Disclaimer: The Night World is the property of L.J. Smith as are any of the
characters you recognise like Thierry, Hannah, Lupe etc.
Spoilers: All of the Night World books and my story Bound by Flame.
Author's notes: This is a sequel to my story Bound By Flame but you don't have to have read Bound By Flame to read this one.
Thanks so much to redaura, Mandy and Athena for reviewing, I'm glad you like the story so far. Things should start getting more interesting after this part well things are going to start happening anyway.
Thanks redaura for giving me the heads up on my lack of spaces, I hope this is better now.
Part 5.
Aniela grinned as her mother hopped from pot to pot making sure nothing was burning. Her pale skin was flushed a warm pink colour and a thin coating of perspiration was visible on her forehead and some strands of her light, blond hair had escaped from her bun adding to her flustered appearance.
"Dinner will be ready soon, käresta" she told Aniela and noticing the smirk on her face added, "stop laughing at me. Stop looking at me, better yet get out of my kitchen."
"You sound just like Dad," Aniela replied.
"Heaven forbid," her mother replied and then gave a yelp as one of her pots boiled over.
Aniela giggled as she retreated hastily to the sanctuary of her bedroom. Her cat Abra was stretched out comfortably on her bed, snoozing in a stream of sunlight that beamed in through her window. She gave Aniela a disdainful look as she entered and then returned to sleep.
"Yeah I love you too Abra," Aniela replied freeing her hair from the ponytail she'd had it in.
She turned to her mirror and sighed. Looking back at her she saw a girl, who was basically round, round features, rounded shoulders and a big, round belly.
"Why should I want to be someone else?" she whispered as she pressed her fingers to her reflected image. "So I could know what it's like to be wanted," she answered herself.
She searched her reflection for her few redeeming qualities, she had a clear complexion but she was much too pale in her opinion and her dark brown eyes and hair, which she actually liked, only served to highlight her paleness.
Aniela glared at her reflection again and then grinned. "So I'm never going to be pretty," she thought, "I know this already. Anyway I like who I am now, I like my life and I'm not going to let myself get depressed over how I look, not anymore. I've got nice eyes and nice hair, I'm not ugly and even if other people don't like how I look I do."
"So there," she thought and stuck her tongue out at the mirror. Laughing at herself she grabbed her sketchpad and eased herself into her chair to attempt a drawing of Abra.
She was working on the shading when her mother burst into the room.
"Aniela, I've been calling you for the last twenty minutes, your dinner is going cold."
"Oh I'm sorry. I didn't hear you. I was drawing and I just lost track of time I guess," Aniela replied.
"Really? Or are you just trying to avoid my cooking?" her mother asked.
"Really see. Though that would have been a good idea, I might try it next time," she said showing her the sketch of Abra.
"That's very good," her mom told her, "very, very good."
Aniela felt her face heat up as she blushed at her mom's praise. She mumbled something that she'd intended to be thank you but ended up being an incoherent babble that even she couldn't understand.
Her mom laughed at her, "You know your problem, Ani, you don't know how to take a compliment. Now come on for your dinner, I think your dad thinks I might have put you in the soup."
Aniela grinned, her dad probably had made some sort of remark like that. It was standard practise in their family to insult her mom's cooking even her mom was known to make jokes at her own expense. Not that her cooking was terrible all the time, usual it was okay but every so often she'd have a major disaster. But as Abra had vamoosed under the bed when her mother made her grand entrance Aniela no longer had a model or a valid excuse for avoiding her mother's culinary adventure.
"Alright I'm coming," she said reluctantly, "I suppose it's got to be better than last time's extra crispy, black chicken."
Diablo grinned wickedly at Charlotte, "So we use our incomparable charms to insinuate ourselves into her little group."
"No," Charlotte replied, "Cassian and I use our incomparable charm, you just try not to act too much like yourself."
"You wound me Charlotte, you really do," Diablo said with bitter sarcasm. "Then what?"
"Then we report back everything we find out about her."
"That's it," Diablo asked, "no specifics, no further instructions?"
"None," Charlotte replied.
"So basically we follow her around like a bunch of rookies. What do they think we are, a group of kids."
Charlotte grinned at Diablo's tirade then replied, "we are to them."
"I haven't been a kid for a very, very long time," Diablo said softly.
