Ellida (30 page)

I usually knew when he’d be back. Sometimes
he’d surprise me with an early return. When he needed to stay
longer, which was rare, he’d always phone and tell me that, and I’d
make him promise to make up for my prolonged suffering.

And, oh, he would!

Generally speaking, however, I didn’t seek
solitude. My social needs had changed. I was more natural and
relaxed among people and enjoyed their company. Thanks to my wolf,
an in-built part of my soul now, and not a noisy, bouncy thing
forced to sit in the back seat any more, I needed people around me
in a way I never had before.

My friendship with Peyton grew stronger. She
was my loyal friend, the sister I’d never had, my female soul-mate.
The longer I knew her, the more I respected her. Underneath her
fragile appearance was a woman made of steel, pure minded yet not
naïve, practical and independent. She was fiercely protective of
those she loved, and courageous, both emotionally and morally.

Although sensual and passionate, Peyton
didn’t like to be rushed and preferred her methodical, thoughtful
approach, even when it came to her steamy relationship with an
unorthodox wizard.

“I’m not gonna sleep with him before we know
each other better,” she had announced after her first visit to
Seattle. “We might be bonded, but we’re different personalities. I
mean, the sex is bound to be great, but I don’t want to spend the
rest of the time fighting and arguing. ”

I told her about Tristan’s bonding
philosophy.

“I couldn’t agree more. A true relationship
is more than a bond. It’s compromise, understanding and respect.
Deep love… Oh, don’t listen to me. Astrid, I’m so much in love with
him. Why did I tell him we had to know each other better before we
sleep together? That was so stupid!”

I laughed. “You haven’t specified the
duration of that platonic phase, right? Next time you see him, tell
him you’re a quick learner, and you already know him well enough to
move to the next stage.”

She let out a deep sigh. “The fact that I’ve
been out of action for such a long time doesn’t make it easier.
He’s so close, and I can’t go see him. It drives me crazy.”

“Why don’t we go to Silverbell Ranch today?
If that getting-to-know-each-other-better period is so important
for you, consider it like an impromptu field trip education.”

“That might not be a good idea, Astrid.
Shouldn’t you stay here?”

“Nonsense. What can happen?”

She closed her eyes for a moment and shook
her head. “Heather’s back in town. She spent the last month in
Copper Ridge. God knows what she was doing there. I don’t want to
draw her attention to the three undercover wizards beside the
Langdons’ ranch. And compromise your safety on top of that.”

I smirked. “Hell, we have to face Seth sooner
or later, but that’s not gonna happen today, trust my instincts.
Come on Peyton, let’s go. Nobody needs to know we were there.”

Peyton was still hesitant so I tried a
different
modus operandi
. “You know what? I planned to go
anyway. And if you prefer to stay here, fine with me.”

It was a lousy bluff, I knew, but it
worked.

I’D ALWAYS been reluctant to use my magic
power, but now that I was in full command of it, it felt good. I’d
made Jack’s pickup invisible to the naked eye—not that we saw a lot
of people on our way to Silverbell Ranch anyway—and soon we parked
it behind the barn on the small farm that hid the three
wizards.

Not surprisingly, Ingmar was already there
when I drove the truck in, opening Peyton’s side and literally
carrying her out of the truck. For a long moment he just held her
tight against his chest and then lowered her gently until her
little feet touched the ground.

“You came,” he whispered, holding Peyton’s
head between his palms.

“She made me!” A soft chuckle slipped out of
Peyton’s mouth before it was muffled with a long, hot kiss.

“I practically had to drag her here by her
hair,” I laughed and went to the house, leaving Ingmar and Peyton
to their own devices.

It looked like the hastily imposed period of
celibacy was soon going to be reconsidered.

DINAH AND Gerard, Ingmar’s friends from
Winston, a small town in the Canadian North, were a pleasant young
couple in the vicinity of their mid-twenties, although with
asyngaer, the physical age could be deceiving. My own grandparents
looked to be in their thirties, for example. Both tall and willowy,
with their sleek hair, wise eyes and elegant movements, they looked
like they’d stepped from the pages of a Tolkien saga. Underneath
their elf-like appearance, however, I quickly discovered two
unconventional wizards with a quirky sense of humor. They were
charming, easygoing and very much in love with each other. How had
I managed to be stiff as a poker almost all my life, I wondered?
Even Ingmar, that epitome of joyful living, often hadn’t been able
to untie my inner knots. But then, nobody could until Jack came
into my life.

