Soul Mates: Scent (The Soul Mates Series) (16 page)

“I understand son. I just don’t want you thinking you are going to get out of going to school for all of this. School is just as important.”

I laughed. “I know dad. Anna said the same thing. Don’t worry; I will keep going to school.”

I could hear mom moving around the kitchen as we walked in the house. “Mom, what are you doing up so early?”

“I couldn’t sleep. I kept having strange dreams about Fae Kings and sword fighting,” mom said with a look at me as she pulled a steak out of the oven.

The scent of the rare meat made me salivate. “That smells delicious, mom. You are a genius!”

“Well, eat up and get a shower, you have school in an hour.”

I quickly devoured the breakfast, kissed mom on the cheek and ran up the stairs taking them two at a time.

I threw a few of my favorite clothes into a duffle bag, knowing that as much as dad didn’t care for it, I was staying in the Faerie Mound for a while. He wouldn’t know the difference, not with the timepiece Taban was going to give us. We would be back by tonight as far as dad was concerned, but if I had my way… we would be training non stop for a month in the Faerie Mound. I’d have to talk to Anna, make sure she was on board with that.

I sent my thoughts out to her as I jumped into the shower.
Anna?

Mmm,
oui
Max?
she murmured sleepily in my mind.

Anna can you pack up some clothes for the Faerie Mound? We are going to be there a while.

Max
what
are
you
planning?
I could see her frowning in suspicion in my mind.

A lot of training Anna. As much as we can fit in with one of Taban’s watches.

Sounds like a good idea Max, and Auberon will be pleased. I will pack a bag. Are you picking me up?

Of
course,
be
there
in
twenty
minutes.
I
have
to
finish
showering
…
I sent her an image of myself from the waist up covered in soap bubbles and shampoo and heard her giggle.

Max! You naughty boy! I will see you in twenty minutes.

I laughed as I toweled off and got dressed. Racing through the house, I picked up my backpack and duffle and called out to mom that I wouldn’t be home for dinner. “Bye!”

“Be careful, Max!”

“Always, mom!” I called as I tossed the bags behind the seats and slid behind the wheel of the corvette. The comforting purr of the engine made me smile. I made it to Anna’s with five minutes to spare.

“You’re early,” Anna said with a smile as she slid into the vette next to me. She tossed her bag back with mine and when she had her seatbelt on I leaned over and kissed her good morning.

“You smell delicious,” I whispered nipping at her neck.

“Thank you.”

“What is that? It drives me wild you know.”

Anna blushed. “It’s just me, no perfume or anything. Just… me… what are you… Max! Stop that!”

I chuckled and stopped nuzzling and licking her behind her ear. “Come on my sweet little panther, we have classes to get to,” I said as I made the vette come to life beneath us.

We reached the school a few minutes later with plenty of time to spare. For once we weren’t scrambling to try and get to class on time. I grabbed my backpack and her books and slung my arm around her shoulders pulling her in protectively against me. I had the strangest feeling that we were being stalked and I stopped and sniffed the air around us. At first I couldn’t pick up much, but then…

“Do not worry my Prince… King Auberon has sent us to watch your back today.”

“I knew I smelled Fae,” I growled, glowering at Daire. “Stop with the Prince shit. If you are going to shadow us then call me Max.”

“But you are the flesh and blood of the King of Light and Illusion, you are a Prince. I cannot.”

“Daire, this is the mortal world, you absolutely may not call me Prince!”

“Yes, sire.”

“Daire,” I warned.

“Max, how exactly are we going to go through the day being shadowed by the Fae?”

“We will not be seen, Consort of the Prince. We are Fae. We shall be invisible to the mortals.”

Anna raised an eyebrow at her title. “Consort of the Prince?”

“Yes, until you are wed. Then you shall be Princess Anna.”

“I see,” Anna giggled and rolled her eyes.

“Fine then, if the mortals can’t see you or hear you then I guess it doesn’t matter what you call me,” I said with a sigh and continued on to class with Anna. “This should make for an interesting day.”

“Just so long as you don’t talk to them, things should be just fine mon coeur.”

