Changing Fates: A Sons of Satrina Novel (The Sons of Satrina Book 3) (3 page)

Jackson shook his head. He was just as clueless about the whole situation as the rest of them.  “Kelton is a mess.”

“Don’t let him hear you say that.” They were all in agreement on that one. It was as if the warrior was coming apart at the seams and no one was there to repair him. The only person that could do that for him had disappeared into the night.

“I’m just saying what everyone else is thinking. One minutes he’s spacing out, lost in his thoughts, and then the next he’s ripping someone a new one, and usually over nothing.”

“It can’t be easy for him. He loves her.”

“But, where is she? Where did she go? And why? No one seems to know.”

Ash didn’t bother to reply. She didn’t need to. No one had the answers to those questions and if they did, they weren’t telling. As students, it probably wasn’t their place to question, either, but that didn’t stop them. The trainees and the warriors were like one big family, so to have one of them run off like that, it was bound to get everyone worried. The silence surrounding her departure worried them even more. They all could understand if it was personal, between Kelton and Kayleigh, but telling them something to put their minds at rest would have been better than nothing at all.

“Was he that bad again this morning?” Ash had been relieved to have been in the group that had been sent to the library to do research, rather than training with Kelton. It was true what Jackson had said, he was getting unbearable. They were all doing their best to try and keep up with the harsh regime, but it was getting tough.

If she’d thought that the trainee regime had been tough when she had first started at the academy, then this was downright brutal. Each and every one of them in his training class worked themselves ragged just to keep up with everything he was throwing at them. Aisline knew that even those trainees that were getting ready to graduate after their years of training would have had trouble with keeping up with Kelton’s pace. It was nearly impossible, but they were all trying their best not to falter under the pressure. After all, that was what being a warrior was all about, rolling with the tough times and battling your way through it.

“That bad? Are you kidding? He was worse. He jumped down Caleb’s throat for no reason.”

“Caleb? Is he okay?” Ash asked, shocked. Sure, they all knew that the shifter could be cocky and arrogant, especially now that he was settling into life at the academy, but Kelton had never had a bad word to say about him. Caleb worked hard during training and kept to himself most of the time. He was going to make a hell of a fierce warrior, despite all that he had to overcome.

“You should have seen him. Kelton went mental. All Caleb did was pause before lunging. There was no need for Kelton’s reaction.” Jackson shook his head.

She was glad that she’d missed that little altercation. Caleb was a good guy and kept his head down, doing what he had to do to get through this. Making the changes to this life hadn’t been easy for him and it was still an uphill struggle. He certainly didn’t need Kelton coming down on him like a tonne of bricks and making the process even more difficult for him.

Ash nodded. Things were definitely getting worse the longer that Kayleigh was away. Their training schedule was starting to suffer. All the trainees in her group were constantly on tenterhooks, never knowing what the next day was going to bring them. It wasn’t exactly great for moral, that’s for sure.

“Are you coming down? It’s almost time for dinner.” Jackson asked as he stood up.

“Yeah, I’ll be down in a bit. Just let me clear up this stuff and I’ll meet you down there.” Ash looked around her room. It looked like a Christmas bomb had hit it.

“Are you sure you don’t want a hand?”

“No, thanks. I’ll be fine. It won’t take me two minutes to get sorted. You go on down.”

“Okay.” Jackson leant over to kiss her gently on the cheek. “I’ll see you in a minute.”

As he walked out the door, Ash held a hand up to her cheek, her fingers resting on the place where his lips had been only moments before. It was sometimes a jolt to think how close they had become. It was like it had snuck up on them. Their friendship had been repaired and now they had so much more. Ash grinned to herself as she thought about the hassle and trouble they’d gone through to get to where they were.

Despite neither of them wanting a relationship or anything that would distract them from their training at the academy, they hadn’t been able to stop it from happening. It was truly like it was meant to be. They’d been through so much, they couldn’t deny it any longer.

Ash knew that even if their relationship fizzled out that they would always have their friendship. Not that she didn’t think they’d last the long haul, because she did, but their friendship was the strong foundation. Jackson was pretty much everything she’d ever wanted in a boy and sometimes her feelings for him scared the living crap out of her, but it was a good scary feeling. They were right together. It felt right.

Jackson couldn’t really understand Ash’s enthusiasm over the Christmas period. That was a time for kids and they had grown up past all that bullshit now. They had more important things to think about, like training their asses off to make the best goddamn warriors this race had ever known.

Jackson’s drive to become the best had increased beyond anything he could have ever thought possible. The two main things that he could pinpoint that made him want to work harder than ever were the shifters coming to the mansion, and Aisline’s abduction.

When the shifters had descended, it was amazing to see the warriors getting down to business, each one knowing exactly where they needed to be and what was expected of them. It had amazed him that the trainees were even included in the action, but it gave them all a thirst for more.

There was no way he ever wanted to be so unprepared, like he and the rest of the trainees had been when the shifters descended. There had been a nervous energy buzzing around the place, but there had never been any doubt that they’d be able to defend the academy.

Needless to say, it had been a bit of a shock that some of the shifters had been able to breach the entrance way, but it had been down to the trainees not being prepared. That wasn’t their fault, as the warriors never envisioned something like that happening on their own turf. The location was kept secret for a reason.

When it was all over and done with, the instructors had gone over and over what had happened, what could have happened and what they needed to focus on in their training to make sure nothing like that happened again. It was, in a way, a good thing it happened. It gave all the trainees a fresh impression of everything they needed to be ready for in the future. The dangers weren’t just out there on the street. They had to be ready at all times for anything to happen.

