I tried to stay out for as long as I could but I kept snapping back to my body. Each time I did my wolf was a bit more agitated then the time before. Seems like she didn’t like being separated from my soul, I on the other hand found it kind of refreshing to be without her. I spent hours the first day over and over again jumping out and blending with Nikoli. Eventually he had to ask me to stop. Seems I had exhausted myself and hadn’t even realized it. Now, I spend a minimum of an hour a day working on astral projecting. I am hoping the more often I do it, the easier it will become and the longer I will be able to keep myself out of my body.
The next skill we worked on was psionic inundation. Nikoli wants me to master this skill quickly. He feels like it could be my life saver if I was ever hunted by a lot of wolves again. Basically, psionic inundation is the ability to overload a mind, causing pain, memory loss, lack of consciousness, vegetative state and/or death.
Nikoli forces me to practice it several hours a day. Not all at once, but a few times an hour. I send my waves towards a huge watermelon that he painted a face on. Nothing happens, and without a real person to send the waves at I’m not even sure if it’s really working or not, but Nikoli insists it is. Part of me hopes I never really have to find out.
The last thing I’ve learned to do was Illusion manipulation. Nikoli swears that beyond a shadow of a doubt I have already mastered the illusions. Nikoli said that I do it so well, it’s almost scary. All I have to do is focus on what I want them to see and bam, they think they are seeing it.
Just for fun, I had projected me walking across the room and plastering my lips on Nikoli’s. I saw his face change as I pushed out the thoughts, then I heard him moan. I started laughing and that stopped the illusion. Nikoli said I did well, but for some reason I really don’t think he was happy.
Anyhow, I begged him to try to teach me psychometry and memory and or mental manipulation, but he swears it takes a full blooded vampire to utilize them. He said it was better to keep practicing the ones he knew I could master and to work on our combat skills.
I looked around the room I was staying in and wondered where Nikoli had slipped off to again. I was kind of hungry but wasn’t sure how I should broach the subject with him. I know he’s a vampire and needs fresh blood I’m just not sure how he goes about getting it.
I know I am being silly and stupid but I am just uncomfortable having to talk about it. Also, I really don’t know much about real vampires and some silly little part of me is afraid that he is going to bring some big breasted beautiful female into feed on. I really don’t like the idea that he might have a bunch of gorgeous women stashed somewhere as blood donors.
I sighed loudly and sat down on the chair. I didn’t like the places that my mind was trying to take me to so I decided to force myself to think about something else. The thing was, I couldn’t come up with anything. Instead I kept seeing Nikoli with beautiful women. Touching them, kissing them.
“Ugg” I shouted out loud.
What was wrong with me? He is free to be with anyone he wants. I have a mate. Nikoli made his entrance only moments after I had my stupid outburst. He walked into the room took one look at my face raise his eyebrow and said
“Problems love?”
I couldn’t help myself. I crossed my arms tightly over my chest, looked him dead in the eye and said in the most confident demanding voice I thought I had
“I need to feed and she better not be beautiful”
Nikoli had the strangest reaction to my demand. He raised his eyebrow at me, smiled went into the loudest fit of belly chuckles I think I had ever heard.
Chapter 20
(Lucas’s POV)
I was lying in bed trying to force myself to sleep yet again. I hadn’t had one good night sleep since Kalli had disappeared. We still had no idea where she was and where my parents and the rest of the pack had gone off to.
We’d checked everywhere, and didn’t have a single clue. It was like they disappeared into thin air. I placed a call to the wolf council and they said since my father was officially missing without notification, I could declare myself alpha without an official challenge. Well, after tomorrow at least that particular problem would be an afterthought.
I rolled over for what must have been the fiftieth time since I laid down when my phone started to ring. It was of course on the other side of the room. I got up and bumped my leg on Kalli’s end table. Dang that hurt. I wasn’t too familiar with this bedroom but I was happy that I was here. I thought it was so nice of Marie to offer to let me stay in her house. It made me feel closer to Kalli lying in her bed. I was surrounded by her scent in the sheets and pillows. I didn’t even care that the bed was too small for me.
I reached my phone and saw an unknown number. I thought about not answering then changed my mind. It could be an informant with information on Kalli or my parents. I slid my finger over the screen and lifted the phone to my ear.
“Hello” I said.
My body started shaking the moment I heard her voice. I was relieved and freaking out at the same time. My mate was on the phone. Thank God she is okay. I nearly jumped out of my own skin when I heard her voice on the other side of the phone line. I could barely wrap myself around that fact that she was okay and talking to me. Somehow, I had thought that she would be gone forever and that it was my fault. I had failed her and I would suffer the consequences.
I jumped in my car and headed towards the BlueRidge pack house the moment she told me she was also there. I couldn’t wait to see her. We talked on the phone the entire time I drove to BlueRidge. The first thirty minutes I just apologized over and over again. Then I started to ask details about what happened, if she’d been hurt and how she got away.
