BlackMoon Beginnings (30 page)

“I’ll tell you another time,” Liam says while
walking past Bragden and up the stairs. I don’t like that idea, but
I know that arguing with him is futile. He’s immune to my
stubbornness. We arrive at my room; Emma is already inside
searching for something to wear. Liam gently pushes me ins and
walks away.

Emma and I walk down together. When we walk
outside, we see the guys stationed randomly throughout the yard.
Even Bragden is going to train with us today. I turn to Emma,
wondering if she knows what’s going on. Both of us pass Natasha,
who’s leaning against the banister on the deck, without saying
anything. I don’t mean to be rude, but she seriously brings out the
worst in me.

“Ryanne, do you remember what happened during
the training session the day after you met me?” Tom asks as he
approaches us. I think back. Of course I remember that. Tom had the
guys attack me to see if I remembered to use any of the defensive
moves they taught me the day before.

“Of course I remember, Why…Oh no.”

“Oh yes. I want you and Emma to see if you
can incapacitate the guys when they try to attack you. Because you
are girls, any opponents will consider you to be an easier target.
You need to prove them wrong. Surprise them. Now, go stand in the
middle of the yard and get ready.”

Tom walks away and Emma I start towards the
center of the yard. “So they are all going to attack us and we have
to fight them off? Is that right?”

“Yep. Pretty much.”

Standing back to back with Emma, I scan the
yard, preparing myself for the first attack. We don’t know who will
strike first. Simultaneously, Liam and David both start running
towards us. Emma takes on David and I take on Liam. I can hear Emma
behind me fighting. Liam pauses briefly in front of me before
throwing a punch, aiming for my face. I bend backward and avoid the
hit. Standing back up, I kick my leg up trying to connect with his
shoulder, but he sees my move and grabs my leg, throwing me to the
side. I twist mid-air, so I will land on my feet. Without giving me
any time to collect myself, he runs over to me and I drop to the
ground, swiping my leg out, knocking him to the ground.

“David out!” Emma must have gotten a hit on
David. Logan starts towards her now.

Liam quickly jumps up and runs towards me
again. I do a back-flip to give him more space and brace myself.
When he reaches me, he swings his arm out again. “You know, if you
loved me, you would stop trying to hit me right now,” I say as I
bring my arm up to block his punch.

“I’m doing this because I love you, Ryanne.”
He says while deflecting my hit. I duck as he attempts to swing
with his other hand. In my ducked position, I kick his shins. He
bends down in pain and I take his injury to my advantage. I bring
my knee up and connect it with his stomach. When he hunches over,
grabbing his stomach, I step back and thrust my foot out, kicking
him in the chest and knocking him backwards.

“Liam out.” I barely have a chance to recover
before I hear footsteps behind me. I whip around and come face to
face with Colton. He doesn’t give me any time to react. Feeling a
sharpness spread through my shoulder, I start to fall down to the
ground, because he just punched me. While falling backwards, I bend
and do a quick back walkover. When I kick off the ground, my feet
connect to Colton’s abdomen, also knocking him over.

“Emma out!” Apparently Logan got the upper
hand and was able to land a hit that would have knocked her out. I
hear footsteps behind me and find Logan running towards me. “Crap.”
Can’t a girl get a break?

Colton gets up and both guys start to fight
me. I have no idea what my body is doing. I can’t really
concentrate on either one of them, but thankfully my body seems to
know exactly what it needs to do. I thrust my arms out, punching
and blocking simultaneously. Kicking my leg back, I am able to duck
Colton’s hit and kick Logan in the stomach at the same time. I do a
couple flips backwards, so I am no longer in the middle of both
guys. They seem momentarily surprised at my disappearance, but
quickly recover.

Instead of waiting for them to come towards
me, I run towards Logan first. I know that he is starting to tire
out since he fought off Emma already. I run off to the side,
confusing him, before abruptly stopping and turning around. I kick
him in the back, sending him to the ground, face first. Without
seeing if he would get up, I turn and give my attention back to
Colton. “Logan out!” When I see Colton reach out to deflect my
blow, I swing my leg up and connect with his shoulder, knocking him
down. “Colton out!”

