Lost

Party

        Going downstairs, we head toward the office.

        “We need to talk.” Jack says, serious and somber.

        “What’s wrong?” I ask, worried by his tone.

        “I’ve received word from some alphas in other states. They’ve reported seeing Tessa, she’s alive.”

        “Well, I know she’s a little… off her rocker, but that’s not that bad, right?”

        “I’m afraid it might be. She has friends in this pack, I’m not sure how many, I only know a few she’s been seen with. We can’t just kick them out for being friends with her, but I worry she might contact them for information. Without proof of this, however, Ash can’t really do anything.”

        “There are laws in place with each pack.” Ash says, looking to me. “Each pack has laws unique to them, that their alphas have created, but we also have universal laws, to keep alphas from being unfair and prejudice, or taking advantage of their pack members. Some can get away with it, but the majority live by these laws. We can’t do anything without proof…”

        “We’ll just have to be discreet. If she contacts her friends, she’ll know I’m here or general knowledge the whole pack has, but if we keep a lot of what’s going on with us under the radar she shouldn’t be able to get any special information, right?”

        “Hopefully,” Jack says worriedly. “I’ve talked to the others already, so they know to be cautious with what they say in public. Unfortunately, it’s already public knowledge that you two are Fated Mates. Hopefully that doesn’t get back to Tessa, it might encourage her to continue trying to harm you.”

        “Either way, we should be able to handle anything that comes up. Especially once I know my abilities and get used to them.”

        “Speaking of that, we need to talk to Elias soon. We need to work on getting you as powerful as possible for the inevitable. We already know Dorian wants you, but we don’t know when he’ll make another attempt.”

        With all of us in agreement, I head upstairs to shower and get dressed while Ash stays and continues to talk with his dad.

        -----

        Ash and I walk over to Elias’s house, hand in hand.

        Oh gods. It’s gotta be like a hundred degrees today. At least these canvas shoes Val got for my birthday are a lot more airy than my boots.

        She really got a lot for my birthday. I mean, I appreciate it but I’m just not used to it.

        She’s a good friend.

        “What’s got you smiling?” Ash asks, bringing me back from my thoughts.

        “Just how good a friend Val is.” I admit with a chuckle.

        “Yeah, she really is. I’m happy you two hit it off.”

        Approaching the door, Elias swings it open, greeting us with a smile.

        “How’d you know we were here?” I ask, confused but amused.

        “I set up a ward on our house, it alerts me any time someone comes up to the door.” He laughs, inviting us in.

        “Could you do that to Ash’s house?”

        “Our house.” Ash corrects me, making me smile.

        “So the rumors are true.” Elias smiles mischievously, waggling his eyebrows, making us laugh.

        “Anyway – we’re here because I need help. Well, we both do.”

        “What can I do for you?” he asks, walking us into the living room. As soon as I step one foot in the room, Val knocks into me, hugging me as tight as she can. This time it doesn’t hurt or stop my breathing like it did before.

        Must be another shifter thing. Neat.

        Then, two more people knock into us, making this a group hug. I hear Addie and Kali talking from behind me and Val.

        “It’s so good to see you again!” Kali yells, right into my ear, while Addie says the same thing from behind Val.

        “It’s great to see you guys, too!” I tell them as we break apart. “How’ve you been?”

        “We’ve been pretty good, busy as hell though.” Kali says, “School started early this year.”

        “Do you teach with Addie?”

        “I aid the middle school shifters, to get experience while I’m in college to become a teacher.” She clarifies.

        “That makes sense. Did your classes start too, Addie?”

        “Yeah, but I work with the younger kids.”

        “That’s really cool, I didn’t know there were shifter-only schools until I met you.”

        “Yeah, they’re advertised as private schools, but only shifters are accepted.” Addie explains.

        “That’s awesome, I was homeschooled as a kid. Well, kinda. All the kids were taught in a group on pack grounds, separated by age.”

        “Yeah, a lot of packs do that, especially when there aren’t a lot of packs around that area.” Val says.

        “Um, sorry, but we should really talk to Elias.” Ash says, approaching us awkwardly. I can’t help but laugh under my breath.

        He’s so cute. He can be this big, strong, tough man when he needs to be, but then he can be so polite, awkward, and sweet.

        “Yeah, he’s right. I’ll talk to you in a bit.”

        We go to Elias’s room where I won’t get distracted.

        “Ash filled me in on what you guys need help with, it’d be easier to first find out what Bailey can do, so we can focus on how to bring it out.”

        “Okay, so how do we do that? Is there like, a sorting hat or something, like from that movie?” I ask, mostly joking, but still kinda curious.

