And Jenna was waiting. As I had talked, we’d made it to the Res and came out of the woods near Erik’s house.
Jenna was sitting on her front porch. She looked up the instant we walked out of the forest and smiled.
Erik, on the other hand, had no idea we were coming and he had just come out of the house, screen door slapping behind him on his way out. I saw his nostrils flare, scenting the blood that was still covering Nikki’s hands.
A second later, he had leapt into the air, clearing the porch railing to land mere inches from us in a crouch—ready to shift, if necessary. His eyes widened as he recognized the scent as my blood.
“Yours?” he asked, to be sure.
“Yeah,” I replied.
“So, she knows,” he said in awe as he stood up.
“Yeah, she knows,” Nikki said, grinning at him.
Erik’s usual goofy grin erupted across his face and he slung his arm around her shoulders. “It’s about time! Now maybe he’ll quit bellyaching and ask you out. The rest of us are getting tired of listening to him. He gets cranky when he can’t figure something out.”
That’s enough, I ordered silently, giving Erik a cold look. He dropped his arm from her shoulder, but still kept grinning.
“Enough, boys. Erik, take Adam and show him the new parts you got for your bike,” Jenna said, getting up from her chair. “Nikki, come on in. We’ll get you cleaned up and get you a fresh shirt.”
As she herded Nikki inside, Erik punched my arm. “Okay, old man. Tell me everything. What did she say? What happened? Did she bloody you? And if she did, what did you do to make her so mad? That was a lot of blood. You know, if you needed help, you should have called. I was just kidding about the cranky part.”
As we walked toward his garage, he chattered non-stop, and the questions that I hadn’t even answered, morphed into a one-sided conversation as he began showing me the parts he’d bought for his motorcycle.
I listened only half-way, not caring about which type of tire was better than the other or what he’d done to keep the throttle from sticking, only making the required “mm-hmm” sounds whenever he paused for breath.
“So I was right, wasn’t I?” he asked, suddenly catching my full attention. My gaze left the motorcycle and landed on him instead. His eyes glinted with mischief. “I was right and she’s the one, isn’t she?”
Not a question this time, but he still was obviously expecting an answer.
“Yes.”
I’d expected him to say that he’d told me so, but he only grinned at me. But saying that one word now opened up everything I was feeling and I told him about everything that had happened in the forest with the bear and my suspicions that Nikki was going to mean more to our generation of Keepers than just being my destined other half.
Erik chewed on his bottom lip, thinking over that last bit of information. “I knew Mom had been seeing something, but she hadn’t said what. If anyone will know for certain, it will be her.”
I looked out the garage door toward the house.
“You wanna go and sit on the porch and wait for them?” Erik asked, knowing the answer without having to ask the question.
“Yeah.”
“Okay, let’s go.”
We sat down on the porch steps and it was only a matter of minutes before Ed, Tommy, and Michael showed up.
“What’s going on?” Tommy asked in a hushed whisper.
“Yeah, Adam looks more serious than usual,” Michael chimed in.
“We’re waiting to see if Nikki is our Seer,” Erik said, nonchalant, shrugging as if he regularly waited for such news.
“Interesting,” was all Ed said as he sat down beside me.
Several moments passed as the cousins and Erik talked about his motorcycle. No more mechanical questions were aimed my direction as the two younger pack members were easier to impress and asked sufficient questions to keep the conversation going.
“So has she been seeing, hearing, or feeling your emotions and thoughts?” Ed asked quietly, wanting to know more about Nikki.
“All three.”
From his quick intake of air, I knew that he hadn’t been expecting that.
“Only one other Seer has been able to do all three,” he whispered.
He was right, I realized. There had been one other with all three gifts. The very first Seer. White Wolf.
The screen door opened and Nikki walked out with Jenna. Ed scooted over, letting Nikki take his spot beside of me.
“Well, Mom?” Erik asked. “Is she?”
