Dawn of the Dragons (Exiled Dragons Book 10) Read online

  “Because he loves me and is going to marry me. We are going to have baby turds together one day.”

  “That is a disturbing thought on so many levels,” Owen groaned on his way back out the door.

  Dawn snickered and called out to Liam with her mind. He was thinking about food again. It was really a wonder he ever thought of anything else.

  “I wish you loved me the way you love tacos,” she sent out to him.

  “I do, even though you both give me gas,” he shot back.

  “You’re such a romantic.”

  “That’s why you love me best.”

  “Yeah, it is.”

  “Are you going to come to school tomorrow?”

  “Why wouldn’t I?” she replied, perplexed by the question.

  “I know it took a lot out of you today. Do you think Dir…uh, Harlan will be back?”

  “No. He might never be back,” she said sadly.

  “That’s horrible.”

  “You have no idea.”

  “I know. Hey, sneak out your window and come have tacos with me.”

  “Not hungry, and my dad will kill us both. I’ll let you go eat your precious tacos in peace. See you in the morning.”

  “See you in the morning, Dawn.”

  She turned her mind to other things, trying to flush away thoughts of what happened today, but images of poor Harlan kept coming back to her. They weren’t of him standing in the corridor with a shard at Tommy’s throat. Instead, she saw him having his head repeatedly dunked in a toilet while they flushed and laughed as he sputtered and begged them to stop.

  It was only one of dozens of memories she had seen. They had spanned from the time he was a very small boy to that very morning. Repeated assaults and insults that had finally gotten to be too much. How the other boys could be so cruel was beyond her. She couldn’t fathom having that sort of hate for someone who had never done anything to them.

  Dawn turned on some music to distract herself. Soon, her room was filled with her favorite groups, and she was singing along as she picked out what she would wear to school tomorrow. Unlike the other girls, she preferred jeans and t-shirts over more prissy options, and her hair was perpetually in a ponytail. Trying to untangle the mass of wild, curly hair that fell all over her head was too much of an effort.

  “You’ll do just fine,” she said as she pulled out a gray tee that read ‘Sorry my dragon ate your sparkly vampire.’

  Looking at herself in the mirror, she scowled. She hated the way she looked, but she had no inclination to fix it. Her mother was beautiful. She always did her hair and put on makeup, even if she was just hanging around the house. It was important to her to look her best. Dawn didn’t want to have to do all that stuff, but she wished she could look pretty without it.

  Liam never told her she was pretty. She knew that shouldn’t matter, but it would be nice if he said it sometimes. Was it true that they would marry one day, or was it just something she had convinced herself of so long ago that she believed it to be true even still? Liam seemed to believe her, but he was her friend. He was her best friend. Was it possible that was all they were meant to be?

  The thought saddened her that she might not know the difference in platonic love and romantic love but she hadn’t ever been like other girls. No one wanted to date her. They were all afraid of her or thought she was weird. It was only Liam that seemed to accept her as she was. He teased her, but never in a mean way.

  Perhaps he didn’t love her as more than a friend, and one day she would have to accept that, but he was the only one she had eyes for and couldn’t imagine her life without him. It was hardly going to be easy to find a husband that would accept that she wanted to be with him so much all the time. Then again, why did she need a husband? If Liam was somehow not the one, maybe there was no one else for her.

  Once again, she found herself saddened by her own thoughts. Rather than dwelling on them further, she decided that it might be best if she just called it a night and went to sleep. It was a long time coming, but she finally began to doze off after calling out to Liam to make sure he was home okay. He told her he was about to go to bed, too, and that was all she needed to know to find some peace.

  Her mind reached out to find his heartbeat, using it to lull her into a peaceful sleep that she knew would end all too soon when the morning alarm went off to get ready for school. Liam was her lifeline. Hopefully, he always would be.

  CHAPTER 6

  “Did you hear about Dirt?” Dawn heard someone asking as she passed by.

  She didn’t pause. Instead, she hurried toward class and tried to drown out the voices in her head. The voices were a constant for her. They were the thoughts of everyone around her, and they weren’t always nice. Sometimes they were full of personal things she didn’t want to know about people. Often, they were about her.

  It wasn’t uncommon for her to see the disdain people felt for her even as they stood there, talking to her in a polite manner. People thought she was weird or stuck up because her choices didn’t revolve around popularity. Some feared her because they had seen or heard of her doing things they couldn’t comprehend. That was the thing about her gifts - no matter how hard she tried to keep them under wraps, word got around anyway, and people were always frightened by the unknown.

  “Your shirt is on inside out,” Liam told her as she sat down, shaking his head as a slow smile spread across it.

  “Jesus,” she said, looking down at it.

  She had gotten up late and dressed in a hurry, but how could she not have noticed her shirt was like this? Shrugging, she pulled it over her head and flipped it around. Girls and guys alike sat looking at her with odd expressions as she smoothed it back down and sat in her seat.

  “Really, Dawn?” Liam said.

  “What? I have on a tank underneath it. It’s not like I just stripped in class.”

