by L. C. Mawson
Freya nodded, though she didn’t have enough cognizance to come up with a specific place to shift to. Just somewhere safe...
She closed her eyes before shifting, her consciousness fading.
“Freya?” she heard.
Damon?
Chapter Thirteen
Amber looked down at the room full of Demons. There was no way she would get out of this without calling upon the Ancient within her...
The question was whether or not she would make it out of that intact after what had happened the last time she had relied so heavily on the Ancient.
At least Sebastian had managed to get out with the relic. The mission was complete and Rosaline would be happy.
She promised herself, if she made it out of this with her mind intact, she wouldn’t take any more missions like it.
Amber took a deep breath, ready to go out there and face the enemies in front of her, but was stopped by the sound of yells from below.
She looked down from her perch to see that the Demons were now fighting with a variety of Witches. Witches from Rosaline’s coven.
Before Amber could question her friend coming back for her, a familiar figure shifted to her side.
“You idiot!” she said to Sebastian as he appeared. “You weren’t supposed to come back for me. You were supposed to get out with the relic.”
“I did,” he protested. “It’s safe. Rosaline has it. And I would never leave you. You know that.”
She smiled. “I know,” she told him. “But what about the Witches? Rosaline let them accompany you? That’s not like her.”
Sebastian shrugged. “Does it matter? We’re here and you’re safe. You didn’t need to call on the Ancient...”
“Sebastian,” Amber said in a warning tone.
He sighed. “She sensed the building to see if you were still alive, and she didn’t just sense you. She saw two sparks of life here.”
Amber frowned. “Do the Demons have a prisoner or something?”
He shook his head. “See for yourself.”
Amber did, extending her magical senses, but she came up with nothing but the man in front of her and the Demons and Witches fighting below.
“I can’t sense anything.”
“Look closer,” he told her, his hand extending out to take hers.
She frowned, sensing around her immediate area, only to freeze still as she felt it.
The tiny flicker of life in her abdomen.
“I’m pregnant,” she breathed, her heart stopping still for a moment before thundering in her chest.
They were going to have a baby.
“Rosaline agreed to lend me the Witches once she knew. She figured our child deserved to have a mother, not just an Ancient being inhabiting her body.”
Amber nodded silently as she took the hand her husband had extended to her.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”
FREYA AWOKE GROGGILY, struggling to get her bearings as her cognizance slowly returned to her. After a moment, she identified the surface she was lying on as a leather sofa. After another moment of looking around, she realised she was at Damon’s.
How had she gotten there?
She had heard Damon before she had blacked out completely, but she had thought it just a hallucination of her exhausted mind. Just her hoping that her friend would come to her rescue.
But apparently, when she had thought of somewhere safe, it had been Damon that had sprung to her mind.
What had happened? Had she shifted straight into his house? How would she explain that?
Before she had a chance to come up with an explanation, Gregor entered the room.
“I see you’re awake,” he said with a smile. “I have to say, the kid was rather disturbed to find you in the middle of the road on his way home from school.”
“And he brought me here?” Freya asked.
“Well, I was on my way home from work, so he rang me and I swung by to pick you both up.”
Freya nodded, as she suddenly became aware of a dull aching at her back. She looked down to see she was wearing clothes that weren’t her own. In fact, she was in an overlarge T-shirt and shorts, she figured must be Damon’s.
“You changed my clothes?”
“My partner at work, Evelyn, was with me. She patched you up and got you into new clothes.”
At that, a tall woman with dark black skin and cropped black hair entered the room. She was wearing black jeans and a tank top that looked almost identical to the outfit Gregor was wearing.
“You’re awake,” the woman said as she approached.
“I was just explaining to her that you were the one who patched her up,” Gregor said.
“I heard,” the woman - Evelyn - replied. She turned to Freya. “How are you feeling?”
Freya shrugged. “A little tired, but I’m otherwise fine.”
“I don’t suppose you want to tell us what happened?” Gregor asked.
Freya’s hand went to the amulet that lay under her T-shirt, glad to find it was still there. Her hand gripped it through the fabric of the shirt as her gaze dropped.
“It’s not important,” she told him. “It’s fine. It’s over now.”
He gave her a look that told her he very much didn’t believe her.
Damon entered the room before he asked Freya any more questions.
“Why didn’t anyone tell me she was awake?” Damon asked.
“Because she only just got up,” Gregor told him softly. “And she lost a lot of blood. Why don’t you go to the kitchen and get her a glass of orange juice and a chocolate bar?”
Damon nodded, hurrying off.
While they had been talking, Amber had reappeared, giving both Gregor and Evelyn an appraising look.
“Didn’t Damon tell you his uncle worked in private security?” Amber asked. “I’ve known a lot of soldiers in my time, and he carries himself like one. Though I suppose it wouldn’t be that strange for a private security expert to be ex-military.” She moved over to Evelyn. “Can you feel that?”
Freya opened her new magical sense and found the background magic had indeed faded since she had encountered the Demon. Gregor seemed to glimmer a little, but nowhere near as much as the woman beside him.
