by JL Madore
He bounced up the stairs beside me, keeping pace with no effort. “How will you get through two hours of advanced weapons training if you can’t climb the stairs to get to the gym? Do you honestly think you can swing a flail right now?”
Gods, I should’ve pulled the covers over my head and stayed in bed.
“Come here.” Nash grabbed my shoulder and steered me into the fifth year’s co-ed bathroom. I got a handle on myself while one of Jade’s students finished washing up. After she left, Nash checked the stalls to ensure our privacy. “I’m not trying to coerce you, Lexi. Really, I’m not, but you look like roadkill. I want to help.”
“I appreciate it, but I could get into a lot of trouble—”
He slipped his hand into his jacket and came out with a small package that looked like gum.
“What’s that?”
“It’s new . . . for those who don’t smoke.” He pulled out a few sticks of the Haze gum and handed them to me. “No one will know it’s not a stick of gum. I’m just not sure how much you’d need. You’re tiny, but I sit across from you at dinner. You have the metabolism of a barbarian.”
“I don’t know whether that should piss me off or not.”
The three-minute chime sounded and without thinking any more about it, I unwrapped a stick of Haze and drove it in my mouth. Nash shoved the rest of the package into the pocket of my battle vest and—gods help me—it was done.
The day passed in a blissful golden blur of conversation, melee practice, and bacchanalia party preparation. I hadn’t realized the oppressive grip my suffering had held me under, but with the pain lifted, I was in top form and ready for anything. I decided, after wadding in a third piece of groovy gum, that I’d name my first-born child Nash. It was catchy and I had a new-found love for that guy. I really did.
Sliding sideways past the boxes and bins stacked and blocking most of the main entrance hall of the Gatehouse, I hung my winter jacket on a hook and made my way inside to find Julian. Hopefully he was back to being the brother who didn’t want to kill me.
“Yo bro,” I called, turning the corner into the main control room. Three heads whirled around and not one of my siblings looked too thrilled that I had crashed their convo. I stopped short in the open doorway feeling like I’d just taken a blow to the gut. “What’s this . . . a party and me the only one without an invite?”
Jade shook her head and her long burgundy locks danced against her chest. Funny thing about redheads, their blush always gave away when they lied. “Don’t look so suspicious, Lexi, there’s no conspiracy. Reign asked me to connect with the sea otter Finfolk off the coast of Alaska. You remember Storm right? The Native girl from the Hearthstone last spring? Well, she’s running the clan now. Bruin and I just got back and were catching up with Julian on the Scourge front.”
Bruin stood arms crossed, his turquoise stare solidly fixed on the monitor wall behind me. No change there.
My stomach tightened at the awkwardness choking the air. Stepping further into the room, I picked up the tablet Julian used to track deliveries and scrolled through the list. “I was told that some of my party supplies arrived.”
“Some?” Julian scrubbed rough fingers over his skull-trimmed afro and scowled. “Is there more to come? You’re five times over your yearly quota for Modern Realm deliveries and it’s only February, Lexi. You’ve brought so much through the Athen’s Gatehouse, I’m going to have to declare it a point of exposure risk.”
“Yeah, right.” I snorted. “No one’s keeping tabs on deliveries made to an olive oil factory. Besides, I want my bacchanalia to be authentic. I need everything I ordered to make it special.”
Julian shook his head, his mint-green gaze stern. “I get that you think so, but no party is worth risking realm safety.”
“Well sorry if my birthday doesn’t rank up there with Jade and Galan ordering half a baby supply warehouse or Bruin sending for everything Mika ever owned in Vancouver. I’ll try to remember my place.”
“Don’t be petty, Lexi,” Jade snapped. “We’re worried about you.”
I whirled, my mouth agape. “Worried? You’ve each been so busy excluding me from your lives I wouldn’t have thought you’d have time to spare a thought for me.”
Bruin growled and threw up his hands. “I told you it was useless. She’s too selfish to hear anything we say.”
