Page 17 of Emerald Waves
“I think there was more than one, but I don’t know, everything is hazy, so I could have just as easily been mistaken. It’s easy to get disoriented underwater.”
“Even for you?”
What was I to say to that? The truth, that it had never happened before? I didn’t want to worry him or risk his seeing the need to reach out to my big brother to let him know that something had not only managed to confuse me within the depths of the sea, but that it had caused my dragon to retreat, and left me in a much more vulnerable human state, deep beneath the surface.
“I’m not invincible,” I said at last, voicing the one major thing I’d taken away from the incident.
For all the training Ionus had put us through, I’d been ill prepared for what I’d encountered that afternoon. Something I was still too ashamed to admit to my brother.
“Then you’ll just have to be more careful,” Emerson said. “I don’t want to lose you when I’ve only just found you.”
“You won’t.”
“I’d better not, or I might be tempted to try something I found in one of the old books.”
“Oh yeah, what’s that?”
“A spell once believed to bring dragons back from the afterlife, but only if their soul was tethered to another, the way mine is now connected to yours,” Emerson remarked, words a little slurred, like he was sleepy and gearing up for a nap.
“Sounds more like a myth, or a fairytale.”
“Maybe. But there are records of it being attempted.”
“Yeah, and how’d it turn out for the ones who tried?”
“I believe the current term is a hot mess,” Emerson said. “But even that’s better than nothing.”
“Let’s not go tempting fate. The last thing we need is zombie dragons laying waste to the world,” I said, chuckling.
“Talk about a whole new twist on the zombie apocalypse. Hollywood would never run out of movies.”
Had he just made a joke?
In all the years I’d known him, I’d never heard him utter anything that wasn’t fact, or speculation heavily backed by written record from reputable, respected sources.
“Just don’t go dabbling in things dragons weren’t meant to fool around with,” I cautioned him.
“If that were truth, there wouldn’t have been a clan of dragons whose primary ability was said to be raising the dead, though I’ve never found real proof that they truly existed,” Emerson admitted. “But the incantation had to originate somewhere. I think they go hand in hand. Just wish I could prove it.”
“Maybe one day you will,” I replied, not wanting to give much credence to an ability that would make a dragon virtually undefeatable. With all the life that had perished on this planet, that was an unlimited source of minions no dragon would stand a chance of whittling down, even with the full force of the abilities my brothers and I had inherited.
“Enough talk of the undead,” I declared as I pulled his hand to my cheek and nuzzled it. “We’ve just started a brand-new life together and I plan to enjoy it. Marring the moment just seems wrong after how long we waited to find one another.”
“We found each other a long time ago. We just failed to put together the pieces of what we were supposed to mean to each other.”
Hearing him say it that way brought with it some measure of guilt I’d felt over the way I’d avoided this place unless it was all hands-on deck, and even then, I’d tended to force my brother’s hand until he was left little choice but to make it an order.
Did that mean that I should have been the first of us mated or had one of my brother’s also met the one meant to be theirs, onlyto completely miss the signs because they’d been too busy being wild and fighting against the restrictions of our positions.
It hadn’t always been easy to accept what we were born to do. While being protective was in our nature, we’d chafed a bit at having it be declared our destiny. At times, it had felt downright stifling, at least to me. The pull of the earth and the ocean had been enough that at times I’d considered making my home beneath the ocean floor, would it not have meant leaving my brothers. Keeping the gemstones in one place meant that they were easier to defend, but there had been times over the long decades, when life above the surface of the earth had held no appeal for me. Those were the times when I’d curled up in my horde and took solace in the many tanks that lined the walls, as well as the species that inhabited them.
I wondered if Emerson would get that, when I was at my broodiest, surrounded by the creatures I loved was the best place I could be? I hoped so. I never wanted him to feel like I was running away from him, there were just moments when I thought best when buried, silencing all sound and thought.
You’ll have to tell him that.
I will.
If you forget, I will tell him for you, though you might not like the way I put it.