Jenna knew exactly what her son was asking. She smiled. “You guys are looking at your new Seer.”
“Ha. I knew it. I knew it when I saw her drawing Ed’s wolf in art class,” Erik replied, then he looked at Nikki. “Nice shirt, by the way.”
Nikki was wearing one of Erik’s shirts in place of the ripped and bloody one she’d had on when we arrived. This one was huge on her, the hem coming down to the top of her thighs. She stuck her tongue out at him.
“Hannah is going to be very upset,” Ed said, bringing up a different subject.
“Hannah?” Nikki asked. “Why would she be upset?”
“She thought she was going to be the next Seer, since she is the only other girl our age, other than Penny,” Erik explained.
“What about Penny? Why wouldn’t she have it?” Nikki asked.
“Penny doesn’t have it, I would know.” Erik shrugged.
“How would you know?” Nikki was looking more confused by the second and I knew exactly where this conversation was going to be headed.
“A trait of tribe,” Ed said, sounding as if he were getting ready to teach a class. “When one of the Six finds his other half that will complete him, he just knows. Or, so I’ve heard. Erik, what is Penny doing right now?”
“Well, I don’t know what she’s doing, but I know where she is. She’s in her room, close to the phone, I think. She was in the garden with her mother, but she’s moved inside. She might have seen you guys come,” Erik replied.
The phone rang and Jenna left, going back inside to answer it. Her voice carried, proving Erik had been right. “Hi, Penny. Yes, they’re all out here. Yes, just visiting. Nikki’s here with Adam. Sure, tell your mother, I would love some tomatoes.”
Nikki’s mouth dropped open as she realized what it all meant—when she figured out how I had known exactly where she was and that she’d been in danger with the bear—when she realized why I knew.
The air warmed and sparked around us and I found myself getting lost in her deep brown eyes.
Erik laughed. “Yeah, Hannah’s going to be pissed for more than one reason.”
“She’ll have to get over it,” I whispered, not caring if he heard me or not.
“Adam, I hate to run you and Nikki off, but if you’re planning on walking her home through the woods, you’ll have to get started soon to get her back before dark. She won’t be as fast as you, you know,” Jenna said, as she opened the screen door. “Come back any time you are free, Nikki. We’ll work on channeling so you can choose when and what you want to see.”
I stood up and reached down to offer Nikki my hand. She took it and stood, then went over to give Jenna a hug before we left.
As we started to walk back into the woods, she was quiet, no doubt reeling from the mass of information that had been thrown at her and once again, I found myself wishing that I knew what she was thinking. Luckily for me, I didn’t have to guess or wait for very long.
“Why does everyone keep calling the Keepers, the ‘Six’? There are only five of you,” she pointed out.
“There are only five of us because one is missing. There have always been six Keepers. We think maybe one of the other guys, Darren, may be our sixth. His dad, Reuben, is the only one of the elders who is still a Keeper. Reuben rarely runs with us anymore. He isn’t as strong as he used to be, which means he hasn’t passed on his gift yet, but it won’t be long. So far, the wolf’s gift has always been passed from
father to son during a full moon. If Jenna told you about how the Seers sight fades as the next one comes to take her place, it works the same way with the Six. Reuben’s wolf is getting weaker. He’s starting to fade,” I explained.
“There was a full moon last week. I saw it when you were searching for the lost hiker. I guess you guys will have to wait for the next one…” she stopped walking and stood still for the barest of seconds. “We’d better hurry. It’s going to rain soon.”
“How do you know that? Never mind. Dumb question. I already know the answer.” I looked up at the sky where dark clouds rolled above the treetops.
“We’re going to get wet.”
“Maybe not. I could carry you. I’d have you home in a matter of minutes.”
“Carry me?”
I’d already changed into my wolf before I had the chance to answer, so I thought it, instead, wondering if she would pick up on it.
Sure, carry you. I’ve never done it before, but if you hold on tight, I don’t see how it would be a problem. I shrugged. Just get on my back. We’ll go slowly at first to see if it works. Worst case scenario, we get wet.