Anna was right; the day went pretty smoothly until we reached the lunchroom and Tony who about choked on his pizza when Anna and I joined him for lunch.

“Tony!” I said fiercely as I clapped him on the back. “Tony, what the hell is wrong with you? You look like you’ve seen a ghost!”

Tony blinked a few times, his jaw working up and down as if he couldn’t fathom what he was seeing.

“My Prince, I believe that your young friend is a Sióga Feiceann, a human that can see through Fae glamours. He can see and hear us. We did not mean to put you in more jeopardy, perhaps we should leave and report back to King Auberon.”

I shook my head no at them. I knew Auberon would not appreciate their leaving their assigned jobs and I wasn’t going to send them away to get into trouble on my account. “Tony,” I whispered. “Tony I know what you are seeing and I know you just heard what they said. I can explain, but I need to do it in a more private setting. Will you come with me?”

“S-sure.” Tony nodded, not taking his eyes off of Daire and Cole. Anna took Tony’s tray and dumped it for him and then the three of us went outside followed by Daire and Cole, and walked to the edge of the woods.

“Tony, are you all right?” I asked as he stared at me, his eyes wide and a little freaked out.

He took a deep breath and sat down on a rock. “I think so. It was just a shock to see them at school you know? I mean they’ve never come into the school before and then to actually speak to you…to call you… hey!”

“Yeah, well it’s a long story. Seems my granddad is the King of Light and Illusion’s son, so…”

“So, you really are… dude!” Tony‘s jaw clenched. “How? How is it possible?”

“I’m sort of enchanted.” I held up my hand with the ring and gave it a little spin so Tony would notice it.

Tony was breathing hard and looked as though he wanted to ask something, but somehow couldn’t think of the right words. “So they’re not going to… you’re not going to…”

“Not going to what Tones?”

“Kill me?” Tony choked out in barely a whisper.

“Kill you? What? Why would you even think that Tones? Come on you’re my best friend.”

Tony nodded slowly. “They aren’t like the ones I’ve seen before,” Tony said softly almost to himself. “So, if you’re like, great grandson to the King of the Fae, do you like have Fae abilities?”

“Yeah, some.”

“So like is Anna Fae too, is that why she came here?”

I glanced at Anna, not sure what to say about that.

Tell him, mon coeur. Diana will not mind our Tony knowing.

Our
Tony?
I raised an eyebrow at her words and grinned.

“Not exactly. I’m not human Tony.”

“Yeah, you’re Fae,” Tony frowned as if to say
Duh,
didn
’
t
we
just
go
over
this?

“I’m not exactly all Fae either. I’m… more than that.”

“I’m not following.” Tony scowled.

I took a deep breath and told him. “Tony, I’m… I’m a shifter. To be exact, I’m a jaguar. Anna’s a black panther. She came here looking for me, because the Council of Elders was going to force her to marry unless she found me. Well, she didn’t know it was me until recently, technically she had to find her soul mate, before his, err...my eighteenth birthday. She has been searching for me for years.”

“You’re pulling my leg…” Tony started to laugh and then looked at our serious faces. “You’re not joking. Okay, you’re not… human. Dude… this is really… wow. Okay. You’re still you though; you’re still my best friend. So what’s with the bodyguards?”

I glanced at Daire and Cole and realized that’s what they were really. “They were sent by my great grandfather to watch my back. There is another shifter, more specifically a lion trying to track me down and kill me.”

“What? Why?”

“Really Dude? Need you even ask?” I asked with a glance at Anna who blushed.

“Seriously? He wants Anna? And he thinks this is the way to get her?” Tony frowned. “He must be insane.”

“Probably, but that is why the bodyguards and I can’t send them home without them getting into serious trouble with Auberon. So they stay. They won’t be back tomorrow though. I’m going to take care of it.”

“What? You planning to fight this lion?”

“Eventually, I plan to kill him.”

“Dude.”

“It’s me or him Tones and it sure as hell ain’t gonna be me.”

“I hear you, dude.” Tony looked at me speculatively. “So, you can like turn into a jaguar?”

I chuckled, “Yeah, it’s pretty cool.”

“My Prince, your friend must swear on his life not to reveal to the mortals the secrets you have shared with him,” Daire said harshly.

