I just hope that this is enough to prove to her that she is who I’ve been trying to tell her she is. To convince her to do the trials. And enough to stop Aurora taking part. Her death is not one I want on my conscience. I speed up my pace, unable to keep the urgency that hasn’t left me since I heard that glass shatter buried. I break through the edge of the forest, catching up with Cam who has calmed and greets me with a tight smile.
“We’ll tell her as soon as we find her and know that she’s okay.” I reassure him and some of the tension in his shoulders leaves. “She’ll surface soon enough. Let’s head up to my room and I’ll sort us some breakfast and we can snooze while keeping an ear out for her.”
I keep the worry I feel in the pit of my stomach from my face and lead the way up to my dorm room.
My feet fix in place as we reach the top of the stairs in the dorm building, when I find a half-naked Eden propped up on my door, with someone, whose back is to us, stroking her face. I hear Cam’s growl as I stifle the rage inside me, before darting forward and grabbing the unknown person and putting myself between them and her.
“Whoa, Kane, calm your shit. I found your girl floating in the lake as I came up this morning, It was like she called out to me. I made sure she was okay and then brought her straight here. She keeps talking gibberish, and I used as much of my water magic as I could to clean her up. She was covered in blood and dirt, though none of the blood seems to be hers. She fell asleep pretty much as soon as she sat down.” Ziniyah Piedmont, Captain of House Phoenix and one of the strongest Mermen I’ve ever come across, looks back at me, hands raised, ready to defend himself. I relax my stance while Cam steps around me and bends down, picking Eden up gently in his arms. I watch as she snuggles into his heat, and I can’t stop the flames of jealousy that soar inside me.
“Thank you for bringing her back to me,” I turn back to Ziniyah and hold out my hand to thank him. He shakes my hand but looks over my shoulder as Cam disappears into my room with Eden.
“Maybe I should stick around and make sure she’s okay; that there’s no water in her lungs still?” He edges closer to the doorway and I pinch my nose, realizing that this just got way more complicated. I step back and wave my arm ushering him in.
“I guess you better come in then.” I try to smile and keep the frustration from my voice, but I know I fail when he laughs. Cam looks over at us from the sofa where he’s sat with Eden in his lap. She’s now wearing his t-shirt while he sits there topless. I guess I need to call Gus. What an awesome day this is shaping up to be.
I pull my cell from my pocket and shoot off a message telling him that he should get here quickly. Less than three minutes later my door bursts open while I sit at the counter, trying to figure out how the fuck any of this is going to work.
“What the hell happened?” Gus barks as he looks from me to Ziniyah, to Eden wrapped in Cam’s arms.
“We should talk,” I tell him as Eden stirs.
“Creed?” She whispers, as her eyes open and land on him. He crosses the room in a blink and kneels before her.
“Are you okay, baby?”
“Um-hum” she moans and goes to move, but Cam grumbles and keeps her where she is, glaring at Gus, while Ziniyah watches, removed but invested.
“What’s going on?” She looks around the room and takes in her surroundings, her eyes going wide as they settle on the Merman in the corner of the room. She sits up, and Cam allows it, keeping his hands on her, as she becomes alert and on edge.
“Why do I feel? Oh shit…” she gasps. “No, no, no. That’s not possible.” She looks toward me, fear and fury painted on her features. She points at me, and her eyes slit. “You need to start talking.”
I sigh and pinch the bridge of my nose, before tying my hair back with the tie on my wrist. Procrastination in its highest form as I try to find the words.
“I tried to tell you. I asked you to trust me.” I look her straight in the eyes but stay aware of everyone else in the room. “You are the one the prophecy speaks of, and now I have proof and so do you. Even if it doesn’t feel real.”
She looks defeated and my heart breaks.
“What the fuck?” Ziniyah whispers from his corner, taking in my words. “This is fucking unreal. I shouldn’t be here.”
He stands to leave, but I stop him. “She called to you. That means you’re involved now too.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Eden rises, releasing Cam’s grip from her and moving closer to Gus. I sigh.
“There’s more. I couldn’t explain it to you before, or to you, Gus. The bindings of what I know were strong, but when you shifted last night, Eden, the magic loosened. It’s fading every second. I can feel it.”
“She shifted?” Gus swears and pulls on his hair as he sinks onto the sofa next to Cam, while Eden just glares at me.
“Isn’t she a Vampire?” Ziniyah questions, looking at me like I’ve lost my mind.
“Kind of,” I shrug, deciding to take a seat in the chair next to the sofa, getting comfortable. This is going to take a while. I open my mouth to speak, but Eden interrupts before I can say anything.
“Wait, who is he?” Eden asks looking at Ziniyah when a knock on the door sounds through the room, followed by the door opening as Ava and Ruby enter.
“Kane…” Ava starts before she sees everyone around the room. “What happened?”
“I asked the same damn thing,” Eden pipes up, as the tension in the room grows.
“You could cut the energy in here with a knife. Look at you, surrounding yourself with captains,” Ruby winks at Eden who rolls her eyes at her friend.
