Chapter Eleven
After we finished our lunch, my father stood. “I need to head over to the neighbor next door for a short bit. Don’t leave before I get back, okay?”
I nodded. “Of course.”
Bastian sat across the table from me as I stood, feeling like we needed something homey and sweet. I pulled out a glass jar of milk and a pot. In the cupboard on the right, my father stored tiny chocolate morsels just for these occasions. I began heating up the milk and sprinkled in the chocolate morsels, allowing them to melt. I sprinkled in a bit of cinnamon and added a drop of vanilla just like my mother used to. Once finished, I set a mug in front of him.
“What is this?” he asked.
“Hot chocolate,” I replied.
He nodded. “Been a long time since I had any.”
“We’re gonna have to take you grocery shopping when we get back.”
“Get back?” he asked. “I don’t think this adventure has a happy ending for me,” Bastian confessed. “I’m still the bad guy, remember?”
“You are who you choose to be.”
“Is that what you really believe?” he asked, his dark eyes were a stormy sea of sadness and anger. “Only days ago you were sent to hunt me down so the Guardians could ‘take care of me’—an evil being. You believed the lies they fed you. How can you be on my side now? What? Did my scars win you over or was it my charming personality?”
“Stop it!” I frowned at him and shook my head. “I could have left. The moment you let me out of those chains and abandoned me for hours, I could have left you. I could have lived a lie, protecting myself and turning you in. I’m not only putting my life at risk here, but if the Guardians are as dangerous as you say, I’m putting my father and everyone I love at risk as well. I’m doing this for my mother… and for you, Bastian. I don’t know your pain. I won’t dare claim to, but I see it. I see it in your eyes—not your scars—I see the pain you carry with you. So don’t you dare question my motives again. Not when I am risking so much for you.”
Bastian squeezed his hands into fists, breathing deeply. His words came out in barely a whisper. “Maybe you shouldn’t!”
His skin shined brightly the way I had become accustomed to. I reached over, patted his shoulder. “I’m sorry I upset you. Just breathe, okay?”
He nodded. For several moments, we just breathed in and out together. I patted his shoulder gently, hoping my touch would help soothe him. After a short bit, his skin paled and he began to sip his hot chocolate.
“Everything all right in here?” My father stood in the doorway, eyeing us both curiously. How long had he been standing there?
I picked up my hot chocolate and took a quick sip. It had cooled to the perfect temperature. “Everything’s fine, Papa. But we should really get going soon.”
He nodded and stepped toward the kitchen sink to begin cleaning up. I stood next to him and helped clean up the mess I’d made with the hot chocolate.
Bastian stood from the kitchen table. “I’m going to step outside for just a moment and get some fresh air.”
I smiled at him. He was giving Papa and me a moment alone. Bastian really seemed to understand the subtleties of being around people. He was sensitive like that.
Once Bastian had gone, my father leaned toward me. “Are you sure this is what you want to do?”
“I have to.” I took the washed dish from him and dried it with a towel before setting it in the rack. “For mother’s sake. You must understand.”
“I do, Bella. But I am afraid. I am afraid you will get hurt.” He stopped a moment, letting the water run over the pot I’d just made the chocolate in.
I shook my head. “I won’t.”
His brow furrowed, and spoke under his breath. “You know what that he’s dangerous.”
“Who?”
His gaze became firm. “Be careful with that evil dragon, please. He may seem kind now, but I’ve heard stories. Horrible stories.” my father shuddered.
As much as it shocked me to realize it, I knew without a doubt that I would be safe with Bastian. I trusted him. “Stories,” I said and dried my hands. I reached into my bag and pulled out a book. “That’s all those are. Words about things that never happened.” I waved the book around. “You only have a chapter, Papa. I have the whole book, and I don’t blame Bastian one bit. I trust him, and you just need to trust me.”
My father grunted, clearly disapproving but knowing there wasn’t much he could do in the matter. He wrapped me in a hug. “Just be safe—extra safe. Okay?”
