Chapter 10

Tayten woke up locked in Taiyls' grasp. For a moment she sighed contently, snuggling deeper into her warm embrace. Then the memory of what was said came back to her and her stomach dropped.

They had not left the apartment for over twenty-four hours. If they needed food they had called for delivery or they had gone without. They had done everything from watch movies on Taiyls' extremely comfy couch to making passionate love wherever they had happened to be. It had been a day where their life had been put on hold. The dragons had understood, they had even bonded (as friends) together while their humans had bonded as a couple.

But now life and time came crashing back to them. Biting hard on her lip, Tayten wrapped nuzzled her face into Taiyls' shoulder.

Taiyls woke up when she did this. Without opening her eyes, she ran her hands through Tayten's hair. "What's wrong?" She whispered.

"You leave today."

The rider sat bolt upright, her eyes wide. She twisted off the bed and dug around to find her cell phone, and a clock.

"Shit, shit, shit." She started to chant as she ran around the room, collecting various articles of clothing, stuffing them into the pack she had left out.

Slowly, Tayten eased herself out of the bed and helped. She picked up the sloppily thrown clothes, folding them and packing them in a more space efficient manner, every once and a while she would leave something out. Finally, Taiyls stopped rushing around, her hand pressed to one of her temples. Quirking her pierced eyebrow, Tayten handed her the clothes she had left out.

"I'm not sure about you, but I personally would hate flying around naked." She pointed out.

Taking them, Taiyls smiled at her. "What would I do without you?"

"Ride around the world nude apparently." Tayten was rewarded with a snort of laughter as Taiyls started to pull on the clothes. After watching for just a moment to make sure she wasn't too flustered, Tayten moved to pull on her own clothes.

Both of them dressed and Taiyls packed, they left the apartment. Hand in hand they walked and rode the shuttle to the dragons' beach. Neither of them spoke to each other, though everyone and a while one would stroke the other's hand as if trying to silently communicate. When they got to the beach, they noticed eight dragons waiting for them, and six people. As they drew up, Tayten noticed that Shae had come to say good bye to James.

"About time Taiyls." said a male rider Tayten didn't know.

Taiyls gave him a 'I'm going to kill you' look and turned to Tayten. "I don't know if I'll be able to text you…"

"I don't want you to text me." Tayten said softly. "It would destroy whatever we have. Besides, you need to work."

"But…" The other woman frowned, running her fingers through Tayten's hair. At this moment she would have done just about anything to stay, to be with her even for one more day. "You'll be here when I get back?"

Tayten nodded, "I will."

Taiyls did not look overly convinced. "And you'll stay in my apartment. If you want, Shae can come and stay with you just…." She looked almost pleading, it made Tayten want to whimper for her. "… just please stay."

"I give you my word, I will be here, or at your apartment when you return. I know you don't like the word but Taiyls, I will be yours when you come back to me."

She smiled at Tayten, giving her hand a last squeeze before the rider who had growled at her earlier came to almost literally drag her away. All of the riders mounted and took off, each pair going in a different direction, those who remained here Tayten, Shae, Kijorn and Najin.

Shae walked over and put her hand on Tayten's shoulder. "Want some breakfast?"

Meekly, she nodded and they walked from the beach, Kijorn and Najin following them since they were either young or could become smaller.

"So, you're really going to miss Taiyls aren't you?" Shae asked softly, grabbing a can of pop from a fridge in a random breakfast shop they had found.

"Yes." answered Tayten as she too grabbed a drink and then a cinnamon roll from the fridge. "Are you going to miss James?"

The other nodded, smiling down at her can. "Yeah, he is really sweet. We just watched movies last night, sitting on his couch. We cuddled and stuffs."

As they paid for their food and sat down, Tayten looked over Shae. "Are you and he actually dating?"

She picked at her can with one hand and the other moved to caress Najin at her side. "I don't know. I mean. We flirt like no other. I'm pretty sure he likes me and I know I like him… I just don't know where he and I stand."

"You should tell him that you like him." Tayten continued to study her friend, even when Kijorn shrank until he was the size of a Lego horse on the table and started to nibble at her food. "Only good things can happen." She looked down and saw her dragon looking guiltily up at her. "Hey! Stay away from my food!"

Kijorn scrambled off the table, laughing along with Shae and Najin.

"I'm sorry." He said, though his voice clearly sounded pleased. "I just wanted to try it." His nose stretched forward, nuzzling Tayten.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever." Tayten mumbled, stabbing her roll with her fork.