“Selfish?” I spat. “Don’t even pretend that you’re mad about twinkle lights and statuary, Bear. I’ve apologized a thousand times for Mika. I’ve tried to make amends, but you and your mate won’t even open the door for me.”
“Stop apologizing and accept responsibility for it,” he growled. “It was an accident you’ve said. You didn’t mean it, you’ve said. Fuck, Lexi, actions have consequences. You hurt the people around you and don’t even see it until they’re bleeding and Jade has to patch them up.”
I fought the urge to leave. It would only give him the satisfaction of saying I acted like a child. “Bruin, you know damned well I never meant to hurt her. Sometimes my strength gets away from me—especially if I’m provoked.”
The growl of Bruin’s bear vibrated through the room. “Are you telling me Mika taunted you into smashing her head into the marble tiles?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Enough, you two.” Julian stepped around his desk and pulled back on Bruin’s shoulders. When he turned to me, his expression was pinched and stern. “We’re worried about you, Lex. You’re lashing out, flaking on training schedules, and skipping your classes. You’re not yourself and haven’t been for months.”
Months? “I wasn’t feeling well and missed one day’s duties. One. You seem to forget that I’m the one picking up the slack at the Academy because Jade’s busy puking every morning. And I’m the one at every early morning training session of the Highbornes because Bruin can’t seem to dismount his mate long enough to—”
“Fuck, Lexi!” Julian placed his palms flat on Bruin’s chest and planted his feet.
The growl that ripped from Bruin that time vibrated in my chest. The man would never hurt me, but the bonded Were animal in him was a truly scary thing. I eased back a few feet as his turquoise eyes flared gold. Jade took hold of Bruin’s bicep and began to sing. Her enchanted melody wove an ethereal spell around Bruin until his bear calmed.
Julian glared. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
I turned on my heel. “Nothing. I’m just learning that the term ‘family’ is more subjective than I thought. Seems if you don’t toe the line just right, you’re as good as—”
Someone lunged behind me, caught my shoulder and whirled me around. Pressed against the wall, Bruin stared at me with deadly focus. He leaned close and sniffed. “You’re on something.”
Oh shit. I fought against his iron grip, trying to keep my cool. “What? So, you refuse to speak to me for six months and then accuse me of—”
“Blaze. Come check out her eyes.” Bruin pushed harder to hold me in place as the room got a hell of a lot more claustrophobic. “I smell Haze.”
I caught his jaw with an uppercut and twisted out of his grasp. “What I do stopped being your business when you cut me from your life. You want me gone? Consider me gone.”
“No you don’t.” Julian reached across his desk and slammed his hand down. The hiss of the control room doors sealed the four of us in. “There something wrong here, Princess. You’re angry, volatile and edgy. You’re losing control of your temper and now you’re using? We have the right to know what’s going on.”
Jade pushed between me and our brothers and grabbed my hand. The unwelcome warmth of her connection spread as she invaded my privacy.
I ripped out of her grasp. “Screw the intervention. Run to Reign if you want. Make up a dramatic story about how selfish, stupid Lexi went off the rails and became a doser. Then maybe he’ll hate me too. Maybe he’ll kick me out of Talon. Hell, why stop there, if you make it good, he might kick me out of your family altogether.”
“Alexannia Grace,” Jade snapped. “You are part of our family. Whatever is going on—”
“No.” I shook my head, my eyes filling with liquid fury, “I was slow to get the memo, but it’s clear I don’t measure up to the standards of the group. You’ve got Galan and your babies now. Bruin’s got his precious Mundie. Hell, even Julian’s too busy for me since we moved to your new mansion. Seven months and he still hasn’t found an afternoon to spend wiring my sound system and Internet. He wired the rest of the house though, the Talon are all set up . . . hell, even the Dens have fiber connection so Mika can work over the web.”
The words ripped from my chest as the three of them stared. I stepped over to the door and grabbed the handle. I looked tiny but they knew I had strength well beyond my size. “Let me out of here, Julian or I swear I’ll rip the door from the fucking frame.”
