"Brat."
Kimari's shoulders sunk as she sat in front the Drama Queen, reminding herself she had to be polite to the man, no matter how much his presence grated on her nerves. It probably had something to do with the fact he kept calling her a brat, she mused, answering him in the next breath. "What is it?"
"You have an incredibly high pain tolerance, don't you?" He stared down at her, tweezers carefully removing shards of the coffee table from the back of her head. They'd been lodged in her skin for a little while, and it had started to get quite uncomfortable. Unfortunately for her, the recently named Drama Queen had been the only one with the necessary skills to remove them. "You haven't even flinched."
She rested her head on her hand, ignoring the sudden sting as he finished prying the last pieces of glass from her skin. Fingers sparked, a dull green light appearing over her suddenly. The light was soothing, the tingle of her scalp and the slight tugging sensation pulling at her head telling her the cuts were in the process of being healed.
How she loved healing magic...
It was always handy, though more often than not Jo didn't bother to use it one her – insisting it was her own fault for getting into the mess in the first place.
Kimari didn't have an argument for that logic.
"It's one of my more redeeming qualities," she mumbled, resting her head on her hand whilst she waited for him to finish. She didn't like sitting still for too long, but Jo had helpfully gotten her over the habit of bouncing around like a bunny on caffeine when it came to studying... with a few well placed headlocks here and there.
She respected those.
"Probably the only one that'll help you if you somehow manage to become an Enforcer," he replied, eyeing Jo as she came out of the kitchen with another two mugs. "The rest of them just make you even more of an insufferable brat."
Her hands twitched, her mind silently urging her to wring his neck, but the instincts ingrained into her body told her it'd be inadvisable to try. "How long is this going to take?" she asked. "I don't know how much longer I can put up with you."
Without strangling you, went unsaid.
His hands dropped into his lap in the next second. "All done," he said, "and you could try to be a bit more grateful, brat."
Kimari scowled as she turned to face him. "And you could try to stop calling me a brat."
"And we all know how likely that'll happen," Blaine mumbled, winking at her and Kimari found herself liking the quirky blonde. She'd take him over the man behind her any day.
"I saw that, Blaine." The Drama Queen glowered.
"Kim, I'm going to take the other muppets back to their homes," Jo said, placing a mug of peppermint tea in front of her. It was her favourite tea, so she knew she was being bribed to keep the damages to a minimum. "Try not to destroy the house, okay?"
"I won't," she grumbled, plonking herself down on the sofa furthest away from her least favourite person in the house.
If he called her a brat one more time...
"We'll keep an eye on her, don't worry," he said, shadowed green eyes tracking her across the room as she plucked a book from the coffee table. "How much trouble do you think she can get into with all of us here?"
Kimari's eyebrows rose. She couldn't wait to test that theory out.
Once she'd finished her peppermint tea, of course.
Jo mirrored her expression as she stood in the archway between the living room and the corridor. "We'll see," she said, walking out the door in the next second, leaving her alone in a room with the Drama Queen, a woman named Isobel, and a seemingly nice person called Blaine. Rather than talking to them, as any other polite twelve-year-old would do, she ignored them – settling instead for pushing the unease they brought her to one side. She wrenched open the book, blinking as she found herself nose to book with her favourite reading material.
Poisons and how to use them.
That was something she was looking forwards to learning more about when she finally made it to Kasari, the City of Enforcers.
She sipped on her tea, sighing in contentment as she blocked the rest of the world out until she finished drinking her tea. The rune etched into the base of the cup kept it at a nice and toasty temperature, so it was a good half hour before she finished the delicious amber drink. Kimari wasn't worried in the slightest about her missing mother.
There wasn't anything dangerous between her and the homes of her other three students, the only people she imagined to be a danger to Jo sitting in the exact same room as her.
She'd covertly kept an eye on them, not liking the thought of them around Jo when she was out in the cold wintery night.
Kimari at least had her pack to rely on if things got sticky.
Jo didn't.
Nervousness gnawed at her gut, instincts screaming at her to keep her guard up and protect her pack... and that included Jo. Her mother didn't know, but she'd always considered her a member of her pack.
Still, she accepted that Jo could look after herself – very well if the events of last spring had been any indicator. She was a fully trained Enforcer, capable of taking on six fully-armed idiots blindfolded, as she'd proven that very day.
Kimari had worried slightly less about her from then on.
Only slightly.
She shook her head, quietly telling herself her twisting stomach was likely to do with the fact she knew she'd be leaving soon. She'd be leaving her pack, and everything she knew.
But it'd be worth it.
She needed to get stronger.
The little voice was always there, urging her forwards... telling her she needed to take her place in the world, and that place wasn't behind a computer screen.
Not that she could use them much anymore.
