Bound by the Moon (The Ancients Series Book 4) (3 page)

Laughter at the door made me look up in time to see Evan standing there with Natalia. “Your mom let us in on the way out, but I didn’t want to interrupt.” Evan apologized.

“No worries,” I said as I stepped back from Mikael then. “Can I get you guys a drink or something?”

“When did you get back?” Mikael asked as he gathered himself, stood, and turned to face his brother.

“We got in late last night, figured we’d wait until a decent hour to come meet my niece.” Evan walked over and hugged his brother then, “Congrats, my brother. I know you’ve waited for this day for a long time.” Mikael gave a gruff, noncommittal noise in response, which triggered laughter from Evan. “Aww, what’s the matter, having a daughter not all it’s cracked up to be? Already worried about the boys who will be beating the door down?”

“Don’t even start on that subject.” Mikael launched a playful punch at his brother’s chest. “Besides, as her Uncle, it’s your job to help scare them off before they even think of getting to the door.”

“Boys!” Natalia rolled her eyes as she walked over to me. “Heaven help your daughter. She’ll never be allowed to date with them around.” I loved hearing Natalia speak, her thick accent, and the roll of her tongue always reminded me of a couple of my white wolf ancestors. In that way, talking to Natalia always felt like home. Both Evan and Mikael’s accents were much more muted. Apparently, when Antoine was alive, he made them practice for hours a day to sound as though they were American. He had been planning on sending his boys to rule the roost over here long before they discovered I was alive and coming into my power.

It still took a little getting used to that Evan now had a mate of his own now. I didn’t think of him in any romantic way anymore, but it was still odd seeing him so at ease with another soul. Those two were truly meant for one another.

“Yeah, well, where there’s a pretty girl, boys will always find a way. Isn’t that right?” I looked up at Evan whose cheeks turned red at the reminder of how he had marked me when we first met.

Evan cleared his throat and decided it was time to change the subject while everyone laughed at his expense. “So, where is my lovely little Niece anyway?”

Mikael had already walked over to the bassinet and picked her up. “She’s right here. My little sleeping beauty…” Seeing Mikael melt every time he held our daughter would never get old. I just smiled over at them as Evan reached to take hold of her.

“She’s gorgeous! Thank the wolf spirits that she looks like her mother.” Evan announced amid laughter.

“I have to agree with you there,” Mikael started, “although if she was sporting my whiskers maybe I wouldn’t have trouble keeping the boys away later.”

“Mikael!” I yelled in mock-outrage. “You will not wish whiskers upon my child, unless she has completed the change and is in wolf form.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He bowed slightly towards me while Evan made the sound of a cracking whip. “Yeah, well, I’m okay with being whipped, brother.” After seeing Natalia walk up, and peer around his arm at the baby, Mikael added, “Looks like I’m not the only one.” Evan just shrugged his shoulders and grinned.

“I can’t believe how tiny she is.” He whispered to no one in particular. “It’s crazy, I feel like I might break her if I breath too hard.”

“Well, do try not to do that. I’d hate to have to kill you today.” Mikael said through his laughter.

“May I?” Natalia asked, as she approached Evan and Willow.

“Of course.” I smiled at her as she took Willow in her arms.

“She truly is beautiful.” Natalia offered. Then she began to chant in an angelic voice.

“Lumina sa straluceasca in jos

Si sa binecuvanteze acest copil

Un viitor luminous, cu bucurie si rasete

Poate spiritele luminare uita mereu dupa

Si sa binecuveanteze acest copil frumos.”

By the time she got to the end of whatever she was chanting. There was a warm white light surrounding both her and my baby. I panicked, and snatched Willow from her immediately. “What the hell are you doing?” I looked Willow over to make certain she was still okay. “What the hell were you doing to my baby? What was that light?”

“Jess, calm down.” Evan stated.

“What the hell was that, Evan?” Mikael asked.

“WHAT DID YOU DO?” I screamed at Natalia.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized in her thick Romanian accent. “It was a blessing. Nothing more.”

“Nothing more?” I questioned. “There was light around the both of you.” Natalia looked startled by what I said, and now she looked just as panicked as I felt. That did nothing to calm my nerves. I turned to Evan then and demanded, “explain this!”