“Look at her belt,” Amber told her.
Freya glanced down, and saw that there was obviously something resembling a stick at Evelyn’s side, though her top was over it.
“A wand,” Amber said. “She must be a Witch. I wonder what a Witch is doing working with a Human... Never mind, the important thing is that she probably used magic to heal your wounds. Hopefully that means they won’t scar.”
Freya froze a little. She hadn’t thought about scarring. Though, it seemed obvious now. He mind wandered to the large wound across her back that was still giving a dull ache. It had probably been deep, and no doubt would scar without magic. Maybe it would even with magic... Maybe she would carry the events of these past couple of days on her skin forever...
“Freya,” Gregor asked gently, “are you in trouble?”
“I’m fine,” Freya told him once more. She couldn’t quite bring herself to lie and tell him there was no danger to her whatsoever. But in that moment she was fine, so that would have to do.
“Freya, you can tell me anything. I promise. Even if you’re in trouble, I won’t tell anyone, not even your foster parents. I just want to help.”
Freya nodded, more than a little saddened. By all of Damon’s accounts, Gregor probably did genuinely want to help. But he couldn’t. No Human could.
“You wouldn’t believe me, even if I told you.”
“I promise I would,” Gregor assured her, and she somehow believed him.
But that didn’t change the fact that he couldn’t help, and she would never forgive herself if he was hurt trying.
“Well, I had better be off. I don’t want to be here when the boss finds out you’ve brought trouble right back home with you,” Evelyn said, before turni
ng back to Freya. “I’ve left you some of my old clothes in the bathroom. I hope you’re right about being fine, but right now all I see is a pup without a pack, and that makes you nothing but prey.”
Evelyn strode out of the room, and Gregor turned back to Freya.
“Sorry about her. She can be a bit pessimistic at times.”
Freya simply shrugged. After all, Evelyn was probably right.
“I’m sorry for any trouble I might have caused you with your boss,” she said, considering Evelyn’s words. If Gregor’s boss was his brother-in-law, he probably wasn’t enamoured with the idea of Gregor bringing girls who had been targeted by Demons right back to Damon. Not when he was trying to protect him.
Gregor shrugged. “It’s fine. The boss isn’t as bad as everyone says. Plus, it’s not as if he has to know everything that happens here.”
“If he isn’t so bad, why would you keep this from him?” Freya asked, the words escaping from her mouth before she had time to think on whether they were actually a good idea.
Gregor simply laughed. “Well, you have me there. But it’s not so much that he would have a problem with me helping someone. It’s more that he would worry for Damon’s safety, and if you were a threat to Damon’s safety, he might try and move him elsewhere. I don’t think either of us want that.
“When I first came here with Damon, the kid was constantly in his own head. And I understood why, but that didn’t help me to do something about it. Especially not once he figured out that I wanted him to be happy. Then he just wouldn’t stop faking it...
“In all honesty, when he started school, I was worried. I didn’t think he was ready yet. And then, one day, the smile was real. He’s talking about some girl. And he keeps talking, and eventually it clicks. He thinks I’m here because I have to be. He thinks I care about him because my boss told me to. But no one told you to. In fact, you made it perfectly clear that you didn’t want to make friends with anyone.
“I think he needed that. I think he needed a friend he knows is his friend because they want to be, and for no other reason. If my boss thinks there is danger here, he will make sure Damon is taken somewhere safe, and I doubt you two will see each other again. Trust me when I say that is the last thing I want.
“Freya, I don’t care what trouble you’re in, beyond just making sure you’re okay, so Damon doesn’t have to lose his only friend.”
Freya nodded. “I promise, things will be fine. I’ll make sure they are.”
Gregor sighed. He didn’t seem entirely happy with her answer, but he also didn’t seem as if he was going to start arguing again. “Alright, if you don’t want to tell me, fine. Just try not to hurt the kid.”
Freya nodded once more. “I won’t.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” Gregor told her simply. “Evelyn left those clothes for you in the bathroom. You can change in there.”
Freya got up, going to the bathroom as Gregor had suggested. She locked the door behind her, turning back to see that there was indeed a dress and a pair of leggings lying across the top of the closed toilet seat.
Freya ignored the dress at first, instead moving to the mirror.
She knew she shouldn’t have been shocked by what she saw, but it was difficult not have some kind of reaction. She was used to being pale, but she was even more so than usual, her skin taking on a sickly shade of grey. Where she wasn’t grey, it was because there were flecks of blood dried over the top of her skin. Either that or bruises. Not to mention how her hands were covered in dirt from when she had fallen to the ground.
All the cuts she could immediately see were fairly innocuous. They didn’t look pleasant, but they hadn’t needed stitches or anything. Her hands and elbows were skinned, but again, it was nothing too severe.
She twisted around in front of the mirror, trying to get a better look at her back. But there was no way for Freya to get a good look at the wound without feeling a hard tugging sensation.
“There are stitches,” Amber warned her as she reappeared. “If you keep pulling, they’ll tear.”