Apparently, she heard me. She crawled up onto my back, her feet hanging several inches from the ground. It felt odd and my wolf wasn’t sure whether to do a full-body shake or stay very still in hopes of not knocking her off.
Trying to adjust, Nikki wound her fingers into the fur between my shoulders in an effort to hold on and I began a slow, experimental walk.
“I have a question,” she said. “I don’t mean to sound crude, but where do your clothes go when you shift? Your shorts were there when you shifted earlier, so where did they go just now?”
They’re still there, I guess. It works better when you shift without them, though that’s not possible sometimes. As long as you wear clothes close to the same color as your wolf, they tend to blend in. That’s why I wear black most of the time. You can wear other stuff, but your fur ends up looking kinda weird after you shift in them. I snorted, amused. Erik, for example, loves tie-die stuff. We were called up to help look for a lost hiker on the trail last year. We split up to cover more territory. Erik was wearing a tie-die Mickey Mouse shirt and forgot to change. He found the hiker, who had fallen over a small embankment. He switched back when he realized his mistake and managed to jerk off his shirt and hide it in a hollow tree, but not before the hiker had seen his wolf. When Erik reached him, the hiker told him he thought he may have hit his head and that he was going to need medical treatment. He said he had just seen a huge gray wolf with a neon colored chest in the shape of Mickey Mouse ears.
She laughed at my story just as a clap of thunder shook the air. The sky was getting darker.
We’d better try going a little faster, I thought, picking up speed.
Her grip on my fur tightened and I felt her lean forward, burying her face in my neck. I tried to concentrate on running, but it was difficult being so close to her. A few strands of her hair came forward, tickling my cheek. It smelled like a mixture of strawberries, chocolate chip cookies, and oncoming rain.
The strawberries and cookies, I didn’t mind, as those scents always seemed to surround Nikki, but the smell of the rain was getting stronger and I had promised to try to get her home before she got wet, so I picked up my pace and the trees zipped past us.
It only took a couple of minutes for Nikki’s big two-story house to loom up in front of us. I stopped at the edge of the forest, and waited for her to get off. She slid down, then came around and wrapped her arms around my neck in a big hug.
I shifted, turning from wolf to human, wanting to feel her arms around me instead of my wolf. I lifted her off the ground, my arms around her waist to hold her close. The air sparked around us as a streak of lightning lit up the sky.
“You need to go now before you get wet,” I told her as I sat her down.
When she looked up at me, I brushed a stray curl back from her face and kissed her forehead, then turned to go.
She grabbed my arm and spun me back around, surprisingly strong, for someone smaller than me, and kissed me hard. It caught me off-guard for only a second, then I kissed her back, holding her face between my hands.
“Good night, Nikki,” I whispered when the kiss broke. Then I shifted back to my wolf and disappeared into the forest.
Once in the shadows, I turned and watched until she made it onto her porch.
Then the storm set in and the rain came.
Chapter 9
Late Sunday night, Penny got a call from one of her friends at school. According to rumor, the school paper would be featuring a photo that the photographer had taken during cheerleading practice, showing the second that Tiffany had straightened her leg, causing Nikki to fall.
Normally, I wouldn’t be worried about anything that paper said, but being as the cheerleading captain had a reputation for getting even and bullying anyone who didn’t do what she wanted, I held an impromptu meeting with my pack in the few moments before school began and told them to watch out for Nikki throughout the day. Most of her classes had at least one of my brothers with her and they all readily agreed that she was pack and they’d be treating her as such.
When Nikki pulled her Wrangler into a parking place, I opened the door and waited for her to get out. Brian had ridden with her and the look on his face when he saw me wasn’t a pleasant one.
I’m not happy to see you either, I told him silently, hoping that Nikki hadn’t heard my thoughts.
