Chapter 24
Garrett groaned, pausing in his daily katas as pain laced the front of his brain. He heard Failinis let out a confused whined as he turned his head to the side.
What do you hear, my friend? He asked his hound through telepathy.
Lauren's calling to us. A gruff voice answered him as the dog stood and looked to the horizon in Lauren's general direction.
Let's go. If Shona's asking Lauren to contact us, then she must be having trouble with Lauren.
What about Maureen?
Garrett groaned in annoyance as he remembered to take Maureen along with him the next time he met with Lauren and Shona.
She's probably with Alan out near the cliffs. Can you fetch her while I prepare?
Failinis' tail wagged wildly in answer and he jumped swiftly out the window and took off like a shot and scaring the birds from their trees with his bark. Garret laughed and shook his head at his long time companion's antics while he began gathering his equipment.
"Garrett, what are you doing?" His father's voice made him pause in his packing. He looked up to see the old man in a green sweater and tan trousers, his eyes daring his son to lie to him.
"I've received word of Lauren." He decided his father would get the truth, just not exactly in the same order it had happened. "She's in trouble and needs my help. I'm bringing Maureen and Alan with me."
"And how did she know how to contact us if we haven't even met her?"
"I had Alan send an adder stone to their location. I tied a note to the stone explaining what it was." for once, Garret was relieved his sister saved him. She came up behind her father, Alan comfortable preening himself on her shoulder, and kissed his cheek in greeting. Collin smiled, seeming to forget about interrogating his son further. Garrett now knew the benefit of having his father's favorite on his side.
"Next time, inform before you do something? I'd like to not worry myself to death." Though Collin smiled at his own joke, his children became stone-faced with their eyes only showing the depths of their worry and sadness at their father's coming demise. When Collin saw this, he sighed apologizing for his crude humor at such a thing. "I assume you'll be leaving soon?" He had decided to take the attention off himself.
"I was just in the middle of packing when you walked in." Garrett explained.
"Did Lauren tell you what kind of trouble she was in? Does she even know?"
"Shona's been training her for months now." Maureen answered, shielding her brother from answering. "It seems she's progressing through her training too quickly. Shona's given her the test and now she's having adverse effects from it."
Worry and pride warred with each other as they crept into Collin's features at hearing his granddaughter's progress. "Nothing too serious?"
"Not at the moment, but if she's not allowed to be without contact with a grove, her condition could severely worsen."
"Then bring her into our grove. Shona and Lauren may find shelter here for as long as it takes. I'm too old to quarrel with that roguish lass over who has the right to train her anymore. I'll help with Lauren, as will we all. She needs us now more than ever and I want to see just how magnificent she really is." Collin smiled and turned. "Now if you'll excuse this old sod, I need to be finding Sinead so she can write for me while I await your return. Be safe on your path."
"Yes, sir." Garrett and Maureen nodded and went back to packing.
* LOST * GIRL *
"I know this is necessary but it doesn't stop it from sucking." Bo frowned, spending Lauren's last few hours at the clubhouse just cuddling with her underneath the oak tree. She played with the ends of blonde hair as she sighed forlornly.
"I know, but it's just for three months. Shona says I shouldn't be there for any longer than that." Lauren tried to keep reassuring Bo she would be okay. It wasn't like being on lock-down in the Ash's compound. She would have all the freedom possible to her, with the only rule being she really couldn't leave the grove's boundaries without becoming sick again.
"Yeah and she also said that the test wouldn't hurt you." Bo sourly mumble into the blonde's shoulder. Lauren sighed deeply, getting annoyed with the fact Bo couldn't let that go. There was no way Shona could have known that would happen.
"Bo, I'm not hu-" She was interrupted by a frustrated growl.
"You got dizzy and if you're here for much longer, you'll get worse without a grove around you." Bo's frustrations at the situation were evident in her tone. She felt warm hands cupping her cheeks and she looked up into warm whiskey eyes do full of love that she forgot about being angry at Shona...for now.