“Do you need something?” I ask Ava, who looks worried but pissed off that I’m avoiding her question.
“I’ll come back later, you’re obviously busy, but don’t forget that house captains have duties and you’ve been shirking yours. All of you.” She looks between Cam, Gus, and I who grumble apologies.
“I’ll talk to you later,” I say, standing and guiding the two of them from the room.
“You better,” she says as she flicks her hair in my face and walks away from the room toward the stairwell. I shut the door and utter the charm to seal the room and head back to my chair.
“Let’s start from the beginning,” I smile up at Ziniyah when Gus interrupts.
“Why is Ziniyah here, and why are we trusting him with this?” He nods to Ziniyah.
“Because Eden made him part of this.”
“I did what?” She looks at me confused.
“Let’s just start from the beginning and it’ll all make sense,” I say and they each nod, trusting me. I sigh as between us we fill in the details of what he’s missed until this point.
“What about last night?” Ziniyah asks, looking pretty dazed at everything he’s just found out, and the others all look to me.
“Last night is the part I had hoped wouldn’t happen yet. Last night is why we all feel so protective of her this morning, despite having not known her long enough to feel that way in your case.” I take a deep breath and continue. “What I was bound from explaining further, Eden, about the Chosen one, is that yes, you have powers from each of the races, but there’s also a part of each race inside you. Last night, I’m guessing you felt overwhelmed, and the power inside you wanted out. You shifted, which is how you survived the fall from your window.”
“Jumped.” She swallows as shock holds her. “I jumped.”
“Oh, well, okay. But regardless, you shifted. I don’t know into what, but that is why Cam is feeling close to you. You’ve called to him as your chosen Shifter. You’d already called Gus as your chosen Vampire, and because that is your true form, it is why that bond feels stronger than the others for now. I’m assuming that since Ziniyah—”
“Call me Z, only my mom calls me Ziniyah.” He interrupts and shakes his head.
“Okay, so as I was saying, since Ziniyah heard your call to him, I’m guessing that your Mer side appeared last night too. You chose him.
And me, well, you called on your Fae power when you saved Aurora. I felt it, and the bond was created. It still needs to grow and be ritualized, but that should happen when you’re in training.”
“This doesn’t make any sense.” She sits on the sofa between Gus and Cam rubbing at her temples. “How can I be more than one race?”
“It is the power of the Chosen.” I tell her, and the room stays quiet as everyone takes in everything I’ve explained. I can feel Creed’s rage from here until Eden takes his hand, tempering the rising storm in him.
“The Chosen is Gifted with the curse of four. Four to bind. Four to love. Four to sacrifice. Before death is due to walk the land, the strongest of us all will fall.” I whisper the words of the prophecy and let them settle around us as the silence stretches on.
“This is insanity.” Eden whispers, but I can feel as she accepts the truth through my empathic power and through the bond that joins us. “What does this mean for you guys?”
“It means we need to speak to Laney, and that you need to train with each of us before the trials begin. It will help the bond and it will help prepare you. My father will want them to begin as soon as they can with all of this happening so quickly, but I will try to hold him off. There’s more to this than his eagerness,” I explain, holding back what I know she isn’t ready to hear.
“I can’t ask you guys to do this. I didn’t want this for me, let alone you. I’m so sorry.” She pulls her knees up to her chest and wraps her arms around them making herself smaller.
“I don’t know about these guys, but I’ve heard about the prophecy my whole life. Being bonded to the chosen one is an honor and a privilege. I will train you with all I know and protect you with my life.” Ziniyah drops to one knee and bends his head to her. “My people follow the old ways, and it will bring joy to my family to know I was chosen.”
The rest of us look at him in shock. I know the Mer people live the old ways, but after the uprising, I never thought I’d see a Merman kneel before a Vampire. Chosen or not.
“Please get up,” Eden whispers, and he stands. She looks at me, questioning. “What about everything before this? Everyone will know I’m an original. All those who stood behind the Uprising will come for me now.”
“They won’t.” Ziniyah answers for me. “While our people were tired of following the ways of the Vampires, the oracles were the voices of our worlds before Shifters and Vampires came to be. If a Vampire is the chosen one, I imagine it will do the opposite of what you fear. The Fae and the Mer at least, will support you rather than go against you.”
“You can’t know that,” Creed challenges him. “There are factions of every race who supported the Uprising that will never accept a Vampire having this sort of power.” Cam agrees and answers with a deep growl.
“They’ll have to go through me first.”
“I need some space, to take this all in. It’s too much. All I ever wanted was just to be normal, to be like everyone else,” Eden says, her eyes glassy. She rises, and murmurs the charm, releasing her from the room while the four of us stay seated, her pain reflected on each of our faces.
***
Creed
I watch Eden go, and everything in me wants to follow her. But I know she needs time and she’ll only lash out at me if I try to comfort her now. I pinch the bridge of my nose and try to release some of the tension I can feel in every part of my body.
“We need to talk about this bond bullshit you guys now have with my girlfriend,” I grind out. Am I happy about this latest development Kane just dropped on us, that he conveniently didn’t mention on any of the multiple occasions where we’ve discussed this bullshit since it started. I look up at him and glare, “And you and I need a separate conversation about what exactly the fuck is ‘need to know’.”
