Testing Bounds for Trust

He watched while the blond woman, Elena, brought him his bag of things. Carefully, but within her view, he rooted through his stuff to check for everything he needed. It was clear that they'd searched his things. Probably looking for anything incriminating that they could hold over him.

Earlier encounters with the wrong people had left him more cautious than usual for a teenager. The first time, when he and Quartz were just starting in a public school at their mothers request, he'd seen kids that were bent on making his sister their target for the years to come. With a simple push in the right direction, Quartz had taken Silver up on his offer to learn to fight. After that, when she'd become comfortable with her own techniques, he'd sent her off on her own in the school yard.

No one bothered her after that. No one tried, nor dared to attempt to do a damn thing.

And now, she was gone. His beloved twin, whom he would spend hours a day teasing and testing to see how far he could really push her, was gone. Kidnaped by unknowns in the dead of their first night in the manor.

"Well, all I can do now is trust that I can find her." He whispered lightly as he peered out at the midday sun. It glinted off the green grass of the gardens below while the wind stirred the blades with a gentle hand. He felt the presence of someone in the door and inhaled deeply. "I know that scent."

"Scent?" Clayton asked, bewildered. Was this kid a werewolf too? Or was he simply more talented than he was letting on.

"Yeah, I mean, me and my sister take after our mother for the majority of our Wiccan powers." He paused, inhaling again to memorize the smell of Clayton's scent. "Like knowing who was around the corner or standing behind us by recognizing our body's response to that one tone, scent, well, anything really."

"Oh really?"

Silver chuckled softly. "Elena smells like rosehip and vervain- intoxicating, but dangerous if tested the wrong way. You, however, smell like morning dew with faint traces of nightshade- both very deadly, or helpful, if used in the proper way."

"Okay..." Clayton trailed off on his words. "What about Jer? What's he smell like to you?"

"How about a trade off?"

"Explain." The teen turned from the window to face down the one werewolf no one mutt would dare to face for fear of losing their precious lives.

Silver picked up a frame that held a snapshot of the twins "I was wondering how you were with mechanics actually."

Clayton quirked an eyebrow and gave a slight smirk. "Good enough to know that damned bike out there needs a good fuckin' tuning up."

"Would you like to give it a go?"

Surprised, Clayton relaxed his stance into one of a mediator. "I'm listening."

"Your children are beautiful, Clayton." The blond nodded his agreement. "Anywho! Jeremy has a very relaxing scent. Morning glory- poisonous if the wrong part of the plant is used, by the way- and peppermint- a relaxing yet surprisingly sharp scent. It's not as deadly as yours or your wife's own, but it's still very potent."

"What, exactly is your point?" Uh-oh, Clayton plus boredom equaled trouble for him. Silver inhaled.

"Your bored; your scent just went up a notch." Clayton tipped his head to one side. What were these kids' powers anyway? "Now your curious."

"I get it. You can tell the persons feelings towards you just by gauging how drastically their scent shifts, is that right?" Silver nodded. "Okay. One more question before you bolt out of here like a bat from Hell."

"What is it?" Silver regretted saying the words before they were even out of his mouth. "Damn, just signed my death certificate, didn't I?" He watched as Clayton nodded once.

"We want the whole story, not some bull that you fed Jeremy."

"It's not bull, whatever I told Jeremy was the truth. And, um, I didn't plan on bolting from this place-"

"Stonehaven." Clayton supplied evenly.

"Okay then, Stonehaven." Silver said nervously. "Jeremy told me to stay put- not in so many words, though- while he went to Change. I guess that's the right word? Anyway, I'm babbling, you're not impressed with me and think I'm making this up, and I just wanted my bag so I could grab a shower. Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to get that while I still have breath in my lungs and before you find me a threat to your wonderful family and kill me where I stand."

Clayton's brows shot up in wonder. The only other person that could talk to him like that and get away with it was down in the library looking to find some grain of truth to the spell that Silver claimed was placed on him and his sister. The smell of someone on the stairs reached him, but his mind was to hazed with anger to know who it was."You little-"

"Clayton!"

"Now see, your agitation with me caused you that one brief moment in which that could have been an assassin behind you and not your wife." Silver smiled. "I didn't mean to push you so hard, I just needed to get you to listen to me for a minute before you made your decision."

