Changer's Blood (Balancer's Soul cycle) (59 page)

Just then
Connor
faintly heard two distinctive sets of sounds coming from the forest. Sarah stood behind
him. He
whispered “Jack
,
come stand next to me. I hear someone in the woods. And look casual
.
” He did as
requested
.

Soon he
was relieved when
they
all
heard “Brother! Were here!” T
he three of them
sighed in relief knowing only one person who calls
Connor
by that name.

Soon Mark walked into
view,
hand in hand with Kara
,
with a true smile written over his face
.
It looked as if all the centuries of pain he’s been bottling up
had been released and the burden vanished. He looked truly happy for once.
Since it wa
s sweltering in the sunlight and the fire, the Balancer’s
walked over to them
since they were near
er
a comfortable and
shad
y spot
.

Sitting down with Sara
h, Mark and
his
little hyperactive sister
, Connor wiped the beaded sweat from his forehead
. Jack said he had to do something and went home
not long after
.
He wasn’t as cheerful without Jillian present, but that was understandable.
Mark wore his usual silver attire as Kara remained in pink.
They weren’t ready for sparring
,
that
much
was for sure.
This day would be designated simply for a gathering.

Kara started her day with “Brother, I weighed myself on the scale Mark has in his bathroom. I used to weigh one hundred and ten pounds, but this morning I weigh one forty
seven
. In only a course of a day, I gained thirty
seven
pounds. I’m such a pig.
When we go home I have
even
more to eat
, yea!
”

Sarah tried not to laugh, but failed miserabl
y. After everyone settled down Connor
asked “How did your appointment go?”
It took a mome
nt for her to understand where he
was leading the conversation.

She tucked some of
her
loose sandy blonde
hair behind her ear. “It went ok. I’ll be getting the lenses
in a few days.” She smiled at M
ark
passionately
for only a moment before returning her attention to
the other
s. “Oh Mark has a surprise for me. Before
we
came here, he pulled into a
specialty tailor establishment and had the woman inside measure me. Mark didn’t tell me what he was getting, but he told the seamstress. Just what are you having her make for me?”
Her silver eyes narrowed on her
new lifelong
mate.

Mark cast his new mate a playful smile. “Something that you’ll need
,
and soon
I’d imagine
.” Her smile became only half enthused.

Sarah changed the subject and the mood of
the
party. “Kara, since I didn’t get a chance yesterday, would you like
to gain
some battle experience with me?”

Kara’s energy came back
in full force
. “Of course…
Just
give me a moment first
, ok?
” Kara’s eyes
suddenly
began glowing.

B
ones
began
snapping in her legs as Kara kicked off her shoes.
H
er legs bec
a
me slightly longer
than usual
and her toenails
slightly curved into
opaque claws. She didn’t however make her
hair grow to become armor like Connor
thought. She must not be capa
ble of that yet. Her fingernail
s also became
dangerously
sharp opaque claws. Kara now stood at least four inches taller than she did before.

Sarah stood and asked “Ca
n I have
Tool?”

Kara asked “Why?” as
Connor handed his
mate the weapon by its handle.

Sarah gave
K
ara an obvious look. “Kara, you are going to fight me with claws. I need to have some kind of weapon as well.”

“But you have your powers.”

“I’m not going to use them. It will be too easy to win if I used my
abilities
.” Sarah kept looking sternly at
his fuming sister as she entered his
mind.
“She needs to control her emotions
. She’ll see that
her
rage only blinds
he
r movements.”

“
Give a good show for us
,
Princess.”
S
he smiled as the two women walked into the imaginary arena.

Mark scooted beside Connor
. “What was that about? Is Sarah trying to piss her off?
Even a new Changer is deadly, but they are more temperamental since the virus is still fresh on their mind…
”

Watching the women begin their match,
he
sighed. “Mark, you know
exactly
how my sister is. She has very few
boundaries
and none
of them
are about patience. Kara needs to learn
some
restraint
if she is to survive
in
her new world
. Look there.”
H
e
pointe
d as Kara lunged at Sarah and his
mate jumped back, making
his
sister hit the ground. “Kara needs to plan ahead or else she can
’
t recover as quickly
… S
ee how Sarah landed a
weak
blow to my sister
’
s hand. That hand would now be a liability
even with her accelerated regeneration
…
in a battle with another immortal she’d already be dead.
”
Connor
finally looked at him. “You of all people should know that you need bot
h head and heart to win a fight,
but to survive you need one true thing, clarity. If you’re
in a
blind
rage
you’re as good as dead.
In your nine hundred years
of life
, I bet that you have seen your share
of battles that ended fatal
ly
because one side didn’t think
ahead
.”

