

Book five of the Avery Clavens series

Amber Lynn

Copyright © 2012 Amber Lynn

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author's imagination and used fictitiously.
Author's note

The calm before the storm

Well, it's the next to last book in at least this part of the Avery Clavens story. I'm not sure why, but it was the hardest for me to write so far. I knew where I wanted things to end up, but even that ended up being different than I thought it would.

This one takes place in Chicago, but doesn't venture too far away from the home Avery has there. So my imagining of what different locations really look like is kept to a minimum, which gave me a lot more time to focus in on the craziness that leads up to Avery and Nate's wedding. Since it's Avery's wedding, craziness is obviously required.

Again, I hope you enjoy this book, as I hope you've enjoyed the other four. Let me know if you predicted any of the twists in this book. As I mentioned above, there's some I didn't even see coming.

Amber

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

CHAPTER 1

Hitting is an art, but not an exact science

"Come on, Kyle," I screamed, ducking from another one of his punches. "You really hit like a girl."

"Hold still just a second, dollface, and you'll be eating those words," he replied.

Calling a berserker names wasn't something I recommended anyone attempt. He was in full berserker mode, so I could test how quickly I was able to move around and deflect his incoming blows. In ten minutes, he'd only been able to hit me twice, which was a vast improvement from a week prior. Not only that, they were just glancing blows.

When we started the training, I only lasted three minutes total. After that, the match was called, to allow my ears to stop ringing. In his fighting mode, Kyle packed a really mean punch.

"I think that's enough for today," Nate said from his monitoring position.

Whenever I fought one of the guys, he was always there to oversee and make sure I didn't actually get hurt. Evidently, he didn't really care about the guys, because I'd messed up a couple of the newer recruits. Thankfully, they were quick-healing newer recruits. If they weren't, a few of the knife wounds would have left some gnarly scars.

I floated up to the ceiling, to signify the fight was over. I'd learned that it sometimes took a second or two for my opponents to calm down; extra punches were known to fly after the match was called to an end. Once I saw that Kyle had calmed down, I made my way back to the floor. Fighting a berserker was tough work, and I was sweating like a dog.

"I'm really improving, right?" I asked, flexing my arms and neck a little.

I had previously thought I was an amazing fighter, then the guys unleashed an extra level they'd been holding back. I hoped there wasn't yet another level, because it took all I had to compete with what they were dishing out.

"You sure are," Rick said. "I can't believe some of your moves, and you were just on the defensive. Any warlock should be shaking in their boots if they have to meet you on the battle field."

"Yes, you're looking great, my little butterfly," Nate added. "You need to get ready for the conference, though. You don't want to keep your adoring fans waiting."

It would be my sixth conference in two weeks. After coming out to the world as a unique, my life had been pretty chaotic. Okay, technically it was a bit chaotic before that, but my whirlwind tour had made it even more so.

The majority of the people believed me when I told them there were beings not quite human living among them, and most of those people were very accepting of us. With all the books, TV shows and movies out there about nonhumans, and the fact that kids were raised with that stuff, it'd be hard not to believe they really existed in some form.

There was still a group out there who thought it was all some computer trick or mass hypnosis. They didn't cause us many problems. Really, they were nothing more than annoying geeks. I imagined if I wasn't one of the uniques, I'd probably be a member of the group.

The real issue we were running into with the human population was a group calling themselves Humans Unite. It wasn't an extremely strong movement, but they had a couple thousand supporters in the U.S. alone. They'd mostly been hosting their own rallies and trying to get Congress to repeal a law that was passed making us citizens. However, we did fear they'd turn to violence soon, so we had people monitoring them constantly.

I was a little surprised at how fast the law made it through. Congress rarely agreed on anything, so it was astonishing that they did where we were concerned. Of course, I was shocked at how quickly the Director of the FBI chose to stand beside us from the beginning.

I assumed the military records of about a third of the uniques made Congress realize we were really good in a fight. They also enjoyed my speeches and my in-person display of a shift. People went a little gaga when they saw me in my other form. It made me into a bit of a celebrity, and I didn't exactly like my new status.

Along with our little conferences around the country, we'd had to deal with warlock attacks in every city we visited. Since we weren't hiding anymore, neither were they, and they'd raised their level of ruthlessness, but thankfully hadn't killed any humans.

At our second conference, they threw Molotov cocktails at the stage. With my ability to control fire, they were extinguished immediately and our security detail took the warlocks into custody. The warlocks could've harmed humans in an attempt to attack me, and that was something I couldn't allow.

Being out in the open meant we weren't able to just kill them on the spot. As a result, we built several holding facilities that we put them in after I stripped them of their powers with a little spell. Warlocks without powers tended to whine a lot, so I also made sure they wouldn't drive the guards insane with threats of what they'd do when their "master" let them out.

Our security detail consisted of Joseph, Kyle and Liam as the main enforcers. They each paired up with one of the recruits, so we had six fighters always on guard. Vinnie was always around with his facial recognition software to scan the crowds and to verify that no known threats got close to me. Nate and Rick were practically glued to my side anytime I was outside our secured compound.

To sum it up, I was very well protected. Elan also kept close by, just in case I needed an instant body double. The guys were all great, and rather than feel crowded and annoyed, I actually felt like a bad A double S. Or as bad as a person who still didn't say profane words could be.

"How big do you think the crowd will be tonight?" I asked as I grabbed a towel and tried to dry off a little.

"Well, since you're a rock star now, I imagine the arena will be filled to capacity. Do you think you can handle another crowd?" Rick queried.

"As long as you guys stay with me, I'll probably be just fine. I stopped throwing up after the third one, so I don't think anyone will have to hold my hair," I said. My nerves still got to me at the events, but I needed to do a last one before I took a couple weeks off the circuit.

I was getting married at the end of the week, and I was determined not to go another month with the war hanging over our heads. I wasn't sure how I was going to find the "master" warlock, but I vowed to get it done. I'd tried some different locator type spells I made up, but they didn't seem to be doing anything. Stupid magic never seemed to want to work when I wanted it to.

That wasn't really true. Magic came so naturally to me that everything worked except the locator spells, which frustrated me. The warlock I was trying to target with the spells apparently had something blocking them from his side of things.

"Fine, I won't tell everyone the event is postponed, but if it gets to be too much for you, just do the signal and Elan will make the crowd disappear for you," Rick assured me.

"Okay, before I go get ready, let's have a quick status update. Can you get everyone to meet in the conference room?" I asked.

The conference room was really just the dining room of whatever house we were in. It made it seem more important if I called it a conference room. I wasn't ready to elevate it up to a board room designation, but that time was coming.

"I'm hitting the button now," Nate said, taking out his chatterbox.

We called it chatterbox just for fun. It was basically a beeper and walkie talkie combo that Vinnie made for all of us. It was a little square that had a few buttons, a speaker and a microphone. One button was the push-to-talk button, so we could talk to each other as long as we were within ten miles.

The button Nate hit let everyone know to head to the dining room for a meeting. As he hit it, my chatterbox vibrated on the table that was keeping it safe, and it lit up yellow. We gathered our things and made our way to the meeting.

Other features of the chatterbox included another button that made it glow red, meaning battle stations. So far we hadn't had to use that one, but we'd run a number of practice drills. The last, and most important to at least half the guys, was a button that indicated there was food ready. The light associated with it was green and it sure caused everyone to go.

With us touring around the country, it was convenient that Nate and I had thought far enough ahead to have houses available in all the major cities. Because of my memories of him, I could remember actually being in the homes a little, so they weren't all a big surprise.

Over the years, they'd changed quite a bit to modernize, and a few of them were bought during my off years, so there was still a little wonderment every time I entered a new house. Nate was always quick to point out which sections of the house had been christened, so to speak, and where we needed to work on after our wedding. The man had a fairly one-track mind.

We were in our Chicago home. We had it built around the same time as our New York area home. It wasn't quite as large in square footage, but it had nine bedrooms and plenty of extra room for our guests. It was in the Lincoln Park area, next to a park and lake.

As the four of us made it to the dining room, we saw the majority of our advisors were already there. Our band of misfits had grown to a group of nineteen. We had eight, nine if you count phoenixes, kings or queens of shapeshifter species on the panel.

I was sure there were other groups who wanted to join as well, but our house just wasn't big enough for everyone. If anything major happened, we'd alert all leaders. For day-to-day operations, though, we tried to keep the people involved to a minimum.

Our group consisted of four phoenixes, Nate, Rick, Charles, and myself, Gary the panther, sitting in for his father, Vinnie the robot, Joseph the wolf, Liam and Kyle the berserkers, Elan the Kapre, Seth the Maltese tiger, Jimmy the black fox, Brad the wolverine, Ben the polar bear, Harry the hyena, Jeremy the hawk, Alana the cobra, Steve the human, and last, but not least, Eva the psycho Fate.

The uniques in the group had pretty much turned their lives upside down and all moved in with us. Steve, also known as the Director of the FBI, traveled with us sometimes, but he was needed often back in D.C. He had been very handy, keeping the unique slash human dynamic peaceful. Because of him, we were usually treated as visiting dignitaries, which had its perks.

Eva was the only one missing from around the table. She assured us her chatterbox worked wherever it was she hung out all day, but I had my doubts since it was the third meeting out of five she'd be missing.

"Oh hush," she said, sweeping into the room. "I have babies out there who need creating and it takes up a lot of time with this many billions of people."

"I thought you were focusing on uniques now, and I know there can't be more than a couple hundred females who are mated and doing things that would result in a baby," I responded.

"That's very true and they are all pregnant now, including your mother and one of your daughters. Plus, you know I don't want to go too overboard with the uniques. The humans may get a little anxious if it looks like you're breeding to take them over," she said, taking her seat as she winked and waved at Liam.

It wasn't a relationship I'd ever wish to take place, but they seemed to be spending as much time together as Eva's busy job allowed. I was hoping to set the berserkers up with some nice girls, not a crazy psychopath. It didn't appear like I'd be getting that option with Liam. For some reason the idiot was smitten with her.

"I'm pretty sure ensuring every female unique who could be pregnant is actually pregnant equates to a breeding frenzy, but we don't have time to go over semantics right now. Let's get on with this meeting. I have to be over in Evanston within an hour. Does anyone have any updates on our teams or warlock movements?" I asked.

I didn't touch the notion that one of my daughters was pregnant. The only one I believed could be was still locked out of my memory banks. I hoped I'd get my memory back within the four months it would take her to have the baby. Otherwise, Nate and I were going to fight about my right to see my grandchild. He was still on his kick about me taking things slow.

CHAPTER 2

It's best to go into a battle knowing ones enemy

"I do," Alana answered. "My team has been monitoring a couple of the warlock camps Elan helped us find down in Florida. They're reporting in that the camps are heading in our general direction via the air. We believe they're being called to the Midwest. I don't know if that's because of us being here, or this is where they're choosing to have the battle."

Alana was tall and slender, both in human form and when she morphed into a cobra. Her red hair and green eyes also made the transition, as she was a red spitting cobra with scary green eyes that didn't look right to me. I hadn't asked, but I assumed her hair was probably dyed. It didn't seem natural to me.

"That's interesting, anyone else?" I asked.

Any news that indicated I wouldn't have to look far for the fight I'd been preparing for was great news in my book. I was ready for the need to watch over my shoulders all the time to be over.

"Just the same, they're all heading towards the Midwest," Joseph reported. "We're going to add more security to tonight's conference. I doubt us being here is a coincidence. I don't know exactly where the flights are ending up, though. The only reason we know which direction they're heading is because we have some of our birds tracking them."

"Did you get any flight numbers? I could look them up," Vinnie added to the conversation.

He had thankfully managed to change his looks a little bit. The same actor he based his original appearance on could still play him in a movie, but being out in the open had caused him to dye his hair blonde, change his eye color to a purplish blue and added a few scars the real actor didn't have. He refused to do anything about his sculpted body, though. With all the other muscled men in my life, he claimed he would look out of place.

"I know in Florida they headed out in a private jet," Alana said. "It had no distinctive markings on it, so we don't know who it belongs to."

"Yeah, someone is paying a pretty penny to get them all moved," Brad confirmed. "We have some people trying to hack into the originating airports to find the flight plans. They just took off this morning, so give us another hour or so and we should know their final destination."

"Good, we're heading back to New York in a couple of days, but we'll leave a force behind so they can quickly move in if need be," I said. "Any reports from the human side of things?"

"I have to head back to D.C. after this meeting for some more strategy sessions to figure out if there's any way for us to support you further. I know you've forbidden us from getting involved with the warlocks because we're not as durable, but we may have some technology that will help you fight," Steve said.

He'd tried a couple of Elan's training simulations and virtually witnessed firsthand what we were going up against. After he was done, I thought he looked at us in a new light, especially when he watched me go through the same simulations.

He brought in a couple of Navy SEALs to try the training, and even though they did better, they were still no match for what the warlocks were capable of. Being dedicated warriors, they'd come back many times to try to get better training. There was talk about the simulations becoming a part of their regular curriculum.

"We're always happy for any support you can give us," I replied. "My hope is we can defeat this threat together. I just don't want people getting hurt."

I'd started remembering bouts of me seeing the future in the past. That sounded weird, but it is what it is. In the memories, I saw the casualties we'd end up taking. Rarely was it death, but missing appendages aren't exactly nice either.

"Have we found any clues about who their leader may be?" Nate asked.

That was something we were all working to figure out. I had some basic images I'd picked up, but I didn't know for sure if the man in them was the one we were searching for, but I had a feeling he was. I closed my eyes, trying to concentrate on the glimpses I'd seen of my past.

I'd found that when I really thought hard about something in particular, I did actually get something back. I didn't do it often, because of the edict about not overtaxing my system, but every once in a while I believed it was necessary.

I started to get a few flashes that were confusing more than anything else. The vision of my brother being killed popped in, even though I tried to keep it at bay. The fact that it did left me with little doubt who his potential killer was, and for some reason a name came to me.

"I'm getting the name Malphas. Does that mean anything to anyone? It's not ringing any of my bells." I hated that I couldn't do more than blurt out a name. I wanted to know everything I at one time knew about the guy.

"Please tell me you just pulled that name out of nowhere and weren't concentrating on our opponent," Eva said in a voice so unlike her usual carefree one. I swore I heard fear.

"Okay, that's exactly what I was doing," I replied. I was a little scared to hear who the person really was if Eva seemed a little worried.

"If that's who we are going up against, and not just some warlock, we're going to need a bigger boat," Charles told the group. Everyone else seemed to be nodding their head, so I guessed he was well-known.

"Time to fill in the idiot at the table," I said, looking at the clock on the wall that I required to be in every conference room. "And with quickness if you would."

If there was to be a revelation during the meeting, I should've called everyone together sooner. I hated when unexpected surprises came up because of something coming from a partial memory.

"Well, my dear, you know how warlocks come about by selling their souls to people who have set themselves up as gods," Nate started his explanation.

"Yeah, you told me all about that a while ago," I replied, a little confused as to why we were covering things Nate knew I knew.

"We tend to call those bad gods demons, just for lack of a better word. Malphas would be the president of those demons," Nate explained.

"Him being the 'master' kind of makes sense. Avery, in her past life, made a special knife to kill him and that shouldn't have been necessary if he was just a run of the mill warlock," Rick added.

"I don't know that I understand what any of that means, but how will this possible revelation affect our planning?" I asked, wanting to move forward. I figured if we knew who the guy was, it would be easy to figure out what we needed to do. "What new training should we work into the program?"

"We have to be prepared for not only warlocks, but also his demon minions. Unlike the warlocks, we won't be able to kill them. Since we can't really die either, it will be a wash, but they won't stop fighting until their master is killed," Charles informed me.

"That means we really can't train the teams any better for what they'll face," Liam said. "We'll just have more casualties than we originally hoped. Thankfully everyone will eventually heal up."

"So when the time comes, I need to find the guy as soon as possible and use my knife on him," I said. I really didn't want my troops to get hurt. I knew they'd heal, but cuts and bullets and fists still hurt.

"Do you know for sure that you're the only one who can use it?" Elan asked. "Maybe it would be best if we kept you hidden like last time."

"Sorry, Elan, but whether the knife works for someone else or not, I'm not sitting this one out, and if either Nate or Rick mentions shackles to any of you, I want to know right away," I said.

"Yes, my queen," Brad, my wolverine buddy, said immediately.

He'd been busy for a couple of weeks training in our new program, and trying to get everyone to pledge their fealty to me. I kept attempting to tell him that it wasn't necessary, but he was being stubborn about it. The only good thing about his devotion was I knew for a fact he'd come running to me if anyone made plans I wouldn't like.

"So, I have to run to get ready immediately. You guys decide who's going tonight and I'll meet you back here in ten minutes," I said, standing up from the table.

"Yes, my queen," Rick said in a sarcastic tone.

"Freddie, don't you start pushing my buttons," I told him as I walked out of the room.

Having lived our very long lives almost always together, he'd found pretty much every button I had, and he loved pressing as many as possible. He usually forgot I knew the same information about him. Eventually when things settled down, I'd have to remind him.

"You do know I don't hate that name anymore, right, baby girl?" he asked me mentally while I climbed the stairs that were just outside the dining room.

"I know. You only hated it because I was the one who gave it to you and I wasn't around to call you that when you took the name again," I replied. "Just think, we don't have to technically change our names ever again if we don't want to. You might want to make sure it's something you can live with the rest of your life."

"You calling me Freddie is definitely something I'll never get tired of again, little sister," he said, and then shut down the link between us.

I hurried through my shower and affixed my knives in their proper places. I threw on a pair of black jeans and a dark purple shirt. I'd had to steer clear of the snarky shirts I often wore, because I deemed it would be rude to give a presentation in a shirt that said everyone in the crowd was stupid.

After I put my shoes on, I brushed out my hair and rolled it up in a bun, so I could put in the two chopstick-looking weapons that Vinnie made for me. With all my protection, I hadn't had a chance to use them. Supposedly, if I stabbed anyone with the little blades hidden inside, they'd be paralyzed pretty much instantly. Rumor was it would even work on the warlocks.

I'd have to ask if we expected it to work on the demons as well. If it could, that'd come in handy and I'd have to ask Vinnie to work on getting us mass quantities.

I headed downstairs and found the guys waiting for me. My berserker sparring partner had wet hair, so I assumed he'd at least found a car wash somewhere to run through. I was warned there would be extra protection that night, but there were a few more people there than I expected.

"Are we all going?" I asked, counting twenty-five people instead of the usual ten.

"If you're right, the threat we're facing is bigger than we thought. We're going to take extra precautions to make sure you're safe," Nate replied. He didn't mention wrapping me in bubble wrap, so I supposed I could live with extra protection.

"Fine, just try not to scare the humans," I responded. "Let's head to the limo. My time management skills have failed me today, so I'm not going to explain how I don't think more people will make a difference."

Yes, I said limo. It was deemed that riding my motorcycle around was a little too dangerous, so I was stuck in a limo equipped with bulletproof glass and all sorts of armor. I didn't enjoy getting shot, but I thought it was a little overkill.

Usually the new ride was big enough to transport my entourage, but with over two dozen people, we ended up taking it and two black Suburbans. It was going to cause a scene and draw more attention than I liked. Oh well, it was the last one for me in the foreseeable future, so I'd put on my big girl pants and make it through.

CHAPTER 3

The future belongs to crowds

When we arrived at the arena, there were crowds everywhere. My little conferences had become red carpet affairs. Sadly for the adoring public, I never dressed up like it was the red carpet. If that ever became a requirement, the conferences were over. The handful of guys in the limo started filing out, and I took a moment to insert my communication device.

For events out in the open, we didn't use the chatterbox. Instead, Vinnie made us up little devices that just slipped into our ears like earplugs. We were all connected once they were on and if we tapped them we were able to talk. They came in real handy when the warlocks used cloaking spells and managed to make it up close to the stage.

I was led, by a wall of my men, into the arena and on to the stage. I kind of hated that I couldn't even check the crowd to see whether the supporters outside the building outnumbered the Humans Unite people. There had been groups of at least ten anti-uniques at every event. At the last two events, there were closer to fifty.

"Supporters are strong tonight," Nate informed me mentally. "There are even a few signs asking you to marry them."

"Do those sign outnumber the ones asking for your hand?" I replied.

It was a standing joke between us that one day I was going to run off with one of my fans. Sometimes I couldn't believe how much my life had changed since Nate entered my life again. I had gone from not getting any attention to people wanting to marry me. It was crazy.

"Of course. I don't see a single sign for me. You're the rock star, my little butterfly. I'm just your loyal follower."

"That's crap and you know it. Everyone knows you are my king. Once we say our vows this weekend, there shouldn't be any question where my heart lies."

"I've always known where your heart belonged, my dear. I just like to tease you. Now, get ready for the camera flashes, because it's go time," he said out loud as he and the guys parted so I could get a good look at the night's audience.

Most of the guys headed off the stage, to basically surround me, without being totally obvious. If anyone wasn't clear on what the muscled men were doing there, they deserved the shirt I'd neglected to wear calling them stupid.

Looking out into the crowd, I was pretty sure it was the biggest one I'd seen on my conference tour. It was standing room only, and by the way they were fired up, you'd think they were teenage girls at a male pop star's concert. There were signs everywhere. I saw a few of the marriage proposals, but mostly they said things like Uniques are people too and Give them a chance.

"We have a very strong power reading coming from the audience," Liam reported over our communicator.

That wasn't really anything new. There were always uniques in the area who wanted to check out the message we were sending to the humans. The leaders were okay with the arranged speeches, but their followers weren't always clued in about what I'd say.

"I know, I've picked him up and am hoping he's just here to observe. If not, this is going to turn nasty really fast," Rick quietly reported back.

That was not the response I was expecting. It didn't sound like a run-of-the-mill unique checking me out.

"What is it?" I asked him telepathically.

"We'll worry about that if it becomes an issue. For now, just go on like you normally do," he replied.

The guys were really lucky that I didn't go around reading their minds all of the time. It was easy to do, but it would set up precedence that it was okay for any of them who had the ability to do the same to me. I already had Nate and Eva roaming around in there at all times, I didn't need other visitors.

"Hello everyone, and thanks for having us here in your great city," I said into the microphone the stage manager handed me.

I assumed he was the stage manager, he could've just been a guy tasked with dealing with me. I was sure that wasn't a preferred job.

The crowd clapped loudly, almost loud enough to drown out the few boos I heard in the arena. I assumed some of the Humans Unite group were able to get tickets. It had happened at each of the events, so it didn't really surprise me.

"As you may have heard, my name is Avery Clavens and I'm a phoenix. I like to start these conferences by letting you know what different kinds of uniques we have with us. Joining me on the stage are my fiancé Nate, my brother Rick and my son Charles. They are all phoenixes. With us we also have five wolves, six foxes, four wolverines, a polar bear, a grizzly bear, and a hawk."

I pointed out the guys on stage with me when I said their species, but I didn't distinguish the rest of the entourage. We still hadn't announced there were more unique beings out there besides the shapeshifting ones, so I left a Kapre and a couple berserkers off the list.

I also didn't give away we had a robot. I wasn't sure if the idiots from Montana were still looking for him, but I didn't want to give them a chance to figure out he'd moved in with me.

"Now, I know the majority of those seem like scary animals to have hanging around. That's why we left all the scaredy-cats at home." My jokes didn't always work, but I liked breaking the tension by telling a couple.

"Really, no one here is in any danger from the people I arrived with. They're all well-behaved, and we've even managed to potty train them. You can imagine how many newspapers we had to line our floors with while we worked out that task."

That got a nice laugh from the crowd. I almost wished I had photos of the house in that condition to go along with the joke.

"Sorry, I get really nervous speaking in front of so many people, and I tend to tell really bad jokes. Anyway, my friends and I are going around trying to help educate everyone on what we are and what you can expect from us. You have to remember from the beginning that we have always been around. We aren't some alien species sent here to take over the Earth.

"In fact, like you, we just want to be able to live our lives. We aren't going to come out and tell you how you should live your lives either. So far, you guys seem to be doing just fine on your own. I mean, there are a few wars that could have probably been prevented over the years, and don't get me wrong, we fought beside you in those wars. I'm just stating some humans really like to fight a lot or live amongst conflict.

"That isn't a trait you'll find very often among uniques. I haven't met one yet who genuinely likes hurting another person. We've lived so many years that it seems like a waste to injure another life. That's not saying that if we're threatened, we'll just stand by and allow it, but in general we live peaceful lives.

"With my intro of peace, love and happiness done, I'm now going to turn it over to Charles to help explain how uniques came about. He serves kind of as our historian, so you won't find a more qualified person on the subject," I said, wrapping up most of my part. I had to be awake for the question and answer period at the end, but Charlie did the majority of the talking.

While the history was being given, I checked with Rick and Nate in one of our mental conference calls. The powerful entity in the audience had me a little worried. Rick couldn't sense warlocks, but I wasn't sure about the most recent foes to be brought up.

"So, is it one of the demons?" I asked, not knowing what else could cause an issue for us.

"No. I could sense them, but you wouldn't have entered the building at all if it was one of them," Rick answered.

"Still no hints? You know how I hate being out of the loop."

"Don't worry, Avery," Nate replied. "I don't have Rick's ability, well at least not as strong as him, so I don't know what it is either. Like you, I'm being a good boy and letting our team take care of the issue, as they're trained to do."

I hated it when he spoke reason. "Fine, but I better find out what's out there, even if it doesn't make its presence known to me. Also, if you couldn't tell, it's a little hard for me to be a good boy. I'm missing some key parts."

"I guess you are, but you know gender wasn't really a factor in what Nate said. As far as the person out there, it's another rare unique like Elan. Unlike Kapres this species isn't always known for being nice," Rick told me.

Great, just what we needed, a unique who wasn't all that nice when I'd just promised the crowd living around us was like living in Mayberry. I supposed I was going to have to quiz the team on hostile uniques and make sure we kept that group under tabs.

Charlie wrapped up his history, and looking out in the crowd I saw everyone was enthralled by what he'd told them. I knew from his books that he was very gifted in weaving a story and he was capable of making even the dullest details seem fascinating.

"You know it's part of his gift set," Nate mentioned telepathically. "His charisma leaks out whether he's writing or talking. All he has to do is open his mouth and the world will listen."

"We may need to loan him out to the police in hostage negotiations," I remarked.

"He's been doing it for years. I guess that didn't really start until twenty years ago, so you wouldn't know. When he's not writing books or hanging out trying to protect you, he works as a detective," he replied.

"That seems to run in our family a lot," I stated.

"We want to lead by example. As you may have noticed, many uniques look towards us as leaders. We all chose fields to better unique and humankind."

"So what does my dad really do?" I asked. "I imagine he wasn't ever really a postal worker."

I didn't think my mother had a secret job, and I couldn't fathom how her pink retro dresses improved anything. I supposed taking care of me was her gift to humankind.

Nate gave a little mental chuckle. "No, he's been pursuing a different route this life cycle. He actually makes toys. Some of his ideas he's sold to the big toy makers, but mostly he makes them and gives them to needy kids. Uniques have lived for so long we've saved up enough that we don't really want for anything. That gives people like your dad the ability to enrich people's lives in other ways."

"So he likes to play Santa Claus, does he? I'm not exactly sure why he kept that a secret from me, but if Eva is right, he's going to have a new little baby in the family to pamper in a couple months," I said.

"I know, and we're going to be grandparents for the first time," he replied. "Only two of our children have found their soul mates, so it shouldn't be hard to figure out who the happy couple is."

"I was guessing Sophia. Elizabeth didn't seem to be in a relationship and I don't even know what our other daughter is currently using for a name."

I would've thought as I got more memories, I would've remembered everything there was to know about all my children. They should've interacted with the people in the memories I had, but for some reason they were screened out of them.

"That other daughter is Beatrix and she is single as well. Our other son, is currently going by the name Phoenix, but I imagine he'll change that soon, because it won't be as amusing to him anymore. He has a great wife, who you'll love once you remember her. They've been together long enough that you've met her."

It was unfair that he was actually talking about our children and I had to get back to work. I wanted to ask for more names and see if he would be kind enough to give me their locations in the world. There wasn't much I could do with that information, but there was a chance it could jumpstart something in my head.