She told me how her mother had left her in the car, and how two of my dads lieutenants grabbed her and shot her up with something. I knew that part because Marie had told me the same thing. Then she told me how she took off running through the woods. Then she started to get kind of cryptic and kept deflecting my questions. Specifically she didn’t want to tell me how she escaped and where she’d been held for the past week.
I found myself getting agitated and upset. I hadn't meant too but I realized I was raising my voice at her more in frustration and fear than in anger. Kali actually raised her voice back and told me to pull myself together or she would hang up. That shocked the crap out of me. My little submissive Kalli had a bit of a bite to her.
She went back to trying to give me all the details of what happened, but she kept talking in circles and it was hard for me to really grasp what she was saying. It came out in bits and pieces all out of order and without the right emphasis in the right places.
Suddenly and without warning a light turned on. It was like the sun had risen and provided clarity to her words. She hadn’t been a prisoner anywhere. The vampire had saved her not captured her. She was with the blood sucker all this time. Even odder the bloodsucker thinks she’s his beloved. She spent the week frolicking with the stinking vampire while I was driven half out of my mind with worry. To say that I was a little angry was an understatement.
I stuttered and growled questions at her. I needed to understand what happened better but she just wasn’t saying enough. I kept asking how she got away but she wouldn’t answer. I changed the subject and asked about my parents and pack members. She was quick to answer that she didn’t know anything about my missing parents and or pack members.
Then she actually put me on hold. I screamed her name into the phone multiple times before she came back to the phone and said we could talk about her parents when I got there. I tried to get her to tell me what she knew, but more cryptic talk was Kalli’s response. I was really starting to get worked up again. I found myself asking questions I really didn’t want to know the answers to.
“What did you do with the vampire? Did he touch you?”
Kalli’s answer shocked me. She said the vampire wasn’t even able to get very near her without her wolf taking over and shi
fting to attack him. That in fact, she was still having a very hard time controlling her wolf. Hearing that he hadn’t been able to touch her made me very happy.
I could feel myself relaxing again. I told her that her wolves’ reaction was normal and that my wolf had been riding me pretty hard too since she went missing. I promised her it would be fine as soon as we saw each other. The truth was now that I know he didn’t violate her, my wolf was already calming down.
I was still feeling a bit of jealousy and anger but I was trying my best to force it away but it clung to me like poison Ivy. I kept firing off questions, she kept sort of answering. Then I opened my big mouth and threw out another question I didn’t really want the answer to
“How did you feed?
The phone went silent for a moment. I could hear her heart beat across the phone line. I heard her swallow then finally she stuttered out
“Well, um oh. I um well, I um haven’t fed at all. I was hoping you could take care of that for me when you got here.”
I let go of the breath that I hadn’t even realized I’d been holding. I was elated that she hadn’t fed from someone else. I wasn’t sure if a blood sucker could provide nutrition to another blood sucker but I tended to think not since they chose to feed on humans.
I however didn’t like the idea of Kalli feeding from anyone human, vampire or wolf. I knew the truth about how it felt and I never wanted anyone else to ever have that kind of pleasure from Kalli.
“Of course babe, it is my duty and pleasure to see to all your needs and that will always include allowing you to feed from me as often as you need”
We continued to talk the entire way to BlueRidge and didn’t hang up the phone until I pulled into the dirt drive of the BlueRidge pack house. I kept my eyes plastered on the front door as I turned off the car and opened the car door. I guess I had expected Kalli to bolt from the house and into my arms. When she didn’t, I felt a sadness seep into my heart, but I quickly finished getting out of the car and rushed into the house.
My wolf knew before I did. I spotted him with my eyes the same moment my nose registered the decaying scent of a vampire. The blood sucking vamp actually had the nerve to be standing in the living room next to Kalli waiting for me. I was going to rip his fucking head off. My wolf burst out of me faster than the vamp could blink. I lunged forward with the intention of ripping out his throat.
I was suddenly slammed to the floor and held down. I looked up and saw my own mate straddling me. She was trying to say something to me but I couldn’t understand. My wolf had full control of me and it was too focused on wanting to remove the vampires head from its shoulders. My wolf bucked and tried to throw my mate off. That infuriated me. We could hurt her I yelled at him. Realizing I was right my wolf backed off and I was able to regain a little control. That’s when I finally heard what my mate was saying.
“Lucas, I am so sorry. I love you, please try to calm yourself. Please Lucas I’m not going to be able to hold you much longer. I need you to shift back so we can talk. It’s important Lucas. You can’t kill Nikoli we need to talk first.”
I heard the vampire then say to her
“Do you need assistance love?” Love! Who the hell does he thinks he is talking to? She is mine. My mate! Both my wolf and I shouted simultaneously. I craned my neck around to look him in the eye, then bucked my mate off and lunged at him again.
