by Sariah Skye
"So…how about you? Ever date? Have a boyfriend…even a human one? You ever…" he trailed off.
I snorted. "No…relationships aren’t something I really understand. It’s only been recently they’ve been marrying out of love," I said, with a sour expression, thinking of my free-willed brother and his fiancée. "But, there really was no dating. It was ‘Hey, I like you, let’s mate.’ They’d either agree or disagree and if they agreed, they’d have a relationship for a while in private before being bonded—married—and that’s it. When I came here...there were many things I didn’t understand. Traditions, friendships, holidays…relationships. I didn’t even know if it was possible for me to date a human—or a sorcerer," I added, when Gabriel opened up his mouth, assumedly to point out his distinction.
"No one? Really? Nothing? I mean…even over here, the most ridiculed of people find someone," Gabriel said. "Not even Maxxus?"
I let out a disgruntled groan. "As I’ve said, being associated with me is social suicide. My family, it has taken them years to rise above the stigma, mostly due to my grandfather and his reputation. But anyone else? No. I never had a friend—besides my brother. No one was ever nice to me. I cannot describe to you how terribly awful it was for me over there." I felt the pinpricks of tears nick my eyes, begging to escape down my face. I blinked rapidly, hoping that they would just go away. I cried enough about my life over the years, I didn’t want to do it anymore. "Even if Maxxus did have a thing for me—which I doubt—I wouldn't do that to him."
He exhaled. "Shit, Leo…I can’t imagine." With an index finger, he hooked my chin and urged my face towards him. "Well, I will promise you this: as a friend or a—whatever—I will never allow anyone to hurt you like that again…even if it kills me. I swear, until the day I die—and then after that I will find someone willing to do the same for you again and won’t leave this Earth until I do—no one will hurt you again. Ever. Again." He looked into my eyes with such solemnness it nearly made me shift uncomfortably at the serious nature of his oath, except his brown eyes were so intense, like getting lost in a dream, I just felt a smile spread slowly across my face. And, in true Leorah fashion, I retorted with sarcasm:
"Friend?"
Gabriel blinked, taken aback. "Well, I— I mean…well…."
I roared with laughter. "I’m sorry, I just couldn’t resist!"
Gabriel grinned. He leaned over and kissed me softly on the cheek. He traced down my cheek the trail of the single tear that had escaped my eye with a gentle fingertip, looking sad. "Enough of this sadness. Even with the shit that is facing you ahead, you will not be alone. No matter how bad it gets…you won’t be alone. You have me. Eventually, you’ll have Daniel—and he’s a force to be reckoned with. You have your grandfather. We’ll all figure it out. And anyone that gets in our way...we’ll deal with them. Okay?"
I nodded slowly, "Okay," I said in a small voice.
"Good." He leaned down and planted a soft kiss on my lips, and when he pulled away, he chuckled. "Okay, now…let’s forget about this sad crap and relax. What’s on TV? Anything good? Have any fangirl crap you want to expose me to? Get it over with while all your idiosyncrasies are still cute?"
I sat up and pretended to act offended and pushed him in the chest. "Knock it off!"
He laughed, and pretended to reach for the remote which I promptly snatched away from him. "Mine!" I turned on the TV and nestled back into Gabriel’s arms and flipped through the channels. I think I finally landed on some local news but I didn’t care…after a while I relaxed and drifted off anyways so it didn’t matter.
After a time, I awakened, my eyes fluttering slowly trying to adjust to the surroundings.
It was…dark…like the dark woods at midnight. I was barefoot, padding through the leaf litter slowly, with trepidation…only it wasn’t leaves…it felt like...walking on silky, soft moss, damp and cold.
"Hello?" I asked. I heard a cackle in the distance.
I stopped in my tracks, glancing around me again. What I had thought were trees, were dark wisps of steam lifting up from the ground. I looked up at the sky—again, no stars, no moon. Just darkness, blotted with black and shades of dark purple…almost like a Northern Lights with no color.
"Gabriel?" I called. I know last time I happened to yell out, and he heard me for real.
