by Riley Storm
However, if he didn’t tell her, she would definitely leave. A possibility versus a definitive didn’t leave him much of a choice.
Plus she was worth it. That was his tipping point, knowing that Ellyn was worth the pain, that he would go through it a dozen times over for her, if that’s what it took to get her to be with him. Vlad would do it for her.
Because if he didn’t, this was the tipping point. If he kept shutting her out, she would stop caring and leave. He wouldn’t be welcome around her.
Vlad’s eyes flew open.
He wouldn’t be welcome around Ellyn, just like he wasn’t welcome around the rest of his clan.
That was something he did not want. At all.
“Sache and I,” he said softly. “We...okay wait. Let me back up a bit here.”
Ellyn nodded, not saying a word, just watching him intently. Listening.
“The first thing you need to know, is that dragons aren’t the only non-human creatures out there. I’ll explain more about that later, because the specifics of it aren’t important. But there is another realm, basically. A parallel world to this, that we call the Otherworld.”
“The Otherworld,” she repeated. “Where other magical creatures live.”
“Yes,” he said. “Exactly. There are three Gates, well, three known Gates, between our world and theirs. One of them is here in Five Peaks. The other two are in the Alps in Switzerland, and Pompeii, Italy.”
“Pompeii,” Ellyn said softly, her brow creasing slightly in concentration.
“Where the volcano buried the Roman city, including some of its occupants, yes. Not our proudest moment, being unable to stop that. But anyway, back on track, time for details of dragon history later,” he told her.
Now that Vlad had started, the words were coming faster, easier, and he was filled with an overwhelming urge to just get it out. He wanted to share his story, and be done with it.
“Each Gate is guarded by dragons. It is our duty to ensure these creatures don’t come into our world. They could and would wreak major havoc if left unchecked.”
“Okay, I follow you so far,” she said, nodding.
“Each Gate has a formal organization that dedicate themselves to watching the Gates full-time, supplemented by other volunteer members from the Clans that live in the area, right?”
Ellyn nodded. “You’re a member of this Gate team?”
“The Gate Guard. Simple enough name, yes,” he said heavily. “Sache and I were members of it.”
Understanding began to creep into her eyes.
“We were on duty one day, when something came through. It was completely unexpected. The Gate hadn’t been active in nearly eighty years. Not since the forties when the government dropped a nuke in the mineshaft to test it, and uncovered the Gate for the first time. That’s another story as well,” he said, shaking his head as she opened her mouth to ask a question. There were others who knew the old history better than he, about the desperate fight against the radiation warped creature and its minions, side by side with the human military. That was a tale for another time.
“So what happened?” she asked softly.
“Something came through,” Vlad replied. “It surprised us, we weren’t ready and…it escaped.”
Ellyn’s eyes opened wide.
“We failed,” he explained. “Our one job, and we couldn’t do it. All of us from that day, we were thrown from the Gate Guard, a disgrace to the name. Everyone blamed us, and rightfully so. Sache and I tried to deal with it, but the constant looks were too much. We knew what they were saying behind our backs. So we left. Went searching for somewhere—”
“Somewhere you could fit in,” she said softly. “I understand that.”
Vlad smiled wryly. “I suppose you do, don’t you? Anyway, we were in a dark place, and the Cado found us, approached us and gave us a place to stay. We had intended going back to Europe, to start anew with our distant kin there, but the prospect of staying in North America, in a world we knew already was…enticing. Before I knew it, I’d led us somewhere I had once sworn never to go, and Sache was falling for their lies.”
“Oh Vlad, it’s not your fault,” she said, cuddling in closer to him, pressing her body to his.
“It is,” he insisted. “I knew what we were doing was wrong, Ellyn. I knew it. But we were angry, so very angry, and I let it make us resentful to the point we just no longer cared. We didn’t have anything else. I didn’t have anything else. Until…you.”
She bit her lip, but didn’t speak.
“Sache though…Sache doesn’t have that,” Vlad said. “Which is why I have to find him. I need to convince him to leave the Cado before…before it gets him killed.”
And if he won’t leave, if he’s truly become one of them…
That was Vlad’s biggest fear. That Sache would never leave, that he would continue to side with the Cado.
He feared that it would be himself who had to kill Sache.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Ellyn
It didn’t take long before Vlad was back asleep.
After he’d finished his story she had simply lain there with him, stroking his head and showing that she was there for him. Her physical presence was as reassuring as she could make it.
He’d slowly drifted back under, and now he was sleeping better. Not great, but he was no longer actively making noises and moving about.
He’d also given her a lot to think about. Not that any of it changed her opinion of him. Whatever might have happened, Ellyn knew the truth of Vlad. He was a good man, despite briefly falling in with the Cado. She didn’t hold that against him, and she doubted any of the others would either. Everyone made mistakes. It was what you did after that spoke loudest.
Vlad had risked his life to save her from them, running away from what at the time had seemed like the only place he would feel welcome. All to save a woman he barely knew. That was not the actions of a man who had succumbed to evil.
The explanation of his past had left her with a lot of questions and thoughts, mainly about the Otherworld, the Gate, and the creatures that lived within. Just what else was out there that humanity didn’t know about? It was both fascinating, and horrifying to think on, given that Vlad had said the dragons were there to protect humanity from the others.
