by G. Bailey
“No, you don’t, and you do hate that,” he replies, before picking me up and I look away from him. He walks us through a room I can’t see, it’s all blurry, but I look over to see the same girl from my last dream is stood in the middle of the room.
“Remember this moment, he is not all evil,” she says vaguely. I want to shout at her, demand to know who she is and why she keeps coming into my dreams.
“Who?” I ask, only able to get one word out. I don’t even know if I mean her, or the man holding me.
“Yours, always yours,” the man replies as my head rolls to the side, and I feel like I’m falling.
I open my eyes to my bedroom. Unhooking my arms from my pillow, I sit up feeling amazing. I honestly feel like I’ve drank ten energy drinks or something, and that isn’t normal for me in the morning. I nearly jump when I see Korbin sleeping on my window seat, looking relaxed and peaceful. I look down at my leather outfit, and see that someone took my boots off last night and tucked me in. I look at my arm, seeing a little white scar and some dried blood, but other than that, it’s all healed. That’s incredible. I slide out of my bed, stretching as I walk over to Korbin, hovering my hand over his shoulder. Ultimately deciding not to touch him because that might be a little weird.
“Did you sleep on my window seat all night?” I ask Korbin as he opens his eyes and looks over at me from the weird angle he is resting at against the window. His brown hair is messier than I’ve ever seen him, actually making him look relaxed, and less serious than I’m used to. He looks cute in the morning, but I best not tell him that.
“Pretty much,” he yawns, standing up and stretching out.
“Can we skip the run today?” I ask hopefully, and he laughs.
“Nope. I’m going to my room to shower, and I'll bring back breakfast,” he says, walking around me to the door.
“Thank you for looking after me; I know you didn’t have to,” I say, and he laughs.
“I’m your dragon guard, of course I have to,” he reminds me. I feel stupid for thinking he stayed because we are friends, not because he felt he had to stay. I wonder if that’s how they all feel –Dagan, Elias and Thorne. I’m just a job to them, work, like Lisa said last night. I turn away and walk to the bathroom, shutting the door behind me. I switch the shower on, stripping all my clothes off and getting in. There’s something about a hot shower that lets you calm down, and makes everything seem a little bit better for some reason. I try to remember the girl in my dreams, who has said such weird things, and wonder how she can even get into my dreams in the first place. But none of the ideas I come up with make any sense. I wash my hair before getting out the shower, plaiting it, and then getting into my activewear clothes. It’s really weird how they are clean and folded every morning. I pull my trainers on before getting a chocolate bar out of my chest of drawers, and breaking the pieces up, placing them gently in the pod where Bee is sleeping. She doesn’t even notice me open her door.
“Thanks for last night, even though it hurt, there’s no lasting mark or anything,” I whisper, and one of her eyes opens slightly.
“Bee help,” she yawns, and then pulls her green leaf sheet closer around herself and rolls over. Clearly that’s the end of that conversation. I walk out my room, stopping when I see Thorne and Korbin talking quietly. They instantly stop their conversation when they notice I've come out, and look me over.
“Hey guys,” I smile, feeling more awkward by the second as they continue to stare. Thorne snaps out of it first, walking over and lifting my arm, turning it to see no mark.
“I didn’t know until this morning, and Korbin said you are ok. I’m sorry I wasn’t there. I failed you, failed as your guard,” he says angrily.
“You couldn’t have known,” I reply.
“Still, I think Elias’ plan to have someone with you at all times is for the best,” he says.
“I have been called to see your uncle, to tell him everything I can about last night, and what our plans are from here. Thorne has offered to take you to class, and we can skip running for today,” Korbin says, passing me a paper bag and a bottle of orange juice.
“She prefers coffee,” Thorne comments.
“Duly noted,” Korbin laughs, patting his shoulder before walking off.
“We have an hour before class, anything you want to do?” Thorne asks me as I lean against my door, drinking the orange juice. Opening the bag, I peek inside and see a cinnamon roll.
“What do you usually do?” I ask him.
“Training,” he shrugs.
“What kind of training?” I prod as I start eating the cinnamon roll, and he sighs.
“Why don’t I show you instead of trying to explain? It will just sound dorky if I don't," he says and walks off. I jog to catch up with him, chucking my empty bag and bottle into a bin as we go past.
“Have you been studying?” he asks me.
“Nope, being attacked and all this training has been a little bit of a distraction. I haven’t even gotten my books out my locker from my first day,” I admit, and he shakes his head.
“You need to study, that’s all I’m saying,” he comments, and I whack his arm with the back of my hand.
“Don’t be so…so erm…annoying and teacher like,” I say, making him laugh.
“You don’t find me annoying, though,” he grins as he opens the front door to the castle. We walk across to the arena in silence, with me not sure how to reply to him without lying. He is right. I don’t find him annoying at all, and that’s a real issue. I shouldn’t find him anything, he’s just Thorne. Thorne with his brown hair, his hazel eyes, and impressive body. Thorne who is kind, and yet, dark in a seductive way that makes you want to figure him out.
“Do you have a favourite weapon?” I ask him.
“I’m about to show you mine,”
“If you show me yours, that doesn’t mean I will show you mine,” I say, joking with him a little, and he laughs.
