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

“She is not alone. He locked her up like some rat in the dungeon. We don’t know what brought on the change. When we got to her cell, Elena was having an argument with him. Her voice was stern, full of confidence,” I said.

“Like the queen,” Lucian added.

I nodded. “I thought that somehow the spell must have broken, but then she started speaking in third person, saying that she will get her safely back to her father. He tried to put a spell on her, and she told him to stop, calling him Gordy.”

King Albert had tears in his eyes.

“He didn’t want to believe her and asked Elena to stop; it was when I knew something wasn’t right. He then said she wasn’t Kate, and she told him something that Elena couldn’t have known, how she’d almost told him about her, when he came to her room that night. She said she should’ve killed him instead.”

King Albert’s jaw muscles pumped as tears glistened in his eyes. His eyebrows furrowed as he stared angrily at the floor.

Dad squeezed his shoulder. “She is not alone. Kate is with her. Something tells me that she is going to haunt his ass until he brings her back.”

“She said that too,” I mentioned. “She told him no spell would get her away from Elena.”

“She was always with her. He didn’t take her hearing?”

“It didn’t look like that,” Lucian said.

“He did?” Adolph said and sniffed.

We all looked at him.

“Why do you say that?” King Albert asked and motioned with his hand toward us. “They just said—”

“Kate hears, Al,” Adolph replied. “Only through silence can we hear our loved ones that aren’t alive anymore. Elena is deaf.”

“She didn’t sound deaf.” Lu paced the length of my room.

“It was her mother speaking through her. She didn’t hear a thing.”

“So she can hear her mother?” Tabitha asked.

“I think when she speaks directly to her.”

Everyone tried to process this news as it was confusing.

“You think the queen told her the truth?” George wanted to know.

“You bet your ass she did,” Tabitha responded. “Elena is like the only thing she ever wanted.”

“He showed her through memories who her mother is,” I said. “He didn’t change that.”

“Or maybe he couldn’t,” Lu answered. “He loved her as much as King Albert did, if not more, or that is what my Dad said.”

“I would’ve loved to be there when she first spoke through Elena to him,” Tabitha remarked.

“We have to try again. I need to connect with her.”

“Now?” George asked.

“I’m with Blake,” Lu said. “I’m not that tired, and I know neither are you.”

“We need someone here to help us with water and things when we return.”

Sammy lifted her hand. “I’m here.”

I stared at my sister, always forgetting that she wasn’t part of Garrison. “Thanks, Sam.”

“Okay, let’s just get water first,” Brit suggested. “I hate how the dryness makes me want to puke.”

The girls left to get water as we started to prepare.

“It’s kind of freaky knowing that we might get Queen Catherine and not Elena.”

“She is a ghost. At least Elena has someone who loves her close by. To spend time with her, and someone she can hear. Even if it’s a ghost. We need to know where she is,” I stated.

“I see the future, and trying to connect to a girl who doesn’t remember us, now you want me to speak to the ghost of our queen?” George asked.

“If she can tell us where she is, I don’t care if she is a fucking rock,” I replied.

“Okay, ghost it is,” George agreed.

The girls came back.

“Thanks, Sam,” Becky said as they put the water bottles on the bed.

Sam looked at me. “Be careful, please.”

“We will. Let’s just hope they are speaking about their location.”

I didn’t even have to speak the spell this time. I reached out my hand, and Brian and Brit just sort of jumped into me and were then followed by Lucian and Tabitha; George and Becky came after.

We sat down, and Sammy came to sit in front of us.

“Thanks, Sam,” I repeated; my voice sounded different.

She looked up at me. “You’re welcome.”

George started to zone in, and the room spun. I closed my eyes and grabbed the bed post as it got faster and faster, and then it suddenly stopped. We were in the cell again with Elena laid out on the bench. She was just staring in front of her.

She huffed.

“Blake, do your thing,” Lu whispered.

“I don’t know how.” I tried to touched her, but I just went through her.

“Use the Vastech.”

“The queen here?” Brit asked.

“I don’t think so. Fuck.” Annoyance gnawed at the pit of my stomach.

I closed my eyes and came toward her. I wished I knew what her brother looked like. I kept thinking her name, but she didn’t answer me. She started to cry again.

“Blake, stop, whatever you are doing—” Tabitha said.

“She doesn’t feel me.”

“Use the Vastech,” Becky growled.

“I am using the Vastech, Becky. She doesn’t feel me.”

“Crap, where is the queen when you need her?” Becky’s voice bounced at the back of my thoughts.