  “I’d give you a dollar if you did,” a ginger lad named Alastair laughed from nearby.

  “I’ll give you a dollar,” Liam snarled at him.

  The smile faded from the ginger’s face as he sat back in his seat and returned his gaze forward, careful not to look back in either Dawn or Liam’s direction. Dawn felt elated. Liam was jealous. Maybe he didn’t think of her as just a friend, after all.

  “All right, class. Before we get started this morning, I would like to talk to everyone about the events of yesterday. I’ve just come from a meeting with the headmasters this morning and learned that one of our own – I won’t mention his name, but many of you know by now who it was – is in the hospital in very serious condition.”

  Everyone was silent. Most listened with rapt attention, though a few were disinterested. Their thoughts angered Dawn. They were callous and didn’t care about one of their own being harmed, because in their eyes he was not worthy of their compassion. Dawn tried to ignore their internal dialogues as she refocused her attention on their teacher.

  “It has come to our attention that this was a result of certain students in this school that subjected an innocent fellow student to severe bullying. Their actions caused irreparable damage that may well result in the death of this student.”

  “He’s going to die?” a girl named Lily asked, wide-eyed.

  “There is a strong possibility that he could,” the teacher responded.

  Dawn knew that Lily felt bad. She had done nothing to Harlan, but she had also done nothing to stop the boys she knew tormented him. In her own way, she held some responsibility to what had happened, and she was well aware of it, even if she never admitted it aloud.

  “A list of names has been formed that will be called upon throughout the day to come to the headmaster’s office. Please note that not everyone on this list did anything wrong. Some may be witnesses to events, and some may be completely innocent of any knowledge regarding what has happened, so do not speak of those who are called in hall gossip. This is a gravely serious matter, and such nonsense will not be tolerated.”

  Everyo
ne was quiet as they all thought about this for a moment. Dawn suddenly knew everyone in the room that knew anything about the matter and also those who did not.

  “So, when I call the following students’ names, you will go to the front office and wait to be called in for questioning. There will not only be headmasters and instructors, but also members of the dragon council. Do not be alarmed. Just answer as truthfully as you can.”

  Several heartbeats quickened around Dawn and thoughts ran wild. Dawn could see that there were many that had known about the bullying, most not involved, but they had known just as well as Lily had what was happening and chose to do nothing.

  Dawn wondered to herself if she would have done nothing had she known. She would like to think she would not have let it continue, but if she were being honest, she might have deemed it not her fight until it was already too late, just as some of the others had.

  “Dawn McCord?” the teacher said.

  Dawn’s head shot up, not understanding at first why she had been called. She had been absorbed in her thoughts and already forgotten what the teacher was talking about.

  “Yes?”

  “I need you to go to the headmaster’s office.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes. Don’t waste time. They have a lot of people to see today.”

  Dawn got up reluctantly, aware of all the eyes on her and the thoughts wondering what she had to do with the situation. None of them had been in the corridor yesterday and, even if they had, there was no way for them to know what she had seen, felt, or done. It would not keep them from thinking the worst of her though. Still, she didn’t care. Picking up her bookbag, she made her way out of the classroom and up to the school office.

  “Good morning, Dawn. I’m sorry to pull you out of class,” Kergot told her as she entered.

  Dawn looked around the room. She was relieved to find that the only ones present were Kergot and Penelope. There weren’t even any members of the dragon guard, not even her father.

  “Did I do something wrong?” she asked.

  “What? No, of course not. I have made a list of the young men and women I need to talk to today. I made it from memory, based on what I learned from you in the corridor. I just wanted to see if you would look over it and tell me if it is complete and accurate, to your knowledge.”

  “I see,” she replied. “Will anyone know that I am the one that told you about these people?”

  “No. They will be questioned very thoroughly based upon what I know and what they are thinking at the time I ask the questions. They will have no way of knowing what led me to them, and I would think most will assume that Harlan told me something while he was still lucid.”

  “He was never lucid after Tommy hurt him,” Dawn said solemnly.

  “They don’t know that and they don’t need to. Even if we were willing to reveal your gift, you are still a third party. I can’t take this to the dragon council based solely on your account as an uninvolved party, if that makes sense.”

  “It does. What if they don’t confess?”

  “People have a way of turning against one another when it benefits them. Some will confess. Some will tell on the others. In the end, they will all pay for what they’ve done. That much, I promise.”

  Penelope said nothing, merely sitting in to observe, it seemed. Dawn was beginning to think that was all she was there to do, but then she spoke to her.

  “Dawn, none of this was your fault. I hope you feel no guilt for revealing the people who did this. They have to learn this is not okay. They have to learn the consequences of their actions.”

  “I know, but thank you,” Dawn replied, handing the list back to Kergot. “It seems to be correct. Except for one I didn’t know about. Lily Abbott. She is in my first period class. Her thoughts reveal that she did nothing, but she witnessed others doing something, and she feels guilty about not having said or done anything. I think she would be willing to change that if asked.”