Mark nodded. “I have and you
’
r
e
right about needing
focus
. My question is, why did Sarah do that?”

“Because, Kara learns quicker by acting rather than understanding complex
explanations
.” At that Mark smirked and Connor
saw him shaking as he tried to not laugh.
He didn’t disagree though.

Kara came back to her feet
, throwing dust and debris in her violent movement
. With a face of frustr
ation and rage, she lunged at Sarah again. Sarah
stepped
forward
,
in her direction. At the la
st moment,
she
fainted to the right
and ducked as
Kara’s claws raked over her
head. As
Kara
began
passing
her
side
Sarah
hook
ed
her
left ankle with Kara’s
right
, tripp
ing the new Changer
face first into the
hard
ground.

Come on Kara. You can do better than this…
Sarah
turned around
to watch Kara slowly turn on her back. She was completely filthy from falling into the ground time and time again.
Hopefully now she’d learn
this day’s lesson
.
Kara lay on her back as she
started
breathing heavily. Her eyes were closed and Kara finally
starting to
understand
the reason for today’s challenge
.
That’s better…

A minute passed and her breathing evened out.
She finally sat up and opened her silver eyes. Kara took another deep breath and released it.
She finally found calmness.
“I
’m ready to try again, Sarah.”

“Good. Now,
brush yourself off
and let
’
s try it one more time.”

Now standing tall, Kara prepared herself. Her clawed hands
dropped
close to her sides and her feet were spread out perfectly. Kara’s body leaned forward as her eyes
never left the sight of
the opposition
.
Sarah
knew she was about to strike when
her clawed feet dug into the rocky soi
l.

Sarah tightened her
left hand that held
Tool and prepared for the oncoming assault.

With her claws in the dirt, it added more friction to her sudden burst of speed. Kara’s speed wasn’t any greater
than it has been all day
, but her precision was. Being slightly faster than her,
Sarah
stepped back as her
right clawed hand raked past her
face by only an inch. When the hand moved from
her
face,
Sarah
saw that her
catlike
eyes were still calm and remained focused
and determined
.
Sarah
used the palm of
her
right hand to block
the
kick
aimed at
her
abdomen
. She spun with her leg as
Sarah
jumped back.
T
hat’s much better.
With her claws in the dirt, she stopped sooner than normal and charged
again.

Kara
tried tackling
, but fainted to
the
rig
ht. Jumping to the left saved Sarah
a lot of pain because
she
could still feel the breeze of Kara
’s claws on the right side of her face. As Sarah
regained her in
her
peripheral vision,
she
sidestepped
.

Kara’s
eyes were still focused, but no
w they were getting desperate.

Sarah
made
the
first mistake and Kara took the advantage.

As Sarah
jumped
sideways,
her
foot caught a rock and
caused her to
stumble.
She
broke eye contact with K
ara
for only a moment as she tried regaining her
footing again.
As she
did
so
,
she
looked back to
see
where
Kara
was. Kara’s right clawed
hand was swinging directly at her
face because she wanted to
win this time
.
Sarah
knew she wouldn’t be able to stop her momentum and
she
couldn’t dodge
the
coming
strike
either. When her claw
s
were less than an inch from her
eyes
,
Sarah
tightly closed them
,
knowing how bad things are going to get.

Something large made a solid impact with
her
chest and it literally knocked the wind
out
from her
lungs. The
strange
force wrapped around her back. Sarah
opened
her
eyes experimentally when
she
neither felt any serious pain
n
or the
land
beneath
her feet
.
She
looked down and saw that
she
was floating above the ground. Sarah’s
eyes shot up on their own accord and saw a worried face looking down.