A/N: Hi everyone! It looks like I didn't need a month after all! I just needed to actually sit down and figure out all of the specific details and now things are working much easier! I'm still quite a bit ahead (I'm working on chapter 10 right now!), so until further notice, it'll be an update every two weeks. I'm hoping to keep enough of a buffer that it has time to sit, let me get further ahead with little plot things, and also time to edit!

As always - a drabble of your choice to the first ten reviewers! I'm just going to keep putting them in Tales. If you haven't noticed, the chapter headings of Tales tells you which chapter the drabbles are for. I'm really hoping to hit ten reviews per chapter guys! I know that you're reading it! I really like to hear your thoughts and I promise I won't bite. :)

Also a reminder - are you reading the new online Chloe novella, Atoning?We have a forum where we're talking about it! You can find it in the DP forum section under 'Atoning - Chloe novella' or simply use the link in my profile.

Disclaimer: I don't own Darkest Powers series or the Otherworld universe by Kelley Armstrong.

Previously in Promises Made:

…

"Now, before we all introduce ourselves," Malcolm said as Keith took over the bag and laid it on the floor. "I want to refresh everyone's memory of the deal we made. I got you not only the files the Nasts had but the ones the St. Clouds did not turn over. In return, Derek was trained under my supervision and Chloe would receive training. In addition to this, Derek has also agreed to join me as we set out to right the wrongs that have been done to us."

Malcolm strode over to the bag and began loosening one tied end.

"Now, you're both fairly intelligent creatures. You probably already figured out that this is Chloe's trainer. I keep my word," he muttered. He looked up at Chloe and Derek.

"And you will find that not only was I able to find a trainer, I was able to find one that while … not particularly powerful, at least has the knowledge necessary for you, Chloe. It was really an all-in-one package, really. She has the knowledge, she's the necromancer representative on the council, and she just so happens to be the partner of one of the werewolves at Stonehaven."

Malcolm finished opening the bag. Chloe couldn't see her face but could see that she had red hair. She found Derek's hand and took it.

"Chloe, meet Jaime Vegas."

Oaths Sworn

Chapter 1: Introductions

The woman stirred in the bed. She let out a low moan, hands moving around the bed. She opened her eyes and stared at the room she was in.

Chloe, seeing movement that indicated that she was awake, rushed over with the trash can. Theo had warned her to keep one close by, just in case.

The woman didn't get sick. She merely looked around the room, as if it was normal for her to wake up in a strange place with no memory of how she arrived there.

"Are you okay?"

The woman sat up and ran her fingers through her hair.

"Who are you?" She paused, giving Chloe another look over. "Please tell me that you weren't the one who grabbed me."

"No, I'm Chloe, Chloe Saunders. I … I'm so sorry. I'm the reason you were brought here."

Jaime eyed her curiously. "You? And why would that be?"

"We can get into that later," Chloe said, looking at her watch. She had been making regular visits downstairs to check on Lauren and Derek. Lauren had come up once to give her a brief assessment and Derek was the one who had taken Jaime upstairs. They were now both huddled over Chloe's original files. Every time she went down, they didn't appear to have interacted at all, expect for one time. One time she had gone downstairs and it sounded as though they were discussing something. However once she got closer, they both stopped talking. She had hung around outside the room, hoping that they might resume their conversation but they didn't.

Before all of this, she hadn't given much thought to Derek and Lauren ever having a civil conversation.

"I'm going to go and grab my aunt, she's a doctor," Chloe said. "If you want, the bathroom is just down the hall on your left. I'll be right back."

"She's awake."

Lauren looked up from the binder and rubbed her eyes. "Right," she nodded. "Just give me a minute to finish this section and I'll be right up."

Chloe lingered in the room. Her eyes wandered over to Derek. He was facing away from her but she knew that he was aware of her presence. He didn't say anything, he didn't turn around and flash her grin; he just kept staring at those blasted papers.

Lauren stood up and put the binder aside. "Let's go and see the celebrity."

