“Please, Papa, let me go!” she begged with tears in her big, dark eyes. “I want to be healed as Kaitlyn has been and I want to see the human world.”
“Well…” It was clear the Alpha Drake was reluctant to let his dear little daughter go so far away. But just then Saint stepped forward.
“I will help Kaitlyn and Ari guard Jalli, Your Majesty,” he said. “For my boon is also to go to the human world and attend Nocturne Academy with my cousin and his friends.”
“You want to go too, Saint?” The Alpha Drake was clearly mystified. “But you’ve always been such a loner—wanting nothing but to be alone in your Drake form.”
“I want a great deal more than that, Your Majesty,” Saint said. “But considering the way I am considered bad luck, solitude is my only option here in the Sky Lands. Perhaps in the human world I might find a new way of life that suits me better.” He shot a sidelong glance at me. “And maybe…maybe I too may find some healing.”
I wondered if he was talking about getting therapy or maybe trying medication or seeing if anyone at Nocturne Academy could break the curse on his Drake. Maybe all three.
“We’d love to have you, Saint,” I said quietly. “You saved all our lives last night. I’d be dead or tied to that awful Pedro Sanchez if you hadn’t come back just when you did.”
Saint smiled at me briefly.
“I promised my cousin to guard his L’lorna. I was only keeping my word.”
“And I will keep my word,” Ari’s father had announced. “Saint, you and Jalli may go to the human world and attend Nocturne Academy with Ari and Kaitlyn on the condition that you come back on the weekends sometimes, so we can make certain you’re well.”
“Oh, thank you Papa—thank you!” Jalli had squealed, throwing her arms around her father’s neck and giving him a smacking kiss on the cheek.
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” I said, bowing again. “You won’t regret it. We’ll take good care of Jalli—I promise.”
“See that you do.” Her father gave her one last hug and then set her carefully down. He watched as she hobbled away quickly to tell her mother the good news and shook his head. “If you really can heal her, maybe more of my people can come to the human world for other ailments.”
“I think that would be a wonderful idea,” I said. But beside me I heard Saint mutter,
“Not all ailments are of the body.”
I shot him a swift glance.
“We’ll do our best for you, too, Saint,” I promised.
He nodded gravely.
“Thank you, Kaitlyn. I know you will.”
So it was with a happy heart that I watched the two newest students of Nocturne Academy come and take their place at our little table in the back of the Dining Hall.
Jalli had already settled in and was sharing a bedroom with Megan and Emma and me.
The Norm Dorm was plenty big enough that she could have had a room to herself, but she had admitted to me in a small voice that she was “still just a little afraid of the dark.” So we had moved another bed and wardrobe into our room and Jalli was as happy as could be, staying with the “older girls” even though she was only two years younger than me.
Saint had been a little bit harder to find a spot for. The other Drakes, knowing his reputation, absolutely refused to have him in the West Tower. It had started to look like he was going to have to sleep on a couch in the administration office when Avery spoke up and invited him to share the boy’s dormitory room in the Norm Dorm.
Saint had looked at him coolly, assessing my friend and Coven-mate until Avery’s cheeks had gone a little pink.
“If you knew who I am and what I have done, you would not, perhaps, be so willing to have me sleep with you,” he remarked.
“Uh, what?” Avery had gone bright red, his blue eyes raking over the tall, dark Drake. “Oh, you mean to sleep in my room. Of course, right,” he’d said quickly. “Well what’s so specially terrible about you, then?”
“I am a Blood Drake,” Saint told him. “I have killed while in my Drake form. More than once.”
“Well, it’s not your Drake form that’s going to be sleeping in the bed next to mine, now is it?” Avery asked tartly, recovering some of his poise. “So as long as you don’t plan on shifting shapes while you’re sharing my room, I think we’ll get along fine.”
Saint had seemed surprised that Avery was willing to share a room with him, even after hearing what he truly was. He had bowed formally and thanked my Coven-mate, accepting his offer of a bed in the Norm Dorm.
I couldn’t help secretly wondering how that particular arrangement was going to go. Avery was gay—completely out and proud—and most Drakes were known to be extremely homophobic, though thank goodness Ari didn’t fall into that category.
But so far the two of them seemed to be getting along. They had even formed a tentative friendship and Avery was showing the dark Drake around to his classes and helping him get through the unfamiliar routine of the school day.
So we were all happy and together again and we had new friends to be thankful for too. I felt I had regained almost everything I had lost.
Though The Fire had taken my parents from me, it had given me wonderful friends, a Blood-Bonded mate I would love the rest of my life, and the ability to change into a magical being and soar among the clouds.
Of course, you can’t play cards with peoples’ lives and say, “Oh, I’d trade this for that or his or her life for this or that ability or circumstance” but I felt less bereft now and I