Charlotte believed him; she could hear it in his voice, a bitterness, a coldness that hinted at experience far beyond his years. For a moment she almost felt sorry for him, then cut it off quickly, it was good that he was cold; it made him a better Dark Ninja; it meant he wouldn't hesitate to get the job done, to kill. She was much safer with someone like him backing her up. Anyway he wasn't the only person to have a bad childhood and it wasn't necessarily a bad thing, it had made him strong and he wasn't complaining.
Diablo got angrier and angrier as he drove back to the house. Those smarmy council bastards. They knew there was no way he'd have accepted this job if he'd known it was a stupid information gathering assignment. Why the hell they'd sent him off to the middle of nowhere in Colorado of all places to spy on one boring witch was beyond him.
"Damn," he exclaimed as a realisation hit him. "That old bastard."
That Blackthorn ass had had it in for him ever since he'd tried it on with his daughter and this had all the hallmarks of one of his sly payback schemes. Oh yeah it was just like him to get Diablo sent off on an insignificant mission while the most important conflict since the Night Wars was going on. Well if he was stuck here then he was going to have some fun. Obviously he couldn't mess with the witch just yet but there were plenty of humans around to toy with, sure they were usually a little too easy but it was still fun, which reminded him, he still had to feed.
Des sat in the passenger seat of the silver ford listening to Rus and Cynthia chat away to each other. It felt strange to be going on a mission without Gwern. She missed the friendly squabbling between the two boys; she missed how Gwern would turn to her and smile reassuringly and all her insides would turn to liquid.
"So what do you think of Circle Daybreak here?" Rus asked her.
"Oh well it's pretty similar to back home," Cynthia replied, "except Thierry's a little bit more laid back than Gawen."
"More laid back?" Icarus asked surprised.
"Yeah well that could be because of Gawen's James Bond complex. Everything's a mission and he tends to be pretty formal with briefings and things not exactly the kind of friendly meeting you had with Thierry. I mean he even has a Q."
"A Q?" Des asked.
"Yeah, he has one of the guys coming up with new and inventive weaponry for us. I bet he's just dying for the day that he manages to fit a stake in a watch. If he had his way we'd all have double o code numbers, he'd be oo7 of course."
"Of course," Des said and giggled. "I guess we can't complain about Thierry any more."
"I know," Icarus said with a sigh, "what a pity, you know how much I enjoy a good moaning session."
"Yeah I do," Des replied. "You're going to have to learn the signs he's about to start," she told Cynthia, " and avoid him totally at all those times specially in the morning."
"Hey," Rus exclaimed, "You are way worse than me in the morning. Gwern was," he stopped realising what he said.
"It's okay," Des said softly, "you're allowed talk about him you know. I don't mind, sometimes I want to talk about him."
"I don't mean to sound rude," Cynthia said, "and you don't have to tell me if you don't want, but who's Gwern?"
"It's okay," Des said, "we're the one's being rude talking as if you're not here. Gwern's my soulmate he's AWOL at the moment."
"AWOL," Cynthia asked.
"He left," Des told her, "after we fought."
"he just left?" Cynthia asked.
"Pretty much," Des replied.
"He'll be back," Icarus said.
"Yeah," Des said softly.
"You don't sound convinced," Rus said, "he loves you Des, even more than he admits to, you love him and you're meant to be together." He paused and glanced over at Des, "So please don't shatter my romantic allusions here."
"I'm trying to hang on to my own here I'm not about to crush yours," Des told him, "I just wish I could be as sure as everyone else that he's coming back."
"He's coming back," Icarus said and left it at that.
Cynthia felt more than uncomfortable in the silence that followed obviously she had brought up a sore topic, though she couldn't understand why Gwern would have left Des, if they were soulmates shouldn't they be together no matter what, of course she could just be being totally naïve.
"So what do we know about this girl we've to protect," Rus asked to break the silence.
"Well her name's Wenona Blessingway, she's a witch and she lives in Colorado. And that's about it," Des told him.
"So who are we protecting her from?" Cynthia asked.
"I know as much as you do which is nothing," Des replied, "It's very annoying to have to protect someone without knowing who we've to protect them from or even why she needs protection but that's the way Thierry's friend wants it."
"Great, well I always like a challenge," Rus said with a grin.
"That's true if your girlfriends are anything to go by," Des said laughing.
Cynthia smiled, Des and Rus got on so well together, they were so easy with each other it made her feel sort of out of place but maybe she'd find her place with them. She hoped so; they seemed so nice and whatever chatty front they might put on it they were committed to what they did. Maybe Thierry had sent them on this mission so that they could build a relationship and get used to working together, and a nice simple mission would be nice after the last one she'd been on back home. Yeah a nice, simple mission was probably just what she needed.
