by Sariah Skye
"Where’s everyone else?" she questioned, her tone slightly disappointed.
I heaved a sigh. "Well…I couldn’t reach Maxxus; he went back to his room saying that he was ‘tired' and didn't respond. Gabriel is throwing a temper tantrum in our room, and Daniel supposedly is trying to smack him out of it."
Kiarra raised a brow. "Okay, then," she said with a laugh.
"They’re supposed to be along soon. Or so Daniel says," I said with a roll of my eyes. Men, I thought disparagingly. Kiarra stepped back and invited me in.
The inside décor surprised me even more than the outer. It was a straight up country house, complete with chicken and cow paintings and figurines all over random, red shelves with hearts carved in them; a floral patterned sofa and matching chair and red-checked tablecloths over the end tables. I must have looked appalled, because Kiarra piped up:
"I just couldn’t do a normal dragon house." She shuddered and wrinkled her nose. "Can you imagine the reaction if I had built this back home?"
I chuckled. "They’d probably eat it."
"Or burn it down!" She laughed. She motioned for me to follow her through a white door that sat on a single hinge on one side and it shut automatically when you pushed through it and we entered a kitchen, which was just as country as the rest of the house. I grinned, and pointed at the white curtains with pictures of fruit on them. "Those would really get a reaction."
She snickered. "Right? I just…had to pick the most obnoxious things I could find that would never fit in back home."
I shook my head, taking it all in, awed. "Wow…imagine Braeden’s reaction when he sees this!" I said with a laugh, and noticed the cheery expression she had worn was replaced by a crestfallen one at the mention of my brother.
I groaned audibly and rolled my eyes, not at her but at my own stupidity. "I’m sorry. I’m just not doing well today."
She waved me off. "Oh, it’s okay. You’ve been through a lot."
"Well…so have you," I insisted, and she shrugged.
"Yeah but, I signed up for this," she said. "You didn’t."
"True."
She offered me a sympathetic smile and after a moment, clapped her hands together. "Well then…let’s get to eatin’ shall we?"
"Best fucking idea I’ve heard all goddamned day."
She certainly didn’t disappoint and served a meal certainly fit for a dragon: meatloaf, the ultimate comfort food (absolutely to die for!), fresh squeezed lemonade, Caesar salad with low-fat dressing for the vegetarian, au gratin potatoes and several loaves of homemade bread and apple pie for dessert. I was practically drooling by the time she had set everything on the table (a blue and white checked tablecloth and mis-matched blue, wood backed chairs).
True to his word, Daniel did get his brother to calm down and they arrived just as I had begun digging in without manners or prejudice, suddenly noticing the empty pit of my stomach as it rumbled, reminding me just how hollow it was. Kiarra let them in and led them straight to the kitchen. I purposely pretended to be extremely engaged with my meatloaf (which, I kind of was, actually) and I couldn’t be bothered with the entrance of new people.
I felt his presence behind me, hesitant. I took a long gulp of lemonade and ignored him.
Daniel coughed, pointedly. "Go on, ya douche," he said.
I heard an exasperated sigh and then a hand was placed on my shoulder.
"Oh, is someone there?" I asked feigning ignorance.
Gabriel groaned. "Shit…Leo I’m sorry. I was…way out of line."
I set my food down, not even bothering to use silverware anymore and turned to him, fussing momentarily with my wings. I positioned them so they were more comfortable at my sides. I raised a brow. "And?"
He sighed again. He pulled up an empty chair next to me and reached for my hand and hugged it to his chest. "I was a complete fuckwad."
"My words exactly!" Daniel chimed in, sitting opposite of his brother at the table in between Kiarra and I. He scanned the food choices cautiously and his sights lingered on the potatoes. "Oh, how I miss thee, carbohydrates."
Kiarra shoved them towards him. "One time won’t kill you."
Daniel grinned widely. "YOLO, bitches!" he said, grabbing for the nearest fork and digging right into the dish they were served in, not bothering with a plate. "Oh my god…" he said, with a pleasured moan after the first bite.