        “You’ve seen Harry Potter?” Ash asks with disbelief as they laugh.

        “Yeah, it was on TV when I was living in Choteau.” I shrug.

        “Well, no. There’s no sorting hat,” Elias chuckles again. “there is, however, a spell.”

        Rummaging through his stuff, Ash puts his arm around me, and I snuggle into his chest.

        He always smells so damned good.

        When Elias comes back over, he’s got a tray set up with a bunch of items placed on it.

        “I got all the ingredients together, basically all we do is cut your hand and drop some blood in each vial. They’re all different, whichever ones turn purple, you have that ability. Simple.” Placing the tray in front of me on a table, he stands on the opposite side.

        “But… there’s like thirty vials.” I’m surprised by how many there are.

        “Actually there’s forty, but that’s not too bad. They only need a few drops each, it’s pretty quick. It’s a lot easier than the other way.”

        “What’s the other way…?” I ask, not sure I want to know.

        “Have you ever seen how humans are tested for allergies?”

        Shaking my head, he goes on to explain how they’re stuck with needles and are given things in certain areas, whichever area they react to, they’re allergic to that thing.

        “It’s sorta like that, but with magic.”

        “Yeah, I’m cool with this.”

        Chuckling, he takes my hand and slices my palm. Holding my hand over each vial for a few seconds so the blood can drop into it, he quickly moves to the next, not letting any blood drip onto the tray. By the time all of the vials have blood, my hand is healed.

        “Now what?” Ash asks, rubbing my back.

        “We wait. It should only take a few minutes.”

        “So, what are each of these vials? Like, what power do they indicate?”

        “Well, there’s different kinds of magic, but each group has abilities under them. The groups are elemental manipulation, psychological magic and physical magic, kinetic, illusory, and warding. It’s a long list of each individual ability, so let’s just stick with what you have.”

        The next few minutes we sit and wait, talking about Mate Markings.

        “Since I’m not a shifter, I don’t know much of the specifics, but I’d assume it’s like any other magic. Have you tried to use your Mate telepathy?”

        Ash and I look at each other, both shaking our heads.

        “It might be easy. Focus on communicating with each other but think what you want to say instead of speaking aloud.”

        Shifting our position on the bed, we face each other, both trying in unison.

        “Can you hear me?”

        “Potato.”

        “Ash, did you just say ‘potato’?”

        “Yeah. I did.”

        Immediately bursting out laughing, Ash shortly follows.

        “I take it that worked?” Elias asks smirking.

        “Yeah,” Ash confirms, looking over to me. “wanna try telekinesis?”

        “Hell yeah!” I exclaim with excitement.

        “Wait a minute!” Elias interjects, rushing over to us. “Don’t break anything in my room. Here, focus on this.”

        “Why do you have a stuffed baby chick?” I ask, chuckling at his choice of stuffed pet.

        “Why not?” he returns in mock offense.

        Focusing on the stuffed chick, I imagine moving it with my mind, but nothing happens. They know I was unsuccessful by my obvious disappointment.

        “Try using your hand, it might help with concentration and control until you get the hang of it.” Elias chimes in.

        Trying again, I do what he says.

        It works!

        The chick lifts straight up into the air, following my pointer finger.

        I let it drop back down so Ash can try. Immediately it flies right across the room, almost hitting Elias, I can’t hold back my laughter.

        “I swear that wasn’t on purpose!” Ash says in between laughs.

        “Maybe don’t use as much force next time.” Trying to seem unamused, he fails miserably. “Ah, the vials are finished.”

        “What’s the verdict?” I ask, excited but nervous.

        “Wow –”

        “Good or bad wow?”

        “Impressed wow. You’re definitely powerful. You have all elemental manipulation, and at least one from every other category, which is unheard of. But from the Delvaux bloodline, it’s not surprising. That’s only the witch magic though, I’d have to find another spell to test the vampire magic, if you have any.”

        “Wow. What, uh, what specifically can I do?”

        “Well, the elemental manipulation is pretty self-explanatory,” he says, I nod in agreement. “as far as the kinetic abilities go, you can control electricity and you can control the temperature of an object or a living being if you become really strong with that.

        “The physical abilities are healing, which we knew, you can also hurt people by touching them. That one might be harder to use and control. You can paralyze people, too. Not, like permanently, but momentarily, maybe for hours if you get strong enough. Your illusory ability is being able to change the way people see you. So once you get the hang of it, you could make me think you have red hair and purple eyes.”

        “Wow, that is insane.” I can’t even imagine being able to do these things. It sounds impossible.

