Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight or anything associated with the books or movies.
AN: Yeah, I wasn't lying when I said it would be a while before I could update so I want to thank you all for your amazing patience and support, I really appreciate it.
Chapter Two.
Denali National Park, Alaska, United States.
A determined growl rumbled deep inside her chest as, seventeen year old, Ashley Hale sprinted headlong beneath the gunmetal grey sky, tearing carelessly through the snow-blanketed forest in her search for the creature who continued to elude her best efforts at capture.
With her instinct loud and clear, her senses finely attuned to her familiar surroundings, she effortlessly hurdled over the occasional fallen cedar and spruce tree, as well as the large boulders protruding up at odd intervals from the frozen ground as she relentlessly pursued her prey's repellent odour across the variable terrain.
The icy Alaskan wind, several degrees below freezing, surged against her. Ashley's long mane of thick golden blonde hair, pulled back from her hauntingly beautiful face in a tight ponytail, billowed out behind her as she raced as fast as a speeding bullet to catch up with her prey; a Kobold, sprites that materialised as humanlike figures the size of small children. Kobolds used their magic, limited to the extent that they could teleport over short distances and briefly alter their physical appearance for a time, to paint themselves as cherubic and innocent to lure in their unwitting victims. In actuality Kobolds were hunched, vile creatures with reptilian skin, glowing yellow eyes and a hunger for human flesh. The hindrance of their size and constricted magical ability meant that Kobolds often chose small children for their prey, something that made them widely unpopular within the Supernatural Collective.
The Kobold Ashley hunted had snatched a sickly four year girl from her preschool just as the young human's mother had arrived to take her home early. Ashley and Lucas, with their extraordinary eyesight, had clearly seen the altercation from the parking lot of the highschool they attended toward the very end of their lunch hour, the two buildings were relatively close together but there was enough distance between them that only she and her younger brother had taken notice of the attack. The Fae Twin's acute sense of smell had alerted them to the Kobold's encroaching proximity as it surreptitiously approached the concerned human mother and her ailing young while they were walking out from the school to their car. The Kobold had discreetly crept up behind the pair and violently shoved the unsuspecting elder human, knocking her completely off balance and sending her careening into the hard gritted asphalt while the sprite immediately began dragging the human girl away from the scene. Ashley put the little human's lack of resistance down to shock over the sudden attack.
Ashley's unbeating heart had lurched up into her throat as she was forced to impatiently wait for her human friends, crowded around her and complaining about the bitter cold while she hastily rooted through the glove box of her black and silver Land Cruiser searching for her loose English notes, to be drawn back into Denali High by the shrill ringing of the school bell announcing last period. The Fae twins had sped over to the other school building the very instant they were certain there would be no potential witnesses to them using their remarkable physical abilities. Unfortunately the brief delay had allowed the Kobold to already have made its way into a quiet alleyway nearby where the creature prepared to teleport away.
Ashley hadn't lingered outside the preschool for long but at the very first glance, it had become abundantly clear to Ashley that the child's mother had suffered a bad head injury, the fall had rendered the human unconscious and there had been a worrying amount of blood already spilling across the snow-dusted ground. After instructing Lucas to call for an ambulance and remain back in town with the injured human until help arrived, she had instantly raced after the Kobold, the sprite had already removed its cherubic mask in favour of its own grotesque visage. Catching up with the vile creature and it's terrified captive hadn't been a hardship, requiring only a few seconds. With the unwavering intention of quickly and cleanly breaking the creature's neck, a fatal injury to a species that lacked any regenerative abilities, Ashley had lunged for the Kobold, unfortunately the hunched reptilian sprite had narrowly managed to teleport itself and the child out of her reach, when she was barely a hairsbreadth away.
