“So, as you can see, the Greeks were very advanced for their time.”

There was a quiet, dull roar as the class clapped for Drake.

Drake, Drake Parker, the brilliant sophomore honor student in high school. Drake had just given a well thought out project on the Greeks; there was not a doubt in his mind that he hadn’t gotten anything less than perfect.

He sighed as he sat back in his desk, tuning out everyone else’s presentations.

As usual Drake went through his normal routine; speaking when spoken to, answering questions, and pretending to care. A robot. He was always thankful to get home, to lock the door, to throw his bag in the corner, and to fall onto his bed and stare up at the blank ceiling.

Everyone…everyone thought he was the perfect son, never arguing, always getting A’s, the perfect attitude. His mother, his teachers, even his friends (if you could call them that) thought that he was so good. When all he wanted to do was lash out and scream till he couldn’t anymore, till his throat was sore, till his voice was gone... But he kept his emotions hidden.

Like he truly cared about grades anymore. There was only one thing he cared about; it was his reason to keep going: Shay…Shay Kosiki, the girl that had gone to his school for a day. But no one remembered her.
Except for Drake. And this was because she was a celestial being, an “alien”. Drake would have forgotten as well if she hadn’t left her mark on him, if she hadn’t drank his blood.
Drake reached up to feel the scar on his neck, it was still there.
And then…Shay Kosiki left. Leaving him no choice but to go on with his life. As if he could do that!
It was agony to go through one day; he didn’t know how he had made it through one year…
…

“Mr. Parker, so the answer to the question is…”
“One-fifteenth. It’s quite a simple problem actually.”
The rest of the class stared at Drake. How was this simple?
After class, a prissy, popular girl walked up to Drake with that I-know-I’m-beautiful swagger, her friends – a couple giggling ‘wannabes – stayed a little ways away, waiting for some gossip. (Though Drake was super smart, he was nowhere near close to being a nerd, his stylish, messy black hair, and chocolate-brown eyes got him far with girls.)
“Hey, Drake, I was wondering if you wanted to hangout maybe…Saturday?”
“I’m busy,” was his only reply.
The girl’s face fell. “Well, can I sit with you at lunch than?”
For some reason this girl was really ticking Drake off. “No.”
“But why not!” The girl had never in her whole life gotten turned down. She gave Drake the cutest smile she could muster. And flipped her brown hair over her shoulder with the flick of her hand, her light gold highlights flashing.

Of course, Drake didn’t even notice the flirting. “Because I said so.” He slammed his locker shut. The girl winced and tore off down the hall.

Drake walked to his next class, no emotion showing on his always-masked face.

…


Chewing his taco, Drake zoned in on his study guide for physics; when a tray was laid on the table with no food on it. The chair opposite him was pulled out and someone sat on it. Drake didn’t even bother to look up; he didn’t have to. He could tell by the thin frame and long hair, that this person was a girl.

“I thought I told you, you couldn’t sit with me. Get lost.” He put a water bottle to his lips.

“Well, that is not a very nice hello, Mr. Parker! I figured you would be happy to see me!”

Water shot out of Drake’s mouth, and would have hit the girl square in the face, if she hadn’t already had the tray up to block the jet.

Pale skin; almost white hair, designer clothes, Drake ticked the things off in his mind. The girl moved the tray so you could just see her eyes: silver.
Water dripped from Drakes chin, though he made no move to wipe it away. The girl put the tray down and smiled. That smile…her smile always seemed mischievous.
“Well, I would not say that was an any better hello!”
Shay, Shay Kosiki! After all this waiting she just appears! And at school too!
It was just Drakes luck that the lunch bell rang to go back to class right then. Drake hurriedly wiped the water droplets from his chin, not taking his gaze off Shay for an instant.
“You need to go; I will meet you after school.” And just like that she left, not leaving a trace, just like the Shay he remembered. She always went and came like the wind.
Not until he sat in his desk did he realize he hadn’t asked where to meet her. But he had a feeling she already had a place planned.
At the end of the school day Drake hurriedly walked out side, expecting to see Shay. But she wasn't there.
His mood plummeted. Was he really going insane, had he just imagined her! No he realized; she had been real.

