Crossover 'The Chosen One Trilogy: Book One' (5 page)

He glanced sideways at me and smiled. I
blushed with the embarrassment of being caught staring. He held my
gaze with his and I saw him take a deep breath. He blinked and
turned back to the fish.

“All done.”

I moved my books out of the way to make
room. He held the sticks up in the air for a few minutes to let
them cool down then set them on the blanket.

“That smells great!” I reached into my
saddlebags and pulled out the cheese and bread I had brought
along.

Dodge gave a loud sigh and I smiled at
him, standing in a sunny spot with his eyes half closed.

We were quiet as we ate. I concentrated
on the food and picking the bones out of the fish so I wouldn’t get
caught staring again.

I started as something moved in the
bushes to our right.

Jasper jumped up and was standing, the
movement so quick I wasn’t sure he had been sitting at
all.

Everything seemed to happen all at
once. Dodge stepped in front of me just as Jasper looked my way.
For a quick second his blue eyes, narrowed with indecision, flashed
towards mine. He seemed to make up his mind just as quickly and he
ran towards where the noise had been. A growl erupted from his
throat.

I must have blinked, because one second
Jasper was running towards the bushes, and the next a tiger was
leaping over them.

There was a loud thump as the tiger
collided with something I couldn’t see.

Dodge pushed his shoulder into me but I
was frozen in place. Something grey yelped and streaked through the
little clearing, jumping over the creek.

A wolf! I noticed five red lines on his
hip as he flashed into the bushes. Blood!

That’s when I could move again.
“Jasper!” I ran towards the bushes and stopped short when I came
face to face with the tiger. It stood there, motionless, staring at
me. Its eyes were the same perfect blue as Jasper’s. Its shoulder
twitched, making me glance at its side.

“You’re bleeding.” I wasn’t sure what
to do. Part of me wanted to go to it and see if I could help. The
other part wanted to run away screaming.

It seemed to sense my indecision and
lay on its side. Mustering all the courage I had, I squatted down
beside it and gently touched where the wolf had bitten it. I
exhaled with relief. “These aren’t deep at all. I’ll be right
back.”

I ran to Dodge and pulled my sweater
out of the saddle bags then went to the creek to wet it.

I knelt beside the tiger and cautiously
wiped the bite clean. It lift its head and looked at me.

“This has to be a dream,” I told it. “I
must have fallen asleep studying.” I nodded to myself, glad with
this reasoning.

The tiger looked concerned and lay its
head on my lap. Without thinking I ran my fingers through its fur.
It started to purr.

I started to laugh. “This is too much,”
I muttered to it.

The big cat stood up and walked
away.

“Wait! Where are you going?

The tiger kept walking until it was
hidden by the bushes. All I could do was stand and stare. I felt
like crying. Maybe it was just the stress of this weird dream, but
I didn’t want the tiger to leave. I wanted Jasper to come
back.

As if he read my thoughts, he
reappeared from behind the bushes.

“Jasper!”

His eyes opened wide as I ran and threw
myself into his arms. That’s when I broke down. My tears soaked
into his shirt. His arms were unbelievably strong as they held me
up. He placed his cheek on top of my head.

“Shhh..”

“Wha...wha...what was...that?” I sobbed
into his chest.

He simply smoothed my hair and held me
until my sobs had stopped.

“This can’t be real,” I
whispered.

“I’m so sorry.” His voice was quiet. He
held my face gently in his hands. “Are you ok?”

I gazed into his eyes and nodded
weakly. We stayed like that for a minute, looking at each other. He
looked away first and turned his focus to Dodge.

“Do you think?” he asked.

I jumped. “I didn’t say
anything.”

He looked back down at me and was quiet
for a moment. “Alright. Let’s go.”

“What? Where?” I started to panic.
Coming here had definitely been a bad idea.

“I’ll explain on the way.” He took my
hand and started leading me to Dodge.

“Wait! I...I have to get home. My mom
and dad will think something happened to me!”

I looked at my watch and then my phone.
Ten o’clock. AM. “What’s going on!” I pulled my hand free of his
and stopped walking.

He kept walking towards Dodge. “She
doesn’t want to go. I can’t make her.” He stuffed my sweater back
into my saddlebags and saddled him for me. He went back to the
blanket and rolled it up before tying it where it belonged. His
eyes widened and he looked at Dodge. “Yes, those are my
orders.”

The surprised look turned into a glare.
“No. I can’t.”

There was a pause. “I don’t know why.”
He shrugged.

I noticed that his shoulder was
bleeding. “You should put some pressure on your shoulder,” I
mumbled.

Jasper turned to look at me then back
down at his shoulder. “I’m fine.” He looked back towards Dodge and
nodded. “Why don’t you get on Dodge and I’ll take you back to the
main trail.” His voice saddened a little.

“But... I... You...” The confusion hit
me like a ton of bricks. I sat on the ground and closed my
eyes.

“Wake up,” I whispered to myself. “Wake
up, wake up.”

I heard him sit in front of me. “What
part of this seems like a dream?” he asked softly and took my hands
in his.

“All of it.”

He moved both of my hands to one of his
and used the other one to brush some stray hairs back behind my
ear.

I slowly opened my eyes.

“Ask away,” he said, keeping his eyes
locked on mine. He frowned. “Wait.” He turned to Dodge. “No. She
needs to know. She’s about to have a meltdown.”

I started to object to that comment and
stopped. He was right. I was having a meltdown. Here I was,
imagining that this most beautiful man was sitting across from me,
arguing with my horse about my sanity. I didn’t know if I should
laugh or cry, so I did both. It came out as a snort.