The cackle sounded again, this time much closer.
"Hello?" I asked, my voice disappearing into the wispy woods, no echo at all. I swallowed, feeling the darkness start to surround me again.
I inhaled deeply, and tried to remember where I was—where I really was: in Gabriel’s arms, on the couch, my cat snoozing at our feet. There was no darkness. My fear was only in my imagination.
Right?
I swallowed, hearing the cackle again, this time raspy and low, a word on the non-existent wind: "Leorah."
I gulped. "I don’t know who you are, but go away!" I yelled out, trying to sound forceful and confident.
"Leorah."
I heard nothing else but the silence, and felt whatever was speaking—whatever it was—getting gradually closer to me.
Feeling my heart racing, I inhaled again, stretching my arms out on my sides. I wasn’t going to let whatever this was get me, again. I imagined the sun, the way it looked as we were walking around earlier today by the lake…. stretching out before me, touching everything with warmth…lighting the world aglow in pinks, oranges and purples. I imagined this very same scene around me, and I exhaled, pushing my hands out forward as if pushing my thoughts of sunshine towards this unforeseen entity.
I heard a low, mangled scream in the distance. Finally, a panicked, raspy, "Leo!"
My eyes flew open, and I shrieked in the darkness.
"Leo? Leo!"
I blinked, my eyes taking in their surroundings, mainly Gabriel’s panicked face before me, his hands on my shoulders, shaking them. I reached out and touched his cheek, rough from the shadow of his facial hair, the coarseness tangibly bringing me back to reality.
"I was there again…but…not," I said, struggling to properly describe.
"What do you mean?" he asked, grasping my shoulders tightly, as if afraid to let me go, afraid I’d slip away, looking incredibly alarmed.
I stammered, "I…I don’t know. It was like before but…different. Farther away. But not as dark…not as evil. But I could feel it there, somewhere…but it wasn’t like last time. It was…" I bit my lip, struggling to find the words.
Gabriel pulled me to him and hushed me. "Geez, I can’t believe I almost lost you again and there was nothing I could do!"
I shook my head. "No…no it wasn’t that. It was…different somehow. I was scared, but I didn’t feel like I was going to die. "
He exhaled lowly, an angry growl on his breath. He gave me a tight squeeze and stood up, gently helping me lean against the couch. "Where is that book that your grandfather gave you?"
I pointed at my backpack near the entryway. He produced it gingerly, opening it and leafing through the pages carefully.
"What are you doing?" I questioned.
"I don’t know what we’re dealing with, that much is clear," he paused, glancing at the clock on my wall: it was slightly after midnight. "And, whatever it is, it's not allowing you to sleep at night, so it has something to do with the dark. Somehow. Whatever the fuck it is. Whatever it is, it’s not something that has been around for a good, long while because no one seems to know what it is—at least, no one I know. So perhaps whatever it is, there might be a clue in here; maybe it’s something we haven’t seen in a long, long time."
"You read Gaelic?" I asked, as he scratched his chin, setting himself in the recliner, leafing carefully through the pages.
He shook his head. "No. But I might recognize something in here, somehow. All languages are tied together, having roots in other, older languages. I might be able to pick something out."
I leaned back into the couch, with a pathetic whimper and sigh.
"This…this is n
ot Gaelic," he said, after a moment.
"How can you tell? I thought you couldn’t read Gaelic," I asked, putting my hand to my chest, feeling my heart leap around under my ribcage. I breathed in and out slowly to try to quell it.
"This alphabet…it’s not Gaelic. It’s not anything that can easily be recognized. It almost looked like…well, nothing I’ve ever encountered before." He shut the book carefully. "Almost like some kind of hieroglyphics…" He set it down on the coffee table and exhaled with an audible, frustrated groan. "Fuck! How in God’s name am I supposed to be a Knight if I can’t fucking help you against something that is threatening you?" He pounded his fist angrily on the coffee table, causing everything on it to shake and rattle. "Fuck!"