"You knew it was her?" Elena gave her husband a scowl before stepping around him and into the room. "Your head was clear the whole time?"

"Yes, I did," Silver stated simply. "And yes, it was."

"What happened in here?"

"I'm sorry, Elena. I was experimenting with my newly found powers on Clayton here and it worked. If I've caused an inconvenience, forgive me, but I'm prone to testing people. Today just was not Clayton's day." Silver flashed her an innocent smile. Clayton frowned. "Please, don't be like that. After all, if I'd gotten hurt it would have been of my own accord for pushing you so drastically."

"Whatever." Clayton growled. "I could have killed you, then what would your sister have done?"

A look of smug satisfaction spread across the werewolf's face. It didn't last long as the teen crumpled to the floor. Not the reaction of a fake or hunter.

"You're telling the truth, aren't you?" Silver said nothing as he held his head between his hands gasping for air. "What's wrong with you?"

"She's in pain, I -gasp- I can feel her as clearly as the night they took her."

"How?" Clayton's drawl was laced with what sounded like concern.

"I was coming to tell you that the Twin-Spell he was talking to Jeremy about is real. I called the Council and got Lucas on the line. He looked it up and found that it was a real spell used to link siblings together just in case they got separated in a crowd or hurt. It gets triggered if one is in pain or in fear of something."

"Alright!" Silver exclaimed, shocking the two wolves. "Good moves sis! Kick his- ahhh!"

"What happened?" Elena took Silver by his shoulders and gave him a small shake.

"What? He can see her too?"

Elena shook her head grimly. "Anything she feels, sees, hears, smells- it's all his to share with her. 'A product of the spell' was what Lucas said. So he's telling the truth."

Lucas hung up the phone and turned to Savannah and Paige. "Well, they still have the male there. He's in the shower there now and trying not to agitate Clayton anymore."

"Are they Cabal?"

"They don't even know, Paige. Damn, I should... wait, their last name is Shield."

"As in the Saint-Shield, Shield, and Stone families?" Adam said as he entered the room. His hair was windblown from the weather outside. "I know Jet Shield personally."

"Did Elena say who was with them?" Paige said calmly as Savannah eyed the Mocha Late that Adam held in his hands.

"Silver Shield." Lucas said softly. "Why?"

Savannah held up that mornings paper. "'The buzz on the streets is that the twins were visiting their grandparents at their Salem, Massachusetts manor when the alarms went off the night of their arrival. Sources and staff say that only one of the teens were in the manor at the time and was taken hostage by the attackers. The nature and location of the kidnapers remains a mystery. The Shield family has offered a ten thousand dollar reward for the safe return of the heirs to Jasper Shield's family fortune.'"

"Give me that!" Paige said suddenly. "'The family, as sources have said, had recently suffered the loss of Jasper's wife and business partner, Miranda. "This summer was supposed to be their peace from the public's eye." Said Grandmother Anna Waters, mother of the recently deceased Miranda, in an interview. "Their father is heartbroken still over the loss of my daughter to the cancer that he helped her through for ten years, those kids are all he cares for. Their all he has left." There have been no reports of how the father is doing or wether or not there was a ransom made for the seventeen-year-old girl who was taken.'"

Adam let out a low whistle. "If their Jasper's kids then they know nothing of the supernatural world or their own powers unless they were told. The Shields are secretive and don't broadcast their talents if they can help it."

"So, what your saying is that unless they were told, they know nothing that would put any of us at risk?" Savannah said softly, hoping she was wrong and that the twins knew their powers.

"They know." Lucas replied. "According to what Elena overheard the boy telling Jeremy, they cornered their father and questioned him about their shadowy past. But that's all they know."

"The father, Jasper, he's a sorcerer." Adam said in a flat voice. "I'm not sure what his wife was, but twins run in her family."

"So we've got a sorcerer who's just lost his wife to cancer and one of his kids to a kidnaping. We know where the other twin is and that he's safe, but-" There was a squeal of tires on the pave outside. Savannah walked to the office window and looked out into the dull morning light to the street below.

"We've got company." She said in a sing-song voice that made Lucas' skin crawl. "There's a black Sedan parked outside and three guys- not sure if they're demons- guarding a man in a suit."

