A Touch of Fire (Meridian Island Book 1)

by Jennie Dah

  Wait a minute! I know these trees. I used to play in these woods as a child but I don’t remember any gateway being in the area. I can’t even ask anyone because everyone that used to live there died in the fire.

  What the hell?

  “Are you okay?” Michael grabs my shoulders and turns me around. I open my mouth to speak but snap it shut when his eyes bleed white and he goes stock still.

  I look around and they guys all look wary because we all know when Michael gets a vision it usually means someone’s about to die or get seriously injured and then die. But I don’t need a vision to tell me that whoever was stupid enough to touch my mate will die a slow agonizing death.

  “I’m perfect,” I growl my voice distant, a wave of aggression rushing through my body. “I'm going to get my mate.”

  I ignore the gasps that come from the guys even though Michael doesn’t seem all that surprised. For us, mating is a big deal because once you’re mated you’re never getting out of it.

  So they’re still a lot of people around here who are centuries old but still haven’t mated. Michael goes out of the room and Charlie comes over to me.

  “Congratulations man, I never thought you had it in you,” he says thumping me on the back. “I'm happy for you and good luck. Even though she talks too much, she’s obviously a keeper.”

  “Yeah, congrats man,” Robbie and Logan wishes. They start talking excitedly among themselves about the ceremony, there hasn’t been one in years. I can’t put these men in danger trying to help me get back the woman I should have protected with my life. I still can’t get over how I failed to protect her.

  How she must be scared right now alone with those terrible people. I just need to find a way to slip by these men without them knowing so I can teleport out of here. This is my chance to get away or they’ll want to come with.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Charlie snaps making me freeze. He probably sense what I’m about to do, damn nosy empath. “Your emotions are all over the place and it making me weird so pull it together will you? And I’m coming with you.”

  “Yeah me too,” Logan chimes in.

  “No you guys. I can’t let you do that,” I sigh running a hand down my face. “You don’t know what we’ll be walking into and I can’t risk you guys getting hurt because of me.”

  Michael scoffs loudly standing in the doorway. “Yeah, right. We’re not doing it for you, we’re doing it for Celia.”

  “Uh–huh.” They all nod in unison

  “It’s nice to know you guys care so much about me,” I say drily cracking my knuckles.

  “Okay, I already packed what we’ll need,” Michael nods looking at me expectantly. My eyes snaps to the strap on his shoulder and I look at him questioningly. He shrugs walking up to me. “I’ll get the last item when we get there.”

  The others join us, all of them touching some part of me looking at me expectantly. “Are you guys su—”

  “Just shut up and teleport us already,” Robbie’s groans in irritation. “We’re losing time.”

  “Okay, do your part and get us there and we’ll do ours,” Michael says his voice calm.

  “Take us there then,” Charlie says somberly. “Who knows maybe this might have something to do with all the women who have gone missing and we might be able to catch whoever’s behind it.”

  “Get out of your head. This is reality,” Logan laughs.

  I take a deep breath and look around at the men standing with me. I’ve been friends with them a long time but it isn’t until this moment that I realize I’ve never told them I appreciate them.

  I close my eyes and a buzzing sound fills the air and it’s gone as suddenly as it started. I open my eyes a wave of nostalgia hits me along with memories I’ve kept buried for years that come rushing to the forefront of my mind.

  Running through this woods with other kids for hours and then splashing in the waterfall in the clearing beside the twin mountains. Then the fire, smell of burning flesh, the screams and then the blood. There was so much blood.

  “Nicholas!!” Someone shakes at my shoulders and l blink my surroundings back into focus. Lush green leaves swaying gently in the evening breeze and no sign of fire damaged trees or soot covered forest floor. I shake my head and push the memories away.

  Everyone’s looking at me strangely and I pretend I don’t see the question in their eyes.

  “Okay where are we?” someone asks breaking the silence. I look around and even though this place feels familiar, it doesn’t look like the place I knew. Everything looks so different, I don’t even know which direction leads to the waterfall.

  One of these mountains must be the gateway that I saw. No, it must be the one close to rushing water, like a river. But we can’t find it if we don’t know where it is and which one of them might be the gateway.

  We’ll have to look around but with my inability to shift and without my senses it’ll probably take hours. I realize in all this time I haven’t heard a peep from Griff and that worries me.

  “We have to spread out and look around,” Robbie says furiously scribbling in his notepad. Historians. I can’t believe this will go down in history. “Where are we?”

  “Scotland,” I answer making everyone’s eyes snap to me. I just shrug at their questioning looks.

  “Guys, I can’t—”

  “We got you,” Michael says gently slapping my shoulder. “I’ll take the north side.”

  “I’ll take east then,” Charlie says looking around.

  “Guys—”

  “I’m the fastest, I’ll take west and south—”

  “Guys listen to me,” I snap and they look at me sheepishly. “Listen closely for the sound of rushing water, that’s where we’re going.”

  “Oh,” they look at each other before turning back to me.

  “It’s about a mile and a half that way,” Charlie says pointing north and I’m grateful for his tracking skills.

  Michael speeds away leaving a gust of wind in his wake, his words carrying on the wind making my blood chill. “Okay, let’s hurry we’re running out of time.”

