No More Choices (Void and Light Book One)

Chapter Twenty-Four

~Akiriya~

I stared at Sunni like she was out of her mind.

"A war?" I shrieked. "How can you drop that kind of bomb on me?" Saffron rubbed my hip in an effort to calm me down.

Sunni sighed and met my eyes. "I'm sorry to put this on your shoulders but I've known about all of this for far too long and I feared that we would never find you."

I looked around at everyone else and no one but Emory met my eyes. I looked back at Sunni, "What are you talking about?"

She looked confused. Join the club sister. "None of you explained this to her?"

Nobody met her eyes and I knew. I stood and backed away from them. "I'm sorry let me get this straight, you all knew that you were bringing me here for a war and you kept it from me?". Now nobody would meet my eyes.

Calvin Spoke up from his side of the white and grey suede couch he was sharing with Jarek. "We wanted to but-"

"No," Zelisa said quietly, "we should have told you. But we didn't want you to be scared."

"Yeah, I can see why!". I was frantic. I looked at Yama's recovering form on the bed. "So, that wolf that attacked..."

Sunni cleared her throat, "Probably an attack from our enemies."

Something about that didn't make sense to me and I tried to think of why but I felt a sharp pain in my head. I put a hand to my head and Jarek and Emory were up in a flash to take me back to the chairs. They set me down and Emory put a hand to my hand.

"She's burning up."

"I'm fine. Tell me about this secret war you want me to fight." I looked at Sunni. "I don't want any more secrets. I need to know what's going on."

Sunni nodded and got up from her seat, "that was my plan. We can discuss further details later but all you need to know right now is that you have physical training tomorrow. You need to learn how to protect yourself and so you will train with the guards and grow strong."

Calvin chuckled, "Yeah, I'm not sure she needs to get training from the guard."

Sunni shook her head, "I am aware of her skill, but there is always room to be better. I want to know just how strong she is. Not only is she the Royal Daughter but she is the only chance that we have at ending whatever war is attempting to come to fruition." She looked back at me. "I will make arrangements for your personal guard and magic training." She smiled at me, "Pay attention to the people you see training tomorrow and let me know who you would like on your guard. I'll be back tomorrow afternoon for your recommendation."

I sat up and took the glass of water that was handed to me. I drank it down and walked to stand in front of Sunni. I looked at her and searched her eyes for something, anything that told me I couldn't trust her and there was nothing.

"Thank you." I whispered to her.

She smiled, it was small and more of a twitch of her lip than a real smile but I would take it. "I'll do whatever it takes to save my people." she turned and walked out of the room.

"Ah, finally, I thought she'd never leave." Calvin said as he plopped onto a couch and put his feet up. Zelisa rolled her eyes and pushed his feet from the chair, sitting in the now vacated spot. Saffron stood in front of everyone, commanding the room's attention. We all turned to look at her and can I talk about how gorgeous she is, please? I mean just . . . wow

Saffron smiled softly and glanced at me. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the small silver box that had gone missing and set it on the small coffee table in front of us. She stood up straight and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath.

Calvin sat up and picked it up. "What is it?" I went still and everyone's eyes went to me. They all looked concerned.

"No clue," Saffron looked me in the eye this time, "it was in Akiriya's pocket." I didn't make eye contact with anyone in the room. I could feel their eyes, poking and prodding at my skin like needles. "We can all talk about it later. First, we need to discuss something...else."

The tremor in her voice made the tsunami of guilt in my stomach pause. I looked up at her and then to everyone else. Emory looked annoyed. Jarek's face was blank.

"What's going on?" I asked.

Zelisa laughed, "The best thing ever obviously." She rolled up the sleeve of her outfit and showered me the mark on her arm. It was the same marking that was on both Jarek and Emory. Everyone began to pull up their sleeves and sure enough each of them had matching marks.

Shaking my head in surprise I asked "I'm sorry, what does this mean?"

Emory spoke up, her voice tight, "We've all been marked as your protectors and mates."

My head spun, Mates. Wow, look at you Akiryia. A week ago you were single, now you have mates. My eyes slid over to Yama and Calvin cleared his throat.

"Yama, doesn't have one. We checked."

I blinked, and looked at him, "What? I didn't...I mean, I wasn't expecting..."

"Akiriya," Jarek sighed. He leaned over the table and reached out his hand. "We have to talk."

"About what?"

"Well, for starters, you have five mates." he looked nervous. "Do you understand what that means?"

I thought about it for a moment and nodded. "Yeah, I mean I've read enough reverse harem books to know a little something about all of...this."

Calvin laughed and stood so that he could come and stand by me. "Sadly, that's not what he means." I was taken aback, common sense said that I had five mates and I was already weirdly calm about it all. I think the crazy was setting in.

"Okay, what does he mean?"

Zelisa looked at me as her shoulders sagged. "Historically,"

"Ew, I thought I wasn't supposed to learn about history until later."

She laughed and so did some of the others but it was still tense. "Yes, but this is important for you to know now, so no interrupting."

"Aye aye captain." I saluted her. She blushed and a smile crossed my lips. She looked so beautiful when she blushed. My mind flashed back to when we kissed back in school and it felt like a lifetime ago.

"Where was I...oh! So, historically, members of the royal family have more than one mate if they are female but, it is because of the amount of magic that they carry. When a royal mates they share their magic through their bond with their significant others and their magic is regulated by the bond. Your mother, Queen Tessalynn, only had one mate when she died but that was because of the fact that she died before she met the other one."

"I don't get it, it seems like the only issue is that there are five of you and normally two."

"Well, yes but the fact that there are so many of us says something. Mates are predetermined and so, the second that we are born we are bonded, it's all a matter of finding one another. The number of mates you have correlates directly with the amount of magic in your body." she paused and looked at me, pink eyes bright.

"Okay so what are you saying?"

"Emory, why don't you take this one?" Saffron said. Zelisa sat down and nodded to Emory. When had they become friendly?

"Essentially, what she means is that, because of the number of mates that you have, your well of magic runs deep. Basically..."

Realization struck me, "I have a giant target painted on my back."