Jo had restricted her usage of the little machine after that disastrous holiday when she'd somehow gotten extremely lost and accidentally ventured a little too far into a very secure system. All the knowledge she'd obtained from that had been worth all the scolding... besides, her mother had all but taken her to ground after that incident. Nobody aside from Jo knew of her infamous deed.
Apparently some rather unfriendly people, and possibly some friendly ones too, would be after her if they knew what she could do.
Not that it'd matter.
The only thing she'd used to gain access to the computer had been her common sense rather than some incredible hacking or coding skills. It was hardly her fault there'd been a load of confidential documents stored on that particular machine. Plus they'd upgraded their defences after being 'beaten' by a nine-year-old.
According to Jo, they were the reason she had to wear thin gloves whenever she went near a keyboard. She'd decommissioned every computer she'd ever touched after being dragged to their base and inked with some seal which caused most technology to malfunction whenever she dared to touch it with her bare hands.
Besides, she could hardly say the gloves she wore weren't cool. Whatever seal had been used only really affected her fingertips, so that was all there pretty much were to the black gloves. There were the fingers, and an elasticated band around her wrist, but both the back of the hand and the palm material had been removed.
Sure, they'd never keep her hands warm, but she was hardly going to wear them outside. She had actual fluffy gloves for that, and a nice pair of black leather ones too. Those had been Riko's grandmother's present to her, for when she and her son made their way to the City of Enforcers.
They'd have to walk all the way there, navigating their way through forests, rivers and rocky hills. It would be their first test as little baby Enforcers in the making... and hopefully not their last.
Panic surged through her, her teeth baring as a growl rumbled deep inside her chest. The tenuous link she had between her and Maya was humming, and that was never a good thing. Her link with Maya was the strongest out of her pack, and there was usually never any communication between them aside from when they met up. Her bonds with her wolves weakened with distance, the static crackling in her ears, making her wince as the white wolf tried to set up a connection with her.
She clapped her hands over her ears, falling off the armchair and onto her knees, ignoring the faces swimming in and out of focus. Her vision flickered, darting between the living room and a bloody scene in the forest.
Her wolves were being attacked.
The realisation made her snarl, the link snapping into place like a thread latching on to another, the stream of Maya's consciousness linking with Kimari's own.
She could feel the link with the other wolf – eerily similar to Maya in terms of intelligence – but it felt darker... yet also incredibly familiar.
It made something stir deep inside her, like a cat stretching after a long nap, an odd hum buzzing through her mind, resonating with the new wolf.
And it scared her.
She snarled, and Maya snarled with her, claws out, teeth snapping ferociously. Like hell she'd show any weakness here. Not in front of her pack. She was their Alpha, and she had to act like it. So there'd be no mercy for the horrifying wolf she could see with Maya's eyes.
It—no—he, Kimari realised, was standing in front of them in all his wolfish glory. He was taller than Maya, quite considerably, and would stand in line with her own chest if she were actually there in the clearing herself.
"Hellhound," Maya snarled through the tenuous link, grey eyes boring into the reptilian red ones.
Kimari blinked, staring intently at what Maya had called a hellhound, eyeing the black fur and inky claws... but always being sucked back into his eyes. She'd seen them before briefly, alongside Riko, though it didn't explain the sense of belonging she felt. Those eyes... They were familiar to her in a way she couldn't explain, and it terrified her. It was probably something to do with those years, but she was scared to find out the answer because something told her the hellhound wasn't supposed to be there.
"Little wolf," the voice which rumbled through their minds was mocking, and Kimari knew if she had hackles they'd be raised. "You should know better than to pick a fight with me..."
"You won't be challenging her to a fight," Maya spat, evidently more clued in than Kimari as to what the creature was there for.
"Oh, so it's a female who leads this pack?"
A thrill of fear ran through her. His words left no doubt in her mind... the hellhound was there to challenge her, by the ancient rite which had existed in wolf packs for hundreds of years. The Rite of Challenge.
He wanted to take control of her pack and become their new Alpha.
Kimari snarled. Like hell that'd happen, she told herself, envisioning all the ways she could take down the so-called hellhound. Try as she might, she couldn't really deny what Riko always told her – she was a very violence-orientated person.
"What of it?" Maya's reply held no fear.
"Well," the smooth male voice made her shudder. "She must be fairly intelligent to lead a sweet little wolf like you. I wonder how long it will take for her to realise some of her pack are in pain." He snapped his teeth viciously in her direction, and Kimari knew she couldn't stay quiet any longer.
She reached for the link already formed between Maya and the hellhound, snapping a weak link of her own into place.
"If you want to challenge me, little hellhound," she purred, using every tactic in the book to draw his focus solely onto her. She was the Alpha. It was her fight – her duty to protect what she called her own. "Then come and find me... if you can."
Kimari yanked her mind back, snapping the link like a twig, smiling slightly as she heard the roar of challenge, and then she was back in her body.
Only it wasn't where she'd left it.
