by Lia Davis
Slamming the door behind me, I went straight for the bed, not even taking a shower or brushing my teeth. Phenex climbed in behind me, wearing the pajama pants and tee that I now recognized as being my own. Chuckling, I spooned him, and my Empathy picked up something amazing.
Nothingness. He was a blank. With a gasp, I sat up. "I can't read you."
"Oh, you can, hang on." He sucked in a deep breath and his emotions washed over me. He was apprehensive and excited. He wanted the mate thing to work out.
"I knew you were an Empath. I'm able to block my emotions quite well. I thought it might help you sleep."
"It will, for sure. You might have to sleep with me, like, every night."
I smiled and burrowed into him, putting my arm around his waist. As weird as it was to go straight to bed with a hellhound shifter that was my asexual mate that I would share with my triplet sisters, it just felt right.
Time to embrace the weird.
Chapter Nine
I stood in a meadow with yellow and white wildflowers rising tall above the green grass. The air was cool, yet the blooming flowers and tiny white butterflies said it could be spring. Where the hell was I?
Turning in a slow circle, I took in my surroundings and looked to see if I recognized where I was. Snow-covered mountains stretched to the bright blue sky in the backdrop of the landscape.
Everything seemed real and somewhat normal. Except for the lack of animal sounds. There were no birds singing. No crickets chirping.
I’d been sucked into some weird alternate reality. That had to be the only logical answer. Or it was a dream. A vision?
The sound of footsteps echoed around me, and I whirled, ready to face whoever approached me, but no one was there. "Hello. Who’s there?"
"It is nice to meet you, Tala." A woman’s voice behind me caused me to whirl again, crouching in a defensive stance, to take her in.
She looked like Mom with lighter hair. It wasn’t quite black. But she wasn’t mom. "Grandma?" I asked, amazed.
Tears filled her eyes as she nodded and held out her hands. "I’m overwhelmed with joy that I finally get to meet you."
Her emotions spilled over me, and I choked back my own sob as I stumbled toward her, falling into her arms. Mom had told us about Grandma Tina, sharing the stories of when she was young. Of course, Grandpa Graham loved telling them, too. "How is this possible?"
"This is the spirit world. Because you and your sisters are Lucifer's granddaughters, you have the ability to visit this realm. I was able to reach you easier than them because of your visions." Grandma pulled out of our embrace to stare into my eyes.
"Why am I here?"
A beautiful but sad smile formed on her face. "There is a great battle coming. You had a vision of one possible outcome. The ancestors sent me to you to start your training. The three of you must learn to connect in a way you never have and combine your powers in order to defeat the evil that is coming."
Frowning, I stepped fully out of her embrace. "You can’t tell me who is behind the attack, can you?"
"I do not know who it is." She studied me for a long moment before saying, "I’m here to help you train and prepare for the worst."
It had been worth a shot to ask. I figured I wouldn’t get an answer anyway. From what I knew about the ancestors, they didn’t get involved in the lives of the living, aside from the fated mates thing. "When does the training start?"
"Tonight. Now. Use your psychic connection with your sisters to enter their minds while they sleep and bring them here." Grandma spoke as if it was no big deal.
I pursed my lips and thought about it. Was it that simple? I’d never entered my sister’s minds when they were sleeping. I’d never had a reason to. What if they were dreaming? Would I be sucked into their dream?
Here goes.
I sought out Ami’s mind first. Relief shuddered through me when I didn’t step into some wet dream. "Ami. I need you to follow me."
"T, what is it?" Ami’s voice filled my mind, and she was worried.
"We’re going to the spirit world. It’s easier to show you."
Just then Meda entered my mind. "What’s going on?"
It figured Meda would be sensitive to Ami and I connected telepathically.
Ami was the one to answer. "We’re going to the spirit world."
Meda felt uneasy. "Why?"
