Marking Territory: An Awakened Novel (The Rising Storm Book 1)

by N. L. Paradox

  “Thanks,” he said, being careful to make sure he sounded disappointed, “but I’ve really got to try and get this bio-chem stuff sorted out. It’s probably going to take me half the night just to remember a quarter of this.”

  “You’re working on the human physiology chapter, right?”

  “The circulatory system,” he confirmed with a nod, “and it’s a real pain in the ass.”

  “I’m struggling with it too,” Aiden confessed. “Ashley said she’d help me out with it, since she’s a wiz when it comes to that kind of stuff. Maybe she can help you too,” she suggested with the barest hint of hope trickling through her voice.

  “She wouldn’t mind?” Link asked carefully. “I mean, I don’t want to just assume she’s okay tutoring me.”

  Planting her hands on her saucily cocked hips, Aiden took on a rather amused look. “Link, this is Ashley we’re talking about. Do you really think she’d ever refuse to help anyone? And yes,” she continued before Link could say anything, “I wouldn’t let her do it if I knew she was overextending herself.”

  The young man smiled at the wolf girl’s naturally protective behavior towards her friend. He understood that in Aiden’s mind, Ashley and Kitty were a part of her pack, and thus, she would do anything for them. Still, he wondered if she realized just how sweet it was that she was so protective of her gentle friend, regardless of her wild instincts.

  “A delicious meal and tutoring from one of the prettiest girls in school? How the hell can I turn that down?”

  There was a subtle shift in Aiden’s eyes that indicated both annoyance and doubt; only this time, Link had been watching for it. The comment he’d seemed to have just casually tossed out had actually been quite deliberate and designed to provoke that exact response. After gathering up his things and gesturing for Aiden to lead on, he could have sworn he actually heard her huff indignantly before whirling and storming out of his room.

  Methinks the lady doth protest too much, Link thought with a hidden grin.

  “So, are you guys ever going to eat in Fhlea Hall?” he asked as they strode across the courtyard towards Hazel Dorm.

  “Probably,” Aiden allowed. “She might love to cook, but I know even Ashley will need a break from it now and then. Though,” she continued with a sigh, “I have a sneaking suspicion that a lot of it has to do with the fact that we can’t eat on the upper level. The view is nice from the ground floor,” she allowed, “but I have to agree, it’s a lot nicer on that upper level.”

  “So, why don’t you guys just go up there?” Link asked.

  Casting the young man a sideways look that clearly indicated she was questioning her estimation of his intelligence, Aiden snorted. “You know what’ll happen if we do. We got lucky that one time because, let’s face it, no one can say no to Ashley when she gets that look on her face.”

  “You mean that look where she stops being a girl and turns into a fairy tale princess?” Link said with a knowing smile.

  “Exactly,” Aiden said, emphasizing the word with a point of her finger. “It worked once, but I doubt it’ll work a second time. Girls like Traci care more about their own popularity than actually doing something decent for other people.”

  “Well, who says it has to work?” Link challenged.

  “Huh?”

  Reaching out, the young man took hold of Aiden’s upper arm, drawing her gently to a stop. “Look,” he said, his tone growing quite serious, “whatever you guys think about yourselves, let me tell you, you three are on the fast track to the height of popularity here.”

  “How do you figure that?” the wolf girl asked.

  “Well, let’s look at the facts,” he said, beginning to tick off points on his fingers. “Ashley is one of the sweetest girls you’ll ever meet, Kitty is a genius without being nerdy, and you can probably kick anyone’s ass in school. Plus,” he said, purposefully resuming their walk towards Aiden’s dorm while not looking at her, “the three of you are gorgeous. You three couldn’t be more of a complete package when it comes to popularity.”

  “You… you think I’m gorgeous?” Aiden asked softly with a healthy amount of doubt in her voice.

  Once again, Link reached out and caught the girl’s arm, pulling her to a sudden halt. “Aiden, do you even look at yourself in the mirror every morning?”

  “Yeah,” she said in an uncharacteristically meek tone, “but I just kinda see… me,” she finished lamely.

  “Well you need to start looking a little harder. I know you don’t care about makeup like your friends, but even without it, you’re just… you’re beautiful.”

  By this point, Link’s plan to test the waters with Aiden had gone completely out the window. At some point during his subtle efforts to determine her interest in him had been completely sidetracked by this new, uncertain, beautiful girl that even now, peeked up at him uncertainly. In the admittedly brief time that he’d known her, not once had Aiden ever even hinted at the possibility of this side to her. While it should have been so different from her norm that it was jarring, Link found himself wanting her even more than he had before. It actually took every ounce of self control he possessed not to gather her into his arms, tilt her face up to him, and simply take her mouth with his.

  “Really? You’re not just saying it so I won’t punch you in the face because you said Ashley was the prettiest?”

  Ah, now there was the wild girl he had come to know, even if her quip still held the faint edges of self-doubt. “Actually,” he pointed out with a grin as they resumed their trek to her dorm, “I said she was one of the prettiest.”

  Aiden looked thoughtful for a moment, her head tilting slightly before she nodded. “Yeah, that’s true. Okay, you’re safe for today.”

