Chapter 66

(Maya POV)

I examined the side of my neck for several minutes trying to understand this mark. It looked like the shapes had been burned into my skin, but I had felt no pain. I had to admit, the mark was sort of beautiful but the strangeness of it made me a little nervous. I had seen my mother’s mate mark many times during my childhood. It was a scared bite mark like what you would expect, but mine was not a bite mark. It was an image of a crescent moon wrapped in Ivy with three stars cluttered around it. I could not begin to imagine what the symbol meant. Tommy reaches over to me and brushes his fingers over the mark.

“Does it hurt?” He asks gently touching it, I shiver at the contact from his skin on mine.

“No it doesn’t hurt.” I say feeling a little weak in the knees.

He notices and wraps his arm around me to steady me and offers an intrigued smirk. Oh no! I did not need something like this when I had three mates around. I push away from him with a warning look.

“Tommy.” I say in warning.

“What? What happened?” Eli asks watching us in confusion.

“It seems our little mate has a weak spot.” Tommy teases.

I shake my head as Eli glances over me. “What do you mean?”

Tommy steps toward me and reaches for my mark. I cover it with my hand and dash from the bathroom, and back into my room scared to be near them. The don’t pursue me like hungry animals like I expected. Tommy simply laughs and whispers something into Eli’s ear that was loud enough for Noah to hear as well. Three pairs of eyes looked to me and I could feel myself blushing, but I groaned annoyed. I lifted my blanket and climbed into bed hiding my face in my pillow. It was quiet until I felt the bed dip and Noah spoke suddenly.

“Hey, you sure you are ok?” He asks.

Even though I was not happy that the boys now had a way to make me melt into their touch so easily, I wasn’t too mad. I uncovered my face a smiled at him, taking his hand gently.

“I more than ok!” I say softly.

He finally smiles and leans down to gently kiss me. I pulled back the blanket and made room for him to lay beside me. Tommy and Eli sighed loudly but left Noah and I alone again. I wasn’t sure how we would make it work with all of us, but I knew that tonight was special for Noah and I and I still wanted to spend some alone time with him. We could figure everything else out tomorrow, and I knew that talk was not far off. For now though, I snuggled into Noah’s arms and took one last deep breath before drifting off to sleep in his arms. These last few days had been a whirlwind and it felt like I hadn’t slept properly in years, but that night I slept so deep and peacefully I never wanted to wake up.

The next morning, I was woken by the light streaming through the window and directly into my eyes. I groan and run my hand over the side of the bed where Noah had been only to find it empty. I open my eyes fully and look around the room and toward the bathroom. I was alone, so stretched and climbed out of bed to go search for everyone else. Once I opened the room to my room, I could smell that someone had been cooking and I followed the delicious smell to the kitchen. I found Noah’s back facing me as he stood over the stove.

“I didn’t know you could cook!” I say suddenly.

He turns to me and smiles. “There is a lot you have to learn about me, I am full of surprises!”

I smile and walk toward him wrapping my arms around his waist and laying my head on his chest. He hesitates for a second before wrapping his arms around me as well.

“Still feels so unreal that I can hold you like this.” He says softly in my ear.

I look up at him. “You can hold me whenever you want.” I tell him.

He smiles and leans down to place a gentle kiss to my lips. I hum happily. I hear someone clear their throat behind us and we stop to turn and see who it is. Both Tommy and Eli stood in the doorway watching us with unamused faces.

“Do you guys have to make-out in front of the food?” Tommy asks pretending to be grossed out.

I smirk. “Maybe.” I retort.

He smiles. “Well then at least let me in on the action!”

I laugh as he stalks toward us playfully pushing Noah away and wrapping me in his arms, I squeal as he dips me like in those old romance films and kisses me firmly. It doesn’t last long, and he has me standing upright in no time and walks of proudly. I am a little stunned but don’t have a chance to react further before Eli steps up and takes my face into his hands and kisses me gently.

“Morning.” He says when he pulls away and lets me go.

I am stunned to say the least, and I step back to lean against the counter and catch my breathe.

“Always a competition with those two.” Noah says suddenly, standing over the stove once again.

I just let out a breathy laugh. He turns to me with a soft smile.

“Go join them at the dining table, the food will be done soon!” He says giving me one last peck to the lips before sending me on my way.
I find the two other boys chatting at the dining table and when they see me enter, they give me happy grins.

“Should I expect to be greeted that way every morning?” I ask playfully.

They laugh. “I hope so!” Eli says first.

“And maybe more on occasion!” Tommy adds with a mumble.
I have quickly begun to realize that Tommy is kind of a pervert, and he had been hiding it too well until now.

“I guess I just needed a good enough reason to be.” He says suddenly.

I look to him in confusion. “What?” I ask.

There was no way he heard that, right?

“I heard it too!” Eli said with a look of surprise.

“So did I.” Said Noah who had stepped out from the kitchen just then.

“You all heard what I was thinking?” I asked, and they nodded almost in unison.

Weird.

They were still silent for a short while looking to each other then back at me. “What?” I ask.

“It’s just strange is all.” Tommy says looking at me a little wide eyed as my thoughts become jumbled with confusion.

I noticed the boys react as if I was saying each thought aloud, which only made me panic more.

“Love, can you calm your mind a little?” Eli says rubbing his head across his forehead in discomfort.

