by Shannon West
I turned my head back toward Sebastien, who looked worried. “Agreed. Just be careful.” He looked over at me then.
“As for you, could you please try to cooperate just this once?”
“Maybe if you told me what’s happening, I would be more cooperative. And if we’re going back to Atlanta, I want to check on Mr. Alvarez. He’s been good to me. I want to make sure he’s okay.”
“That will be too dangerous, Luca,” Dmitri was shaking his head.
I crossed my arms and stared at him for a minute. “Then I’m not going.”
Sebastien made a disgusted sound and stood up. “He’s not too bright, is he?”
I glared at him and opened my mouth to let him have it, but Dmitri stood up, pulling me to my feet. “Don’t insult him, Sebastien. This is hard for him.” He put his hand on my back and guided me out the door and downstairs without another word. I looked over my shoulder at Sebastien as we left, and I restrained from sticking out my tongue at him, but just barely. He looked as shocked as I felt that Dmitri had defended me so strongly. Inside I was dancing, though Dmitri still wasn’t off the hook with that spanking thing. And even if it had made my dick hard, I would never tell him.
I tried to stay quiet and just ride. I did, too, for about five minutes, giving him the opportunity to tell me what was going on. Since he didn’t seem to be forthcoming with any information, I felt that I needed to speak up. “So, now would be a good time for you to tell me what this is all about, don’t you think? We have hours to drive and nothing else to do.”
He sighed heavily, as if resigned to the fact that I was absolutely not going to let this go. “I suppose so.”
I waited, but he didn’t say anything right away. “So?”
“I agreed that it would be a good time. Not that I’d tell you.”
“Oh, come on!”
He smiled at me. “Patience is definitely not one of your virtues, is it Luca?” I shot him a dirty look. “All right. Though I would have preferred to get you home first, I doubt, considering your behavior so far, that I could get you through the security checks unless I tell you what’s going on.”
“Damn right,” I murmured, wondering how he knew I’d been planning on making a scene.
“I’ll tell you what I know,” he said, and then for the next few minutes, began to spin me a story straight out of a book of fairy tales. When he finally finished, I glanced over at him. “Really? That’s the story you expect me to believe?” I folded my arms across my chest. “Stop with the bullshit.”
“I’m telling you the truth, Luca. Your mother, the woman who died after you were born, was a beautiful Wyvern named Rosamund. Have you never heard of Wyvern before?”
“Yeah, of course, I’ve heard of them. Cousins to the Dragons, but they’re extinct. Which is why my mother couldn’t have been one of them. My dad would have told me if I was a Wyvern.”
“Would he? Don’t you remember times when he lied to the authorities about how you got hurt?”
I shot him an angry glance. “How do you know about all that? Are you stalking me or something?”
“My family has investigated you, yes. You have occasional headaches, I believe.”
“Oh. Well, all that’s under control.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I do! And this is fucking crazy! You’re trying to make me believe some old guy wants me to live in his house because I’m some kind of treasure? Me?”
“Eldor does. Yes.”
“Eldor? My supposed-to-be grandfather?”
“Yes, Luca. And he’s quite real, I assure you.”
“And he wants me because he thinks I have some kind of value. Like what exactly?”
“No one knows exactly. It was in a prophecy by Merlin.”
“Merlin? As in the mythical wizard?” I rubbed my hand over my face. “I’m nuts for listening to any of this.”
“Luca,” he said, his voice getting all patient and shit. “Please listen to me. For many years, people thought Dragons were just a myth, until our territory was explored and the truth came out. Is the idea of a Dragon who is also a man and can fly in the air and shoot fire from his throat really that much crazier? Some of the old myths weren’t myths at all. They were true, and magic was real. It is real. There are many things existing in the world that you may not be aware of. So many of the old ways have been lost, but we’re both living proof that sometimes myths really aren’t myths at all.”