…

“Beep, beep, beep, bee –” crowed Drakes alarm. He turned to look at the time, 1:19. Why had his alarm clock gone off? Drake tried to go back to sleep, but it seemed impossible, so for no reason at all, he went for a walk. In the middle of the night, pitch black, practically in the middle of nowhere (except for his house of course).
He walked for about five minutes when he came to an abrupt stop, turned to his right, and saw a silhouette of a girl leaning up against a lone tree.
Shay walked closer, that mischievous smile upon her face. “Well, it looks like I can call you with my mind. We are bonded.”
Yep, that was Shay all right, saying things that made no sense to Drake.
Even though he had waited so long, Drake was cautious walking up. Then out of nowhere Shay blurred and in the next millisecond was wrapping her arms around his neck in a hug.
It was quiet for a long time until Drake finally broke the heavy silence. “I’ve…I’ve really missed you, Shay.”
She laughed into his shoulder, muffling the noise, but it still sounded beautiful. Like her smile, Shay’s laugh was also unique.
She slowly pulled away. “And I you, Drake. But I have not come here to just talk about how we have missed one another. There is a very serious law that has been broken in my world. And it has to do with you.”
“Me? Wait, What? Shay we just saw each other again and you… I don’t get what’s going on.”
“I will explain on the way. Come with me to the ship.”
“On…the way? Ship?”
Shay grabbed his hand and pulled him away from the tree. And before his eyes a…something materialized. It looked like a snowmobile except without the two ski like things on the bottom. It was a shiny bronze color with some silver lines on the sides.
Shay climbed into the first seat and hauled Drake into the one directly behind her, the heels of his shoes digging into the dirt; that was as much protest as he could come up with at the moment.
A glass cover came over the top of the…
“This is a ship! What about a rocket or space shuttle?” exclaimed Drake.
A jet of speed slammed Drake to the back of his leather chair. He watched as first the ground was gone, then the houses, next the trees and finally the clouds. And then nothing but blackness. The pressure lifted off of Drake's body and he sat strait up.
“Where...are we?”
Shay didn't answer; she stared strait ahead. But she didn't have to, Drake had asked a question he already known the answer to. Space, they were in space. And going at blazing speeds too, already the earth was far behind, getting smaller and smaller by the second.
Drake felt like a deer in headlights. He cursed under his breath, and then smiled to himself, if only his peers could see him now! But he quickly snapped back to reality, wherever that was anymore.
“Where are you taking me? Where are we going? Why are we going?” He asked Shay question after question, but she never answered any. So he stopped asking. That didn't mean the questions stopped swirling around in his head, though. He kept coming up with worst-case scenarios.
In the middle of him getting eaten by some kind of huge snake he had seen in a space movie, Shay spoke. “I am sorry. This is all my fault, if I had just gone to Max like I was supposed to then I would never have had to drag you into this!”
“Well, now that you're talking...wait, who’s Max?”
“Max Rodgerson. My blood Partner, he is who I go to, to well you know…drink from. Every Cyronian has one.”
“Cyronian?”
“My kind.”
“Shay I may be an Honor student, but none of my school stuff is helping me understand anything.”
“Sorry. But I do not have time to explain... I did not have any time year ago either. I had been putting off my sickness for so long that when I found you, I had to get blood right then. I had waited so long to visit Max that I was going to die soon. I despise Max. He hates us – Cyronains I mean; the only thing he likes is the feeling he gets when I bite him. Idiot.”
Drake could understand that, the bite hardly hurt at all, you didn't even notice really, but you did notice the feeling after...
“You are going to court because you know about us now. Drake...you may be executed.”
That's when he realized they weren't moving anymore, the glass over the top of them came off and Shay stepped out. Drake gulped but gingerly did the same. Right as he stepped down a broad shouldered man put handcuffs around his wrists, the man had a sword at his belt. Others surrounded the man; they had spears. Drake gulped again. He tried to look anywhere that wasn’t where the soldiers were. That's when he realized what this world looked like.
There was green grass, light, and neatly mowed. Pine trees, fur trees, maples, and other trees stood tall and strait in different areas. But the thing that surprised Drake the most were the houses, they weren't futuristic like in the movies, just neat and clean. The vehicles were the only somewhat movie like thing, that he could see anyway. Everything looked so normal, a lot like earth, except more clean.
