His True Love

by Khardine Gray

  With his wings wide, casting a shadow as dark as the darkness that covered the land Caleb flew up, and swooped back to me.

  That was when I saw it. The etherstone. It was secured to one of the scales under his neck. Clever, it could only be visible in dragon form. My blast before must have damaged the scale that was supposed to be hiding it.

  The form where he was the most strong.

  I had to get to it. If I did I could end this. I could end this and end him.

  He was coming at me, ready to tumble with rage. I readied myself for him. Simply gliding through the air.

  I figured a blast of my hottest flames straight to his neck could maybe get to the scale with the stone.

  I geared up to do it, getting ready as he flew closer and closer.

  And, now...

  I released the flames just as he got to me but damn as the flames bellowed from my throat a mass dark like obsidian formed before me and suddenly two more heads appeared on Caleb’s dragon body.

  “Fuck,” I whispered.

  Three heads bellowed flames at me. Fire hotter than anything I’d ever felt. Excruciating pain flew through my body like a million knives and I went tumbling down. Falling from the sky. Falling to my death.

  I went down so hard the earth shook and rippled out to the lake, and the trees adorning it fell over.

  Caleb landed next to me. The heads to his left and right moved like mindless snakes.

  “I have the power brother.” Caleb laughed. “All the power. I don’t know why I thought you’d be a match for me. All those weeks I spent sniffing you out, trying to find out where you were so I could trap you in the human realm was pointless. Look at you. Prince Eric. You are weak, but let’s make this game a little bit more interesting with the pretty girl.”

  Oh God, no.

  Not Ariyah.

  He laughed and billowed out one last blaze of flames. Blue this time.

  Blue for Pandir.

  It was the last thing I saw, but she was the last thing on my mind.

  Ariyah...

  Chapter 12

  Ariyah

  ***

  I didn’t think I could possibly describe how helpless I felt to anyone.

  There was Gabrielle sitting down across from me with the guardian women standing on either side of her.

  They hadn’t spoken since Eric had talked to them.

  No one had spoken since Eric left.

  The tension was stifling and here I was behind this shield with Jupe standing on the other side of it.

  A week ago none of this existed to me. My biggest problem was Stephan and his spiteful ways to get back at me for leaving him.

  Boy, had I come a long way since.

  There had to be something I could do. Gabrielle looked at me but looked back down to her hands as she picked at the pink lacquer polish on her nails. I knew she was finding all of this so hard. Harder than me because she was a witch. An actual witch. She wanted to be one, did all this stuff that we both thought was crazy at times and lived with the carefree spirit of one. Or what she thought the life of a witch was like.

  This was the case of thinking something and having it actually happen. It was two different things. One was something you wanted to believe in your head, the other was real.

  It was all real. It was real and Eric was a Dragon shifter. I couldn’t believe it. I really couldn’t.

  Half human, half dragon... but still mine.

  His words kept playing in my mind.

  “He’s never said that to anyone before,” Jupe said.

  I glanced at him. He was the first of us to talk in the space of time that Eric had gone.

  “He’d never tied himself to anyone,” he added. “Never told anyone what he was either.”

  I just realized then that he read my mind.

  “You hear my thoughts?” Given what happened it wasn’t a strange question to ask.

  He nodded. “I’m not a dragon shifter. I’m a demon. Telepathic abilities are part of what my race can do.”

  “Demons? There’s demons?”

  “Yeah. You’re looking at one.”

  “Oh God,” I put my hand to my head.

  “Sorry, it’s too much in one go. I’m sure if you let him Eric will tell you all about ... well, he’ll give you the full rundown of what you don’t know.”

  “He’ll make it back won’t he?”

  “I know he’ll try. He’ll damn well try his ...” Jupe’s voice trailed off as the house started to shake.

  “What’s happening?”

  Gabrielle stood up. “Ariyah, I don’t know what to do.”

  The portal suddenly turned black and out came a mass of darkness with claws and long sharp teeth.

  “Wraith demons!” Jupe cried. The fright on his face sent the terror to my soul.

  What was worse was the minute he said that, Gabrielle’s guardians put up a gold shield and I watched her and them disappear right before my eyes. Gabrielle didn’t even get the chance to call for me.

  I screamed as another demon came from the portal.

  When I looked to Jupe his hair and face had turned white and a blast of blue energy crackled from his hands. He fired it at the demons but it did nothing. It just went through them.

  The one that came out first lashed out at him and struck him to the ground.

  As Jupe fell unconscious so did the shield he’d placed up to protect me and I was at their mercy. Right at their mercy with no one. No one to call on for help.

  The demon grabbed me, snatching me in its claws and flew straight through the portal with me.

  I screamed right from the depths of my soul and with every fiber in my being. Fright flew through me, fear unlike anything I’d ever experienced in my life. Then I was falling amongst the blackness of the demons grasp.

  The closer I got the more landscape I could see and right below me lay a massive red dragon.

  Eric!

  That was Eric.

