Dragon's Gap: Set Includes Stories 6-7 Plus A Christmas Surprise

by L M Lacee

  Ciana held back her tears as she assured him. “She will be. She is a fighter. She just found us. She will not want to leave us now.”

  “Okay.” His eyes went back to his mate as the room filled with her and his families. He found himself pushed into a chair and a cup of coffee in his hand.

  Frankie squatted in front of him. “It is okay Conor. I will go get her.”

  “What Frankie…What do you mean?”

  She gave his shoulder a pat. “I will go get her.” She moved to a seat across from him and closed her eyes Conor shook his head as he frowned, sometimes Frankie made no sense. Nothing made sense, he had to go.

  “Conor…” Andre` said as Conor stood and made to leave. He would kill the male and then his beast would stop roaring for blood. He was the Leo it was his right.

  “Daddy no, don’t go.” Paige called to him she could see the decision he had made in his eyes, Kadee ran and hugged him around his legs. “Daddy no, stay with us, daddy please.”

  Paige ran and hugged him as well. “Daddy no please…Don’t leave us.”

  Conor was in two minds. He wanted to go and claw and rip the male who dared to touch his mate. To kill him as his beast desired but as he looked at his frightened daughters, who clung to him as though he was the last person in the world he and his beast remembered a time he too had begged his father to stay with him.

  He shook his head as memories of that night swamped his mind. Of when, his father the Leo of his pride had walked out to fight another pride for an imagined slight to their honor. He remembered him and Saul hugging his father’s legs begging him to stay home. He lost everything that night, his father, his brother, the female he called mother, when his father and those he was responsible for never returned.

  Conor sat as the girls piled on his lap and looked up to find Patrycc standing by the door. “You needed to remember why you are who you are and what you have to lose.” He told him, Conor barely able to speak managed to say. “Thank you.”

  While he hugged his daughters to him. A few minutes later when they knew he was not going to leave them. The girls calmed and found seats beside him as everyone else did the same.

  Sharm and Ella stood over his mate in a healing trance. Prudence and Birdy along with Elijah and Scarlett flew in the window and grew. Four faeries stood hands over a pale unconscious Ocean as they too went into a healing trance. As though her body had a mind of its own Kadee moved to her mother and placed her hands on her toes her eyes wide open, Kadee cried out. “She is dying, she won’t come back.”

  Conor removed her hand and lifted her into his arms. Tears streamed down her face, he whispered to her. “Yes she will baby girl, she loves us, she will return.”

  “We are not enough!” Kadee sobbed.

  “Yes, we are, you must have faith.” Andre` told her and Paige. “We are more than enough, wait and see.”

  He begged the powers for him to be right. He could not lose her. He would not feel the well of grief he had sunk into again. His Ocean would live.

  CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN:

  O cean looked around, the view from this room was spectacular. She could see the horizon over the landscape it was delightful.

  “What are you doing here?” Demanded a harsh voice she thought she would never hear again. Turning with a sigh, Ocean said. “Mother!”

  “You are not meant to be here. Go away this is my place!”

  “Well, it is hardly my fault. One moment I was walking around in town the next I am here. Why are you here?”

  “This is my place, where I was sent after I died.”

  Ocean looked around at the lovely room. “Is it a tower?”

  “Yes my tower. I live here.”

  Ocean admired the room. It was amazing. The walls were plastered smooth and colored a burnt orange. There was a curved bed on one side. The other side had a lounger. The floor was warm and the wall her mother stood in front of with her easel was just a huge wide opened window.

  “Wow, this whole place is amazing. Who sent you here mother?”

  Helena shrugged. “How would I know? One moment I was asleep the next I woke up here.”

  Ocean bit back the retort hovering on her lips and asked instead. “You are painting?”

  Helena sniffed as though the question was stupid, a normal reaction Ocean remembered to anything she asked her. “Of course why would I not?”

  Ocean could feel the resentments of the past rise in her chest as she looked at her mother. “No reason just asked. Well, I will leave you to it.”

