Moonbreeze (The Dragonian Series Book 4) (28 page)

I shook my head again. “I don’t. They will die, like he did. I can’t let them die too.”
Why didn’t they get this?

“Elena.” Constance tilted her head to the left slightly and squinted softly. “Who are you talking about?”

“What is wrong with all of you?” I sobbed.

The door opened and Billy walked in.
They’d found me, they’d found me!
I grabbed Constance and hid behind her.

“Elena?”

“What is he doing here? Get him out. Just get him out, please.”

“Elena, calm down, please,” he said. His voice sounded different, kinder and softer.

I looked past Constance. Saw his figure standing there. He was tired, looked different, and then I saw his eyes.

It wasn’t dark pools of mud staring at me. They were peacock blue.

I shook my head as I stared at him. “No, this can’t be,” I said to Constance. It wasn’t him. I saw him lying on the bedroom floor. His blood had been everywhere. He was dead. I realized what this was. I had finally gotten my wish, but how had my friends gotten here, and Constance? It didn’t make sense. I looked at Constance again. “This isn’t real, is it?” It barely came out and I felt like crying again. I wanted my mom. If I was dead I wanted her now.

“Shhhh.” Constance’s arms wrapped around me and she spoke softly.

“I want my mom.”

“Shhhh.”

“GET MY MOM!” I yelled through sobs into her chest.

“Your mom is dead, Elena,” she said softly and rested her chin on my head.

I pushed her back as she said those words. “I’m not dead.”

She shook her head staring at me with great concern.

“Then what is he doing here!” I yelled and pointed at Blake. “I killed him, I know what I saw.”

“Blake just go.”

“Constance, I’m not leaving.”

“I said leave,” she said a bit louder, and pulled me away from him, blocking the view of the door with her body. She turned my chin slowly to face her. “You didn’t kill anyone. That kiss made him Dent. It was something that should’ve happened a long time ago. The blood was just a side effect.”

“A side effect?” I shook my head. “No I felt for a pulse. He wasn’t breathing.”

“Elena,” Blake said again.

“I thought I told you to leave.” Constance sounded harsh.

“I told you, I’m not leaving,” he said back and looked at me. “I’m not dead, okay. I’m right here.” His voice was like honey.

He came closer and I retreated a bit. He didn’t stop and pulled me into his chest. His arms wrapped around me.

He felt real, he felt warm, not like a ghost or a figment of my imagination. He smelled like Blake. He wasn’t dead.
He is alive.

Everything in my body started to relax. It was as if this huge weight from my shoulders had been lifted.
He is alive.

I started to smile, but it vanished as it sunk in.

“I’m real and I’m never going—”

I pushed him away. “You’ve been alive all this time.”

“Elena!”

“Don’t Elena me. I needed you! Where the hell were you?”

“I …”

“Get the fuck out of my room.”

He just stared at me.

“Leave, you are not my dragon, just go.”

He turned around and walked out of the room.

My knees gave in and I fell next to the bed. I sobbed again and I could feel Constance’s arms around me.

“He tried to—”

“Don’t you dare stand up for him. He wasn’t there. He never cared. He would’ve found me if he’d just looked and…” The image of what Billy and Seymour had done, and then all the others, jumped through my mind. It angered me even more.

If I never knew how much Blake despised me, he’d made that perfectly clear by not coming.

“I have no dragon.” And I was going to see Billy every time I looked at Blake. This nightmare was never going to end.

THE FIRST THING that connected with my hands was a bunch of files.

They skidded all over the place making a couple of the nurses jump.

If I was the old Rubicon, I would’ve incinerated something.

Flashes of how hard she’d tried to make me care flew through my mind. I’d chucked all those attempts back into her face.

I went down on my haunches and muffled my anger.

I knew she was going to be angry that I hadn’t found her. Fuck, I was angry with myself.

To think that she’d thought I was dead all this time, and to make her think that she was dead too just by seeing me, it broke my heart, especially when she’d asked for her mother.

She would never trust me; never know how I felt, as she would never give me another chance. She’d given me way too many chances already and I’d screwed all of them up.

A bond that would’ve been the strongest in the history of Paegeia was broken. It would never mend, as I couldn’t fulfill my duty to her. And it was all my fault.

A soft hand touched my arm. I knew it was Samantha. Her sweet lily scent had filled my nostrils moments earlier.

She hugged me as I started to shake softly.

Suddenly Elena’s pain and hatred towards me flowed through my core as if it was my own – her anger too. I’d only felt this once before, when they’d forced this world down her throat. Was the bond starting to heal? I tried to listen for her thoughts, to apologize, but nothing. This was so messed up. I felt broken. “She is never going to forgive me for this.”

