Chapter 31: Love?

I couldn’t tell him I didn’t love him or didn’t want to be with him because it was all I wanted. Tears ran down my cheek. “I love you too Lexus.” He pulled me to him and kissed me with passion.

“Ew.” Cade groaned. “You guys are gross, is it over?” 

I pulled away and looked at Cade. “Uh no… we’re not going through with the rejection.”

Cade rolled his eyes. “Whatever, let’s go back to the ball.” He ran to the river and fell to his knees as he threw up.

Lexus laughed. “Let’s go before someone comes looking for us.” He looked down at me. “I’m going to end this with Sadia in the morning, I just don’t think right now at the ball is the right place.”

I understood. “Okay.” We started walking down the hiking trail.

“Wait for me.” Cade ran to us. On the walk down I had to fix my bun and dust off the ends of my dress.

When we walked in, my father walked right to me. “Sorry I missed your call, they’re about to announce to everyone that you’re the new generation's holder. Where have you been?” He looked at Lexus who walked past us to Sadia. “Oh…”

“It’s a long story.” Cade answered for me slurring his words.

Our father sighed. “Really Cade? These events aren’t for you to get drunk and make us look bad. Come on Aqua, you haven’t been drinking right?”

“Uh not yet,” I joked then followed him to the side of the stage. The king and queen were on stage. “We’d like to announce that we can confirm a new holder of the moon goddess gifted abilities.” The queen said and everyone clapped. “Aqua Andrews, she’s our adviser Konn’s long lost daughter and our kingdoms next adviser.”

I walked onto the stage and the claps weren’t as loud as the first. I guess that’s because they didn’t know who I was, not until now. I wasn’t paying attention to the rest of what the Queen said. I was too busy watching everyone staring at me. I hoped it wasn’t obvious that I had been crying. I noticed Vella glaring at me as she took two shots. After I walked down off the stage reporters tried to talk to me and the Queen kept reminding them that they weren’t allowed to interview during celebrations. They were asking a lot of intrusive questions so I’m glad they weren’t allowed to continue.

Konn pulled me away from them. “Aqua, these are my parents.”

I looked at them, they looked older than Konn but not as old as I expected. Dragon shifters did live twice as long as humans so they physically aged slower. “I can’t believe I’m the last to find out I have a granddaughter.” My grandmother didn’t look happy. She glared at Konn. “You knew I wanted one granddaughter. I love Cade and Gray, but I wanted one girl and this whole time you had one.” It was weird being referred to like that. “I can’t believe you told your father and not me.”

“The less people who knew the better honey. It would have come up eventually,” Grandfather said in defense. 

Grandmother scoffed. “He didn’t tell me because he knew I would have insisted we raise her ourselves.” She hugged me unexpectedly.

“It’s nice to meet you both.” I muttered then she let go.

Grandfather shrugged. “We should have, I had no idea my father’s abilities would manifest in…” he whispered the next part, “a human hybrid. No offense sweetie.” He patted my head. “You’re just going to have to catch up now, I wish I knew what advice my father would give you. I guess Cade just wasn’t meant to be the holder, he had so much potential.” He was obviously disappointed but trying to be nice about it. “We’ll come back to the castle in maybe a month and a half. I have old things that belonged to my father that might help you on your journey Aqua.”

I only just met my grandfather, but I already didn’t want to disappoint him when it came to being a successful holder. I could tell it meant so much to him and he was doing his best to accept and help me. “Okay grandfather, thank you, I’d appreciate that.”

When we done talking, I found Calvin. “You were gone for an hour and a half.”

I rubbed my arm. “I know, I’m sorry I didn’t expect to take that long.”

“If you’re not interested just tell me Aqua.” Calvin said. “I’ll be fine, I just don’t want to be led on, I like you.”

“Okay, I’m sorry but, I’m not.” Now I wasn’t. “I was interested before and that’s not even why I was gone for so long, but I am busy and dealing with a lot.”

“But you’re not interested now?”

I shook my head. “I’m sorry.”

“Great. I guess I’ll see you around. Thanks for wasting half a good portion of my night.” He walked off. I wish I could have at least been friends with Calvin but that's not what he was looking for and I understood that. I didn't like the way it ended. I didn't want him to think I didn't care. Unfortunately, I couldn't explain to him my situation. I felt bad but I tried to forget about it, and I found Arma. I did notice the Alpha of the werewolf pack having a serious conversation with the king and queen. None of them looked very happy and I felt like it was about me. They would each separately glance in my direction a few times. It was unsettling but I ignored it.

The rest of the night was fun, I met a lot more people, they congratulated me, and the performances were great. I danced with Arma, and we drank a little. I noticed that Vella got really drunk causing her to be removed because she yelled at people, cried, and threw up.

