Darkbeam Part II

by Adrienne Woods

  “I don’t know,” Sammy whispered. “By the look on Dad’s face, it could only mean one person.”

  “Who?”

  But I didn’t need to hear Sammy’s answer to know she was wrong. It’s not him.

  It’s his spawn.

  “I can’t explain it to you any other way, Robert. It was the exact same feeling. I felt something, and then it vanished. The only foretelling I ever received that was linked to them was so vague and I walked around with a headache the entire week. I could feel something, it just didn’t happen.”

  “Irene, is he still alive?”

  I gasped.

  “You know that answer. Caleb confirmed it a long time ago. Stop hoping.”

  “Then tell me what you saw.”

  “Nothing. I didn’t see a single thing, and that scares me more than anything in this world,” she spat. It was about damn time that she got angry.

  “I’m sorry, Robert. I’m of no use. Goodnight, everyone, and I am truly sorry.”

  I watched her leave. I couldn’t let her be alone tonight, not when she was going through something like this.

  I followed her, not giving another thought to anyone in the room.

  Irene needed me tonight, just like I had needed her on countless occasions. It was time to return the favor.

  She spent most of the night crying and talking about her sight, rubbing her head to get rid of her pounding ache.

  White-hot rage burned inside me, and I wished I could take it out on Elena since she was the reason for Irene’s turmoil.

  Irene used to get headaches whenever she glimpsed King Albert’s or Queen Catherine’s futures. Now she was experiencing the same with Elena.

  It was only a matter of time before I disappeared from her visions as well.

  Fucking Elena.

  She shouldn’t be here. The beast stirred inside me, urging me to get rid of her, to kill her.

  She would never be worthy to claim me.

  She made me sick, physically and mentally.

  “Your father is going to kill me if he finds you here,” Irene murmured.

  “Don’t worry about my father. I’m twenty-one. He can’t do shit.”

  She blew out a breath and wiped a tear from her cheek. “Don’t say that, Blake.”

  “I’m the Rubicon, Irene, not some stupid dragon.”

  She smiled and I kissed her on the tip of her nose. “Don’t worry. I’ll deal with him.”

  “You don’t mean that. I’ll lose my job at Dragonia. Well, I’m sure after this, Master Longwei will fire me anyway.” She got up and sat on the edge of the bed.

  I peppered kisses on her creamy white shoulder. “He would be seriously stupid if he did that.”

  She chuckled but then she sighed slowly.

  “You really saw nothing?”

  She looked at me over her shoulder. “Blake, I swear. If I saw something I would’ve told you. I forgot what it felt like not to be able to see anything.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It was exactly like when I tried to look into King Albert’s future. The times I managed to get a glimpse, I thought my head was going to explode.”

  Don’t say anything, Blake, keep your mouth shut.

  “But how, Irene? He’s dead.”

  “I know, but somehow, he’s protecting that Hippogriff, Blake.”

  I didn’t like lying to her, but I would die with my secret. Irene could not know that Elena was the one blocking her, and that somehow the Hippogriff was connected to Elena. Her intent.

  It only made the hatred inside me grow.

  “Hey.” Irene touched my chin. “What’s going through that mind of yours?”

  I shook my head. “Just thinking of what could block you like that.” I kissed her hand. “I don’t like it.”

  “It’s bound to happen. I’m not saying it’s linked to King Albert, but it’s something as powerful and good as he was.”

  “You think it might be Goran?”

  “No, believe me. Goran is not good. I still see him from time to time. Not even the creepers could block me.”

  “What is he doing?”

  “He’s plotting. But I haven’t seen anything like this. I don’t think he’s attached to the Hippogriff.”

  “So, the Hippogriff isn’t evil?”

  “I don’t know, Blake. All I know is she’s powerful. I think you’re right. She’s trying to finish what Goran started. He doesn’t want brave Dragonians and dragons on this side when he escapes. You need to be careful.” She leaned into me and I wrapped my arm around her.

  “He won’t kill me, Irene. He wants me to join him.”

  “But he will kill everyone you love to break you.”

  I knew that and I didn’t like it, but I still had to keep my secret hidden.

  To me, Elena meant enslavement. And no way in hell was I going to be anyone’s slave. No matter what George said about the Dent, he could never sell me on it. The guy was walking, talking proof that the Dent was nothing more than bondage.

  I woke up in the middle of the night to Irene talking in her sleep.

  I was about to wake her when it dawned on me that she wasn’t simply talking in her sleep—she was making a foretelling. Unfortunately, I didn’t hear the entire thing, but she mentioned a dangerous stranger that was set in his ways. One that would destroy Paegeia. Her final warning was to be cautious.

  She wrenched awake, coughing uncontrollably, her body shaking violently.

  I leaped of bed to get her a glass of water, and she gulped it down in to large swallows.

  Her breath came out in harsh pants, her face pale, a frown marring her gorgeous face. Her eyes were frozen and focused. She barely blinked, barely registered that I was in the room.

  “Irene.” I brushed my fingers over her arm. Her skin was like ice.

  My touch startled her and she jumped, gasping. She turned her gaze toward me, her face crumpling as a sob tore through her.