        “Damn, babe. I’d never wanna get on your bad side, you could kick my ass.” Ash jokes, making us all laugh and lightening the mood.

        “You ready for the rest?” Elias asks and continues when I nod.

        “With psychological magic, you can see other people’s memories and if you get strong enough, change them or add new ones, even remove them altogether. You have an ability called Ciphering, essentially you can understand any language you read and speak any language spoken to you. The last abilities you have, warding is obvious. It’s what I did to my house. And dream walking, you can communicate with others in your dreams, it could be anyone, even gods. You have to be careful with that, though. You don’t want the wrong god to come into your dreamscape.”

        “How am I supposed to learn to control all of that?” I ask, completely overwhelmed.

        “I think it’d be best to start on the most important abilities, ones most likely to be needed. You have the rest of your life to work on the rest, we should focus on a few for right now.” Elias says, trying to calm me down.

        “What about the possibility of her having abilities related to her vampire blood?” Ash asks.

        “Gimme a sec,” he says, flipping through some books. “Here we go. It’s essentially the same thing, give or take a few ingredients, and this one needs twenty four hours to finish.”

        We go through the same process and then back out to the living room.

        “There they are!” Val yells as we walk in. “So what’s going on?”

        “Well, we found out what we can do as Fated Mates,” I tell her, leaning into Ash’s side as he wraps his arm around my shoulders. “and we found out what some of my abilities are. We gotta wait to see if I have any more, though.”

        “Well don’t be shy! What can you do?” she asks, practically jumping off the couch in excitement.

        “Wanna have some fun?”

        “Oh you know me so well, my love.”

        “My love? Mm, I like that.”

        “I thought you might. On three, we concentrate together.”

        “One.”

        “Two.”

        “Three.” 

        We focus intently, combining our strength so we don’t have to point to move anything. After a second, Val starts lifting up into the air. She takes a second to notice, but then freaks out and flails all over the place.

        My concentration is immediately broken when I burst out laughing, Ash too, and Val falls right back down to the couch.

        “Seriously?!” she yells. “That was… awesome! Dude I’m so jealous!”

        “That was really cool, guys!” Kali says with a smile.

        “So who wants to go out tonight?” Val asks, looking from Ash to me and then the others.

        “I’d love to, I could definitely use some fun.”

        “Atta girl, Bailey!” Val grins, “I knew I could count on you!”

        “What’s up guys?” Enzo asks, walking in.

        “We’re going out tonight!” Val exclaims excitedly, making us all chuckle.

        ----

        Ash and I walk back home to get ready for tonight, I have no idea where we’re going but Val said I’d love it. Ash sits on my bed while I pick out what to wear. Pulling my jean shorts out of the drawer, I throw them over to him to hold for me. Then my white tank top, the black and grey flannel I took from him, some socks and undies.

        Picking up my panties, he holds them in the air in front of his face and smirks at me.

        “Oh, these are nice. I like these.”

        “Really?” I ask seductively, he nods in response.

        “Well, you can borrow them any time.” I tease, dropping the seductive voice.

        He pretends to be offended for a second, then a devilish grin takes over. He grabs my waist, pulling me on top of him and starts tickling me.

        “That was just mean. How could you play me like that?” he tries to sound hurt and I can’t stop laughing. I didn’t even know I was ticklish until now.

        “I’m sorry,” I yell between laughs, squirming in every direction. “we’re supposed to be getting ready!” I continue laughing.

        “Ah, they can wait.” He throws me down next to him, rolling on top of me as I land on the mattress. “Have I ever told you how much I love hearing your laugh?” His voice is now serious and sincere, the way he’s looking at me melts my heart.

        All I can do in response is shake my head.

        “I do, I think it’s the most magical sound in the world. You’re the most beautiful girl in the world.” Brushing a strand of hair from my face, he leans down, gently pressing his lips to mine before pulling back to look at me again.

        “I love you.” Is all I can manage to say, but it’s enough. His head dips down to meet my lips again, just as they’re about to touch, I can feel the heat of his breath against my lips, the front door slams open and Val yells up the stairs.

        “You guys almost ready? We were supposed to leave ten minutes ago!”

        Rolling his eyes, he falls to his side next to me, letting out a long, annoyed breath.

        Sitting up, I lay my hand on his cheek and smile.

        “Don’t worry, it won’t happen every time.” I laugh and kiss his cheek. “We’ll be down in a minute!” I yell downstairs.

        Hurrying, I throw my clothes on, not even caring that Ash’s in the room. He’s not paying attention, he’s still sulking on the bed and I laugh internally. After I’ve put my shoes on, I kick his leg, getting him up.

