by Noah Harris
Kell hummed at the touch. “Oh, I know, it was never a doubt in my mind. You’ve both been fantastic through this whole thing and put up with me so wonderfully.”
Johnny snorted softly. “You make it sound like you’ve been a monster.”
“No, just…more difficult than usual,” Kell said, squeezing Johnny’s fingers.
“You’ve been nothing more than your normal self, with a few crankier moments here and there,” Johnny said with a little smile.
Ash was watching Kell intently, his pupils widening. “We’ve never been happier.”
“Speaking for Johnny now?” Kell teased.
Ash winked. “I can read him better than ever before, thanks to you. All these gifts you keep giving me.”
“And me,” Johnny said.
In reality, he didn’t need the spiritual connection between the three of them to read Ash’s mood. It wasn’t quite what Johnny would call ‘lecherous,’ but it was certainly the expression of a man who had more than a heartfelt cuddle on the couch in mind. A thrill passed through Johnny as he watched Kell catch on to the sudden mood shift. In the moment of realization, Kell’s expression of exhaustion disappeared, as his own arousal sank into him.
“I need a nap, how about the both of you come join me?” Kell asked casually.
He didn’t need to ask twice, as both Ash and Johnny all but jumped to their feet, eager to drag Kell behind them to the large, plush bed in the other room.
Johnny woke to the distant uneasy feeling of doom and dark prophecy. His eyes opened to a shaft of moonlight spilling over the bed. A bed he’d been sharing with Kell and Ash for months
Despite the initial mating between Kell and Ash having been rough and almost frantic, Ash was notably the more subdued of the three of them. Ash loved nothing more than to gently take Kell, using a tender but firm strength to keep Kell in place. Where Johnny’s passion was direct and forceful, Ash’s came from a gentler but no less dominant place. Not that there weren’t times when Ash could be intensely passionate, when the wolf came to the fore. Every time it happened, Johnny felt an added thrill watching the large, well-built man ravish Kell’s smaller body, and watch as Kell took it eagerly, all but demanding more.
Trying to not let his waking thoughts disturb him, Johnny rolled and immediately noticed the bed contained only himself and Ash. The space between them, customarily reserved for Kell, was completely empty and as Johnny felt it, he noted it was cold. Remembering the times he’d been woken in the middle of the night by Kell’s restless dreaming, Johnny sat up and peered around the room. Ash stirred as well, his eyes cracking open and peering up at Johnny quizzically.
“Kell?” Ash asked in a sleep thickened voice.
“Somewhere outside I think,” Johnny replied, not sensing Kell’s presence in the cottage.
Ash sat up, rubbing his face. “Do you think one of us should go get him?”
“He probably shouldn’t be out on his own right now, and it might be time for him to talk to one of us about what’s been troubling him lately,” Johnny said.
Ash nodded silently as Johnny swung his legs over the edge of the bed to find his clothes. It wasn’t so much Kell’s safety he was concerned about. Maya was probably more aware of the forest and what happened in it than any of the trio could ever hope to be. There was also a distinct lack of predatory animals in the area of the WoodWard’s influence, which had made hunting a far simpler process for them. Kell was as safe as he’d ever been, but Johnny still didn’t like the idea of Kell out in the woods by himself, pregnant and vulnerable.
Pulling on his clothes, Johnny moved to the living area of the small cottage, double checking for Kell. When he didn’t see him, he wandered outside into the moonlit night. Following his gut, he walked through the nearby forest, the moon and stars overhead producing enough light for him to walk without fear.
He found Kell sitting on a large rock, his feet dangling over the edge as he gazed from the top of the hill into the valley below. Johnny could feel that Kell knew he was there, a tugging at the edge of his awareness a sure sign of Kell’s mind shifting in his direction. Kell didn’t turn toward him, however, and didn’t move save for the rise and fall of his shoulders as he breathed.
“Kell, it’s the middle of the night, what are you doing wandering out here by yourself?” Johnny asked as he approached.
Kell chuckled. “It’s closer to morning really.”
