“And you should have trusted me and stuck around to ask me what was going on, rather than running off and ruining the day I had planned for us!” Jackson’s voice rose, drawing the attention of some of the trainees who were walking down the hallway. Lowering his voice again, he pulled Ash closer to the wall for a little privacy. “You should have trusted me.”
“All I could see was her with her hands on you and you didn’t do anything about it. What did you expect me to think?”
“You should have talked to me. Look, you don’t like her, I get it. But, you have to trust me. I’m not interested in her like that. She’s just lonely and needs a friend. What’s the problem with that?”
“It’s a big problem.”
“You can’t dictate who I’m friends with, Ash.”
She knew that was a reasonable thing to say, but she couldn’t be reasonable where Rhian was concerned. “I hate it.”
“Ash, why would I be interested in her? I’ve got you. I don’t want anyone else.”
She could feel those dreaded tears forming in her eyes and quickly blinked them away. “I can’t stand her, Jackson.”
“But, do you trust me?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then. We don’t have a problem, do we?”
Ash refused to look at him. She remained looking at the floor until she heard him sigh and walk away from her without another word, leaving her alone. Still, she didn’t look up. She couldn’t.
She knew that she was acting badly and that everything Jackson had said made sense. She did trust Jackson, she did. But, it was Rhian she didn’t trust. Until she could get her emotions with regards to that girl under control, she and Jackson were going to be in a bad place that she wasn’t sure how to get out of.
This was her fault. It was her problem. She would have to be the one to work a way out of it and hope that Jackson would still be there waiting for her when she did.
“Have you heard the latest gossip?”
“What bullshit’s going around now?” Ash laughed, pleased that they were back on track.
“Kelton is the twin’s father.”
She looked at him, shocked, “Rhian and Cala?”
“Do you know any other twin’s around here?” Jackson smirked.
“There’s no way that can be right.”
“Apparently, Rhian told Denver.”
“Well, then it’s definitely not true. There’s no way that either of them would tell the truth.” She still couldn’t stand the sight of Denver. He’d been a thorn in her side ever since she’d started at the academy. After the ‘incident’ with the Mortuorum, he’d faded into the background for a while, keeping quiet and keeping to himself most of the time. It hadn’t taken him too long to regain his cock-sure confidence and start causing trouble at the academy again. That boy would never stay down for long.
“You can see some similarities between them, though.”
“I can’t see it.” Ash turned her nose up.
“Because you don’t want to.”
She smirked. “I can see how Cala would be related. But, Rhian’s nothing like him at all.”
“It’s probably because they’ve been brought up without him. It’s not just genetics that shapes the kind of person you are. It’s the influences you have in your life.”
“And from all I’ve heard, their mother is a bitch, so that makes sense.”
Jackson shook his head at her but refrained from comment. He still didn’t see Rhian as badly as Ash did, but there was no swaying her. The girls would never get on so he wasn’t going to push it. He was just glad Aisline wasn’t avoiding him anymore.
“I wonder if that’s why Kayleigh went away?”
“That makes sense.”
“Anyway, I guess we’ll find out soon enough.” Aisline smiled at Jackson, feeling bad for the way she’d been treating him lately. They had enough on their plate without all the training, it wasn’t like he had the time to cheat on her. Hell, they barely had time for a relationship themselves. But, time would work it out for them.
Chapter Twenty One
After training, Caleb poked his head into Jackson’s room. “Where’s Trey? I can’t find him anywhere and he promised that I could kick his ass on ‘Advanced Warfare’ again.”
Jackson sat up in his bed and pulled his earphones out. He was thoroughly exhausted after the session that Master Warrior Dixon had put them through, plus the encounter with Aisline had left him mentally drained. You would have thought that he would have handled the situation a little better seeing as he had grown up around a bunch of girls, but no. He’d somehow managed to put his foot in it and upset Aisline even further. He knew the only way to put things right between them again was to take her side and stop talking to Rhian, but he couldn’t do that. Sure, he knew that she was playing some kind of game with Ash, but Jackson could see how lonely she was. He understood, to a degree, what it must be like for her. She’d come into the academy and was the odd one out. That was the way he’d felt when he was growing up and surrounded by people that didn’t share the same mark as him.
It had been a killer work out and he and Denver had been partnered up together, which made it all the more brutal. When an instructor says light contact, the majority of the trainees listen. Denver never listened. He was always out to prove that he was the big man and could take anyone on. Well, Jackson never let him get away with that deluded train of thought and spent all his time knocking him down a peg or two.
Despite being so exhausted he could hardly move his limbs, Jackson welcomed the change of having Dixon taking charge of their lessons. It made a welcome change to seeing Kelton’s sour face. Perhaps now that Kayleigh had made a welcome return, life would get a bit easier at the academy for everyone.
“I’ve no idea where he is. He disappeared before I even woke up this morning and everyone’s been looking for him since.” Jackson shrugged. “Have you checked the others? See if they know where he’s gone?”
“I’ve checked everywhere and asked everyone. No one knows where he is.”
“I don’t know what’s going on with him lately. This isn’t the first time he’s gone AWOL.” Jackson said, looking worried.
