“They sleep wherever they want,” he told her coarsely. “But I’ll make sure they know you didn’t appreciate it.”
“I just wasn’t expecting it,” she mumbled, sitting down in an empty chair. The guys all looked at her, and she looked around at all of them. Elijah’s brown hair was a tousled mess. Zander’s was even worse. Jasper and Vincent were the only two who looked put together in any way. Quinn looked the exact same as he had the day before, and she hadn’t seen him at dinner the night before. He was also still shirtless. So yeah, there was that. “No one told me there were wolves here.”
“They are Quinn’s bonded animals,” Vincent told her, holding a newspaper and looking at her over the top. “I have a raven, named Kaar. Oh, Quinn, remember how we were trying to guess her bonded animal?”
“Yeah,” Quinn mumbled, and Sawyer was beginning to wonder if his voice was just permanently that hoarse and harsh.
“She doesn’t have one,” Vincent put his magazine down. “Think there’s anything to that?”
“Odd,” Quinn whispered, continuing his sharp stare at her. She frowned at him, wondering what the fuck was going on between him and Vincent.
Animal bonding was such a Common ability. You also had no choice in the bond and the type of animal was completely random. An animal would see you and say, ‘that’s my Magi’. After that, there was nothing that could be done. The moment the animal made the decision, the Magi would feel the bond complete itself. Sometimes, exceptionally strong Magi would have more than one animal make the bond, which made her even more wary of Quinn with his two wolves. Strong predators were rarer as bonded animals. Most Magi had a bird, domesticated pet, or something small and common.
The real magic came in what Magi and their animals could do together. A Magi could feel the emotional currents of the animal or, when the Magi focused, he or she could look through the animal’s eyes. The animal’s life span lengthened to that of the Magi, and it would pass away when the Magi did. A bonded animal could get killed, though, and the Magi would be fine. If the bonded animal died, then a Magi could get chosen by another animal, though it might never happen.
She never got a second chance.
“I can imagine a few reasons.” He huffed, keeping her pinned with his stare.
She didn’t appreciate how much his eyes seemed to look into her, and she saw the moment he made his judgment of her. He didn’t elaborate on what he’d said. Vincent seemed to accept it, and she just kept frowning.
“Speaking of powers,” Elijah yawned. “We need to tell you ours since we’ll be hanging around together and training you. You should know what you’ve got around in case you need anything. I’ll start. I’ve got four Common ranked abilities; enchanting, fire manipulation, animation, and telekinesis.”
“Cool,” she nodded slowly. “So, you can enchant an item and animate it? I bet you’re fun at parties.” Animating was exactly what it sounded like. Dancing brooms from that Disney flick? It was that.
“I am fun at parties but not because of my magic, darlin’,” he winked as he said it, making her roll her eyes. “Vin?”
“Hm,” Vincent took a drink of coffee and Sawyer took the chance to fix herself a plate from the assortment on the table. “2 Common abilities, telekinesis and my animal bond. 2 Rare, petrification and sublimation.”
She stopped what she was doing, buttering a piece of toast, and met Vincent’s eyes. They both had sublimation and a second Rare ability. Her cloaking could stop him from petrifying her if push came to shove but he was the one she would need to be wary of when she tried to escape—after she convinced them to give her magic back to her.
The heavy mental weight of the bracelet became more apparent at the thought, reminding her of the missing, full connection to her Source. Damn inhibitors. It felt like an entire piece of her was missing, just out of reach, her fingers barely able to graze it, but not truly grasp it.
“I know Jasper’s and Zander’s,” she told them as Vincent started to point to Zander, who was blinking, half-awake for the conversation. “I was there for their Readings.”
“Good to know.” Vincent nodded and looked to Quinn, who glowered. He didn’t seem to like the idea of telling her what his magic was. “Quinn.”
Quinn bared his teeth at Vincent, and Sawyer felt a shiver of fear at the presence of the feral man. He behaved more like the wolves around him then the other people in the room.