"Thank you so much, Charles, for relaying all that information. Even knowing everything you're going to say, I still love hearing your part of the presentation," I said, taking the mic back from him. "Now comes everyone's favorite part of the program. The part where we answer any remaining questions you have. Do we have a volunteer out there who'd like to ask the first question?"

CHAPTER 4

There are no stupid questions, at least that's what I tell myself

As expected, hands shot up throughout the crowd. I was glad I wasn't one of the people walking around the audience with a microphone, who got to choose who asked the questions. The enthusiasm running through the crowd made me think they might try to rush the poor people.

One of the people with the microphones arrived at a young, probably in her twenties, woman and decided to let her talk. The way she stared at me screamed stalker in my mind, without needing to jump in hers for confirmation.

"Oh my gosh, I can't believe I'm really getting to talk to you," she started, confirming my suspicions. "So I've watched all the videos from your other conferences and have to say you're so inspirational. So many of my original questions have been answered, so I'll just ask a basic one. Have you got any more of your memories back since the last one? I'm interested in seeing if you'll be a different person once you get them all back."

If there were going to be future conferences after my honeymoon, I was going to ask whether having oxygen on hand would be wise. The woman hadn't taken a breath since she started rambling, and I was worried about her passing out. There were no immediate signs, but I didn't want to be the cause of someone's anxiety attack.

The story of my memories was one we shared with everyone early on, so we could explain why other people were doing a lot of the talking. We hadn't really mentioned the fact that I became a sorceress as a result of giving them up, or where exactly my memories stood. We were still in the baby steps part of the process.

The public was aware of most of my abilities. The telekinesis and fire control were the first we mentioned. We then had to come up with a plausible excuse for me just appearing in different cities without taking a plane, so we mentioned I could teleport. People went crazy over that, but I hadn't given a demonstration for obvious reasons. Bleeding on the stage to say a spell wasn't something we were ready to explain.

"Thank you very much for asking. I haven't been able to remember anything since the last conference. My hope is that someday soon, I'll be able to remember everything, so I'm better able to answer some of the questions I have to look to my friends for responses," I replied.

"I just want to add," Nate said, after clearing his throat. "When she does get her memory back, we have no worries of her being some other person. The only thing that might change is she may treat her mother a little bit nicer."

That got a nice laugh from the audience. A person on the other side of the arena got to ask the next question. It was another female, and I could already tell it was going to be another personal question. Most of the time, Charlie did such a good job of explaining that there weren't a lot of questions about uniques. It also seemed like the people visited the website, because we didn't see a lot of repeat questions.

There were a few people who were thick, and needed to hear the same thing ten times. I'd done an amazing job of not telling anyone they should clean out there ears and listen.

"Can you tell us more about uniques' romantic relationships?" she asked. She was close enough I could see her cheeks turn a light shade of pink.

I laughed, not a mean laugh, just a short little chuckle. It was a question we got everywhere, even after already answering it.

"Contrary to what our opposition is telling everyone, we actually only have those types of relationships with other uniques. Phoenixes aren't able to find a mate outside of our species. Most of the other shifters have no problem dating other uniques, but humans are out of the question because of that whole issue of us not dying. It makes for an awkward relationship, so we tend to avoid it."

The Humans Unite group had been advocating that our men were just there to impregnate human females. I was pretty sure that wasn't even possible, and we had a team of scientists working to prove that. The team consisted of both humans and uniques, just so they didn't blame us for skewing the results.

Another woman was given the microphone. "Hi, Avery," the woman said, not as shy or exuberant as the two before her. "I was just curious, I haven't heard it announced anywhere, but I was wondering when you and Nate were getting married."

"You're right," I said, dreading having to answer the question. We'd been able to hide the date because I didn't want it to be turned into a media circus, and surprisingly no one had cared enough to ask. We'd said we were engaged a few too many times to hide that there would eventually be a wedding. "We're getting married on Friday. We've been married in the past, so we're having a small private ceremony at our house."

"There will be professional photos taken of the event, even if it's small, and we'll share those once Avery approves them," Nate said.

That unleashed the estrogen into the air evidently, because the next three questions were all about wedding plans. Mainly who was I wearing, what we were eating and where the honeymoon was taking place. People didn't realize that with evil forces out there plotting your demise, you didn't really get a traditional honeymoon.

I skated through those questions as delicately as I could without yelling, "who really cares" at the poor women. The next woman at the microphone was a pleasant surprise for me. I hadn't expected to see a friendly face in the crowd.

"What do all the humans you've been friends with over the years have to say to you now that they know you aren't human?" she asked.

I almost laughed at the way she made it sound like I had tons of human friends. I didn't even need a whole hand to count them.

"Well, Ettie, that's a very good question. I was hoping I'd bump into you while I was in the Chicago area, but you've been a little elusive. I know you haven't known me for years, but you did know me prior to me telling the world I was a phoenix, so what do you have to say about it?"

I looked over to Nate, wondering if he knew Ettie was going to be there. He had a smile on his face, but shook his head subtly from side-to-side.

"I have to say it's pretty freaking cool. You opened my eyes before to see that the world was a bigger place than a little town in Montana, I just never dreamed how much bigger. I have a ton of private questions for you that I don't think this is the setting to ask, because I know how private you are, but I have to say I was thrilled when I caught that original news program you were on," she replied with a giant grin on her face, like she just figured out my biggest secret.

"You're coming to the wedding, right? Your invitation didn't get lost in the mail, did it? I know I should've hand delivered it, but I've been a little busy lately."

"I'm flying out tonight. It's one of the few events I wouldn't miss," she said.

The rest of the crowd looked at Ettie enviously. I hoped she wasn't carrying her invitation on her, because I was fairly certain the crowd was going to try to take it from her.

"Great, you can ask me the questions then, I'm sure I already know one of them," I replied.

I knew she was going to ask about Vinnie, and I also knew I was going to tell her the truth about his whereabouts. He was going to be at the wedding, and it'd be a fun little reunion for her to see what he looked like.

"That would be the first question on my list," she said, pretending to read my mind as she handed the microphone back to the lady passing it around.

Finally, we got a gentleman asking a question, and I had a good feeling it wouldn't be about the wedding or relationships. He was scowling, so I didn't assume he had a high opinion of me in general.

"I just want to know why you think we're actually going to let you just come and invade us without putting up a fight," the man said.

Oh goodie, one of the Humans Unite representatives was actually given a microphone. Surprisingly, it was a first, but it did give me a chance to try to have a constructive debate with one of them. We'd been offering to meet with them personally, but none of the invitations had been accepted.

"Sir, I'm not sure what you've heard, but we aren't invading anything. You make it sound like we're some kind of aliens, but as I've already covered we aren't. If you want to get technical, we were here first, millions of years before you were. The only thing that has changed is the fact that you know about us now," I told him.

I had trouble believing the millions of years, even with some of my memories, but Nate assured me he really was older than dirt. Apparently, back in the early days our minds didn't work like they did in the present, so time went by quickly, and we weren't evolved into the creatures we'd become.

It was another level of confusion to pile on. Nate told me no one remembered the first few million years that well. We knew what we had been and what we became, but no one spent a lot of time delving into what it had been like to be simple fire organisms.

"That is highly doubtful," the man in the audience replied, keeping the mic as the poor woman who'd handed it to him tried to retrieve it. "You guys have been visiting us for years with your probes and we aren't going to allow you to just come down here and take over. We'll find a way to defeat you."

The arena's security moved in to escort the man from the building. Not wanting to be stopped, he hurried to get out the rest of his tirade. "And you're the worst of them all. You think you're some kind of queen, but in reality it's all a ruse. They're just using you because you look appealing to human males."

"I'm sorry you feel that way, but I have a message for anyone who shares that man's beliefs. We aren't aliens from outer space. We have no plans to overthrow the humans who currently dominate this planet. That would just be silly on our part. There are newspaper articles and books you can read that have pictures of us during our former lives in them. Check those out, and then come back and try to have a civilized conversation with us," I said.

I knew they had the argument that we'd planted the articles, but some day all humans would believe us. His comments about me not really being a queen didn't deserve attention, so I ignored them. As far as I was concerned, most days I didn't want to be a queen, nor did I feel like one.

"Thank you for coming, folks," Nate said, taking over. "I'm sorry, but I think the atmosphere has become a little more hostile than we're comfortable with. We put these together to try to give more information to you and I don't like to see my soulmate being attacked, so we're going to call an end to this appearance."

There was a collective sigh of disappointment that rolled through the crowd. Nate was right, though, the mood wasn't happy anymore and we weren't getting very relevant questions anyway. The audience slowly started to trickle out and my group gathered around me again. That time not in a wall, just a general grouping so we could talk.

"We have a slight issue," I heard Liam say as I glanced around and saw the majority of the auditorium was empty.

There were a few people still trying to get pictures of us. Part of Vinnie's daily download included searching for any memes of me he found funny. I really hated the new celebrity status that people had put on me.

"I got him," Rick replied. "He's coming at us slowly, so let's see if he's willing to talk before we assume battle stations. There's still some people around and I'd prefer they not capture the berserkers in crazy mode."

With that, my wall of men surrounded me again, so I had no idea what the threat was. Dang it, I knew I should've made Rick give me the details earlier.

CHAPTER 5

I do meet the most interesting people

"Please state your business before you come any closer," Rick announced.

"I would like to speak to the queen, if that would be possible," a man's voice replied.

I didn't hear anything threatening in that voice. There was a subtle accent I couldn't immediately place, but other than that, it sounded normal.

"As long as you can do it without having to actually see her, that can be arranged," Nate said.

"That is understandable. I know the threat you face more than most of you. I am only here to offer my services," the man said.

"Thank you, sir. Before I can decide if that would be acceptable, could you please tell me who and what you are? My colleagues like to keep secrets from me, and even though I've asked many times about you, they haven't told me anything," I said, trying to peek out from behind the wall.

"My name is Makrammaramisam and I am jinn," he said, bowing as I finally got a look at our stranger through a small crack between bodies.

He was relatively short and seemed like he could be Middle Eastern, judging by his accent and general look. Granted, I was basing that off of what I'd seen in movies, so I really had no clue.

"You just gave her your real name, didn't you?" Charlie asked.

"But, of course. It would be rude not to do as the queen asked," the man replied.

I was stuck trying to sound out and spell the man's name in my head. Until my mind made sense of it, it wasn't letting me move on to the more important question of what the man wanted.

"You could have given a nickname," Rick pointed out.

"For my queen, I can do no less than give my full name. My fate is in her hands," he replied.

"Before we go any further, can I just ask if it's okay to call you Mak? There's no way I'm going to be able to properly pronounce your name," I said, giving up my mental exercises.

"You honor me, by choosing not to use my full name," Mak said with another bow. I assumed that meant it was okay.

"What's the deal with his full name?" I asked. Eventually, I wouldn't be the only person in the room who didn't know what was going on.

"He's a jinni. When I say the singular, can you guess what that means?" Charlie asked.

"It sounds kind of like you're saying genie. Does he grant wishes or something?"

Mak started laughing. He was lucky it didn't sound like he was mocking me. I wasn't sure what he found amusing, but he seemed talkative enough that I was sure I'd find out.

"You really don't have your memories, my queen. My previous master mentioned that, but I thought he may be lying. I've found there's very few trustworthy people out there."

"Sweetie, a jinni isn't exactly what you see in the movies. They're magical beings, but they don't really grant wishes," Nate informed me. "The only way to capture one is to know their real name. Because of that, they keep their names secret and tend to make them complicated. When they're captured, they must do whatever their master commands them until they're either freed, which rarely happens, or their master dies."

"They like to play tricks, similar to my people," Elan added. "You have to be very careful with what you command them to do, because it can sometimes backfire."

"You mentioned your previous master, did he release you?" I asked Mak.

"No, you killed him," he replied. "That's why I'm here to offer my services. It is in repayment for you freeing me from years of servitude."

"I haven't killed that many people, but I still can't guess who you're talking about," I said, thinking back to the few people who'd died at my hand. There was really only one who stuck out, but I didn't think he had the kind of backup a jinn seemed to be able to provide.

"He went by Alexander. I was in the clearing during your battle, but kept myself hidden. He commanded me to be there in case things went badly. He forgot, however, to give instructions on what I should do to help him win the fight. Since he wasn't specific, I let you kill him."

"Rick, I don't remember you or Liam telling me there was another threat once you guys were allowed in the clearing," I said. They were usually sticklers for making sure stuff like that didn't happen.

"It's not their faults," Mak replied. "I'm able to mask myself and that was part of the order, for me to be in the clearing, but invisible to all your senses."

I was still trapped peeking from behind the wall, so I said, "Guys, I believe if Mak was going to try anything, he would have by now. Why don't you clear the way a little, so I can suitably greet him?"

"You sure?" Rick asked. "He's already admitted to being in the service of one warlock. What if another one picked him up after Alexander was killed."

"What if he was never a servant of Alexander and is actually working for someone else who told him to say that?" Joseph asked.

"Can he kill me?"

"No," Nate replied.

"Then we have no issue. Now, make the guys move," I instructed.

"You heard her, guys. Big bad phoenix queen wants her guards out of the way," Nate told them, like they didn't hear the request directly from me. They reluctantly cleared the path, so I could make my way to Mak.

"Mak, I would be honored if you stood beside us in the world we're creating for ourselves. It'd be really nice to add another being to our group of advisors who isn't of the shifting variety. The changes so far to our society mostly effected them, so it made sense for there to be a lot of them, but I'm sure there will be other adjustments to be made that will spread to the other uniques."

Some people may say I'm too trusting, but I thought we were picking up a strength for our side. It was a little strange that I'd always had issues trusting, but when it came to meeting new uniques, I tended to welcome them with open arms.

"My queen, you honor me more than you should. I came to offer my servitude, nothing more," he replied.

"Since servitude isn't in my dictionary, you're going to have to settle with the position on the panel. I think you'll be a great asset, because you've been behind the scenes and can answer many of our questions," I countered.

"You would truly use me for my knowledge and not my abilities?" Mak asked.

"Avery doesn't believe in exploiting people's abilities, other than maybe her own, and we have to all keep an eye on her to make sure she doesn't overdo it," Elan informed him.

"But she does use your ability, right?" Mak asked Elan.

Introductions hadn't been made, so I assumed either Mak knew from the beginning what Elan was, or he was able to put it together when Elan had compared their two species. Either way, Mak seemed smart to me.

"Yes, but she asked if it was okay and never tried to deceive me. Because of the way she is, I was able to convince two other Kapres to join us at the main compound and assist with training simulations. That frees me up so I can infiltrate the warlock camps and be available when Avery travels," Elan replied. "She makes everyone feel welcome. It's the first time in my life that I have felt like I belong to a family."

Mak turned and studied me. "You are so much more than the warlocks are going to expect. Most leaders torment their troops and that leads to dissension in the ranks. You really are just taking everyone under your wing and trying to protect them, aren't you?"

"If I could fight this battle alone and make sure none of my people received even a broken nail, I would. Their leader, who we have recently decided may be Malphas, wants me dead. He isn't requesting the head of anyone else, but without all my marbles securely fastened in my brain, I need assistance to at least guide me in the right direction."

Mak dropped to his knees and bowed. The bowing thing was getting on my nerves, and I was going to comment about it, but Nate put a hand on my arm, indicating to me I should wait.

"I swear my allegiance to you alone, my queen. From this day forward, only you may call upon me. With my blood," he said, pricking his finger with a pin that he pulled out of nowhere, "I do swear."

He finished his little ritual by taking his finger and making a vertical mark down his forehead, and before I knew it, he was in front of me doing the same to my forehead. I felt a small charge of energy and looked around, waiting for someone to explain what just happened.

"Well, I guess we don't have to wonder if he's still working for someone else," Charlie said. "He wouldn't have been able to do that if he was."

"So what in the world just happened?" I asked.

"He bound himself to you," Nate replied. He didn't seem happy or sad about the revelation. It seemed like it was just another thing that happened in my everyday life.

"Okay, who, what, where, when and why?" I asked.

"The who, is me and you," Mak started. "The what, is the fact that we are now bound together. The where, is right here. The when, was about thirty seconds ago. Finally, the why, is because this way I can never be summoned by another again. I will only serve you, and from following you around recently and this conversation, I have determined being with you is better than any life I could ever have dreamed of for myself."

"Isn't there a way you could have made it so you wouldn't be summoned? It sounds like you're a strong magical being. There had to be some way for you to get around it."

"No, believe me we've looked for centuries and there isn't a way. We're destined to be slaves to others. You'll be my first master who, I'm hoping, doesn't take advantage of my abilities."

"I don't really even know what your abilities are. I'll ask now that it seems you're with Team Unique, that if you have abilities that you think will be helpful in our battle, to please let me know, so we can try to keep our wounded down to a minimum," I said.

"You really don't know what you have here, sis," Rick interjected before Mak could answer. "He has to do, and probably can do, anything you tell him. Short of murdering a unique, he can basically do anything."

"I'll take that into consideration, but I'm not going to just start bossing him around," I said.

"Why not? You boss all the rest of us around," Kyle replied.

"Yes, but you guys aren't required to do what I tell you. I'm one hundred percent behind the concept of free will. I'll have to start working out a spell that will allow him to use his powers as he wishes and not have to be ordered to do so," I declared.

I couldn't believe what a crummy life any jinn had to have. I wanted to do some research to find out how they'd been bound to servitude to begin with. There had to be a way to let them live their lives as free people.

"You would really work to find a way to release my metaphorical chains?" Mak asked. The disbelief in his voice was abundantly clear.

"Well, yeah. I worked an odor smell out for Elan here, so others won't know he chain smoked for years, and he can now live like a normal person. Granted he's a very tall normal person, but he won't be persecuted because of the traditional stigma that a Kapre carries."

"I'm not sure they want me to mention them yet, but I do have two other jinn travelling with me. I wanted to come and test the waters to see what you were really like. Would you welcome them into your circle as well?" Mak asked. "Their names have not been called for a very long time, so they won't have any insider information like I do."

"Is the only way for them to be protected the way you did it? I want to find a spell for you guys, but I might not be able to until next week. I'm getting married in a couple of days and there are some things I need to prepare," I said.

"I will tell them what you've said today. They will have no problem binding themselves to you," he replied.

"Does it have to be me? Can it be one of my other friends?" I asked. Having one jinni attached to me was bad enough. I didn't think I'd handle three very well.

"They will want to have it with you. I'm sorry, but I don't believe I can convince them that someone else would be okay," he said.

"Fine, if it means they'll be safe, tell them to come to me and I'll do everything I can to protect them."

"I hate to break this up, but I have a pretty good sniffer and I do believe I'm smelling kerosene somewhere in the building. It's strong enough that I think we should be on our way," Joseph informed us.

"Joseph, since you can smell where it's coming from, please lead us out of here with a quickness," I said. If I was sure I could do it, I would've just transported us all, but our group was abnormally large.

"Follow me," he replied, taking off towards an exit that was hopefully safe. On my way out, I saw a fire alarm and pulled it to alert anyone who may have lingered in the building.

CHAPTER 6

Being pulled in ten different directions is hard

"Search the area," Liam commanded, yelling loud enough to draw every eye in the vicinity to us. "Let's hurry up and find anyone involved. Maybe we can stop them from starting the fire."

We were making assumptions based on Joseph's nose, which I had every confidence in. There was no reason why the place would suddenly smell like kerosene.

As Liam finished speaking, I got a flash of a loud explosion and the arena igniting into an inferno. I blinked my eyes a few times and saw that the building was still in one piece. I was never good at word association, and adding in visions of future events didn't make it any more fun.

"Don't worry about the warlock yet," I said. For some reason I was certain that it was warlock driven and not anti-unique driven, even if those could technically be lumped together. "The building's going to explode. We need to make sure everyone is cleared back from it and no one is inside. Is anyone picking up any life signs from the building?"

"My readings say it's empty, except for a strong force, which must be the person with the kerosene. I can't believe I didn't pick it up before. I was so focused on the jinn that I didn't feel anything else," Liam said.

"Who knows when the warlock arrived on the scene. Right now we need to work our way around the building and make sure people are cleared away. I think we have a couple minutes before things get really bad. I want to try to do everything I can to control the fire, but I don't think we can stop it from happening," I said, trying to figure out what was going on. "That means you guys have to hurry to rescue any humans you can get to in about a block radius."

My words caused everyone to take off in a run to make their way around the building and hopefully get everyone to safety. I was a little surprised they left me alone, but they knew in my mind, the humans' lives came first.

"Avery, we have a problem," Nate messaged me from his location. He'd only been gone five seconds, he shouldn't have found a problem bigger than the one I foresaw that quickly.

"You've been gone a second, what kind of problem did you run into already?" I asked.

"I found someone who says his wife just ran in the building because she forgot her purse. She wasn't in there when Liam did his scan, but she is now. Do you think she'll be able to get out in time?" he asked.

What in the world kind of idiot ran into a building with the fire alarm going off? I didn't need to ask whether she was one of the uniques who'd more than likely been in the audience. There wouldn't have been any urgency in Nate's voice if she would've been able to live through a blast.

When he finished speaking, I could feel the fire I'd been searching for ignite within the building. I could see that the warlock was on a suicide mission and was trying to blow the boiler, thinking we were still in the building.

Wait, no, not suicide, he'd fireproofed himself and was planning on zapping himself out once he dropped the match. I tried to focus on the fire on the match to gain control of the situation, but it must have been charmed. I couldn't put it out remotely.

"Nate, I have time to get her, just make sure everyone is away from the scene," I told him before I tried to come up with a plan.

The woman inside didn't have any time, which meant my plan didn't either. I searched for her mental signature as quickly as I could. It was difficult for me to do since I didn't know her. The second I felt it, I said a spell as quickly as I could to teleport myself to her location.

She screamed when she saw me appear out of nowhere. She had her purse and was on her way back outside. I didn't bother explaining things and instead said a combo spell that would transport her to Nate's location, which I believed to be a safe distance away, because he was with her spouse. The other part of the spell took me back to my original location, so I could try to control the damage.

By the time I got there, only a second or two had passed, but my head was pounding from not having the time to give a proper sacrifice. It was just going to have to wait, because the match was heading to the ground and the warlock had done something to make the kerosene ignite quickly. It was already heating up the boiler. I could tell that the warlock had left to find a safe place to watch the fireworks. Once he'd lit the match, he glowed on my radar.

Before he left, I was able to get a glimpse of the boiler pressure gauge and it seemed to be building faster than I expected, which since I didn't want it to build at all, wasn't saying much. He must have done something to the pressure relief valve, at least I thought I'd heard it called that the few times I'd heard someone talking about a boiler in my life.

Without him at the scene, I couldn't see what was happening, or get a good look at the boiler to try to release the valve with my telekinesis. I could feel the fire and I'd already doused it, but whatever the warlock did to the boiler, I couldn't fix from where I was.

Believing I didn't have time to grab a knife, I quickly bit the tip of my finger hard enough to draw blood. I let the blood fall to the ground and quickly said a spell to get me into the boiler room. No one ever said I was smart.

The gauge on the front of the boiler was almost to the red danger zone, and as I arrived on the scene, a rivet went flying past my head. Not good, really not good. I didn't know much about boilers, but there had to be a way to release the pressure, and I doubted stabbing it with one of my knives was the way to go.

I found something that looked like it might be the valve I was looking for. I attempted to unscrew it, but the little handle piece fell off in my hand. I heard more rivets flying around and decided I'd seen enough of the boiler to try to unscrew the valve on the boiler from outside. My bite wound hadn't closed, so I dripped more blood on the ground and hightailed it out of there.

Once safely outside, I pictured the boiler in my mind and worked to undo the valve I had been looking at. I couldn't really tell if I was accomplishing anything, so I concentrated intently on righty tighty, lefty loosely and screwing that bolt to the left. My head was still pounding from doing two teleporting spells back to back improperly.

The time on my imaginary clock was probably up to a full minute, and the building was still in one piece. With as close as the gauge was to the red area, I had to believe it would've blown by then if it was going to, so I thought things could be over.

I hated not knowing anything for sure. Standing around imagining things in my mind shouldn't have solved a problem, but it had worked for me in the past.

I heard sirens in the background. Someone must have called to make sure backup was in place if things had gone according to plan. I was glad someone was on their toes.

"Is everyone okay?" I tapped my communicator to get a message out to everyone.

"Yes, dollface," Kyle reported back. "After you did your initial rescue, your new friend transported all residents close by a couple of blocks away. It seemed he took your instructions as an order and saw it through immediately."

"I didn't mean for it to be an order, just an idea of where we needed to start in case the building blew like I saw," I said. I made a note to be careful about what I said in the future.

"He didn't mind. You were trying to save lives and he was happy to help. How are things on the scene?" Liam asked.

"I'm pretty sure everyone can come back. I think it would be best if one of us goes in before the first responders. I don't think the warlock did anything else, but I don't want our efforts to go to waste and have a human end up getting hurt."

I wasn't sure anyone should go in the building. The fact that people believed me when I said the building was going to blow up was a little farfetched, but they trusted my mind more than I did.

"I'm almost back to you," Nate said. "You're not going back into that building alone. You nearly gave me a heart attack when you went in to try to fix the boiler."

"I'm not particularly looking forward to going back in there anyway, so I'll enjoy the company," I replied as I saw him running towards me. "Rick, Charlie, I want you two to take care of the first responders. Hold them back long enough that we can give the all clear."

"Will do. Just think, tomorrow the papers are all going to be reporting what a shero you are," Rick replied, using the term he'd started calling me ever since I took over as a spokesperson for the uniques.

"We'll have to tell them something, but I don't want to focus on me," I told everyone over the airwaves, as if they needed to know I didn't want more publicity.

"Too bad. You were the only one of us who could have done anything to help. The rest of us don't have your cool teleporting ability and the woman you saved is probably already talking to reporters," Joseph said.

"Yeah, Mom, sorry, but you're the hero in all of this. It will be good PR for us, so just go with the flow," Charlie replied.

"I'm sure the Humans Unite group will say we did this ourselves for the publicity. How are we going to get around that?" I asked as Nate and I entered the building.

"I'm sure the building has cameras. This is on a college campus, after all. It will show us leaving and possibly be able to catch the warlock on tape if he entered the building the old-fashioned way. Who knows, they may even have had cameras in the basement. The exits seem more logical, but you never know," Nate assured me as we made our way to the basement.

"Take your time. We've alerted the fire crews and cops about what happened, and they're more than willing to let you guys take on any booby traps that the guy might have left," Rick informed us.

Good, I was glad they were listening. I didn't think there'd be anything to run into. When I was in the warlock's mind, he was so sure the explosion would work that he wasn't thinking about any back up plans.

When we got down in the basement, we saw water damage everywhere. It looked like there was going to be some big-time clean-up, but I didn't think anything was permanently damaged.

"You did a really good job today, my little butterfly. Even though I was worried about you getting injured, you were extremely calm under pressure, no pun intended. Rick and I stayed tuned in with you the whole time, but we didn't want to interrupt for fear it would delay your reflexes. How's the head feeling?"

There was no mention of shackles, so I was happy to hear Nate's compliments. Other than a little ache in my head, there wasn't anything that indicated I'd put myself in a dangerous situation. I hadn't really ever felt in danger, which was weird after I'd seen the building blow up.

"It still hurts, but I didn't see a lot of choice. With us being under the microscope right now, we can't afford to allow a human to die under our watch."

"I know. I wasn't trying to chastise you for doing it. I just wanted to check on you. We're probably going to be stuck here a while with the authorities, but if you're injured, we may be able to get you home sooner, so you can sleep it off."

So far, everything looked to be in order and nothing had popped out at us. "Let's head back up to the surface and try to get the questioning over as soon as possible. I used a lot of abilities today, and I can't remember if they're all ones that people were aware of," I said, heading back to the stairs.

"With you, I think we'll be okay. It's the moving the local residents a couple blocks away all at once I worry about," Nate said. "I don't think anything we've listed could possibly explain how we were able to accomplish that feat."