He was beginning to make sense, but I still shook my head in denial. “I’m not some kind of treasure, damn it. That’s stupid. I don’t care what some old prophecy said. It was probably all made up anyway.”
“Okay. Maybe you aren’t a treasure. I don’t care either way, but Eldor believes you are. And if he gets his hands on you, you’ll spend the rest of your life locked up. And if he thinks you really don’t have any value, then he’ll have no need for you anymore and probably just kill you. I’m trying to save you from that.”
“But how did this Eldor guy find me, anyway? You said my dad and my mother came to America and hid out from him. So how did he find out about me?”
Dmitri glanced over at me and looked uncomfortable. “Someone contacted him and offered to...to sell you to him.”
“What? Sell me? But who would do that?”
Dmitri put a hand on my knee. “It was your father, Luca. He’s the one who tried to make the deal. I’m really sorry.”
The news took my breath away so that for a few minutes I couldn’t speak. I knew my old man drank a lot—make that all the time—and took drugs. I even knew he was usually desperate for money, because he drank up all of his as quickly as he came by it. But to offer to sell me? To a person who wanted to exploit me and hurt me and maybe lock me away for the rest of my life? I was speechless. I thought I was long past being hurt by anything my dad could do. Goes to show you how big a fool I can be.
I was quiet for a long time. It was still crazy as fuck, but if this Eldor guy was really after me—and I couldn’t deny that Artie’s Spawn gang came after me that night at the store—then I could be in real danger.
“I’d prefer to take my chances on my own,” I said.
He shook his head. “Absolutely out of the question. I won’t risk you that way.”
“What the hell do you mean by that? And why do you want to save me anyway? What am I to you?”
“I told you that no one will have you except me. Did I not make myself clear on that point? You belong to me, Luca.”
“I belong to myself!” I said, getting mad. I didn’t have much in this world, but I still had my pride. A little anyway.
He took a couple of deep breaths and then spoke to me again, this time in a way different tone of voice. “Luca, let me rephrase that, please? You belong with me. Please Luca, would you do me the honor of allowing me to watch out for you for a while? I only want to protect you. I’m sorry if the way I’ve acted so far has seemed arrogant…”
“Oh, you think?”
“But I apologize,” he said, as if I hadn’t said anything. “And I hope you’ll let me help you out with Eldor. I promise you I’ll take very good care of you.” He looked at me with those big, beautiful eyes. “In every way. And I won’t boss you around, and I’ll give you plenty of space to make your own decisions. Do you believe me?”
“I don’t know.” I could hear how sullen I sounded, but I couldn’t help it. “I absolutely don’t believe you can stop yourself from bossing me around. I don’t think I’ll be making a lot of decisions either.” I sighed. “But I guess I won’t mind all that much if you’re the one doing it. Maybe.”
He gave me such a brilliant smile my heartbeat kind of stuttered a little. I smiled back at him. I couldn’t help it, but I gave him one last warning. “If you’re lying to me, I’ll never forgive you.”
“I’m not lying, Luca. I swear to you on my family. On everything I hold dear.”
“Okay then. I guess we go to your home and I live with you for a wh
ile.”
“It’s your home, now.”
“If you’re talking about Russia, that’s not my home. My home is still in Atlanta. And I’ll come back when this Eldo guy is straightened out. Deal?”
He gave me a strange look, but he nodded solemnly. “Eldor. But yes, deal.”
And I took that as a promise. Didn’t I say I could be a real fool?
Chapter Five
Dmitri
Kamchatka, where my home was located, was extremely isolated. It’s considered to be one of the most remote places in the world because it has no ground connection with the mainland—in other words, no railways or roads lead to Kamchatka from the rest of Eurasia. The Russian Navy and fishermen mainly used the seaport of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, a city of approximately two hundred thousand people on the eastern coast of the peninsula. Yet, even though the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky was fairly large, it was still hard to get to. Almost the entire population of the area was centered in this city or in one of the smaller ones like Yelizovo. Once the city centers were left behind, the isolation was almost complete. Luca would probably think I had taken him to the ends of the earth, and he wouldn’t be far from wrong.