  Kergot nodded and wrote something on the list. Dawn assumed he added Lily’s name.

  “You can go,” he told her.

  Dawn left, returning to class. Several students asked her what they had wanted, and she just told them they had asked what she knew and sent her back. There were distrustful looks at her until more than a dozen of them were also called and returned.

  She began to understand that many of the students would be called to mask those that might provide information or just in case they might offer up unexpected information. As more of them were called up, fewer seemed to wonder what she might have said during her time. The looks faded away and everyone seemed equally ill at ease. The day seemed to drag on forever.

  CHAPTER 7

  “What will they do to them?” her mother was asking as Dawn and her parents sat at the dinner table later that evening.

  “I don’t know. The council will convene and review the evidence. Some of them will be prosecuted by the council, and others will merely be reprimanded by the school,” her father replied.

  “What about Tommy? Will they punish him for what he did?”

  “I don’t know, Dawn. He confessed nothing. His side of the story is that Harlan just went off and attacked him and the witnesses present during the incident that caused the injury are standing by him.”

  “They are lying!” Dawn said angrily.

  “I know they are lying, Dawn, but we have to be able to prove they are lying, and I don’t know if we can do that.”

  “I’ll talk to the council. I’ll tell them what I saw.”

  “I won’t have you revealing your gift to the public, Dawn. It’s dangerous for them to know your full power. Besides, even if I allowed you to do it, it is still not admissible in the court. It is still your word about what you saw in his mind against theirs. Unless he comes around and is able to tell his side of the story to them firsthand, there is little that can be done other than punish them for the bullying that can be corroborated by accounts from multiple sources.”

  Dawn stood up and stomped angrily away, running upstairs to her room. Her parents began to whisper, constantly forgetting that it did them no good to quiet their voices when she could see everything that went on in their minds. She reached out for Liam, but he couldn’t be found. Perplexed and anxious, she sat on her bed and considered her next move.

  Grabbing a jacket and a scarf, she headed downstairs, quickly darting out the front door before anyone could stop her. Her father called out to her from the front door, but she ignored him, headed toward the gravel pits to see if she could find Liam there. Perhaps he was hurt and that was why she couldn’t find him. The thought sped her along.

  “What are you doing?”

  Liam jerked his head up in her direction. He seemed surprised to see her there. How had he not known she was looking for him? She had been reaching out to him all morning. Still, she could tell he hadn’t, and even more curiously, she couldn’t see his thoughts.

  “I was just poking around. I hadn’t heard from you this morning, so I came down here alone.”

  “What do you mean you haven’t heard from me? I’ve been trying to communicate with you all morning. You haven’t answered my calls or texts, and I’ve not been able to feel you at all.”

  “Really?” he said, fidgeting around in his pockets. “Oh, crap. I know why. I left my phone in my pants last night, and Mom came in and scooped up all my laundry before I was out of bed. I hope she didn’t wash them with it in there. I haven’t even thought about it.”

  “And you’ve been blocking your mind? Did your mom wash that, as well?”

  “What? Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve been wide open.”

  Dawn looked at him, studying his face since she couldn’t read his thoughts. What was happening here? He didn’t seem to be lying, but why couldn’t she make out his mind?

  “Are you okay, Dawn?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

  “That sounds like a great idea. I’m starvin
g.”

  “You are always starving.”

  “Hey, I’m a growing boy! I’ll be eighteen soon, you know. I’ll be a man and all.”

  “What does that mean? You’ll eat even more?”

  “Maybe,” he said playfully, kissing her lightly on the cheek as he passed by and took off across the nearby meadow for her to follow.

  Dawn felt flushed. It was the first time he had ever kissed her. Even though it was pretty innocent, she felt her pulse quicken. It felt like her blood was all rushing through her body, trying to pulse its way outward to the daylight. Then, everything went gray.

  “Dawn? Dawn!” she heard Liam call, but his voice seemed far away, lost in a sea of fog that seemed to envelope her and send her spiraling down into a darkness from which no light could escape.

  She could feel him lifting her, carrying her off somewhere. Would he ravish her out here in the meadow? Was this what it felt like to be wanton and wild? Everything else become nothing and your body centered on only its wants and its needs? It was nothing like she had imagined it would be. How could she possibly enjoy her first time with Liam – with anyone for that matter – if she was in some sort of odd sex coma?

  Her mind tried to reach out to his, but there was only a blinding pain. The black turned to red and swirled together. The world seemed to spin madly out of control. Still, she could feel Liam’s arms around her, and she could feel the motion of him carrying her away. Carrying her away to bliss, but the pain grew stronger. It screamed throughout her head and ricocheted off her skull, trying to escape.

  Liam’s voice slipped away from her. The feel of him disappeared. Everything faded into nothingness as she fell into a place where she couldn’t escape. Her last thought was more of a realization. She was dead. This is what death felt like. She had no idea how it had happened. She had only been basking in the glow of Liam’s kiss. Now, she was dead. The kiss of death. It had a romantic ring to it, and yet, it didn’t feel very romantic at all from this angle.