I nodded, squeezing him hard.
He kissed me on the forehead. And then kept his arm around my shoulders as we walked toward the door. “I’ll drive you to the train station.”
“Thank you, Papa.”
“Ready to go?” Bastian asked, as soon as we stepped out onto the portico.
I smiled and gave him a firm nod. “Let’s go!”
Chapter Twelve
I continued to read to Bastian during the trip, until he raised his hand to stop me mid-sentence.
“Yes?” I looked up, eyes wide. “Everything okay?”
“That part about the girl lying to protect her brother, it made me think.”
“Of what?” I glanced around the cabin of the plane we were taking to Austria.
“I overheard you speaking with your father before we left.”
My jaw dropped. At a loss for words, I tried to think of something to adequately apologize for my father’s ignorance.
“You don’t have to say anything or even answer my question,” Bastian continued, “But I was just wondering, when you told your father that you trusted me… was that to protect him? So he wouldn’t worry? I mean, you truly have no reason to. To trust me, that is.”
I shook my head. “Why does it matter if I trust you or not?”
Clenching his fists, he shrugged. "I guess it doesn't."
"That's not what I meant." I shook my head and tried to rest my hand on his.
He pulled away. "It doesn't matter. It's fine. I was just—"
"Just wondering, I know."
On the arms of the seat in the first class section of the plane where we sat, Bastian's hands were trembling, and that familiar shine appearing on his skin. I reached over, placed my hand on top of his. This time, he didn’t pull away.
"I trust you," I whispered, and rested my head on his shoulder for a moment, pulling his arm toward me to hold him—as if I could help him hold in his dragon. The contact seemed to work and Bastian calmed down. When he took a deep breath and the tension in his arm had relaxed, I released him and continued reading the story aloud.
The trip dragged on and it felt like it was longer than the trip getting to Italy in the first place. As night approached, I wrapped a blanket around me and fell asleep. Bastian had already drifted to sleep before the end of the new novel I was reading. I had to finish the book before I could fall asleep, though, so I continued to read long after I heard a soft snore coming from beside me.
In the middle of a peaceful dream, I was awoken by the shaking of my own body. My eyes flew open, and I looked around the plane.
"What's happening?" I mumbled.
"It's that awful, annoying turbulence stuff again," Bastian explained with a frown
I laughed. "How are you holding up?"
"Better this time." He held up the book. "I've been trying to read through it on my own. Some of the words I memorized from when you read it. Some are coming back to me."
I smiled proudly. "That's so good!"
Literature was such a focal point of my life, I couldn't imagine living without it. Though for a reason I couldn't quite understand, it warmed my heart to see Bastian reading and the pride in his eyes. Since I met him, he was either angry or snapping at me, or there were moments when he seemed broken and scared, ashamed of who he was. Doubting himself. But in these few days together, I watched him grow more confident, and I knew without a doubt that he could control the dragon within. Just as
I controlled my tiger form, he could make use of the same skillsets I possessed. It never once crossed my mind that he would shift in the middle of the plane or intentionally cause my harm. I believed in Bastian, even though no one else did, not even himself.
I couldn’t help but notice the affect I had on him, and it left me bewildered on how to feel. Sometimes, I felt powerful—I was taming what was believed to be a wild beast. Other times, I felt guilty for feeling this way. He would behave this way with anybody; it was mostly the breathing and grounding techniques that kept him from shifting… It wasn’t about me. And then, I wondered why it even mattered to begin with. I was not here only for him. I was now here for my mother and making sure the Guardians would pay for their crimes.
Soon, Bastian was reading aloud to me. He stumbled over a few words, but I’d gently sound them out with him. He’d blush each time, his jaw tightening, but I’d pat his back supportively.
