EarthBorn (The Elemental Born Book 1) (12 page)

I felt bad about leaving Frankie all by himself, but when I turned back to check that he was okay, he smiled and indicated for us to go. His eyes still showed the sadness within him but he was in a better state than he had been before. I hoped that he would find his mate soon. I hated to feel his wolf in pain like that.

We stopped in the centre of the dance floor, Ethan pulling me into his arms just as a slow song began to play. He held me so tightly that we couldn’t really dance, so we just swayed slightly as we looked into each other’s eyes.

I could see the love he felt for me, sense the possessive feelings of his wolf. I was his; there was no doubt about it. How could I deny him a full mating? I loved Ethan, always had. And he loved me. We hadn’t said the words to each other yet, but it was plainly obvious to both of us.

Over the past few days, we had spent every moment he wasn’t forced down into the vault together, getting to know one another anew. He hadn’t changed. He was still the same sweet, kind, fun, loving guy he had always been.

Looking back at Frankie, I felt his wolf aching, longing for a mate of its own. Would Ethan’s wolf eventually become like that if we never mated? Sad and lonely? I didn’t want that. I wanted him to be happy, content, and complete. Both sides of him.

Cupping my face with one hand, his other at the base of my back, pulling me tighter against him, he kissed me gently, seeking entrance with his tongue that I gladly gave. Sometime later, many songs later if I'm honest, I broke the kiss, decision made.

“Ethan, I…”

My words cut off as I felt a trickle of magic pass over the room… dark magic. I gasped as the thickness of it swamped me, making the air in the room seem thick and unbreathable. Spinning quickly I searched for Grace, catching her eye just as Dyanna came skidding into the room wearing very little, if nothing at all under one of Zak’s t-shirts, followed by the man himself. 

“What is that?” Ethan asked sensing it too. “Kaia, what’s happening?” Pulling my face back around to him, he searched my eyes for clues.

“I'm not sure yet,” I started as Grace and Dyanna arrived beside me, Alpha Edwards following shortly behind.

“My wolf is sensing magic in the area, but not any of yours.”

“There is dark magic being used nearby, if not on pack territory. If kind of feels like a…” I started casting my senses out, the air leaving my lungs as I realised exactly what I was feeling, “A summoning spell,” I gasped, gripping Ethan’s arm tightly as my legs threatened to give way. “Someone is trying to summon the demon.”

Chapter Seventeen

~

Ethan

It was just my fucking luck. Everything had been so perfect. Kaia had been in my arms, love shining in her eyes. The bond between us was now so strong that I had actually felt her acceptance of our mating the moment the decision had been made; I just needed her to voice it. And then the strange sense of magic had come over the room, a different, darker type of magic than I was used to, and the love and happiness I had felt from Kaia had turned into terror and distress.

Hearing Kaia’s words, my father began giving orders to the pack, directing the males to their guard posts, and the unmated females to the lookout posts up on the roof. Mated females didn’t fight unless necessary due to the possessive nature of their mates. While the pack moved into position, Kaia and the other witches began chanting, sending their own kind of magic out, pushing the evil back.

“Ethan, stay with your mate,” my father shouted as he headed for the door. “I'm going to check with the current guard to see if there have been any reports of unusual activity, anyone hanging around who shouldn’t be.”

Moving over to the window where Zak and Frankie were stood, I looked out over the grounds, still keeping a close eye on Kaia. “It was fucking crazy, man. One minute she was riding my dick hard, and the next moment she was sprinting for the door, screaming, ‘fuck, fuck, fuck.’ She would have run in here butt naked had I not managed to shove that damn t-shirt on her just before she got here,” Zak explained.

“Tell me, have you guys done anything but fuck the whole time you’ve been hold in up there?” Frankie asked, a little bit of the jealousy he felt slipping through.

“Of course we haven’t,” Zak smirked. “My mate is insatiable. And anyway, there is plenty of time to talk later.”

“Not if we don’t put a stop to this spell there won’t be,” Grace spoke as the girls finished their chanting and rushed towards the doors. Catching up easily, we positioned ourselves around the three women, guarding them, my arm wrapped tightly around Kaia’s waist, keeping her held tight to my side.

“Where are we going?” Frankie asked as we headed outside and through the courtyard towards the gardens.

“The spell is being cast from inside the property. If it’s completed, the spells we cast would be useless, the demon would appear right here inside the protective shield.”