“Let’s all calm down a little bit, first.” Mikael offered, which surprised me. “Jess, she gave a typical lunar blessing to Willow. It’s one that is given to all the babies that are born to our people. At least, it’s the blessing our pack always gave to babies when they were born. I’ve said it to her myself since she was born.”

“I never heard you.”

“Probably because I say it to her when I’m up with her while I let you sleep. Really, the words were all the same. Roughly translated, it is: The light shine down and bless this babe. A future bright with joy and laughter. May the spirits always look after and bless this beautiful baby.”

Mikael turned from me to Evan and Natalia then. “Now, what we need explained is the light that actually shined out from Natalia to surround Willow.”

Natalia was no help. She simply mumbled, “I’m so sorry,” repeatedly.

Evan sighed before answering. “Can we all just sit down for a minute, calmly, while I explain. I promise, nothing bad happened here.” Suddenly, the dark circles under his eyes took on new meaning, as I gauged the fact that this was not a first time occurrence. He blew out a breath, getting ready to speak again, before I interrupted to make it clear that I didn’t want him to hold anything back at this point.

“Evan, my track record with your pack, your family in specific, hasn’t exactly been all roses. So, excuse me if I worry when one of your people starts glowing my baby up with mystical light.” I retorted hotly. “If you hold back at this point, and I find out later that there was something we needed to know, I promise you I will rip through heaven, hell, earth, and anyplace in-between to find you and dole out a justice I find befitting.” Natalia’s eyes grew wider as I let fly my promise for vengeance if her mate lied to me.

“I know, Jess. I promise you, Natalia meant no harm to you or Willow. Just listen, please.”

“Fine.”

“You know we left, after Malachai was killed and the girls were captured and put in the locks.” I nodded my head in agreement. We had been worried at the time that he would take Asriel with him, and that Ashley would have to make the choice to go or stay without him. I don’t know what sort of deal they worked out, but Asriel ended up staying behind with Ashley, and working for my father, while Evan and Natalia left town. “I took Natalia back to Romania when we went away. We went back there to see if we could find Natalia’s younger sister. When she was taken to be a part of the King’s harem her sister hadn’t gone through all the transitions yet, so we thought, maybe she had never gotten sucked into that life.” Evan shrugged and looked for Natalia now just stared at the floor. “We didn’t find her, but we did find their father who swore the King took both girls the night he came for Natalia.”

“That’s insane!” I noted before Evan continued.

“Yeah, well, we all know where my father and brother stood on the sanity scale. Anyway, we didn’t find Claire, but when we saw evidence that she’d been there all along, one room down from Natalia, she lost it.”

“When I was there, it was common knowledge that they did horrible things to the girls in that room. They were used in different ways than we were.” Natalia confirmed.

“How do you know she was there?”

“I found her bracelet. My mother gave each of us one when we young, and bid us never take them off.” Natalia saw me look to her wrists for the telltale bracelet, but there wasn’t one. “Antoine had a lady friend of his take mine off of me. She had to put some special sauce, um, not sauce, but special lotion maybe on my arm to make it fall off.”

I looked at Evan, oddly curious about the importance of these bracelets now, and making note to share this information with Serena. Perhaps she could make sense of it.

Evan nodded his head, and pulled Natalia in closer to him. “Nat, lost it. She fell to the floor, crying, and when she did this glow erupted from her. All around us, the neglected dead plants just kind of blossomed and started coming back around. They held the same faint glow she did at first, and then it would fade away, but the healthy blossoming plants remained.”

“I don’t know what happened, or why I can do these things. You have to believe me.” Natalia’s eyes rose to meet my own, and all I saw there was fear. “I didn’t try to hurt your baby, only bless her like our people always do.” Tears were streaming down the girl’s face as I went to her and put my arm around the side that wasn’t held tightly to Evan.

“It’s okay. We’ll figure it out.” I whispered to her. I know just the person to ask for help.

“We tried,” she told me. “There was a lady, Layla, she was like walking moonbeams to me, so beautiful. We tried to talk to her about what was happening to me, and she helped me get control of it, when it was obvious I couldn’t stop the light from coming.” Natalia looked over to where Mikael now held Willow. “I did not mean for the light to leak out around her, but I don’t think it will hurt her either.”