Lauren left the room, leaving Chloe and Derek alone. She watched him. He was an expert in ignoring things that he didn't want to deal with. She always preferred to handle them directly. Ignoring a problem never made it go away. Unfortunately Derek found that was to be opposite in his case – often the problem was people and people tend to leave if he ignored them long enough. She often had a source of entertainment when they still had homework to do.

It was a game of sorts that Tori and Derek had. Tori would frequently finish her homework the quickest of the group and then spend the rest of the time whining about how boring it was and that everyone just needed to hurry up or just put their books away for a while. Simon never seemed to mind it and then it would end up being two versus two. Tori and Simon knew the easy way of winning would be to target Chloe, since if she left, Derek would begrudgingly put away his assignments. That posed no challenge. Instead they focused their attention on him, talking about the most inane of subjects or making up their own. One afternoon Simon and Tori had 'invented' their own language – and by 'inventing', Simon rediscovered his long lost love of pig latin.

Derek lasted fifteen minutes before the words crawled under his skin enough that he stormed out of the room.

Simon and Tori were satisfied for a week with that victory. It was that or they decided they didn't need to push Derek close to any homicidal rages in a short time frame.

It was tempting to use it; see if that would grab his attention. It would at least get him to stop looking at those files and trigger a memory of how things once where, how things were supposed to be.

She left the room and went upstairs.

Lauren didn't answer Chloe on the steps. Chloe had never heard of Jaime Vegas. How could she be a celebrity? Was she from overseas? Chloe didn't recall hearing a foreign accent.

Jaime was sitting on the bed where Chloe had left her. Her makeup had been washed off and her hair looked as though she had run a brush through it.

"I'm fine, but I can't say the same for you," she quipped.

"Jaime – can I call you Jaime? This is all just a big mess, I know."

"You know?"

"We aren't here by our choice either," Lauren explained. "It's a ridiculously long backstory, but we're not going to hurt you. Not me or Chloe. I'm a doctor and I have a limited amount of exposure to treating supernaturals. Chloe," Lauren squeezed Chloe's shoulder, "is my niece and unfortunately the reason you were brought here."

"She mentioned that."

Lauren nudged Chloe and Chloe returned it with a glare.

"Is anyone going to explain what is going on? What do you want? Ransom? My insurance policy isn't what it used to be."

"I … I needed a teacher," Chloe said slowly.

Jaime looked at the two and raised an eyebrow. "If you want a teacher, you definitely have the wrong person."

"You're a necromancer, right? Well, I am one too … and I need help."

"Help?"

Chloe walked over to one of the walls and pointed at a rune. It was almost crude, looking as though a toddler had drawn it.

Jaime looked it for a moment, furrowing her brow. She stood up and walked over to Chloe. She looked at it for several minutes, not saying a word.

"Do you know what it is?"

"I … no," Jaime shook her head. "It looks like something that I saw a long, long time ago. It's a rune of sorts, correct?"

Chloe nodded.

"And what are you using this one for?"

"It's not just that one. There are others – here in the room, downstairs, outside in the woods. I have … Its best for me to stay near them."

"Why? What does it do?"

"I thought you knew what it was for."

Jaime looked back at it and shrugged.

"If … If I don't, I raise the dead."

Jaime smirked and let out a laugh. "You raise the dead?"

"Yes."

"And you don't have any of the herbs or perform any of the rituals?"

"No."

Jaime snorted. "Okay guys, you can come in now. Your little 'kidnap Jaime' because it's been a while since I was abducted scheme is getting old."

Lauren sat in a chair.

"It's not a joke, I'm afraid. Chloe can do everything that she said and more, much more. She was an experiment."

Jaime looked at the two women, searching their faces. "You two … you're being serious, aren't you?

Chloe nodded.

Jaime sat back on the bed. "Shit."

"So let me get this straight," Jaime said. "You," pointing at Chloe, "are her," pointing at Lauren, "niece but neither of your parents were supernatural."

"No, her father was a magician, a weak one, but still. He doesn't know anything about that part of his life or the community. The necromancer gene was passed on through her mother. Her mother's twin brother was a necromancer but he died a long time ago. The experiment was supposed to help delay the onset of her powers. It was supposed to something very gradual. It failed."

