Refuge (18 page)

I nodded reluctantly.

“Come with me then.”

Standing, I picked up my tray of uneaten
food, carried it to one of the bus bins, and followed him to the
door. As I passed Chris’s table, he raised his cup to me with a
grin. Good to know at least one person was enjoying this.

Nikolas was waiting for me in the hallway,
and we walked without speaking to the front entrance.

“We’re not using a training room?”

“I thought we’d go outdoors. Would you rather
stay inside?”

“No.”

We left the building and walked across the
lawn without him saying a word about where we were headed. When we
entered the trees, I asked, “Where are we going?”

“For a walk,” was all he said.

“I think I should tell you that when I go for
walks, I usually end up brought back in chains.”

He shot me a look that said he wasn’t sure if
I was kidding or not. “I think we’ll be fine.”

Of course.
Who would dare stop Nikolas from doing
what he wanted?

Nikolas slowed his pace so I could keep up
with him, and we walked side-by-side through the woods. He didn’t
seem inclined to speak, and I didn’t know what to say to him. Most
of the time I’d spent with him back in New Hastings had been full
of tension or danger or both. I’d thought after all we’d been
through that we had started to become friends, but then he’d left
me here and I’d spent the weeks since then angry at him. Last night
at dinner, he’d thrown me with his teasing and his announcement
that he would be my new trainer. Now I was confused and I didn’t
know how to act around him anymore.

We walked for a good ten minutes before he
finally spoke. “Other than the problem with your training, how are
you doing here?”

“It’s not home,” I replied a little more
harshly than I meant to.

I felt him look at me, but I didn’t meet his
gaze. “I know you miss Nate and your friends, but it’s not like you
won’t see them again. And you aren’t alone here. You’ve made some
new friends and you have Tristan and Chris and me.”

“Until you go off on one of your missions
again.”

“Are you trying to tell me that you missed
me?” The change in his voice told me he was smiling, but I refused
to look at him.

“No.” As soon as the words were out of my
mouth I knew I was lying. But I would bite my tongue off before I
would admit anything to him.

“I have no plans to go anywhere for the next
month so you are stuck with me for a while.”

“Lucky me,” I muttered, and I heard him laugh
softly. “Where did you go?”

His laughter died. “It was a job, clearing
out some nests. Nothing you want to hear about.”

“You were looking for the Master, weren’t
you?”

“You don’t need to worry about him
anymore.”

I stopped abruptly. “I’m not a child,
Nikolas, and I deserve to know what is going on. If you can’t be
open with me, you can go find someone else to train.”

I spun back toward the stronghold, but he
grabbed my arm and let out an aggravated sigh. “I see you are still
the same pain in the ass.”

I kept my face turned away from him as a
smile played around the corners of my mouth. “Takes one to know
one.”

“We found where we believe Eli was staying in
Portland, and there were signs that the Master could be in Nevada.
It’s not surprising since Vegas is the perfect place for vampires
to blend in and hunt. We hit a nest in Henderson and that led us to
two more nests near Vegas, but none of them gave us anything useful
about the Master. Whoever he is, he is well hidden and his
followers have no idea where he is.”

I faced him again. “So, what happens
now?”

His smile returned. “Now we train while
someone else looks for him. A Master is no small matter, and the
Council has made it a priority to find him. They’ve already sent
extra teams to the US dedicated to hunting him. It is only a matter
of time before he is found.” He didn’t say it, but I knew he would
join the hunt again if the Master was not found. As upset as I was
with him, I didn’t want to think of him out there facing such a
powerful vampire.

We resumed walking and a few minutes later, I
saw a glimmer through the trees and knew exactly where we were
going. I ran ahead and burst out of the trees onto the rocky shore
of the lake I had been trying to get to for weeks. It was bigger
than it looked on the map and, except for the water lapping gently
at the shore, not a ripple marred its glassy surface. The woods
around the lake teamed with life, and I could hear birds and frogs
and insects. A ways down the shore, a doe stood alert, watching us
for signs of a threat. It was just as serene and lovely as I’d
imagined it would be.