“Earth manipulation, my animal bonds, naturalism, shape-shifting, and tracking,” Quinn gave her a grin, but there was nothing happy about it. It was threatening. She swallowed and realized her throat was suddenly very dry. She took a sip of water and hoped that Quinn wouldn’t be looking at her when she turned back.
“Tracking,” she muttered after two large gulps of water. Damn, he had a full set. Five abilities. No Magi ever had more than that, as far as anyone knew, except the Legends, who were a breed of their own.
“Tracking,” Vincent affirmed. He knew exactly where her mind had gone. They probably all knew what she was thinking.
Tracking was the Rare ranked ability. That made Quinn the worst person in the room in her opinion. He beat out Vincent by leaps and bounds. If he got his hands on any of her personal items, something that she touched regularly or held onto because of sentimental value, then he could literally find her anywhere on the planet. That was bad news for her, since it would be easy for him to get his hands on something sentimental to her.
It would be so easy for Quinn to make sure she never got free of them, magic or not. that meant she only had one plan left, and who knew how long that would take to pull off. She had to convince them that she didn’t need their protection.
“You see, Sawyer,” Vincent gave her a small smile, “I didn’t just build a team for capturing Axel. I built a team with very few weaknesses at all. All four elements, tracking, stealth, spying through our animal bonds. Jasper’s dream walking. Zander’s healing and shielding. Elijah’s enchanting.” He pointed to her bracelet. She looked down at it and then to Elijah, who shrugged.
“Yeah, I made it,” he told her, giving her a sympathetic smile. “I also enchanted the handcuffs, so they would work on you and only you. That way you couldn’t sleight of hand them onto one of us.”
“Well,” she tried to sound neutral, “fantastic.”
“You could just stop thinking about escaping,” Vincent offered, taking another sip of his coffee. “I mean, I know it’s a criminal’s natural instinct to run, but we’re doing you the favor here.”
“A favor would be letting me have my magic to protect myself,” she pointed out to him with a smile.
“We’ll think about.” He went back to reading his newspaper after that. She looked to her old friends and Jasper gave her a nod. Zander only shrugged.
“So helpful, guys,” she muttered to them.
“Yeah,” Zander grinned at her, “aren’t we just the best? Personally, I like the idea of you being stuck here for an indefinite amount of time. Jasper and I can now figure out why you dropped us out of your life.”
“Fuck you,” she told him plainly and started eating her breakfast. She didn’t drop them. Shit happened, and it hadn’t been a good idea to find them. They would never forgive her for any of it. “So, what’s the routine around here like?”
“We figured every day you’ll be with someone on the team, so we can get an accurate judge of your skills without your magic. We know what you can do with it, but we want to make sure you can hold your own without it. Weapons, firearms, and more hand-to-hand training.” Vincent told her without looking up from his reading.
Firearms? Disgust curled in her stomach for a moment. She detested them. If she wanted to kill someone, she would do it in their space, not from across the room like a coward. She opened her mouth to say something about Vincent forcing her to train in firearms, but Zander cut her off.
“Real martial arts, none of that nonsense, bar fighting you do,” Zander joked, and she raised an eyebrow at h
im, realizing he probably thought she was going to complain about more hand-to-hand training.
“I kick the shit out of wannabe MMA fighters all the time, Zander. Who here do you think is so good that I can’t win?”
“Me,” he told her, still smiling. She noticed that the idea of a fight brought him to life just like it did for her. His green eyes were blazing with the possibility of a little violence, and she could get down with that. There was something seriously wrong with them.
“Bring it,” she taunted, grinning and motioning for him to come closer with a finger. “Want to know why I’m going to win?”
“Why, little girl?” Zander leaned closer to her like she had wanted.
“Because I don’t need fancy-ass moves to put bodies on the floor.” She flicked his nose and he jerked back. “And I’m not afraid to fight a little dirty when it’s needed.”
Elijah was chuckling, and Jasper had a smile hidden behind his book. She kept her taunting grin, ready for anything Zander might have up his sleeve, but the fun was cut off.