I thought that that would be the end of it,
but no. I hear footsteps again. Logan and Colton, both get up and
run to stand with Emma, Liam, and David, beside Tom. “Oh, come on!”
I shout. As I turn and face Bragden I can hear everyone’s laughter
behind me. I’m glad they find this so amusing. Bragden’s larger
than the others, so I know he will be harder to fight.

He reaches me, drops to the ground, and
spins, hitting the back of my knees. With a thud, I land on my back
and roll to avoid another blow, before jumping up. He attempts to
punch me, but I deflect it. He is way stronger than the other guys.
It hurts when I block their punches, but with Bragden my arms start
going numb. What can I do to get the upper hand here?

I’m so stupid. I have magical abilities and
I’m fighting fairly? Tomorrow, no one will fight fairly, so I
should get some practice in. I start to draw magic into my limbs,
so my punches and kicks are more forceful.

Bragden seems surprised when I hit him and he
staggers backwards from the force. His shock gives me the time I
need to back away a little and get a bearing on the situation. I
run and do a cartwheel that transitions into three back
handsprings. Stopping around ten feet away from him, I try to think
about what to do next. I can hear Emma cheering me on. I close my
eyes when I see him start running towards me, calling air to me. I
don’t know if this is going to work, but it’s worth a shot.

The wind starts to pick up. I can feel my
hair coming out of the ponytail and hitting me in the face. I lift
my arms out and imagine the wind picking me straight up into the
air. I open my eyes and see Bragden two feet away from me. The wind
is still increasing in intensity and when he’s less than a foot in
front of me, I jump into the air, hoping the wind will lift me
higher. At the last possible second, the wind increases beneath me,
catapulting me farther into the air.

Bragden runs past the spot where I was a
second ago, stops, and looks around, clearly confused by my
disappearance. Landing behind him, I push some magic into my foot
and kick him in the chest as he turns around. I know before he hits
the ground that the fight is over. “Bragden out!” Tom yells.

I’m so out of breath, it isn’t even funny. I
collapse to the ground from exhaustion. Out of the corner of my
eye, I can see Emma jumping excitedly from her spot. She runs
towards me and never slows down, barreling me farther into the
ground, hugging me. “Oh my gosh! That was amazing! I didn’t know
you could do that!” She gets off of me, “Sorry for attacking you,
but that was awesome. I don’t know how you do it!”

David, Logan, and Colton all make it over to
us. Bragden crawls over and sits down beside me, rubbing his chest,
“Ouch, girl. That hurt.”

“I’m sorry. I used magic against you. You’re
just so much bigger than me; I didn’t know what else to do.” David
starts cracking up; he literally doubles over laughing. Bragden is
shaking his head in amusement.

“You’re apologizing for using magic to attack
a man who’s over four times your size when he was trying to attack
you?” says Colton.

“Well….yeah.” Colton pats my shoulder,
laughing with everyone else, but when his hand connects with it,
pain shoots through my arm. Wincing, I move my tank top and bra
strap to the side to see why my shoulder hurt. I grimace when I see
the giant red and blue welt forming there.

“Who did that?” asks Bragden.

“I think Colton did.” I turn and look at him,
“You surprised me when you first started attacking. You got in a
punch.”

“I’m sorry.” His fingers lightly touch the
forming bruise.

I shake my head and smile. “You’re
apologizing for hitting a girl way smaller than you when she was
trying to attack you?” I throw his words back at him. He purses his
lips and looks over at Logan, who rolls his eyes, but crawls over
to me.

“You don’t have to heal it. It doesn’t hurt
that bad.”

“I’d rather not get chewed out later, so yes,
I do.” He touches the bare skin on my shoulder and concentrates.
His eyes narrow while he stares at the mark. “Ouch.” I know he is
watching the fight again in his mind. “You’ve got a couple other
sore spots as well.” He grabs my arms and heals them as well. “We
didn’t take it easy on you, did we?”

I blankly stare at him. No, they didn’t. At
all.

Bragden turns and addresses his brother, “You
told me she could fight, but I didn’t think she was that good. No
one has beaten me before.” He smiles at me, causing me to blush
under his praise. “There’s the blush again.” Pointing it out
obviously makes me blush more.

Tom yells from the back porch, “Why don’t you
all come in and get some water?” I jump up first. No longer sore
since Logan healed me. I reach down and help Emma stand up. The
guys can manage on their own. I walk past all of them into the
house. I didn’t realize how thirsty I am until I see all the
bottles of water lined against the counter. I grab one and chug
half of it down before everyone else even comes in the house.

