Tethered Bonds

Chapter 3

The awkward silence is finally over when an elderly lady with long braided silver hair and tan wrinkled skin walks over to me.

"May I help you with something Miss?" She asks kindly but is unsure of me. Age has caused her to shrink down to five feet in height. I stare down at the sweet lady trying to focus on her eyes and not her aura.

"Yes, my company booked me for a room here for the week," I say as confidently as I could with the pointed glares becoming sharper and more intense. I try to ignore all the electric zaps going across the room and stay focus on the lady's face.

"Oh! I didn't realize we had a booking." She was genuinely shocked by the news as I see her dull hazel eyes widen.

"It was only booked within the last three hours online, sorry for it being late." It was the only thing I could think to say.

"Ah, I see." Her aura seemed to have calmed down along with some of the others in the room.

"Let's get you settled in then, sorry for not knowing you were coming. I was busy decorating for my great-grandson's birthday." She holds her arm out to guide me to the front of the house when I saw another electric zap come through a wall straight to a teenage girl that looks about eighteen, she has three color auras like the adults. She panicked for a moment before grabbing her phone and looks at it.

"Hold on! I got a text from Flint, he has Jared and they just arrived here." She looks up from her phone and stares wide-eyed at everyone.

"Positions everyone!" States a middle-age woman with short red hair in a forest green dress. Everyone starts to move around and crouch behind some furniture.

"I apologize miss, could I ask a favor to be here when my great-grandson arrives? This is a surprise party for him." She asks in a whisper into my ear.

"Of course!" I exclaim. I look around the room for a place where I can be out of the way.

"Just stay next to me dear." She wraps her arm around mine and locks me next to her. For an elderly lady, she has a strong arm. Before I have time to react, the lights are dimmed and everyone is in a hiding spot. The auras coming off the elder lady is giving me a jolt of excitement that is way more intense than the average auras usually effect me.

This will be my first time witnessing a surprise birthday party. I'm glad I'm locked to this old lady who is guiding me against the nearest wall. She may be small but she is producing a lot of heat and it is helping me from shivering.

A lot of the smaller kids are giggling with excitement and it becomes silent when they hear the back door opening.

As a door to the back of the B&B opened, I can hear a few guys laughing and teasing.

"Lower your volume before Gran-Nan wakes up," a male voice whispered in a worried voice. "Let's just grab some snacks and go." I assume this is Jared.

Before any of the guys can say anything else Jared had stepped through a different entry area than the one I used.

The lights are flipped on by the little girl in the blue dress and everyone has jumped from their places. They were yelling and throwing streamers at Jared. What I didn't expect was Jared's first reaction when he got bombarded. I guess he has done some defense training because he had shifted his weight and stood ready to attack when the light turned on. Looking around at everyone, they seemed to have expected it as they kept their distance at first and his friends had grabbed his arms to keep him in his spot. After he realized what was going on he smirked while holding his hands up in defeat that he fell for everything.

I couldn't help but noticed that all the guys that had entered with Jared were attractive young men that looked to be around seventeen to nineteen years of age. A few of them had three auras while others just had one, Jared was the ladder.

Now that the other older men were not giving me intense gazes, I realized how attractive they were as well. Many of them were way over six feet. It felt serene that these handsome men, only moments ago, looked like they could rip my head off. Now I could just stand in this corner for eternity and stare at these perfectly crafted men. Michael Angelo must have seen men like this when he sculpted his marble stones. I'm a virgin but my body was feeling attracted to them.

Don't think like that. You have a very handsome guy. Chris would easily fit in with these hunks. Chris is smart, hard-working, dependable, and gives me more than I deserve. I think about Chris standing in the room next to the other men, yeah he is as handsome as them. I smile to myself for overpowering my attractive instincts.

I immediately regret taking my eyes of the men and had look at the women. The only nice feeling I got was that I was shorter than most, which is unusual at five feet and eight inches. The only adult female that is super short is the elderly lady holding my arm. Other than that, I would easily be voted the ugliest person here. Even the elderly owner would have a run at my money, you could tell she was a knockout when she was younger.

I decided to distract my negative thoughts with positives ones and started to look around at the party decor. The decorations were navy and white with metallic champagne colors, which fit Jared’s aura as well. They had white and navy drapes across the walls with a few metallic champagne-colored balloons floating around.

The cake was white, navy vines made from frosting cascaded around the two-tiered cake. In champagne, the candles made the number eighteen.

The little kids had already eaten half of their slices of cake while everyone else was talking to the birthday dude.

Most of the adults were talking about him being a full man and hopefully finding a wife to settle down with soon. Not usually what I think to say as a birthday blessing to an eighteen-year-old, but this is further north and culture can vary. I tried to remind myself to keep a mental distant, I'm just an intruder in this celebration. I don't want to interfere more than I have to.