“Ok what is happening?” I say, my voice cracking a little. “You guys can hear everything? All my thoughts right now?”

They nod again. “How? Is this a normal thing between mates?”

Tommy shakes his head. “When you are mated you can feel the emotions of your mate, their mind set at a particular moment, you can feel if they are in trouble and you can communicate through the link you share…but hearing thoughts…no that isn’t normal for mates.” He says simply.

“Then why can you all hear me?” I ask feeling a little scared.

Was this bad? Should it not be happening?

“Can you hear our thoughts as well?” Noah asks taking a seat turning to me.

I tried to focus on his question and turned to look at him. Our eyes met and I tried to focus on him and nothing else. A moment later I let out a slight laugh at the thoughts I heard in his mind.

“What? Did you hear something?” Eli asks excitedly.

I nod covering my hand laughing a little harder now.

“What? What did you hear?” Eli pushed.

I uncovered my hand. “He was excited because it would be like I was Jean Grey from X-Men, if I had the power to read minds.”

The two other boys start to laugh as well. “Leave it to Noah to turn this situation into a nerdgasm.”

Noah groaned annoyed and left back to the kitchen in a huff.

“Wow! So, you can read thoughts and we can hear you! Hey E, what am I thinking?” Tommy asks Eli.

Eli squints his eyes and focuses on Tommy, and I watch in amusement as he starts to turn slightly red like he is giving all he has to see if he could do what I had done. Before his face began to turn purple, he let out the breath he had been holding and threw his hands up in defeat.

“No, I have no idea.” He says.

Tommy rubs his chin. “Huh, so we aren’t able to do it, so it has to be one of your other powers right?” He asks me not really expecting me to answer, since I knew next to nothing about my powers.

“I suppose it’s possible. My father didn’t exactly give me an itemized list of abilities I may display. But it’s the only explanation.” I say with a sigh and slump back in my chair.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Eli asks standing and kneeling beside me.

“I am just worried. How many more are there? How big of a freak am I going to become? There is no way I can manage all these abilities. It’s insane! It’s just too much!” I say burying my face in my hands.

Eli takes one of my hands gently and kisses it. “Hey, you are not a freak! You are special, very special. I know this is a lot, and it’s unpredictable but that is another reason why we came here! So you can begin to explore all that you can do, and hopefully learn to control it. Right?”
I nod but it doesn’t make me feel any better.

“Why don’t we worry about all this after we eat!” Noah says setting the remainder of the food on the table and taking the seat on the other side of me.

The table had four chairs, just enough for our strange little family. We ate mostly in silence, and I tried hard to not over think so as not to overwhelm the boys. I didn’t know how to keep my thoughts to myself, and I didn’t want to hurt them with a spur of panicked thoughts. Once we were all done eating the boys cleared the plates insisting that my help was not needed. I sighed and made my way to the living room. There was a very large TV waiting for me, and when I found the remote, I turned it on. As if the universe had some sort of twisted humor, The Dark Phoenix was playing. Great a movie about a girl with insane powers that becomes out of control and kills one of her closest friends and injuries many more.

I had started watching the film once when I was half studying for class. I didn’t pay much attention to it, I mostly had it on as noise, but here and there I watched a bit and found the story heart breaking. I guess me and the girl in the film had a lot more in common now. I sensed someone coming near and soon Noah was sitting beside me, watching the film as well for a moment.

“Do you know the most amazing thing about Phoenixes?” I turn to him and wait. “They rise from absolutely nothing, a pile of ash and become one of the most powerful majestic creatures to exist. Beautiful and strong. Just like you.”

I give him a soft smile. “Dangerous too.” I add.

He nods turning to the TV and I just watch him. “Maybe, but only when they need to be.” He turns to me again and runs his hand through my hair. “You are a majestic powerful person, still rising from the ashes. You are only starting to scratch the surface of how powerful you can be, and that is scary, but it makes you stronger. This is all leading to you discovering who you are meant to be. So, stop seeing it as a curse, and start seeing it as you rising to your destiny.”

Ok, I swooned a little at that. His words were beautiful and when he blushed slightly, I knew he heard what I thought about his words.

“It’s just all those books he reads! So, don’t be too impressed Maya!” Tommy says smacking Noah hard.

I roll my eyes and sigh. Boys.

Soon we were joined by Eli and as I glanced at each of the boys while they watched the movie my thoughts began to creep away from the movie. We still needed to talk about things, serious things about us. With everything with me being so unpredictable and uncertain, this was one thing I didn’t want to be muddled as well. Again, I must have been thinking very loudly because they soon were looking at me, with slightly anxious looks. Noah turned the TV off and turned to me.

“Do you want to talk about it now?” He asks sheepishly.

They seemed a little nervous to breach this subject, and their nervous thought soon filtered into my mind. Yes, we needed to get this figured out!

“I think I just want to have one thing cleared up. I mean there are a lot of us in this relationship and if we don’t have some kind of system or plan, things could easily become messy. I know you guys were all friends before I came, and now you have to share the same mate. I think that would test any friendship. I want to figure out a way so that we are all happy and no one feels unwanted or out of place.” I admit.

“You’re right. We need to get all our concerns out now and work through everything together. It will be easier to focus on your changes if everything between us was settled.” Tommy says, his more serious alpha side coming through now.

“So, where do we start?” I ask.