Starlight

by Adrienne Woods

  “Elena!” he growled.

  “Down here, but be careful please. This entire place is going to cave in. You need to transform back,” I said.

  I could hear the shift from dragon to human.

  “Mother fucker!” He screamed. It was his human voice again and he was in pain.

  “What is it?” It barely came out.

  He took a couple of deep breathes.

  Please be fine, please be fine, I prayed softly.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “I’ll live, you?”

  “Just give me a couple of minutes.” He grunted again and then I heard him suppressed a scream as something loud clanged to the floor.

  “What was that?” I yelled back.

  He didn’t answer.

  “Blake!”

  “I’ll live.” He finally answered through heavy breathes.

  He started to move. I didn’t like it as Blake hardly made a sound when he moved. He was badly hurt, of course he is hurt you idiot. He dove down into a fucking dark pit trying to save your ass.

  This was all my fault.

  “You okay?” His voice was right above me and I looked up.

  I couldn’t see him, until a flame in his hands lit up his outline looking down on me. I nodded, and at that moment I started coughing uncontrollably. I rolled over and pushed myself up with my palms as I spit up some more blood.

  He was at my side at once. How he’d got down, I didn’t know. “Elena.” He sounded worried.

  I lifted up my head. “It’s going to be a miracle if we get out of this one alive.”

  He hugged me gently and stroked my back. He then shook something and a neon light lit up the space where we were.

  His white suit had crimson blotches on the side of his torso.

  “What is this?” He was bleeding.

  “It’s nothing. We need to get out of here. And soon.”

  “Lead the way.”

  “I can’t. If I transform, everything will cave in.”

  “It could be our only way out, Blake.” My voice sounded tired and my eyes closed again. I felt so hot and so cold all at the same time.

  “No, no, no. You stay with me!” He touched my face hard. “Stay with me,” he growled. I opened my eyes and his eyes closed as he laid his hand on my chest. He pulled me into his warm body which made me just want to sleep even more.

  His lips lingered on my head. I could feel his breath. “Just don’t close your eyes. It’s all you have to do and keep breathing. I’ll get us out of this.”

  The warm tingly sensation where his hand touched my chest started to spread through my heart and down my lungs.

  “Just stay with me,” he kept whispering.

  The wheezing in my breath started to grow silent. It started to disappear and I couldn’t help but chuckle softly. He was busy healing me as my own abilities still sucked.

  The cold disappeared slowly with the warmth and I started to feel a bit more like myself.

  Then a soft clucking noise from something big rippled through both of us. We became like statues as we just stared at the darkness up ahead.

  “What is…”

  “Shhh,” Blake said.

  I tried to reach into his mind again to see what his speculations were but it was closed again. I’d heard him. I knew I had. He’d warned me that it wasn’t Helmut, that it was Goran. The voice was beyond himself inside my head then, now it was silent.

  The clucking noise continued and Blake got up slowly.

  He grabbed my arm gently, but firmly, and pulled me up. I grunted slightly as my leg still ached.

  “Okay, I was wrong. You need to do a bit more than just keep your eyes open. We need to get away from here.” He looked around at the dead end. Up was too high and he couldn’t transform, he couldn’t even try in his human form to get us there, as he was hurt as well.

  I looked at him and nodded fast. “What…”

  I didn’t have to ask what that was. I knew what it was. It was the Saadedine.

  O shit, shit, shit. We can’t die. We are supposed to be the hero’s and save everyone. What sort of heroes were we going to be if we couldn’t even defeat the Saadedine. What was the missing ingredient? Nothing was coming to my mind, nothing.

  Breaking my father’s promise was seriously biting me in the ass. I didn’t want to die, and I didn’t want to sacrifice anybody that I cared for anymore. I couldn’t even think about it. I wouldn’t make it.

  Blake pressed hard against his torso again, grunted softly and took another deep breath. He then placed his arm around my waist and carried half my weight. We started to move without the neon light because it would give us away.

  I knew Blake could see in this dark. His night vision was one of the best, and the only direction we could go was toward the clucking sound. He spoke the words, and I could see a bit of green light, my eye sight became sharper.

  “No,” I put my fingers over his mouth as he was still speaking the spell. “You need all of it. I trust you, just get us out of here.”

  My sight turned normal again, everything became pitch dark as we moved at a rapid pace, even with all our injuries.

  I suddenly was pushed into a very tight opening in the boulders with him right in front of me. Our bodies faced one another and he was pressed tight against me. His breathing was warm, soft but fast.

  My heart was the only sound I could hear. It was going to give us both away.

  I closed my eyes as the clucking came nearer and a sneeze-sort of breath lingered right outside our hiding spot.

  Blake held me tighter and wielded his shield. The clucking was right next to us, and then it disappeared as I buried my face in his shoulder. He smelled like boulder dust and blood. His dragon smell lingered beneath but it wasn’t as strong as it usually was when he shifted back. I felt as if I was going to throw up from all the adrenaline.

