Tatiana - Imperial Ruler Of Dragon's

Chapter 5

Later that night I lay in bed, simply staring at the ceiling with a breathy sigh occasionally leaving my lips. My parents and Brian are out and I wasn’t in the mood for the company so I bailed on an outing with my teammates in the archery club who wanted to see me before I left.

The bedroom door squeaked open, pulling me from my thoughts, and I lift my head slightly to see Katrina walk in as she scrolls through her cellphone.

“Your parents already booked us a plane ticket for a noon flight tomorrow,” She informs me and my expression changes to one of surprise and despair, once she sees the change of emotion she smiles sympathetically and throws herself beside me on the bed. “Am so sorry Tatty, I know I said you could have the weekend but there have been reports sent to me of vampire sightings around town.”

“What!” In alarm I sit up, panicking. “Have they found me… or mum… what about Brian, or dad?”

“No, I told you they can only trace us if you use your powers. Right now, you can’t get agitated or too emotional, so try and calm down.”

“What do my powers have to do with my emotions?”

“I may have forgotten to mention this part, sorry. The thing is, if your emotions spiral out of control you could mistakenly use one of your powers without knowing and the last thing we need is for you to hurt yourself. New changelings are like a ticking time bomb ready to blow any minute. So it’s best to avoid emotional drama.”

“If that’s the case then maybe we shouldn’t worry so much because when I’d quit the archery team, I was full-on brawling and there was no lashing out of powers.”

“It’s just better to be safe than sorry.” She shrugs.

Heavy banging on the front door startles the both of us and our heads snap up to stare at the empty hallway through my open door in surprise. “Tatiana, open this freaking door!” The familiar, domineering voice of a male yells. “I know you’re home. I can see your car in the garage!”

“Oh, s**t… oh s**t, s**t, s**t, s**t, s**t!” I rise to my knees on my bed in a panic, whispering. “It’s Josh!” to Katrina even though I know he can’t hear me.

“Josh?” She frowns in puzzlement. “You mean the recent ex-boyfriend Josh?” I nodded frantically in response.

“Open this f*****g door Tatiana or I swear I’ll break it down!”

“What the hell were you dating, a thug?” She asks in bewilderment, and I fall back with a groan of dread.

“Of course not. Josh is, or rather he can be…” Trailing off, I try to look for the right words. “Temperamental sometimes. We’ve been dating on and off for a few months and I’ve come to notice that he doesn’t like surprises, especially when that surprise involves him getting dumped through a phone call.” I mutter dryly.

We listen to him continue to bang on the door while screaming profanities at me from outside, I worry the neighbours are going to call the police with all the racket he’s making and bite down on my lower lip. Dropping my head into my hands, I sigh in resignation when 30mins flew by and he still hasn’t let up. I’m not even surprised he’s doing this right now, and I can just bet he’s drunk which is probably fueling his temper.

I don’t know why I’d thought he’d let me go without much of a fight. I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my short lifespan but deciding to date Josh is probably one of the biggest one of all. “I better go talk to him before he gets worse.”

I slide forward to get down from the bed, heading towards the door, but in a flash, Katrina is in front of me with a fierce glare on her face. “Stay here, I’ll go talk to him.” She points at her chest, before hooking a thumb over her shoulder. “Right now that guy is a bundle of emotional s**t you do not need.”

“But-” I try to protest and she raises her hand to cut me off.

“But nothing Tatty, just please stay here. I’ll get him to leave.”

“Alright.”

Relaxing, she turns and heads downstairs. I settle back on the bed and listen to the noisy footfalls of her heading downstairs, biting down once again on my lower lip I worry for Katrina. Only to remember she has powers, which now makes me worried for Josh. Despite his less than stellar attitude as of the moment.

I pull out of my thoughts and tune in to their conversation when Josh’s gruff voice asks in irritation. “Who the hell are you?”

“Katrina, Tatty’s cousin.”

“Well, Katrina, Tatty’s cousin, where the hell is she?” I roll my eyes at the mockery in his voice and hope it doesn’t tick Katrina off as it does me when he gets childish.

Sighing, she says in boredom. “She’s not here.”

“You’re lying!” He screams, and I jump in fright, anxiety making my heart pick up the pace. “I know she’s here!”

“Am not lying. Look, pretty boy, I don’t have time for this bullshit so you better leave.”

“No, not until I see that stupid bitch.” As soon as those words leave his lips I hear a loud grunt of pain before more arguing and struggling ensued. I’m so nervous over what’s happening I don’t even realize I’m on my feet and out in the hall.

