Birthrights (22 page)

"He was not my friend," Seth said as he caught up to
her to walk with her.

"Well you knew him didn't you?" Jaxon asked
sarcastically. 

"Yes, I know who he is, but believe me, that does not
make us friends. What's with the attitude?" 

Jaxon stopped mid stride. Exasperated she looked at
Seth. "Seriously? You want to know why I have an
attitude?" 

Seth stopped beside her. "Yes. I do." 

Jaxon started walking again, "Fine, I'll tell you. Do
you realize that every time you show up, I have to fight something?
Somehow though, you miraculously show up in the nick of time, once
again. Which means you were following me, again. And that vampire
buddy of yours had the audacity to ask what was going on between
us! Ha - as if!"

Seth had to pick up the pace to keep up with Jaxon.
The more she talked, the faster she walked. "Wait, I wasn't
following  you. I saw the light on in your office and was
going to check in on you. I was concerned, and then I saw Frank,
who is not my buddy. And what do you mean 'as if?' " He asked,
beginning to get agitated.

Jaxon stopped again and looked at him. They stood
facing each other on the side walk right outside Hidden Dimensions
bookstore, close enough to each other than Jaxon could see Seth's
shirt rising and falling with his breathing. His eyes were bright
with emotion and she had the biggest urge to reach out and touch
him. Instead she swallowed, which brought his attention to her
throat. And instead of being threatened or grossed out at the
thought of Seth biting her, Jaxon felt her heart skip a beat. Even
more irritated with her body's reaction to this vampire, no matter
how sexy he was, Jaxon huffed in response to his questions and
reached for the bookstore door.

"Jaxon, regardless of whether you want to answer my
questions or not. You are still going to have to come to terms with
what you did back there. When I came into the gallery, I could not
sense a human or a witch. You were neither of those things." He
reached out and grabbed her arm to turn her to face him. "You were
a vampire, Jaxon."

****

"I don't understand what you keep trying to tell me."
Caislyn was worried that her dad would slip away before he got to
finishing telling her again.

"I bound myself years ago, so that I could not tell.
You have to find the answers on your own." He looked at her
makeshift necklace that had once been his earring. "The secret lies
there."

The sands began to swirl around them as the wind
picked up again. Caislyn's arms went out a little from her side as
she felt the sting of each grain. Before she knew what was
happening the butterflies were back in place of the sand, dancing
around her hands. She allowed herself to be awed by them before she
remembered to look for her dad again. He noticed the panic in her
eyes.

"I'm still here baby girl," he reassured her. Once
again he handed her the book and as she took it the butterflies
disappeared and she was back in the bookstore with the wind blowing
papers around her feet.

"Why would you bind yourself from telling me
something?" She asked, but she realized there was no one else there
to answer her now. She held onto the book her father had given her
twice now and took a good hard look as it began to fade away.

Caislyn awoke with a headache and grabbed onto the
necklace that she was wearing. As she shook herself free of the
dreamy fog she realized she was still laying on the book store
floor with research books all around her. She began cleaning up the
mess she had made and placing the books one by one on the media
rack so she could put them away tomorrow. Caislyn picked up the
third book and closed it, getting ready to place it on the media
rack as well when she felt a warm sensation from her necklace.
Before she put the book down, she turned in over and took a good
look at it. She was completely astounded to see this was the book
her dad had given her twice over in her dreams. The warm sensation
emanating from the necklace made her think of her dad's earring
again. "Maybe, I was not supposed to give up on you so easily," she
told the jewelry. She flipped the book open and began looking
through it for any mention of earrings or other heirloom jewelry.
She found what she was looking for about half way in. There was a
photo of the symbol that was etched on the earring and beneath it
the captain read "Fey Royal Emblem - Members of the Faerie Royal
Court are required to keep the emblem on their body at all times,
some chose to wear it as a necklace, earrings, or a crown in the
case of the Faerie Queen and King."

Suddenly the truth of what she was reading dawned on
her and the full impact of those words slapped her into a
semi-shocked state. Caislyn had been trying to convince her best
friend that she was more than she thought, when all along, so was
she. Before she could wrap her mind around what she had just
uncovered she noticed people outside of the bookstore.