“I’m sorry I can’t find you. I would stay if I could, take your place.”

The room started to spin.

“George, please,” I begged.

“It’s not his doing; he doesn’t have control, Blake,” Becky said, and they all fell out of me as the room stopped spinning.

Sam was nearby handing out water to each and every one. We gulped it down.

“Did you find her?” she asked as she gave Becky and George their bottles.

I nodded.

“And?”

“She can’t feel me, Sam,” I replied.

“Did you use the Vastech?”

“Why is everyone asking me that?” Tiredness consumed me.

“Okay, I think it’s enough of Garrison for one day. You are all dead tired. Go sleep; tomorrow is a new day,” Sammy said.

With grunts and slagging footsteps, they all left my room.

Sam waited at the door. “Is she really deaf?”

I nodded.

“Fucking bastard. I’m glad that someone he loved is haunting him.”

I rolled my palms on my legs, pushed myself off the floor, and inched forward to Sam. She wrapped her arms around me as I leaned against the wall.

“We will find her.”

The alarm blared. “No, not again.”

I jumped out of bed and rushed out of the room.

King Albert hit Dad’s door.

“You can hear it.”

“Loud and clear.”

I pounded on Lu’s door.

“Go, Blake.”

I rushed toward the Elementals and where they kept it and stopped as it wasn’t Elena; it was Bane and Winston.

“Boys,” I said.

“Blake. Please, just give the Elementals to us, or I promise, Elena is not going to live to see tomorrow.”

“I don’t think he is going to kill her.”

“He will. He told us if we don’t come back with the Elementals today, she is dead.”

I looked at the entire scenario. He tried to distract me, and I realized where we were. The vortex was going to suck in their entire room if he called them back.

“Please, Blake.”

Golden sparkles appeared from behind them. Must have been King Albert’s doing.

“Take them away from here,” I yelled to what looked like Jose, and he grabbed both of them before Goran could call them back.

The door barged opened, and King Albert along with Lu and the gang rushed through.

“It wasn’t her.”

“Where are they?” King Albert ordered.

“Jose took them away from here. They tried to distract me. He was working on a spell that would teleport rooms back to him, if not more. It would’ve sucked in this entire room in.”

King Albert huffed. “He wants the Elementals?”

“He is not going to get them as tomorrow we will become the Saadedine.”

“Blake?” Lu questioned.

“We are ready. We don’t even need the spell anymore to merge. We are ready, Lu. Remember what George saw. His sight is strong.”

He nodded.

My Cammy rang, and it was Jose.

“Very clever, Blake.”

“You have them?”

“The vortex came just as I dropped them off on the mountain of Sair.”

“I won’t give them another chance. Please tell Adolph to come tomorrow. It’s time to birth the Saadedine.”

“You got it.”

We found ourselves standing on the mountain that George had seen.

It was the birthplace of the Saadedine, and there were four stones, but they were so weathered that we couldn’t see what was on them.

“I think this was fire,” George said.

“You think?” Adolph asked.

The wyrms clucked like crazy. The earth one was turning in circles. It was the weirdest thing.

“What is it, Blake?” Adolph asked.

“The Earth Wyrm. Something is wrong. Give him here.”

The scientist opened his cage and grabbed the wyrm. He leaped out of his hands, and Adolph was about to say a spell when he landed on one of the stones.

He curled up on it.

“Release all of them,” I said, and the scientist opened the other three wyrms’ cages. They all found their stone.

“Amazing,” Brit giggled.

“Fire?” I asked as the Wind Wyrm laid on the stone George said was fire.

“Sorry, I didn’t see; the stone was weathered.”

Lu and Tabitha grabbed the Water Wyrm and gasped.

“Wicked,” Lu said.

I picked up the Earth Wyrm, and the weathered sign was not weathered anymore. The wyrms were indeed magical.

Adolph came to check and spoke to the drone that was recording this. How the wyrms had magically rebranded the stones.

“Tabitha and Lucian have Kerby,” George said, and Becky rushed over and kissed the water dragon as tears filled her eyes.

Tabitha whispered that he would be okay, and Becky nodded, taking her place back with George.

Brian and Brit picked up the Fire Wyrm. My sister had said her goodbyes in the oasis. She was standing on the side with all the others.

The Earth Wyrm crawled over my arm and up toward my shoulder. I caught him, and he dug his snout in the crook of my arm. Almost as if he was ready to enter me. “Not yet, buddy; soon.”

Everyone chuckled as I grabbed him firmly around his body and held him still.

