Sole: A Blue Novella (The Core Series Book 2)

by Combs, Teshelle

  He wasn’t asking it like an accusation. He was honestly, truly asking Myra if she thought telling the truth would be worth it, if people would take the time to listen to his story. If he should jump and hope the people around him would catch him before he fell.

  “I believe you.”

  He smiled a little. “And you saved me.”

  Her eyes widened. “You would have died if I hadn’t looked through your window?”

  He tapped her shoes. “It’s very likely.”

  She shook her head, her bangs swishing into her eyes. “We’ve got to get you better.”

  He shrugged. “It’s usually not so bad. Eating and social interactions are tricky. But sleep is the worst part. And I can push myself so I don’t need it as often as most.”

  “This happens every time you try to sleep?”

  “No, not the shock. Not unless I’m already under a lot of stress.”

  “Never again,” she said. “You’re never going to try to sleep without me again. Promise me.”

  “Myra…you don’t have to….”

  “I mean it, Cameron. Don’t you break my heart.”

  He blinked, and this time she could see the way his eyelids lagged. Exhaustion. How had she not noticed it before? How had no one in his life known? He’d left the academy two years ago. Two years. He could have died alone in his room dozens of times.

  He inhaled. Three minutes hadn’t been enough. The feeling of sleep crushing down on him made him want to tear his eyes out. Anything to keep from sleeping. Anything to keep from going back there in his mind. “I don’t want you to see me like that…”

  Myra got up, walked over to his bed, unlaced her boots, and kicked them off. She climbed in and waited.

  “Come here. I’m lonely.”

  Cameron winced as he stood up. He moved over to her, meeting her mouth without hesitation. She fought to keep breathing as he kissed her deeper. But she pulled away.

  “After you rest.”

  He groaned. “I don’t want to wait.”

  “You’re stalling.”

  “Of course I’m stalling.”

  She sat up and put her back to the wall. Then she grabbed his shirt and pulled him down so he lay on her lap. “I’ll stay up the whole time,” she said. “I’ll make sure nothing happens to you.”

  He gasped a little, his eyes already trying to shut. “No, I can’t sleep.”

  She played with his hair, running her fingers through it.

  “I can’t.”

  She could feel his heart rate pick up, pumping so hard his chest thudded against her leg. “I won’t leave,” she said.

  He ground his teeth together and tried to focus on his breathing. “It’ll hurt,” he whispered.

  Myra prayed he wouldn’t look up, wouldn’t see the tears that she couldn’t keep from trailing down her cheeks. “It won’t hurt. Because I’ll be here. They’ll never hurt you again.”

  His eyes closed, but he fought it, his body twitching to keep him from going under. He mumbled something she wished she could understand. And then he slept.

  The siren attack had left him with a few scars, she was sure, but Myra had never actually seen him without his shirt on. At the beach, it had been too dark to really look, to really examine. So she slid her hand beneath his shirt. That time, without the frenzy of her feelings, she felt the fine rows of stitches along his ribs, along the cool skin of his spine.

  The academy had cut him open because he was worthless enough to be a test subject. That’s what he thought. But she knew it was because they were filled with hate and he was brilliant and kind and perfect. They were jealous. The whole world would be jealous, if they knew him.

  When Cameron opened his eyes, he thought he was about to die. He saw the haze of the academy laboratory, the clinical, emotionless faces of the professors.

  Then he felt a hand on his back, a whisper over his head. Myra was telling a story. A story about a red dragon girl who’d lost her way and a blue dragon boy who didn’t mind holding her hand anyway.

  He sat up, stretched his long arms, rubbed his dry eyes.

  Myra moved with him, her brows creased. “You’ve only been out for ten minutes.”

  “Really? That’s three times as long as I usually get. And this is already my second sleep today.” He yawned. “You must be tired too. It’s late.”

  She nodded. “I better go.”

  Cameron frowned with his eyes. “Oh.”

  She stood up and moved toward his window. “I better go because I need to rest up for tomorrow.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow. You. Me. We’re going.”

