AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Lauren felt her heart chakra extend out to the hawk in front of her when she imagined him as a sentient being. She sensed his heartbeat, his protective instinct, his attention to detail all around him. She invited him back, and he leapt from the stick, wings extended, beating the air into submission. He made a half circle, coming around behind her, and then he was part of her once again. She closed her eyes as the entirety of what he’d experienced while apart from her came across like a real-life movie, with her experiencingeverything, even smell.
When Mordecai asked Aaron Drake what he knew of the huàsheng, he responded, “I can’t share the secrets of the Zhou family with anyone not part of the family.”
Lauren let Ying raise his head and look around before asking, “The Zhou family?”
Aaron had immediately taken in the reality of Lauren’s hawk. His eyes were serious, but his smile told her he was happy for her. “Well, that explains some things while creating even more questions, doesn’t it? In answer to Mordecai’s question, the Zhou family was originally known as the Zhé family.” He drew the character out with his finger on his hand, so Lauren could see it was the zhé word that meantfold, and was the first part of the Mandarin word for origami. “In the decade leading up to the cultural revolution, the family changed it to a more common name, so they could hide in plain sight.”
“So they chose to be dragons rather than origami?”
“In this case, the original family had used Zhézhi,origami, as a way to say their tattoos could unfold, I believe. However, the Zhé surname is one of the rarest, so if the Party had discovered what they could do, it would’ve been easy to root them out and find them. The Zhou surname, originally meaning dragon, is one of the most common, and since many of them have a dragon tattoo, it fit.”
Lauren considered the fact that the Chinese dragon is a water creature more than an air creature, and she nodded. “I’d like some time alone with Sophia now, I think.”
Five minutes later, Lauren found herself in a soundproof area of the underground portion of Homewood, in a locked room with Aaron, but not Sophia.
“I want Sophia to teach me shielding techniques for my hawk.”
Aaron shook his head. “Don’t make it so complicated. Just put Ying into your shields.”
Lauren tried to do it, and found she could, but knew this wasn’t a long-term solution. It was like when Lauren’s mother had shielded Lauren inside the maternal shield when she was a child — it’d protected her, but she’d been cut off from the energies around her.
Aaron leaned back and crossed his arms. “Ying is sentient. He’ll be able to handle his own shields, but he needs to understand how they work. His parents would’ve done it for him as a juvenile, until he could do it himself. You’re the parent. You put him in your shields, and he’ll figure it out. Once he does, you might have to check in with him when you’ll be around someone like Gavin or Zander, but mostly, he’ll take his cues from you.”
Aaron spoke to her for nearly two hours about how to better understand her hawk, and how to better let him understand her.
And then he moved the conversation to the other tattoos she wanted.
“Bear, for sure,” she told him. “For the night vision, the senses of smell and hearing, and for protection. Also, I want an axolotl.”
Aaron considered it a few moments before nodding. “That’ll give you healing and regeneration abilities, and it can help you in the water. It can also be hidden, though you’ll want the bear somewhere it will show — perhaps your forearm.”
“I want a big bear. One that can fight bad guys for me if I get into trouble.”
“I’m assuming you lucked up with your hawk, since it’s about a third the size of a natural hawk. The rule is that it needs to be either a third, a ninth, or, well, unless you’re getting a dragon, which I don’t recommend, the other possibilities aren’t important. Also, you don’t need the entire animal. A Kodiak bear on all fours, not standing upright, is around five feet tall. A ninth of that is, what, six or seven inches? If you just do the face and let the body fade, you could do it in three or four inches.”
“Why don’t you recommend a dragon?”
Aaron leaned back, his expression grim. “The reason Mordecai wanted Ambrose with you should’ve been made apparent when he startled your hawk into defending you. If you lose control of him like that on a sidewalk somewhere, the Concilio would take custody of you and I’m not certain we’d be able to get you back.”
She immediately grasped the problem. “A new wolf, or any shapeshifter, has to learn to stay human when humans are around, even if that means they die, even though a simplechangewould keep them alive.”
“Right, because the Concilio has made what happens if you show yourself to a whole bunch of humans…” he sighed. “The consequences are worse than death, so shapeshifters choose a fast death, rather than being tortured every day of their life for however many years they have left.”
“And I’ll have to learn that same control.”
He nodded. “For now, Ambrose can protect you, so your riders won’t be as likely to spring forth to defend you, but this means we’re going to have to resort to some brutal training methods, and it’ll probably be best if your mother isn’t aware of it until after the fact.”
“You know you’re probably the only person I’d trust to tell me something like that. Mom taught me that anytime someone wants me to keep something from her, it’s a huge red flag, but I trust you.”
“I’m glad, because I’m not certain she’ll be able to watch the training without stopping it. She’ll eventually see the need for it, but it’ll tear her up, and we don’t need to put her through it.”
“She loves me,” Lauren said, and she knew in her heart exactly how true that statement was. “And you’re right, we don’t need to put her through it. So, what’s the first step?”
He shook his head. “Not tonight. We’ll put together a team in Branson who’ll work with you daily, from fifteen minutes to an hour, no longer, and usually only fifteen or twenty minutes, perhaps two or three times a day. It’s more about repetition, with time between for you to get back into a relaxed state, than about a specific skill set. Who’s going to know in Branson?”
“So far, only Ambrose and Gavin know the details. Link and Dusty know the basics.” And Nick knew a little, but with him out of her life, there was no need to mention him.
“Your new bear friends will be able to help you with your bear, once you get it. I wish I had a dolphin or shark shifter I could trust to help you with the axolotl, but you’ll just have to spend time in a pool to work that out. The thing is, you can’t let it come off you in a pool because of the chlorine, and I don’t recommend letting it off you in a lake because of the predators thatwilleat it, if they come upon it.” He sighed. “I might have a shark shifter you can talk to. We’ll figure that out later.”
