I found myself whimpering like a stupid kitten, and turned my head away from him, embarrassed by my weakness – by my fear. It was all so stupid. I had been able to hold my own even against some of the best of the elves and here I was almost dying from a handful of elderfels, only to be killed by some unknown monster.
Some unknown, stupidly beautiful, monster.
I could tell he was trying to speak, but his anger was making it difficult. Finally, he spoke in a harsh tone. “What in the hell did you do to me?”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, trying to keep the tears from escaping my eyes by closing them. “It was an accident. I didn’t mean to activate it.” Even if I had intended to activate it eventually, he didn’t need to know that. If lying would save my life, then I was going to lie until I was blue in the face.
“Activate what?” He demanded.
I tried to speak, tried to control the fear making my heart race. “S-Summoning crystal. It a-activated when my b-blood touched it. I was attacked…”
I felt him glance down at my body, looking for any evidence that I was telling the truth, before noticing the drying blood on my thigh. I peeked out of my eyelids then when I felt his body shift slightly, seeing that he was looking behind himself at the elderfel who I had killed not far from where we were.
He turned his head towards me again, and I found myself holding his azure gaze when I saw that his anger had significantly diminished.
He stared at me more with curiosity now, looking up at my ears. “What are you?” He finally asked, his head cocking slightly to the side.
“Half elderfel, half human,” I whispered.
Surprisingly, he scoffed, speaking of the feline race with disdain. “An elderfel would never impregnate a human.”
My anger began to seep through in response to his disbelief. “I’m not lying! My father was an elderfel! How else do you think I ended up with these ears? I have a tail too!”
He looked down between our bodies then, seeing my tail twitching between my legs. He was straddling me, although he wasn’t touching me. I blushed furiously when I saw again that he wasn’t wearing any clothes.
“What?!” I exclaimed sarcastically, my embarrassment shifting immediately to annoyance. “Do you just walk around naked or something?!”
He glared at me again. “No, I don’t. I was wearing clothes just a moment ago, in the middle of hunting actually, before that black thing swallowed me up. I don’t know where my stuff went.” He scoffed then. “But that still doesn’t answer my question. Not just anyone can use a summoning crystal!”
“My mother might have been a mage,” I quickly added.
“Where did you get it?” He snapped.
I immediately looked away from him, unsure if he would believe me when I told him I hadn’t stolen it. “My godmother gave it to me. She told me to use it to enslave a creature to help protect me from the elderfel.”
“And you think that’s okay?!” He was enraged. “To enslave someone?!”
I gawked at him. “People keep pets all the time!”
“I’m not a pet!” He exclaimed.
“I wasn’t trying to summon someone like you! I was trying to summon a beast, like a dragon or something!”
His glare suddenly intensified, causing a spike of fear in my chest again. I managed to yank my wrist away from him, shoving both my hands against his muscled chest when he leaned more into me. He brought his face down to mine, forcing me to turn my head away. I could feel his hot breath against my cheek, making me feel both terrified and a demented sense of thrill at the same time.
It was stupid, because I felt like he was going to reach down and rip my throat out with his teeth. After a few seconds, when he just remained there, I finally manage to speak. “What are you trying to do?” I gasped.
He grunted and pulled back slightly. “Trying not to bite you. Or scorch your face off. Trying to convince myself you don’t deserve it after saying something so insulting.”
“I wasn’t trying to insult you!” I exclaimed. “All I said was that I was trying to enslave a dra–” Suddenly my eyes focused on the wings hovering in the air behind him, and I gasped. “You can’t be…”
He scoffed. “No, I am not. You are right about that.” He looked away, allowing me to study his expression, seeing something I hadn’t expected – anguish.
“Then why did that offend you?” I asked quietly, confused by his reaction.
Abruptly, he pushed off me and turned away, sitting on the ground. I hesitated for a moment, before pushing myself up on my elbows. I managed to get a better view of his wings as he folded them back behind his back, confirming that they did indeed look draconic.
