The Professors Memory

Chapter 30

Olive woke to the sound of birds singing, the warmth of the day swarmed around her. She was somewhere soft, a light blanket laid over her body. The smell of something similar to lavender lingered then something sweetly baked roused her. She felt like the smell could lift her into the air and carry her toward the source, it smelled that good.

'Good morning sleepy head.'

The voice was feminine and familiar. Olive fluttered her eyes open to see Islana smiling at her as she sat on the bed beside her. The beautiful woman wore a dress with a bodice that looked like a bone crushing corset, a gorgeous red that rustled with her movement. Islana could see the fear in Olive's eyes, she feared shape shifters. Phabel had been distraught all night long, the pain of having frightened Olive was breaking his world apart. His parents didn't know what to do about it. It wasn't common for the dark side of a shifter to come out easily, they had to have let the blood lust go too far or be pretty annoyed for it to happen. But last night, Phabel was livid. His beloved mate had been abducted by a crazy witch, she was nearly killed by a pesky cat and she had clearly had a rough introduction into a shifters abilities. His mounting anger had caused the monster to break free, for a brief moment he had barred his fangs to scare the cat off so that it would drop the mouse. Phabel had been fooled into thinking that the limp mouse in the cat's mouth was passed out but she was playing dead. And the monster that she saw in her mate was the reason she was trying to press herself into the headboard of the bed.

'You needn't fear shape shifters Olive, what you saw last night was a rare occurrence.'

Olive looked at Islana, thinking it was rather dubious.

'For that level of darkness to come out one of two things needs to happen. Either the shifter has gone into uncontrolled blood lust, which I might add takes a rather long time to get to or the shifter is enraged. I'm not talking plain old angry, I'm talking serious blood boiling anger. When Phabel found you in the mouth of that cat, he thought you were almost dead. He was angry that he was foolish enough to leave you alone in his office resulting in your abduction. It didn't help that as they drew closer to you, Josie could hear your thoughts about the fake Phabel who had been rather rough in handling you.'

Islana smiled softly, almost a sympathetic smile. 

'Josie is a phoenix, I believe you have met Miranda?'

Olive nodded.

'Sisters. So of course she was able to hear your thoughts, found the memories of what had happened to you and told Phabel. He was appalled that someone had put their hands on you and to make it worse, they portrayed themselves as him, pretending to be a violent person. She assured him that you had figured it out pretty quickly but it didn't matter to Phabel, someone had hurt you. Then to see the limp little mouse in the cats mouth, well, you can imagine what he thought.'

Olive nodded again.

'His anger came from these thoughts, all of his fears about losing you, never having you in his life again, his own stupidity.' she shrugged 'It boiled over and allowed for the darkness to control him for a brief moment. It is rare, I promise.'

'Ok.' 

'How are you feeling?'

'Incredibly refreshed, like I have slept for a thousand years.' she paused 'I didn't sleep for a thousand years did I?'

Islana laughed.

'No my dear, you slept for approximately nine hours.'

Olive frowned as she tried to figure out the timing.

'Do not compare hours from your home to the hours here, we vary greatly which I can assure you can be a real pain. It is eleven am here but in your own realm it would be about three in the afternoon. See how crazy it is?' she grinned.