“Deal with it Peter, I sure don’t have time for your whining either.” I got up and left the Coliseum.
I found Blake and Tabitha sitting on the steps that led to the big oak door of the Academy. They were in each other’s arms. When I neared, Blake stood up and ran down the steps and came to a stop right in front of me. “Wondered when you were going to show. Running away again?”
“Bite me.” I pushed him away to get past but he blocked me again.
“Say it, Elena.”
I laughed. “You know that’s not how it works, Blake. You carry my gifts.” I spat out the word “my”. “I’m not going to part with that.” I sneered.
“They are mine! I was born with them. You’re just a mere human that can’t even handle these types of powers.”
“Whatever, asshole.” I tried to walk past him again.
“Say it.” He pushed me back once more.
“Let me go, or I’ll make your life a living hell.”
He laughed. Which actually made him look hot.
“And how are you going to do that?”
“Don’t push me Blake.”
“No, seriously Elena, how? You are nothing, you…”
I couldn’t listen to him anymore and I felt a strong jolt running up my arm. I swung at him and an invisible force took him out of my way. He flew into the air and came crashing down hard on the turf.
I had no idea how I’d just done that, but a part of me felt good and a part of me felt bad.
“What is wrong with you?” Tabitha was up in my face.
“You want some of it too?” I yelled back, anger jolting through my core immediately.
She backed away and started running down the steps toward Blake.
“Just like I thought.”
She tried to help Blake up but he pushed her away. He was such a dickhead.
I had to get away from all of this, from the Academy, from the professors and their constant saying, “he will Dent one day”. I was sick and tired waiting for his sorry ass.
I walked out of the castle toward the gate and found Julia taking a smoke break around the corner of the infirmary.
“Who spat in your milk this morning?”
“You really want me to answer that?”
“Is he vicious, huge and an ass?”
I nodded.
“Then no.”
“I need your help, please. I just need to get out for a short while.”
“Elena, I could get fired.”
“I’ll take the blame, please, Julia. Just take me down.”
“Where are you going?”
“I don’t know yet, I’ll be back later this afternoon. I just can’t be here right now. Please. I kept your smoking a secret for who knows how long.”
“Fine, before five you come back, you hear?”
“Promise.”
“Okay.”
She took off her clothes and transformed into her Night Villain form. She looked just as hideous as Sir Robert.
I grabbed her paw and stood on one talon as she flew with me to the forest below.
“Five o’clock, Elena.”
“Yeah, I promise,” I said and jogged down the road, took a tram and went to the port. I took an elevator to Tith and another tram to Longbottoms.
Nobody even recognized me as I hid my face under my hoody. Why would they? To them, I was in Dragonia, away from everything, training to handle my abilities and to be able to tame the mighty Rubicon.
If only they knew the truth; it would be in all the papers by tomorrow morning.
I opened the door of Longbottoms.
“Welcome, table for one?” Monique, the new manager Jimmy had hired, greeted me and gasped as she saw it was me. “Elena, what are you doing here? You are supposed to be at Dragonia.”
“I needed to get away. Blake finally came back and he makes me so furious,” I grunted.
“Come sit.” She led me to the bar and pushed me onto the nearest stool and ran behind the counter. “What happened?”
“He wants me to free him.”
She sucked in some air. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“I thought he was smarter than that.”
“Believe me I really want to.”
She giggled. “Elena, you can’t free him, you must know that.”
“Yeah, I do. He just makes me so furious, that’s all. Sometimes I wish I could bash his head in with something.”
“And then what? He would lose his cool, transform and probably swallow you whole.”
I giggled. “No he wouldn’t because then I would have access to my powers and I might incinerate his ass.”
We both laughed.
I sighed. “It’s so hopeless.”
“It’s not. I know his weakest desire.” Her eyes twinkled.
“What, other than the Snow Dragon?”
She laughed and squinted slightly. “Do I detect some jealousy?”
“Please. She can have the bastard. I just need his stupid dragon.” Which, to be honest, I didn’t because of the promise I made to my father, then why was I pushing this? Did I really want what George and Becky had, even if I knew that it wasn’t real? Or did I want a dragon to not feel like the odd one out? “So, do I need to guess what he wants, or are you going to tell me?”
“The Rubicon has quite a love for something that is extremely expensive, Elena, and you my dear friend can provide him with that certain thing.”
I raised my eyebrow. “Buy him over?”
“Desperate times call for desperate measures.”
I giggled. “I don’t know. To me, nothing I will ever do will win him over.”
“A brand new Ducati might.”
“He does have a thing for Ducatis, doesn’t he?” I remembered the way he’d eyed Lucian’s once.
She nodded.
“It’s probably worth a try. But maybe something less dramatic, than Hey, here is a bike, be my dragon and you’ll have more.”
She laughed. “I really don’t know of anything else that might do the trick. C’mon, what could you lose?”
“He could incinerate it in front of me.”
“He would never do that to a bike.”