It was a terribly early hour when they arrived at the airport of Salzburg. My eyes were heavy, and my body exhausted. I smiled gently at Bastian as we walked through the airport, hand in hand; squeezing his hand anytime there seemed to be too many people. I just worked to keep him calm. “We’re almost to the exit.”
He grunted, but I could see he was breathing deeply, doing everything he could to control his fears.
I wondered if it wasn’t just the fear of crowds bothering Bastian. We were getting closer to the place where he was held captive. Closer to his childhood home and his abusive past. This kind of stuff would be hard on anyone.
We made our way through the airport’s exit and out into the cold, morning air biting at my skin. A breeze blew through, whipping a few lone strands of my hair in my face. Pushing the strands away, I called for a cab.
“Dad booked us a hotel a few blocks away. Separate rooms, of course.”
“Of course,” Bastian muttered. “Can’t leave your daughter with an evil dragon.”
“Hey! That’s my dad you’re talking about. Besides, I’m pretty sure even if you weren’t a dragon-shifter, he wouldn’t be too thrilled about his teenage daughter sharing a room with some boy.”
“Fair enough,” Bastian said with a curt nod.
“It’s not his fault he was taught to believe dragons are evil. Nor was it mine.”
“You’re different, though, Belle. You question everything.”
I sighed. “Clearly I don’t question enough, or I wouldn’t have agreed to the Guardian’s assignment for me.”
“You didn’t have a choice,” Bastian responded. “If you said no, I’m sure they would have found a way to make you do it. They always do.”
My stomach flipped nervously as we got into the cab. It still upset me to think that the Guardians had a hand in my mother’s disappearance—a group of people I was raised to trust. How could they do this? What else were they doing?
I didn’t want to think about it, so instead I started going over their agenda. “I suggest we track down some of the people on that list of yours. We can start from the top and work our way down. Once we get settled in our rooms and grab a bite to eat, we can start researching online, asking around the city, and such.”
Bastian’s eyes grew wide with each task I listed off. “Are you sure we’ll find anyone? This isn’t just a matter of knocking on a few doors.”
“Don’t worry!” I winked. “We’ll figure this out. If we could get all the way here without the Guardians tracking us down, we can do anything.”
I felt a sense of unease as I realized that perhaps the Guardians had realized I was missing and I wondered how long my father would remain silent. I had begged him to not reach out to the school, and I saw in his eyes the desperation to find out what happened to their mother, a mystery that has plagued both of us for years.
*
I paced in my hotel room. I had taken a quick shower, rushing to return to Bastian. Though I trusted him, I was nervous about leaving him alone for so long. However, when I returned to knock on his door, he didn’t answer. I stood outside for five more minutes until I told myself that unlike me, he probably wasn’t in a rush, and still might be freshening up from the long trip. Biting back the urge to knock louder, I walked back to my room and waited. For an hour.
Why hadn’t he come to get me? We were supposed to meet up as soon as we were done getting ready. Had he left without me? Had he run off? Frustrated and positive that he had fled, I flung open my door only to see him standing in front of it, hand in air.
“Oh,” I said.
“I was just about to knock,” he explained.
“I was just about to come find you.” I let out a deep breath. Why was I overreacting so much? Everything was fine.
“I brought my laptop. I figure we can look for Benjamin Wallace. He’s the first on the list.”
I nodded and we got started with our search. After a half-hour of looking, we found the first address on the list, but it was a one person job, so Bastian left me on my own to read the novel again. It was another hour before I tracked down several more addresses and wrote them on the sheet of paper and then looked up. Bastian had been laying across my bed, his nose in the book. I smiled at him while he wasn’t looking at me. His dark hair was a little longish and had a bit of a wave to it. His slim body was almost entirely muscle, and he was tall enough that his feet hung off the end of the bed.
“Found it.” I stood and waved the piece of paper in the air like a victory flag.
He smiled, closed the book and then stretched out further on the bed, his dark sweater riding up a little and showing his tight abs.