"Grandma Tina came to me in my sleep. She says we must train and learn to connect our powers to fight the evil that is coming." I held out my spirit to them so they could follow me to the spirit world.
Meda’s features turned to a mix of sadness and happiness. "Grandma Tina?"
"Yes. Come on so you can meet her. It’s true that Mom looks so much like her. She beautiful." Clinging to my sisters’ consciousnesses, I moved through the dream world into the spirit world.
Turned out it was as easy as walking with the intent of going back to Grandma Tina.
She waited for us in the field of flowers, the sun illuminating her so she seemed to glow. Ami and Meda ran to her and threw their arms around her, asking questions at rapid speeds.
Grandma laughed, embracing them both. "We don’t have much time, but I will answer your questions over time. You must come to me often to train. What I'm going to teach you will challenge your powers, your will, and your strengths. It will not be easy and will not happen overnight. I hope you learn enough before the battle reaches you."
Meda straightened. "We’re ready." She set her jaw, looking like the weight of the world was on her shoulders.
She was the heir, but it sounded like we’d have to work as one to defeat Calista and whatever big bad she had coming. "Grandma," I said. "Are you saying this is more than Calista coming for us?"
She studied my face carefully. "That is the impression I got from the ancestors, yes. They know what is coming, but will not interfere any more than this."
Grandma waved a hand and Phenex appeared. His handsome features turned wicked as he stood in front of us. "Good evening, my mates."
I looked at Grandma. "Why is he here?"
"He was sent to be your guardian. The mate thing I’m not sure about. So, good luck with that." She laughed as if she was glad it wasn’t her who had to deal with all the mates we had. "However, besides the fact that he is a mate for each of you, the ancestors think he can help with the training and add something extra to your growing strengths."
"Why?"
"I am a center." He looked smug, pleased with himself, but Meda, Ami, and I looked at one another in bewilderment.
"What’s that?" Ami asked.
"I can help you learn to ground your powers. Though, it may not work properly until you’ve all claimed me."
"Uh, claimed you?" Meda’s eyebrows were about to crawl off of the top of her forehead. "That’s very private."
"I think in our case, it won’t be. The sexual component will be absent."
"How do you know that?" I asked, curious if he’d been mated with someone before. "Have you had a mate?"
"A very long time ago, yes. She died." His emotions washed over with sorrow as he thought of her, and I stepped forward without thought. My sisters did as well, and they didn’t have the Empathic ability to feel his emotions.
"I’m sorry," I whispered as I held out a hand.
"It was very long ago, and I have made my peace with it." He took my hand and smiled. Comfort washed over him, and as a result, me. "But I can help you find your elemental and core connection with each other."
I glanced at my sisters then to Phenex. "What do we do first?"
Phenex snapped his fingers and a couple of low-level demons materialized. "You will need to combine your powers to defeat them. Not your elements, but your core powers."
Our core powers? Did we have any?
Just then I sensed Meda’s Alpha power rise and she fell into a defensive stance. Ami was next. The air around us stirred. I snarled and eyed both the demons, my water boiling inside me. Each one of us automatically reach
ed for our elements. It was as much a part of us as our lycan and vampire sides. Three parts that made a whole.
"Reach deep inside and find the center that connects your three parts."
I searched my mind, following the threads of my wolf, vampire, and water. When I found it, I gasped. I’d never traced the threads of my being to find the source of me. From the looks on my sisters’ faces, they hadn’t either.
I drew my magic into that place and built it up.
After my magic gathered into a ball, I threw it at the demons. Streams of blue light shot out of my hands. When it hit the demons, it splashed off of them like a water balloon. The demons laughed and charged at me.
Meda did the same thing I did with fire. She only managed to piss the demons off and burn their clothes.
Ami hit them with her ball of air and was able to throw them back several yards. She waved her hands at them, and they froze. She had the power to freeze objects for a few seconds, but it was a sketchy power. It didn’t always work.
