Journey 'The Chosen One Trilogy: Book Two' (11 page)

It bared its teeth and
lunged.

This time, the sword caught it across
the throat. I felt the warm spray of blood and closed my eyes,
trying to keep the tears from flooding out of them.

“Come here, Shlova.” Jasper pulled me
off of Dodge and hugged me to his chest. “There’s not much you can
do if you’re defending yourself. You warned him.”

“I know.” I swallowed hard. “But he was
just following orders. What were they doing this far from their
border?”

“I imagine they were looking for you.”
He smoothed my hair.

“What about the other two?”

His silence was enough of an
answer.

The lion had shifted and turned into a
man with dirty blond hair and blue eyes. He was a couple inches
shorter than Jasper and thicker in build. He looked to be in his
early twenties. He cupped his hands to his mouth.

“Leslie!” He looked around wildly.
“There was another wolf. He pulled her away. Leslie!”

“Alex! Over here!”

The man shifted and bound in the
direction of the call. Jasper followed suit with Dodge and I just a
few steps behind them.

We rode up and found Alex kneeling in
the snow, looking over a woman covered in blood.

“No, really. Most of it is his. It’s
just my arm where he grabbed me.” She was cradling her left arm
with her right. Leslie was quite a sight to see and I tried not to
stare. She had short hair that spiked up in every direction. It was
a dark grey color with lighter grey highlights. Her eyes were a
deep violet color. Her skin was black as coal.

“Could I have a look?” I swung off of
Dodge and knelt beside her.

She looked at me with wide eyes before
nodding.

Her arm was a mess. The wolf had bit
down on the arm just below the shoulder and had proceeded to drag
her away. The struggle had ripped the muscles as well as the
skin.

“I can fix it, if you’d
like.”

She nodded again before leaning her
head against Alex’s shoulder and closing her eyes.

I pulled the green waves over her
arm.

She gave a small cry of shocked pain as
everything mended. Alex gave me a nod before pulling her into his
lap. “Are you sure you’re alright? It was just the arm?”

She nodded but kept her eyes closed.
“Just give me a minute. That was just a bit too close for comfort.
If I hadn’t had my knife in my boot, he would have had
me.”

Jasper had pulled the dead man into a
thicket and came to stand beside me.

Alex’s eyes widened and he stood
quickly, Leslie still in his arms. “Captain.”

I started to laugh and Jasper grinned.
“I really don’t think I’m a captain anymore considering the Queen
has an order out for our arrest.”

Alex opened his mouth then shut it
again. “I know, sir. But I’m not here for that, sir.”

“Just Jasper will do, Alex.”

“Yes, sir.”

I noticed Leslie had opened her eyes
and was watching me. Alex had set her down. She was the same height
as him. I smiled at her.

“So you’re her.” She smiled back at me
then looked to Alex. “I knew you’d find her eventually.”

I felt Jasper tense beside
me.

Alex seemed to notice as well. “No
worries, sir. Like I said, that’s not why I’m here. Well, not to
bring her back to Pinsaber, anyway. It’s just…” He looked at me
intently, thinking of what he was about to say. “It’s a bit hard to
explain, really. I know we’ve been ordered to find her and take her
to Queen Melana. But it feels…wrong. It feels like I should be
making sure that that doesn’t happen. Does that make sense to
you?”

Jasper nodded and everyone
relaxed.

“What about you?” I asked
Leslie.

She tilted her head toward Alex. “I’m
with him.”

“You’re fated?”

She started to laugh. “Fairends don’t
fate. And besides, everyone knows that only beings of the same kind
become fated.”

I started to laugh. “Boy, are you in
for a surprise.”

“How so?”

“Well, for starters, my mom was a
Wedelve and my dad was human that had crossed over. They were
fated.” I grinned as their jaws dropped. “And then I’m fated to
Jasper.”

Jasper put a hand on my shoulder and
nodded. “It’s true. We’re not sure how or why, but that’s how it
is.”

“It sounds like there’s more,” ventured
Alex.

“There’s Shay and Shawn. He’s a Namael
and she’s a human. They’re in the other world.” I remembered how
she had almost died trying to stay here. This world had sucked the
energy right out of her. “Then, there’s Zane and Dawn.”

“And what are they?” Alex’s eyes were
wide.

“Zane is a panther.” I
paused.

Jasper finished. “Dawn is a
fox.”

“A cat and a dog?” Leslie’s mouth hung
wide.

My chest felt a little heavier all of a
sudden. “Man, I miss everybody.”

Jasper kissed my hair. “Let’s get
home.” He looked over at the odd couple standing with us. “You’ll
be joining us?”

Alex nodded. “If that would be alright,
sir.”

“You guys will fit right in.” I smiled
at them.

We started off toward home.

*****

After traveling with them for four
days, my curiosity finally made me ask.

“So how did the two of you end up
traveling together?” Though the two of them weren’t fated, it was
clear that there were some strong feelings between them.

Leslie looked at me over the fire. “One
day, about five years ago, I found myself in a bit of a jam.” She
grinned at Alex. “You see, I had been out looking for some cannies.
I’m not quite sure how, but a pack of dogs managed to sneak up on
me. You didn’t get much of a chance to notice, but I’m not much of
a fighter. Fairends strictly eat vegetation. We don’t hunt. We are
solitary beings and don’t have any specific place that we call
home.

“There is no one out there getting
ready to invade the Fairends because quite frankly, there’s nothing
to gain from it. For this reason, we aren’t great fighters. I think
that most of the time, most beings forget we exist.

“Anyway, there I was, surrounded by
dogs, when I heard this great roar from behind me. I wasn’t sure if
I should be relieved or frightened. I had managed to live the first
twenty five years of my life avoiding shifters and now I was stuck
in the middle of both kinds.”