"Okay, and Chloe, you're dating him," pointing at Derek, "and his biological family that didn't raise him or have any contact with him kidnapped the two of you and then brought your aunt in to help explain what was done?"

"Right."

"So," Jaime said turning to Derek. "What are you? Another necromancer? A wizard? Shaman? Half-demon?"

Derek shifted and looked over to Chloe, who nodded. Lauren had gripped the arm of her chair, her knuckles turning white.

"Werewolf."

"Oh really now? And you were also in this experiment?"

Derek nodded.

"Did they make the Changes … less brutal; I guess is the way to phrase it. Jeremy always described it as being very, very painful."

Lauren's hand slipped from the chair. Chloe's eyebrows were raised. Derek tried to remain stoic but even he was caught off guard at how casual she was being.

"I don't have anything to compare it to but … it's pretty painful."

"That's a shame," Jaime said. "Well, what else is there? I just train you and then I'm free to go?"

Chloe bit her lip. "I don't know. I hope so. I hope that we all can leave still but …" she looked over at Derek. He didn't meet her gaze.

"It's all up in the air but we're working on a plan," Lauren said, trying to reassuring. "Regardless, Chloe needs training. She can't hide behind these runes forever."

"Do you mind if you two leave and Chloe and I talk? If I'm going to help her, I need to know more about what she's done. It isn't the easiest of subjects to talk about in front of an audience."

"Of course," Lauren said, hopping out of her chair. "I'll be downstairs, going over the rest of the files. I'm almost done with them and I should be able to put together the big picture soon."

She left and Derek hung by the doorway for a minute. Chloe walked over to him. She wanted to be angry with him but she knew that they needed to appear united for now, in front of Jaime. It wouldn't instill much confidence of the remotest chance of a possibility of escaping if they were bickering.

"If she tries to push you, you can always say no," he said quietly.

"I'm not fifteen anymore. I know that."

"I'm serious," his eyes met hers. "Remember what Liz said. You can always say no."

Jaime sat there in stunned silence; listening to Chloe recount her early days knowing that she had power over the dead.

"The first time I actually summoned someone, well, it was someones. They were buried under the house we were staying at, in the crawl space. They were the part of the first experiments. Nothing says that an organization is legitimate quite like hiding the bodies of the failures."

"This same Edison Group, I assume?"

Chloe nodded. "Well … as I said, they weren't happy about it. Derek had followed me; I guess he was keeping tabs on me since he thought I was a supernatural. He helped me rebury the bodies. The next time was while we were on the run. We were in an old abandoned house and a homeless man had died in a room a while ago. There wasn't much odor or anything that would have clued me into their being a body around. I woke up and … well, Derek was on top of me, trying to keep me from seeing him. I freaked out – you just don't wake someone up like that.

"He was even less pleased with being summoned. I guess he had been summoned before by others, he talked about teenagers not letting him rest in peace and things along those lines. He thought we were doing some sort of satanic ritual or something." Chloe shrugged.

"I … well, I'll skip the animal ones, those are just uncomfortable to think about."

"Animals?"

"Bats, birds, dogs, rabbits," Chloe listed. Jaime shuddered.

"The next time, I was taken to a cemetery for proper necromancer training. The ground split open. I … I could feel them all, they were all so close. A casket that was being carried to the gravesite … he woke up."

"And you handled it like the rest? You … released them?"

Chloe nodded.

"But how? If you didn't have the herbs or rituals, there … how did you do it?"

"I pushed them, mentally," Chloe said. "Isn't that how you're supposed to do it?"

"Oh Chloe, you … you're never supposed to do that. You … you can't ever do that again, not unless it is something severe, like your life is in danger."

"Why?"

"It … it sends them where they don't belong, I suppose is the easiest way to explain it. You could send someone that is perfectly nice to a hell dimension. Likewise, you can send scum to a much nicer retirement. Or, and this is a theory, you could destroy the soul all together."

"Oh," Chloe quietly replied.

"I … I can't say I've ever heard of anything like this. Who did you say was with you again at the graveyard?"

