Starlight

by Adrienne Woods

  “So I was thinking.”

  “About what now?”

  He chuckled. “About maybe we should try to get away, just for two days, preferably those two days before all this rescuing and war craft crap.”

  “Sounds like a brilliant idea.”

  “I would love to spend some time with you, and our friends. Just us.”

  I had to admit, the friends part was a bit of a disappointment but the more I thought about it, the more I wanted them there too. It could be the last time we would ever be together. “Yes, it sounds like the best plan you’ve had all week.”

  He laughed.

  “Do you have any place in mind?”

  “I do. There is a beautiful lake cottage not far from here. I can finally take you on a very long overdue bike ride.”

  “Me on a bike?”

  “You will be safe. I will never let anything happen to you.”

  “Fine,” I said. “A long overdue bike ride it is. Are the shifters going to be there too?”

  “Oh, a getaway isn’t a getaway without the shifters, but I promise they will be on their best behavior.”

  The door opened again and the scientist walked back in.

  “That will be enough, thank you, Princess.”

  He gently pulled out the needle and dabbed it with a piece of cotton wool.

  “Give it here,” Blake said and took my arm. He healed my puncture wound while the scientist just stared at us.

  “Handy to have someone like that,” he said. “Us normal folks can only rely on them when we are extremely sick.”

  We both laughed.

  “Yes, he is extremely handy,” I joked back.

  “Thank you again, Princess.”

  “You are welcome.”

  “Blake,” he said and turned around, walking to the door.

  “Oh, don’t go too far, the packages will be ready to be placed real soon. We are going to need your help again.”

  “You know where to find me.”

  He disappeared and I sighed.

  “Sometimes I doubt if we are ever going to be able to just get away.”

  “Oh, I am going to demand that,” Blake reassured me. “That is a promise.”

  “You’re started to sound like George now with his oaths.”

  “Ha-ha,” he said and grabbed my shirt, pulling me closer to his chest.

  He kissed me softly. It was a beautiful kiss. I didn’t wanted to end, but like always there was another matter that needed our attention and our special moment was cut short again.

  The door opened after a knock and Blake’s grunt, which made me laugh again.

  Another face I hadn’t seen in a while entered.

  “Ralph,” Blake got up. “What are you doing here?”

  They shook hands and Ralph looked at me. “Orders from the Princess,” he said and I saw the packages in his hands.

  “It’s ready.”

  “Yes,” he smiled. “I hope you will be happy with them.”

  “Thank you, Ralph,” I said.

  “Just go with it. I know you liked the black, but she didn’t.” He shook his head at Blake and said goodbye.

  I put the box on the chair. “Okay, let’s see it,” Blake said, he knew about me changing the suits color.

  I opened the lid.

  The suit was pure white. “Don’t say it. To me it matters.”

  “If it’s white you want, and white that will make you feel more confident, then I will wear whatever the hell you want me to.”

  “Thank you,” I said and he grabbed his suit.

  It was a real special operation kind of look and the material felt like a wet kind of leather. It was cold and white. Blake wouldn’t be the dark crow he was in my visions anymore. This could be the different outcome Emanual had been referring too. Changing things in the vision to make it different. Throw Destiny off, cheating Death just once more.

  I felt his lips kissing my temple.

  “We will make it, Elena. I can feel it. I don’t want to die, and you won’t either.”

  “That sounds better than that stupid promise.”

  He laughed.

  “My promises aren’t stupid. I mean every single one of them.” He wrapped his arms around my waist and just hugged me tight.

  I never wanted him to let go.

  THE NEXT FEW days we were on planting bomb duty. The packages arrived the next day after the scientist came to draw my blood. At first it didn’t look anything like a bomb. The red formula was carried in small round orbs, and there was a very small square block attached to it. It sort of reminded me of a futuristic Christmas ornament.

  “This is the bomb. It will be operated from the lab. At oh-one hundred hours it will start counting down, leaving you with one hour to get as far away from the Creepers as possible. At oh-one hundred and fifteen hours the red light will beep twice and one by one they will explode, releasing the formula with Elena’s blood and the shifters and others will be able to get through, bringing an end to everything.”

  It sounded so easy.

  “So you are sure that it’s safe?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do we attach these to the roots?”

  “With this,” he opens a box with a million clamps inside. He took out one and the orb automatically connected, like a magnet, to the clasp. The entire thing looked like a spider with plenty of legs. “They will feel something, Blake. They have nerve sensors that will feel the prick which will release a numbing drug and then they will go back to sleep.”

  He showed us that we should just press lightly into a root and the clasp mechanism would do the rest, worming itself into the root deeper.

  They were definitely going to feel it.

  Once they detonated the bombs, which would be controlled from the lab, the bombs will explode and it would release the formula on the Creepers’ roots. They will die.

  The rest of the army, with the shifters, will then be able to get into Etan, and there was no way Goran and his Wyverns will stand a chance. Not against all of these men and brave creatures.

  “Just do me a favor please,” the scientist asked.

  “Shoot.”

