by Karen DuBose
“Are you reading my mind?” I ask, not taking my eyes off of his chest.
“It was written all over your face. There was no need to hear your thoughts, even if I could.”
I start to blush. I really need to learn to control my facial expressions better, or we’re going to be in trouble⸻and, not the bad kind. He pulls me closer to him and gives me a kiss that makes my knees weak. He has to hold me up. When he pulls back from kissing me senseless, I can’t even remember what we’re supposed to be doing.
“What was that for?” I ask breathlessly.
“For me being an ass. My dragon wanted to take over completely. Thank you for being there to ground me.”
“I will always be there, but let’s not give him complete control until my dragon decides she wants to come out, okay?”
“Why do we need to wait? Not that I want it to take control…”
“Because then I can beat your ass when you get out of line.”
He looks at me like that’s a challenge: It is.
“I think you would be able to too, that’s the bad part.”
We walk back to the blasters. I didn’t realize we were that far from them. It takes a little while to get back to them. Kira and Mom are waiting on us. They have worry lines and they’re pacing.
I wonder if anyone got ahold of someone back home. We need to warn them before it’s too late.
They spot me first since I’m in front. They both come running toward me and throw themselves at me.
“We were so worried! How did you get him to change back?” Mom asks, looking at Kiernan.
“Told him he needed to reel in his alter ego,” I say laughing.
They both start laughing too.
Kiernan crosses his arms over his chest and rolls his eyes. “I’m glad I could make you gals laugh.”
I go over to him and put my arms around his neck. “If you don’t make me laugh, this will never work.” I look over my shoulder to Mom. “Has anyone gotten a hold of someone back home? They need to be warned before it’s too late.”
For the first time, Hiram spoke. “Yes, I called my brother back home. He’s going to Bruno’s to warn the dragons there,” he has a musical voice.
Thank the Source someone was able to get a hold of someone. Kiernan wraps me up in his arms and walks me backward toward the blasters. Mom rides with us this time so that I can tell her everything. Even him talking in my head while he was in his dragon form.
“You guys are true mates? Do you know how rare that is, especially at a youthful age?”
I just shrug my shoulders. I can’t tell her that I had a feeling about him before this all happened. We just connected like we knew each other all our lives. Well, we pretty much did. I didn’t want to date anyone but him. He never dated either. It makes sense.
I blurt out, “I want to do the mating ritual soon.”
Both Kiernan and Mom look at me. Kiernan looks at me with so much love. Mom, well she looks like she wants to yell and scream at me.
Mom shakes her head no. “You’re too young to do that.”
“Mom, we are true mates! Why should we wait? I turn nineteen soon and Kiernan turns nineteen tomorrow. I don’t see what the problem is. I want to have the ritual on my nineteenth birthday. I don’t see any reason why we need to wait any longer than that.”
“You really want to do this so young?” Mom asks
“I know what I want. Plus, the sooner we do it, the sooner his alter ego will chill out. With the other dragons around, he’s fighting to stay in control. Until we do the ritual, he’s going to be hard to deal with. I don’t want him to suffer that long.”
“If that’s what you really want, I won’t stand in your way. I will support you.”
She turns her gaze on Kiernan.
“If you hurt my baby, I will hunt you down and rip out your heart.”
Kiernan throws his hands up. “I promise to cherish her every single day until my last breath.”
We’ve been driving for a while now, and I’m getting antsy. I don’t know how much longer I can take being in this blaster.
“We are almost done for the day? I need out of this thing for a while!”
Bruno looks at me in the rearview mirror. “Shit! Get down!”
He punches the accelerator. I try to see what he’s looking at, but all I see are the other five blasters behind us. He takes the next road so sharp, we almost flip over.
“How many are there?” Kiernan asks Bruno.
“I saw three of them.”
“Shit. They must have sensed my dragon.”
“What are you talking about? Who sensed your dragon?”
“The Elders,” they say in unisons.
Oh, this is bad. This is all we need right now. I’m not the praying kind, but I pray to whomever is listening to get us out of this in one piece.
“How much longer before we are there?” I ask.
“We would have been right there if I hadn’t have taken this road. About five minutes maybe,” Bruno says.
Are you kidding me right now? We were so close! How are we going to lose them? I need to think. We all do. Bruno must have been thinking the same thing. He sees a dirt road and takes it so fast that I think we’re going to crash into the trees surrounding it.
I hold my head between my hands. “Not that I’m complaining or anything, but could you please stop making me hit the ceiling? My head can only handle so much before I become brain dead.”
Bruno laughs. “I’ll keep that in mind when we don’t have them chasing us.”
Good point, but still, I’m getting a major headache from bouncing all over the blaster. Kiernan tries to hold me down, so I won’t hit my head anymore. The dirt road has more potholes in it than the moon, and our moon is full of holes. I didn’t know where this road will lead us, but I would be happy if it ended soon. I would also prefer it if we didn’t have anyone following us anymore.
Mom is chanting something repeatedly. There’s this loud growl from above us. It sounds angry. I’m waiting for it to rip the roof off the blaster.
