by C. M. Owens
"Not to mention, we've all been hiding for so long that it's hard to let our guard down. I wish I had known about the Coldwells accepting the truth as well. I almost didn't believe Tallis when he told me. I think I actually laughed in his face.
"Hank's family could see my light as clear as day, but they still refused to believe it was possible for over three decades. I wouldn't have imagined that the Coldwells would have changed their beliefs in just a day."
Tallis kissed me on the forehead, making my goofy grin grow. "Aria did that. It's hard not to listen to her. She made me question everything I believed as well. That was why I went in search of the answers to our... dilemma. I found it odd that no one had ever heard of our situation. Our siblings had found mates in each other, and everything seemed to fit so well between us. It just seemed too perfect to be wrong."
I touched his hand that was resting on my lap, and kissed his shoulder as I leaned in to him again. Mylen smiled. "That's love. You'll do anything for it. There's no stronger emotion."
Edmond's grin spread as he interjected, "I would really like to get to know your coven. Our pack is certainly looking to extend an invitation to any other changers on our side. It's indeed rare to meet a pack as large as ours."
Mylen nodded with a happy smile before she and Hank walked away with Edmond and Allaysia to discuss details.
This entire night had changed completely. Everything I thought I knew had been wrong. I turned to Tallis, who still had both arms wrapped around me, and pressed my head into the crook of his neck, kissing it softly.
He made a nervous throat-clearing noise. "You can't start all that just yet," he grumbled playfully. He winked as he continued, "Soon enough, though."
Everything was so perfect in that moment.
"So all we have to do is wait until I'm twenty-something, and then we can finally kiss?" I asked with an irritated sigh. That was a long time away.
I loved seeing his perma-grin. "That's the best part. Soul mates transform at the same age. We'll have to hurry up to prepare your body. It normally takes about five or six months, but we have enough magic to get it done in a month or two."
I remembered Iris talking about preparing my body. She had said without preparation, transformation could kill a witch with an essence as strong as mine. She said there would be plenty of time, but I felt sick suddenly.
"When was your transformation?" I asked in a whisper.
I knew he had been eighteen, but I didn't know how long after eighteen it had been.
He smiled as he kissed my head with his soft lips. "Five days after I turned eighteen. When is your eighteenth birthday?"
He had no idea. No one else was around to hear our conversation and share in my horror.
"Five days ago."
The color drained form his face as he leapt from the couch, landing close to Iris where animated, passionate conversations started. Dread filled my grandmother's face as she looked toward me and swallowed hard.
Allaysia gasped while grabbing her mouth, steadying herself by holding Edmond's arm. Everyone forgot the most important factor—I wasn't ready.
As if on cue, I felt something in the pit of my stomach, like a dull pain working its way up into a sharper, stabbing pain. I could feel my freshly healed bones begin to pull apart. I stood up, grabbing my stomach, and saw the look of terror on everyone's faces when I spoke through gritted teeth.
"Too late. It's starting."
Chapter 16
Bewitching
Holding on to one life makes it impossible to embrace a new one.
Everything flashed around me in blurs. Tallis was holding my hand as I screamed in agony, sweat gathering all over my body.
I had finally gotten him. I was finally going to be happy, and now I felt like there was something inside of me trying to turn me inside-out. Fever and chills consumed me, leaving me freezing and burning up at the same time. I felt hypothermic at one point, and then I felt my blood boiling at the next. And I couldn't stop shaking almost violently.
They were trying to hold me down, but my body continued convulsing uncontrollably. I felt sharp stabs of pain, like someone had a knife inside of me jabbing away. And my screams refused to cease.
I heard everyone talking over each other, trying to figure out what to do, but Iris was the loudest. "I should have known. She could smell their stench; that was a sign she was within two years of transformation. I should have started preparation. I haven't found our crest on her, though. It always shows up two weeks before. She hasn't said anything about finding one either."
Her panic was drowned out when Tallis's voice cut through, though it sounded hollow and distant, almost lost amongst the glass-shattering screams escaping me involuntarily as death clamped its jaws around me.
"Please, Ayla, you have to try!"
I could hear Ayla crying, which meant Jay was close by for her to be able to do so. "I can't—you know I can't. I could kill her."
"Ayla she'll die if you don't do it. I can't lose her. Please!" Tallis's voice broke on the end, and my tears ran harder.
"I don't know how to control it, Tallis. You've seen what it can do," she sobbed.
"What can she do?" Jaslene interjected panicked yet hopeful, but another scream drowned out whatever they answered.
"Ayla, it didn't work before because you didn't know how to feel. You didn't know pain, fear, happiness, sadness, or any of it. Now you have Jay, and you can feel. You can do this. Please, do this for me. I won't live without her."
Jay spoke, his voice carrying more emotion than I'd ever heard. "Ayla, don't let my sister die. I just got her back."
When my brother started weeping loud enough for me to hear, my hope slowly started to fade. For Jay to cry...
I'm sure it was feeling the pain of her soul mate that made her consider doing what they were asking, but Ayla finally relented, "If I'm going to do this, I need everyone to be quiet."