We all stood on our element’s stones.

The drone hovered all around us. It was slightly distracting the wyrms, and their clucking was busy overpowering the entire event.

We all chuckled and tried to calm them. I stroked mine on his head.

Adolph took the middle. “It’s an honor to finally witness what the Elementals are going to become. For years we had this wrong, but today we are rewriting a great mishap.”

He carried on speaking, explaining everything that had happened the past few weeks. Almost a month.

The clucking that came from the Elementals switched over to a humming sound. We all looked at each other.

“You hum?” Adolph asked, looking at the wyrm in my arm.

George’s shoulders shook softly as Becky tried to suppress her laughter. Lucian had a curve in the corner of his lips, and Tabitha’s lips thinned.

“Okay?” Adolph said and started reciting the words of the spell. Nothing happened.

“Blake,” Adolph encouraged, and it was my turn to speak the words. To mean them.

Fire beams and connects with Earth…

The Elemental in Brit’s hand started to glow a bright red and then became orange. They others still hummed. It was really something else to watch. The wyrm bust into flames and exploded into embers that traveled into Brit and Brian. Then they flew into me, and a slight sting came with it.

“It stings,” I commented for the recording, while trying to process what the hell I just saw.

Water rumbles and follows to show their worth…

The same thing happened with the water dragon. It glowed blue and turned brighter. Then it burst into drops and traveled slowly to Lu and Tabitha.

They both gasped and then disappeared and hit me full in the chest.

“It’s cold, like frostbite.”

The wind blew forth in recognition…

The wind dragon glowed almost a bright white, then broke up into a tornado, sucked George and Becky in, and then moved toward me, merged inside of me and brought me to my knees.

My hair was wild as the wind disappeared. Adolph laughed.

“Sorry, Blake.”

“It’s okay.”

“You okay?”

“They are powerful,” I spoke.

“You feel it?”

I nodded and looked at the Earth Wyrm. A part of me was scared what he was going to do.

Connecting with Earth to fulfill this mission…

The wyrm didn’t glow that long, he just tore my stomach apart to get inside of me, but there was absolutely no blood in sight.

The skies turned darker, and the wind picked up. Rumbles came.

I grunted as the wyrm’s tail disappeared inside of me, and a pain I’d never felt before seared through my body.

“You need to say the last line, Blake. Finish the spell,” Adolph yelled as the wind blew everything out of proportion.

Life force vibrates the flesh, to become one and live for success.

We all screamed as limbs and wings sprouted out from my body.

My torso grew longer, and my paws were huge.

Everyone stood back as we towered above the trees, and then we collapsed.

I opened my eyes. Tree branches scratched my face.

“He is not waking up. Something is wrong.” Becky’s panic became mine.

“Blake!” Lucian yelled.

“Stop yelling,” I mumbled. “What happened?”

Everyone voiced their relief through pent-up breaths and audible sighs.

“Give us a bloody heart attack!” Tabitha shouted. “I don’t want to be stuck as the Saadedine.”

“Garrison,” Adolph hollered. “You okay?”

“You guys okay?” I asked in response.

“Yes, all of us seem to be awake. It was only you.” Brit sounded frustrated.

“We are fine,” I replied as the Saadedine.

“Time to merge back,” Adolph said.

“George?”

“On it. Hold on.” George spoke the words as we shifted back slowly into Garrison. “Just hold it together, Blake.”

“I’m trying.” I grunted as it felt as if the Saadedine wanted to pull us into pieces.

We finally became human again, buck naked.

“Time to pull apart,” George rasped out of breath.

George and Becky rolled out of me first. They were buck naked too, and George tried to cover Becky, as she wasn’t used to it.

Next were Lu and Tabitha and last were Brit and Brian.

I landed on the floor with a mother of a headache. Probably because I was the host and my wyrm had literally dug himself into me.

I felt a robe touching my back.

Everyone applauded, and Micha stopped the camera. It flew back down into her hand.

“You did it, son. You were all bloody brilliant,” Dad spoke. He sounded very emotional as tears glistened onto his face, and he had this gigantic grin on his lips. My eyes felt droopy.

“I see it left you with another sigil. Something tells me you are going to collect them like Micha does.”

Laughter erupted as my eyelids pulled down.

“Time to get you all home.”

We slept for about two days. The Saadedine was out of Goran’s grasp now.

We all woke up with a new sigil. Each Dent had an Elemental sigil somewhere on their body.

George and Becky’s were just below their collarbones. Mine was right above my hip line. Brian and Brit carried theirs on their right arms, and Lu and Tabitha’s were on their backs.

