---Paige’s POV---
“Where did I learn the form of a flipping parrot?” I wondered out loud, well, at least in my mind and Luke managed a choked laugh as he shook his head. I dropped the bag slowly and landed on silver/black talons, the paws framed with orange red feathers.
“You’re not a parrot Paige.” Luke managed to choke out as I stretched my wings and craned my head to have a look at them. They too were red, inconspicuously blending in with hints of yellow and orange towards my body, a bright red at the feather tips.
I flapped them a few times and widened my eyes when the air shimmered slightly, like the reflection above the road on a hot summer’s day. What the…
“What am I? How can I learn a form without knowing it or the animal I’ve become?”
People were gathering around, including the hunters with Daniel up front. He was staring at me, wide-eyed and mouth gaping like all of his men. I faintly heard Luke discussing something with Alpha Jackson, frowning and shaking his head as he looked at my form before Jackson stepped forwards.
“I think I have an explanation for this, if I may?” He asked, to which I nodded slowly. Jackson slowly walked around me, stepping over extremely long tail feathers as he took my form in. “You see Paige, what happened now isn’t uncommon for your...condition.” He stated while he tensed slightly, deliberately stopping himself from saying what he wanted.
When Luke shot him and then Daniel a look, I realized what he meant and reached out with my mind to talk to him, knowing that the hunters couldn’t hear us then. “So, this is part of being pregnant? And what am I?” I fired question after question until Jackson and Luke laughed and shook their heads.
“First of all, you’re a Phoenix; how you learned that form was through seeing it recently and through your pregnancy.” I nodded slowly while thinking back to where I had passed Alexis’ room and watched the Phoenix from that movie. At least I looked better than that one.
“Why does me being pregnant have anything do to with it?” I asked, slowly processing the information. Jackson shuffled on his feet before he sighed and turned towards the hunters. “If you’ll excuse us but we need to have a conversation in private without you guys hovering around us. I know you said we can trust you but until we have proof of that….” Jackson trailed off, having raised his hand mid speech to silence Daniel when he wanted to protest.
Daniel sighed but nodded his head with understanding in his eyes, mixed with a bit of regret before he turned and walked away, motioning towards his men to follow him. They did, but couldn’t stop themselves from shooting the occasional glance over their shoulders at me.
When they were a fair distance away, Jackson turned back around and sighed. “Look, I think its save to say that you’ll have more then one child and one of them has the Pure Shifter gene. It’s because of the fact that you carry one or more shifter/werewolf pups in you that caused this.”
My eyes widened even more before the shock forced me to shift back, leaving me with a reddish cloth over my limbs. “I…How….what do…you mean?” Jackson sighed again and dropped himself to the ground, patting the floor to indicate that I better sit down for this one. I slowly followed his example while Luke and Isabella walked towards us.
“You see, you are already strange under the soulshifters; a mix between Gifted and Pure. So naturally, you’ll give those genes to your children. Now, with the werewolf gene mixed in them, we’ll have to wait and see which trait is more dominant then the other one. But I can say that at least one child has inherited the Pure trait.”
My mind grew blank while my hand traced my stomach. Multiple kids at once, and they may be werewolves with shifter traits or shifters with werewolf traits? Blinking rapidly, I looked at Jackson and asked, “But how is it possible that I was able to learn the Phoenix form? You said it yourself that it takes Pure shifters months, even years to learn a mythological form and I did it in the timespan of ten minutes after that movie.”
That caused a frown on Jackson’s face as he nodded slowly to himself, rubbing his thumb over his bottom lip in thought. “I belief that the child that has the Pure shifter trait, will have the Phoenix as its original form, hence why you learned it so quickly. At this moment, there isn’t just one soulshifter in your being, there are multiples.” I nodded at that, trying to process everything.
A hand reached out to mine and I smiled warmly at Isabella when she sat down beside me and pulled me in a hug. “Don’t overthink everything my dear. It will all turn out perfectly, you’ll see. Now, all you need to do is fly back to the others and go find your parents. I can’t wait to meet them!” She gushed smiling brightly.
I smiled with her for a moment but then it dropped when I realized that I had to go back and face Jacob now. My heart ached, as I didn’t know what to do; other than the werewolves, my kind couldn’t reject their mates, especially after the bond had been completed. Doing so would destroy your own soul, since it was intertwined with your mate, thus resulting in instant death.
“Then don’t.” Luke said, shocking me slightly until I realized that I had spoken out loud, again. Irritated with myself, I ground out, “If this keeps happening, I’m going to get really annoyed, especially if I’m thinking about things I don’t want anyone to find out.” I stated out loud, causing Luke, Isabella and Alpha Jackson to chuckle before I looked up at Luke.