Still snickering, Shae attempted to answer Tayten. "Yeah, I might tell him when he comes back. Hey, since I've been here I've either been staying in a hotel or in Jamess guest room. Since you have Taiyls' place, mind if I crash there while they're gone?"

"Not at all." Tayten looked at the dragon. Neither of them was huge at the moment so she figured they would be able to fit in the apartment. "We can all crash their since all of our friends happen to be gone."

The dragons made low growling noises of pleasure at being invited to stay and to sleep with the humans.

"Watching you is making me hungry Tayten." Kijorn said with his eyes on her roll. "I think I'm going to go fish."

"Can I come?" Najin asked. She glared at Shae. "She didn't get any food to share with me." Her ears went back a little, the dragon pretended to pout. "Shae neglects me."

"I do not!" exclaimed Shae. "I… uh… I"

The dragon laughed softly, looking up at Shae with adoring eyes. "I was kidding silly! But I do want to go with Kijorn to fish."

"Have fun!" The humans called as the dragons, who apparently had short attention spans, ran out of the shop.

Shae sighed after they had left. "So, did you hear that we are supposed to start training tomorrow?"

"No!" Tayten choked. "When did you find that out?"

"James told me. Yeah, we start tomorrow but the dragons start tonight. Since they don't know where we are going we are just learning about dragon care and stuff. You know, thing that the people who live hear would know at about the same time they learned how to speak."

Tayten scratched her head. "Fun fun."

"I know it."

It turned out Tayten and Shae were the only ones in their 'class.' This was because the seasons' eggs had yet to hatch. So they had been told at least. Their teacher was a dragon and instead of a 'how to' class, it was more of the dragon just walking around with them, telling them stories about the island. The stories explained how dragons had gotten there, how their riders were chosen, and even why they had special gifts. They were taught about dragon culture. What the dragons thought was considered great beauty and what they considered ugly. The dragon teacher told them legends and lore about the first dragons in the world, and about how they had once coexisted with humans.

In the middle of the day, they were handed off to a dragon rider, though not the rider of the dragon who taught them in the first half of the day. The rider told them about the code of honor that came with being a rider. They too told stories from a rider's point of view. These lessons explained why trackers looked for the kinds of people they did, and how those born on the island were rarely able to work with a dragon. It was simply because the people from the main lands thought the dragons were just as extraordinary as the dragons thought the humans were.

A third of the way through the afternoon, the two were handed off to another human, though she was not a rider. After the first few seconds with the woman, Tayten and Shae knew they were going to dislike coming to her. This woman explained that every rider had to be fit, no matter what their place in life was. That was all the explanation they got before she made them do push-ups, sit ups, pull-ups, lift weights, and run laps around a very large track. The woman explained that while they did this all day, their dragons swam and flew laps around the entire island with weights tied to them.

On the first day, Shae scoffed.

"Najin doesn't even know how to fly yet." She pointed out.

Their trainer gave her a look and made her to twenty extra push ups. Once they were released that day, they made it to the beach only to find Najin flying in happy little circles around Kijorn.

At six every day they were free to do whatever they wanted so long as it was not illegal. Usually they went straight back to Taiyls' apartment and slept. Occasionally they would eat before they crashed but not often. Some times, if any one of the teachers was feeling incredibly kind to them that day, they would go out to find something to eat or just hang around the squares.

They quickly learned that this was an incredibly bad idea. Igor often found a way to run into them so he could try to explain his theories to them. He would follow them around, making himself companionable to the point where they would stop to listen to what he had to say. Each time this happened, he was able to get further and further into his talk before they found out what he was talking about. After the third time they had caught themselves almost agreeing with him, they stopped going out into the square.

"I see how he gets his fan base." Tayten muttered one day after they had almost run back to the apartment.

Shae just looked at her, not really in the mood to ask questions after a long day.

"Well, I mean, when you first talk to him he seems nice enough. It makes you want to hear what he says. Sometimes he uses long words, making you think more about the words than what he is actually saying. By that time, you're just in a good mood because you know what he said so you start agreeing with him because it makes you feel smarter. So, he catches people that way." Shrugging, she dug her spoon into the soup she had built up the motivation to heat up. "And he probably targets people who are either too ignorant or stupid to really be able to disagree, or people who truly do agree with him."

Her friend was just staring into her bowl of soup, really tired. "Do you think he ever goes to see his dragon?"

"I doubt it." Tayten replied sadly. She looked over Shae, who looked like she was about to pass out any minute. Looking at her watch, she sighed. "It is nine forty."

"Time to sleep." Shae muttered. "Sorry I'm not all friendly, I'm just really, really tired."