I had to see her to make sure that Goran hadn’t killed her, and so we became Garrison again. The procedure was faster this time, as George saw almost immediately. The room spun.

We found ourselves inside the dungeon again. Elena just laid there. She had food but didn’t eat. Was she still under the spell?

“As one, maybe we should all try to connect with her,” Becky suggested.

“Okay, let’s try,” I agreed and walked closer to her. I went on my haunches, and we all spoke with her at the same time. It was very distracting.

“What?” Elena said, and we gasped. She looked around but couldn’t see anything. “You hear them?”

“The queen is here,” Becky said sounding extremely excited.

“George,” I commanded. Whatever he needed to do, he had to do it now.

“I’m trying, Blake. I’m a Moon-Bolt, not a necromancer.”

“Okay, calm down and concentrate,” Becky egged him on. “You can do this.”

Elena shook her head as fear washed over her face.

“Why is she terrified?” Tabitha asked.

“Shh,” Lu said.

“Mom, don’t, please. They will know where we are.” Her lower lip vibrated. “Moon-Bolts killed our kind.”

“What?” Brit asked.

“She is back on the spell,” Lu breathed.

“Shhh,” I begged.

She cried, and her fear was clear.

She nodded.

“Benthal Woods,” she finally spoke as the spinning came and the room disappeared.

Everyone shot from me as the room stopped, and the coughing fits began.

Lu laughed through his coughs.

“What, what happened?” King Albert asked.

“She felt us,” Lu said. “The queen felt us.”

The king’s lower lip quivered. “She is not leaving her.”

“She won’t, not until she is safe,” George confirmed.

“Please tell me you got a fucking location this time,” Jako asked.

“Benthal Woods,” Brit replied.

“She is still in the cell,” Brian added.

Dad looked at the king.

“The ruins?” King Albert asked.

“It has to be. Their dungeons might still be intact,” Dad said.

“He cloaked them?” I questioned.

“Cloaking is not a problem,” Adolph spoke.Belonging © NôvelDram/a.Org.

“You can’t come with,” King Albert warned.

“She is my only blood relative that is alive. I’m not losing her like I lost Katie. I’m coming with.” Adolph was stern.

“What?” the others who didn’t know asked.

King Albert sighed.

“You need me, Al.” Adolph put his hand on his shoulder. “You know that. Together with Garrison, we will penetrate the Black Weavers that are protecting them.”

The king nodded. How Adolph knew that they were the wyverns that cloaked them should not surprise me, but it did.

“We have to go now. If he is scrying at this moment, he will know we are coming,” Dad stated.

“Jose and Micha will be here soon,” Adolph added.

The ringing sounded in the air, and the golden vortex came. Micha stepped through hers and so did Jose.

“Bethal Woods, we need to go now. Make sure you come back for the fleet,” Adolph instructed.

“I’ll stay, phone everyone to be ready in the next five minutes,” Jako said.

“We will come back as soon as we drop them off,” Jose answered Jako.

We all left through the vortex as close as we could to Benthal Woods, and the seven of us merged into Garrison.

Adolph held out his hand for mine, and I held it lightly in my giant one.

“Let’s wait, please,” King Albert whispered as he had the King of Lion sword in his hands.

“They could be gone if someone scried.” I sounded agitated. Why did he always want to wait?

“Blake, have a bit of faith.” Adolph squeezed my hand.

I nodded.

“I see them,” George replied.

“Me too; not yet, George,” Adolph spoke. “I’ll guide you what to do.”

I saw a few tents, and they disappeared as my gaze moved on.

They were still here.

This was it. We were going to get her back tonight.

Footsteps rustled, and King Helmut came with a fleet.

“Son,” King Helmut spoke.

“One of them, Dad, not all of them,” Lu remarked.

Emanual was behind him, and he kept staring at us.

“Like to see you try taking us on now,” I said.

“Thank heavens you are on our side,” Emanual breathed.

King Caleb emerged from the woods with a group of his best behind him.

All of them gasped when they saw us.

“Are they here?” King Caleb asked.

“Yes, we can’t see them, but Adolph and Garrison do. They will appear soon,” King Albert stated.

Jako reached us last through Jose’s portal.

“Remember, go with Garrison to get Elena, Jako,” King Albert directed.

Jako nodded. “This time, kill him. He’s gone too far.”

“I will. I do not want to be haunted for the rest of my life by an angry Kate.”

It was time. Time for Elena to come home.