"People would probably assume it was me, because we've mentioned I can teleport, but I'd prefer they didn't," I said, clicking on my communicator. "Anyone have any idea on how we can explain the mass move of the residents? We really need everyone to be able to just forget it ever happened, but yet let the ones who were close by believe they were moved away from the perimeter by us."

"Taken care of, my queen." I was taken back for a second, that was Mak's voice. He wasn't supposed to have a communicator yet.

"Mak, how did you get a communicator?" I asked, ignoring for the moment that I accidentally issued another order he felt he had to respond to.

"Vinnie carries extras in case of malfunction during your outings. He let me have one," he replied.

"When you said it was taken care of, does that mean you waved your magic wand and adjusted people's memories?" I asked him, wanting a little clarification.

"Yes, they'll now remember things just as you requested. We have to make sure the authorities aren't wise to my mistake of actually moving the people. If I had been thinking more clearly, you just said to rescue the people and I could've probably accomplished that without moving them," he answered.

"You did great, Mak. I'm just sorry we won't be able to tell anyone your exact involvement, because they may start to take a closer look and realize uniques aren't all shifters," I assured him. "My biggest problem is that I need to learn how to word things so they don't sound like an order."

When we made it outside, Nate and I informed firefighters where to go and settled in to start telling the cops what happened. It took a couple of hours, but they finally released us and we headed back to our house. There, I went straight to my room, took my chopsticks out and collapsed on the bed in hopes of getting rid of my still mild headache.

CHAPTER 7

Happiness is a hard master, particularly other people's happiness

I woke up the next morning with Nate cocooned around me. A mere day stood between us and the titles of husband and wife. That didn't leave much time to track down the warlock from the arena. We couldn't allow someone that destructive to be out on the street.

"Good morning, Avery," Nate said, kissing my head.

"Hey, soon-to-be-husband, did Mak get all settled while I slept?" I asked.

The call to my bed had been so strong that I was a horrible hostess. I tended to be a bad hostess all the time, but I hadn't even made sure Mak had come back with us, and he was supposedly tied to me somehow.

"Yup, last I saw him he was jumping on his bed like a five-year-old. Evidently, his previous masters weren't that nice to him, and he hasn't had a real bed for as long as he can remember."

I was glad to hear he was settled, but my mind immediately went elsewhere. "Do you think Vinnie will have pancakes waiting for me?"

I was hungry enough that my stomach could've asked the question. I should've eaten the night before, but chances were my head would've landed on my plate.

"I bet there'll be something ready for you. Vinnie always knows how to take care of your morning hunger for food, and in two mornings, I'll be able to take care of your morning hunger for other things," he said, rolling over to get up.

"You're such a pervert." I threw my pillow at him and wished I had something a little firmer. "Now that the time is almost here, we should probably have a little talk about what's going to happen."

"I know you're worried about getting pregnant before the epic battle we're facing," he said, running his hand through his hair. "Knowing your good buddy Eva, the second we even touch each other in a sexual way you'll get pregnant. I'm surprised she hasn't found a way to accomplish that by us just looking at each other."

"What do we do about that? You aren't willing to go into battle with me carrying your children, are you?" I asked

"As long as you don't get killed, I don't think anyone can hurt them. They'll be encased in their shells until just before they're born. Those shells are impenetrable until the week leading up to their birth, when they start to dissolve. I really don't think even a bullet to your stomach would break them," he stated. "Not that I'm advocating you going out and getting shot."

"If I do go into battle with them already inside of me and things go bad, do you think you can have someone cut them out and keep them alive in incubators, so they can still be born?" I asked.

I wasn't sure exactly what the knife would do to me, but I had to believe there'd be a way to save any children if they did exist. I just knew I was going to end up doing something stupid and I didn't want it to affect my unborn children. At that point they were unconceived children, and I was hoping to keep them that way for as long as possible.

"My first priority will always be you. I'll do everything I can to save them, but it's you who must live. You know I already have made plans to not stick around forever if you don't."

"Don't worry. I'll do everything in my power to stick around forever, so you're going to be stuck with your neurotic wife. Let's stop the depressing talk. Were any plans made for warlock hunting yesterday?"

"Really? You think that's a solution to stopping the depressing talk?" he asked, then laughed and came back to the bed so he could kiss me. "You say the strangest things sometimes. We can discuss that in a second. I want to talk about something I noticed yesterday, but decided to let you rest before I question you about it."

"Okay, shoot," I said, sitting up in bed.

It wasn't like I didn't know what he was going to ask. There were times I wondered why we bothered talking. Our connection let us know exactly what the other was thinking.

"You saw the future, didn't you?" he asked, but it was more of a statement.

"Not that I remember," I said, trying to pinpoint what would make him think that. A lot had happened in the chaos and my head wasn't exactly thinking clear. "Oh, wait, you mean when I saw the building explode a couple minutes before it was scheduled to."

"That would be the moment I'm talking about. I don't believe you've seen the future before in this reincarnation, have you?"

"Not that I remember while I was awake. I've had dreams where I can see things, like I did with the kids running around the house," I said, getting up and pushing him out of the way, so I could go to the bathroom.

I could tell he was really happy that I was continuing to get back my abilities. There were times I didn't understand what he wanted from me as far as my enhanced skills went. Most of the time he told me to take things slow, but for something like seeing the future, it sounded like he wanted me to get that skill figured out pronto.

I'd learned that even though we could pretty much read each other like open books, there were still ways we could hide thoughts from each other. Emotions were harder to hide, and right then he was excited for something he thought was going to happen that day. I really hoped the guys hadn't decided to take him out for a bachelor party. He was already shackled to me, so it wouldn't have made a lot of sense.

I hurried in the bathroom, since it was the only thing between me and my breakfast, other than a set of stairs. As I walked out the bedroom door, Nate grabbed my hand and decided we'd greet the rest of the gang holding hands. He was such a cornball sometimes.

In the kitchen, I was glad to see Vinnie had prepared a buffet. It looked like quite a few of the guys had already made their way through the line. Another ten minutes, and I bet it'd all be gone. I fixed myself a plate and headed over to the table to eat.

"Good morning, everyone," I said in a cheerful voice. "How did everyone sleep?"

"Very well, my queen," Brad answered quickly.

He loved to be the first to address me. I had a feeling he was trying to lead by example and get everyone to call me their queen. Most of the others around the table smiled as they continued to eat their food.

I could tell they had some kind of bet going to see how long it took me to stuff overeager Brad in a garbage can. I hadn't figured out who'd picked which timeframe, so I wasn't ready to put an end to my loyal subject's adoration.

"Has Mak been down yet?" I asked. "I wanted to make sure he was comfortable in his new surroundings, since I was rude yesterday and just went straight to bed."

"I'm right here, Avery," he said from behind me, causing me to jump. "I felt you searching for me, so I came right away. I also hope it's okay if I call you by your name. Some of the group told me you prefer it over master or queen."

"You're correct, I do prefer it. I want to apologize to you for yesterday and apparently this morning. I'll get this master and servant relationship resolved as soon as possible. I don't want you to have to drop everything to come find me when I wonder where you are, and I really don't want you to have to take things I say as orders. You'll find many in our little family often stop to question what I say, and somehow they've all kept their tongues. Most days, that's a miracle."

He'd have to spend a little more time with Freddie and me to see just how lenient I could be. If Freddie wasn't missing any body parts, it was obvious I could put up with a ton of crap.

"Your orders could've saved lives if you weren't able to stop the boiler in time. I have no qualms about carrying them out. If I hadn't been so unused to someone wanting to help people, I would've suggested you had me take care of the boiler itself. My methods wouldn't have caused you the head pains you suffered."

"I don't really have a reply to that, other than stick around here long enough and you'll find that I don't ask anything of anyone that I won't do myself. I don't know how jinn operate, but I see you seem to be wearing the same outfit you were yesterday, do you need any help retrieving your belongings to get moved in?"

The statement earned me a funny look from my latest recruit. I could only assume I'd grown a third head while I was speaking.

"I don't have belongings, as you say, so no help is needed. I do have to ask how soon you'd be willing to meet my friends. We worry that someone will find their names at any moment. I called to them last night. They said they'll bind with you in hopes of not having to fight against you later," he replied.

"Tell them to come over whenever they're ready. I'm hoping by the time we get to fighting, you guys will be free to do as you wish, even if that means sitting the fight out."

"Thank you, I will call them right away," he said. "Is it okay if I go do that now?"

I nodded, because I had a big bite of pancakes in my mouth. I'd gotten tired of waiting for my belly to be full. He ran out of the room to make his call. I wasn't clear how he planned on calling his friends. He didn't seem like the cell phone kind of guy.

When I finished chewing, I said, "So, warlock plans. Anyone got them?"

"I'd say my plan is to chop him up into little bits for causing you a headache, but that's frowned upon these days," Liam supplied.

"Yes, bad Liam, no cookie for you," I replied, laughing at the face he made when the idea of no cookies hit him. "Any chance you locked onto his energy source yesterday?"

"What? You were making cookies? No fair. I want some white chocolate macadamia nut. I'm sure we have all the ingredients," he replied. "As far as the energy, if I came across it again, I'd know the signature. I don't imagine that he's just hanging around waiting for us to find him, though."

Only in my dreams did life end up being that simple. When it came to the warlocks, my dreams rarely ever came true.

"Well then, we're going to have to start looking around his last known whereabouts." I replied, not bothering to continue the cookie talk.

He would've started drooling at the table and I didn't have a bib within reach to throw at him. I'd call mom at some point and ask her to have some baked for the wedding. I trusted Liam wouldn't go into shock from not having cookies until then.

I'd originally wanted to do all the cooking and baking for the wedding myself, but with the conferences, that idea was killed early on. My mom was back at our New York house preparing everything food related for the wedding, and my matron of honor Frannie was doing all the decorating.

Our core gang would be heading back before the end of the day, so they could be there for the wedding the next evening. The warlock threw a little wrinkle in those plans, but I was sure we could get him figured out quickly.

"So you want to go back to the arena and look to see if we missed anything?" Joseph asked.

"No, actually, I was in his mind as he left the building. I know he was in a hotel south of it. I'm sure it won't take Vinnie long to figure out which one. Once we get there, we can turn Liam loose and see if he comes up with anything," I told the group.

If I hadn't been so tired, I could've, and should've, relayed that information before I'd crashed for the night. Vinnie was fast, but with even more time, he would've had everything about the building ready to be shared with the group over breakfast.

"Awesome," Kyle said. "Hopefully, he doesn't know you were attached when he jettisoned out. He might be there waiting for us, which would be perfect with the little amount of time we have to play with him."

We finished eating our breakfast, while talk turned to a game plan for securing the warlock. I listened and found myself laughing at the group we'd collected. I really hoped I could keep them all safe. Each one of them meant something to me.

I took my plate to the kitchen and rinsed it off and placed it in the dishwasher. Then I headed upstairs to take a shower and get ready for the day. The troops were going to take a little while to get ready, but I still hurried, so I didn't get left behind, not that anyone was crazy enough to do something like that.

CHAPTER 8

You just can't hide the family resemblance

When I was cleaned, armed and dressed, I made my way back down to see if anyone else was ready to go. In the living room, I ran into a woman I'd never seen before, but yet something felt familiar.

She was my height and general build with long, blonde hair and blue eyes. Her hair actually looked like it was dyed, because I could see some dark roots sticking out.

"I don't think we've met before," I said, walking over to join her. "I'm Avery."

The closer I got, the more I felt like there was something familiar about her. I knew I'd seen her somewhere before. There'd been so many people coming and going between the meeting with different uniques and the conferences that I had trouble keeping track of everyone.

"Ah, my queen," she said, bowing slightly. "I'm Cynthia."

My spidey senses immediately told me that her name wasn't Cynthia and I really hated when people lied to me. She didn't seem like a threat, but I knew she was hiding something. I also knew I'd eventually figure out what that something was.

"Have we met before?" I asked, curious whether she'd continue lying to me.

She looked me straight in the eyes and said, "Chances are you've seen me around once or twice in the past millennia." She had kind of an evil smile going on, like she knew something I didn't, but her words rang true, so I should've known her.

"Can I ask what you're doing here? Not that all uniques aren't welcome, but I haven't seen a lot of people who weren't part of the troops."

I was actually a little surprised that I'd been left alone for more than five seconds with a person I didn't remember. The guys were usually much better at being buffers for me. I'd had to live through a few awkward conversations, where the other party didn't fully comprehend I wasn't firing on all cylinders.

"I'm visiting family in the area and I have some old friends in your organization, so I thought I'd stop over and say hi," she responded. "Everyone seems a little busy this morning, which is understandable after the excitement from yesterday."

I racked my brain for where I'd seen her. It had to have been within the last year, because before that I didn't really pay attention to other people. I thought about places I'd been with Nate and finally remembered it was on Nate's phone that I saw her, not actually in person.

He showed me pictures of his motorcycle once and in one of them the lady was sitting on it. He'd said she was a sister of a friend and there was never anything romantic between them.

I had no problem believing that to be true. It was just odd that she'd shown up in the middle of our chaos. I gazed off out the nearby window, while I thought, and then looked back at her.

She had to think I was crazy, spacing off in the middle of a conversation like I had. She'd moved her hair to the side, so I could see she was wearing a necklace. That caused flashbulbs to go off in my head, which were annoying, yet very welcome.

"Mirari, what have I always told you about lying?" I asked, realizing who the woman really was.

Nate was going to have to be punished for not telling me one of our daughters was around. Freddie and Charlie were more than likely going to feel my wrath too. My eldest daughter had to be tricky, or have really good blackmail, to get by them and to me, but that didn't mean they shouldn't have warned me.

"I'm sorry, my queen, but I don't know why you called me that," she said, looking around, probably sending out an S.O.S. to her father.

"From what I remember, you were always the one finding stones. In fact, the ring on my finger is one you gave your father to give to me," I told her, holding up my hand to show the evidence. "Stones like the ones in your necklace that just happens to match one I have upstairs in a shoebox."

I reached out to touch her necklace and scenes started flashing before my eyes. I saw my first daughter growing up, and the many accomplishments she'd achieved up until the end of my last incarnation; including her winning a Pulitzer for a newspaper article she wrote almost a century ago and her finding her soulmate. I still got nothing from the month leading up to my bonfire, but most of it was better than none of it.

"You said you were visiting family. Why don't give your mother a hug," I said, opening my arms for her.

She rushed into my arms with tears in her eyes. "Do you remember me, Mama?" she asked.

"Yes, my angel, I remember you." I told her, squeezing her with all my might. "Oops, maybe I shouldn't squeeze so hard. I hear congratulations are in order, even if I'm way too young to be a grandmother." I stepped back from her to get a good look at my little girl.

"Yeah," she said. Her face glowed the way a lot of my female companions did those days. "I talked to Dad last night and he mentioned a little birdie told you guys the news. I refused to miss your wedding tomorrow, and Dad thought it would be best if you saw me ahead of time, in case you did some crazy flash during the wedding. He's really excited that you decided to go through with the wedding, even if you guys already resynched."

"I know he tries to hide that excitement, but it's impossible for him to keep it from me. How's your soulmate? The last I knew he was going by David."

She managed to glow even brighter when I brought up her man. I'd learned when the memories of Nate returned that phoenixes were suckers for our mates, and Sophia wasn't any different.

"He goes by Gavin these days. He works with me doing investigative reporting. Usually we're undercover, so we won't be able to hang out with the family with all the media around you guys right now. That isn't stopping me from going to the wedding. Dad has promised the media won't be at the event."

"We have the ground and air covered, and the house is searched for hidden cameras and bugs daily. With all the people coming in and out, we don't like to take any chances. Plus, the security makes it so Nate doesn't lock me in a room somewhere. So, how does Gavin feel about the baby?"

"I'm not sure there's a word in any language to describe how strongly he feels about being a daddy. Elated, euphoric and jubilant combined are too mild of words to describe the emotions pouring off of him. We thought we'd found each other too late to have a family of our own, or that we were a pair of phoenixes who weren't meant to have children. Conceiving our little one is our greatest dream come true."

The tears in her eyes hadn't really stopped from the time she realized I knew who she was. When she spoke of her child, they rolled out a little steadier.

"That's great to hear. I sense your father is on his way and once I realized I recognized you from somewhere, I started blocking him, so he doesn't know I remember. Do you want to have a little fun?" I asked with an evil chuckle.

"You're so mean sometimes, especially to Dad. Let's do it," she said with a nod. "I'll follow your lead."

Nate entered the room and I waved him over. He smiled, seeing the two of us together. With Sophia's blonde hair, people may not realize we're all family. I hoped she changes it back to the natural color soon.

Nate was hiding his thoughts from me, so I didn't feel a tinge of regret about what I was going to do. He had to know any blocking on his part spelled something awry for me. He'd been so open with his thoughts that morning, I hadn't realized there was something he was keeping from me.

"Hi, honey," I said to him. "I'm sure you already know, but this is Cynthia. She told me she's a phoenix too and I'm trying to hook her up with Charlie. Don't you think they'd make the cutest couple?"

I imagined the thought of two of our children hooking up would normally make him cringe, but his initial response was to keep a straight face. He glanced over at Sophia with an odd look in his eyes, and then focused back at me.

"Of course, my little butterfly, but I don't know that Charles will like you playing matchmaker. With us phoenixes, we don't get to choose who we end up being bonded to."

I was a little surprised he didn't just tell me they'd already met and they aren't mates. It was his easy ticket out of me trying to push the relationship.

I turned to Sophia to said, "Isn't that the truth. If I could, I would trade him in for two half his age. He's impossible to live with. You know me and him have had five children together and he'll only let me talk to about half of them. What kind of father keeps his children away from their mother?"

"I totally understand where you are coming from, Avery. The guys in our species always believe they know what's best for us. I don't think they realize that we run things, whether they know it or not," she replied.

"Don't worry, you'll love Charlie. He has to be one of the smartest people I've ever met, but he still loves to have fun. I know I sound like a farmer trying to sell his best cow, but you'll have to just blame it on the fact that I'm his mama. I think he's wandered the earth long enough without a mate, and it's time I get involved."

The last statement should've been a dead giveaway that something wasn't right. It made me sound like my own mother, and I had to stop myself from laughing as I'd said it.

I glanced over at Nate and saw we were making him even more uncomfortable than I'd expected. I could tell he wasn't sure where to steer the conversation, so I decided to take pity on him, even though we weren't really that nasty. I mean, we could've pretended to be having a catfight.

"Mali, Cynthia is here visiting her mother," I said, using the nickname I'd been trying to use more since I remembered him. "They haven't seen each other in about fifty years and they're both really happy to be reunited."

I grabbed his hand and open myself back up to him. After the initial fear that I'd never have my own thoughts again, it was surprising how easy it was to put up walls. I felt it was something that had to be done, especially if I was to see the future off and on. There were things I knew I'd already seen that I wanted to keep secret for as long as I could.

He stared at me with his mean face. "To use one of your favorite phrases, you are such a jerk," he said, pulling me in for a hug. "I was hoping you'd remember, but I didn't want to push you after yesterday."

Sophia and I laughed as he pulled her into the hug. "I was actually just congratulating her on her bundle of joy. You know, come to think of it, how weird will it be for me to become a sister, grandmother and mother all within a short time?"

Nate released us so we could talk without being squished. Sophia was allowed to take a few steps away, but he kept me close to his side.

"It's a unique combination that I doubt has happened before," he responded.

"Wait a second, are you guys expecting?" Sophia asked, glancing at my stomach. Even if I was, she wouldn't have been able to tell, just like I couldn't see a bulge on her.

"No, but Daddy has been promised a wedding night for a while now, and I don't expect he's going to be denied. With Eva wandering around in baby-making mode, I can only guess that I'll find myself pregnant in the next couple days."

"I don't know what we're going to do with all these babies," Sophia said, smiling. "You guys need to take care of this threat, so they don't grow up with any worries. It's hard to understand exactly what's been going on here, since I've been stuck remotely, but I know I don't want my baby growing up having to worry about getting killed."

"Speaking of the threat, is everyone ready to head out?" I asked.

"We're just waiting on you. Vinnie has the address and it isn't too far from the arena," Nate replied.

"Great, let's go find ourselves a warlock, so we can get back home," I said, walking over to Sophia and giving her a quick hug before following Nate out to the rest of the troops.

CHAPTER 9

Extra, Extra, please don't read all about it

When we got to the entry, everyone else was waiting, including Rick, who I hadn't seen yet that morning. I didn't like the looks I saw on their faces. I didn't get the feeling we were going to rush right out the door.

"Hey there, little sis, I have something you need to see before you head out today," he said, taking his arms from behind his back to present me with a newspaper.

My initial hope was that it contained a sale on throwing knives I couldn't pass up. Chances of that were slim, but I could hope. The idea ended up being a lot better than reality.

I unfolded the paper to see that on the front page was a huge headline reading 'God Save the Queen'. Below the headline was a large picture of me speaking to the crowd in the arena with a picture of me in phoenix form inset in the right corner. I folded the paper back up and handed it back to him. I didn't even want to touch it.

"Aren't you going to read it?" Rick asked, taking it and unfolding it so he could look at it again.

"Why would I? Everyone knows I hate the publicity. I just want to make sure people don't fear us," I said, gritting my teeth a little.

"Come on, this one is really good. Here, I'll read you the highlights, since you forgot how to read. A local arena was seconds away from becoming a hole in ground late yesterday afternoon. An explosion was narrowly averted following a conference held in the arena by Avery Clavens and her group of uniques.

"During the conference, a member of the group Humans Unite caused a lively debate between himself and Clavens. Nathaniel Barnes, Claven's fiancé, called an end to the question and answer portion of the conference because the overall mood deteriorated.

"The building was cleared out, leaving the group of uniques, who started smelling kerosene, one anonymous witness reported. They quickly exited the building to assess the situation without immediate fear of danger.

"Outside, it is said Clavens went into 'full general' mode. She instructed her people to clear the humans away from the building to minimize any injuries. As they hurried to move the people away, Clavens was alerted that there was someone left in the building. She quickly used her teleportation ability to hop in and remove the woman.

"'At first she scared me half to death,' Helena Morts said. 'It isn't every day you find someone appear right in front of you. I know the building didn't end up exploding, but I really do thank her for getting me out. She knew something bad was going on and she risked getting hurt herself to try to save me. I don't know many humans who would do the same.'"

"Can you please stop there?" I asked, interrupting his reading. There was only so much I could take. "I'm sure it's a glowing review of my actions, but I don't want to hear anymore."

"Darn, I was just getting to the part where they describe you in action. The really good part is where this anonymous witness tells everyone they saw someone creeping around the halls while they were taking a bathroom break. He or she gives a description of a tall man in a cape, with black hair and black eyes. Sounds like the standard look of one of our warlocks, and nothing like any of us uniques who were on the scene," he replied.

"That's good. Hopefully that will make it so H.U. doesn't claim we did it ourselves to make us look good," I replied.

I was hoping to move on from the article and get on the road, but my wishes weren't being granted that morning. I had a feeling the stupid article was going to be framed and given to me as a gift at some point.

"The article also goes on to give all the details of your wedding," Liam informed me. "Apparently your publicist has been on the phone with the newspaper."

"I don't have a publicist," I replied. I never thought I needed one, and I was fairly certain that would be something I remembered.

"That's not what the paper says, dollface," Kyle chimed in with a grin.

"Do they name this person?" I asked, curious to see who was running their big mouth. "If it's Eva, I'm going kill her. I've already promised that a few times, but I will figure a way to carry out the threat if she's going around leaking my personal information to newspapers."

"It's your mom," Rick said after I'd finished my rant.

"Last I checked she's your mother too."

"I've found that it's best when she does something that aggravates you, not to announce that I'm associated with her in any way. At the present moment, consider her a total stranger to me," he replied.

"That's probably the right thing for you to do. Please tell me she didn't also announce it on social media. Not everyone reads the paper, so that may keep some of the looky-loos away." I didn't know why I wasted my breath sometimes. There was zero chance she hadn't told the whole world.

"I imagine it's already been retweeted at least a hundred thousand times. She put it on your page, so it looks more official," Liam said.

"I don't have 'a page', how could she have posted it on my page?" I asked. I stayed away from anything having to do with social media. There were way too many crazy people out there, and some of them were smarter than me when it came to computer security.

"Just remember, sis, she's your mother and she's only trying to do what's best for you," Rick said, and I knew there was more to come. If I didn't have stuff to do, I would've ran back to my bedroom to hide the rest of the day.

"What has she done?" I asked.

"She social networked you to the extreme. You have an account on every social site I know and a blog. You should probably be thankful you aren't single, because I'm fairly certain she would've tried to find you a man the modern way. She's trying to help you appear more reachable to the masses. Your blog already has a million page views since she launched it," Rick informed me.

"What in the world does she even say on all these things? I haven't talked to her this week, so she shouldn't have any ammunition."

I was going to have to check the sites out after we got back from warlock hunting. I imagined horrible pictures from my youth plastered everywhere. At some point, I needed to find where she hid all my mementos and start a fire.

"You've talked to Frannie, though, and they're in cahoots. Between the two of them, they have enough information to pretend they're you. If you ask me, anyone who's met you knows it's not really you. The sarcasm behind the various posts isn't quite right," Kyle replied.

"And all of you guys knew about this and didn't tell me so I could put a stop to it." I had other priorities, but getting my mom and Frannie to stop masquerading as me landed pretty high on my list.

"I didn't know," Brad said, quickly to make sure he didn't feel any of my wrath.

"Of course not. You tell her everything, and this was good for public relations, and she would've put an end to it. Now it's a little too late for it," Kyle said. "Taking everything down would look suspicious."

"Be nice, Kyle. You know I can be reasonable. If you guys came to me and made a good case, I might have been onboard," I said, not sure I fully believed my words. "Are we ready to go now? The warlock won't just wait around forever for us. I'm sure a new plan to kill thousands of people is in the works."

"If you're available, Avery, I do have a request I'd like to make real quick," Mak said, drawing my attention.

He'd managed to change his clothes, sporting a pair of blue jeans and a black t-shirt that showed off his small frame. He was a little out of place amongst the other men gathered.

"Sure, Mak," I replied, noticing a man and woman standing next to him.

The pair helped Mak not look like the only under-muscled man in the group. I didn't know enough about jinn to determine whether the similar looks between the three of them meant they were related, or if all jinn generally had the same olive complexion and facial structure.

"My name is Samaraimansalama and I would like to bind myself with you," the female of the group said before she did the same ceremony Mak had done. She was so quick, I didn't have a chance to even say hello.

"And I am Mannanrasheedsadi, and I would like to bind myself with you," the man said, doing the same thing.

"Okay, now that that's out of the way, I hope you don't mind if I call you Sammy and Manny, because like Mak's name, there's going to be no way for me to remember or pronounce your names," I told them.

"That's most gracious of you, master, to not call us by our real names," Sammy said.

"Please don't start with the master stuff. In fact, you know what? Let's see if we can do this without a spell. I command you three to have free will," I said, hoping that was all I needed to do. It was a little sad it took me that long to think of it.

"Do you guys feel any different?" Nate asked.

"I don't think so," Mak said, patting his body. "I believe I feel the same."

"Sammy, would you please smack Mak for me?" I used my regular voice to ask, but I meant it as a command.

"But he didn't do anything to deserve it," she said, and then her eyes went wide with shock. "You told me to do something as my master and I was able to talk back and not hit him."

"Welcome to the home of the free. It's nice to have you guys as residents," I said. "You're free to stick around if you'd like, but if you want to enjoy your new freedom, don't hesitate to go out and take on the world."

"You're going after the warlock who attacked you yesterday, aren't you?" Mak asked.

I couldn't tell if he was happy to be free. His eyes hadn't changed one bit since Sammy proved they were capable of going against my direction. I usually could read a person by what I saw in their eyes, but Mak was blank as far as expressions went.

"Yeah, I figure he's still in the city trying to regroup and decide on a second attack plan. We can't just let him run free after what he tried to pull yesterday," I said.

"I'd like to assist in whatever it is you're planning. I don't have to do everything you tell me anymore, but you mentioned I could be a part of your group, and I'd really like that," he replied. "It will give me a chance to see if I'm still able to be helpful without being commanded."

