The Dragon Realm (Dark World: The Dragon Twins Book 2)

by Michelle Madow

  The Dragon Realm

  Dark World: The Dragon Twins 2

  Michelle Madow

  Dreamscape Publishing

  1

  Gemma

  I stepped inside the Eternal Library, spun around, and stared at the door.

  Come on, Ethan. I could barely breathe as I waited for him to come through. Time felt like it stood still.

  There were five more demons in that room that we hadn’t killed.

  Had they gotten to him? Stopped him from leaving? Or worse?

  Had he decided to stay back and kill them all himself? He’d been so angry. And after what he’d learned about Lavinia killing his dad, I nearly slapped myself for not considering the possibility that he might stay back for revenge.

  You’ll be right behind me? I remembered the words I’d spoken to him only seconds earlier.

  Always.

  I hadn’t questioned his response.

  Because I trusted Ethan with all of my soul. The Ethan in this reality… the Ethan in my dreams… he was the same. I’d felt it when I’d kissed him.

  Finally, when I was seconds away from putting my key back in the lock and returning to that room, Ethan hurried out of the door.

  I rushed into his arms and buried my face in his chest, inhaling his familiar, earthy scent. His arms tightened around me, warm after using his fire magic.

  “What took you so long?” I asked after pulling away.

  “It’s only been a few seconds.”

  “Oh.” It felt like it had been so much longer.

  I stood there, speechless, my eyes locked on his hazel ones. Then, my focus drifted down to his lips.

  The lips I’d kissed.

  His breathing shallowed, as if he was thinking about the kiss, too.

  “That wasn’t the first time,” he said slowly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “We’ve kissed before. I don’t know how to explain it, but I remember it. Kind of. It’s hazy, like a dream…” He shook his head and looked off to the side, then snapped his focus back to me. “I probably sound crazy.”

  “No,” I said quickly. “You don’t.”

  “Did you feel it, too?”

  I swallowed, since where could I possibly begin? How was I supposed to explain my experience to him, when I didn’t understand it myself?

  “What do you remember?” I asked instead.

  “The two of us, kissing in the cove,” he said, his cheeks flushed. “In the library at school. In the back room in the café. In your room.” His eyes roamed up and down my body, and heat rose to my cheeks, too.

  Because what we’d done together in my room had been far more than kissing.

  “It doesn’t make sense.” He scratched his head. “Unless…”

  “Unless what?”

  “Memory potion.” He dropped his arm back down to his side and stood straighter. “Witches can make memory potion and use it to take away memories and replace them with false ones. Like what they did to Raven.”

  I nodded, since I knew all about what had happened to Raven—both from the textbook on the history of the supernatural world, and from the Queen of Swords herself.

  She’d been taken by a witch and held captive in a prison for weeks. Afterward, she’d been given memory potion to make her forget the supernatural world. Her memories had been replaced, so she’d believed she’d jetted off to Europe and spent all of that time there, instead of being locked in a witch’s prison.

  Which would mean…

  “You think your time with Mira wasn’t real?” As I said it, I wished it were true.

  I was a terrible sister.

  “I don’t know.” He shrugged. “They feel real. More real than what I remember with you.”

  His words sent a sharp pain through my chest.

  “What else do you remember with me?” I held my breath again, wishing for the impossible.

  Wishing for him to remember all of it.

  “No more than I just told you,” he said. “And the memories are already fading. But maybe Hecate knows what’s going on.” He looked around the Library’s ivory hall, but I’d already checked—Hecate wasn’t there.

  I’d been to the Eternal Library enough times by now to realize that Hecate usually wasn’t there. It was like she was teasing us. Because the library contained endless knowledge, but only when she saw it fit to provide it to us.

  “I’m sorry.” Guilt filled me deep to the core as I thought about how I’d rushed up to him and kissed him. “I shouldn’t have done it. I just didn’t know what else to do…” I flashed back to Ethan standing there, staring at Jamie’s corpse—at where he’d driven the dagger into her heart. He’d been lost in his mind, oblivious to the demons prowling the boundary dome around us. “I needed to bring you back.”

  He looked across the hall, and his grip tightened around the handle of the sword sheathed by his side. “She’s going to pay for what she did,” he said, his voice dark and deadly. “I’m going to carve out Lavinia’s heart and make sure she’s awake to feel every excruciating moment of it.”

  I wished so badly that I could take his pain away. Instead, I swallowed, unsure what to say.

  “I’m the ruler of my people now—no matter how few are left of us.” He still wasn’t looking at me. It was like he was talking to himself, figuring out his thoughts aloud. So, despite my multitude of questions, I did what I thought he needed, and waited silently for him to continue. “I need to go to them. I need to free them. And then, we’ll attack the demons. Rip them apart until there’s not a single one of them left. They’re going to beg for mercy, and they’ll curse the day that they thought they could get away with bringing the dragons into this war.”

  He spun back around, and I flinched at the vengeful glint in his eyes.