  I gathered her into my arms and pressed my lips to her hair.

  “You must find the stranger, Blake.”

  “Of course, but how? How will I know who it is?”

  She described a sweet smell, exactly like the scent I had chased through the woods and to the edge of the cliff. The Hippogriff.

  Danger was still around us.

  “I must call Master Longwei. I need to tell him of the danger. None of you are safe, Blake. It’s after all of you.”

  It wasn’t, but I couldn’t tell her that.

  It was only after Elena.

  Goran knew who she was the minute he saw her, just like I had, and he wanted to kill her, because she was a threat to his plans.

  I waited until Irene had drifted back to sleep before I left. The sky was starting to lighten when I landed back at my house and snuck inside, my stomach churning the second I’d landed.

  I hated that Elena still had this effect over me.

  The beast filled my head with murderous thoughts.

  He wanted her gone, dead, erased, so he could be free to do what he wanted and needed without consequences.

  And all that stood in the beast’s way was me and Elena.

  I crashed down onto my bed, exhausted from the events of the day—and night—but I tossed and turned, unable to fall asleep.

  Irene’s unconscious warning kept playing over and over in my mind.

  The Hippogriff—the stranger, as Irene had called her—was dangerous. She was doing Goran’s work.

  There was no way to know what form she would take to attack us. And how would she get close to us?

  I punched my pillow in frustration. Nothing made any fucking sense.

  My father was like a bear with a sore tooth the next day, and we all made sure to keep our distance. He had to stand in front of the council and replay the events of the previous day, the Hippogriff’s feather his only evidence.

  They’d tried to force me to go as well, but I had better things to do than prove my innocence in what had gone do
wn at the Warbel game. It didn’t matter to the council that my family and I were the ones trying to protect everyone. Whenever anyone went in front of the council, it felt like you had to defend yourself, no matter if your actions were pure and for the benefit of those around you.

  Rather my father than me.

  Lucian was coming home today. I hoped that meant he’d be taking Elena off our hands, so I could at least breathe with ease in my own home, but I knew there was a slim chance of that happening. King Helmut and Queen Margerite weren’t exactly fond of Elena.

  And I knew that because I had to endure hearing about Elena every damn time I turned on the radio.

  If the radio hosts weren’t blabbering on about her relationship with Lucian, they were discussing her part in the King of Lion mission.

  Everyone wanted to know who she was and where she had come from.

  Their fascination with her made me nervous. I was terrified someone would see the resemblance between King Albert and Elena. Especially once they got a good look at her eyes. Elena and King Albert’s eyes were exactly the same.

  I rubbed a hand over my face and switched the radio off when the presenter mentioned Elena Watkins again. The dragon spawn.

  I loathed it when they called her that. I was the only one who had the right to call her that.

  The conflicting feelings roiling around inside me weirded me out. A part of me wanted to defend her at every turn, but another part wanted to rip her head off.

  “It’s just words, Blake,” my mother said, squeezing my shoulder.

  “It’s not like I care, Mom. I’m just tired of hearing the same damn conversation on every radio station.”

  “I know. And I’m sure once the revealing of the King of Lion at the museum is over, the fuss will be too. By the way, your father said you have to go.”

  I shook my head, my breath coming out of my nose in a huff. Sometimes I wish I could remind her what a loser he used to be, but I’d paid with my soul for that to disappear. I paid for him to be the man he had once been, even though that man had died a long time ago.

  It irked me that he became such a fucking loser, and that he got off easy. But my mother deserved better than what he had put my family through with his drinking and gambling, and she’d made it clear that she would never divorce him.

  She loved him too much to give up on him like that.

  So, it had been up to me to fix it for her.

  “Blake, you have to be there.”

  “Fine, I’ll try to make an appearance.” I got up and left the kitchen. I didn’t want to be there when Elena came down to get breakfast.

  I slammed my bedroom door and pulled out my Cammy to call Isaac.

  I needed to get away from Elena. And I could use our new album as an excuse to get out of my house.

  “So I take it that you have to go, since you were the one to save princess and all,” Isaac said.

  I laughed. He thought dating Lucian was the closest she got to the title. Only I knew how true his joke was.

  By keeping it to myself, I was practically giving Paegeia away, and I knew it was wrong. But whenever I thought about Elena and I together… I couldn’t even fathom the idea of us as a couple.

  When that day came, I wouldn’t be me anymore. I’d be her puppet, her slave. A lost little puppy dog obeying her every command.

  Sometimes, that life sounded worse than belonging to Goran. At least I’d want to be with Goran. I’d choose him, because by then, it would be too late for me anyway.

  But it would still be my choice.

  I strummed the guitar and tuned it in a bit more.

  “You are going, right?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll think about it.”

  “Dammit, Blake. You have all these opportunities and perks, yet you just throw them away like they’re nothing.”

  “Believe me, it’s not a perk, Isaac. That room is going to be filled with hypocrites and snobs. Not my scene.”

  “Fine, let me take your place. I want to meet this Elena, the girl with nine lives.”

  “Yeah, well, we’ll see if she really has nine lives,” I joked as I set the guitar aside and stood up.

