist, so I couldn’t say anything. Besides, given the fact she doesn’t like you much right now, it might have only made her like him all the more.” I had never seen her so angry, smoke streamed from her nose and her body heat rose to dangerous proportions, scorching my skin. “You screwed this up, not me, so get off your high horse and fix it, because, to be honest, right now I think he is the better choice for her than you.”

“You go too far!”
Nate said jumping to my defense.

“Why
, because he’s the great Pendragon heir?” she sneered. “Do you really think that gives him the right to treat her like crap? At least Soran wants her here, and he’s really nice to her.”

I placed my hand on Nate’s shoulder to stop him from advancing on her. “She’s right. I have been a complete and utter jerk to Aurora.” I turned and looked at Belynda. “I promise I am done with all of that. I am going to apologize and beg her forgiveness, if that’s what it takes.”

She took a deep breath and reined in her temper. “You better hope you haven’t already destroyed any chance you had with her. She’s not one of us, she can walk away anytime unscathed, but if she does, can you live with it?”

To be honest
, I knew I couldn’t now that I had met her and gotten to see just how wonderful she was. I couldn’t imagine a day without seeing her, scenting her intoxicating fragrance everywhere she went, and listening to her soft, melodic voice when she spoke. I leaned back against the lockers, looking to where Aurora stood with Ryan, gathering her books from her locker, and sighed. “You know I can’t. Tell me how to make this right.”

Her smile said it all. S
he had apparently just been waiting for a chance to get involved and now I had given her the permission she needed to do so. “First, you come to the party tomorrow night; second, you don’t act like a jerk; and third, leave your macho attitude at home. Fighting with Soran will not win you any points with Aurora.”

She was asking the impossible. If the Blues were going to be there, tension would be high; anything could happen.

“I mean it, Draco, Aurora abhors violence.”

“I hear you
. I promise I will try.” I didn’t really have a choice if I wanted to make things right with Aurora.

“Okay
, she’s coming to my house after school tomorrow, so if you showed up a little early it might give you the chance to talk to her before everyone else shows up.” I could see her devilish mind working and knew she was devising a plan. “Yeah, that just might work.” She smiled and patted my arm. “You’ll win her in no time.”

I held up my hand. “Whoa there
, I don’t want to win her. I just wanted to make friends with her.” Her face fell and all signs of the happiness that had been there just moments before were gone. “I don’t want more than that right now. I’m not ready for anything else.”

Her lips were thin and tight, as she looked me over. “Grow up, Draco, before it’s too late, and she finds someone else.” With a flip of her hair, she walked off, leaving me standing there with Nate, who was staring across the hall to where Soran had joined Aurora at her locker, prepared to escort her to class.

Aurora smiled
and he leaned in close to whisper in her ear as he held her hand, looking for all the world like a doting boyfriend. “How did I miss that?” I asked Nate, my hands clenched in tight fists as he brushed his knuckles down her cheek. I fought the urge to go and knock the leader of the blues on his rear as I wanted to, but he deserved it for even touching the girl everyone knew was mine.

“Don’t know
, but the real question is how do you stop it?” he asked as the couple walked away, laughing. “If you don’t want her then you can’t stop her from dating others.”

I didn’t bother to respond
. I was still hung up on the fact I had just thought of Aurora as
mine
. Of course, I meant it figuratively. I certainly wasn’t ready to claim her, but I also wasn’t ready to watch her date Soran, so I was at an impasse.

*****

The rest of the afternoon, I watched as Soran flirted outrageously with Aurora, taking every opportunity to get close to her and put his hands on her. The only thing that made it bearable was her obvious discomfort with his advances. She seemed uncomfortable with his attentions, but whether it was because she didn’t like him or was just unsure of herself with males I wasn’t certain. I hoped, though, it was the first. I didn’t like the idea of her being interested in Soran, or any male for that matter. She was mine, and whether or not I was ready to claim her didn’t figure into the equation.

I was at my locker at the end of the day when I saw Soran again brushing up to Aurora. I edged closer so I could hear their conversation.

“Hey, Aurora,” Soran said, placing his arm around her shoulders and pulling her close, which had me counting to ten so I wouldn’t do anything stupid.

“Oh, hey
, Soran,” she answered in her soft lilting voice.

“I was wondering if I could drive you home,” he said with a grin.

“Uh…”

She looked lost and
unsure what to say when Ryan, God bless him, interceded. “Sorry, dude, her driver is already here and waiting for her.”

Soran looked at Ryan, his displeasure easy to read. “Okay then, I just thought I’d ask.”

Aurora placed her hand on the one he had laid over her shoulder, and smiled. “Sorry, if you gave me more notice I could tell Henry not to come.”