"Holy shit." Paige said as the man in the suit looked up at the second story window. "A sorcerer."

"Savannah, go let him in and show him up." Lucas ran a shaking hand through his hair. "I got a feeling that it's one Mr. Jasper Shield standing outside those doors."

It was.

In fact, it was him and his three brothers that were standing just outside the door when it opened to reveal Savannah.

"Hi, welcome to Cortez-Winterbourn HQ. Please follow me." She kept her voice light over the strain of seeing the four sorcerer's standing there. Their silver-blue eyes and varied lengths of red-brown hair showed that they were, in fact, brothers.

"Many thanks, young one." The tallest one said softly. "Goddess, you can't be more than nineteen?"

"Just turned, actually." Savannah smiled, but it was more like a grimace. "The main office is upstairs."

Her eyes slid over the four men one more time before turning her back to them and leading the way. Their whispered voices were full of anticipation and relief.

"She's a witch?" One said gently.

"Cute ass, too." a second voice, probably the youngest, replied. "Wonder if she's single?"

"Sterling, this isn't the time." The man who'd spoken first said. "We need to find Jazz's kids first, then you can chase all the skirts you want to, little brother."

"Malachite is correct. My kids come first- both of them." The last comment was a harsh warning that the girl child was as loved as the boy was. "Miss, I fear we did not got your name."

"Oh, uh," she paused on the second stair up and turned to face the men behind her. "It's Savannah. Savannah Levine."

"Ohhh, she's Eve's kid? Double sweet!" There was a soft bang as the oldest one knocked the youngest on the back of the head. "Ouch! Jet, c'mon man! That's may head your hitting!"

"Funny, there doesn't seem to be anything inside of it." The other two sniggered at the comment. "Please, Ms. Levine, ignore my impetuous youngest brother."

"Uh, yeah, sure." She turned and walked into the brightly lit office area. "Um, Lucas, Paige, and Adam? These are the Shield brothers."

No sooner had she stopped talking than the stotic one walked forward and clasped hands with Adam. "It's good to see you, Adam, it's been ages."

"Jet, always a pleasure when it's not business." Adam's eyes locked on the only truly upset man there and he offered his sympathies. "You must be Jasper, the half-brother?"

"No, we consider any half-siblings as full and never point it out if we can help it." Jet supplied the half-demon. "To business, then?"

Lucas nodded and offered the men a seat. Paige poured coffee while making small talk with how they treated Savannah on the way up. She'd nearly burned herself when her young charge told her that they didn't mind her being a witch and that the youngest had actually tried to hit on her, telling his brother's that she, Savannah, had a 'cute ass'.

When she finally sat down, Paige realized that none of the newcomers had revealed why they were here until her chair was occupied. "Hey, Adam, you should take a page from their book." She said jokingly. "We- my husband and I- are very sorry for your loss, Mr. Shield."

"Her passing was a blessing for the family. But thank you all the same." Jasper said softly. "As you might have heard from the newscasts and papers, the story is in full circulation and will continue until my children are returned to me unscathed."

"Yes, we have heard." Lucas supplied.

"Which brings us to why we are here in the first place." The man next to Jasper's immediate right said. "I'm the oldest of the four of us and it would please me greatly if my niece and nephew are brought home safely and their captors.. Punished properly without the intrusion of the Cabal nation. We Shields are, as Adam knows, a very secretive group of families and we do wish to keep it that way."

"We didn't know that the infamous rebel son of the Cortez Cabal was married to a witch." Jet said suddenly.

"Does the fact bother you?" Paige asked, her curiosity overshadowed the harder tones in her voice.

"Oh, no, of course not. If it did then my own wife would kill me and use my hide to ward off my brothers here. Sapphire is a witch as well- we favor them, really, which is why my youngest brother can't seem to raise his eyes from young Ms. Levine's face. Please, forgive me if I've offended you, Paige."

"Oh no, just curious."

Jet smiled brightly. "Good."

"As for why we are here," Malachite continued. "We wanted to commission you, on advice from a friend, to help us find our lost young ones. Tests done on Anna and George Water's country manor turned up some interesting results. Only one of my children was taken- the other remains missing."