“That was very impressive, Ryanne. How did
you jump so high when you were fighting Bragden?” asks Tom.

“Yeah, I wondering that too,” says
Bragden.

“Well, I was getting desperate, because
nothing I was doing was working against him. He kept coming and I
was almost to the point where I just stopped fighting and ran
across the yard screaming bloody murder.” I point towards Colton,
“Then I remembered the time where I almost got hit by a car outside
of the bookshop and that huge gust of wind came and blew me across
the road at the last second. I pushed my magic out, so it swirled
around me and asked the wind to come and help me. I visualized
being lifted into the air. When he was close enough, I just jumped
and hoped that the wind would push me higher. It was either going
to work, or Bragden was going to pummel me into the ground. I took
a shot.”

“Amazing.” Tom’s face is full of awe.

“Girl, your hair is a mess,” Emma comes
around and pulls it out of the ponytail. “Shake.” I bend down so my
hair falls around my face and frantically run my hands through it
while shaking my head at the same time. I flip it up and look
towards Emma asking her to fix it. I know that I have a lion’s man
right now. She pushes a couple strands to the other side. “I’m so
envious of your hair. It’s so curly and thick and long.” I roll my
eyes and turn my attention back to Tom.

“How many people are coming tomorrow so
far?”

“At the moment, about forty-five. I still
have more people to call. We should have more than that by
tomorrow. Larkin said that Dravin will have about fifty, right?” I
nod, “We’ll make sure to have more. Though, with how you fought
today, we shouldn’t have to worry about that too much.”

“Last time, Thomas injected something into my
arm. It caused me to almost instantly fall asleep.”

“Yes, that’s called dormirako. It’s basically
what you just said: a sleeping shot. It mixes with your blood
stream and slows down all your internal organs. It makes you feel
like you are very tired. Your body basically becomes paralyzed as
you fall asleep.” I know very well the effects it has on the body.
“I guess we’ll have to warn everyone about that when they get here
tomorrow.”

“Well, I should probably get home,” Natasha
says while staring at Colton. He glances at her briefly, but
doesn’t say anything. With a frustrated sigh, she turns around and
stomps out of the room.

Tom’s phone rings again and he leaves the
room to go answer it. I back up to the counter and jump onto
it.

“So, what’s with her?” Bragden whispers as he
leans against the counter to my left.

“That’s Colton’s ex-girlfriend,” I whisper in
his ear.

“Really?” he asks me. The look on his face is
classic. I bump my shoulder into his and laugh. Bragden smiles at
me and crosses his arms.

“I don’t think you work out enough,” I tell
him as I poke his arm. The muscles in his arms are bulging.
Bragden’s grin widens and he leans back and flexes his arm. I shake
my head, “Now, you’re just showing off.”

Liam looks over at us and smiles. I think
he’s glad that Bragden and I are getting along so well.

I rest my head against the counter behind me
and watch everyone. They’re all relaxed at the moment and full of
smiles and laughter. Right now, it’s the calm before the storm.
It’s peaceful, but in the back of everyone’s mind we know that
everything will change in a days time. David is standing with his
arm around Emma and she’s smiling up at him, listening to what he’s
saying. Colton is standing near me, talking to Logan and Liam is
directly across from me talking with his brother. We’re all
together and for once, there is no awkward tension in the room.

My head starts to vibrate. I instantly
recognize what’s happening. I jump off the counter, because the
last thing I need is to face plant off the counter onto the ceramic
tiled flooring. “Ryanne, are you okay?” Liam asks worriedly.

“Colton…” I whisper, hoping that he’ll catch
me when I fall. Images start swarming in front of my eyes,
transporting me to a different time.

I am planted on the porch, in the middle of a
battle. Across the yard, people are in the midst of fighting.
Dravin is nowhere to be seen. Of course he wouldn’t show up to a
fight that he initiated. Colton is off to the right side, fighting
against Adam. Their swords are clanging against each other in a
metal on metal beat. I watch them for a moment. Colton’s movements
are strong and precise. He knows exactly what he’s doing. The
muscles in his arms ripple with each movement of his sword. It
takes everything in me to look away.