Second Chances (The Extinct Race Series) (13 page)

As I said, some of these things you may have already seen happen.
That means you are in great danger of being extinct and the last of the Dragon race. You need to find all the living Dragons and bring them to the mountain. This mountain is essentially your birth place and will feel like home to all Dragons. You are all safe within the border I have created. The spell of the border will not die until the last Dragon is dead. The spell book I spoke of has always remained in the hands of the ones who stayed at the mountain. There are different spells in there that I have written over the years. Those spells will add different levels of protection to the border.

I created this race to live forever.
I made this race out of love. You are essentially all my children. And as I said before I am a full Dragon, I spelled myself to be able to shift to a human, but my true and natural form is Dragon. Your natural form is human.

I wish you all luck and I send all of my love to you.
You face something that I know firsthand. I do not wish that for you. I want this race to bloom and live on. I love you all, I want all my Dragons to find their mates and just live in peace. That is what I meant for you all in the beginning.

With all my love, Marsali

“Holy shit Kaiden!” Zoe shouted.

“You’re telling me Angel. We need to get this to Rosa and Michael.
They are the historians and need to know this. I have never heard my parents speak of this. I know Charles mentioned the spell book once before so we need to find that book. We need to know all the different level of spells on the border, maybe there is one that can protect us more.”

“Yeah
and wait till the half-bloods find out they can have babies now, and that they have a soul mate. OH! I wonder if any of the ones we changed have figured it out yet. It has only been two days since we changed them, so maybe not. But it might be there and they are just confused.” Zoe said in wonder

“Angel, I love that you are filled with hope now, but did you forget that you have magic in you?
You and Zach both have magic in your blood and we need for you to find it and figure out how to use it.” Kaiden said

“Right, well let’s get this book down to Rosa and Michael and we can figure the rest out later.”
Zoe said as she grabbed his hand and led him out of the cave. Zoe put the book in her mouth and shifted. Kaiden shifted a minute later and they made their way to where they left their clothing. Zoe shifted again, back into human form and still held the book in her mouth. They got dressed quickly and made the walk back to the barracks.

Chapter 13

Puppies and Half-Bloods

As they make their way out of the forest
, Carmine and Paulo are waiting for them at the edge of the forest.

“May we speak with you, King and Queen?”
Paulo asks

“Please call us Kaiden and Zoe.
It feels weird for me for me to be called Queen.” Zoe responds

“Very well, Zoe.
May we speak with you both about the ordeal today?” Paulo tries again

“Sure, did anything else happen while we were gone?”
Kaiden asks

“No
thing, besides a gorgeous woman showing up with a ton of clothing then leaving just as fast as she came. Oh, she also left her card with numerous people. Grace is with a nice half-blood couple and will stay there a few days. They could use the help with their little ones, so they are happy to have her. Training also carried on and Charles ordered what the Queen asked, I mean what Zoe asked for. They will be here tomorrow. We more or less wanted to ask what your plans are for the half-bloods, who are now camped out at the main entrance.” Carmine asked

“Wel
l what can we do? They have guns and we don’t. They can feel us when we get close, so a surprise attack is out. I called Marjorie and told her to take the back way in and out. I will have to call the delivery guy and have him take the back way tomorrow morning too. But it’s only a matter of time before they surround the border.” Kaiden said

“Well Kaiden we would like permission to take care of the ones that are there now.
We will not have to get close and we will not be in any danger. But we are tired of being afraid and hiding like we said. Paulo here can manipulate the Earth to bury them, and I can use fire to kill them. There will be no evidence of them left to draw attention to. But more will come and if we don’t take care of the ones there now, we will have a massacre on our hands. They have guns so no telling what they can acquire now or later. Either way, we still have to get out there and find the others. So if we take them out in small numbers then before you know it, Aldrich will have nothing left.” Carmine explains

“Go for it.
Just don’t draw unwanted attention and tell no one what you are doing. Slip out tonight while everyone is sleeping and take care of it. I don’t want to know what you do, but they hurt my family and so you have our permission.” Zoe says

“Yes you do.
Now we need to get back to the house, we have something to look for and then at dinner we have some revelations that we need to share. It is all good news as far as I am concerned. But still we need to discuss it more as the King and Queen and go from there. See you at dinner gentleman.” Kaiden says as he grabs Zoe’s hand. They leave the men there and continue their journey to the barracks. Carmine and Paulo watch them walk away with their heads together planning their attack.

