BRAYDEN
TWENTY-THREE
Iheld onto Lailah’s arm as she crumpled to the ground after she renewed the wards. I could feel her power draining from her, taking the last of her strength with it. Bending down, I went to scoop her up, but Micah gathered her in his arms before I could. Raising an eyebrow, I looked at him.
“You have clean-up duty. I’ve got her,” Micah said as he cradled her against his chest.
He’d been the only one of us fighting against what having Synergy here now meant, but it seemed that Lailah might have found a way to get under that thick skin of his. I knew Micah was afraid to let himself care, but Lailah was hard to resist.
“We need to get her back to the house; we can’t let her stay in the dorms until we know she can manage her power,” Micah said, walking off toward the car.
Parker stepped up next to me, watching Micah’s back and shaking his head. “Do you think he’s possessed?”
“Why would you ask that?” I asked, frowning at Parker.
“Um, because Micah just had his power manipulated by Synergy. The one true villain who is going to wreck our lives, and now, he’s clutching her to his chest like she might disappear on him.”
I sighed at his words. He wasn’t wrong. “Yeah, but none of us was prepared for it to be Lailah. Who would have guessed the most powerful blessed Elementi Warrior would appear in the body of a girl who gets lost in her own room. Lord, she finds more trouble than any human could manage, and acts like it’s nothing. ”
“Until it comes to us. She lost her shit on that one,” Parker said, grinning.
“Speaking of that. How do you think we should tell her what being Synergy entails?” Hudson asked, joining in our conversation.
“Fuck, not me, I don’t need her mad at me now that I know what that looks like,” Parker said, shivering dramatically.
That reminded me about Mallory, and I found Jay crouching next to her, examining the body.
We all knew that she was dead the moment the demon used her as a host to get past the weakened wards.
It was sad to say that it was no great loss for us that she was gone.
I was sad that an innocent bystander in our fight had to lose her life though, even if she’d been a bitter, selfish person.
“Find anything useful?” I called out to Jay.
He shook his head and stepped back from the body. “Nope, clean kill, no markings or demon trace on her. You can do your thing, we won’t learn anything more from her.”
I wasn’t proud of the fact that I’d buried many such bodies deep in the earth, but we couldn’t leave behind any evidence of the demon’s attack.
Closing my eyes, I pulled the earth apart under her body and let it fall where no one would find her.
Letting the ground close back up without any sign that anything had happened, we all headed after Micah.
My phone started to vibrate in my back pocket, and I pulled it out to see it was Beth calling.
“Hey Beth, we got to her in time. We’re all headed back to the house,” I said, knowing what she was going to ask.
“Thank God, how did we let her get taken from under our noses?” Beth asked, sounding tired.
“The demon possessed another student’s body and must’ve used it to get close to Lailah. With it hiding in human skin, the wards wouldn’t have been activated in their weakened state. Once it was out of the host, we got to her as soon as we could.”
“Did her powers present?”
“You could say that. We just did the ritual to renew the wards. From what I can feel, they are stronger than ever. Beth, I’ve never seen anything like it, she took a thread of each of our powers and bound them together to do it.”
“Are you telling me the ground shaking was her?”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m telling you. Try standing next to her while she’s doing it. That shit’s fucking intense.”
“Brayden, language,” Beth chided. “I didn’t raise you boys to have such foul mouths.”
She never seemed to scold the others when they swore. Just me. Maybe it’s because I didn’t do it very often.
“We’ll be at the house soon. Do you have a room set up for her?”
Beth huffed at me. “Of course I do! There’s been a room ready for her before she even landed in the country.”
“I should’ve known better than to question you,” I said before I hung up and hopped into Jay’s jeep. We took off with Parker following us on his bike.
Once back at the house, we all filed in behind Micah, who was still holding Lailah. Beth met us at the entrance. “Micah, her room is going to be the north one off the common room.”
Beth opened the door for him, flipping on the light so he could make his way to the bed without running into something. As he settled her, Beth drew back the blackout curtains, so the moonlight shone in through the glass French doors.
“I want to make sure if she wakes up in the night, she can see her surroundings,” Beth said, answering our questioning looks. “We should also have someone stay here, so when she does come around, she won’t be freaked out by being in an unfamiliar place.”
“I’ll stay,” I said before any of the others could volunteer. “If she starts freaking out when she wakes up, I have the ability to ground her powers. I’ve done it once before.”