Johnny looked up at the sky, noting fewer stars and realized Kell was right. “My point remains the same.”
“It’s safe, for now,” Kell said.
Johnny frowned as he shifted around the rock. “For now? Do you know something I don’t?”
Kell finally looked up at him, smiling, but his eyes were sad. “You say that like we don’t have a guillotine hanging over our heads. We all know the world isn’t going to let us sit up here on the mountaintop quietly, letting us have our peace and happiness. We’ve had a good nine or so months, but it’s not going to last forever.”
Johnny sat beside him, nodding. “That’s true, but the way you said it sounded more definite, like you know something.”
Kell looked up at the clear sky. “I woke you up again, didn’t I?”
“Ash as well,” Johnny said.
Kell sighed. “It’s amazing how I can keep my emotions from tearing the sky apart with a gigantic storm, but I can’t keep the men I love sleeping soundly.”
Johnny frowned. “Have you been struggling with your powers?”
“I’ve been struggling with my feelings, which means, yeah, I’ve been struggling with my powers. When one is hard to control, the other is. They’re tied together in the same way the three of us are,” Kell said.
“You’re not just talking about the pregnancy making your emotions wild,” Johnny stated simply.
Kell sighed, shaking his head. “No.”
It was a one-word answer, but Johnny could hear the heaviness in Kell’s voice, and the exhaustion. Something had been eating away at Kell for weeks, and Johnny felt the story welling up from the depths of Kell’s heart. As Kell’s dark eyes reflected the moonlight, Johnny felt his heart flutter and squeeze, aching to help his mate.
“It started weeks ago. I passed it off as bad dreams from what happened with Carson, and from whatever the pregnancy has been doing to me. It was just a really bad feeling at first, I’d wake up sometimes and feel just…dread. Then it started hitting me during the day, coming out of nowhere and washing over me, just this black wave of fear,” Kell said slowly.
Johnny nodded, afraid to interrupt Kell and ruin the momentum he was building. He’d noticed there were times when Kell would grow unusually quiet, sinking so far into his thoughts that he looked like he was in a trance. Johnny had always felt a shiver of unease in those moments but passed the feeling off as paranoia on his part. Kell was a rather expressive and open person, but he could be private at the oddest times. Even with their shared bond, and mutual telepathy, Johnny didn’t always know what was going on in Kell’s mind and had to rely on Kell eventually sharing his thoughts.
Kell took a deep breath. “But then the feelings started getting clearer. They weren’t just vague feelings, but really personal ones. There’s this…giant ball of hate and anger out there, and it’s directed at us…me.”
“The Children, or the Vigil?” Johnny asked.
Kell smiled dryly. “They’re both pretty good candidates huh? Honestly, I don’t think the Children hate me, they’re just afraid. No, it’s the Vigil, and I’ve never felt this from them before. They’ve always hated people like us, and me especially, but this is so different than before. It’s not just their normal hate or their normal bigotry, this is…this feels like the kind of hate someone like Hitler would have had toward someone who was Jewish. The kind of hate and rage which makes you willing to burn the world to the ground in order to wipe certain people out, especially me.”
“Are these dreams, visions?” Johnny asked, wondering if it might be guil
t over Carson’s death settling in deeper.
“I mean, I thought they were just dreams. If they were visions, I would’ve thought it would be Ash who had them. But he hasn’t had visions lately, has he?” Kell asked.
Johnny shook his head, thinking that Ash’s precognitive ability seemed to have retreated for a little while. When they’d been younger, Johnny had seen Ash’s power take hold of him at least once every couple of weeks. Ash rarely spoke of what he saw, but he usually looked shaken and worried about what he’d seen. Johnny had spent years after leaving the Coven wondering if Ash had seen what was to come, and of the hard road Johnny would inevitably walk. Just like with Kell however, Johnny had never dared to push the subject, for fear of upsetting his friend.
Kell sighed. “Hell, I wanted to think they were just dreams at first. Especially since it felt like…I was tapping into Carson’s father. That was the sense I got when the feelings came over me, that I was feeling the hate and grief-fueled rage of a parent who’d lost their child.”
