Sweeter Tease (Sequel To Sweet Tease)

Chapter Thirty-Nine

{Ichure's Point of View}

Very few things in my life have been as stressful as what lay in front of me.  I would need all the help I could get with this new ritual.  Binding free souls to things without souls was easy enough, but unbinding souls to beings they've been bound to with souls already?

I hated it already.

Thankfully, Xia had called a few of her friends to help.  Sure, as the Supreme I had a great amount of power (I was the strongest, after all), but the amount of magical energy it would take to separate the powerful soul from the soul it's bound itself to?  I would drain my magical reserves and be without magic for weeks.  Necromancers were the best help I could ask for, honestly.  They were already familiar with how the soul worked and how to bind and unbind.

"Xia, did your friends give you and estimate on how long it would take them to get here?"

Xia looked up from the book she was reading and stared at me.  She put her fingers in her book to hold her place and looked out the window.  She narrowed her eyes at the skyline and then she nodded.  Her attention turned back to me and she spoke.

"Grand-mère (grandma in French) will be here within the hour.  We don't have a Supreme, but she's the most powerful of us.  Reagan and Max will be here in about two hours, maybe less.  They're not as powerful as Grand-mère, but we'll need them too.  They're experts in moving a soul from one body to another.  It's beautiful to watch them work."

I nodded, but didn't say anything else.  It would be interesting to see them in action, although I could almost say with certainty that they had never seen of done anything like this before.  With a stretch and a yawn, I flopped onto the couch I was sitting on, snuggling into the cushions.  Xia tsked at me, but went back to ignoring me otherwise.

I woke a few hours later to hushed conversation and someone standing over me.  My brain hadn't caught up to my eyeballs yet, so my first reaction was to scream at the top of my lungs.  Xia and the two people she had been talking with jumped over the back of the couch, hiding. The woman standing above me nodded before she started laughing.

"Not the worst greeting I've ever gotten, but I'll take it.  Quite a set of lungs on that one, enfant (child in French)."

Xia poked her head up from behind the couch, her eyes now taking in the situation.  Grand-mère stood over me with her hands behind her back while I laid pressed against the back of the couch.  My eyes finally adjusted and I noticed that the woman standing above was grinning at the four of us.  Without promoting, Xia started laughing, which had Reagan and Max joining her.  I grumbled, but they continued.

I opened my mouth to say something, but was interrupted by a handful of snarling half transformed werewolves bursting the front door open.  The five of us looked over to them and they looked something fierce.  They looked around for the source of the screaming and when they didn't see a threat, their eyes turned to me.

"Ah, apologies.  My guest startled me.  There is no threat."

The largest werewolf of the group, a red-furred brute looked at me a moment longer before he huffed and shook his head, churring in his amusement.  His fluffy red tail wagged behind him and when he finished his laughing, he spoke.

"That's good, Madame Ichure.  The boys and I were trainin' when we hear yer scream.  Wanted to make sure everythin' was okay before we went back ta trainin'."