Crossover 'The Chosen One Trilogy: Book One' (19 page)

He sighed. He walked over to the
mirror, all the while muttering something about his big
mouth.

I had to smile at him. He turned the
mirror so that it was facing the bed again.

My mouth dropped and my heart sank. I
looked like I had lost at least ten pounds. I could see bones
through the skin. There were dark circles around my eyes and my
skin looked yellow. I started crying. “Why didn’t you tell me I
looked this bad?”

“I’m sorry. It’s just like I said
before. You judge yourself to harshly and I knew that this would
upset you.” He wiped the tears from my cheeks. “You look fine!
Think of what you’ve been through! Hayden, you almost
died!”

I snorted at him.

He took my face in his hands. “Hayden,
you could lose another ten pounds and turn green, and I would still
find you the most beautiful creature on this earth.” He stood me up
and put his arm around me. “Look.” He faced us both towards the
mirror. “We go perfectly together.”

I had to laugh. My small, gaunt, yellow
self was very well complimented by his muscled purple and blue
torso.

“Now, let’s get you something to
eat.”

“Ok.”

For the next three days I concentrated
on sleeping and eating. By the morning of the fourth day, I was
ready to get some fresh air. There were a couple of factors that
made me think an outing was a good idea. One was the fact that I
was feeling quite a bit better. The other was that if I had to stay
with Jasper indoors one more day I was going to have to kill him
myself. Though he was well enough to move around he insisted on
staying with me. I had come to the conclusion that tigers had never
been meant to be indoor cats.

Jasper was asking me what I wanted for
breakfast before he headed downstairs to get it.

“Actually, I thought that I would come
down today. Also, I was thinking that if it’s nice out, we could go
relax by the pond. I don’t imagine it matters if I sleep on a bed
or on a blanket.”

His smile lit up his face. Even Tiny
seemed to think this was a good idea. She jumped out of her nest
and ran up my leg as I headed out the door.

When we got downstairs, Zane, Brice,
Tara and Ben were already eating. Zane and Brice looked at us as we
entered the room, their eyes widening before they decided to stare
at their food.

Ben glared at them while Tara jumped
out of her chair and ran to give me a hug.

“You are looking much
better!”

I smirked at her.

“No, really. Goodness, the first day we
got you back here I think Tiny could have dragged you all the way.
I can barely see any bones now.” She smiled. “And your coloring is
definitely almost back to normal.” She turned me in a full circle
to look me over.

“Thanks, Tara.” I hugged her
back.

“Well, that’s hardly fair,” mumbled
Jasper.

I looked over at him.
“What?”

“I have spent the last week telling you
every day that you are starting to look better and all I get is
‘you’re just saying that’, and Tara does it once and you accept it
and give her a hug.”

I laughed at him. Getting him outside
was definitely a good idea. “Do you want a hug?”

He blushed. “That’s not what I
meant.”

I walked back to him and carefully
wrapped my arms around him. He winced as he put his arms around me
in return. I looked up into his beautiful eyes and couldn’t help to
put my hand on his face. He closed his eyes at the touch and I
pulled him down to my lips. The kiss started softly, and he brought
his hands up to hold my face as well. Everyone else in the room
disappeared. He ran his tongue over my bottom lip, sending shivers
down my spine. I moaned.

Someone cleared their
throat.

We broke apart, both of us beet
red.

“Sorry,” I muttered. Ben laughed. I
looked at them. Tara was smiling, Ben’s arm around her. Brice’s
eyes looked like they were going to pop out of their head. Zane was
making gagging noises.

I laughed. He was me when I had been
around Shayna and Shawn.

“One of these days, Zane, I’ll be
telling you ‘I told you so’!”

He surprised me by looking a bit sad.
“I highly doubt it.”

Jasper took my hand. “Shall we have a
picnic?”

“Let’s.”

He went to the hall closet and grabbed
a blanket while I packed us a brunch.

We were outside for a total of three
seconds when Dodge trotted up to us.

“Hey, buddy.” I wrapped my arms around
his neck and held him for a minute.

Dodge blew out of his nose.

“We’re going to the pond,” Jasper
explained to my horse while I looked on and waited to hear what he
was saying.

“He wants to know if you would like a
ride there.”

I gave Dodge a quick kiss on the nose.
“No, that’s ok. I need to stretch.”

“He is wondering if you would mind if
he left for a bit. There is a herd not too far from here. He was
waiting to make sure you were well before he went.”

“Of course,” I smiled. “Go be a
horse.”

Dodge nuzzled my face and trotted
off.

“Hayden!”

I turned in time to get crushed in a
hug as Phlann gathered me against him.

“Thank goodness you’re ok!” He put me
down and looked at me. “You are ok, right? You don’t look ok.” All
excitement left his voice.

I laughed at him. “I’m fine. Give me
another week to get some more food into me and I’ll be back to
normal.” I reached up and gave him another hug. “Thank
you.”

He grinned at me. “Well, I had to make
up for almost letting you die the first time.”

“I’m glad you were around. “

Phlann glanced at the blanket in
Jasper’s arms. “So where are you going?”

“To the pond. I’m tired of lying in
bed. That, and if Jasper doesn’t stop complaining that he can’t
move properly I might finish the job for Ream. I’m hoping this will
cheer him up.” I grinned at Jasper who looked sheepish.

“Ok! Have fun!” He trotted off in the
direction that Dodge had gone.

The pond was a quick five minute walk
from the house. It took us closer to ten to get there.

