by Jan Dockter
Tori was entranced with all the knowledge he had. They both lost track of time. Soon there was a trumpet sounding that the horse races were soon to start. “Och I let time get away from me. I have enjoyed our time together lassie but I must be there for the horse races. I am the one that has to wave the flag to get them started.”
Tori was sorry their time had to end. Robert reached down to help Tori up. “Oh, please go on ahead of me. I just want to spend a few more minutes here. It is so tranquil. I promise I won’t be here long.”
He frowned. “I don’t like the idea of leaving you here alone. I don’t feel right about not bringing you safely back to Aldain. I would never forgive myself if something happened to you.”
Tori batted her eyes at him. “Look around. There isn’t anyone here but us. Everyone seems to be waiting for the horse racing to start. I promise I won’t be much longer. I’ll be back before anyone misses me.” As usual Tori got her way. Even with his misgivings on leaving her alone, he agreed to let her have her few minutes. He did tell her he was going to tell Aldain where he left her.
Tori looked around the park. It was stunning! The mountains in the background were huge and snowcapped, even though it was the middle of summer. She sighed, she knew she should go meet Dain. She didn’t want to miss the horse races and if she stayed to long she knew he would come looking for her.
As she stood up she noticed the man she had met in Edinburgh, Alec Russell, walking towards her. She didn’t know what it was about him but he seemed off to her somehow. “Well, well Miss Robinson. How nice to run into you. I wasn’t expecting to see you again so soon but I am glad I have. How are you enjoying the party?”
The way he looked at her sent shivers through her. “Hello Mr. Russell. I am enjoying it very much thank you. I was just heading over to join Dain to watch the horse races.”
He grabbed her arm to stop her. “There are still a few minutes before the races start. What’s the hurry? I would like to get to know you better.” He was leering at her.
Tori’s senses heightened. She jerked her arm out of his grasp. “Don’t you ever lay a hand on me without permission Mr. Russell. I don’t appreciate being man handled.” She gave him a withering look and started to walk away. Before she took three steps he had his hand over her mouth and was forcing her into a nearby grove of trees. She fought him with all her strength but he had an iron grip on her.
As he dragged her into the grove she bit him on his hand drawing blood. He let go and punched her, “You bitch. You are going to be sorry you did that.”
He grabbed his scarf he had around his neck and quickly tied it across her mouth before she had a chance to scream. He looked around to make sure no one was coming. When he was sure they were unnoticed he started tearing her shirt off. Tori squirmed and kicked for all she was worth. Her hands were loose and he was surprised at how strong she was. She scratched his face and he grabbed her hands. She managed to squirm enough to allow her to give him a hard kick to his face. She put everything she had into it. It spun him around and he went to the ground. It gave her just enough time to get up and start running.
She tore the scarf off her mouth and started screaming for help. Her mind reverted back to when Tom was beating her. She knew if he caught her he would kill her. She wasn’t paying attention to where she was running she just wanted to get away. She didn’t hear the people yelling at her to stop. She was heading towards the field where the horses were racing. Aldain started running towards her.
She was oblivious to the danger she was running into. Aldain had almost reached her, almost. The only conscious thought going through Tori’s mind was getting somewhere far from Tom, in her mind that is who she was running from. She had to get far away!
Everything happened in slow motion. Tori ran into the middle of the field that the horses were racing on. They were running at full speed. The riders tried to stop them but she was to close. She had run only a few feet in front of them and the last thing she remembered was turning around to see what looked like a herd of horses barreling towards her.
Aldain saw the horses literally trample Tori into the ground. His feet were rooted to the spot. This couldn’t be happening. He was so close to her, but not close enough to pull her out of harm’s way. He stood there as he saw her small bloodied body lying so still. He heard someone screaming from a distance and didn’t realize the screaming was coming from him. He ran and picked up her broken body, holding it close to his own. “Noooo Nooooo Tori please wake up.” He was in so much emotional pain he wasn’t aware that people were trying to get him to release her so they could see if she was even alive. He had a death grip on her.