Soran’s face split with a wide grin. “How about tomorrow
then?”

“Can’t
, she’s going home with Belynda and me to get ready for the party,” Ryan interjected, earning a sharp look of disapproval from the leader of the Blues.

“Maybe on Monday then?” he asked hopefully.

“I will check with my dad and call you tonight,” Aurora said, clearly trying to end the conversation before the two males got into a pissing match.

Her words
, though, upset me greatly. She apparently had Soran’s number, which meant she talked to him more than at school and that had me wondering just how much more he knew about her than I did.

“We need to go, Henry is waiting,” Ryan urged.

“Soran, I will see you tomorrow,” Aurora said, squeezing his hand.

“Yeah, tomorrow,” he said, brushing his lips across her cheek, then shooting Ryan a dirty look before walking away.

It took everything I had not to follow Soran and beat the hell out of him for even getting one of her smiles when I couldn’t even earn one from her, but I had the feeling he would tell her just to get the upper hand. Instead of doing as I wanted,
I leaned back against the locker and breathed a sigh of relief. I owed Ryan big time for his interference. Taking a deep breath to calm myself I gathered my things and walked outside to where Henry waited with car door open. He nodded and I got in sitting near Aurora, but saying nothing as he closed the door and took off down the road. It had been the same since the day she had told me off. I would get in the car last and we would drive in utter silence. Me staring at her, trying to figure her out, and her gripping her hands on her lap, her ear buds on, acting as if I weren’t even there.

The first day after my
dressing-down I had dared to try and ask what she was listening to, but she just glared at me when I touched her shoulder and hadn’t taken out her ear buds, so I had backed off and left her alone. Since then I kept to myself and she kept to herself, which should have been good since it was what I had wanted, but I found that it wasn’t. I wanted to hear her talk, to have her smile at me as she did with Soran, and be at ease in my company as she was with him, but until I apologized I knew that wouldn’t happen. I was about to open my mouth to do just that when the car stopped and she gathered her things as Henry came around to open the door.

Henry opened the door and she pulled out the dreaded ear buds. He took her hand
, helping her out of the car and up the steps where her housekeeper stood waiting, talking to her quietly all the while about the weather and how her day had been. It seemed he knew so much more about her then I did and that gave me an idea. “Good day, young lady,” he said, earning a smile from her before he turned and walked back to the car, getting into the driver’s seat and heading off towards my father’s lab.

I sat in silence the entire way and once we parked and Henry opened the door I got
out and turned to him. “Henry, do you know any certain flower Aurora likes?”

He smiled.
“Roses, sir. She loves roses.”

“Thank you,” I said
, earning a surprised look. I realized then that I had probably never thanked him before and given all he had done for me in my life that was extremely sad. I shook my head as I walked into the towering glass building that housed my father’s research lab and wondered how I managed to have
anyone
who cared for me.

***
Aurora
***

By the time Friday came, I realized two things. One, Belynda had gone overboard on the party; I knew this because everywhere I went, I heard people talking about it and because Ryan mumbled constantly about how out of control she was. I asked once or twice just how many people were coming, but she just murmured, “how one never knew with these kinds of things”. The second thing I realized was that I was no closer to resolving my differences with Draco, which might not have been a problem except that his father was pressing for us to all to have dinner together. Talk about awkward: Draco didn’t want me to even live there, so I was betting he wouldn’t be thrilled to have me at their house eating dinner with them either.

We hadn’t sorted out our differences and I wondered if we ever would. I had felt his presence throughout the week, at school and at home, but he didn’t bother to speak to me or anyone else I spent time with. When I commented on his absence, Belynda told he was pouting. Ryan argued he was just sorting things out, but I knew the truth. He hated me and didn’t want to spend time around me.

“You ready?” Belynda asked me
, slamming her locker closed next to mine as the last bell of the school day sounded.

“Yeah,” I said
, with more confidence than I actually felt. I still wasn’t sure how she’d convinced my father to let me spend the night at her house. He had been extremely distracted of late, though, coming in at all hours of the night and leaving well before I got up for school, which probably explained it. Either way, I was now well and truly on my way to her house, and the party I had been dreading for the last few days.

Ryan escorted
us to his car, helped me into the passenger’s seat, and drove while Belynda yapped away on her phone, giving orders to someone about the upcoming party. Ryan tried to keep up conversation, but with his sister loudly issuing commands behind us it was hard to keep a steady flow and after a while, he just turned on the radio to drown her out. The soft, haunting tunes of a popular band filled the car and I laid my head against the seat, closing my eyes to listen. The band was one of my favorites and I felt every note of the songs they sang deep in my soul. I was so enraptured by the music I didn’t realize we were in any kind of trouble until I heard Belynda screaming from the back seat for Ryan to speed up while at the same time she spoke loudly into her phone, giving someone directions to where we were.