She must have been at her lowest, her heart must have been broken since Cade ended things. A part of me wanted to go comfort her so I told Arma I’d be back and left looking for her.

I found Vella out in the garden sitting on the ground against one of the pillars. “Vella, do you need someone to go home with you?”

Vella stood up. “I’m fine.” She glared at me. “I don’t need you or Cade or Lexus. I don’t need your help or your pity or their attention. Stop acting like you’re a saint Aqua, it’s annoying.” She walked past me and laughed.

I watched her. “What’s so funny?”

She turned to me and shrugged while walking backwards. “Just have fun, I wish I did.” She shifted into her dragon form and flew off.

I walked back into the ball and asked my father to send guards to make sure Vella got home safely. I often though that if me and Lexus weren't mates or if we were, but he didn't fall in love with me that I would have turned out like Vella, broken hearted, spiteful, a mess, and a distant regretful memory of Lexus. Maybe I that's why I had empathy for her.

I had got back after talking to Vella in time for the last performance which was Lexus playing the piano. It sounded different than in class, he was doing his best and preforming instead of practicing and this time I knew he was playing for me. I was deep in the crowd so no one would notice but he kept eye contact with me the whole time. 

Sadia walked to me. “He’s really talented. He hates playing at these, but I’ve always wanted to watch. This is my first time being invited to one of their balls. My relationship with Lexus is really everything I have right now.” I felt guilty because she won’t have it after tonight. “What happened with you and Calvin? He mentioned something about you being heart broken and not being interested. Are you still thinking about your ex? You can talk to me about it, is that why you were so upset the other day? Did your mom give you weird advice about him?”

I shook my head. “Maybe we can talk about it another time.” We enjoyed the rest of Lexus’s performance in silence.

 Once the night was over, I started walking back to my room. “Hey.” I heard Lexus whisper, so I turned around. “Want to go for a fly? I dropped Sadia off ten minutes ago.”

I bit my lip. “Okay.” I followed him out without anyone seeing us. He shifted and I climbed on top of him. I climbed to his head since he was flying slow and so he could hear me. I went on and on telling him about everyone I met and how much fun I had. “They’re so much different than my human grandparents. My mom’s parents were old and didn’t really talk to us much even when they were younger. They were just boring, I guess. They’d give us money to leave us alone.” I laughed. “I guess that’s why my mom wanted to be here so bad. She grew up neglected and craved magic.” I wasn’t exactly neglected, my aunt and uncle spent too much time trying to steer me in the right direction. A direction I didn’t want to go in. 

Lexus landed in the cave village with the glowing crystals in the walls of the cave and glowing pixies. It was the same village we had our boat ride the second day I was here. I climbed off and he shifted. We sat down against the wall of the cave. The cave was huge and bright. “I’m glad you had a good time at the ball. Are you okay with us not getting married?”

I laid my head against him. “I’m fine with it, it’s just documents acknowledging us as a couple. There aren’t many advantages.” There might be financial ones like in the human world but he’s rich so that didn’t matter.

He shook his head. “Here we marry to mate. There’s a lot of benefits to mating. We won’t be able to mark each other because it would be a dead giveaway that we’re together and true mates.”

I didn’t think about that. There are a lot of situations where someone could end up seeing his shoulder. “Oh… well that’s fine. We’ll just have to hold back.”

“It’s going to be hard for me when we have sex. Last time I was pretty close to marking you. It’s a hard urge for me to ignore but we’ll figure it out.” I wanted to have sex with him again. 

I looked up at the cave ceiling that was so far up. “You won’t get to fully experience having a mate since we can’t mark each other.” 

Lexus rolled his eyes. “I told you that’s not why I’m with you Aqua.

No one was outside in the village. Everyone must have been in their homes. “What will Sadia do now that you’re not marrying her? How’s she going to get out the pack?”

Lexus grabbed my hand to hold it. “She can still stay at the castle if she works there but it’s just going to be a longer and harder process,” he explained. “I’m not sure if she’ll want to, she might hate me after this. I fucked our friendship.”

“I’m sorry about that.”

Lexus kissed my forehead. “Yeah, it’s kind of your fault,” he joked. “Are you going to tell your mom?”

“Tell her what? That I only took her advice for three days? I don’t know, I think the only reason she didn’t like you was because you were engaged. She didn’t want me ending up like her. We’re not going to have that problem anymore.” I sighed.

Lexus grabbed my chin and pulled my lips to his. We made out for a while then got up. “I have a bad feeling.”

“What kind of bad feeling?” He frowned.

“No not that.” I quickly corrected him. “It’s my intuition, something bad is going to happen but I don’t know what.”

Lexus looked around. “Let’s just get back to the castle then.” He shifted and flew us back to the castle. He went to his room, and I went to mine.

Even though we were safe at the castle, the bad feeling didn’t go away.