I spoke to Evan then, “this Layla, she was a witch?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know anything else about her, that might be useful?” Something about that name was niggling at the back of my mind for some reason. I just couldn’t pinpoint why.

“She told us she would much rather consult with one of her sisters, because she wasn’t that great with creation and healing magic. She said the most she could do was teach Natalia to control it, so that it wouldn’t overwhelm her and show itself at inopportune times.”

“What did the other sister say, when this Layla consulted her?” I asked.

“She didn’t say anything. I wasn’t about to trust yet another witch after what I watched you go through with Sophia. I told her not to contact anyone else, and just to teach Nat how to control it. It was a good place to start anyway.” Evan’s cobalt eyes stared into mine pleadingly. “Jess you have to believe that she didn’t mean any harm.”

“I believe you both, but we still don’t know what the light means, or what it might lead to.” I shivered a little when I thought about all the possibilities. “I’m going to call Serena. If she’s still close by, maybe she can stop in and have a look at Willow, then take a peek at what’s going on with Natalia. You never know, she may be more forthcoming with an explanation, or know of a better way to help since what you’re doing isn’t working very well.”

“Thanks, Jess.”

“Yeah, just don’t be offended when I ask you to stay with someone else while you’re here. No one seems to know what the hell is going on with Natalia’s glowing abilities, and until we understand it, I can’t have her around my daughter.”

“I understand.” Natalia said quickly, as she grabbed my hand in an apologetic gesture. I didn’t mean to, but everywhere that her skin touched my own began to tingle, so my initial reaction was to snatch my hand back immediately. Natalia looked hurt, but said nothing. Evan’s look was less forgiving.

“We’ll go see if Asi has room for us.” His curt announcement bespoke his irritation.

“No!” The word left my mouth before I could stop it. I knew the moment it came out that it would sound as though I was giving them a command, but there was no way I meant for it to come off like that. “I mean, I would really like it if you’d stay with my parents for now.”

“Why the hell would we do that, Jess? Are we prisoners of the pack now?” Evan’s anger was getting the better of him, and he wasn’t trying to keep it contained any longer.

“Guests, Evan. My mother’s skills…” I stopped short of telling him that I thought my mother could tamp down any overflowing magic that Natalia was putting off. I honestly didn’t want Natalia herself to know what my mother was capable of.

“Your mother’s skills, what? Could possibly keep us in check, keep us held hostage until your witch of a great-grandmother gets here to tell you if Nat is safe or not?”

“Stop right there, brother.” Mikael’s sharp tone caught everyone by surprise, as he had been mostly quiet during this exchange. “You are going to remember your place here. Jess is the White Wolf, the ruler of our people, whether you like it or not. She is trying to help.”

“Help? She just snatched her own hand away from Nat, like she was burning her.”

“Maybe she was,” Mikael noted. “Did you even think to ask?”

“What?” Evan’s shock couldn’t be hidden, neither could Natalia’s.

“Did you bother to ask Jess why she snatched her hand away?”

“There’s no need. It’s obvious why she did it. She’s afraid of what she doesn’t understand.” He sneered at me then, in disdain. “The one person I thought would understand when strange things started happening to another person.”

“It tingled,” I whispered. Everyone grew quiet, except Evan who was still railing about the injustice of me being afraid of the unknown. I hadn’t even realized I had been rubbing my hands together for warmth since I pulled away from Natalia’s hold.

“Evan, listen to her.” Natalia offered, and he shut his mouth and listened, finally.

“When she touched me, the skin on skin contact held a tingling sensation.” I stopped rubbing my hands together, and dropped them to my sides, not wanting to call any more attention to the weirdness.

“What?” Evan looked as puzzled as I felt.

“I was not jerking back in fear as you suggested. I just didn’t know if that tingling was a good or bad thing. Not that it matters that I had a weird reaction to your mate’s touch, because we will get to the bottom of that and figure out why. Now, I am simply concerned about your nature, and the manner in which you feel justified to speak to me. I won’t be talked down to for erring on the side of caution, Evan. Clearly, something is going on with Natalia, and it affected me physically, which means it probably did with my daughter as well, only she can’t tell us about it yet.” This snapped him back to full attention.