  Helena cursed her tongue, her daughter stood before her and she could find nothing more than sharp words and unwanted feelings.

  “Why is that?” Frankie asked as she strode around her. “Your daughter is here, for months you have supposedly pined wanting to right the wrongs of the past. Begging for a way to show her you loved her and are proud of her. Not only the artist she has become but the person she is, despite all the obstacles you placed in her way, she shines. That is what you pray for each day and when you are given the opportunity you ask for, to redeem yourself. All you can do is bark at her. Look at her!”

  Frankie demanded as Helena stood staring out the window at the view. She turned and stared at her frozen daughter. Ocean stared back, did her mother really want all that? It seemed improbable. Helena’s voice was hard and unforgiving as she said. “I am held here, she holds me here, her anger and her resentment of my talent. She will never be as good as me and yet she has the power to hold me here. Not allowing me to move on.”

  “Huh! I thought as much!” Ocean smirked. “Never could see the loving, sorrowful mother happening.”

  Frankie circled the female again. “As I did not but I had to give her the opportunity to try.” She said to Helena. “This is not about you, Helena. This is about your daughter Ocean.”

  “No!” Helena screamed. “It is about me, always about me. My life, my art, my passion.”

  “I was never your passion was I mother?”

  Helena mocked as she looked at Ocean with hate. “You? Passion! No, how could you be? I was wronged.”

  Frankie scoffed at her words. “You were not wronged, you were selfish. You believed you were better than your sister, a sister you were jealous of. Tell your daughter who your sister is?”

  Helena turned away as Frankie hissed. “Tell her!”

  “My sister was the one I gave the baby too, her sister alright?”

  “Wait…wait! Ciana’s mother is my actual aunt, her sister?” Ocean asked with disbelief.

  Frankie nodded. “Yes, she was the rightful vessel for the Goddesses. But that night when she was to meet the dragon. Helena drugged Luna then met the dragon in her place and became impregnated. You never told your sister for months knowing Luna was heartbroken, thinking she had betrayed her Goddess. Then you somehow hid from everyone even the Goddesses.”

  Helena smirked as she said proudly. “The power of my art protected me from their prying eyes.”

  Frankie nodded. “Oh, I see, magic… magic allowed you to hide. The gift of concealment, as long as you painted you hid from those hunting you, clever. No wonder Ciana and Ocean are gifted.”

  Ocean stood amazed as she listened to Frankie, so much made sense now. Frankie circled the female once more, as she said. “Then when you had the baby, you were shocked to find out it was twins. What to do? You did not want one baby, but two would really screw your life up.”

  “I had to paint.” Helena said defensively.

  “One of the babies was weak, smaller. So a plan came to mind you were never going to tell Luna but suddenly you had an idea to punish her…”

  “She stole him from me. He was mine. Tony Walker was my husband, but she took him from me.”

  “He divorced you and married Luna, and you never forgave him.” Frankie clarified.

  “No, why should I, he was mine.”

  Frankie snorted as she continued. “So you did what any self-serving person did. You paid someone to drop off the
weak, sickly baby to Luna. Not because you were worried about her, no it was more dastardly than that. You were hoping she would die, and you could show her. Luna how you once again triumphed over her with the healthy baby and Tony would come back to you.”

  “Yes… Yes!” Screamed Helena.

  Frankie laughed. “But you forgot about whose creation she was. The Goddess stepped in and saved her. I am sure Luna never told her about there being two. Although what good would it have done, you hid you and Ocean so well from prying eyes.” Helena moaned. “I was wronged again, the baby did not die and I was left with her.” She pointed at the immovable Ocean. “A freak, a girl that had no talent, she could not even give me that. I could have nurtured her, made her famous.”

  “To prove again to Luna and Tony that you were a better parent.”

  “Yes much better but would she even try to paint, no never.”

  Ocean snarled. “Why did you not just give me to Luna and my sister?”