Finally, they were able to tear him away from her. There just happened to be a doctor on the premises. He heard a very faint irregular heartbeat. He couldn’t believe she was still alive. As people rushed around to try and stabilize her before the ambulance got there Aldain and his dragon were experiencing the most intense emotional pain of their lives.
He fought the men off from trying to hold him back. Instead of him running towards Tori he ran away from her. He just knew she was dead, he was dying himself inside. He got far enough away so he wouldn’t be seen shifting. Not all clans were dragon shifters, Robert’s clan weren’t shifters. Robert was the only one that knew Aldain was a shifter. All the Clan Chiefs knew of the dragon shifters and it was a closely guarded secret among the non-shifters.
He knew of a nearby cave he could go to. He flew there and shifted right away. He fell to his knees! He threw back his head and roared. “Why! Why! Oh, god Tori I can’t live without you.” He put his face in his hands and sobbed. He cried until there were no tears left. The pain in his heart was so intense he contemplated tearing it out of his chest himself. He stayed on his knees for hours. He couldn’t think, all he could do was feel. Suddenly he felt something else, a little spark of life that belonged to someone else. He concentrated on it and hope overwhelmed him. Could it be what his mother had told him about? Could that little spark be telling him that Tori still lived? Could she miraculously still be alive? He felt this separate spark of life in his heart. It wasn’t strong and it was sporadic. But it was there, it just had to be her. He had to know if it was her.
He shifted and went to the nearest hospital where he knew they would have taken her. It was dark so he didn’t have to worry about being seen in his dragon form. He ran into the hospital yelling her name. He was stopped by Robert the Clan Chief.
“Aldain you have got to calm down. You are going to get thrown out of here yelling like that.” Aldain grabbed him by the shoulders.
“Is she alive Robert. By some miracle is she still alive?” Hope showed in Aldain’s eyes as he asked the question.
“Aye lad she is but just barely. The doctor isn’t sure she will last the night. She is very badly hurt. There isn’t a bone in her body that isn’t broken and she has massive internal injuries. They surgically fixed those but she is still very critical. We didn’t know where you had gone but we did get in contact with her sister. She is with her now. I think you might want to go see her too. If for no other reason than to say your good-byes.”
Aldain’s tears started to flow. If it was within his power he would make her live by sheer determination alone. He couldn’t lose her. He found the room she was in and there was Becca holding Tori’s hand with tears streaming down her face. Becca was talking to her like she was having a normal conversation. It was as if Tori would wake up any minute and start talking to her. He stood outside her room and looked at all the machines she was hooked up to; heart monitors, breathing monitors. She had a breathing ventilator breathing for her. It seemed like there wasn’t a part of her body that wasn’t broken or hooked up to something. They even had EEG lines hooked to her head to monitor her brain functions. Thankfully, even though the brain function was minimal, she still had some.
Chapter Ten
Dane was with Becca in Tori’s room. Dane’s face looked so forlorn. He just stood there with
a hopeless look, wanting so badly to be able to help, to do something to make it better. All he could do was be there for Becca and her family to give them moral support. He felt so helpless.
Becca looked up to see Aldain standing inside the doorway. She looked at him with wild accusing eyes. “You promised to take care of her. You promised and I trusted you. Now take a good look at what your disregard of her has done. She might not make it through the night because she is so damaged. What was so important Aldain that you just ignored her the way you did? I thought you cared for her.”
Her voice got louder as she started to shout at him, she got close enough to pound on his chest as she continued to heap blame on him. He didn’t try to stop her. Everything she said was true. He didn’t keep Tori safe.
All he could do was stand there and let every biting hurtful remark hit like daggers in his heart. He didn’t deserve any better.