  He stood up, followed her to the door. “You mean….”

  “We’re never coming back here.” She motioned all around her. “These people, they don’t care. They never notice. But you care. You notice. You and me, let’s go see things. Let’s go be…not here.”

  He shook his head, a hint of a smile on his mouth. “How will we…?”

  “My mom has unlimited money, Cam. And you don’t eat much.

  We can swim in every ocean. We can see every sky.” Her eyes glittered with new hope. “Tomorrow.”

  And she hopped down, running back across the yard and towards her house. Cameron watched her go without bothering to correct her. No matter where they went, every ocean was connected, every sky would be the same. It was science. It was fact. But Cameron didn’t care. He closed his eyes and felt a part of his core he never noticed before.

  Someone knew him.

  Eight

  Baggage

  The lamp shattered—chips of plaster and slivers of glass splayed across the floor. Cale shouted in red tongue, lunging after his brother. But, Rory held the last strip of bacon too high.

  “Don’t you dare,” Cale bellowed, his light brown eyes narrowing into serpent-like slits. He growled. “You’ve already had seven pieces.”

  “I’m bigger. I need more than you do!”

  Cameron slid out of the way just in time. His brothers put a hole through the kitchen dry wall instead of through him as they tumbled by, arms interlocked.

  Karma, who still grasped the hot frying pan, frowned at them, her spatula-wielding fist on her hip. “Food is not free,” she said, attempting to shout over them. “You must both try to be more rational eaters.”

  Mac jumped the last six stairs, accidentally nudging the banister on the staircase loose. It fell with a crash, but the sound didn’t hinder the fight for a second.

  “I smell bacon,” he said, smiling at his wife. “Are you making some?”

  “You’ll have to settle for licking the frying pan.”

  And Mac rushed forward, grabbing it and hording it under his arms as he ran for the sliding door. The boys, no longer fighting over the bacon that Rory had ingested, chased after him.

  “I was hoping to make a joke,” Karma said with a sigh. “A frying pan joke.” Joking was not a blue dragon forte.

  Cameron had his bag over his shoulder. In it, he’d packed everything he needed for his water communication experiments. Clothes. Money he’d earned doing chores. And enough vials of his medication to keep from dying in a seizure-induced shock for at least six months.

  “Are you going somewhere?” Karma asked, deducing from his bag and his posture that he was on his way out. “I didn’t think you had anything scheduled for this morning.”

  “This is not documented.”

  She thought for a second, keeping perfectly still. “Fine. Just…don’t be reckless. A mind like yours must not be wasted on unnecessary frivolity.”

  He knew his brothers, if they were leaving home for the last time, would make sure they stopped to kiss their mother, to hug their father, to exchange gifts with friends. But everything Cameron needed was waiting for him outside.

  He left, clicking the door closed behind him.

  “Cameron,” someone called.

  Cale jogged up to him, a football wedged underneath his arm.
The bacon pan was probably already abandoned in the back yard. “Hey, I know it’s not your thing, but I bet you’d kick Rory’s butt in football. You can use that brain of yours. Come play.”

  “You think I would win?”

  Cale grinned. “Cam, I know you downplay things, but I’m pretty sure someone who can slay a hundred merfolk without help can out-throw Rory’s flabby chicken arms.”

  “Rory is much stronger than both of us…at least out of the water.” Cameron tilted his head at his brother. “I didn’t think you knew about that. About the merfolk.”

  “Know about it? You have no idea how hard Rory’s bragged about you. I’m pretty sure he’s hooked up with at least three girls just by sharing your exploits.”

  Cameron almost thought Cale was lying, but he remembered he wasn’t able to speak an untruth. So he nodded. “Thank you for the invitation. But I have an engagement.”

  Cale nodded. “Some other time.”

  “Some other time.”

  And Cameron walked a few blocks, to the place where he and Myra first ran into each other. She was there. He could see her from a distance, sipping a bottle of water, then chewing on her fingernails. Waiting. Waiting for him.

