Black Orchid (2 page)

We
won’t be able to save her!”
Selene’s voice echoed in Adelaide’s
mind.
“Ellie, do something!”

Silence
greeted the call.

Out
of the corner of her eye, Adelaide caught a flash of brilliant white as Selene
dove for Lila beside her.

“Ellie?!”
Lila
screeched, clearly panicked. Adelaide flinched at the sound of Lila screaming
her head off as she plummeted, but there was no sign of the midnight black
falcon anywhere.

A
string of swear words assaulted Adelaide’s mind. Lila was moving from panic to
pure rage. Not good. One of the morphs that all four girls seemed to possess
was the dragon – a very unusual creature to be able to shift into. Not that
they’d ever tested it. They all assumed only Ellie could control the dragon. The
other three girls, Adelaide included, had never dared access it. But the beast
could potentially be triggered by strong emotions.

But
before anyone could catch Lila or try to help her keep the dragon leashed
inside, her body started to shimmer. She blurred as she shifted. Her skin
turned to scales, glittering golden in the sunlight. She thrashed her wicked
tail around wildly as she tried to find purchase in the wind, despite having a
broken wing.

“Oh
my God!”
Selene’s horror came through with the thought.

Suddenly
the massive form of a fierce black dragon swooped in from above.

“I’m
here. I’m here,”
Ellie called as she hurtled past. Adelaide bobbled in the wake of wind caused
by the beast’s rapid descent.

“Call
the others. We might need everyone’s help to get her out of it,”
Ellie yelled as
she kept going.

“Got
it,”
Selene hollered back.

If
we can,
Adelaide thought.

Dragon
metamorphs were rare. They only knew of a few in history, Ellie being one, who
could control the shift and not let the monster take over. Adelaide hadn’t attempted
it, but she could feel the brute inside her sometimes… when anger filled that
empty space where her heart should be.

The
whites and browns of the snowy plains below them were coming up fast. Lila
started fighting Ellie the moment she was in reach. After a few moments of
grappling, the black dragon managed to take the golden one by the neck and
tail. Great obsidian wings flared to land. But because Lila was still thrashing
around in her grip, they hit hard. Dirt and ice flew up around them as they
rolled to a stop.

Adelaide
and Selene were close behind. Both falcons shifted as they landed. Just as her
feet touched the ground, Adelaide heard a terrible roar of fury. The golden
dragon that was her sister gained its feet and reared up. A column of fire
erupted from her maw.

But
just as quickly, Ellie pinned Lila to the ground. The fire died, almost as if
it had been smothered by an invisible hand. Adelaide and Selene glanced at each
other.

“Can
anyone hear her thoughts?”
Ellie’s voice sounded in all their minds.

Ominous
silence greeted her question.

“She’s
not responding. She’s blocking us,”
Selene called.

“Then
we have no choice,”
Ellie said with grim determination.
“I’ll try to force her out of it. If I
can’t, Selene, you need to try to shut her down.”

Adelaide
was quiet. None of her gifts could help with this situation. Ellie, with her
ability to control other people’s powers when she touched them, was their best bet.

Nothing
happened for several minutes.

“Ellie?”
Selene’s
hesitant question whispered through their minds.

She
would
be worried. Selene hated to use her ability to turn off other
people’s powers. She’d once been forced to do terrible things with that gift.

“Hold
on,”
came the strained reply.

Suddenly,
the misty quality that precipitated a shift surrounded Lila’s still form.
Slowly she shrank down… talons, tail, and wings disappearing… to be replaced by
the willowy girl they all knew. She collapsed to the ground, and Ellie morphed
at the same time. As soon as they were done, Selene ran across the field.
Adelaide followed a little more slowly.

“What
the hell were you thinking, Delia?” Ellie shouted. She knelt down beside Lila,
who was cradling her injured arm.

Adelaide
tried to dredge up some whisper of concern or regret. But now that the danger
had passed, she was back to feeling nothing.

“I
was thinking that the point of all this was to prepare for a life-or-death
battle. We’re supposed to be practicing defensive and offensive maneuvers in
the air,” Adelaide said, as she came to stand beside the group. “And where were
you? Took you long enough to get to her up there. Did the knock in the head
that Maddox gave you in the last fight addle your powers too?”

Adelaide
glanced down and encountered Lila’s outraged stare.

“Are
you kidding me with that crap? I know I turned off your emotions, but even
logic has to tell you what you did was wrong and dangerous. You broke my arm.
And I got so scared and so angry that I shifted into a bloody-frickin’ DRAGON!”

Adelaide
resisted the urge to cover her ears. It wouldn’t help anyway since
Lila was
shouting those thoughts
directly
into her brain.

Adelaide
crossed her arms over her chest and raised an eyebrow. “You should be ready for
anything,” she said aloud, not bothering with telepathy.

“You
could have
killed
me. What if Ellie hadn’t been here? Not only to save
me from the fall, but from the dragon? What would you have done?”