I had to choke down peals of laughter, as my own mouth was full of meatloaf. I glanced at Gabriel and rolled my eyes. "Wow…he’s nuts."
"Runs in the family, apparently." Gabriel sighed. "Really, Leo. I’m sorry. Of course you can have whatever friends you want. I won’t lie, I’m totally intimidated by that dude."
"Dragon." I corrected. "Dragons don’t take too kindly to the word dude. They’ll be liable to bite your head off."
"Literally," Kiarra offered, with an innocent smile.
"Dragon, then," he said, with a slight grin.
My expression softened. "I am sorry, too, about the—" I raised my hand to my cheek and winced. "The magic slap."
Gabriel shrugged it off. "I deserved it. And for the record, it's not about you. I trust you. But, there is… something about him. Something I can’t put my finger on about him that is totally bothering me."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
He shrugged. "I really don’t know. I mean, don’t you think it’s rather odd that this random dragon you barely know is all of a sudden helping us?"
I narrowed my eyes. "I do know him, though. Longer than any of you," I said, motioning to everyone at the table. "And, like I said before…Grandfather trusts him. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have chosen to mentor him. If he’s okay with him, that’s good enough for me."
"You certainly place a lot of stock in your Grandfather’s opinion," Daniel said, in between mouthfuls of cheesy potatoes.
Kiarra banged her fork against the table. "Hey! For good reason, he is an amazing dragon." She gave me a sympathetic look. "He could be King probably but—" she trailed off, her cheeks flushed. I knew what she was going to say; but she was too nice to say it.
"Yeah, he is," I said solemnly as I cut a big piece of meatloaf off a bigger chunk off with my fork.
Daniel eyed it wistfully. You could almost see a string of drool escape the side of his mouth.
In response, Kiarra speared a large piece of it in her fork and smacked it down loudly on his plate. "YOLO, bitch, remember?"
Daniel's eyes widened at the large portions of what he deemed as unhealthy food on his plate. "Oh hell you guys are a terrible influence on me!" With reckless abandon, fork in hand he stabbed the large lump of seasoned meat and took a very large bite. He slunk back in his chair as he chewed slowly, savoring every bite. "Oh my god...I think I just came a little."
"Wow, you need a boyfriend," I quipped.
"Why bother, when I have this?" Daniel took another bite and sighed happily. We all giggled as he struggled to compose himself. "Good lord I'm going to have to run a million miles tomorrow to work this off. But so much less drama."
"Too bad you aren't a dragon," I said, with a wide smile, shoving a large slice of bread halfway in my mouth. "I eat all sorts of crap and never worry."
"Too bad," he said in agreement. "If I could eat like that and have those curves…damn girl. I'd pig out on all this stuff, every day!"
I winked at him with appreciation.
"So, why now isn't your grandfather king?" Gabriel questioned in between bites of his dinner.
Kiarra sighed. "Well, it was feared that since he has such close ties with Leorah, that somehow she'd influence him against the kingdom and well...you know the rest. Same thing goes for her parents."
I let out a low growl, assuring her that I did.
"How did he become Elder, then?" Gabriel asked.
"Nothing they can do about it. When a dragon lives as long as he has—they have no choice. That's part of the way we keep the royalty in check and attempt to balance out any favoritism there may be," Kia
rra explained. "The King and Queen have a lot of pull as to who serves on the Court, but they have to have an equal balance of opinions."
I grumbled. "I honestly don't understand how any of my family was able to get positions in the Court with me in the mix." Disgruntled, I tore off a large piece of bread and gnawed it loudly.
"Gross; dragons are rude," Daniel said, wrinkling his nose.
I let out a low growl from the back of my throat, and tossed the rest of the bread at him. He yelped and brushed it off of him, whining about the dangers of more complex carbohydrates. I just chuckled and rolled my eyes. "You have no idea."
"I wonder who was behind the order to come after you, then?" Gabriel mused.
I shrugged. "Clearly there is something going on there we aren't privy to," I said.
Kiarra frowned. "Clearly."
