“Well, you said the Guardian wanted to eat me,” I pointed out. “And isn’t he a kind of Drake? I mean, it just stands to reason that if I’m, uh, ‘tasty’ to one kind of Drake I might be to another one too, right?”
“Kaitlyn, please—you can’t really believe that.” Ari’s face was pale. “My Drake would rather shred his own wings to tatters than so much as scratch you! He loved you even before I did—my heart followed his, as so often happens—but he saw you first.”
“But what does he see in me? Why does he care for me?” I demanded, mystified. “I don’t understand why I caught his attention in the first place.”
“Because you’re special.” Ari’s hands squeezed mine and he looked into my eyes earnestly. “I don’t know what it is about you, Kaitlyn—I honestly don’t. But there is something extraordinary about you that drew first my Drake, and then me. And we, neither of us, can bear to abandon you, L’lorna. Please…” He leaned closer. “Please, come with me now to the Sky Lands. I cannot leave without you and neither can my Drake.”
“I don’t know…”
I could feel my cheeks heating with his compliments and his certainty that I was different, special somehow, though it seemed like foolishness to me. I was just an ordinary girl who’d had some extraordinary—and very unfortunate—things happen to me.
“How would we even get there?” I asked at last, looking into his pleading eyes. “I mean, how would we get to the Sky Lands?”
Ari took a deep breath.
“We would fly,” he said, as though anticipating that this would be a sticking point for me. “And…you would need to ride on my Drake’s back.”
“What?” I frowned and half-drew my hands out of his. “Ari, you want me to be alone with him? Up in the air?”
“Dios…” He blew out a breath of pure frustration and scrubbed a hand over his face. “Yes, I’m afraid so,” he admitted at last. “But, Kaitlyn, this is not unusual. None of the females of our kind have a Drake within them—only the males. So the females ride on the Drakes’ backs in order to enter the human world all the time.”
I still didn’t like the idea. Didn’t like the idea of being alone with a being that could bite me in half if he wanted to—or roast me to a crisp.
Ari was studying my face as I thought this and he seemed to understand my fears.
“Is it his fire that bothers you?” he asked earnestly. “Because my Drake is not always aflame. He only breathes fire when it’s absolutely necessary.”
“Like when you have to get the attention of an unruly mob in the Dining Hall?” I asked dryly.
Ari flushed.
“I couldn’t think of any other way to keep them off you,” he said in a low voice. “Believe me, Kaitlyn, if there had been a way to stop them without making you fear me and my Drake even more, I would have done it.”
The hurt in his clear amber eyes made me feel ashamed of myself for my cowardice.
“I’m sorry,” I told him. “I’m sorry I’m so afraid. It’s just, my parents, well…I lost them in a house fire. And that’s how I got all these ugly scars…” I lifted my hands, indicating my face and the rest of my body. The experience gave me a terrible fear of fire—any fire. And also, your Drake is so big…”
“He is big,” Ari acknowledged. “But he can be gentle, Kaitlyn—that I swear. Will you please just agree to meet him before you decide if you’ll come with me or not?”
“Meet him?” I frowned. “Where? Here?”
Ari looked around the common area of the Norm Dorm with apparent amusement.
“Certainly not—he would never fit,” he remarked. “I think…” He frowned thoughtfully. “I think out on the athletic field would be the best place. There I can shift in peace, away from any prying eyes.” He got off his knees and stood before the couch, holding out his hand to me. “Will you come with me and meet him?” he asked.
I bit my lip once more. Should I do this? Should I go with him and meet his Drake?
Face your fears, Kaitlyn, whispered a little voice inside me. If you don’t, you’ll be sorry!
“All right,” I said at last. “But…can I bring the rest of my Coven with me?”
“Of course.” Ari nodded with dignity. “A shift to one’s beast form is usually a private affair. But if it will make you feel better, please, invite your Coven to join us.”
I went and knocked on the door of the game room, to let Megan and Griffin and Avery know what was going on. I only wished that Emma was there too—it didn’t feel right to take this momentous step without a full Coven and all my friends around me.