“Really?”
“Yeah. The warriors have pulled me up a couple of times to see if I know where he is because I share a room with him, but he hasn’t told me anything. It’s not like Trey at all.”
Caleb shook his head. “I don’t understand.” Backing out of the room, he held a hand up to Jackson, “I’ll go see if Rees wants his ass kicked instead. Let me know if you hear anything about Trey, okay?”
“Sure, man.”
“Thanks, Jax.”
Jogging up and down the stairs and the corridors of the various corners of the mansion, Caleb couldn’t find Trey anywhere, nor could he find anyone that had seen him recently. Like he’d told Jackson, this wasn’t really a life or death situation, it was simply a gamer thing, but now he was getting worried. Trey was one of the good guys, one of the one’s that had never judged him for being different to them. Trey was one of the few people at the academy that Caleb would happily call a friend.
After a while, he had to give up. Trey was nowhere to be seen and Rees was busy with some of the guys from his own training class. Caleb didn’t want to intrude. He was happy his little brother was making a name for himself in this place and fitting in well with the others. He was a good kid and Caleb wanted the best for him.
Heading towards the library, he knew that was the one place he would be able to get some peace. If he couldn’t have a gaming night with Trey, he’d swat up on some of the stuff he’d been promising to do. Kelton had taken him to one side a few weeks ago and told him that learning about the history of the Lamia Matris and their enemy might help give him some understanding to what he was working towards. At the time, Caleb had brushed it off, knowing that he had enough on his plate with keeping up with the training, but the more he thought about it, the more it made sense.
; He’d started his research a few nights ago and his head was already swimming with more information than he knew what to do with and he knew that what he had read so far was only scratching the surface. There was a hell of a lot of information to get through, but he knew that if he was going to be a warrior for these people, the least he could do was learn a bit more about them.
Aisline had been right. She’d also told him to do this when he had first been dumped at the academy when the warrior mark had made its appearance. There was no way he could relate to any of it. He knew nothing about their culture, what they did or what they expected of the warriors. Frankly, back then, he couldn’t have given a crap.
It had taken him quite a bit of time to settle into life at the academy and once he had, he knew that he had to do more than just the training. When he finally settled down and took an interest in what was going on around him, the gravity of the situation dawned on him.
He was going to be a warrior. He was going to be one of the Sons of Satrina. They were the protectors of the Lamia Matris, but it was so much more than that. They protected so many more people than just the Matris, although they were the main focus. Those animals didn’t just prey on the Lamia Matris; the whole world was their oyster. It was a fight that the Sons took on willingly, to protect the world from those monsters. Just reading about it made Caleb’s blood boil.
It was quite awe inspiring, even Caleb had to admit that. And, he was way out of his depths. He realised now that he had come into this situation blind and had willingly stayed that way out of sheer stubbornness. Only now was he just starting to open his eyes.
Caleb walked into the silence of the library. This was one place that he could relax and immerse himself in his studying. No one really came in here, preferring to be getting physical in the gym or doing their research on the internet in the computer rooms. Personally, he preferred going old school and being able to flick through the pages of a real book.
As he crossed the room, he spotted Ash. “Well, I should have known that I’d find you in here.” He grinned. She was the only other person that he ever saw in there.
“This was the last place I expected to see you tonight.” She grinned back. “Can you even read?”
He gave her a playful shove. “I was going to kick some butt on the Xbox, but Rees is busy with his friends, so I thought I’d carry on with my research.”
Aisline knew what he was doing and was pleased that he had finally taken her advice.
“Have you seen Trey?”
Ash put her book down on the table after carefully marking her place with a bookmark. “No. I haven’t seen him all day. The last time I saw him was at dinner last night. He was talking to Dylan, I think.”
Caleb felt like groaning. No matter how much he wanted to carry on with his research right now, he needed to find out where Trey was. There was a niggling thought in the back of his mind that something was wrong, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to rest until he found him. “Dylan? Have you seen him?”
“I thought I saw him in one of the rec rooms when I was on my way in here.” She’d spotted him in there and retreated quickly, not wanting to get caught up in some Die-Hard marathon that he had going on.
“I guess I’ll go try there, then.” Caleb groaned.
“Good luck with that!” Ash laughed behind him as he walked out.
“Sarcasm doesn’t become you.” He called over his shoulder, Aisline’s laughter following him down the corridor.
Caleb trotted down the stairs and headed towards the rec rooms. The rest of the mansion was relatively quiet as most of the trainees were exhausted from training and were chilling in their rooms. He followed the sound of gun fire from the television into one of the rooms.
“Dylan?”
“Hey, man.” Dylan waved him over, not taking his eyes off the screen, but grinning as wide as a Cheshire cat. “Have you come to watch this? It’s awesome. Real old-school shit.”
“Nope. I’m just looking for Trey. Have you seen him?”
“He’s not here.”
“I gathered that.” Caleb shook his head. “Where is he?”
Dylan’s eyes shifted from the screen momentarily. “I’ve no idea.”
Caleb could smell his lie a mile off. “Bullshit. Come on, where is he?”
