Once upon a Dragon Gift (Once Upon a Dragon Series Book 4)

I fell with a thud on the ground and struggled to open my eyes.

“Elena,” Dad’s voice reached my ears, and I could hear the worry. “What happened?”

I struggled to breathe as Daniel’s eyes kept staring at me, but the face wasn’t his. The face didn’t belong to him and what he told me…Dad was lying.

Dad’s lips moved fast as Ivanka rushed to get his kit filled with potions.

My eyes grew heavier. My heart started to beat slower. The bitter liquid dried out my throat and lips as Dad forced it down my throat.

I choked and wanted to cough it up, but Dad closed my mouth with the palms of his hands.

“Swallow, Elena!”

I swallowed the contents through the coughing, and it burned down my throat, but it opened my lungs and made my heart beat faster.

Fatigue washed over me, and the darkness consumed me.

I woke up with the scream from the guy who had held me in his arms. All of them had told him to send me back to my father. At first, he’d refused to listen.

Blake. That was what they’d called him. Who was he?

My heart ached for reasons I couldn’t fathom. Dad had said that they would try to kill me. They hadn’t. It sounded as if they wanted me to stay, and when they realized I was dying, they let me go.

The confusion bubbled in my mind. Dad had said that they would distract me from getting to the Elementals. Was that their distraction? Trying to confuse me?

It confused the living crap out of me. Why the tears? Why the sound of hopelessness?

Life came back at once, but something was wrong. Something was missing. I didn’t feel myself at all. It felt as if I was stuck in another body.

I looked at my hands; they were still same.

Cara, what is happening to us?

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Cara! I begged in my head.

She didn’t reply. That was what was missing. Cara was gone.

I jumped out of bed.

“Easy, easy,” Ivanka said, sitting at the edge of the chair next to my bed.

“I need my father. I don’t feel so good.”

Her cold hand cupped my cheek. She was really beautiful with her red hair and freckles. “What is it?”

I pushed her away. “I need my father!”

“What hurts, just tell me, and I can help you.”

“I need my father,” I demanded. Cara!

No answer. Sobs poured from me as I crumpled into Ivanka’s arms.

“That bastard,” she spat.

I shook my head, crying my heart out. He had done something to my dragon. Cara was silent.

“I’ll go get your father.” She left my side as I replayed the events through my mind.

It was as if they’d tried to claim me. They spoke about a spell. Told me that my father wasn’t my father.

More sobs tore from me as I tried to connect with my dragon, but she was no more. I didn’t know what to believe. If he wasn’t my father, why did I have all the memories of him and of Mom and Daniel?

I kept seeing his eyes. I know my brother’s eyes, and I was staring right at them.

“Elena,” Dad’s voice called, and I looked up. He hunched down and cupped my face. “Another fail.”

“Something is wrong with me, Dad. I don’t feel…” I tried to show him. I lifted my arm and concentrated on the shift.

He touched my arm. “I’m sorry. What happened?”

“You’re sorry? No, she is not gone,” I yelled at him as it hit me solidly what my dad was sorry about.

“Elena, what happened?”

“He tried to claim me.”

“Who?” Dad’s eyebrows furrowed.

“A guy with dark hair. He called himself Blake.”

Dad’s jaw muscles pumped as his nostrils flared.

“Who is he?”

“The Rubicon. I told you not to listen to him. Now he has killed her!”

“What?” I stuttered. “No, no. She is not gone.”

“She is gone, Elena. I told you not to listen to them. I told you to get the Elementals.” Dad started to lose it then, and his anger was becoming mine as I kept listening to words like ‘a spell’ and ‘I was dying.’

“I want to know the truth.”

He frowned. “You grew up with the truth, Elena. I don’t have to tell you anything!”

I shook my head. “They spoke about a spell. They tried to break it, and I almost died.”

“Because there is no spell, Elena. He killed your dragon, that is why you almost died.”

“They knew my name.” Tears welled up in my eyes. She wasn’t dead. She was knocked out. She had to be knocked out.

“Of course, they knew your name. He killed your mother. He knows about you. They almost killed you, and yet you question me?” He tapped his chest hard.

“They said it’s a fucking spell. That I don’t have a brother!” Tears rolled down my cheeks. I saw his eyes. The Rubicon had the same eyes as Daniel. It didn’t make sense.

“I’ve told you so many times that they will tell you anything. What don’t you get? It’s done. I’m taking away your hearing until you learn to stop listening to others.”

“Dad, don’t!”

He stopped, turned around, and strolled toward me. He lifted his hand and caressed my cheek. “It’s for your own good.” He walked out.

More sobs tore from me.

I didn’t want to be deaf, to not hear anything. I wouldn’t be able to succeed at all.

A ruckus broke outside, and my heart pounded like crazy. Dad spoke spells as a woman’s voice did the counter-spells.

Screams filled my ears, as I knew somehow they had found us.

Ivanka rushed into the room, her eyes as big as saucers as she came toward my bed and helped me out of it.

“What is—”

“Shush. It’s a woman. We have to go now.”