"I always say the more the merrier. I don't know your exact skill set, but you have strong magic, right? The way you were able to quickly move people around tells me you aren't an amateur. That always comes in handy," I said.

"I think I'd like to remain behind at the house. I don't know that I'm ready to join a fight just yet," Sammy said.

"I'm with, Sammy. I don't feel any different, but I think I need to work to understand if I can even use my magic without someone commanding me to do it in a situation that isn't hostile," Manny added.

"Make yourself at home, guys. Hopefully we won't be gone too long," Nate said. "Our daughter Sophia will be staying behind, and she can help get you settled in for now."

Sophia looked like she wanted to say something, but I glared at her to let her know there was no way her pregnant self was going out to play with a warlock. She saw it, and didn't bother trying to fight me. I wished everyone else was as easy as her to persuade to do what I wanted.

"Let's go, guys. We have the Suburbans loaded up with any weapon we thought we may find useful," Joseph said, leading us towards the door.

I doubted they'd mounted rocket launchers on the roofs, so I didn't take him at his word. There were a lot of weapons I thought would be useful that we didn't own. At least I didn't have to ride around in the limo on the way to battle; it was only for conferences.

We were a team of thirty and ended up climbing in five of the waiting vehicles. I knew that many people was probably overkill, but we didn't know if the warlock had friends hanging out with him. Personally, I couldn't wait to get to the location and see what fun toys the boys had packed for us.

CHAPTER 10

History can be very frightening

I ended up in the vehicle with Nate, Rick, Mak, Kyle, Liam, Vinnie, and Charlie. By that time, I knew most of the guys well enough that we didn't usually have a lot to talk about other than current events. Mak was new to the group and I knew absolutely nothing about him, or his species.

"So, Mak, how old are you?" I asked.

Humans tended to think that question was rude, but in the unique world it always helped to know what eras the other person was knowledgeable of. It also said a lot about pecking order within species, the older you were, the better.

"How old are you? Do you guys measure the real years or just the modern years?" he replied.

I didn't know exactly what he meant. I had my memories of my life with Nate, but I didn't really have a sense of time. I vaguely remembered being around without any other beings, so I supposed that would've had to have been a long time ago.

I got the sense, though, during that time I wasn't in a form most people would recognize. I couldn't remember being humanoid then. I turned to Nate to see how he was going to answer. He gave me a smile, probably because he was picking up my mild confusion.

"The human scientists say the earth is over four billion years old, I think they'd freak out to know we've been around the majority of those years, wouldn't you?" Nate responded. "We evolved into various forms until the modern humans came about, and then we adapted to blend in with them. That's generally where we start counting years."

"Holy moly," I said, trying to get my brain to process that many years.

I hadn't taken the time to dive into what all of the things Nate had reminded me concerning phoenixes meant. Since I'd given birth to Mirari as a human, I knew we'd waited a long time to start our family. I dug around in my memory and remembered us wanting to wait to see where life ended up. At the time it probably wasn't a big deal, but I was surprised we'd waited that many years.

"Another issue we had was you couldn't sit still long enough to hatch an egg," Nate told me telepathically. "I was just thankful your mother didn't feel the same way. A lot of phoenixes waited like us. Our children are still thousands of years old, which would be considered ancient to most.

"Even though you remember us being together, the last few millennia are probably what you will remember the best. Before that, we just had bird brains if you recall. We didn't even get our extra abilities until we started changing into humans. The human brain is superior to a bird's, even magical birds like us."

I knew our story went that the original phoenix came from the earth forming; I just never thought how long ago that was. I guessed when everything was originally explained to me, I focused on the part about us coming back humanoid each resurrection, so I thought we had just been around as long as they had.

Charlie's books seemed to start at the point of us being humans too. If we didn't have a sophisticated way of communication before that, it would've been hard to record any kind of history. I was glad no one had figured out that little tidbit of information in the human world. That would've been a little awkward to describe.

"Well, technically speaking I'm probably half of your age, but I too number in the billion," Mak answered the original question.

"Does anyone have some kind of timeline I can look at that will show me when all our different species came into existence?" I asked. I didn't understand how anyone could be that old. "I'm going to want to figure this all out, so my brain doesn't explode. I didn't get the feeling the other uniques were that old."

"Most are from the modern era, so they aren't that old. We'll come up with something for you to study when we get back, Mom," Charlie said.

"Can you tell me more about jinn?" I asked Mak.

"Our history would be similar to yours, but instead of being born of fire, we're born from the air. To be exact, it was super-heated air, so we can take the heat, so to speak," he said with a smile. "At first we were a free race, like you, and just lived as particles in the air because we didn't have a reason to take a particular form. Eventually as the demons, as you call them, arrived on the scene in the modern era, we were forced into slavery when we started taking human forms. We're very few in numbers; I believe there may be thirty or forty of us in the whole world. I know it's asking a lot, but after you've saved your own kind, I would ask if you could help save mine."

"I don't think you understand exactly what we're doing. I believe you probably stayed up long enough to get the general idea, but we're not trying to save my kind. We're trying to save everyone. If the demons are who caused your slavery to begin with, do you think me killing the lead one would release you all?" I asked.

He looked at me like I'd just told him he'd won the lottery. I was happy to see him lose his cool just a little bit, since there'd been times I thought Vinnie showed more emotion.

"I bet you're right. Without Malphas the bonds should break."

"So, can you explain a little more about your powers to me? Besides doing whatever a 'master' tells you, what else can you do?" I asked.

"Hopefully now that I'm free, my magically abilities will be similar to yours. I don't believe I'll have to say spells, like I've heard you do. I just think what I want to happen and it does. Aside from that, I don't have a cool visible other form like a phoenix, but I can change myself into smoke and move around like it does. I think that ability would be useful in a fight, even though I've never tried it out," he said.

"That sounds cool. We could give you a weapon and you could just tear into an opponent without them knowing what hit them," Rick said from the driver's seat, joining the conversation.

"You mentioned Malphas, you were with Alex for at least a little while, right?" I asked.

"Yes, it was a number of years, some of my worst," he replied.

"After I killed Alex, I received a letter I'm guessing came from Malphas. It was signed 'master' and made me believe it was from whoever the leader of the warlocks was. In it, though, it said I killed his son. If Malphas is some master demon and Alex was just a stupid warlock, did he mean that they were really biologically related?"

Just like time was sort of relative, words in the unique world rarely carried the exact same meaning they did when I was oblivious to the fact that there was a unique world. Eva still tried to claim we were friends, which clearly meant there was a definition out there I wasn't aware of.

"No, they aren't father and son in that sense. Alex was Malphas' first. He corrupted him many years ago and wears his soul around his neck in a really ugly necklace. I'm guessing since you disposed of Alex properly, the necklace is now empty," Mak responded.

"Does that mean the soul went on to a better place like you always hear in the movies?" I asked. I supposed for someone like Alex that wasn't likely, but I was still curious.

"I wouldn't call it that. His soul is now a lost soul stuck in Purgatory. I hear it can get pretty nasty there. Serves the idiot right for getting involved with Malphas all those years ago," he answered.

"How many years are we talking? I guess I don't really know how warlocks are made and how long they live. You would think before I started killing them I would've asked these questions," I said.

The ride to the hotel was turning out to be useful to me. Since Charlie knew everything about pretty much everything, he took the opportunity to put his teacher's cap on, rather than letting Mak answer the question.

"Let's start with the demons themselves. We ended up calling them that because they act like the human books and movies portray a demon. They're really beings like Eva, but they're rotten to the core. They love to trick humans and enjoy stripping away souls from people.

"They usually prey on the weak or people who have fallen on bad times. They come in and promise you the world at your fingertips. They do a couple magic tricks and tell them they can be just like them, all they have to do is sign on the dotted line.

"When the deal is done, they take a part of the human. Similar to us calling them demons, we've just grown used to calling the missing part the soul. Some may call it their essence, others their humanity. Whatever you want to call it, left behind is a shell of a person with the ability to cause havoc.

"Thankfully, it takes them a little while to harness their newfound skill, and they can't just do whatever they want out of the box. The majority of the time, once the deal is done, the demon who negotiated it leaves and never contacts the warlock again. It sounds like that might be different in Alex's case, but that's a rarity."

Charlie finished his lesson and I gave him a little applause. It was a lot of information packed tightly into a concise description. I liked it.

"You know, I think we need to keep you around, just so I don't feel like such an airhead all the time. I mean, I've read the books, but there's so much still not covered," I said.

I could've tried to work out a solution for my memory issue, but Nate kept too close of an eye on me to find a way to bring everything back online. There was a part of me that was scared to know everything, and what would happen once I did get everything back.

"For the foreseeable future, I'll be taking over your tour while you do some more warlock hunting. After that, we'll just have to see where I settle down," he replied.

I knew Charlie didn't really settle down. He loved adventure and learning everything he could. I'd cherish the moments I could with him, but eventually he was going to have to go back to living his normal life.

"Venturing back to how old Alexander was, he had just reached his nine hundredth year. The demons had us jinn to play with for a while, so they didn't start making warlocks until this last millennia," Mak informed the group.

"He didn't look nine hundred, but he didn't look as young as us either. Anyone care to explain?" I asked.

"When the soul is taken, they stop aging," Nate said.

I supposed that made sense. Alex must not have been a spring chicken when he met up with his daddy. It made me curious what had been going on in his life to give his soul away. I hadn't met Malphas, so I supposed there was a chance he was charming enough to sell ice in Hell, but I figured there was something that made Alex an easy target.

"We've talked about jinn in general, but what about you personally, Mak? You've been around forever and probably been to every location. Where is your favorite place to visit?" I asked.

"Anywhere that has a volcano. I love to breakdown into steam and ride through the steam vents," he replied.

I smiled at him and things started to get a little hazy in my head. There was a fog trying to push its way in, which spelled trouble. I couldn't tell for sure where it was coming from, and I didn't know if anyone else felt the same thing, but I doubted it.

"How close are we?" I asked, fighting back the darkness that seemed to be pressing on me. I looked out the window and saw we were in a parking lot.

"We're here, why?" Rick asked. He'd pulled into a spot and all eyes in the vehicle were trained on me.

"I'm getting a really bad feeling. I don't think I'm going to be with you guys very much longer. I don't mean that literally, but I think a nap is coming on," I said as the blackness took over.

In the distance, I could hear Eva for some reason. "Sorry, Avery, they're blocking my presence, so I can't help guide you like last time. I'm on my way, though, and will instruct the guys on how to bring you out of it."

CHAPTER 11

The future influences the present just as much as the past

When I'm aware of my surroundings again, I'm in a bedroom that looks like Nate's half of our bedroom suite. Standing there looking at Nate sitting on the bed, I have no clue how I got there. I look around and nothing looks like it has changed. I suppose that's a good sign.

Nate's clothes are different, but if days had gone by like the last time I'd been knocked out, I didn't blame him for changing. I'd probably end up thanking him for giving my nose a reprieve.

"Why Avery? Why did you have to leave?" I hear Nate say.

"What are you talking about now, Malik?" I ask, walking towards the bed. When he isn't making sense, I revert to his original name.

He's looking down at a picture, paying no attention to me at all. I look at the picture and see it's of me and him smiling. He's in a suit and I'm in my wedding dress. The wedding dress I'm supposed to be wearing the next day. I would have to say I'm in the future. Well, that's a new twist on an old story.

I raise my hand to try to touch his face, to get him to look up at me, but my hand goes right through him. Oh crap. It's usually not good when you can't make contact with another person.

"Hey, Dad, are you coming? The kids are getting a little restless," a grown man says as he walks in the room.

If he's calling him Dad, I'm guessing this is my son Zain. Just seeing him and putting a face to a name brings back my memories of him. It's not like the other times where I flashed through all the moments of that person's life with me. I just remember everything about him, including the day he gave me the sea shells from my shoebox.

Whether that's a good or bad thing, I don't know. My concern is the fact that I don't appear to have a body. In all of my trips to the past I'd been at least visible.

"Yeah, Scott, I'm coming right down," Nate says, putting the photo down on the table next to the bed. Thankfully our son isn't calling himself Phoenix anymore.

"It's only been five years, Dad. She may still come back to us," Scott, or Zain as my mind recalls, tells him.

"I wish that was true, but I can already tell this time is different. I feel even more lost than before, like something has been ripped out of my body. When that knife went in your Mom, it took part of me with her," he replies.

"I'm so sorry, Dad. I can't imagine what life would be like without Megan. At least we were able to defeat the warlock, even if she sacrificed herself to do so. The world would be even darker if we hadn't. I know it's really dark for you now, but you promised your three littlest kids a trip to the ice cream parlor, and I really don't want them to be disappointed again," Scott tells him.

"I know, and I really need to thank all of you older kids for helping out. I love Aine, Aisling and Aidan very much. It's just as she gets older, little Aisling is looking more and more like her mother. It's makes things difficult for me," Nate says.

Scott looks at him with pity for a second. It must be hard to see his father this way. It's excruciating for me to witness. I'm really hoping this is like the book A Christmas Carol and I'm just viewing the world with the ghost of Christmas future. If we ended up having our triplets, that should mean that I haven't really died yet.

"Dad, try to hang on for a couple centuries, then you'll be free to join Mom. We don't know that it's possible, but if it is, I know you'll find a way to do it. For now though, you're still the ruler of the uniques and the parental figure for those three young children.

"They've known since the moment they were born that their mother would be missing from their lives and their father would spend most of his time grieving. Combined, they're a very strong oracle, so we can't keep a thing from them. Try to keep it together, so they can at least have a halfway normal childhood," Scott lectures Nate.

It sounds like this is a speech he probably hears often. I knew if I died trying to secure the future for the people on the planet, it would be rough on him. He even told me I came before anything else, but it's sad to see what my dying would really cause.

"Enough talk. Let's go get some ice cream," Nate says with a sad smile.

It hurt to see him in pain. I want to assure him that he hadn't really lost me, but I can't be sure whether the statement is true.

They head downstairs and I follow along behind them. The house doesn't look too different. I guess no one felt the need to remodel in the five years since I've been gone. When we get to the living room, I see my brother sitting with three small children.

They're all adorable. They share the same brown hair, but one of the girls has blue eyes and the other two kids have brown. I can tell that the blue-eyed girl must be Aisling, because she does look just like me at that age. Seeing my children, and knowing I'll never be able to hold them makes my eyes start to water.

I'm happy to see they were conceived. That can only mean Nate had made great use of our honeymoon, or Eva was better at her job than I thought.

"Hey angels, how's your day going so far?" Nate asks them.

"Very well, Daddy," the little girl who I'm guessing is Aine replies.

While she's studying her dad, hopefully buying the smile Nate is doing a poor job of displaying, Aisling turns and looks in my direction. She cocks her head to one side in question, and then focuses back on the other people in the room.

I feel chills run up my spine. I don't know why, but I'm certain she knows I'm in the room. The look lasted only a second, but a connection oddly formed in that second.

"Are we going to go get ice cream, Daddy?" she asks.

"Of course, my dearest angel," he replies going over to her, picking her up for a hug. "Why don't we head to the store now?"

"Yeah!" three little voices scream in unison, and the kids run out the door, once Nate lets go of Aisling. Scott hurries behind them, while Rick stops Nate. I'm so focused on the kids that I barely notice he's in the room.

"I recognize how horrible you feel. Not only was she my twin, so I feel a loss because of that, but she also died saving me. If she only knew I wasn't really in danger. I relive the moment every day and hate myself for living instead of her," Rick tells him.

I know I've had a vision of Rick being killed in the battle, and I've vowed to make sure that didn't happen. Evidently, I made sure of that, but I must have forfeited my own life to create that reality. I suppose that's one way to get things done.

"We wouldn't have been able to stop her from doing everything she could to save the rest of us. She always said she would do this battle alone if she could. Your sister was the best of the best, and will be greatly missed for millennia to come by those whose lives she touched," Nate says, being strong for Rick.

I imagine these two spend a lot of time commiserating over the good ol' days. I can see they've tried to support one another the best they could, when both have had trouble finding the will to go on.

"Let's go get the kids some ice cream. That will make everyone feel a little better, at least for five minutes," Rick says with a smile that doesn't live up to the ones I'm used to seeing on his face.

They head outside to join the kids in a vehicle I don't know by sight. I see the Chevrolet emblem on it, but being five years in the future, I'm not sure the model. Everyone climbs in the car, and I just kind of follow behind as they make their way to Longford's. The kids jump out of the car the second it's in park and run to the door. The adults have to hurry behind them to make sure they don't cause any trouble.

They should've brought more than just the three adults. The kids exude energy and I don't see the matching amount coming from the guys.

They were already starting to order as I enter the building. Walking through space without encountering resistance is a strange feeling, and I hope that it doesn't last long. I try closing my eyes quickly, to see if it helps get me back to real life, but nothing happens. It was worth a try, but I didn't expect anything.

"We need three single scoop cones, in what flavors, guys?" Nate asks the children.

"I want rocky road," Aine replies. She hops up and down as she speaks, a sign she doesn't really needs any sugar in my book.

"Mint chocolate chip for me," Aidan orders. Obviously my children didn't pick up my distaste for chocolate.

"I'd like pistachio, please, Daddy," Aisling requests with a small smile. Okay, maybe one of them did. Not only that, but she picked my favorite kind of ice cream.

Nate glances at her, and then turns back to the man behind the register. I imagine if he has problems being around her because her looks remind him of me, the fact that she orders my favorite ice cream, has to be pretty hard on him. It makes me wonder if she did that for other foods.

The ice cream cones are made and handed out. My family then heads over to a table, where the grown-ups can watch the kids enjoy their ice cream. I want to grab all the napkins I can in preparation for the mess I'm sure is about to occur, but I settle for standing by and watching.

"Daddy, do you think we can go to the zoo today?" Aidan asks. I can tell he's pushing for any time he can get with his father.

"I wasn't planning a trip into the city today. How about if we try to do that tomorrow," Nate replies.

"Promise, Daddy," little Aine pipes in.

"I promise, sweetheart," he answers.

"Daddy, could we maybe go to the park after our ice cream?" Aisling asks. "It isn't far away, and us kids would really love for you to take us. Our uncles are great, but we rarely ever get to go out with you, Daddy."

This kid doesn't sound like a five-year-old. I've always heard people say they have an old soul, but I really have to believe Aisling is something special. It may have been the connection I felt with her, but there's something a little eerie about her.

"I think we'd all enjoy that. Finish your ice cream and we'll head over to Flint Park to play for a little while. We can't spend all day out, but I'd love to play with you guys for an hour or so," Nate replies.

"Yes!" Aidan and Aine scream. The specific decibel they hit echoes in my ears.

Aisling just smiles. It's one that told me she knows something no one else does. It makes me wish I had a voice even more. I want to know what she's thinking.

They finish up their ice cream cones, magically not making a mess of everything. I can't believe no napkins were necessary.

"All done," Aidan announces. "Time to go to the park."

"All right then, let's go," Scott says, standing up and helping the kids out to the car.

Nate looks over at Rick, and doesn't have to say anything before Rick speaks up.

"I know. She acts way to much like my sister sometimes. You're sure she somehow isn't Avery reincarnated? That would be weird if she was your daughter and wife, but there has to be an explanation."

"There are no sparks, so yes I'm sure. Like you said, that would be weird if that was possible. It's almost like Avery left her with us so we wouldn't miss her being gone as much," Nate replies.

"It sounds like something she'd do. Trying to ease the pain anyway she can is what she's good at."

"I don't think she realized how much harder it'd be on me," Nate says, walking towards the door. "Enough sadness for a few minutes, let's go try to have fun at the park."

They walk out the door together and get in the car as I do whatever it is I'm doing.

CHAPTER 12

After so many children, you should really be committed

After the short ride to the park, Aine and Aidan get out of the car and run towards the swing set. They look like happy well-adjusted kids, even if one parent is missing from their life and the other seems to not be around much. They are only five, though, so there's still plenty of time for things to go downhill.

"Daddy, is it okay if I go use the bathroom?" Aisling asks as she climbs out of the car.

"Of course, but I'm going to have to come with you and stand outside the door," Nate answers.

What a good daddy he is. If I ever come out of this, I'm going to have to make sure to tell him that. I've told him that in previous lives, but in case I don't get the chance to in the present one, it's important that he knows.

"That's okay," she replies, and takes his hand to lead him to the bathroom. When they arrive, she stations him at the door and says, "I'll be right back."

She then heads into the girls bathroom and I follow behind. Something, beyond the fact that she's the spitting image of me, makes her very intriguing to me. I really want to try to figure out what that something is. I don't assume that will happen in the bathroom, but I want to keep an eye on her.

She takes care of her business in one of the bathroom stalls, and then goes to the sink to wash her hands. I stand behind her and am still shocked at how much she really looks like me. I see her glance in the mirror and it almost appears like she looks right at me.

"Mama, you do know it isn't polite to stare at people, don't you?" she asks, staring me straight in the eyes. "I may be a kid, but even I know that."

I look around quickly to make sure there isn't someone else in the room, not that she'd call anyone else Mama. Seeing we're the only people there, I look back at her and she's turned around to face me. She's a little short thing, not even up to my waist and she's craning her neck to look up at me.

"You can see me?" I ask.

"Of course," she replies. She shrugs her shoulders like it isn't a big deal.

"Why can't anyone else see me?" I ask, not really sure what to expect for an answer from a five-year-old.

"Probably because they can't see other planes like me. It's one of my little gifts. No one else really understands it, but Aunt Eva has been helping me, since she's used to traveling the other planes," she replies.

"Aunt Eva?" I ask.

"Oh yeah, you wouldn't know that her and Uncle Liam got married a few years back. All of the guys from your inner circle like us to call them our uncles. They say that you always said they were family and we should just pretend they were all your brothers," she explains. "It's really fun for us at birthday time having that many uncles. I guess we're lucky they all have money stashed away, because we can be kind of expensive."

"Are you sure you're only five?" I ask.

She giggles. "Yes, Mama, but as Aunt Eva has explained to me, I'm the new oracle she told you about. Aine and Aidan can feed off of me and see the future as well, but we've kept it a secret from everyone that I'm the main part of it. Eva thinks it's best that no one finds out in order to protect me. She thinks there will always be a threat out there that's trying to find a way to get to us, and if no one knows I'm the powerhouse I'll be safer."

"Your Aunt Eva is one smart cookie. Even though I always called her crazy, I'm glad to see she's looking out for you. Do you think if I was in a room with her, she'd be able to see me?" I ask.

She mentioned Eva traveling to other planes, so it seems like a logical question to me. Plus, chances are Eva can tell me what's going on. I'd heard her voice right before I took my little trip, and it sounded like she knew something bad was getting ready to happen.

"Probably. She told me to keep a lookout for you. She's been expecting you for a year now. She knew you'd be here when I was five and now that I'm almost six, she was starting to get worried. She'll be at the house later and I'm sure she'll be thrilled that you've finally arrived."

I reach out to brush a stray strand of hair away from her face and am shocked to see that I can actually do it. No matter how many memories I get back, I will never understand the crazy world I live in. At every turn, there's always something that surprises me.

She laughs at me. "Sorry, I forgot to mention that I can also interact with the other planes. So yes, you can actually touch me."

That's good enough for me. I pick her up and envelope her in a huge hug. "You, my little devil, remind me so much of myself. It's more than just a little freaky to witness firsthand. Do you know why that is?" I ask, not letting her down. She seems to know a lot more than I ever did, so I expect her to have a logical answer.

"The looks are all just genetics, the way I act is probably me trying to emulate you. With my abilities I'm able to see how you lived your life, well at least your most recent life, and I like to pretend to be you from time to time. I know it bothers Daddy sometimes, but I can't help it. You haven't been here and I wanted to grow up to be just like you," she tells me.

"Oh, sweetie, I don't know how I'm going to do it, but I promise to somehow make this not become a reality. I'll find a way to be there for you and your siblings. I hope it doesn't involve me falling off the face of the earth for half a century again, but I'll do that if it can fix this," I say.

Nate was going to hate me for it, but he'd eventually get over it. He'd have to agree being there for our children was more important, plus if it prevented me from dying, I was sure he wouldn't mind in the long run.

"It's okay, Mama, we'll turn out well either way. You have to do what you believe in and that will always be protecting those you love. You did that when you saved Uncle Rick and no one blames you for that, especially not his soulmate," she replies.

"Rick found his soulmate?" I ask.

That's great news. He'd seemed so sad with Nate that I wouldn't have guessed he found his other half. I know he'd been lonely hanging around with me and Nate all the time. Lonely probably isn't the right word, but protecting me kept him from finding his soulmate, and he'd been stuck watching Nate and me hopelessly in love.

"He did, which I probably shouldn't have let you know. Aunt Lucy came in for that final battle and ended up nursing him back to health. It took them a while to realize that the shocks they were feeling weren't just weird aftershocks from his injury, but they finally got their acts together and made it official."

"So this Lucy existed when I was still around?" I ask.

"Yup. She's just about one thousand. As Uncle Rick always teased, he had spent so much time being your protector they just never found each other. Now that they have, you really don't want to be in a room with them. They're pretty gross sometimes when they start kissing. Sometimes I swear they're gnawing on each other," she says, making a funny face.

"I think that was the face I made at Frannie's wedding, which seems like only yesterday, but I guess it's been a few years now."

"Yeah, that was before my time. Uncle Gary and Aunt Frannie are away a lot. They have a house in Venice, where they spend most of their time. Aunt Frannie still gets sad that you aren't around, so she only visits once or twice a year. She likes to call me Mini Peaches, even though her eyes fill with tears when she does."

I laugh sadly. "It seems like everyone is having a really hard time, even after quite a few years."

"It's mainly because no one listens to Aunt Eva. She always tells them that the past, present and future are way more fluid than we think. She tried to remind everyone that you weren't the first phoenix, but you are the one who exemplifies rising from the fire more than any of the rest of us.

"Most of them saw your body disintegrate, though, and can't imagine there being a way for you to come back. If it was a fire, they'd have a little more hope, but dust seems a little permanent to them. Uncle Vinnie has locked himself away, trying to find a scientific way to bring you back. I think I've seen him once in my whole life, and that was just because I stumbled into his lab when I was two," she says.

"I'm guessing he hasn't had any breakthroughs. Unless he managed to harness my consciousness somehow and grow me a new body, I don't think he's going to have a lot of luck."

Vinnie could do a lot of things, but without a warning about something happening, he wouldn't have been able to make a lab rat out of me. I wouldn't have allowed him that kind of access anyway, so it's surprising he's still trying to figure something out.

"No, he won't, but while he's in there, he will find a lot of cures for human illnesses, so I leave him alone. You really did pick a great team to fight with you, Mama. Everyone has gone on to help better human and unique relationships.

"In fact, in the five years since the war, we've been able to put a stop to most of the human wars that were plaguing the planet. We've helped them realize new, efficient ways to live, to try to counteract all the pollution and damage that has been done to the Earth. It really is a better place than the one you remember," she informs me.

It's easy to see that she speaks the truth. For one, it's lucky enough to have her and her brother and sister. That simple fact makes it better in my mind.

"That's great news. I think that's how I always envisioned our path going after we came out to the world. I wanted to see it a better place for you to grow up. I kind of hoped I'd be able to share it with you, but if I died to protect others, I have no problems with that choice, especially since it was Rick. Is there anything else you can tell me about my friends?" I ask.

"Why don't you just follow along today? I imagine we'll see most of them, so you can find out firsthand how their lives ended up. Keep in mind, no future is set in stone. What you see may never happen, but it will give you peace of mind that no matter what choices you make, things will work out," she replies.

"Has anyone ever told you your mother isn't a very patient person? I really hate to have to wait for anything."

"I know, that just makes it more fun for me to watch you. I'm going to enjoy getting to study you without it being a memory," the little devil says.

If I do end up keeping myself alive, I'll have to keep a close eye on her. I have a feeling she likes to cause mischief, which will serve me right for the way I acted as a child.

"Aisling, it's been five minutes, are you done in here yet?" Nate says, opening the door and walking in.

His eyes widen at the scene before him. To him, I'm sure it looks like his daughter is floating in the air, wrapped around an invisible object. I guess I should've put her down before now.

