I tried to see where we were, but couldn’t recognize the clearing. All I could tell was that it was closer to fall. The leaves were starting to turn colors but none of them had fallen yet.
Something big moved in the trees and my heart jumped in my chest as Dodge charged out of the woods.
“Dodge! No!” I yelled.
Jasper was completely still behind me as he waited for me to finish the dream.
As Dodge ran out of the woods so did about twenty cats. I lost my concentration. My dream slipped away and I started to cry.
Jasper pulled me to him. “Shush, Shlova.” He kissed me softly. “We’ll figure it out. We always do.”
I shook my head as he brushed the tears from my cheeks. “This is never going to end. They’ll never leave us alone!”
He stood us up and kissed me again, but didn’t say anything for a moment.
“Tell me about it.” He took a deep breath when I was done telling him about the dream.
“So we weren’t all there, then.”
I shook my head and we looked at each other, trying to figure out the meaning of it. Someone knocked on the door and I jumped.
Jasper went to answer. “Alex! Come on in. What brings you here?”
“I just...” He looked around the room. “I’m not sure actually. I was out hunting and got very edgy. Like something was wrong. I wanted to make sure you guys were fine.”
Jasper and I looked at each other.
“They’re coming again,” I mumbled.
“Who? When?”
“The Majs. I’m not sure. The leaves are going to be turning when they come.”
“So at least four months, then.”
I nodded.
“Would you mind telling me what you saw?” He came to sit beside me.
I ran through my dream again and he listened intently.
When I was done, he shook his head. “That doesn’t make much sense at all. If we had called for help from the other shifters, Tara and the rest of them would be with us too. So if we got surprised by Rainen, what are all the cats doing there?”
None of us had an answer.
I put my head in my arms and fought off the tears.
Alex put a hand on my shoulder and looked at Jasper. “I would like to stick around here, if you don’t mind.”
Jasper nodded. “Thank you, Alex.”
“I’ll go tell Leslie in a bit. Maybe what we need to do is scout around for the clearing.” Alex looked at me. “Do you think you could paint it for us?”
“I could try.” I looked over at Jasper. “What’s wrong?”
“I just...I didn’t know you painted.” He looked a little annoyed at the fact that Alex knew something about me that he didn’t.
“Mel mentioned it to me,” Alex explained. “She said you did a good job on the details. Something about deer, I think.” He stood. “I guess I’ll go finish hunting now that I know you guys are fine. I’ll be back after I’ve talked with Leslie.”
He gave Jasper a pat on the shoulder and left.
“That’s a little strange, don’t you think?” I asked Jasper as I moved some things around I had thrown under the bed.
“What’s that?”
“Well, just how I had a dream and somehow Alex knew something was wrong.” I lay on my stomach to get a better look.
“Yes, I suppose it is strange.” He sounded thoughtful.
“Oh. There.” I got up off of the floor. “I had made it for you.” I carried the painting over to him.
His eyes widened. “When?”
“When you left to go help Cholta with his barn. I put it under the bed so I could surprise you when you got home. With everything that happened when you got back I simply forgot about it until now.” I handed him the painting.
“It’s beautiful,” he said. “You are very good.” He smiled at me and I blushed.
He put his arms around me. “Thank you.” He brushed some of the loose hair away from my face, his thumb running along my cheek and across my lips.
I sighed and closed my eyes as his lips replaced his thumb and he kissed me softly. I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him back.
“How are you feeling?”
I shrugged. “Still a bit sore.” It had been five days since we had mated. He shook his head.
“Jasper. Stop it. You can’t hate yourself for this. It’s not like you did it on purpose. You didn’t mean to hurt me.”
“I’m supposed to protect you.”
“And you do. You saved my life the second day I met you, do you remember?”
“By the waterfall.”
“That’s right.”
He smiled. “I didn’t really have to do much. It was just one wolf.”
“But then the three came and you got hurt keeping them away from me.”
“It was just a scratch.”
“It was a dagger cut.” I lift his shirt and traced the faint five inch scar that ran down his side along his ribs. “I can remember each and every time that you have protected me or saved my life. Do you want me to run through them all?”
He shook his head. “What about the times you’ve done the same for me?”
“You mean at the ridge?”
He nodded.
“Yeah, well, you’re not allowed to do that to me again.”
He laughed. “I wasn’t planning on it.” His eyes softened as he gazed into mine. “That wasn’t the first time you saved me.”
I thought back, trying to remember when he had needed me to heal him before the battle on the ridge. I shook my head. “I don’t remember. What did I do?”
He smiled at me. “You saved me two days before I first saved you.”
“But we hadn’t even met then. I just saw you for a second. You were standing on the hill.”
“That’s right. I’m not sure how to explain it, really. But that day, you looked into my eyes, and that’s how it felt; like I had just been saved.” His voice was low and husky.
I melted. The man had a way with words.
“It’s the same feeling I get every time.” He gave me a lopsided grin. “Sounds stupid, right?”
I shook my head. “Not at all. I know that feeling.” I stood on my tip toes and kissed him softly. I pushed him down so he was sitting on a chair then straddled him.