It is late in the afternoon when they make it back to the house.
They come in through the kitchen and notice that dinner preparations have already started.

“You have about an hour or more until dinner
kids. So scoot it out of my kitchen and no snacking.” Mary says as she ushers them out of the kitchen.

Kaiden and Zoe find Rosa and Michael in the living room watching a movie.
It seems they are enjoying the quiet time they found before dinner also.

“May we speak with you both privately?
There is an office in our suite that I would like to go to. It was my father’s office so I know it is very private.” Kaiden asks

“Of course.”
Rosa says, as her and Michael stand to follow them up the stairs to the elevator. They all file in and Zoe hits the button to their suite. They all walk in silence as they make their way to the office. The suite seems to be empty, a fact Zoe is thankful for, for now. Kaiden gestures to the table and they all sit. Zoe takes the book out of her shirt, where she placed it when they got dressed. She hands it to Rosa and sits back down. Zoe and Kaiden patiently wait as Rosa and Michael both read the pages and exchange glances. When they are done they close the book and look at Kaiden and Zoe in awe.

“Where did you find this?”
Rosa asks

“There is a cave high up in the mountain that my parents took me to when I was young.
I wanted to share it with Zoe as kind of a private place we could go to. When we were leaving she spotted something glowing. I can only guess that she saw it because of the magic within her, because I saw nothing. Anyway we read it and immediately thought to show you guys. My first question is, did you know of Marsali?” Kaiden asked

“Well there are legends of how we were created, but nothing was ever found to be concrete.
This right here is proof of where and how we came about. Now this book of spells we need to find.” Michael said

“I agree and I will call Charles in here soon.
I think he knows where it is. Anyway what are your thoughts on everything else?” Kaiden said

“Well as terrifying as it is, she placed these
fail safes in place for a reason. There is hope for us Kaiden. As scary as it is that we are almost extinct as a race, there is hope that we can carry on. There is hope that I personally will have more children. I always wanted more than two. And it means that you will be able to have children. Because as it stands right now if you had a child, the only one it could be with is its own cousin, and to that is never what she intended. Blood lines were never to mix. And can you imagine how happy the half-bloods will be?” Rosa mused

“Yes I can.”
Zoe said. “We are going to share all this information with the rest of the family tonight at dinner. Then tomorrow at training, we will call a meeting and share the news with them. I personally cannot wait to see their faces when we drop the bomb on them.”

“She loves to make others happy, now I need to call Charles.”
Kaiden says as he pulls out his phone and calls Charles. Ten minutes later Charles walks through the door.

“You need me Kaiden?”
Charles asks

“Charles please come sit with us.
I would like to show you something.” Kaiden says as he slides the journal towards the seat that Charles is starting to sit in. Charles opens the book and his mouth drops. He reads the whole thing quickly and looks up at Kaiden with hope filling his eyes.

“This is true?
You are not playing with me?” Charles asks

“No Charles this is no joke.”
Kaiden explains to Charles and then tells him how they found the book. “Charles you mentioned the spell book before, you said someone found it and placed the spell. But what you didn’t know was there was a spell already in place, they just added to it. So, do you know where the spell book is?”

“It’s in the safe under the desk.
I thought your father told you about that safe?” Charles asked

“I guess it slipped his mind.
I was young and we thought we had forever I guess.” Kaiden said with heartache is his voice.

“Here let me open it and then I will show you how to change the combination.
He gave me the code before you all left just in case.” Charles explained. He walked to the safe hidden under the carpet in the floor beneath the desk. He opened the safe and pulled out the book of spells. There were three more books below it. The spine was leather and tied together with leather string. It was old and you could tell went through many hands. Kaiden gestured for Charles to pull out everything and so he did. Once Charles had everything pulled out he showed Kaiden how to change the code. Kaiden asked Zoe to come over to him and together they thought up a code and changed it. Once they were done they grabbed the four books and walked back over to the table. Kaiden grabbed the spell book and began to thumb through it. He noted which spells did what and decided that Zach and Zoe would be the ones to try the spells. Rosa and Michael each grabbed one of the other books and were turning pages very carefully.

“What are those books?”
Zoe asked grabbing the third book.