They were too long in his sitting position, causing them to bend outwards against the forest floor. It didn’t seem uncomfortable for him though, appearing as if the bony fingers had multiple joints, like a hand would, that could comfortably bend either direction.
I sat up the rest of the way slowly, surprised that he would turn his back to me when I still had my sword within reach. I kept my hands off it anyway, just to make sure he didn’t think I was going to literally stab him in the back. As far as I was concerned, I still wanted his help if he was willing.
No, I needed to convince him to help me. Because as skilled as I was with a sword, I might be able to take on one or two elderfel at the same time, but if I had a group of three or more come after me then I wouldn’t be able to manage on my own. Which meant I first needed to figure out why I had unintentionally offended him.
As I examined his body from behind, a thought hit me, though I couldn’t imagine how it would be possible. “Are you…” I began, feeling hesitant. I paused and started over. “Are you mixed too? A pantherian like me?”
He flinched when I said it, but didn’t respond. Finally, he took a deep breath. “When I was younger, my human mother scolded me for even asking how it happened…” He paused. “And when I got old enough for her to share, I decided I didn’t want to know. Magic was involved obviously, but I didn’t ask for the details.”
“My mother was human too,” I whispered. He glanced back at me, his eyes dropping down to my sword just briefly, before looking away again.
I crossed my arms over my chest, suddenly feeling illogically embarrassed by how small it was. If I was a normal attractive girl, then he might have looked there as his gaze fell from my face to my sword. But no, he skipped right over my body. I scoffed. “And you didn’t believe me when I told you my father was an elderfel. Your story sounds more like a lie than mine does.”
He hissed in response. “Believe what you want.” He then abruptly stood up and walked over to the dead feline.
I blushed and immediately looked away. “What are you doing?!” I exclaimed.
I saw him glare at me from the corner of my eye. “Well, I can’t exactly go walking around naked, now can I?” To emphasize his point, he dramatically bent down and began unstrapping the armor off the corpse, careful to avoid getting more blood on it than it already had. After about a minute, he spoke again. “How’d you kill this guy anyway?” He wondered absentmindedly.
I just gawked at him. Was he stupid? “Well, if you look at the slit in its throat then maybe that would give you a hint.”
He glared at me again, finally having a loose pair of dark brown leather shorts on. “Obviously, I can see how he died, but you’re so small. I can’t imagine you taking this guy on yourself.”
I bit my tongue as my rage threatened to cause me to insult him for real this time.
Jerk.
Finally, after a few minutes of fuming, he had finished getting the rest of the armor on and was now waiting impatiently for an answer with his arms crossed. The elderfel armor appeared to be cut lower in the upper back, allowing him to wear it even despite his wings.
It was obvious he wasn’t even considering taking back his comment. I finally glared at him as I replied. “I’ve been training almost my entire life with a sword, and I also have
some magic at my disposal, so my size shouldn’t matter.”
He smirked at me then, amused by my anger, and I suddenly found myself wanting to rip that smile off his pretty little face. “You know…” He began, his grin widening. “You’re kind of cute when you’re angry.”
That was the tipping point. I jumped to my feet and ripped my sword from its sheath, ready to show him just how ‘cute’ I could be when I gutted him.
He immediately held out his hands. “Jeez! Chill out! I should be the one mad here, not you!”
“I beg to differ,” I said through clenched teeth.
“Look, I was just getting even. You’re the one who insulted me first. Dragons are intelligent creatures, not just some beast you can enslave. And…” He stuck his finger out at me. “If you had tried enslaving a full-blooded dragon then you’d probably be dead right now.”
My expression dropped, my anger suddenly transforming to rejection. I wasn’t even focusing on the last part he said, only on the fact that he admitted his comment was just to get even. Of course he hadn’t meant it when he said I was cute. I knew that, but it still hurt to hear him say it out loud.