He groaned. “By the moons, Shlova, how do you do that to me?” He ran his lips lightly along my jaw and down my neck.
I shivered against him. “It’s not me.” I ran my fingers through his curls as his tongue traced along my collar bone. “It’s you.” I pulled his shirt over his head. “I need you.”
He looked at me, uncertainty clear across his face. “Are you sure? You said you were still sore.”
I ran my teeth over his nipple and smiled at the moan that made its way up his throat.
“Hayden, stop.”
I pulled back and looked at him.
“I’m going to do this the way I should have done it the other night.” He picked me up and carried me to our bed.
He took his time, had me begging during most of it, and by the time he was done, all I could manage was to lie quivering on his chest.
His breathing started to slow and he brushed the hair back from my face. “Are you alright?”
I snorted. “Am I alright, he asks. Where were you during all of this? I’m pretty sure if you were listening you’d know that it was far better than alright.”
He started to laugh. “That’s not what I meant.” He hugged me tightly. “I didn’t hurt you?”
I wiggled up so I could I could kiss him. “No. You didn’t hurt me.” I glanced out the window and noticed that daylight was starting to fade. “I’d better start supper.”
Jasper watched me get dressed. He lay stretched out on the bed, his arms behind his head. Seeing him thus, the lines of his muscles showing under his skin, his curls sticking out at odd angles, his sky blue eyes half closed, he was beautiful to look at. Hell, he was always beautiful to look at. My g
aze dropped down and I grinned at him. “Again?”
His stomach growled and he laughed. “I think supper might be more important.”
My stomach picked that moment to agree with him. I headed to the kitchen and decided what to make for supper. I grabbed some vegetables I had brought in from the icebox and swore under my breath.
Jasper wrapped his arms around me from behind. “What’s wrong?”
“I forgot to pull out meat. Can you run outside and get some from the meat cellar?”
“I suppose I could do that for you.” He stopped kissing the back of my neck long enough to turn me around and tilt my face up so he could kiss me softly.
He looked up when the door opened and started to laugh. “As if Dodge and the bird weren’t enough, now we have to worry about Alex.”
I looked behind me to the door and burst out laughing. “Alex! It’s ok. We were just kissing!” I thought about how it was a good thing he hadn’t gotten back ten minutes sooner. Thankfully, Jasper had pulled some pants on before coming to the kitchen.
Alex was beet red. He started to say something, stopped, then cleared his throat. “I got a couple of rabbits. I thought you could use them for supper?”
I gave Jasper a quick peck on the cheek before taking the rabbits from Alex. “Thanks.”
Jasper picked up the painting and brought it over to show Alex.
“Oh, wow! Mel wasn’t exaggerating!”
I blushed. “The only problem is that I’ve never drawn or painted something from memory.” I got the rabbits ready for a stew. “I guess that’s not entirely true,” I thought out loud.
Jasper and Alex looked after me as I disappeared into the bedroom. I came back out with my art pad, flipping through the pages as I walked. I found the last thing I had drawn and handed it to Jasper.
“That’s the trail I first saw you on.” Jasper smiled. “All I could think was ‘get down there and kiss her’!” he laughed.
I started laughing with him. “Is that why you ran away?”
He nodded.
“You and your sense of duty!”
Alex was looking at the drawing. “Why just his eyes?”
“Honestly, that was the only part of him I could remember.”
I looked into those perfect eyes and my heart did a flip. “Those are the eyes that changed the entire course of my life.”
Jasper grinned. “Well, I’m glad that they were enough to get you to follow me here. Though I never really thought there was anything special about my eyes. A good percentage of cats have blue eyes.”
I looked over at Alex. His were almost the same shade of blue as Jasper’s. I looked back and forth between them, trying to see the difference. Alex’s eyes had a ring of darker blue around them. Jasper’s were a bit lighter and had specs of darker blue in them.
Alex’s eyes were beautiful, but Jasper’s took my breath away.
“I’m not sure what it is. Your eyes are something else, Alex. But yours, Jasper, yours make me forget to breathe.”
I got up and stirred the stew. I smiled as I watched the two of them. In a lot of ways, Alex reminded me of Jasper. Appearance wise, they were completely different. Though both had blue eyes, Alex’s hair was the color of honey and straight. He was also a couple inches shorter than Jasper and his build was thicker.
And yet despite the difference in looks, the two of them were identical. It was the way they both thought before they spoke; the way they looked intently at whoever was talking to them and you knew they were really listening to what was being said. It was in the calmness that they both radiated, no matter the situation.
There was the fact that they both could read my moods and even if they weren’t in the same room, would somehow sense if I was worried. This last dream had been the perfect example of that. Jasper had woken, knowing too well what was happening though I hadn’t made a noise until I had whispered “Rainen”. Then Alex had shown up, simply knowing something was wrong.
I was fated to Jasper, so the bond between us explained how he could touch on how I was feeling. What was Alex’s reason?
I hadn’t realized I was still staring at him until Alex turned red. “What?” he asked.
“Oh! Sorry. I was just thinking.”
“What about?”
