And now this.
It was the betrayal that cut her deeply. Sure, everyone had problems in their relationship and they were just the same. They weren’t perfect. But, in Kayleigh’s mind, it was as close to perfect as she could have ever wished for. She’d thought that Kelton had felt the same.
Obviously, something had gone wrong somewhere for him to do that. You didn’t run into the arms of another if you were perfectly happy with your partner.
She’d run. It was all she could do at the time. Flying to their rooms, grabbing what she could and taking the back stairs to make sure no one could catch up with her. The last thing she wanted was to see anyone. Kayleigh couldn’t bear the thought of seeing Kelton and having that betrayal flung in her face.
Grabbing a set of car keys, Kayleigh didn’t even think about what she was doing. Running out the back of the mansion, the cold wind had whipped around her. The chill of the night had brought her to her senses and she realised that there was nowhere for her to run.
The rest of the night passed in a blur. She found herself sitting in a motel room, all alone with tears pouring down her face. All she could think about was the pain she was feeling. She knew that being this emotional would be good for the pregnancy, but she couldn’t stop crying. Of all the things that had happened in her life, this was what had hit her the hardest.
Perhaps it was because they’d been together for so long and had worked hard to build what they had. Kelton was the only person alive that knew of her true nature and they’d worked hard to conceal it from the rest of the world. In him, she trusted. Now that trust had been broken.
Kelton stood in the window, as he did every night. Well, every night he wasn’t out on the streets searching for Kayleigh. He stood there waiting for her to come home.
He’d taken on more shifts than usual to go out in the field. It gave him more chance to search for her. Sitting around at the academy only meant that he got more frustrated and found his tempter boiling out of control.
So far, he’d had no luck. Kelton knew that it was a dangerous thing, but he was keeping one eye on his job, and the other looking for the love of his life. He knew that he was putting the others in danger by doing so, but he couldn’t help himself. The sooner he found her and had the chance to talk to her, to make her see that he would never willingly betray her, the sooner his life could get back on track.
It was like he was in limbo. Without Kayleigh, none of this made any sense to him. It was making him question every aspect of his life.
The moment he realised that she had left him had shattered him. It was almost a physical pain, the cramps in his stomach at the thought of losing her making him double over.
If only she had stayed and given him the chance to explain, not that any of what he could say to her would make sense. He still couldn’t get his head around what had happened. This was a royal nightmare.
How easily his life managed to fall apart in mere minutes.
Kelton would do everything and anything in his power to find her. What he would do when the time came that he set eyes on her, he didn’t know. He knew Kayleigh well enough to know that this was going to break her and that she’d need some time to herself to put the pieces back together. But, that was what he was there for. He was the one who wanted to hold her while she cried. He wanted to be the one to make it all better.
But, that wasn’t something he could do.
Seeing the girls walking around the mansion was a stab in his heart every single time he saw them. It was uncanny how much they looked like him. There was no denying that the woman he hated with a passion had been telling the truth. But, still, he couldn’t bring himself to speak to them yet. It was still too raw, too hard.
How was he supposed to be a ready-made father to teenager twins? He had no experience with that kind of thing, and frankly, he didn’t want it. Of course he knew that it was cold and that he should have been feeling something for these two girls that he had helped to create, but he didn’t want anything to do with them. To him, they represented everything he had lost in Kayleigh.
She was everything he had ever wanted and ever needed. She was more than he realised he’d ever wanted. All his live, he’d been devoted to the warrior-hood, training to be the best and making his way to the top. That night he found her had changed everything for him.
He could still clearly remember seeing her lying at the side of the road, a crumpled heap, already deep into the transition. His hand had automatically gone straight to the dagger that was sheathed to his belt. She was Lamia Mortuorum. She was the enemy. But, he couldn’t do it. There was something about her that called to him, something that told him she wasn’t what she seemed.
And how right he had been. Kayleigh was a fighter. She always fought for everything she wanted in life and he had fought by her side to keep her safe. They’d fought to keep their secret, the only other person that knew had been the Lamia Matris leader at the time, Bartholomew. He had also seen that fight within her and supported their desire to work against the monster within her.
But, now, when the going got tough, Kayleigh didn’t stay and fight for what they had. She’d run. She’d left him, standing there alone, feeling like the bottom had fallen out of his world. Well, he’d be the fighter now. He’d fight until his last breath to get her back and make this right. It wasn’t like he had intentionally gone out to hurt her and he needed to make her see that.
He needed to make her see that they were stronger than this.
He needed her to fight for them.
Chapter Two
Ash loved this time of year. Everything turned magical. Who could resist the lure of the magic of Christmas? Not her, that’s for sure. Who says that Christmas is all about the kids? Some people didn’t want to grow up and leave all that behind.
She was sat in the middle of her bed, surrounded by wrapping paper and her fingers were stuck together with sticky tape. Ash laughed to herself as she tried to unravel herself from the festive mess, even that couldn’t damper her spirits. It was all part of the fun.
A knock on the door had her calling out, “Come on in if you dare!” and she grinned like a loon when Jackson popped his head around the door.