The Kobold had carried itself and it's victim out of the small sleepy town of Healy, Alaska, population 1,035, and into the closely neighbouring National Park. It hadn't gotten far, a Kobold's magic wasn't powerful enough to carry it over a large distance especially when it was dragging a human, who was more or less the same size as the creature, along with it. She had been chasing after them for nearly forty minutes, staying hot on the creature's heels but it continued to elude her, it was like trying to get her hands on a slippery fish.
Ashley's chest began to ache profoundly when the broken sounds of crying drifted on the furious wind to her sensitive ears. She leaped over a thick line of baring shrubs, clearing the five foot tall bushes with ease, her stride remained smooth and agile as she landed on the other side of the shrubs.
She pumped her lithe arms, pushing herself to run faster and faster, the soles of her shoes hitting the ground made the snow crackle and crunch audibly beneath her boots. Her Dolce and Gabbana, dark brown leather jacket with zipped sleeves creaked loudly as she sprinted so quickly that even to a Vampire's eyes she would appear as nothing more than an obscure blur. Her jacket, made of butter-soft lamb leather was zipped up to just beneath her ample chest, utterly unmoving, she wasn't about to waste her energy by breathing needlessly. She could hear the small female child wailing in the distance as her momentum increased rapidly and smell the salty scent of falling tears. The lean muscles in her endlessly long legs, sheathed in bootcut Armani jeans that hung low on the lean flare of her hips, burned almost painfully with exertion but that didn't deter her in the slightest, not when she could hear the little girl's frightened cries for help echoing through expansive forest, not when she was that human's only chance for survival. Her formfitting, long sleeved, white Gucci sweater clung to her voluptuous torso, emphasising a hard and flat abdomen while cupping the soft mounds of her full and generous breasts like a pair of loving hands, the moderate neckline displayed a teasing hint of her cleavage. Her clothes were expensive but simply cut and tailored to fit her lean body like a glove.
"Mama!..." The tearful cry ended abruptly with a bout of hysterical sobbing. Ashley felt as though someone was slowly peeling strips of flesh from her heart with each racking sob that rang out into the forest.
It was late Fall, verging on Winter, and naturally the sun was setting earlier in the evening and rising earlier in the morning but in Alaska, the seasonal change meant that the sun was setting at around 2:30PM and rising at 3:42AM. The temperatures plummeted as night fell. Ashley worried about the human, she knew the girl didn't have a coat.
The sky overhead darkened and brooded with churning charcoal grey clouds, turning the thick white snow, that covered every available inch of the forest stretching out around her in all directions for as far as the eye could see, shades of slate grey and the lightest blue. She gritted her perfect pearl white teeth. In Ashley's mind, she just couldn't seem to run fast enough as she smoothly weaved through the tall trees and bounded over their thick coiled roots reaching up through the earth.
The child's sounds of distress were growing louder with every elegant yet rapid stride she took. She was getting closer. There were short pauses in the Kobold's game of 'Now you see me, Now you don't', brief moments when the creature had to rest in order to muster it's waning magic so that it could teleport away from her. Moving in jagged zigzags and often doubling back around her as it tried to escape, the creature had lead her all over the 6 million acres forming the National Park in a single afternoon. It was the Kobold's pauses that allowed her to catch up with it and the human child, only for the sprite to slip from her grasp. Her frustration set fire to the venom running through her veins, like putting a match to kerosene she was driven to move even quicker and quicker with each foiled attempt at capturing the Kobold, but the pauses were growing longer and the distance covered wasn't nearly as broad. The Kobold was getting tired. Her tenacity would pay off soon enough. She just hoped that when she got back to town with the little human, it wasn't to find out that the girl's mother had suffered a fatal injury.
"...Mama!...Please!...help me!"
A searing pain, so intense she nearly stumbled mid-stride, exploded in Ashley's chest at the heartbreaking sounds of a child begging for comfort from a Mother whose fate was uncertain. She couldn't begin to imagine the little human's fear as the four year old was dragged away from her home and her mother by a grotesque creature with glowing yellow eyes intent on eating her. To be abducted by a full grown human would be traumatising enough, but to be kidnapped by what a tiny human child would perceive as a monster the likes of which belonged in storybooks and movies, how damaging would this harrowing experience be to a young child's psyche?. Ashley felt sick to her stomach just thinking about it.