  We both stood tight against one another in silence, which felt like forever, and then the noise came back. Blake lowered his shield. The Saadedine moved away. Rocks fell again and I could tell he was where both of us had been a couple of minutes ago.

  Blake moved first, slowly and I hated that I couldn’t see what he did. All I saw was darkness.

  However, it made my other senses more enhanced.

  More boulders fell and the image in my head told me that he was walking up to where Blake had landed.

  When the boulders stopped, Blake grabbed my hand tightly again and we started to move out of our hiding spot and further down into the dark pit.

  I trusted him one hundred percent. He was my eyes now and I knew his was going to get us out of here, he just had to.

  Don’t think about it Elena. You will make it, and he, he’d better make it.

  We turned left, walked more and then turned right. My head was showing me a maze, but how to get out of here was still the riddle we needed to obtain.

  My leg pounded like crazy and I started to move slower.

  Blake finally stopped and he pulled me down to sit on the ground.

  Something shook in the night again and another neon light lit up the darkness.

  We were in some sort of cave. He looked tired and crawled over to me.

  “Let me see your leg.”

  He touched it softly and then tore the part covering my leg. I flinched as pain rippled through me.

  “I can make this better but I don’t know if I can heal it completely.”

  “Just wait, take a couple of breath’s please. Sit with me,” I begged and he obliged.

  He came crashing with his back against the cave hard and let out a huge breath.

  He opened his arms and pulled me into him again.

  “Was that what I thought it was?”

  “Yes, your father was right. We should’ve never come, Elena.”

  “Well, it’s too late now. We have to get out of here.”

  “We will,” he said and kissed me softly on my lips. “I promise, we’ll get out of here.”

&
nbsp; I smiled and looked at him again. I couldn’t stop thinking about the missing ingredient, without it…

  “What is it Elena?”

  “It isn’t us, is it.…”

  “Elena, don’t.”

  “It was stupid to make all of us believe that Blake. We could’ve searched more.”

  He chuckled quietly. “Then what? Spend what could possibly be our last night on earth going through more books? No, Elena. We searched. It wasn’t in any book.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I searched and searched, Elena. I didn’t found it. You will not die, I promise you.”

  “You can’t fight him in the condition you are in, Blake. I can hardly stand on my own.”

  I felt like crying.

  “You are not going to die.”

  “Don’t you dare. Neither are you!” I shouted back. “I’m not going to live in this world without you.”

  A smile tugged at the corner of his lips.

  “It’s not funny.”

  “I know, it’s just that I never thought any of this would actually come true.”

  “What are you talking about now?”

  “Now you know how I feel, Elena.”

  “You can’t die. I mean it.”

  “And neither can you. So we just have to make it, both of us.”

  Easier said than done.

  I looked at his wound again. That part of his suit was soaked with blood.”

  “Can’t you heal yourself?”

  “It doesn’t work like that. It has to come from the inside, and right now, nothing is happening.”

  That was not what I wanted to hear.

  “Hey, stop worrying. I’ll be fine,” He said. “Now, let’s take a look at that leg of yours before he comes back.”

  “What makes you think it’s a he?”

  “The testosterone his is releasing. It’s something like don’t piss on my spots or you’ll die.”

  A tired laugh escaped my lips.

  He put his hand on my leg and my entire body pulled from the pain.

  “I know it hurts but it will get better,” he spoke softly.

  The tingling sensation started. It was weaker than before. He was weaker. I couldn’t do this to him as it would only drain him more.

  “Blake, stop.”

  “No, Elena.”

  “Stop. It’s not that. You will grow weaker and we don’t know what is ahead. Please. I’ll be fine.”

  He just looked at me. “You’d better stay alive,” he finally said and untied the belt, retying it tighter than before.

  He fell next to me again and I laid with my head on his lap.

  I closed my eyes.

  “Don’t close your eyes,” he ordered and I opened them again. I looked straight at him. “We will make it. I will…”

  The clucking noise was close to us again. I jolted up as Blake crawled past me at the speed of light to kill the neon light.

  It happened so fast.

  One minute he was at the neon globe and the next a huge snake like talon reached him and snatched him out of our hiding place. Leaving me and the globe behind.

  I was in shock, I couldn’t scream, I couldn’t cry.

  I heard his screams in the distance.

  The Saadedine was moving at the speed of light and I had to save him.

  I just had to save him or he was going to die.

  I GRABBED THE neon light and crawled out of the cave.

  Walls with passages were in front of me and I didn’t know which way to go.

  Blake’s fighting grunt turned into a growl and I knew he was transforming. The sound was right up ahead but there wasn’t a passage leading to it.

  “Trust your gut,” Lucian’s voice suddenly popped into my head and I didn’t think. I just ran down the passage on my left and moved right into the first passage that I could. The next was another dead end and I moved right again. I was moving as fast as I could, not giving a damn about my leg anymore. I had to get to him. Together we might get through this, just like the foretelling had said.

  I kept moving forward and toward him and the Saadedine with its snakelike sprouts or tongue, or whatever had snatched Blake out like that.

  The pit rumbled and I stumbled and fell hard against the floor.