Spoilers: All of the Night World books and my story Bound by Flame.
Author's notes: This is a sequel to my story Bound By Flame but you don't have to have read Bound By Flame to read this one.
Thanks so much to redaura, Mandy and Athena for reviewing, I'm glad you like the story so far. Things should start getting more interesting after this part well things are going to start happening anyway.
Thanks redaura for giving me the heads up on my lack of spaces, I hope this is better now.
Part 5.
Aniela grinned as her mother hopped from pot to pot making sure nothing was burning. Her pale skin was flushed a warm pink colour and a thin coating of perspiration was visible on her forehead and some strands of her light, blond hair had escaped from her bun adding to her flustered appearance.
"Dinner will be ready soon, käresta" she told Aniela and noticing the smirk on her face added, "stop laughing at me. Stop looking at me, better yet get out of my kitchen."
"You sound just like Dad," Aniela replied.
"Heaven forbid," her mother replied and then gave a yelp as one of her pots boiled over.
Aniela giggled as she retreated hastily to the sanctuary of her bedroom. Her cat Abra was stretched out comfortably on her bed, snoozing in a stream of sunlight that beamed in through her window. She gave Aniela a disdainful look as she entered and then returned to sleep.
"Yeah I love you too Abra," Aniela replied freeing her hair from the ponytail she'd had it in.
She turned to her mirror and sighed. Looking back at her she saw a girl, who was basically round, round features, rounded shoulders and a big, round belly.
"Why should I want to be someone else?" she whispered as she pressed her fingers to her reflected image. "So I could know what it's like to be wanted," she answered herself.
She searched her reflection for her few redeeming qualities, she had a clear complexion but she was much too pale in her opinion and her dark brown eyes and hair, which she actually liked, only served to highlight her paleness.
Aniela glared at her reflection again and then grinned. "So I'm never going to be pretty," she thought, "I know this already. Anyway I like who I am now, I like my life and I'm not going to let myself get depressed over how I look, not anymore. I've got nice eyes and nice hair, I'm not ugly and even if other people don't like how I look I do."
"So there," she thought and stuck her tongue out at the mirror. Laughing at herself she grabbed her sketchpad and eased herself into her chair to attempt a drawing of Abra.
She was working on the shading when her mother burst into the room.
"Aniela, I've been calling you for the last twenty minutes, your dinner is going cold."
"Oh I'm sorry. I didn't hear you. I was drawing and I just lost track of time I guess," Aniela replied.
"Really? Or are you just trying to avoid my cooking?" her mother asked.
"Really see. Though that would have been a good idea, I might try it next time," she said showing her the sketch of Abra.
"That's very good," her mom told her, "very, very good."
Aniela felt her face heat up as she blushed at her mom's praise. She mumbled something that she'd intended to be thank you but ended up being an incoherent babble that even she couldn't understand.
Her mom laughed at her, "You know your problem, Ani, you don't know how to take a compliment. Now come on for your dinner, I think your dad thinks I might have put you in the soup."
Aniela grinned, her dad probably had made some sort of remark like that. It was standard practise in their family to insult her mom's cooking even her mom was known to make jokes at her own expense. Not that her cooking was terrible all the time, usual it was okay but every so often she'd have a major disaster. But as Abra had vamoosed under the bed when her mother made her grand entrance Aniela no longer had a model or a valid excuse for avoiding her mother's culinary adventure.
"Alright I'm coming," she said reluctantly, "I suppose it's got to be better than last time's extra crispy, black chicken."
Diablo grinned wickedly at Charlotte, "So we use our incomparable charms to insinuate ourselves into her little group."
"No," Charlotte replied, "Cassian and I use our incomparable charm, you just try not to act too much like yourself."
"You wound me Charlotte, you really do," Diablo said with bitter sarcasm. "Then what?"
"Then we report back everything we find out about her."
"That's it," Diablo asked, "no specifics, no further instructions?"
"None," Charlotte replied.
"So basically we follow her around like a bunch of rookies. What do they think we are, a group of kids."
Charlotte grinned at Diablo's tirade then replied, "we are to them."
"I haven't been a kid for a very, very long time," Diablo said softly.
Charlotte believed him; she could hear it in his voice, a bitterness, a coldness that hinted at experience far beyond his years. For a moment she almost felt sorry for him, then cut it off quickly, it was good that he was cold; it made him a better Dark Ninja; it meant he wouldn't hesitate to get the job done, to kill. She was much safer with someone like him backing her up. Anyway he wasn't the only person to have a bad childhood and it wasn't necessarily a bad thing, it had made him strong and he wasn't complaining.