  I said my goodbyes and went outside, where I shifted and took to the air, heading back home.

  I couldn’t believe I was being forced to go to a stupid revealing.

  There was nothing they could say that would bring Brian back, or make our experience of that night any less terrifying.

  None of us were supposed to be alive, but we were. I didn’t know whether we owed our lives to Elena because of her blood, or to Brian because of his sacrifice. Either way, it didn’t justify anything.

  I had almost given everything away when Lucian had presented the new King of Lion axes to his father and the council.

  He’d told them that the axes belonged to Queen Catherine and that King Albert’s blood must have come in contact with the axes at some point.

  Master Longwei had watched me with a hawk’s eye. He was just waiting for one slip.

  They’d asked me about it, and I told them that whether it was special blood or not, those axes had been blessed in some way by King Albert, and that was why they were like the sword. I said they should stop trying to figure out what it was, and be glad that we had a new King of Lion weapon.

  As I flew, I mulled over the conflict within my mind.

  I wanted to win my darkness, but not on the path before me. I wanted to stay as far away as I could from Elena, but the more I did, the more I was giving myself away with who she truly was. What she was to me. I knew that no matter how hard I fought to skip the revealing, I had to be there, had to play the part of the miserable Rubicon that had no way out, no hope for the future, or I’d end up losing my freedom altogether.

  I decided not to go to the revealing.

  “Blake,” my father scolded. “You are the Rubicon. You have to speak in honor of your friend.”

  “I don’t have to do anything. Just the mere fact that everyone is making such a huge fuss about this is against everything Brian believed in, Dad. This isn’t honoring him. I’ll honor him the way he’d want to be honored.”

  “And how is that? By getting drunk and who knows what else?”

  “That’s the dragon he used to be.”

  “Fine. Do whatever you want, because that is exactly where this is going to end. You always end up shaming this family, Blake, and I am sick and tired of it.”

  I started to laugh, loud and derisively. I had to bite my tongue to stop myself from telling him how he had shamed our family. “Believe what you want. You’ve never been on my side anyway.”

  “Don’t give me that shit!” It looked like he wanted to say more, but I wasn’t going to stick around and listen to his bullshit.

  I didn’t care what he told everyone, but I wasn’t going near that revealing.

  I ended up back at Isaac’s where a few of Brian’s other friends had gathered. We cracked open a couple of beers and spent the afternoon drinking and speaking in the third person—the way Brian always had.

  As night fell, I grew restless, and my mind became clouded. I knew I would end up chasing after Elena again. It had become something of a drunken habit.

  I grabbed my tux out of my backpack—a part of me had known I’d end up going to the revealing—and put it on, foregoing the tie, and got my drunk ass to Elm.

  They were already busy with speeches, though I didn’t hear a word.

  I found Elena leaning against the wall on the left side of the room, and I stalked through the crowd.

  I stopped when I was right behind her, and a small smile played on my face when I realized she had no idea I was here.

  My eyes played over the bare skin her skirt revealed. Her scent drifted to my nose. She smelled like summer. I inhaled deeply, wanting to capture the scent and bury it in my soul.

  When I wasn’t myself, Elena was the most stunning person I had ever seen. Right now I didn’t care that I’d have to give up my freedom
to be with her.

  She was an angel. My angel.

  Arianna was babbling about something, but I was only half-listening. This whole thing was ridiculous. Arianna was such a dumb, fake bitch.

  As if to prove my point, she produced some fake tears. I knew they were fake because her high and mighty self would never cry over a dragon. She didn’t have it in her, didn’t have the heart to possess that kind of love.

  Her little display managed to melt everyone’s heart, which—though I loathed to admit it—was something Arianna had in common with me. We could charm a crowd with just a smile or a wink.

  She bent toward Brian’s parents. “I wish with all my heart that Brian hadn’t passed. I would’ve gladly taken his place.”

  I snorted. Please.

  But the crowd, and Brian’s parents, soaked it up. These people actually believed her.

  My eyes wandered back to Elena in front of me.

  She must be hiding from Lucian.

  It didn’t say much about their relationship. Maybe tonight she would hear me out. Truly listen to what I had to say to her.

  More people stepped up to speak about Brian’s bravery and how King Albert had always believed that the Chromatics were just as brave and majestic as the Metallics. Brian had proved it.

  They spoke about a bunch of boring stuff I had no interest in. So, I listened to the soft beating of Elena’s heart instead.

  She hated the limelight, the exact opposite of her parents. But then again, she had no idea they were her parents.

  They revealed the wax figure that would serve as a reminder of the King of Lion mission, and I had to cover my mouth with my hand to keep my laughter from bubbling out.

  They’d replicated Brian’s dragon form. Brian, who was not the type of dragon who wanted praise. They’d chosen the wrong person to use as a mascot.

  But everyone else seemed to think it was just perfect.

  I suddenly felt obligated to say something.

  “I’ve changed my mind,” I spoke loudly.

  Elena turned around, her eyes wide.

  I flashed her a grin. “Don’t go anywhere,” I murmured.

  I pushed through the crowd. I could hear them whispering and muttering about how intoxicated I was and what a shame I had to be for my family.