I was quiet for a minute, trying to organize my thoughts. “I was wondering how we are connected.”
His eyes widened and he looked quickly at Jasper and back to me. “What do you mean?”
“It just seems to me, that every time I feel worried, or scared, or anything off like that, you can sense it. Not as well as Jasper does. But you still can. Like this dream. Or when Jasper was out hunting a few weeks ago and I started to worry because he was taking a bit longer than usual. You showed up and told me not to worry because you were sure he was fine...but I hadn’t told you how I was feeling. I’m sure if we thought about it hard enough, there would be other times it’s happened.”
Alex started to look worried.
Jasper put a hand on his shoulder. “What’s wrong? You know something you’re not telling us. Why?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?” Jasper didn’t sound mad, just curious.
“Because you will kill me.”
Both of us looked at him incredulously.
Alex squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head as if trying to make this situation go away.
“Alex,” I walked over to him. “Why don’t you just explain what you think you know. We’re not going to kill you. Honestly, it can’t be that bad!”
He shook his head again and looked at the floor. “You won’t. He will.”
Jasper’s jaw dropped. “Why in the world would I kill you? I imagine that if you were to put Hayden’s life in danger, I might consider it, but no, I...” He stopped short and looked closely at Alex. “Did you do something to put her at risk?”
Alex shook his head no and Jasper visibly relaxed.
“Ok. So now that we have established that Jasper won’t kill you, why don’t you tell us what you think is happening?”
Alex looked uneasily at Jasper.
“How about I go sit over there. If you think I’ll come after you, you should be able to make it out the door before I finish reacting.” Jasper was grinning. He gave Alex one last pat on the back and went to sit at the opposite end of the room.
I went to stand in front of Alex and took his hands. “Now. What’s going on?”
He took one quick glance at Jasper then looked down at our hands. He frowned, looked up and his eyes met mine. “I don’t understand it at all.” His voice was quiet, almost a whisper. “It’s my dreams.”
I smiled at him, trying to get him to keep going.
“There’s a girl in my dreams.”
“So you’re fated.” I frowned. “Have you told Leslie?”
He shook his head. “No. Because it doesn’t make sense.”
“Well, do you know who she is?”
Alex nodded and glanced nervously at Jasper before looking back down to me. “She’s you.”
My mouth dropped open and I saw Jasper tense on his chair.
Alex was still talking. “It doesn’t make sense, though, does it? We can’t be fated because you are fated to Jasper. So why do I see you? Why can I tell when you need someone?”
He looked over at Jasper. “I wasn’t going to say anything. I was perfectly happy just being around her. I love Leslie and would rather not have to ruin what we have, honestly. I don’t plan on doing anything about it. Really. I just want to be here if she needs something and you aren’t around.”
I could tell Jasper was thinking hard. My hands were still in Alex’s and I was too shocked to pull away.
All three of us were quiet.
Jasper cleared his throat and Alex jumped and dropped my hands.
Alex’s blue eyes darted between Jasper and I. “I had better go,” he muttered and started to walk towards the door.
“Alex, stop.” Jasper stood up.
Alex hesitated. “No. I don’t think it would be right for me to stay.”
“We have to figure this out. If there’s one thing I have learned since Hayden has entered my life is that things don’t just happen when it comes to her. There is always a reason. So there has to be one for this.”
Alex relaxed a bit. “I really don’t know what that reason might be.”
“I can think of one, though I rather it not be it.”
I looked at Jasper. “What?”
“What if the two of you are fated because I won’t be here much longer?”
I felt a lump rise in my throat. “Don’t talk like that. We’re not fated because I didn’t dream of him.”
Jasper raised an eyebrow at me. “You didn’t think you had dreamed of me until you kissed me. Then you remembered.”
I simply stared at him. “You’re not allowed to leave me. You promised.” It sounded childish even to me.
“Maybe this is out of my hands.” He turned to Alex. “There’s only one way to find out, really.”
Alex’s mouth dropped. “You want me to kiss her?”
Jasper nodded. “There’s a reason for this and I want to know what it is.”
“No.” Both Jasper and Alex turned to me. “I won’t do it.”
“Hayden, we have to see. Maybe that’s not why. Maybe nothing happens to me, but whether you kiss or not is not going to change why this is happening. We need to see if you are fated and if you are then figure out why.”
“You want me to kiss him?”
“No, of course I don’t want you too. I just don’t see a way around it.”
“And what happens if we are. What does that do to us?” My voice was small.
Jasper looked miserable. “I don’t know.”
“Fine!” I strode over to Alex whose eyes widened. He took a few steps back and stopped short when he ran into the wall. I grabbed his face in my hands and pulled him down to me. The kiss was short and not terribly engaging.
Jasper looked like he was in pain. “That was hardly a kiss, Hayden. Now kiss him properly.”
Alex simply stayed plastered against the wall like he was trying to hide.
I glared at Jasper. He was right, of course. We had to see if this was it. That didn’t mean I had to like it. I felt guilty as I looked at him and my glare softened. He looked like he was choking.
Journey 'The Chosen One Trilogy: Book Two' Page 11
