Journey 'The Chosen One Trilogy: Book Two' (15 page)

I decided to get some lunch ready.
Maybe doing something normal would ease some of the tension as
opposed to simply sitting across from each other and
staring.

I set everything on the table and sat
down, looking out the window.

“Please come back,” I
whispered.

An hour passed, and then two. I moved
to the bedroom and looked at the door.

I finally cried myself to
sleep.

*****

Jasper paced back and forth a short
distance from his brother’s den. He had left almost as quickly as
he had gotten there. The scared look on the twins’ faces made him
wonder what in the world he had looked like. If it was anything
like how he felt, he imagined it wasn’t a nice sight.

There had to be something he could do.
He couldn’t lose her. There had to be a way to show her how much he
needed her. He was willing to promise never to touch her again. He
had to be with her; had to be there to protect her.

“But what good are you if you can’t
even protect her from yourself,” he muttered. He sat down heavily
and put his head in his arms. “By the moons, Hayden. How do I fix
this?”

*****

When I awoke, the only light in the
room was from the dying fire. I got up and put some more logs on. I
stared into the flames and tried to fight off another wave of
tears. I sat down facing the fire, wishing Jasper was sitting
behind me like he usually did; wishing his arms were wrapped around
me. I put my head in my hands and cried.

“Please, come back. I can’t do this
without you. Why aren’t you feeling how much I want you here? Oh
God, please. If you can hear me in this world, let him know I need
him. Let him know how much I love him.” I turned to grab a blanket
off of a chair so I could warm myself up and stopped.

“Jasper!” I ran and threw myself at
him, knocking over the chair he was sitting on. We fell in a heap
under the dining room table.

I wrapped my arms around him as tightly
as I could. “Thank god you came home!” I managed to choke out
between sobs.

He seemed reluctant to put his arms
around me.

“I wasn’t sure if I should or not. Mel
finally convinced me.”

“Why didn’t you think you should?” His
shirt was soaked with my tears. “Couldn’t you feel how much I
wanted you here? How much I needed you to come back?”

He finally hugged me back, careful not
to squeeze too tightly. “When you woke up this morning...” He
cleared his throat. “When I kissed you and you flinched away. I
don’t blame you for not wanting me to touch you. What I did was...”
His voice caught. “But there has to be a way for you to trust me
again. I will do anything. This was the worst day of my life! Even
worse than when Luke took you, or when Brice took you, because this
time it was me who was hurting you.” He swallowed hard. “I am so
sorry, Hayden. I love you so much and I will find a way to make you
believe that again, no matter how long it takes.”

I pushed myself up so I could look into
his eyes. “Jasper.” I made sure he was really paying attention to
me. “I will admit that yesterday you scared me. But I also told you
that I understood that it wasn’t really you. I wasn’t lying about
that.”

He looked so sad and I put a hand on
his cheek to keep him from looking away. “I know that you love me.
You don’t have to prove that to me. I didn’t flinch because you
touched me. It was just a reflex because of where you touched me.”
I pulled my hair away from my neck and his eyes widened. “I
flinched because you hit a sore spot. If you had kissed me a little
to the left or right of that spot, I probably would have shivered
and sighed.”

He looked doubtful. Obviously, his
emotions were getting in the way of reading mine.

I leaned down as I brought my other
hand up to hold his face. I kissed him softly, waiting for him to
respond to me. His hands gently made their way up my back and
tangled themselves in my hair. His lips slowly answered
mine.

“Don’t you ever run off like that ever
again,” I whispered and lay my head against his shoulder. “Because
if I have to hunt you down I will, and you won’t like it when I
find you.” I looked up and grinned at him.

“I’m so sorry, Hayden.”

I tensed as he wrapped his arms around
me.

“Is it bad?” he asked.

I shrugged. “I’m sore. I have some
bruises and some bite marks and scratches; nothing that won’t
heal.”

He took a deep breath. “We had better
hope this worked, because I refuse to do it again. I can’t do that
to you again.”

“But Jasper...”

He shook his head. “It’s not worth it.
If we were meant to have a family, it will have worked. And if it
didn’t, then I am perfectly happy just holding you for the rest of
my life.”

“Let’s go to bed. It’s cold on this
floor.” I smiled and got up.

I debated whether to keep my clothes on
to sleep so he wouldn’t see the damage but decided against it. With
the way he was feeling he would probably take it the wrong
way.

Jasper’s eyes got big as I took off my
shirt. “Oh, Hayden...”

He looked mortified when I took my
pants off and he stared at the bruises on the inside of my
thighs.

He sat on the bed with his face in his
hands. “How can you even want me anywhere near you?” he
muttered.

I sat down beside him and leaned my
head on his shoulder. “Because I love you. Because I know that you
love me.”

He pulled me to his chest. “And I do,
you know. Love you, I mean.”

I nodded. “I’ve never had a
doubt.”

We stayed quiet for a few minutes then
lay on the bed. I sighed when he found my hand with his.

“You know that threat about hunting me
down...”

I turned so I was facing him and raised
an eyebrow in question.

He grinned down at me. “I was just
thinking you really should only use that threat on people who don’t
know you.”

I started to glare. “And why is
that?”

“Because everyone who knows you also
knows that the instant you walk off of a trail you manage to get
yourself lost!” He burst out laughing.

I turned red and laughed with him.
“Alright, I’ll give you that one. Though, you know, I bet I can
find a spell or a wave that will do the tracking for me.” I grinned
up at him.

He chuckled. “Probably.” He yawned and
pulled me closer to him. “Cheater.”

I turned back around. Our fingers laced
together and I forgot about the aches and pains of my
body.

Chapter Five

I could feel Jasper’s arms still around
me, but somehow I knew that what I was seeing was a dream. We were
all in different layers of a circle. Tyler and Trent were the
center of the circle. Next came Mel, Dawn, Leslie and myself, all
with our backs to the twins. Mel and Dawn were shifted and Leslie
and I stood with our swords drawn. A few steps ahead of us,
surrounding us and facing the same direction, Jasper, Luke, Alex
and Zane were also shifted, teeth bared.

The outside of the circle stood a small
distance from ours. I made myself look around. There seemed to be
about fifteen dogs, all of them facing us and growling.

A step behind them was a grey wolf the
size of Dodge.

“Rainen!” I muttered.

I felt Jasper tense behind me but
concentrated on the dream.

I looked past Rainen into the woods. A
jaguar was laying low on its stomach, watching. That’s when I
noticed that the forest surrounding the clearing was full of slowly
moving shapes.

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?”