“You didn’t do this to her.”

“Yes, I did, Samantha. I let this happen because I couldn’t find her.”

She pushed me back to look at me. She was angry, something that didn’t belong to her. It was something that only Tabitha could bring out, and occasionally the old Blake.

“We’ve been over this so many times, Blake. You tried.”

I stood straight. “Not hard enough.”

“Bullshit. You almost died a couple of times. If Emanual hadn’t been there…” She didn’t finish her sentence. “I will make her see that, Blake, I will tell her, and so will everyone else.”

I took a deep breath. Telling her wasn’t going to make her trust me.

“No, you won’t.”

Samantha just stared at me. “What are you saying? Don’t tell Elena that you almost died trying to find her?”

“Don’t tell her anything, how I changed, who I am.” I looked at my sister with begging eyes. “It’s not going to change anything.”

I knew Elena well. She wasn’t the type of girl that believed stories; she would think this was one to force her to trust me again.

“Blake you don’t know that.”

I wanted to say I did, but then more questions would come, and I wouldn’t be able to tell them, because I would rather die than tell anyone who didn’t already know what the Dent procedure was. I wouldn’t put her in more danger because I wanted her.

“Don’t tell her. Promise me.”

“This is nuts.”

“I mean it Samantha. If she is going to trust me again, she has to do it on her own terms and because I deserve it.”

“You do deserve it.”

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and opened them. “Not according to her. Just keep your mouth shut.”

“And then what Blake, listen to her talk shit about you, hate you?”

“If that’s the way she wants to do things, then yes. You listen to Elena and help her get rid of some of her resentment.”

“You are not that Blake anymore.”

“I’ll be whatever she needs me to be. Please, I’m begging you, just do this for me.”

“This is insane, you know that, right?”

“It doesn’t matter what you think. She needs to trust me on her own terms, not through the stories you guys tell her.”

“Blake…”

“Trust me, please.”

She looked at Elena’s room. Her curtains were drawn.

“Is she going to be okay?” she asked and wiped away a tear that had rolled over her cheek.

“My ability to see into the future still sucks a little.” I showed her how much with my fingers inches apart.

She giggled and I wrapped my arms around her.

“But she will be, eventually. That’s a promise.”

WE WENT BACK to the waiting room and I made all of them promise not to tell Elena anything, how Emanual and I had searched for her, how I’d almost died. Everyone, except George, protested, fought even, especially my mom and dad, not to mention Becky, but they all made the promise eventually.

Becky just stared at George as he begged her not to spill it. She didn’t understand it, and it was making her frustrated.

I knew he hadn’t told her either. George was in many ways like Elena. Actions spoke louder than words.

I went to sit next to my mom on the first chair closest to the door.

Emanual just stared at me, but I didn’t meet his gaze. I knew he was wondering about things, he always wondered. Heck, he should’ve been a Crown Tail with all his theories and shit. Still he had become a really good friend, not just to me, but to Elena too.

I still needed that one more favor of his, to be there for her whenever she needed him. As hard as this was, I knew she would feel safe with him and that he would never take advantage of her. He was way too kind, and not to mention shit scared of what it was I would do.

I got up and paced around in the waiting area before the door opened and Constance entered.

She sighed and plopped down onto the chair I’d sat in moments ago.

I just stared at her and she looked at me.

“She was in one of the Wyvern cities. She didn’t give a name, but she said that things are bad, real bad.”

“Wyverns?” I asked and looked at Emanual. I should’ve gone to the Wyvern cities. He didn’t meet my gaze, just closed his eyes and looked at the ceiling.

She nodded.

I started to pace. I should’ve looked in the Wyvern cities but I didn’t want to start a war. I thought she wouldn’t be in one because of Paul.
Shit, what if he had found her?
The scenarios in my head just turned worse. Why she couldn’t come back…

“Finding out that she didn’t kill you…” She shook her head.

“I know, I saw that Constance.”

“And now you don’t want us to tell her anything: who you are and what you did for her,” Becky snapped.

“Becky,” George said softly.

“No, George, this is insane.”

“Blake knows what is best, okay? Just do as he fucking asks.” She jumped as he said those words and we all watched him get up and leave.

“Is this true?” Constance asked.

“Yeah, I hope you didn’t say anything.”

“She didn’t want to hear it.”

“See.” I looked at Becky.

She just shook her head with her arms folded in front of her.

“Did she tell you what happened?”

Constance shook her head. “But I know it’s not going to be an easy road, Blake. She has a lot of anger in her and it’s not going to disappear quickly.”

“Okay, I can deal with it.”