by D J Nickels
After we finished eating, Momma called me over to come sit with her on a blanket. I did as she asked and sat just like she did. She explained that she mostly draws power from our angel power because it is what we mostly are. “When we are younger, it is easier to use. I want you to close your eyes, and find your center, and focus. See your light inside of you. Do you see it?” Momma asked.
“I feel a tiny warmth in me when my power releases,” I explained.
“Okay, picture that warmth, as a well of light growing inside you. When it becomes big enough to hold in your palm, I want you to grab it and throw it toward the can.” I did as Momma asked. Every time I threw the light, I missed the can, and each time I tried, I got tired.
“I can’t do it, Momma.” I just kept hitting other things, like branches on the trees and the tip of the fencing behind the rock. I was getting very tired, but Momma wouldn’t let me quit.
“Do you think Daniel would have survived, if you hit him with the full force of your power? What if he had died? How would you have felt, if you had hit him with that kind of power?”
Looking at my tiny hands, I thought about it. Tears filled my eyes and fell. I concentrated as I raised my hands as I thought about the love, I have for all my brothers and how I would protect them, and I blew up the pop can.
“I did it, Momma. I did it. I focused on my love for my brothers and my relationships with all of them, to keep them safe and protected, and it worked.”
Momma grabbed me and hugged me. “See, I knew you could do it.”
The Present Day
I grabbed my head in pain, as memory after memory came back to me and filled my mind. I realized just then I shifted back to my wolf form. It was as if I were remembering everything all at once. I tried to call out in my wolf form, to Jonathan. I cried out with my heart, “I need you. Where are you?”
I walked to the door, and it was slightly open from when I ran out. I took a deep breath as I pushed through the door and walked back in. I sniffed the room. Another memory came flooding back into my mind. I was a child again here with Momma. She was teaching me how to use my magic again, and we were here at this old cabin. I was alone outside practicing. I was moving things with my hands and my mind, practicing my powers. I felt stronger each day after using it.
Suddenly, I was attacked by two beastly-looking dogs. I screamed as they ran toward me. They snarled at me and I lifted one with my thoughts and threw it into a tree, at the same time using my other power with my other hand, and I blew it up. The one I threw got up and came running at me again, and I blew it up, just as I saw my momma coming around the corner to help me.
“Kate are you okay?” she asked as she came running to check me out, looking me over. “Kate, how did you do that?” she gasped. “I saw you use more than one power at a time, baby.”
“I think it was a reflex,” I said to Momma. “I felt overwhelmed but still in control, and I just reacted.” I looked behind me at what I had done.
“What were those things, Momma?” I asked wide-eyed.
“Those were hellhounds,” she said. “We need to set a barrier for protection. Your power has grown,” Momma said. “Come quickly; I will show you how.”
We grabbed a basket of crystals from inside and we used them to set up a barrier around the grounds. Momma explained that she had set a barrier, after we got here. She asked me if I had seen or moved any of them.
“No, Momma, but I saw Daniel the other day playing with a white rock, when he was here the other day. It looked just like those.”
“Crystals help amplify a stronger protection barrier to our Fay power. We will set a new ward.”
Momma taught me the words to say to charge and amplify the crystals: “Et vires illi lucernam meam crystallos amplificandum,” which means “Use my light to energize and amplify these crystals.” Then Momma gave me six of the crystals to place at the edges of the property lines. When I was done, she taught me the protection spell “Et omne in quo non est hinc praesidio quod terra,” which means “Protect this land from here to there and everywhere.” Then I placed the last crystal down.
A glowing wall went up all around us and then faded into nothing. “This will protect us from anything bad while we are here. It will also shield the uses of our magic from anyone or anything trying to detect it outside of these walls,” Momma said.
We started walking back up the driveway, and then Momma said, “I need to teach you to conceal your magic. The barrier we set, will help block your magic from getting out, and it will keep anything bad from getting in. But we can’t always have a barrier to protect us.”
