Page 21 of Bound By the Moon

With each surge forward, I met a wall, and thenreceived push back. It had clearly become a battle of wills andstrength that I wasn’t going to win. I was one white wolf going upagainst ages of ancestors on their turf. With one final push, I wasknocked back hard enough that I woke up with a severe headache, andnot much else for my troubles.

My room was dark when I awoke, which was troublingin itself. It had barely been midday when my mom put me under. Theamount of voices I heard in my house was cause for even more alarmthough. Especially since the vast majority of them were male. I hadgone to sleep in a house full of women, aside from little babyJack. It took me a minute to focus my energy, and move beyond myown mushed brain that was currently throbbing in tune with myheartbeat. A voice I didn’t recognized called out as I tried to situp. “She’s awake.”

“What the fu…” I started, but my mom ran in at thatpoint rambling a bunch of nonsense. The only words I caught werekidnapped and baby. A sense of cold dread washed over me as Ilooked around to get my bearings. “Wait, what did you justsay?”

“We think they were looking for Willow, but theytook Jack instead.”

“Who took Jack? Mom, I don’t understand what you’resaying. Where’s Willow?”

“Willow is fine. Your father is with her right now,but I need you to come talk to Sierra, she is beside herself rightnow.”

“Come talk to Sierra?” I knew I was still a bitfoggy from whatever happened to me while I was in the forced dreamstate, but I still wasn’t fully comprehending. “I don’t understand,Mom, stop.” She was pulling at my arm now, franticly trying to moveme somewhere else. I literally had to pull on my white wolfabilities. I let calm wash over and through me, into my mother, sothat she would lose the panicked edge, and I could get to thebottom of what was happening. I was basically pulling on her ownabilities as she touched me, but reversing them back into her. Assoon as I felt her still a bit, I tried to get to the bottom ofwhat was going on.

“Where is Willow?”

“She’s downstairs, in your father’s arms, where Ileft her.”

“Why didn’t anyone try to wake me?”

“We tried. I tried. Nothing worked.”

“Ashley?” I thought about the fact that she had goneinto town earlier, and worried that maybe there was actually morethan one victim in all of this.

“She’s fine. They realized Jack was missing whenAshley came back with the diapers for him.”

“How in the hell did someone get inside my house totake a baby?” I let a bit of the angry confusion in me slip out asI spoke this time.

“Calm down.” My mother was pleading with me, and Icould feel her influence trying to persuade me to do as she said. Ibrushed off the attempt easily since I was still connected herability. Actually, her attempt to control my mood irritated me,considering what had happened.

“Don’t try that again, mom!” I roared as I shot tomy feet and surged toward the bedroom door. My mom beat me there,and blocked the way so I couldn’t get by.

“Please, Jess, you need to listen to me first. Yourdad stopped by, and when he found out I had you under a deep sleephe took advantage of the fact, and cleared a security team to sweepthe house.” My mom continued talking, but I heard none of it as Ipushed past her and into the hallway. I ran to Willow’s nursery,and saw Ashley there holding her, and my dad pacing in the cornernow. I wondered why he wasn’t downstairs with the baby, as my momhad insisted he was, but then I heard how he shouted at someone onthe other end of a phone call. He must have brought the baby toAshley when he got the call.

“Get out!” Ashley stood, pale-faced, and shocked.She moved like she was going to leave, so I clarified. “Jameson St.Marks, get the hell out of my house, right now!”

Everything stopped. Everyone in the room froze, thencollectively turned to stare at me. I’m not quite sure what theysaw there, but what I noticed was that fear reflected back from theeyes of everyone standing near me. “Oh. My. God. Jess?” Ashley allbut whispered.

“You brought in a security team, against my wishes,while I was asleep? Now, a baby is missing! A baby that I happen toconsider family. You are responsible for this.” I knew I needed toget a hold of myself, but that kind of self-control seemed beyondme at that point. “IT COULD HAVE BEEN WILLOW!” I shouted, feelingthe flames of heat licking up my face. “GET OUT!” My finger shotout, pointing the way to the nursery door that crashed open withthe motion of my hand. My dad flinched in place, and stood thereanother moment before he hung up the phone, and attempted to walktowards me instead of the door.

“Jess, you need to listen…”

“I don’t need to do anything. You didn’t listen tome, and look what happened!”

“Jess, your eyes!” Ashley hissed. I had no clue whatshe, or anyone else, was seeing. What I did know was that my sanitywas hanging on by a thread. The rage that was stewing inside wascrippling beyond measure, and everything I could see from my ownvantage point, through my own eyes, was tinged in a green fire. Ireally needed to get myself in check.

“Give her the note when she calms down.” My fatherspoke to Ashley this time, not to me. Ashley nodded in agreement,as he left.

“Jess,” Ashley called out to me tentatively after afew minutes. I turned and noticed that she was still hanging back,and seemed to be guarding Willow from me. Yeah, it was definitelytime to try to find my inner peace. I knew from stories that theWhite Wolf of legends had sometimes been known to fly into rages.There were stories about the White Wolf who had taken over by forcewhen it was her time. Those tales were not very friendly. They werealso the reason why the next successor didn’t make herself knownpurposely. I had just gotten a small taste of that feeling, and itscared even me. I was, however, starting to understand why thewolves had said I needed a balancing force in order to be the whitewolf successfully. When Mikael was around, he truly was a voice ofreason for me. Thinking of him now, and knowing that I never wantedhim to see this monstrous side of myself, was one of the thingsthat calmed me down in the moment.

The other thing that calmed me was that I noticed afaint light glow around Willow. “She’s glowing,” I mentioned toAshley, who looked down in her arms at Willow. “Believe it or not,her glow is the only reason we found her. She was hidden by theblankets that the kidnapper stirred up when they grabbed littleJack. I don’t know how they didn’t see her, but we definitely did.It’s a good thing too, she couldn’t have been getting much airunder there.

Things began to click into place as Ashley spoke.“Oh, wow, Natalia…” I whispered as I reached closer to the pointwhere I centered my whole being. “Natalia gave her a way to helpherself, if she were in trouble. She didn’t even know what she wasdoing, but their blessing, the Romanian words, they were aboutlight, and blessings… she built that into my daughter.”

“Jess, you’re not making much sense.”

“It’s okay, Natalia saved my baby. Remind me to tellher all about it. She deserves to know after I freaked out aboutthe blessing the other day.” Ashley was still looking at me like Itruly fried my last brain cell, and maybe I had. I would definitelyconfirm my suspicions with Serena, but I felt it in my bones. Theblessing had not only helped hide Willow from the dark ones, but ithad helped my family find her before she suffocated under a bunchof blankets too. I walked toward Ashley and took hold of Willowthen, needing her close to me.

“What happened, Ash? I went to sleep to try to findthis maniac who has been killing our women, and I wake up to findthat a baby was taken from my own house. How in the hell did thathappen?”

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