As she sprinted on by a pair of deer nosing vainly through thick layers of snow in search of grass and rearing up on their hind legs to nibble at tree bark, her sculpted upper lip curled into a vicious snarl when the ripe and overpowering scent of fresh urine wafted toward her on the breeze. It was all the answer she needed. Aggression became a dull pounding at the base of her skull. She could feel her inner animal clawing sharply at the underside of her flesh, her primal side was thoroughly absorbed in the exhilaration of the hunt and the desire for blood. Her Mother and Sire had raised her and brother to value human life even if it was so fleeting. The majority of the Supernatural Collective were anti-human on account of humans being so self-destructive, it wasn't forbidden by the Collective's ruling body, but the Races still considered the killing of defenceless human younglings to be the worst kind of taboo. The Denali Coven of Vampires, Shifters and Fae judged humans, and all other creatures, based on their own individuality and choices. Ashley itched to feel the bones of the despicable child-murderer snapping beneath her fingertips.
The ground began to shift subtly beneath the soles of her boots, the snow-covered earth gradually grew steeper, forming a thirteen foot tall hill crested by trees and stretching far to either side like a vast encroaching tidal wave that concealed whatever existed on the other side from her view.
Ashley skidded to a stop at the bottom of the hill, leaving a long prominent gouge in the thick snow behind her and inadvertently kicking up a slew of snowfall that sprayed out like a thick mist before settling upon the ground once again, when her preternatural situational awareness sparked to life. It was one of the most unreliable skills in her arsenal, it was also one of the most useful, second only to her Hereditary gift of Pyrokinesis; the ability to create fire that burned half as hot as the sun, to manipulate it and control it with nothing more than a focused mental command. Both talents Ashley had yet to even begin to master. As a 'Baby Fae' her physical attributes were her primary assets. Her strength, her speed and her intensified senses had been growing more and more potent everyday since birth. However, her psychical abilities came in dangerous and uncontrollable fits and bursts when she attempted to use them, or they wouldn't work at all when she tried to channel them, so she had stopped trying after several 'explosive' incidents. Even Lucas, who had always been more in touch with his Hereditary gift of Shrouding, the ability to completely camouflage his existence and that of anyone he came into contact with from even the most seasoned Hunters, her little brother had been able to channel his power since birth but he was having just as much trouble as she was with controlling his powers now that their eighteenth birthday was looming on the horizon and both they and their gifts were developing so that they could finally fend for themselves without having to rely on their parent's guidance and protection.Their ancestors called it Excitatio, 'The Awakening'.
Ashley's long pale eyelashes settled upon her high aristocratic cheekbones as her lively intelligent eyes, a swirling mixture of inky black and bright neon blue, fluttered closed slowly. It came over her like an ocean wave mercilessly crashing down on her head and sweeping her out the physical shell of her body and into the currents of the world. Her already keen senses sharpened drastically, tuning themselves into every little movement, scent and sound within a circular radius of five kilometres. In that instant Ashley could outperform a military grade sonar radar and a pack of cadaver dogs. Her ethereal awareness of her surroundings was incredibly surreal, like she was softly severed from her own body and was now looking down at herself from above. Mother Nature gave her eyes to see what she would otherwise be blind to.