****

Jaxon and Seth stood facing each other again. She
didn't have an answer to what had happened and had to rely on what
Seth saw. But what he was saying was impossible.

"Your entire body shut down. Your eyes were solid
black," he said softly to her, knowing that she was struggling with
this new bit of information.

He reached out and touched her arm to try to comfort
her when Caislyn opened the door to the book store. Her eyes were
wide with a look that could pass for shock as she said, "I think
I'm Fey."

Jaxon and Seth both stopped in their tracks, caught
off guard by Caislyn's sudden outburst after what had just taken
place with Jaxon at the gallery. Seth recovered a little too
quickly, having already guessed the truth of things when he saw the
earring that Caislyn's dad had left behind. Jaxon, on the other
hand, stood with her jaw agape, waiting for Caislyn to say
something more.

"I think we need to lock the place up and head up to
the apartment where we can talk without interruptions." Seth
suggested as he and Jaxon walked inside and he turned to set the
locks on the door behind him.

"Good idea," Caislyn began walking through the
motions of her normal closing routine in a haze that had fallen
over her since her last dream. She wasn't sure how to tell the
others, and didn't entirely know if they would believe her or
not.

"This is turning out to be a hell of a day for
discoveries," Jaxon finally blurted out as she walked to the stairs
to head up to the apartment.

***

Glamour & Blood

The trio walked into the upstairs apartment in
silence. Jaxon told Caislyn to go sit down and she would grab some
drinks. As she headed for the kitchen, she grabbed the rum from
their bar. They needed something stronger than tea this time to
soothe their raw nerves. Her mind seemed to whir as it processed
the events from the last few hours. Her unique abilities were
growing and now Caislyn seemed to think she was Fey. On her way
into the living room with the drinks, she snagged the bag of
Cheetos, and some brownies from the counter. The way things had
been going so far, comfort foods were going to be mandatory.

As she entered the room, she looked at her
companions. Seth sat silently in his normal spot in the chair
beside the couch, lost in his own thoughts. Caislyn sat on the
couch with her sketch pad in her lap, fiddling with her father's
earring that she had some how managed to attach to her necklace.
She was starring at the wall of sketches across the apartment, but
Jaxon knew she wasn't seeing any of them. A wave of confusion,
mixed with anguish and sorrow about her parents emanated from
Caislyn and hit Jaxon like a wall of water crashing into a dam.
Jaxon immediately put up a shield. She wouldn't be able to handle
that heavy of emotions and be able to think at the same time. She
wondered how her friend was handling it.

Jaxon set the tray of drinks down on the table
between them and sat beside her friend. She handed one to Caislyn
immediately. "Drink it, you need it. Trust me, I can tell."

Caislyn glanced at her friend as she took a long
swallow of the rum and coke. She could feel the alcohol warm her
insides as she drank.

Seth waited until Caislyn had taken a few more
swallows of her drink before he spoke. "How did you figure it
out?"

Jaxon looked at Seth and for moment forgot about
Caislyn's Fey theory. "Um, you were there, you saw."

Seth ignored Jaxon for the moment and spoke again,
"Caislyn, how did you figure it out?"

"Oh," Jax said as she sipped her own rum and
coke. 

"The dreams," Caislyn whispered more to herself than
anyone else. She knew they would both be more than capable of
hearing her though, with their super vamp senses. "I was wearing
this when I fell asleep," she said as she absentmindedly played
with the makeshift necklace, "and the dreams started coming. At
first they were foggy and I couldn't quite make out what was
happening, but then I found my dad in them. He called it dream
walking. He says very few people in the world, non-human or
otherwise, have the ability, but his family has always been able to
step into people's minds through their dreams." Caislyn looked lost
as she recited what had been happening to her at night.

Despite her shielding, another wave of absolutely
misery and confusion swept over her, a sign that Caislyn was just
barely hanging on tonight. Jaxon tried to throw a little more power
into her shield to compensate, but at the same time she moved
closer to Caislyn and put her arm around her. "Was it really your
dad?" she asked cautiously. 