"Yes, Daddy, I'm done," she says, climbing down and walking towards him like nothing strange is going on. I'm sure she's a good actress, but Nate isn't stupid.

"Care to explain that?" Nate asks, pointing in my general direction.

"It might upset you and I really don't want to do that, Daddy," she tells him.

"I have a feeling not knowing will upset me more, so you better start explaining." he replies.

She gives a little sigh, probably trying to think of how to explain things. "Fine, but I warned you," she finally says. "I was just giving Mama a hug."
CHAPTER 13

Let's just stick this apple back on that tree

Nate stares down out her for a full minute, frozen, and more than likely not breathing. He finally looks up to the spot he saw her hanging in the air, and then back down at her. The sadness in his eyes was replaced with confusion, and little bit of hope.

"Your Mama?" he asks in a small voice.

The disbelief in his voice alerts me that things may not go as well as Aisling thought. Out of everyone, Nate is going to be hard to convince. The connection between us that he feels anytime I'm around is sure to be an issue.

"Yes, you'd know her as many names, starting with Yara and most recently Avery. She showed up this morning and I was just explaining to her how things have changed since she's been away," Aisling answers. "She's a little confused, but she's been through similar situations before, so I'm sure she'll get the hang of things. At least there won't be any clowns to scare her this time."

She just had to mention those clowns. If there's any question about whether she's evil, she answered it with that statement.

"Sweetheart, are you sure you're feeling okay?" he asks, reaching out to check her forehead for a fever.

Satisfied that she isn't warm, he starts feeling around her head looking for bumps. I want to remind him that she's a phoenix and doesn't get sick, but it's fun watching him act like a normal dad.

"I'm fine, Daddy," she says, giving another dramatic sigh. I have a feeling she often has an issue with getting people to believe her.

"Honey, your mother is dead and I don't see her in this bathroom," Nate tries to assure her.

With all the weird things that have happened to us over the months, I'm surprised he's finding this hard to believe. I imagine when I do arrive back in the present, I'll tell him what happened here.

Well, at least some of it, so he would know this is a possibility. I'd probably break some time continuum thing, but at the same time, he clearly needed a reminder that I tend to be unpredictable.

"Of course you don't. She isn't on the same plane that we are and I'm pretty sure she isn't on the ghostly plane either. I've seen people on that plane, and they don't usually look as nice as Mama does," she tells him.

I really hope she doesn't see yucky dead people often. That can't be any fun for a kid, any more than it'd be fun for an adult.

"Do you know what she's doing here?" he asks her skeptically.

He looks back to where I'm standing, concentrating, trying to see what our daughter sees. I want to pipe in and say I can speak for myself, but it doesn't really work in the situation.

"I didn't really ask. I was just happy to finally see her. I've been waiting for her forever, after all. I believe she's actually from the past. I think one of the stinky warlocks is trying to trap her here."

Nate's eyes didn't leave my location. I can tell he's trying to make me appear, but he's never wielding the level of magic required for that trick.

"That's right. We were on our way to a hotel in Evanston to try to capture a warlock who'd tried to explode a building the day before," I say.

Dang it, for some reason the spell detectors we had must not have worked. Vinnie made some, and then I'd casted spells to see if they worked. In the trials, they were always accurate, but we hadn't tried them against warlock magic.

They'd trapped me in the past before. I guess I didn't think that this was another one of their spells. I thought maybe it was my own powers doing something freaky, which wasn't unheard of, or someone managed to kill me. With Aisling saying that I don't look like a ghost, and recalling Eva's voice saying she was on her way to help the guys bring me out, I have a better outlook on the situation. I just have to let things play out until I can get back to my own time.

Aisling looks over at me and nods. "Yes, I remember now."

"Remember what?" Nate asks.

"The situation that sent her here. You guys were going to confront a warlock while you were in Chicago doing a conference. When you drove up to the parking lot, you triggered a spell that zapped her here to the future," she explains.

Nate thinks for a second and then says, "I remember that day, she ..."

"That's enough, Daddy," Aisling interrupts with a very strong, authoritative voice that doesn't belong with her little body. The worst part was she sounded just like me. "She hasn't lived that time yet and will probably end up back there. We don't want to influence any of her actions. I've probably already messed up a little by mentioning how some of her friends' lives turned out, but I wanted to make sure she understood no matter what choices she makes, eventually we'll all be fine."

"Aisling, you can't know that for sure," Nate says to her.

"I do know it, Daddy. Even you'll be happy again. You'll find your little butterfly eventually," she says.

The conviction that she says it with causes me to start crying. It's hard not to believe her, but not knowing exactly what happened to me makes it difficult.

"Don't cry, Mama. Everything will be okay, just like I see, you'll see," she says as she runs over and grabs my hand.

"What's wrong?" Nate asks.

"Nothing, Mama is just being overly emotional. It's a girl thing, you wouldn't understand," she informs him.

I want to laugh, but the scene is still depressing to me. When you see your child imitating you, when she's never even met you, it's a bit surreal.

"Is there any way for me to talk to her directly?" Nate asks.

"You're one of a kind soulmates, Daddy, you can always talk to her, you shouldn't let the different planes stand in your way," she says. "I'm going to go play for a little bit and give you two some alone time to discuss things." She runs over to the door, and then turns around to face me. "I love you, Mama. Trust me everything will work out."

She sounds like a broken record, repeating that over and over. Evidently the fact that I'm a little dense has been passed along.

"I love you too, my little devil," I tell her as she heads out the door.

"So, any idea how we do this?" Nate asks out loud.

I tried talking to him earlier and it didn't seem to work, so I open myself up to him with my mind to see if that makes any difference.

"Can you hear me now, Mali?" I ask. His eyes light up, and he doesn't need to say anything for me to know he heard my words. It would've been nice to know that's all it took when we were in his bedroom.

"It really is you," he says smiling. "I've missed you so much."

"For me no time has passed at all. I blacked out, and then came to in our bedroom while you were sitting there holding our wedding photo."

"So you saw my pity party."

"Yeah, I know you told me it would probably be like this, but it's really hard to watch. I understand Aisling makes it even harder sometimes, but please try to be strong for a little while longer. She seems to think everything will turn out okay and it's hard not to believe the little devil," I say.

"That's a good nickname for her. She reminds me so much of you. I know we'd stopped letting kids know what they were until they were grown, but it's hard keeping it from kids who know everything."

"I guess I remembered just today why we put that rule into place. Mirari wasn't a good child to test someone that young having the knowledge they weren't human while trying to blend in with the human world," I reply. "I just thought it would be better at the time if she knew she was different. Totally wrong idea, I'm not sure if that cat's hair ever fully grew back."

"No, Mirari was definitely not a good child to let loose upon the world with extra abilities. She's a pyro, like you, and letting an emotional child who can shoot fire when she's upset out in any unrestricted environment is dangerous. I don't know if keeping it from her would've made much of a difference, though. Your parents have told me the tales of your time as a humanoid child, so it seems the apples don't fall far from the tree."

"Hey, I can't take all the credit for our children. You aren't exactly a saint yourself," I tell him.

He looks down at the ground in mock sheepishness, and then looks up smiling. "I wish I could see you."

"That would be nice. You might look funny walking around talking to yourself," I tell him. "Or maybe not. Everyone's always accepted you're a little weird."

"I'm going to side with the statement that said it'd look funny. Do you know of any ways to fix that little issue?"

"Well, I imagine I'm still a sorceress, even if I'm on another plane. Let's see if we can do something using that skill set."

I grab one of the knives from my front pocket, and stab my finger enough to draw blood. I didn't have them available during the spell that turned me back into a child, so I'm happy to see they carried over with me as an adult. As far as I know, there was no reason for my knives travelling to be any different, but I'm not in a position to question it.

"What are you doing?" Nate asks.

"Fixing the problem, like I said," I say letting the blood drop to the ground. "With my blood as part of the deal; let me cross the planes so they can see me as real."

I wish when I was done saying a spell, some air would whoosh or sparks would happen. Without an indicator I really have no idea if I'm just speaking gibberish for the fun of it, or if I'm actually doing something. Other than my locator spells, magic hadn't failed me, so I assume my quick words are enough.

"You're here," Nate says, running to sweep me into his arms, immediately seeking my lips. We remain lip-locked for a couple minutes in a scene I'm sure would have Aisling making her little face. Moments when I almost feel like making a face myself.

I start to tickle him because it's getting a little hard to breathe. I know he's been without me for years, but I still need oxygen. At least I think I do. As far as I know, I'm not really real because of the time travel, spell stuff.

"Sorry," he says, stepping back and grabbing my hand. "You look really good. I have pictures, but it's been a while since I've seen you in three dimensions."

I don't believe for a second he didn't have my entire body memorized. His eyes were always glued to me, taking in every skin cell.

"Three dimensional is my preferred way to be," I say. "What should we do now? It's kind of weird hanging out in the women's bathroom. I do have my sense of smell, and there are a few places I can think of where I'd rather be."

"I'm sure we can come up with something fun. Do you want to go meet the rest of your children? I guess you've learned a little bit about them if you've been following along, but I'm sure they'd love to see you."

"I thought you'd never ask," I say, following behind as he leads the way to the swings.

I don't know if Aisling has had a chance to tell the others I'm around, or if this is going to be the shock of their little lives. Either way, it's pretty cool getting to meet children who are biologically yours, but you haven't had a chance to birth yet. I'm fairly certain the situation is unique.

I imagine a lot of women wish for their children to just appear like this, without the aches and pains that come along with giving birth. I'd personally like to get the opportunity to bond with them when they aren't out, being moody, or peeing all over the place. I know from my past pregnancies that I can actually communicate telepathically with them when they're in their little eggs.

Sometimes that's fun, other times you get a child like my firstborn who tells you not to eat certain things because it will make you fat. Thankfully there's an off button at moments like that. Anyway, on to the swings and my mini family reunion. I expect it will be a good indicator about how things will go when I reunite with all of the other people from my life.

CHAPTER 14

Video cameras should be allowed to travel into the future

When we approach the swing set, only Aisling notices us walking hand-in-hand towards them. She continues to swing with a little smile on her face. I'm beginning to really love that smile. We're coming up behind Scott and Rick, so they don't have a visual on us.

I see Rick tense, but he doesn't turn around. Chances are he can feel me, but I imagine he doesn't want to scare the children by freaking out. I want to see his face, or more particularly his eyes, to get the full effect of how shocked he is to find me on his radar.

"There's another phoenix in the area," we hear Rick tell Scott quietly.

I'd hate to play hide and go seek with him. It's no fair always knowing where uniques are hiding, or coming closer to you, so you can hide better. Rick being Rick would totally use that to his advantage. It makes me glad that we weren't humanoid when we were children.

I couldn't remember what it was like when we were just young fireballs trying to find our ways in the world, but I doubted fun and games were high on our list of priorities. Our brains were more than likely focused on the ever changing world we had a front-row seat to watch take shape.

"That isn't unheard of. A lot of our kind has come to the area to try to support Dad," Scott replies. "We probably have fifty or so phoenixes in the general New York area now. One of them showing up here shouldn't surprise you."

"That would be true in most cases, but none of them register as your mother," he says, turning around to see us.

I smiled when I saw his saucer-sized eyes catch sight of me. As soon as he gets a good look, to verify there's a body to go along with what he senses, he faints. Scott hurries over to catch him, but he still hits the ground with a thud. Scott decides it isn't worth his effort to pick him up and instead stares at me.

"Wow, I wasn't expecting that from Rick. He always seemed so solid," I say, smiling wider at my passed out brother.

Too bad I didn't have a video camera on me. The whole scene would be awesome to take back to the past and show him. He'd probably claim I'd found his doppelganger, but I'd figure out a way to prove to him I could make him faint.

"Mama," Aine and Aidan yell, running over to us.

A little shock registers as I ponder how they immediately knew who I am. They each latch on to one of my legs, and any questions I have on the subject disappear.

"Hello, my little angels. Have you had a fun day today?" I ask them, wishing they'd step back a little so I could get a better look at them.

I'd seen them in my dreams, but exact features were always a little fuzzy in those dreams. Even having recently watched them at the ice cream shop didn't make me feel like I'd been able to catalog everything I want to.

"Today is the bestest day ever, Mama. You're here and that will make Daddy very happy. It will make everyone happy. Everyone misses you so much, and they aren't smart enough to listen to Aisling and Aunt Eva. We are though, we knew you'd come back and make Daddy happy again," Aine says.

"We like it when Daddy's happy, don't we?" I ask.

"Yes!" Aidan yells, causing my ears to ring. The boy certainly had a set of lungs on him. "He's hardly ever happy."

"I know, we're working to fix that," I say, messing up his shaggy hair. I couldn't resist pressing on his little button of a nose before I turned to his older brother. "Scott, do you have a hug for your mother? I believe it's been a long time since we've seen each other, even more so than the rest of the family."

"It's really you?" he asks, looking me over, trying to find something to indicate that I'm someone in a really good costume.

If they've made Avery Clavens costumes since I'd died, someone is going to have a lot of explaining to do. I'd been scared about how crazy some of the fans at my conferences were getting, but mimicking me was a bit much in my mind.

"Yes, but word to the wise, I'm from the past, so don't give away any secrets that will change what I do, if I ever make it back there. If you do, I'm pretty sure Aisling over there will beat you up, and my money's on your sister," I tell him. "Earlier your father may have been close to saying something he shouldn't have, and I swear I saw uppercuts dancing in her eyes."

"That's right, Scott, so you better watch it," Aisling adds, backing up my threat.

With a video camera, not only would I record Rick, but having a little authoritative mini me on tape to take back would be priceless. I'd play her during any of my meetings and threaten to bring her out if the people weren't listening to me. If anyone had dealt with me as a child in my present lifetime, they'd know not to mess around.

Scott makes his way over to me and gives me a big hug. When he separates from me, he looks down at me and asks, "So you're from a time when you know who I am? I don't want to give anything away, but I'm not sure I buy that."

"Technically no. I saw you this morning with your father, and for some reason I just remembered everything about you. I'm down to only having one more daughter to remember and then I'll know all of you. I'm not really sure that my memories of you will follow me back home, but stranger things have happened," I tell him.

"Can I ask exactly what time you're from, so I don't reveal anything I shouldn't?" he asks. "I imagine that information will come in useful for anyone you come across from your time. There's some pretty obvious things we can't keep from you, but I always find it's the little things that have more impact."

I'm enjoying the fact that so far no one has bothered to try to revive Rick. It serves him right for all they crap he always gives me.

"March 1, 2012 is the day fresh in my mind. I was set to get married the next day and we were just trying to take care of a warlock causing problems. The next thing I know, I was in the bedroom with Nate just before you joined him earlier today."

"I see, so you hadn't met me yet. I'm going to have to be careful around you then," he says with a smile before bending down and smacking Rick a couple of times to wake him up.

They aren't soft little taps either. I can see the redness of a handprint after the second one. I'd always thought Rick had a hard head, and clearly Scott did too.

Rick slowly starts stirring, and I laugh, mainly because I know hearing my laugh won't help his head clear any quicker. "Freddie dear, I know I'm the pretty sibling, but you don't need to go falling down when you gaze upon my awesomeness. I can see that happening to a normal mortal, but you're a phoenix last I checked."

"Well it has to be you. I don't know anyone else who has that smart of a mouth," he replies, standing up and coming over to spin me around. I feel like he's looking for the seam in my costume. When he doesn't find one, he picks me up for a hug.

"Uncle Rick, Mama is from the past and doesn't know anything about anything, so you have to keep your mouth shut. We can't have her learning any secrets," Aisling tells him.

"Okay, there may be one other person in the world with your mouth. Of course, she's your daughter, so it makes sense, even if she didn't have you in person to imitate. I figure you've already been told you aren't exactly around these days," he says, putting me down.

"She does like to speak her mind, doesn't she? And yes, I'm aware I didn't make it out of the battle alive, but it's best we don't go into details about why that is. So what other plans did you guys have for today?" I ask. There was no use of me going into details about how things ended up better than they could have, at least in Rick's case.

"We're having a party!" Aine says, jumping up and down. This is the first I've heard of that, but of course I've been following around mopey people, who I never would've thought were planning a party.

"Really? What's the party for?" I ask.

I don't really know what day it is. I'm guessing it's summer because of the ice cream and general warmth of the day, but with global warming it could December for all I know. Enough years hadn't past for that to be true, but it was a joke topic uniques liked to frequent.

"It's a party for you," Aisling quickly says. I have a feeling that isn't what the party is for, but I let it slide. If she didn't want me to know, I figured she had a good reason.

"Are you allowed to tell me what today is Aisling?" I ask.

"No, and we should do everything we can to make sure you don't find out. I know that will probably drive you crazy, but it's really for the best. You don't want to go back, and then mess something up. You've already learned everything you need to make the right choices," she tells me.

"Does anyone ever not listen to your advice?" I ask her.

"All the time, but I can't help if they're idiotic at times. I'm sure you remember how that is," she replies with her usual conviction.

"Are you sure you haven't spent more time with Vinnie? You sounded kind of like him just then," I say.

"A few people have mentioned it a couple times, but I like Uncle Vinnie, so I take it as a compliment," she replies.

"I'd love to go see Uncle Vinnie, to make sure he's keeping himself oiled properly. Do you think we could head back to the house so we can check on him?" I ask.

"I see no problem with that," Aisling replies.

Nate picks me up bridal style and says, "Okay, everyone, let's go have ourselves a party."

We head back to their car and the kids pile in the backseat with me and Nate. Nate insists that I sit on his lap, so I just sit back and make myself comfortable for the ride. I keep looking over at my children and they keep staring right back at me.

"So can I ask who picked your names?" I ask, trying to come up with something that would at least cause them to blink.

"You did, silly Mama," Aidan answers. "Daddy said you just told him one day he had to call us certain things no matter what happened. Daddy has told us all about you. He told us you were the best mommy in the whole world and that you died to keep the rest of the world safe. He said you were a super hero and that you were unlike any woman in the world." It doesn't sound like that's exactly everything he could have said about me, but maybe that is all a five-year-old remembers, or needs to know.

"Otherwise known as a shero," Rick adds.

"Yeah, that's what Uncle Rick always calls you," Aine says with her eyes still glued to my face.

"So who all is going to be at this party?" I ask, starting to squirm just a little.

"Everyone you've ever known, pretty much," Aisling replies. "We all come together this time of year for fun."

"You do know I can tell when you lie to me, right? That might not be one of the features your daddy mentioned about me, but it's a skill that I enjoy using."

"I know, but I think it's just one of those things you shouldn't know. We can ask Aunt Eva later; however, she'll agree with me. She always does," she says.

"Is someone going to let the partygoers know that the reason for today's party has changed?" I inquire. "It would be awfully silly for them to show up for one reason, only to find they have a secret guest.

"I've already alerted Grandma and she's letting everyone else know that we have a surprise guest of honor," Aisling responds.

"You didn't give the exact surprise away did you, angel?" Nate asks.

"Nope, I wanted to see if we can make more people faint like Uncle Rick. That was really funny."

"You are a little devil, aren't you?" I say to her.

She gives me her evilest grin. "Not really, I just take after my Mama."

CHAPTER 15

Sorry buddy, the voice isn't for sale

When we get to the house, all is quiet. Earlier in the day it was pretty quiet too, which hasn't been the case since we moved in during the time I was from. There was always people around causing havoc, and it feels odd to not hear arguing.

"Does everyone still live here at the house?" I ask.

"Vinnie does, but with most of the gang getting married, they've moved into nearby houses. It got a little crowded with all the kids constantly popping out. We get together usually at the house once a week for dinner, though. Dinner was always one of our favorite times with you, so it makes us feel closer to you in some way" Rick says.

"For the same reason, Daddy doesn't usually join us," Aidan says. "He gets too sad seeing everyone except you around the table. There's always an open chair, just in case you drop by."

"That's right, son," Nate tells him. "Today will be different, though. Your mother will join us and everyone will be happy, just like you guys have been trying to tell us. I'm sure Grandma will be so happy she'll start crying, which will probably make your mom laugh hysterically."

"Aisling, when did you tell everyone to be at the house?" Scott asks. No one needed to question whether I'd laugh about Mom crying. I'd probably have to, just to get her to stop.

"I said an hour. It will give Mama a chance to get ready. Traveling through time left her clothes all wrinkly, and she smells like she could use a bath. I think she had to travel through garbage to get here," she replies.

I look down, and sure enough, my shirt looks like it's seen better days. I didn't see any garbage, or smell anything, so I was hoping that was just her nose being over-sensitive.

"Do you even have clothes available for me? It's been five years since I needed any, and I know some people don't like to hold on to that kind of stuff."

"All of your stuff is still in your closet. I'm pretty sure no moths got into anything, but I'm not promising that," Nate tells me.

"Great, is it okay if I take a quick shower and get ready then? I don't want to offend anyone's senses with my stink."

"You know the way. I'm pretty sure everything should be as you remember it, soap, shampoo, everything." Nate says.

I ran upstairs and hurry through a shower. Nate was right about all my stuff being where it should be, which was a little weird, knowing how many years had gone by since I'd needed any of the items.

I go to the closet and find a pair of jeans that will do and a shirt that says I'd tell you to go to Hell but I work there and don't want to see you every day. Hey, they haven't seen me in five years, I can't let them think I've gone soft.

Aisling said everyone was going to be here, but I don't know who she counts in that statement? If I wanted to prove to them I was the real me, I had to look the part.

I start to head back downstairs, but instead, make a beeline for Vinnie's lab. I'm guessing it hasn't moved over the years, and am proven right when I knock on the door and hear him respond. His voice isn't exactly like I remember it, but it's close.

"Please go away, I really think I'm on to something here and I don't want any interruptions," he yells from behind the door.

I take that as an invitation to enter and step inside. The lab is basically a mess, which isn't a state I've ever seen it in, with stuff thrown around everywhere. It takes me a while to even find Vinnie back in a corner.

"How in the world can you work like this? You used to hate it when anything wasn't in its proper place. Half the stuff I've seen is crap I think belongs in the garbage. You should get a maid," I say, looking over his shoulder at some computer code he's working on.

"That voice is perfect. I need to record it so I can analyze it and use it with my new system. With something that realistic, I should be able to complete a full vocal system," he replies, and then spins around.

"Sorry, buddy, the voice isn't for sale," I tell him as he stares at me. I find that happening a lot more than I like, but I couldn't fault anyone for it. Coming back from the dead had a tendency to startle people.

"If I could actually dream, I'd ask if that's what's happening here, but I know it isn't possible. I've never had to sleep and that hasn't changed in the past few years."

"Really? You've had five years and you haven't figured out a way to make that improvement? I thought sleeping was on your list."

"I've been working on some other things a little more important," he replies. "You know I'm capable of advanced prioritizing, and being able to take a nap hasn't been high on my list."

"I suppose trying to bring me back to life is?"

"That would be my current number one priority, and has been for awhile now. While I have you here, would you mind if I run some scans and grab some DNA samples?" he asks.

"So, no questions on what I'm doing here in the first place, alive and in the flesh? Everyone else has at least checked to make sure I wasn't someone in a really good costume."

"No, of course not. I've been expecting you and have spent the time preparing for it. You told us one time you traveled to the future, but you didn't give an exact date. I've been working hard to make sure everything was ready for this day. If you'd just follow me, this will only take a couple minutes," he says, standing and leading me over to a chair.

I'm not sure what's going on, but I decide it's best to go with the flow. I imagine Vinnie had invented something over the years to make me comply with his command, so throwing a fit doesn't seem logical.

He sits me in the chair, and then starts putting electrode thingys on my head. He flips on another computer and starts running a program that I'm guessing is getting data from the things on my head. He gets out a needle that looks like it's straight out of a sci-fi movie and starts walking towards me.

"Wait a second, buddy, just where do you think you're going with that. Do you have a horse around somewhere that needs tranquilized, or maybe a grizzly bear?"

"It will only hurt for a second and you have a high tolerance for pain anyway, so don't act like you're scared of a little needle. I just need some blood and tissue to get some DNA to work with."

Before I know it, he's at my arm with the needle sticking out of it. That was like Nate speed fast and nothing I've ever witnessed from Vinnie. I blink my eyes a few times just to make sure I'm not dreaming.

"Holy crap, how did you move that fast?" I ask, looking away from the needle. Whether they hurt or not, I'm not a fan.

"I've been practicing," he says. "I didn't totally stop giving myself upgrades, just decided some weren't as important as I once thought." He finishes drawing blood and then goes back to the computer to check his data. "This looks good. I think I can work with this."

"That's great. How much longer do I have to sit here?" I ask.

"I guess we can be done. It didn't take as long as I thought it would to get you downloaded into the computer."

"What do you mean by that?" I was joking earlier about him taking my consciousness and growing me a body. I wasn't so sure he thought it was a joke. "I know I don't have every memory, but my brain isn't full of empty space."

"It's nothing, don't worry about it. Now that I'm done with that, I think I'll head downstairs and see what I've missed in the last five years myself. I've heard bits of what life has been like for everyone, but not enough I could answer any questions if anyone asked."

He removes the electrodes from my head and lifts me back up into a standing position. Studying his face, it doesn't look any different than I remember. All the little lines were right where they should be.

"There's supposed to be a party today. I think its original purpose was changed, do you happen to know what they'd be celebrating today normally?" I ask.

If Vinnie is excluded from the world around him, then he wouldn't know Aisling had forbidden me from learning anything. If I could've found my buddy Brad, it would've been even easier for me, but no one had mentioned him.

"Hmm. No one's told you the reason for the party? I may be out of the loop, but I'm guessing there's a reason for that. Knowing what day it is, I guess that makes sense. There are a lot of decisions for you to make not long after you get back, and I imagine knowing possible outcomes can change things."

"Mini me told everyone I shouldn't know, but that isn't really fair, you know. I think I have a right to know what's going on today. I think people forget I can see the future from time-to-time on my own and don't need extra help interpreting what I learn."

"Aisling is wise beyond her years," he replies, having no problem figuring out who I called mini me. "If she doesn't think you should know, I'm not going to be the one who tells you, whether I think you're capable of dealing with the knowledge or not."

"She said she's only seen you once and that was years ago. How do you know how smart she is? I know she's my daughter and it should be self-explanatory, but apples don't always fall right next to the tree."

"She's a dang oracle. She better be brilliant if she's going to pull off that job. I imagine she doesn't know all the technical information you do, but she's smart in a different sense. I'm sure eventually she'll even be able to match wits with me," he replies.

"But doesn't everyone think all the kids are oracles?" I ask. I thought that was what she'd told me earlier. If they were, Vinnie shouldn't have figured out exactly who I'd referred to.

"Oh, they are, but I can tell she's the hub. She just has a different light in her eyes than the others. I've seen her more than the one time, but I didn't want her to know I was studying her. She reminds me a lot of you, but once you get around the looks and smart mouth, there's something amazing going on in that mind of hers," he says, dragging me out of the lab. "Enough talk, let's get you to the rest of the family."

"Avery, are you coming? There are people already here waiting for you," Nate says telepathically, knowing my conversation with Vinnie was over.

"I'm sure I don't have to tell you, but we're on our way. Where should I meet you?" I ask.

"Dining room, where else?" he replies.

"Be right there," I tell him, and then switch to talking out loud to Vinnie. "We're being requested in the dining room. I don't know why I even bothered to ask where he wanted us."

"Good, that's the perfect place for your homecoming. I don't think I've been there myself for a few years. It'll be nice to see if anyone managed to do some redecorating," he says, heading that way when we get to the bottom of the stairs.

After seeing my room and bathroom, I doubted anyone had touched a thing. I couldn't wait for the bomb to be dropped on everyone waiting. I really hope my mom doesn't cry too much. It was already mentioned she would be here. I wonder if that means my new sibling will be as well. He or she should be five or six, like my children.

There were so many possibilities standing behind the dining room door when we arrive in front of it. My stomach feels the butterflies I was used to in high anxiety situations. I have nothing to really be anxious about, other than seeing how everyone's lives turned out without me. It's not exactly a situation most people find themselves in.