At first, the experience was overwhelming, like being tossed into the deep end of a swimming pool without first being taught to swim. She felt almost buoyant as the fabric of the forest funnelled into her. Alaska boasted an abundance of diverse wildlife and though they were nowhere in sight she could smell them and hear them as though they were standing next to her. She could feel the movements of every mammal, large or small, across the five kilometres, the loping of over a hundred pairs of paws and hooves sent minuscule quakes through the earth to the soles of her feet and yet, if she wished, she could easily match the vibrations to the individual beast causing them. The howling of the wind grew higher in pitch, like someone whistling directly into her ear, as the freezing air washed over her angelic face. Along with the piercing cries of a golden eagle swooping above the forest's canopy, she could hear sharp talons scratching against twigs as birds burrowed into their nests high up in the trees and the snoring of slumbering squirrels and bears nestled in for hibernation. There was so much information to absorb in a few moments, but before long, she held a precise bird's eye-view of all she surveyed in her mind's eye, an intricately detailed map to lead her directly to her prey.
Ashley systematically eliminated all irrelevant odours and noises, like flicking off light switches, she narrowed her search area within the five kilometre radius, turning all others dark. As beautiful and enchanting as the wilderness of Alaska was, the only thing that held any meaning to her at present was rescuing the frightened human child from the tiring Kobold.
"Gotcha" She whispered, a grim set to her mouth, when she realised how close her prey was to her current location. Her preternatural situational awareness fizzled out and once again she saw through her own eyes.
On the other side of the towering hill that she lingered at the base of, the Kobold was resting forty feet away in a small grove. Even over the distance she could hear the creature panting in exhaustion and smell the putrid scent of it's sweat. Triumph flooded her veins. The end was in sight, this time, there would be no escaping her. Ashley bared her perfect white teeth in a wide predatory grin and a wicked twinkle lit up her eyes, still shining a mix of inky black and bright neon blue.
Her pleased smile dimmed and faded when she heard the human girl weakly pleading with the Kobold to let her go. The disgusting creature's scolding reply, in its native tongue, was harsh and stunted but she was relieved to note that she didn't register any sounds of a physical reprimand, a slap or even a bite. She could detect the stale scent of the Kobold's fear and panic clouding the icy air like smog over a city. It pleased her. The little fucker deserved to know terror before it died. It was only Just when the chances were that the little girl would be marked in some way for the rest of her natural life.
Ashley growled low in her throat and started forth. Sleek muscles flexed and rippled beneath the designer clothing clinging to her voluptuous body as she stalked up the tall hill with long confident strides. Snow and dried foliage crunched and snapped loudly beneath her boots. She made no effort to dull the sounds of her approach. The Kobold's heavy breathing quickened and she heard it whimper as she crested the hill. As a species of mine and cave dwellers, Kobolds were virtually blind and relied heavily on their heightened sense of hearing and smell to guide them through the darkness of their habitats, it was how the sprite had managed to detect her each time she had closed in on it. She'd had no time for subtlety in her movements.
Though it probably couldn't see her very clearly, the Kobold stared up at her from beneath the hood of a worn and dirty robe that had obviously been torn and sewn back together in numerous places, the robe looked to be decades old and the cowl was pulled down to cover most of it's owner's unshapely face. She couldn't even define whether or not this particular sprite was male or female, but it didn't matter to her either way. Ashley glared down at the exhausted creature, it was doubled over between two cedar trees with it's malformed and scaly hands braced on it's knobbly knees, spittle dripped from it's lipless mouth, not unlike a snake's mouth, while it panted heavily. A warning hiss escaped Ashley's full pink lips when the creature's glowing yellow eyes flicked down toward the traumatised human child, the girl lay curled up in a tight ball at her captor's feet, shaking. Ashley growled deep in her throat when she noticed the four year old suckling noisily on her thumb, wide-eyed and gazing into nothing.
Ashley tensed and lowered herself into a perfectly balanced crouch atop the hill, her long slender fingers curled into the cold bed of snow as she readied herself to leap over the forty feet of forest floor separating her from her prey, when the Kobold abruptly reached into the flared sleeve of it's robe. She snarled and, with the grace of a jungle cat, immediately launched herself into the icy air, gliding elegantly over the distance. She knew from her general lessons with Eleazar that Kobolds made weapons and cutlery from the bones of their child-victims and they were known to carry their bone-knives in the sleeves of their robes. The creature meant to kill the child. For no other reason than to spite her.
