We starts sparring, our swords clashing and I know she’s holding back. She anticipates my every move but she doesn’t use any of the openings I leave, to attack me back.
“Come on Aly!” Kiran shouts and Aly pulls a small smile but her concentration never breaks.
“Ya, hit him!” Jay adds.
“You’re purely on defense right now, show some offense, I can take it,” I demand.
She hesitantly strikes out at me and I block her easily. The idea I can protect myself must help, because she starts really fighting me.
She gets a few nicks in which bleed but nothing too bad. I don’t strike her once but this is about her getting use to fighting back not just protecting herself.
We both start getting going, moving around the whole room and I’m fighting at full strength to protect myself. I leave an easy opening and she goes for it, slashing my stomach open.
I can feel blood pouring down my stomach but it’s not a killing blow. I can feel myself start to heal it already.
She doesn’t take her eyes off it until it’s healed and I remind her, “this is good practice for me too. I need to train to protect myself better.”
She must agree because she starts up again. This time when she sees an opening, she plunges the blade through my stomach and I feel everything start to go dark.
The last thing I hear is Jay and Kiran cheering and maybe someone else saying no? Hopefully Aly isn’t too upset.
Thirty
Jax
Nic and I head upstairs, back to the pile of books we spend all our free time looking through. I know the mystery is wearing on Aly and we need to solve it, and soon. Her powers could emerge at any point and we need to be prepared. It’s probably getting close to the point where we need to ask someone else for help. I know we can trust our parents but our instincts demand we protect our mate, and telling anyone feels like the wrong move.
Aly is sparring with Jeremy right now. He had a smart idea with practicing harder with weapons. He’s the only one of us who can be “killed” then comes back. He only dies when a special knife is used, which, luckily, we don’t keep around.
It’s important for Aly to practice actual killing moves. We don’t know what’s coming after her and she might have to take that step for her own survival one day. It’s most important to me that she stays safe. Kiran and Jay are keeping an eye on them making sure everything goes okay. It was hard to walk away but it’s more important we find something than just watch them spar.
Nic and I are combing through more books looking for the answer to Aly’s mating mark. That’s the easiest clue to go by, but we might have to try something else soon. We still haven’t figured out what she could be, but it’s clear she’s something supernatural to have her own mating mark.
I’m on what feels like my hundredth book. This one is incredibly old and was very hard to get my hands on, almost impossible. I start looking through it, when surprising even myself, I see the mark. Right there in the book is the arrows crossing each other in red on someone’s chest.
“Nic, here it is!” I shout, getting his attention. This is huge, hopefully there’s more here to help us.
Nic shoots out of his seat and comes to peer over my shoulder.
The book reads,This ancient mating mark has not been seen in hundreds of years as mating with hunters has become nonexistent.
I am shocked down to my core and based on his silence, I’m sure Nic is too.
“A… a hunter? She can’t be a hunter. She would have never gotten this close to us or mated with us! How could a hunter be our fated mate?” I’m scrambling with all these questions but it just doesn’t make any sense.
“Well it looks like hundreds of years ago, supernaturals did mate with hunters, otherwise there would be no record of the mark,” Nic adds slowly like he’s trying to catch up to his thinking.
“So, if Hunters mated with other supernaturals, then maybe they don’t automatically hate us. It could be something else that drives them to hunt our kind,” I say.
“Aly has never shown even a hint of hating us or what we are. If anything, she’s been incredibly positive,” Nic adds.
He’s right, “Hunter or not, she’s still our Aly and our mate, we will just have to figure out what this means for us.”
“You’re right, it’s going to be hard to tell her,” Nic adds. And he’s right, all we’ve been doing is talking badly about Hunters and encouraging her to learn how to protect herself from them. She’s going to think we hate her, but we couldneverhate her.
I try to think of everything I know about Hunters. It’s not much, they’re incredibly secretive. We will have to find any books we can to help Aly, but I don’t even know where to start. I wonder if some of the guys know more than I do, all I know is…
“Wait! I know Hunter culture isn’t shared outside Hunter families but don’t you have to trigger your Hunter gene?” I don’t like where my own thought process is going.
