One Week Later

"I'm not going to sit around while you all go out and risk your lives," I snapped defiantly, slamming my fist into the table for the third time. My knuckles throbbed, but I ignored it. "We have been over this before, and I can go over it again-"

A councilmen held his hand up, indicating I should stop talking. It took everything in me to keep an angry retort from escaping my lips. I clenched my jaw shut and mustered the best respectful look I could manage.

The man folded his hands together and leaned his elbows on the table. "Mrs. Hades, we fully understand your desire to join the fight. However," he continued with a quick glance to my showing stomach, "we have considered your demand, and in your condition we do not think it's in the best interest of you and your child."

"Excuse me?" I hissed, showing my teeth angrily and giving them and the other councilmen a burning glare. "First of all, I'm pregnant. That is not a condition. Second of all, you don't get to have a best interest in me and my child. I can assure you. I'm pregnant, not useless. Stop acting like it."

"The risks are to high. What if you were to get injured? So would the child."

"I have a dragon!" I roared, once again pounding my fist into the table. "Screw what you think! Have you any idea the hell I've been through?"

Arch cleared his throat awkwardly from across the table, but I ignored him. I also ignored the warning looks I got from my parents and Jackson.

"I can't say we have," the man said calmly, his eyes not meeting mine. "However-"

"These people have murdered my cousin, kidnapped my sister, put that same sister in a coma, and then killed my brother and his family. They had a five year old daughter!" I yelled, reaching closer and yelling in his face. "I don't care your opinions, and I don't need your damn blessing!"

"Faye-" my dad started wearily, but I whipped around and turned my rage to him.

"I would expect you to understand, Dad! It just hasn't been painful for you guys!"

"You're carrying a child, dammit!" Dad yelled back, standing up. "You're being very selfish right now, sweetheart. You're letting the grief cloud your common sense!"

I lost it. I was grieving, sure, but I knew how to take perfectly good care of myself and the baby I'm carrying. Not only that, Leto was the only one who was backing me up on this. She felt my pain, and she wanted to avenge my family just as much as I did. She understood.

"Screw this. Screw all of you," I snarled, shoving the meeting room's doors open loudly and storming out. I ignored the calls from the room I was leaving behind. I didn't want to hear what they had to say, not anymore.

--

I curled my hands around the empty vanilla crib in the twins' bedroom, listening to the wind blow against the windows angrily.

How could this have happened? How could the twins have gone? Unless the kidnapper was invited into Dragon's Cove or was a Rider, there was no way they could have gotten in.

Someone betrayed us, I know it. But who? I thought with a flash of doubt. Maybe someone who's a rider, it's the only true logical explanation.

If that was the case, then why did I feel like it wasn't? Why did it feel like the twins' disappearance wasn't done by a dragon rider?

I soon found myself pacing, pacing so much that I was afraid I might burn holes into the floor and fall right through. At this point, that didn't sound to bad.

My fingers tangled in my hair and I tugged at it, my throat starting to close up from anxiety. My stomach rolled and I raced to the nearest bathroom again.

I haunched over the toilet, my stomach and throat burning like flames were being shoved down. When it was all done, I opened my eyes and flinched when I saw blood again. What was going on?

I flushed the toilet quickly, disgusted by the sight and refusing to look at it anymore.

I stood up and washed my hands, then brushed my teeth. After that I climbed into my bed because I wasn't feeling so good now. I pulled the sheets over my body and placed my hands on my round stomach. "Baby, what're you doing to me?" I whispered, closing my eyes.

When I woke up, dawn was spilling through the cracks of the closed blinds from my windows. I rolled over, realizing I had been laying half on my side, half on my stomach, and peeked my eyes at Jackson's sleeping form. He must have come back to the room sometime late, because he hadn't even changed out of yesterday's clothing.

I pursed my lips when I remembered yesterday with the councilmen and rolled over so I was facing the windows. I was still pissed off that they thought I wouldn't be able to take care of myself, and the life inside of me.

My ears drank in the sound of my love's quiet breathing from behind me, and the skin of my legs brushed his, entwining them together.

My head started to grow fuzzy, a sense of peacefulness that I hadn't felt in a long time rushing through me. It made me want to close my eyes again, to sleep the pain and suffering away..

But I didn't sleep. Instead I shook my head rapidly and threw the comforter off of my warm body, followed by the rush of chilly air hitting me. I winced and pushed myself off of the bed and crossed my arms, padding across the bedroom to take a shower.

After getting showered and dressed, I climbed down the silent halls of the house and went through the kitchen door to visit Leto.

The dragon was already waiting for me in the lush field behind the house, her large, yet slender form visible through the grass.

Leto was a Crystal dragon, a very rare breed of dragon. Her scales were shiny, and pure white that never seemed to show a hint of dirt or grime. The skin of her chest and underbelly was an ivory cream color, thick and armor like, tough as her scales but not shiny and sharp as them. Sunlight reflected off her gleaming scales, and the two spikes on her head looked shadows than ever.

Her ice blue eyes turned to me as I approached the dragon, and she lowered her large head in greeting. "Hi," she murmured, her nostrils twitching softly.

"Hello," I replied with a small smile, reaching my hand out and brushing my fingers against her nose. A dragon's bond with their rider is one that not even the darkest evil could break, it was just too strong. My hands traced the smooth rounded scales on the side of her face, sighing softly. "How are you holding up, Leto?"

Leto watched me, studying me closely as if searching for something. "Shouldn't I be the one asking you that?" she asked through the mind-link.

"Probably but you already know how I'm doing," I told her with a shrug of my shoulders. A dragon and a rider with a bond can speak through a mind-link, and it allows them to share images and feel one another's thoughts and emotions if they wish for it. "You're sort of connected to my thoughts all the time. Besides, I felt terrible for not checking up on you lately."

"Considering what you're going through, little one," her elegant, calm voice replied to me with worry, "you don't need to feel bad for it. Feeling your pain and struggles is hard for me to take in and not have the ability to do a thing about it."

My breath caught at Leto's words and it took everything for me not to start crying. Damn it all to hell. I bit my lip. "Leto.."

Her fiercely protective eyes locked with my own eyes, and she stared at me intently, as if daring me to challenge her words. "Yes?" she asked softly.

I swallowed a lump in my throat and rubbed her cheek, the smooth scales under my fingertips cooling my oddly feverish body. "Please don't stress over me. I have to many people doing that already.."

"Little one, it is my job as your dragon to worry. But I'll try, for your sake."

I smiled at her, this time a smile that was a tad less sad. "Thank you," I murmured out loud.

She hummed in response and continued to let me run my hands along her face, a comfort for both dragon and girl alike. Leto's bond with me, I felt, was one bond that would rise above all evil. Even if that sounds as cheesy as hell.

"You shouldn't keep it a secret." I snapped from my thoughts and frowned in confusion at Leto's words.

"What?" I asked.

Her eyes closed briefly, and then reopened. A silent disapproval rested in the ice blue orbs, swirling around with worry as well. "Your child is unwell. You are too."

I didn't bother denying it. Lying to Leto wouldn't work; she can see my thoughts anyhow. "I don't want to stress anyone out more than they already are."

"Faye-"

"Please don't say anything to anyone," I begged her desperately, both my hands on either side of her face as I looked at her pleadingly. "Please, Leto. I don't want this to be out right now. There's enough issues as it is.. I'll tell them if it gets worse, I promise."

Leto regarded me with hesitation, before finally nudging my chest gently with agreement and letting out a soft sigh. "Okay."