Caden (The Wolves Den Book 4)

by Serena Simpson

  “Alright, I’ll bite,” Sage said. “Tell me your theory.”

  “It’s not a theory more like a series of facts. First, mom changed.”

  “Stop, what do you mean your mother changed?”

  “She became a different species.”

  “Like the undead, a vampire? What do you mean?”

  Ven reached into the back pocket of his jeans and brought out his phone. The closer he got to his family, the easier it was to reach them mentally, but he still liked using the phone.

  “Mom, can you come to Xander and Caden’s house?” He smiled at Sage. “She will be here in a few minutes.”

  Deja rounded the corner with Enzo by her side. They walked up the steps and took a seat on the porch.

  “Sage, I don’t know if I should show you what’s been going on or wait to see if it happens to you. Recently, the longer I live, the more confused I become.”

  Deja stood and walked down the steps until she was standing in the center of the street. She stood there for several minutes before she seemed to waver as if she was standing in a heat wave. One minute she looked normal, the next her body looked like it was melting, changing into something that was not human.

  Sage felt her heart stop beating for a moment when wings burst out of Deja’s back. What was she?

  Deja’s wing began to move lifting her off the ground. Her form grew casting a shadow over them before she shrunk back to normal size.

  “What are you?”

  She opened her mouth, and strange syllables came out followed by fire. Her throat worked until finally, she stared at Sage allowing her to get her first good look at her eyes.

  “Your eyes.”

  “I love them,” Ven told her. “They look like a sunset.”

  Sage agreed with him. The top part was dark, but the bottoms were ablaze in color as if the sun were sinking over the horizon.

  “I think I’m a dragon hybrid.”

  “You can talk?” Enzo stood up a stunned look on his face.

  “Seems that way. This is the first time I’ve fully changed since that night.”

  Sage wanted to say she was totally cool with watching Deja change into a hybrid dragon, but her heart was beating so fast she was sure it would drop dead from overwork. Her feet wanted to run, and she wanted to scream that she was going crazy. What stopped her was that Deja and everyone else here had gone out of their way to help her. Know your enemies and no one sitting here was an enemy.

  “I think we need to change that.” Fire and Declyn walked up admiring Deja’s new form.

  “What do you mean?” Deja landed on the ground and tucked her wings behind her. She had a tail that she could use that was long, but she could also retract it. She had a tribal tattoo that wrapped around one eye and went down the side of her face. It was in the shape of a dragon.

  “We need to find out what we can do. How far our new powers go and what our limitations are. I don’t know what’s happening to us, but I want to be ready if we need to fight.”

  “Will that happen to me? Will I turn into a hybrid also?”

  Fire was frowning and shaking her head. “We don’t know. So far, we have no idea who can cross the barrier that led us here or why our bodies changed. What I do know is that we were one hundred percent human before the transition.”

  “Cait has information, but she doesn’t seem willing to share.” Jessie and Cole walked up in the middle of Fire’s explanation.

  “That’s not really fair to me Jessie. Here is what I’m almost sure of. All of you walked through the barrier because of your blood type.” Cait told them. She walked over to the porch and took a seat. There was a war going on inside of her that was obvious, by the way, her facial expression changed.

  “So, you’re saying that we all have blood type A?” Deja asked a frown on her face.

  “My blood type is B, and so is Mia’s,” Jessie told everyone.

  “I am O. How can what you’re saying be true.” Fire turned to looked at Cait.

  “Sage do you know your blood type?” Cait asked her.

  “I am O negative. Funny thing, the only reason I know is because Jim encouraged me to give blood last year. Then he said why don’t we find out your blood type. I remember he spent the whole day smiling when we found out. I thought it was strange but so many stranger things have happened since then.”

  Cait stood and gave Sage a smile before she walked to the top step and stopped. The only one who got it right is Sage. “Your blood type is more than the letters.”

  “I’m negative,” Fire said. Both Deja and Jessie chimed in saying they were negative.

  “Mia’s negative as well.”

  “Here is the first part of my theory. You can only enter the barrier if your blood type is negative. I need hundreds if not thousands of people to be conclusive but all I have is you four. I’m going to stand behind that theory for several reasons.”

  “How can my blood type matter when crossing the barrier?” Deja asked her.

  “I’m with Sage on this one. What does blood and the barrier have to do with each other?”

  “Let’s start by saying that the negative blood type on Earth is very rare. Then let me ask Caden a question. How were you able to exchange blood with Sage? You’re Kur’ik she’s human.”

  He smelled a trap, not that Cait was that cagey, but she was up to something. Thalians and Kur’iks didn’t exchange blood they could under extreme circumstances, but they tried to avoid those. As far as he knew there wasn’t another species that they could exchange blood with unless they were hybrids.

  “Are you saying she’s a hybrid?”

  “No. And that’s the problem. She is totally human so how would you exchange blood with her. How can you mate with her?”

  “They have evolved over the last several hundred years.” He remembered it like it was yesterday when a couple of human females died trying to mate with them. That was one of the reasons they secluded themselves. Tristan couldn’t figure out what went wrong no one could, but they weren’t going to devolve into a species that killed to mate.

