by Sariah Skye
She shot me a knowing look. “Now, you don’t really mean that, do you?”
I sighed thoughtfully. I didn’t, really. I just wish that he’d been a regular guy with no powers, and I was just the same pathetic excuse for a dragon I’d always been. Kit and I sold coffee and pastries; Gabriel and I went out on a couple dates and that was that. I hadn’t been uprooted to this place in the middle of nowhere—although nice—I wished for my apartment back in Pineville. On a night like tonight I’d be in front of the TV with a glass of wine—or twelve (hey, I was a dragon!); Sona curled up in my lap watching another Star Trek: The Next Generation marathon or reading Twilight or Harry Potter again for the hundredth time.
Suddenly, Kiarra nudged me. She nodded her head backward and I peered over her shoulder. Maxxus was wandering around, seemingly aimless, appearing to mutter to himself. I stood up and tapped his arm.
He started slightly. “Leorah!” he let out a small, surprised laugh. “I don’t know why, but I wasn’t expecting you…”
“It’s okay. What are you doing?” I questioned.
He didn’t answer. “I figured you and Gabriel would be doing the… make-up thing,” he said, his face sour.
I frowned. “Why?” I scoffed. “What is there to make up for?”
“Oh.” That was all he said. He just stood there, nearly motionless as I looked him over.
“So… what are you doing?” I prompted again.
“Oh!” He laughed, patting his pockets, the front of his shirt, looking miles away. “Sorry, I just need to find my phone. I’m not sure when I lost it; it must have fallen somewhere while we were dancing. I retraced my steps, but I’m just not finding it.”
I yanked my phone out of the pouch in the robes and dialed Maxxus’ number.
“No! No, you don’t need to do that, I’ll find it! Don’t bother yourself—” he began, sounding slightly unnerved.
I gave him a strange look. “No big deal, if we can’t hear it, searching for it in the dark is like a needle in a pile of other needles: impossible.”
Maxxus smiled hesitantly, as a song began playing softly. I held my phone as I walked slowly towards the benches we’d been sitting on when we sat for dinner. The song became louder the closer we got.
“Leo—” he began, brusquely. I gave him an odd look. I was finally close enough to recognize it; a 1990s pop remake of a very popular Elvis Presley song.
I reached under the table and found the phone alight under the table. I reached for it and lifted it closer, eyeing the name and picture. It was a picture of a pink rose, and my name underneath it.
I raised a brow at him, listening to the lyrics and the upbeat, driving tempo. I’d heard them many times before of course but…
Maxxus, looking sheepish, ran his hands through his wavy hair and looked just about everywhere, but at me as I stood there with the phone in hand as it continued playing “Can’t Help Falling in Love” by UB40, one that I'd had in my music collection that I'd given to him before he got his phone.
I just stared at him, dumbfounded as the lyrics discussed a hopeless love. It shouldn’t be a big deal, but it just struck me as odd.
Finally, he looked at me and shrugged. “What? It’s just a good song! It was on that little card you gave to me when I came to get the contact for the phone and stuff—remember?”
I cocked my brow a little higher as the phone stopped ringing, but I continued to hold it out in front of me.
“But, why that song for me?” I asked, suspicious. I’d never cared much for sappy love songs—obviously—but that one I tolerated. My grandfather loved the original version even though I thought it was lame; this was a good compromise. There were others we chatted about though, that I liked more and I was surprised he didn’t use one of those instead.
He crossed his arms casually and snorted. “We talked about it before... when we were waiting for Braeden to come get you before. It just... reminds me of you.”
Maxxus finally dared to glance at me as I gasped, suddenly realizing the possibility. Kiarra was right? My hand flew to my open mouth and I dropped the phone to the ground. He bit his lip and watched me, nervously. Slowly he bent down and retrieved the phone.
“Maxxus?” was all I could say, my mind was reeling.
Even in the fire and the hazy light of the moon I could see his cheeks turn all shades of crimson.
