by Cait Vaughn
“Oh, no, Matt that's awful. Is it going to be ok? I mean is it possible?”
He nodded. “Oh, yeah, no supe gives up on their bond mate. It is destined to work out in the end but you have no idea how excruciating it is to know your other half is out there and you need them so much but can't have them even though they are yours!”
I help his hand in silent sympathy. I couldn't tell him how much I got that. A strange sensation came upon me. It felt like I needed to burp but also something that wasn't physical.
I addressed Aurelia, “I feel strange.”
“How so dear?”
“It's like a burp but weir-”
As I was talking I did burp but it was supernatural. When the burp came out there was also some huge wind gust that literally threw everything on the table outward. Aurelia very quickly threw up her hands and somehow caught all of the debri I had accidentally sent out. Even though some of the food and liquid has sloshed out of containers she managed to grab countless plates, bowls, silverware, and gently return them to the table.
I gaped, and covered my mouth while everyone chuckled.
“You’ve got the blows, Trinity.” Aurelia said. “There are multiple ways to overdose on power for our kind and it can cause mini eruptions of power. It's very normal that your body never having had power will be randomly releasing bursts like that for some time.”
I blushed, embarrassed, and Aurelia kissed me on the head and said goodnight as her and my aunt and uncle left, presumably, to go to bed. I turned to Matt.
“What if that happens in public? Kind of hard to explain yeah?”
He laughed.
“I can't imagine how crazy it's all been but you’ll get used to it and with the big deal you are, you won't be in public until you have everything under control.”
He got a serious look on his face. “Trinity, I know I've got a lot of lies and deception to make up for, let alone the car crash-” I moved to cut him off shaking my head but he kept going.
“No let me finish, I need, it's important to me that you trust me. I'm going to earn your trust. Listen, witches have a gift of reading auras but just like everything some are bad at it some are mediocre and some are extraordinary. Of course, I'm the latter,” he said with his proud geek smirk and I smiled. “Let's just say you would never be able to hide much, if anything from me,” he continued. “This is me telling you a secret right now. Only Aurelia knows about how strong I read people. I'm sharing a secret with you so that you know when I tell you I can read that you have a half link going with Orion and that you have three affinities on your own not to mention tapping into his for a final four. I mean, wow Trinity, I don't want to freak you out but that's a massively big deal. I swear I won't tell anyone though. You can trust me with this.”
As he finished Orion shimmered next to me and pulled me standing so he could wrap his arm around me. I realized Ri had reopened the door in our mind and had probably heard all that. I blushed and I felt anxious. I didn't want to hide anything from either of them. Did I confess that Ri had just heard that? Did he already know?
Before I could get too far in my freak out Ri smiled and held out his hand to shake Matt’s who stood and reciprocated. “Matt, I'm Orion. I've heard a lot about you and I'm happy to meet the guy who has had Trinity's safety in mind all these years.”
“It's great to meet you too and Trinity it's ok. I know he heard and he knows I know he heard. That's part of what I meant about earning trust by giving it. I understand the bond better than you, despite your half link, and I extend my full trust to Orion as an extension of my trust for you despite that we are strangers.”
I smiled in relief and hugged Matt.
“Thanks bestie, and for the record I always trusted you and always will. I even told Courtney that you would never hurt her like that. When we caught you, you know, that something crazy must have happened.”
“We should all assume, for now, we are the only three people who know all the details,” Orion said.
“Even Aurelia?” I asked. Matt said, “yes for now assume just us. She probably knows but we can chat on it tomorrow.”
With the awkward tension dying down I moved to sit, but Ri clasped my hand and tugged me back under his arm. I sighed in comfort at his calming voodoo and then it hit me in a double dose as I felt me calm him. It was indescribable I felt how in awe he was, and amazing the sensation felt for him. I sensed how long he had wondered what it would feel like and how it had a magnified effect on him from a combination of years in and all the stress he usually carried around. It felt so good it cause multiple reactions in me. There was a little dizziness and I got goosebumps and butterflies all at once.