CHAPTER 16

Let's party like it's 2017

Vinnie holds the door open for me and I make my grand entrance. Inside I see my parents, Kyle with a woman I don't know, Sophia and Gavin, Scott and Megan, Elizabeth, Charlie, Rick and a woman I'm guessing is Lucy, Joseph and Miranda, Frannie and Gary, the rest of my core advisors and their significant others, and some of the troops we have who I'm closest with.

There are a few other people, who I'm not really certain of who they are and of course there are about twenty children other than my three also running around. I could see why they don't all live under the same roof. Even with the bunkhouse in the basement, the house couldn't hold everyone.

"Wow, you finally did it?" Kyle says, walking over to me, poking my shoulder as if I wouldn't react negatively. "You somehow replicated her."

I smack his finger away. "He did nothing of the sort, you crazy person. If you like that finger, which I have no reason to believe you don't, you better watch where you put it."

"I'm pretty sure he did, or you wouldn't be standing here right now, dollface," he replies, looking at me skeptically.

"If I hadn't been transported here by a spell five years ago, you may be right. I'm sure there's some way for me to prove that to you, how about we talk about the first time we met? Do I need to go into details about how you basically drooled at my feet? Would something Vinnie created in his lab know about those kinds of details?"

"So you aren't a clone, just a time-traveling super hero?" he asks. He hadn't really drooled at my feet, but I imagined the woman he'd been standing by didn't want to hear the details about what did happen.

"Hey, it wouldn't be the first time-traveling adventure for me. At least this time I got to stay an adult. If I had to go through another adventure as a kid, I'd lock myself in a room to keep from having to deal with anymore warlocks."

I look at the rest of the crowd, and they seem to be in shock still. I know they haven't had me around for a while, but they had to remember that life with me was extremely unpredictable.

"You going to introduce me to your lady friend?"

I glance over to Aisling to see if she has a problem with it. She shrugs her shoulders, which I take to mean I can meet anyone in the room who I don't already know.

"Sure, sorry, forgot that you might not know her," he says as he walks over to grab his tall, blonde friend by the hand. "Avery, this is Rachel, Rachel, this is Avery, who you've heard everyone talk about, but really haven't had a chance to meet yet. I'm kind of glad you're meeting the real person and not a robot version."

"It's nice to meet you," I say, shaking her hand. I don't feel the need to tell her the man standing next to us is a giant dork.

"I can't believe I'm actually getting to meet you," she replies shyly. It surprises me a little that loudmouth Kyle would end up with a sheepish person, but she probably evens him out well.

"So, everyone, do we want to get this party started, or what?" I ask the rest of the room while smiling at Rachel. The crowd finally comes out of their daze and starts clapping. I don't know why they feel the need to clap, so I carry on with what I want to say.

"I'm guessing Aisling has already given her speech about not revealing anything I shouldn't know, because it can affect my choices, but just between us, if you really want to let me in on any of those secrets, I'm totally good with it."

I look over at Aisling and she's giving me a dirty look. "Just you wait until Aunt Eva gets here. She'll make sure no one says anything bad."

I smile at her and head over to Nate. "You guys weren't kidding, everyone is here."

"Yeah, this is usually the one day we all get together for reasons we aren't supposed to tell you," he says. "I guess this is Vinnie's first time joining the party, so it's a little different this year."

I can't help the snort slash chuckle that escapes my lips. I assume the rest of the group believes there's a little something else making their party different.

"You know it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out this is the anniversary of my death. Why else would you guys be so secretive? I'll be a good girl and try not to figure out the exact date, but I'd like you guys to realize I still have a brain in between my ears," I tell him.

"She's going to be so mad at you," he says with a little laugh. "I won't be the one to confirm or deny your allegations and I doubt anyone else will. Aisling is a little spitfire when she's angry. She hasn't accidently torched anyone yet when her temper boils over, but I know that day is coming."

Rick heads our way with his soulmate. "Are you allowed to know who this is?" he asks as confused as most of the partygoers probably are on the rules.

Before he has a chance to consult with Aisling, I say, "It's nice to meet you, Lucy. Aisling has already mentioned you to me, so I believe we can be introduced."

I reach out my hand, but instead of shaking, she wraps her arms around me and brings me in close for a hug. "Thank you for being our leader."

"You're welcome, I hope that I didn't disappoint too many people with my actions. I find it's a little difficult to please everyone," I say.

"I know your exact actions are a topic we can't speak of, but I will say you could never disappoint your family. They're behind you, whatever decisions you make," she says, releasing me.

Over the next ten minutes, I walk around and make sure I greet all the people there, including the ones who I don't know. I have a sneaky suspicion that one of them is the daughter I don't remember, but nothing sparked for me like it did with Scott earlier. That's too bad. It would have been cool heading back to my time remembering all of my kids. There's a part of me that hopes once I do remember everyone, all my other memories will click into place.

I finally get to my parents, and it looks like Mom has been crying like expected. There'd been a few other misty eyes, so carrying around tissues would've been smart.

"You don't have to cry, you know. This is supposed to be a happy event," I tell her, giving her a hug.

I'm pretty sure I've handed out about one hundred of those. It has to be pretty close to a record. At least I can't think of a single setting where I'd been hugged as much.

"I know it is, but did you really have to wear that awful shirt for it?" she asks. "You've been dead to us for the past five years and you come to us wearing a shirt talking about working in Hell. It's really tacky, and you know I can't stand tacky."

"Same old Mom. It's good to see my passing didn't change your sense of humor," I say, smiling at her. "You were pregnant last I recall; can I meet my newest sibling?"

"Aubrey should be around her somewhere," she says, looking around the group of children. "That's odd. She was here just a second ago. Honey, have you seen her?"

My dad mimics her, glancing around for my sister. "No, she was playing with Aine and now she isn't there. Maybe she went to the bathroom or something. I'm sure she'll wander in before too long. She's not as ambitious as you were at that age."

"From what I've heard and remember, any kid who was that ambitious belongs locked up to protect others from chaos. You know, I have to go use the little girl's room myself, so maybe I'll bump into her," I say, heading toward the door.

It is getting a little warm in the cramped room and I could use a little fresh air. It isn't clear whether I can actually use a bathroom in my weird phantom state, but it's an excuse no one can argue with.

I head towards the closest bathroom, but I don't find anyone on the way. Still wanting my fresh air, I step out onto a terrace we have in the back of the house. It's pretty early and the sun looks enchanting as it starts to set.

I find a chair, and make myself comfortable. I'm sure the crowd won't miss me for a few minutes. I wish I could read a paper or something, so I can see how the world has really settled in the last five years. I know Aisling said everything was copacetic, but I'm not certain if she was just saying that to make me happy. It makes sense to me that she'd try to sugarcoat things to keep me from prying into reality.

"Are you my sister?" a small voice asks from underneath the table.

I didn't even realize someone was sitting under it. She's lucky I didn't kick her in the face when I sat down. I don't tend to be the most graceful person.

"Are you Aubrey?" I ask, peeking under the table to get a look at her. Like the majority of our family, she has brown hair, but hers is cut in a little pixie cut that looks adorable with her thin face.

She nods her little head up and down instead of vocalizing her response. I bend down and pick her up, so she can sit on my lap. She doesn't give any resistance, so she mustn't be afraid of me.

"Then yes, I would be your sister, but we haven't actually met before. Back in my time, you weren't born yet."

"Mom told me you died. She said I used to have a brother and sister, but I only have a brother now. She cries sometimes when I ask about you. Daddy says I should wait until I'm older to ask. "

"This must be really confusing for you then, huh?" I'm hoping now that we're out in the open that they've been telling phoenix children what they really are. I know Nate mentioned it was hard not to with our kids, but I don't know if the rule was totally abolished. "Do you know that you're special?" I guess her response would answer the question.

"Yup, I'm a phoenix," she replies. "I'm part of the royal family and everything."

"Well if you know that, then you must know how magical some of us are," I say.

"Yup, Rick told me you were really magical and can do all sorts of neat stuff. I can't do any of that yet, but he says I might be able to when I'm older."

"I don't doubt you'll be able to do all sorts of fun things. Part of the magic we have is the reason I'm able to be here with you today," I don't really want to go into details about it being a warlock spell and all that, so I'm sticking with an easy explanation, magic.

"Does that mean you'll be staying with us now? I know that would make a lot of people happy around here. There's lots of people who want you to come back forever."

"I don't know for sure, little sister. Magic can be silly sometimes and it doesn't always last. Chances are I'll go back eventually, but it's fun seeing how everyone is doing."

"Even if you don't stay, it was nice to finally meet you. I've only seen you in pictures before," she says, wrapping her arms around me.

"What do you say we head back into the house? Mom and Dad are probably worried that you've disappeared."

"Good idea. We don't want them to think I died too," she says, climbing down and holding out her hand for me.

I stand up and take the extended hand. As we walk into the house, I tell her, "No, we wouldn't want them to think that."
CHAPTER 17

Dogs always remember a person they love

Back in the party room, I see they've brought out the food. Someone, probably my mother, has made all of my favorite things. I wonder if this is how they always celebrate the day, because I didn't think she'd been given the precise details about who the special guest was.

"No one is going to answer that question," Nate says, coming up behind me, stealing my other hand. "I see you found your sister."

"I sure did. I was just taking her back to our parents," I say as Aubrey lets go of my hand and runs off. "Or just bringing her back to the party I guess."

"So, any idea how long I'm going to have you here? I'm trying to figure out a way to keep you from going back."

"That would be interesting, but if I don't go back and create our children with you, I have a feeling they'd disappear. As far as how long you have, you know I don't know. I could leave at any second or be here a year.

"I don't know the exact spell that was used, and have been having too much fun seeing how things have turned out to try to come up with my own to counteract it. I'm not one hundred percent sure I could do anything. Eva said in the past she was on her way and would fix things."

"I know. And I believe me she does, but I wasn't sure if the time it took for you to come out of it is the same as the time you were away," he says. "We could have years in this reality before you're taken away."

"Did someone mention my name," I hear the she-devil herself say from behind us.

I turn around to face her. Liam is standing with her, holding her hand, which keeps my gaze for a second. My eyes zoom to her very round stomach and then over to Liam.

"Please tell me you weren't stupid enough to procreate with the devil," I say to him. "You know nothing good is going to come out of the womb, right? Have you had ultrasounds done? If you have, I'm sure the little picture you get showed the baby's horns."

I smile brightly at them both. I'm happy for Liam, but I can't help worry about how neurotic the baby will be with Eva for a mom.

"You hush," Eva says, smacking my shoulder playfully. "Do you really think any of your eight kids are angels?"

"Every single one of them are perfect angels, don't you know. I didn't know you could even have children."

"In reality you still don't, do you?" she asks, cackling at her hilarious joke. "When you get back, you'll remember everything from your time here, but you don't really know if this is for sure what the future holds for you. For all you know, this is just a world the warlocks put together to torment you."

"Do you know the answer to those thoughts?" I ask. I'd been so busy going with the flow that I hadn't thought about the events going on around me that closely.

"You know if I did, I wouldn't tell you. It would ruin all your fun back in the past." She smiles at me with her usual evil smile.

"I'm telling you, Liam, that baby is for sure going to come out with horns. Are you ready to have two of them living with you? If it's a girl, you're basically a dead man. There's no surviving two of them."

"We already have a little boy, and he seems to be adjusting well," he tells me with a smirk. "His horns haven't grown in yet, but I check his head daily for bumps."

"Say it ain't so." I cover my eyes and shake my head. "That's just so wrong."

"No, it isn't, Mama." Aisling comes over to stand with us. "She helps make babies, so it's only right for her to have her own. Plus, Aunt Eva and Uncle Liam love each other very much; it's natural for them to share that love with their children."

"Nathaniel, I really think you've been letting our child spend too much time with her crazy Aunt Eva. She's defending her against me. That just isn't right."

"I'll make sure their time together is limited in the future," he replies, squeezing my hand. I don't buy his words for a second.

"Aunt Eva, tell Mama we aren't letting her learn anything about the future," Aisling says. "I've been trying to get her to understand that all day."

"That's right, sweetie, we aren't going to let her find anything that will change the path she's on."

"See, Mama, I told you she would side with me," Aisling says before skipping off to rejoin the kids. She doesn't care about any part of the conversation to come. She just wanted to make sure I heard she was right.

"From the mouths of babes. Do you happen to know how much more time I have?" I ask.

After Nate voiced the question, I wanted to find an answer to it. I know getting Eva to answer a question with a straight answer was impossible, but I enjoy torturing myself by listening to her unhelpful replies.

"You know spell time and real time don't ever coincide. Are you sure you want a countdown clock on the only chance you may have to see your youngest children?"

I look over to where the kids are playing. "If I'm going to die in my time, I'll be happy just knowing they made it. I've seen them and know they'll be okay. Too much interaction may change the way I do things in the past."

"Good, I'm glad to see you have your head on straight. I know, like the time you visited your past, that you don't spend more than a day here. I can't tell you exactly how much longer you have, but the ball is about over Cinderella," she informs me.

"That has to be the first straight answer you've given me, at least that I remember. Thank you for that. Now, why don't you go over and get some food. You look kind of hungry. Are you eating for three?" I ask jokingly.

"You're so rude sometimes Avery Belle. You're lucky I actually am hungry," she says, steering Liam towards the food.

"She never changes, does she?" I ask rhetorically.

"So we don't have much time left," Nate says. "What do you want to do?"

"Are Romeo and Juliet still around in this future?" I ask.

"I'm pretty sure I saw them running around yesterday, so yeah they should be here," he replies. I don't particularly like the uncertainty in his voice.

"Can we go play with them for a little while? I'm sure you were hoping to head to the bedroom, but past me and you still haven't played in bed the way you'd want to."

"I know, but I also know it won't be long until we do. Come on, let's go see if the dogs are in their room. I'm surprised they aren't running around trying to pick up table scraps."

We head upstairs, leaving the party guests to continue their celebration of me coming for a visit. I wonder if this timeline will continue on after I leave or how exactly it works. That has always been a portion of science that if I think about it hard enough, it scrambles my brain cells.

We find our little pups in their room fast asleep. "How can they sleep with all the noise downstairs?" I ask.

"Those two can fall asleep in the middle of running around the yard. Sometimes I think they're narcoleptic."

Hearing us close by, Juliet lifts her little head to see who's talking. Initially, I get the feeling she's annoyed about being bothered. When she sees us standing there, she barks and runs towards me. She immediately rolls on her back so I can give her a belly rub. Her barking wakes Romeo and he does the same thing.

"Well, I don't think they forgot me," I say to Nate while rubbing both doggy bellies. "Who are my pretty puppies, huh? Are you guys my pretty puppies? What trouble have you two gotten in while I've been gone?"

"No one can forget you, my little butterfly."

The dogs get up, and since I'm knelt down to the ground, they start licking my face. It makes me laugh, being coated in dog slobber. I'm going to need another shower to undo the shower they provide.

"So, no hints on what I'm going to see when I come to back in the past?" I question. I know the answer already, but maybe he'll let something slip.

"You never stop trying, I'll give you that. I will say more time has passed than the other time one of these spells hit you. No hints on how long, but it's more than a few days, and it wasn't any easier on me."

"I was really hoping less time had passed. More days means we missed our wedding date."

"I'm sure we'll still have it sometime, but you're right, it isn't March second. Do you mind if we go to our bedroom and just lay down for a while?" Nate asks. "Holding you is one of the things I miss most. Knowing you'll be leaving soon, it's all I want to do."

"Sure. I know how much you like to spoon," I say, giving each dog a big kiss, then standing up to leave with Nate.

I thought we were heading to his room, where I landed this morning, but he guides me to my side of the suite and settles us into the bed there. I don't smell anything musty, so I wonder if someone got around to changing the bed sheets every once in a while.

"There's so much I want to say, but I think our daughter would hate me for the rest of my life if she knew I told you," he says.

"How would she know?" I ask.

"You've met her, she knows everything. Just promise me when you get back that you think before you act. Take in the whole situation before jumping to conclusions," he tells me.

"Any certain situations you want to warn me about?"

"I wish, but knowing what's going to happen probably won't change things that much. There's just one key moment that I really want you to stop and count to ten before you do anything. Believe me, you'll know when that moment is."

"How soon after I return does this moment happen?" I ask.

"Can't say," he says, taking a big whiff of my scent. "You're going to leave me soon."

"Why do you say that? I haven't started blacking out."

"You just don't feel quite as solid as you did earlier. I really needed this, you here today. I've been so lost and the uniques still look towards me as a leader because of you, but I haven't had anything to give back to them."

"I'm still having trouble wrapping my head around all this. Maybe this is the future, maybe this is just some alternate reality stuff. If this is the future, I'm going to try my hardest to take the little cryptic advice I've received while here and make it so this isn't permanent. Aisling said earlier there was something special about our bond that means you can always talk to me. You'll have to try that when I leave this timeline or whatever this is."

"That's an idea. If you don't answer, I bet I can do a pretty good impersonation of you. 'No.' How's that?" he asks, and I can tell he's smiling behind me.

"It is my favorite word. That and banana, so if you just say those two things a bunch of times, I'm sure everyone will think it's really me," I start drawing little patterns on his arm that's wrapped around me. "You know, Vinnie in this time did something to my head and took DNA. I don't know what he's cooking up, but it may be another option if you start missing me again."

"We'll see what he can do. I love you, Avery. Have a safe trip back home."

"I love you, too," I say, but before I can say more I feel the haze finally, and drift off, hopefully back to my reality.

CHAPTER 18

You hear the darnedest things when people don't know you're there

I woke up in the bed I slept in while visiting the Chicago house, but I didn't have a cuddle buddy. I looked around the room and saw that there was no one else around. That was kind of odd.

If I'd ended up in some parallel universe, where I was the only person in it, forced to wander around all day, someone was going to die. I knew I didn't make good company, so the thought of keeping myself entertained wasn't a welcomed one.

I got out of bed and saw that I wasn't wearing anywhere near enough clothing. I headed to the closet and grabbed my Karma takes too long I would rather just beat the crap out of you now shirt and some jeans. I was going to have to discuss allowing me to sleep in just my bra and underwear later with Nate.

I'd been trying to hide my brain waves so far, to see if I could get a handle on the situation before making myself known. It wasn't something I was sure could be done, but there was no harm in me trying. I left the bedroom and made my way downstairs. I figured if anyone was in the house, they'd either be in the kitchen or dining room.

First stop was the kitchen, and shockingly there isn't a soul in it. It was thankfully clean though, so I knew the guys hadn't been slacking during my nap. I grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge, and then quietly made my way to the dining room. At the door, I could hear voices inside, so I cracked it open just a little and stopped to listen.

"He says he doesn't want to give us anymore time. We've stalled him every way I can think of, but I think they're on to the fact that Charlie was using his special voice on them. It's pretty obvious he wants to make an exchange while she's still unconscious, and I'm at a crossroads on what we should do," Nate said.

I could've cut through the frustration in his voice with a knife. It was too early in the discussion for me to know what was going on, but Nate sounded like he was ready to kill someone.

"We all know that isn't going to happen, so I don't think the decision is that difficult. I like the girl and all, but I'm not giving my sister over when she can't defend herself. The pansy of a warlock needs to buck up and fight her, and us, like a man. We should've found him and had this taken care of weeks ago. Avery doesn't need to wake up and have to deal with this," Rick said, madder than I'd ever heard him.

He gave me my first indication about how much time had passed. I really wished he would've said days and not weeks. I was curious what "girl" the warlock had and what exactly he'd been doing with her. I couldn't think of anyone who Rick knew who he'd be so blasé about rescuing.

"I'm with Rick," I heard Elan's deep voice say. "We have to do everything to protect Avery. She's the only one who can truly lead us into the coming battle. I like you, Nate, but I don't think you could've drawn us all together like this alone. She's the glue and we can't just hand her over for them to stake."

"Maybe it's because I've been around awhile, but shouldn't we consider what dollface would actually want to do in this situation? I know it isn't a popular choice, but she'll probably kill all of us if she comes to and someone else has taken her place as a sacrifice," Kyle said.

I really liked his way of thinking. He'd been paying more attention to me than I thought. I was sure everyone else in the room knew Kyle spoke the truth, but their connections to me made whatever decision they were making difficult.

"You really think she'd be happy to be dead?" Rick bellowed. "I don't give a rat's behind about what she'd want at this moment. We've had to live with the idea she was dead before and that's not something I'm living through again. My threats of shackling her to her bed are not idle. She lives, no matter what, or I'll personally burn this planet to the ground."

"I think you're overreacting just a bit there, Rick," Alana stated. "You might need to go sit in an ice water bath for a little while. Other than the fact that she's supposed to be our leader, I don't really have a preference on sacrifices. Avery is nice enough, but I don't tend to usually get along with other females, so we haven't bonded as much as the rest of you.

"I don't really think she's that important to our side. I think we can take the knife and use it ourselves to defeat Malphas. I believe it'd be a mistake to let a human get killed over this. That'd be a bigger story in the news, and potentially turn the humans towards that little cult against uniques."

Wow, Alana, tell us how you really feel, I thought to myself as I heard a chorus of growls around the table. I thought Alana and I were a little bit closer than we evidently were. I guess it was kind of nice to hear what people really thought about you. It made it easier to give them a cold shoulder in the future.

"You better bite your tongue," Nate roared at her. "We brought you into our inner circle because we thought you shared our beliefs, but from what you just said, I believe you better leave. If the rest of your people follow your lead and are behind what you just said, I'd make sure they don't come around here. Whether you or anyone else likes it, Avery is our leader and always will be."

Alana stood and practically slithered to the door opposite of me. I was kind of glad I chose the back way in. Coming in my direction would've caused her pain, and I wanted to stay hidden for a little while longer.

"Just so it's clear, you won't win this war. Malphas is way too powerful for any of you, including that wretched queen you all hide behind."

Liam and Kyle moved in to hold Rick down. "And just so you understand, if the snakes don't find another leader, they'll be on their own when any warlock comes knocking at their door," Nate replied. "This battle endangers us all, whether you believe that or not."

Just for the fun of it, and because she turned out to be such a female dog, I telepathically kicked Alana, causing her to tumble out the door. The guys didn't notice because they'd turned back to their own conversation, but the action made me feel better.

"I never had a very good feeling about her," Joseph said.

"I wish I could say she was being taken over by a witch, like we saw with Elizabeth back in Alaska, but I'd met Alana before and nothing feels different about her," Rick said, still scowling. He needed to be told his face would freeze like that if he kept it up.

"How can she dislike the queen?" Brad asked, sincerity rich in his voice. "Avery is the nicest person in the whole world. She's practically a saint."

Sorry, Brad, but saint is a little bit of a stretch. I did try to be nice and fair to everyone, though. Most of the time that came back to bite me, but I didn't let that change who I was.

"It's got to be jealousy," Liam said. "It's why you don't find a lot of women leaders among uniques. If anyone outshines them a little, it turns into a catfight. I'm a little surprised she hung out this long. We've made it clear we'll only follow Avery."

"Well, her little tantrum hasn't helped solve the problem we're facing," Nate said, rubbing his face.

I could tell whatever time had passed hadn't been full of sunshine and rainbows for him. If he'd taken a shower, it was probably only because someone dumped water on his head.

"Are we absolutely sure using Elan as a decoy won't work?" Seth asked.

"It was one of the first things we tried. The warlock probably didn't know for sure, but he couldn't believe she'd been revived that soon. If we tried it again now, he'd probably be able to sense Elan," Nate replied. "We've also tried to send in uniques who can go invisible, but they activated a shield that alerted the warlock. We really have tried everything. We're down to the point where we have to decide who dies."

"Okay, let's go around the table. Say aye if you think we should do the exchange and nay if you want to keep Avery alive," Rick said. His wording didn't seem very diplomatically, no one left around the table wanted me to die. "I'll start, nay."

"Nay," Brad echoed.

"Nay," Seth said.

"Nay," Joseph agreed. "We don't know that he'll really kill her. She isn't much of a bargaining chip dead."

The group took a second to ponder that thought, and then moved on. There were three more nays in a row. They were getting close to the point where they didn't have to finish, because the majority would already be met.

"Aye," Kyle said, breaking up the broken record. "I don't want her to die, but someone has to speak for her." He received some glares from around the table, but he ignored them. I saw a double fudge cake in his future for trying to be the voice of reason.

The voting went on as everyone else said nay, leaving Nate last. I didn't know who they were voting to condemn for death, but I didn't like the idea. I was sure they'd be shocked that they went through the vote for nothing. About as shocked as I was that no one had picked up my presence. Between the various connections I had with the group, and the mind readers among it, someone should've realized I was up.

"As everyone knows my answer will always be Avery lives no matter what. I'm happy that I don't have to decide this myself. I have a feeling that the vote isn't going to be accurate, since we're missing a few people."

"So what?" Elan asked, sounding irritated that Nate implied a decision wouldn't be reached until everyone had a chance to vote. "Even with the missing members the nays overwhelmingly win."

"True, but one member's vote counts a little bit more than the rest of ours," Nate informed them. I didn't know why he'd taken so long to make my presence known, but I knew the member he referred to was me.

"She's up, isn't she?" Rick asked. "How in the world is she blocking me? It feels like she's still in her sleepy coma."

"I don't know. She thinks she's pretty slick, though, which doesn't come as a surprise" Nate replied. "Kicking Alana was a nice touch, my little butterfly. She deserved it and none of us could've gotten away with it."

My cover blown, I went ahead and opened the door, putting a stop to my spying. "There were a lot of other things I would've liked to do, but I was trying to be subtle, so I could listen in a little longer without you guys noticing."

I walked over and sat on his lap. His arms instantly wrapped around me and I felt safe and warm. It was amazing how small actions from Nate made everything else in the world seem unimportant.

"I didn't know you were there until that moment. It was probably you using your powers that alerted me. Did you learn to become a ninja while you were away?" he asked.

"Not that I know of, but it was an interesting trip. I decided when I got up and found no one watching over me that I didn't want to be noticed, and somehow I went into stealth mode. You guys know how much I hate beating around the bush, which means I have two questions. What day is it and who's been kidnapped and held for ransom?"

Everyone around the table instantly looked down, and no one spoke up to fill me in, not even Brad. That couldn't be a good sign. It would've probably been best if I could take back the questions, but they were details I needed to know.

CHAPTER 19

Comas really are a not nice word

Whoever had been kidnapped was as sticky subject, which only made it harder for me to figure out on my own. Their conversation didn't make me think they were talking about one of my daughters, which was good. I would've killed them if they thought letting one of the girls die was okay.

"Let's answer the easy one first. It's exactly two months since we drove you into that spell, May first," Nate said.

"Holy crap, it's May?" I said, not able to believe I'd been asleep that long. "What in the world has gone on since I've been gone? How many wild parties went on in my house?"

I could tell no one was ready to speak up about the kidnapped person, so I was fine giving them a few minutes to settle into a discussion about what had been going on. Eventually we'd get to the point where they spilled their guts.

"Sorry, sis, but wild parties weren't our priority, although they would've been fun without you around making sure everyone was enjoying the appetizers. You passed out on us, leaving us to investigate the warlock alone. Liam wasn't getting any good vibes, so our group stayed with you in the car while the others went in to investigate. At that point, we were pretty sure he set the spell and took off," Rick said.

"And he did, but he left a note behind with a list of demands. I guess it wasn't much of a list. He just wanted, as you heard earlier, you as defenseless as possible so he could turn you over to Malphas," Nate added. "As you can imagine we weren't really willing to just do as he commanded, so we've tried a number of things to buy time. I can't believe we've actually made it a whole two months, but no one ever said warlocks were brilliant."

"So who brought me out of the spell anyway? No one was waiting by my bedside like last time, which was probably good, since I contemplated stabbing the last person in the room after one of my comas."

"The jinn did. As powerful as they are, and even with Eva's guidance, there were a lot of booby traps and road blocks in the way of this one. Last I heard, they thought they just about had it. It's a little odd that they weren't waiting when you woke up," Liam said.

"I'm sure they'll show up soon enough, especially if they return to the room and find you gone. Chances are they just wanted to grab some food or showers," Rick said. "Let's get back to the problem at hand. We have a deadline to meet."