        “I’ll just wear this.” He shrugs, grabbing his leather jacket to put over his black tee. As he walks out, I can’t help but admire his ass in those jeans. They fit him so well.

        Turning back to me, he smiles knowingly and my face heats up. Holding his hand out for me, we go downstairs and Val smiles mischievously, like she knows what she interrupted, Ash rolls his eyes and I cover my mouth, muffling my laugh.

        We get in her car where both brothers and sisters are waiting and she takes off. I don’t recognize where we’re driving, she turned the opposite way that we always go when we go anywhere. It looks like we’re in the middle of nowhere, but it’s beautiful. The moon shines bright and the stars twinkle around the night sky, illuminating the surrounding trees.

        Turning down a dirt road, we go further into the woods until we pull over under some trees. There’s a few other cars around, but nobody near them.

        Getting out, I sniff the air and smell other shifters.

        “I’m getting used to my shifter senses.”

        “That’s great, babe. Can you tell how many others there are?”

        Breathing in deeply through my nose, I focus on the other scents. It takes me a minute to differentiate the smells from each other and figure out how many there are.

        “Between fifteen and twenty?”

        “There’s fifteen, good!”

        We head further into the woods, for about five minutes I can vaguely hear something, and a few moments later a fire comes into view. I can hear the music more clearly now.

        I don’t recognize anyone as we walk up to the crowd, so I stick close to Ash. There’s a table with alcohol lined up on one side, water bottles on the other, and some kind of flower between.

        Before I can ask Ash what it is, someone comes over and greets us.

        “So glad you guys could come!”

        “Thanks, man. Haven’t seen you in a while, how you been?” Ash asks.

        “I’ve been good, my dad still hasn’t stepped down, so I’m living it up while I can.” He laughs, it’s easy to tell he’s had more than a few drinks.

        “Jace, this is Bailey.” Ash motions to me, and I wave, smiling politely.

        “Well, hello beautiful. You with this d-bag?” he jokingly asks.

        “Yep, he’s my d-bag now.”

        After we all have a laugh, Jace goes to the table on the other side of the clearing from the drinks table where some people are playing a game. By now everyone we came with is doing their own thing, leaving Ash and I alone. I don’t mind. I love hanging out with them, but it’s nice having alone time with Ash.

        “Do you want a drink?” he asks, pointing to the table.

        “Sure, whatever you think I’ll like.” I reply with a smile. Kissing my forehead, he turns, going to get drinks.

        Leaning against a tree, I listen to music and scan the party, observing everyone and enjoying the happiness that everyone’s emitting. When I look over to the drink table, I see a girl I don’t recognize drunkenly stumble over to Ash. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she goes to kiss him and rage fills my blood.

        Before I can even think about it, I’m storming over there with death in my eyes. I can see Ash is visibly uncomfortable, but too kind to shove her away. Trying to be polite isn’t working and seeing how uneasy he looks infuriates me more.

        As I get within arm’s reach, Ash sees the look on my face and even he gets momentarily scared. Grabbing her by the hair, I rip her away from him and throw her backwards.

        She flies about six feet back which surprises even me. I didn’t use that much force. When she gets back up, she seems more sober and stalks back over.

        “What the hell is your problem?!” she yells at me, causing mostly everyone to turn around with curiosity.

        “You don’t touch what’s mine.” I growl, on the brink of shifting, it takes all my energy to hold it back.

        “Yours?” she scoffs, acting unbothered. “Ash is mine.”

        I can’t hold it back anymore, when she claimed him, I lost it. Within a second, I’m on all fours and my wolf is slowly approaching her, growling and snapping.

        Everyone at the party stares at me in shock and she starts backing up, face filled with fear. She trips over an empty beer bottle and scrambles to get up before I get closer.

        Ash comes up to my side and tries to calm me down.

        “Hey, it’s okay,” he pets my side, trying to keep my attention on him. “Bailey, it’s okay. She’s not worth it.” He says, his voice calming and gentle.

        “Pfft. You just want to make sure I don’t hurt her.” She comments, grabbing my attention. In a second her face goes from cocky to terrified as I pounce, pinning her to the ground. Ash shifts into his wolf, nudging me across my cheek with his nose.

        “Let’s go run.”

        “If she even looks at you again, she’s dead.”

        Ash guides me through the trees and helps me calm down, we run until the anger eventually dissipates.

        “Did I ruin the party?

        “Not at all. Don’t worry, love.”

        “I don’t know why I got that aggressive. I mean, I was angry, but...”

        “It’s your wolf, it’s a normal reaction. I’m your mate, if a guy would have touched you, I’d do the same. Anyone would if someone touched their mate. Don’t feel bad. It’s who we are.”