"Tori was. She … she's another experiment. She's a witch-sorcerer hybrid. But my supposed trainer was Margaret, I don't think I ever heard her last name. She was older though, very cold. She … she thought I was lying about what I could do. When she saw what happened at the graveyard – even after I asked her if I could stop but she pressed me onwards – she … she decided to turn us over back to the St. Clouds. She used that as proof that the 'project failures' were simply too dangerous to live."

Jaime leaned against the headboard.

"I don't know what you want me to do, Chloe. If everything you said is true … I don't think there is much I can do for you. We might be able to do some basic training, find some management, but I don't think you're going to find what you're looking for."

"But you're on the council, right? Surely you know someone that could help me."

"You know about the council?"

"The interracial council, right? It's made up of different representatives of different races. It's supposed to help make sure that balance is kept in check and that no one is trying to kill off another."

"That's … I guess that is one way to put it," Jaime said, cocking her head. "But we do much more than that. We make sure that there is a place to air grievances – "

"This is my grievance. Why didn't you all stop the experiments? Why did you let them happen?"

"Chloe," Jaime started, "I wasn't on the council then. Honestly … up until the past decade or so, the council was …" she trailed off. "It wasn't as effective as it is now."

"You mean before the Cabals became involved."

That grabbed Jaime's attention.

"No – there isn't any involvement by the Cabals with any council matters."

"But isn't the witch married to the heir to the Cortez Cabal? And they're fostering a witch with Nast Cabal ties? Ties that lead directly to the Nast CEO? Or, well, former CEO?"

"Yes, but, the Cabals don't have any influence on the council and what we decide to do … wait, former CEO?"

"Yeah, former. Don't you know that Sean is dead?"

"No, he's not. You've been lied to, clearly," Jaime snapped.

"We found his body. It was buried in the woods not too far from where the Nasts kept us hidden."

"Wait – you said that the plan was for you to be turned over to the St. Clouds."

Chloe sighed. "It was … until we managed to damage the research facility where they started the experiments. Or at least, our group. The St. Clouds decided we weren't worth the trouble after all of that. The Nasts though … they knew about us since they kidnapped Derek's adoptive dad and then let him go. We," Chloe stopped for a moment, biting her lip. It felt foolish to explain this part. It reminded her of how naïve they still were. "We made a deal with the Nasts when we met up with another group of experiments, Project Phoenix. We would live under Nasts control and supposedly have anything we could ever desire. When we turned eighteen, we'd be free to leave or free to work for them."

Jaime rubbed her head. "Chloe … you realize this is quite a stretch for me to believe all of this. Different Cabals, Sean being dead, experiments …"

Chloe sighed. "I wish it wasn't. I haven't tried summoning Sean, but I know Derek wouldn't lie to me. He found his grave in the woods. I don't know why he was killed, who did it, or why they decided to bury him by where we lived. I guess they thought it was remote enough that he'd never be found."

"Sean can't be dead," Jaime repeated softly.

"He's just one man. Everyone dies eventually."

Jaime lifted her head up to meet Chloe's eyes. "And did you have any involvement?"

"No. I mean, I wasn't the biggest fan of the Nasts, not after they continued to lie to us and keep on experimenting –"

"Stop, stop right there," Jaime interrupted. "We … we can continue this line of discussion and sort out all of the lies later. The important thing is trying to figure out a way to get out of here, you, your aunt, your boyfriend, and me. We need to get out of here. You can explain all of this to the council and we can take it from there since there are multiple races involved."

Chloe started to reply but Jaime held her hand up.

"Right, of course," Chloe snorted. "You don't want to think you're the bad guy so I'm just making up this entire elaborate scheme for … what? For kicks? You want to see what they're done to us? You want to see what they've done to me? I summon dead dogs or worse in my sleep. I see residuals almost anywhere we go. I have spirits flock to me. I have this necklace that isn't even doing its job anymore but I can't take it off because then all of hell would break loose. Whatever it's supposed to do, it isn't. All it seemingly is anymore is a glorified mood ring that keeps changing colors the more I use my powers."