“This is incredible,” I said as Nikolas
caught up to me. “I can’t believe people don’t come here all the
time.”

“Not everyone loves the woods as much as you
do.”

I looked back at him. “Then why did you bring
me here?”

“Because I’m not like everyone else.” He sat
on a large rock and waved at another rock near him. “Let’s
talk.”

I hesitated for a long moment before I took a
seat on the rock. “I thought we were going to train.”

“We will, but first I want to talk about your
training. Callum told me you don’t seem to want to use your Mori
strength or speed.”

“You talked to him about me?” I wasn’t sure
why it bothered me, but I did not like the idea of them discussing
me.

“Of course. I needed to understand the
problem so we can fix it.”

The problem was that I did not want to be
fixed, but I didn’t say that. Nikolas, like the rest of the Mohiri,
had some mysterious connection with their Mori that I couldn’t
comprehend and he would not understand why I didn’t have or want
the same thing. “You think you know what my problem is?”

“I have several theories. The first is that
you are so used to suppressing your Mori that you don’t know how to
do anything else. Demons are afraid of Fae magic, which explains
why your Mori doesn’t fight for control like mine would if I kept
it locked away. You need to learn to loosen your control just as
you would exercise any muscle. It takes practice.”

I loosened my hands which I had unconsciously
clenched in my lap. “That’s it then?”

“That is one theory.” Nikolas rested his
elbows on his knees bringing him closer to me, and his eyes held
mine as if he was reading my thoughts. “My other theory is that you
are afraid.”

I swallowed hard and tried to look away but
couldn’t. “Why . . . would I be afraid?”

“I was there in the wine cellar, Sara, and I
saw what happened when you let your demon out. I also saw the fear
on your face when I asked you about it the next day. It terrified
you how close the demon came to controlling you. But that would
never have happened.”

A shudder ran through me, and I tried to
block the memory of the demon moving beneath my skin, controlling
my body and filling my mind. “You’re wrong,” I whispered hoarsely.
“It almost did.”

“No, it didn’t. Look at me,” he commanded. “I
would not have let it take you.”

“But if you hadn’t gotten there when you did,
I – ”

“You would have done it on your own. You’re a
lot stronger than you give yourself credit for. The demon might
have gained control for a short time, but you would not have let it
stay that way.”

My breath bottled up in my chest. “How can
you know that?”

His gaze did not waver. “Because I know you.
You are one of the most willful people I’ve ever met, and it would
take a lot more than a demon to control you.” His mouth curved into
a smile, and I felt an answering warmth in my belly. “That I know
from experience.”

“Are you going to train me to fight without
my demon?”

“Today we are going to start with the basics.
You will learn to open yourself to your Mori safely.”

A cold knot formed in my chest. “I can’t –
”

“Yes, you can. This is something every one of
us learns to do, and you will, too. You are a lot stronger than the
rest of us were when we started.” His voice was firm but reassuring
and I wanted to believe him, but I could not get the memory of that
night in the cellar out of my head.

He must have seen my fear because he reached
out unexpectedly to take my hand in his, sending a warm tingle up
my arm. “Do you trust me?”

I bit my lip and nodded slowly.

“And you know that I would never let anything
harm you, right?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” He smiled, and his eyes softened. He
released my hand and sat back. “It might be easier if you tell me
how it is that you are able to control your demon. How do you keep
your Mori separate from your Fae power?”

I thought for a minute about the best way to
answer because I’d never had to explain my power to anyone before
now. “It’s hard to explain. I can feel the demon in my head and
sense its thoughts, or rather its emotions, if that makes
sense.”

He nodded.