“What did you mean by that?”
He shuffled slightly and looked down at me as he stood up and started pacing. “Well, it seems that Jacob’s possessive traits got the best of him, which doesn’t excuse his actions.” He clarified, his eyes showing me that he resented Jacob for what he has said and done. I nodded slowly, indicating that he could continue while I took a deep breath of the fresh air, which was delicately scented with a hint of fresh wildflowers.
Luke closed his eyes slightly before opening them again. “I think I might have a way to get through Jacob’s head but it will be hard. For the both of you. Especially since you’re pregnant and his wolf knows now. I suggest that you handle Jacob according to the situation but if his wolf takes control, you can interact with his wolf.”
“Agreed.” I nodded, knowing that his wolf loved me no matter what and had wanted me by his side from the beginning. Raising an eyebrow, I leaned back slightly and asked, “So, what did you have in mind?”
---Jacob’s POV---
My wolf was getting more and more restless the longer Paige stayed away but as he pointed out to me, he was even more unsettled with the fact that I had no idea how to win her back. I soon realized that Paige would need a lot of proof and time to convince herself that I wasn’t going to be an insensitive jerk anymore.
I was in wolf form now, trying to kill time since we couldn’t move away from this spot until Paige comes back. Lizzie and Beth were both drawing small circles on the map; their little test with their pendulums resulted in several ‘hotspots’ like they called it, indicating that on those circles, a soulshifter’s energy had build up.
Sniffing the ground slightly, I looked up when large paws walked my way. Nick huffed as he dropped himself by my side, his eyes fixed on the ground while his brows furrowed in thought.
“I think I’m going to give Paige control over the pack and this group until I earned her trust back.” I confessed to Nick, watching him as his head shot up to look intently at me. “Really?” He asked slowly, causing me to shrug. “Paige is right; I have been too prideful, possessive and jealous to think straight, let alone guide a pack. I need to focus on her first before focusing on the others. Unless she doesn’t want to guide the group.”
“Then what?” Nick asked attentively, watching me as I paced in front of my tent as I picked up Paige’s lingering scent. I sighed slowly before I lowered myself to the floor and looked him straight in the eye. “Until Paige comes back, you’re in charge of the group. You’re my Beta and I, as Alpha’s son, know that what I did to your sister was wrong Nick. I need to make up to her.” I whispered at the end.
But I need to know how…
Paige had confided her fears and trust-issues with me, so maybe I should confide my over-possessiveness and jealousy with her. One way or another, I had to show her that what I did was wrong and I wanted to regain her trust again.
The soft, distant sound of wings beating, along with feet rapidly thudding on the ground before Sean skidded to a halt, his face lifted to the sky with a soft smile on his face alerted me of Paige’s arrival. A bag fell out of the air before Paige’s hawk dropped through the foliage and spread its wings.
When she landed, the others went towards her while I hesitated on the outer edge, not knowing if she wanted to see me now or not. She shifted back and smiled at everyone as her eyes scanned the crowd. When they landed on me, her smile strained slightly, causing me to whimper before I lowered myself to the ground, being lead by my wolf.
Paige watched intently as I slowly crawled towards her in a submissive way as the others watched. Hell, I couldn’t care that I was being submissive, that Tyler was silently snickering because I was literally crawling to get in Paige’s good graces; she was worth it.
When I had made it to her feet and reached my head up to nuzzle her thigh, she sighed deeply whilst closing her eyes before reaching a hand out to pet my fur. A purring growl escaped me before I let out a soft whine while my wolf forced me to look up in her eyes, silently communicating with his eyes that he was sorry for what happened.
Something must have come through, because a smile ghosted over her face before she stroked my head once more. “I don’t blame your wolf Jacob, because I know its animal instincts and how hard they are to ignore. You on the other hand, should have used your brain and common sense instead of pointing fingers and making wild accusations.”
I whined and lowered my head, placing the top against her legs, knowing that she was right. Reaching out with my mind, I was relieved to find that her walls were down, but on the other side of those walls had been replays of the moment I found her; her happiness of finding out that she was with pups before it was shattered when I had accused her of cheating.
The sharp pain that had shot through her made me shiver with disgust for myself and whimpered again before saying “What I did was wrong, cruel even. We-I should have waited but my jealousy and possessiveness got the better of me. I can understand if you don’t love me anymore Paige. But I want to make it up to you…if you’ll let me.”
Paige sighed at my confession before she pinched my ear slightly. “Jacob… I might hate you more but I could never love you less.” With those words, she stepped towards our tent with the bag she had brought with me, leaving me slightly confused.
“Does that mean that she hates me or that she loves me?” I wondered out loud until a scoff by my side snapped me out of my thoughts. Nick was standing beside me and rolled his eyes, which was rather awkward in his wolf-form. “It means that whatever you do, she couldn’t stop loving you, idiot.”