The hiss of the air lock was my signal to make tracks. I couldn’t breathe. My ribs and chest ached almost as bad as my back did. Running from the Gatehouse, I followed the stone wall of Jade’s compound and bolted for the forest.
Thoughts and emotions swirled in my head, disjointed images of misunderstanding and judgment. Months? Julian said they’d noticed I was off for months? Nobody said anything to me. Nobody even bothered to ask how I was.
A gust of February air slapped my face and bit at the tears freezing against my skin. A shiver wracked though me. Where was my jacket? Damn. Well, I wasn’t going back to get it.
With my arms crossed over my chest, I ignored the sensation of icy shards tunneling into my skin and pushed into the forest. How dare they point fingers at me? I tromped around a rock formation. Sheltered from the scream of winter, I was enveloped in an almost deafening rush of quiet.
Everywhere hurt. My head. My heart. My back.
Why hadn’t I gone to Jade about my pain? Tham had urged me enough times. Jade was a great healer.
I dropped to my knees at the edge of the small pond where Reign had found me years ago. He’d said that each one of his kids needed a place of our own. This was mine. Alone in my special sanctuary, my sobs wracked me in earnest.
I didn’t cry. Ever. Usually.
I needed to go. The thought of leaving Haven made my throat tighten. Everything I was . . . everything I had become was tied to this mountain: daughter, sister, teacher, fighting instructor, Talon warrior. . .
Where could I go? My first memory was of Reign looking down on me in this forest when I was eight. He’d seemed so fearsome, but then he’d led me across the grounds and toward the Haven castle. “No tears, Princess,” he’d said. “Everything’s fine now. I got you.”
When my shins grew numb against the frozen ground, I rolled my weight to the side and leaned up against the trunk of a young birch tree. After lifting the neck of my shirt to cover my skin the best I could, I brought my knees up and wrapped my arms around them.
I’d been wearing a red pendant when he found me. I pulled it out from under my shirt and looked at it. It had grown too tight by my twelfth birthday so Reign had taken it and threaded a new chain. When I began fighting he replaced the delicate white gold links with a leather cord.
My fingers felt stiff, brushing over the polished carving. For sixteen years, I had stared at the piece of red jasper and tried to determine what it was. Some days I saw a flower, others a shamrock, shaped with four identical petals and a design repeated on each of them. Sometimes I thought they looked like curling waves, sometimes I was positive they were wings. Whatever they were, they always warmed me.
I ran my finger over the etched pattern and yawned. It had been so long since I’d had a solid night’s sleep and exhaustion was dragging me down. I dropped my necklace back into my shirt and tucked my frozen fingers under my armpits.
Gods I was tired. Something niggled at the back of my weary mind about falling asleep in the cold. The thought was there . . . just beyond my grasp. I yawned and laid my head back against the tree, my heavy eyes falling closed.
I’d just rest for a minute. Just for a minute.
“Alexannia Grace . . . .” An ethereal voice spoke into my dreams and swept through my mind. “Alexannia Grace . . . open your eyes.”
My eyes cracked open and I lifted my head. Still sitting in front of my small pond I watched the silver surface glow and give off a lighted mist. Gone was the frozen, ice-encrusted sheet, replaced by the shimmer of liquid gold. I blinked and rubbed at my frozen lashes.
“Alexannia Grace.” A girl rose from beneath the ice. She appeared slowly, first a crown of long ebony hair, then graceful shoulders draped in a midnight blue gown and then a small, slender figure, stunning and graceful. I stared as she drew closer. It was as if she were climbing an unseen staircase below the surface.
I was dreaming. Had to be.
When only her ankles remained underwater I scrambled to my feet. She was my size and about my age. When she raised her face and looked at me straight on, I stepped back.
Definitely dreaming. Either that or I was looking into a mirror: amethyst eyes, ebony hair—hers long where mine was short and spiked—the resemblance was spooky.
She eyed me with the same interest. When our gazes locked, she nodded. “So, it’s true. Well met, Princess, I am Freya Love, your sister.”
“My sister?”
She nodded and held out a gloved hand. “The Queen sent me to bring you home, Princess. You have been absent from your royal life far too long. Your family awaits.”