Momma took me to the fireplace, and we sat down. She threw fire at the wood and started the fire. She taught me to focus and center my power and how to conceal it. By the end of the session, I was able to contain my power.
The next morning, I saw Daddy and my brothers driving up the road during one of Momma’s lessons. At this point, she was using her magic to fling huge branches and huge rocks at me, and I was blowing things up with my hands. Momma didn’t realize I had shielded myself with a barrier around me when I saw Daddy coming up the driveway, until she had already thrown her light at me. Daniel jumped out of the car and came running to me, but it had been too late to stop it. I quickly grabbed and covered Daniel in my barrier.
“Teri Ann,” I heard Daddy call out. Momma froze in horror. The explosion bounced off my barrier and threw it back at Momma. She flew back and hit the tree. Letting go of Daniel, I ran to Momma, and Daddy was one step behind me.
He was not pleased with Momma for teaching me to use my powers. My two older brothers stayed near the car, watching. Daddy turned and looked at me with surprise at how strong I had become.
“Teri Ann,” he called out. I thought I saw Daddy’s eyes change color. I was holding on to Momma and I felt a white-hot heat rise to my hands and come out of me, and then Momma’s wounds started to heal.
Daddy was in awe of what I had done. He looked at me with pride. But I could feel Daddy’s anger with Momma. He was mad that Momma was teaching me to use my power. Momma sat up.
“Are you and Daniel okay?”
“Yes, Momma. I saved him and you.”
Daddy looked at me and said, “I need to speak to your momma. Can you and the boys stay in the yard for a while?”
“Yes, Daddy,” I answered him.
Daddy lifted Momma and carried her into the cabin. Then memories of Momma and that day faded, and I came back to the present. I shifted back to my human form. I understood more how to control my powers now. I looked at my hands. I have powers, I thought. I saw the fireplace from my memories and walked over to it. I looked around and another memory assaulted my mind. It was of Momma and me. Momma was telling me that I had a sister. Wait, what? I have a sister.
Momma began showing me images from the day we were born. “This will help us find Jessa,” she said. A sister! I gasped; suddenly I’d shifted back to my wolf. My ears perked up, and a guttural, whiny howl came out of me. Pain flashed through my head and I began to remember everything.
I had a sister, a twin, a fraternal twin. I cried in my wolf form. Howling came from me. My heart was aching. Memories flashed of Momma looking into my mind of the day we were born. “Your twin was taken from us.” Momma showed me that I had seen it all. I was a baby; we were holding hands, lying next to each other, and all I could do as a baby was watch, as a woman picked my sister up and walked away with my other half. Then suddenly a bright light came out of my hand with a fierce baby cry, and it went to Jessa’s forehead as the woman walked out of the hospital room with my sister.
I was crying and howling in pain. My sister. Where is my sister? I thought now. Back in the memory, I saw everyone looking for her. I saw my dad through Momma’s eyes as his features changed. He partially shifted in his eyes and his features were like a beast. I saw claws, and my mind went to Jonathan.
My daddy was like Jonathan. I gasped. He was using shifter senses to search for Jessa.
My daddy could partially shift, just like Jonathan did. I was astounded. Jonathan—my heart ached at the memory of me running away from him. I howled and growled with anger that he was not with me. I shoved that anger down. I sniffed the air to bring the memory back to Momma.
Momma was looking back through my memories for the face of the woman who took Jessa. I saw a woman with short blonde hair. Her back was turned to me. Then she turned and her hair covered her face while she picked up my sister and walked away with her. “Dark magic,” Momma said in my memory. “Wait, what was that light?” Momma said. She replayed it and smiled down at me as a baby. “That’s my girl. You marked your sister with your power. You are one very smart baby girl, aren’t you?” she cooed at me.
Daddy came in when Momma was breast-feeding me sometime later. He was very sullen and looked beaten down, with disbelief on his face. They found blood on her baby blanket and a knife with blood on it.
“She’s gone, they killed her.”
