How To Tame Monsters

Chapter 1: Too fast, Too soon?

A/N: I hope you all enjoy it!

Cody's POV:

The weight of the bags in my hands helped to ground me at this moment. Reminding me that I was here and not in some awful place where we lose Nia because of a curse that we know nothing about.

Roger left and with one look at Auden, it was clear that what Roger said was true. Auden's jaw clenched, and his usually chocolate brown eyes were now nearly black like a raven's wings.

The palms of my hands tingle. I wanted to taste how he was feeling, maybe take the edge off a bit.

It felt a bit weird to tell them about my ability now. My eyes flickered over to Gannon taking in the worried look in his eyes, the tingles got worse.

I tightened my hold on the bags a bit as I spoke, "What's the method that you'll use?"

"A similar one that I've used plenty of times in the past. When Nia and Roger visited my shop, I was removing a curse on an", He paused looking for the right word, "Acquaintance of mine, I simply needed to touch the mark and slip some of my power into her to break it"

"Where is Nia's curse mark?", I asked as I placed the bags on the dresser next to the tea mugs.

"Inside her. On her cervix", Gannon answered as blood rose to my face at the thought of all the ways he could touch her there to break the curse.

"How the hell did a curse get there?", Nia asked as she walked over to me, digging through the bags looking for her food.

Her tone sounded way calmer than I thought it should. Aren't curses something that should be worried about?

"No idea", Gannon sounded frustrated as he answered her.

I tilted my head before I spoke without much thought, "I could find out using my time power, it would also give us more information on what the curse does, as well as who cast it and maybe why".

"If you use your time power won't those people come after you like a moth to a flame?", Auden growled the words out as he stalked over to me and wrapped an arm around me, pressing me against his heated body, "We can get the information another way right?"

"People are after you?", Nia echoed with shock in her voice and she pulled out her container of food.

"Yes. They came one night when my best friend June and I were having a sleepover at my house. Her parents and mine are close friends so we were all together, our family night every Friday. June and I were just about to go into the backyard to catch fireflies when these people broke in. Our parents tried their best to protect us, the most they did was buy us time to escape before they were captured. They used some type of gas that made my father and me too weak to use our time power. I tried so many times to go back and change that night but", I paused in my word vomit as tears dropped from my bowed head.

Nia wrapped her arms around me from behind, sandwiching me between them as I heaved a heavy sob.

I never told that story to anyone, never spoke the words out loud before.

"We'll think of something else. I don't ever want to put you in danger because of me" Nia mumbled against the back of my neck after I settled down.

"Plus I don't feel cursed at all. So there really isn't anything to worry about", Nia added as she leaned back from my neck speaking at her usual volume for our mates to hear.

A warm kiss pressed against my temple from Gannon before he spoke, "We can talk about our options more tomorrow. I think it's been a long night for all of us. Let's just relax as Roger said"