“When I was little I used to hear its voice
whispering in my mind, kind of like a song you get stuck in your
head and it won’t go away no matter what you think about. I think I
was five or six when it first tried to come out, and it scared me
so much that I accidentally released my power, which I had no idea
about until that day. The beast – that’s what I used to call my
demon before you told me what it was – was afraid of my power and
it pulled into the back of my mind to get away from it. I was
scared to death and I had no idea what was going on with me, but I
knew I’d done something to make the creepy voice in my head quiet.
It wasn’t until I found an injured robin and the power burst out of
me to heal the bird’s wing that I realized what I could really do.
After that, I had to learn to keep my power locked away and only
call on it when I needed it and also how to tap into it to keep the
beast – I mean the demon – caged in the back of my mind. The only
times the demon seemed to wake up was when I did a healing and
drained my power. That used to happen all the time in the
beginning, but it doesn’t happen anymore.”

He was quiet for a moment, and his expression
was impossible to read.
He must think I’m a total freak now.

“I don’t know if I am more amazed by your
level of control or that you learned it at such a young age with no
guidance or training. Are you consciously doing it?”

There was none of the disgust I feared I
would hear in his voice, and some of my anxiety left me. “In the
beginning I did, and it was hard as hell. I lost control of my
power all the time because I had to focus on keeping the beast –
demon – quiet. Now, it’s like breathing. I don’t have to think
about it unless I use too much power and get weak. Then the demon
starts to move and I have to use force with it. How do you do
it?”

“Not like that.” He laughed and ran a hand
through his hair, and I couldn’t help but notice how the black
waves shone in the sun. “You talk about your Mori and your Fae
power like they are parts of you that you move as easily as an arm
or a leg. For the rest of us, there is no real separation between
us and our demons. My Mori and I are joined completely, and I feel
its thoughts and emotions as easily as my own.”

“How can you control it if it’s that much a
part of you?” I could not imagine constantly sharing my mind with
another consciousness. It was already noisy enough in my head with
my own thoughts. I would go crazy if I was bombarded with the
demon’s thoughts all the time.

“I learned from a young age to suppress the
demon’s natural urges just like you would any craving. But unlike
you, I can’t block it completely, and I’m always aware of my Mori
because together we make one person.”

“I don’t think I could live like that.”

“And I couldn’t live any other way,” he said
with a smile. “Now I understand why it’s so difficult for you tap
into your Mori’s strength. You keep it bound so tightly you aren’t
even aware of its presence half the time. We need to show you how
to get to know it.”

My hands twisted in the bottom of my hoodie.
“How do we do that?”

“You said you keep it locked in a part of
your mind, right? You need to loosen your hold on it and connect
with it.”

I jumped to my feet. “I can’t do that. You
don’t understand how it felt when I let it out before.”

Nikolas did not move from his rock. “It won’t
be like that this time because we won’t let it.” He looked calm and
sounded so confident that I wanted to believe him. He was strong
but could he protect me from what was inside me? He extended a hand
toward me. “Trust me.”

My hand had a mind of its own, slipping into
his so he could he pull me down gently to sit on the rock again.
Fear chilled me, and the only warm part of me was the hand he
held.

“Take it slowly. Just open up a little and
remember that you are the stronger one.”

“I thought the whole purpose of this is to
tap into the demon because it has all the strength and speed.”

His gaze did not waver. “Physically yes, but
mentally you are stronger, and your Mori knows that.”

I closed my eyes and reached for the wall
between me and my Mori. With one thought the barrier began to
lower, and I immediately felt excitement from the demon huddled
behind it. The demon shifted restlessly and fear shot through me,
sending the wall back up again. I took a deep breath and tried
again. The wall lowered, the demon surged forward, and the wall
slammed up. Two more times I tried it with the same result. I
gritted my teeth as frustration filled me.

Strong fingers squeezed my hand gently.
I’m safe with
Nikolas. I can do this.
Resolve filled me, and I let the
wall fall before I could stop myself. The demon rushed forward, and
this time it made it past the barrier. I cried out as it pressed
forward eagerly against my mind and pressure started to build
inside my head.