  Then he shook it off and was back to the warm, caring Ethan I knew and loved. “But first, we need to get back to the Ward.”

  I nodded and reached for my key.

  The longer we stayed here, the more I feared that Ethan might want answers so badly that I’d lose him to the Library’s endless halls.

  “And Gemma?” he said, and I froze, waiting for him to continue. “Promise me something.”

  “Anything.”

  “Don’t tell Mira. If she finds out, it’ll break her.”

  “I know,” I said, since while my twin was strong, she had one major weakness.

  Ethan.

  And I was going to make sure she never found out that he was my biggest weakness, too.

  2

  Gemma

  I stepped through the library door first, and emerged in the guest common room of the Ward.

  As we’d discussed, Mira and Makena were waiting for us there. Mira paced around, running her fingers down a strand of her short blond hair. Makena sat at the head of the table, perfectly still.

  Mira stopped walking, and her wide blue eyes met mine.

  Guilt washed over me again. My chest hurt—it was like someone had taken a belt, wrapped it around my ribcage, and kept tightening it until I was going to explode.

  I’d never be able to look at my twin the same way again. And if she knew about me and Ethan…

  She’d hate me.

  I wished I didn’t think it possible that my twin could ever hate me. But she’d become so obsessed with Ethan that it was like she loved him more than me.

  I didn’t have much time to continue spiraling in my downward thoughts, because Ethan entered the room a few seconds after me.

  Mira’s eyes lit up, and she ran into his arms.

  He hugged her back, but his eyes were blank, as if h
e felt nothing.

  Finally, after a few painful seconds of watching the two of them together, Mira pulled away and looked up at Ethan. “Harper?” she asked, and she glanced to me, waiting for one of us to answer.

  I shook my head no, unable to say it out loud.

  Harper’s dead.

  I couldn’t save her.

  We left her behind.

  But Harper had already stopped breathing when we’d left her. And she’d chosen to fight those demons, even though we had a clear path to the door.

  Still, I should have reacted faster to help her. If I had, maybe she’d be here.

  “Let’s sit down.” Ethan led Mira to the table, and they sat side by side.

  I sat across from Ethan and stared down at my hands, unable to look at him. If I did, I was sure my sister would see my love for him splattered across my face.

  Makena cleared her throat. “Explain what happened,” she said.

  Ethan took the lead, telling them everything that had happened from the moment we’d been dropped off in Lilith’s lair.

  “I’m sorry to hear about your father,” Makena said once he was finished. “From what I’ve heard, he was an excellent king.”

  Ethan nodded. “His footsteps will be impossible to fill.”

  “It will be difficult,” Makena said. “But every leader brings his or her people in a new direction. I have confidence that you’ll make your father proud.”

  “I’ll have to, eventually,” he said. “But the Elders lead our people—my people—whenever my father’s gone. And he was gone more than he was there, so he could be here on Earth looking after me and my sister. We were always his priority.” He looked to Mira, and then to me. “Because my job is to look after the two of you. And the two of you are my people’s priority.”

  “They believe we’re destined to save them,” I said, remembering what he’d told us after we’d received our magic. Then I remembered what Isobel—the dark witch being held captive in the Ward—had told us before we’d left. “The dragons in Ember are slaves. And they think we can free them.”

  “Which is why the two of you are a priority,” Ethan said. “By keeping you alive, I’m ensuring the freedom of my people.”

  My first instinct was to say that Mira and I weren’t strong enough to save a realm of enslaved dragons. But I pressed my lips together, keeping the thought to myself.

  Because right now, Ethan needed something to believe in. He needed a purpose.

  That purpose was me and Mira.

  I stole a glance at him, surprised to find he was looking straight at me.

  I looked away as quickly as possible.

  Luckily, Mira was focused on the door we’d both came in through.

  “Why did Harper do it?” she asked. “The two of you were holding off the demons with your magic. You gave her a straight path out of there. She knew you could hold them back long enough to follow after her. So why’d she fight them?”

  “Harper was angry.” Makena’s voice was hard and firm. “Lilith’s dark army destroyed her home and killed nearly everyone she knew. Harper was also an extremely strong witch—not just for someone her age, but for any witch. It made her arrogant. Anger and arrogance don’t mesh together well.”

  “Don’t talk about her that way,” I snapped.

  Makena barely reacted. “I’m simply answering your sister’s question.”

  I glared at her in response.

  Everyone in the Ward was so cold and unfeeling. I couldn’t wait to get out of there.

  “Harper was right to be angry,” Ethan said, and from the steady way he spoke, I could tell it was taking him every effort to contain his anger, too. “But Makena’s right. Harper was impulsive, and it got her killed. I won’t let either of you make that same mistake.”

  “We won’t,” Mira said quickly. “Especially because we have no reason to go back there.”

  “I don’t just mean there,” Ethan said. “I mean anywhere. Lilith might not be able to track you through your magic anymore, but she’s still after you. You won’t be safe until she’s dead.”