I stuck out my lower lip. My muscles were still feeling shaky, but I stood up slowly and went to him on the chair. I lowered myself into his lap and nuzzled my forehead against his neck. "Maybe you’re just supposed to be here. You know what I was thinking of when I was there?"
He paused before answering shortly: "What?"
"You."
Gabriel’s expression softened. "Really?"
I nodded, with a smile.
"So, you were able to control yourself this time?" he asked, I could see his eyes light up with anticipation.
I nodded again. "A little."
"Up up up," he said, urging me to stand. He got up, and grabbed my hands. "This is good. Perhaps whatever this is…it’s a dream thing. A dream spell, that only affects you in your sleep. That means there is something we can do, we can teach your subconscious magic, as there is certain magic one can do on the dream plane." Feeling a sudden sense of giddiness, he pulled me into the bedroom and sat me down on the bed.
I cocked a brow, and smirked. "Right now, really?"
He rolled his eyes, and snickered. "Stop! I need your computer; I need to look up stuff on the internet. Okay?"
"Sure," I said, with a laugh. "Go ahead."
Before Gabriel sat at my computer, he took a moment to open my blinds up wide, letting the moonlight pour in and turned on every light he could in my room. "Just in case you fall asleep again," he said.
"What are you doing?" I questioned, climbing under the covers and leaning against the headboard, pulling the blanket up over my chest. Suddenly, my bed was starting to feel extremely inviting.
He paused in his furious typing to peek over his shoulder. "Tired?"
I puffed out my lower lip and shook my head. "No…" but I couldn’t fight back a yawn.
"Try to hang on for a little bit. I might be able to find something that can help you," he said.
"How?"
"Google!"
I frowned. "How is Google going to help? You really think people go around talking about evil dream things…especially if it’s something that hasn’t been heard of in years?"
"You’d be surprised what you can find on the internet," he said with a laugh. "Just because dragons haven’t heard of it, doesn’t mean someone else hasn’t had a crazy experience that might help."
I breathed out, blinking repeatedly, eyes suddenly feeling very heavy. "I hope you find something soon, I’m really tired."
"Can you hang on for a few? Some of these topics look promising," he said. "Dream demons…there’s spells and whatnot to help ward them off."
"Dream demons?" I asked in disbelief. "But, I’m not dreaming…am I? You said it yourself that you could see the room, dark and the light from the moon you brought down helped ward it off."
Gabriel swiveled around in the chair, sitting backwards, casually resting his arms on the headrest. "Yes, but that could have been a coincidence. Maybe you really heard me and that’s what woke you up, stopping the demons from doing…whatever it was they were doing."
"But, that first time I couldn’t control a thing that I was doing. This last time I could…it didn’t feel as malevolent. How do we know they are the same?" I asked.
Gabriel bit his lip, thoughtfully running his hands through his purposefully messy hair and mussing it up further. "I don’t know. Were there any similarities?"
I considered this. "Those…tendrils. Like…black smoke from the ground but…not." I groaned in frustration. "I don’t know how to explain it. Kind of...snake like? But, not. Ugh, that's no help."
"Hmm…I wish I could just see inside your mind, dammit. Would you mind grabbing my phone from the other room?"
"Sure," I said, reluctantly rising from my warm, comfortable bed and stumbling woozily into the other room, where I grabbed both phones from the coffee table and brought them into my bedroom. I set them both on my desk next to him, and peeked momentarily over his shoulder, reading the screen he was currently on.
I cocked a brow. "Incubi?" I read on further and my mouth dropped open, describing an incubus as a male demon who had sex with females in dreams. "No! That’s not what's happening!
Gabriel snickered. "I know, this is just a place to start, don’t worry," he said. "First thing I looked up was ‘dream demons’ and this came up."
"Are there such things?" I asked, covering my open mouth with my palm, feeling slightly horrified.
Gabriel shrugged. "I have no idea, honestly."
I let out a little yelp. Gabriel patted my arm reassuringly. "Well, there’s about a bazillion spells to ward off those little fuckers even if there are, so, no worries." He grabbed his cell phone and began texting.
"Daniel?" I asked, almost rhetorically. The entire time I knew him, I’d never seen him correspond with anyone else, so it was probably a stupid question.
