Incarnations (7 page)

"Seriously, Greg, what the hell do you want me to
do?"

"I want you to choose Caislyn. I want you to be a
grown up and make a decision. You can't have us both. I don't care
if that Fairy-ass..."

"Stop," Caislyn shouted.

"No! I won't stop. I don't care if he doesn't mind
sharing you, but I damn well do, and you have a choice to make,
Cais!"

"You aren't sharing me. Why can't you get it through
your head, we are training, Gregore! Nothing more. Nothing has
happened, since..."

"Since our wedding day? That's reassuring, Cais. And
it doesn't matter if nothing has happened, yet. He's just digging
his claws in slowly. He's smart Caislyn, and he is wrapping you
around his little finger every time he gets to crawl in bed with
you for "training” or every time you he takes you into Faerie to
dazzle you with the other world magic they have. Did it ever occur
to you that he is prolonging all this training to have more time
with you? You're a smart woman, Cais. I've seen you pick up stuff
that took other witches months to learn, and you did it in weeks.
Suddenly, it's taking forever for you to learn something new? I
don’t buy it!"

"It's not witchcraft, Greg. We're talking about Fey
powers that I haven't been able to use and play around with my
whole life. They've been bound. I am having to exercise them, just
like muscles that haven't been used. I am getting better., but
you're never around for me to talk to about that. What am I
supposed to say? Even if he is prolonging things, I still need him
till I get the hang of this."

"Why?"

"Jaxon."

"Oh, forget Jaxon! It's always something or someone
else with you, Cais. It's not your job to find and save everyone!
You can't even save your own marriage right now."

"If that's how you feel," Caislyn stood up from the
ground and turned her back to Gregore.

"Caislyn, you know what I meant."

"I'm not sure I do, why don't you spell it out for
me?"

"It's him or me, now. You have to choose." She could
feel him standing just inches behind her. She longed to lean back
and let him pull her close. She wanted so bad to have him wrap his
arms around her and make the rest of the world just disappear, but
there were other things to consider. She was going to need Jaxon
back in order to figure out how they could live without always
being in hiding. There was so much they had to do. And now, her one
hope of getting Jaxon and helping her was sitting on this
precipice. "How can you tell me Jaxon isn't important? Without her,
without figuring this prophecy out, we will always be on the run.
Is that how you want to raise our child? Fleeing from one hiding
spot to the next, hoping that we don't get caught?"

"Cais," Gregore was pleading with her, but she knew
he wasn't going to listen to reason himself.

"I can't just send Ash away, Greg. What if it turns
out this is his baby? What then? I will always be linked to him
too." She could hear him sigh, and the shuffle of his feet, but she
never thought for a moment she would hear him walking away, until
she did.

***

SNAPPED

"Seth!" Brigid screamed out, "NO!"

"What have you done?" Jaxon questioned.

Seth turned and looked from one girl to the next. "He
had to die."

"No," Jaxon said, "he had to tell us why he thought
Caislyn and I needed to die."

"He was playing with you, Jax. I don't know what kind
of mumbo-jumbo you thought you were doing to him there, but it
probably wasn't actually working. He told you what he wanted you to
hear. He's always been clever like that."

"Seth, you don't know that," Jaxon countered.

"And now, we'll never know," Brigid added. "I can't
believe this, Seth. I've been plotting my revenge on Marc all this
time for our family and you come in and take it right out from
underneath of me."

"Really?" Jaxon yelped. "Really, that's what you're
worried about? Not why he wanted Caislyn and I dead, but your
vengeance?"

"Um, Marc's a lunatic, I agree with Seth on that
point. He probably only told you what he thought would elicit the
biggest response. Some of it may have been truth, but you have to
know that there's a good possibility that none of it was."

"Is that what happened to our family, Brigid?" Seth
was suddenly still as he asked the question. Jaxon just stood glued
to the spot, and Brigid began fidgeting.

"Seth, I didn't know." She looked up at him with
pleading eyes. "I swear, I had no clue what he was. And yes, I fell
for his lies."

