Falling into the White (The Ancients Series) (12 page)

“I’m working on something at De ‘Lune’s for Evan. It might take a while, why?” I could hear Asi just fine, even though it wasn’t on speakerphone. His deep voice resonated through the speaker naturally.

“I was going to hang out with Jess for a bit. Maybe we could bring you guys some lunch.” Ashley was slick. She was pumping him for information about Evan without Asi ever knowing it.

“It’s just me and the staff here. Evan’s out. I’m not sure when he’ll be back, but I wouldn’t turn down lunch if you want to come anyway.”

“Okay, I’ll text you in a bit, hon.” Ashley hung up and looked at Jess. “It doesn’t necessarily mean anything…”

“It doesn’t matter anyway. Seriously, how is what I’m doing with Mikael any different, especially after what happened, well, what almost happened at the cave?”

“We already went over why that is different. I know you Jess. I know why you feel guilty, and I’m sorry that you have to. What Evan is doing, possibly doing, that’s different though. He’s being sneaky about shit. You are beyond open about what’s going on with you, and why! Besides, after all the crap he’s giving you about Mikael, making you feel horrible, and making you hate yourself… worse, you’ve tried to do it his way, and ended up nearly giving yourself an aneurism. Besides, anything that has happened between you and Mikael is his damn fault too. He’s been pushing you away with all this bullshit, and Mikael has been the one there, steady, not asking more than you can give. Mikael is being understanding of the situation. What did he expect you to do? Did he think he was so wonderful you’d keep right on loving him while he treated you like shit for something beyond your control? He knows how the wolf world works. We don’t always get choices. I’m just saying, he has a lot of nerve to do some sketchy shit behind your back after all that.”

“Tell me how you really feel!” I threw a pillow at her to break the tension. “I get all that, Ashley. I do. I just don’t know how to process everything right now.”

“I know.” Ashley reached over and hugged me. “It’s too much for those of us sitting on the sidelines. I can’t imagine having to be you. Honestly, I envied you at first, but I’m definitely happier with how things worked out for Asi and me.”

“So, what has been going on between the two of you? Has the shock set in, or hell, worn off yet?”

“He’s been great, Jess. Asi makes me happy, and he wants to be sure he’s doing a good job at it. I don’t know how I ever managed to drift through all the morons I did over the past few years. I keep asking myself what the hell I was thinking. None of them could even come close to what I have with Asi.” Ashley was glowing as she spoke.

“I can’t tell you what a relief it is to know it worked out for you. I worried when you turned and bonded within hours…” I sighed. “I’ve never heard of that happening before. Even your pain-in-the-ass brother waited a few lunar cycles after his transition to be with Sierra.”

“Well, there you have it. I must out do Jack at every turn. We’ll blame him!” Her red locks bobbed around her shoulders as she laughed. “Speaking of Jack, he’s been trying to convince me that living with the pack would be beneficial. Technically, I’m not part of your pack though, so I suppose I would have to what? Petition your dad or something?” I nodded as she continued on. “But Asi would never do that, because he’s loyal only to Evan and the royal Ancients. So, I’m honestly not sure how that would work. Do I have to be part of their pack since Mikael turned me, and I’m mated to Asi? Am I even allowed to be since I was a human who was turned? I have so many questions, and my one pet peeve about Asi is that he always tells me we’ll figure it out when we need to, but he won’t sit down and tell me anything.”

“Wow, so I guess I’m not the only one who has been missing out on the girl talk.” I smiled at her. “You can petition my father, and the pack to become a member. You know they’ve all been expecting it anyway. I think you’re right about the royal Ancients though. You can’t belong to them because you were human. You’d be nothing more than a servant in their eyes. Unless things changed, and soon. You’re also probably right in assuming Asriel would never willingly swear fealty to my pack. He is of the Ancients too. I don’t see him giving that up. I also don’t see Antoine allowing it.”

“But does that ever happen? I mean, a mated pair from two different packs?” Ashley looked worried and I wished I could alleviate her fears.

“I’ve never seen it done, but I don’t think there’s a hard and fast rule anywhere that says you must both belong to the same pack.”

“That’s good.” Ashley commented absent-mindedly, and then she was staring off into space for a while. I sat quietly, trying to figure out how to help her, when I saw her wince.

