Oxygen

Chapter 11 - A kiss under the stars

"Yes!"I exclaim. "Come with me" Jordan says, and he puts all the food in a picnic basket, and leads me out the door. We walk past the car, and I realize what I'm wearing. Oh well.

We reach a small patch of grass, only a few meters from the house. Jordan gets a blanket out of the basket, red with white stripes on it. He lays it out neatly on the soft grass, and puts the basket on the corner of it.

"Sit down" he gestures, and I lie down on the blanket. He sits next to me, and turns onto his side, propping himself up on one elbow. I turn to replicate his position, facing his adorable eyes.

"Thank you for doing this" I say, smiling. "Of course" Jordan responds. "I want to make you happy, Fern" he says, romantically. I lift my hand and brush a hair away from his face. He lifts his hand and tucks my hair behind my ears.

"It's so beautiful" I say, staring up at the midnight blue sky, with the shining, twinkling stars. "Yea, it is" Jordan says, "But you are even more beautiful". I smile up at him. "Thank-you" I say.

He leans in closer and whispers to me "I've been dying to do this". I look at him,confused. He places a hand on my waist, and then pulls me in. "I'm going to kiss you now", he decides. I smile and whisper back, getting closer and closer to him. "Hmmm, okay then" I say, and wrap my hand around his neck.

I sit less than an inch from his chest, as he leans in towards me, kissing me softly. I wrap my other arm around his neck, and tuck at his soft blond hair. Wow.

He continues the kiss, more tenderly now, and smiles as I tickle his ears. He bites my lip, and I burst with laughter as he does so. When we pull away, I can't help but want to kiss him again.

"The bonding thing is gonna make this stuff harder to resist" Jordan whispers. "So we'll just have to have picnics more often" I conclude. Jordan laughs at this, but nods.

After a while we eat some of the food together. Chocolate covered strawberries, mini sandwiches, and bacon strips. It's all so delicious. I feed some of the last strawberry to Jordan, and eat the rest myself. He puts a dot of whipped cream on my nose, smiling, and I reach my tongue out to lick it off, laughing with him.

I help Jordan pack up when we're finished. I wrap the blanket around my torso and carry it inside, while Jordan takes the basket.

We dump the things in the kitchen and I go to the bathroom to brush my teeth. Jordan goes into the bedroom to change.

When I come out, breath smelling like mint, I get in the bed, and wait for Jordan. When he comes out, he's wearing Calvin Klein boxers, and damn he looks so good.

Jordan hops in the bed with me, and snuggles up as close as he can get. He wraps his arms around my torso and falls asleep quickly. I can't help but fall asleep just as fast, no thanks to the bond.

We are into stage two of the bonding; having dreams of each other. When stage three begins, we will be completely in love, and I think that will be coming soon.

Once stage three is complete, we will be together forever. I'm so overwhelmed by all of this, and I'm so happy that I've literally found the man of my dreams.

•••

The entire area is covered in snow. I look around, and see many people gathered here, but not in a happy sense. Around me there is Jordan, and a lot of his family members, as well as a few people I've never seen before.

And in the distance, there are a lot of nasty looking people, along with Natalie. They must be the Summer's.

Jordan stands dominantly in front of me, and yells across the stretch. "You won't take her!". What is going on?

A large man, maybe in his forties, bellows with a deep voice across to us. "You and what army?" He laughs, with an evil tone to his voice.

Someone stood behind me comes and stands next to me. "You will never win this! You're never going to get Jordan to bond with your kind!" The person walks forward, slowly but surely.

"Let me show you" she says, with an innocent voice. "Come over then" the man says, and the girl takes her small figure across the field of snow to the man.

She reaches out to him, taking his hand, and everything goes silent.

After a few minutes, a vision flashes in front of my eyes. I only see it for a second, but it looks like a big war.

I begin to look worriedly at Jordan, although I don't know why. He takes my hand as we walk forward.

•••

When the dream is over, I feel Jordan shaking me, yelling for me to wake up.

"Are you okay?" He asks, when I open my eyes and sit up. "Yea, yea. What the hell was that?" I ask, wishing for an explanation.

"I don't know what that was, but it wasn't good" Jordan replies, shaking his head. "All I know is that my sister, Emily, was showing Alec a vision".

"Who's Alec?" I ask. "Alec is Natalie's father. He's the leader of the Summers clan". I nod, learning more from every question I ask.

"Who's your leader?" I ask. It's always good to know. "Our leader, is my uncle Carl. He's the strongest one, we'll definitely be safe around him".

I nod my head, trying to make sense of everything. I need to be strong, for myself and for Jordan.

"We should do a bit of combat training today" Jordan suggests. "Why combat training?" I ask.

"My father taught me when I was fourteen. Basically it's preparation for when we get our abilities, so that we can fight and everything. The Summers are going to come after us, whether we are bonded completely or not. So we should be prepared".

"Okay" I agree, a bit excited for this. I've never learned to fight. I even missed self defense classes at primary school, thanks to my parents taking the family on a vacation.

"Let's do it" I say, definitely pumped for this. Although I'm not very fit, if fit at all, I want to learn. I want to be able to protect Jordan as much as I can protect myself.

I seem to care so much more for Jordan over the past week, since we found out about the bonding. The clan thing is making me more determined to fight as well.

Maybe I'm not the only Ashford still out there? My parents never talked to any other family, which is why I was adopted. Hopefully this won't effect anyone else from my clan, if there are any.

I hop out of bed, holding onto Jordan's hand, dragging him from the room. I'm ready for this. I'm ready for change.