“Bear.” Dad pulled me into his arms. My lip vibrated again, but I refused to cry more about this situation. Dad let me go and I wiped my tears. “I’m sorry that this is such a heavy burden. Maybe if I tried harder, and you grew up in Paegeia, this wouldn’t have been so hard. You would’ve grown up feeling better at ease with all of this.”
“How do I tame one of them, Dad?”
His body expelled as he closed his eyes. His lips turned into a soft smile. “They will train you. The mark on your thigh isn’t an ordinary birthmark. It’s the mark of the riders, the magical humans. The dragons are the carriers of their magic as that power is too much for a human to carry, so they create the dragon to carry it for their rider. It’s your abilities inside of him.”
“Which is?”
“Anything you can think of. Healing, seeing the future, fire, acid, persuasion, none of those things will harm you, but strengthen you.”
“Holy crap.” My voice broke as images of a glorified X-Men popped into my mind.
“I won’t put you in that ring if you are not ready.”
“I’ll never be ready.”
“You will be with hard training. I promise you. Paegeia is nothing like the real world. You belong there, Bear. It’s home, your home.”
I get what he was saying. It was mine, literally. “What happened to my parents?”
“They died the day they got betrayed.”
“By whom?”
“Their best friend and advisor. His name was Goran. If your dad didn’t have an heir, he would’ve become king. We just didn’t know that he tried many times to cause his death so that it could become a reality.”
“He was their friend?” Their world was insane, evil, and I was the lucky person who inherited it?
“Best friend. I knew your father for a long time. He was a great and just king. Everyone in Paegeia loved them.
“Your parents wanted nothing more than you, but it was a dangerous time for them, and they couldn’t keep you. So they sent you away with the queen’s dragon, hoping to keep you safe and once the danger was over, you would’ve returned.
“They just didn’t bargain on the colony of dragons that would make that return almost impossible for us.”
“Did they know it was him?”
“They found out the day it all went down. Both your parents died. Tanya had a connection with your mother through their bond and she felt everything the night your mother passed away. Tanya lost a huge part of herself that night.
“And after your mother’s death, she was free from her vow. She tried to stay, Bear, but it’s hard for the Chromatics. They can’t survive without their dragon form and only letting her out, letting her free at certain times of night, wasn’t enough. It’s why she left and didn’t take you with her.
“She is hiding on the other side as they somehow think our disappearance a year before your parents died had something to do with being part of Goran’s plan.”
“What?”
“Don’t worry, Blake is going to set it straight.”
I nodded. “He left?”
“Blake thought it was for the best, giving you space. He thinks he betrayed your trust.”
“Well, he isn’t wrong. He could’ve told me.”
“Elena, that is on me, not on him. It’s always great to have one friend in Paegeia. Why not the boy that tried to take you home.”
I didn’t like the way Dad sounded. That was if the Rubicon would not swallow him whole. We would never be together again, ever. He would fear the alpha too much.Listen to yourself. It was just a job for him, nothing more.
“Is there anything else you want to know?”
I shook my head. “I think I have enough to process. I just want to be alone.”