"Bo, I know how worried you are and how scared you are of losing me, but I promise you that I will train harder than I ever have before just to get back here as quickly as possible. I don't like this either, but the scroll's instructions are the only way we know of to control this until I've adjusted better." Lauren kissed Bo tenderly, trying to calm her succubus. When they pulled away from each other with the need for oxygen, Bo pressed her forehead against Lauren's, her eyes shimmering with sadness.
"You know, if you hadn't become a doctor you would have made one hell of a shrink." They chuckled as the tension disappeared.
"You think?" Lauren asked cutely, making Bo laugh at her intended rhyming.
"Yeah, I do."
"Maybe I'll do that in the next few hundred years." Lauren smiled, knowing that it could be an option in her long future with Bo.
"Well, I'll be right beside you the whole way, even through midterms."
"Wouldn't have it any other way, babe." They kissed one last time until the sun began making it's descent in the sky.
"Garrett will be here soon. He said that he was bringing someone with him that he wanted me to meet before heading to the cabin."
"Any clue as to who it is?"
"He said I would remember her when I saw her."
"One of your aunts?"
"Possibly. It's been so long since I've seen any of my family."
"Being in Fae custody doesn't actually give you a lot of family time, huh?" Bo pressed a kiss to Lauren's temple before cuddling more into her back.
"It's not like I never saw much of them before. At least now I know why they haven't come around. Before I became involved with the Fae, my father and me never spent much time together when I grew up. He worked the majority of the time, but he would take a day or two off and we would go fishing or just sit around a fire and tell stories." Lauren's eyes told Bo that she was reaching back to her best memories of childhood.
"You use to tell ghost stories around a fire?" Bo tried not to giggle as she pictured a small version of Lauren with wide scared eyes as her father told an urban legend; she could even see a marshmallow on the end of a stick burning as it was forgotten in young-Lauren's shock mind.
"Not all the time and my father never made them too scary. He would usually tell me stories about the Fae. As any little girl my age, I wanted to see them for myself, but he always cautioned me not to go off finding them, that some were dangerous."
"We all figured that out sooner or later." Bo commented and Lauren nodded in agreement.
"Do you regret not taking his warnings seriously?" Bo's damn insecurities surfaced again and Lauren could feel it in the way the brunette's body tensed slightly behind her.
"If I had listened to him, I would have never been able to meet all these people I now call friends and my family. Most importantly, I would have never known you, Bo." Lauren's eyes glazed over with tears as her voice tremble slightly. "Ugh, this sucks." she laughed, wiping at the tears.
"I love you, Lauren Lewis, and I'm so damn happy to have you in my life." Bo kissed her until the tears stopped.
"Ditto." Lauren smiled as she pulled away from the kiss.
"You just did not use a Ghost reference." Bo made a comically shocked face which made Lauren giggle.
"Maybe." They spent the rest of their time joking or laughing with each other until they heard a vehicle and Failinis' loud bark.
Bo sighed and maneuvered herself into a standing position, holding her hand out for Lauren to take. They could hear him speaking with Shona and Brynna about the scrolls Trick had lent them and Blair's position as bodyguard with another female voice arguing along with them.
"I'm guessing that's the mystery visitor. You ready?"
"As I'll ever be." Lauren sighed and looked back at Bo. "I'll keep in touch. Shona said we could talk as much as we want to each other until I'm more stable for other activities."
"So you can get conjugal visits?" Bo might not hate this as much as she thought.
"Shona told me she'll work on seeing if Garrett will let you visit."
"That won't be a problem." Blair's voice made them turn to see the succubus grinning and walking toward them, the others still talking in the front of the clubhouse. "I gave up my position as bodyguard t' you, Bo. Yer lady needs you more than having my grumpy ass around." she explained at their confused faces.
