Crossover 'The Chosen One Trilogy: Book One' (22 page)

“So when were you thinking of going
dragon hunting?” He chuckled.

I rolled around so that I was facing
him. “Well, I need to talk to Dodge first, but if he doesn’t mind
waiting a little bit longer, I think I’d like to stay here and
enjoy us for a while.”

I shivered as he ran his fingers down
my back.

“Now that,” he murmured as he kissed
along my neck, “sounds like a great plan to me.”

Chapter 7

The next month was uneventful and
perfect. I spent a couple of hours each day practicing with my
swords and my colors. Luke and Brice had a great time sparring with
me as wolf and jaguar while Jasper and Zane watched from on the
grass, laughing every time I would outsmart one of them and give
them a playful jab.

But for the most part I relaxed with
Jasper, spending our time by the pond and exploring the
countryside.

On one particularly lazy afternoon, we
were walking hand in hand through the woods when we came across a
beautiful meadow. The creek we had been following ran along the
edge of the trees. Tall green grass blended with the light blue
grass that grew around any water source here.

We sat in the sun, my back against his
chest, his arms wrapped around me. I sighed as he kissed my
hair.

“This place is perfect.”

Jasper mumbled in agreement. He pulled
me tighter against him and had me almost completely wrapped in a
bear hug. “Do you suppose you would feel like leaving Tara and
Ben’s eventually?” He asked me quietly.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I was thinking that if you were
planning on living here for any period of time that we could get
our own home.”

I looked at back at him, butterflies in
my stomach. He was blushing a little.

“Our own home,” I repeated, liking the
sound of it. “That sounds perfect.” I twisted a little in his hug
so I could kiss him. “And where would we have our home?”

“Well,” he grinned at me. “How about
here?”

“We didn’t just happen to find this
place today, did we?” I laughed.

“No. I’ve had the birds scouting for me
the past week.” He blushed again.

I chuckled at him and turned back to
gaze across the clearing. “It’s perfect. How do you say
perfect?”

“Sertant.”

“Sant est sertant.” I chuckled and he
smiled.

“I was thinking we could build the
house over there.” He pointed to the far end of the clearing. “It
should be well sheltered from the wind this winter and still be far
enough from the creek that if it floods in the spring we won’t have
to worry about it.”

I started laughing.

“What’s so funny?”

“I’m sorry. I’m laughing at myself. I
didn’t realize there was so much to think about when it came to
building a house.”

I felt him smile in my hair.

“So when can we start?” I was suddenly
eager to start this new life with him.

“As soon as you want.”

“Tomorrow?”

He laughed. “Not this afternoon?” he
teased.

I turned myself around and wrapped my
legs around his waist. “I have plans this afternoon,” I muttered as
I nuzzled his neck.

He pulled back a bit and looked at me,
his blue eyes smiling. “Have I told you lately how much I love
you?” he asked.

I smiled at him. “Once or
twice.”

He leaned down and kissed me hungrily.
I crushed myself against him then started laughing as something
landed on my shoulder.

“If it’s not the horse, it’s the bird,”
I whispered in his ear. He groaned and pulled back to look at
her.

Jasper grinned. “Well, thank you for
the warning. That would have been embarrassing!”

The blue bird flew off and sat in a
tree.

“It seems the others didn’t know about
your afternoon plans and have decided it is time to start building
our house. They should be here in about five minutes.”

My jaw dropped. “Everyone knew about
this? What if I’d said no!”

His eyes widened into sky blue saucers.
“I guess it never occurred to me that you might not want
to.”

I laughed at him. “Don’t worry. It
never crossed my mind to say no. How could it. Our own home, just
me and you. In our perfect little clearing. I mean really, how
could life get any better than this?”

He lay on his back, arms behind his
head, looking intently at me. He seemed about to say something then
stopped. He flashed a smile that made my heart jump and before I
could react I was pinned on my back, my arms stretched over my
head, his weight holding me down. He nibbled gently on my neck and
moved along my jaw to my lips. I moaned, unable to move and not
really planning to.

“Hey! Where are you guys?” called
Phlann.

I turned red and giggled. “Let’s
remember that for later,” I whispered to Jasper. He smiled and gave
me a quick kiss before sticking his head up over the
grass.

“Over here!”

I sat up, trying to brush off as much
grass off of my clothes as possible. Jasper picked a few stray
pieces out of my hair as our friends made their way over to
us.

Luke grinned at us and laughed.
“Shouldn’t you finish building your house before you start trying
to fill it with cubs?”

Jasper turned the reddest I had ever
seen him. My heart flipped in my chest. Now there was something I
hadn’t thought about!

“Is that even possible?” I asked. “I
mean, he’s a cat. I’m part human, part Wedelve...” There was also
the fact that I hadn’t had a period since crossing over.

“Who knows what’s possible anymore
these days,” said Shanus. He handed Jasper an axe and
smiled.

Jasper seemed glad to have an excuse to
get off the topic and proceeded to show them where the house was
going to go.

Everyone had a job and by the time the
sun was starting to set we had enough logs to build our little
house.

We all headed back to Tara’s for a late
supper and a good night’s sleep.

Upstairs in our room, Jasper rubbed the
knots out of my back. He chuckled as I jumped a bit when he pushed
on one to get it to loosen.

“Not funny,” I mumbled into my pillow.
“Where I come from, you call a contractor, and voila! You have a
house”.

He laughed. “Well, where’s the fun in
that. If that’s all we had to do, I would never have gotten to see
you swear at a log!