“What’s going on in here? What are you doing?” he asked, smiling at the state that her bedroom was in. Aisline was usually such a neat freak that he found the mess she was in highly amusing.
“I’m just finishing up wrapping the last of my Christmas presents.”
“Wrapping the presents or wrapping yourself?” he laughed.
Ash blushed at the implication. She couldn’t help it. He hadn’t said it like there was some hidden meaning behind his words, but as their relationship was progressing, the thought flitted through her mind that she wouldn’t mind being unwrapped by him. Or finding him under the Christmas tree on Christmas morning, waiting for her in nothing but a bow.
She blushed even brighter and grinned to herself.
Jackson made no further comment as he shoved a pile of presents that had been wrapped in bright green, red and gold paper. There wasn’t a spare space on the bed, everything piled up high in a disorganised heap. One present in particular caught his eye. “For me?”
Ash made a grab for the package, but was unable to wrestle if from his grasp. For one, he was stronger than her, even when they were just playing. And for two, her hands were still tangled up in the sticky tape.
When Jackson poked at it and shook it roughly, she yelped, “If you open it or break it, you’ll be in for a world of pain, Jackson. I’m warning you.” She glared at him, deadly serious.
He held up his hands in mock surrender.
“Step away from the present.”
Jackson laughed, “Okay, okay.” He knew what she was like about Christmas, loving the old traditions and he loved to tease her mercilessly. They didn’t have time for that sort of thing at the academy and honestly, he didn’t know why she would want to waste her time on it. Christmas was a time for kids and they we
re long past that stage in their lives.
Placing the present back into the pile with the others, he turned to Aisline to help her get untangled.
“Thanks.” Ash flexed her fingers and smiled gratefully.
“Do you need a hand with any of this stuff? I can help.”
“No, thanks. I’m all done now.” She glanced over at the stack of gifts and her smile faded slightly. “I’ve got something for Kayleigh.”
They fell silent for a moment. “Do you think she’ll be back?” he asked in a quiet voice. None of them really understood what had happened to make her leave so abruptly. All they knew was what they’d been told and the official party line was that Kayleigh had gone away ‘on business’. None of them believed that. Kelton was a complete mess. It stood to reason that there was something more to the situation, but those that were in the know were keeping their lips tightly sealed.
Ash didn’t know what to think about it all. She knew that if this really was some kind of extended business trip that Kayleigh would have mentioned something to her before she’d left. She wouldn’t have skipped out without saying a word. Kayleigh just wasn’t like that at all. That’s what made this all the more worse. She hadn’t even had time to say goodbye to her.
They’d been through a lot together. They’d had their ups and downs, but that was expected in this extreme environment. Despite their problems, the two of them had forged a close friendship. Kayleigh had been Aisline’s mentor from the moment she had received the Sons of Satrina warrior mark and been dumped at the academy by her family. Kayleigh had been one of the main people that Ash had come to rely on in her time there.
Not only that, but they had the other two new recruits, Rhian and Cala. Kayleigh had done her little disappearing act on the night that they’d arrived, which was definitely not like Kayleigh. She was the kind of woman that would bend over backwards to make someone feel welcome, to make their lives easier. There was no way she would have run out and left the new students to settle in by themselves if it hadn’t been important. Only moments before, she’d been running around like a headless chicken, trying to get everything ready for their arrival, and then the next? She’d gone.
Of all the things that confused Aisline about the whole thing with Kayleigh was that she hadn’t said goodbye. She had just disappeared in the blink of an eye and no one seemed to know why or where she’d gone. Business trip? My ass. Ash wasn’t stupid. She didn’t believe that for one minute. It was one big mystery that she hadn’t yet managed to unravel.
“I don’t know what’s going on or what’s going to happen.”
Jackson shook his head. He was just as clueless about the whole situation as the rest of them. “Kelton is a mess.”
“Don’t let him hear you say that.” They were all in agreement on that one. It was as if the warrior was coming apart at the seams and no one was there to repair him. The only person that could do that for him had disappeared into the night.
“I’m just saying what everyone else is thinking. One minutes he’s spacing out, lost in his thoughts, and then the next he’s ripping someone a new one, and usually over nothing.”
“It can’t be easy for him. He loves her.”
“But, where is she? Where did she go? And why? No one seems to know.”
Ash didn’t bother to reply. She didn’t need to. No one had the answers to those questions and if they did, they weren’t telling. As students, it probably wasn’t their place to question, either, but that didn’t stop them. The trainees and the warriors were like one big family, so to have one of them run off like that, it was bound to get everyone worried. The silence surrounding her departure worried them even more. They all could understand if it was personal, between Kelton and Kayleigh, but telling them something to put their minds at rest would have been better than nothing at all.
“Was he that bad again this morning?” Ash had been relieved to have been in the group that had been sent to the library to do research, rather than training with Kelton. It was true what Jackson had said, he was getting unbearable. They were all doing their best to try and keep up with the harsh regime, but it was getting tough.