“It looks like all of the birth records from the first generation of Dragons.
Look here, this one seems to be the first, Marsali is listed in here. It looks like her and her mate had four children together. That is more than any of us have had in hundreds of years. These records are outstanding. They listed everything. It seems as though they stopped though, once Dragons started branching off. Let me see that book you have.” Rosa said. “Yes see here the ones to keep these records have always been Marsali or one of her line. As the last of her line moved on to a different Sect the records stopped. She must have taken up the recording of the sect she was in. Once recording becomes a habit, it is a hard one to break. And if that journal is correct, Zoe you or Zach are the ones to carry on this tradition. I would be glad to help you with this also.” Rosa told her smiling.

“Well this is yet another project for me to do that I would love to do.
I am very glad to stay busy.” Zoe says smiling back at Rosa.

“Well then these books can go back in the safe, I don’t want to lose those and we need to find Zach.
Zoe I want you and Zach to try this spell here. It stated that any person or Dragon that means to harm another will not be able to feel or see within the border. Its color is blue like the sky. So might be harder for you to see.” Kaiden says.

“Ok
, well let’s go find him before dinner and get this up before then.” Zoe says

Kaiden and Zoe stand and the rest follow them out of the room and down the elevator.
Zoe walks straight to the front door and opens it as Zach is walking up the steps.

“I felt something strange and just knew I needed to find you.”
Zach says with a smile. “So what’s up?”

“We found this book and I need your help with something.
All you have to do is come out here with me and repeat the same words I say. You see the pink haze like I do right?” Zach nods his head in agreement. “Good, so what we are going to try and do is change it to blue.” Zoe explains

“Ok no prob.
Lead the way.” Zach says

Zoe goes out to the middle of the clearing in front of the house and Kaiden opens the book to the page he marked.
He hands the book to Zoe and she reads over it. Zach stands next to her and she grabs his hand, hoping that between the two of them and the magic that is hidden within them, that this will amplify the magic. Carmine and Paulo walk up at this point, not saying a word and just watching what is happening. They sit on the porch steps with Rosa and Michael watching silently.

Kaiden and Charles have moved
back and off to either side. Halina was with Zach so she is also standing behind them next to Kaiden. Zoe starts to read from the book. She notices and odd feeling in the air, like something isn’t right. She motions for Halina and Kaiden to join them. Halina grabs Zach’s hand and Kaiden grabs Zoe’s. Together, the four of them say the words. A blue cloud starts to form around them while they speak. To Zoe, it feels like a warm caress offering safety and comfort. As the last words are spoken, the blue cloud grows in size and moves up slowly. Zach and Zoe both follow it with their eyes. Soon it disappears into the clouds and they cannot see it anymore. After a few minutes Zoe sees that the border is changing from a pink hue to a blue. Against the sky it just looks like the pink is disappearing.

“Well I think that worked.
The pink is all gone and I can really only see the blue against the rolling hills near the bottom.” Zoe says

“Well we won’t know really until we have people that mean to harm us on the other side of the border.
Right now there are none.” Charles said

“Where did the ones that shot at us go?”
Rosa asks

“I am not sure.
I just got word before I came up that they are no longer there. The patrols made their rounds and could not feel them or see them anymore. So maybe they just left.” Charles says

Kaiden and Zoe look at Paulo and Carmine and nod.
The men nod back then walk inside the house. Everyone else follows and soon everyone is sitting at the table for dinner. As everyone gathers to sit and await the food, Kaiden and Zoe stand.

“Everyone we have some information we would like to share with you all.
We are sharing it with all of you first, as you are the ones that we are closest to. You are the ones it concerns most. Today when I took Zoe to be alone for a while I took her to a cave my parents took me to when I was younger.” As Kaiden speaks the girls begin to bring out the food, they were listening to everything Kaiden was saying. He told them all of Marsali and how they came to be. He also held the book up to them, to prove his information. The girls that lived in the house had tears in their eyes as he told them of the fate of the half-bloods. They hugged each other and wept with happiness.

Once Kaiden was all don
e telling them, he handed the book to Monica. She then passes it around the table. Some were in tears, others just looked shocked. Marcus kissed Iraina and held her close. They all looked around the table at each other and proceeded to eat in silence. Kaiden had almost forgotten to mention the spell they cast today.