“Oh, yeah, yeah. I swear not to tell anyone. Ever. I’m just glad I have someone I can actually talk to about the stuff I see. You would not believe some of the freaky stuff I have seen!”

“You have seen freaky stuff here?” Daire asked frantically pulling his sword and searching the area. “Where? When?”

“No! No, calm down, dude! It wasn’t here. I saw a lot of it in New York when I went on vacation last year with my mom. I didn’t say anything to her, didn’t want to scare her, but there were some nightmarish like creatures there, dude, I’m telling you. I couldn’t sleep for weeks.”

“If you ever see such things anywhere near here, you tell my Prince. They are very dangerous.”

“Yeah, yeah sure, whatever.”

“No, you do not understand. There is a war going on, and those things you have seen are Unseelie. They are evil. They are not of the Light. If they come here then we must be prepared. If you see them Sióga Feiceann, please, you must tell my Prince. You must tell Max. Max will make sure we take care of it before any mortals die.”

“Okay, Yeah. I will make sure I tell Max. I swear,” Tony nodded.

“We are in your debt, Sióga Feiceann.”

Mon amore, we must get back or we shall be late for class.

“I know.” I glanced at Anna and smiled. “Tones, we good?”

“Yeah, dude, we’re good.”

“Then we gotta get back, bells gonna ring in five.”

“Cool. So how are you going to deal with your furry problem?”

“Furry problem? Oh you mean Freddy the lion… well I’m going to train with the Fae some more, a lot more. You know that the Fae can make time move differently right? Well I’m going to train for a month before tomorrow.”

“You know that sounds really weird right?”

“Yeah, I know.”

We got through the rest of our classes without incident and I thought we would make it through the rest of the day, but football practice was harsh. The guys were ignoring Steve and our practice was suffering because of it, so I called everyone into the huddle. “Look I know I’ve got issues with Steve, but the rest of you don’t. This is a team and we’re going to play as a team. We have the Huskies to beat tomorrow and I mean to beat them. So I’m going to put my issues aside and we’re going to do this even if we have to stay here all night to get our act together we will. Understand?”

“Yeah,” Tony said with barely contained laughter.

I glanced at his face and followed his gaze to see Daire tying Steve’s shoes together. I swallowed a laugh and started coughing. “I said, Understand?”

“Yeah!” came the chorus of voices.

“Okay, then break!”

I watched as Steve took a step and fell on his face. I barely held it together as I watched Daire and Cole cracking up on the sidelines. I mouthed at them to knock it off and motioned for them to go sit with Anna. Lucky for me they listened and we made it through the rest of practice without anymore craziness.

“Dude, that was priceless!” Tony said as we made our way to the locker room. We were walking about fifty paces behind everyone else so we wouldn’t be over heard.

“I can’t believe Daire did that. I mean seriously! The guy is a Fae Warrior. I’ve never seen him do anything crazy. How did he know which one was Steve?”

“Dude, he walked behind each guy and pointed to each one and when he got to Steve I nodded.”

“That was classic. But seriously we need to work as a team and I’m willing to work with him. I’m just not willing to be friends with him anymore.”

“Yeah, it sucks though. I still can’t believe he did that to you.”

I met Anna back at the Vette and we drove toward the park and the entrance to the Faerie Mound. Daire and Cole followed us in the black caddy from the night before. Honestly I wasn’t quite ready to enter the Faerie Mound and I said as much to Anna.

“What do you want to do mon couer?”

“Hunt,” I said with a glance at her. “I’m starving.”

“I am sure that Auberon will be prepared for our appetites, mon amour. We do not have to hunt.”

“I know. It’s just… well… I have all of this energy… you know?”

“Oui, I know, do not worry, you will wear yourself out doing battle with Gideon soon. Save that energy, you are going to need it.”

“You’re right. Of course, I can think of a better way to expel some energy...” I raised an eyebrow and lifted Anna’s fingers to my lips, kissing them as we pulled into the parking lot.

Daire and Cole took our bags and we followed them to the Faerie Mound door and as they had the night before they chanted a little tune and a Fae appeared.