Brian snorted and rolled his eyes. “Well, Nikki, the cavalry has arrived. I don’t think you have as much to worry about as you thought…or maybe you have more, I don’t know. Either way, I’ll see you in class.” He got out of the car and shut the door, hard, then headed into school without her.
Nikki looked over at me. “Hi. What’s up?”
I smiled. “Power in numbers. Everyone leaves us alone and now they’ll leave you alone too. You’re one of us. We would have protected Brian too, if he’d hung around,” I joked, holding out my hand for her.
“Yeah, I don’t see that happening—ever. I’ve never seen that look on his face before. He’s mad at you.” She took my hand and hopped out of the Jeep.
“I encroached on his territory. Or at least, he thinks I have. If you want to get technical about it, he’s on mine. It doesn’t matter though. He’ll get over it.” I shrugged.
Apparently, I’d said something wrong because her cheeks blushed red in an instant and she jerked her hand out of mine. “He is my friend—my best friend, actually. And I don’t like the way you’re treating him.”
“That’s not the way he thinks of you. He wants a lot more than just friendship,” I replied, my words sounding hard, even to my own ears.
“As if you can read his mind.” She glared at me, and then turned to jerk her books out of the car.
“I don’t have to. It’s obvious what he wants. He wants you—and not just as a friend.” I crossed my arms over my chest.
Erik cleared his throat behind us and we both turned and shouted, “What!” He flinched and took a cautious step back.
“Um, I hate to interrupt you. But in like two minutes, we’re all going to be late for class and then everyone’s going to notice us more than before.” He pointed to the empty steps, proving his point.
“You’re right,” I told him. I turned to Nikki. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I don’t like sharing. I’ll try to take his feelings into consideration, for your sake.”
“Thank you. I’m sorry, too. My nerves are on edge today. I shouldn’t have snapped at you.” She managed to give me a small smile, and then took my hand again and we walked inside.
At the door, I leaned over and kissed her. “Ed and Erik are in most of your classes. If you need them, let them know. I was going to ask if you wanted me to walk you to classes, but I’ll let Brian do it. Maybe he’ll calm down if he thinks he’s protecting you and I back off a little bit. I’ll see you in English.”
The first few hours of
school took forever, but were uneventful. Erik and Ed, true to form, kept a close eye on Nikki, with Erik sending me occasional television screen messages as the day progressed.
Everything’s fine here.
Nothing new to report.
When are you going to ask her out?
I honestly hate biology class.
When are you going to ask Nikki out?
Finally, English came and no one bothered her. I made sure of it, giving hard looks to anyone who dared glance at her. I knew it was a bit extreme, but hey. It worked. By the time lunch came, everyone seemingly had decided to leave her alone. I noticed that they were flocking to Ronnie, who seemed more than happy to answer any questions they aimed her way.
Nikki stopped with her tray, unsure of where to go when she noticed the table where her friends sat was a good bit busier than usual.
Come sit with us, I offered, pulling out the chair next to mine in invitation. She gave me a grateful smile and slid in beside me.
Everyone greeted her, but Michael, who was shoveling food into his mouth as fast as it would go.
Nikki took one look at her untouched tray, scrunched up her nose, and pushed it over in front of him.
“Are you sure?” he asked politely, fork poised over the plate.
“Yeah, sure. Have at it,” she replied as he dug in.
“Thanks,” he mumbled.
Nikki turned to me. “What have you been doing to him that he’s eating so much more than the rest of you?”
“We’ve been splitting up shifts at night, keeping an eye on the forest. Michael was the last wolf out. He didn’t have time for breakfast this morning. So, he’s hungrier.” I shrugged and tossed a cookie off my plate at his head.
He heard it, his eyes snapping up as he snagged it just before it whacked him between the eyes. He shoved it in his mouth, cleared the rest of Nikki’s plate, then sat back, satisfied. “Thanks. I feel much better.”
The Keeper Saga: Wynter's War, Charmed, and The One (The Boxed Set Book 2) Page 29