Mated

Nine

My eyes flew open. I stared at a cream ceiling that didn't match the wooden interior of the house, letting my eyes adjust. The bed beneath me was hard and uncomfortable. I lifted my head and realized I was in the infirmary where Colby was brought the night of his attack. Beds were in a perfect line next to me, better organized than the last time I was in here.

I felt something cool and plastic on my face and I reached up to feel it. It was an oxygen mask, and its tube snaked down the side of the bed. At the same time I managed to pull it off, the door opened and James and Evangeline walked inside. Evangeline sat down near my hips on the small cot and smiled meekly.

"Malia, how are you feeling?" she asked.

I sat up on my elbows and felt my chest. My lungs felt worn like I had run a mile, contrary to the normal in and out of my breathing and steady heart beat.

"Do you remember anything?" James stepped forward, the look on his face reflecting something unrecognizable. He pulled up a chair and sat down on the other side of me. When he leaned forward, locks of his hair fell in front of his face. I thought about the dream I had and tried to hold on to fragments of what I remembered.

"Just that we were in the library," I started, looking at him. "And then I felt like something hit me...and was trying to come through my chest and I couldn't breathe all of a sudden."

"Like someone hit you?" Eva asked.

"No, like something," I brought a hand to my temple when a memory of what I saw came back to me. I looked back and forth at them. "I don't know what it was but it kind of felt like...I smelled smoke...then I blinked and...I was somewhere else."

"What do you mean?" James pressed.

"I was in a dream but it wasn't like anything I've ever dreamt before. It was almost Renaissance-like and I was in another woman's body in the middle of a war between humans and werewolves. A girl appeared to be helping me— her escape, and then...that was it." Before I stopped talking, James and Evangeline looked at each other like they knew something I didn't.

"What?"

"I don't think it was a dream," Eva said, taking my hand in hers. Her fingers felt like they had been plunged in a bucket of ice. I recalled what Mike told me earlier about her and James and a wave of anger rose from within my wolf and I recoiled, pulling my hand away. "Please, let me," she reached for my hand again.

"Malia," James's dogmatic voice softened my wolf. "She's helping you." I let her take my hand again but couldn't help but glare at it like a little girl.

"What do you mean it wasn't a dream?" I asked.

"It was a vision of the past," she answered, closing her eyes and tracing swirls on my palm with her hand.

"What is she doing?" I whispered to James even though I knew she could hear me.

"Evangeline isn't just a healer. She can also break through your wolf's protective barrier when weakened and sense your deepest emotions," he said, focusing on her. "Emotions that even werewolves wouldn't be able to pull."

"Can she now?" I knew this wasn't the time to be snippy and uncooperative but I'd grown weary of hiding my uncertainty about her and him. James glanced at me. I knew he read between the lines.

"I can't feel anything.You're back in control," Eva opened her eyes, seemingly unfazed by my attitude and pulling away from me. "But you're okay, you aren't physically hurt. You can go to your room if you'd like. It's a little past midnight now."

She moved so I could get up from the bed and James stood too.

"You didn't tell me why I had this vision or why it felt so real." I told Eva. She opened her mouth to answer but James answered instead.

"We're still figuring it out."

"Okay." I walked around him and opened the door into the hallway. I shut it behind me and passed the computer room and up the flight of stairs leading out from the basement.

Why were the two of them always so secretive? Did he even plan on telling me about his relationship with her? Since when do I have visions? Something told me they knew exactly what had happened and just didn't want to tell me tonight. Did they really not understand it themselves? Tomorrow, I needed to find the answers to my questions even if it meant going back to James's study. I needed to find out who Diana Norbury was.

The following days after the incident in the library, James and Evangeline left early to visit neighboring packs to find out their plans for handling the Rogues, whom they said have been hiding since Colby's attack, giving me the perfect opportunity..While they were gone, I found myself back in his library until their return. To my surprise, he began locking the door.

"What do you need to open a lock for?" Mike asked, furrowing his brows together.

"I lost the key to the jewelry box my grandmother gave me." I wasn't being honest, but it was my only option. In a way, he'd become my confidant and the last thing I wanted was to lose his trust. I showed him the jewelry box I'd brought with me during the move. He held it and inspected the lock, shifting the box in his hands.

He pointed with his index finger and a long white claw grew from his fingertip. I watched him play with the lock until, after a few moments of jiggling his claw in the small keyhole, the lid sprung open, and he handed it back to me.

"How did you do that?" I asked a little too quickly. "I—I mean, in case I never find the...key?" He shrugged and spent the next few minutes teaching me how to open a lock with just my claw. He smiled when he saw how excited I was, not knowing my true intentions. I waited until I heard the last of the pack leave to complete their tasks for the day and all was silent in the house before making my next move.

Now, I looked back and forth down the length of the hall and listened once more to make sure I was alone in the house, before unlocking the door and slipping inside. I stepped onto the panel where his desk stood and sat down in the chair in front of it. The books resting on the desk had been left open to different pages than the last time I was in here.

I started with the old clippings first, then began reading one of the books that was left open. After hours of searching for clues for three days, I found nothing. All the stories and headlines were the same, just re-written in different words and some in different languages. I leaned back in the chair and gave and aggravated sighed that I discovered nothing.