Everyone started hushing each other, but I couldn't help the roars of agony escaping me.
"Jay, hold my hand," Ayla said. "I want to be sure I do this right. I can feel the most when you touch me."
Her gentle touch felt like a rose petal's caress when she put her hand on my forehead, but even that stung like a fire against my skin. I was still convulsing, writhing in pain, and my body trembled as it tried to expire.
All of my organs were trying to explode, and my breaths were more painful with each intake. I almost welcomed Yastine's crushing force at that point.
No sooner did that thought enter, did I feel everything lifting, slowly easing. Light started filtering through my eyelids that were locked shut, and I could breathe in more than just a teasing breath of air.
The pain was gradually fading, then I could see blackness to the left and a bright light to the right. I took a right, walking through an unseen doorway as the light consumed me, and filled me deep within.
It seemed as if I was sailing through an alternate dimension. Everyone's voices had faded into a distant echo, almost nonexistent. An unknown heat was radiating from my body.
A huge white flash blasted through my mind, and I crashed back into my body as though I had left it. It sounded as if every window in the house was shattering simultaneously, and flakes of reality began to settle in as I slowly opened my eyes that had been screwed shut.
The room was brighter than I had remembered, forcing me to throw my hand up quickly to shield my eyes.
I heard Jaslene speak in a soft, nearly whispered tone as the lights dimmed. "Sorry, Arisianna. I forgot how bright it all is it first. We're normally better prepared. The sensitivity will fade soon."
She kept her voice quiet, almost a whisper. I assumed that meant my ears were sensitive as well.
Jaslene released my hand to let Tallis take over. I lowered my other hand down from my eyes, hoping the blurriness my sight offered faded soon.
My breath was stolen when I found enough focus to see Tallis's cocked grin. Gravity was pulling at us, demanding
we get closer. It was so much stronger now than what it had been.
"You really are my soul mate," he said in a reverent whisper as his grin grew to be almost painful.
"Duh," I murmured with a goofy grin of my own.
I heard a couple people laughing, but they even kept those as muted as possible. He didn't seem to mind as he pulled my face close to his so gently and slowly, giving my breath time to catch in my throat. The moment I'd been dreaming about was here, and I pressed my lips against his for the second time.
Fire ran through my veins, but this time it was not painful. It was ecstasy's touch full of bottled, pent-up emotions that we'd had to deny for too long. His lips were gentle, and slow, but I needed more—craved more.
I slid my hands in his hair and tugged gently to deepen the kiss, and his tongue slipped in. Heart failure seemed to be inevitable, because it was too powerful to withstand for too long.
I wanted to kiss him for the rest of my life, I decided when he let out a little growl of pleasure that sent delicious tingles to my toes. He didn't seem to mind that everyone was staring, and neither did I. We had been waiting for this moment since the day we met. I wasn't in any hurry to cut it short simply because we had an audience.
Dad muttered something about death and threats, but that only prompted a few chuckles to emerge. It didn't stop the spectacle.
"Alright," Mom said through a snicker. "I think we should give these two some time alone. They've earned it."
Feet shuffled as a few more laughs rang out, but it would have been impossible to pull back. With another sweep of Tallis's tongue, I was close to telling him I loved him again.
He gripped me to him, and I responded by wrapping my legs around his waist, not even allowing air to make it between us. I felt the fire growing into a raging inferno, but this time it was in control. I welcomed the heat, because now my body could handle it.
I raised my hand to put it against his face, but a shriek left me before I ever got to touch him. From my hand, a blaze of fire shot out and set the living room curtains on fire.
I jerked away from Tallis, stunned and admittedly terrified by what I had just done. He studied the curtains, his expression more confused than concerned. I almost did that to his face. What if that crazy fire had hit him instead of the curtains?
"I'm so sorry! I didn't know that I could do that."
I pulled my hand to my chest, scared to let it face anything but me.
Ash walked back into where we were, followed by several others.
"Copy cat!" Ash joked.
Iris waved her hand in a circle and rain fell to the curtains, extinguishing the blaze. As soon as the fire was out, the water from the rain evaporated. She was rubbing her mouth and chin with her hand, lost in thought. She didn't even seem to care that I had just set the living room on fire. In fact, no one seemed particularly distressed over that—no one but me, rather.
Ash's playfulness fell as confusion crossed her face, mimicking the same expression Tallis still had.
"It took me a month to spark, and she set a blaze by accident. How is that even possible?"
Iris seemed distracted as she answered, "I don't know, Ashiara. Two siblings have never had the same power before. And even so, her power shouldn't be so far advanced to strike a blaze with such ease."
More strange looks surrounded me, making it awkward.
Tallis murmured, "We should have been able to smell the blazer in her. I'm not sure what's going on."
I looked at him, suddenly feeling a little unworthy. "Disappointed?" I asked, working hard not to pout like a child.
"No, that's not it at all. Something just isn't right."
A loud bang outside startled me, forcing me to squeal. I turned around with my arms stretched outward, and an explosion flew from my hands. I watched in horror as the blast I had accidentally released cut open the side house, creating a hailstorm of debris and disaster. Panic rattled me and bled into my voice as I stammered.