Diablo got angrier and angrier as he drove back to the house. Those smarmy council bastards. They knew there was no way he'd have accepted this job if he'd known it was a stupid information gathering assignment. Why the hell they'd sent him off to the middle of nowhere in Colorado of all places to spy on one boring witch was beyond him.
"Damn," he exclaimed as a realisation hit him. "That old bastard."
That Blackthorn ass had had it in for him ever since he'd tried it on with his daughter and this had all the hallmarks of one of his sly payback schemes. Oh yeah it was just like him to get Diablo sent off on an insignificant mission while the most important conflict since the Night Wars was going on. Well if he was stuck here then he was going to have some fun. Obviously he couldn't mess with the witch just yet but there were plenty of humans around to toy with, sure they were usually a little too easy but it was still fun, which reminded him, he still had to feed.
Des sat in the passenger seat of the silver ford listening to Rus and Cynthia chat away to each other. It felt strange to be going on a mission without Gwern. She missed the friendly squabbling between the two boys; she missed how Gwern would turn to her and smile reassuringly and all her insides would turn to liquid.
"So what do you think of Circle Daybreak here?" Rus asked her.
"Oh well it's pretty similar to back home," Cynthia replied, "except Thierry's a little bit more laid back than Gawen."
"More laid back?" Icarus asked surprised.
"Yeah well that could be because of Gawen's James Bond complex. Everything's a mission and he tends to be pretty formal with briefings and things not exactly the kind of friendly meeting you had with Thierry. I mean he even has a Q."
"A Q?" Des asked.
"Yeah, he has one of the guys coming up with new and inventive weaponry for us. I bet he's just dying for the day that he manages to fit a stake in a watch. If he had his way we'd all have double o code numbers, he'd be oo7 of course."
"Of course," Des said and giggled. "I guess we can't complain about Thierry any more."
"I know," Icarus said with a sigh, "what a pity, you know how much I enjoy a good moaning session."
"Yeah I do," Des replied. "You're going to have to learn the signs he's about to start," she told Cynthia, " and avoid him totally at all those times specially in the morning."
"Hey," Rus exclaimed, "You are way worse than me in the morning. Gwern was," he stopped realising what he said.
"It's okay," Des said softly, "you're allowed talk about him you know. I don't mind, sometimes I want to talk about him."
"I don't mean to sound rude," Cynthia said, "and you don't have to tell me if you don't want, but who's Gwern?"
"It's okay," Des said, "we're the one's being rude talking as if you're not here. Gwern's my soulmate he's AWOL at the moment."
"AWOL," Cynthia asked.
"He left," Des told her, "after we fought."
"he just left?" Cynthia asked.
"Pretty much," Des replied.
"He'll be back," Icarus said.
"Yeah," Des said softly.
"You don't sound convinced," Rus said, "he loves you Des, even more than he admits to, you love him and you're meant to be together." He paused and glanced over at Des, "So please don't shatter my romantic allusions here."
"I'm trying to hang on to my own here I'm not about to crush yours," Des told him, "I just wish I could be as sure as everyone else that he's coming back."
"He's coming back," Icarus said and left it at that.
Cynthia felt more than uncomfortable in the silence that followed obviously she had brought up a sore topic, though she couldn't understand why Gwern would have left Des, if they were soulmates shouldn't they be together no matter what, of course she could just be being totally naïve.
"So what do we know about this girl we've to protect," Rus asked to break the silence.
"Well her name's Wenona Blessingway, she's a witch and she lives in Colorado. And that's about it," Des told him.
"So who are we protecting her from?" Cynthia asked.
"I know as much as you do which is nothing," Des replied, "It's very annoying to have to protect someone without knowing who we've to protect them from or even why she needs protection but that's the way Thierry's friend wants it."
"Great, well I always like a challenge," Rus said with a grin.
"That's true if your girlfriends are anything to go by," Des said laughing.
Cynthia smiled, Des and Rus got on so well together, they were so easy with each other it made her feel sort of out of place but maybe she'd find her place with them. She hoped so; they seemed so nice and whatever chatty front they might put on it they were committed to what they did. Maybe Thierry had sent them on this mission so that they could build a relationship and get used to working together, and a nice simple mission would be nice after the last one she'd been on back home. Yeah a nice, simple mission was probably just what she needed.