This thought had my insides turning. I didn’t like that the mystics were so unknown. Quale spoke as if they were just fey who acted as council to the king. But what if the hidden powers they supposedly possessed were enough to take out my boys? I seriously doubted it, but that didn’t completely alleviate my concerns.
Not to mention I could sense other supernaturals inside the building. Quite a few actually. The mystic’s plan wasn’t completely terrible. They knew it was better to try and take the Compasses out before they got too strong. They did not want another set of Four to contend with. My boys were still young in the supernatural world, and had never joined powers before.
What the mystics failed to understand was that even without their powers joined, the Compasses were beyond anything they’d dealt with before. I never knew the Four when they were young of course, but in my head, they hadn’t been on the level of my quads. Sure, I was biased – probably the most biased supernatural you’d ever meet. Maybe their parents, Jo and Jack were as bad, but us three definitely formed the basis for the quads’ fan club. The other members consisted of the simpering fools in Stratford, females who thought they could tame a Compass.
Oh shit, I was one of them now, one of those females I’d always pitied. Gone all soft for a male. Love did a real number on you. I barely recognized the hardass I used to be. I was all soft and fluffy … my wolf was like a goddamn kitty cat.
Quale waved us forward. “Since our time is limited we’ll start with the twins, the quads will be last.”
We joined my parents and Mischa. All of us followed the grays through the double glass doors. The sanctuary was so weird. On one hand it was all natural, with its forest and ice-land and desert and ocean, and on the other they had all of this advanced tech stuff everywhere. Such a mix of old and new, natural and manufactured. Magic laced through all of it, though. Ancient power had created this place and something told me it would stand through any war.
Once inside the pale yellow, shiny, glassed building, we moved through what looked like a foyer of sorts and then … of course … into an elevator. I closed my eyes, though I felt I was dealing a little better with the caging. Thankfully, it was a short trip, and with a ding the metal doors slid across and I opened my eyes in time to exit with everyone.
The room was massive, a single expanse without any pillars to break the space. The black rubber floors had a spongy feel, and I envisaged that this was a training ground of sorts, perfect for fighting. Standing along the far wall, which was about a hundred yards across, were two dozen supernaturals. As we closed the gap between them and us, I could sense there was a mix of the five races. A few vampires, three shifters – no wolves – wizards, fey, and two demi-fey: a centaur and a pixie.
“Do you think the reason we never knew if demi-fey were marked was because they were either in prison or in the sanctuary?” I murmured to Braxton, thinking back to our conversation in Vanguard.
“Yes,” Quale, the eavesdropper, said, “their elders almost never hide them, they are handed over straight away. They also have the least amount of marked representatives. But they are represented across the full range of demi-fey.”
I couldn’t pull my eyes from the group against the wall. Thrills of excitement started to build like small sparks in my stomach. I wanted to see these powers, I wanted to know what the mark was capable of, I wanted to know if I was the only one who could shift to dragon. Surely, if there were any others the mystics would know. They clearly trained all new arrivals.
The mystics formed a line, their hoods dropped back to reveal their strange silver-gray hair, and for once all of their faces were clear to be seen. I liked that, so much was revealed in facial expressions. Gerard and Quale were center again.
One of the grays on the end waved us forward toward the supernaturals lined up against the wall. “Jessa and Mischa, join the group. Observe at first, then you should attempt to access the natural power of the mark.”
I might have rolled my eyes at Braxton and Louis, my exasperation rising to the surface. I hated school, and immediately this reminded me of class. Boring.
Mischa and I fell into the right side of the group, she next to a vampire and I on the end.
The rest of our pack and family moved across to wait off to the side, close enough to see but not get in the way. The mystics lined up in front of us, poised and very still. The hybrid feyness of their energy was still strange. I wasn’t a fan of their weirdness, but I’d put up with it for now. I didn’t anticipate that we’d be stuck in the sanctuary for much longer.
A mystic I wasn’t familiar with started to talk. He had expressive, very dark brown eyes and the most perfect skin I had ever seen. Rich and dark, like freshly ground Arabica beans. The contrast to his hair was pronounced, and yet, it also wasn’t. He pulled it off no problem.
The beautiful male moved along the line of the marked. “It’s important that all of you know we have been observing the dragon marked for a thousand years, and so far there are three traits that each possesses. Number one, longevity of life. You will age until maturity and then no more. We have marked here, some of the first ever born, who look no older than early twenties. You might know that the marked are almost impervious to death. There are some weapons in Faerie which can inflict enough injury to kill, but on Earth you need to fear very little.”
Interesting, so the jinn knew what it was doing by sending me to Faerie.
“The second skill the marked possess is the ability to sense other marked. Your energy calls to each other, and in some ways it is as if you are one big collective. You can tap into each other and form a single unit of power.”