“Are you still there, Ash?”

“Yeah,” she turned her attention back to me, “sorry. I just got lost in thought for a minute.”

“Understandable.” I put my hand on top of hers. “We’ll figure it out. I’ll talk to my dad about it. You’re more than welcome to come talk to him too. You know he loves you like his own daughter.”

“I know.” She exhaled a big breath, allowing the tension to roll out of her shoulders, and let it all go, just like that.

“I wish I could do that.”

“Do what?”

“You just, breathed it all out, and let go right then. I could see it happening.”

“Yeah, well, years of yoga and meditation had to teach me something, right?” She laughed softly. “Now, what are you going to do about Evan and this mystery woman? Jess, you can forgive a lot, but you’ll never be able to forget that. Knowing you, there won’t be any getting past it either.”

“I know. How do you work through and move past something like that? I keep trying to figure it out in my head, but then, I wonder if that isn’t the point. Maybe, I’m not supposed to.”

Ashley shrugged, “The only advice I am going to give you is that you have to go with where you find the most peace in your life. You have enough struggles, you need to be with a person who is going to lessen the burden, not add to it.”

“I never would have thought that you, of all people, would be rooting for Mikael.”

“Hey, I’m not telling you who I am rooting for. I don’t want to put my opinion on you after what the witch said. You’re trapped already in so many ways. I don’t want you pinned down by what you think I want for you too. I’m just saying, if you can get past it, and Evan will do better, then pick him. If not, Mikael seems to be doing a good job of handling things. That’s all.”

“Gee, thanks for the help!” I let my sarcasm sit for moment as I pulled at my shirt nervously. “Seriously, thanks for trying to not add to any of the crap I have going on.”

“Jess, I’m always going to be on your side, no matter what your choices are.”

“I know. I love you too!”

“Hey, now! I never said I love you.”

“Yes you did, you just didn’t realize it!”

“Whatever.” She reached over and hugged me again, and this time we both held on for a good long while.

“I guess we better go get Asi some lunch, since you promised and all. Hopefully, Evan will stay put wherever he is. I don’t think I can deal with seeing him right now.” I sighed, and got up off the couch to grab my bag.

“No matter what you end up choosing, I really would like to punch him in the mouth one good time, at least. If the opportunity ever arises, I’m taking it.”

I smiled over at Ashley then. “Good, add a little extra oomph for me!”

LUNCH FROM HELL

“What did you guys pick up?” Asi asked as he opened the back door to the club. We had parked around front, but couldn’t get anyone to answer the door there, so we had to walk our haul all the way around.

“Chinese!” Ashley was giddy as she said it.

“Mmm, I was just telling you that I haven’t had Chinese in quite some time.” He smiled at her as he took some the bags she was carrying.

“It all makes sense now,” I added.

“What makes sense?” Asi set the bags down on a table in the lounge area, and came back for the bags I was carrying.

“Well, I was down for just grabbing some pizza, and Ashley wouldn’t hear of it. So, here we are, satisfying your cravings!” I batted my eye lashes at him, and grinned really big. He just laughed as removed me of my burdens, and set them down on the table too.

“The stock crew just took off for lunch, so I’ll go grab us drinks.”

“I’ll help.” Ashley jumped up and went with Asi. Personally, I didn’t care to help. I was just ready to dig into some food, because I was starved. I started dishing some of it out on a plate for myself while I waited for them to come back. When I was happy with what was on my plate they still weren’t back, so I took my phone out to check messages. There were two texts from Mikael. None from Evan.

Hey, Jess! I hope you’re day is going well. Jackie says to tell you hi, and come back to see her sometime. The puppies miss you! I’ll be leaving here soon, let me know if you need anything.

That had been from earlier when I was hanging out with Ashley. Then there was another text from Mikael about fifteen minutes ago.

Jess, my dad called a meeting with us, not sure how long we’ll be. I’ll let you know. If you need anything call, otherwise stick close to Ashley and Asi until we’re done.

Just having lunch with Asi and Ash. Sorry, didn’t see your messages before now. Hope all goes well with Antoine. Let me know when you’re done.