“But how could someone get passed all the guards the Alpha has set up? He’s more than doubled the number on duty since Kaia arrived,” Zak commented.

That he had. It was now impossible for anyone to get on or off pack lands unnoticed, or without permission. That could only mean one thing. “It’s someone already on the inside,” I growled in anger. Whoever it was had just earned themselves a one-way ticket to Hell… by my hand.

Frankie stumbling slightly as we diverted from the path and headed further away from the house, towards the old gardens. “But who would do that? All the coven members that came to the celebration were inside when it started.”

“You don’t have to be Wiccan to summon a demon,” Kaia said, reaching out to take my hand, needing the physical connection between us as much as I did. “You just need a few ingredients and the right words.”

“The right words. Fuck! Kaia, there was a book in the vault, a book on that demon of yours. It was filled with all sorts, but right at the back, there was a chapter on how to summon him.”

Picking up the pace, we raced one. Turning a corner, I saw the old hedge maze ahead of us. It had been years since anyone had bothered to tame it. What had once been a work of art, all the hedges perfectly sculptured, a large rose garden in the centre, was now overgrown and dark, most of the pathways blocked off completely.

“We’re never going to find our way through that?” Dyanna commented as we got closer, seeing the full extent of the neglect.

“You’re right, we’re not,” Kaia spoke up from beside me, pulling her hand from mine as we stopped before the maze. There was an odd happiness to her voice as she said it, the tiniest of smiles pulling at her lips.

“Are you sure?” Grace asked. “You know what it will mean, Kaia.”

“I'm positive. Even if we stop the summoning spell from being completed he would have sensed it by now. I can do this and have a chance of stopping him from getting here, or we can try and get through the old fashioned way and face him a hell of a lot sooner than we want to. Personally, I would like to never have to face him at all, but if given the choice, I choose later.”

“Then do your thing… Earth,” the ancient woman smiled, stepping back to give her room.

Walking forward, Kaia placed her hands upon the large, overgrown hedge before her. The whole world seeming to go silent, hold its breath as if waiting for something to happen. For a moment nothing did, my heart beating wildly in my chest, but suddenly the ground began to shake.

“Wow! You feel that?” Frankie gasped.

“No,” Zak replied sarcastically. “I can’t feel the Earth quaking beneath my feet. Twat.”

Before our very eyes the branches began to move, to almost draw back into the hedge, creating a clear path into the maze. I was about to mention that even with the maze cleared it would still take some time to navigate our way around it when the reason for the ground shaking became apparent. Straight through the middle of the maze, the hedges began to move aside, creating a whole new path straight to the middle.

When the new path was complete and she stepped back, I could sense that Kaia was about to collapse. Racing forward, I caught her only inches from the ground. Strangely enough, the ground seemed to sprout more blades of grass as if hoping to cushion the blow.
Weird!

The shaking of the ground had alerted the pack, causing them to rush over and gather at the maze, everyone staring on in disbelief. “What the hell?” I heard the deep voice of my father shout as he raced around the corner.

“The summoning is happening in the middle of the maze,” Grace explained. “Kaia has given us a way in, now go.” My father didn’t need telling twice.

The pack rushed forward following the Alpha, surging down the path Kaia had made, some shifting into their wolves as they went. I knew the second my father had reached the centre of the maze, his howl of rage filling the air. Slowly Kaia began to awaken, her beautiful eyes fluttering as she came to. “It’s okay, sweetheart, I’ve got you,” I whispered, pressing a gentle kiss to her soft lips.

“Ethan!” Frankie shouted, running out of the maze shortly after having followed the rest of the pack in. “You’re going to want to see this.”

Standing up, I pulled Kaia to her feet, worried when she swayed a little. “I've got her,” Dyanna said, wrapping her arm around Kaia's waist and taking her weight.

“Okay, but stay here, don't move her anywhere without letting me know first,” I warned, kissing Kaia’s sweet lips one more time and nodding to Zak before following Frankie down into the maze. Zak would take care of them. He was just as much concerned for his own mates safety as I was for Kaia, and I had a feeling that wherever one went, the other was sure to follow.

I had expected many things when I had stepped through the crowd of wolves snarling and growling angrily at the traitor being pinned to the floor by Ryan, but I had never expected this. Looking down at the traitor struggling beneath the Beta, I didn’t sense a male, but a female pack member.

“Chelsea?” I gasped, recognising the long blonde curls falling over her face, the white musk perfume she always wore scenting the air around her as she continued to struggle.