I was less than half way between the floor and his neck when my mate slammed me back to the ground again. God dang she was a lot stronger than I would have thought she was. I am an alpha wolf and she is throwing me around like I am a pillow. This time she looked angry when she screamed at me
“Damn it Lucas, please stop trying to kill Nikoli and shift back so we can talk”
Then my little mate applied pressure to the back of my neck until my wolf whimpered and allowed me to regain full control back. I shifted immediately and turned my now naked body around so that she was pressed against my chest. I wanted to say something nasty, but knew that would get me in trouble so instead I said in a husky voice
“Wow babe, rough foreplay I love it. I missed you too”
I watched as her cheeks turned a lovely shade of red and knew that she was ready to quickly hop off of me. I reached out and pulled her into me and started giving her the most passionate kiss I could. I plundered her lips with mine. I pushed my tongue into her mouth and allowed our tongues to get reacquainted with each other.
I allowed my hands to roam over her back and down to her tight little bottom. I was just about to roll us both over so that I had her firmly planted beneath me when I felt something land on her lower half. It shocked me for a second before I heard the vampire clear his throat and remembered where I was and who else was here.
Chapter 21
(Kalli’s POV)
We’d been at an impasse for the past several hours. Every time I thought we were making progress Lucas would go wolf on us. I had to stop Lucas from attacking Nikoli five more times and I felt like we still weren’t getting anywhere. Lucas just didn’t want to hear the reality of the situation. It didn’t help that Nikoli continued to antagonize him. I was getting very tired, was sick to my stomach and felt like I was starving.
I was sitting in Lucas’s lap, with his arms tightly wrapped around me. I thought I would try one more time.
“Okay, how about we just take a break. Neither of you want to change your mind, I cannot be ripped in half so.” I paused looking for the right words
“So, I think maybe for now, we should just put the issue aside and try to address this problem another day. Besides, we haven’t even started talking about the Alpha and Luna” Nikoli took that moment to move away from the fire place and step closer to Lucas and me.
“Well, love I would be happy to put this issue aside” He actually used quoety fingers around the word issue
“but, we don’t know if you will be mentally okay if I go home tonight” Lucas took that moment to verbally explode again
“Who the hell do you think you are calling my mate 'love' I think you should high tale it out of here right now. Believe you and me and I am perfectly sure that I will be able to keep any mental 'issues' my mate has at bay”
He too used quotey fingers around the word love and issues. I knew more trouble was coming when Lucas started to shift our bodies around until I found myself completely planted behind him. Here we go again I thought
“Come on love” said Nikoli to me
“be the strong woman I know you are and get him on track will yuh? He’s wasting our time.”
Those were pure fighting words to Lucas. His face turned beat red. The veins in his neck were sticking out. I could feel his body vibrating with fury. I think he was just barely holding onto his wolf. He shouted at the top of his lungs.
“You have got to be friggin nuts if you think I am going to let you stay anywhere near my mate. If I had my way you would already be a pile of ash. For gods sakes Kalli how can you even stand to be near him? He smells like a fricken rotten corpse.”
I watched as Lucas’s spittle landed on Nikoli’s face. I looked over at Nikoli who appeared to remain calm. In fact he was so calm that something inside of my suddenly got very worried. Before I could think too much on it, I jumped up and placed myself between Nikoli and Lucas. I had one hand on both of their chests.
I thought I would try one more time to explain to Lucas why Nikoli needed to remain in my life. I also kept reminding both of them that we needed to figure out what we should do with Lucas’s parent. They both seemed to be calming down but when I think I might have gone too far.
I was talking fast, and trying my best to make them understand that taking stupid shots at each other wasn’t getting anything resolved. I kept looking back and forth between them making great points
“Stop with the loves you know if bothers Lucas. Just stop pushing each others button and for gods sakes stop saying mean things about each other. Like calling Lucas a dog or you saying Nikoli smelled lik
e a rotting corpse when he really smells like a spring day just after it rained.”
I watched in shock as the shift exploded over Lucas’s body. Then before I could even blink, he lunged towards Nikoli again. This time however he’d managed to knock me to the ground in the process. I hadn’t expected to fall, so I didn’t even stick my hands out to break the fall. I fell flat on my face, and my nose instantly cracked and started gushing blood. Nikoli held Lucas back with a single hand and said to me.
“Fix this love, or I will. I am out of patience. I’m leaving for now, but will be back in one hour. I expect you will have brought the dog to heal by then.”
Then, I watched through my tears and blood as Nikoli walked out of the house. The moment the door closed Lucas was all over me. His voice was cracked and filled with sadness when he said
“I’m so sorry babe. I didn’t mean to knock you over. Are you okay?”
I just kept crying and tried to stand up. I was shaking from the inside out. I found myself to weak to stand and fell back to the floor. I watched as his face went through a myriad of emotions. His eyes started to tear, and he looked at me like he was so sorry. He pulled off his shirt and cleaned the blood off my face. Pressed a light kiss to my lips then he carried me to the couch. Once we were on the couch he said in the most broken voice I have ever heard
“The bloodsucker can stick around if that’s what you need babe.” Then he held out his wrist and said
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