Taken by my mate; Second Chance

AMBROSE

“Dragons,” Ellion confirmed carefully, like that word could be mistaken for literally anything else. “For real?”

“I’m unable to lie,” Nova said distantly, and I returned to giving her a massage.

My fingers started working into her leg and she groaned appreciatively. “Ambrose your fingers are magic.”

“You’re so tense. I don’t think I’ve touched a single spot that didn’t have a knot somewhere nearby,” I muttered regretfully as I reached her swollen and sore joints. “Is this from being outside in the cold?”

“Not entirely,” she assured. “I’m usually in pain most of the winter, but I also carry all of my stress in my muscles to maintain my glowing personality.” She chuckled lightly and I couldn’t help smiling at her.

“So your brothers and father who are after Spencer- they’re dragons?” Ellion confirmed again, clearly having trouble wrapping his head around it, but she nodded. “How do we defend against that?”

“Maybe this will help,” Covyn said suddenly.

He moved to a shelf in the corner and brought over a stack of books, spacing them out carefully on the table. He laid them side to side so every cover was visible but one out of the lot had no distinguishing cover features. It looked older than the rest and like it had been bound by hand instead of a printing press like its newer associates.

“Anything catch your fancy?” Covyn asked. “These are the books that were left over after your trip to the library.”

Nova picked up the old book like the others weren’t even considerations. We watched her open it nervously and I saw her eyes scrolling back and forth as she started to read. I saw Ellion watching her like he was concerned she forgot we were still in the room as she flipped through several pages but she read faster than I ever could.

“Fuck,” she whispered, “it is one of mine.” She didn’t wait for us to ask, turning the book to the group and pointing to a line. “I made the barrier around your pack lands.”

I leaned around her arm to see what everyone else could, glossing a line about some ethereal being granting the pack protections in exchange for us giving others the same.

“You charge for training other packs, don’t you?” She asked Covyn.

He seemed confused. “Yes. It isn’t much, basically just covers their expenses for supplies and board while here, as well as paying the wage of those training them. Some of it helps with upgrades and upkeep to the grounds and equipment.”

She nodded expectantly. “And when was the last time you housed a pack in need or went out to assist one who needed it?”

He took a deep breath and looked up like he was rolling back through record in his head. “It’s been a while. We haven’t received such a request or need in my time or my fathers….” He trailed off and looked at her as they both seemed to gather the same conclusion. “We broke our deal. It’s wasn’t because of you, that’s why the boarder fails.”

He clutched his head and groaned in pain. We all looked at him with questions and concern, except Nova who got up and started to pace the room, chewing on the corner of her thumb. Sequoia was beside her after a minute, wrapping her arms around her and purring gently.

“This was likely one of my lastbigdeals,” she said finally.

“You don’t remember?” Sequoia demanded.

Nova huffed and threw her hands up. “Thousands of years Coy, you expect my to remember every pack land in order? Most of those trees out there are brand new to me-“ she flung her arm out towards the large windows and groaned. “That’s why when I tried to leave the boarder showed me it’s hard work. I thought, hopefully, that my mom had done it or it was just happy to finally have someone with the magic to communicate with it. I know a few witches who could make similar barriers back then. Fuck…”

She returned to chewing her thumb when Ellion asked tentatively, “why is this so bad?”

“If you broke the deal…”

“Will you take our souls?!” Daley gasped with a sudden horrific thought but Nova shook her head.

“No… not exactly.” She turned sadly to Covyn. “The barrier needs energy, like everything else it hums with it. Charging for a service was never part of the original acocia,” she chuckled, “luckily. Me and your predecessor had never consideredtrainingothers to take care of themselves as a way to offer others protection. It is fortunate that at the time I was considering more direct interventions. As long as none of the other Alphas refused to help anyone who needed and deserved it their souls are safe. But the boarder will weaken as…”

“Why though, if we didn’t expressly break the deal?” Daley asked, picking up the book Nova had been reading and flipping though it looking for clues or more information.

“How do I explain… you know when you pay the electric bill, even if you left everything off for a month, having theoptionto use the power you’ll still get a bill at the end? Bringing others here for protection is like paying that bill. I created this deal in a time when things were really hard and I had my full power. It was nothing to expect every few years you would help someone, and if you couldn’t I had enough energy to cover it with the interest I got in providing the deal… but now…” she looked sadly at us, “… I don’t have the energy to spare.”

Now I was on my feet taking her gently in my arms. “So what will happen?”