"So, our entire family died, and we were both made
monsters because of your little crush on that," he pointed to what
was left of Marc on the ground.

"Seth," Brigid began and then stopped. She sucked in
another breath and tried again, "I'm sorry. I've spent every day
since wishing I could take it back. I was with him, in the field
beyond the stream. I didn't know. I didn't know that he had sent
someone else to butcher out family. I had no way of knowing he just
wanted me as one of his trophies, his toys." Brigid sat back down
on the couch and hugged herself. Jaxon could see the far off look
in her eyes, and with her gift of empathy she knew that Brigid was
reliving everything.

"I don't blame you Brigid. We knew nothing of this
kind of monster then." He looked up at Jaxon then, "we really need
to get you back to Caislyn. All this stress with you gone isn't
good for her. She's been training like crazy. Gregore is flipping
out about Ash, and about her working so hard to find you. She
didn't sound too good the last time I talked to her."

"I'm sorry, but I can't go back. I have to go find
Caleb." Jaxon turned her back on both Seth and the mess that
surrounded them, because the blood was just too much. It wasn’t
like the blood of humans, it smelled tainted, but it still brought
forth the lust that she still wasn’t able to control.

"Wait, what? You can't do that, Jaxon. You heard what
we said about Marc. That may be exactly what he wanted you to do.
We need to get back to the camp and figure things out. I think the
others, especially Caislyn, deserve to know what you found out.
They deserve to have a say in whether or not we all believe
Marc."

"And what if we wait, and something bad happens
anyway? I mean look at you. You just killed Marc before we could
hear him out completely. Are you going to explain that to
Caislyn?"

"Jax, I lost my temper. I've wanted to kill him for
years for what he did to Darren, your father! And then to find out
what he did to my own family, my sister." Seth shook his head. "It
was too much to hear him shouting that we needed to kill you and
Caislyn too. I've been going through hell not knowing where you
were. I can't even imagine a world without you in it."

“Yeah, well look at me, Seth!” Jaxon turned back to
him, eyes blazing with the black depths of her vampire side. “I can
smell the taint on his blood, and still it drives my blood lust.”
She looked down while trying to shake the hunger. “I can’t go back
there like this. All I can do is try to make things better for
them. If I can find this Caleb, I might be able to do that.”

***

CONSEQUENCES

"Caislyn, I think you need to take a break, you've
been at it a while now." Vesta's worried look just ticked Caislyn
off further. She still hadn't heard from anyone. It had been a
couple days now. There had been no word on whether Seth had found
Jaxon, and no word from Gregore since he left. It was driving
Caislyn crazy trying not to think of all the possible reasons for
not hearing from anyone. It was also like being thrown back in
time. She was suddenly the pariah no one wanted to help. It was
like her family disappearing all over again. Only this time it was
her husband and her best friend, and they both took off of their
own free will. She couldn’t blame either of them. Just meeting
Caislyn had brought nothing but misery to her friend, Jaxon. And
Gregore, he never deserved the kind of betrayal Caislyn heeped upon
his feet day in and day out by not being able to make a proper
decision. She had to stop herself from crying out in despair.
Instead she refocused her efforts on the magic she was trying to
perform.

"I'll take a break soon," she told her mom as she
continued to try to pull flower petals out of thin air.

"Didn't Ash tell you that your training will be a lot
easier out in nature than in this big metal box?"

"Yes, he did. And I believe in challenges. If I can
do it just as easily in this big metal box, then I can do it
anywhere. So, I am going to keep practicing in here. It's like
adding weight to a workout." Caislyn closed her eyes and took a
deep breath, trying to center herself again. She still heard when
Vesta left the RV. A couple minutes later the RV door opened again,
Caislyn assumed it was her mother coming back in and continued her
training. She was so close to being able to pull a flower, or at
least a petal out of Faerie. There it was. She reached out, into
the beyond. It was the place that lay in between the worlds, the
thin veil that separated the lands of the Fey from the mortal
world. She reached her hand through the beyond and into Faerie,
touching one of those gorgeous emerald flowers. Slowly, she plucked
it and pulled it toward her. The flower pulled through the beyond,
an inch more and she would have it there with her in the RV.

