Aislinn blinked several times as she registered what was going on. She lifted a hand to look at it, and found it was her own, tiny hand once more. Next, she realized she was in a man's strong embrace, and could hear her name being called.
"Ash? Ash! Aislinn! Can you hear me?" Ryan called frantically.
Aislinn looked up into the face of her closest companion, seeing his forehead creased with worry, and his eyes filled with fear. Realizing that something must be wrong, she sat up straighter in his arms and looked around.
"What is it? What's going on?!" She demanded, searching for the threat. Feeling Ryan sag with relief, she looked back at him, still confused.
"You're back! You scared us" Ryan said before looking up at his mother and Drystan.
Aislinn was surprised to see the vampire and Rei were so close, crowded around Ryan and looking down at her. "What's going on?" She asked again.
"You tell us" Rei answered, shaking her head. "You gave us all quite the fright, missy. You suddenly just...Lost consciousness, it seemed. Your eyes were open, though...Are you feeling all right? Are you hungry? Ryan wasn't making you overdo it with training, was he?" She demanded, firing off questions anxiously, her maternal desire to protect Aislinn kicking in strong.
Shaking her head, Aislinn sat up of her own volition, gently pushing Ryan away so he could see she was alright. "I'm fine" she assured everyone.
"What happened, though?" Ryan demanded. "It seemed like there was no warning, had you been feeling okay? You should have told me if you weren't up for training" he admonished her, mostly out of his own guilt. Whether his mother had voiced it or not, they were both concerned about the same thing; that he'd inadvertently pushed Aislinn too hard.
"No, no! I'm fine, and I was fine, honest!" Aislinn insisted, looking from Rei to Ryan so they could see her sincerity. "It was...Something that's never happened before. I don't really know what happened, or why" she said with a shrug.
"But something did happen" Drystan said flatly. He had stepped back a bit to let Rei and Ryan fret over Aislinn; but, was still watching her closely.
"Something..." Aislinn mumbled, a bit embarrassed. Rei and Ryan knew about her dreams; however, it had been years since she'd had to tell anyone new. She was suddenly worried how crazy she'd sound, and what her new friend might think of her.
"Well?" Ryan prodded impatiently, wanting to know what it was so he could protect her from it in future.
"It was kind of like my dreams" she said sheepishly. "But different."
Rei looked at Drystan, suddenly all too aware that an outsider was there. She wasn't sure he should be privy to Aislinn's oddities, in case he planned to use them against her somehow. Before she could suggest they talk later, though, Drystan spoke up.
"Dreams?" He asked.
"Yeah...I have lots of dreams...I've learned how to stop them mostly; but, sometimes I can't" she said with a shrug, hoping that sounded mostly normal.
"But this one?" Ryan demanded, not thinking about Drystan being privy to what was happening with Aislinn. He was hyper-focused on her now, and only her.
She shrugged again, trying once more to play it cool. "It was just different...I mean, usually they're not in the middle of the day, after all. And usually I've been able to like...See things as if I was an outsider, I guess? Not someone involved...But this time, I wasn't in control of my body...Actually, it wasn't even my body. I think I was seeing it from some man's point of view, so I was stuck doing what he was doing" she said, mumbling the last part as if it was the most absurd part of it all.
Ryan frowned, breaking his focus from Aislinn finally to look at his mother. Rei, though, was still looking at Aislinn with concern.
"Tell us what you remember" Rei suggested gently.
"Well..." Aislinn began hesitantly, glancing at Drystan's emotionless face. Per usual, his eyes gave away his emotions, and she could see he was curious; but, she didn't see any negativity or judgment, and that gave her the push she needed to continue. "Like I said, it was like I was in someone else's body...I couldn't move of my own volition, I just had to watch. It was a man's body, I could tell from his big hands and his voice...He had a gold ring on his left hand, it had a logo or emblem or something engraved on it. Anyways, he was inspecting a rogue it looked like...Well, its mouth anyways. The rogue had that device in it, and the man said 'now we can see what these jaws can do'. And then I woke up" she finished, looking from Drystan to Rei, then to Ryan.
"Well then..." Rei said quietly, not sure what to make of this information.
"It's a bit weird that we were talking about this with the vampire, and suddenly she has some mid-day dream out of nowhere" Ryan said to his mother through mind-link.
"You think he's the cause?" She asked, wanting to be sure she understood.
"Pretty damn convenient timing, wouldn't you say? Maybe Ash told him about her dreams, and he did something to her. We already know he works with witches, maybe they concocted something for him" he suggested.
"Maybe; but, maybe we should find out more before jumping to conclusions. If nothing else, I think she'll defend him if we start accusing him without evidence" Rei reasoned.
Ryan just gave a slight nod of his head in understanding, then returned his attention to Aislinn. She was now speaking with Drystan, who had apparently asked her a question about the ring she'd seen in her dream.
"I know I've seen it somewhere before" she said, scrunching her brow as she tried to remember.
"Did it look like...A sword, with a howling wolf on either side, facing away from it?" Drystan asked, ignoring the gasp of recognition that came from Rei.
"Yes! That's exactly what it was! How did you know?" Aislinn asked excitedly, still not capable of recalling where she'd seen that symbol before.
"If it was on his left hand..." Rei said softly, as if afraid to continue. With a steadying breath though, she did. "Then it's the Alpha King, as only the King can wear the Royal Crested ring on his left hand. All former Kings wear it on their right hands..."
Drystan nodded in agreement, then looked Aislinn in the eyes as he said "So, Aislinn, the eyes that you saw through were those of His Majesty, King Darius Lupinus — King of the werewolves."
YOU ARE READING
Veritas
WerewolfBook 1 of 2 Aislinn Jones has had a unique problem for as long as she can remember: her dreams. They are vivid and haunting, and plague her whenever she tries to rest. Her father's solution was to train her to a point of exhaustion where she was pas...