I sheathed my sword and turned away, so he couldn’t see the inevitable tears threatening to reveal themselves. I suddenly didn’t even care if he stayed. If he wanted to leave, then I wanted him to just do it and get it over with. In a controlled voice, I spoke evenly. “Obviously you don’t want to be here, and it wasn’t my intention to summon you…” I hesitated. “I’m sorry for that…So if you’re going to leave then just go already.”
Surprisingly, he scoffed at me. “Do you even know how this works?”
I couldn’t look at him, although I wanted to. I didn’t want him to see the tears that had slipped out, nor did I want to wipe them away and risk him knowing. Finally, I sighed, and replied. “Honestly, no. Why?”
“Because I can’t leave. We’re stuck together unless we can find someone to break these bonds.”
I tried to look like I was smacking my hand against my forehead, instead using the opportunity to get the moisture off my cheeks. I then turned around to look at him. “And how exactly are we stuck together? I don’t see anything keeping you here.”
He rolled his eyes and sighed, holding up his arm. “This band on my arm, and the one on your neck. They’re connected by magic.” He paused, beginning to speak almost to himself. “Well, really, I’m sure the magic goes deeper than that. If I lost my arm, this mark would probably just relocate on my body.” He focused on me again. “Anyway, I can probably physically move away from you for some distance, but if I actually tried to walk away with the intention of leaving…” He hesitated, and then turned around. “Here, I’ll show you. I’m going home.”
He began walking into the brush and after a few feet the ethereal blue chain reappeared, connected directly between the tattoo bands, suddenly taut from his movement. At first, I was surprised he didn’t just keep dragging me along, but then realized that when he brought his arm back towards me, only half of the chain went slack, as if there was an invisible force directly in the middle of us that prevented either of us from moving further away. I leaned forward just briefly to see that my half of the chain went slack too, but when I pulled it back straight, it kept extending.
He immediately noticed and commented on it. “You aren’t being held in place because you aren’t planning on walking away from me. So the chain will keep growing if you wanted to put some space between us. Normally, only one party gets enslaved, which has a slightly different effect. But since there are two masters and two slaves, the magic is reacting differently.”
I crossed my arms as I considered his words. I wondered how he was so knowledgeable about this magic, but I found myself more focused on the immediate situation. “So much for your high and mighty speech about enslaving others. You almost enslaved me.”
He glared at me again. “And what was I supposed to do? Just let you enslave me? I don’t know anything about you! No one wants to be anyone else’s slave!”
He had a point, I couldn’t argue with that. The blue chain immediately disappeared then, and I realized he must have stopped thinking about leaving me. It briefly made me happy, even though I knew he probably would leave if he didn’t have magic keeping him here.
“So what now?” I finally asked.
He scoffed at me yet again. “I don’t know, you tell me. You’re the one who did the summoning ritual.”
I took a deep breath and bowed my head, feeling my ears and tail droop. “Well, I was planning on using it to summon a creature to help me defend myself…” I paused, realizing I’d messed up my only chance. “But I guess we can just try to find a mage or something to undo this magic…” My ears drooped more. “So you can go home.”
He was silent for a long time as he examined my defeated posture. “Why are they after you anyway?”
I refused to look up at him. “Because of what I am. Apparently, it’s highly offensive to them, to the point that they will kill me the moment they see me. Although, I just found out they’ve had elderfel stationed here over the course of the last eighteen years keeping watch, so that they could kill me whenever I reappeared out of the elven forest.”
“You were in the elven forest?” He exclaimed in shock. “In their territory?!”
I finally glanced up, surprised he didn’t think I was lying. Maybe it was because I had been honest with him thus far. “Yes, my biological mother gave them something valuable in exchange for protecting me until today. But my time’s up.” I looked back down, unable to meet his gaze. “I just left the only home I’ve ever known, never to return again.”
“How long were you there?” He wondered, seemingly lost in his own thoughts.