        I watch the stars as we run and enjoy having Ash next to me. For a few minutes we’re running carefree, but then he pounces on me, rolling me through the dirt and into a tree.

        “What the hell Asher?!”

        “Someone’s here. I don’t recognize their scent.”

        “Where are they?”

        “There’s at least three. Two are about thirty feet behind this tree, the other is ahead of us. I think there’s another but I can’t be sure. They all smell relatively similar and their scents are mixing together.”

        “What do we do? What do they want?”

        “They may want nothing, they may want you. I’d bet the latter since they’re surrounding us. I want you to run back to the party as fast as you can. Don’t wait for me and no matter what, don’t look back.”

        “But –”

        “Do it. Don’t argue with me on this Bailey. I know you’re strong, I know you’re smart, and I know you can handle so much. But I can’t live with myself if anything happens to you. Please.”

        The urgency and desperation in his voice breaks my heart. I can smell them getting closer, and I know he can, too. I don’t want to leave him… but I have to trust him.

        “I told the boys, Val, and her two friends what’s going on, they’ll bring some help from the party with them to back me up, but I want you out of here. Please. I’ll be safe.”

        “Okay. I love you.”

        “I love you, too.”

        Nuzzling the crook of his neck, I lick his cheek and before I can talk myself out of it, I run as fast as I can.

        It took us over a half hour to run out this far, but we weren’t running our fastest, so hopefully the others get here sooner. I hear growling and fighting behind me. When I hear a yelp, my heart stops. Turning to look without stopping, I see Ash is still fighting, he’s okay. When I turn back around, I see a wolf chasing after me, coming from my right.

        Checking my left, I see another one there, too.

        As I focus on running as fast as possible, I see a man standing straight ahead of me. I can’t see what he’s doing, but his hands are by his face.

        Suddenly, a dart hits my leg. Then another.

        My head swims momentarily, tripping me up, and I roll forward.

        As I stand up, things get a little clearer. The one on my right leaps towards me, but I dodge him and claw his side as he goes past me. The other bites my hind leg, making me howl, but I’m able to kick him off with my other leg.

        Then I hear Ash howl in pain and my attention goes right to him.

        “Are you okay?”

        When he doesn’t answer me, my heart races. As I fight the other two wolves, the man walks up to me. He must’ve noticed I keep looking back to Ash, because he smiles, evil and vile.

        “Don’t worry about him, he’s not the one we want.” He says, and for just a second I breathe a sigh of relief. “We’ll just kill him so he doesn’t come after you. They probably already have by now.” His smile widens as he laughs.

        White hot fury floods my veins and it feels like I go into a trance. Shifting back to my human form, I instantly reach out with both of my hands towards each of the wolves, lifting them into the air and throw them through the woods. They land a few seconds later and don’t move.

        The man looks at me with fear in his eyes, but he sees his backup running up behind me and thinks he has the upper hand.

        Waving my arm in front of the other wolves coming toward me, a line of fire spreads quickly, creating a wall they can’t get through. Running as fast as I can, I quickly reach Ash, he’s lying on the ground, his black fur is matted with blood and he’s not responding. The fear of losing him drives me over the edge.

        They must’ve called for even more of their friends to come, because now there’s twenty wolves surrounding me. The man walks up with them, smiling maliciously. He knows Ash being hurt kills me and he enjoys my pain.

        “What do you want from me?!” I yell, power and anger distorting my voice.

        “Dorian wants you back. You belong to him. He never gave you permission to leave.”

        “I don’t belong to anyone. If he wants me, he can try to get me himself. I’d love the chance to kill him.” My smile matches his as I imagine the life draining from Dorian’s eyes.

        “Oh don’t worry, he’ll come for you. After he’s done killing every other Royal, ending your pathetic kind.” He snarls, disgusted by my heritage and all Royals.

        The thought of Dorian killing innocent Royals just for being born increases my rage and hatred. But when this guy looks at Ash with a sinister smile the words that leave his mouth send me over the edge.

        “Dorian will be pleased to know your mate is dead.”

        So much anger and hatred and power and energy fill my body, I feel like I’m going to explode. And I do.

        The guttural scream that leaves my mouth echoes through the woods like thunder and everyone, besides Ash, goes flying backward as electricity flies from my hand towards them. When some land in the line of fire that is still burning high, their screams bring me pleasure.

        Kneeling next to Ash, his heart is still beating but he’s unconscious. Next to him is a dart that must’ve fallen out when he collapsed. Picking it up, I inspect it and my heart sinks.

        Silver.