The sprite didn't even have the chance to produce it's blade. When she was within range, Ashley twisted herself into an impeccable somersault, the likes of which would make an Olympic gymnast turn green with envy, the toe of her right boot slammed into the Kobold's abnormally jutting chin as she flipped mid-air. A satisfied smirk toyed with the corner of her luscious pink mouth when she heard it's jaw thunderously shatter into a thousand little pieces. The sheer force of the kick knocked the creature clean off of it's feet and sent it flying a good twenty yards backward through the air until its hunched body smashed into the grooved trunk of a cedar tree. Bark cracked and the trunk groaned from the force of the impact, which also disturbed the beds of snow clinging to the tree's flat branches and long-scale leaves. With a muffled sound, clumps of snowfall fell heavily to the frozen ground from the treetop.
Ashley landed lightly in a crouch, pressing the knuckles of her fisted hands into the snow, her lean muscles coiled tightly as adrenaline surged through her body. She sprung into action, racing toward the fallen Kobold as it lay motionless at the base of the tree.
The creature lay on it's stomach. One malformed arm was stretched out limply above its head, it's elbow bulged like a baseball. Wet sputtering, croaking coughs and soft groaning noises emitted out from underneath the sprite from it's lipless mouth. It was barely conscious and had probably suffered massive internal damage when its small stumpy body slammed into the tree.
With the tip of her boot, Ashley effortlessly located the tenth vertebra in the back of the Kobold's neck, marking the spot like a medieval executioner would mark the necks of the condemned before swinging the axe. She lifted her foot, bending her knee and with a soft grunt she viciously stomped on the sprite's neck, severing the bone cleanly with a loud snapping noise. The wet noises bubbling from the Kobold's mouth fell silent instantly. The wind whistled clamorously, whipping the long fall of Ashley's blonde hair around her slender shoulders as she studied the corpse at her feet, a small amount of thick blood pooled out from under it's head, face-down to the ground, staining the snow bright red.
Ashley tilted her head back on her shoulders, staring up at the swiftly darkening sky and listening to her inner animal roar it's satisfaction with a successful hunt in her ears. A deep rumbling growl, almost a purr passed her full sculpted lips as a sense of profound peace came over her beast. The inky black swirling in her eyes was swallowed by neon blue and her young, lean muscles ached pleasantly. She breathed a prolonged sigh and rolled her slender shoulders. The human child was safe and the Kobold was dead.
The sound of chattering teeth had her whirling around on the spot. She cursed colourfully under her breath and hurried over to the little girl, still laying curled up in a ball on her side in the snow.
"Hey sweetie" Ashley crooned as she crouched over the little human, dressed in a pair of faded jeans, boots and an overly large bright yellow sweater. The child had had a three layered water-proof winter coat, but the Kobold had torn the coat free from the girl and left the puffy piece of clothing in one location while it teleported itself and the human away in a desperate attempt to create a false scent trail. Stupid creature, the Kobold's repellent odour of rotten garbage mostly cancelled out the youngling's scent of wax crayons and fresh apples, even a human would have been able to detect the sprite's stench on the wind. Unfortunately the lack of the winter coat left the human's little body vulnerable to the unseasonable coldness. Ashley's perfectly shaped blonde eyebrows furrowed with concern when the girl began mumbling incoherently, as though the youngling were suffering some sort of delusion. It was one of the first signs of hypothermia. Shit.
The girl didn't even acknowledge her presence or attempt to move. Ashley's oval shaped jaw clenched, causing a persistent tic to form in either porcelain cheek as she stifled a harsh snarl. Her gaze darkened again as she swivelled her head back to the dead Kobold. She found herself pondering how many children it had butchered and eaten over however many centuries it had existed and she suddenly regretted that she hadn't made the thing hurt before ending it's life. Anger at herself and the creature began to boil in her stomach, in the venom running through her veins. She shook her head quickly, dispelling the volatile emotion before it could take root and returned her attention to the little girl. Justice was served. Getting the girl somewhere warm was her main priority now.