He forced a nervous smile at me. “Well, I suppose I should…” he didn’t finish his sentence, just shoved his phone in the pocket of his jeans and pushed past me, stalking off towards the guest quarters.
I stood there, open-mouthed, stoic and dumbfounded watching him walk away.
“What was that about?” Kiarra asked, coming up behind me.
I shook my head slowly. “I… I’m not sure. But… maybe you were right after all?” It I still didn’t feel convinced. Why?
“Right?” Kiarra asked, confused.
I just waved her off. “I’ll… I’ll be back.” I stormed off after Maxxus.
Chapter 5
I arrived at Maxxus’ room just before the door clicked and locked shut after him. I shoved the heavy door open like it was a piece of paper and stood in the doorframe.
“Why did you just walk off like that?” I demanded, not sure if I was angry, surprised, confused or just an amalgamation of them all.
Maxxus remained with his back turned against me, but stopped walking. He let out a long, drawn out sigh, hung his head low and shoved his hands in his front jean pockets. “I… I didn’t want you to know.”
I let out a cry of exasperation. “Know what?”
Maxxus blew out nervously, taking his hands out of his pockets and wringing them out in front of him. He opened his mouth twice to speak, but quickly closed it again, clearly struggling to find the right words. “Leorah, do you remember when we met for the first time?”
“Yeah, briefly you came to our home when my Grandfather was tutoring you for your Court sponsorship. He introduced us, you said ‘hi’ as I walked to my room and that was it,” I said, speaking like it was obvious. “I don’t recall seeing you again until a couple of months after I moved to Minnesota when you’d been assigned the post of the Green Knoll portal watch.”
Maxxus appeared crestfallen, but only momentarily. He sighed, and let out a small laugh. He folded himself in the green plaid sofa, resting his head in his palms briefly before looking up at me, slightly wounded.
“What?” I asked, oblivious.
“I don’t know why I’m surprised you don’t remember,” he said, in a small voice. “I guess, somehow I was hoping you would.”
“Remember what?” I was getting more than a little fed up with the cryptic conversations.
“The first time we met. The first time we really met, not the time I saw you at you at your home, with your grandfather.”
“We met before?” I asked in surprise.
He nodded slowly. “It was the first day of our First Year of school—remember that first day?”
I groaned and scoffed. I sat down opposite the sofa from him. “I do. So much fun, I learned just how much everyone disliked me—more so than I already did.”
Maxxus gave me a sympathetic look. “Well, yes… there was that. But… do you remember someone else they didn’t like so much?”
I thought back to that first day of school, years ago. It would have equaled a human child’s first day of kindergarten. Besides getting tormented and snickered at for the first three-quarters of the day, I recalled nothing else that stood out. I remembered no one else, other than the drakes already giving me a hard time. I shook my head. “No…” I said, slowly and cautiously.
“Well, there was one other. After the first half of the day, they sat everyone down in a circle and had them perform their first acts of magic. It should have been instinct; everyone should have been able to do… something. Move some dirt. Make spark with their hand. Something.”
“Except me, of course…” I added bitterly.
He
nodded. “Right. They just pulled you off to the side and said, ‘We all know you can’t do any magic, so just stay out of the way’.”
I frowned, recalling the degrading tone of the teacher as they ordered me to sit on the sidelines, watching wistfully as all the drakes committed their first minor acts of magic. “I remember too well.”
Maxxus sighed. “What you’re not remembering was you weren’t the only one who couldn’t do magic,” he said. “There was one other. No matter what he tried, he just couldn’t do anything. After about five minutes of trying, even watching other dragons with supposed similar abilities go and perform their magic effortlessly… didn’t help. He just… couldn’t.”
I thought back and couldn’t recall such an event, but he continued before I could say anything.
“Of course, drakes being drakes just laid into him left and right. Even the teacher had a few choice words for him,” he said, grimacing, his eyes far away like recalling some painful memory. “For me,” he said, with a long sigh.