  “I’ve heard rumors that in the core that pink and purple flowers grow there, you think you can get me as much as you can?”

  Blake nodded without asking any questions.

  “Thank you.”

  “No, thank you.” Blake held out his hand and the scientist shook it.

  It was the last time we saw him.

  Today was the day. Blake entered with me with the bag of small bombs we had to attach.

  “There is something we need to talk about, Elena,” he said as we walked deeper into the core of the Creepers.

  I had no idea where we were—if we were close to Tith or to Areeth.

  “What is it?” I asked as we attached the next bomb in the tree-like substrate of the root. They would shake at the pinch, as if it was irritating their skin, but that was about it.

  I felt sorry for them, I really did.

  Blake plucked a small pink flower. He had been doing it every day as the scientists wanted to experiment on them to see what they could be used for.

  Maybe they were the missing ingredient?

  “If I am not going to make it…”

  My head turned to his. “You can’t think like that, Blake.” I shook my head. I didn’t want to think about it.

  “Elena, death is the most natural…”

  “No, you are too young and you are not going to die, you hear me?” I walked with huge strides past him. We recently discovered that once inside, the Creepers couldn’t do anything to you. It was only the ends that went raving mad at whatever passed them and would snap and claw your skin off if it got the chance.

  I couldn’t live, or even imagine carrying on with life, knowing that he’d sacrificed himself in my place.

  “Fine, you are not ready to hear this. Maybe another time.”

  He passed me and plucked another strin
g of purple flowers and moved on.

  “I’ll never be ready to hear it, because you are not going to die!” I yelled after him.

  He stopped. “Think, realistically Elena. We don’t know what the missing ingredient is yet.”

  “So I have been right?!” I yelled. “You don’t believe that it is Louie, not at all.”

  “No,” he said. “It’s not. I know that venom is powerful, but every single thing I’ve read on conjuring things…” He took a huge breath. “When someone conjures something, they use precautions, Elena. Goran would use everything he knew that could kill the Saadedine and make him immune to it.”

  “What do you mean, make him immune to it?”

  “It’s just another spell. Poison, if he used that one word, it won’t harm him. It’s like baking a cake with ingredients. Each ingredient does something. He just added the list of ingredients that would not be able to kill him. Louie’s berries, I can promise you were the first on his list. My father said that he was an alchemist. He used to make all of King Albert’s potions, whatever they needed, he was the one putting it together and Louie’s berries were almost always in all of them.”

  “Killing potions?” I asked. “You’re trying to tell me that my father brewed killing potions, Blake?”

  “No, they’re not just for killing, Elena. If you mix the berries with something else, it can actually become something not poisonous, something that can heal things, feed things, it can become something beautiful.”

  I let that sink in. It was no use. We were never going to find the missing ingredient. One of us was going to die.

  Tears welled up in my eyes as that piece of information sank in.

  Blake walked over to me and wrapped his arms around me. I felt his lips brushing my head.

  “I know it’s not easy to imagine that life can be good again after I’m gone.”

  “You are not…”

  “Elena, you have to listen to what I am going to tell you. You need to try and listen, please.”

  I shook my head. “Listening to what you have to say, it’s like saying goodbye, Blake. And I’m not going to give you that chance. You are not going to die!”

  “Okay,” he hugged me tighter. He didn’t say anything. I didn’t want him to either. He was already giving up and we hadn’t even faced the Saadedine yet.

  We planted the last of the bombs and walked the long walk home.

  When we finally got out, Blake went to the scientists and I went back to my room at the Dragon League.

  In less than four days we were going into Etan. One of us was going to die.

  I closed my door because I couldn’t deal with all of this anymore. I couldn’t imagine my life without Blake. Even if he’d only changed for me over the last few months. He was my everything now, the only constant thing in a world spinning out of control.

  I was addicted to him. He made me feel whole. My father was right when I’d told him I had nobody the day of my ascension and he’d told me it wasn’t true. I’d had him, Blake. But now that might be taken away from me too. My father knew that something great was going to tear us apart, that it would hurt me so much and that was why he’d asked me not to come and free him. That and the fact that he didn’t want me to get hurt, didn’t want me to end up being the one dying. It wasn’t for his people, it was because of me that he made me swear, made me promise not to free the people of Etan because I would lose everything. Everything I loved.

  A heavy feeling pressed hard on my chest. It felt as if I couldn’t breathe and the tears started to roll down my cheek. I couldn’t live without Blake.

  I fell asleep after my breakdown and had the weirdest dream. I dreamt that I was walking inside the Castle’s walls, a castle I’d only seen once, inside another dream that I’d had with Lucian after I claimed Blake. He’d taken me through these walls but this time I was alone.

  Suddenly I was pulled fast by an invisible force. I could hardly make out what was what. I passed so many steps, and flashed through the lobby with its many intersections of staircases and up another staircase hidden behind a wall.

  It felt as if I was a ghost, but the turmoil in my head and gut were the only real feelings that told me I wasn’t one.