I know Katrina said to stay downstairs but I’m losing it with my nerves, he can sometimes get violent when he doesn’t get his way and the last thing I want to find out is if Katrina can use her powers against a weak human. As bad as he can be, I don’t need nor want a dead Josh. His screaming made me groan as his voice rose an octave, and I wonder why the hell I dated him in the first place.

Oh, that’s right, I liked the popularity dating him entailed.

Besides, I did once feel affection for him. I cared for him despite his faults and wanted to try and try and try to change his personality, but I learned the hard way that I was seeking the impossible. Half of the time we spent dating we did nothing but argue and fight, which made me stay on the fence when it came to our relationship. I even tried to find ways to get him to let me go, unfortunately, he decided to cling to our relationship rather than lose interest as he did with his past girlfriends.

They argued so loud they didn’t notice my presence on the stairs, my eyes widened at the sight of Josh and I have a bit of a struggle relating him to the clean-cut guy I know. His blonde hair is sticking out in different directions meaning he’s been running his hand through it out of frustration. The white shirt he’s wearing has some kind of red stain on it that I’m hoping is ketchup or wine, not blood, and his olive skin looks pale despite the red bruise on his left eye.

His blue eyes burn with unmistakable rage and his muscles bulge as he and Katrina continue to struggle on both sides of the door. He keeps trying to push it open while she’s doing her best to keep the door in place.

“Josh, what the hell!” I call out in alarm and they both halt, looking in my direction at the same time.

Josh recovers first and takes Katrina’s momentary distraction to push the door open with force, making her stumble back as the door bangs against the wall harshly. I flinch and step back when he walks in, or stumbles in rather. He’s swaying as takes steps to approach me with a smile on his face, but Katrina grabs his bicep to put a stop to his movements when she demands. “Tatiana, f*****g get upstairs!”

“But-” I start to protest and she shoots me a warning glare. Hesitating, I try again. “Just let me-”

“Remember what’s at stake here?” She reminds me in a harsh tone and I sigh, giving up.

I turn, about to leave when Josh suddenly yells. “No, don’t you dare!”

My body stiffens when I hear Katrina’s sharp intake of breath and the unmistakable sound of a something being corked, swallowing thickly I slowly turn around to see Josh glaring at me with a g*n poised in the air. Pointed right at me. He doesn’t look so drunk right now, just angry and a little deranged.

“Josh,” I call softly. “You need to put that away.”

Katrina slowly tiptoes closer and I didn’t want to alert him, so I fixed my gaze on his. But he must have seen her from the peripheral because he threatened with an angry growl. “Take one more step and I’m going to put a bullet hole in her head.”

Sucking in a sharp breath at the vehemence of his words, my eyes widen in shock. Katrina hesitated, tilting her head to gauge if he’s bluffing or not. Raising the g*n, he shoots at the ceiling and I let out a scream in fright. Instinctively, I crouch down to my knees and wrap my hands around my body, staring at Josh in fear. What the hell has gotten into him!

I’ve never seen him look more sinister than he does right now, with angry eyes glaring at me in cold hatred. “Just calm down okay, am not moving at all so calm down.” Katrina swallows, trying to reassure him despite the slight panic in her voice.

I glance at her to see she’s taking several steps back, fear and worry in her eyes. “Good.” He asserts, turning briefly to glance at her over his shoulder before turning back to me. “Look, Tatiana, I can forget what you said on the phone as a momentarily lapse of insanity if you just stop with these antics. Am willing to take you back as long as you agree to stay here in California.”

Katrina looked at him as if he were nuts and right now, I couldn’t blame her because I'm also beginning to question his sanity. “And if I don’t want to date you anymore?”

He smiled cruelly, causing dread to grip my heart. “You don’t want to find out babe.”

“Josh, you need to stop this insanity, this isn’t you.”

“No!” He screams, making me jump in fright. “You need to learn that you can’t just play with people’s hearts Tatiana.”

“What heart?” I question, slowly rising to my feet in apprehension. “Where was your heart when you were sucking on your ex’s tongue before summer holiday?”

“Is that why you’re suddenly dumping me?” He asks softly, a sigh leaving his lips when he looks down to his feet and his arm lowers a little.

Sure, let’s go with that. Glancing at Katrina quickly, I motion for her to try and take the g*n from him and she nods. “But Krystal means absolutely-” He raises his head back up and I immediately glance his way, but it was already too late, he saw me staring at Katrina and his face tightens with a deadly look.

Oh s**t!

From here on everything happened in slow motion, before he could fully swivel to shoot at my cousin fear spurs my next course of action and so does a surge of power. It burns my hand with a glow and sparks starts to fly off my fingers like static, without thinking I raise my hand in the air and a burst of lightning shots off my palm and flew directly towards him.

A shot was fired, a scream of pain reverberates through the house, and a body lands on the floor with a thud before the front door is banged open.