“Carson was an orphan, just like you. He said it himself, his family was killed in front of him as a teen,” Johnny said.
Kell snorted. “Yeah, that’s exactly what he said, and he grew up in the system from that point on, which is how I met him. I don’t know why I get the feeling that the source of this is somehow Carson’s father, but it’s there. I’ve had to kind of accept that what I’m feeling is accurate, even if it’s not literal.”
Johnny thought of the vague impression’s telepathy could give and nodded. “So, perhaps not a literal father.”
“But a father-like figure, yeah,” Kell finished.
The possibility that Carson had been outright lying occurred to Johnny at that moment. The friendship between he and Kell had been a lie from the beginning, with Carson having been indoctrinated into the Vigil before he’d ever met Kell. The human had been covertly keeping track of Kell’s life, and his growing powers, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. While Johnny thought it possible, he didn’t want to make Kell’s mood any darker than it already was and kept his thoughts to himself, hoping Kell didn’t pick up on them.
Johnny wrapped his arm around Kell’s shoulder, drawing him close. “We’ve faced the Vigil before Kell and walked away victorious every time.”
Kell leaned into Johnny. “And I hope it’s the case this time too. But it just feels like there’s something bad out there, worse than ever before. We’re going to have to face the Vigil again, along with the rest of the world, but it feels like it’s going to be harder than anything we’ve done before.”
“And now we have the three of us to face it, which is more than enough,” Johnny assured him.
He knew Kell was still worried, and he didn’t need telepathy or their bond to realize it. Yet, he could feel Kell warming to Johnny’s presence, and his reassuring words. Kell had been holding onto what very well could be prophetic dreams and feelings for so long, Johnny imagined it was a relief to say it aloud and have it confronted by someone other than Kell alone. It didn’t hurt that Johnny meant every word he said, knowing that between the three of them, they could face down anything and everything.
Kell peered up at him. “Sorry I woke you up.”
Johnny squeezed him again. “Don’t be, I only wish you’d thought to tell me about this before. And I’m sure Ash will feel much the same way when you tell him.”
“I should’ve told you both sooner, but it’s been so nice here, not talking about this sort of thing, or worrying about it. It felt like, if I told you guys about it, it would somehow become more real to me,” Kell admitted.
Johnny opened his mouth, preparing to repeat his statement of comfort and confidence in their abilities. The words stuck in his throat when Ash’s presence rose up in his mind, immediate and vivid. His friend had frozen in the motion of putting one of their few plates back into the cupboard, eyes widening. Ash’s pupils had dilated, almost completely swallowing up the warm brown. Johnny knew the look and had seen it dozens of times when they were young.
In his vision of Ash, he saw the blond man cry out in sudden agony. Reverberations of the pain and fear echoed through the air, striking chords in both Johnny and Kell’s heart. Johnny watched the plate in Ash’s hand drop to the ground as Ash crumpled, the fragile dish shattering as it struck the hardwood of the kitchen floor.
Johnny’s vision snapped back, and he could see Kell’s wide eyes staring up at him. “Ash.”
Johnny’s body was already shifting, bones stretching and shrinking in his limbs and torso. Without thinking, he ripped his loose clothes off and dropped them on the rock. He needed to get to Ash as quickly as possible, and he could do that better on all fours. A desperate whine bubbled up from his throat as he dropped to the ground. Kell was already gathering up Johnny’s discarded clothing as Johnny whirled around, leaping into the forest and hurrying toward the cottage.
The last thing he saw in his mind’s eye before the connection to Ash faded completely was the darkness overtaking Ash’s mind.
Ash
Dimly, he became aware of his own thoughts again, feeling them bubble up from the darkness his mind had fallen into. Warmth pressed against his back and shoulders rather than the cold of the floor he expected to feel. Little by little, he gathered his senses together, feeling his head cradled carefully as his lower body sprawled on the floor.