Adelaide
shrugged. “The fall is a risk we take when we fly. And Selene would’ve turned
your powers off completely if she’d had to. Maybe next time you’ll protect that
weak side. I’ve been telling you for ages about that vulnerability.”

“Hey
now—” Selene put a hand on Adelaide’s arm.

Lila’s
jaw dropped. “You really can’t see that you’re in the wrong here, can you?”

Adelaide
paused to think about that statement rationally and then shrugged again. “I
don’t see it that way. We’re at war with a monster. Maddox won’t hesitate to do
worse than I did today. The point of our practicing together is to learn to
protect ourselves. And I still think we need to explore all four of us using
the dragons together against him.”

“After
what you just saw?” Lila voice cracked with incredulity.

Selene
cleared her throat and stepped in. “Let’s discuss this later. We’d better take Lila
to Hugh to get that arm healed up.”

Ellie
nodded. “I’ve called Charlotte to come get us. She’ll be here any minute.”

In
less time than that, a woman suddenly appeared beside them. Charlotte was like
an aunt to Lila and Adelaide, and a mother to Nate. Tall and slender with brown
hair and eyes, she looked a lot younger than her almost six hundred years.
Svatura aged much more slowly than humans and had a life span of close to two thousand
years. Charlotte possessed the ability to teleport, which frequently came in quite
handy.

Selene,
Lila, and Ellie all placed a hand on Charlotte’s arm, physically linking
themselves to her to make the jump back to the Vyusher castle. But Adelaide
stayed where she was.

Four
faces turned to her, each with varying expressions of confusion, concern, and
anger. “You coming?” Ellie asked.

Adelaide
shook her head, retreating a few steps. “I’ll fly back and meet you there.” She
turned and sprang into the air, morphing into her falcon as she did. She lazily
gained altitude, taking her time, in no hurry to defend her actions yet again.

“This
can’t continue,” Lila muttered, shifting in agitation.

“Sit
still, Lilianna, or I can’t heal your arm properly,” Hugh Jenner admonished his
daughter.

Lila
leaned back against the leather-covered arm of the couch in her parents’
sitting room. Hugh continued to work, a golden glow of light coming from his
hands as they hovered over her arm.

“Dad,”
she said quietly. “
I
did this. I made her like this. And I have to fix
it.”

He
blinked but didn’t look at her. “You’ve already tried to fix it.”

Lila
continued to fidget. “I tried to turn her emotions back on and heal them. But the
damage was too great. Even with Ellie’s help, I can’t do enough. No….” She
shook her head. “We need to try something else.”

Hugh
stopped what he was doing. He still woke to the memories – nightmares – of
Adelaide’s screams from that night. For a moment he didn’t look at Lila, and
then he raised his eyes, letting her see his concern. He registered his
daughter’s shock at the deep sadness she saw in his expression. Hugh rarely let
his emotions show. He was the strong one. Strong for his wife, Lucy. Strong for
their own children. Strong for their friends, Charlotte and Dexter Pierce, and
their adopted children. Now strong for the new family members in their lives.

“What
do you propose to do?” he asked softly.

“I
think I should restore her emotions. Turn them back on if I can but in a
different way than what I’ve tried before. Ellie will help.”

Hugh
looked down and clenched his hands into fists. It’d seemed like ages since both
of his daughters had been safe and whole.

Today
wasn’t the day that would change.

“I
don’t understand. You said you can’t. And without help her broken heart will
destroy her.”

“You’re
right…. She’d feel the pain and suffering all over again if that’s all we do.
But I think it wouldn’t be a problem if we wipe her memory of Nate at the same
time.”

“You
think.” Hugh abruptly stood, his chair scraping across the wooden flooring with
a loud screech. He walked over to a window and gazed out it sightlessly. His heart
ached for his older daughter. Adelaide and Nate had once been
te’sorthene
.
The bond was supposed to be a fated love, unbreakable, undeniable, and rare. They’d
been astounded, but delighted, that Adelaide had found hers at such a young
age. But then the impossible had happened, and that miracle had been torn from
her.

Hugh
had heard that
te’sorthene
often lost their minds when their bonded
other half died. Maddox himself was an example of that. Centuries before, Ellie’s
grandfather had killed Maddox’s mate and both of their sons, and the man had
gone completely mad.

“Dad?”
Lila broke into Hugh’s thoughts.

He
looked back at her with a frown. “How—”

“Griffin.”

Hugh
wasn’t too surprised. It made sense that Ellie’s twin brother, a very powerful
telepath in his own right, could possibly help in this way.

Hugh
furrowed his brow doubtfully. “His skill isn’t developed enough for that yet,
is it?”

“Ellie
thinks she can help him do it.”

“She
thinks?”

Lila
bit her lip. “She’s never tried anything like this. None of us have. But things
can’t continue as they are. A
te’sorthene
bond being lost while both are
still living is completely unheard of. But removing Adelaide’s emotions as I
did—” Lila choked off the words, overcome. She put a hand to her mouth as she
fought for control.