“Aurora
, brace yourself, I’m not sure if help will get here in time,” Ryan told me, his voice authoritative, so unlike the jovial, easygoing one I had come to know. “Belynda, tell me he’s on his way. I can’t keep this thing off my tail forever.”

“He’s close
, just keep it off the car,” she yelled.

“What’s happening?” I screamed
, but no one answered. They were both too busy screaming orders at each other to be concerned about my questions.

“Right!” Belynda screamed and the car swerved in that direction. “Left,” she screamed
; we swerved again.

“I c
an’t shake it!” Ryan yelled, sounding frustrated and worried.

T
he car shuddered and the roof groaned as if something heavy had landed on top of it. The smell of sulfur burnt my nose and a loud roar filled the air. The car rocked left to right just before the sound of glass breaking met my ears and searing heat filled the car. Belynda screamed and Ryan yelled at her to stay down as pushed me down in my own seat. The car swerved again, the wheels squealing in protest as he tried to knock whatever was on top of the ceiling off. My body swayed wildly with the motion, the only thing holding me in place my seat belt, as Ryan fought to keep control of the vehicle.

“Fire!” I
heard Belynda scream as she frantically began beating the backseat. I choked on the thick smoke that filled my lungs and began praying for a miracle. Belynda yelled to Ryan that if help wasn’t coming she was going to have to do something and I wondered what a little thing like her could do against what I assumed was some kind of large predator. I was about to protest when the loud swooshing of wings and a garbled cry sounded. The car rocked, moving from side to side again. It sounded as if a battle of epic proportions was taking place just outside of my window and I gripped the seat as another loud bang sounded on the roof. The window next to me crashed, sending glass raining down upon me, and I felt a sharp object pierce my arm, tearing into the tender flesh there, gouging deep, before being torn away. I screamed in agony, the pain so bad I thought I might pass out and placed my hand over the wound, feeling blood run freely through my fingers.

Belynda yelled for me to sit still as she
worked to unbuckle my seat belt. Her hands fell upon my shoulders and she dragged me into the back seat, covering me with her own body as the onslaught outside continued. “I got you,” she reassured me, as I whimpered underneath her, unable to see or comprehend what it was that was going on around us. It smelled of smoke and the springs tore at my body as she pressed me into the burnt remnants of what once had been a seat. Fear kept me paralyzed, but thankfully she was thinking clearly. I heard the sound of tearing material, then felt her tying it around my arm trying to staunch the flow of blood. “It’s not great, but it’ll hold until we can stop and fix something better,” she told me.

Wind whistled through
the car as it continued at high speed, barreling down the road, throwing us around like rocks in a tumbler. Ryan cursed with every bump and quake the beleaguered car took, and Belynda continued to bark out orders to him as I lay under her, trusting them to handle the situation since I was not exactly in the condition to offer much help. After a few minutes, the sounds overhead stopped completely. All I heard was my own heavy breathing and the frantic beating of my heart drumming wildly in my chest.

A loud
roar sounded. Ryan slammed the brakes, and the car came to a screeching halt that had Belynda and me careening into the seats in front of us. I heard the tortured cries of what sounded like an injured beast, then the crunch of metal as someone or something tore the door open next to me. I screamed.

“It’s alright,”
Ryan said from the front seat, trying to calm me. “Help is here.”

I heard Ryan
explaining to our rescuer about my arm as very warm, careful hands lifted me from the floor where I lay draped next to an unmoving Belynda.

“Belynda,” I cried out, worry for her making me fight against the arms that held me.

“Settle down
, Ryan has her, she’s alright,” a familiar voice said.

I opened my eyes and realized the distorted masculine form holding me was Draco, just before a blinding bolt of pain tore through me and I passed out.

*****

I wo
ke sometime later in a hospital, my father’s voice calming me as I came to with a startled cry. Everything flooded me at once, being attacked, being tossed around in the car, the wound to my arm, the horrible searing pain. My hand went immediately to the arm where bandages covered the area and I took a deep breath to calm myself.

“It’s alright
, honey, you’re fine,” my father said, his hand taking mine and removing it from the bandage. “You were in an accident, but you’re going to be alright.”

“Accident?” I asked
, unsure why he thought that I was in an accident when we had been attacked.

“Yes, Ryan said someone hi
t the car and he lost control. The car rolled down a ravine and hit a tree, but thankfully, you all made it out okay.”