“Thank you for coming here,” I said simply to
them.

Gerard offered me a cup of coffee and sat
beside Dinah. “You’re welcome, Astrid. There’s more, though.
Winston decided to send one of our elite combat units to help you
fight Seth. They’re on alert. Our Einhamir just spoke to yours.” He
winked at me and smiled. “Nobody messes with a wizard and goes
unpunished.”

I smiled back. “And they’ll be most welcome,”
I said, deeply touched. I couldn’t know what kind of army Seth had
raised but if I were him, I would indeed think twice before
starting a battle with my troops and allies.

I sat on an armchair across from them and
took a sip of coffee. “Tell me, how long have you known Ingmar?” I
said.

Dinah answered, “I studied the comparative
history of Langaer; I’m a sort of expert on werewolves. Ingmar came
a year or so ago with tons of questions. It took me a while to
satisfy his curiosity, and in the meantime we became close. He felt
awful because of his reaction to your transformation.”

“He’s been making up for it quite nicely,
with Peyton,” Gerard said, laughing.

“As if they could help themselves. Not that
they mind anyway. Cross-racial bonding is more common than most
people would think, and as strong as mono-racial,” Dinah said.
“I’ve been studying it for years. I started in our town, actually
with Gerard and some other members of our families, and then I
extended my research to the whole North American region. It’s so
fascinating.”

“Are you both half-and-halfs?”

“Gerard is, I’m not,” Dinah said. “Winston’s
werewolf territory, but there’re numerous families there whose one
or more members are wizards. Most of them came to Winston at some
point after being bonded with local werewolves or humans. We’ve
been living together for centuries. There’re humans among us, of
course, but Winston is isolated from other human settlements, with
the exceptions of a local Native tribe.”

I wanted to know something else, but before I
could ask, the door opened and Peyton and Ingmar joined us, holding
hands. Peyton quickly tried to pull her hand out of his, but Ingmar
gently tightened his grip and linked his fingers with hers.

Every visible inch of Peyton’s
alabaster-white skin was flushed. Her deep blue eyes were so full
of color that they looked like the violet hyacinths on her
windowsills.

Ingmar wrapped his other arm around my
shoulder and kissed my cheek.

“Well hello! Good to see you, too,” I said
and kissed him back.

“Hey, Peyton, glad to see you again,” Dinah
and Gerard rose to greet her. The three of them had met when Peyton
visited Ingmar in Seattle the first time.

“Hi, you two,” she said and blushed even
more. “Glad to see you, too.”

Ingmar turned and locked his ice-blue gaze
with me. “I’ll be entirely grateful to you for this visit, Astrid,
but does Jack know your whereabouts at this moment?”

“Jack’s out of town.”

“And you decided it was a good time to wander
around?”

“I take every opportunity to learn about my
realm,” I said. “Come on, Ingmar, there’s no danger. It’s our
sacred territory. I’m safe here.”

He turned to Peyton. “Do you have any
influence on her? Because if you do, please try to reason with her.
She used to be a logical person before she became a werewolf.” He
looked back at me, rubbing my back. “Astrid, love, I know you think
coming here isn’t a big deal, but it wouldn’t hurt you to be a bit
more cautious. We’re not ready to confront Seth yet. We must not
risk anything.”

I blew air into my cheeks and then released
it. “I was thinking, actually, of coming here three times a week.
With Peyton, so that you three could train her.” I paused and
looked at Dinah and Gerard. “Peyton is, as you might already know,
a part wizard. She has significant powers, although latent. Ellida
and I will train her, too.”

“You’re busy enough without training me,”
Peyton said.

I turned to her. “The more wizards work with
you, the better results we get. As you know, Gerard is part
werewolf. I bet he has a unique approach to our energy. I’ll talk
to Jack about how to organize this.” I frowned at Ingmar, “Don’t
bother to tell him about our visit. I will.”

“We’ll be delighted to train you, Peyton,”
Dinah said. “Why don’t you simply move in here? There’s a spare
room here. Come on, guys, you are bond-mates. What’s the big
deal?”