Since the conversation had taken a slightly serious turn, we finished the rest of our meal in comfortable silence, and the rest of the evening went on uneventfully, thankfully. If you had been an outsider, we appeared to be a normal group of friends, gathered in front of the TV, trashing the cheesy movie playing on the Hallmark channel (I was surprised they got cable here but…whatever), laughing and giggling and drinking wine and beer and singing along to songs from Kiarra’s iPod (to my delight, filled with plenty of pop and rock music from the 90s!). Minus of course the blasts of air Gabriel kept shooting at his brother whenever he thought he was cheating at poker or the fact that I had a big, awkward set of wings jutting out my back—we appeared totally normal. Honestly, it was probably the most fun I've had—wings and all—that I could recall in my lifetime. I'd never had the luxury of having friends, let alone a group of friends, even as ragtag as we all were.
No matter where we were, the more alcohol we drank—and I swore there was something about it because I was actually feeling a bit fuzzy—Gabriel and I somehow found ourselves sitting closer and closer together as the night wore on, like some sort of magnetic pull was between us.
I was slightly tipsy when Gabriel and I headed back to our room, stumbling and laughing through the town as we walked (me mostly tripping over the wings, to be honest). It was early in the morning or late at night depending on how you looked at it, and everything was fairly dark except for the balls of wispy light that hung low in the sky, over our heads darting around.
I giggled with glee as one of them flew face-level to me. I held out my hand and it landed in my palm, gently. It was nearly completely weightless and emanated a quiet tinkling sound like that of a handful of jingle bells. I gasped, noticing what appeared to be a female face, very childlike in the glow.
Gabriel was peering over my shoulder, and gasped as well. "It’s a wisp!"
The wisp tinkled musically, flying around my head and pausing momentarily near my cheek. I felt a tingle, the wisp appeared to kind of kiss me before it made a musical giggling sound before it darted off into the sky with its friends.
I beamed, feeling a sudden surge of elation. I grabbed Gabriel’s hand and pulled him towards me, wrapping my arms around his neck and pulling him down to my level. I playfully bit his lower lip lightly and he shivered, and grinned mischievously. He smashed his lips into mine and we kissed passionately there in the center of town, with the light of the wisps emanating around us.
One of the wisps—I can't say for sure but I had a feeling—flew around our heads, letting out a little tinkling, giggling sound that I swear sounded like a young, giddy girl. In the midst of our kiss I started laughing while pressed against Gabriel's mouth.
He pulled away suddenly and smiled wryly. "Come on it wasn't that bad was it?"
I laughed. "No, silly," I said, smacking him playfully on the chest, as the little wisp took one more swoop in between us, letting out it's little musical giggle. I pointed at her and grinned widely. "Hear that?"
Gabriel smiled widely. "They are quite amazing." Another wisp tinkled next to him quietly, daring to get closer to him. Grinning, he lifted up his palm and flicked open his fingers and lighted a tiny ball of light. The wisp, seeming momentarily startled, flew backwards a little before cautiously moving forward, almost as if it were nervous to examine it.
The little "she" wisp near my ear slowly joined the other wisp and they musically tinkled at one another. Gabriel and I beamed at each other over the light of the magic in his palm.
"They seem happy," I observed, watching as they danced happily around the magic.
Gabriel shot me a smirk and a nod. "Do your thing, Leo. Give them a show."
I raised a brow but smiled, not only at the wisps but the sexy half smile he was shooting at me in the dim light of the magic. "All right," I said. I closed my eyes briefly and exhaled, motioning with my hands to move the mist towards Gabriel's palms. When the magic of my spirit mist mixed with his, the ball of light grew wider, larger.
"Again," Gabriel said quietly, with a nod, not taking his eyes off the magic.
I breathed out again, giving more magic to the light and it grew even larger. "That's it..." he said, in a hushed tone, the little wisps floating backwards slowly to allow the magic more space. They were silent now and barely moving, and somehow I knew they were okay; only enthralled by the magic.
Gabriel spun his palms around the ball of light and after a moment, shot it upwards and opened his hands with a snap of his fingers the magic burst apart, showering us in thousands of little balls of sparkle and light, like one of those white firecrackers that fizzles and trails glitter down towards the ground.