I tried again, but focused on only one of the demons. My energy ball was stronger and bigger. Yet, it still had the same effect. The demon turned and charged at me. I twisted and shot a stream of water at him while pulling in Ami’s air to freeze it into an icicle. It hit the demon in the shoulder, cutting through him like a bullet. He screamed and fell to the ground. I didn’t stop there. All my rage and fear fueled me to finish the demon.
"Stop!" Phenex’s voice boomed around us. I froze, meeting his stare. His features softened slightly and he shook his head. "You must work together. In your vision, your elemental magic was taken. Learn to fight without it. Combine your other strengths and magic with your sisters."
I folded my arms and glared at him, fighting the urge to curl up into his warmth. Having a non-sexual mate was confusing. "We do connect our powers. We can communicate telepathically and use each other’s elements."
"Exactly." Phenex crossed his arms, mimicking me. "You use each other’s elements and gifts for your own purpose. You need to learn to combine them into one and use your inherent powers."
He waved his hand and the demon I stabbed with my large icicle vanished. Another demon materialized in his place.
Meda glanced at me then Ami before she stepped forward and created an energy ball. There was no fire and she didn’t pull from my water. I stared, wondering how she was doing it. She must’ve pulled the thoughts from my mind because she answered my question. "I’ve been working with Sterling with my magic. Each of us has it deep inside. After all, our grandparents are celestial beings with great powers. We get our power from them."
She was right. I never thought to pull from Poppy or LilyPad’s power. "Plus there’s magic that runs in the Earth. The ley lines. You could pull from them as well." Phenex’s soothing voice washed over me. Closing my eyes, I stretched out my senses and drew power from the closest source that wasn’t my sisters’. It flowed into me with ease, like it had always been there waiting for me.
Within moments I formed my own energy ball. I glanced up to see Ami had too. We walked toward Meda with our balls. Standing in a circle, we moved our orbs of power to the center of us until they merged. Once our magic was in one ball, the power within swirled and changed colors--red, then silver, then blue, then black. When it combined, suddenly I felt the link between the three of us. Like it had been there, glowing and powerful all along, the link to our core powers pulsated.
Sparks of electrical energy arced off the ball and grew. We stepped back and as a defense mechanism, my water heated and rose to the surface, seeping out of my pores. I tried to call it back, but it wasn’t obeying. What the fuck was going on?
The water flowed from my hands, then surrounded me until I was inside a large bubble of water. The same one I drowned myself in when I couldn’t cope with reality.
Time passed. It could’ve been seconds, but felt like hours. Phenex stepped inside my bubble, into the water, and framed my face in his hands. We locked gazes, and I watched his teal eyes shift from light to dark. A sense of calm washed over me like a smooth stream of water meandering down a mountain. I hadn’t realized until that moment that I was panicking.
The bubble broke, and I sank into Phenex’s arms, hugging him close. Moments later Meda and Ami wrapped their arms around both of us.
I failed. My water failed and took on a life of its own. How were we going to win against an evil so much more powerful than we were?
Grandma stepped closer. "I think this is enough for now. We need to go about it differently. I would like to meet every other night until you master this. It is of the utmost importance. You’ll work on other things in the meantime. Your homework until we meet again is to meditate together. Use Phenex as your center. He can help you girls find your ground and combine your powers without them fighting against each other."
I nodded, drained and defeated. Walking over to Grandma, I gave her a hug. She wrapped her arms around me and kissed my forehead. Then she framed my face. "You three are far more powerful than you know. And you did good today."
I nodded, not feeling much better. "Baby steps."
"Yes," she said with a smile. Then she went to Meda and Ami, giving them the same pep talk and hugs.
With a glance to Phenex, I withdrew from the spirit world.
What if we didn’t gain control over our full powers before the attacks? We were all doomed.
Chapter Ten
When my spirit entered my body, or conscious entered my mind, or whatever the hell it was that took me to the spirit world, I immediately rolled over and tried to sleep.