Peyton shook her head, “I can’t just
disappear. Heather, my mother, she—”

“I need Peyton in town for the time being,” I
interrupted, sparing my friend any further explanation. I wasn’t
even sure how much Ingmar knew about Peyton’s complicated
relationship with her mother. Dinah and Gerard were practically
strangers, and they didn’t need to know about that part of Peyton’s
life.

Peyton threw me a grateful glance.

Well, I thought, if Peyton can’t disappear,
she could go on a business trip. Instead of Italy or England, her
favorite destinations, this time she could stick to the
neighborhood.

I ducked out from under Ingmar’s arm and
fished for the car keys in my pocket.

Ingmar’s hand reached out. “Give me the keys.
I’m going to drive you back,” he said.

His hands framed Peyton’s face. He lowered
his head and kissed her tenderly. “I’ll miss you,” he said in a
low, thick whisper. “I’m already missing you.”

I smiled, remembering the same words I’d told
Jack so many times. Why should lovers ever part?

I turned my attention to Dinah and Gerard.
“Tell me, does Winston have an Ellida?” Before they could answer, I
added, “I apologize. I still don’t know very much about our
society, but I’m learning.”

Gerard smiled reassuringly. “Ah, that’s okay.
You’ll learn everything you need to know down the road. You’ll pay
her a diplomatic visit, so to say, sooner or later. The Ellidas
keep in touch. Yes, we do have our Ellida. Her name’s Ariel.”

“Ellida Ariel’s one of the youngest Ellidas
in werewolf history,” Dinah explained with pride in her voice.

“How old was Ariel when she first turned?
When did her spirits connect?” I asked.

“At the time of her first transformation. She
was fifteen,” Gerard said.

I looked at them puzzled. “But she hasn’t
stopped aging, has she?”

“Oh, no,” Dinah reassured me. “She’s twenty
now, and she’ll stop aging around age twenty five, give or take a
year. She turned early for an Ellida, true, but every individual of
your kind is different. Ellidas are so rare,” she said, “so it’s
difficult to find a common denominator, if there is any, except the
right parentage. And that in itself, although essential, means
nothing, unless the other conditions are met: the inner strength,
which is a quality quite difficult to define, her wolf size and her
wizard powers. Everything else varies. Most Ellidas have their
first transformation postponed, but occasionally it does happen in
adolescence. Some Ellidas are born with spirits already united and
others need another werewolf to help them to connect their wolf and
human parts.”

“There must be some divine influence in
that,” I said, surprising a smile. “It would’ve been a terrible
idea to make
me
a full-fledged Ellida when I was fifteen
years old.”

At age fifteen, literally overnight, I turned
into a hell-raiser who rode a motorcycle, parachuted, cave dived
and glacier-skied. I faked my own and Ingmar’s vital statistics to
register us for a 3100 km car rally in Egypt. Just before the race,
Arnaldur and Erlander, Ingmar’s father, found us in the
Cosmopolitan Hotel in Cairo and dragged us home. The memory brought
a smile to my face, and I looked at Ingmar.

“Remember
Ralley des Pharaons
,
Ingmar?” I asked.

Ingmar laughed. “Do I ever? You made us both
twenty-one years old. I could pass for it, but you didn’t look
older than thirteen.” He turned to Peyton, and kissed the tip of
her nose. “At fifteen, Astrid was one step away from being locked
up in a youth correctional center. Then she realized she didn’t
want to be the cause of her grandparents’ premature death, and
decided to become a doctor. The next year she faked her papers
again, this time with her grandfather’s consent, and applied to
medical school.”

I laughed thinking about that turbulent time
of my life. It hadn’t lasted long, a year or so, but oh, boy, it
was crazy. Hormones? Teenage brain? My grandparents’ obsession with
my safety? My need for the ultimate proof of their love? My
rebellion against our famous
rationis et ratio, leges et
ordiem
? All of the above? In any case, my wolf, hidden deep
inside me, I knew that now, had wholeheartedly supported all my
craziness, keeping me safe from harm at the same time.

Once that crazy time had passed, I’d become
the queen of the same logic and reason I so passionately had fought
against. My magnificent beast, my inner daredevil, my protector, my
balance, my better, stronger, braver self, had found more subtle
ways to challenge the wizard inside me.