“Nice work there, witch,” one of the still nameless dragons says.
“What’s your name?” I finally ask.
“My name is Rome. I never thought you were going ask me,” he says sarcastically.
“Oh, so you do speak?” I say sarcastically back, rolling my eyes.
“Stupid dragons and their dam egos,” I mutter.
Rome turns in his seat to look at me. “You do know we can still hear you, right.”
“Well, if I didn’t want you to hear it, I wouldn’t have said it.”
He’s better when he’s silent.
Looking straight at him, I give him a piece of my mind. “Are most dragon’s jerks, or is that just something you’ve worked really hard on?”
He gives me a serious look. “No, it’s just me. No one can be this good.”
“Conceited much?”
He laughs a deep laugh. “You can’t be conceited when you own it.”
Oh, this dragon is going to get hurt before this is all over with. Kiernan pulls me closer to him.
“Don’t mind him. His ego’s been stroked way too many times.”
I see Rome smile even bigger. Yep, he needs to be brought back down before his ego flies away without him.
I look over at mom and she’s pale.
“Mom, what’s wrong?”
“I’m using too much magic. I’ll be fine until we cross the border. The magic there will help conceal us.”
“How much longer before we’re there?”
Bruno does a quick look over his shoulder. “About ten minutes or so, I hope.”
“You need to drive faster. I don’t think she’ll last that long.”
I jump over the seat to sit next to my mom. I let her lean on me, trying to give her the support she needs. I watch as she gets paler and she is unable to hold her head up anymore.
“YOU NEED TO GO FASTER!”
“Hold on to her.
This is going to be rough.”
I hold onto my mom the best I can. We both almost ended up on the floor. Kiernan comes over and holds us in place. How, I don’t know. Mom’s breathing is now labored. I can’t lose her, not now. I hear a loud pop, and I look up.
I can’t believe my eyes. This place is so vivid in color. There are vines and trees so big and so thick that they simply can’t be real. The sky is a light shade of purple, with pink streaks running through it. The green of the leaves is the same color as Kiernan’s eyes.
The blaster comes to an abrupt stop. I don’t know if I want to get out. If this is the Black Ruins Forest, I don’t know how it got its name. There’s nothing black about this place. I was thinking it was a dead forest. I look at my mom, and she’s sleeping. I hope she’s sleeping. I check her pulse. It’s strong and steady. Her breathing is back to normal.
Kiernan checks on my mom as well. “I think we need to stay here until your mom wakes up.”
Bruno gets out to survey the area. “We’ll go look around. We’re going to walk from here. I won’t be able to get around these trees with the blaster.”
I look around, and he’s right. The tree trunks are so thick and tall they look like skyscrapers. You can’t even see the tops on most of them. This place is like heaven. There are so many flowers and animals. They aren’t even scared of us. They keep doing what they were doing. A few look our way, but they don’t get any closer.
Is this place for real?” I ask.
“I was thinking the same thing,” Kira says from where she is staring out the window.
I will look around later. Right now, my mom needs me.
“What happened to your mom?” Cicero asks looking into the blaster.
“She cast a spell to make us invisible to the dragon that was chasing us. She overdid it. I just hope she’ll be ok. She didn’t look too good before we got here.”
“She’ll be fine. She just needs to rest. A spell like that takes a lot out of someone,
especially hiding five blaster’s and fifteen people,” Rome says from the front seat.
“How do you know any of this?”
“My wife is a witch. I’ve had lots of practice with her. She does crazy stuff to cross her boundaries. She likes to test herself to see how far she can go. One of these days, she won’t come back to me and that scares me.”
Wow, I didn’t know he was even married. He doesn’t act like he’s married. He seems more like a free spirit. Maybe he gets it from his wife. I know most witches are free spirits. I just hope we can all survive for him to go back to his wife.
I can hear Bruno return. He isn’t being quiet, so I guess we’re alone out here. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a terrible thing.
“We need to pack up the hiking bags with as much food and water as we can get in there. I have a feeling this is going to be a long journey.”
I get out of the blaster and go to help Kira pack the bags. I’m glad we have packs for everyone. We’ll be able to get most of the food and water in them. I’m almost done when I feel strong arms wrap around me and pick me up. I squeal like a girl, something I don’t like to do, but he caught me off guard.
“What’s with the manhandling?” I say laughing.
“I want to be alone with you for a few. Is that ok with you?”
“Well, I guess it’s ok.” I really don’t want to leave my mom.
He turns serious. “If you want to go back, I can take you back.”
I give him my best smile. “I’d rather go flirt with this one dragon who is so handsome and huge, he makes all the other dragons look small,” I say, teasing him.
“Well, I guess we’re just going to have to go back there so I can kick his ass to win your love,” he teases back.
“Oh, I don’t know if you’re man enough to take him on. He might step on you and turn you into goo.”
“Now I really need to go kick his ass.” He swings me around to his back.
I squeal from the surprise of it. I wrap my arms around him as tight as I could, so I wouldn’t fall.