"I've got you. You're safe" Ashley whispered, her melodic voice soft and soothing as she slipped her elegant hands beneath the child, scooping the human youngling up into her arms as she straightened out of her crouch. She wasn't expecting a response, she just wanted the child to register that she was no longer in any danger. Fae couldn't be sustained with human blood.
With one arm under the girl's bent knees and the other around the little one's shoulders, she carefully cradled the human against her ample chest, deeply wishing that her core temperature ran above freezing when she felt the human child shivering profusely against her, deep heaving shudders that made her worry for the human's health. The little girl's clothing was soaked through, not only from having wet herself, but also from laying on the snow-covered ground for so long. Ashley cocked her head, listening intently to the child's heartbeat. Ashley cringed in response to the sluggish noise brushing against the delicate shell of her ear. The youngling's heartbeat was far too slow. The below freezing temperatures had definitely induced hypothermia. The slowed heartbeat reduced blood flow which prevented major organs from receiving oxygen and the vital nutrients required to function properly, without them, the girl's body would begin to shut down.
"Hang on, honey. We'll get you warmed up soon enough" She whispered into the girl's wealth of unruly chestnut coloured curls.
It was her parents one concession if she and Lucas were to attend a human school, they would be watched over constantly, a family member was always lingering discreetly on the edges of the school grounds 'just in case'. It was the Shifter's week on sitter duty and for once Ashley was damned thankful for her parent's overprotectiveness. Her Quileute Aunt and Uncles had more than enough body-heat to sustain two beings.
Turning on her heel, she started to head back the way she had come, toward the thirteen foot hill, but something made her pause in her tracks when she had barely taken two steps, a prominent thought grabbed her attention and refused to let go, like a dog with a bone. Ashley glanced at the Kobold's corpse again. The body would need disposing of before a human discovered it. It was the one universal law respected by the entirety of the Supernatural Collective; keep their existence hidden from humans, they were better off in their own world. Clutching the shivering brunette human tighter to her chest, she looked around the small grove, studying her location with a trained eye. They were a long way away from any hiking trails and the nearest camp site was over a dozen miles off, The dead Kobold really couldn't have had much of a plan besides getting away from her with it's intended meal. It was extremely improbable that the corpse would be found. She would have to return later for the body, tear it into pieces and tactfully dispose of them in the Taku glacier, the widest and deepest glacier in the world.
She could take care of the body now, hand the child over to whichever shifter was coming after her and dismember the corpse while her Aunt or Uncle returned the human to Healy. Ashley cocked her head thoughtfully, suddenly realising that the human authorities were probably waiting for her back in town and that if anyone other than her returned the youngling it would raise several red flags. Lucas would have had no choice but to tell the paramedics, when they arrived at the preschool to attend the injured elder human, about the little girl's abduction. The EMTs would have eventually learned that the elder female had come to pick up her sick daughter from the school's faculty and lying about the missing girl would again, earn them unwanted attention. Her parents had always preached that if lying became necessary to protect the secret of their existence, make it as close to the truth as it can be, its more believable that way. It was a lesson well learned. She wondered what half-truths Lucas had fed the police and what others she was going to have to give in order to cover their asses.
Ashley peeked down at the human in her arms, hoping the girl wouldn't be unnerved by the unusual colour of her eyes but she needn't have worried, the brunette girl had fallen into a cold induced sleep, she was still shivering profusely and her lips had turned a troubling shade of blue. For the human's sake, she prayed that the girl's sleep was dreamless and that the brunette wasn't subconsciously reliving her abduction, the youngling had enough going against her right now.
