Chapter Twenty-Three
I slowly approach a still rumbling Levi, the tension in the room is almost suffocating at this point. I check him over noting that his posture is rigid, and his eyes are now completely red and not flicking between the green of his human ones and the red of his demon ones.
Seriously what is my life right now?
“Dude you’ve got fucking claws!” Kai says excitedly, earning another loud growl from Levi, although this one seems slightly exasperated rather than a warning.
I couldn’t tell you how I know that I just do. I shoot Kai a glare over my shoulder and he shrinks a bit as Jax elbows him in the side.
“Sorry Sage.” He whispers, his eyes wide and causing me to snicker.
Damn him for being so fucking cute. I turn back around, focusing on Levi again and glance down at his hands. Sure enough each finger is now tipped with a thick black and deadly looking claw.
“Hey!” I stupidly say, a bit self-conscious now that I’m doing this in front of everyone.
I come to a stop in front him. He growls again the sound bubbling up from deep within his chest, the whole room tenses.
“Oi! I told you about that before, fucking knock that shit off!” I threaten. Completely unafraid although I’m aware that I probably should be.
“Shit Sage, it’s not a good idea to speak to a demon like that.” Joey says quietly.
Levi suddenly darts forward dragging me onto his lap, he’s very careful not to snag me with his new wickedly sharp claws though. Everyone moves as if to come towards us.
“He’s not hurting me.” I tell them as they reluctantly back off. My focus on the demon with the mischievous eyes in front of me, “Uh oh, you’re going to be trouble aint ya?” I grin at demon Levi.
He chuckles quietly and the sound sends a shock wave of desire through my system, fuck how in the shit did he manage that!
He takes a deep breath before his eyes slowly turn back to green and I’m not going to lie, I’m a bit disappointed that his red ones are gone.
He grins at me like he knows what I’m thinking, before leaning forward and taking my mouth in a searing kiss right there in front of everyone.
By the time he pulls back, I’m panting hard and desperately wishing that we were alone right now.
Maybe not alone, alone, a few of the guys could come join in too or you know all of them.
Fuck.
My own thoughts are getting me hot and bothered and now is not the time, shit.
“That was seriously hot!” Kai says heatedly.
“I should smack you for that but I’m not going to because it would totally make me a hypocrite.” Jax replies to him.
“Oh man, this is totally your fault, stupid hot demon.” I grumble as my head falls forward hitting Levi’s chest, none too gently as he chuckles.
“Aw don’t be embarrassed babe; we’ve been caught in a lot more compromising positions than that.” Erin says cheerfully.
I grin into Levi’s chest as her guy’s all protest at her sharing that bit of information. I move my hand out and point in her general direction.
“You got it babe; first round is still on you though.” She replies getting that I needed more info about how this whole relationship works, without me even having to really look at her.
I’m so glad I found her.
“Oh my god, is that going to be on tape?” I panic sitting up and staring at my guys, I am far too embarrassed to look at my parents right now.
“Don’t worry sweetie we’ll cut that bit out.” Willow says cheerfully, and I chance a look at her only for her to grin and wink at me. I have no Idea if that’s worse or not, if I’m being honest. “Your dad’s just stepped out for minute.” She chuckles, and I groan again which sets everyone off.
“Shall we get back to it then?” Thomas says as my three dad’s walks back into the room and thankfully pretend nothing happened.
I twist and wriggle until I’m sat next to Levi rather than on him and then launch into the rest of the explanation.
“After Brent made his point, he left again. I think that was the point where I got in contact with you guys. Anyway, we made a rough plan, the next time he came back, he was seething mad, screaming about who you guys were. He dislocated my shoulder. Then his dad came in and they took me out of the room. I instinctively knew that whatever they were about to do was going to hurt and could hurt you guys too so, I blocked the bonds.”
“How? I’ve never heard of anything like that being done before.” Thomas interrupts.
“I have no idea. The words just whispered through my mind and I repeated them.” I pause, “I then buried myself and shut off all emotions and feelings. When I’m in that state, I know that something is causing me pain, but I can block it out enough that unless there’s severe blood loss or something along those lines, then I can function normally.
I knew something was wrong the minute I did it.
I felt too padded, too far gone from the real me.