“Annnnd that my cue.” I startled to hear Matt speak I had forgotten he was there from how entranced I'd been. He said, “Trinity, I'm across the hall to the right if you need anything. I'll see you in the morning, goodnight.” He gave a Matt wave by bouncing two fingers off his head like one would tip a hat and turned to leave. “Wait,” I said, “Explain what you meant by half link. What happened?”
A rough, loud, cough type sound came from Ri and I could feel humor dancing through him. Matt gave a strange face and said, “Gross,” and then he left.
Chapter 42
Orion moved to stand in right in front of me and clasped both our hands together. I could decipher from his thoughts it was really inappropriate for me to ask Matt that.
Old habits I guess. I'd known Matt almost my whole life and always went to him with my questions.
Ri looked deep into my eyes and lowered his voice very quiet and spoke deeply. “Yes, Trinity, we should talk about that.” His intensity gave me shivers and I gulped. His skin began to heat in that Ri, way and I felt my cheeks pink. He smirked and reached up and rubbed his thumb over my cheek. It was such a three fold sensation. First the feel of him rubbing my cheek then the feel of him feeling it, in his mind and the sensation of pleasure from him as he thought how soft my skin was. My eyes fluttered shut. “Wow.” I said. He chuckled and quickly pulled back away from me and the sudden cold snapped me back from wherever that experience had taken me which was clearly not of this Earth. “I said talk,” he said in his smug demeanor, looking very confident while I was still reeling from the sensation overload. “Ok,” I said all breathless and turned to head to my room. He laughed again, a deeper laugh and reached out like to grab me but then pulled back and motioned to the door.
“You’re so innocent, Trinity. I doubt I'll ever set foot in your room again. I have a safer place in mind.” He winked at the word safer and I followed him outside my belly full of butterflies thinking about how much I didn't want to be safe from him.
As he lowered into the porch swing, the one I had dreamed of so many times. He responded to my wicked thoughts. “Did I say innocent? I should have said vixen.”
I grinned as I sat next to him and reached for his hand, which he motioned for us to sit at separate ends.
“I won't apologize for wanting you, Ri. I have nothing to be ashamed of. It's destiny.” I said with a shrug. The playfulness dropped from his face and he sighed and gave a small pained groan.
“You’re right and wrong.” He blew out a breath like to brace himself and charged ahead. “Ok where to start? So secrets out, I guess. First I did experience everything you did when we almost linked. I should say when you took an uninvited stroll through my head.” I turned my head to him angrily but he held his hands up defensively.
“Don't misunderstand, you didn't do anything wrong. Ugh it's just complicated. Actually it shouldn't have been possible for that to happen. We have vows, like a spell that opens the door for the first link and then it's forever. I have no clue how this happened and right now we sure can't ask anybody about it.” He turned intense eyes on me that began to glow as I sensed a rise of emotions in him like fear anxiety. “I'm very serious Trinity,” he continued. “If anybody finds out about the link they will not understand they will assume I broke the rules and linked with you
and they could make it impossible for me to see you while they decide my punishment and I would freak because as you saw, your safety is everything to me.”
His freak out spilled over to freak me out and I reached for him instinctively touching his arm and we both sighed as the calm washed over us.
“He closed his fully shining eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them they had calmed down a lot.
More calmly he said, “The other problem is how do we keep it a secret, when everytime we touch we are just a time bomb waiting to consume each other and complete the link?”
His words should have been scary but his eyes had fallen shut in pleasure and his tone was soft, tender, quiet.