  Wings sprawled out on either side, neck looking like it had been snapped and a huge hole burned through the underside of his belly. He was hurt, badly.

  When my legs hit the ground I didn’t care about my own fears, or where I was.

  All I knew was the demons had set me free, and Eric was injured.

  I rushed over to him and threw my arms around his neck. Him, a beast, a dragon.

  It didn’t matter to me. To me he was Eric. The man who wanted forever with me.

  The man who saw me dancing by myself in the club and saw past the façade I placed up. He saw the real me and showed me that I could have happiness.

  He gave me that, but more than anything he gave me hope.

  “Eric please, wake up. Don’t leave me,” I cried.

  I wished I could hold him the way I did in his human form. Like this he was so big that both my arms didn’t fit around his neck.

  I must have looked like an insect on him.

  “Please, I love you. I love you. I love you and I just found you. I don’t want to tread softly anymore. I want what we talked about. I want that. Please come back to me.” It was all I could do.

  Tell him how I felt.

  Tell him how I truly felt.

  Laughter cut into the moment. Crude, harsh laughter. Evil.

  I turned to see a man descending from the sky with a black mass surrounding him. Hair black like tar. Soul, dark like the darkest night.

  “Very touching, a human in love with a dragon shifter,” the man said.

  “Who are you?” I didn’t know where the hell strength came from for me to say that, or the bravado I displayed.

  “I’m Caleb, your boyfriend’s twin brother.”

  “Twin brother?” Eric never talked about his family. Not in the sense where he talked about them individually. Having a twin was a pretty big thing to leave out. But, I definitely understood why.

  Caleb changed in front of me and looked more like a man. More like Eric, but still different.

  “We’re not identica
l. That would have been interesting don’t you think?”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “I want the kingdom, he was in my way. With him dead, I get it when my father dies. That should happen anytime now. He’ll just fade into the ether like his precious ancestors, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.”

  “This is your family. How can you do this?”

  “Means nothing. Don’t worry, I already decided to keep you for a toy. Must have been a reason why my brother loved human women. I’ll try you out and see what the fuss was all about.”

  “Oh God,” I tightened my hold on Eric and pressed my cheek to his scales.

  This was it. This would be it.

  “Eric, I love you.” I whispered one last time, right before dark talons grabbed me and held me high in the air.

  I never saw Caleb change into dragon form. It just happened as I blinked. Those few seconds.

  In that time he changed into a horrendous monster with three heads.

  The laugher that escaped his lips came from all of them.

  Just then a piercing growl shook through me. I looked down to see Eric on his feet. On his feet, looking just as ruthless as Caleb.

  “Put her down,” he ordered. His voice echoed everywhere. Sharp and strong.

  Spellbinding.

  “With pleasure,” Caleb answered letting me go. I must have been a hundred feet in the air. So high up and now I was falling again. Falling and falling to the ground.

  To my death.

  Long talons grabbed me just before I hit and swooped up into the sky. It was Eric. In the sharp edges of his claws he held me close to his heart. Close to the essence of him.

  As he flew up he looked down at me, and I saw the amber flicker in his eyes.

  Earlier he told me I was the only one who could see that. I hoped we lived through this so he could tell me why.

  He descended, flying closer to the ground and set me down on a tuft of grass in a meadow with bright red and yellow flowers I’d never seen before. So bright I could see the colors against the darkness.

  For the few minutes I’d been here it didn’t register than I was in a different land. All I cared about was him.

  He set me down looked at me in that way that held so much meaning and said the words I longed to hear and feel.

  “I love you too.”

  I reached out to him but couldn’t reach.

  “Stay here Ariyah.” He cautioned.

  “Come back to me.”

  “I will.”

  Chapter 13

  Eric

  ***

  Strength.

  Hearing she loved me gave me strength. Strength from deep, deep within.

  The kind of strength that made you want to fight with your last breath and failure was not an option.

  I soared through the sky and narrowed back to Caleb, or rather the monstrosity he’d become.

  All I had to do was get the stone. Get it and end this.

  That meant thinking outside the box. Outside the sphere of what we had right now. He had an overdose of unlimited power. Unlimited power on that big bulky body that was fast yes. However, not faster than me.

  I had to think about what I had that he didn’t have. Since I’d always worked harder for everything, harder to prove myself, harder to have what I wanted I’d always had to think outside the box.

  While Caleb saw one path to achieve something, I had to travel many routes. Just like now. The wound he gave me was fatal. It should have killed me. I should be dead. The essence within was on the verge of fading just like father. Then Ariyah came and restored something inside me.

  It made me think of what she told me about her childhood. I saw the disappointment in her face as she spoke and just now I felt the devastation in her voice. I thought of how she would feel if I died. If I didn’t fight, if I didn’t fight for us.

  And, what was more than that was she told me she loved me when I looked like this.

  That was true love. It warranted this fight I was about to throw myself into.

  A cascade of fire blazed my way straight from Caleb’s mouth. I dodged it, and dodged the blast from his other two heads too.

  Fucking bastard always had to cheat at everything.

