The Fallen One (Sons of the Dark Mother, Book One)

CHAPTER TWELVE

  OPHELIA

  Ophelia handed Jasmine her bow and did the same for Mia. She frowned at Mia, but Mia failed to notice. Something was bothering her sister, of late, and no matter what she did, she couldn’t get her to talk about it.

  They spent an hour and a half in practice, not their usual three hours. But Mia’s heart wasn’t in it. And Jasmine seemed every bit as concerned as she was.

  They put away the rest of their equipment in silence, wrapping their bows in soft leather. Bows were their primary weapons. Even though they carried the same half Jaguar blood, like their brother, they also carried the same Starborne blood as Lucius.

  Ophelia secretly felt that herein lay the true reason their parents were able to have four children, not that they got lucky—even though their mother carried the Jaguar blood.

  But the sisters did not carry the part that made them actually shift into the Jaguar. Instead, they fought with a different power—the power of magick—and the grace and swiftness that made each one of them an extremely accurate—and deadly—foe.

  They kept these powers well-honed, three hours of every single day. They rarely missed a day. In fact, they seemed to carry a need that ran within their blood, preventing them from being able to take a day off. C Like if they didn’t use this power daily—they would burn up.

  They—the three of them together—carried the power of the lightening that snaked across the sky—or the heat and abundant brilliance of the stars. And they needed the release they found in their daily practice.

  Ophelia packed away the rest of her things and sat in one of the chairs against one of the walls of the training room to watch Mia. Several times, she caught Jasmine glancing over at her too.

  She blinked, suddenly seeing them as the small children they’d been that fateful day, so many years before. They’d been walking down the backstreet alley, like every day before that, on their way to school….

  The charge in the air felt almost palpable. Something in the air didn’t feel right. Something didn’t bode well—for any of them….

  He’d known they were waiting for him. She sensed it. This wasn’t the first time. Every day he waited for their attack. He’d annihilated their asses before, only to have them multiply, and still he beat them back. Anyone else would have left him alone after that. But Justice knew their vendetta against him only become fueled with each successful lesson he’d been forced to teach—that each of these lessons merely made them hunger for his blood, even more….

  Ophelia sucked in her breath. Confused, she looked around. She sat in the dirt. Jasmine and Mia were down on the ground with her, their anxious eyes staring deeply into hers as they patted her hands and face.

  “Ophelia,” Jasmine said, “are you with us?”

  Ophelia took a trembling breath. “Yes,” she answered.

  Her sisters helped her to get to her feet.

  “That day, again?” Jasmine asked.

  “The same,” Ophelia answered. She wanted a moment to gather herself, but her sisters stuck close to her side.

  “Why do you think you keep reliving it?” Jasmine asked, worried.

  Ophelia shook her head. “I wish I knew.”

  When they reached the car, she tried to shake off these dark memories, as she put her bow away. They needed to talk to Mia about what bothered her—not talk about old memories, long dead, from long ago….

  Determined, she pushed her thoughts of the past aside. There were more important to worry about. They needed to get Mia to tell them about what caused her nightmares. They needed to get her to talk about what bothered her.

  But the closer they came, the more she’d mutter something about it being her dreams.

  That only alarmed them more. Often when Mia dreamed something, it turned out to be important. But whatever that something was, she’d decided it wasn’t in their best interest to know.

  Ophelia fidgeted with the hem on her jacket. She didn’t like the implications of that. Not at all. Because that would mean her sister had decided, whatever she’d seen in her dream, in her vision, she deeply believed she couldn’t change.

  And Ophelia knew by the way Mia acted—it couldn’t be good.