I hit send then, because the first time I typed it I wrote, see you later? At the end, and I wasn’t exactly sure what possessed me to do that. I put my food down then, to be polite and wait for my friends to come back, but that just gave my mind time to worry about things I didn’t really want to focus on, like time spent in a the hot springs caves with a certain person. I was feeling the flush of heat from the memory as Ash came back in the room, looking a little rumpled, and handed me a coke. “Is it sanitary?” I laughed as I took the drink.

“What?” She asked, but she couldn’t hid the blush creeping up her cheeks.

“Yeah, you know what. Might want to fix your hair, Ash!” She put her drink down and started fussing with the unruly curls on her hair, trying to smooth it down more. When she grew frustrated enough I laughed. “I think you got it now.”

“Oh, you’re an asshole, Jessica!” I was laughing so hard I nearly spilled my drink, so I put it down.

“Come on, I couldn’t resist, and seriously you put your shirt on backwards. So, it was obvious.”

Ashley looked down and saw that a tiny bit of tag was hanging out of what she thought was the front of her shirt. “Oh my God! I can’t believe…” She started to leave the room again, then looked back at me, “I’ll be back in a minute. Not a word from you, missy!”

I mimed zipping my mouth shut, but laughed through it, so I don’t think it meant much. Ashley flipped me off as she headed for the bathroom.

“Where’s she headed?” Asi asked as he came back in. I looked him over, and he seemed put together really well. I figured he’d taken him his time coming back for a reason.

“Her shirt is on backwards.” I said with a completely straight face, and picked up my coke again.

“Oh.” Asi looked away, and then seemed to be distracted by everything else in the room all of a sudden.

“Whatever, Asi. Not like I’m ten years old or something. As long as you guys got me a clean coke, I don’t care what you’re doing when you sneak off for drinks!”

Asi eyed me for a minute. “You are too astute for your own good sometimes. So, how’s everything been? No more visits from Sophia, I hope?”

“No witches that I’ve seen.”

“Good. How about everything else? You able to keep up with your man meat schedule okay? Not slipping the salami in on a date when you’re supposed to be with the bologna and shit are you?” There was a twinkle of delight in his dark eyes as Asi teased me.

“The fact that you just compared them to lunchmeats is disturbing, Asi! And they aren’t getting slipped anywhere, either of them.” I was red-faced while Asriel laughed, and Ashley joined him. She had snuck in sometime during the conversation, and I hadn’t noticed.

“You deserved that, for the hair thing.” She told me.

“What hair thing?” Asi asked.

“Brat there was messing with me when she saw my shirt was backwards. She told me my hair was all out of whack.”

“In her defense, it probably was a little bit.” Asi ducked as he said it. Ducking didn’t help, she got a pretty good hit in on his shoulder.

“Um, anyway, I’m really hungry, and I’ve been kind enough to wait for you guys to do your thing, and then get straightened back out. So, if you don’t mind…” I picked up my plate then. As if on cue, the back door to the club started to open as soon as I tried to take my first bite. Mikael walked in wearing his typical jeans, t-shirt, leather jacket, and boots. Man, did he make it all look might fine too. I put my empty fork back down on my plate, and just enjoyed the view while I chewed.

“What are you doing here?” Asi asked him, rudely. Then he looked at me, “Did you invite him here? Of all the places, Jess!” I hadn’t even answered, I was just shaking my head, about to choke on the one bite of food that made it into my mouth. I swallowed hard, trying to make it all go down in one gulp. I should have known noodles were not going to go over well today. I was taken aback by Asi accusing me of inviting Evan’s brother on a date in his club. That was just tacky. Mikael moved closer to me, and answered before I could get my mouth clear though.

“My father sent word that Evan and I were supposed to meet him here,” Mikael looked as though he were about to say more, and judging from the look on his face they weren’t going to be very nice words either, but then the back door banged open again.

This time Evan walked in, followed by a woman I’d never seen before. She had long, flowing, golden-blond hair with just enough bounce to make women in shampoo commercials jealous. She was laughing though, and I knew the sound of that laugh. A sick feeling settled in my stomach. And I turned an accusing eye on Asriel, because if Evan was parading her through the club, Asi surely must know her or seen her with Evan before. The mystery woman was also way too close to Evan, her hand tucked around his arm in a possessive manner. As if to add insult to injury, Evan looked over, and when he noticed me, he rudely asked, “What are you doing here?”