They whipped me with a metal tipped whip until I fell unconscious, the whole time telling me to use my powers.
When I passed out, they brought me back to the room with Erin and her guys.
They didn’t heal me like they used to when I was kid.
I tried to unlock my emotions again, but I couldn’t, and I was buried so deep that I couldn’t even find it in myself to panic about it. The step bitch came in and told me all about her role, she was the employee Brent’s dad intrusted me to at Cain’s request.
They had taken all our weapons, but they hadn’t checked my sleeves thoroughly enough and I still had a bobby pin.
Cain taught me how to unlock several kinds of handcuffs and I always carry one on me.
As I was trying to fish it out of my sleeve, I felt the brush of fur and sharp teeth on my wrist as the Bobby pin was pulled out of my sleeve.
That’s when Knot appeared.” I grin at my little fox curled up on Hunters lap.
“She placed it in my hand. She seemed way too intelligent and knew that I had locked my emotions down. When she stared at me, it felt like she nudged the bubble I’d protected myself behind with her mind, that’s the only way to explain it.
Once I’d set everyone free, we got out of there and then ran for the woods. ”
“Er you seem to have forgotten the part where you made a bet with Erin.” Dash grins at me.
“Oh, Erm yeah must’ve slipped my mind, actually technically it was mentioned, it’s not my fault if there was too much going on and they don’t recall. Anyway, once we were in the woods…”
“Oh no you don’t, Beautiful what was the bet?” Kai asks grinning cheekily at me.
“Fine, the person to drop the most bodies buys the first round.” I grumble.
The guys all stare at me in shock, before promptly falling about laughing, even my parents are grinning at me.
“Seems our Sage is a little bloodthirsty.” Mav grins and I wink at him, making his grin widen.
I don’t feel bad for our bet, they were incredibly bad men and if we hadn’t put them down then they could’ve hurt someone else like they hurt me. They’ve already proven they weren’t beyond torturing a child. Yeah, I absolutely have no regrets.
“Anyway,” I say pointedly trying to get this back on track, I just want to learn about the academy now, since it seems that we’re all going to be headed there, goody more school.
“Knot lead us to safety and then we saw your vehicles and she let us know that it was you and safe, no idea how she knew. I’d lost a lot of blood by that point and was starting to really feel it but my emotions were still on lockdown, until I saw you guys and then it all burst out of me, you know what happened from that point.
” I say and everyone in the room winces, to be honest, it’s still really odd that all these people care about me.
“Thank you for your recount, Cadets.” Thomas says formally. “I’ve now turned the recording off, I can explain more about Knot now, are you happy for Erin and her team to stay?”
“Yeah of course, I’ll probably only end up telling her later anyway.”
“Okay but I have to warn you that, nothing that is said in here from this point forward must go beyond these walls, it would endanger Sage. Do I make myself clear?” Micha says sternly.
“Yes, Sir.” they all answer together.
“Very well, like I said before Knot is your familiar, only the strongest Centres in our history have ever had them. It was not a common occurrence but then again, so far you’ve done nothing by normal standards.” Thomas explains grinning proudly at me.
“A familiar is similar to ones you’ve probably read about in books.
They are the companion to their Centre and can help give you a power boost or even find you no matter where you are.
They have a small amount of magic themselves, and can change form into most animals, although they tend to stick to one or two preferred forms.”
As if she knows we are talking about her, Knot jumps off Hunters lap and then promptly changes into her raven form.
“Yes, like that,” Joey grins proudly at Knot, “as you have most likely guessed already, they have an extremely high level of understanding. Eventually, as your bond develops with her, you should be able to understand her even more.”
“Wow, that’s pretty freaking awesome!” I grin at Knot and she flies up to land on my shoulder. It’s silent for a beat as I admire Knot.
“So, are you coming to the academy now?” Erin asks practically bouncing in her seat.
“Yeah, I think so. We still have quite a lot to discuss but what with Levi’s demon coming out to play and needing training not to mention the others, we are definitely going to be there, although I’m not sure when?” I ask shooting a look at Thomas.
“Well, you need to get your G.E.D first, so it depends how long you think you’ll need to study for it. I would like to get you there as quickly as possible due to the extenuating circumstances.” Thomas says.