  She smiled when she saw him, and kissed him like it was easy.

  “You ready?” she asked.

  “Of course.”

  And they took a few steps before both of them stopped. They were quiet, both thinking, both still. Finally, Myra looked up at him.

  “I think…I think we should try.”

  Cameron touched her chin. “They might never know us. Probability is not in our favor.”

  She nodded. “No it’s not. But…I think we should try.”

  “For how long?”

  Her eyes stung with tears, with disappointment, with unresolved hope. “I don’t know. How long can we handle?”

  Cameron looked at her and saw. Saw someone who was worth trying for when no one else was. “We wait one more day.”

  She nodded, smiling as tears slipped out. “You won’t go without me?”

  Cameron took her bag from her shoulder and handed her his. “If you stay, I stay.” He wiped at her tears with his thumb. “If you try, I try.”

  “You know me so well,” she said, her eyes sharp, alive.

  Cameron kissed her, his lips moving with purpose, with hope. “I won’t stop until you do.”

  Myra went back to her big house and empty room. Cameron went to his walls and his quiet and his noise. But they knew—they both knew—tomorrow would be too far away.

  The End

  Vane

  A sneak peek of the second full-length novel in the CORE SERIES

  Ava knew she should stretch out her tight muscles, but she threw herself into their unmade bed—which really was just a full-size mattress and a tangle of dragonthread sheets that had come as a gift from some of the dragons in Great Nest. She didn’t mind that they never made the bed. It reminded her of an actual nest, a little like the kind of thing she’d thought a dragon might sleep in before she’d actually met one.

  It was strange, Cale not beside her. Cold and foreign without the warmth of his body. And quiet without the rustling of his deep breathing. She stretched her limbs out, at the same time relishing the extra room and wishing she was squished by her dragon. She couldn’t believe that she’d been without him for seventeen years.

  Yet, there was something relieving and beautiful about being alone. And that, above all else, worried her.

  She wiggled forward and reached into her worn navy blue backpack and pulled out the notebook she’d been keeping. Most of the pages had been torn out, the ridges of paper left behind creating a bulge. She dated the top of the page, careful not to get the purple ink on her hands, and began scribbling.

  I haven’t eaten anything in three days. Sometimes I chew on something so Cale doesn’t get suspicious, but no solid meals. It’s not that bad. What I can’t handle is the urge to leave him. Again. I know he’s my dragon. I know that. I can’t keep wanting and not wanting him at the same time. I’m losing my mind over here.

  With as delicate a hand as she could manage, she tore off the page and folded it as small as possible. Each tear and each fold made her stomach turn over. The paper wriggled between her fingers, as if it was alive. Then, she opened the water bottle she kept in her bag, slipped the piece of paper inside, and shook it.

  She heard the click of the door opening and stuffed the brown leather book and water bottle back into her bag before rolling over in the pile of sheets to welcome Cale in. He dived, landing so hard that it bounced Ava into the air. He chuckled and threw his arm over her, pulling her closer to him.

  “She finally gone?” Ava asked.

  He sighed, snuggled close to his rider. “Onna doesn’t mean to be like that with you, Ava.”

  Ava stretched her lean limbs beneath Cale’s warm arm. At once, there was a pang of anxiety, her chest tightening. He’s so close. She tried to take a deep breath. Deflect. Change the subject.

  “I’m not stupid. Onna hates me, Reggie hates me, your whole family hates me.” She slid out from underneath him and sat up. Then she tugged the rubber band from her wrist and twisted it around her hair.

  She felt better being further away, but somehow so much worse. As if she wanted to hurl herself back towards him. As if she wanted to disappear. “I know I’m not nice or friendly or warm like you. People aren’t ever going to like me. I’m perfectly okay with that.”

  He wished she hadn’t moved away. His arm felt colder without her near him. “I like you,” he offered.

  She looked at him, the way his light brown eyes didn’t waver, the way his body leaned forward as though he wanted nothing more than to hold her, and she wished she wasn’t battling both longing and the desire to run. “You have to like me. Just like you have to tell the truth.”