"Okay, give me all the gory details," I said. "Before that though, I just want to note I'm glad to see your blood vessels are no longer about to burst and your face isn't red anymore. I really thought you were going to kill anyone who looked at you crossways, which was cool to see, but at the same time a little scary."

He gave me a menacing smile, and continued to fill me in on the important details. "Now that you're up, we have more we can do. The deadline is seven o'clock tonight. We're supposed to bring you to one of the most cliché places in Chicago, Wrigley Field. Thankfully the baseball team is out of town, or there may have been real fireworks."

"Have you guys sent in recon to try to figure out the best places to put our guys? What all did you guys pack for weapons on this trip, anyway?" I asked. "I know the bigger items were left at home, but I can't imagine you left all the fun stuff."

"Yes, we sent a team out to scout immediately after receiving the most recent note. They're still in the area trying to find anything that may be suspicious," Joseph replied. "As far as weapons, you pretty much name it and we have at least one of them. When we travel, we travel in style."

"Good. I doubt we'll be able to use a third of it, but it's nice to have options. Where's Vinnie? I'd like to figure out some schematics." Even without all the details, my mind went straight to strategy.

"Hold on, I'll call him," Nate said, bringing out his chatterbox. I'd have to remember to ask where mine was. I hadn't see one upstairs waiting for me. "Vinnie, your presence has been requested in the dining room. Please bring your genius computer mind down here."

"I'll be there in a second," I heard Vinnie reply over the airwaves. No questions, just give him a second.

"He doesn't sound too happy about being interrupted," I said to the group.

"He never is. He's been busy building more gadgets for you. One in particular will come in handy in the future. In fact, now that I think about it, I bet the jinn disappeared to his lab to help with testing," Rick said.

"That makes sense. He's reworking the spell detector so this type of thing won't happen again. He borrowed your ring, if you didn't notice, and is supposedly installing it in that because that's the only thing we could think of that you wear all the time. The knives and weapons you carry sometimes change, but the ring is always there," Kyle said.

I looked down at my hand and saw all of my fingers naked. "If it works, I'm all for it. So, while we wait, anyone want to tell me what was up with Alana? I don't remember her being quite that hostile. She never offered to braid my hair, but I figured she knew Frannie already had that taken care of."

"She tried to take over as you within the first week of your incapacitation. We, of course, looked towards Nate for leadership and I think she got a little miffed by that. I think she thought we let you lead just because you're a girl and we're some type of matriarchy. I don't know if the snakes as a whole missed the boat when the prophecy was read, or if they just have an airhead for a leader," Rick explained.

"Oh, I almost forgot, my queen," Brad said, in his tattletale voice. Yes, he did actually change his voice when he was about to tell on someone. "Rick said he was going to use the shackles on you."

"I did happen to be present for that comment, but thanks for alerting me. I'll just have to find them and hide them again."

"Good luck finding them. After you ruined the pretty pink pair I had for you, I made sure to put them in a place you wouldn't look," Rick said.

"I'm sure they fit in well with your porn collection," I said, smiling.

He grinned back at me and winked. I was pretty sure I guessed correctly on the location, and I bet I could get Brad to go retrieve them for me, if I decided I was too squeamish, but those were plans for later.

"This better be important," Vinnie said, entering the room, followed by Mak.

"Well, since it was I who requested you, I think it's very important," I responded.

"Hey, darling, nice to see you up and about. What can I do for you?" he asked, immediately changing his tone. I loved that I had that effect on most people.

"It sounds like we're heading to a shootout and I'm hoping you can bring up everything you know about Wrigley Field for me. I've got to do a little better job of knowing what I'm in for when I get to a place."

"That isn't an issue. I've had the information in my recent memory since we've been in Chicago. I figured you'd want to go take a tour, because of its landmark status, so I gathered what I could in case you needed a guide," he answered.

"Great, first can you tell me if there are going to be any events there tonight? I want to know what kind of interference from outside forces we may be facing," I said.

"There should only be grounds people around at that time. No specific events are scheduled, so there should be minimum obstruction. Tourists are always possible, but I think we can handle them."

"Good. Since I'm sure you know the layout of the place, where would the best area for him to hide be?"

"I figure he'll be hiding in one of the suites. Even if they aren't the best hiding place, we've found out the last month this warlock likes to be comfortable. You should've seen the hotel room he was staying in. After we made sure the area was secure, I went up trying to scan and see if he left anything behind. That place put the osh in posh," he answered. "Plus, the note he sent said that's where he'd be."

"I guess that makes it easier. Do you know if he has any friends we need to be worried about?"

"So far we haven't seen or heard of anyone else, but they do tend to travel in groups these days. We should at least plan for there to be one other, but we should be able to take care of them without a huge problem," Liam said. "We were trained by the best, after all."

"Now you're just trying to butter me up. What time is it now?"

"Just after five. We have plenty of time," Joseph replied.

"Good, now how big of a force do we have? If we can, I'd like to keep it below twenty actually inside, and potentially another twenty on the outside to make sure no one gets away," I said.

"Those numbers are doable. We've relocated a lot of people here for your protection over the past two months," Joseph informed me, which wasn't a surprise.

"Great. I know I asked about firepower earlier, and I'm assuming you were reporting the lethal weapons we have. What about the just put them to sleep weapons?" I asked.

"Even though they aren't as fun, we do have sleepy darts available to just knock the opposition out. I know that's the preferred method, but if we take on fire, I'm not promising there won't be shots fired," Joseph replied. He'd really turned into a great lead enforcer.

"As long as you don't chop any heads and start fires, we can still bring them out alive and detain them," I replied. "So, I think you guys should take me in like I'm still out of it, just like he wanted. I'll be armed with my usual knives and chopsticks. That should be more than enough for me to eventually turn the tables on him.

"I'd love if you'd let him try to take me to Malphas, so this can all be over, but I'm guessing that isn't an option," I said, mapping out my ideas. They were pretty simple, so I didn't think I needed to draw pictures for anyone. "Then I want you guys to take the hostage and leave. The poor girl has been stuck with the warlock long enough, and we don't know what shape we'll find her in. I only hope she was strong enough that if they brought a demon in, she's still in one piece."

"I'm not sure I like the idea of leaving you with the warlock. We don't know that you're back to full strength," Rick said.

I looked straight at him and said, "I don't think we're voting on this one. Chances are really good he isn't going to just kill me, and if he thinks I'm unconscious, I have the element of surprise. Last I checked, I was the one who taught all of you to fight them anyway."

"We'll try it on one condition," Nate said. Where in the world had they picked up the idea that they got to veto or change my plans? Clearly, I couldn't leave them alone for two seconds. "If he's able to, I want Mak to stay with you in smoke form. I'm sure you can handle him all by yourself, but I'd feel better if you had a bit of back up."

"That I can probably live with. Has he had training while I've been asleep?"

"Yes, he's gone through the courses and has mastered control of his magic," Joseph reported.

"Good. Only one more question," I said. I was fired up and ready to go, but I really needed one last thing answered. "Who does he have?"

Nate adjusted me so I could see his face. "I'm sorry, sweetie, but it's Ettie."

CHAPTER 20

Don't fail me ninja mode

"You're kidding me, right? I get knocked out for two months and during that time my best human friend is allowed to be kidnapped?" I screeched. I should've found out who'd been kidnapped sooner in the conversation.

"If it makes you feel better, the warlock probably picked her up right after he saw there wasn't going to be an explosion," Rick said, shrugging his shoulders.

"And that's who you were all willing to just let die. Kyle, thank you for trying to be the voice of reason in this mess. I know you were outvoted, but you're definitely getting a very large chocolate cake all to yourself for trying to talk sense into this mess of idiots." I yelled the first part, but managed to lower my voice by the time cake got involved.

"You're welcome, dollface, but you might want to tone it down just a little. You're starting to turn red," Kyle replied.

"Like we've been telling you, we've been trying to rescue her, but the warlock's location has been unknown. Liam goes out most of the day, trying to track all the different power signatures, but in a city this size, it's kind of difficult. This is the first time he's offered to meet in person. Before, all interaction was via the telephone," Nate said.

"You guys are still not forgiven for being willing to let an innocent die. We need to leave now. Joseph, get the troops together and let's blow this pop stand," I said.

I ran upstairs to switch out my knives. I wanted my demon-killing knife on me just in case, and I needed the biggest knife I had, because I wasn't sure the warlock would be allowed to live after taking Ettie. He'd better pray she was unharmed. I did my hair up really quick, so I could insert the chopsticks, and called it good.

I made it back downstairs, and without waiting for anyone, I headed straight to the car. I felt Nate following behind me at a safe distance. I went to jump in the front seat of the first Suburban I ran into, but Nate stopped me.

"The plan, your plan, was that you'd pretend to still be unconscious. That means you ride on my lap in the back, like I am carrying you," he said, taking my hand and dragging me to the back.

"Fine. That will give us a chance to discuss some things."

We usually had someone drive us around, but I'd wanted to be front and center for the rescue. My plan obviously didn't allow that, so it was good I had Nate around to keep me in line.

"Can one of those things be where you went in your little dream world?" he asked.

"I suppose, but I won't be able to tell you a whole lot about that. I don't want to disturb the time continuum or anything like that," I said, climbing in after him.

He positioned me in his lap, not all that different from the arrangement I had with the future Nate when we'd gone on our little car ride. I leaned back and closed my eyes, doing the best impersonation of a comatose person I could manage. I doubted I was good at it, so I needed to practice early.

Nate leaned down and gave me a delicious kiss on the lips. One of the things I would never get tired of was Nate's lips touching mine.

"I didn't get a chance to say welcome back," he said, straightening up.

"I'm still deciding if it's good to be back. A part of me didn't want to leave the place I was," I replied.

"That can't be good. What was the guy's name?" he asked with a joking tone to his voice.

"Nate. What else could his name be?" I responded.

"So, what did you and this Nate do that was so fun?"

"Are the other guys almost here? I really would like to get going and I don't have any communicator to tell them to hurry up," I said, avoiding his question for a second.

"They're already loading up in the other vehicles. We'll leave in just a few minutes. So are you skating around my question? You didn't get to see this Nate naked, did you?"

"No, I didn't. I wasn't really avoiding the question, I'm just anxious. Like last time, it was only a day. The big difference was that it wasn't a past event. No one there would give me a straight answer on whether it was my future or just a place the warlock stuck me. My time basically consisted of me meeting our triplets and being the guest of honor at a party," I told him.

I really didn't want to go into the detail that in that reality I was dead. I didn't think that would go over well when he was getting ready to hand me over to a warlock.

"You do know you aren't shielding, right?"

"No, I still thought I was in ninja mode. Pretend you didn't hear anything," I replied. The time continuum was basically screwed.

"Can I ask how you met our children, if you were supposedly dead? Did you just show up alive and scare everyone?" he asked.

"You don't seem to be concerned about the fact I was in a future I'd been dead for five years in."

"You said it yourself, you don't know if it was an accurate future. Even if it was, we can change things to make sure it doesn't happen. Now, on to the important stuff, what are our children's names?"

He was taking it way too well. Maybe it was because of how real it felt to me, that I just assumed that was what was really going to happen. He was right, though, I could still change the future, and supposedly those future people gave me important advice, even if it sounded like normal advice to me.

"Their names will be Aisling, Aine, and Aidan."

"Did they come out of a box of Lucky Charms? What's up with the Irish names?" he asked.

"I don't know. I guess I just liked them. They're the cutest kids. Little Aisling is going to look just like her mama. It's actually a little creepy how deep the resemblance goes. Of course, that's only if that part of this future world is real. If it is, we're going to have our hands full."

"With three kids the same age, I always expected a handful. Anything else you can think to tell me?"

"Oh, I almost forgot. You can tell Scott it's alright for him and Megan to come visit now."

"Really, another kid remembered? Something about the future has to be real since he decided to take that name within the last two months. I don't think you could've picked it up anywhere. I wonder what will happen when you do remember all the kids. Past you seemed to indicate remembering all of them was the key to unlocking your memories. You picked me and Rick up along the way, but there are so many other people in your life you don't remember," he said.

"Don't look at me for answers. I'm just trying to follow a path that was evidently foreseen many years ago." As I finished speaking, people finally joined us in our vehicle.

"You guys ready?" Liam asked, taking the driver's seat. I also saw a mist enter the car and had to assume that was Mak, already in shape to follow me if need be.

"I think I aged three years just waiting for you guys. Let's move," I responded. Liam started the tank and we pulled out of the drive.

"You didn't want us going out without being well-armed, did you? It takes a few minutes to prepare for every situation," Joseph said.

"I know, but I have to pretend to be sleeping, and that makes me irritated. I should've thought a little bit more about this plan," I said.

"Just about everything makes you irritated. Now, close your eyes again and do a better acting job," Rick said from beside us.

"You better watch it, Freddie. While I was sleeping, I got to witness you fainting. Talk about a Hallmark moment. I so wish I had a way to record it for you," I taunted him.

"You are so making that up," he replied. "I've never fainted in my life."

"Not yet you haven't, but you may in the future. I'm still claiming it was just because you saw my pretty face. You heard me and Nate approach, and then wham, one look at me and you were down for the count."

"In context, she did mention to me that the future she visited was one where she'd been dead for a while. I'm sure it was just a reaction to seeing a ghost," Nate said, trying to make him feel better.

"Sorry, Nate, but a future where she's dead, does not paint me fainting in a better light. I'm hoping you're making plans to change that future."

"I'm just viewing it as she paid a visit to bizarre world for a little while and everything will turn out swell in the real world," Nate said.

"I imagine we have a few minutes before we get to our destination, why don't you guys fill me in on what's been happening in the human world while I was gone. What do they know about my disappearance?" I asked. I'd been planning to disappear for the wedding, so I hoped things hadn't gone crazy.

"We had to tell them the truth about you being attacked. We would've only been able to play the honeymoon card for so long, and we didn't know if it'd be another three-day trip or if this one was going to last a decade," Nate said.

"You being out of the spotlight calmed Humans Unite down a bit. Evidently, with the pretty mouthpiece gone, the guys aren't all focused on covering their attraction to you with claims that we're aliens," Rick added.

"I'm sure that isn't the reason they came together. That's just silly," I responded.

"Hey, I just call it like I see it. You went away for a little while and so have they. Anyway, Charlie has done a couple more conferences, but we've postponed most of them until our leader is back on her feet. Overall, the human support for you has been overwhelming. You have tons of cards and letters to read when you get a chance. For a while, your room looked like someone vomited botanical gardens all over it," Rick stated.

"That isn't exactly a pretty picture you're painting there. So, human relations have been good, has there been any word from Malphas, or have the other teams had any run-ins that I should be aware of?" I queried.

"Nothing on the Malphas front. Those planes we were following from Florida actually ended up landing in Iowa. We have teams monitoring movements, but they claim they're all just warlocks, no demons running around in the cornfields. We aren't sure if he knew you were personally defenseless or not, but he didn't come knocking on the door asking for you," Nate reported.

"So, other than the months changing and a kidnapping we need to correct, the world remained the same without me. That's good to know. Do you know where Frannie and Mom are?"

"They've come down a couple of times, but they're back in New York now. We convinced them there was nothing they could do, and we thought being away from here was probably safer for them," Nate said.

"Good, at some point, since I don't feel like yelling across the country, someone needs to call them and tell them there's going to be a wedding tomorrow. We've already lost two months and we should have this warlock taken care of today. That'll leave us plenty of time to fly home and get the wedding out of the way."

"Wow, did meeting our potential children make you that anxious for our wedding night?" Nate asked.

"You wish. I just don't want to disappoint future Nate if I end up back there sometime and won't do more than cuddle with him," I said, sticking my tongue out at him. My eyes were still closed, so they could be taking me to some secure location to keep me from making the exchange, but I had to believe they aren't that stupid. 
CHAPTER 21

The friends you thought you knew

After a few minutes, the vehicle came to a stop and I heard Liam putting it in park. I was so ready for a fight after how worked up the guys got me about Ettie. They only had to mention her name, and the fact that they were going to let her die, to get me in a fighting mode.

"What are you feeling, Liam?" Rick asked.

"We have a lot of our people around, so it interferes a little. I think there are five energy sources currently coming from inside," he replied.

Joseph laughed. "The people in this car alone should be able to handle that. I would've thought they'd have come a little better equipped. Sorry, Avery dear, but I don't think you're going to be able to work out your aggressions with us just yet."

There were times I broadcasted what I was feeling a little too much. I was stuck not being able to talk, so I couldn't point out how brainless most of the warlocks we'd met were. It was like not only their souls were taken, but half of their I.Q.s went missing as well. I'd have to test my theory at some point.

I heard doors open and a couple of seconds later I was being shifted so Nate could carry me out bridal style. I did my best to make my limbs like noodles, and just flowed with his movements. It was really hard for me, when I loved being in control of everything.

"He said he'd be in the suite directly behind home plate, so start heading in that direction," Nate instructed. "Keep us up-to-date on any movements, Liam. I don't want any surprises while I'm carrying the precious cargo."

"We have you covered, Nate, don't worry," I heard Elan tell him. "You just hold on tight to her and we'll take care of the rest."

It took a lot of walking, but we finally reached a stopping point. It could've been that Nate needed to rest after lugging me around, but I was hoping we were done walking. I decided that I hated not knowing where I was going. I'd been getting nauseous with my eyes closed while moving for so long.

"The five energy signals are inside this room," Liam whispered. "I hate to say this, but I'm not picking up a human signature. I don't think they have the girl with them."

That made it sound like it was a wasted trip. It was just like a dang warlock to trick you into showing up on their playing field. Too bad they didn't have enough mental capacity to use that to their advantage. At least they hadn't in the past, there was always a chance it would be a first time.

"Maybe they're masking her somehow," Kyle said.

I liked where his mind was going. I really wanted to be able to find and rescue her without having to jump through a bunch of hoops. If we defeated the warlock, only to have to go find her in some hiding place, that could take a while.

"We aren't getting any younger, let's do this," I broadcasted mentally to anyone who could hear me, hoping the warlock wasn't in that list.

"Let's go in," Nate said, either tired of standing around himself, or actually following my command.

We started moving again, and I was still cursing the whole eyes closed thing. The curses got worse when I realized I could've tried looking out any of the guys' eyes. I hated that I didn't always immediately think to use my abilities. I zoned in on Nate, so I could see what was going on.

The guys fanned out to give us a visual of every square inch of the place. The suite we entered was pretty much what I expected. A nice climate controlled way to watch a baseball game. Personally, if I was going to a game, I wanted the full experience, and you can't get that in a suite, so I wasn't impressed. What most concerned me were the people standing across from us. I saw five people that match the energy signatures Liam picked up, and it was a little difficult to hold still based on what I saw.

"I take it there isn't anyone here who needs rescued," Nate said.

"It was a trap all along," Rick said. "I knew we should've kept her home and safe. Believing a warlock is capable of keeping their word has to be one of the stupidest things we've done."

"We would've come and retrieved her eventually," the warlock standing in the middle of the group said. I recognized him from the arena, so I decided he was the leader.

"I highly doubt you would've gotten through our defenses," Joseph said, taking pride in the army he'd helped build.

"Maybe not, but we couldn't just leave her lying around forever, now could we. You had two months thanks to your negotiator and the fact that you never really got close to finding me. Oh, I know you thought you did a few times, with the doppelganger Kapre and your other ploys, but they were all carefully crafted situations on my part," he informed the group.

"We're here now, so why don't we start this fight?" Liam said.

I heard some knuckles popping as the guys stretched like they were getting ready to run a marathon or something. I believed in limbering up, but they were doing it a little late in the game.

"We don't have to fight. You can just hand the queen over and everyone can leave happy," one of the warlock's buddies said. It was nice to see they had tongues, too bad about the whole I.Q. issue.

"You know damn well that isn't going to happen," Rick said. "Let's just get this over with."

I could see in Nate's peripheral that Rick pointed a large nozzle-looking thing at the warlocks. Holy crap, when did he put the flamethrower on? I totally missed that, and so much for the nonlethal approach. I thought anyone not fireproof was going to need to leave the building if he decided to use it.

"Don't be so hasty, son. You aren't going to shoot that thing off in here with all your friends in the way," the head warlock said. The idea that he could read my mind worried me a little.

"If you try to take my sister, you'll see how worried I am about anyone being in the way. They'll only take a couple of days to heal," Rick replied in his tough guy voice.

It was a cross between a couple of famous cowboy actors. He didn't specifically sound like either one, but if you combined their voices, it got pretty close.

At that point, I didn't see a reason for me to keep pretending I was still out. There wasn't going to be any kind of prisoner exchange, so it seemed silly. It was impossible to exchange a human for a phoenix when the human didn't exist anymore, or potentially never did.

I opened my eyes and ended up staring straight at Ettie, which freaked me out for a second. Before the fighting was through, I was going to have words with her. I didn't understand what was going on, but she didn't look to be in a bit of trouble. I'd probably end up smacking her a time or two as well. I wiggled out of Nate's arms and planted my feet next to him.

"I'm not sure who I want to fight first," I said, producing a fireball and hurling it the lead warlock.

Talking time was done and I had the fireball setting to hurt people, not room, so there was no chance of me burning the baseball field to the ground. The fireball makes it to him easily in the confined space.

"Ouch, that stung a little. Let's see how you like it," he said, hurling an energy ball back at me. With that the fight was on, our twenty guys to their five.

I lost track of what everyone else was doing as I tried to continue my battle with the biggest threat. Well, at least the biggest threat I perceived. I was guessing the other warlocks weren't as old as that one, and really the fight wasn't going to take more than a few seconds. They lost the element of surprise when we didn't freak out that Ettie had joined the warlocks' ranks.

I moved in close to try for my chopsticks. I grabbed one out, hit the button and had it in his arm before he could say banana. The berserker reaction time training had been going way too well.

His arm was raised to punch me, but the neurotoxin went to work fast and he froze, then crumpled to the floor. It tended to last twenty minutes, so I had time to help the others, but as I looked around, the fighting was all done. Even Ettie was down, so I wouldn't get a chance to slap her around immediately.

The quick and simple fights against the warlocks were getting boring. I remembered my first fight went on a lot longer, and there were more tricks used to try to defeat me. I didn't have any zip ties to restrain the prisoners, so I went ahead and said my magic removal spell to make it safe for the others.

Grabbing my right-side pocket knife, which didn't even get a chance to see action, I pricked my finger. "Blood I give to pay the price; remove the soulless ones' powers for choosing bad advice." I changed the spell up a little each time. It got a little tedious otherwise.

"So, I guess we're done here. You want to take them back to the holding cell here in Chicago or have them shipped elsewhere?" Nate asked.

"I've decided this was way more fun when we didn't have all this training. I mean, it lasted all of what, five minutes? Talk about dull," I said, sighing. "I don't feel like having them shipped; let's just leave them at the local drunk tank. Vinnie can draw the blood and stuff he wants for his research, and then we can get home."

"Sounds like a plan to me. Do you mind if I sit in with you on the interrogation I know you want to hold?" he asked.

"She has a lot to answer for. I have so many questions, but I know where I'll start and I'm sure they'll start flowing like lava after that," I replied, grabbing his hand and intertwining our fingers.

We made our way through the ballpark, with Nate leading the way. I didn't pay much attention to my surroundings. Chances were smoke trailed out of my ears as we walked. I couldn't believe I'd misjudged Ettie so badly.

"Just so you know, I have no problems with how easy these missions have become. The warlocks are easy targets now. When we get to the demons who make them, I think we're going to have a tougher fight."

"Good. If all this war and battle talk ends up leading to another Anglo-Zanzibar War, I'm going to be upset," I told him.

"Wow, I'm kind of shocked you even know of that war," he replied.

"If you're in a war, it's good to do research on past wars. That particular war was over in less than an hour, so it sticks out in my mind. You might not notice, but I don't spend every last second in the gym training."

There were times I wished I could, but I knew there was more to fighting a battle than being physically prepared. Having lived most of my remembered years as a shy girl behind a computer, I had a lot to learn, and I turned to the Internet for help.

"Well, rest assured we've gone well over the time limit on that one. I'm sure you'll get your grand battle one of these days, killer," he said as he pinched my cheek.

The warlocks were loaded up and we were free to head back to our compound. I was getting a little hungry, but I wanted to make sense of what had just happened, so food was going to have to wait. My stomach grumbling told me my priorities were liable to change.

CHAPTER 22

Casanova, I think not

The way back to the house seemed a lot shorter with my eyes opened. It was also nice to not have to sit on lumpy Nate. Okay, maybe he wasn't that lumpy, but after being carried around, I liked having a little room.

"So after I have my sit down with Ettie, I'm thinking we should probably have some kind of press conference. As much as I hate them, I want the world to know that I'm back and ready to take care of business," I said as I got out of the vehicle.

"I'll give Charles a call," Rick said, following us inside. "He's been doing all of our PR work, so he should be able to book you something good. I'm guessing you'd prefer it stay a small affair?"

"If he can work it out, I'd like to hold the event here at the house. Either outside or in the dining room," I told him as he took out his phone to make the call.

"I'm sure that can be arranged," he replied. "How long before you think you'll be ready? It might take him a few minutes to hit all the appropriate people."

"Better make it two hours. I don't know how I haven't lost fifty pounds from not eating solid food in weeks, but I really need something to eat. Throwing fireballs almost made me sweat."

I headed to the kitchen to see if there was anything edible, or if the guys had been living off of potato chips and frozen pizza, not that those two things didn't have a purpose. Nate and the rest of the gang made their way to the dining room to talk.

A person who I didn't know was standing at the kitchen sink washing dishes as I made my way through the doorway. I'd been M.I.A. for two months, so a new person in the house didn't surprise me. I'd already been told they'd brought extra forces in.

The man had blonde, spiky hair, which could've indicated he'd recently stuck his finger in a light socket. He was a decent height and looked to work out as much as the other occupants in the house.

I opened the fridge and was happy to see what I considered food. Even the milk was still good, so I knew someone had been doing regular shopping. I grabbed some chicken, butter and milk. I determined some sautéed chicken and homemade biscuits would hit the spot.

As I took my bounty to the counter, I heard, "Sleeping Beauty has finally awaken I see," from the mystery man.

"Please tell me that isn't what everyone has been calling me," I replied, going to the cupboard to try to find some flour.

"Not everyone, just the ones who got to play bodyguard."

"Really, someone I didn't know at all was allowed to be my bodyguard? You actually think I'm going to believe that? I know Nate well enough to know the chances of that are next to zero."

I turned to get a decent look at the guy. In a house full of good-looking men, he fit well. He had very interesting bright green eyes and a nice face, free of any distinguishing characteristics. I imagined a lot of women found him attractive, but I was a little underwhelmed.

"You'll probably eventually remember me. We spent some time together a few centuries ago in Sligo."

I stared at him, waiting for a better explanation. I did remember my time in Ireland with Nate, but the guy in front of me wasn't making an impression. I assumed if he'd been around awhile, someone had explained the issues with my memory.

"I can see you have nothing for me," he said, extending his hand. "My name is Rian, my queen, and it's nice to make your acquaintance."

When we shook hands, he shocked me. It wasn't the nice kind of shock that I felt when Nate and I touched. I wouldn't call it painful, but it didn't feel good. I glared at him again.

"Sorry about that. Nothing to do with you, it's just a mechanism that I have in place to warn already spoken for ladies they should stick with their spouses. You'd be surprised how many woman don't pay attention to it," he said, taking his hand back.

"Just what are you?" I asked. I could already tell he wasn't the normal variety shifter.

"I'm a selkie, the leader of them in fact. That's why Nate allows me to serve as protection for you."

I decided he wasn't a threat and returned to my biscuit making process. I made quick work of the mixing and moved right on to the rolling. When I got them ready to go in the oven, I could throw the chicken on the fire.

"A selkie. If my memory serves me correctly, that means you have a seal skin hidden somewhere that allows you to transform into a seal and swim out to sea."

"That would be the basic definition. Do you need any help cooking? You've been out for a while. I'm surprised you were able to bounce right out of bed."

"So am I. Do you know how I was being fed?" I asked. "And as far as cooking, I think I can handle the biscuits myself. I just got back from having a dull fight with warlocks, a little mixing and rolling out dough isn't going to hurt me."