  “Hah! She would have liked that. She had everything already Tony and a healthy smart girl. No…never, sending her a picture of you every year on your birthday until you were twelve tortured her. I would either contact her or find out where they were and go to her without you of course, no she could never see you. Just a photo. Then she would beg and cry for you, she offered me money, a home, anything to have you. She even gave me a letter for you telling you about Dragon’s Gap and where to find information about your father.”

  “But you hid it away and denied Ocean as well as Luna. Then when Tony died, you never contacted her again, you left her wondering if Ocean was alive or dead.” Frankie stated.

  “Of course I did. She had no right. She cheated me.” Helena smirked. “She lost, I won.”

  Ocean curled her fingers into fists and shook with anger. “Why was it so important to keep me? You could have given me to someone else. Why?”

  Helena turned from her and said nothing. Frankie grinned. “Tell her or I will?”

  Helena said nothing. Frankie said. “Because of the deal!”

  “What deal?” Ocean asked as she looked at Frankie with bewilderment, then at her mother.

  Frankie replied. “The original deal the Goddess made with Luna. Helena realized the loop hole and took advantage of it as is her nature. The deal went like this.

  She who gave birth to the prophesy will, as long as the infant remains alive and within the home of the life giver until maturity, hold the look of youth as hers.”

  Ocean thought over the words, then drew in a breath. “Oh, I see.”

  Frankie nodded as she asked. “Did you not wonder why she hid away from the public and stopped going to her shows when you were a teenager? Why she never aged!”

  Ocean eyes widened. “No, I guess I never thought about it. So that is why her sister was Ciana’s grandmother, not mother?”

  “Yes even then she was old.”

  “I needed to paint. To create. To give myself to the world.”

  “So you could be adored.” Frankie stated.

  “Until maturity! When they assumed the grown-up baby would find her way to Dragon’s Gap!” Ocean murmured as she looked at Helena. Frankie agreed.

  “But there were two loop holes, one for Helena to take advantage of and one for the Goddess.” Ocean said slowly thinking again about what Frankie had said. Frankie agreed again. “Yes, the Goddess thought they made sure the baby would be cared for, and she could only look young, never remain young, eventually her body betrayed her.”

  Ocean said thoughtfully. “They never counted on two babies?”

  “No.” Frankie said sadly. “They did not. Goddesses should not meddle in lives.”

  “I was wronged again.” Helena moaned, bringing their attention back to her.

  “She’s crazy!” Ocean said to Frankie, who shook her head. “No, she wants you to believe that, so you will feel sorry for her. But you are not crazy are you Helena? You are just angry that you ended up not winning in the end.”

  Helena snarled and flung herself from the window screaming as she fell. Ocean rushed to the opening, Frankie sighed. “Don’t worry, she is not hurt. It is just a temper tantrum. She is alright.”

  “What are you doing here Frankie?”

  “I think you really mean. How can you be here Frankie?”

  Ocean grinned. “Yeah…okay!”

  Frankie walked around as she said. “I am able to be here, because I am an Elemental in training.”

  “Oh, I see.”

  Frankie looked at her and smiled. “Well, you would know right?”

  “Yeah, I knew, my camera never lies.”

  “Because…”

  Ocean laughed. “My Parker is also like you.”

  Frankie laughed then asked. “Was that so hard? Parker will be alright, she has you and her dad, sisters and me. Our family, we won’t let her lose herself. Ocean I didn’t.”

  “Well, that is true. So Frankie is my anger holding her here?”

  Frankie shrugged. “There is some truth to that but what holds her here, is herself. Her belief she is right, keeps her in this place. The day she recognizes who and what she is, she will be released until then she will remain here painting.”

  Ocean snorted. “Not a hardship, she loves to paint.”

  Frankie snapped her fingers and told her. “Depends on what she paints.”

  Ocean’s eyebrows rose as she looked out at the beautiful scenery then at Frankie, who pointed around the room as canvas after canvas filled the walls and floor.