Whoa, Nash hadn’t warned me there would be tripping on the downswing of a Haze ride. But after my fight at the Gatehouse I couldn’t blame my subconscious for choosing an escape. I stepped to the edge of the pond and peered down by her feet. It just looked like the same dark surface of water it had always been. “And where would we be going?”
She giggled. “To Attalos of course, the home of your people, your birthplace.”
The hair on my arms stood on end and I scanned the forest around me. Was this really happening or was it a dream? Hypothermia. That’s why you weren’t supposed to sleep in the cold. I looked back at where I had been napping against the tree, the snow indented from where I had been. Or was I still sleeping? Was I in some kind of interactive vision? I’d had visions where it was tough to separate what was real and what wasn’t, but this. . ..
“There is no need for trepidation, blood of my blood. I mean only to return you to our people. The time of our sixth is upon us. We must prepare for the celebration.”
“Our sixth?”
“Anniversary of our existence. It has been six year cycles since our beginning.”
“Oh? Are you a leap year baby too?”
A strange look flashed behind her eyes but she nodded. “I am your twin, an Eligible as you are. All born of the Queen, on the forgotten day, are Eligibles.”
“The Queen? So, I really am a Princess?”
“Of course. Do you know nothing of your heritage? Who was your mentor?”
I shook my head. Reign had arranged fighting mentors and the four of us had academic tutors, but as far as I knew, nobody knew anything about who I was or where I came from. “Am I some kind of a changeling?”
Frustration creased Freya’s ebony brow and she studied me. “With the arrival of two, it seems our breeder hid one daughter and presented the other to the Queen. She only just learned of your existence and has sent for you. Do you know none of this?”
“No. I was adopted by a man named Maximus Reign. He never knew where I came from. Just found me abandoned and wandering in this forest when I was eight years old.”
“Two,” she said, then smoothed out her expression. “We do not accept the markings of time from the other realms. You were placed without the Queen’s consent at the age of two.”
“Well I was placed without a note or a memory to go on.”
Freya’s brow arched and her resemblance to me strengthened. “You truly have no knowledge of what is to come? Our celebration? What it means to be an Eligible?”
I shook my hea
d. “Nope. Totally in the dark.”
She seemed to find that amusing, but after few seconds of what I could only describe as gloating she held her hand out again. “Then, it truly is time to go. The hour of celebration approaches. Our family awaits.”
Family? A real family? Not a cobbled together mess that shits on me the minute I make one little mistake? I brushed my hands over the goosebumps on my arms. My instincts said none of this sat right. That I needed to fall back. Bring her to Reign. Ask questions. Yeah, but apparently my instincts had been off—for months.
Unsure if I was dreaming, tripping, or if this was really happening, I considered leaving. I’d just said I needed time away. Jade and the others would probably think I went underground to cool off. I glanced at the golden mist floating in wisps around Freya’s feet and snorted. I supposed this counted as going underground. Besides, if I was gone they might realize how much they’d taken me for granted. Maybe a little worrying would do them good.
“Sure,” I said, stepping out to join her. “Let’s go.”
CHAPTER THREE
I expected the water to be cold, after all, it was mid-February and the pond had been frozen solid ten minutes before my princess sista emerged and did her Jesus lizard on the water impression. It wasn’t cold though. It was like stepping into the hot springs. Soothing. Until my cold limbs began to thaw. Slivers of pain splintered across my skin and into my bones as my blood began to flow again.
Freya took my hand before we submerged entirely and for a fleeting moment I wondered if I really wanted to make my first appearance for my homecoming looking like a drowned rat. That thought was short lived. As I opened my mouth to say something she took a breath and went under. I followed.
Bizarre . . . as my head submerged at Haven it emerged into the warmth of a Mediterranean afternoon. Blue skies. Warm salty sea breeze. We rose out of a raised reflection pool in a city center. And I wasn’t even wet.
The rush of ocean waves breaking filled my ears. I blinked and tried to absorb. I searched my surroundings to see where the sound was coming from.