Beth nodded her head. “Sounds like a good plan, but I want to chat with you all a moment. Let's step out into the living room, so we don’t wake her.”
Stepping out of her room brought us to the hub of the house.
It was a common area that we called the living room that each of our bedrooms faced.
If we weren’t in the library, chances were, we were here.
I settled into my favorite battered leather armchair, and the others ended up in their respective spots around the room.
“Things are going to change for Lailah now that her power has manifested. I’m going to need your help making this transition as smooth as possible.
If she is as powerful as you say, Brayden, I don’t want her tearing down the house around our ears,” Beth said, perched on the edge of the couch cushion.
“She’s going to have tons of questions when she wakes up; how do you want me to handle that?” I asked.
“Manage what you can, but I would like to have a face-to-face chat with her. I realize that she’s comfortable with all of you, but I need to start building my rapport with her since I’m going to be the one she comes to with her needs.
” Beth sighed, rubbing her temple. “Once she finds out that I knew all along, I have a feeling she’s going to be very angry with me.
I can’t say I blame her, but I hope she will see the reason. ”
“Have Cami here for that conversation. That will help,” Parker pointed out.
“If you’re straight with her and give her facts, she will handle it much better than appealing to her emotions,” Hudson offered.
“Letting her know that no other secrets will be held from her is also going to be something she needs to hear. Her having access to everything and everywhere will prove that to her,” Micah said, surprising me that he realized that about her.
“Getting her back into a routine as fast as possible will give her some stability,” Jay added, drawing everyone's attention.
Beth smiled at us like a proud mom. “My, it seems you’ve really figured her out.”
“It’s not that hard. She’s an open book to those she feels comfortable around,” I said, shrugging my shoulders.
“That brings me to the other thing I wanted to address.” Beth’s demeanor changed, and she shifted from the loving mom into the fierce protector, pinning us all with a pointed stare.
“I expect all of you to treat her with the respect she deserves. We always knew that you would need to bond with Synergy, and now seeing it’s a woman, it's not lost on me how that will happen. Not the way you have been attracted to her like moths to a flame. Hear me on this, boys. If any of you disrespects that sacred bond and the gift that it is, heaven help protect you from my wrath. Do I make myself clear?”
We all bobbed our heads in agreement, each of us having experienced Beth’s anger at least once in our lives. It was something none of us wanted to repeat.
“Excellent! I’m going to fill Cami in on what’s been happening while she was enjoying the party and failing to do her job,” Beth said, smiling at us once again.
I did not envy Cami and the hell she was going to pay when Beth was done with her.
“Don’t ream her out too badly; we told her that we would take care of Lailah while she had a little fun. We’re as much at fault as anyone,” Parker said, speaking up for Cami.
“Oh, I’m fully aware you all fucked up tonight, Parker. It would be wise for you not to remind me of it while I’m feeling forgiving,” Beth said as she left the living room.
“Shit, did you hear her drop the f-bomb?” Hudson said, cradling his head in his hands. “We are so fucked; I don’t even want to find out what our punishment will be.”
“Nothing we can do about it now. Might as well make the best of it,” I said, standing and heading to my room.
I wanted to change before I camped out in Lailah’s room for the night.
Once out of my Halloween costume and in comfy sweatpants, I quietly entered Lailah’s room, which was lit only by the light of the full moon.
Looking at her lying on the bed in her yellow dress made her look like some fairy tale princess.
I walked over to her, brushed a few rogue curls out of her face, and let my fingers trail down her cheek.
She moved into my touch as if even in her sleep, she knew it was me.
Sitting down next to her, I studied her face.
I looked at her for the first time as Synergy, the sixth element.
Her skin seemed to glow with a faint golden light, her power pulsing just under her skin.
I reached out, took her hand in mine, pulled it up to my lips, and kissed the back of it.
I let my lips linger longer than I should have, but it was harder to fight her pull now that her power was released.
I set her hand back down and tried to move away, but she clutched my wrist as if her life depended on it.
Unable to keep myself from grinning, I let myself be trapped by her.
As the minutes passed, I realized she wasn’t going to let go of me, so I did the only thing I could.
I stretched out beside her, letting the length of my body rest against hers.
Letting out a contented sigh, I watched as she nuzzled into me as though having me here was a normal occurrence.
If the others were to find out about this, they would be so pissed, but that was a risk I was gladly willing to take.
They were going to need to learn to share her sooner or later because she was ours to treasure and protect for the rest of our lives.
To be continued in Refining Earth