Enjoy
Chapter 5
I burst out laughing. “You can’t seriously be insinuating that I’m a guy”
Now they chuckled. “No,” Greg finally said, “we’re just saying that you shouldn’t be able to Shift at all.” His face turned serious. “Women were never Shifters, only men. It used to be a man’s honour to become one and the females were proud to be the bearer’s of such men’s children. But that’s as far as they got. They were never put into these wars. It’s way too dangerous!”
“Oh, I am so sorry our fragility is such a burden on your big bad shoulders.” I made an exasperated expression. “Where would we be if it wasn’t for our heroes?” Oh yeah, I was becoming more sarcastic by the second.
“Bien entendu, where would we be?” A small voice spoke up. I turned to the woman standing in the doorway. She was short yet well rounded in curves. She had a single braid of long carrot red hair. Big green eyes looked back at me. By her voice, she was definitely French.
“Bonsoir” I replied in perfect French. It was nice to be bilingual, although I would love to speak more than just English and French. “And you are?”
“Gertrude” She advanced towards me and I got up. “But you can call me Gigi” She extended her hand and I shook it. I noticed a few freckles on her nose. She was really pretty and seemed so…innocent.
“She’s our personal doctor.” Anthony stated.
“And my wife” Jason added.
“And his wife” he muttered back.
Gigi winked to me and then walked into Jason’s waiting arms. They kissed and then she sat in his lap. They were so cute together, although I doubt Jason would like the comment. He seemed to be the I-cannot-talk-about-feelings-because-I-am-a-man kind of guy.
“Where’d you go?” he asked her softly. He was so tender with her.
“I visited Montreal a bit. It is so beautiful!” she exclaimed, turning to me. “I’ve never been out of Europe!”
I smirked. “Welcome to Quebec” I gave a quick hand twirl.
Now Anthony got up. “I think that’s enough for today, if you guys don’t mind.” Four nods reassured him it wasn’t a problem. “She has lots of thinking to do.” He ushered me towards the door.
“We’ll see you tomorrow” Greg shouted as we moved. I didn’t know what to say, so I kept my mouth shut.
*******
Before leaving the house, Anthony had given me a coat - since I didn’t have one then - had taken one for himself, and we’d headed back to my place. It was only a ten minute walk, since the mansion was also in the forest, just a little deeper into the woods. But I shivered from the cold outside air. It was really windy, too.
We walked slowly, in silence, as I took everything in. There was way too much to think about! I need to go to my spot! I thought to myself. Yet, there was still so much I didn’t know. I glanced at Anthony.
“Anything?” I asked, thinking of his earlier words.
He seemed to know what I meant. “Ask away”
“How did you find me?”
For one of the first times since I’d met him, he looked really uncomfortable. “I was…watching over you.”
Now, that, I could have some fun with. “Stalker!” I exclaimed.
“W-What?! No! I wasn’t stalking you!” he stammered. “I was just looking out for you!”
I laughed softly. “Yeah, yeah. They all say that.” I stuck my tongue out at him. He finally got that it was a joke and stuck his out as well.
“You know, I’ve actually been seeing you for a while.” He stated. I glanced at him, waiting for the rest. “The truth is, I’ve been daydreaming about you for over a year now. It’s weird, I know. At first I’d just see blurry glimpses of your face, but with time, I could see all of you. I thought it was just my imagination, at first, since they were just daydreams. But then, I started seeing other images, like how to find you and stuff. Everything seemed to have a halo or so kind of white light. It’s like my subconscious was deliberately sending me premature images of what I was going to do. That’s what Ben said, anyways.”
“Kind of creepy, but I get it. That’s why you moved here?”
He nodded. “Do you have any idea how many women fit your physical description?” When I shook my head, he continued. “Thousands, and I didn’t even go through them all. The one big hint I got was the Canadian flag. I kept seeing it, so I started searching for you in this country. It took me months to finally locate you. I didn’t even know you name! I just knew your appearance!” He sighed. “When I found you, Greg and I checked all the possible residents nearby. This was the closest one.” He glanced towards the mansion.
I nodded absently, lost in thought again. Thank god I knew the way by heart, or I might’ve knocked into a tree, despite the small path I’d made with time. However, only one thought came to mind. “What do you want from me?” I asked, “You say it’s too dangerous because I’m a girl, but you act like I’m supposed to become a…what was it? ... Galäbriel Knight?”
“Well technically, you can’t be a knight, you’d be more like a princess or something.” He stroked his chin in thought. “Hmm. That’s good. I think I’ll call you Princess.”
“I don’t think so.”
“As you wish,” he bowed mockingly, “Your Highness.”
I rolled my eyes and looked in front of us. We were almost at the door. “Watch it; my door might hit you in the butt.” I teased. I opened the door with my keys that he’d been able to retrieve and stepped inside. It’s only then that I remembered that my house had been somewhat demolished. Yet, what my own eyes were seeing was a neatly put interior. No breaks. No mess. No hint of any unusual activity.
“What happened?” I asked, walking farther inside the house. I looked around as if it was the first time I’d seen the room.
He chuckled. “What do you mean? This is your house, isn’t it?”
I glared back at him. “Stop the act, angel boy. I know the stone rhino did damage in here; I saw it myself.”
“We call them Stone Hybrids, actually.” He came up beside me. “I thought you’d be happy I put everything back together. We got a white witch to come over and fix the damage. She can’t repair electronics though, so you’ll have to get a new coffee pot, phones, radio and… a new TV for you room.”
I gaped at him. “You called a witch here? I wasn’t out that long.”
“You were unconscious for a whole day, Princess. We’re not Friday, it’s Saturday night.”
I gaped at him even more, letting slip the princess comment. I walked into the kitchen and leaned my arms against the central counter. “I need to think.”
He nodded. “I understand. Here,” he came over and handed me a small pink sandal key chain, “I want you to keep this on your cell phone. It’s a GPS tracking dot. Nobody will notice.” He moved back towards the main door. “And I want you to stay here. No going away without telling me. If you need to go out, just call, I’ll come and get you.”
Funny how quickly one's moods could change. In a split second, I was as angry as I could get. “No going out without permission?! You’ve got to be kidding me! I don’t need your permission to do what I want! Who do you think you –“
He moved fast. Really fast. In seconds he’d pulled me away from the counter, pushed me against the refrigerator behind me and came up in front of me, leaning both arms on either side of my head. Shock kicked in, quickly replaced by anger. Again.
“If you want to go around and get yourself killed, be my guess. Just don’t waste my time trying to protect you if you have a death wish. I haven’t just found you to let you get killed!” Now we were both pissed.
Before I could reply, he kissed me. Full on the mouth, crushing mine under his. His warm hands fell down to frame my body and pull me closer by my hips. Unconsciously, I wrapped my arms around his neck, drawing him closer as well. We went at each other, brutally, both in anger.
A bark. That’s all it took. Abby barked once, then twice, signalling her presence in the room. Sanity came back to us, and we separated from one another. We looked at each other a while, gasping for air. His hair was dishevelled. Had I done that? I didn’t remember.
Finally he broke eye contact, to then mutter a “See you tomorrow”. And then he was gone.
