The Elf and Her Dragon Mate

XI. Lesson Learned?

Who honors those  we love with every life we live? Who sends monsters to kill us and at the same time sings that we'll never die? Who teaches us what's real and how to laugh at lies? Who decides why we live and what we'll die to defend? Who chains us? And who holds the key that can set us free? The answer? It's you.

No...no...no. Nononono... this could not be happening. Not to him. Not Jameson. Not after all this waiting, hoping for someone to be there for him, to hold him and love him. To cherish him and he too to do the same in return. And yet he screwed it up.

He couldn't keep his mouth shut. His ego had inflated to astronomical dimensions and he told her off. His one potential mate in two hundred years. On top of that, she wasn't just his mate, she was an incredibly powerful figure in homeland. A single flick of her finger and his head could be rolling in the dirt before his body could even process what was happening. Whoever said women can't be strong or couldn't hold any real power hadn't met Lillyanna.

She even had her two powerful guards and him eating out of the palm of her hand. Tie in the crazy amount of beauty that she had and you have a ticking nuclear weapon, just waiting to be used.

Not once could he get her out of his head. The figure of her coughing up blood, her silhouette fading away as she was carried in the arms of another man. It should have been him and yet it wasn't. He was a disgrace to his kind.

So to try to atone for his mistakes and really just to keep her off his mind, he devoted himself to snapping all the horns of the unicorns. Three days in he noticed the two guards also snapping the horns, although they were trying to keep stealthy. Jameson could feel their thirst for his blood as they fought and he would have welcomed it if it were not for the fact that he needed one last chance to tell Lillyanna the truth.

When the snapping of the horns was complete, the miasma of the land dissipated and the unicorn's rose once more. They were this time many different colors like any other horse yet they all had a glistening silver and gold horn.

With the miasma of the land gone, the earth finally began to look natural. The grass was turning a dark green, the trees were no longer dead but growing leaves of gold and silver like the horns of the unicorns. Water flowed from an unknown place, producing a taste so pure, it was tear inducing.

But despite all this great joy of a restored land of peace and prosperity, Jameson did not feel at peace. A week had passed before anyone had approached him. It was the one with the blue hair.

"Jameson," he simply said and he rose in response.

"I need you to come with me."

"Where?" He asked and he told him that they were going to see Lillyanna. Joy filled his heart. Maybe he would get a second chance. He would not let it go to waste.

But as they walked closer and closer to the hut, the pit of his stomach quivered with nerves that something wasn't right. As they entered, the smell of misery, blood and sickness filled his nose. He almost took as step back but Datrax seemed to know what he was doing and was already behind him blocking any chance of running away.

"You are not leaving. You are going to see the consequences of your actions."

Datrax pushed him forward and he stumbled but complied. Yet the closer he got the more his tears of fear and shame filled his golden eyes, making them glisten like the horn of the unicorns.

When they entered the room, he almost toppled with sadness. There she laid, huddled up in a ball muttering words incomprehensible to anyone but her. There was a bucket beside the bed, half filled with blood. She coughed again and filled the bucket even more.

She was so exhausted afterward that she didn't even bother with the blood on her mouth and chin. She simply laid back and stared at the ceiling. "Jameson," she muttered and his heart somersaulted. He stepped forward but Datrax once again stopped him.

"She can't see you. She doesn't even know you're there. Because of you and the night terrors from the poison and the remembrance of her family's death... she is slowly going insane. The poison is eating at her body, much faster than I could have ever anticipated. But you...you ate at her soul."

"She is so strong, so very strong. Five hundred years she went without someone by her side. And then you come along. Although I'm here and so are Nico and Jason and many others... we are not Jameson Aldregresh. You were meant to be the one person who was to cherish her like no other, and hold her like no other can. She won't let anybody but you love her like that. And yet you fųck it up! I'm so pissed at you that if it weren't for Lillyanna and if it weren't for Jason and Nico already calling bids on cutting you to miniscule pieces, you'd be dead by now. "

Jameson swallowed. He deserved that but he didn't deserve her. He looked down, shaking from the strain of trying to hold in his incoming wave of tears. How could this happen? He was just like any other, waiting for that perfect someone and yet here she was dying right in front of him within arm's reach.

He almost jumped out of his skin when she let out a yell of pain and began tossing and turning. She called for help and he yearned to finally step up the plate and do what he should have been doing on the first place but Datrax's firm grip became like a vise.

"This is the night terrors. As the poison moves within her veins, it causes excruciating pain. But because it keeps happening, she can't pass out from the pain and it's keeping her awake or at least awake enough to feel the pain. She sometimes sees you, other times her family and who knows what else."

As she struggled for minutes on end, he couldn't bare it anymore. He turned his head, his body shaking from the force of his sobs or maybe it was Datrax's...he didn't really know. He felt numb inside. The only sign that he was crying was the water droplets hitting his shoes one by one as he stared down at them.

When she finally began to calm, falling into a restless sleep, Datrax once more turned to him.

"I didn't show this to you so that you so that you could quake in your boots from shame. I showed you this to hurt you. To show you that everything you do has a consequence. I want you to hurt just as bad as she does and yet... I want you to take away her pain. You're the only one who can." He said remorseful.

Datrax stepped aside and Jameson took that as a sign to go to her. He slowly walked up to her, cautious and weary. But soon he couldn't stand it anymore and he bolted to her with every intent to take her pain away.

He grabbed a towel nearby, wet it and wiped her face gently. Her forehead was hot and her hair was drenched in sweat. When she was clean he place a single kiss upon her brow, muttering words that she couldn't hear. Muttering promises to come if only she would awaken.

She sighed and settled better, the tiniest of smiles formed on her face.

Datrax cleared his throat and moved away from the door and once again he took that as his cue to leave.

Right before he left Datrax said one last thing.

"Jameson... if you can't get your shít together by the time she awakens, Nico and Jason won't even have a chance to kill you because she will. And know this... she doesn't play nice when she's angry." He finished and shut the door with a sickening clack.