"Ok deary, let's get you checked-in. You must be tired." The elderly lady, that I now know as Gran-Nan, patted her free hand on top of my locked arm as she walked me through the small hallway I had come through.

“Thank you, ” I say as she pulls me along. I see a few people glare in my direction, again the men's aura’s elements start to buzz faster but their faces are a lot kinder than before. Unconsciously I clear my throat and decide to look straight ahead to avoid any conflicts.

“I hope the noise from the party won't disturb you, it will be over a bit after midnight.” The elderly owner says with a cheery smile.

“Not at all, I'm a heavy sleeper,” I say, mimicking her expressions.

We reached the check-in area. She heads straight to a small safe that is on her desk. As she worked the dial for the combination, I took a moment to look at her aura in detail.

She had three auras like the other adults here. Her normal aura was a dark olive green glow with yellow disks that looked like lemon candies as her element. The cloud aura was the shade of elderberries with rosy pink stones floating inside it. Her third aura behaved differently than the others in the room. Her third aura was marbled white with copper stars and seemed to be frozen or stuck. It has never moved a single time since I got here.

Every other adult’s third aura behaved one of two ways. It would either moved like floating goo around their torso or it additional stretched out to join another person. Upon my reflection of the event, I recall that any two people that were linked had a matching third area. That was odd, although I've seen thousands of auras I never recall any being precisely identical.

The slam of the safe snaps me from my thoughts. The elderly lady extends her hand with a bronze key towards me. I smile politely and take the key from her outstretched hand.

She gave me quick directions to my room and breakfast hours before heading back to the party. I made my way up the mahogany wood stairs and walk along a long hallway to my room and entered.

The room was nice and welcoming, a bit colder than I like. The color theme was woodsy with an olive-green accent wall against ivory curtains, the rest of the walls matched the creamy colored drapes. All the furniture had a dark smoke wood stain. Several ivy plants were on a high shelf draped above the bed and the vines cascaded down the wall and continued behind the wooden engraved headboard making you feel like you were sleeping in a nymph's bedroom.

I drop my bag and toss my purse on the small table. I'm too cold to change and just put my night-shirt over my dress for additional warmth. I decided to at least change my panties and remove them along with my tights. My teeth chatter as I climb into the bed, I didn't know a bed could feel this cold. After I get under the charcoal grey covers with ivory embroidery and sheets, I stay still and focus on warming that spot of the bed.

I remember that I didn't check my messages on my phone and pull it out of my pocket to see if Chris replied. I looked and saw one message from him.

"Call me when you get settled in your room."

I got out of my messages to call him when I noticed that the phone no longer had any signal. Weird, I had a signal when I arrived. I need to call Chris so he doesn't worry. I look around and see they have a land-line phone on a table across the room.

Ugh, this is gonna be cold!

I got back up and dashed over to the phone. I picked it up and dialed Chris's number. I do a little hop dance to warm my body while I hear the ring tone.

"Hello?" Chris's voice came through with a hint of confusion and concern.

"Hi Chris, it's just me. My phone lost signal so I used the landline in my room."

"Good girl, I was getting worried." His tone chirped up after knowing it was me.

"How is the room?"

"Very pretty, but I'm very cold. I had to get out from my warm covers to call you." As if on cue, my teeth were starting to chatter again. I could hear Chris chuckle lightly.

"Ok, go get some rest." I hear him yawn.

"You too," I say with a smirk on my face.

“Try to text me when you get a signal and a picture of you in the snow. I want to know if your hair is whiter.” I can imagine the grin on his face from his teasing. Most likely sitting in his warm comfy chair in his private library, drinking his favorite red wine.

“Ha ha.” I say laced with sarcasm, I'm too cold and tired to respond differently.

“Sorry,” he says while chuckling. “Good night, Zay.”

“Night Chris.” I hang up the phone, turn off my light and jump back under the covers. I can still hear some of the happy voices on the floor below me.

It surprised me that I enjoy hearing the muffles, maybe because I could feel so much excited energy from them. I felt calm and ironically safe considering the glances I got.

I try to fall asleep but my brain has too many questions and not enough energy or time to absorb it all. After several attempts at going to sleep, I grumble and sit up. Getting out of bed woke me up even more as I start to shiver again.

I don't like cold. Last assignment in weather like this for me.

Mumbling to myself I dig through my purse until I find what I'm looking for. Chris gave me this essential oil that helps with sleeping. I grab a tissue paper that is on the desk and put two drops of oil on it. The smell at first is weird but then it becomes a relaxing smell of lavender.

I put my little jar back in my purse and walk back to the bed with the tissue paper. Once I get all comfy, I place the tissue next to my face on my pillow. I decided to think of some positive things in my life to help distract my wandering thoughts.

The bed began to warm up again and I soon drifted off while in good spirit.