Fire

Chapter Twenty Eight

"You look beautiful," Sebastian whispers in my ear after we were dancing for a minute. I look up into his gold eyes and smile at him.

"Thank you," I whisper back. He smiles back at this.

"I am sorry if I got you in trouble with my brother. That was never my intention. I just do these things to mess with him. Plus, you did need to get started on getting dressed."

"He wasn't mad at me, but he was furious with you." He chuckles at this.

"He is always furious with me." A comfortable silence descends on us as the song changes.

"Did you know that I was to be Emil's bride?" I ask with my voice barely above a whisper. He doesn't respond for a minute. Eventually, he nods slowly.

"Yes. I knew since he met you in the woods the first time. He was quite distraught when he found out about your mark... he may not seem like it at times, but he is a good man Ember. He's just had a bit of a tough time with the transition to power. He always assumed he would be the king's advisor, not the king himself. He had to choose a bride within a certain time frame and classifications. He was just getting used to his new form when he came to see you. Whenever he gets a new form he always reverts to the strongest instinct. He essentially becomes psychotic and sadistic. He hurts everything and everyone when he isn't in control. He--"

"Wait, I'm confused. What do you mean 'new form'? And why would how he treated me be an instinct?" I whisper yell.

"Emil is different... Normally, our children are born human, with a few oddities, specifically the eyes. As you've noticed, dragons have... unique eyes. Our pupils are similar to those of felines and the colors can range all over the visible spectrum. As a dragonling gets older, it presents more dragon features. Nails develop into talons and scales begin to form on their hands and feet as well as their ears. This starts around their late toddler years and continues until right up to the start of their adolescent years. Once there, they revert back to fully human before a full shift into a dragon. This was not the case with my brother. Emil's mother, the second late wife of the king, was human, like you. But she was no ordinary human. She had a temper on her, and for good reason. Her mother was a vampire that fell in love with a human. Vampires have nasty tempers and are often enjoy inflicting as much pain as possible. Her father was one of your people. A mage, a powerful one too. I do believe you know him. His name is Finnur." I take a sharp intake of breath. He gives me an odd look. I nod for him to continue.

"Well, as you can assume, Finnur and the vampire fell in love and had Emil's mother. She did not take after either of her parents. Instead, she took after her grandfather, who was one of the most sadistic vampires in the past millennium. Eventually, she mellowed out for the most part because of her human side. But when she was put on edge she reverted back to what she knew. Emil is one half vampire-human and the other half dragon. When he met you, he had bad memories brought up, causing him to revert. You see, dragons have impeccable control over their emotions. If we lost our temper in our dragon form and it caused us to flame, we could end up hurting our children or other humans, like Conny. If we are angry and shift into our human forms, well, it isn't the same result. If we shift when angry, our anger is magnified severely. Emil has problems not reverting when he shifts after a long time as a dragon and because he shifted when he was angry, he reverted completely to his vampiric instincts."

"Okay... but what did you mean by 'new form'?"

"That is what we call it when he transitions. His vampiric side doesn't necessarily like the fact that controls his emotions when he's a dragon. That he can contain and compartmentalize everything so he doesn't explode. Dragons are calm and calculated while vampires are hot headed and spontaneous. We call each of them a different form so he doesn't get upset and set him off again."

"Okay... But tell me this. Does Finnur know? That Emil is part dragon, I mean. And how does Keegan fit into this?"

"Oh, yes. Keegan. Well... Each part of Emil has a different name. His vampiric side is Samael, which we often shorten to Sam. His dragon side is Jedidiah and his human side is... Keegan. To refer to him as a whole, he is Emil. In one of your languages it means rival. The different aspects of himself are literally rivals with one another. There are times where his personality will strictly be only one of his sides and he will demand to be called by its given name. Most times, it will be his vampire side that takes over and he will demand to be called Samael or Sam. He can block out the other parts of himself for short periods of time but when he lets them back in, he reverts again. I believe that is what happened when you met him as Keegan. Causing him to revert again and... try to forcefully mark you once he became human again after being a dragon and bringing you back here. But to answer your other question, yes. Finnur does know. So does the rest of his clan. There has been talk for centuries of combining the dragon and human races so we can be intermingled in a chance to allow everyone to find their counter-part successfully. Finnur lost his when some hunters killed her out of fear. He only wishes to allow everyone to find their counter-part like he did, even though she was killed." He finishes quietly. I can feel his eyes on my face but I can't bring myself to look him in the eyes. Instead, I look over his shoulder at the other dancers. We continue to dance and he doesn't say any more about his brother. The song end and Emil approaches us.

"May I have a dance?" he asks, looking at me intently. I nod, step away from Sebastian, and take Emil's offered hand. He leads us to the very center of the floor, in the middle of the rest of the dancers. The next song begins and we dance to it.

"I am sorry about not informing you earlier. I was not aware my father would be announcing our engagement so soon after your arrival. I had planned to tell you once you had settled in and adjusted to life here. I'm sorry I did not get a chance to tell you beforehand," he says earnestly, searching my face for signs of how I am feeling. Luckily for me, after several year of hiding my powers and pain accompanied with them from my parents for years, I have gotten very good about not giving physical queues as to how I am feeling. Not seeing anything to help him on my face, he sighs.

"Also..." he starts. I look up at him at the sign of his hesitation. "I apologize the way I treated you when we first met, and then when I brought you here. I do not usually act that way and I am sorry for the pain I have caused you," he whispers, looking a little embarrassed and ashamed. I study his face when he looks away. He looks so different now from when I first met him in the woods. He seems more like Keegan, humble, full of emotion, and, most of all, human. He seems nothing like the sadistic vampire I had met in the woods who stabbed me with my own dagger. I stayed quiet as we continued dancing, as did he. A question was gnawing at me so, eventually, I asked him.

"Emil..." I start out cautiously.

"Hmm?"

"Why... why did you pick me? I've seen the women here. You could have chosen any one of them, or any other human or other species. So why did you pick me?" He is silent as he ponders my question.

"Well there are rules when it comes to the Crown Prince choosing his bride. She must be powerful and fertile, so as to have offspring that is powerful so as to lead their people. She must also be intelligent so as to lead her people successfully and wisely. Aurora had been helping me look for people. She is an incredible artist. I told her what I was looking for along with the requirements for the future Queen and she scoured the different planes for women meeting them. When she finds someone that I find interesting as well as fitting for the role, she paints them for me so I could know who I was looking for. I went and visited them all but none were quite right. Until I met you. The day I planned to meet you, something happened. I had gotten into an argument with my father and I was angry. When I met you... I wasn't myself. I'm sorry." I don't get a chance to say anything, not that I knew what to say, before Conny comes over and interrupts.

"My Lord! I apologize for the interruption but there is something urgent that requires your attention."

"What is it?"

"It's... Aurora." She doesn't get to say anything else before Emil releases me and starts towards his sister's chambers. "You may want to bring Ember... She is screaming for her." This causes him to freeze. He turns around and stares at me, with a look on his face that I can't place. He marches back over and grabs my upper arm and then half drags me with him to go see what is wrong with his sister.