“Where?”

“Follow me.” She grabbed my hand and rushed out of the back. I couldn’t see a damn thing, but I heard their grunts and tearing sounds as spells left their lips.

“Is my dad okay?”

“Your dad is powerful. Don’t worry.”

We ran into the forest.

“We don’t have protection!”

Ivanka didn’t stop. “We don’t need it. Danger reached the village, and we have to get out of here.”

“She is just one person.”

“She is lethal. An Ancient guard, Elena. You remember them, right?”

I froze. I’d heard about them. They were strong and showed no mercy to our kind. Tears blurred my sight as we rushed through the forest.

We stayed hidden behind a tree.

Ivanka was my best friend. We’d grown up together. Albert the Barbaric had killed her colony, and Dad took her in to grow up with me and Daniel. She loved my brother as much as I loved him.

I could still see Daniel’s eyes on the Rubicon, on Blake. His name rang a bell, but I didn’t know from where. He’d told me he loved me.

It was so wrong. Why would they play with something like love, act like that in order to capture me?

They let you go, Elena. My thoughts scared me as it wasn’t Cara; it was my own. She couldn’t be dead. But it was still the truth. The Rubicon had let me go when he saw I was dying. He’d cried. Albert the Barbaric had begged him to let me go back to Dad, that he would save me.

It was so confusing, and I didn’t know what was happening.

It couldn’t be the truth. I lived the truth.

Unless they wanted Dad to come for me. Make him vulnerable, and I almost fell for it.

Tears rolled down my cheeks again. Dad was going to take away my hearing. I was going to be deaf.

Hours felt like days, and finally Bane found us.

“What happened?” Ivanka asked.

“We can be glad it was just one. She killed about twenty of us. Your dad finally hit her with a spell, and she fell. She is shackled and in custody.”

“What is she doing here? How did she find us?” I needed to know.

“Probably orders of Albert the Barbaric. He will not rest until all of us are dead.”

I hated how my mind perceived him now. Whenever his name popped up, I kept hearing him begging Blake to let me go. There was a girl too. The way she yelled my name, as if she knew me.

Albert the Barbaric. None of them lived up to their names.

I was busy dying. He could’ve just kept me there. None of it was making any sense, but I knew the way I’d grown up. How hard it was for me to grow up without a mother.

They took me to Dad’s quarters, and he got up and wrapped his arms around me. Kissing me on top of my head, he whispered, “You are safe.”

“Where is the guard?”

“She won’t get out. I don’t want any of you to go near her, you hear? She will kill you, Elena, without thinking twice.”

I nodded.

“Ivanka,” Dad ordered.

“I promise.”

“Now, go. Stay indoors. She is very strong, and I don’t want to take any chances.”

We both left, and I went to my room.

Since we took shelter inside one of the two wyvern cities, things had calmed down by a lot.

Dad still wanted the Elementals. The good thing about the Elementals was that if they wanted it to be bad, they needed someone pure, good in order to take its place, and nobody in the king’s court or any of them were pure enough.

Which made me wonder who they were going to kidnap in order to create a bad Saadedine? Hopefully, they didn’t know about it, and our world would not get destroyed.

I struggled to sleep that night as my enhanced hearing picked up the Ancient’s guard screaming.

“You won’t get away with this, Goran. He will come for her.”

“He doesn’t even know where to find her. You were lucky.”

She screamed again.

I squinted. Who were they speaking about?

“Your spell won’t last, and she will remember. You are such a fucking coward.”

Dad laughed, and she screamed again.

Fucking coward? Why did he laugh when she mentioned a spell? I wasn’t close by.

She stopped screaming as Dad told her that she wouldn’t remember her past life soon, and her first mission would be to get the eEementals.

“The king will never let you have them. Blake will kill you.”

Blake? Daniel jumped into my head again. He’d told me he loved me. He didn’t want to let me go.

I sat up in my bed.

Dad spoke more words, and the woman laughed. Something ripped, and Dad stopped.

“Your spells won’t work on me. I’m protected, and so is Blake. You might have the princess believing that she is your daughter, but you won’t get the Rubicon.”

She screamed again.

He was going to kill her, and her fear suddenly became mine.

Stop it, Elena. She must know you have enhanced hearing. But the way Dad acted made little sense. He wasn’t listening to her lies. That was why he wanted to take my hearing away.

They were still my thoughts. What if?

Don’t, Elena. You’ve lived your memories. Still, the spell Dad wanted to put over her bothered me.

They said it was a spell, and he proved he wanted to put her under a spell. What if he wasn’t my father? What if… Who was my father, then?

No, he was my father. He had to be my father.

I paced in my room, trying to make sense of this. I’d grown up with Ivanka. We were always running. I saw my mother’s tower burning and how Dad had to leave with me… I stopped. I was two.

Dragons never forget.

I sat back down on my bed.

Stop listening. Do what you are told. This is why he wanted your hearing as you keep listening to the lies.

I tuned out and struggled to fall asleep as missing Daniel overpowered my heart again.

He was real. I knew he was.