  I grunted as I got back up, moved a couple steps and fell down from another rumble. Boulders behind me started to fall and I moved forward faster.

  Their growls grew closer and I could hear snapping and then see a blast of pink flame ahead.

  His pink flame could incinerate him, but it died out soon as the pit rumbled again.

  I didn’t dare use any of my abilities to get to him faster, he needed them more than I did.

  I saw light reflecting of walls. It was orange with pink and then it turned into a greenish yellow.

  This dragon has green fire, just like Paul had.

  My throat become sour as I thought about that bastard again. He was fucking dead now but his presence still lingered around us. No more.

  I pushed forward and had to retreat as a flame came my way.

  When it stopped I waited for a couple of seconds before I turned my head to look again.

  Blake was slightly smaller than him. He was huge, white, and slightly yellow with bright black stripes spread over his lower back. He looked like an Elemental with a long torso and huge legs.

  His wings were not as big as I’d thought and they reminded me of Tornado’s, the wind dragon we’d helped to hatch.

  How could something so beautiful and sweet turn into something so vicious? It was only Goran that could do something so heinous.

  I hated him more than anything else in this entire world. He was behind all the evil in this beautiful world. The evil behind my entire existence.

  I moved quickly and past another boulder as Blake and the Saadedine fought.

  I looked again and tried to come up with a plan of how I could help Blake but I knew the way they carried on was just going to get me killed too. Still, I had to help

  He cannot face him alone, he is injured, he needs my help. Think, Elena, think.

  Blake was fast and he trusted his wings, something the Saadedine didn’t have much of. Blake was mostly in the air, but then the Saadedine realized what was happening and snapped right after him, missing him by inches.

  His jaws grabbed Blake’s tail and he pulled him back down in one swift motion.

  The pit shook again as Blake crashed against the wall and I lost my balance.

  I got up and looked at where he was, and saw the Saadedine going in for the kill.

  “Noooo!” I yelled at the top of my lungs, my voice so loud inside the confined walls.

  The Saadedine growled and turned his blood-red eyes toward me.

  He left Blake.

  Think Elena, think.

  I knew I needed my gifts and suddenly the way I’d claimed Blake flew thought my mind.

  Freeze the son of a bitch, give Blake time.

  Frost balls emerged from my palms and I flung all of them at his hulking body while diving to get away from his green fire. He just kept on blasting.

  I grunted and screamed again as my arms sprang alive with the pink flame as I held it in front of me, to block his green fire. It was warm, and hot as if it was going to burn the skin off my arms as it burned like it never burned before.

  When he finally stopped I released a mother of a fire ball aimed right at him.

  It hit the dragon full in the face and he staggered back and fell down.

  I fell to my knees as his body collapsed in the far corner.

  I watched eagerly to see if his body was going to start incinerating, but it didn’t happen.

  I didn’t care how the hell he died, I just needed to get to Blake.

  I found him crumpled up in a corner. He’d transformed back into his human form and his eyes were closed.

  “No, no, no. Wake up. Don’t close your eyes,” I said fast and tapped his face hard. “Wake up, Blake!�
�� I yelled and he opened his eyes.

  For a second he didn’t know where we were but realization made his eyes grow slightly and he took a protective stand against me.

  “Where is he, Elena?”

  “I think he’s dead. I hit him with the pink kiss.”

  His head jolted back at me. “My fire doesn’t do anything to him.”

  “Well, he collapsed on the other side, somewhere.”

  He pinched his nose with his forefinger and thumb. Blood dripped from his arm onto the floor.

  “Don’t, I know what you are thinking. He collapsed, let’s just get the hell out of here.”

  “Then what, Elena? We can’t contain him. He needs to die.”

  “How? Tell me how and I’ll help you, but we don’t know how to kill that thing, Blake!” I yelled back and before he could say anything, the Saadedine was busy getting up. It was too late.

  “Just stay here,” he said. He kissed me fiercely fast and got up, transforming again.

  “Don’t die, please.”

  I didn’t listen to his request. I knew he couldn’t do this alone and I left my post to get a clear shot of the Saadedine. I’d wait for the right moment, when Blake was clear from his path and then I would strike with everything I had.

  Together we would kill the son of a bitch.

  The fight was hard, Blake was fierce as he kept diving toward the Saadedine, trying to get his talons stuck into his flesh to rip him apart, but the body of the Saadedine was sleek and strong too.

  His tail and the snakelike sprouts that slithered around it blocked Blake’s every attempt and pushed him away from him.

  Still he would dive down and try another tactic.

  My heart was pounding fast as I just looked at it again and watched how Blake was chucked again against the wall. Boulders fell as the pit vibrated. I fell over and again I had to get up and yell at the monster that was going for Blake again.

  I used my lightning this time, but it merely stung him. He would hover backward a couple of seconds and then come forward again. Then I tried to gas the son of a bitch.

  It didn’t work either.

  Blake attacked him again from behind and ripped off one of his snaky sprouts. The Saadedine growled and snapped at Blake.