“Will
Selene allow it?” he asked. “Between what happened to Griffin and the four of
you getting each other’s powers, she’s had her people on lockdown.  No using
your abilities on someone else.”

Hugh
thought about Selene. She was reserved and had her own demons. Mostly centered on
her brother Gideon, who, among other things, had made her permanently turn off
their own
parents'
powers to force
them out of the way.

Despite
her horrific past, the new Queen had become very special to Hugh. Hopefully,
she’d become part of his family through marriage someday. She was engaged to
Griffin, Ellie’s twin brother. And Ellie, of course, was wed to Alex, Hugh’s
adopted son. But there were complications that needed fixing before Selene and
Griffin could be united.

“Selene
knows about the idea. She’s not happy, but Adelaide is a danger to us and to
the Vyusher. Selene will agree.”

Hugh
was silent. After a minute he walked back over to Lila, sat down, and started
working on her arm again. Things were never easy these days. Nothing was black
and white. He agreed with Lila that Adelaide couldn’t continue the way she was—an
emotionless robot verging on sociopathic. But did they dare take the risk?

“Do
they think they can wipe just Nate from her memories?” he asked.

“We’re
going to try that first. If it doesn’t work, we’ll erase all memories back to
just before she met him.”

Hugh
sucked in a breath. “That’s close to a hundred years.”

“I
know,” Lila said quietly.

“Will
she ever get those memories back?”

“Ellie’s
not sure.”

Hugh
nodded. He moved his hands over her, letting the light and warmth spread from
his hands into her arm as he finished healing her. He nodded, and Lila sat up,
swung her feet to the ground, and then twisted her arm around, rubbing at the
spot where the bone had snapped.

“Good
as new,” she said with a quick, tight-lipped smile. Then she stood and placed a
hand on his shoulder. “You’ll tell Mom?”

Hugh
nodded.

Then
she wrapped her arms around his neck and snuggled into him as she used to do
when she was little. He pulled her close and hugged her back. Not all that long
ago, Lila had been the one in distress, held prisoner by their enemy. Would
they ever all just be safe and normal again?

“Thank
you for understanding,” she whispered.

Before
either of them could change their minds, Lila quickly headed out of the room.

Hugh
sank back down in his chair and sat there for some time, hands folded on his
lap and eyes staring off into space. He just prayed that he’d made the right
decision. He felt weighed down by the burden of his worries. These last years
had aged him before his time. Grey now feathered the light brown hair at his
temples. And for the first time in his life, Hugh felt old and brittle, despite
being relatively young at close to six hundred sixty years old.

“It
was the right decision,” Lucy’s soft voice interrupted his thoughts.

Hugh
jerked his head up to see his wife standing in the doorway. “You heard?”

She
dipped her head.

Hugh
held out a hand for her, and she immediately crossed the room to be wrapped in
his arms. He rested his chin on top of her hair. “Lila would never do anything
to deliberately hurt Adelaide.”

He
felt Lucy nod.

“And
Nate?” she asked.

“What
about Nate?” Charlotte’s voice preceded her into the room. Her husband, Dexter,
followed her in. The couple had been close friends of Lucy and Hugh’s for decades.
But more than that, they’d been Nate’s adoptive parents since before they’d met
the Jenners. Other than Adelaide, they’d felt the pain of Nate’s abandonment
more sharply than anyone else.

Hugh
and Lucy glanced at each other. Charlotte had taken Nate’s loss particularly hard
and had been constantly on the verge of tears since he’d left six months
earlier. Dexter had become even more stone-faced, if that were possible.

“Lila
and the others are going try to help Adelaide by turning back on her emotions while
removing all her memories of Nate.”

Charlotte
visibly paled. Her eyes welled with tears, which then spilled down her cheeks.
Dexter wrapped his arms around his wife and murmured softly in her ear. He
looked over at Lucy. “What were you saying about Nate?”

Lucy
spread her hands in appeal. “I worry that Adelaide’s forgetting Nate will push
him even further away from us.”

Dexter’s
jaw hardened. “She said the line of their relationship snapped in half. That
seems pretty final to me.”

“But
maybe it could be healed?”

“And
you think if she forgets him, that possibility goes away?” Charlotte gave a
watery sniff.

“I
think it makes it harder to heal the relationship if she doesn’t remember it and
he doesn’t acknowledge it,” Lucy replied.

Charlotte
covered her face with her hands, and her body shook in silent sobs. Dexter held
her tightly, and glanced at Hugh and Lucy. “We don’t have Nate, but we do have
Adelaide. We should do everything we can to help her. If we ever get Nate back…
well, we’ll worry about that then.”

Hugh
stood and crossed the room to lay a hand on his friend’s shoulder. Then
together, they all waited, deep in their grief but pulling what comfort they
could from each other. They waited to discover the outcome of this latest hurdle.