  “I feel so privileged,” Link intoned with mock severity. If he were being honest, though, he really did feel kind of privileged to have somehow found himself within the orbit of Aiden and her remarkable friends.

  ****

  An hour later, Jennifer found she was experiencing similar feelings as Link, not that she would reveal such a thing to anyone currently in the room with her. Even though these girls and Link had all welcomed her into their little circle with open arms, she still couldn’t help but be cautious. Yes, they seemed to actually want to be her friends, but was it possible they had some other kind of plan that they weren’t telling her? Were they looking to mine her for information or maybe use her as some kind of metaphorical pack mule to do most of their work for an assignment or project?

  No, she had to admit that didn’t make any sense. By any definition, Kitty was brilliant, and Ashley was very intelligent in her own right as well. Aiden might not have the same level of smarts as the other two, but she certainly seemed rather bright in most respects. Even if Aiden was having trouble, she could just turn to one of her friends for help, which they would certainly give without question.

  While she was still making a half-hearted effort to see the downside of being friends with this trio, mostly out of habit more than anything else, Jennifer was rather quickly discovering that what you saw was what you got with these three. Well, technically four if you counted Link, which given how close he and Aiden seemed to be getting probably meant it wouldn’t be ‘technically’ for much longer.

  “What are you thinking about?” Ashley whispered to her, causing the girl to jump and stifle a squeak of surprise. “Sorry,” she giggled softly, “you just seemed so deep in thought I was wondering if anything was bothering you.”

  Turning slightly to look the gorgeous redhead in the eye, the tech fey opened her mouth to come up with some kind of excuse and… found she couldn’t. For whatever reason, Jennifer simply couldn’t force herself to offer a little white lie like she was thinking about her work or something from class that day. Instead, almost against her will, she heard herself say, “I’m just… when’s the other shoe going to drop?”

  The blinking and look of confusion was, honestly, a pretty predictable response. Most people would
do exactly what Ashley had just done when called out on something they had no intention of revealing. They also said exactly what Ashley followed the expression up with by saying, “What do you mean? What other shoe?”

  Sighing and shaking her head, Jennifer took another sip of the tea that had been given to her after the admittedly delicious meal she’d been invited to. “Look, you guys have been really nice to me these last few days, but I’m smart enough to know that people like me don’t really associate with people like you.”

  “I think you need to explain that a little better,” Ashley demanded, her brilliantly green eyes narrowing with, surprisingly, the beginnings of anger.

  “You know, beautiful people,” Jennifer said, gesturing helplessly as though that would somehow push her thoughts and intentions on the subject into the redhead’s brain. “You don’t really hang out with average-looking, brainy people like me.”

  Huffing out a breath, Ashley folded her arms beneath her breasts and pinned Jennifer with a look of anger that she didn’t think the sweet girl was even capable of. “How many times are we going to go through this?” she wondered in a not-so-wondering tone of voice. “You’re our friend. No ‘we want to get to know you more’ or ‘see if you like the same things we do’, you are our friend,” she insisted. “There’s no other shoe that’s going to drop, and in case it hasn’t been obvious yet, we don’t give a shit about looks or popularity.”

  “Well every time…” the tech fey began.

  “We aren’t like every time before,” Ashley insisted, reaching over and clasping Jennifer’s free hand between hers. “I know how people can be cruel, how they can pretend to be friends or friendly towards you and end up being the most horrifying nightmare of your life." The way her voice tightened, almost as though she was struggling to hold back tears, clearly said her mind was flashing back to her time in San Francisco. “But that’s not us,” she said after clearing her throat. “This is who we are, and we’re not using you for some kind of personal gain. We want you to be our friend, and all we want in return is your friendship in return, nothing else.”

  Well damn, if that didn’t have Jennifer’s heart aching with both sympathetic sadness for what Ashley had been through and happiness that this beautiful, ethereal creature, one that was better suited as a fairy tale princess than as some mere mortal, really did want to be friends with her. “I’m sorry,” she whispered honestly, hoping she hadn’t offended her too badly. “I didn’t mean to…”

  “Yeah you did.”

  Whipping her head around, she saw Aiden perched on the arm of the couch on her other side with a light smile on her lips. “But it’s okay,” she continued, “we get it, probably more than most, and it’s a good survival technique for people you don’t really know. But Ashley’s right,” she confirmed, “we really do want to be your friends, and we’re not asking for anything back, though don’t be surprised if I come to you for help with math. I’d ask Kitty, but that superiority complex she gets when it comes to science just gets so goddamn irritating sometimes.”

  “I heard that,” the girl in question shouted from her room.

  “Good,” Aiden shouted back with a grin that Jennifer found herself unable to help but match.

  Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York, Fey Division

  The sound of his desk phone’s electronic ring did nothing to pull Agent Zucker’s attention from the figures currently displayed on his computer screen. Reaching out blindly, he snatched the receiver from its cradle and tucked it between his shoulder and ear as he made several notations on a small note pad. “Fey Division, Agent Zucker,” he said distractedly.