  Cale was about to argue when he heard something. He sat up, every hair on his body alert, as if the air was rifled with static electricity. His stomach constricted, almost turning over on itself. It made his muscles stiffen and pull against his bones, telling him it was time to move. And when it happened, somewhere deep inside him, someplace he couldn’t describe, began to burn. It spread through his chest, his blood boiling in his veins, his heart pumping too fast. His core told him what he needed to do. Protect her. Get her out. Get her safe.

  “What?” Ava asked, sitting up beside him. “You hungry again?”

  He put a finger to his lips, his light brown eyes a sharp gold, his irises mere slivers. He exhaled, and a thin stream of smoke left his lips and unfurled into the air, dissipating with the currents of the tired ceiling fan.

  Ava shoved her hand under the edge of the mattress and pulled out her dragonblade. “Sirens? Here?” she mouthed, not daring to whisper.

  Cale’s breathing accelerated without him wanting it to. He could taste the metallic flush of blood as his heart raced. Run, it told him. Take her and run. He hated the truth of what he felt, but he couldn’t fight it.

  Fear.

  He stood, reaching out his arm to Ava. She hesitated a moment before she grabbed onto his hand and stood. She hesitated. But he pushed it out of his mind. He hurried to the window, thrust it open. Then, he looked to her, asking without words if they could fly far, far away from their little world.

  But before she could open her mouth to say the words, the ceiling trembled, the plaster cracking as if a river was bursting through from above. Cale shielded Ava as the ceiling fan caved, rushing to the ground in a shower of dust and wood and screams.

  “Now,” Cale shouted to his rider. His body pinned hers to the wall, shielding her as best he could from what was coming next. “Fly now.”

  She gasped, coughing from the cloud of plaster. “Wait,” she managed. “Wait.”

  Cale didn’t have a choice, even though he wanted to take her away. He couldn’t make her go. He couldn’t make her say it. And there was no way he could leave her. So he took out his dragonblade and he waited
too.

  The thunder of wings too large to fit in the room. The talons hitting the floor, shaking the building. A roar that was more of a sonic boom. Cale knelt, not because he wanted to, but because he had to. He still held his weapon, his knuckles fading to white as he gripped it. Not again. I won’t let them touch us again.

  Atop the back of the dragon, his black leather boots and dark cape a perfect match to the oiled scales of his dragon’s hide, sat the rider.

  He patted his dragon with a gloved hand and pulled back on his reins.

  Then, he slid off the dragon’s back and walked to where the red and his rider stood, Ava pressing herself against the wall, and Cale still kneeling with his blade drawn.

  Shiloh’s gray skin was pulled tight over his bald, narrow head, and beneath the ghastly tint was a spidery network of black veins. He held up his hand.

  “I am not here to harm you,” he said.

  The words resonated in Cale’s head, his core. It was meant to alleviate his fear, but it only made him clutch his ears.

  Cale’s rider stepped forward and pointed a finger at Shiloh, her eyes wild with anger. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  Shiloh stared into her bold, brown eyes, which meant he was challenging her right back. “I am visiting a friend. Is that not admissible?”

  Ava prodded her finger into his chest. “We’re not friends, Shiloh.”

  “No, we are not.” He looked away at last, a sign of respect—or at least one that no longer meant he was prepared to fight. “But you are kin. We are both riders.”

  Ava’s eyes were daggers. “Let go of my dragon right now, Shiloh.

  I mean it.”

  “Or?”

  “Let’s not play this game.”

  Cale remembered it all. Remembered the first time he’d ever encountered a no-ir—the way Shiloh had called his name and spoken death and judgment over him, the way Ava had run her blade through the belly of the same dragon standing before them.

  Shiloh sighed, acquiescing. He turned his head to his beast and spoke in the whispers of the no-ir tongue—all vowels, all ups and downs, the words like notes of a cello slipping into one another. Rane shrank before their eyes, becoming as small as an owl, leaving his saddle behind.