As she stood there pounding on his chest, telling him how everything was his fault a woman’s voice that sounded like a sonic boom said, “ENOUGH!” Becca stopped in mid-sentence and looked at the woman the voice belonged to. She was a small woman in her mid-forties. Becca couldn’t believe such a large voice came out of such a small woman.
Aldain recognized that voice. He slowly turned around and there stood his mother. “Ma don’t” she waved him away.
She walked up to Becca and grabbed her hands gently. “Becca, I know how hard it is to watch someone you love suffer like your sister is suffering. I also know it is human nature to blame someone for this. But look at Aldain. Really look at him. Do you honestly think if he could have stopped it that he would have allowed your sister to be harmed? I don’t know if he told you but she is his soul mate. He would die to keep her safe. He suffers as much as you.”
Becca did what his mother asked and really looked at him. What she saw was a broken man. A shell of the man she knew, loved and trusted. His eyes were sunken in. They were puffy and red from all the crying he had done. He even looked thinner to her. She looked into his eyes and saw raw pain in them. The same kind of pain she was feeling. She walked over to him and hugged him, “I am so sorry Aldain. I know you would do whatever you could to keep her safe. I guess I just needed someone to blame to help make sense of all this. Please forgive me. I know it isn’t your fault.”
Aldain disagreed. “I don’t deserve your forgiveness. I let her, you and your entire family down. Even if you can forgive me, I can never forgive myself.”
He was so broken, Becca was afraid he may never be the same again. Aldain’s mother asked Becca if she wouldn’t mind giving her a moment with her son. She promised her if Tori so much as stirred she would call for her straight away.
Tori went to get some coffee so Heather could talk to Aldain alone. When she closed the door, Heather hugged him and kissed him on his forehead. “Is isn’t your fault Aldain. Things happen for a reason. I am not sure exactly why this happened but the Gods have their reasons. You must have faith. I can’t believe you are supposed to lose Tori as soon as you have found her. You need to stay with her, talk to her, let her feel your love. That love will bring her back to you. I just have this feeling she is going to make it. Don’t leave her side. You have to trust me that everything will work out.”
Aldain said in a choked voice. “How do you know it isn’t just wishful thinking on your part ma? That you want her to live only because you know I would rather die than live without her?”
Heather looked into the haggard face of the son she loved so much. “Something is just telling me to have faith. I am going with what I feel in my heart. Stay with her, by her side. I will be here if you need me. Go to her now, tell her you love her. Tell her how much you need her in your life. I won’t be far if you need me” She kissed him softly on the forehead and left the room.
Aldain walked over to where Tori was resting, so tiny and helpless. He pulled up a chair and sat next to her and held her hand. He put her hand near his heart and started to talk to her in Gaelic. “Mo ghaol, Chan eil fhàgail dhomh mo chridhe. Chan eil bàs agus fàg mi mar a tha mi. Chan urrainn dhomh fuireach gun thu. Till thugamsa cuiribh.” Then he started to sob again, his shoulders shaking with the intensity of them.
His mother and Becca were standing outside the door as he talked to Tori. Becca asked her what he was doing. Heather told her he was speaking to her in Gaelic. Becca asked her what he was saying so Heather interpreted it for her. He is saying, “My love, don't leave me my heart. Don't die and leave me alone. I can't live without you. Come back to me please.” Heather repeated his words with tears streaming down her face. This was something that she couldn’t make go away for her son. Even a mother’s love was no match for this kind of pain.
Days went by and Tori was still hanging on. Each day she lived gave Aldain hope. Every day he would talk to her, tell her how much he needed her and how much he loved her. He willed the strength from his body into hers. He didn’t know if it worked or not but he had nothing to lose.
Tori was fighting to reach the light. She seemed to be in a very dark forest where everything was dead. There was no sunlight, only darkness. She could see towards the horizon a light, like a beacon. She would walk towards it every night but never seemed to get any closer to it. She could hear voices coming from the light but they were so far away she couldn’t understand what was being said. There were times when she would feel spurts of energy flow through her body and she thought she was making good time, getting closer to the light. But then she would tire and when she would stop it still looked just as far away as when she first started.