Talking about what happened was not happening. My water did what the fuck it wanted to, no matter what I thought about it.
It was supposed to be my strength, my foundation. Sure, I was a vampire, and a lycan and that made me fast and strong. Blah, blah, blah. What was me, though, was my water. Even the way I moved, the way I regarded the world. It was fluid and ever-changing. If anything could be counted on, it was the flow and feel of water. It could sustain, it could heal.
And it could maim and kill.
But whatever it did, it did it at my will, my bequest.
Sleep finally came, and thankfully it was dreamless.
The next morning, I shuffled out into the kitchen to see if any coffee had been made. There was a piping hot pot waiting, but unfortunately it came with a room full of people.
I hardcore wasn't in the mood for peopling.
"Good morning," Meda said in a far-too-cheery voice. She and Ami descended on me in the kitchen while their mates and mine and the sentries watched from the living area.
"Why is everyone here?" I asked groggily. I'd slept like a rock, surprisingly enough. After the spectacular failure I'd figured I'd toss and turn.
"Because they're sort of our entourage. We are stuck with them now." Ami shrugged. "It's not so bad."
I gave her a questioning look. "Says you, the one that most loves to be left alone to read. You're telling me you like all these people around?"
She looked over at the people, and I gave myself exactly one guess who she was looking at. "Yeah, I think I do."
"Are we going to talk about what happened last night?" Meda asked.
"Fuck. No." I stared her down, daring her to challenge me. "We'll do our homework assignment tonight, like Grandma Tina asked. Until then, I'm processing." Yawning, I drank more of the coffee. "Mmmm, this is good."
"You hate coffee," Meda said suspiciously. "I mean, I appreciate how often you make it for us, but you never drink it yourself."
"I guess my tastes are changing," I said. "I craved it from the second I woke up." Stifling another yawn, I refilled the mug and turned back toward my bedroom. "I'm going to take a shower."
Kevin popped up from the crowd in the living room. "Maybe hurry?"
I let my gaze rake over him. Flutters of desire stirred inside me. I smirked before turning toward the bedroom, not resisting the urge to tease him. "Maybe."
"I want to take you
out today," he said, following me into my bedroom.
Part of me wanted to kick him out, but as I eyed Phenex, snoozing away in my bed, I decided to be a little mean. Grabbing the hem of my shirt, I pulled it up and over my head, throwing it on the ground at Kevin's feet. My bedroom door stood wide open. Ami, at least, had a clear view of me standing in nothing but a lacy teal thong. Her eyebrows went up, but she didn't look away. It wasn't like she didn't see the same body in the mirror. So far, our bodies had grown and shaped pretty close to the same. Meda was a little more toned, but she worked out the most. Ami was the softest.
Kevin made no attempt to hide his gaze as it raked over my body. Damn if his stare didn’t feel like a physical touch. Who was I torturing, him or me? Stealing my spine and pushing the raging desire in my core, I let him have a good, long look, then turned and walked into my bathroom, shutting the door firmly behind me. Hopefully I gave him a taste of what he'd done to me in the hall the other day.
Even though I'd been a bit of snot to him before the shower, I did try to hurry. He'd come over to take me out, and I didn't want us to be at odds forever. Plus I was way too curious to see what he had planned.
My stunt today would be enough. I'd stop making him suffer for rejecting me. Especially seeing how romantic it was when you got right down to it.
Besides, after the way my water had behaved in the spirit world, I really didn't want to be around it, or in it. Too bad it was a part of me.
After a quick shower, I dressed in an empty room. Phenex had vacated the premises while I was in the bathroom.
Stepping out into the common area, I ignored everyone else and focused on Kevin. Dealing with him was a good distraction from the fact that I was a complete failure and would probably get everyone I loved killed.
"Ready?" I asked.
He nodded, jumping up. "Hungry?"
"Nope. You?"
"No, I don't eat food, remember?"