That instantly lightened my mood, causing my tail to wag slightly before I helped the others to pack up. We needed to start traveling again so we could find Paige’s parents before the hunters or vampires did.
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“We’re getting closer; the tracks are still filled with their essence. They’re probably a day, maybe two ahead of us.” Lizzie stated softly as she held her opened hands above the animal tracks that walked side by side. All of us were relieved that Paige’s parents had decided to travel together instead of splitting up.
“I have a weird feeling.” Fawna suddenly stated as her hackles slowly raised up as she scanned the surroundings. Nick instantly stood by her side and looked around as well, his eyes turning black when his wolf pushed to the surface. “Why, what’s wrong?” He asked after making sure that nothing was coming after us.
Fawna shuffled uncomfortably before she said, “I find it strange that we haven’t heard anything of Lucius anymore. From all the years that I was his ‘mate’, if I had learned one thing, it is that he never gives up on what he wants. To not hear from him in any way at the moment is unsettling.”
The others grew wary as they nodded, slowly looking at the forest and the cliffs in the distance for themselves. “I see what you mean.” Paige nodded, looking at the others before she said, “What do you guys think of standing watch at night? If anything comes for us, we’ll be prepared that way.”
Everyone agreed and I offered to go first so the others could get their nights rest. Paige suggested that we should go in pairs, so if one of those on guard fell asleep, the other could wake him/ her up.
That’s why Paige and me were up while the others were asleep, sitting at the campfire to keep ourselves warm. She was still shivering from time to time before I stood up and ignored her little protests to pull her against my chest, covering her with a spare blanket in the process.
“I’ll probably be spending forever to make it up to you but you’re worth it Paige.” I murmured over her head after a while as we watched the fire crack and consume pieces of wood we added throughout the night. I held her closer and breathed her scent in, slightly smiling at the new scent that mingled with her own one.
“How are you feeling?” I asked softly when she didn’t respond to my earlier statement. She looked up with a confused frown but that cleared when I glanced at her stomach with a pointed look. Shrugging slightly, she said, “I feel normal actually. Sean had said that the pregnancy is in its early stages, so I don’t feel anything of it. And I talked about it with Alpha Jackson and Luke but neither of them have any information about this pregnancy.”
I swallowed slightly, my wolf instantly thinking about every disaster scenario that we couldn’t prevent. What if she lost the pups? What if she wasn’t eating right? Did she need more rest?
Paige’s muffled laughter snapped us out of our concerned thoughts to look at her; she was shaking her head slightly as she stared up at me, biting in her knuckles to hold down the laughter in an attempt to not wake the others. Her laughter only intensified with my confused stare until she pressed her mouth in the blanket to muffle the sound.
“You’re cute when you and your wolf worry about me Jacob but I’m fine. Could have done without the stress from today but I’m fine.” And with those words, the happy mood washed away and was replaced by a tenser atmosphere. I shivered slightly but not from the cold. I was angry with myself and wanted to beg for her forgiveness. Maybe she was better of with someone else, someone who could and would care for her without hurting her every time life threw them a curveball.
“Don’t you dare Jacob.” My head snapped up at her angry tone and I leaned back when she jabbed her finger in my chest with a scowl on her face. “Yes, you hurt me and yeah, I’m really angry with you at the moment but don’t you dare to reject me for my ‘happiness’ because it won’t do me any good. If you want to show me that you still love me then fight damn it!”
Hearing her curse shocked me slightly because she rarely ever cursed. But she was right, I was thinking about the cowards’ way out instead of fighting for her love. I nodded and said, “You’re right, I’m sorry. It’s just that…I don’t know what to do anymore. I never was the one to pursue; the girls always came to me. Now that I have to…I just don’t know how to start.”
Paige sighed slightly and shook her head. “Just follow your instincts and your heart Jacob. Whatever you think is good, go with it. But don’t you ever dare to let me go. I couldn’t even enjoy the ‘freedom’.” She said, making quote marks in the air as she bitterly said freedom.
My brows furrowed as I asked, “Why’s that?” I wished I didn’t ask though because Paige’s answer made my stomach knot up and twist painfully. “Because this, “She said while grabbing my arm, the one with the tribal tattoo mark from our mating, “proves that I mated to you Jacob, body and soul. You own my soul now and if you choose to reject me, you take my soul away from me.”
She took a deep breath and whispered, “The moment you reject me, I’ll die.” My wolf howled in my head as my arms clenched around her and I buried my nose in her hair, muffling a growl. I couldn’t think about that, wouldn’t think about her death. She was mine and I would fight for her in every possible way.
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