  I came to a sudden stop and took a few breaths so that I don’t barf.

  It was behind a pillar. Cold wind streamed in from somewhere and it helped with the nauseated feeling.

  Men started speaking and I stood up straight, keeping myself hidden behind the pillar.

  They were further down another path. I could tell by the moon and birds flying by that we were high up in a tower, and it was my enhanced hearing that helped me hear every word they spoke.

  “It’s what she said?” a man spoke. It sounded like my father.

  “You sure she said Goran?” Another spoke. King Helmut.

  “She told me that they could see into our future. That they saw it.”

  “Goran?” King Helmut said again.

  My father must have nodded as he didn’t reply.

  What was this? Someone warned my father? Why didn’t he listen.

  “He would never…” Helmut said.

  “I know he would never. I don’t doubt it for a minute, Helmut.”

  “Do you really believe them?”

  Who were they referring to?

  “I don’t know, we can’t ignore what Cooper is. And Marica, she seems really certain of herself and about this.”

  Who the hell were Cooper and Marica?

  “We need to make a decision,” Sir Robert said and none of this made any sense. He’d always told me that he felt as if my father thought it would be him.

  “There is no decision to be made. He would never do that,” Helmut said again. Oh they were so wrong.

  Someone touch me softly and I turned around. Everything went blank and the shaking didn’t stop.

  I opened my eyes and found Blake.

  “What time is it?” I ask as the wacky dream disappeared.

  “It’s almost six a.m.”

  “You woke me up at six in the morning?” I asked.

  He smiled.

  “Why didn’t you wake me up last night?”

  “You look so peaceful and I didn’t want to wake you. You need your rest, Elena.”

  “I had the weirdest dream about my father, yours and King Helmut.”

  “Yeah, what happened in this dream?”

  I told him the story, or what I could remember which was almost everything. That was the weird part. Dreams didn’t feel that real, and you hardly remembered anything afterwards. It was like that time I’d dreamt about my mother trying to tell me who I was.

  He just looked at me. “My father would’ve said something if someone like Marica and Cooper had warned them. But I’ll investigate once all of this is over and see if they are somewhere in the records, Elena.”

  “Investigate?” I smiled.

  “Yeah, it’s what people do to find something.”

  I grabbed him around his neck and just held him tight. “I don’t care about the investigation. You said, after all this is over. You are not planning on dying then?”

  “No,” he chuckled. “I will fight, Elena. I’m not planning on dying.”

  I let go of him and stared at him. “I really thought that when you wanted to talk about if you were going to die, that you’d already given up.”

  He touched my chin and redirected my face to look at him. “I’m the Rubicon, Elena. What sort of a dragon would I be if I went in thinking something like that?”

  I smiled and kissed him softly on the lips. “A good question,” I said as our kiss broke. “So why did you wake me up so early?”

  “The van is packed, and the road is long.”

  I squinted. What the hell was he talking about?

  “Our getaway.”

  I closed my eyes. I’d forgotten about the getaway. Our break before everything changed forever.

  I nodded and got up. He waited for me outside as I quickly took a
shower and put on fresh pair of clothes.

  When I walked through the main doors I found Lucian’s black SUV and another Jeep that was filled with Isaac, Ty and all the other guys.

  The roar of a bike filled the early morning and found Blake on his Ducati, waiting with a helmet in his hands just for me.

  THE DRIVE TO wherever Blake had booked us for the next two days was a few hours outside of Tith. It was somewhere on the border of Elm and Tith.

  My heart felt as if it was beating a thousand beats per minute as adrenaline flowed through my veins. Adrenaline that was caused by the speed he was going.

  Still, I got the feeling that this was what he lived for. Bike rides, sky diving, snowboarding. It was who he was and I had no choice but to try it at least once with him.

  The helmet he’d gotten was a bit on the smaller size, making it feel as if my head was going to explode, but he said it fit perfect and the jacket was snug around my body. It kept the cold out, and it helped a lot that I was snuggling the hottest dragon in this world tightly on a bike.

  At the two hour mark, Blake finally slowed down and took the turnoff that said, Lake Tenikwa.

  A couple of miles down I finally started to see part of a huge lake on the horizon, glistening in the sun.

  The houses on the lake were each trying to be more beautiful than the last, and he parked right beside a picnic area with benches and tables.

  He switched off the bike and I got off.

  I took off my helmet and watched him take off his.

  “Why are we stopping?”

  “It’s a rocky path leading up toward the cabin, that’s why Dean drove with the trailer.”

  “How long are we going to wait?” Was my next question, as he had been speeding like a bat out of hell to get here.

  “An hour at the most, but I heard that they have a mean diner just up the road. Care to join me?”

  “Let me guess, you are starving?”

  “My stomach growling that much?”

  I laughed as he took my helmet from me and put it with his on top of the bike’s handles.

  He reached out his hand toward mine and I took it. His hand was big and mine disappeared in it. I felt so safe with him.

  We walked past a few docks that had yachts and jet skis lined up. It was definitely only the rich that could afford something like this.