For example, there were no regular passenger ferries to anywhere in Kamchatka from the port city, and very few roads that took passengers anywhere else either. The only possibility to get to Kamchatka or to leave it was by air.
Normally, whenever I left my home there, I took a flight from the nearest airport, which was located in the town of Yelizovo. It was then some sixty miles from there in a north-west direction to our family’s estate. There was no road to our estate—we used off-road vehicles to travel back and forth to Yelizovo for supplies. My family loved the privacy this afforded us, and we rarely left the estate unless there was a damn good reason to do so. Like bringing Luca back with me before Eldor could get his hands on him, for example.
Before we even got to the Atlanta airport, I pulled over off the interstate at an exit near a gas station and booked a flight to Moscow, and from Moscow, another flight to Kamchatka. There were daily flights back and forth to the Yelizovo Airport from Moscow but only sporadic flights from anywhere else.
It would be an extremely long journey for Luca. Over thirteen hours to Moscow and then another nine to Kamchatka, so I decided to stay over in Moscow for at least one night. I texted my family with my flight information so they could meet us at the airport in Yelizovo. In the summer months, they would send a driver with one of our diesel powered four-wheel drive vehicles, like a Russian UAZ-469B—a "civilian" version of a Russian military vehicle, but it was winter now. Although Kamchatka lay at similar latitudes to Great Britain, cold arctic winds from Siberia combined with the cold Oyashio sea current usually ensured the peninsula was covered in snow from October to late May. Kamchatka generally had a subarctic climate, though as far north as my home was, we were considered to be in an arctic region.
Since it was almost mid-November now, winter had come to my home, though the weather was still fairly mild in Atlanta. It would be difficult for Luca to imagine the temperatures in my homeland, especially when full winter came. They would be so entirely foreign to him.
My family used Sno-Cats in winter, large tracked vehicles that were fun to drive and had plenty of room, and the heaters worked great—really important when the temperatures could get down to well below zero in the winter evenings. We tried to travel no more than we had to in winter. I told Luca all of this as we raced around the airport, trying to fit him out with luggage and toiletries and a couple of changes of clothes, but I wasn’t sure he truly comprehended how much his life was about to change.
I found a store at the airport that was expensive, even for cheaply made items, but I was still able to pick him out a few suitable things, including a jacket. It wouldn’t be heavy enough when we got to Russia, but we could shop again, and I had my coat in my luggage. If his wasn’t warm enough, I’d wrap him in mine. It would be too large, but at least he’d be warm.
He would need an entirely new wardrobe before I introduced him to my family. He’d probably fight me every step of the way on that too, but I wanted him to make a good impression, because it was important to me. I tried to explain some of this to him, too, as I pulled him through the always busy Atlanta airport after me. He just looked at me with those big, beautiful eyes of his, and I knew he was frightened of being surrounded by Golden pure-bloods. I was going to have to make it plain to my family that they were to be nice to him or they’d answer to me.
The flight was predictably long and boring. To me, anyway. I thought Luca would love the on-board entertainment, but soon after we left and got out over the ocean, he became pale and said he felt ill. The stewardess brought him some water, which was all he could keep down, and he finally fell asleep on my shoulder. I was puzzled. Did Wyvern not travel well over water?
It wasn’t until we got over the continent of Europe that Luca finally roused and began to feel better. Then he became fascinated by the entertainment system and watched one movie after another, played some video games, and listened to music. I tried to sleep. I can rarely get comfortable enough on a flight to sleep much, but I was exhausted after the excitement of the last few days and before I knew it, I had dozed off.