I remembered nothing
about another car. I recalled an entirely different scenario, but my protest was cut off by the voice of the one person I never would have expected to be with me in the hospital.

“You hit your head
, Aurora. I’m sure you’re having a hard time remembering what happened, but Ryan and Belynda already spoke to the police so they have all they need and won’t be bothering you,” Draco said.

“But…”

Again, he cut me off.

“You need rest, do not worry about anything. Just sleep now.”

Something poked my arm and I knew they were dosing me with pain medicine. “You wer
e there,” I said accusingly.

“Of course, I was driving behind you. I saw the whole accident and I pulled you from the car before it caught fire.”

“Fire?” I murmured, remembering the smoke that had choked me.

“Yes
, the entire car was burnt beyond recognition by the time the police showed up,” he told me.

“What a coincidence,” I muttered
, my eyes closing as the medicine took effect, sending me into oblivion.

It wasn’t until I was alone in my room later that night that I began to piece together the accident
in my mind. I was convinced that no matter what Draco had said, we were not just involved in a run-of-mill car accident. I clearly heard the sound of something landing on the roof, the screams of something non-human as it attacked the car, and the smells of sulfur that had permeated the air. If I didn’t know better I would have assumed a giant bird or a dragon had attacked us. I laughed at the thought, thinking I needed to end the obsession with dragons that had spanned most of my lifetime.

From the time, I could read I was consumed with finding out all I could about the giant beasts that had ruled the skies during the times of knights and castles. I watched every movie ever made about the majestic winged creatures and read everything ever written about them. My nanny had often told me tales of dragons in the nursery, how they had managed to adapt and live among us throughout the years, becoming lawyers and doctors, even politicians, but my father always rejected her fanciful tales. He encouraged me to think realistically about the idea that dragons had existed at all, reasoning that their existence was based solely on the stories of knights that had been looking for dangerous deeds to boast of. He reasoned that nothing could have been more favorable for a knight than to fight a giant winged beast and win. I, however, had never proven or disproven either of their theories no matter how much research I had done, but as I grew older, I realized their existence was based more on fantasy than reality.

A faint noise in the hall dragged me from my thoughts and the squeak of the door let me know someone w
as entering the room. I felt Draco’s presence before he spoke and knew he was hesitating at the doorway. “Are you coming in or did you get the wrong room?” I asked, balling the sheet in my hands to hide the slight tremble in them.

“I was just checking
on you. I didn’t mean to wake you,” he said sounding tired.

“What time is it?” I tried to sit up and felt his arm behind me lifting me as he fluffed the pillows with the other hand.
It was a caring gesture, so unlike the Draco I had come to know and I couldn’t help feeling uneasy.

“Somewhere around three,” h
e answered, letting me settle back against the pillows.

“AM or PM?”

“AM,” he said after a slight hesitation. “Everyone else has gone home so I thought I might hang around in case you needed anything.”

It just didn’t sound like the Draco I had previously met and I couldn’t help but wonder why he was being so nice. “Why are you here, you didn’t cause the accident, in fact you saved me after, so it can’t be guilt?”

Another moment of hesitation, then he sighed. “Your father was exhausted; he could barely stay awake so I volunteered.”

“Really?” I didn’t bother to hide my surprise.

“Look, I saved you today; shouldn’t you be thanking me instead of berating me?” He took my hand in his, running his fingers over mine and for brief moment, I could see his face although it was rather blurry. “For now, just get better, everything else can wait until you do.”

“But I …
” The door creaked again; he dropped my hand as a pleasant sounding nurse came in to check my vitals and give me more pain medicine. By the time she left, I was already sinking back into a drug-induced sleep, but I felt Draco’s presence in the room and somehow it offered me comfort.

***
Draco
***

I watched her sleep throughout the night, haunted by visions of her in that mangled car, blood soaking her body as she lay at an awkward angle next to Belynda, wedged between the back and front seats.

“You couldn’t have known, son,” my father said next to me.

“I kne
w her life was in danger. I should have had more of us protecting her.” Even as I said it, I knew it was a foolish statement. Belynda and Ryan were Silver dragons. They were strong and their natural instinct was to protect, which they had done for Aurora until I got there. I was the one who had failed her. It was my fault she was in the hospital, my fault she had been attacked at all.

“You did what you could,” he said
, looking down on her with a fond smile. “She is not stupid. I am sure there will be a lot of questions from her.”

“I’ll handle it. The car has been taken care of and the p
olice heard the story of their ‘accident’ from Ryan and Belynda, so they won’t bother her. Besides, even if they did, she had a head injury so her version might be slightly affected by that.” I hated that we had to lie, but the humans finding out about us was just not something we could risk.