In the distance a wolf howled, a great resonating sound that echoed throughout the entire forest, far louder and more majestic than that of the common wolf. Ashley had been trained from a young age to tell the scant difference between the howls of the kindred species. Her 'babysitters' were finally catching up to her, they would have been following her from the get-go but given that she was a lot faster than most Races, the Shifters were only just now closing in. A second wolf mirrored the call of the first, she noted that the second howl was a few decibels lower than the first and that the two cries originated more-or-less from the exact same location. The difference was so minute she doubted a human would notice but she could tell by the difference in vocal tones that the two Shifters following her were female and male, Leah and probably Seth, leaving Jacob back in Healy with Lucas. The piercing baying of the wolves didn't disturb the four year old girl cradled limply against her chest. Ashley tilted her head down at her charge, gnawing on her lower lip worriedly, she really didn't like how pale the youngling was or the child's almost seizure-like shuddering. She took off a smooth jog, she was careful not to jar the child in her arms too much as she swiftly climbed the tall hill. The first wolf howled again, her Aunt was calling out for her.
"Leah!" Ashley yelled urgently for the Shifter when she heard the little human's already struggling heart suddenly stutter to a stop.
"Fuck" She cursed, realising that she had no choice but to place the lifeless human back in the snow to begin CPR, the frozen ground would continue to affect the four year old's body temperature and hinder her attempts at revival.
Panic sank its claws into her chest as she dropped to her knees and settled the brunette girl on the ground atop the hill, but she acted with the sure and steady hands of a seasoned Doctor. Between Eleazar and Tanya's extensive knowledge of human biology, she knew exactly what she was doing.
Ashley unzipped her D&G, dark brown leather jacket and swiftly shrugged out of the expensive material, leaving her voluptuous yet lean upper body clad in only her white long sleeved Gucci sweater. She laid her jacket flat on the deep snow with the black silken inside of her designer jacket facing upward toward the churning sky, it wasn't much but it was some kind of buffer between the child and the freezing snow, and gently scooped the unmoving human girl on top of it. Placing one palm over the back of the other, Ashley started chest compressions two inches deep and at a rate of one hundred per minute but she was careful to mind how much pressure she applied, with her strength it would be all too easy to completely crush the girl's ribs and rupture the organs beneath if she wasn't cautious. Naturally, she could perform more chest compressions and execute them faster but to successfully create artificial circulation she had to closely mimic a human's actual heartbeat rate.
As she confidently continued chest compressions, Ashley focused her attention on listening out for any sign that the child's heart might begin beating on its own again but all she could detect was the sloshing of blood being manually pumped though the girl's veins. She clenched her oval-shaped jaw and growled low in her throat as she wordlessly willed the girl to fight.
"Come on sweetie. Don't you give up on me now" Ashley stopped compressions and cupped the girl's jaw, she eased the lifeless child's mouth open and covered the human's cold dark blue lips with her own, she exhaled slowly and deeply into the youngling's lungs, trying to stimulate independent respiration. Toward the back of her mind she became aware of the sounds of crunching snow and foliage as the two Shifters came running barefooted up the thirteen foot hill, panting lightly. Ashley's eyes fluttered closed as a wave of relief welled up inside her.
"Ashley!" She continued giving the human mouth-to-mouth as Leah, dressed in cut-off jeans and tight black tank top that moulded itself to a lean yet buxom upper body, crested the hill with Seth close on her heels, likewise dressed in cut-offs but without a shirt, leaving his heavily muscled chest bare. Both Shifters were covered in a light sheen of sweat that made their caramel-coloured skin visibly glisten. Ashley started preforming chest compressions on the dead four year old and glanced up at the Shifters. Both Quileutes wore stricken expressions as they briefly studied the pale youngling.
"We need to warm her blood. When I stop compressions, pick her up and hold her between you, then when I say put her back on my jacket so I can keep going with CPR" Ashley explained to her Aunt and Uncle. Eleazar had once told her that to treat severe hypothermia, Doctors would extract blood from the patient, warm it and then reinsert the blood into the body. This was the best they could do without medical equipment.