How bad were these creatures?
She was wide awake now, which sucked since it was—she glanced at the clock on the nightstand—four-thirty in the morning.
With a shrug she got up, deciding to go get a snack for herself. No sense in staying in bed and risking waking Vlad now that he was actually asleep. Maybe she’d go out onto one of the many balconies and watch the sun rise.
Maybe I’ll see another dragon!
Vlad had mentioned that dusk and dawn were popular times for the creatures to go out, when they could soar the skies without being seen by the residents of Five Peaks. She’d not gotten the courage yet to ask Vlad if she could see him change again, but she wanted to see another of the sleek, scaled creatures. It fascinated her to know that something like that lived within them.
Entering the kitchen nearest to Vlad’s room—there were three kitchens in the compound, spaced out so that everyone had easy access to one—she made a beeline for the fridge, grabbing the milk.
“Problems sleeping?”
Ellyn yelped, fumbling for the milk jug and nearly dropping it.
“Don’t do that!” she snapped, turning on the speaker once she had a grip on the container.
The speaker was sitting at the table in the dark. In her less-than-fully-awake state, Ellyn had waltzed right in without noticing. It didn’t help that dragon shifters seemed to be preternaturally silent either.
“Sorry,” Pierce said, rising. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Ellyn might not be able to see his features, but she would recognize the voice of the Teres clan leader no matter what. In fact, he was the shifter she’d had the most interaction with over the past couple of days,
running into him a handful of times. He was nice, and seemed to treat her like he didn’t care about her past. Ellyn appreciated that.
“I was half asleep, didn’t help,” she said, waving him off as she poured herself a glass. “Don’t worry about it. Why are you up?”
“Needed to stretch the wings for a bit.”
“Ah.” Ellyn didn’t know what else to say, so she took a big sip and leaned back against the counter.
“How come you’re stirring at this hour?”
“Vlad couldn’t sleep. Now I can’t sleep,” she said with a wry smile.
Pierce nodded, but remained silent.
Ellyn tapped on her glass, watching the clan leader, going back and forth over whether she should, or shouldn’t, ask the question on her mind.
“Spit it out, will you?” Pierce said at last.
“Huh?”
“Whatever is on your mind. You’ve been looking at me for a few minutes now like I have a third arm or something. What’s bothering you?”
“Me?” she said slowly. “Nothing’s bothering me. It’s Vlad that I’m worried about.”
Piece nodded. “Still hasn’t come around to accepting that he’s welcome here?”
She bit her lip. “Did it really happen the way he said? That he was thrown out of the Gate Guard and everyone treated him like a failure?”
“Ah, he finally told you, did he?”
She nodded. “Yeah.”
“Sort of,” Pierce said. “He was thrown out of the Guard, yes. Not because he deserved it. Yes, he was on duty when the shapeshifter came through. But the punishment didn’t fit the crime. We had all grown lazy. The Gate hadn’t been active in decades, close to a century.”
“So why treat him that way then? I don’t get it?”
“Well, some things didn’t come to light until after Vlad left,” Pierce said.
Ellyn perked up. “What do you mean?”
“The Commander of the Guard, a man named Viko, had apparently been in contact with an entity on the other side. We don’t know how, we don’t know who. But he arranged for things to happen that way. He altered the schedule ever so slightly, because he knew exactly when the shapeshifter was going to come through.”
She gasped. “So it wasn’t Vlad’s fault?”
“Not at all. Everyone involved has been vindicated. Viko is dead, and his treachery revealed. The creature itself has been destroyed too. I’ve tried to tell Vlad this, but every time I start talking to him he—”
“Shuts you down and walks away, won’t hear a word you have to say about it,” she finished, knowing what Pierce meant.
“Yeah.”
“Well there’s a difference now,” she said, trying to reign in her excitement. “I know. And he’ll listen to me.”
“Maybe,” Pierce said. “I hope so. But he wouldn’t listen even after the incident.”
“What do you mean?”
“Vlad thinks we drove him away. That we were treating him like he was a failure, not talking to him or accepting him around here. The truth is, he spiraled into a dark place. We were trying to help him out, to get him to accept that nobody here cared about it, and that he was still a part of the clan. But he denied it all and pushed us away. Not the other way around.”
“Oh,” she said. “That makes a bit more sense.”
“We all knew the punishment was ridiculous. We tried to tell him and Sache that, but they wouldn’t have it.” Pierce growled. “I should have tried harder. It’s my clan, they are my clan, and I let them down. I won’t do that again though.”
Ellyn smiled. “There’s a lot of blame going around, and everyone seems to insist it’s all their own fault. I think it’s time we started to move past it, and simply work on rebuilding relationships, and not worrying about the past. I know I’m trying to.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Pierce said, sounding like he genuinely meant it.
“Me too,” she said with a smile. “Me too.”
“Best of luck with Vlad,” the Teres clan head said, before wandering from the room.
Ellyn leaned back against the counter, gripping her glass of milk in both hands. This changed everything. Now she could tell Vlad that it wasn’t his fault, and then he could find Sache, and tell him as well. The wayward shifters could come home! This was great news.