“When you want to show me yours, Issy, I promise you can see mine,” he winks at me before opening the doors to the arena as I stand in utter shock from his flirting. I don’t know how serious he is, but holy crap my dragon seems to like the idea, judging by the way she is purring in my mind. I walk in, following Thorne straight across the arena and to the other side, where there is a row of targets set up.
“Bow and arrows? I should have guessed, considering you don’t carry around swords like Korbin and Dagan, or daggers like Elias,” I comment.
“And you don’t carry any weapons at all, Issy, not the best idea,” he says.
“On Earth, it’s not normal to train with swords or daggers. I did self-defence classes with a bo staff, and some archery classes, but I was never very good at either,” I confess to him.
“You should be, with your dragon sight,” he gives me a confused look.
“I’ve never used it,” I admit. I know that you can tap into your dragon’s eyesight and focus on things, but Jace and me never had anyone to teach us that. We had to learn everything from flying to hiding by ourselves. I know it was because we were safer away from any dragons, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t struggle to fit into a world we weren’t meant to be in. I wonder how Jules is, if she has moved out or just carried on her life.
“Really?” he asks and I nod, “Let me help you,”, he says picking up a silver bow and five arrows in a quiver that he slides on his back. Thorne brings them over to me, and we walk over to an ‘x’ marked on the floor a good distance away from the target opposite us.
“Stand sideways, and hold this,” he instructs me as he offers me the bow. I stand how I remember being told in archery classes, and suck in a breath when Thorne’s warm hand adjusts my waist, as he steps behind me.
“This way a little,” he says and then offers me an arrow. I nock the arrow and lift the bow, lining the arrow up with my lips and keeping it close to my cheek as I was taught when I was younger.
“Now, don’t call your dragon, just focus on her eyes i
n your mind, only picturing her glowing blue eyes. Focus only on them,” Thorne whispers in my ear, his body still so close to mine. I struggle to focus on anything other than the way Thorne is holding me, though I know I need to forget he is here for a moment. I close my eyes and take a deep breath, focusing on my dragon’s eyes like Thorne suggested. I imagine the glowing blue I’ve seen in my reflection when I've looked into a body of water. I open my eyes, suddenly feeling a change spreading across them. Everything is super focused when I look around, and I move my bow to the left a little. I can see the direction it will fly, like it’s mapped out in my mind, and I let it go. It flies straight into the middle of the target as I release my dragon’s power.
“That was amazing, thank you!” I exclaim, dropping the bow and turning to throw my arms around Thorne’s neck. He holds me close, his hands on my waist as I lean back.
“Seriously, thank you. I didn’t know it was like that,” I tell him, and he just stares down at me.
“No problem,” he says gruffly, and draws back from me, reaching inside his cloak. He pulls out a small blue box, and offers it to me.
“I can’t wrap anything, but I saw this and thought of you,” he says as I accept the box. I open it up to see a small ring, silver dragonglass by the feel of it. The ring has a frozen blue swirl, with blue leaf shaped crystals on it. I slide it onto my finger, feeling my dragon’s love for it as much as my own.
“Thank you, as you know, all dragons love shiny things,” I say.
“You shouldn’t have a birthday without a gift. That’s all it is,” he says and I look up, both of us locking eyes with each other momentarily. I can’t tell what’s going on from his eyes as he walks away.
“Thorne wait!” I shout after him, but he doesn’t stop. What just happened?
Chapter 20
Isola
“You are extremely late, Miss Dragice,” my uncle scolds me as I walk into class. I mentally groan when I realise he is my teacher, and this had to be the class I was late for. Of all the damn classes.
“I got lost,” I say, telling him the truth. After Thorne left me in the arena, apparently not giving a crap about my security, I had to figure out which class I had and how to get there. Not an easy feat. Thankfully, I found Korbin in the corridors, and he took over guard duty and taking me to class. I need to find a damn map of this place.
“Sit down now,” he demands and I glance around the room at the ten or so students in the class before finding a seat in the middle of two girls and quickly sit down.
“We shall start from the beginning to see if any of you were listening, I want each of you to tell me something about each race,” he says, and there’s several groans. I don’t even need to look around to know everyone in this class now hates me even more than they did before.
“Welcome Miss Dragice, to the Races class. We study each of the races that live in Dragca, and we even spend some time studying humans, which I’m sure you will excel in,” he says with a small smile at me. “Now, who can tell me about the seers’ race? That was what we were discussing before Miss Dragice came in,” he asks and the girl next to me puts her hand up. She has long red hair, and her hazel eyes narrow on me before she answers.
“The seers have been around as long as the dragon race has, as long as humans have been around on Earth. Seers cannot shift, they have human life spans that are not extended like ours, and their magic comes from Dragca itself,” she says.
“All correct, Miss Lamar. Seers are powerless on Earth, the very magic they need is lost to them if they travel over. Now, anyone else?” he asks, and a guy near the front puts his hand up.
“Seers have different bloodlines that determine their powers. Some can only see the future and others the past, and then there are seers that can warn their family of events that will happen as well as seeing the future. They only usually see the future of their close family members,” he says.