“No fighting at the table,” Vincent commented, looking between them. Sawyer leaned back in her seat, distancing herself from the redhead.
“Yes, sir, Boss man,” she said with more sarcasm then she probably should have used. Vincent paid her no mind, but Elijah snorted milk through his nose.
“Is this going to be every morning with you?” he finally asked, wiping his face clean.
“Probably,” Zander chuckled.
She looked over at Jasper, still hiding behind his book and saw his shoulders shaking a little. He was holding back his laughter as well as he could.
“What are normal days like here?” She looked to Elijah and tried to ignore the quiet Quinn next to him.
“On weekends, we take time to ourselves.” Elijah ate a piece of bacon as he spoke. “During the week though, we all work out every morning together, starting with a five-a.m. run followed by two hours in the gym together. After that, we’ll separate to work on our own projects. We always meet for breakfast, but after that you can do whatever you want for meals.”
“Anything you want to do?” Jasper finally closed his book and put it on the table, watching her.
“I think I’m going to wander the property and see what you’ve got here.” She shrugged and began to push away from the table. “Also, Vincent, I’m not touching a gun, so you can free that time up for something else.”
He frowned at her as she picked up her plate. She met his eyes and began to walk out of the dining room. They could drag her here, they could remove her ability to escape, but they would never make her budge on the guns. She wouldn’t use one, even in training.
She rinsed her plate as a chair scraped against the floor and footsteps came up to her.
“Why not?” Vincent asked, putting a hand on the counter next to the sink. He kept his chest to her. She took a moment to admire that chest. He a good-looking man, even if he did reek of the same control-freak nature as Axel.
“Because I don’t fucking like them,” she snapped. Because she’d been shot before.
“That’s too bad for you,” Vincent snapped back. She bared her teeth. “Make this fucking easy on both of us and suffer through it.”
“No,” she told him with finality. With a curse, he slammed a fist on the counter top in frustration. Something about the gesture startled the hell out her, making her jump nearly out of her skin.
It was something Axel would do.
She closed her eyes and tried to fight the flashback creeping up on her. She tried to remember where she was and who she was with.
“Sawyer…” Vincent sounded concerned, and his voice was different from Axel’s. Deeper. It brought her back from a moment. “Sawyer, are you okay?”
“Just… go the fuck away,” she mumbled. “Even better, I’ll go.”
She turned and left, her blood cold. Adrenaline pumped through her system, and she took a deep breath as she pushed out onto the back porch and into the yard.
PTSD was a wicked thing, she knew that. With so much going on, she should have realized it would be easy for things to set her off—especially Vincent. He had reminded her so much of Axel in that moment.
She had been having a fairly decent morning. She rubbed her face for a moment, standing in the sun, hoping the heat would sink to her core.
“Sawyer?” Jasper’s voice reached out to her. She turned and sighed to see him standing on the back porch. She curled her toes in the grass and wondered when she had decided being barefoot was a bad thing. She used to love being barefoot in the grass as a kid, and somewhere along the way, she had stopped searching for the beautiful feeling of it.
“Jasper,” she said when he didn’t continue.
“Want to have a tour of the place?” He shuffled uncomfortably, and her heart squeezed a little. Jasper had always been uncomfortable with emotion, but this was his way of offering help.
“Yeah, I’d like that.” She gave him a weak smile, and he beckoned her to follow him. “How’s the IMPO treating you?” she asked as they made their way back into the house.
“Better than the IMAS.” Jasper gave her a small smile back. “They’re willing to work around the knee, and now hip, problems.”
“That’s good,” she followed him towards the stairs. “Where are we going?”
“I heard your run in with Zander last night, so I figured you should know whose room is whose, first.” He smiled at her and she groaned.
“You know, don’t you?” She side-eyed him and he nodded.
“He told me during boot camp.” He shot her an apologetic smile. “I don’t care. You know that, right?”
“I didn’t think you did,” she said nonchalantly. She did think he cared, at least when he first found out, even if he didn’t now. Things had been different that last six months before they left. Teenage hormones and tempers. Her own weird teenage girl feelings about the guys she grew up with, and their apparent weirdness about those feelings.