"Oh... my …oh… Someone get me out of here before I destroy the whole house. I can't be in here."
I pulled my arms back against my chest as if I was wearing an invisible straitjacket. I had no idea what I was doing, or how I was doing it. Everyone looked even more confused than before as I ran outside to see the cat that had spooked me into blowing up a wall.
Tallis followed me out first, slowly inspecting the massive hole I'd left as he stepped through the debris. Iris's eyes were narrowed thoughtfully as she studied me. Ash walked out, sulking even more than she had been.
"No fair. Aria has two powers?" Ash whined.
Iris shook her head disapprovingly at Ash, and then looked toward me. Tallis's gaze had also landed on me. They looked at me like I was supposed to answer an unasked question.
Then Iris swirled wind around me. It was a harsh wind that made me feel the tingling need to be defensive. It was shoving me backwards, angrily keeping me away. Instinctively, I pushed against it, trying to make it stop, and to my surprise, it did. I couldn't understand why she even hit me with it though. Nor did I know if I was even the one who stopped it.
I heard Desmond when he asked, "She's an elemental, too? That's absurd. None of this is making sense. Even if she was all of this, she shouldn't be able to use her powers on the same night of her transformation, especially not to this degree. This is all crazy impossible."
Allaysia and Iris exchanged an odd glance. Then Allaysia stepped forward and spoke to Jay in the same distracted tone Iris had used with Ash. "Throw a bolt at her."
Tallis stepped in front of me, and protectively wrapped his arm around my waist.
"I don't think so," he said warily, his free hand raised defensively. "I don't know what you're thinking, but I won't chance this. She just got her powers, and she's not ready to control them this soon."
"Looks like she's been doing pretty good so far. She's had her powers five minutes, and already she has the power of someone who has been practicing for years—minus the control," Desmond said with a shrug that was far too nonchalant for the situation.
Throw a bolt at me? Were they crazy?
"Tallis, son, she'll be fine. Trust me. I wouldn't put Aria in harm's way without a good reason," Allaysia said softly, but Tallis didn't back down.
Allaysia pursed her lips for a moment before she nodded toward Jay. "Throw one at the both of them. Low voltage, though."
Jay looked at her unsurely. He glanced at Iris, and she nodded in approval. Really?
Jay tilted his head uncertainly as he groaned. "Okay. I hope you know what you're doing."
I started to tell him this was crazy, and that he'd better not do it, but before I could, the traitor I thought was my favorite brother launched a bolt toward us. Tallis turned to block it from hitting me, using his body to shield me.
Once again, instinct took over, guiding my hand up as something coursed through me, buzzing in delight as it crashed around. The bolt stopped midair, staying suspended and earning a few gasps. But then I accidentally tossed it back at Jay, who had not been prepared for that, and it struck him hard in the chest.
It threw him into the gaping hole, and several crashes clattered inside.
I cringed as I croaked, "Jay?"
I was answered by a series of swears and grumbles, but after a beat, Jay walked back through the could of dust he had made. He dusted himself, scowling at me before turning his glower on the others.
"So she's an elemental, a blazer, a blowing up whatever, and now an electric, too? I'm sure glad that was low voltage. Otherwise, I'd be a cooked turkey right now. Someone could have warned me about what was going on."
Then he paused and looked around at all the faces that were staring me in awe, admittedly creeping me out with their lingering gazes.
"What exactly is going on?" Jay asked, seeming just as confused as I was.
Allaysia, Iris, Jaslene, Alvin, George, Edmond, and some of the older ones all stared at each other, smiling as though they were in on a secret none o
f us were allowed to know just yet. Then they looked at me with such intrigue and fascination.
Iris and Allaysia spoke in unison. "It's her."
Her who?
Iris walked toward me with her hands on her mouth, tears filling up in her eyes. Her voice was laced with excitement pure delight when she said in a near whisper, "It really is you. It's finally happened."
I looked around, confused. "What's me? What's finally happened? Would somebody please tell me what's going on?"
Tallis cocked his head to the side, his expression now changing to one of awe as well. I'd never felt so uncomfortable in all my life when all eyes widened and their gazes changed to one of adoration.
I was about to ask Tallis what the hell was going on, but a painfully vivid image suddenly cloaked my eyes, taking me to a new place and time, and forcing me to leave behind the present.
I was seeing something. It wasn't happening at the house, though. It was as if I had gone somewhere else. I could see Graven—the man I'd only seen in paintings—hunting for something. He was chasing it, walking quickly through the woods, while his men ran ahead of him.
I couldn't see what it was, and the vision left me as suddenly as it had come. I coughed and strangled for air as I fell to the ground.
Tallis had his arms around me before I made hit the stone of the patio. He slowly lifted me back up and kept his arms around me for support.
Jaslene looked at me expectantly, excitement etched in her eyes. "What did you see?" She knew the look I had meant that I had just experienced a vision. I was a seer, too, apparently.
I felt like a freak even though they were staring at me like I was a prize. Really wish they'd at least try not to be so obvious.
"I saw Graven. He's hunting for something—just like Lokan said."