He nodded. He also grabbed my phone and started poking at the screen. "Putting his number in here…just in case for some reason…well, you should have it anyways, even though you’ve not met him. Seers were often employed by the Order, and obviously, he’ll be ours."
"How convenient he’s your brother," I said.
He nodded. "Yes, it’s pretty rare too to have two people with our different skills in one family.
"Hmm…wonder when I’ll get to meet him?" I pondered aloud.
"Soon, I’m sure," Gabriel said, setting both phones down and going back to his computer research. I stood there for a few moments, watching him pull up screen after screen on dream demons, spells to ward them off, things like that. I rested my chin on his shoulder and let my arms drape over his chest, as if holding everything up was too much to bear.
"That tired, huh?" he asked.
"Yeah. I’ve not slept so much in probably a good five years or so then I have this week," I said, with a wide yawn.
"Well, you’ve been through a lot," Gabriel said. "I think tomorrow we’ll work on some more magic. I think I can get you to call from the sun and it can help provide you with energy. It should help you feel better."
I peered out at the crescent moon outside my window, and the thousands of visible stars twinkling in the inky sky on this clear, autumn night. "I don’t suppose there’s moon magic that would help with that?"
He shrugged. "Yes and no. I mean, the moon basically is reflecting the sun’s light back at us, but it’s not true fire magic…the sun will be much more potent. The moon is generally used for relaxing and purifying."
"So you do spells and stuff too?" I asked.
"A little. Many times they’re helpful in sorcery, though I can’t claim to be as proficient in them as a witch would be."
I sighed, thinking of Kit. "I’m sure she could help." I didn’t even need to say her name; I knew he knew who I was talking about.
"We’ll find her. First things first…we need to make sure you’re safe."
"Yeah…" I sighed again, reaching my arms over my head in an exaggerated stretch and a yawn. I looked down at myself a moment, noticing I was still in my orange date dress. I snorted. "Glad I broke out the dress for tonight," I said, dryly. "I think I’ll take a shower and wash up."
Gabriel paused in his research to take one last glance at me. "Aw, but I like the dress," he said. "You really do look so pretty."
I flushed, suddenly
feeling very vulnerable, flipping my hair forward and down over my chest. "Shower time." The curls were half unraveled in my hair and I’m sure my makeup was a fright. I grabbed a pair of gray yoga pants and a gray tank top that read Starfleet Academy in blue letters emblazoned across it, new underwear and debated on a bra. I didn’t want to wear one to bed, but…I wasn’t entirely comfortable with Gabriel seeing me without one, even though I’d be fully clothed. I grabbed for a zip up blue hoodie to throw over the top and headed for the bathroom, where I took a long shower. I washed out my curls and the hairspray, and scrubbed the makeup off my face with a washcloth. I sighed, seeing the last traces of our date wiped off onto the wet fabric.
At least for a few hours, I could pretend to be a normal woman. Not a dragon, not anything special or magical. Just a girl on a date with a boy, having a good time.
I had a feeling we’d never have a "normal" anything. Our relationship as it was hadn’t started typical or normal…there was little chance it would continue as such. I at least hoped that after we figured out...this…whatever it was, we’d have time to be a little normal again. Soon.
Gabriel was still doing research on the computer, but this time he had a small arsenal of things on the desk he swore might help: some sea salt (nothing seemingly magical about it, just some stuff I purchased for margaritas from the grocery store), some white candles, a bottle of water, a glass of milk, some random herbs and spices and a stack of papers from the printer.
"What the fuck?" I asked, watching him sprinkle something into the glass of milk, eyes closed and concentrating.
His eyes flew up. "Dammit, I’m trying to concentrate, Leo!"-
I rolled my eyes. "Sorry," I said, trying to hide a laugh.
"It’s fine, I think I’m about done. For now."
"What did you put in there?" I asked, motioning towards the dots that were now floating in the white liquid.
"Oh. It’s just sage. That coupled with some positive reinforcement might make a nice nightmare-warding potion," he said.