“Stupid log,” I grumbled. My job had
been stripping the logs as they came out of the bush. One of those
logs had been extremely opposed to being naked. I laughed. “It’s
just lucky Tara came to save it. I was about to burn
it.”

He laughed even harder and I knew he
was remembering how the log had won. I had taken the strip of bark
I was working on with both hands and pulled as hard as I could.
Instead of peeling off like it was supposed to, the bark had broken
off, sending me falling backwards to land ungracefully on my rear
end.

I rolled onto my back and looked up at
him. “You on the other hand, looked amazing chopping down those
trees!” I remembered his skin wet with sweat, his shirt off. The
way his muscles had stood out as the men all pulled the logs out of
the bush. His eyes so bright when he would glance at me while I
stripped the logs with Tara and Prense. But most of all was the
feeling I got when I thought about the fact that he was doing this
for us.

I reached up and touched his face. “You
are the most amazing thing to have ever happened to me. I can’t
even begin to describe how I am feeling right now,” I whispered.
“There are so many words, yet none of them seem quite
right.”

He gazed at me, covering my hand with
his. “Try.”

I blushed a little. Feelings had never
been my strong point. “I feel lucky.”

“Shanceigh.” He bent down and kissed me
softly.

“Amazed.”

“Surpynt.” Another kiss.

“Awed. Loved. Excited.”

“Appornt, shlovant, essonant.” Each
word was accented by a soft kiss.

“But most of all. Most of all, I am
happy.”

He smiled at me like I had just made
him the happiest man in this world. He leaned down still holding my
hands. “I love you,” he whispered into my neck as he started to
nibble on me. He glanced at me sideways and grinned. “Now,” he said
as he stretched my arms over my head. “Where were we before being
so rudely interrupted this afternoon?”

I laughed as I readjusted my body so I
was fully under him. “I think we were right about
here...”

*****

The next morning, every muscle in my
body complained as we made our way back to the clearing. Today’s
projects were log notching and collecting moss to insulate between
the logs.

I volunteered for moss collection.
Jasper grinned at me. “Don’t go too far and get yourself lost,
now.”

I stuck my tongue out at him and walked
away. I could hear Tara a little further to the left putting moss
in her sacs.

The day was beautiful. I picked the
moss and put it in the bags without really thinking about it. My
mind started to wander. Luke’s comment about the cubs started to
nag at me. Was it possible? Could it even really happen? And if it
could, was it something I wanted. I wasn’t sure. Was it something
Jasper wanted? I was pretty positive the answer was yes.

“You’d better start thinking into the
future a bit more there, Hayden,” I told myself.

I stooped to pick up another handful of
moss, then straightened and stretched. I realized that I couldn’t
hear anyone else. Not even the sound of hatchets against
wood.

“Great,” I muttered to myself. “I’ll
never hear the end of this one.”

I heard a chirp overhead. “Hey, you!
Good timing. Would you mind showing me which way the clearing
is?”

The blue bird hopped down to a lower
branch the flew to another tree to my right.

“That way?”

She flew in the same direction a little
farther down.

“Thanks.”

She chirped.

“Did Jasper send you to babysit me so I
wouldn’t get lost?”

She bobbed her head and I
laughed.

“Well, I’m glad he did.”

I heard some movement to my left and
blushed. “Hey, Tara. How full are your bags?” I dropped mine,
reached behind me and froze, remembering I didn’t have my swords. I
grabbed my dagger instead.

“Go tell Jasper!” I whispered to the
blue bird without taking my eyes off the wolf.

This wolf was black and a little
smaller than Luke. It sat down, looking at me.

I shifted positions as a second and
third wolf came to sit beside the first. These were grey and
smaller than the black one. I heard some more rustling and almost
laughed when a red fox came trotting out of the woods and sat
beside the wolves.

My dream flashed in my head. This was
it. The one with me surrounded by the wolves. They formed a half
circle around me, not moving.

“You really have to start writing this
stuff down, Hayden,” I told myself.

The black wolf cocked its
head.

Time seemed to stand still. Nobody
moved.

I relaxed at little as three cats and a
wolf came up behind me.

Luke continued forward to the black
wolf and nuzzled it, a little whine escaping his throat. The black
wolf’s tongue came out and licked the end of his nose.

Zane, Jasper, and Brice shifted
back.

“It’s alright, Shlova.” Jasper put a
hand on my shoulder. I looked up at him, eyes wide, then put the
dagger away.

When I looked back at the wolves Luke
was in human form kissing a beautiful woman with long straight
black hair and deep brown eyes.

He pulled away and looked at her for a
moment then hugged her to his chest. “I wasn’t sure if you would
come,” he whispered, his voice thick.

“I couldn’t let you have all the fun,
what with playing nicely with cats and all that.” She grinned at
him. “Not to mention that the den is pretty empty without you
there.” She stood on her tip toes and kissed him.

She turned to me and smiled. “So you’re
the reason the order of things around here is changing.”

I smiled back. “I guess so.”

“This is my mate, Mel. Mel, this is
Hayden,” Luke introduced us.

Mel turned to Jasper and nodded.
“Jasper. Nice to finally meet you again under better
circumstances.”

He smiled. “Likewise. Sorry about on
the ridge, there. I really did try to knock you out. I wasn’t
aiming to break your leg.”

She shrugged. “I know. It worked out
alright. Our healer survived the fight this time.”

“So you guys know each other?” I
asked.