Tayten grinned at her and poked her gently. "I think you're also missing James."

Shae made a face. "Can you blame me? Men are just so… …manly."

They shook their heads at each other. "'Night Shae."

"Sleep well sexy!"

Life continued about the same for about three and a half weeks. After the first one, both girls started missing their friends, and lovers, terribly. Their dragons tried desperately to cheer them up, but there was nothing they could say or do to make the women stop worrying. So instead of trying to cheer them up, they just enjoyed the moments everyone was happy and remained content in their company when all they could do was sit around watching pointless and usually stupid movies. Though they avoided the squares as much as possible they had come to notice that people were getting busier and more on edge with each passing day. The times they did see Igor, he often looked like he was in a rage, or a look of sickening smugness was on his face.

On the weekend of the fourth week they did not have class since it was going to be the weekend of the dance. When they went outside to enjoy the sun and their days off, they could feel the tension in the air they breathed. It made them not even want to leave the building.

Tayten.

The ritter froze when the voice sounded in her head. At that moment, her phone buzzed.

Guess who's home!

Tayten all but trembled.

"Come on." She hissed to Shae, grabbing her arm and dragging her out of the apartment building. Catching on to her excitement, the dragons rushed out after her, both looking just as eager as Tayten was.

The woman ran through the streets, not caring enough to actually drag Shae along with her. She was so excited that she was not out of breath by the time she came into the town's square. At once, she froze to compose herself. She would not she her eagerness, nor her absolute need to see Taiyls again. Even though her body shook violently when she found the blonde head that belonged to her.

"Taiyls." She whispered when she came up behind the other.

She spun at once to face Tayten, a composed face ruined by her shining eyes.

"Tayten?"

Before either of them could think, let alone react to each other's names, they were in each other's arms, kissing each other as if they had just walked through death and found each other alive on the other side. Tayten's arms locked Taiyls to her by the waist while Taiyls' fingers were tangled in Tayten's hair, refusing to let her sweet kisses wonder too far away from her.

"I told you." panted Tayten. "I told you I would be here, I told you I would be yours."

"I know. I know, I was just…" Taiyls was cut off by Tayten's impatience.

When they broke slightly apart again, Tayten steadied herself.

"Taiyls, I love you."

She said the words. As they came out of her mouth, Taiyls fainted in her arms just as a dragon's scream pierced the air. The cry was followed by dozens more draconic cries and pleas.

"Kanjik is attacking a silver!" Someone in the square called out.

All Tayten could think was Saojra as she held Taiyls' body in her arms. It was all she was aware of for a moment in time. She could not hear the dragons screaming in protect, nor could she feel Shae and Tayten shaking her shoulders. The feet around her meant nothing to her. All she knew was that a dragon had attacked Saojra, and through Saojra, attacked Taiyls.

At last she stood, shifting Taiyls' form over to Adia.

"Who is Kanjik?" She calmly asked the other rider.

Adia looked at her, startled by the look in her eyes. "Theoretically he is with Igor." She looked high into the sky at a very large dark blue dragon who was thrashing around in the sky. Below him dragons had met in battle. They all clashed together, though many of them appeared to dislike the fighting.

Beside Tayten, Kijorn bared his teeth and hissed. His wings spread a little.

"Wait!" Adia threw her hand out to make him notice her and stop. "He has the power to paralyze things that he sees."

Tayten looked over at her dragon and grinned at him. "That should not be much of a problem." The dragon growled low, almost laughing as he took off. In the air, he grew, beating his wings so he could speed toward the other dragon. Just before they hit, he shrank and seemed to vanish into the sky.

On the ground, Tayten smirked when Kanjik let out a roar of pain and started to plummet into the water. Just before he hit, Kijorn tripled his normal size and pushed himself away from his target. All the dragons in the sky froze when the dark blue plunged into the waves. Everyone held their breath, breathing only when Kinjik exploded back out of the water, aimed straight at Kijorn.

"What the hell is going on with my dragon!?" Igor snarled as he stormed out of a building.

Tayten spun on him, her face livid. "Igor, I challenge you as a dragon rider and as a human being. I disagree with you and everything that you are."

The man's lip curled as he stared at her. "You aren't a rider."

"Fine!" She snapped, launching herself at him. A step away, she halted her body and threw out her foot, kicking him square in the face. Balling her fists, she moved into a position her trainer had drilled her on. "Then I'll kill you without the formal challenge."

Igor spit on the ground, his handsome features vanishing before everyone's eyes.

"I accept."