Jasper seemed about to say something so
I held up a finger to stop him. I started with the
obvious.

“Am I awake?”

He smiled. “Yes.”

“Is my watch broken?”

“No. Things from there don’t work
here.”

“Where is here?”

“Quelondain.”

I paused and took a deep breath. “Did
you turn into a tiger?”

“Yes.”

I looked into his eyes, trying to find
any indication that he was lying, joking. “How?”

“I am one of the Namael. We are able to
change our shape.”

“You can turn into anything?” This was
ridiculous.

He shook his head. “No. I turn into a
tiger. That’s it.”

“You talk to Dodge.”

“And he talks to me. I can hear his
thoughts. But I can’t do that with all animals.”

“What is he thinking now?”

“He is not pleased. It is not my place
to explain things to you. My job is to find you and get you to
Queen Melana.”

“How does he know all of
this?”

“He is one of your guardians. He is
from here.”

“Does he change into a
human?”

Jasper laughed. “No. He is just a
horse.”

Dodge stomped his foot. Jasper laughed
even harder and looked at him. “Oh, don’t be so sensitive! I didn’t
mean it like that.” He turned back to me. “Anything
else?”

I looked into his eyes for a moment, my
train of thought starting to slip away.

Dodge and Jasper’s heads snapped up to
look at the other side of the clearing.

“A pack!” Jasper growled. In a flash he
was on his feet. He picked me up and threw me into the saddle.
“Go!” he yelled at Dodge. “I’ll meet you in the blue
woods!”

Dodge spun and galloped off past the
waterfall and deeper into the forest.

I couldn’t think. Only years of riding
was keeping me in the saddle. I held the reins but didn’t used
them. Dodge seemed to know where he was going.

Behind us, I heard a deep growl and
some excited barks.

Dodge ran for all he was worth and soon
the sounds of the fight faded away.

I let Dodge have his head and he
continued at a speed I had never thought possible of
him.

After a while he slowed to an easy lope
but kept heading deeper into the woods. We made it up a hill and I
caught my breath at the sight.

Jasper hadn’t been kidding. On the
other side of the hill was a field, and on the other side of that
field was forest made up of blue tinged trees.

A flash of orange and black streaked
through the trees to our left.

“Jasper!” Was it normal to feel this
happy at the sight of a tiger? I wasn’t sure, but I thought that in
these circumstances, maybe. One tiger seemed a lot safer than a
whole pack of whatever was behind us.

Dodge slowed to a jog and we entered
the field.

Jasper was ahead of us. He slipped
behind the cover of the blue trees and reappeared as
himself.

“Are you ok?” His eyes searched my face
for an answer.

I nodded weakly.

“Let’s stop here for a bit. Dodge looks
like he needs to cool down.” He laughed and gave my horse a playful
punch to the shoulder, though he was breathing just as hard as him.
That sounded good to me. I needed a drink and some time to think
before anything else happened.

I grabbed a bottle of water and poured
it into Dodge’s collapsible bucket.

I looked at Jasper. “Um. Is that
ok?”

Dodge answered by coming to have a
drink.

“How did Dodge know where he was going?
I got him as a weanling and he’s never been anywhere without
me.”

“It is in his memory. Passed on from
his sire and his sire before him.”

I grabbed two more bottles and handed
one to Jasper.

I noticed some blood soaking the side
of his shirt. My eyes widened. “Are you ok?”

He shrugged. “I’m fine. Just a
scratch.”

“Let me see.”

“No. Really. It’s fine.”

I ignored him and pulled his shirt up
so I could have a look.

He flinched a bit when I wiped the
blood away to see the damage better.

The cut was a clean one, about five
inches long, and not too deep. I grabbed my sweater and put
pressure on it.

“Stupid dog,” Jasper muttered to
himself.

“That doesn’t look like a scratch.” I
looked at him.

“Trust me. Compared to what it could
have been, it’s a scratch.”

“So a dog scratched you?”

He laughed. “No. He sliced me with his
dagger.”

My mouth fell open. How could he be
laughing?

“He thought he could surprise me by
dropping out of a tree while I was fighting his two
friends.”

My eyes almost popped out of my head.
There were so many things wrong with this statement. “A dog was in
a tree and managed to cut you with a dagger...”

He laughed. “He wasn’t a dog at the
time. He wasn’t shifted.”

“Oh. How many were there?”

“Just the three.” He sucked in his
breath as I shifted from one foot to the other and the pressure I
was putting on his side increased a bit.

“Sorry.”

He rest his arm on my shoulder to keep
it out of the way.

“You fought a three on one fight and
this is all you came out of it with?” I looked up at him. “What
happened to them?”

He grinned. “The two that were on the
ground got away with a few scratches of their own.” His eyes
narrowed. “The one in the tree got to feel what his dagger felt
like from the receiving end.”

“Oh.” I pulled the sweater away to see
if the bleeding had stopped. I was suddenly very aware of his arm
on my shoulder and the fact that he was so close. “There. I think
you’ll live.”

He laughed. “I should hope
so.”

I sat on the ground and drank my water.
Jasper sat beside me.

I noticed some bluebirds sitting in the
trees.

Jasper whistled a few notes and a dozen
of the birds landed around us.

One of them settled on my leg and
looked at me, its head cocked to the side.

“That’s right.” Jasper was talking to
the bird. “Really? No, she is exactly how I pictured her.” I looked
away from the bird and glanced at him. He was staring intently at
me.