Bo smiled brightly and hugged an unsuspecting Blair. "You're awesome!"
"No need to remind me. I know." Blair tried to let her cockiness overshadow her embarrassment at being praised and hugged.
"Thank you, Blair. You're a terrific sister." Lauren was more subdued than her girlfriend when thanking the other brunette but smiled just a brightly.
"I've seen Brynna and Shona separated before and ye four act so much alike, it's damn near creepy. I don't think I could stand even a week of whinin' and pinin' from anyone ever again. Brynna's gonna need my help here more than anywhere else. Who else is gonna keep Ceili under control." They all laughed at Blair's constant joking and groaning over Ceili's unnatural need to hump anything with a pulse; it was Blair's way of dispelling tension.
"Should we go an meet this mystery woman?" Bo asked, taking Lauren's hand into her own. The blonde nodded and they walked to the front of the clubhouse.
"Lauren?" Maureen asked when she saw her niece walking hand-in-hand with the one they called Bo. Her normally stoic visage crumbled slightly when she spotted the woman that little, shy girl had become.
Lauren looked around, finding her aunt beside her uncle staring at her with wide eyes. She looked almost exactly the same from what Lauren remembered of her. Her hair was longer, maybe a shade or two lighter than her own and she wore a simple pair of pants with a red flannel coat pulled over a sweater. Alan was perched atop the dirty Pathfinder while Failinis lounged in the shade it provided looking around at the faces surrounding them.
"Aunt Maureen?" Lauren should have known by now that her aunt wouldn't have aged a day since the last time they had seen each other years ago, but she guessed since she thought she was just your normal eccentric aunt growing up it would be hard to comprehend for a moment.
Maureen saw the hundreds of questions floating in her niece's eyes and she smiled. "Your grandfather and uncle saved me and you cousin from the beserkirs just minutes before they stormed my house." She thought she'd answer the where she'd been and why she hadn't contacted Lauren sooner.
"I have a cousin?"
"Yes. Her name's Sinead and you'll be meeting her as soon as we enter the perimeter around the cabin." She decided they could wait before explaining Sinead's condition in fear of scaring Lauren off of her true path as a druid.
"When do we leave?" Lauren's anxiety had been replaced with curious excitement.
"Not before we give you supplies." Moira spoke up, walking up to them with two backpacks with the rest of their household following behind her. "Food, weapons, and clothing." she explained, handing a back each to Lauren and Bo.
"There's warm clothes at the top for when you hit the mountains." Kenzi told them and nervously rambled off how they had packed them like a nervous mother.
Bo placed her hands comfortingly on her shoulders. "Kenzi, we'll be fine. Before you know it, we'll be back and bugging you. I'm leaving you, Brynna, and Blair in charge while I'm gone. If you need help, call Dyson or Hale." Bo smiled before hugging her best friend.
"Just take care of each other. I think I can handle a few sex fiends for a few months" She joked before turning to look at Lauren. "And I want to see all the cool shit you're gonna learn when you get back." They hugged and Bo smiled proudly at the two finally being able to get along.
"You be good and don't fight with your sisters too much while I'm gone." Shona said as she pulled Brynna into a tight hug, laying her head upon the tall blonde's breasts, hearing her heartbeat and taking strength from it.
"I promise." Brynna chuckled at the old warning. "And you be careful, too." Brynna couldn't bring herself to say anything more because the lump in her throat grew; she coughed discreetly trying to get rid of it. Of course, Shona noticed and smiled sweetly at her before pulling away.
"I'll be back before you miss me too much." Brynna could only nod and force a smile.
Everyone else said their goodbyes before the small group piled into Pathfinder and took off down the dusty driveway.
Sorry for the wait...again. These next chapters kind of go together so I waited until I had them done before putting them up.
One of my references didn't show up on the last chapter. Its .
I think Blair deserves the best sister in the world award. Lol. Stay tuned.
~ The Blotness