I thought about what I had learned from my experiment the last time. I closed my eyes. I focused on the comforting sensations from the calming more than I focused on the pleasure sensation from our touch. Slowly I slid my hand down his arm to clasp his fingers. As I went I took stock of all the feelings that caused in him and how my feelings reacted to his sensations. It was almost impossible to fight and suppress the pleasure feelings. I knew Matt was wrong. No way did he understand this better than me. In Ri’s mind I had a 360 view of everything. I knew what linking would be. I knew it was inevitable and only a matter of time. I knew how hard it was for Orion before and how impossible it was for him now, with my feelings egging on his. Despite it all I knew the biggest deal to Ri was that our linking be put off as long as possible and be a very special event that he wanted to plan. Just like every bond mate gets to do. He wanted the whole, big, to do, on it all, and he thought he would never forgive himself if we just 'snapped’ and caved to the hormones and he didn't know how not to let that happen. I spoke in his mind.
Shhh, Ri, listen.
Hearing our voices in our head felt so much better than with just ears and he gasped as I felt how good that felt to him.
I continued. In my mind I saw us standing in front of each other and we were, in our heads but hadn't moved on the swing.
I stared into his beautiful, glowing eyes, shining for me and I giggled.
It will be hard to hide if you can't control your eyes, I said.
He began to frown but I reached out and cupped his face with my hand.
Shhh, no my turn to talk. Listen. I don't know how but I know we can do this. Have faith, it must be destiny this happened which means we can handle it.
I paused. Instinctively I knew slow was the key just a little here and there. Like before when I needed his touch for a fix to my twitching. We needed a little to take the edge off and then stop.
I absorbed the intense feelings how being in our heads was escalating the feel good emotions but I was on a mission I sensed he was losing it and I was running out of time.
Without thinking first so he wouldn't panic I crashed my lips to his. He groaned and grabbed my upper arms. I knew he wanted to push me away but he just couldn't. I wrapped my arms around his neck squeezing as tight as I could as our mouths danced. His groans caused shock waves of pleasure to pound through me harder each time and I felt the moment he was lost and going to lose control and I jumped out of his mind and off the swing and grabbed the post at the other edge of the porch heaving giant gulps of air in my lungs like I had ran miles rather than sitting motionless for the past half hour. I don't know if it was instinctive but we both closed the doors in our mind and after a minute I gained the courage to look at him and his eyes were still on fire.
“Ri, you can keep me safe. You can keep all of us safe. You can fight the fires of hell for us but in this you have to trust me to keep you safe. I do get this and I can do this. It's your turn to trust me.”
With the doors closed I couldn't hear his thoughts and I could sense him and his emotions but it was very dulled. I imagined if it weren't for the dramatic situation and with practice I would barely register him being there, forever part of me. All I could pick up from him was a small amount of pain but his stare didn't make me uncomfortable. His eyes began to dim and he tried to speak. “Trinity, I-” he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I need you to go inside, now.” He spoke slow and his words were clipped and gruff but he added a softer, “please.” It hurt my heart that he couldn't even open his eyes and that this was so hard for him and it was a real battle not to just go kiss him but I knew I could do this. I could be strong for us in this. So I quietly went inside and as I leaned against the door to catch my breath I heard the soft click of the locks that he must have used his telekinesis on.
I made my way to my room and knew I didn't need to worry about him out there. I was sure he could get in and if he couldn't he would stay in the garage or gym I knew he would literally never leave wherever I was if he had a choice. As I did my night routine I opened the door to my mind like I expected his was closed but I wanted to be open in case he needed me. I didn't understand yet how it all worked. Climbing into bed exhausted I sent a message I didn't know if he would hear through my mind. Goodnight, Ri, and I was fast and deep asleep.
Chapter 43
I felt like I was under water and trying to break through to the surface. There was some type of alarm going off inside of me and I felt I was in danger and need to wake up. As I fought to come awake a hand clamped over my mouth tighter than anything I'd ever felt. A burst of adrenaline finally pulled me fully awake and I was shocked as I stared at the face above me. It was my dad. At least I thought it was him but he had undergone a major transformation.
Wearing black from head to toe he had his hair slicked back which made his dark hair seem darker and he had a piercing in his eyebrow. Warring emotions skittered through me. Despite his appearance and terrifying way of sneaking up on me and clamping my mouth closed I wasn't sure if I should be scared. All of this ran through my mind in a flash and then I was being literally ripped in pieces.