She couldn’t wait to tell him what she’d learned, and see the look on his face as he realized his worries were over!
Chapter Thirty
Vlad
The bed was empty when he stirred, but Vlad wasn’t surprised. He’d not meant to fall asleep like he had, but the gentle calmness of Ellyn’s presence had induced a sleep into him that he’d been unable to stop.
Apparently I needed it, he thought, stretching his arms and flexing his legs, forcing the blood to flow back into them.
Not that his feeling slightly more rested was going to help with the day’s mission. Vlad had been systematically searching all of Five Peaks as best he could, looking for any sign of Sache. He was beginning to lose hope that his friend was still in the area, and if he’d fled that, then Vlad had no idea where to look next.
I’ve searched his vault, his favorite spot in the mountains, heck, I even went to Mount Verdent and the frickin Gate itself!
The only place he hadn’t ventured to yet, was into the town of Five Peaks itself. That might seem silly, but he knew Sache would be avoiding it. Being there would be a further reminder of their old life, of what they had left behind, and he knew with the hurt the younger shifter was enduring, he’d want to be anywhere but there.
He’d also tried texting and calling innumerable times but, unsurprisingly, Sache wasn’t answering those. Vlad was feeling like a failure, and he lay in bed, wondering where to go next. His options were growing slim.
An unusually heavy set of footsteps came down the hallway. They weren’t actually that heavy, but dragons moved in near silence, and Ellyn was the quietest human he had ever encountered.
So when the door opened to admit her, he frowned in confusion. What could have prompted such loud movement? Vlad wasn’t in the mood to see, however, so he continued to lay on his back.
“Goood morning,” she said with a level of cheer Vlad couldn’t recall ever seeing on her. It was far too…jubilant.
She was chipper. Ellyn was chipper. That was the best way to describe it, and Vlad was momentarily confused, unsure of what had wrought such a change in the woman. While not a miserable human, it took a certain mindset to be such upbeat. He’d not seen it in her before.
“Hi,” he said, the attitude not jiving with his current demeanor. Vlad just couldn’t deal with it right then.
“Sleep better?” she asked, not fazed by his reply.
“Yeah. Thanks.”
A moment later Vlad’s nostrils flared as the smell of food hit them.
Bacon. Eggs. Waffles? An omelet.
He sat up straight as Ellyn started placing everything from the tray she’d piled it on, onto the table in his sitting area.
“What is this?” he gasped, guilt welling up in him for the way he’d been acting. “Did you make breakfast?”
“Yes.”
Vlad hung his head. “I’m sorry. I treated you like shit there, and you didn’t deserve it. I have no excuse.”
“I know. Come, sit, eat!” Ellyn gestured for him to join her.
“Uh, what? That’s it? You can be upset at me for it,” he said.
“I could, I know. You were a dick. But it’s fine. I’m over it, come on, come eat!” she ordered, patting the empty cushions to her right.
Vlad got up, putting on a pair of shorts for the sake of propriety, and joined her on the couch.
“It’s not fine,” he said, looking over everything suspiciously. “I’m letting my fears for Sache carry over. It’s just, I know that the Cado are going to use him, I know it, and when they’re done, they’ll kill him. Sache isn’t tough enough to know that. He belongs back here. With the others!”
; Ellyn nodded, shoveling a piece of bacon into her mouth. “Just like you do.”
Vlad opened his mouth to protest, but an upraised finger silenced him.
“No, I am not wrong,” she said, voice like steel. “You are, Vlad. You’ve become so wrapped up in what you think you did, you don’t know the truth.”
“What do you mean?”
“Sit.”
He sat, and listened as Ellyn talked, telling him about Viko, his treachery, and how things had been organized to make him fail.
“How do you know all this?” he asked, stunned by the revelations she was making.
“Because after you told me what you think happened, I mentioned some of it to Pierce, and he told me the truth. If you’d given him the time of day, he would have told you as well, but you’ve locked yourself up in here, avoiding everything and everyone,” she said, waving her hand around to indicate his room.
“Oh.” Vlad sat back heavily into the couch, breakfast momentarily forgotten. “I…oh.”
“Exactly. You aren’t responsible Vlad. You aren’t an outcast.” She beamed at him. The news didn’t affect her, not to anywhere near the same extent, but it was clear that Ellyn was ecstatic for him, for what the truth about Viko and his engineering of everything meant.
“You know,” he said quietly. “Have I ever told you just how amazing you are?”
“You have,” she said slowly. “But honestly, I think you could probably afford to say it at least once more. I don’t see how that would hurt anything.”
Vlad threw his head back and barked with laughter, short, sharp sounds. As he laughed, some of the stress left his body. It would take time, of course, for him to come around, to truly accept the changed reality. He’d spent so long being hard on himself, it wouldn’t be an instantaneous reversal, but Ellyn was right. It wasn’t his fault, and now that he knew it, he could begin to heal.
“Now, I made all this food, and if you think I’m going to eat it all on my own, you’re darn right. So you’d better start digging in if you want any of it,” she said, spearing a piece of toast from yet another plate.