If she’d thought that the trainee regime had been tough when she had first started at the academy, then this was downright brutal. Each and every one of them in his training class worked themselves ragged just to keep up with everything he was throwing at them. Aisline knew that even those trainees that were getting ready to graduate after their years of training would have had trouble with keeping up with Kelton’s pace. It was nearly impossible, but they were all trying their best not to falter under the pressure. After all, that was what being a warrior was all about, rolling with the tough times and battling your way through it.
“That bad? Are you kidding? He was worse. He jumped down Caleb’s throat for no reason.”
“Caleb? Is he okay?” Ash asked, shocked. Sure, they all knew that the shifter could be cocky and arrogant, especially now that he was settling into life at the academy, but Kelton had never had a bad word to say about him. Caleb worked hard during training and kept to himself most of the time. He was going to make a hell of a fierce warrior, despite all that he had to overcome.
“You should have seen him. Kelton went mental. All Caleb did was pause before lunging. There was no need for Kelton’s reaction.” Jackson shook his head.
She was glad that she’d missed that little altercation. Caleb was a good guy and kept his head down, doing what he had to do to get through this. Making the changes to this life hadn’t been easy for him and it was still an uphill struggle. He certainly didn’t need Kelton coming down on him like a tonne of bricks and making the process even more difficult for him.
Ash nodded. Things were definitely getting worse the longer that Kayleigh was away. Their training schedule was starting to suffer. All the trainees in her group were constantly on tenterhooks, never knowing what the next day was going to bring them. It wasn’t exactly great for moral, that’s for sure.
“Are you coming down? It’s almost time for dinner.” Jackson asked as he stood up.
“Yeah, I’ll be down in a bit. Just let me clear up this stuff and I’ll meet you down there.” Ash looked around her room. It looked like a Christmas bomb had hit it.
“Are you sure you don’t want a hand?”
“No, thanks. I’ll be fine. It won’t take me two minutes to get sorted. You go on down.”
“Okay.” Jackson leant over to kiss her gently on the cheek. “I’ll see you in a minute.”
As he walked out the door, Ash held a hand up to her cheek, her fingers resting on the place where his lips had been only moments before. It was sometimes a jolt to think how close they had become. It was like it had snuck up on them. Their friendship had been repaired and now they had so much more. Ash grinned to herself as she thought about the hassle and trouble they’d gone through to get to where they were.
Despite neither of them wanting a relationship or anything that would distract them from their training at the academy, they hadn’t been able to stop it from happening. It was truly like it was meant to be. They’d been through so much, they couldn’t deny it any longer.
Ash knew that even if their relationship fizzled out that they would always have their friendship. Not that she didn’t think they’d last the long haul, because she did, but their friendship was the strong foundation. Jackson was pretty much everything she’d ever wanted in a boy and sometimes her feelings for him scared the living crap out of her, but it was a good scary feeling. They were right together. It felt right.
Jackson couldn’t really understand Ash’s enthusiasm over the Christmas period. That was a time for kids and they had grown up past all that bullshit now. They had more important things to think about, like training their asses off to make the best goddamn warriors this race had ever known.
Jackson’s drive to become the best had increased beyond anything he could have ever thought possible. The two main things that he could pinpoint
that made him want to work harder than ever were the shifters coming to the mansion, and Aisline’s abduction.
When the shifters had descended, it was amazing to see the warriors getting down to business, each one knowing exactly where they needed to be and what was expected of them. It had amazed him that the trainees were even included in the action, but it gave them all a thirst for more.
There was no way he ever wanted to be so unprepared, like he and the rest of the trainees had been when the shifters descended. There had been a nervous energy buzzing around the place, but there had never been any doubt that they’d be able to defend the academy.
Needless to say, it had been a bit of a shock that some of the shifters had been able to breach the entrance way, but it had been down to the trainees not being prepared. That wasn’t their fault, as the warriors never envisioned something like that happening on their own turf. The location was kept secret for a reason.
When it was all over and done with, the instructors had gone over and over what had happened, what could have happened and what they needed to focus on in their training to make sure nothing like that happened again. It was, in a way, a good thing it happened. It gave all the trainees a fresh impression of everything they needed to be ready for in the future. The dangers weren’t just out there on the street. They had to be ready at all times for anything to happen.
The whole abduction with Aisline had spurred Jackson to train harder than ever and it was still a primary motive for him to do his best. They hadn’t been ready to go out on the streets and it was a bad move. It was damn lucky that they’d got her back and Jackson had been the one to plow on through when things looked impossible. There was no way he was going to leave her at the mercy of the enemy. There had never been any doubt in his mind that they were going to get her back.
She’d tried to hide how much it affected her, and still did, but Jackson could see through her bullshit. Ash was pushing herself to prove that she was as tough as any of the guys and forget about what happened to her, but the fear was still in her eyes when something jogged her memory. If he could do something to take away that fear, he’d do it. But, he couldn’t, so all he could do was be there for her, encouraging her and helping her to overcome her fears, even if she didn’t realise he was doing it.
Changing Fates: A Sons of Satrina Novel (The Sons of Satrina Book 3) Page 2