  “No, they haven’t evolved. They’ve learned more about the world around them, but they are still physically the same.”

  “What are you telling us Cait?” When Declyn spoke with a soft voice; everyone knew he wanted concrete answers.

  “It’s just a theory. Since the negative blood type is rare on this planet, I believe the females we first encountered carried the positive rhesus trait. Kur’ik blood isn’t designated positive or negative, but we don’t carry the rhesus factor, so we would never be positive.”

  “I think I know what you’re hinting at but could you give it to us in plain English?” Fire was holding onto Declyn’s hand, but her body was tight with tension.

  “I think you’re able to cross the barrier because it recognizes you as Kur’ik.”

  Deja was still in her hybrid form. She snapped back to human and would have fallen on her rear if Enzo hadn’t of caught her.

  There was silence as everyone not on the porch climbed the steps and took a seat.

  “Cait, that’s a serious theory. Do you have any proof at all?” Fire asked her.

  “Only that the people to cross the barrier have a negative blood type. It’s a working theory, but you wanted to know what I was thinking.”

  “Does this have anything to do with why we are changing?”

  “My theory on that Deja is still a work in process. Let’s see what happens to Sage.”

  “What if I don’t change? Not that I want to be a dragon hybrid. Wait, I’m not saying you’re not kick ass. I mean…” She sighed and stopped talking.

  Deja laughed at her and wiped a couple of tears from her eyes. “If I hadn’t of changed first, I would be right where you are Sage. I’m the only dragon hybrid around. From what I hear because I haven’t seen it with my own eyes, Jessie is some sort of fairy. I’ve no idea what Fire is, and I saw her with my own eyes. None of us wanted to change it just happened.
If it doesn’t happen to you be glad you can keep on being who you are.”

  That’s what she wanted to be who she was and no one else. She didn’t need to change she had enough drama in her life without becoming someone else.

  “Let’s go to The Wolves Den.” Xander stood and walked down the steps.

  Ven walked over and crouched beside Sage. “If you don’t change, don’t worry about it everything happens for a reason.” He whispered it in her ear before following Xander.

  “How old do I have to be to drink?” He called out to anyone who was listening.

  “At least the equivalent of forty earth years,” Enzo called back.

  “We’re going to call you twenty-one, and I’m going to teach you the joy of Kur’ik beer,” Deja called after him trying to catch up with his long strides.

  Enzo groaned. “I need to make sure my son doesn’t destroy anything. I still remember my first glass of Kur’ik beer.” He took off his long legs eating up the terrain.

  “My club.” Declyn reached for Fire, and they left laughing at Enzo.

  “That leaves you and me.” Sage stood and walked over to Caden. “You know the more I learn, the more nervous I become. First, I was scared that Jim was going to kill me. Now I’m scared that I won't turn into something I don’t really want to be because it may embarrass you.”

  “Sage, I like you just how you are. If you change, I will accept it. If you stay the same, I won’t complain.”

  “Why do you think that some of us have blood that can be thought of as Kur’ik?”

  He didn’t answer right away. His fingers were sliding through her hair as if he was engrossed with the colors hiding there. They could be seen against his hand.

  “I don’t know. Cait knows more than she is telling us. I think she is trying to give us the medicine a little at a time to make us well.”

  “That kind of makes sense.”

  “Would you like to go out for dinner tonight?”

  “No. What if Jim finds us?”

  “He’s going to find us, eventually.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “Sage unless you’re willing to be a prisoner here until the day he dies, we’re going to have to leave at some point. You’re going to have to deal with Jim, but I’ll be at your side.”

  He was right, and she knew it, but did it have to be today. She looked up to watch the sun that was beginning to set. Once again, Deja’s eye flashed in her memory.

  “I want to go Caden, but I need time to think about what happened to accept it. I can’t just flip a switch that says my new friends aren’t exactly human, although they were born that way. Does that make me… what does that make me?”

  “It makes you human, and I love that about you.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes, I’ll tell you about it later. Right now, I’m going to sit here and give you time to think.”

  She wrapped her arms around him and gave him a kiss. “You’re going to go to the club with your friends, and I’ll be waiting here when you get back.”

  He opened his mouth, but she placed a finger on it.

  “Go, I need some alone time. Next time we’ll go together.”

  “I’m going to hold you to that.” He leaned over and kissed her before he left the porch and walked up the street.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Every thought was jumbled up in her head. The thought of being a helpless victim where it didn’t matter what she did, she still couldn’t win her freedom was taking her breath away. It was bouncing against the memory of Deja slowly flapping her wings and hovering in the air. Then there was the thought of Jessie being a fairy. She’d probably look cute with all that black hair. Okay, and what was Fire?

  She walked back into the bedroom and started taking off her clothes. This called for a soak in the tub. It was where she did some of her best thinking. Nothing around except lots of beautiful water and the smell of something exotic.