I had never known pain. This was pain. My skin and body were literally ripping apart and then forming back together and all I could do was scream and pray for death. What felt like an eternity later I was forcefully dropped onto a rocky hard floor. Both of my knees gashed open but that was nothing compared to my injuries.
With my new senses and powers I could see my spleen and kidneys were bleeding. I coughed and spewed blood everywhere which caused me to scream in pain. My brain was bleeding too. One of my ear drums was busted and blood was flowing freely out of my nose. I thought my lungs might be filling. I knew I was going to die. It was hard to see but my dad was standing over me and he had a metal circle in his hand. “I had to get you right away when your powers were free and I had to be rough with the shimmer to weaken you so I could do this.” He slapped the metal ring on my neck and just like that I was human again. My body which had been healing itself stopped and my powers were gone. I could barely breath and definitely couldn't speak. I managed to croak out,“Why?” He laughed and even though I couldn't process it my heart broke to see this monster and know my dad for all intents and purposes was gone. “The master wants your powers. To get them he has to eat you before your essence leaves your body. So I'm going to go fetch him and you don't die OK?” I began to throw up, although it was mostly blood because everything was bleeding. I couldn't tell if it was from my injuries or my heartbreak about my evil dad.
It was him but it wasn't. Something horrible had happened. They had gotten to him somehow. Then all the hairs on my body stood up. The air was electrically charged and it felt warmer and then Ri and Matt appeared. Matt had a large black staff in his hand with a red crystal at the end and I hoped it wasn't just for looks. I looked at Ri his eyes were brighter than I'd ever seen. My dad was freaking, “that's not possible you couldn't have found her unless you-, no, no, tell me you didn't link with my daughter!” My lips twisted wryly, as if he cared about me. I felt it was to late for me but I was happy to throw a kink in his plan. Ri roared, I could tell from the look on his face he could still read my mind. I suspected this was because of his telepathic connection to all of us.
I knew it was bad. I kn
ew he knew it was bad. Then the most heart wrenching thing yet, happened. Ri began to hulk out. There is no other way to describe it. You could hear popping as his bones shifted and elongated. He stood about 9 ft tall and his head was some man dog combination with large jowls and black fangs that looked six inches long coming down from the top and bottom. He had human like features, but his arms and legs were angled weird like for running on all fours, his skin was blood red, and he had sharp lethal claws on all his hands and feet. He has turned into some kind of beast and when he roared again my heart leapt with adrenaline. My dad made a frustrated noise and shimmered out which made Ri roar again and he shimmered too. I wanted to cry. How could he leave me?
Unconsciousness was coming and Matt rushed to my side. He put his staff against my collar and said something strange like Latin and it fell off. This caused a moment's relief as my powers flooded back trying to heal me. He scooped me up and said, “I'm sorry Trinity we have to go. I’ll be careful.” I was sobbing uncontrollably in relief and heartbreak and pain. The shimmering was uncomfortable but nothing like last time and we gently landed on the porch at the beach house. Matt started calling for anybody, everybody, to come help me. Serenity ran in I'd never been happier to see her. She looked pale and stressed and I cried harder. “Upstairs,” she commanded. We walked to my room and Matt laid me on my bed picking up my hand and squeezing tight. “Where is everybody?” Serenity rushed to me and moved her hands up and down my body seeking out my injuries. Tears began to leak from her eyes my power was able to sense hers and that she was somehow connected with my pain. I hated that she had to experience it too. “Serenity,” I snapped. “What's going on”? She shook her head. “ Sorry,” she said choking back tears, “A small group of darks came to cause a distraction while he took you. They couldn't get past our wards and their no match for our number right now but everyone's out there fighting and containing and cloaking the situation from humans. Only I was allowed to stay in case you-” She broke off in another sob, then she sobered and looked in my eyes. “Trinity it's bad, I'm not strong enough to stop all the bleeding, but it's going to be OK. I think you can add your power to mine and we can do this.”