Luca woke me for the in-flight breakfast, such as it was—I gave him most of mine. I don’t know where he put it all in that compact little body of his, especially considering how sick he’d been at the beginning of the flight, but he ate all of his, most of mine and still managed to charm one of the stewardesses out of another meal they had left over. I think it was the dimples he used like a weapon, in combination with those long eyelashes and the pouty lips. Those stewardesses never had a chance. Neither did I.
It was odd about the sickness though that had disappeared as soon as we were back over land. I knew that legend said witches and wizards can’t cross water very well, but surely that didn’t apply to dragonets, did it? I stopped worrying about it since he was feeling better and got ready for our arrival.
Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow is a huge airport, really spread out, like most major city airports. I had booked us a room at the Radisson Blue hotel, which was attached to the airport by a long walkway, and after exiting the plane with our carry-on luggage, we made our way to the hotel. Luca was quiet—probably tired. I know that I was running on very little sleep by that time and couldn’t wait to get to a room, take a shower, brush my teeth and then get horizontal. While wrapped around Luca, if possible. The room was nice enough—it had a clean bed which I was most interested in, and as soon as I could I took advantage of it.
The last thing I remember was Luca crawling in next to me. I turned over, put an arm around his warm, delectable body and that was it for the next few hours. I had decided while traveling to Moscow that we should be in no hurry getting up to Kamchatka. No one knew we were in Moscow, so I felt pretty safe. We had to do some shopping for new clothes for Luca too, and I never liked to be rushed. I could easily change the reservations to Yelizovo.
I don’t know how long I’d been sleeping when my phone began to vibrate on the bedside table. I opened my eyes to total darkness and turned over to feel for the phone as it danced away from me across the table. Just as I grabbed it, I heard Luca murmuring something unintelligible in his sleep as he rolled over and threw an arm and a leg across me, snuggling against my back. I allowed myself a moment to enjoy the feel of his body pressed against me before speaking softly into the phone. “Hello.”
“Are you okay? Are you there yet?”
It was Sebastien, but I wasn’t sure if someone was forcing him to make this call, so I simply asked, “And who is this?” We had nicknames for each other that we’d used privately all our lives. No one knew them, not even our parents. We’d always used them as a sort of code to each other and if Sebastien said them now, I could be certain that he was alone and it was safe to talk.
“Mitya, this is Bash.” And there they were. Mine, of course was a n
ice Russian name, but Sebastien had chosen Bash when we were children because he thought that it sounded like the superhero comic books we read.
I gave a relieved sigh and said, “Thank God you’re okay. I wanted to call you when we got to Moscow, but I didn’t know your situation. I thought it would be better to let you call me when you felt that it was safe.”
“I am now. I don’t think they’d picked up the signal from the car by the time I ditched it at the rental place. I grabbed a cab and came directly to the airport. The first flight I could get out that was coming anywhere close to you was to Helsinki, so I’m about to board it now. So, you’ve made it to Moscow?”
“Yes. We arrived several hours ago, and I’ve decided to stay here for a couple of days, at least. Luca is going to have to have some warm clothes. He has virtually nothing with him, only a few things I bought for him at the airport, so I’m going to take him shopping while we’re here. I feel that he’ll be safe enough for the next couple of days.”
“I think you’re right, so when I get to Finland, I’ll call you again. I have a two-hour layover there, but if you’re still in Moscow and feel confident about waiting on me, I’ll meet you there, and we can travel together on the next flight. That way your father will only have to send one Sno-Cat for us, and we won’t have to listen to him bitching about having to send two.”
I chuckled, knowing that he was right. My father, who had raised both me and Sebastien after my aunt and uncle died, still treated us at times as if we were teenagers instead of grown men. “All right. That sounds good. Call me when you land. Have a safe flight.” I ended the call and settled back down in the bed, I felt Luca raise his head slightly, his breath tickling my ear.
“Who were you talking to?” He asked in a sleepy voice, although I couldn’t help but notice that another part of his anatomy was wide awake and rubbing against my thigh.