“No, no, no,” Momma cried.
Howling out my pain and agony in wolf form, I thought, no wonder she took my memories. Who would want to remember all of this? The doctors came in later that day and confirmed that the blood came back as baby Jessa Nickels’ blood. I howled in agony at the memory. I knew Jonathan had to be feeling my pain, but as more memories flashed of my parents, I couldn’t worry about what he felt in that moment.
My mother’s memories showing me of how she was afraid of having children, because of how dangerous it would be for us, because of our family line. Momma arguing with Daddy, “I told you it would be dangerous and that he would come for them.”
Momma arguing with Daddy about teaching me to use my magic so young. “She must be able to protect herself. Ben, I showed you how my family fought to keep this earth from demons and Owen Ambers.”
Momma cried and submitted as Daddy whipped her ass for the day Daniel almost got caught in the crossfire, and I grabbed him to shield him with a barrier from her light she’d thrown at me and it blasted back at Momma, throwing her into a tree almost killing her. Then he’d picked her up and held her in his lap. My heart filled with joy seeing their love and connection. All shifters must be like that. I thought back to how Jonathan claimed me and how he held me as he took care of me this past week.
I shifted back to my human form and I walked around this old run-down cabin looking for something to put on. I found an old flannel shirt. It was Daddy’s. I went to the couch and sat down to process all this information. My head wanted to explode, and I was so exhausted.
I lay down, and before long another image of Momma and me sitting together here on this couch came to my mind. She was explaining to me how any magic, even ours, can turn into dark magic if we are not careful of its use. Dark magic happens when your own magic starts to control you. “Never let your emotions get the better of you and your magic,” she had said. “Always stay in control of who you are and of your magic. Don’t fear it. It’s a beautiful energy. But if you start to fear it, it will take control of you. Always center yourself and stay grounded in your thoughts and in yourself.”
I felt so overwhelmed with everything and all these memories hitting me. Then I heard her in my thoughts, like she was here with me right now.
Momma began showing me things that happened in the past to better help me understand our fight. Fear ran through my bones as I saw bad things coming for my mother’s family line of women.
I saw a man kidnapping and sacrificing and killing most of them and Momma fighting and escaping the attack. Momma sensed the fear in me and said, “Center yourself now. I am right here with you.” I centered myself and calmed myself in that moment, just as she taught me to do as a child. I realized that every time I have centered myself in my adult life, I heard the crackling of the fire from that very moment she taught me, and I smiled to myself.
Another memory invaded my mind as I took in a deep breath—momma, again fighting with Daddy. “I don’t believe Jessa is dead. I feel her and see her in my dreams,” Momma argued with Daddy. I got up and walked over to the fireplace and saw a small cauldron. I smelled the old pot of dried-up contents in the caldron. More memories invaded my mind.
Momma pricked my finger as a young girl and the drops of blood went into the pot. Momma explained to me that using my blood would call to the magic from when I was a baby and marked my sister as the woman walked away with her. An image of a little girl with brown hair came up.
I gasped at the memory of the little girl. She was the same age as I was then. Brown hair just like mine. Knowing her now, it was Jessica when she first moved here. Surprise filled me. Jessica was my sister Jessa. Relief hit me. My sister was alive. I felt complete joy at that moment. No wonder she was my best friend.
Another memory flooded my mind of Momma putting me in the car and asking me to hold the cup because she forgot the keys. I realized we were going to go and get her. I sat there holding the cup of my sister’s image. She was crying. “Momma, she is crying,” I yelled to her from the car. “She is sad, Momma,” I had said. I tried to wipe her tear from her image, but my finger came back wet from the cup. I tasted it off my finger. It was salty, like a tear would be. I heard something outside of the car. I gasped and breathed heavy as I heard a growling. I looked up and found nothing there.
But I heard more growling. Something was out in the woods. I could feel the goose pimples rising on my skin. Then something big and black came barreling at the car. I screamed, trying not to spill the cup. Then a bright light came from Momma standing on the porch, and the big black beast exploded by the side of the car. My eyes widened at the use of Momma’s power.