I turned around quickly and looked away, feeling the blood rush to my face. Then I grabbed my sweater and looked in the mirror. I quickly threw my hair back in a ponytail and applied a dab of rose oil to my wrists.
When Bastian came up beside me, I found him taking a deep breath over me as if pulling in my scent. A blush rose up to my cheeks again, and I suddenly felt aware of his closeness. I stepped to the side and started for the door without looking back. My teenage hormones were starting to get the best of me, and I just needed to put some distance between us for the moment. “Ready to go?”
“Absolutely,” he said in his deep baritone, resting a hand on the small of my back while he guided me through the door.
A shiver went through my body at his touch. I swallowed. If this kept up, I was going to be in big trouble.
Chapter Thirteen
The house for Benjamin Wallace looked almost abandoned. I paused outside, debating whether to even try knocking on the door. Overgrown weeds covered the yard, and one of the windows had boards across it. Still, I stepped up to the door and said, mostly to myself. “We came this far. May as well try it.”
After walking up to the door, I rang the bell. We waited for several moments, and I debated ringing again. Just as I was about to walk away with Bastian, it opened.
“Who are you?” a shadow asked from just beyond a crack in the door. “What do you want?”
I tilted my head, peering at the shadow. “Mrs. Wallace?”
“What’s it to you?”
Shocked by the woman’s harsh tone, I opened my mouth but no words came out.
Coming to my rescue, Bastian stepped forward, “We are here to ask you a few questions about your husband,” he stated in a matter-of-fact tone.
Her eyes narrowed. “Are you the cops again?”
“What?” I shook my head. “No!”
“Why do you wanna know about Benji then?”
“Please. We’ve come a long way,” I said urgently. “We’ve just a few questions for him.”
“For him?” the lady snapped. “Benji’s been missing for years. He may as well be dead. Now, please, will you leave a poor widow be!”
With that, the lady slammed the door. Fear coursed through my veins. I wondered if this was all we’d find—empty houses and broken hearts. How could anyone do this? I wanted to call out to the poor lady, explaining that I understood her pain. I lost my mother t
o these monsters, too. I knew it’d do no good though, so I spun around and remained silent as we headed to our next stop.
House after house, we soon found out that everyone on the list was indeed missing. Some houses were empty, phone numbers didn’t work, or the neighbors verified them as missing persons.
Exhausted and afraid this trip had been for naught, I collapsed on my bed when we returned to the hotel, telling Bastian I needed to be alone to gather my thoughts. Before I knew it, darkness consumed me, but all through the night I kept waking from a nightmare that Bastian had shifted in the middle of the night, tearing apart the building with his large, reptilian body. His wings alone were bigger than the entire hotel. It would frighten and destroy all of Austria if he lost control. My heart raced and my stomach twisted at the thought. I needed to trust him. He was fine. I breathed and thought about his dark blue eyes and the way he looked at me when I told him just that—I trust you. He would keep it together. I just needed to believe in him. With those thoughts warming my heart, I fell back to sleep.
The next morning, I knocked on Bastian’s door with coffee and bagels from the hotel lobby’s continental breakfast. When he opened the door, I found him in sweatpants, shirtless, with the novel in his hands. Had he already been up and reading? My heart fluttered when he pushed his longish bangs out of his face and smiled at me.
Heat rushed to my face and I looked down only to be treated by his washboard abs. Averting my eyes to the side, I pushed the bag of bagels toward him. “I figured we could use some sustenance.”
“I couldn’t agree more.” He took the bag from me and walked into his room, leaving the door open for me to follow.
I took a deep breath and followed him in. He set the bag and the novel on the table in his room and then grabbed a shirt and pulled it over his head to cover up. A flicker of disappointment ran through me. Ugh. Hormones again. I really needed to do something about them. I took a deep breath and smiled up at him. He smiled at me again, his dimple flashing. Then I couldn’t stop thinking about how adorable he’d be if he smiled more often.
Belle the Beast Tamer Page 7