“How do they warn their families?” I interrupt, and the class all looks at me, but it’s my uncle that answers.
“Dreams. Seers can connect with their close blood relatives through dreams,” he tells me, and I sit back in shock. I don’t hear anything else they say as I think back on the dreams I've had since I got here. They aren't fake. The girl close to my age in my vision must me a seer, and she must be a relative of mine. What’s worse is the dreams she showed me, this means they have to be real, and not a single one of them looked like anything good.
“Now, come and get a text book from the front, and I want you to find something new to tell me about seers from it by the end of class,” my uncle says and I get up robotically to get a text book as my mind goes over and over who the girl is and how she is related to me at all. Dragons and seers cannot mix, it’s never been heard of…but how else can she exist?
“Hey, watch it,” Elias calls out, as I bump into him on the way to the library after class. He grabs my shoulders to stop me walking away from him.
“Where is Thorne? He is meant to be watching you today,” Elias asks.
“I don’t know, we–” I start to explain, but I honestly don’t know how, “it doesn’t matter,” I reply, and he lets me go. I walk away, only to have him fall into step next to me.
“Don’t you have dragon guard things to be doing?” I ask him, and he shakes his head.
“I trained all morning,” he grins, “ so where are we going?” he asks.
“The library, I want to find some books on seers, and the bloodlines, then to my locker to get my text books so I can study,” I tell him.
“What do you want to know about seers?” he asks, more seriously this time.
“It’s nothing,” I shake my head, trying to walk faster, but he catches me around the waist. He pushes me against the wall and presses his body into mine, holding my hands above my head.
“Let me go,” I seethe, shocked that he could manoeuvre me into this position so damn quickly.
“No, because you lied to me, and I don’t like it. Now tell me what you’re doing, and I might help you, my naughty princess,” he says, making me growl at him.
“I’m not your naughty princess, stop calling me that! It makes it sound like I do naughty things to you,” I reply. Elias chuckles darkly, pressing his body harder into mine, and I hate that he smells so good, and feels even better against me.
“We could, it wouldn’t have to mean anything. As long as I don’t fall in love with you, which would never happen, the curse wouldn’t be triggered,” he suggests, leaning his head down so our lips are just inches apart. I lift my knee, and slam it into his balls. He groans and falls to his knees, letting me go as he drops.
“Dragon or not, that had to hurt as much as your ego will when I tell you I’d rather fuck myself,” I fume. I will never be someone's fuck buddy, especially when they don't respect me. If I decided to sleep with anyone, it would be because I want to and because it meant something. I may be old fashioned like that, but I don’t care. Plus, I have a feeling Elias would end up crushing my heart, whether he meant to or not, when he walked away from me, which he already said he would.
“Isola, wait,” Elias shouts after me as I hurry away. I’m kind of glad no one is around.
“Fucking wait,” Elias yells after me again. I hear him right behind me seconds before he jumps in front of me and places his hand in the air to stop me.
“I’m a douchebag, and I’m sorry. I fancy you, alright? My dragon does too, and he is flooding me with desire for you,” he says. “I’m not thinking straight right now.”
“I get it, my dragon isn’t any better,” I say, “but fucking isn’t a good idea. I’ve never slept with someone that I wasn’t in love with, and I won’t start now,” I say firmly. I know I’m worth far more than that.
“No one night stands? Just for the pleasure?” he asks, flirting again.
“I’m eighteen and lived with my boyfriend until he died, so no,” I say, and he steps closer.
“Friends, then? Even if we fancy the pa
nts off each other?” he says with a wink.
“Friends, just friends,” I say, shaking the hand he offers me.
“Now, about the seer bloodline, explain what you need to your friend, because he might have had a seer friend as a kid and know some shit about them,” he grins, making me chuckle.
“Of course you did, but I don’t think we should talk here,” I gesture to the empty corridor.
“My room then,” Elias says, not waiting for my answer as he turns around. I know I need to follow him for the answers I need, despite my hesitance. I guess I can’t go through life never trusting anyone, though Elias Fire might not be the best dragon to trust. But, I guess a part of me does anyway, because I walk after him.
Chapter 21
Isola
“Your room is much brighter and cleaner than I expected,” I mutter, eyeing the light blue sheets on the big bed, matching curtains, and the white rug. There’s a wardrobe, a box by the window seat with a pile of notebooks on top of them. But everything is put away and in order, there are no clothes on the floor or rubbish anywhere.
“What did you expect?” he asks as he shuts the door.
“Black everything, posters of half-naked women, and dirty clothes on the floor,” I reply, and he laughs. He takes his swords off his back and places them near the door. One of the swords is black and the other a dark red. They are kind of beautiful to look at. I watch as he pulls his jacket off, and then his boots, putting them neatly by the door.
“Sorry to disappoint, princess, but I like my shit sorted,” he says with a grin. I walk around his room, lifting one of the notebooks up and looking over at him.
“May I?” I ask him.
“Sure,” he nods, and I open the book up. Inside are pages and pages of tattoo designs, some in 3-D and others not, but they all are so amazing. There are roses, dragons, and one of several vines swirled around inside a circular drawing.