  Ocean stood amazed as canvases appeared one at a time and on each was Ocean in differing poses and ages. Frankie told her. “This is what she paints, every day, every time she lifts a brush. Portraits and scenes of you, images she combs from her memory, canvas after canvas.”

  “Does she know she is painting these?”

  Frankie snorted. “Of course, what would be the point if she does not see them?”

  Ocean shook her head. “This must be hell for her. Oh my!” She reached for one that was the duplicate of the one she gave Ciana, except this girl had blue streaks in her hair, not red. Frankie looked at it and said, “Guilt that should have been you as well.”

  “Hell! This is her hell!”

  “Possibly but you have to remember, it is what she considers hell. She creates this each minute she is here. What she sees or dreams, what she eats, what she paints. It is from her.”

  Ocean shook her head in sadness, feeling the anger, and resentment leave her soul. “Will my not hating her, my anger at her. Help her leave?”

  “Well, it won’t hurt.” Frankie wrapped an arm around Ocean and drew her from the window. “This is not your burden. It never was. You know that saying, we are our own worst enemy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well look around you, this is what it means.”

  Frankie then took both of Ocean’s hands in hers and said. “You have a choice now, stay with her and fight every day to be someone you will never be to her, a person and a daughter loved by her. Or realize she is incapable of love for you. Ciana, her sister or the man she says she loved. She loves only one person, and that is her. Do not accept that truth and stay.

  Accept that truth and leave. Return to those that do love you, want you and truly know who and what you are. You are better than this!” Frankie lifted Ocean’s hands, so she could see them as they were last time she had boxed. Broken, bleeding, swollen, a shattered mess. “So much better than this. So I ask, which way is it to be my friend.”

  Ocean took a breath and relaxed her hands held in Frankie’s and smiled as she realized all the anger, the hate was gone. Sadness was present and would be for a while, grief she knew would run its course but there was nothing here for her. Guilt at not being enough for her mother vanished making her light headed. “Home… home to my mate and children. Home to you and my family.”

  Frankie’s. “Good choice.” Faded as she came back to lights above her and quiet crying, she turned her head and looked past Sharm
to her family, all of them.

  Sharm eyes found hers and he frowned with a smile in his eyes. Quietly he said, “Welcome back cousin. I was worried there for a minute.” She touched his cheek with soft fingers. “Thank you. I love you Sharm, is Frankie alright?”

  Surprised but delighted he kissed her cheek and whispered. “I love you too cousin and yes she seems alright. Your family awaits you dear one.” He moved aside and there was Conor, she sobbed and whispered “Conor!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT:

  T he following morning after an uncomfortable night in a cell beneath the castle. Loa was lead in silence into the interrogation room by Sparrow and Jordan.

  In the observation room were Reighn, Sage, Scarlett and Elijah. Reighn had agreed when Conor had asked for the interviews to be made available for any to see. All the family had wanted to witness the interrogations. Some were viewing from the stone apartment, and others were in Reighn’s conference room with a large screen set up.

  “We should have popcorn.” Frankie suggested. Andre` grinned as he agreed. “I like that, Jenny love, remember that for the theater we are installing.”

  She laughed as she asked. “We are installing a room with a big screen?”

  Andre nodded. “Yes a theater. It is my contribution to the castle.”

  Ethan said. “Maybe we could get one of those machines that make it?”

  June told him. “I can get those and I will get as well a soda machine. Popcorn makes you thirsty.”

  “Ohh! Yeah, good idea as well as ice creams we need ice creams for the movies.” Frankie agreed as Harper hushed them all. “Quiet we will miss the opening line.”

  “It is not a movie.” Charlie growled.

  “Well, it sort of is.” Frankie argued.

  “Quiet again!” Andre` quelled the argument he could see brewing, with those quietly spoken words.

  In the interview room, Conor sat at the table with Fin as Johner chained Loa’s hands to the bolt on the table top. Sparrow chained her feet to the one on the floor. Then they retreated to stand either side of the door. Sparrow’s face was expressionless unless you looked in her eyes and saw the rage and hurt there.