"Yes, but he doesn't know where he's being held. He
said my mom's okay. They moved her, so he only gets to dreamwalk
with her." Caislyn leaned in a little closer to take some of the
comfort Jaxon was offering her.

"Cais, it's good news." Jaxon was trying to cheer her
friend up a little for both their sakes. The depression that was
rolling through Caislyn was hard to fight off. "He's dream walking
with you, that means he may have some clues or answers for you the
next time you two communicate. You just have to remember to make
the most of your time with him when you can."

"So, you believe that I have been talking to him and
not just dreaming this stuff up?" Caislyn looked seriously shocked
that she was believed so easily. "I mean, I thought I was crazy,
myself."

Jaxon and Seth both laughed before Jaxon answered
her. "After all the crap we have gone through together since we
met, you expect me to not believe this?" The smile she offered her
friend was so genuine that it was contagious. Jax could feel the
tension lift from Caislyn a little, which was at least a start.
Unfortunately, she had to ask Caislyn some questions while
everything was still fresh in their minds. "So, let me get this
straight, you are Fey, or part Fey and part witch and I am maybe
part witch and part vampire?" She looked to Seth "you're just a
vampire, right? You're not going to suddenly become part wolf or
anything are you?"

"No, I'm all vampire. I'd be happy to show you, if
you'd like." Seth's eyes were smoldering in their brightest green
with the implied proposition. Jaxon realized at that moment that
she had been holding her breath just a bit while waiting for his
answer. She had not had the greatest experiences with Lycans and
she certainly didn't want Seth to be one. That little revelation
that he was all vampire struck a nerve in her and she felt her
synapses firing off electric impulses all around her body.
Unfortunately for her, by the look on Seth's face, he was able to
sense the change in her before she could get herself under
control. 

"Um, no. That's quite alright. Who needs a refill?"
Jaxon jumped up nervously, trying to conceal the fire that had
blushed across her cheeks, and headed for the little bar in the
corner of the room. Seth grinned as Caislyn gave them both a
curious glance. 

"So, you've finally decided to accept that you are a
vampire, Jax?" Caislyn asked, appreciative for the distraction from
her own issues. 

"Well, no. I'm not a vampire, because I don't need
blood to survive, but I have to admit, I have some unique vampire
qualities. So, I'm not really sure what to think," Jax answered as
she poured herself another drink and rejoined Caislyn on the
couch. 

"You definitely have vampire abilities. Not just the
small ones, but rather some pretty prominent, unmistakable
features." Seth added. 

Caislyn looked from her friend to the vampire sitting
in the chair beside her. "Is there something I should know here?"
She looked between both of them again, getting the clear impression
that she was interrupting some serious chemistry. "I mean, how
would you know she has some prominent features? And what kind of
features are you talking about?" 

"Jaxon was attacked at the Gallery before we got
here, by another vampire." Seth answered nonchalantly.

"What?" Caislyn yelped, "Oh, crap, Jax," Caislyn
looked to her friend and quickly surveyed her to be sure she wasn't
hurt. "Here I was rambling about my parents, again, and you were
just attacked."

"Again," Jaxon added. "It seems to happen so much
lately, that it doesn't even phase me anymore, especially when I
kicked ass."

Caislyn looked clearly confused so Seth filled her in
on what happened at the gallery. "She had everything under control
when I got there. She was all vampire when I got there too."

"Okay, what exactly do you mean by that?" Caislyn
questioned.

"Vampires have the ability to stop their body
functions. It helps to conserve energy, which helps us live longer,
but we do so mostly when we fight or travel for long periods
without access to a blood source. Of course these days with such
fast travel and rampant blood supply, that's not really a problem."
At the look of impatience Caislyn was giving him, Seth quickly got
back on topic. "When we fight, if we get injured it helps us stop
the blood loss so that we can recover quicker. It also allows the
older vampires to sleep, sometimes for hundreds of years, although,
when they sleep too long they generally need help waking up. A
blood offering to jump start the system again, is what I have
heard, but I don't exactly know since I have never seen a vamp
awaken from more than a 50 year sleep."