by Mia Hawkins
After about three miles, I realize that this is not helping me at all. I can’t seem to focus; I just keep going back to what Xavier said about me. There are definitely way more important things to put my energy to. Everything he said just cements the fact I need to leave here—and soon. I’m not sure if they can even help me figure out what I am, so why stay any longer? I hop off the treadmill and decide to go back to the house and find food after I clean up. Thinking about food, I realize I haven’t eaten since that sandwich Matthew made me yesterday.
Somehow there is a change of clothes and boots waiting in the bathroom for me. Someone must have come in while I was running. The only thing missing is my knife. After a quick shower, I put on the new clothes and start to make my way back up to the house.
Walking through the front door, I notice the house is oddly quiet. Not that it’s been loud since I’ve been here, but I could always tell there were people inside. I push out my energy to try to feel someone, but it comes back empty. Where did everyone go? I feel a spike of adrenaline when I hear a screech from the back of the house. I run towards the sound only to stop dead in my tracks when I reach the other side of the house. Looking out the back doors, I can see all four of the guys fighting a group of the monsters that have been hunting me since I was sixteen.
I hesitate to go out and help them for a second. This could be my chance to escape, to finally leave them behind and have a clean get away. I take a step back, ready to bolt, but I just can’t do it. Besides Xavier, everyone here has been really good to me. My heart constricts at the thought of leaving them, so I push open the doors and go out to help them fight. As soon as I make it down the hill, I can see just how many monsters my guys have been fighting. There are easily twenty of them out here. Some are already taken care of and lying on the ground, unmoving. I scan the area to find the cluster that needs my help the most and join in. After quickly taking down the nearest target, I move on to the next one. I get in a rhythm with each of the attackers, I think one of the guys called them rogues.
I am so focused on the rogue attacking me that I don’t see another one come from the side. He hits me in the side of the head, and I stumble but recover quickly. I can feel something warm dripping onto my shoulder; this fucker is going to pay. I turn on him and try to grab his head. He slips out of my grasp and swipes my legs out from under me. As I start to go down, I feel something in my boot. That’s weird, I distinctly remember leaving my knife in my room this morning, but I reach into my boot anyway, grasping my knife and pulling it out. As the rogue closes in on me, I slash my blade across the back of his leg, and he crumples to the ground.
His blood makes a burning sound as it touches my blade. That’s also weird, but I have no time to think about it because the monster gets back up. How in the world is he able to walk? I know I severed all the tendons in his leg, yet here he is, walking towards me with an evil gleam in his eye. Now is not the time to ask questions. I lunge at him, throwing my shoulder into his huge chest, and he grabs me to steady himself, just like I knew he would. As soon as he has a hold of me, I push off with my legs. He falls back onto the ground with me on top. I know, since I am so much smaller than he is, I will need to make this quick; it wouldn’t take much for him to switch us around. I put my knife to his throat. “Who are you?” I question him.
“I am here to bring you to the king himself. He will rise again. Nothing you do can stop him,” the rogue below me says as he starts trying to throw me off him. I waste no time in shoving my blade into his chest. I watch as the light leaves his eyes before I get up.
I turn and look around me, noticing a couple monsters are still left fighting. Heading for the one on my left, I start to help Alex with the guys he is fighting. We work seamlessly together: where he leaves his side open, I am able to protect it. He fights very fluidly just like I do, so it isn’t long before we are in sync. We easily take down the two we are dealing with and go help the others. Before I know it, all of the rogues are taken care of. I turn to look everyone over, and all of them look good. There are a couple scrapes and bruises, but other than that, no one is injured. My gaze falls on Xavier, and his face is contorted with rage.
“This is all your fault! The stunt you pulled earlier is the only reason they came here.” Xavier points his finger in my direction. I am over him blaming me for everything. I turn my attention to the other three.
“Can we go inside and talk? I have some questions.” The three of them nod, and we make our way back inside. I glance back at Xavier, and he has a stunned look on his face. What? Has no one ever ignored him before?
“You will not walk away from me, Rayven!” Xavier yells at my back. The deep timber in his voice when he says my name does funny things to my stomach, but I can’t let him walk all over me. I turn around and march right up to his face.
“I can do what I want! In case you haven’t noticed, I am no longer your prisoner. I could have left while you were fighting these rogues, but I didn’t. I stayed here and helped you, so I would appreciate it if you would give me the common courtesy of showing me some basic human decency. You don’t have to be nice to me, but stop being such a dick,” I force out before I run out of steam.
“You are in my house. I have every right to say and do whatever I want. I know you probably don’t care, but collecting you is my job. If I don’t bring you in, then I have failed, and that is not something that is taken lightly. You destroying all of our protective barriers is what brought them here. What if we hadn’t seen them and they went for the gym first? You might be good, but there is no way you could have handled all of them by yourself.” He actually sounds a little worried. I’m not sure if he is more worried that if I die, he can’t take me to the council, or if he is concerned I could get hurt.