  “Agent Zucker,” came the voice of the female dispatcher from deep within the building, “we have reports of a fey doing some kind of back-room surgery in Queens. There’s no information on who the fey is, so we don’t have a file to send you. All we know is this fey is operating out of a motel room at the Jets Motor Inn in the Jamaica area.”

  “Who called this in?” Zucker demanded as he flipped the page in his notebook and jotted the information down.

  “A few of the guests were suspicious,” the dispatcher told him, “but they’re gone. You can speak with the manager about it; he’s one of the complainants too. We’ll have Agent Williams on standby in that area in case you need backup.”

  “I’ll head over there now,” the agent told the dispatcher before hanging up, barely masking the surprise he felt. Standard protocol was that any fey investigations be conducted by two agents, at minimum. This policy had been put into place years ago when a single agent investigating a complaint was killed by a fey before he was able to call for any backup or even let dispatch know where he was. It had taken a whole week to locate the man’s body, which made the possibility of an open casket funeral impossible. There could only be one reason why the second agent assigned to this particular case was only on stand-by duty instead of being an active participant: this was a ‘special’ case.

  Securing his weapon and slipping his jacket on, Zucker made sure he was in possession of all appropriate supplemental equipment before heading out of the office and down to his agency vehicle. He managed to keep the smile off his face until just after he’d cleared the building’s parking garage and had turned onto the street.

  When his shadowy contact had told him to expect cases specifically for the ‘Round-up protocol’, Zucker never thought it would happen this quickly. The only reason he wasn’t caught flat-footed by the dispatcher is because he had practically been chomping at the bit to begin the operation. Now that he’d received his first target, the man was practically bursting with excitement.

  Thankfully, there was a healthy amount of distance required to drive to the specified location. By the time he pulled up to the hotel, Zucker once again presented an impartial, professional appearance. Having been on the job for many years now, the agent had long ago learned how to mask his internal emotions with a calm and completely neutral demeanor that would have any and all observers think he was a ‘strictly business’ kind of person. No one would be able to see the anticipatory delight he was experiencing inside. It wasn’t long before Zucker was standing at the hotel’s check-in desk requesting to speak with the manager.

  The person in question, Adam Gerard, a rather non-descript man in his forties, eagerly shook the agent’s hand after coming out from the back office. “I’m glad you responded so quickly,” Gerard said gratefully. “I don’t want to cause trouble for anyone, but I don’t want our business to take a hit because we allowed illegal medical procedures to be conducted here, regardless if it’s a fey or not.”

  “Perfectly understandable,” Agent Zucker said, shifting his tone slightly so as to allow just a trace of sympathy into his words. “I’m glad you called as soon as you found out about it.”

  “Honestly,” the manager continued doubtfully, “I was kind of debating on calling in the first place. I mean, if it’s a fey with just healing abilities, does that qualify as practicing medicine illegally?”

  While the young clerk might not noticed, Zucker’s FBI trained and honed instincts instantly caught the rather subtle use of language in that statement. It also told the agent that this man was in on the operation in some way. The average citizen might have expressed doubt or confusion when it came to matters of legality when it came to a fey healing someone with their power. What wouldn’t be said was how the fey only possessed the ability to heal with no other tertiary powers or abilities. That fell into a more tactical area that informed the agent he didn’t need to worry about any offensive capabilities.

  “The matter is still being reviewed by Medical Oversight Committee in Congress, but currently, a fey with healing powers and no medical education is allowed to use them in a good Samaritan capacity only. Anything beyond that would constitute practicing without a license.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Gerard sighed sadly. “I mean, it’s nice that this guy wants to help people, and he hasn’t caused any kind of trouble,
but I can’t have some kind of a back room clinic operating in my hotel.”

  “Of course,” Zucker said understandingly, “you don’t want you or any of your employees to get in trouble for a fey doing something illegal. What room is he in, and are you aware if he has any… patients at this time?”

  “Room one-eleven,” the manager said, sliding a key card across the desk to the agent. “It’s on the second floor, all the way down the hall. Last room on the left. It’s a suite,” he informed the agent.

  Zucker nodded in understanding as he accepted the card key. Unlike most hotel rooms, a suite would add a layer of concern that he would need to address because of the additional area within the room. Were this a breech situation, that additional time it would take to clear the room would need to be accounted for to prevent the suspect from getting in a surprise attack.

  Fortunately, this was a situation where the suspect was reported to be non-violent, possessed no offensive capabilities as far as fey abilities went, and would very likely be cooperative. “I don’t anticipate any problems,” the agent informed Gerard, “but as a matter of general safety, you and your staff should stay away from the area until it’s secured. I have an agent nearby ready to respond if needed, so please don’t allow any of your people to try and be a hero if you hear any kind of a scuffle.”

  “You got it,” Gerard readily agreed as Zucker noted the name of the fey on the registrar Gerard supplied and headed for the elevator. Of course, being a civilian, Gerard and his staff wouldn’t know how unusual it was for only one agent to be dealing with a fey. They also wouldn’t know that having a secondary agent standing by at an unknown location would never happen outside of an undercover operation or a raid. If Zucker were forced to fight with the fey, there would really be no way for him to call for backup until he already had the fey in custody… or was lying in a pool of his own blood.