A Dragon's Burden

Day Two

I woke up to birds cherping. It was saturday. My first thought was, I'm a princess. Slowly, I sit up and look down at my amulet. It was a gigantic sapphire stone held on a chain by a roaring golden dragon.

With a sigh, I get the courage to go down stairs. My parents arnt my parents, I thought. I was shocked to see everyone from last night I'm my living room. I stayed behind the wall and listened in on the conversation.

"So... your not my birth parents?" I hear Aaron ask. Poor Aaron.
"No hon, we arnt. But we still love you and always will." I hear his mom say.
"What was Adam talking about when he said wedding arrangments?" There was quiet in the room. Suddenly, I had a suprise sneeze. There was another second of quiet.
"You can come out princess." It sounded like Jake. I come out with a red face and sit on the couch.
"I'm glad your here for this, actually." My mom says. "I'm don't feel like explaining this twice. Everyone from our realm is born with a... built in combatability test. You will have strong feelings for someone with no real cause. It goes into effect sometime when you're 12. Unless you haven't met the person. In which case, you'll choose when you meet the person your most likely to marry."
"That's what Adam was talking about?" I asked.
"Yes... sometimes, when, say, a boy chooses a girl, the girl doesn't always reciprocate feelings which is what he was suggesting."
"He was suggesting that for Jake." I say. No one moved. "He said princess... he was talking about Jake and I?" I was shocked. "No. Can't be! Jakes hated me since seventh grade!" I spat.
"I was trying to protect you." Jake tried. His green eyes looked sad. His black hair was a mess. Aaron looked worse. Aaron probably didn't sleep last night with the bags under his eyes. It was sad.
"Protect me from what?" I asked calm. "How long have you known?" I asked Jake. He was quiet for a moment.
"Since I choose you." He answered.

***

I sat there and stared at him. He what? This whole time? He could have been with me and he instead decides to hate me?

"I know this is hard to understand." My dad joins the conversation. "But there is a big threat at play. Serrina. The dragon witch. She's been terrorizing our realm since the beginning. A few hundred years ago, it was prophecy that a young woman would be her undoing. We think it's you."
"Me? Why me?" I ask in a panic.
"The prophecy states that when the young woman is born, there will be a great sign over the land. The day you were born, our dead crops became full and ready to havest, our water was clearer than its ever been and barren parents became pregnat. What other sign would we need?" My dad tried to explain. He didn't want me mad at my birth parents.
"So why give me up?" I asked. "And why is Aaron here? He doesn't desurve being taken from his birth parents."
"We had a snitch in the castle that reported everything to Serrina."
"Snitch?" Aaron questioned.
"A loyal follower of Serrina. Henchmen if you will."
"Adam was a snitch." Jake informs, explaining a lot.
"Wait a minute!" I stand up and start pacing. "You're telling me my boyfriend of two years was really out to kill me?"
"Pretty much. Serrina tried to get rid of you." Jake shrugged.
"And none of you bothered to get rid of him within these past few years?"
"I tried." Jake says. "We all did. The only thing we could do was try to keep you away without desturbing you. We tried to kill him. He just threatened us, saying if he died, he'd send more of them. To many to fight off unless you had full knowledge of your powers-"
"You lost me." I interupt. Jake looked at me and realized he got a head of himself.
"When you first met him, I knew what he was. I pushed him into the lockers and told him to stay away or I'd kill him. He said that if any one of his friends found out he was dead, they'd kill you on spot. I asked him why he didn't do it already. He only said he wanted to play with his food, whatever that means- I truthfully didn't want to think about it." There was a pause.
"We never did anything... just so you know." I say, feeling awkward. He gave me a sideways grin.
"Boy did he try." Aaron suddenly speaks. I gave him a confused look. "Did you not notice?"
"Apparently not." I shrug. "But even if he had... plans, why didn't anyone else go for the kill?"
"Don't know." Jake shrugged.
"Even if he did have friends, why can't you just kill them too?"
"We don't always have enough power to kill one, never the less a dozen especially without you noticing." Mom said.
"Why didn't you tell us?"
"We wanted a normal life for you for as long as we could. It was bad enough when we had to tell Jake, we didn't want the same for either you or Aaron."