  “You guys go on,” I sigh when the silence stretches on too long and they shuffle around awkwardly. “I’ll catch up.”

  “Are you sure?” Robbie asks his expression haunted.

  “Want to carry me on your back?” I tease and they blink owlishly at me.

  “We’ll meet you there.” Then all three are gone and my shoulders slump in defeat.

  What the hell am I doing wanting to bind her to me for the rest of her existence? Will I always be this burden to her, unable to protect her when the situation calls for it? I can’t do this to her.

  But right now, I’m going to get her out of there and then let her go even if it’ll destroy my very soul. I’ve never felt so useless in my life not even when I had to watch my mother get stabbed over and over in front me and I couldn’t do a thing.

  A wave of agony surges through me and I fall to the ground on my knees my vision going hazy. So now he shows up rendering me even more useless. He’s so close but so damn far away. If only he could somehow manage to break those chain we’d be one again and I’ll have half my soul and my powers back.

  Another wave of pain shoots through my stomach and I fall to my back, the pain intensifying and paralyzing my body as something inside me pulls tighter and tighter until I couldn’t breathe anymore.

  Griff scratches at my insides snarling to get out and I can do nothing but lie there in pain. Then suddenly the tension in me snaps and I gasp as a wave of relief so profound surges through me and I can breathe again. My body trembles violently for a few seconds and then I feel it.

  Right there at my core, the hollow throbbing feeling that’s been clinging to me is gone. Now all I feel is barely restrained power and then I’m up on my feet. I look around and my vision has never been this sharp.

  Not even during those random times that I’m in trouble. I can see for miles ahead of me through the dens
e foliage. Even my hearing is better now. I can hear the footfalls of all four guys as they swerve around trees and their breaths as the air whistle through their noses.

  Yes! I’m free.

  Whoever has Celia better pray they they’re dead before I get to them.

  “Whoa!” I don’t turn around at the exclamation when I break through the trees into the clearing with the waterfall. I walk over to the edge of the water and look into the flowing stream. I close my eyes and sniff the air.

  Under the smell of green leaves and moss, there’s a faint smell of honey and cocoa butter with a hint of cloves and cinnamon. Yep, she was definitely here. Now I just need to figure out which one of these is the portal.

  ‘Hang on baby, I’m coming.’

  ******

  MICHAEL

  I run through the dense forest as fast as I can swerving around trees and branches without looking at them. My eyes are solely focused on the ground looking for the tree with the distended root. Right now that’s all I can see but none of them look like the one I saw in my vision.

  I need to find that tree because if I don’t, he’s going to shreds this place into pieces and risk the human race finding out about us. My visions have always been hazy and uncertain but ever since Celia arrived here on the island they’ve been a bit clearer.

  Earlier I just had a quick vision of her frying Bella in the fight and I knew something bad will happen but I had no idea it’ll get so out of control like that or I’d have dragged her out of there myself and spend a day in the underground holding cells.

  The others are almost halfway to me and gaining on me pretty fast so I speed up even faster and suddenly breakthrough the trees into a clearing. The waterfall looks amazing but I’m not here for that now.

  I look around but all the trees look the same and I start to panic. No. No. No. I have to find that tree. My vision was pretty damn clear about finding that tree. I shudder as the rest of the vision flashes through my mind.

  There’s going to be bloodshed if I don’t find that tree. What are those creatures? I try to make sense of the vision but like always, I get nothing.

  I kick at the ground in frustration and yelp in pain when my foot connects with something hard. I look down and then I see it. The root covered in green moss that extends all the way to the water’s edge.

  I follow it all the way back into the woods and it belongs to a pretty old looking tree. Nothing special about it really. I pull off my backpack and dig inside for the supplies. I have to work fast before the others come looking for me.

  I pull out the hand trowel and start digging into the earth and wiping the sweat off my face. After a few minutes of digging around the base of the tree, the trowel connects with something hard making a loud clanging noise and I grimace.

  Setting the trowel down, I dig around with my hands not wanting to damage whatever’s in there. My fingers brush a cloth like material and I wrap my hand around the object and pull with a grunt. I rip the material away from the extremely heavy object and frown in confusion.

  I turn the gleaming ornately carved miniature recurve bow—obviously hand carved—in my hand not understanding why it’s so important. Besides how beautiful it looks I don’t think this will be of any use to anyone.

  The handle appears to be carved out of some kind of stony material—maybe onyx?—and its limbs are made of the same material but it has some kind of yellowish and some orange liquid swirling around in it but it looks fixed and rigid like it’s permanently attached to the handle with no screws in sight to adjust it. This thing doesn’t even have a string attached to it and it’s too small and too damn heavy and just too much like a toy to be of any use to anyone.

  Whatever I found it. I dig around some more in case the string and some arrows are also buried here but after a while it’s pretty clear there’s nothing else here. I wrap the beautifully carved bow in the extra T-shirt I brought with me and put it in my bag and pack up the rest of my tools.

  Back at the falls, the others are already there and they all turn to me with identical looks of annoyance that I ignore.

