Soul Guard (Elemental Book 5) (12 page)
Read Soul Guard (Elemental Book 5) Online
Authors: Rain Oxford
“Yes, that’s a little weird, but I’m not surprised
after everything that has been reported on the news. Maybe you should stay in
for the rest of the night. Besides, when was the last time you ate?”
I thought about it. “I had breakfast right before we
left for Stephen’s coven.” Henry and Scott went back to the table and Henry
fixed a plate of spaghetti and garlic toast for me. Upon smelling it, I
realized I was, in fact, ridiculously hungry.
We chatted while we ate, mostly about Scott’s
upcoming classes. Soon after we found Scott, Darwin had explained that the
children’s school, nicknamed the sapling, consisted of multiple, age-segregated
buildings and dormitories. The children were only taught what human children
were taught until they reached a certain age. At that point, they were tested
and put into classes based on their skills.
Unlike the university, which was very selective, all
children of paranormals were allowed in the sapling. Since a percentage of the
students were throwbacks, who either couldn’t control their powers or didn’t
have any, it was very important that they were put in classes that were neither
dangerous nor made them feel inferior.
After dinner, we sat down on the couch to watch the
news. There were no missing children or deaths reported, but there was
definitely something weird going on. “I have a theory,” Henry said when the
news went to weather. “We knew electricity often goes haywire when there’s a
powerful wizard around. Since Dothra wizards are so much more powerful, what if
their effect on the environment is as well?”
“You think all this is just because there are shadow
walkers in the area?”
“Sort of. I think this may be caused because they
have been here for a few days. If Krechea’s goal is to get your key, I wouldn’t
be surprised if he has sent some of his shadow walkers to watch you.”
I really hated the idea, but after sensing a strong
presence nearby on more than one occasion, I suspected he was right. “We need
to figure out how to stop it. There’s been so much weirdness on the streets,
right in front of everyone.”
Some of which was my fault
. “People are
going to start suspecting the supernatural. Not everyone; some people are going
to think this is aliens or the government, but we might end up with more
paranormal hunters.”
“As long as no paranormal does anything foolish, such
as put an entire crowd to sleep on the street, humans won’t have any evidence.”
I scowled. “I was trying to help Scott.”
When his phone rang, he frowned and answered it.
“Hello? Oh. It’s Maseré for you,” he said, handing it to me.
“Marcus told you where Darwin was, right?” I asked
Maseré.
“Yes, he did. And I just got a call from Amelia
asking if something was wrong, because he never showed up at her place. I’ve
called everyone. Logan and Vincent aren’t answering my summons either. Darwin
is missing.”
“I wouldn’t joke about this. I’m a wolf and his
mother is a fae; attachment to worldly possessions doesn’t run in his genes.”
I took the gray hoodie, sat down on the couch, and
put my vision ring on. Although the ring didn’t enhance my magic, it did help
to focus my mind so that all of it could go into a vision. I saw Darwin running
around the practice field at the university. When I was in his mind, he was
always able to prevent me from hearing any of his thoughts that he didn’t want
me to hear. In the vision, however, I heard it all.
He ran much more than a human body could, not because
he was a shifter, but because it helped to quiet his mind. There was a constant
stream of information that flooded in no matter what he was doing, so he ran
hard enough that he couldn’t hear his own thoughts over his breathing.
Unfortunately, that only fueled the wolf inside him.
This was what he did when he couldn’t give us his
fake smile anymore. When we were asleep or in class, or even when other
students were just too much for him to handle, he would come out here and run.
I had seen him sweaty and out of breath before, but I didn’t know he was
running like this. I didn’t know that he was fighting with the wolf inside him
long before he first shifted. No wonder the wolf was so violent at first.
During the breaks, he would run around his property,
which was a lot of running considering it was a forest where a pack of wolf
shifters exercised. He never ran with any of his pack members because he was
afraid they would bring it out of him. And sometimes he wanted them to. I
always thought Darwin just dealt with the pain of his hyperactive mind as best
as he could, and I knew it was painful because I had seen into his mind. I had
no idea there was actually a much deeper struggle between his human mind and
his wolf one. Everything he did to escape one just drove him closer to the
other.
I had to push that away and force myself to focus on
finding him. It wasn’t easy without at least a guess, since I couldn’t form a
blank background for the vision to fill in the details. The vision changed to
him running at night in a forest, but his thoughts were strangely silent. In
fact, his sight was different.
He was in his wolf form.
I let the vision play out until I finally saw what I
had been hoping for; he stopped in front of a huge sign. Although it didn’t
have an address, it had the city and the name of the place.
I pulled the ring off and my mind returned to my
living room. “I know where he is.”
“Great. Where?” Henry asked.
“New York.” I knew Maseré would eventually find out
his son could shift, but I had no intention of being the one who told him.
