I was back in the cove.
On the day I’d met Ethan.
He was crisp and clear, wearing his black t-shirt and jeans that looked out of place on the beach. But the rest of the world was hazy. It was like I was seeing everything but Ethan through a curved lens.
How did I get here? Why was I here?
I wanted to ask. But my body wouldn’t obey my command.
“I’m not drawing,” I said against my will. “I’m writing.”
I’d never forget the first words I’d spoken to him. I’d played that conversation around in my mind ever since, wondering what I could have said differently to make him want to stay.
He walked forward, his hazel eyes so focused on me that he took my breath away all over again. “Writing what?”
“Stuff.” I inwardly cringed at my reply. I would have changed it to say something more eloquent, but I was apparently a parasite in my own body, along for the ride in this dreamlike memory.
“Wow.” He smiled, and from the amused look in his eyes, I wondered if my reply had truly been as bad as I’d thought. “Stuff. Sounds exciting.”
From there, the conversation continued exactly as I remembered it. His asking what I was writing about, and my telling him about Joey and the terrible way I’d broken up with him.
“Have you ever had to keep a secret?” he finally asked. “A big one, for the greater good? One that other peoples’ lives depend on?”
In the conversation that had happened in the real world, I’d said, “Not really.”
But those words didn’t come out of my—well, dream-Gemma’s—mouth. Instead, I looked out to the horizon, at the sunlight sparkling on the ocean.
“You can tell me,” he said softly. “I don’t know anyone here, except for you. I promise I won’t tell anyone.”
I took a deep breath, then looked back at him. The flakes of orange surrounding his pupils glowed softly—embers of magic.
Somehow, I felt what this other version of me was feeling.
She was experiencing the magical connection between me and Ethan. The same bond I felt when he helped me use my fire magic.
She instinctively knew she could trust him.
I leaned closer and lowered my voice. “My sister and I are supposedly descended from an ancient line of witches,” I said. “We can’t use any magic, but according to legend, that might change in January, on our seventeenth birthday.”
“Your sister.” He watched me with wonder. “You’re one of the Dragon Twins.”
“I never said anything about dragons.”
“But I’m right.” He scooted closer, his eyes locked on mine so intensely that I couldn’t have looked away if I’d wanted to. “You’re one of the twins from the prophecy.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Because I’m not really from America. I’m from the dragon realm—Ember. And I’m here on Earth to protect you and your sister after you’re gifted with elemental dragon magic.”
Nothing from that moment forward was anything like I remembered.
Instead of Mira mentioning Ethan that night and saying she wanted to date him, I brought Ethan to dinner. He told us everything that in my memory, he’d explained in his house with Rosella.
Initially, Mom was angry that I’d spilled our family secret. But Ethan defended me, saying my intuitive connection with magic must have known he could be trusted.
Mom accepted the explanation and left it at that.
During dessert, Ethan’s fingers brushed mine, and he held my hand under the table. His touch felt so natural.
Mira noticed and smirked. The look she gave me clearly said, “Give me all the dirt later.”
Mom smiled at Ethan in approval. “If you’re going to be around my daughters all the time, then I expect you to make yourself useful,” she said. “The café is hiring. Any chance you’re looking for a job?”
“I already have a job—protecting your daughters,” he said seriously, and his grip tightened around mine. “I’d say that’s pretty useful.”
“Agreed,” Mom said. “But it’ll look suspicious if you sit around the café staring at them all day. So, what do you say? Are you up for learning how to brew the best coffee in South Australia?”
“I’ve never been much of a chef…”
“It’s not that hard,” I teased, surprised at the lightness in my tone. “I’ll teach you.”
He smiled in return, looking at me like I was the most important person in the world. “I can’t say no to that,” he said. “When do we start?”
“Now,” Mom said. “Gemma—teach your new friend how to make an after-dinner cappuccino.”
Mira waggled her eyebrows as Ethan and I stood up.
Did she not feel jealous? At all?
This had to be a figment of my imagination. There was no world that could be this perfect.
But as long as I was here, I was going to enjoy every single second of it.
The next few weeks passed in a blur of kisses with Ethan when we thought no one was watching, and deep conversations in my room that lasted late into the night.
Falling into a pattern of loving each other was as natural as breathing.
Unlike when Ethan had dated Mira, Mom let him stay over as long as he wanted. Many times, that meant he stayed all night, the two of us talking until we fell asleep in each other’s arms.
Mira wasn’t home much. When we weren’t working, she was either with her friends or with whatever guy she was dating that month.
When the three of us were together, Mira treated Ethan like a brother.
No one would have guessed that in another world, she’d been complaining for hours about how she’d told Ethan she loved him, but he hadn’t said it back.
Because Ethan’s heart belonged to me, and mine belonged to him.
Forever.
“Do you feel ready?” Ethan asked on the night before the ascension ceremony.