They walked up to a huge building made of bricks and marched up the stone steps and then through the hallways, till the group came to a large room with white walls and a wooded floor. The farthest thing away was a podium and behind that podium sat a man with what used to be black hair; it had mostly grayed now, though. He wore a fancy, black suite, and studied Drake as he was pulled to a desk in front of the large podium. There were two men seated on either side of him. The room looked like all the other courtrooms Drake had seen on TV; except, there was only himself and the three men. Then Drake realized that Shay was still here. She glided to the very back of the room to a chair in the corner. As she met Drake’s gaze she gave him a sad, small smile. The soldiers marched out of the room, leaving silence in their wake.
And then it began.
“Drake Parker – son of Simon and Jane Parker - is here by charged of knowledge he should not have. The knowledge of our people,” the man who appeared to be the judge called out in a deep voice. “He has gained access of this knowledge from none other than her Majesty, Shay Kosiki.”
Her Majesty, wondered Drake. But he didn’t dwell on the title. As his father’s name had been called out Drake had winced. And he couldn’t help but curse that man. Simon had left both him and his mother right after he had been born, leaving Jane to work off the house payments, food, clothing, and taxes. She said it had been rough at first, but she’d made it through. Drake of course didn’t care, he hated that man more then he could bare, he hated him more than anyone in the whole world, or well, worlds. Then he noticed the judge had continued talking the whole time he had been thinking.
“Do you deny that Ms. Kosiki drank from you, Mr. Parker?”
“No, your…honor…I don’t.”
The judge raised his eyebrows in surprise. “So tell me, Drake Parker…what exactly do you know?”
Drake looked at his hands. “Well, sir, not much, hardly any actually, just that you aren’t human, you drink human blood, you have blood partners, and your world – that I can see anyway – looks a lot like ours.”
The man on the right of the Judge sniffed disapprovingly. “And that is all?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, you sure have made this case quick, Mr. Parker,” murmured the Judge.
The three men leaned into the center to talk amongst themselves. While Drake congratulated himself on the way he was still able to talk and think when he was sweating bullets.
He stared at the three men’s expressions, trying to guess his fate. The Judge looked thoughtful, but stern. The man on the right looked disgusted. The one on the left looked bored. It was imposable to know, he decided.
After a few minutes of muttering the man on the right jumped up, “We can not! If he goes back to his world he will tell the humans about Cyronains! Then they will find a way to get here and slaughter us! Besides why should we even care about him, so what if it was not his fault, he is just a pesky human boy!” He turned his head and glared at Drake. He looked at the boy as if he were an insect needing to be squashed.
“Silence,” roared the Judge. Reluctantly the man sat back down. “Julius, I know how you feel about humans, but this was just an accident. I know we can not turn him loose on earth, but we can not kill him either, and so…let us see what you can do, Mr. Parker. Blood partners are not all human; one of their parents was Cyronian. But it would be interesting to see how a human does at the academy… Therefore, I herby give you six months to prove yourself as her Majesty’s worthy blood partner…” The three men stood and walked out a side door, Julius shooting daggers at Drake with his eyes.
Shay rushed over and gave Drake suffocating embrace.
“Alright, Shay, they didn’t kill me, but you might!”
“Oops, sorry…again!” They began walking through the hallways, trying to find the door to go out.
“So what do they mean by academy, a school?”
“Yes, a blood partner school. You see, blood partners are not only donors; they also protect us from other beings: Stegas. Stegas wish to kill us. At the school you learn to fight. I was supposed to bring Max last year actually, but then I met you.”
“So, who’s ‘her Majesty’? If I pass, that’s the person I’ll be…partnered with, right?”
Shay laughed. “You always seem to surprise me Drake, you take everything in stride, it is like you were meant to know about us. But back to your question, ‘her Majesty’ is the person you will have to put up with. And let me tell you, she is a handful.”
“Aw, I bet I can take her, who is she.”
Shay smiled that mischievous smile, “Me.”
Drake came to an abrupt halt. “When they called you your Majesty, they actually meant it!?”
“Yes, I am the soon to be ruler of Syren – this kingdom I mean. That is also one of the reasons Max stayed with me. But I hate it when someone calls me ‘your Majesty’! Just call me Shay, alright?”
Drake gave a wary sigh, “Whatever you say. But we better get to this school, I only have six months!” Shay looped her arm around Drake’s and rested her head on his shoulder.
“I know you can do it, Drake. I know you will be my future blood partner…”



To be continued