Hearing my voice, she looked up, a look of relief crossing over her features. “Oh thank God. Tell them, Ethan, tell them that we are mates.”

She really was crazy.

Looking over at my father, his face filled with anger at what she had just done, the danger she had not only caused to Kaia but to the whole pack, I knew what was coming. The sadness I saw in his eyes – though you had to look really closely to find it – let me know exactly what would happen next. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Had she been a little older the punishment for her crime would have been immediate death, but at this time, at her young age, the price for what she had done was banishment. It wasn't very often that someone was banished from the pack, but when they were, if they had family still within it, it wasn't pretty.

I sensed her before I saw her, my wolf and I not knowing whether to be happy of her presence or pissed at her for not staying put out of harm’s way. Slowly making her way through the crowd, an unhappy Dyanna helping her along, not looking very impressed as Zak snarled at anyone that got too near to his mate, Kaia smiled up at me.

“Sorry Ethan,” Dyanna said, “she wouldn't stay back there.”

Taking Kaia from her friend, I wrapped her in my arms. She was still weak, barely able to support her own weight. I needed to get her back to the house to rest. “Sweetheart, you shouldn't be down here. It’s not safe.”

Laying her head against my chest, she sighed, relaxing into my hold. “I know, but I couldn't stand to be away from you,” she breathed just loud enough for me to hear. My heart literally skipped a beat at her words. My wolf howled with happiness inside of me. The words ‘I love you’ were on the tip of my tongue, about to spill over any second, and more than likely would have if it had not been for the violent screeching coming from Chelsea the moment she saw Kaia.

“You bitch! I’ll kill you! Get the fuck away from my mate.” She kept going, but the more she screamed the less it made any sense as her wolf was slowly taking over.

Turning her eyes to the female, a strange look came over Kaia’s face, kind of like how she’d looked at Zak when he had lost it after meeting Dyanna. Shaking her head, she looked up at me confused. “What’s wrong with her?” she asked. “Her wolf is so… feral.”

“What do you mean?” my father asked, coming towards us.

“Well, when I spoke to Zak’s wolf I was able to communicate pretty easily, but hers just doesn’t make any sense. It’s like… I don’t know, crazed.”

“Hold on, you’re saying you actually spoke to my wolf?” Zak asked wide eyed. “Even I don’t hear him; none of us hear our wolves.”

“Really?” she asked, tilting her head, looking up at me for confirmation.

“Really. We get a sense of what our wolves want, need, but never have they spoken to us… not in human terms anyway.”

It was amazing. If Kaia could really speak to our wolves, even before our mating, she would make a fantastic Alpha Female.

“This female previously known as Chelsea, is hereby disowned by the pack. All that speak to her, help her, will risk the same fate,” my father stated, turning away from us and addressing the pack. Casting his angry gaze down upon Chelsea, his voice took on the power of the Alpha. “For crimes against the pack, you will be marked as a traitor, stripped of your place in the pack and cast out into the wild. You have four hours in which to leave our lands, should you be found within our lands at any time after those four hours, you will be killed on the spot. You will have no contact with any member of the pack from here on out, anything you have to say do so now or hold your tongue for eternity.”  

I expected to see some degree of emotion in her at the knowledge that she was being banished. Her father was pack. But there was nothing as she turned her head and looked upon the male that had brought her up alone after her mother died in childbirth. Turning her head to me, Kaia held tightly in my arms, the anger within her flared to life. “You’ve been tricked, Ethan. That bitch’s spell has enslaved you. She’s not your mate. I am!”

I didn’t want to listen to this, and I certainly didn’t want Kaia to have to hear her vile. “Come on, sweetheart, we’ve seen enough. We don’t need to be here to witness what’s to come.”

“What’s going to happen now?” Kaia asked me as we began making our way slowly down the path.

“The marking. Part of the punishment for treachery is being marked as a traitor. The Alpha and Beta will mark her in both human and wolf form, scarring her for all to see. No pack will ever accept her.” She would be a lone wolf from here on out. Wolves were not meant to be alone, they were pack animals by nature. It was very likely that Chelsea’s state of mind would worsen even more in exile.

I could see Kaia losing the battle with her exhaustion, struggling more and more to hold her weight. As Chelsea continued to shout insults after us, I scooped her up into my arms, leaving the pack behind to watch the marking and carried her back to the house. Before we even made it to the end of the path and out of the maze, she was asleep in my arms.