"You know this is long-shot, right, Ash?" Leah looked into her eyes intently as she bent her knees and gently scooped the human up into her arms. Ashley leaned her back onto her haunches beside her leather jacket on the uneven snow-covered ground.
"I know..." Ashley nodded sombrely, watching as Leah carefully manoeuvred the human girl so that they were chest-to-chest "...I know" She repeated so softly she doubted they heard her.
The female Shifter's considerable body heat would begin seeping directly into the lifeless child's dormant chest and heart. Cupping the back of the human's little neck, Leah guided the youngling's head to rest on her broad shoulder while holding the girl up off the ground with one arm beneath her rump, the lifeless human's arms hung limply at her sides. Seth pressed his massive chest to the girl's back and wrapped his muscular arms around the human and his sister's slender waist, there wasn't an inch of space between the three bodies. Ashley's brows lowered into a pained frown as a minute passed, then two. It was a serious risk, letting the human go for any period of time without oxygen to the brain, but there was no other option, not when they were out in the wilderness of Alaska, so far away from a hospital.
Ashley chewed on the inside of her cheek as she counted the long seconds, a child's brain could survive five minutes without oxygen, her timing had to be dead on. She rubbed her graceful hands up and down her toned jeans clad thighs as she waited. She turned her head, staring down from the hilltop, toward the small grove where the Kobold's body lay and she found herself wondering why such a physically weak creature would risk an incursion into Vampire territory, Vampires were highly territorial.
"Give her to me" Ashley slipped her hands under the human's arms, when Seth broke away and Leah gently handed the girl over to her. Ashley smiled, the lifeless human was noticeably warmer and some of her colour had returned, her lips had gone from blue to white. She placed the girl back on top of her leather jacket. A thought struck her in the back of her head. Instead of resuming CPR, she curled her long slender fingers and drove her fist into the human's chest, directly over her heart, hard enough she heard two ribs snap audibly. It was a short and sharp impact, almost like an electrical pulse. She did it again. Seth opened his mouth to protest, Leah slapped him over the back of his head when she realised what the young Fae was doing.
An airy relieved laugh slipped past Ashley's luscious lips when she heard a faint heartbeat come to life in the youngling's chest. Instantly, Leah swooped down and, careful not to jar her broken ribs, lifted the human into her arms to keep her warm.
"You did good kid" Leah smiled brightly as she cradled the revived girl against her. Alleviated, Seth exhaled harshly. Ashley grinned up at her Aunt and Uncle widely, she snagged her jacket up off the ground and pushed herself regally to her feet. At five-feet-nine, both Shifters both towered over her.
Seth's nostrils flared and he turned his attention down from the hilltop, at the Kobold's corpse, his eyes hardened "You want me to take care of that?" He looked at Leah for confirmation, brother and sister loved each other dearly, but this was business and Leah was the Pack Beta. Mismatched though they were, the Denali Coven was a tight-knit family.
"Do it..." Leah nodded and rubbed the human's back"...We'll see you back at home" Seth smiled, affectionately touching either of his hand to both Leah and Ashley's shoulders before he set off down the hill toward to grim task waiting for him.
"Just a heads up. The receptionist at the preschool saw the kid's mom and Lucas out the window and called the Sheriff's department, and Jake called your parents" Leah told her as they started walking side-by-side down the opposite side of the hill that Seth had gone down, heading back to Healy.
"I figured" Ashley shrugged back into her leather jacket. She winced suddenly when the strangely beautiful 'birthmark' on her left hand, the intricately entwined swirls and bold lines running vertically from her thumb knuckle down to her slim wrist, began to burn.
TBC . . .
AN: I think, by now, it goes without saying that its going to take me a while to update :( I'm working and studying so much right now that I go days without writing a single word for my stories, it sucks for all of us, but I hope that you can continue being patient with my erratic schedule. I probably won't have the next chapter written and ready to post until after the New Year so I'm just going to wish you all well for holidays and bid you adieu for now.