“How do you even know this?”
“I used to work at Andy’s Bike Shop for a couple of years and Blake was always in there looking at them.”
I smiled thinking that it might work if Andy’s Bike Shop stopped with a red Ducati at the Academy for him, but it also made me feel sad, that he’d had dreams back then of having one and they just didn’t have the money.
“Elena?” Jimmy came from his office. “I thought I heard your voice. What are you doing here?”
“She had to get away from YOU KNOW WHO and his bad demeanor.” Monique winked at me and I just stared at her sarcastically as I knew exactly what she was implying.
“Is he making life difficult for you?”
“Difficult is an understatement.”
Jimmy chuckled. “I heard the impasse stage is hard on both dragon and rider. He wouldn’t have been the Rubicon if he hadn’t rebelled, Elena.”
I giggled again. “Why me? Of all people why am I the lucky one to have him as my dragon?”
“It’s exactly that reason. You, my dearest princess, are the only one that can bring that dragon down to his knees.”
I burst out laughing the way he’d said it.
“Laugh, you’ll spin another story in a year from now.”
“If it’s that soon.” My tone was sarcastic again.
“So what is this I’m hearing about a Ducati?” He looked at Monique.
“What? It’s a brilliant idea. He loves Ducatis, and Elena has the ability to get him one. Hell, I think if she asks nicely they will actually custom make one just for the brute.”
Jimmy just looked at her with a slight, unbelievable smile and shook his head. “Buying him off?”
“Yeah, it will work, I’m telling you.”
He laughed. “If you say
so, who am I to argue?”
She scrunched up her nose at Jimmy and looked back at me. “It will work, Elena. Trust me.”
I SPENT THE entire day with Jimmy and Monique. We spoke about school, about Warbel and why I wasn’t trying out for it. It wasn’t my type of game, and I doubt that they would let the Princess of Paegeia participate. The staff were amazing too, they were the jolly type and made me laugh so much.
I ate lunch at the bar, which made Jimmy just shake his head, as princesses didn’t eat at bars, but I didn’t give a crap.
Around four, it was time to go back to prison. I was sure that Master Longwei would rip off my head for going AWOL today, but I didn’t care.
Monique gave me a tight hug. “The Ducati will work,” she said and handed me the bag that contained my dinner in a beautiful take away box.
“Yeah, I’ll go think about it. He really doesn’t deserve it you know.”
“Desperate times,” she whispered as we both finished with, “call for desperate measures.”
We laughed. “I know.”
“Bye, Elena.”
“Bye.”
I left and was super grateful that once again nobody noticed me. I jumped as I found Master Longwei in the forest where Julia was supposed to wait for me.
“Enjoy your day, Elena?” he asked simply.
“I had to get out. I can’t do this anymore, Master Longwei.”
He put his hand on my shoulder. “I know it’s not easy. In fact plenty of books say it’s the hardest stage for a Dent and the rider. So, you are not the only one that went through it.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not what I meant. How long did the others wait for their dragons to get enchanted?”
He frowned. “What do you mean by enchanted?”
“C’mon, Master Longwei. Don’t any of you see what the Dent is about? It puts the dragon under some spell. It’s not real.”
“Don’t say that Elena. I’m sure that’s what it looks like to you, but the Dent isn’t like that.”
“Yeah, well then explain it to me, so that I can understand.”
“I can’t, as I simply don’t know what it is.”
“You’re three thousand years old, surely someone must have said something.”
“No one has, Elena.”
I stared at him for a few seconds and then it hit me. It was so clear. “Why do you think that is? Because they don’t know themselves, which only tells me it’s not real.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“Yeah, well I do.”
“Do you want me to take you back or would you like a couple more days off?”
I squinted this time. “What?”
“You seem like you could use a break.”
“No, I refuse to run away.”
“Okay, then let’s go back.”
“Just like that. No scolding, nothing?”
“You want me to scold?”
“Well you have all the right. I left without you knowing where I was.”
He laughed. “Jimmy phoned, I knew you were safe.”
I smiled. “Traitor.”
“He just cares about you, after all you are his business partner, Elena. What you did was the best thing you ever could do for that boy.”
“It was the right thing to do.”
“Let’s go, before others see that you are getting away with this and then chaos will break out.”
I giggled and looked away as he took off his robe. When the plop sound came I found the most beautiful golden dragon I’d only seen once in the Museum of Etan staring at me. He was big, looked extremely friendly, kind with two long sprouts of hair hanging down from his chin. It made him look like a dragon version of Mr. Miyagi.
“What are you staring at?”
“Never saw a Fin-Tail,” I replied.
“Well, that explains the admiration.” He bowed his head and I giggled.
I grabbed his paw and noticed he had fur mixed with golden scales at the bottom of his paws. The fur was so soft and he smelled of sunshine.
He lifted off gracefully and we landed right in front of the gate.
“Next time, when you feel like it’s getting too much, let me know, Elena.”
