Chapter 16

SYDNEY

Days passed, turning into weeks, and a strange calmness had crept over the wetlands since the day I had tried to summon the girls, and I felt something building; the very air holding its breath in fear of what was approaching.

I hadn’t had any more visions, or sightings of Declan since I had seen him at the club, and a sense of loss had buried itself deep within me. Setting love aside was not an easy task. But I didn’t know what else to do. I’d finally resigned myself to the fact he wasn’t coming back to us. All I knew was the fact that he had taken my virginity, then ghosted. I should hate him for it, but I didn’t—not any more. I had at first, my heart had turned black toward him for a time. Now though, I couldn’t help the need I felt deep inside my heart. With a small sigh, I shook off my melancholic mood. It was time to move on. Life continued, no matter the battering a person had taken. It found a way to heal the wounds, but couldn’t remove the scars. My thoughts turned to Leighton. Over the last year, he had changed—we all had. But he had become more serious, the carefree boy of our youth, the prankster of our teens, gone. The abandonment of Declan and the loss of Merrick had taken its toll. His eyes, at one time so full of life and happiness, were now dulled with pain. His life had been ripped apart, and though I could see he carried an, everything is fine attitude around me, it was a lie. He was far from okay.

Next, my thoughts turned to Brielle. I’d told her of the nightmare and the events in the wetlands, recalling our conversation..

“Hey, Brie, can we talk?”

With a roll of her eyes that said, what do you think, she just looked at me.

A small smile slipping across my lips, I murmured, “Dumb question, huh?”

“Well let’s see. you have told me your deepest secrets, let me read your diary, and you mine, so if we can’t discuss what is eating at you, then we have a big problem. I mean hell, girl, I know for a fact you don’t like the way a pair of thong panties feels up the crack of your ass! That you fucked the shit out of Declan, and came three times. As well, that you masterbate, to the memory of it, so yeah, I think we can talk.”

*Oh hell, I hope she never decides to blackmail me*, I thought jokingly.

“Okay, you got me there,” I teased.

“Humph,” she returned, as rolling over onto her back, she adjusted the top of her bathing suit. “You know you’re a tight-ass! The least you could do is buy some damn loungers if you're gonna drag my ass out here to sweat my butt off. And this thing of stretching a sheet out for us to lay on, is for the birds!”

“Oh just shut up and get your whiny ass in the pool.”

Brielle snorted. “Pool? What pool? You mean that pink thing over there that I can’t even get my ass wet in?”

I gave a shake of my head, then asked, “Do you believe in reincarnation?”

Face growing pensive, she thought for a moment. “I hadn’t thought about it overly much, but yeah, I guess I do. But, Syd, by what you described, I don’t think we need to be thinking along the lines of reincarnation.”

“No? What then?”

“Time travel, maybe?”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Like, we stepped into a cupboard or something, and suddenly we’re over seven-thousand years into the future?”

“Hell, I don’t know. But I don’t think it's a reincarnation we need to be considering.”

“Maybe not,” I agreed, adjusting my own bathing bottom and top as I flipped over onto my stomach. “Um, one more thing?”

The edge of her mouth curled upward. “What?”

“Can we just do away with this nonsense of us not being sisters?

She winked at me. “Already did a long time ago.”

My thoughts grew pensive. “Do you ever think about our parents? About where our magic comes from?”

Slowly, she nodded her head. “More than you know.”

“Do you think we really traveled from the past?”

I don’t know Syd, maybe.”

“What do you think about the wetland monster?”

“Lord, girl. You’re just full of questions today.”

I gave a small shrug. “Sorry.”

“No, no. It’s okay, I just wish I had the answers. But I do know one thing, I’m the eldest.”

“Ha, you wish.”

DECLAN

Shifting a little on the tree limb, I peered down at Sydney and Brielle, listening to their conversation. 

I was in my sylph form, so they were unaware of my presence, and I could hear the confusion in Sydney’s voice as she talked.

I knew she didn’t understand. How could she? She knew nothing of our past. Of who she is. Of who I…was. She knew nothing of the time we came from, of the magical people her species are. Of my being an elemental. Of her being a demi-god. She knew nothing of the fact her mother was the creator of man after the great flood. She knew nothing of her father, who first founded cities and reared temples. Of how, in form, I was composed of the purest atoms of the air. Nor did she know that Leighton and I were a rarity, incredibly special as we’re male. With a soft exhalation, I turned, blending with the wind: traveling with it as it journeyed to the North. I needed to get home before sunset.

AN HOUR LATER

My bones snapped, stretching, and at the horrible pain encapsulating my brain, I screamed.

Immense pain slammed through my arms and hands, as enlarging, they became hairy with daggers for claws ripping through the ends of my fingers, where my own fingernails had been. A guttural sound of a dying animal ripped loose from deep within my throat as my skin began to peel, my new shape discarding the remnants of my old one, and I stepped forward out of the husk. Yellow, consumed silver, as my eyes changed, becoming that of a hunter. My sense of smell tripled, and I could smell the musty scent of the wetlands. My pupils, dilating, took on the shape of a wolf, and as the last sloughing of humanity took effect—my night vision brought everything into preciseness.