She could feel Dain’s love for her. She could feel it encompass her body like a warm blanket. She didn’t know how she knew it was his love for her, she just did. Her heart was feeling his pain. She just had to get to him. She could feel how bad his despair was affecting him and how he was losing his will to live. She couldn’t lose him because she loved him too much. She wasn’t sure how long it would take her to reach that light, but reach it she would.
Tori figured she was in some place between life and death. When she first woke up in this dark forest, she was so frightened she couldn’t think straight. The last thing she remembered were horses running towards her and people yelling, then she woke up in this dark place. It took her some time before she finally realized that she had been run over by the horses and has ended up in this in-between place.
Tori was walking towards the light when she noticed a different kind of light coming towards her. She stopped and watched it. It was extremely bright and the closer it got to her the more she started to back away. Suddenly a voice came from the light. “Don’t be afraid little mortal. I mean you no harm.” The light dimmed then a shape started to appear. Before she knew it, a beautiful woman was standing before her with long blonde hair. Light was shimmering all around her. Her eyes are very blue and have a very strange glow to them. On her body is what looks like battle armor and on her arms, are bracers and greaves. She has a breast plate over her chest. The armor is made of silver with the design on it of a huge leafy tree. It’s what most people think the tree of life might look like.
Tori asked, “Who are you?
The woman smiled. “I have several names but the one most mortals recognize is Athena.”
Tori slumped down to the ground, hard. “Athena as in the Goddess of Olympus?”
Athena smiled, “Yes that is me.” Tori wasn’t sure if she should get up and bow or should remain sitting because she wasn’t sure her legs would hold her up. She was in front of a Goddess of Olympus. She knew now, they existed, and weren’t just a myth.
“Tori I came to ask your help. One of my dragons is dying. He has much left to do but his will to live is almost gone. You are the only one that can make him want to continue to live.”
Tori shook her head, “Did you say dragon? I didn’t even know they existed. I don’t know of any dragon. I can’t help.”
Athena walked closer to Tori. “But you do know him. It is Aldain.”
Athena looked at her with a sadness in her eyes. “Aldain is a dragon shifter. I created them thousands of years ago. They are the guardians of the mortal world. They are comparable to the noble knights that your history teaches you about. Most of them were dragon shifters in the mortal world, mortals just didn’t know it.
You can feel the pain in his heart, but he can’t feel your will to live. He can’t feel that your spirit is trying to come back to him. You must concentrate, have your heart and soul call out to his. He must know you will come back to him; his love for you is literally killing him. You can’t allow him to die.”
Tori was having trouble processing everything she was hearing. The man she loved wasn’t a man, he was a dragon. Why didn’t he tell her? As if Athena could read her mind she said, “He wanted to wait to tell you. He wants to be sure of your love. He is afraid if you found out to soon you would run from him. Don’t be upset with him. He did it because of his love for you. The more you concentrate on your feelings for him, the better the chance he will feel them. The stronger your bond, the closer to the light you will get. He needs you; he needs to feel your love for him. You are the light that keeps him wanting to live. He must know it hasn’t been extinguished. You are his soul mate. Only you can save him.” With these last words, Athena disappeared.
Wow! She was Dain’s soul mate. A soul mate to a Dragon Shifter. She really wasn’t surprised to find out she was Dain’s mate. Their relationship is so intense on every level she could think of. But a dragon? Did that mean if she made him mad he would eat her or if he didn’t want her any more he would turn her into a pile of ash? This was something she was going to have to talk to Dain about when she saw him again; if she saw him again. Tori wasn’t sure how to get Dain to feel how very much she loved him, but she knew if she could feel his love for her he would be able to feel her love for him. She concentrated on his face. She sent all the love she felt for him to that picture in her mind. She hoped it worked.