Matefinder (23 page)

                -
No bun in the oven
- it
read. I slipped the phone in my backpack. So everything Kai’s father had told
me was right.

                We had just reached home. I
was exhausted and I wanted nothing more than to sleep for a week.

                Kai grabbed my arm lightly.
“Are you going to tell me about what happened with my father?”

                I sighed. “I’m so tired from
the flight. Let me sleep and we will talk tomorrow. Okay?”

                Kai looked into my eyes. He
bent forward and kissed my nose. “Okay.”

                That night I tossed and turned. I was
dreaming and a cold sweat broke out on my skin. This wasn’t like a normal
dream. I was half awake and aware of Kai’s breathing next to me. I also knew
that I was dreaming but I couldn’t fully wake up. I felt trapped. Suddenly I
was standing in my dream in front of my childhood home. The door was open.
Chills ran up my spine. Something felt wrong. I did NOT want to go inside. I
tried to back up but my traitorous legs began walking in.

                “No!” I screamed.

                I heard a whimper leave my throat as Kai woke
up next to me. I felt like my soul was splitting in two. Part of me was now
standing at the foot of the bed staring at my sleeping body. Kai was awake now
and looking curiously at my sleeping self. Then, in my dream, I was walking
into the house and heading right for the kitchen. 

                “No, no, no! Wake up!” I told myself. A soft
whimper left my throat again.

                Kai nudged me this time. “Aurora, wake up.
You’re dreaming.”

***

                In my dream, I knew what I was going to see,
somehow I knew. My father’s body was crumpled on the floor, a pool of blood
rapidly growing around him. I looked down at my shaking hands; they were
covered in blood. The knife lay at my feet. He wasn’t dead yet. I could hear
his sputtering cough. I didn’t want to be here! Why was I here? I tried to
close my eyes but they wouldn’t. I was trapped. I began to tear up. I knew what
came next and I didn’t want to hear it. His words would haunt me for the rest
of my life.

                “It should have been you.” My dying drunken
father wheezed. “Not my Drake.” Then the blood became too much and the life
left his eyes. The refrigerator was open, and my mother’s unconscious body lay
on the floor. An open jug of orange juice pooled around her. To this day I
can’t eat two things: ketchup and orange juice.

***

                “Aurora! Wake up this instant!” Kai’s eyes
had gone yellow. Fur was rippling down his arms.

                I looked again at my bloody hands and felt a
presence at my back. I spun quickly to see the dark witch that was working with
Layla. Prudence.

                “I always knew you had a dark side to you,
Aurora. But imagine my surprise when I find out you’re not just a murderer, but
that you killed your own father!” She laughed and clapped her hands together in
glee. My stomach rolled.

                “Kai! Sylvia!” I screamed.

                Prudence flung her hand out quickly dousing
me with mist. I felt like cement had been poured down my veins; I couldn’t
move.

***

                Kai was shaking my body now. I watched,
helpless. Emma ran into the room. Kai must have summoned her.

                “Get Max and Sylvia!” Kai roared.

                Emma paled when she saw my limp frame in
Kai’s hands.

***

                I felt so heavy. Prudence walked back to my
parents’ old room and reappeared with a little girl. She looked scared. She
must have been four years old and had long inky black hair. She clung to the
witch.

                “Auntie, why am I here?” she asked Prudence.

                The witch looked at me. “Because your mommy
owes me a favor, little one.”

                I lifted my right leg up a few inches and
stepped forward.

                Prudence pulled a small knife out and pointed
it at the little girl. “Don’t push me!” she yelled at me. I stood still, my
breath coming out in ragged gasps. “Do you have any idea what I am capable of?”
she asked me.

                “I can bring people back from the dead! I can
make a poor fat man rich with women and gold. I can even bleed a child to make
a woman fertile.” She smiled wickedly.

                “No!” I screamed. I tried to use my magic but
it was no use. I had a blanket over my powers.

***

                Back with my body I sensed Sylvia. She
entered the room and grabbed her chest. “No! I should have taught her more. She
should be learning protections spells. This is what happens when someone with
her power doesn’t know how to be a witch!” Sylvia was beside herself. I have never
seen her this flustered.

                Kai was barely holding onto his human form.
“Fix it! What’s happening?” he roared.

                Sylvia pulled her shaking hand from her purse
and began lining the room with salt. “Dark dark magic. Old magic. I can’t fix
this. Her soul has been split. And I haven’t taught her enough to fix it
herself.”

***

                Back in my dream, I stared at Prudence. “Let
the child go!” I roared.

                She smiled and put her dagger down. “Okay,
would you rather I used Emma’s baby?” The glean in her eye made me sick. There
wasn’t a scrap of humanity left in this woman. I couldn’t reason with her.

                “If you touch Emma, I will kill you.” I
glared. “Well, I’m going to kill you anyway.” I looked at the little girl. Her
lip was quivering, her head down. Could you kill someone in the dream world? I
didn’t want to find out. A thought struck me. I closed my eyes and
concentrated.
‘Nahuel, help! I need you.’

***

                Kai breathed in deep through his nostrils
just as there was a knock at the door. Max had gathered in the doorway to the
room. He left to see who was at the door and returned with Nahuel. Kai growled
and hugged my body protectively. Nahuel creased his brow and looked at Sylvia
then again at Kai. “You’re not doing a very good job at protecting her are
you?” he mused aloud.

                Kai growled again. “Why are you here?”

                Nahuel pulled a feather and a dried sage
bundle from his satchel. “Your mate invited me. She woke me from a nice dream.”

                Kai didn’t trust him. I could see that but I
could also see his desperation. Nahuel put the tip of the sage bundle to his
bare palm and it ignited with flames.