  Once her sanity had returned, she would finish exploring and then make a special treat. Feeling better she grabbed a fluffy towel and some bubble bath before she turned on the tap to fill the tub.

  The smell made her think of a beautiful garden. The bubble bath was rose scented another one that she loved. Turning off the tap, she settled her body in the hot water allowing the tension to flow away.

  She laid back in the tub and Deja appeared before her again. This time she saw more than a hybrid human. Deja looked at her mate with love then she looked at her son, the expression on her face made Sage’s heart break. Whatever Deja was she wasn’t some inhuman freak.

  This wasn’t about any of them. It was about her and the movement she felt in her body like she was still possessed with the shadows. At times, she wanted to claw her skin off, but it wasn’t the same feeling, but something inside of her was alive.

  I’m in you. The alien in her head spoke.

  Then why didn’t you protect me from the shadow?

  I did. That’s why you’re still alive and still sane.

  Do you know what the shadow was?

  It’s an ancient enemy, one that I had hoped we destroyed.

  We?

  Our kind. You will understand soon, but not until the other.

  What’s the other? Who is the other? Well… Well!

  The alien in her head stopped talking, but at least she finally got a look at her. She looked almost normal if it wasn’t for those eyes that screamed not human. Who was she to judge others when she was dealing with an alien of her own? Her mind drifted to Caden and his kisses that reached her soul. Before the first time, he kissed her; she thought there was nothing special about her. After he kissed her, she knew that someone, God, must have blessed her, making her special.

  He was also right she couldn’t live the rest of her life hiding, but she was tempted. She stood up allowing the water to pour off her as she looked into the mirror. She was bad ass even naked. With a stupid grin, she got out. It was time to find that club.

  She had several changes of clothes it made her feel like she was part of this family, this compound. After she dried off, she got dressed and looked at herself the way Caden looked at her. All she really needed was some lipstick and earrings.

  Grabbing her phone, she went to put it in her pocket when it rang. Her body stilled who had this number? She was in the habit of changing her phone every month to avoid Jim finding out her number, but she didn’t have time for that this month.

  She slid her finger over the button to answer the call.

  “Hello?”

  “Sage I’m glad you answered it’s easier this way.”

  “Who is this?” It wasn’t Jim that much she was sure of. He had a certain tone to his voice that he could never get rid of no matter how much he tried.

  “Let’s not exchange names.”

  “But you already know mine.” He chuckled, and dread walked up her spine.

  “True, maybe if you're good, I’ll introduce myself later.”

  “I’m not a child, and unless you get to the point, I will hang up.”

  “Then Rose will die.”

  That stopped her. She knew Rose although it had almost been two years since she last saw her. Rose hated Jim and wanted her to leave him. She thought he was shady long before Sage had ever seen it. Jim hated Rose and swore that one day she would go missing. That should have been Sage’s warning, but she was sure he was her one chance at happiness. Instead of listening to her friend, she chased her away. Not because Rose wanted Jim. Sage did it because she was scared for Rose’s life, it was better to lose a friend and know that she was among the living, rather than having to visit a dead friend at her grave.

  “I don’t know what game you’re playing, but I won’t play along.”

  “She doesn’t believe I have you. Say something to her.”

  “Sage he’s a maniac stay far away from me,” Rose screamed into the phone before she screamed in pain.

  “Leave her alone. What do you want?”
/>   “I only want you, but if you bring a friend, I’ll slit her throat before you get out of the car.”

  “I don’t have a car.”

  “Not my problem.” He gave her an address and forty-five minutes to get here. “Don’t be late or she dies.”

  What was she going to do? She could take a cab after she left the compound. How was she supposed to leave the compound without being seen? Who called where they lived a compound? Thoughts of Jim Jones and the massacre at his compound went through her head. He was so charismatic and loving that no one saw it coming. She shivered wondering what was happening to her life.

  She walked into the living room to see a pair of keys lying on the end table. Those were Xander’s keys. She picked them up whispering a quiet apology and then went to the garage next to the house. There was a side door to get in, so she didn’t have to open the garage door until she was in the Jeep.

  She climbed in and turned the key before she hit the button to open the garage.

  “Please don’t let them see me.” She drove out and down the street slowly. A few people waved at her, and she waved back at them with what she hoped was an innocent smile. Her breath caught in her throat as she went through the barrier, once on the other side she stopped to ask for directions. She knew where the warehouse section of town was, but it wasn’t her stomping grounds.

  Why did it always seem quiet in large abandoned areas?

  Because they are abandoned? Her sense of humor tried to make her smile; it failed.

  She parked the Jeep wishing she had told Caden where she was going even though he couldn’t come with her. The door closed softly behind her not advertising her presence.

  She checked the number on the building with the number she had written down, 2411. The four was lopsided, but this was the building. The side door was cracked; she went in that way.

  There was a cold breeze inside the building. The air conditioner was on, but it wasn’t warm enough for it. The walls had been painted black as if to scare whoever came inside. Her hands were fisted at her side and her nails were digging into her palms, but it was helping to keep her sane. Moving cautiously, she walked further into the room.