  Not this time.

  There was a game we used to play when we were boys. When father was teaching us to fly and escape the enemy.

  Caleb couldn’t cheat at that because my ability to maneuver the planes always allowed me the upper hand. I sailed through the sky heading to Baverok Valley. It was near the Far Planes where the old dragon graveyard was. That was where we used to play. If I head straight there was a chance he’d guess what I was doing. I couldn’t allow that.

  With him on my tail I dived into the water, most dragons hated water. We didn’t. Father taught us to use it to our advantage. Caleb followed me going exactly where I wanted. This path would take us to the back of the graveyard. When we used the play the game we always came through the front. There was a secret path only I knew. I used to explore it a lot, and it came in handy whenever Caleb used to cheat. In the path was a water hole that gave the appearance of being part of the coral bed, but really it was part of the cave. If I could get him there, it would give me a second. One second. That was all I needed.

  Hot on my tail Caleb followed me, at least in the water he was unable to hit me with his fire bombs.

  Up ahead I could see it. It was the same as before. The same as I left it two hundred years ago. More, because when I left Pandir, Caleb and I were grown men.

  Grown men on different paths, no longer boys who were trying to see who had Father’s love and approval.

  I stalled purposely for a few seconds looking like I was slowing down. It gave him a chance to catch up. Once he was a few inches away from me I shot forward straight through the hole, and so did he. Except he got stuck.

  Caleb got stuck just as I thought he would and in the second I saw that I doubled back and transformed into my human form.

  Unlike most of what I’d been taught growing up I always believed there was a reason why the mages of the Coven of Shadows choose to combine human essence and dragon essence. They could have chosen another being, they didn’t though. At the time I was certain they never thought of human’s as weak. They knew both were strong, and when you used the abilities of both you could work wonders.

  That was what I was doing now. It was as a man that I swam up to Caleb while he was stuck in the hole and snatched the etherstone from under the scale of his neck.

  As I took hold of it the two heads on his body disappeared and he turned from the dark blackness that covered him into a red dragon.

  I transformed again just before he broke free and made my escape leaping into the sky and up to the sunshine that replenished me.

  Bright, brilliant sunshine that wasn’t there before. My possession of the stone did that and it was drawing away the darkness from over the land. Drawing it away like it was wiping it out.

  Caleb followed bellowing at the top of his lungs, but I raced across the sky and rounded back to the palace where I could see Aurora, Shaneia and a few more guards in the courtyard.

  I landed in the middle transformed to human form and waited for Caleb.

  He landed too, transformed and dove for me.

  “Rasha muska!” I cried freezing him in place. It was a spell I’d picked up from a mermaid. It paralyzed the victim and bound their power for a few minutes. I knew it wouldn’t have worked on him before because of the power he had. Right now his power was on par with mine. Me without tapping into the stone’s power like he did.

  “Give it to me,” Caleb cried , his face wild and feral.

  “Yes I will.” I would give it to him. I held up the etherstone, right up so all could see. I could use it to kill him. I could do it and end the threat of him taking the kingdom once and for all.

  Two hundred years had passed and my brother had come back, bigger and badder, and with a vengeance.

&nbs
p; “Eric!” Aurora cried. She rushed up to me and looked me over with sadness.

  She didn’t want me to kill him. It was in her eyes.

  I should kill him. There was every reason to and the bonds of my spell were starting to loosen.

  “Go on do it,” Caleb snarled.

  Sure I should kill him, I just couldn’t. I couldn’t do it. He was my brother. My twin brother.

  I wasn’t the kind of man who could kill when there were other alternatives. Holding the stone higher I drew on the dark essence. I was its wielder now.

  “Wraiths come to me.” I shouted into the heavens.

  Caleb gasped on hearing that and his eyes widened when he looked up and saw the dark mass that had started gathering above us. Darker than the darkness that had consumed the land.

  Dark and moving in an uncontrollable manner.

  The demons flew down and waited for my command.

  “Take him from this land. Take him to the darkest part of the realms of hell and keep him there.” I pointed at Caleb.

  Caleb screamed as the demons swarmed him. Screams of terror ripped through the sky from him and them as they carried him away.

  It would be the last time that I saw him.

  Where I sent him was worse than death.

  ***

  After we’d buried our dead, everyone else started going through the ruined buildings to assess the damage.

  I’d healed Father and the land with the stone. Undoing what Caleb did in whatever way I could.

  For the most part, I spent the time removing the dark magic he used, like the dark spell he used to block the passage to Pandir, other things took more work. It took a little over two days.

  In that time Shaneia had given me some herbs to help my wound heal. They helped but I had a long way to go before I would be fully restored.

  I stood before Father now in the grand hall holding Ariyah’s hand. Her small hand that was shaking in mine. He sat on his throne looking at the two of us. Looking at us in that assessing way I used to hate, but no longer cared.

  “Are you sure we can’t entice you to stay a little longer?” he asked.

  “There’s a few things I have to take care of in the human realm,” I answered.