I shook my head. “You? I… that’s horrible. No one did anything?” I asked in disbelief.
Even though he was looking down at his lap, I could see the corner of his lips turn up slightly. “Well, someone did. A drake—another student marched up to all of them and just started yelling. ‘Now that is not nice! Maybe he just needs some practice or something. Shut up already!’” He gave a little chuckle. I smirked.
“Ha, that sounds like something I would have said.”
He turned and raised his brow at me. “Who do you think it was?”
I was taken aback. “Me?” I asked, astounded, pressing my palm to my chest.
He nodded. “Yep. The one drake who knew what it was like to get picked on and who had no reason to be nice to anyone else stood up for me and, even though she was smaller than nearly everyone, for a moment she was so intimidating that everyone backed down for a while. Not even the teacher said anything.”
“Really? That was me? You know it was me, not like a red drake or—”
“—it absolutely was you. The teacher said, ‘Leorah, go back and sit down now, or we’ll have to call your parents down here.’ You stomped back and sat down, pouting the entire time. But no one else said anything that day to either you or me as far as I can remember,” he explained.
I thought back, searching my mind for this instance that obviously had stood out in Maxxus’ mind for some time. I had blocked out a good deal of it—of all school, really—so honestly everything was a jumble. I had a brief recollection of some bullying drakes and a moment of braveness but even though I didn’t remember what it was about, I just figured that I was sassing off because I’d had it.
“It doesn’t surprise me that you don’t remember, like I said. To you, standing up for someone else is just no big deal,” he said, flashing me a small smile. He looked up, shaking the locks of hair that had fallen into his eyes off his forehead.
I shrugged. “I wish I could remember…”
“Well, I remembered you,” he said. “Our paths didn’t cross much other than just being in the same class. We rarely spoke. You hardly talked to anyone, and I definitely couldn’t blame you for that; everyone was horrible to you! After a time, most drakes left me alone, but you they just did not. It pissed me off, royally. I learned over the next few months and years what a terrible temper I really had.”
I lifted a brow. “Oh?”
He grinned devilishly. “Do you recall that someone who would give you grief, the next day would come to school with bruises somewhere on them or suddenly quiet that day?”
I thought back. I recalled a couple instances of said drakes coming in with a fat lip days afterward. “Possibly. But a lot of drakes were getting randomly injured during magic practice so I didn’t think much of it.” I looked at Maxxus who just shrugged nonchalantly, but cracked his knuckles against his other fist for emphasis.
He sneered. “They weren’t injured by magic, believe me. I didn’t really have any at the time.”
“You?” I was incredulous.
He tried to stifle his proud smile. “They had it coming, trust me.”
“But—how—?” I stammered.
He shrugged. “You did it for me, someone had to do it for you.”
I just stared at him, dumbfounded, open-mouthed and surprised. Memories of School and various instances I’d recalled, came flashing through my mind, like a movie on rewind. I remembered one in particular: the big, mean drake Lorusto who’d basically tried to kill me with his firepower and how he disappeared afterward for a few weeks. I wasn’t allowed to go back to school right away because I had to promise to “control my temper” and not use what little magic I now realize I had had ever again before they’d let me back. But, I remembered a couple weeks later he finally returned, battered, bruised and completely silent. His arm was in a sling, he walked with a limp and he had scars on his face. He spoke to no one for a long time. I raised my brow. It was unusual for someone in their human form to keep the injuries; generally shifting into their dragon would help heal some of that unless they really got the crap kicked out of them.
“Lorusto, who’d tried to roast me one day, during the eighth year… he came back all mangled. Was… was that you?” I asked, skeptical. “I’d heard it was a flying accident, but…”
He looked around the room, nonchalant, whistling innocently.
My mouth fell open. “You… you really did that?”