Momma ran to the car and got in. “Did you move any of the crystals?” Momma asked.
“No, Momma, but….”
She cut me off. “Shit, then somehow Owen has found us. Doing the blood magic spell must have given him our location. Shit, stupid, stupid, stupid,” she said. “He is a part of our bloodline--using that spell would call him right to us. Give me the cup, baby.”
“She is sad, Momma.”
Momma took the cup, and she saw Jessa crying. “It’s okay, baby, we’re coming for you.” Then Momma drank the cup down so that Owen couldn’t get his hands on it to find her. We needed to hurry; if he found us, he might be able to find her.
Driving down the driveway, I looked around us. “Momma, something is behind us!” I screamed, as fireballs and explosions started going off all around us. Then my window shattered out of the car and something grabbed my arm and tried to pull me out of the car.
“Momma!” I screamed as my little hand went to his face to push him away from me, but a blast of light came from my tiny hand and caught him on fire. I burnt his face, when he tried to pull me from the car. His eyes were black, and his face was truly wicked, and he screamed in agony and then let me go. He screeched and hit the car with a ball of fire, and Momma lost control of the car. We flipped end over end, landing on the edge of the bridge and then we fell over the side of the bridge and landed upside down in a tree below. There was glass everywhere on the ceiling.
I cried at an enormous pain in my stomach. I was reliving the agony of that memory. I felt every moment of Momma using her magic to pull something huge, from my stomach. I collapsed to my knees in pain. It was so bad, that I shifted to wolf and back to human several times. I was unable to control it. The pain was unbearable.
I saw this memory as if I was in my six-year-old body. Momma used her magic to heal and save me. She unbuckled me and laid me on the ceiling of the car directly under her. I saw the thick branch running though her also. She placed her hand over my wound and a bright light came from her hands. Momma saved my life.
The last of the memories came back with bright healing lights all around me. Momma told me to find my sister and that one day this would all come back to me. I cried at the memory. No, Momma don’t leave me, Momma. Please, Momma…. Then she faded out of my memory. I woke up hearing beep, beep, beep and cr
ied, “Momma, please don’t leave me!”
Hysterically, I cried. Daddy came into view, and I told Daddy what happened, and a machine blew up. The nurse came and I saw a needle. They knocked me out with drugs. I woke hysterical several times, and the nurse came and knocked me out.
The memories stopped. I howled in even more in agony. Exhausted, I shifted back to my human form. I lay there naked and crying on the floor of the cabin. I sensed Jonathan and then I felt his arms around me. He was worried and all I could do was cry and hold on to him. I could feel his anxiousness and worry for me mixed with guilt for how he handled things earlier, and he could feel my aching heart and blamed himself for not being here with me.
Jonathan
“I’m so sorry, baby girl. Tell me what happened. Are you hurt?” He looked me over. “I felt like you were dying and in agony,” he said.
I looked up at him in disbelief. “You felt it too?” Tears poured from my eyes. I was completely shaken up.
“Tell me who hurt you?” he said.
I shook my head no. “It wasn’t like that,” I said. I tried to gather my thoughts to talk, but my thoughts were jumbled, and I remembered Momma showing me. My hands went to his head and I began to show him what I saw, and everything I learned and at the end I pulled my hands away, and just stared at him and then my hands.
Jonathan took off his shirt, putting it on me, and then lifted me. “Please, Jonathan, get me out of here,” I whispered. “I can’t take another memory right now.”
Finding My Place in the Pack
CHAPTER 8
Kate
Jonathan carried me from the cabin, and took me home, just as I asked him to. Carson and his men were waiting by one of Bradley’s security SUV’s. They had all come to get me. Jonathan carried me into the SUV and settled me on his lap. Jonathan cradled me to his chest, with my head buried in his neck. I tensed and reached my hand up to his neck, as another memory flashed through my head.