“Henry and I can handle it. You have a pack to run.”
“Nonsense,” Maseré argued. “If he’s in trouble, I can
help, and if he’s not, he’s going to be when I get ahold of him.”
“Once we get there, Devon is going to use his magic
to find Darwin, and the more people around, the more difficult it will be,”
Henry said. Obviously, he had already figured out I was trying to get rid of
the alpha.
Maseré narrowed his eyes. “Then I will leave without
my pack.”
“Wouldn’t that put them at risk? I really doubt he’s
in danger. If he’s hurt or if we even think you can help, we will absolutely
call you immediately.”
He considered it for a minute. “Call me every step of
the way or I will hold you both personally responsible after I tear out the
throats of whoever is actually responsible.”
“Understood.” After I gave him my new phone number,
he reluctantly left.
Henry was silent for a minute until he was sure the
wolf was gone. “I take it Darwin is in his wolf form?” I nodded. “You realize
Maseré is going to follow us, right?”
“Yes, but that’s between him and Darwin.”
“Where is Darwin?”
“At a wolf conservation.”
* * *
Fortunately, finding the address was easy and since
it was pretty close to the Connecticut boarder, it was only a little more than
a hundred and fifty miles. The problem was that traffic was at a crawl for the
first thirty miles.
“Is he driving or running?” I asked, not seeing
Maseré behind us.
“It’s over a hundred and fifty miles.”
If I didn’t know Maseré fairly well, I wouldn’t have
thought the shifter was following us. He was stealthier than Astrid even.
“Maybe we’ve lost him.”
“Well, that would be a good thing. Darwin should not
be keeping this a secret from his father.”
I scoffed. “Yeah, like none of us have kept secrets
before. You do remember that I first came to Quintessence thinking I was human,
don’t you? And you didn’t tell us what you did until you were good and ready.”
“I thought my jaguar would kill you. Besides, Maseré
is his father. I wouldn’t want Kitten to keep a secret like that from me.”
“So, if Scott had---”
“Stop fighting!” Scott demanded from his car seat.
“Kitten, we’re not---” Henry started.
“Don’t make me come up there!”
I couldn’t help but to laugh inside as a guilty
silence filled the car. It wasn’t fair to argue in front of him and I was very
glad he would stick up for himself.
* * *
We reached the conservation and had to leave the
truck in the forest again. Once we faced the sign that Darwin had seen, I
closed my eyes and focused on finding his mind. “Are we sure he’s even here?”
Henry asked.
“I can’t sense his mind, but my instincts are telling
me he is. Can you smell him?”
“I smell something, but it’s not fresh. Even wolf
shifters don’t smell like real wolves and my senses are stronger than those of
a normal jaguar, so I think I can find him, especially since I know his wolf
scent. I’ll shift and get a better trace, but be prepared, because my jaguar
might not like Kitten being around the wolves.”
“He really doesn’t like anything, ever.”
When he took off his shirt, Scott scrambled to do so
as well. “No, you don’t need to shift,” Henry said.
“I want to!”
“You can shift when we get home. Right now, we have
to find Darwin.” Scott pouted, but he didn’t argue. Henry finished undressing
and then shifted. We followed the main path a ways until we got to a gate that
was opened electronically. Ironically, that was easier for me to get through
than a regular lock, because all I had to do was send a little magic energy
through the bars. I made sure the burst was high enough to take out any
surveillance cameras as well, but not so strong that it caused real damage. There
was always the possibility that, if I gave it too much power, I would fry the
electronic lock and it would stay closed.
Fortunately, the gate slid open easily.
Henry led me around several enclosures. Some wolves
howled, but the only ones we saw looked more frightened than anything. When he
stopped to sniff at a white wolf, the wolf slowly approached the fence
submissively.
“This way, Daddy,” Scott said, pointing to another
side path that was roped off. Henry got back on the path and soon, we came to a
much smaller enclosure. There was a rock cave and a bunch of trees, so I
couldn’t see what was in there.
Henry shifted back and I handed him his clothes.
“Darwin,” he called quietly as he dressed.
I tried again to find his mind and finally sensed the
wolf’s mind. Unfortunately, he either didn’t recognize me or didn’t care,
because he mentally snarled. I pulled away before I unintentionally ruined any
chance I had of calming him down. “He’s not doing well,” I said.
“What’s wrong?”
“I can’t even feel his human mind, and his wolf is
furious.”
“I would be as well if I were stuck in a cage. Maseré
is close.”
“We need to try to get him to shift before Maseré
shows up. I think something pissed him off.” I slipped on my ring. Although I
typically used it when I had an object in my hand to focus the vision around,
this time I concentrated on the wolf’s mind.
* * *
Not to my surprise, I saw a computer screen. Darwin
sat back and shut down the computer before standing. Despite his ergonomic
chair, he had cramps because he had been working on his computer pretty much
non-stop since he got back from the university. He timed himself out on a
notepad next to his computer, confirming that he had worked forty hours from
Friday night when he got home to Sunday night.