  “Where the fuck have you been?” Charlie snaps stalking over to me. I roll my eyes at him and sidestep him making my way to the edge of the water.

  “Taking a shit idiot,” I murmur looking down warily at the water.

  “Did you dig the hole with your hands?” I still at his question and my eyes fly to his face but he’s staring down at my dirt covered hands.

  Damned advanced senses. His eyes come up to meet mine and a spike of fear shoots through my stomach.

  “None of your business,” I mumble moving away from him knowing very well he heard me loud and clear.

  Where is he? He should be here by now. I stare at the glow of the big full moon glowing in the water and hope she’s doing okay. Nicholas deserves to be happy after all the shit he’s been through.

  I don’t know how he grew up to be such an honorable man without anyone to look after him. Must be hard to watch your parents die right before your eyes. A gust of wind whips through the clearing and then Nicholas is standing beside me.

  Took him long enough. I turn around as the others gasp in shock and I’d have laughed if a wisp of fear hadn’t slide down my spine.

  I’ve always known he was powerful but not to this extent. I barely resist the edge to fall to my knees in submission at the waves of energy pulsing off of him.

  Everyone on Meridian just assumed he’s a Null because he’s never shifted before and we actually got used to him not shifting that we also believe he couldn’t.

  He even made it easy because he’s never been the power hungry types like the rest of those who grew up in the orphanage and can’t shift. Today is the first time I’ve caught a glimpse of his beast when that idiot had so boldly disrespected Celia.

  I grit my teeth my muscles straining with the need to relax when the buzzing energy in the air diminishes but there’s still enough to feel who the alpha is.

  The Nicholas standing before me looks like the one we left in the woods a few minutes ago but nothing like the one I know. It’s a little overwhelming. He turns to me and the breathe leaves my lungs on a rough exhale when I meet his eyes.

  I avert my eyes unable to hold his for long. Yellow, bright yellow eyes. What creatures have that eye color? I know brown, blue, red, orange, green, black, copper, gold, aquamarine, onyx but never yellow. What could he possibly be?

  “Which one is it?” he asks his voice a deep emotionless monotone that sends shivers down my spine.

  I look over at the twin huge slabs of rock that are on each side of the fall. “That’s what I need you to tell me.”

  I straighten to my full height when he stares at me too long and I realize he’s sizing me up. I hold his eyes for a few seconds before his bares his teeth at me in a semblance of a smile with a nod.

  “You’re a good person,” he says his voice gravely. Being the normal person I am, I puff up at the compliment.

  “Well, you’re not so bad yourself,” I say teasingly in return but completely sincere.

  “I know,” he answers confidently. “I’m amazing.”

  A burst of shocked laughter escapes me and the guys look between us in shock and excitement. Looks like someone got an overinflated ego too.

  “Man, you finally have your powers,” Robbie says excitedly his hands flying over his notepad. Logan whoops loudly and I glare at him.

  “Sorry,” he whispers bouncing on his feet in excitement. “Just extremely excited right now.”

  “Yeah now we can all go for a run together,” Robbie says his attention still on his notepad.

  A spike of excitement shoots through me at the prospect of having my best friend with me finally when I go for a run in the woods with the wind rushing through my fur as I hear his breathing beside me.

  “If you’re quiet done, can we get back to the situation at hand?” Nicholas mumbles making us look at him. He crouches low on the ground looking at the waterfall int
ently with his head cocked to the side. He sniffs the air and his eyes falling close. I jerk in alarm when his eyes pop open blazing with a fierce intensity. I sniff the air too but there’s nothing peculiar about it, there’s only the smell of the forest around us.

  “There, that’s the one,” he points at the rock on the left side of the fall.

  We have to swim? Yikes. Unh-unh.

  No way I’m getting in that water. I step back when he points at the rock and I’m not the only one horrified about what he wants us to do.

  He stares at us for a few seconds before it dawns on him.

  “Oh come on,” he says before turning back to the water. He shakes his head muttering, “Cats.”

  A crackling sound fills the air and we all go on alert but when Nicholas doesn’t even turn around I frown in confusion. I get it when I look down at the water.

  “Whoa!” we all say at once staring at the frozen water. This night just keeps getting weirder and weirder. He can freeze water? I thought his only power was teleportation. Sweet. Now I don’t have to wait for my damn refrigerator to cool my coconut water.

  “Is this okay for you ladies?” he asks his tone heavy with sarcasm. He lips twitch at the look on our faces but I can’t be sure if it’s amusement in those yellow pools or if my head is fucking with me. When we hesitate a second to long he asks, “want me to make you some skates and hold your hands too?”

  “Shut up,” I mutter pushing past him.

  We walk across the iced over stream to the rock that should be the portal. I step back and move to the side to make room for Robbie since he’s the only one among us who’d have any idea about how to open a portal. This portal things confuses me.

  “There should be an inscription on the rock somewhere,” Robbie says finally pocketing his notepad. He walks up to the rock and runs his hands over the top then down to the bottom. He straightens a strange look on his face. “Uh, guys? There’s nothing on this rock. Are you sure this is the right one?”

  An unmarked portal? That’s unheard of and most likely forbidden.