Alex put a hand on her knee and smiled.
“Thankfully for her, I was just a nice guy who thought a five on
one fight wasn’t entirely fair.”

“He saved my life,” Leslie laid her
head on his shoulder, “and almost died doing so.”

He shrugged. “One of them managed to
slice me with a dagger on the inside of my thigh. I think if he had
gotten a bit deeper I wouldn’t have been so lucky. And so Leslie
saved my life in return.”

“I’m not a healer by any means, but I
do know of a few pastes and whatnot to help with
healing.”

“After that, it was just right to stay
together.”

Leslie grinned at Alex. “It was a bit
of an uneasy relationship at first. I had been avoiding shifters
since the day I was born. It took a while for me to actually
believe Alex was genuinely a good man.”

He stuck his tongue out at her. “I told
you.”

I smiled. It was a great
story.

Jasper gave me a kiss. “Get some sleep,
Shlova. Tomorrow, I have a surprise for you.” He turned to Alex.
“I’ll take first watch.”

“Yes, sir. Wake me when it’s my
turn.”

Jasper shifted and walked away. I
looked after him for a few moments before burying myself in the
blankets.

I tried to stay awake for as long as I
could. The thought of dreaming made me want to cry. I didn’t want
to remember the screams; didn’t want to remember looking one last
time over the river, hoping to god that Brice would be running
toward us. I focused on my love for Jasper. I thought of the thrill
of flying on the back of a dragon. Of finally being able to hear
Dodge, and the great rush I had gotten when he had lifted off the
ground by the river. I thought of Tara and Ben, Luke, Mel and the
twins. Of Zane and Dawn.

But try as I did to keep my eyes open,
sleep came for me and I was taken away, back to some of the worst
moments of my life.

*****

I woke up feeling disoriented, just
like I did every night. I kept my eyes closed and focused on
slowing my breathing. The only thing that kept me from panicking
was the feel of Jasper’s arms around me. He brushed my hair out of
my face and tucked it behind my ear.

“Shush. It’s alright, Shlova. You’re
not there.”

I focused on Jasper and everything
started to feel balanced again. One last deep breath rattled
through me and I looked up at him.

He wiped the tears from my cheeks. “All
done?”

I nodded and snuggled into his
chest.

“Alex just took over. Go back to sleep.
I’m here.”

“Do you think he could have gotten
away?” My voice was barely audible. I had never asked his opinion
and suddenly needed to know.

He was quiet for a moment. “I’m not
sure, Shlova.” He took a deep breath. “I don’t think so.” He pulled
me tightly against him. “Hayden. You have to let this go. You can’t
keep reliving this every night. I can feel you pulling into
yourself more every day that goes by. What happened to those
shifters wasn’t your fault. What happened to Brice wasn’t your
fault. You can’t keep blaming yourself for everything that goes
wrong.”

He was right, of course, but I didn’t
have the strength to tell him. Exhaustion took over and a dreamless
sleep carried me away.

*****

“Alright, just a few more
minutes.”

I laughed at Jasper’s sly smile. “What
is it?”

“You’ll see.”

Dodge nodded his
head
. Jasper’s right. You’re going to love
this surprise
.

“What? How do you know about
it?”

His laughter rang through my
head.
Hayden, only you couldn’t figure out
what the surprise is.

We crested the top of a hill and my
heart leapt into my throat. “Sageden!”

Jasper was laughing. “I had thought for
sure you would have recognized some of the landmarks the last few
days.”

I was laughing and crying at the same
time. “You know me. I can’t find my way anywhere unless I can see
exactly where I’m going.”

He grinned at me. “Let’s go. I’m sure
Tara will have been worried sick.”

The last five minutes of our journey
went by too slowly for me.

I barely took the time to knock before
barging into the house. Tara and Ben were sitting by the
fire.

“Hayden!” Tara launched herself off the
floor and threw herself at me. We stood together, crying and
laughing.

Ben came to give me a kiss on the
forehead before going to stand by Jasper.

Everyone was grinning from ear to
ear.

I heard some familiar chattering and
caught Tiny as she ran up my leg and into my arms.
“Tiny!”

She licked the tip of my nose, crawled
onto my shoulder and looked around.

“Here, Tiny.” Jasper held a hand out
and she jumped from my shoulder onto him. She chattered quite the
story to him and I grinned. When she was done telling him whatever
it was that Tairats had to say, the tiny white lemur jumped back
onto my shoulder and wrapped her tail around my neck.

Once everyone had calmed down and been
served tea, Jasper introduced Alex and Leslie.

“Did you run into Brice? He’ll want to
know…” Ben stopped what he had been about to say. “What’s
wrong?”

I lay my head on Jasper’s shoulder and
listened with my eyes closed as he ran through the events of the
past few months.

Tara’s hands were shaking when she
lifted her cup of tea. Ben pulled her into his lap and hugged her
close. Though they had been shocked by the fact that Brice had been
human and had betrayed us, he had managed to redeem himself and the
fact that he was gone left us all with heavy hearts.

Tara’s caramel colored eyes blinked
back tears. Ben brushed them from her khaki green cheeks. His brown
skin darkened so that the green striping almost disappeared, which
I had noticed happened when he was upset.

Tara took a deep breath then got up and
went to the kitchen. When she returned, she was carrying six mugs
of sloan, six small cups, and a bottle of jeckden, Quelondain’s
version of very strong whiskey. She poured us each a shot of
jeckden and handed us our sloans.

“To dear friends lost,” she
whispered.

Everyone nodded and held up their
cups.