“Thank you, Master Longwei.”
I smiled at his dragon figure one last time, just before it started to shrink, and looked away as I knew that image would have scarred me for the rest of my life.
I was happy that there was no sign of Blake as I walked up the stairs to my room.
Becky and Sammy both lay on their beds. Their other halves were missing as I entered our room. Becky just stared up from the novel we had to read for Latin and raised her eyebrows slightly. “You enjoy Longbottoms?”
“You enjoy your flight?” I said in a very sarcastic tone.
“Ouch, okay didn’t expect that.”
I giggled.
“Did you really throw my brother into the air?” Sammy asked.
I looked at her.
“We heard via Peter who was also on his way out. Professor Vladimir laughed so much when he told Alex.”
“He made me furious, okay,” I said and looked at Sammy.
“Elena,” she sighed.
“Don’t, Sammy. I don’t want to hear it. I was this close today to saying those words.”
“You can’t,” she begged again.
“Well, he doesn’t make it easy for me either, and to be honest, I really don’t want to spend the entire night talking about that idiot of a brother of yours.”
“Okay, fine, subject changed. I just wanted to know how on earth you managed to do that.”
“I don’t know. I just felt powerful and took it out on him.”
She smiled. “I’ve never seen him that upset before.”
“Yeah, well, then you should have seen me.”
Both girls laughed. “Thank heavens it didn’t happen in our room.” Becky left her two cent comment.
We all burst out into a choir of laughter. The rest of the night I kept listening to them talking about tryouts. It was going to be the highlight of their days for weeks to come.
HE NEXT COUPLE of weeks were a constant battle between Blake and I. We had so many words with one another and each time he tried to go for me – hurting me was the number one priority – the jolt in my arm would come back and I could protect myself from his bad temper.
It made him more furious but he never transformed as he knew that I would have access to my abilities then and nothing he could do could hurt me.
I thought that was exactly what they’d meant by calling it the impasse stage. The Riders did have some way to protect themselves from their dragons until the bond was made, or the Dent.
He wanted me dead so badly so he could be free, but the bond didn’t allow it. He was harmless against me.
The Rubicon was harmless against an insignificant little human girl like me. If I was still a Rubicon it would’ve made me furious too.
I actually used that last statement so many times, I knew I was lowering myself to his standard, and although many told me to just walk away, Blake wasn’t the type that would let me just walk away.
How long is this going to last?
Master Longwei actually had to intervene the other day in the cafeteria.
It’d been lunch time and I’d plopped down on my pillow right next to Becky and George.
“I’m not going to even ask where you were,” Becky joked.
“I’m not going to tell, either.” I smiled.
“Longbottoms again?”
“Nope.”
“Urgh.”
“Here we go,” George said and my entire body just slumped into the chair. “Dude, seriously, give it up man.”
“George, stay out of this.” Blake leaned on the table and stared straight at me.
“What, you miss me that much already?” I joked.
“Never in a million years.” He was always so serious. It was s
o stupid.
“Then what do you want, Blake?”
“Elena just ignore him,” Sammy said.
“You know what I want, Elena. Please.” He begged me and I looked at him. He’d never begged me before, well only that night when he’d wanted me to kill him.
“Blake stop it!” Sammy yelled at him.
“Stay out of this Samantha.” He glared at her and looked back at me. “You know what the Dent is Elena, please.”
“Elena, don’t do it,” George said.
“Shut the fuck up!” Blake barked at him.
“It’s not what you think, idiot,” George said back through gritted teeth.
“Then explain it to me, please. Because there is never going to be a time that I will want Elena more than anything else.”
“Don’t ask me to explain it to you. Be patient.” George’s tone was soft. You would never know that he was a Moon-Bolt, a Chromatic dragon.
Still, I couldn’t do this anymore but I knew I couldn’t free him either. So, I got up and went to leave.
“No.” He grabbed my hand. “Say it. Now!”
“Fine,” I yelled at him. “You want to hear it—”
The words left George’s mouth so fast and an invisible contraption slapped over my mouth. I couldn’t speak.
Chaos broke out as I looked at George, clutching my mouth to break the spell, and Blake grabbed him.
Becky yelped from shock as they went for each other while I tried desperately to free myself from not being able to speak.
Becky tried to help George, and it felt as if everything went into slow motion as Blake lifted up his arm and an invisible force threw her in the air.
My heart stammered in my chest and the same jolt rushed up my arm, but this time it spread to my entire body.
I lifted both arms as if I was going to grab her in the air, and to my surprise she stopped.
I lowered her down to the ground gently, her eyes huge, and when she was safe, unharmed, I concentrated on Blake.
I pushed him away from George just as he was about to throw another punch and his back was against the wall in a flash. An umph left his mouth as he collided with the wall, but to my surprise it still held.
I wanted to yell but my mouth was still clamped shut.
“Enough!” Master Longwei’s voice filled the cafeteria.
At that moment the spell over my lips disappeared.