Maxxus’ expression was now grim. “Are you kidding? He’s lucky I didn’t kill him! If it hadn’t been for his two older brothers, I would have, undoubtedly. This was better, though. He had to go to class humiliated for the next few months while he healed.” Maxxus snickered. “I’m sorry, but… after you got sent away, for merely defending yourself, not only did I realize that there was something seriously fucked up with our society because he wasn’t going to be punished—praised, actually—but I realized one other thing.”
I bit my lip, nervously glancing at him out of the corner of my eye. “What?” I dared to ask.
Maxxus let out a long breath. He swallowed and forced himself to look at me. “I realized how much I loved you; that I probably always had when I learned your life was on the line.”
I sucked in a gasp. Hearing the words out loud from his mouth was shocking to say the least. “All that time?”
He nodded intently. “All that time. Probably since that first day of First year. In fact, I know I did, I just didn’t quite know what love was, at that point. And we were so young. I’d never witnessed it, really. My parents’ marriage was, of course, arranged and they basically hated each other. They fought every moment they were together. My younger sisters looked at me like I was a plague on their existence.” He laughed bitterly. “Everyone had such high expectations of me; my parents being some of the strongest magic wielders of their color, supposedly. Two black dragons had a disappointing green drake who couldn’t even summon the tiniest earthquake. My sisters surpassed my level of magic in their second year. So many times I dreamed of escaping to the human realm—much like you,” he said, with a wry smile.
“So… why… how?” His revelation left me tongue-tied.
“In year Nine—you know when we’re supposed to have some idea of what we are supposed to do with the rest of our lives—I said I wanted to be a Guardian of the Court. I was laughed at. Mocked. No one would speak for me, or was willing to take me on as an apprentice…. at first. And then… well you know who finally did.”
I smiled warmly. “Grandfather.”
He nodded. “Yes. At first I didn’t know he was your grandfather, although I should have put two and two together; your same wise, heroic spirit clearly was inherited from him. When I saw you at your home that day I was surprised, but it did make sense. He said that he could relate to my plight, as he had a granddaughter he was very proud of who had endured some trials as well.”
I felt wistful at his words about my grandfather. “But… why didn’t you say anything?”<
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Maxxus leaned back against the couch, rested his hands in his lap and chewed on his lip nervously. “I… I don’t know, really.” He sighed. “I… didn’t want to be someone you wanted to be with because I was the only one. I wanted to deserve you, to be someone that you didn’t pity; someone who could be just as strong as you.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but he continued, so I stopped.
“I had my own issues, I needed to be stable before I felt I could say anything. I’d only been a Guard for a couple of weeks when I learned that you’d gone to the human realm. I requested the post, hoping that you would get to know me… get to know me as me, and not just a crazy dragon who’d been putting you on a pedestal all those years. I wanted to be worthy.”
I snorted. “Worthy? Of me? Give me a break… what did I have to offer anyone?”
Maxxus frowned. “Your brave spirit. The fact that no matter who or what anyone did to you, you still came to class every day with your head held high, even though you wanted to cry. You wouldn’t let them see you down. You never gave up. And, when I saw you again for that first time you’d returned from Earth and you just… stood there, talking to me like I’d been someone. Like I was someone. I saw just how smart you were, how strong and how determined you were to overcome your obstacles. You were funny, and a bright spirit; seeing you would be the high point of my week. Or month, whatever.” He glanced at me, my stoic expression of shock on my face as he spoke, and let out an uncomfortable laugh as he kicked at the floor with his shoe. “I’m sorry… you must think I’m some kind of crazy stalker.”
I blinked. “What? Oh… no, I don’t think that.” Did I? At this point I wasn’t sure what I felt.
His expression was unconvinced. “I… I should have said something. I wanted to… but when you went to Minnesota, you seemed happy. I didn’t want to ruin that for you, something you worked so hard for. I was finally working up the courage to say something to you when… well… he came into the picture.” He chortled to himself. “I should have known something like that would happen. Why wouldn’t it? Get away from the unfair stigma of our world, surely someone would have seen how wonderful you are.”