Blue Violet

chapter 31



The next few weeks fell into a pattern. In the mornings, Ellie, Adelaide, Lila, and Nate went to school. Evenings were reserved for training and preparing for the coming battle. Tonight they were fighting guys against girls. Alex stood off to the side watching. Sometimes they took one of them out of the equation so they could practice working together when they didn’t have all powers in play, and it was Alex’s turn to referee.

“Everyone have their instructions?” Ellie asked the girls. Heads nodded in unison. “Charlotte, you know what to do. Okay then, let’s go!” The ladies and the men all disbursed and headed into the woods, practicing being scattered when the attack came. Ellie thought through their plan. Charlotte was the key to gathering them all together.

“Go!” Alex’s voice boomed from the clearing.

Ellie instantly transformed into the falcon and swiftly gained altitude, making sure to block Griffin’s mind reading. She found Charlotte, who had already located Lucy. With further inspection, Ellie located where Lila and Adelaide were in the woods.

Silently, to keep their location secret from the men, she dove toward Charlotte, transforming back to human as soon as she was on the ground. In silence, she and Lucy both held hands with Charlotte. Then Ellie tapped into Charlotte’s power to first transport them to Adelaide, and then to Lila, and finally to the field where Alex was waiting.

The guys were a little slower to make it to the clearing without Charlotte’s help. But eventually the girls were surrounded.

Nate and Dexter lunged simultaneously. Using Lucy’s precognition, Ellie had seen it coming, and using Charlotte’s teleportation, she had moved them out of the way, popping back up behind where the guys stood. Nate and Dexter landed in empty space and rolled.

With just the girls, Ellie was limited in what she could do. She didn’t have any defensive skills. She could keep the girls away from the guys like this indefinitely, but she needed a way to finish things, too. So she decided to cheat a little bit. Seeing Ramsey wind up to deliver a fireball straight at them, she tapped into Griffin’s defensive shield. As a result, Ramsey’s fire hit an invisible wall and was repelled straight back at where the guys stood. Ramsey immediately doused the flame before it touched any of them.

“No fair!” Griffin called out. “You can only use the girls’ powers.”

Ellie grinned. She moved the girls out of Nate’s way as he tried running directly at them.

“What if the Vyusher have a power I can tap into, since I am technically a wolf too?” she asked.

“You wouldn’t be able to without touching them,” Griffin insisted. Just as he finished talking, Ellie felt the ground shift slightly beneath her feet and knew it was his shield. She immediately transported the girls to a new spot. Just in time too, as Griffin jerked the shield up, barely missing them.

“Nice try!” Ellie laughed. With Griffin’s abilities out, Ellie worked another tack –something she’d been thinking of for a few days now. She pulled on Lila’s ability to heal emotions and decided to see if the reverse of that might be possible. She concentrated on the dark areas in her attackers that represented the lower emotions. Deep within that darkness, she could feel small parts of fear and confusion. She worked on making those parts grow, specifically confusion, though she took every care with how she let it affect Ramsey.

It worked beautifully. Ellie grinned as all the men stopped their attack and stood silently with increasingly bewildered expressions.

“What’s going on with them?” Lucy asked.

“I’m using Lila’s skill to force confusion on them.”

Lila giggled beside her.

“I’ll definitely have to teach you this,” Ellie whispered to her. “It’ll be a good defense for you.”

With a delighted laugh, Ellie let up on the guys. “I think that does it for the day,” she announced. The boys groaned at having lost. They were sure they’d win today since they had all the active skills. They gave in good-naturedly, though, and together everyone headed home for some well-deserved rest and relaxation.

“Who’s down for a game?” Nate called as they all trooped into the house. Lucy headed to the kitchen to start dinner and Hugh to the dining room table to get some work done while the rest of the family pulled out Trivial Pursuit. Playing games was an almost nightly tradition.

They played until dinner, paused to eat, and then returned to the game. It didn’t take long for Ellie to clean house. This was her favorite game.

“Ellie Aubrey, you cheater!” Nate pointed an accusing finger her way. “You totally used Griffin’s mind reading.”

“I did not!” she responded indignantly. “You just can’t handle the fact that I kicked your ass at Trivial Pursuit.”

“There’s no way you knew the answer to that question.”

“I’ve been living a lot longer than you, kiddo,” Ellie popped a piece of candy in her mouth and grinned as she chewed, well aware that being called kiddo drove Nate nuts.

“And besides, we knew him,” Griffin added.

“Hold up,” Alex froze in the process of picking up the game pieces, his expression incredulous. “You knew Abraham Lincoln?”

“Uh-huh. He was Svatura,” Ellie confirmed.

“No way! What was his power?” Nate asked.

Griffin leaned back linking his hands behind his head and answered, “A really subtle power of persuasion. He just had to speak, and you could listen to him for hours and do anything he asked willingly. Our tribe wasn’t thrilled that he went so public, but ultimately that was his choice.”

Everyone sat for a moment in stunned silence, just staring at them. “Well on that note…” Alex stood and offered Ellie his hand. He pulled her up from her seat on the couch and they headed toward their bedroom.

“Night everyone,” Ellie called out from the stairs, receiving a chorus of goodnights in return.

Ellie and Alex spent as much time as they could together. Even though they were te’sorthene, they still had so much to discover about each other. The more Ellie learned about Alex, the more she felt for him. She knew she was falling in love with him and he with her. Their bond grew stronger day by day.

As they entered their room, Alex spun Ellie around so that she stood with her back against the closed bedroom door. He placed his hands on either side of her, bodily caging her in.

“Don’t go tonight,” his deep voice washed over her, his sensual lips capturing hers. Ellie groaned into his mouth. His voice and that kiss almost knocked her response out of her mind… almost.

Pulling away to catch her breath she said, “You know I have to.”

“Ummm… I know,” he murmured.

Alex leaned back in, kissing his way across her shoulder and up her neck to nibble on her earlobe. Ellie tipped her head back to grant him further access. With another groan, Ellie sought his mouth with her own and reveled in the sensation of his tongue running along the seam of her lips. Opening her mouth she matched him move for move. Never breaking the hot kiss, Alex reached down and bodily lifted her, wrapping her legs around his waist. He walked them over to the bed and, still not breaking the contact of their mouths, laid Ellie down on it, following to cover her body with his own.

Only the sound of Griffin’s voice breaking into her thoughts could have stopped Ellie. “Your turn first, Elle.”

Feeling the shift in her concentration, Alex stopped the kiss pulling back to look her in the eyes.

“Great timing. I’ll be out in a sec,” Ellie answered Griffin. “It’s time,” she said to Alex.

He puffed out a breath and buried his face in her neck, inhaling deeply. “Okay,” he accepted. Levering himself off the bed, he pulled her up with him. “You take care of yourself out there, baby.” He tenderly brushed a strand of hair out of her face.

“Always do.” She stood on tiptoe to give him one last lingering kiss and then shifted into the falcon before him.

Alex walked over to their window to open it for her, and she flew out into the night. Ellie usually took the first patrol, with Alex’s apprehension following her out the window every time. She’d return home in the early hours of the morning to get some rest and would find him waiting up for her. He insisted that he couldn’t sleep until he knew she was home safely. Then he’d tuck her up in bed with him, snuggling her into his warm embrace.

Ellie grumbled good-naturedly every single time he waited up for her, but of course she secretly loved it. Alex managed to give her the space and the respect to make her own decisions. If anything, the way he was handling the entire situation not only made her feel loved and protected, but also valued and significant.