Jasper had been a virgin, and she had stupidly hit on him, trying to lose her own v-card while she was drunk and he was sober. Then she had rolled into bed with an even drunker Zander, like an idiot, because Jasper had turned her down. She had been so conflicted about her feelings for them both. She was almost a little thankful that they left when they did, because it had been getting to the point of nonsense.
“Well, here on the right, you know where Zander’s room is, and the bathroom,” he pointed to the third door as he spoke. They both studiously ignored the previous topic. “That one is me. Zander and I share the bathroom on this side.” He turned to the left and she followed. “The first door here is Vincent, then it’s Elijah. They share the bathroom on this side. Quinn’s bedroom is on the first floor, and he has a private bathroom, so you don’t need to worry about running into him up here, for the most part.”
“For the most part?” She didn’t miss that tacked on at the end of Jasper’s little second-floor tour.
“He does come up here to hang out.” Jasper shrugged. “Let’s go back down, and I’ll show you everything on the first floor, then the basement.”
“Basement?” She frowned. “You have a basement?”
“Yeah, we put a gym down there with all of our training equipment. Keeps it from prying eyes. Also, the entertainment room is down there.” Jasper led her down and began pointing out things she had already seen. Living room, rarely used unless there was company. Dining room and kitchen, check. A drawing room, never used and wasn’t even furnished. Quinn’s bedroom door, in the hallway that led to the backdoor.
She stayed quiet as he led them to the basement, through a small door near the kitchen that she had somehow missed. A narrow staircase led to a narrow hallway with three doors.
“Come on,” Jasper led her to the single door on the left and pushed it open. She nearly dropped her jaw.
“This is some state of the art shit,” she whispered in appreciation. They had it all from treadmills that hooked up to
the runner and monitored vitals to every piece of weight-training equipment she could think of. He pointed towards the back of the room and she saw an entire training area set up with a mat and mirrors.
“We are required to stay in the best shape we can be,” Jasper told her. “Hence, our schedule.”
“Damn, this is nice,” she chuckled. “Elijah told me you guys were paid well, but I wasn’t expecting this.”
“Actually, the gym stuff is from the IMPO, itself.” Jasper shrugged. “They give this equipment to all their top teams.”
“And I get to use this stuff?” She gestured around and resisted the urge to go touch all of it.
“You’ll be following our workout schedule, so yes.” Jasper nodded slowly. “Sawyer, about what happened in the kitchen with Vincent.”
She froze, and whatever shred of relaxation she found evaporated.
“Want to tell me about it?” he asked her softly.
“Not really,” she mumbled, still looking over the gym. She wasn’t officially diagnosed with PTSD, but she knew the signs. She wasn’t stupid. Charlie had tried to get her into therapy once, but she’d resisted. She could handle it on her own, and most of the time it didn’t affect her life. “Anymore cool facts you got about it?”
“You aren’t the only person in the house who deals with that kind of stuff.” Jasper watched her carefully. “You could talk to Quinn. He would understand better than the rest of us.”
“He’s…” She tried to find words that she didn’t make her sound rude or assumptive.
“He’s different,” Jasper nodded, “but don’t change the subject. You know, you can talk to me or Zander while you’re here, too. We would listen. I know I’m a stickler for rules, but I wouldn’t hold anything against you.”
“Thanks.” she gave him an indulgent smile. He would hold all of it against her. He might have turned a blind eye to her business in New York, but she didn’t think it would extend to murder. “I’ll consider it.”
She wanted to try, though. She wanted to open her soul and let the shadows pour out. She wanted to peel back the layers and find some peace with knowing the secrets were gone. She was accustomed to secrets and shadows, but she didn’t like them. If she could get rid of all of them, she would, but lives were on the line; and they were all safer if she kept her silence. She couldn’t forget that… But maybe he was right. Maybe there were a few things she could tell them just to get them off her chest without putting them in danger.
A Life Of Shadows Page 15