Someone was now standing far to close to her, and she
began to lose her concentration. "No. No, no, no." Caislyn cried
out in frustration, as the flower was sucked back into the lands
beyond her reach. She opened her eyes to find that at least one
petal had detached itself and fluttered down into her lap.

She picked that petal up and brought it to her nose,
inhaling the exotic, spicy sent.

"Caislyn, you are wearing yourself out with this,"
came Ash's worried voice behind her.

"But look," she held up the petal as evidence, "I got
a petal through that time, it would have been the whole damn
flower, but you were distracting me back there."

"Yeah, well, I wish you could see yourself right now,
Cais. You don't look so good. Your mom came to find me. She said
you won't listen to reason. She thinks your gonna hurt the baby if
you keep this up."

"It doesn't matter anyway. Everything's wrong. This
life is wrong, can’t you feel it? I shouldn't have to be running
for my life from every one and every thing. I shouldn't have to
wonder why my best friend or my husband are gone, or when or if
they will be back. I shouldn't have to wonder who the father of my
baby is." Caislyn was shaking uncontrollably. The wall of emotions
she had been holding back with her devout training regime finally
broke and the only person there to witness it was Ash.

"Shhh," he cooed into her hair as he pulled her back
into him. She curled up into his lap, and let the sobs take her
over. "Caislyn, I'm sorry. I know at least part of that is my
fault, and I am so very sorry." Her only response was a whimper and
to curl up tighter into him.

~*~

They sat like that for a long time, while Ash let
Caislyn just cry it all out. He didn't even think of moving her
until the last hiccuping sob subsided to the slow, unsteady
breathing that told him she had almost worn herself out enough.
Before long, she was sleeping in his arms and he picked her up as
gently as he could, using a little magic to aid him so hat she
wasn't disturbed by the jostling movements. He took her back to the
bedroom and tucked her into the bed.

Ash looked down at her as he pulled the covers up
around her, and wished more than anything that he could snuggle in
beside her, and hold her until everything in her life was better.
He knew, though, that he was the cause of at least some of her
problems. He also knew that the best thing for her was for him to
keep his distance from now on. It would kill her if he disappeared
on her too, so he wouldn't do that, even though there was a chance
it would bring Gregore back to her. Ash had been searching for
Gregore since the damn fool left, but he had to give the witch
credit, he didn’t make it easy to find him.

It would not be a popular decision with those in
Faerie when they found out he was searching for Caislyn’s husband
to bring him back to her. He was giving up the fight for Caislyn,
for her magic, that the Fey so coveted now that she had received
the blessing. Ash didn’t care for the blessing, the magic, or any
of it. He did love Caislyn though, and he couldn’t stand seeing her
tear herself apart anymore.

~*~

It was morning again when Caislyn woke up alone in
the bed of the RV. She vaguely remembered being wrapped up in Ash's
arms, and then everything else was a blur. She was sure he was the
one that put her here though. His unique scent, the smell of Faerie
that ever clung to him, was still on the air. She got up and looked
around, finding no one, she went to the kitchenette to see if there
was something she could eat. All the training and emotion had taken
a toll on her body and she was feeling shaky.

Caislyn had just sat down to eat when a knock sounded
on the door to her RV. "Ugghh, who is it?"

"Caislyn, it's me, Sasha."

Caislyn got up and went to open the door, "hey,
Sasha, what's up?"

"I didn't want to bother you, but my da let me take a
tent of my own. It was Gregore's tent, before the wedding." He
sounded half apologetic to be admitting that. "He left some things
behind," Caislyn looked down, noticing for the first time that
Sasha had been holding a framed object. She knew immediately what
it was, and the thought that Gregore had left without it broke her
completely.

"Just put it over there," she motioned to the couch
and then she retreated to the bedroom without further word, her
breakfast and Sasha completely forgotten.