“Hold on, love. I want to test my strength out.”
I don’t know what to expect, but it wasn’t this. We’re flying through the trees like they’re moving backward. All I see is a blur of green. When we finally slow down, I’m breathless, and I wasn’t even running.
I look around to see where we are. There’s the same lake I saw when my dad brought me to him. How is this even possible? I thought he was in the in-between. There’s no way this is the same lake. I look around, and everything looks the same. The bench and everything. Could my dad be here, or could he make up any place? That other lady made it foggy so that I couldn’t see anything.
My heart falls when I realize that he was here and brought me to the in-between. I miss him so much. The tears are hot running down my cheeks.
Kiernan wipes away the tears from my cheeks. “What’s wrong, love?”
“Remember when I visited my dad? This is the same exact place⸻the lake, the sky, everything. He was here at one point in his life cycle. He used this memory when he called to me.”
He holds me close, hugging me and trying to reassure me that everything will be ok.
“I’m sorry, love. I don’t want to make you cry. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have stopped here, but something called to me. This is where it took me.”
“It’s not your fault, baby. I just gave up hope when I realized he wasn’t here. I just miss him so much. I don’t know if I will ever see him again.”
He pulls back and lifts my chin. He looks me in the eyes. “Do you want to go back?”
I shake my head. “No, I want to sit here for a while with you if that’s ok.”
“Of course, love. We can stay as long as you want.”
I pull away from him and walk over the bench and sit down. Kiernan sits down and pulls me close to him. I look out at the water. It’s the same beautiful lake. This time it isn’t calling me to take a dip.
I wonder what would have happened if I did get in the water when I was with my dad. I wonder what he’s doing right now?
I don’t know how long we’ve stayed. I’m just happy to be here with Kiernan. Now I have two great memories of this place. I would live here if I could. It’s just so peaceful. It’s a wonder why my dad came here. There’s a calmness to this place, like nothing could go wrong here.
I must have fallen asleep. I’m woke up from the motion of being carried. The movement is barely noticeable. I open my eyes to see his dragon eyes looking back at me.
“Why are your dragon eyes staring at me?”
“I felt a presence, and I need to get you away from it. I didn’t want to face something while you were sleeping peacefully for once.”
“Do you still feel it?”
“No, it stayed back there. I couldn’t tell what it was. I didn’t want to alarm you if I didn’t have to.”
“How long have I been asleep?”
“A few hours. You needed the nap, baby.”
He’s right. I knew I was tired. Driving for days does that to you. This place has calmed me down. All the stress I was feeling is now gone. That kind of makes me worried because I don’t know anything about this place.
“Do you feel at peace here?”
“No, I feel like my dragon wants to take control to protect you. I’m getting weird vibes.”
“That’s weird. It has a calming presence for me. We should ask what the others feel.”
We head back toward the group a lot more slowly than we left. He isn’t using his strength to go back. I see everyone around the fire they built⸻all except my mom.
Kiernan puts me down before we reach everyone. I go to the blaster to check on mom. She’s still out. I hope she’s ok. As I’m walking back to the group, I notice Bruno sitting next to Kira. They’re talking, but they stop when they see me. She waves me over, and I sit next to her. I don’t sit there for long before Kiernan picks me up to sit on his lap. I just give him a look. H
e’s staring at the other dragons, warning them. I just shake my head.
“So, this is going to be a weird question. How are you feeling right now?” I ask the group.
“What do you mean?” Kira asks.
“Well, I feel calmness, but Kiernan feels like his dragon wants to take over. So, what are you feeling right now?”
They all take a minute to look deep down within themselves.
“I feel at peace,” Kira says.
“I feel like we need to keep moving. There’s something pulling me,” Bruno says.
“I feel the same as Bruno,” Rome says.
That’s weird that the dragons feel that way while Kira and I feel nothing but peace. What kind of spell does this place have? We need to find these people we’re looking for and get answers⸻before something else bad happens.
I grab Kira hand to get her attention. “Kiernan found the place I visited my dad when he called me to him.”
She whips her head around so fast I heard a crack.
“What do you mean he found the place your dad brought you to?”
“He was checking out his strength, and the place was calling to him. When we got there, I could tell that it was the same place. I thought my dad would have been there, but then I remembered that the female could control her surroundings. That’s when I knew he was here before he died and brought that vision with him. Then I fell asleep. What have you guys been doing?”
Kira looks at Bruno. “We’ve been sitting here talking.”
“That’s all you’re going to give me? You’ve been talking? What have you been talking about?” I inquire.
She looks back at me. “We were talking about you if you must know.”
“What about me?”
“How much of a pain in the ass you are most days,” she says, nudging me.
She is such a liar. They’ve been getting to know each other! I look around the fire at everyone. Some are roasting hot dogs over the fire, others have marshmallows. It’s nice to see everyone enjoying a break. They’re kicked back and have their own conversations going. People are laughing at jokes. I wish this would last.
I turn to Bruno. “What’s Kira’s favorite food?”
He doesn’t even think before he answers.