Jaime's eyes shifted to her necklace. She started to reply but Chloe was already gone.

"I can't believe she didn't believe me," Chloe paced.

"It is … complicated," Lauren admitted. "It's a lot to take in. You have to remember, she probably isn't going to trust us for a while. She doesn't know that we're telling her the truth."

Chloe pointed at the files. "That is the proof."

"Chloe, you're going to need to slow things down, okay?" Derek had finally entered the conversation. "Rome wasn't built in a day."

She looked at the two of them. They were in agreement, for once, but it was against her.

"You just need to give her some space, or at least try not to give any more information unless she asks for it. Remember, she's supposed to help you. You need to get on her good side," Derek added.

Chloe rolled her eyes.

"You need to take this seriously, Chloe," Lauren added. "If she isn't the right trainer, so be it, but she would know who that would be. Just … slow things down some."

"You don't get it, I don't think we really have time to slow things down," Chloe hissed. "Liz could pop back in here at any moment and we're not ready, we're not ready at all."

"Has Liz contacted you?" Lauren asked.

Chloe shook her head.

"That's unfortunate, but we'll have to keep an option for her to pop back in. You think she'll be able to get past the runes?"

"I don't know. Maybe? I'm guessing that she knows about them. That or maybe she expects me to make regular trips outside of them to check for her? But I don't want too."

"Chloe, we all do things we don't want to. You have to keep yourself open to her."

"But –"

"Chloe, just stop it. You can't have everything go your way all of the time. We do our best to make allowances, but … you're acting like a brat and it isn't very reassuring."

"Saying that I'm uncomfortable with something isn't being a brat. It's about knowing my limits and what I'm comfortable with."

Lauren sighed and gave a brief glance over to Derek.

Chloe looked over to Derek but he didn't say anything in her defense. Not that she necessarily wanted him too – she could handle her own aunt, thank you very much – but it stung to see that he agreed with her.

Finding a secluded place to mope was difficult when her self-imposed restrictions kept her to the house. She thought about sitting in the truck but that would only raise suspicion that she was trying to make a getaway.

She settled for moping in the bathroom. It wasn't dignified. It wasn't exactly what she had in mind. It did serve as a stark reminder of the situation she was in and how she was wrong in this instance. Aunt Lauren and Derek did have a point. She did tell Jaime a lot and expected her to simply take it at face value from a complete stranger. A stranger that was the cause, or alleged cause if Jaime didn't believe her, of Jaime's kidnapping. Everything ranging from Sean, to the experiments, to what the Pack and council didn't do when the experiments were going on …

It was a lot for her to handle and she had been processing this for almost six years now. She had managed to accept that she was a necromancer relatively easy. She sighed. Of course, she didn't exactly have that confirmed for her and just told to just accept it. No, Derek had put out little pieces of information so that she could look into it more and come to her own conclusions about her abilities. If Derek had just told her that she was a necromancer and all of what that entailed and just expected her to deal with it, she probably would have handled it much worse than Jaime.

She sighed. It was just being cooped up in here, like rats, that was eating away at her. She knew that they would be leaving soon. They had to. But in order to do that, they needed to make sure Jaime would be with them. She couldn't leave Jaime behind. Jaime was Chloe's responsibility and it was up to her to make things right.

Chloe knocked on the door. She heard the Jaime mutter something, the bed squeak and the thud of Jaime's feet hitting the floor.

Jaime opened the door, not very impressed that it was Chloe on the other side.

"We got off on the wrong foot," Chloe blurted out.

Jaime smirked. "You think so?"

Chloe stepped inside and closed the door. She remained close to it. Jaime went and sat back on the bed.

"I … I want to apologize. I shouldn't have acted like that. It's a lot to take in at one time and I shouldn't have expected you to just believe everything I said."

Jaime eyed her.

"I was hoping … that somehow, we might be able to start over?"

"A good step in that direction is figuring out how we're all going to get out of here."