  “But only a Nephilim can kill a greater demon,” Mira said. “We literally can’t kill her. And neither can you.”

  “We might not be able to make the killing blow,” Ethan said. “But there are other ways we can help.”

  “Such as what?”

  “Firstly, by freeing the dragons in Ember,” he said. “But more immediately, by going to the Eternal Library and asking Hecate.”

  Makena looked unsurprised by Ethan’s statement.

  It was like she hadn’t heard him at all.

  “Now that no one can track you when you use your dragon magic, your time is best spent practicing in the Haven,” she said. “The three of you are too powerful to spend your time with your noses stuck in books. There are plenty of other supernaturals who have that task covered.”

  So, she didn’t have a key.

  The keys were spelled so that whenever someone with a key mentioned the secrets of the Library to someone without a key, the person without a key forgot immediately—or, in Makena’s case, thought they’d heard something else.

  She seemed to think that Ethan wanted us to search for information in various supernatural libraries, instead of getting information from Hecate in her Eternal Library.

  “Don’t worry,” Ethan said. “We’ll be practicing.”

  She nodded in approval.

  “Thank you for letting us stay here these past few days,” I added, in an attempt to change the subject.

  “It was the least I could do to thank you for bringing us a witch from Lilith’s army,” Makena said.

  I looked down at my hands.

  Because Harper had been the one to bring Isobel to the Ward. Makena should have been thanking Harper—not us.

  Ethan stood up. “It’s best we be on our way,” he said, and then he turned to me and Mira. “There’s someone in the Haven who’s going to be very happy to see you.”

  “Mom.” I smiled, although it vanished a second later.

  Because Mom would ask why Harper wasn’t with us.

  Telling her about what had happened would be like re-living it all over again.

  “Is there anything I can get you before you teleport out?” Makena asked.

  “No,” I said, not bothering to say that we weren’t strong enough witches to teleport—that we’d be using our keys. She’d simply forget a second later and return to her belief that we’d be teleporting away. “We’re good.”

  And then, one by one, the three of us used our keys to step through the common room door and into the Eternal Library.

  3

  Gemma

  Hecate wasn’t there.

  Since it hadn’t been long since we’d been in the Library, I shouldn’t have expected anything else. But the keys couldn’t be used to travel directly from one place to another—we always needed to stop in the Library as an in-between. So it didn’t hurt to hope.

  After doing a final look around to make sure Hecate wasn’t hiding behind any bookshelves, we returned to the tearoom in the Haven.

  The guard stationed outside the door sent a fire message to Mary to alert her of our arrival.

  Minutes later, Mary entered the room, with Mom and Raven at her heels.

  “Where’s Harper?” Raven was the first to ask the question.

  “She’s gone,” I said blankly, and then we sat down and told them everything that had happened in that room with the demons.

  Mom was crying by the time we were done. Only a few tears—she quickly wiped them off her cheeks—but I didn’t think I’d ever seen her cry. Parents were supposed to be the strong ones, and Mom had always been stronger than most.

  She’d also always been the one to take care of me and Mira. But now that Mira and I had magic, and Mom still barely had any, we were the ones who needed to protect her.

  The role reversal couldn’t be easy on her.

  “What’s your plan from here?”
Raven asked once they were caught up on what had happened.

  “We’re going to do everything we can to kill Lilith,” Ethan said.

  “So you want to go to Avalon.”

  “I thought Avalon only accepted the strongest supernaturals,” Mom said.

  “Avalon accepts anyone who passes the island’s Trials,” Raven said. “Usually that means the strongest supernaturals and humans—so the humans can train to become Nephilim. But not always. There’s not an exact science behind it. But it doesn’t hurt to try.”

  I glanced at the others, unsure what to say. Because since getting attacked in the cove, all we’d been focused on was learning how to use our magic and figuring out how Lilith was tracking us. We hadn’t thought about where we’d go afterward.

  Where were we supposed to go?

  We wouldn’t fit in at the café in Australia anymore. Going back there and pretending everything was normal would be impossible.

  I’d started to think of Utopia as home—or at least as a place that could eventually be my home—but that had been yanked away when Utopia was destroyed.

  Perhaps Avalon was a good choice.

  But what if all four of us didn’t pass Avalon’s Trials? Then I wouldn’t be able to stay. Because I wouldn’t feel at home without Mom and Mira… and without Ethan.

  Of course, that was assuming I’d pass the Trials. Maybe I’d fail.

  “It’s something to think about,” Ethan finally said. “But first, we have some questions we need answered.”

  “No better place to get questions answered than at Avalon,” Raven said. “We don’t have anyone on the island with dragon magic. I’m sure Annika will be happy to sit down with you and chat.”

  Annika—the only full angel that lived on Earth. They called her the Earth Angel. She was also the Queen of Cups, which meant she could use the Holy Grail to turn humans into Nephilim. And she was the leader of Avalon.

  She was probably even more intimidating than Raven.

  “I thought Annika didn’t know anything about the Dark Objects?” I asked.