Nope.
She was on top of one of her guests, the blonde one named Blaine – if she remembered correctly – and her hand was wrapped around his throat. Her other hand scraped against the floor, nails lengthened in her rage.
How dare that pathetic hellhound attack her pack?
She no longer cared about how much his presence unnerved her, or the fact the damned hellhound was no doubt hunting for her at that very moment. Her mother often told her she had bucketloads of courage, and an iron will to boot, so it was hardly a surprise she managed to look so outwardly unfazed.
Even as she realised she was somewhat strangling the poor man underneath her.
Though he didn't look too bothered by it, in fact—
A hand flicked in front of her face, faster than she could blink, and even with her abysmal magic detection ability she could feel the power building. Her gaze fixed on the finely shaped fingers, oddly transfixed as they snapped together with a definitive click.
Magic tickled her senses, an odd, comforting scent she couldn't quite place drifting through the air as her eyelids drooped. The world dimmed, her grip slackening, and then the world turned black, her ears just about catching the last dribbles of the conversation going on above her as she slowly nodded off to sleep.
"Wake her up." Her warm pillow vibrated. "She wasn't deliberately attacking me."
"What?"
"Her eyes were unfocused."
Kimari could hear the eyebrow raise.
"So she's on drugs?" a voice she recognised as belonging to the Drama Queen spoke. "That explains a lot..."
"No, you bloody idiot," Blaine said, folding his arms, the sleeves of his jacket brushing against her hair. "Her mind was elsewhere, and it was likely the hellhound's fault. Jeez. You really need to start figuring these things out for yourself."
"What is it with people insulting me today?"
Kimari grumbled something inaudibly as she curled into the warmth, wondering if it was what an electric blanket felt like.
And if that was the case, where could she get one from?
All too soon though, her sleep was interrupted, an odd tingling in her head as she forced her eyes open upon hearing the command. "Wake."
Green eyes met hers, shadowed by the blue hood he seemed to be oddly insistent on keeping up.
"What?" she grumbled, rubbing her eyes as she sat up slowly, blinking as she realised her cushion was none other than Blaine himself.
"What did that hellhound want with you?" Arms folded, a demanding stare boring into her. "More to the point, how did you even get in contact with it in the first place?"
"That lovely hellhound wants to challenge me for my Alpha status, apparently," she said, yawning tiredly.
"Alpha? You?"
She stomped her foot, indignation plastered over her face. "Don't sound so damn sceptical!"
The air buzzed around her, and she could feel the tendril of the Drama Queen's immense power prodding gently at her own. Sounds of metal chains shifting rang through her head, magic stirring uncomfortably in her gut until he was done with his inspection. "Ah," he mumbled, nodding to himself. "Well, it certainly explains the short temper..."
"Stop antagonising the poor kid," Isobel said, sipping calmly at her tea as she waited in the corner of the room. "At least we know who our little hound is coming after."
"I suppose that makes our job of killing it a lot easier," he said, sitting down on the sofa, legs crossed over one another. "Oy, Isobel, keep an eye on the brat. She's pretty much our bait right now."
"You really know how to make a girl feel special," Kimari muttered, rubbing her temples. Linking over a distance took its toll on her, meaning she no doubt had a massive headache on the way. It was always worse when it came to linking with Maya too, and she was fairly sure it had something to do with that wolf's magic.
All living things had traces of magic, so it was hardly a surprise to find it in Maya, but hers had always felt light and airy... like a cool breeze on a hot summers day... and it reacted badly with her own.
Jo had said it was likely to do with their compatibility – whatever that meant – and that her own magic probably felt the complete opposite, not that Kimari could feel her magic.
Apparently she'd be learning that soon, especially when it came to elemental affinities.
Well, providing she made it to Kasari in one piece.
Isobel waved a hand in front of her face as she focused her attention on the sliver of Maya's magic which had trickled through their link. She needed to get rid of it, unless she wanted to have a fully blown migraine later. As it was, she was going to get a horrible headache no matter what, but the migraine she could avoid.
"Is the kid okay?" Isobel asked, interrupting her concentration yet again, and Kimari sighed.
Blaine chose that moment to wave another hand in front of her face. "Hey kiddo..." Worried blue eyes peered into her own which blinked slowly. "Are you okay?"
"She's spacing out," the Drama Queen muttered, evidently unimpressed.
"I'm fine," Kimari mumbled, feeling utterly drained, "but I could really use a good mug of tea..."
"I'll get you one," Blaine said, stepping towards the kitchen before he paused, waiting in front of the window. "Just wait there with Isobel."
Her shoulders sunk slightly, trying to focus on expelling the foreign magic from her system. "Fine."
The blonde smiled, taking another step towards the kitchen, but that was the last step he took, seeing as how the hellhound crashed through the window in the next second, clamping a set of razor-like teeth around his throat.