"Oh, look at them!" I said, with a joyous laugh, pointing. The two wisps danced around each other happily, chiming melodically as they were joined by at least a dozen or so other wisps that had been hiding nearby somehow. They sang their little wisp songs and "danced", frolicking in and out of the magic.
Gabriel was grinning at this sight. His brown eyes sparkled with bliss as he watched the delightful sight of the wisps dancing around in his magic—well, our magic. Watching his handsome face, content at himself in the low light of the magic made my heart swell in my chest. I snaked one of my arms through his and he brought himself out of his dazed reverie. "I think I made them happy," he said.
I nodded, pulling him a little tighter to my side, careful to avoid slamming my wing painfully in between us. "I definitely think you did."
Gabriel and I stood there a few more moments, watching the innocence of the wisps dance playfully in the magic before he finally was able to pull himself away. By this point I was no longer looking at the wisps, but at him as he proudly stood there. He blushed when he finally noticed my heavy gaze on him. "Sorry...it's just a rare thing when I can openly do magic and have it appreciated, you know?"
I nodded knowingly. "Yeah, I think I do a little."
Glancing one last time at them, Gabriel wrapped his arm around my shoulders and leaned over slightly to kiss me gently on the cheek. Feeling this sense inside of pure elation and peace I sighed happily as I leaned my head against his chest and allowed him to walk us back to the guest room.
I placed my hand on the doorknob when we reached the quarters and paused momentarily for my magic to register before it clicked and opened up.
I stepped inside the quiet, dimly lit room and sighed. I fumbled around the wall for a light switch but, I didn't have to. With a wide motion of his hand, Gabriel had lit one of the oil lamps that sat on the coffee table in the middle of the room, and then the two on the end tables on either side of the couch.
"Showoff," I said, with a wide smile.
"Damn right." Gabriel turned around and stepped towards me, reaching out one hand and wrapping it behind my neck, pulling me gently into him. His other arm wrapped against my waist, using care to avoid a wing. "Where were we?" he asked, a lascivious lilt in his voice as he leaned over and brushed his lips against mine.
I sighed into the kiss, letting my arms coil around his neck, the fingers of my right hand lighting grabbing at the dark brown hair at his collar. My breath quickened as his lips parted slightly, gen
tly biting my bottom lip. I gasped into the kiss and let out a little moan, involuntarily, feeling the heat rise up quickly inside.
"Oh Leorah, I want you so bad right now," Gabriel whispered in my ear, his other hand deftly trying to untie the robes that fastened at my collarbone.
Suddenly, my eyes flew open and dropped from his neck the heat and arousal I was beginning to fear quickly replaced with a sense of anxiety.
My breath quickened into fevered gasps, as I placed my hands at my heart, feeling it pound like a drum in my ribcage. A wave of nausea washed over me as I heaved heavy, gasping breaths and edged backwards on the bed even more, away from him.
"Oh god, Leo, I'm so sorry, I—" Gabriel said, his tone full of guilt as he stepped backward quickly from me.
I held up a hand to indicate I needed a moment. Keeping my eyes shut I concentrated on my breathing, willing myself to calm down. What the hell was going on?
My body warred inside itself, my lower half heated and willing to allow Gabriel to take me to bed, the other half panicked at the thought.
"Are you okay?" Gabriel questioned with concern. I felt his weight next to me on the bed as he sat down.
I took one last breath and opened my eyes slowly. His heady expression was gone; replaced with one of shame. I frowned and reached my hand out to gently stroke the five-o-clock shadow on his cheek. "Oh geez, I'm so sorry, I panicked, I—"
Gabriel raised his hand and shook his head. "No, it's okay. Given all that's been going on you're entitled to a little freak out." He patted my shoulder lightly before resting his hands in his lap and cringing, his face wrinkling in a grimace of pain. "I got a little carried away, and now I'm paying for it," he said, his voice squeaking slightly.
Feeling a twinge of guilt swell up in me, I moved away from him a little more. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have allowed myself to get carried away if I wasn't ready." I bit my lip, regrettably, wondering what would happen.