Page 82 of Forging Bonds: Part One

I almost add that I shook her hand and that she felt normal and not ghostly in any way, but the voices that are now completely back to normal, and start to mutter louder in warning, so I decide to keep that little bit of information to myself.

I can only assume that it has something to do with the fact that my mom was an angel and that I hear the dead, thousands of dead. I must be able to do more than just hear them. Maybe interacting with them like they are alive is something else that I can do. My magic is building, so perhaps this is a part of it. I haven’t seen the dead before, at least I don’t think I have. I didn’t realize that Ribbit was a ghost, so for all I know I interact with ghosts all the time.

Holy fuck.

What if Pete is a ghost, and I just didn’t realize it? A storm of conflicting and confusing feelings rushes through me. But before I can completely derail in front of Mabel, I realize that Bobby saw him, he used to shoot the shit with him all the time, in fact, they were friends. So Pete isn’t a ghost.

I am incredibly relieved about that.

“You must be special,” Mabel says, thankfully interrupting my inner spiral.

I shrug, “Maybe, or maybe I was just in the right place at the right time.”

She smiles and then bids me goodnight once again, this time warning me that I should get as much sleep as I can.

As the door closes behind her, a shimmer of that same magic that I recognize as Castle’s disperses over it, and I instinctively know that the door is now locked, and no one will be able to get in.

“Thank you,” I say to the room as a whole. It’s really important to me that I acknowledge what the Castle does for me, and I don’t take it for granted, just like I do with House.

The castle doesn’t respond, but that’s okay. I’m starting to feel tired, and I need to take a shower if this place has showers. I know it has got a bathroom,and it must have some sort of plumbing because I can see the sink. Rather than standing in the middle of the room debating it, I move over to where I’ve dumped my bags and rifle through them until I find an entirely new outfit. No pyjamas for me for a while.

When I make my way into the bathroom, I’m relieved to find what sort of looks like a shower. It's one of the really fancy ones that you see in some multi-billion-dollar houses, except it’s built entirely into the ceiling, and I can see no panels on how to turn it on.

Of course, in my exuberance at finding a shower, I immediately stripped instead of waiting to work out how to turn it on, so now I’m standing naked in the middle of a thankfully warm bathroom, with my hands on my hips as I stare at the shower thing like it’s verbally assaulted me.

It would be just my luck if I got called into a trial right now.

As soon as that thought crosses my mind, I wrap one arm around my boobs, and the other moves to cover my vagina. I wait for a few moments with a suspicious look on my face before I am willing to admit that I’m probably not going to get pulled into a task right now, but it probably would be a good idea to shower as quickly as possible, just in case.

I suppose I could go and find someone who works here and ask them to help me with the shower, but I’ll have to get dressed again, and it’s going to take more time, and honestly, I want to get some sleep.

Plus, I’m stubborn.

To my absolute relief, it turns out that it’s not really that complicated at all, and as soon as I step closer to it, hot and steamy water pours from the ceiling. I waste absolutely no time jumping in, and despite my earlier need to get the shower over and done with as quickly as possible, it feels so nice, and the products that Mabel left me are so amazing that I end up spending far longer in there than I planned.

When I eventually do get out, the last thing I want to do is get dressed into my fighting gear. I want to stay naked or put some super soft pjs on, but the fact is we aren’t at home. I’m not safe. So, I get dressed. I even make sure that I put my boots back on. As I move toward the bed, I grab Betty and Azael, who are going to be sharing the bed with me. I know that Azael will come when he’s called, oh shit, I don’t know that? In theory, he should come when I ask him to, but I never got around to testing it because we got pulled in here far sooner than we thought we were going to.

I really need to figure it out, just in case I let got in the night and we get pulled in, and because I can’t take my weapons to dinner, well, I could, but if I bring mine, the Draconian Team might bring theirs, and I will find it really difficult not to shoot Kylen in his fucking face.

With this in mind, I put both Betty and Azael on the bed where I was going to put them originally and then move across to the other side of the room.

“Alright, Az, I know that you come when I need you, but I need to know that you will come when I call for you, and I’m going to try it a couple of different ways,” I say out loud. Once I’m standing near the fireplace, I say, “Azael.”

I’m keeping it simple, putting my will behind it like I did with the kelpies and reaching for that place of magic too. It’s beginning to come a lot easier, and I really hope that it’s because my supernatural side is getting closer to the surface and is going to make an appearance soon. Although now that I’m here in the Choosing, I’m hoping that it won’t happen in the middle of a trial because everyone is going to then know who I am and considering I am supposed to be extinct unless you count my mother, who may or may not still be alive, that wouldn’t be a good thing.

Let’s not think about that.

My point is that people will most likely put two and two together, and everyone has told me that I’m in danger if people figure out who I am andthat my parents left me at the compound with Evander’s parents because it wasn’t safe for them and me. So I can only imagine that me transforming into an angel in front of God knows how many supernaturals would be a bad thing.

The heavy weight of Azael appearing in my hand brings me back to the present and I say a silent and very heartfelt thanks that he didn’t decide to test me then, because I absolutely would have failed. I’m too tired to be doing this right now, but I don’t really have a choice.

This needs to be done so I know what my limits are and what I can and can’t do while we’re on a task.

“Thanks, Azeal,” I tell him. “One more experiment because I’m tired, and I want to sleep.”

He buzzes in my hand, and I’m going to assume that it’s because he’s agreeing with me. Walking over to the bed I place him next to Betty and then head into the bathroom, closing the door between us. Once I’m in there. I fight a yawn and then do a similar thing. Except this time, I think of my weapons and call them in my head.

To my complete surprise, not only does Azael appear, but Betty does too.

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