The whole abduction with Aisline had spurred Jackson to train harder than ever and it was still a primary motive for him to do his best. They hadn’t been ready to go out on the streets and it was a bad move. It was damn lucky that they’d got her back and Jackson had been the one to plow on through when things looked impossible. There was no way he was going to leave her at the mercy of the enemy. There had never been any doubt in his mind that they were going to get her back.

She’d tried to hide how much it affected her, and still did, but Jackson could see through her bullshit. Ash was pushing herself to prove that she was as tough as any of the guys and forget about what happened to her, but the fear was still in her eyes when something jogged her memory. If he could do something to take away that fear, he’d do it. But, he couldn’t, so all he could do was be there for her, encouraging her and helping her to overcome her fears, even if she didn’t realise he was doing it.

Jackson trained harder, pushed himself to the limits and then pushed himself a bit further. It had been one of his main fears when he and Aisline had gotten into a relationship, his fear of her going out there on the streets and searching out the enemy. When she’d got caught up with the Mortourum ambush, his fears had been realised. Now, he trained to the max to make sure he was fully prepared when they graduated, to make sure that she was never in that situation again. He knew that Aisline would go nuts if she thought it was his main focus to protect her, but he couldn’t help it. Ash filled his mind and it was his goal to keep her safe. Sure, he knew that his role as a warrior was to protect all from the Mortuorum, but Aisline came before all of them.

That was why he was going along with all this Christmas crap. It made her happy and he would do all in his power to make her happy. After all she’d been through, she deserved that.

Shoving all the presents that she’d wrapped into a box in her wardrobe, Ash tidied up the room as best she could. She hated mess and there were little bits of wrapping paper littered everywhere and glitter was stomped into the carpet. The glitter wasn’t such a bad thing, as glitter and Christmas went hand in hand. The rest of it would grate on her nerves until she’d put it right again.

Putting everything back in its place, Ash decided to finish off later. The mess wasn’t going to go anywhere and it would still be there after she’d had dinner. It could wait. She ran a hand through the length of her ponytail, hating to leave it like that but she was starving and didn’t want to miss eating with the guys.

Opening the door with a sigh, Ash ran straight into Rhian as she stepped into the hallway.

“Watch where you’re going.” Rhian snapped at her. Rhian’s sister, Cala, trailed behind her, smiling apologetically at Ash.

As per usual, Rhian was looking immaculate, with her long blonde hair straight and glossy without a single strand out of place. Her clothes looked right at home with the mansion, but entirely out place among the warriors. Everyone here seemed to live in casual work-out clothes, something they could easily move and train in, but Rhian looked like she was ready to go to a society dinner.

Rhian couldn’t stand this place. It was like a hovel. Sure, they made the pretence of living the high life in a mansion, but she’d known real luxury and this was not it.

At first, she’d thought her mother was joking when she told them that they were going to go and live at the academy. Surely, she hadn’t been serious? She knew that this was not the kind of place that Rhian would like. But she had. They were here. And Rhian was hating every single moment of it.

There was nothing to do. You would have thought that being surrounded by muscle-bound males all day that she could have been able to find something to do, but all they were interested in was working out and training. Rhian thought that she would have had all the boys in the palm of her hands, but that wasn’t the case.

She wasn’t used to being snubbed like this. On any given day in any place in the entire world, she could have the man of her choice worshipping at her feet. Rhian took after her mother for her confidence and charisma, but it wasn’t working here. The boys barely noticed she was there. It was infuriating.

What was even more infuriating was that her sister, Cala, seemed so desperate to be ‘one of the gang’. That girl was always weasling her way in and sucking up to everyone, just to get noticed. She may be her sister, but Rhian couldn’t stand her. Cala was weak. She wouldn’t make it in this world, no matter how hard she tried.

Rhian wasn’t even willing to try. Why would she want to go out there and break a nail, all for what? They were learning to fight against some enemy that she didn’t even care about.

However, life was starting to get a little boring. You would have thought that their father, Master Warrior Kelton, would have made more of an effort to get to know them, but he was busy avoiding them like they had the plague.

Not that Rhian cared in the slightest. She didn’t need or want a father in her life. She had her mother and that was fine by her. At first, it had been a glorious idea that her father was the head of the academy and the warriors, but seeing as he was hiding what he was to them and not doing her any favours around here, she no longer cared. They say that it’s not what you know, but who you know, but here? Rhian was as happy to deny Kelton as he apparently was to deny them.

Cala cried herself to sleep. Rhian thought it was amusing. Her sister probably thought she was going to come here and find the family that she always craved. Well, the girl was sadly mistaken. She was as wanted here as she was by Rhian and Cassandra. She wasn’t.

And how funny was it that the girl, Aisline, thought that they would be friends, just because they were the same gender? Get real! Rhian had standards and she wouldn’t lower them for anyone. The only good thing about Aisline was that she was going to be an easy target for Rhian to have a bit of fun with. She strutted around the academy like she owned the place, thinking she was just as good as the boys and extremely proud of herself that she’d bagged the best looking guy in the place. Well, when Rhian was finished with her, she wouldn’t have anything. If Rhian was good at anything, it was ruining people’s lives and she was going to have some fun taking Aisline down. And when she did, she’d have Jackson worshipping at her feet, which was just going to be a bonus.

Aisline didn’t say anything but glared at Rhian’s back as she sashayed off down the corridor. The girl was a complete bitch. Her first impression of her had been spot on. Rhian was a spoilt little princess who thought that the world owed her. She wasn’t the kind of person that Ash wanted to spend time with.