“Stitches? Will I have to have them taken out?”
“No, they look like Witch stitches. They should disappear on their own once they are no longer needed.”
Freya nodded. “How bad is it? Do you think it will scar?”
“I won’t lie, it doesn’t look great. And yes, it probably will scar, though not too badly. It shouldn’t be noticeable.”
Freya supposed that was the best she could hope for, so she returned her attention to getting dressed.
She gave the shower a longing glance, but no one had specifically said she could use it, and she didn’t want to overstep. Though she was covered in dirt and blood and sweat, her hair clumping together in a way that made her wish for a cropped style like Evelyn’s.
She experimentally rolled her shoulders, trying to get a sense of how much movement she had with her new injury. The wound actually didn’t stop her that much though it certainly did hinder her. What was most noticeable as she moved was how her bra stuck to her skin. She realised that the back of it must have been soaked in her blood, making it stiff.
Unfortunately, there was no underwear in the new clothes she had been given, so she would just have to make do.
Freya ran her hands and arms under the sink, doing the best she could to wipe the grime from her. She tried to move the water in a tendril, but quickly gave up. She felt exhausted just trying, and she didn’t want to push herself too far. Not when she wasn’t sure how badly she had managed to hurt the Demon.
“Do you reckon I stopped him?” she asked Amber.
“The Demon?”
Freya nodded.
Amber sighed. “No, I don’t think so. It looked like you hurt him, but it didn’t look like something he couldn’t recover from.”
“I should get out of here, shouldn’t I? Before he tries to come after me again.”
Amber nodded. “The longer you stay here, the more danger you put them in.”
“How am I going to fight him again? I barely managed to hit him this time.”
“You did manage it, though,” Amber said with a smile. “You’ll be able to do it again.”
Freya tried to smile back, but it didn’t quite come. She desperately wanted to mirror Amber’s optimism, but she was just too tired.
Instead of continuing to try, she instead inspected the dress Evelyn had left her. She picked it up, only to realise that it was built for Evelyn’s large frame. While not exactly small herself, Evelyn was taller and broader, with heavier muscles. Freya figured she might end up looking not dissimilar once she was fully grown –– especially if she kept having to fight for her life – but for now, the dress was far too large.
“This is just going to fall off me,” Freya said as she held the dress up against her torso, the moss green colour contrasting her bright red wounds.
“Don’t worry,” Amber assured her. “It’s a basic defensive dress for Witches. It will reshape itself to fit you.”
“Wait, the dress is magic?”
Amber nodded. “It’s not specifically designed for use in a fight, they have armour for that, but this is usually worn when you suspect there might be trouble. It doesn’t seem badly made either. It seems Evelyn has given you quite the gift. The defensive and healing magic woven into this might just save your life.”
Freya raised an eyebrow. “But Evelyn seemed quite sure I was going to die.”
Amber shrugged. “I suppose even the most cynical sometimes give in to hope.”
Freya pulled on the leggings – which appeared to be made of leather – before pulling the dress over her head, cinching it around her waist with a leather belt that had also been left. The belt had various little pouches and hooks that Freya supposed were for various magical items, but they were all empty. Amber had been right, the clothes had shifted to fit her frame.
Freya headed back out of the bathroom, ready to leave immediately, only to be confronted by Damo
n, holding a glass of orange juice and a chocolate bar.
“Here,” Damon said as he held out the drink and food.
Freya detested orange juice, but she knew it was what she was supposed to drink, and she figured she needed all the help she could get. She downed the glass in two seconds flat, trying not to gag.
“Thanks,” she said as soon as she finished, placing the empty glass down on the coffee table.
“Are you okay?” Damon asked. “I know Uncle Gregor probably asked you the same thing, but I was worried... I was walking home from school and... There you were in the street. What happened to you?”
Freya shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me,” Damon told her.
“Secrets, remember?”
Damon groaned. “Why do I get the feeling we are going to regret that agreement?”
Freya shrugged. “I suppose only time will tell.”
“But seriously, Freya, those wounds... They look like you got into a fight...”
“When did you turn into Sherlock Holmes?”
Damon frowned. “Sherlock Holmes?”
Freya rolled her eyes. “I guess I’ll just have to add it to the list of things you need to be caught up on. Though, don’t try to catch up on that one without me. I’m very particular about which adaptations are good ones.”
Freya opened the chocolate bar before wolfing it down in two bites. When she finished, she passed Damon to throw the wrapper in the bin, but as she did so, she brushed past his side, and he winced away in pain.
“What’s wrong?” Freya asked.
“It’s fine,” Damon said quickly.
“Damon, you don’t seem fine. Are you hurt?”
Damon sighed, but brought his hand to his top, lifting it so that Freya could see the bandage beneath.
“What happened?” Freya gasped out as she examined the bandage. It was impossible to get an accurate idea of how bad it was with the bandage covering it, and she didn’t want to get too close for fear of hurting Damon.
Damon shrugged. “It- It was my father.”
“Yesterday? He hurt you?”