Chloe wanted desperately wanted nothing more than just to go to bad and wake up at Badger Lake. This was all getting too big. Everything seemed like they were minor pieces in an overall grander scheme. Back at Badger Lake, she and Derek would have late night coffee dates. Derek would grumble about how it seemingly never stopped snowing and that he wouldn't get to put up the snow shovel until May.

Simon and Tori would email them both, telling them about the latest news in their lives. Simon's usually was a bit of a mish mash of school and little notes of who he was or wasn't currently dating. Tori's usually consisted of something moronic some jerk at school tried to pull on her and her clever retort or discrete spell. It made Derek nervous that she would even admit to such things, but Tori brushed it off. Chloe pointed out that most likely she only wished she did and only threw that in there to get Derek all worked up.

Both of their emails usually consisted of hints of open invitations for them. Chloe knew that Derek wanted to go. He would thrive in a college environment. Academics all day, studying whatever he wanted? Problems that looked more like a paragraph instead of an equation? Logic problems that left Chloe double and triple checking her diagrams? It would be heaven for Derek. She knew that he wanted to go there. She wanted him to go there. The only problem was that he wouldn't leave her to do it. Online classes weren't the same. Antisocial as he was, there were benefits as to having an actual professor at the front of the class instead of a video or a slideshow presentation.

The original plan was that Derek would simply wait the one year for Chloe since she was one year academically behind the rest of them due to her age. That was the original plan. Like so many well intentioned plans, it went up in smokes as soon as the incident happened. College changed from a definite to a possibility.

Stubborn as he was, Derek didn't go like he originally planned. He didn't even apply to any universities. Chloe wasn't sure what to do about it. She was terrified of him going and she was terrified of him staying. She wanted him to go – studying, learning, it was something that made Derek incredibly happy. It was an integral part of him. But, the thought of staying behind, everyone else going and moving on with their lives while she was still stuck at Badger Lake paralyzed her with fear. What if Derek met a smart girl that liked physics? How in the world could she compete with that?

She had brought it up a few times but Derek always assured her that even if that were to happen – he didn't help matters when he said it wasn't a matter of if, but when – he only had eyes for her.

Chloe sighed. If only dreams did come true, all of their problems could just disappear.

"Have you made up with Jaime yet?"

Chloe saw that Lauren was still looking over some things. Chloe thought she would have been in bed hours ago. Jaime only recently woken up from a nap and had asked her to fetch her something to eat.

"I'm working on it. Food tends to help," Chloe said. She was carrying a tray of various cheeses, fruits, and a sandwich.

"Just remember Chloe, this … this is important. We will only have one chance, so we need to make sure that we have everyone on board when the time comes. It will have to be soon. I don't imagine that we'll be sitting here for very long."

Chloe nodded and took the tray upstairs.

She had to make this work.

"Is Malcolm gone?"

"Yeah, he headed out early this morning. He didn't say when he was heading back. Keith is still around," Nate lowered his voice. "So make sure you're careful. I'd say warn Jaime but I don't want her to freak out too much. Just try to stay close to her whenever you can. Do that rocky stuff, you know."

"Rocky stuff?"

"You know, just train all day, train until you can't think straight anymore."

"Oh, you mean – gotcha, Rocky."

Chloe headed back upstairs with the breakfast tray. She and Jaime had stayed up late last night talking. It wasn't about being a necromancer, not really. It was more of them getting to know one another. Jaime's family was well aware of their supernatural abilities. Chloe didn't know if she envied that or not. Waking up one day to see ghosts were one thing, knowing that that day would eventually come was another.

Chloe thought she heard something moving upstairs. It was probably just Jaime going back to the room.

She made her way upstairs and stopped in front of the door. She shifted the tray and opened the door carefully and walked in. Jaime wasn't anywhere to be found. She shrugged and set the tray on the bed. Jaime must have been heading to the bathroom instead of from. She'd wait a few minutes and see if that was the case.

Jaime did return a minute or two later.

"Chloe," she lowered her voice. "I heard you talking downstairs. I wasn't spying, but I couldn't help overhear it."

"Okay…"

"Do you know Malcolm's last name?"

"Danvers, why?"

Jaime covered her mouth with her hand. She looked as though she was going to be sick.