“Aww, Xavier, I knew you cared about me.” I smile at him. “I think I would consider that an actual compliment; you basically just admitted I was a badass.” I laugh at the expression on his face. I can see him mentally going over everything he said, to find out what I could take as a compliment. His eyes momentarily soften, and his lips turn up at the corners, and my heart melts a little towards him. Way too fast, his stern mask slides back into place.
“Just don’t do anything like that again. I will try to get someone out here tomorrow to fix all of the wards.” Xavier looks around at the mess we made in his backyard. I shake my head and grab Matthew’s arm. Why can’t Xavier just have a normal conversation with me? As I start to pull Matthew towards the house, I let the guys fall in behind us. We can deal with the mess outside later, but right now, I need to figure out what is going on.
Matthew leads us upstairs to a room I have never been in before. It looks like a study. There are books lining three of the walls, and the other wall is made up of a huge picture window overlooking the woods. I could imagine sitting in front of this window and taking in the beautiful view while sipping some coffee. I wonder if that’s what Xavier’s parents used to do. The thought almost makes me feel bad for him. He starts to follow us into the room, and I cut him off. “You want nothing to do with me, remember? This no longer involves you. At least not until Friday,” I say, challenging him to try to argue with me.
“This does involve me because you are my responsibility to watch, and I will go wherever I please! Now move out of my way before I am forced to move you myself,” Xavier threatens. His threats are falling on deaf ears; they mean nothing to me. He might have maybe kinda sorta given me a backhanded compliment, but that doesn’t mean I forgive him for being a jerk to me. I have some personal things I want to talk about, and I don’t trust him.
“You’re right, since we are at your house, how about you be a good host and go clean up the backyard?” I smile as my magic lashes out and pushes him back away from the door. I slam it in his face and turn towards the others.
“He is just going to either push his way in here or stand outside the door listening to everything we say. I wish Theo was here so he could ward the room,” Alex says re
gretfully.
“How does he ward it? Maybe I could try,” I say, looking to the others for guidance.
“As far as I know, he just pictures what he wants to do. I am sure there is a much more technical way to explain it,” Alex shrugs his shoulders.
“How do you normally do things? Your magic might work differently than a mage’s,” Chaice adds in. I start to think about every time I have done something new, but it’s hard to explain; it usually just happens.
“I just think about it, and I picture my energy going into whatever I am doing.” That’s when it clicks. When I was pinned below Xavier, all I could think about was getting out from under him. That’s when the blast happened. The same could be said when I was trying to escape my room. I was thinking about the forest, trying to calm myself, before Xavier and I were both phased outside. Maybe that really was me.
I look to the door and imagine it being reinforced with steel. I think about it being so thick nothing could get through, not even sound. As I start to picture it, I push my energy out, making my vision a reality. I hear a gasp behind me, but I stay focused. When I feel the room is protected, I open my eyes to see if it worked. As I look around, the room is covered in a blue mist. It is beautiful. My eyes scan the guys’ faces, and they look impressed. It does make me feel good that I am finally starting to get the hang of these powers I have. I decide to be the one to break the silence. “So how about you tell me who those people were that attacked us?” I ask, walking around and finding a seat to sit in. Something tells me this will be a long conversation.
Chapter 19
Rayven
My mind is trying to keep up with all of the information they have given me so far. I was correct, the people that attacked us are called rogues. The rogues are the problem they were hoping I could help them with. I also found out more about their council, although none of the guys have any idea as to what the council needs me for. They know the council thinks I can help them, but the council is not very open on how I can help.
“So let me get this straight. You were assigned to kidnap me and bring me to the council, which claims I can help them with the rogue issue, which they say are people who are going insane. You don’t believe them, and you also have no idea how they think I can help?” I ask no one in particular.
“Yup, that about sums it up,” Alex says with a huge grin on his face.
“I am going to be honest with you, I think I speak for everyone in this room when I say we don’t trust the council,” Chaice says, looking at the twins for confirmation. When they nod, he turns back to me. “The council has been in charge for centuries, way before any of us were born. They were entrusted to keep order between the sups, but I think the power has gone to their heads. For decades, they have sent warriors like myself and Xavier out to capture people. At first, I didn’t think anything of it, I just did what I was told. That was until I started hearing rumors that those people we were taking hadn’t actually done anything wrong. I didn’t want to believe it, and I didn’t at first. I defended the council to anyone who disagreed with me. Then one day, I saw one of my targets I had collected years before.” Chaice looks away like the memory is causing him pain. I want to go over and comfort him but decide against it. I can’t let hormones control what I do, so I steel my spine and lean back on the couch.
“I should have forgotten what he looked like, but for some reason I hadn’t. I was just walking down the street, and out of nowhere, I saw him duck into an alley. I followed him, and it was like he knew I was there before he even turned around. He looked terrified. He started telling me how the council had taken all of his magic. How they kept him in a dungeon somewhere and would take turns ripping his magic out of his body. I could tell something had happened; his cheeks were sunken in, and he looked like he hadn’t eaten in years. He said he had escaped and there were others like him down there. He wanted me to help him.