“I can’t say.”
“Sure you can.”
“No. Look, Caleb, I promised him I wouldn’t say anything to anyone.”
Caleb frowned. This was sounding stranger and stranger. “Just tell me where he is.”
Dylan sighed and gave up on the film, pausing it so he could talk. “I can’t. He’ll throttle me.”
“Really?” Caleb smirked. “You know Trey’s not like that. But, I am.”
“What?”
“Tell me where he is or I’ll have to pound it out of you.” Caleb narrowed his eyes and Dylan took a step back from him.
“You wouldn’t.”
“Try me.” Caleb was getting royally pissed off with chasing around after Trey now, but there was clearly something going on and he wanted to get to the bottom of it.
“Shit, man. I promised.” Dylan whined.
Caleb didn’t say anything but waited for Dylan to spill the beans.
Dylan sighed, looking defeated. “He went to surprise Starr.”
“Starr?”
“Yeah, Starr.”
Shit. Starr was Caleb’s cousin and Trey had met her by chance on the night that the shifters had tried to storm the academy. Caleb was dumbstruck. He knew that Trey had a major crush on her, but he hadn’t really thought anything else about it. There hadn’t been any reason to when it had never been mentioned again. He would have never believed that Trey would have gone behind his back like this, keeping such a secret from him.
“What do you mean? Has he seen her before this?” Caleb asked through clenched teeth.
It wasn’t that he didn’t approve of Trey. Hell, the guy was one of his closest friends, but that wasn’t the point. Shifters and vampires were never going to be a very good mix. It wasn’t a good idea to pursue this. If he had known what was going on, he would have done his best to talk Trey out of it. The pack would never understand something like this.
“Yeah. I think he has anyway. I know that they’ve been speaking a lot.”
“Why didn’t anyone tell me about this? She’s my cousin, for Christ’s sake.”
“Which is exactly why he didn’t tell you.” Caleb smirked, “You didn’t see your reaction when you found out he liked her in the first place. You looked like you wanted to tear him apart with your bare hands.” Dylan dropped the smirk and took a step back. “Kind of like how you’re looking right now.”
“Someone should have told me.” Caleb hissed.
“Why? What difference would it have made?”
“I should have been told. I might have been able to talk some sense into the idiot.” Caleb snapped.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want his friend to be happy, or that Starr was a bad person, because she wasn’t. She was like a sister to him. In another world, they would have made the perfect couple. But, not in this world. It was too complicated. The pack wouldn’t understand.
After the problem at the mansion with the shifters and the vampires, Patrick had managed to get the pack back under control. Even though Caleb wasn’t living on pack land anymore didn’t mean he didn’t know what was going on back there. It had been a bit of a struggle. Not everyone agreed that Caleb and Rees should have been sent off to the academy, but Patrick stood by his decision, and so did Caleb. This was the right place to be for them, even if it did mean being away from the pack.
But, a vampire in a relationship with a pack member? That was a whole different ball game.
“How long has this been going on for? How far has it gone?” He knew that it wasn’t a question he should be asking, especially not asking Dylan, but he had to know. He had to know how serious things were.
“I don’t know, man. All I know is that he
really likes her. He wouldn’t do anything to hurt her, you know that, don’t you?”
Caleb reluctantly nodded his head. Trey was a good guy. That wasn’t the problem here. “Do you know where they were meeting?” He knew it wasn’t a good idea and it wouldn’t be easy to get away, but he wanted to swing by and make sure everything was alright. He had a really bad feeling about all this.
“They weren’t. He was going to go over and surprise her.”
Caleb’s eyes flashed dangerously. “What the hell do you mean, surprise her?” The warning bells in the back of his mind were starting to make siren calls.
Dylan wanted to run away and hide from the look in Caleb’s eyes. There was no way he was a coward and could more than handle himself, hell, he was training to be a warrior, but the look in Caleb’s eyes put him instantly on edge.
“He’s going over to her house to surprise her.”
“Shit!” Caleb roared, whirling around on his heels and raced out of the room without a backwards glance at Dylan.
He didn’t know where to go or who to speak to. Hopefully, everything would be fine and his worry would be for nothing, but a vampire walking on to pack land? That could spell major trouble for everyone.
Kelton. He was the first person that Caleb thought to go to, but with Kayleigh only just returning to the academy, he knew that he would be otherwise engaged. If he had hard evidence that something bad was going down, he knew that Kelton wouldn’t mind him interrupting his peace, but with just a hunch? Caleb didn’t want to risk it.
Caleb ran down to the ground floor and skidded around the corner. Luckily, there was no one else at the bank of pay phones. He needed to speak to Patrick. He was the pack Alpha. He’d know what to do. There would be no way that he wanted any more trouble caused to or by the pack and would sort this out quickly and quietly.
Tapping his fist as the phone incessantly rang, it was soon clear that Patrick wasn’t going to pick up.
What the hell was he supposed to do about this? This could turn into a nightmare if they didn’t act quickly. And he refused to think of what could happen to Trey.
Changing Fates: A Sons of Satrina Novel (The Sons of Satrina Book 3) Page 24