I found the courage to look up at him again. “I just told you. Eighteen years. My mother dropped me off about two weeks after I was born, and today’s my eighteenth birthday.”
He eyed me suspiciously. “You sure don’t look eighteen.”
I immediately crossed my arms tightly over my chest, feeling ashamed and embarrassed again. “Well, no one asked you anyway!” I exclaimed, turning away from him slightly.
“Chill out!” He retorted. “If anything, it was a compliment. Most women would love to look younger than they actually are.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not most women,” I replied haughtily. I heard him sneer but he didn’t respond.
After a few seconds, he surprised me. “Well, happy birthday I guess. Sorry that it’s turning out to be a horrible day for you.”
My head snapped towards him, waiting for the teasing. No one was ever nice to me and really meant it. There was always some degrading comment to follow. But he was looking away, scratching the back of his head like he was uncomfortable. His fingers running through his black hair.
Did he really mean it?
It kind of seemed like he did.
I sighed, facing him fully again, hoping I wasn’t getting my hopes up. “Yeah, well, I’m sorry for dragging you into my mess.” I paused then. “My name’s Riella by the way.”
He met my gaze briefly, before looking away. “I’m Eliakim. You can call me Eli for short.”
I hesitated, unsure if I should respond honestly. I decided I might as well. “That’s…a pretty name…” I blushed when he looked at me again, my gaze falling to my feet. “And you can call me Riel if you want.”
“Sure,” he shrugged, reaching down to grab the dead elderfel’s sword and fasten it to his new belt.
I blurted out what was on my mind. “Does your name have a meaning?” I wondered.
He hesitated briefly, before responding. “Yeah, it means ‘resurrection of god’ – it’s a reference to the sun god Ephraim. Why?”
I bit my lip gently. “I just wondered. My name means ‘god is my strength’ although I’m not sure which god my mother worshipped. The elves worship the earth itself since that’s where magic comes from.”
Eli crossed his arms and was quiet for a moment. I looke
d up at him, wondering why he was holding his tongue. He didn’t look upset, just hesitant to comment. Finally, after a few moments, he spoke. “The dragons believe Ephraim is the source of all magic – that it ends up in the earth because the trees serve as a vessel to pull it out of the air and into the ground.”
I blinked at him in surprise. “Oh, that may be. I don’t really know either way.” I paused then, wondering if I was being too forward by inquiring so much about him. “So…how old are you? You know my age, so I figured I’d ask.”
He shrugged, answering before quickly changing subjects. “Nineteen. So where are we going anyway?”
I didn’t want to tell him I had no idea, afraid that him finding out I was walking aimlessly might anger him again, so I just pointed northwest. He nodded, and I quickly walked towards my pack to grab everything. The summoning crystal wasn’t black anymore – it was a dull gray, like a regular stone. I picked it up to examine it.
“Can I see that?” He wondered.
I looked up at him in surprise, and then tossed it over. When he caught the sphere, it was obvious he hadn’t expected it to be so heavy considering how I had handled it. The look on his face when he gawked at me was priceless. It made my day.
“Huh,” he commented, “I guess you really are half-elderfel.” I smirked at him, but he didn’t smile back. Instead, he turned on his heels and chucked the rock as hard as he could. Much to my disbelief, it bolted away from him like a cannon ball, smashing into a tree and causing the trunk to erupt into a thousand splinters.
A shiver ran down my spine and tail. “Why did you do that?” I asked breathlessly.
Eli turned back towards me and shrugged again. “It’s useless now anyway, and it was an easy way to take out some aggression.”
I just stared at him, uncertain if I should really ask. My curiosity got the better of me. “Are you going to try hurting me?”
He scoffed. “I couldn’t hurt you even if I wanted to. The magic won’t allow it.”
My eyes widened as the recent memory of his hot breath on my cheek flashed in my mind. Had he really been trying then? “But that’s not what I asked,” I blurted out.
Soulbound to a Dragon Page 3