                “Show off,” Sylvia murmured.

                He blew out the flame and a long stream of
smoke rose up to the ceiling. He began fanning the smoke with the feather.

                “Listen to my words, Kai.
You
are
Aurora’s one true mate, her Alpha, her pack leader, her soul mate. Like two
drops in the ocean, I cannot tell where one begins and the other ends. You must
use your link with Aurora to go into her mind.
Take
her mind into your
power. Flood her with your presence. Saturate her every being with your love.
Free her from the binds that hold her. Remind her that nothing can hold power over
her without her permission. Tell her that she is the creator of her destiny.”
Nahuel came closer to Kai and grabbed his ankle with a firm grip.

Kai flinched.

                “Let yourself go. I will keep your spirit
grounded to this world. I will keep your soul together. I will protect you,”
Nahuel said.

                Kai swallowed hard. I could see his pride
flaring up. He didn’t think he needed the protection. He didn’t want to seem
weak. He didn’t want to trust an outsider. He also didn’t want to lose me.

                Max stepped into the room. “Kai, do as he
says. If he makes a move to harm you, I will kill him.”

                Nahuel tried to stifle a laugh. I wanted to
tell Max that I had seen Nahuel stop time and so I was pretty sure he would be
hard to kill.

                Kai nodded and rested his forehead on mine.
My skin was grey and sweat beaded my forehead.

                “Meri Pyari, let me in,” he whispered.

***

                In the dream world, Prudence was preparing an
altar of some kind. She lit candles and began chanting. The little girl seemed
frozen now. She was unable to run. I closed my eyes and imagined myself in the
woods behind our house. A large ball of light was floating towards me. I tried
to run to it but I couldn’t. The light became brighter. “Kai!” I looked down at
my body. This was a dream. I didn’t need a body, right? I shed my body and I
too became a ball of light. My ball of light raced towards Kai’s light and the
two balls crashed together sending out sparks like fireworks. I opened my eyes
in the dream. Prudence was grabbing her dagger now. I looked down at my body,
except it wasn’t my body, it was my wolf’s and it wasn’t just me; Kai was with
me, inside me. We were one.

                ‘
It’s a dream
,’ Kai told my wolf.

                ‘I know.’

                I tried to move my paw. Nothing happened. The
witch was walking the little girl over to her altar. She hadn’t noticed me yet.

                ‘
Aurora, do you know why I love you so
much?
’

                ‘
Because you’re my mate, you have to,
’
I joked.

                ‘No, because you don’t let anyone tell you
what to do. I have never shared this with you, but I fear that you too may be
an Alpha. You may be more dominant than me. I sense that. I knew from that
first day that you may actually have the power and strength to lead this pack,
to be stronger than me. It terrifies me and excites me all at once. No one can
make you do anything you don’t want to do. You’re a free spirit.
’

                His confession knocked into me like a ton of
bricks. I felt his Alpha power merge with mine and a growl ripped from my
throat. Prudence turned to look at me and stumbled backward. I leapt from where
I had been cemented with fear and landed on her chest, knocking her into her
altar. A candle fell onto her hair and lit it on fire. She began to scream. The
little girl fell over, broken free from her spell.

                “Wake up! Wake up! Go back to your body! Tell
your mother what happened here and run away,” I screamed at the girl. The
little girl ran for the front door. The second she crossed the threshold
outside, she disappeared. Prudence was chanting now as her body lit on fire. I
ran for the door but a blast hit me from the back and I fell forward shifting
back into my human form. The door slammed shut and smoke began building in the
house.

                I stood up and faced her. “One day I’m going
to learn to fully use my magic. I’m going to find you and I’m going to
incinerate you out of existence.”

                I leapt to the right and slammed my body
through the living room window. I felt Kai’s power pushing me through the
glass. I was about to reach the ground when I slammed back into my body and out
of my dream.

***

                I opened my eyes. Max, Emma, Sylvia, Nahuel,
and Kai all stared at me.

                “Well, I might have a hard time sleeping from
now on,” I told them.

                Kai let out a sigh and grabbed me, holding me
close.

                After promising Sylvia I would attend weekly
witch circles and spell castings, she left. After promising Nahuel I would wear
a special protection amulet he made me, he left as well. I glanced at Kai.

                Kai had been patient. He had
given me time to think things through. I owed him an explanation. I slowly
pulled the paper I had taken from his father. I unfolded it and handed it to
him. I watched his features change as he read the paper.

                “Okay, what the hell is
this?”

                “RAIDOS has figured out that
I can’t impregnate vampires so long as I stay unmated. I’m infertile. I love
you, Kai, but we can’t marry. If we do, I become fertile and so does my blood.”

                I told him everything. About
the device the vampires had to drain and sell my blood, about my fear and
desire to have children. When I was done, he took my face in his hands.

                “This doesn’t mean we can’t
marry.”

                Hope sprang up inside my
chest. “It doesn’t?”

                “It only means we have to
take out the vampires that want to hurt you.” The tone of his voice gave me
chills.

                Sometimes I wondered just
how dangerous the man I shared my bed with could be. I swallowed hard. “You
have that look in your eye. The crazy creepy look that says you want to go on a
killing spree.” I tried to make a joke. His face remained sinister.

                “Vampires are like bees,” he
told me, as I saw a plan hatching in his mind.

                “Bees?”

                “Bees. They spend their
whole life obsessed with their hive and honey. Money and blood for vampires.”

                “Okay.” I could kind of see
where he was going. Sure vampires and bees had some similarities. “And this
helps us how?”

                “They are also obsessed with
their queen. Their pathetic little lives revolve around one bitch. Take out the
queen, take out the hive.”