His eyes cracked open and he looked up into the bright blue eyes of his best friend. Johnny was gazing down at him, with concern and worry etched into his every feature. As he stared up at his friend, Ash struggled to remember why he was on the floor. While Johnny had been away looking for Kell and talking to him, Ash had decided to busy himself with what little housework there was. Turning his head slightly, he caught sight of a shattered plate and remembered he’d decided to start with the dishes.
His memory returned and hit him with full impact. The vision he’d had in the moment he’d turned to the sink, plate in hand, slamming back into place. A moan passed his lips as he shuddered, closing his eyes against the horror which had struck him without warning. Images flitted through his mind like a razor’s edge, cutting him deep in his heart and soul. Johnny flinched, either seeing the whole of Ash’s vision in his own mind or seeing enough to recoil naturally from it.
“Johnny,” Ash murmured, trying to cast the dark specter of the vision from his mind.
Johnny smiled wanly. “Looks like you had one doozy of a vision this time. I can’t remember the last time you lost consciousness from them.”
“It’s been awhile, I’ll give you that. I think the last time was before I ever left for Iraq,” Ash grunted as he pushed himself to sit up.
“Hey, take it easy. It might’ve been some time since the last time you passed out from a vision, but I remember how dizzy and out of it you were when it did happen,” Johnny cautioned.
Ash waved him off, grabbing the counter to pull himself up. “I think you’re forgetting that I’ve been through a lot worse since then too. I’m not going to pass out again.”
Johnny watched him, frowning as Ash steadied himself on his feet. Ash closed his eyes against a wave of dizziness and nausea, riding it through to the end. The turning of his stomach had less to do with the power of the vision he’d had, and more to do with the memory constantly pressing into his mind’s eye.
“Do you want to tell Kell?” Johnny asked.
Ash sighed. “If you sensed it, then so did he.”
“I meant about what you saw,” Johnny said quietly.
The vision had mirrored his actions in the present, save that they took place in the middle of the day. Kell, returning from one of his many visits to see Maya, making his way carefully to the house. For one aching moment, Ash thought he might have been seeing one of his rare beautiful visions. Kell bathed in sunlight as he stepped through the line of trees, smiling as he always did whenever he came back from visiting Maya. The sight had sent a pang of love and fear through Ash’s heart, and his movement to place th
e plate in his hand into the soapy water had frozen.
Before Kell had made it more than a few feet from the line of trees, a group of men had burst from the forest. Kell had no time to react, grabbed by four of them, as the fifth drove a blade into his stomach. The last thing Ash could remember was all the blood and his cry of anguish at the sight of his mate and their children, run through with the blade which could only belong to the Vigil.
When Ash looked at him, Johnny was ghostly white as he stared at Ash in pure shock. Ash grimaced, knowing then Johnny had only caught the barest glimpses of Ash’s vision before. Even with the bond, Ash could normally keep his thoughts and feelings to himself, with only moments of surprise or emotional intimacy bringing his walls down. He was still shaken from the force and brutality of the vision, and dizzy from having passed out, and as a result Johnny had seen the grotesque vision in its entirety.
“And tell him what? That I saw the Vigil come crashing down around us once again? That in the vision, he and our children were both murdered by those fanatics? His dreams and thoughts are dark enough Johnny, I don’t want to add a vision which we’ll never let happen haunt him even more,” Ash whispered, clutching the counter.
“But what do we do? If we leave here, especially with Kell so close, he’ll be even more vulnerable to an attack. At least up here, we can count on the protection of Maya,” Johnny said.
Ash motioned to his head with a sad smile. “Apparently not. That group of Vigil members managed to find their way up here just fine. Maybe they have new tricks up their sleeves, or perhaps old ones they don’t use enough for us to know about. Whatever the case, they’re going to come for him.”
They’d always known Kell was going to be the primary target for both the Vigil and the Children if they should choose to attack again. That Kell was pregnant and close to giving birth to children born from two half-breed fathers, would make him an even more enticing target. While they’d done their absolute best to keep Kell’s pregnancy a secret, Ash’s vision showed him they’d failed. It only followed, that if the Vigil knew, then it was very likely the Children knew as well.