“It will try to take the energy until I cut it off.. or run out. From that point I could last a few months to a few weeks….”

“You’re not doing that!” Daley commanded before anyone else could. “We could seek out people needing help. As terrible as it sounds, someone must need it.”

Nova nodded. “You could try.”

Sequoia sighed. “But the barrier is the only keeping her family from Ambrose, so she will donate herself to it to keep him safe.”

COVYN

The weight left by our conversation with Nova lasted for a while. We stopped asking her questions and started asking for stories. The only person she could tell her stories to was Sequoia, so they had never had an opportunity to telltheirstories to anyone. There were centuries of nmm` tales, even ones Sequoia had never dared or thought to ask, but Ellion and Daley were equally nosey.

“You… you did not work for the biggest online shopping company before they went live,” Ellion gaped.

“I mean.. they only wanted to sell books, you really think they went from that where they are without selling something to someone?” Nova returned, drinking probably her fifth glass of water.

Every so often she would tread a little to close to the line of what she could say and a headache would start. She would wince and drink some water, and Sequoia would fill in any fact she could or change the topic. At some point it was lunch time and we had done little more than sit in my room and talk all morning.

“What could you even trade that would be worth that much?” Daley wondered, but I could see she was edging at getting her to admit he had sold his soul.

Nova shrugged. “It would depend how greatly he valued what he was asking for.”

“Were you there for anything that ended up being historical?” Daley asked, leaning forward like she could be the first to hear the answer.

Nova thought and then turned to Sequoia, speaking quickly in the language the rest of us didn’t know. Even Sequoia seemed to lose her for a minute as I heard her repeat the same sentence twice and watch her wait for Sequoia to compute what was said.

Sequoia sighed and laughed. “She’s confused on what constitutes historical.”

“Why not just say that in English?” I asked, rolling my eyes.

“Some words don’t translate directly,” Nova tried to explain. “It was easier to teach Sequoia my language in Latin, which she had to learn in German, and she learned German in…”

“Russian,” Sequoia interjected, then turned to me. “I started in Russian.”

Something about her smile towards me was so genuine, and I could feel that she felt it was important for her that I knew that but couldn’t see why. Nova seemed to think about it, not like she didn’t believe her but more than she couldn’t believe she had forgotten. Spencer had started rubbing his hand up and down her back slowly while she thought, the look in his eyes said he was lost in hearing about her life and enjoying every second.

“That’s right,” Nova finally confirmed, “they called that areaRussiaback then. It’s weird remembering it now, you.. you keep.. -you have to keep a lot of yourself separate when you’re like me.” She smirked and rolled her eyes up to the ceiling as she said, “almost as old as time and weak as a kitten, expelled from their own. It’s hard to remember who you were and not talk about it, and you end up beingmysterious-“she wiggled her fingers away from her face for emphasis.

“There’s a lot I don’t even know,” Sequoia admitted.

“When you’re around long enough you see time repeat itself,” Nova returned sadly. “Fate does her best, but she is trying to direct a tank liner with the steering power of a Pontiac FireFly. She does adamngood job of lining things up when she can…”

“Fate is a person?” Ellion gawked.

Nova shook her head. “No.”

“She’s a phoenix?” Daley asked, eyes wide.

Nova shrugged. “Yea, she used to watch over me when I was just a hatchling. Before you ask about her deal, it’s none of your business and I don’t know, but yes Fate does have a hand infate. Don’t get it wrong, a lot of time it really is just a coincidence… and that’s all I’m going to say about her before I get into trouble…” She grinned tightly like she was afraid the woman was right around the corner listening in and when she didn’t show any signs of this being a joke we dropped it.

“What about Leonardo De Vinci?” Sequoia asked, “that story is one of my favourites.”

Nova shook her head and then gestured towards her. “You can tell it if you like, I can’t tell stories like that.”

Sequoia was only too happy to tell us how the famous painter had wished to be able to paint things through the eyes of others. Nova had met him in field while painting her own take on the view when he mused this desire and she made him a deal. It was his inability to create his own ideas that drove him crazy and ultimately the recognition he sought came after his death. Dailey started looking up his work and questioning where his more interpretive pieces had come from, to which Nova smirked.

“Where indeed.”

She reiterated that she can’t see the future, and wouldn’t have known what would happen to him, but deals for fame and fortune were common. They didn’t always work out, and many of them didn’t live long lives mostly due to their deals and the energy of the universe trying to maintain a balance.