We were in the cove, sitting exactly where we’d been when we’d first met. He’d brought a dozen candles and lit them with his fire. The flames flickered, and the space filled with magic.
He sat next to me in the sand. Our legs were pulled up to our chests, and he brushed his shoulder against mine.
My heart danced at even the smallest of his touches.
“I was born ready,” I said. “This is the moment I’ve been waiting for my entire life.”
“And the moment I’d been waiting for my entire life happened months ago,” he said. “On the day I met you. I love you, Gemma.”
My breath caught in my chest. Because no matter how often I heard him say it, it still amazed me that it was true.
Ethan loved me.
No one had ever loved me like he did, and no one else ever would.
Except it wasn’t real. For the weeks I’d been in dream-Gemma’s body, I’d had to constantly remind myself of that heartbreaking fact.
This wasn’t reality.
At least, it wasn’t my reality.
But that didn’t make my feelings any less true.
“And I love you,” I said. Because real or not, I loved Ethan with every cell in my body. We were perfect together. Our souls vibrated on the same frequency—like we’d been made for each other. “I’m the luckiest person in the world to have met you.”
He leaned forward, looked into my eyes, and kissed me like he’d never get enough of me.
Even though I wasn’t in control of dream-Gemma’s body, every movement of hers reflected what mine would have been, down to the involuntary pounding of her heart.
Slowly, he lowered me down until my back pressed against the warm sand, his body hovering on top of mine. Desire warmed his skin, making it hot to the touch. It might have burned anyone else, but not me.
Our matching elements connected us on a spiritual level so intense that it was impossible to put into words.
I arched my back and traced my fingertips along his neck, my body aching for him to come closer.
&nb
sp; He groaned softly, but he didn’t move. Instead, we stared at each other, silent, our eyes saying more than words ever could. It was like he was seeing into my soul. His chest rose and fell in deliberately controlled breaths, and mine did, too.
I wanted to be with him, fully and completely. I wanted our bodies to meld into one.
From the love burning in his eyes, I knew he wanted that, too.
But this was normally the point where he brushed his cheek against mine, held me, and reminded me that we needed to wait until he returned to Ember and he received his ability to shift. It was an oath all dragons made—to wait to be intimate with anyone until receiving their shifting magic.
He still hadn’t told me why.
“I don’t want to wait,” I said slowly, as if speaking too quickly would ruin the moment.
“Neither do I. But it’s my duty to honor the vow made by my ancestors.” His voice was strained with every word he spoke, as if he was going to break that vow at any moment.
I swallowed, and tears prickled my eyes. “But why did your ancestors make that vow?”
He breathed steadily for a few more seconds, silent. Then he rolled over and sat up. Saying nothing, he raised his hands and ignited a flame in each palm. They mirrored each other, completely identical, down to the way they moved.
“Twin Flames,” he said, the light of the dancing fire reflecting in his eyes. “Centuries ago, most dragons had a Twin Flame out there, somewhere. A mirrored soul they were destined to find, and would search for until they did.”
As I looked into the flames, I saw my face reflected in one, and Ethan’s in the other.
But I blinked, and the images were gone.
“Over time, as conditions in Ember worsened, fewer and fewer dragons found their twins,” he continued. “Now, Twin Flames are more of a myth than a reality. But still, we wait to be intimate with anyone until receiving our shifting magic. Because only when we’ve become whole—when our dragon side unites with our human side—are we ready to find and connect with our twin. Before that moment, even if we met our twin, we’d be attracted to them but we wouldn’t know for sure if it was a Twin Flame connection. Our first shift changes that. At least, that’s what the legend says.”
He snuffed out the flames, his eyes so pained that my lungs tightened around my heart.
As if his pain were my pain.
“But I’m not a dragon.” I could barely get the words out. “So I can’t have a Twin Flame.”
“You’ll have dragon magic,” he said. “That’s what connects Twin Flames—our magic. Every twin shares at least one element with the other.”
“And I get my magic tomorrow.”
“Yes.” He watched me carefully, as if he were thinking the same thing as me, but wanted me to say it first.
“Do you think there’s a chance—”
I didn’t hear the rest of dream-Gemma’s question.
Because her voice muffled, and the world blurred.
“Ethan,” I cried out, and I tried to reach for him, but there was nothing there.
I was floating, no longer in a body at all. I might as well have been fire itself, existing to the human eye but not solid enough to grasp.
No, I thought. I want to go back.
But I wasn’t totally in limbo. Because there was dirt beneath my back, grounding me to the earth. I was lying down on it… had I passed out?
“Gemma,” someone said my name.
A voice I’d know anywhere. Because I’d heard it every day of my life.
Mira.
35
Gemma
“It’s working,” someone else—Harper—said as I groaned and forced my eyes open.
Harper and Mira’s faces came into focus. Both of them looked down at me in concern. But there was something else in Mira’s eyes—anger.
It was the same way she’d looked when she’d been complaining about Ethan.
Ethan.