Once we had the blanket down on the
ground we lay on our backs and looked at the white clouds slowly
making their way across the sky.

Jasper reached down and took my hand.
“Have I been that hard to live with?”

I laughed at him. “Yes. I have a theory
that tigers would never make good house pets.”

He laughed with me. “I’m sorry. I just
can’t bear the thought of leaving you for any length of time after
almost losing you. And to think you almost saved my life just so I
could live miserably for the rest of it.”

“Well, I guess we’re even now. Let’s
leave it at that then, shall we?”

He nodded.

“Why did Zane seem sad when I bugged
him about when he finds the one he is fated with?”

“He doesn’t think he will ever find
her. Zane started dreaming of her when he was fifteen. He has been
actively searching for her since then. It’s been ten years now and
he can’t even find someone who might have seen a girl who matches
her description.”

“That’s sad.”

“It is. Especially now that I know how
it feels to find the one you are meant to be with.” He brought my
hand up to his lips.

We lay quietly for a while, enjoying
the peacefulness of the pond.

“So what do you think you might feel
like doing once we are back to normal?” he asked.

“Well, I told Dodge that we would go on
his stone quest when things settled down.” I glanced at him and
caught him shaking his head, trying not to laugh. I turned a bit
red. “What?”

“So the Majs weren’t challenge enough
for you, now you want to take on the dragons!” He looked at me,
grinning.

“He refuses to go because he’s my
guardian. I won’t have him miss out on his life because of me.” I
grinned back at him. “You did say you would go live with the
dragons as long as I was there with you.”

He started laughing and caught his
breath. “So I did.”

We lay in the sun and enjoyed the
warmth of the day. I closed my eyes and breathed the fresh
air.

“This is great. I’m glad we came out
here.”

“Hmm hmm. Are you hungry? Do you want
to me to get the lunch out?” Jasper asked.

“No. Not yet. Unless you are. You can
start if you want.”

I heard him shake his head. “I’m fine
for now.” He gave my hand another squeeze.

There was a rustle in the bush behind
us.

Jasper turned awkwardly to see who was
coming to join us.

I heard him grunt.

“Hayden, run!”

I didn’t look back. The look on his
face as he tried to get up was enough to send me sprinting toward
Tara’s house as fast as I could manage.

I could hear someone catching up to me
under the sound of Tiny’s excited chattering. She unwrapped her
tail from my neck and jumped from my shoulder.

Whoever was behind me cried out and
swore, but kept on coming. I heard Tiny’s squeak and Jasper’s grunt
of pain somewhere behind me. Then my head was exploding and
everything went black.

*****

I lost count of how many days we
traveled. We rarely stopped. I was blindfolded with my hands tied
behind my back. I was made to change horses every so often and my
guess was so that we could get as far away as fast as possible.
They must have had horses waiting along the way. When I would fall
asleep from exhaustion someone would hop on behind me and hold me
up. That same person would sit behind me and feed me bread and
cheese.

I was assuming it was the same person.
Whoever it was always smelled and felt the same. But I was sure
there was at least two. There was no way one of them could have hit
Jasper and my head at almost the exact same moment.

Sometime after I stopped counting the
days, we may have been at about four, the person who was behind me
touched my head and grunted.

“We better stop and clean her up. She
won’t be any good to them if she dies from infection.”

Someone else muttered an answer. It was
the first time I had heard any of them talk.

A little while later we stopped. I
could hear running water. The man sitting behind me swung down then
pulled me off. He directed me towards the water and made me sit on
a rock.

“This is going to hurt,” he warned.
Whatever I had imagined my captor’s voice would sound like, this
wasn’t it. I had expected it to be gruff, annoyed, even mean. This
man’s voice was soft.

My brain screamed as he wiped the gash
on my head. I sucked in my breath but refused to cry
out.

“Sorry,” he whispered.

“Are you ready?” grumbled the other one
from a little farther away. The second man’s voice was
gruff.

“Yeah, almost done. You might want to
wash those scratches on your face. That tairat did a good number on
you.”

“Geez, Luke. It’s a couple of
scratches. And I don’t know why you’re bothering with her. After
what she did to Ream, Rainen is probably just going to kill her
anyway.”

Luke grunted. “That may be what Rainen
wants, but it’s Damian calling the shots. You want to be the one to
explain to him why she died on the way?”

All he got in reply was a
grunt.

“If I tie your hands in front of you,
are you going to be good?”

I nodded. My shoulders screamed as they
were freed to rotate. Before I even had time to think about maybe
trying to escape my hands were being bound again, this time a
little more comfortably, I noticed.

“Can you eat and ride?”

Again, I nodded, not sure if I could do
it blindfolded, but liking the idea better than being
fed.

Luke led me back to the horse and
lifted me into the saddle.

The other one started talking as we got
moving again. “Did you see the look on Jasper’s face when we rushed
out of the bush!”

It was Luke’s turn to grunt.

His friend kept on going. “It’s kind of
nice knowing he won’t be around anymore. He was quite the pain in
the ass when it came to missions. In all my years I have never seen
a cat, or dog for that matter, who was as good at his job. I wish I
could have been the one to finish him off.”

Tears welled in my eyes and soaked my
blindfold.

Luke was quiet behind me. I tried to
keep the sobs in.

He put a hand on my shoulder and I
jumped.

The pain in my chest got heavier and
heavier as I tried to control my crying. I couldn’t breathe. I
couldn’t think. Everything went dark.

*****