“Yeah, I know.” He shakes his head and lets down his hair. “So, the bond binds us to her. It means we can power share, in ways that most of us could never do usually, beyond Z. It heightens any kind of feeling we might have had for her and twists it to one that mimics, and sometimes is, love. We’ll each want her: her time, her attention, everything she will give. We’ll feel extremely protective of her, which is going to make the trials an actual living hell for all of us, but more on that later. What it means is that she’s going to be really confused, and probably conflicted knowing Eden, about the fact that she’ll feel like she loves each of us, and she might even, the bond is that powerful. Plus, we’ll all be spending a lot of time with her, so there will be time for growing closer. I know this isn’t what you want to hear, Gus, but there’s nothing we can do. The only way the bond is broken is by death. Hers or ours. But if she dies, each of us will feel it; we’ll almost be half a person, a shadow of our former selves. So when I say we need to train her the best we can, I really fucking mean it.”
“For fuck’s sake,” Cam growls and storms into the kitchen, grabbing stuff from the refrigerator, and prepping food of some sort.
“So what you’re telling me,” I start. “Is that my girlfriend is now our girlfriend? That there’s nothing I can do about it?”
“Essentially, yes. I’m sorry.” Kane says with a grimace.
“It will also heighten all other emotions for her, and likely us. Fear, anger, confusion. Love, lust…” Kane tells us and we collectively groan.
“How is Eden going to feel about this?” Z pipes up, and it takes the wind out of my sails. He’s sat there quietly, barely knowing Eden, but is the only one thinking about how this affects her.
“It’s going to twist her up, until she, until we, get used to it.” I tell him, letting out a deep sigh. Sitting back on the sofa, Cam heads over and offers me a bottle of blood from the fridge and sits next to me. “We need to be as calm and cool about this as we can. For her. If that means I have to share her,” I grind out, “then that is what I will do.”
“You’d be okay with that?” Z asks as Cam and Kane look at me like I’ve lost my mind.
“No, I’m not okay with it, but for her, I will be. And you fuckers will be too. Even if it goes against your nature,” I nudge Cam with my knee and he groans.
“Fine, but only because I can’t stand to see her hurt and making this particular thing harder will kill her. She acts all strong and unbreakable, but that’s only because she’s so broken and she doesn’t want anyone to notice. For her, I’ll do it.”
“So we’re all agreed then?” Kane says and each of us nods.
“No jealousy, no acting like dicks, no trying to turn her against each other, and working together to make sure she makes it out of this alive.” I throw out before taking a swig of the blood. Of course, the first girl I ever let in is the girl I have to share.
Chapter Seven
Eden
I stare up at the ceiling from where I lie in bed, wondering how the fuck my life got so messed up. When I arrived here a few months ago, life wasn’t exactly unicorns and rainbows, but it wasn’t this shitstorm either. I’ve gone from simply hiding who I was because of who I was born as, to being part of some backward ass prophecy, supposedly magically bound to four different guys, who could die just because of this stupid magical bond if I fuck up. Then I have to prove that I’m this bullshit Chosen one, and in the process, if Aurora doesn’t renounce her claim, I can lose a friend in the trials.
Awesome fucking times.
I’ve laid here for hours, completely skipping class again, trying to figure out what to do. I’ve got nothing. Diddly squat. Bumpkus. A big fat nada. How exactly am I meant to save the world as we know it, if I can’t save my fucking self? I scream in frustration and my curtains catch fire.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” I run to the bathroom and run a towel under the tap and go back to try to put the curtains out, but they’re already gone and so are the flames. “This is complete BS!”
I flop back down onto the bed and try to control my emotions. I don’t need anything else going up in flames. My stomach rumbles and I realize I’ve not eaten since last night
. I go and raid the kitchen for blood and popcorn, before putting Watchbox on. I’m obviously too volatile to think about all of this right now. What I need is some me-time minus all the voices in my head. I make sure the magic inside me is locked up tight and select ‘play’ on the remote.
I sit here for hours watching, realizing that I’m not actually watching at all, but thinking about each of the guys I’m bonded to, and the fact that I can almost feel the bond between us if I dare to tap into my power, regardless of the fact I barely know Ziniyah. Hell, I only met him today. I’ve never even seen him before. I’d have noticed seeing as he’s a six foot something, tanned, muscled god with that long curly black hair, and grey eyes so dark they reminded me of a thunderstorm. That doesn’t mean I want to be bound to him.
A soft knock on my door sounds, and I murmur the charm to open the seal.
“Who’s there?” I call out, pausing Watchbox. The door opens and Creed pops his head through the opening with a small smile. He lifts a paper bag and closes the door behind him before he comes over to me, placing the bag on the table and kissing me on the top of my head.
“I thought you might want some food and a distraction.” He sits next to me and takes the cartons out of the bag. “The ladies in the cafeteria love me,” he winks.
Chosen: A Paranormal Romance Academy Series (Black Water Academy Book 2) Page 5