I felt the ghost of his touch on my skin, and the sweet taste of his lips kissing mine.
I could still hear him telling me he loved me.
And the memories of those weeks spent with him weren’t fading like a normal dream.
They felt real.
Harper held something to my lips—a small bowl filled with a sweet, herbal drink. “I already injected some of this into your system,” she said. “But drinking more can’t hurt.”
I finished it all, then asked, “What is it?”
“Healing potion,” she said, like it should have been obvious. “How do you feel?”
I pushed myself up and looked around. We were back at the place where the main path split into three.
“Okay, I guess.” I pressed my index fingers to my temples and rubbed away a slight headache.
It felt like a lifetime ago that I’d been on this path with Mira and Harper, making our way up the mountain to Hecate’s Eternal Library. Half of me felt like it was here with them, and the other half felt like I was back in the cove with Ethan.
The moment I’d been waiting for my entire life happened months ago. On the day I met you.
Tears welled in my eyes at the memory of his words.
But the memories I had of him—of us—weren’t real.
A wave of heartbreak crashed over me at the reminder that in the real world, Ethan didn’t love me. He barely even knew me.
Those months with him were only a dream. A long, detailed, extremely realistic dream.
One I’d never truly wake up from, because no matter how much it hurt, I’d live it over and over in my mind, unable to let go.
I needed him to hold me again. To tell me he loved me. To look at me like I mattered more than anyone else in the world.
But he never would.
And it pained me down to my soul.
“Gemma?” Harper asked softly.
I rubbed the tears away, did my best to swallow down the pain, and looked up at her concerned face. “What happened?” I asked.
“You were poisoned. By nightshade.”
Of course.
How could I forget the purple, sweet-smelling flowers with the yellow bulbs? The needle pricking my finger, and tasting my poisoned blood?
It had been so long ago. Everyone back at the Haven must be so worried. Mom, Mary, Raven… and Ethan.
They probably thought we were dead.
“You both stayed here this entire time?” I asked.
“You really think we’d leave you alone?” Harper said, stunned.
Mira eyed me warily, like she was afraid to speak.
She was looking at me like she didn’t know me.
“It’s been weeks…” I said slowly. “Months.”
“What are you talking about?” Mira scoffed. “It’s only been a few hours.”
What?
“That’s not possible,” I said.
“It’s true—nightshade usually puts people out for much longer, if they wake up at all,” Harper said. “If you’d eaten the berries, you’d probably be back at the Haven by now.”
“What were you thinking, getting so close to nightshade?” Mira asked. “You of all people should know it’s poisonous.”
“Having earth magic doesn’t mean I know the details about every single flower,” I snapped back. “It shouldn’t have been something I even had to worry about, since normally, my magic would have protected me.”
I looked down at the ground, ashamed. Because if I’d studied plants and herbs as much as I’d practiced spells, this never would have happened.
“What were on your paths?” I asked, wanting to change the subject away from how close I’d come to failing the roadblock.
“Mine was hemlock,” Harper said. “I immediately recognized it and turned around. Mira’s path was the only one that was safe. It had all the herbs and materials necessary to brew healing potion.”
“I’m guessing you brewed it?”
“No.” Mira stuck her nose in the air. “I did. At least, I made most of it.”
“How’d you know…?” I looked at my sister in awe. Because brewing healing potion was high-level magic.
It took witches years to reach that level, if they ever did at all.
“I figured it was a test, so once I realized what the ingredients were for, I got started on making the potion. I assumed the two of you were on similar paths and making potions of your own. I was a bit more than halfway done when Harper came running down the path. She told me about the nightshade, and that she’d carried you out of your path, back to where we’d started. I hurried back to sit with you, and she finished up the potion.”
“Ah.” I nodded, since of course Harper had helped. Mira might have been good with potions, but the final steps in potion making were always the most difficult.
“At least I was doing something productive while you were getting poisoned by your own element,” Mira snapped again, like she could read my thoughts.
“Why are you so angry?” I asked.
My twin stared at me like she hated me. “Because while you were sleeping, you kept saying his name.”
“Whose name?” The words nearly got stuck in my throat. Because I already knew the answer.
“Ethan’s,” she said.
Just hearing his name hurt.
I love you, Gemma, the memory of his words echoed through my mind.
But it wasn’t a memory. It was a hallucination. Because that was one of the effects of nightshade—vivid hallucinations.
And during the hallucination, I’d definitely told Ethan that I loved him, too.
Crap.
I hadn’t said that while I was asleep… had I?
It would certainly explain why Mira was so mad.
“What, exactly, did I say?” I asked, refusing to panic until I had more details.
“You were saying his name. Over and over and over again.”
I exhaled in relief that it hadn’t been anything more than that. Then I scrambled for an explanation.
“I was dreaming about the night of our ascension ceremony,” I said the first thing that came to my mind. “When Ethan saved our lives.”
The Dragon Twins (Dark World: The Dragon Twins Book 1) Page 13