Lucas tapped his pen on the tabletop and sighed. "Your son is fine. I just finished speaking to a friend of my own that said Silver found his way to them and begged their help in finding his sister."

There was a collective sigh of relief. "Who is he with?"

"The Pack." Another sigh. "He's safe, but blames himself for his sister's disappearance."

"He has no reason to." Jasper croaked out. Savannah handed him a glass of water. "Thank you. Silver has an attachment to his sister that allows him to know where she is and who she's with at all times. The sorcerer that took them knew that."

Sterling leaned back in his chair. "I'll bet that he's keeping her from seeing too much so that Sil don't find her."

"Do you know who the kidnaper was?"

"No, he used to work for Jet and Malachite, but was fired after setting off a few deadly spells."

"Okay, so we have something at least." The sorcerer's looked at one another and smiled- well, grinned really. Lucas continued, "Your son, Jasper, is experiencing the pains of the separation that comes from the spell that was use on them."

"Their mother insisted, and, of course, I deny her nothing if I can help it." Jasper replied calmly. "Her passing was both very painful and a relief to our kin. She no longer suffers under the hurt of the therapy nor the pain that came with the cancer. The kids mourn their mother, but I know that they feel she's better off. Her family are very understanding, which is why they offered to take the twins this summer."

"So, tell us more about them. Do they have the powers of anyone in particular. Does their power differ from other of... our kind, I guess you would say?"

Sterling cleared his throat, casting his eyes down to the drink in front of him on the table before pushing it away. "Silver has only one power separate from his sister- he can use sorcerer spells."

The others at the table, mainly his own family stared at him in wonder. "How long have you known this?"

"Oh, a while now." The youngest one said easily. He offered a small apologetic smile in Savannah's direction. "I don't drink coffee, sorry. It impairs my judgement when I get too hyper. Anyway, he came to me a month before my dear departed sister's death and asked about why he could do things differently than a regular- well, average I guess- sorcerer. He does not need spells, no incantations, nothing. Quartz has a way of reaching him without trying. It's almost as though she can pull him into the place where she is."

"Okay, that's established. Anything else?"

"The twin-spell wore off when their mother died. Anything that they can do now to draw out each other is entirely their own powers. However, the twins don't know that." Jasper said as he set his empty cup down onto the tabletop.

Paige looked at Savannah, then to Lucas. Her husband squeezed her hand slightly. "We'll help." Her voice was low, but steady. "And we can promise that the Cabal will not interfere in any way, shape or form with the investigation."

"That you accept us and our case, Paige, is all we really ask. The Cabal we can deal with on our own terms." Jet said evenly. "Anything at all that would aide your investigation will be yours to use without questions. I do, however, have one request to make."

"Name it." Lucas replied.

"Both my sons, twins as well, will be participating in finding their female cousin at all times. Blaze and Garnet will act as our family's go-between's. Any findings will be passed through them first. They are very close with Quarts and hold her in high regards as a friend, ally, and sister."

"What about me?" Sterling's whining voice gave Jet pause.

"Savannah, how would you like to keep my brother here as far from trouble as you are capable of?" The younger witch raised her eyebrows, dark blues searched the man's face for the joke. She found none. "You will be paid, of course, but Sterling is to have no contact with the investigation whatsoever."

"Aw, c'mon, bro."

"No. You're much too irresponsible to be allowed anywhere near where you can get into more trouble than you can handle." Malachite shot back. "Besides, I thought you said she has a cute ass?"

"Hey! No fair, you're fighting dirty!" The brothers laughed. The sound was much more light now that they had someone to trust in finding the missing young girl.

"Don't be a baby." Savannah said darkly. "I'm sure you can find a way to entertain yourself if you try."

"Who's side are you on?" Sterling glowered. "You're lucky you're a girl."

"Wouldn't have mattered anyway, I'd still kick your ass and laugh the whole time."

"Would not!" Malachite groaned. Jet and Jasper tried to vainly hide their laughter.

"Care to make a wager on that?"

Sterling grinned. "Sure." He said. "I win, you grace my side on a couple of dates."

"And if I win," Savannah replied tossing back her long hair. "You get to be my slave for a day."

Jet burst into peals of laughter. "I'd love to see how this turns out."

I wonder how that fight's gunna turn out? Oh well, ONWARD! Please review!