He left his room and headed down the stairs of the
huge house to find his father in a study. He just wanted to say he was going to
bed, so he decided to wait when he saw one of his pack members already talking
with his father. From Darwin’s mind, I learned that the man, Bill, was Maseré’s
third-most-trusted pack member, right under Darwin and Anya.
“Why do you let him get away with this?” Bill asked.
“Get away with what?”
“Doing whatever he wants! He causes trouble on his
computer when he’s home and he causes trouble when he’s at school! Do you even
know what he’s doing up there all day and night?”
“I do, and watch your tongue or I will cut it out of
your mouth. Darwin is trying to make the world a better place.”
“He would be better off looking up porn. He knows he
can do whatever he wants because you let him and he doesn’t even respect us as
his superiors. You are supposed to be the alpha, but your house is run by that
little omega throwback. He’s a menace! When are you going to kick him out?!”
“Never, and you are way out of line talking about my
son that way.”
“He can’t shift! How can we respect you when your
offspring is so incompetent?”
“If he could shift, he would have had to leave the
pack a long time ago, so I’m glad he can’t. Now, get out of my office, calm the
fuck down, and come back with an apology by the end of the day or you’re
banished.”
Bill stormed out of the room and pushed Darwin aside,
very nearly touching his skin. Darwin wrapped his arms around himself, trying
to hide is exposed skin as much as possible with his thin t-shirt.
“Darwin,” his father asked softly. “How much of that
did you hear?”
Darwin’s mental defenses instantly clamped down,
shoving the pain away. He scoffed. “Nothing important. That dildo is talking
out his ass, as usual. I’ll drain his bank accounts and have him audited for
being a bitch. Maybe I’ll have him registered as a---”
“What did you want to see me for?” Maseré
interrupted.
Darwin hesitated.
I have to have a reason to see
my dad now
? “I just wanted to let you know that I’m going to Marcus’s.” He
no longer wanted to sleep with his pack around.
Maseré frowned. “It’s not safe to be around the
vampires until the wizard council is back up.”
Darwin rolled his eyes. “It’s Stephen’s coven.
Stephen’s coven is always safe. I’m an adult now; I can go see my friends
without my dad’s permission.”
“If you are an adult, then you must still obey your
alpha.”
“Fortunately, since I’m not a shifter, I don’t have
an alpha.” As much as it hurt to say, it hurt him more to see the sorrow on his
father’s face.
“I didn’t mean to---”
“Bye, Dad,” Darwin interrupted before walking away.
If his father had tried to stop him, or even yelled at him for being
dismissive, he would have told his father the truth and tried to work things
out. Instead, by letting him go, Maseré just proved his fears.
His father didn’t treat him like his pack because he
wasn’t a pack member. He was a child that had to be treated with caution and
special privileges.
* * *
The vision changed to him and Marcus sitting on the
floor in a bedroom, surrounded by records, printed emails, signed consent
forms, and timesheets. Their laptops were busy loading more data by the looks
of it. Apparently, Darwin was dabbling in the investigator work on his own, but
he combined it with his father’s environmentalist work. When two zoos lost a
number of large cats due to negligence from a certain veterinarian office,
Darwin decided to take it upon himself to figure out exactly what happened, fix
it, and punish the people who tried to cover it up.
“Dr. Tillman said she administered one milliliter,”
Marcus said, reading off a form.
“How big was the cub?”
“Six pounds, one ounce.”
“Okay, that’s fine. What’s the problem?”
“The problem was that her assistant says Dr. Tillman
prescribed
one milliliter and that she gave the cub the dose herself.”
“But the doctor gave it to her?”
“It specifically says she administered it.”
“Crap. That shouldn’t have been too dangerous to the
cub, but if they screwed that up, I’m sure they screwed up somewhere else as
well. What was the assistant’s name again?” Before Marcus could answer,
Darwin’s phone rang. He ignored it, since it was covered in paperwork, until he
realized that it was a particular ringtone. Amelia was calling. He scrambled to
find it even after it stopped ringing. As soon as he found it, he called her
back. “Hey! Amy! Sorry I missed your call!”
“It’s no big deal. I figured you were engrossed in
your computer.”
He unburied himself from loose papers and files.
“Sure was. What’s up?”
“Well… my father said you could come over for dinner
if you want to.”
Darwin pulled the phone away for a second to check
the time. “Absolutely. I’ll be there soon.” He stood and hung up. “Listen, you
can finish this up, right? Thanks! Got a date!” He ran out without another word
until he reached the black Sedan. Taorec was the driver, which Darwin was
grateful for, because the man rarely ever said a word. “Take me to my fiancée’s
house, and be quick about it!”