“At first, I didn’t want to believe him, but…I started paying closer attention to who I was sent after. I was sent after people who showed high levels of power. I couldn’t find anything they had done wrong to cause the council to want them. The only thing they all had in common was power. Of course, I couldn’t ask too many questions without getting myself into trouble. Then I was called to collect you, and just like the others, you have power. I worry they want to do the same thing to you that they did to them,” Chaice says with sadness in his eyes.
That is a lot to take in. We all just sit there for a few moments to sort through everything Chaice just said.
“It makes sense. That’s why my father separated us from the council. They were getting power hungry, and we could sense their deception. They told so many lies our father wanted to make sure we would not be affected if something ever happened to them,” Matthew says to Chaice.
“Ok, I have a few questions. First, why would it make this guy look so different if they took his magic? Wouldn’t he just be powerless?” I ask.
“Your magic is essentially your life force. You cannot live without it. It all started when we were first created. The originals were not born, they were made by the original archangels. When Lucifer first rebelled against his father and was sent to hell, the archangels each gave a part of themselves to help protect the earth from Lucifer’s influence. It started out with Nephilim, but over time, their blood got diluted and their magic became tainted. The further they got from the first creations, the more their powers changed; they no longer had the same power as their ancestors. Some had developed a knack for spells, while others could shift. Each generation leaned more towards one branch of magic until that is all each family could do. That’s how the first supernaturals were made.
“There are four different races of supernaturals. You have the mages, who can wield magic in spells and written form. They are basically witches, although they don’t like to be called that. The fae, who are basically enhanced fighters. They draw their power from the earth, so without being close to it, they become weaker. Then you have the wolf shifters and dragon shifters. Most people want to put them in the same group, but they’re actually completely different. Wolf shifters are really good at reading people. We can pick up on subtle body changes, and that lets us know whether someone is lying or even scared,” Matthew says as he comes to sit down next to me.
“Wolves can also tell when you are sexually aroused,” Alex leans over and whispers into my ear. The roughness of his voice mixed with the feel of his breath on my neck goes straight to my core. I automatically clench my legs, and when Alex pulls away he is grinning from ear to ear. He knows exactly how my body responds to him, that asshole. I can feel my cheeks burning from embarrassment and decide to not even acknowledge what Alex said. Although I can tell all three of them know what I’m feeling right now.
I clear my throat. “So, the other night, I didn’t hallucinate the dragon catching me?” I am just now starting to piece everything together. I know Matthew and Alex are both wolves, and Xavier is obviously a fae. I glance at Chaice who quickly ducks his head sheepishly. “You are a dragon!” I say a bit too loudly. Chaice looks at me nervously, like he is scared I will reject him. “That is amazing! How did you talk into my head?” His face lights up when he realizes I am not judging him and truly think his being a dragon is one of the coolest things ever.
“Well, that is a whole other story. Which lead us to what we think you are.” Chaice looks to Matthew, as if to ask him to break the news to me.
“Just spit it out already. I have waited four years to find out what I am. If you have even a guess, I want to know. Because I got nothing.” I turn and look at Matthew, hoping that everyone staring at him will finally get him to speak.
“When I saw your shoulder the other day, I recognized your symbols from some scrolls I had read in the pack’s library. They were hidden in the back, and I thought they must have been forgotten about. They were talking about your symbol and what it meant for the one who bears the marks. From what I gathered, you are marked as the
“one of all races.” It doesn’t explain what that means, but from what I have seen, I think I know. I think you are each of the four different supernaturals. Well, at least three for sure.” I must be giving him a crazy look, because Matthew tries to explain better.
“Think about it. You are bonded with a fae, both me and my brother can feel your wolf, and Chaice swears you are a dragon. I think you have a piece of each of our souls, and that is what makes you so different. Your soul is basically your essence, it holds the same powers you do. Since you have a piece of each of us, you in turn have access to all of our powers.” Matthew finally sits back.
“Wait one second, how did she get a piece of each of our souls? You can only have one soul mate.” Chaice stands up and starts to pace.
“I don’t know, I could only read half of what it said. I am not even sure how you were made or what purpose you serve. I just know that symbol. If I could get back to the library, I might be able to find the scroll again,” Matthew says thoughtfully.
“No way, we can’t leave Rayven alone if the council is after her.” Alex has lost his joking manner. He is the most serious I have ever seen him, and it scares me. Are they really worried about losing me? What will they think when I just up and leave them all? I have survived long enough on my own; I don’t need them to protect me. But what if I want them to?
Chapter 20
Rayven
We spend the next hour talking about what we are going to do next. “We could just leave him behind. His threats mean nothing to me. I won’t let him take you to the council,” Chaice says with determination.
“That sounds great, but you know as well as I do, he will just track her down. Especially since they’re bonded. She basically has a fucking beacon on her back. I say we train until all of her powers emerge, and then we take care of Xavier,” Alex says to the room.