Love Me, Dragon

5

Chapter five

Amelia

Things have been going well between Alaric and me ever since that day. He treated me well and made sure he never did anything to make me angry.

I don't know what it was that I liked about Alaric, but I just liked him. He made me feel special and fuzzy inside.

We hadn't kissed again since that day, but I was fine with it, as long as Alaric was by my side. At that point, I didn't know if Alaric actually had feelings for me yet. I was just waiting for him to say something.

I came down from my room to get the food that I wanted to take to Alaric, as usual. We had had bread for breakfast, so it wouldn't be hard to sneak it out.

I went into the kitchen, and the maids were there, already running around to start my lunch. I stood at the door and cleared my throat.

"Oh, my lady. What brings you here?" The head of the maids asked me.

"Well, I need some extra bread; I'm still hungry." I said, keeping a straight face.

"Oh, yes." She said that and hurriedly went to get the bread.

She wrapped the bread up in a cloth and handed it to me.

"Thank you." I said that and turned on my heels.

I wanted to go straight to the door after collecting the bread, but my parents suddenly came out of nowhere.

"Amelia, where are you going?" My mother asked, and I stopped in my tracks and winced.

"Well..." I started, scratching the back of my head, trying to think of an excuse. "I'm on my way to see Lord Elrod." The idea immediately came to my head, and I blurted it out.

They hadn't let me go to see Lord Elrod in a while, and I knew that was the only place she would let me go without asking too many questions.

Lord Elrod was the man who raised my mother. He wasn't her biological father, but he found her when she was just a baby and took her in and raised her. He is a kind old man, and I liked going to see him. His house was a bit far from ours, but I could easily walk there and back.

"Really?" My mother asked, her eyes shining at the mention of Lord Elrod.

"Send him my greetings, will you? And why don't you take a carriage to make your journey easier?" She asked.

"I'm fine, mother. I can walk there on my own." I said, and she nodded.

I nodded back, but just as I was about to bid them goodbye, my father stopped me, and I sighed.

"Wait, Amelia. I had to give him something. I was thinking of going there myself this evening, but since you're already going there, how about you help me give it to him?"

Right at that moment, if there was a way to kill my father, I would have. That meant that I would actually have to go to Lord Elrod's house before I went to Alaric.

My body sagged a little as I waited for him to bring whatever it was that he wanted. I tried not to show how reluctant I was, as my mother was still standing there watching me.

My father came back down after what felt like forever and gave me what it was that he wanted to. It was covered with a cloth, and I could feel that it was made of glass, but I didn't know what it was.

"Make sure you don't drop it." He said it warningly.

"Yes, father." I said goodbye and bid them farewell as I opened the door to go out.

Just as I was about to step my foot outside, because of how much of a hurry I was in, I stumbled but was able to catch myself before I fell.

I am anything but what I am supposed to be: graceful.

I heard my mother scream from inside, and when I turned back, I saw that both of them were frozen in shock, staring at me.

"Are you okay?" My mother asked, her hands covering her, but my father's gaze was fixed on the thing he had given me.

"I'm fine, thank you." I smiled widely at her and turned to my father. "I won't drop it, don't worry." I said that to him and left the house.

Once I was out of sight of them, I started running. Running was a very unladylike thing to do, but I didn't care; I just wanted to get to Alaric as fast as I could, but I was really careful about the thing in my hand. I didn't want my father to scold me.

A journey that would normally take me up to forty minutes took me about fifteen of them. I arrived at his house and told the butler I was here to see Lord Elrod, so he had me sit in the drawing room before going to inform him of my arrival.

My leg vibrated as I waited impatiently for Lord Elrod to come down from his room. Finally, I saw him approaching me, and I stood up.

"Hello, Lord Elrod." I address him.

"Wow, Amelia. You've grown up so much compared to the last time I saw you. To what do I owe this rare visit? Sit." He sat on the chair across from me while his butler stood beside him.

Lord Elrod was quite strong for a man his age because he was already in his forties when he found my sister and raised her.

"I told them that I wanted to come see you, so my father asked me to give this to you on my way." I handed the thing in my hand to him and watched him.

I had expected him to open it up because I wanted to know what was inside, but he just handed it straight to his butler, who took it away. I scowled inwardly, feeling disappointed.

"Would you like to have anything—tea, biscuits, maybe? So we can catch up." He offered to call someone when I stopped him.

"I'm sorry, Lord Elrod. I'm going to have to decline because I have somewhere to be, but I promise that I'll come visit again." I said, getting up from the chair.

"Oh, really. Then it's alright, then." He said. "Send my best wishes to your parents, and I'll be expecting you."

"I will. Farewell, Lord Elrod." I said, and the butler showed me out of the house.

Once my foot touched the ground outside the estate, I started running back. I didn't stop running until I got close to the clearing. I stopped and composed myself so that it wouldn't show that I had been running.

I got to the shack and knocked at the door, waiting for Alaric to answer it, but after a while, there was no answer. I knocked again, thinking that he could be sleeping, but there was still no answer.

I frowned and decided to just go in, even though I expected the door to be locked from inside, but it wasn't. I watched the door with a confused look on my face as it opened.

I entered inside, expecting to see Alaric, but he wasn't there, and that was surprising. Alaric was always there whenever I came. He never went anywhere without informing me first.

Even when we would go for a walk or a swim in the waterfall, he would wait till I arrived so that we could go together. Even though it was strange, I sat down in the shack, waiting for Alaric to come, but he never came.

I became impatient and wandered into the forest to look for him. I went to all the places that I felt like he would go to, but he wasn't there. I went to some of the places we had visited, but he still wasn't there.

That was when I started to get scared.

What if he had been taken?

What if the people who attacked him the last time had come back for him?

I was really worried, but then I started to think that there were no signs of struggle in the bush or anywhere else. It was as if he had just disappeared into thin air.

I sat at the waterfall all day, occasionally pacing and frantically searching around till it was almost nighttime, but there was still no sign of Alaric. That was when I came to a conclusion.

Alaric was gone.

Even though I had come to that conclusion, I still didn't want to believe it, so I walked back to the shack, thinking maybe he had returned straight to the shack from wherever he went, but when I got there, he wasn't there.

I stood in the middle of the shack, tears beginning to roll down my face. I was really hurt. My heart ached in my chest as I physically felt the pain. The bread that I had brought for him fell from my hand and rolled to a corner of the shack.

I placed my hand on my chest and fell to the floor, my legs becoming weak.

Alaric had left me all alone.

But did I really expect him to stay with me forever? I never even knew anything about him apart from his name. I felt so stupid because I had trusted Alaric with my whole heart. I felt used.

That was why he kissed me that day. To lead me on so I could continue taking care of him till he was ready to leave.

I cried like I had never screamed before, my sobs echoing in the small space of the shack. I wrapped my hands around myself as I suddenly felt cold and was left alone.

Being in the shack was suffocating, so I went outside. I looked up to see that it had started raining already. It was too late for me to wait at the shack because my parents would send a search party to look for me, so I decided to walk in the rain.

The water that flowed down from my head covered the tears that flowed from my eyes.

Never in my life am I going to let anyone use me this way again.