"Suit yourself. They called Elizabeth down after they realized it was going to take more than a few days, and she and Vinnie made up some concoction that kept you strong. They hooked you up to machines a couple of times a day to make sure you were hydrated and all that jazz. Nate even helped out by spending an hour or two each day working your arm and leg muscles to keep them strong."

"Is Elizabeth still around? I'd love to visit with her."

"Nope. There was an explosion a couple weeks ago on an oil tanker. There were a few uniques onboard, so she went to help. She calls for updates every day, though," he replied, watching me cut out the biscuits.

"I hope everyone's okay. Were there any fatalities?" I questioned.

"Last I heard there were five humans killed. They're still investigating the cause. Eye witnesses say there was no indication it was about to blow."

"Do we think it might be the forces we're fighting making a statement?" I would've hoped someone in my meeting earlier would've brought up that little tidbit of information if it was warlock or demon based.

"Doesn't sound like it. Why would they blow up a ship with four uniques on it and tons of humans? The uniques weren't even that badly injured," he said.

"Since I've come to the conclusion warlocks are stupid, I wouldn't put it past them. Do we have our people looking into the incident?" I threw the biscuits on a cookie sheet, and then placed them in the oven. I'd forgotten to preheat it, so I quickly turned it on as well.

While they did their thing, I grabbed a skillet and placed it over high heat. When the pan was warm, I put in a little butter and let it melt. Finally, I sprinkled some garlic and onion powder on the chicken and put it in the pan.

"Sure, Nate sent out representatives right away. So far they haven't found anything funny."

"Are we sure they would? If it was magically caused, there may not be any evidence. We can't always sense their spells, so I doubt we'd be able to pick up any real proof."

He shrugged his shoulders. "I couldn't say for sure, but I personally don't have magic detecting as an ability. Maybe your robot friend can hook you up with something."

"I'm pretty sure he already has, I just haven't gotten used to all the gadgets yet."

"He does appear to be pretty handy. So, now that you're awake, what are your plans?" he asked.

"We've already taken care of the warlock who knocked me out. I have to quickly interrogate one of the prisoners, but after that, I'm heading home. I have a few things I need to take care of there."

My chicken looked like it had already cooked through, so I checked on the biscuits. They needed just a couple more minutes to turn golden brown, so I grabbed a plate and put the chicken on it.

"There was a rumor that you announced you were getting married tomorrow," he stated.

"You know, there's just something about you that I don't like very much," I said.

It wasn't the nicest thing to say, but the guy was really giving me the willies, and I didn't know why. Even though I hated to dig in other people's minds, I was about a second away from doing it, just so I could figure out what was up with him.

"It's always been that way. You explained to me before that it's because of my womanizing ways. I promise it isn't something I can help. The whole being a selkie generally makes women really interested in me and I promise I don't pursue anything that doesn't come after me first."

I worked to digest his explanation while I got my biscuits out of the oven. "How long have you been here in the house?" I asked, setting the cookie sheet on the counter.

"About three weeks now. There was a general call put out around that time, stating you needed some strong fighters to convene in this area. I figured Nate and I go way back, and I always like to help friends in need. I learned quickly though that I wasn't as strong a fighter as I thought. That program you put together is killer."

"You should try to go through my latest regimen. Unless of course they've already released it to the trainees. I like to practice fighting Liam or Kyle while they're in full berserker mode. The goal is to make them hit you as little as possible. I think the last time I tried it I only got hit three times."

I grabbed a fork and dove into my chicken. Solid food never tasted so good.

"Are you nuts? No one in their right mind would go one-on-one with a berserker. Those guys are crazy fast and have a wicked follow through."

"I'm pretty sure if you ask anyone around here, they'll agree that I'm not all there in my head," I told him.

"I don't know about that, sweetie," Nate said, entering the room. "I mean, you have a great guy like me to spend all your time with, so you have to be mostly sane."

He snatched one of my biscuits and took a big bite. He was lucky there was more where that came from. If there hadn't been, he would've been missing a few fingers.

"I think that might be the big indicator for how poor my mental state is," I replied, sticking out my tongue at him.

"Have you guys been having fun catching up?" he asked.

"About as much fun as two people can when one of them has no clue who the other person is," Rian replied.

"These days most of Avery's relationships start out that way, so I wouldn't worry too much over it," Nate said. "You about ready, my little butterfly? If you want to get back to New York so you can get ready for the wedding tomorrow, we really do need to get this interrogation over."

I took the last bite of my chicken and grabbed another biscuit, devouring it almost instantly. After I put my plate in the sink, I said, "Let's go and see if Miss Thing has anything to say for herself."

"Mind if I come along? I've always wanted to watch an interrogation. Who plays the good cop and bad cop in your duo?" Rian asked.

"I'm always the bad cop," I said, leaving the room. If he wanted to watch the masters at work, he was more than welcome.

CHAPTER 23

I wish we could get a model prisoner

Our property in Chicago wasn't that big, so we had the holding facility down a few blocks. We converted an unused storefront to meet our needs, because keeping warlocks in a place we could call home was a rather stupid idea. Malphas was sure to know where we were, but keeping his minions that close was a recipe for disaster.

"You guys up for hoofing it?" I asked, facing my growing entourage. Nate and Rian had been joined by Rick, Elan, Kyle, Liam and Joseph. "Do we really need this many people for a trip down the street?"

"Yes!" everyone answered except Rian. He was smiling, trying not to laugh.

"Fine, but I'm walking, so you either follow or find alternate transportation," I turned around and started heading down the street.

Before too long, mere seconds, I was surrounded on all sides by guys. The berserkers took the lead, while Nate and Rian stayed at my sides. I glanced over my shoulder, and sure enough Rick, Elan and Joseph were behind me, scanning the area.

"If Vinnie puts his final touches on his new magic detecting device, will I be able to travel with less fanfare in the future?" I understood their reasoning, but I didn't agree it was necessary.

"Judging by what I've seen recently, even though I'm not a main part of your posse, I believe the answer is no. I don't think any president or other royalty gets as much protection as you do. I mean, you have three kings walking around with you trying to protect you, when in reality you could probably beat the crap out of all of us," Rian said.

Admitting that made me like him just a little bit. It usually took guys weeks to figure out that fact. Rian hadn't even seen me in training.

"That ain't no joke," Rick said. "We used to kid about me letting her win, but these days, well at least up until two months ago, she trained like nobody's business and now it's rare that she lets me win. I'm supposed to be her dang protector and she doesn't let me do any protecting."

"If you want to be a bodyguard, you could always carry my purse around." I suggested. "Frannie liked to make hers do that the few times they showed up to escort her around. I could pretend to like shopping for a day and we can hit Fifth Avenue."

"You are a very cruel woman, Avery Clavens," he replied. I could tell he was pouting just a little, but he knew the possibilities of me going shopping were below zero.

"Hey, Liam, how and where has your girlfriend been?" I asked. "I expected her to be around since hers was the last voice I heard before blacking out. Is she waiting to make a grand entrance at some point?"

"My fiancé, has been fine. Her sisters called her away last week and she hasn't been on a plane where we can communicate, but you know how she is," he answered.

My jaw slacked a little, but after seeing Eva pregnant with their second child in my dream, I didn't doubt the two of them would move quickly. It was a testament to how much could happen in two months.

"It seems once the marriage bug hits, it bites hard. Congratulations. What about you, Kyle, you find a lucky lady yet?" I inquired. If one brother was moving forward in married life, I expected the second to follow.

"Not really. I mean there's this girl I've been hanging out with a lot while I waited for you to wake up, but we don't have any labels on the relationship," he replied.

"Her name doesn't happen to be Rachel, does it?" It was time to put the future to the test.

He glanced back at me. "Why would you ask that? She wasn't even on our radar until after you went into sleepy land."

"Just curious. For some reason Kyle and Rachel sounds really good together. I bet she's shy and that's why you haven't been able to tie her down yet. Give it a little time and I'm sure you'll be walking down the aisle too."

He stopped in his step and turned. "Explain."

"I'm just messing around. I guess only Nate heard this story. That will teach you guys to take too long getting ready before battle. My coma was a daytrip to a future. No word yet on if it was a real one or just some place for me to hang out, but in it you were with a shy girl named Rachel. Gorgeous, blonde and leggy would be my descriptive words for her."

"Wow, you just described her to a T," Liam said. "What else can you tell us about this other world?"

"Not much, and we're on a deadline, so let's walk and talk," I said, starting us moving again. "Most of my time was spent hanging out with my three unborn kids. I don't want to say much more than that, in case it ruins something for you guys. There was a party going on that day and all you guys were there. It was pretty cool. For some reason though, none of you got any better looking."

"Of course not. You can't mess with perfection," Rick said.

We arrived at the store and everyone quieted down. I knew there were at least five powerless warlocks inside, but I wasn't sure if they'd managed to catch more while I was away, and whether they were able to get Mak or someone to strip their powers.

"So, I know Nate and Avery are taking the girl. Anyone want dibs on the others?" Joseph asked.

"I'm good with taking any of them," Kyle said, and the rest of the guys agreed.

"Good, I got the leader then," Joseph said and took off.

"The rest of us can play rock, paper, scissors for the remainder," Rick stated.

"Someone lead me where I need to go, so we can get this over with," I said, starting to walk towards the cells.

"Right this way." Nate grabbed my hand and took me to the back of the holding area.

It was nice and private back there, which I considered a good thing. Hopefully no one would hear Ettie screaming when I started smacking her around.

Nate unlocked the door and held it open for me. I entered the room and saw Ettie lounging on the provided cot. It wasn't made for comfort, and I couldn't remember seeing one of the warlocks I'd interrogated actually using theirs.

"It took you guys long enough. I expected the torture crew ages ago," she snarled.

"Nice to see you too, Ettie. I think you have some explaining to do," I told her, taking a position leaning against the wall across from the bed. Nate joined me and Rian hung out by the door.

Ettie's eyes flicked over to Rian. "He's new. You tiring of all your other boy toys?"

"Sorry, but I only have one boy that could be considered a toy, and since we've been together for eons, I doubt I'll tire anytime soon. So, how about we get this interview over with. Was your ex-boyfriend right about you having a cauldron in the basement back in Montana or is this soulless you a newer addition?"

"I've been this way for a few decades now, so I wouldn't call it new," she replied, oddly agreeing to answer the question.

I looked at Nate and I shrugged. "We didn't have Liam back then and Vinnie inventing a device to help us was a pipe dream. It teaches me not to make friends, though. Back to you, Ettie, tell me everything you know." She was nice enough to answer the first question; I saw no harm in asking something more complex.

"When I found out it was you at the think tank, I couldn't believe my luck. I called it in and my orders were to befriend you. That was easy enough with your gullibility. When you left, I was supposed to follow and I did watch you from afar in New York for a while, but I was afraid you'd get suspicious, so I decided to take you up on that job offer in Chicago.

"I figured getting in close with your friend Jimmy, might be a good way to get in your inner circle. You only thought I was human, so that made that a little difficult. Plus, it didn't take long for you to turn on your magnetic pulse and start collecting uniques. I could never be sure what each of their abilities was, so just showing up out of the blue would be a bad thing.

"When I found out you were coming here, I immediately called in reinforcements, so we could try to take you. I didn't really expect you to bring a full military army with you, though. Not only that, but you're even stronger than you were back in Montana. Don't worry, there are still surprises in store for you."

"And those surprises are?" I asked. I didn't think she had quite followed my directive to tell me everything she knew, and most of what she'd said I could've figured out on my own.

"Make him leave," she said, nodding her head towards Rian.

"Why? He's just observing. He hasn't even spoken," I replied.

"What is he, some kind of incubus or something? I really don't want to answer your questions, but something about him is making it hard for me not to comply," she answered.

I looked over at Rian and his face was glowing with the brightest smile in the world. "One of your womanizer skills?" I asked.

He shrugged. "I did mention it wasn't my fault, right? So far you're the only woman I've ever met who is totally immune from that part of my abilities. It's why I like hanging around with you so much. Having women throw themselves at you does eventually get boring."

I laughed. "Maybe it won't be so bad having you around. Would you like to ask her the question?"

"Ettie, dear, could you be a doll and tell us what surprises are in store for our queen?" he said in a saccharine sweet voice. Seriously, girls swooned for that? It made me feel a little nauseous.

I focused on Ettie and saw her start to turn red as she held her breathe. "We don't have all day, Ettie. I have plans that I need to see to."

She continued to fight talking by holding her breath. Rian moved closer to the cot. "Darling girl, you know you'd feel better if you told Rian exactly what was being planned. Holding your breath can't be that much fun."

"Wedding," she hissed slash wheezed, and then passed out. Rian reached up to check her pulse and shook his head.

"I don't know if she had some kind of self-destruct thing going on or if someone pulled the plug on her, but I don't think you're going to get anymore answers." He stood up and returned to his place by the door.

"So what, they're planning an attack during the wedding?" I asked. "How would they even know when it was rescheduled to? I just announced that today."

"I can't answer that, but they would be really dumb to try to interrupt a wedding that's being guarded by at least one hundred soldiers," Nate said.

"Again, need I point out, they aren't rocket scientists." I looked down at Ettie's body and added, "Even if they may play one on TV."

"You ready to get out of here?" Rian asked.

"Were we able to get the press conference I wanted?" I inquired.

"Yup, Charlie is going to meet us there. It's in thirty minutes at the house, like you wanted," Nate informed me.

"I better go get ready then. I want to change and put on my people-friendly face," I said, heading towards the door.

"Is that face really different than your current one?" Rian wondered out loud.

"Surprisingly it is," Nate answered for me. "The current one is her 'watch out I'm on a rampage looking for small children to eat' face. The other one is so much nicer."

I just groaned. Evidently, I was fixing to marrying a comedian. I'd have to nicely remind him not to quit his day job.
CHAPTER 24

Hey, he might actually be good for something

The other interrogations seemed to be lasting longer than our quick, five seconds and we were done, interview. I didn't want to have to wait around, but I doubted I was going to be allowed to leave with only two bodyguards. I had a better chance of stabbing myself and actually bleeding to death. Since neither of those things would happen, I decided to interrogate my new bodyguard.

"What other tricks do you have up your sleeve?" I asked.

"Do you keep a dossier on all your worker bees?" he asked in return.

"Sure. It comes in handy when I'm making battle plans. What kind of leader would I be if I didn't know what I had in my arsenal?"

"That's true, you should always know what you're working with. Aside from my amazing ability to change into a seal, that comes in so handy in combat situations, I might add," he said with a smile, because we both knew that seals weren't exactly known for their fighting skills. "As you saw, women find it hard to lie to me and not give me information, so that's actually useful. The other thing I can do is control water. That may not seem all that cool on the surface, but just imagine what I can do with a person who's made mostly of water."

"That may be why I don't like you much, the whole water being able to douse fire issue. The ability sounds awesome, just don't go trying to drench me, or you'll have a fight on your hands." I eyed Rian carefully, deciding whether I could trust him.

"No worries, boss, even I can't put out your fire. You're wicked strong and I bet your flame would still ignite even in a monsoon," he replied.

"Maybe that will be my newest training exercise, trying to keep my fireballs flying in a rain storm. How much longer do you think the guys will be?" I asked.

I really didn't want to be here. There was a sense of death in the air, and I didn't think it was just because of Ettie. We hadn't officially killed her by cutting off her head and burning her, so as far as I knew, she wasn't even dead.

"They know you want to speak to your adoring public, so they shouldn't be much longer," Nate said.

He was hovering about me, probably afraid I was going to freak out about coming out of a coma, which turned out could've been caused by someone I considered a friend. He forgot I was "friends" with Eva, so the unexpected was always expected.

After three more agonizingly slow minutes, the rest of the guys emerged. No one looked too happy. Not that I was really expecting them to. I knew they could be really convincing, but our usual tactics didn't tend to work too well on the warlocks.

"My guy terminated just as he started talking about some plan for your wedding," Joseph said.

"Same here," Liam concurred. "It's like they had certain words that when they said them, they went nighty-night. You sure you still want to go forward with a wedding tomorrow?"

"Please," I said in a sassy voice. "They aren't stopping my already two-month late wedding. May second is going to be my wedding day, even if it means Rick gets a minister certificate online and performs the ceremony for us."

"How cool would that be?" Rick asked, grinning widely.

I could only imagine how a ceremony officiated by my brother would go. Horrific is the first word that came to my mind.

"Let's go get the interview over with, and then we can head home and decide who's going to do the officiating," Nate announced. "It's late notice, but I'm sure we can find someone to make us legal."

"Great," I said, heading towards the door. "Will everyone who needs to be there tomorrow be able to fly out tonight?" There were a lot of details I hadn't given much thought to, but I wasn't going to let anything delay the day from happening.

"We have a jet standing by, so yes. When you can pop anywhere at any time we have to be prepared," Nate said, grabbing my hand.

We made our way back to the house, and I jogged upstairs to get cleaned up. In my bathroom, I ran some warm water and washed my face and hands. It felt good to be back in my own time, even if I missed my future children. After brushing out my hair, I pulled it back into a ponytail.

I changed into a lavender top and called it good. A shower would've been great, but I didn't have the time. People were used to seeing me in my present state, so I didn't want to scare them by dressing up. They would've thought I'd woken up a totally different person.

Back downstairs, I crashed into Nate waiting for me. He smiled at me and looked to be trying not to laugh. There were still times I wanted to kick him when I saw that look on his face.

"Something amusing you?" I asked.

"I'm just thinking about how much you used to hate doing stuff like this. This time it was your idea to do it. Are you sure you're ready? I don't want you doing anything too soon after waking up," Nate said.

His words were pretty funny after I'd already attempted a rescue mission and finished a partial interrogation. For me, meeting with the media was scarier than both of those things, but it was less hazardous to my health.

"I'll be fine. I've been on national television before. Giving the few reporters who could make it on short notice a few sound bites will be nothing," I replied, brushing his worry aside.

I made my way to the front door and opened it to step outside. I was immediately bombarded with flashbulbs. As soon as I could see again, I looked out into a sea of reporters. Evidently Charlie was really good at public relations.

I saw a lot of big name reporters in the crowd. Still, I'd been in front of crowds with thousands of people and I didn't think there were that many people there. It looked like a few hundred, max.

I walked to the podium, with Nate at my side, and tapped on the microphone. "Hi everyone, is this thing on?" I asked into the mic. "I don't know exactly what you've been told for the last couple months, but I woke up today and wanted to let everyone know I was back, so you'll start seeing my face again. If anyone has any questions, I'd be happy to answer a few of them."

The hands shot up and Nate started pointing out people to ask their question. The glare of the flashbulbs continuing to go off made it hard for me to pick out individual people.

"Welcome back, Avery," the reporter Nate selected said. "Could you tell us what exactly happened?"

"I figured that would be one of the first questions. I'm sure in my absence my family has mentioned what happened, but I can describe it in my own words. Simply put, the warlock who tried to blow us up set a booby trap that caused me to go into a coma. Thankfully, I have some very nice friends who were finally able to bring me out of it," I explained. I was sure following questions would ask for more details, but I didn't want to give away too much information.

Nate pointed to the next person. "Do you have plans to take care of this warlock? If he can do that to you, I'm sure the public is worried about what can happen to them."

"That was my first thought after waking up. Sadly, the warlock used a ploy of having a human friend of mine who they wanted to exchange for me. The deadline was today to make the exchange, so we did meet with them already.

"I found out that my friend wasn't actually human, so there was never a threat to humans. I want everyone to be assured that this group of warlocks has been taken care of. I immediately removed their magic and they've been detained."

Details about what happened during interrogations weren't going to make it out to the public. All they needed to know was that the problem had been taken care of.

"Are you still in danger?" someone asked.

"Sadly, it would seem so, but don't worry. I have a feeling that no matter what, things are going to be okay. We're doing everything we can to keep this just between the uniques and the warlocks. I don't want anyone getting injured and we tend to be a little bit more durable, so it's okay for us to go up against them."

"What do you think about the tanker explosion? There are rumors circulating that it was targeting uniques and humans were in the crossfire."

Nate moved to try to respond, but I stopped him. He gave me a questionable look, but I shook my head to let him know I had it covered.

"I want to say how sorry I am to hear about the deaths and injuries that happened on that tanker. My sympathy goes out to all of the families who have been affected by the tragedy. I still don't know exactly what happened or the cause, but I will get to the bottom of it.

"I was told there weren't that many uniques on board, so I'm hoping this was just an accident. If they were targeted for some reason, and this wasn't just an accident, I want to know, because the culprit used a method that isn't going to be tolerated. We will not stand by and let humans be injured or killed. That is not the way we operate.

"Whether the people who oppose us believe me or not, we are peaceful and believe any life is precious. I may not have come right out and said it before, but I would give up my own life to protect every single human out there. I have loved ones who hate that fact, but it remains true."

Those loved ones groaned at my words. They couldn't contradict them, though, so they remained quiet.

"Did you learn any useful information from the warlocks you captured?" another reporter queried, moving on, probably afraid if there was a lull, I'd call an end to things.

"Not anything that would help us find the person behind all this. I do have a feeling that it won't be long before we can put all of this behind us and get back to our normal lives."

"Sorry to say, but we only have time for one more question," Nate instructed, before picking out a person to ask the question.

I was fine standing around for a little longer as long as the questions remained topical, but time was against me.

"I have a lot of questions still, but I'll ask the one that I imagine most of the viewers are wondering. Were you at all conscious during your coma?"

"I didn't know what was going on around me. I was in a kind of dream state where I was living out an alternative reality. I'm happy to report that during that unconsciousness I did remember my son Scott. That was a pleasant surprise for me. Now, I have to say thank you all for coming today, as Nate said we have to get going. I'm getting married tomorrow and I don't plan on missing this wedding," I said. "People will start thinking I have cold feet if I miss another wedding."

I wanted to make sure the warlocks knew when the wedding was going to be. If they wanted to attack me, then bring it on. It could be the head honcho coming, and I'd be ready for him. I'd made sure my wedding dress was probably altered to carry a certain knife.

CHAPTER 25

This is what happens when your wedding is taken over by psychos

After the reporters left, we made our way into the house. I was a little sleepy from the busy day I'd had, but I needed to stay awake for a little while to make sure all the plans were in place for the wedding. In the living room, I relaxed with Nate, Rick, the berserkers, Joseph, Elan and Rian.

Everyone else who'd been on guard for the impromptu press conference had gone about their own business. I knew Vinnie was scrambling to get things done before our trip home, so I didn't ponder why I hadn't seen him lurking.

"Do you think broadcasting the wedding would be a good idea?" I asked. "It may be good for human relations, and if a warlock or two show up, we can prove that we aren't just making all of this up. I'm sure there are people out there who still think that. Two months without me around couldn't have changed that much."

"I'm pretty sure no one will believe you're the one who thought of that idea, but we can do anything you want. It's your wedding day after all," Nate replied.

"Or at least one of them," Rick added.

"I think it would be cool," Kyle said. "We don't have as much of a problem with the opposition as we did before, but it doesn't hurt to make the royal couple seem more accessible to the public. I'm sure the uniques who can't be there for the big day would appreciate it."

"Good, that's decided. Can someone make some calls to see what we can have happen on such short notice? Did anyone get in touch with Frannie and Mom? I want to make sure they've had a chance to throw something together. I'm pretty sure Frannie is going to kill me, but she was warned from the beginning she'd get short notice," I said.

"Oh yeah, about that," Rick said, taking out a phone. "You may want to call Frannie back. She's called about twenty times since we called and told her the news."

"Is that all," I said, grabbing the phone. Mine was probably around somewhere, but calling from someone else's was a good plan. "That seems low for her in a situation like this."

I hit the speed dial number for her, prepared for her wrath. I almost requested some cotton balls for my ears, but didn't think I had time.

"Avery Belle Clavens, this better be you returning my calls," Frannie answered the phone, verifying she wasn't in a good mood.

"No I'm happy to hear you're finally awake?" I asked. "Don't you want to hear all about what happened while I was asleep?"

"You listen here, little missy, you're lucky I can't teleport like you, because I would totally be there smacking you. What's the meaning of the phone call I received this afternoon telling me to prepare for a wedding tomorrow?" she asked.

"It means Nate and I are getting married tomorrow. I'm not waiting another day to get it done. If I thought I could have gotten away with doing it today, I would have," I replied.

"You know you're extremely lucky that I love you. Your mom already has your cake baked and is working on the reception food. She and Miranda have been crazy in the kitchen for hours now. Luckily all the guys who'd normally be in their way are with you. You really should give those guys raises. I don't think they've left that house in the last two months."

"I'll talk that over with Nate. So, do you think you can have everything together by tomorrow?"

"The jets are working overtime to make sure everyone is brought in. This is going to be an amazing event, even with the short notice. I have everyone working and brought in some Faie who are amazing with their magical decorating skills. By the time we're all done, the backyard will look like an oasis good enough for a princess wedding. Your dress is airing out and will be ready for you the second you arrive. When will that be, exactly?" she asked, taking a breath.

I was kind of hoping with the short notice that she wouldn't have an opportunity to go all crazy. I should've known she'd call in magical assistance. A normal mortal would've picked up a cake and a few bouquets of flowers and called it good.

"I'll be there tonight, just as soon as I know everything is wrapped up here. What's all this about flying people in? I thought it was going to be a relatively small event, and I can only think of a few people who wouldn't already be there. I just decided we were going to see if we can find a network that would like to broadcast it, so people who aren't there can watch it too."

"Well, while you've been out, there's been a ton of support coming in from the unique community and I think some would be upset if they weren't allowed to be here in person. Granted we can only really bring in people already here in the U.S., but there are a couple foreign leaders who should arrive just in time, if you have the wedding late afternoon to early evening," she said.

"Just how many people are we talking?" I asked.

"Less than a thousand," she replied innocently, like using the word less made the thousand part sound better.

"Are we talking nine hundred ninety-nine or fifty? Because both of those are less than a thousand."

I could hear Rick start laughing, and I turned my death glare to him. As usual, that didn't help matters.

"Total confirmed so far is eight hundred thirty-seven, but don't worry. I've worked miracles and made sure there was seating for everyone. That number doesn't only include uniques. Steve of course will be there and so will the President and his family. We invited a few other key members of Congress who have stuck by our side, too." she answered.

I started taking deep breaths and tried to cleanse my mind. It wasn't working very well, though. I should've just shown up the next day and said let's have a wedding right this second. It was turning into a madhouse, and I wasn't even there to witness it.

"How in the world is this even possible, Frannie?" I asked. "You've only had a few hours to put this together. That's nowhere near long enough to contact over eight hundred people."

"Most of them have been on standby since your last planned wedding date. I announced on Facebook the wedding was on for tomorrow and calls have been pouring in," she replied.

"How do you know the people RSVPing are people we actually want at the event? You're not allowing just anyone to show up, are you?"

"They're the ones on the list from before, so of course they're the ones we want."

"What list are you talking about? The original wedding was planned as a small intimate gathering," I said, wondering if Frannie had been painting or something that caused fumes to addle her brain, because she was making no sense at all.

"That's what you thought, but we actually were going to surprise you with all the support from your followers. This time it isn't as big of a secret, but you'll still need to act amazed as you walk down the aisle," she said.

My mind was having problems following all her logic. I supposed I should've expected something over the top when I put Frannie in charge of things. I just thought she might abide by my wishes for once, since it was supposed to be my special day.

"Well, it sounds like you have everything under control. I should be there in a couple of hours to help supervise," I said, knowing there was no hope for me to actually get any supervising done with her. "Try not to overwork yourself. Last time we saw each other, you were still pretty early on in your pregnancy."

She laughed. "Cats are only pregnant a couple months, Peaches. Adina graced us with her presence a couple weeks ago. She can't wait to meet her Auntie Avery."

"You're joking, right? I missed her birth? I'm so sorry. I can't believe that isn't one of the first things I was informed of when I woke up."

I scowled at every man in the room with me. I seriously couldn't believe no one told me I was an aunt.

"Don't worry. Things went smoothly and you had a lot more to worry about than us. You were gone for quite a while, and we all missed you horribly. You hurry up and wrap things up there and get home, so I can give you a big hug," she said, and then hung up before I could say anything else.

I ended the call from my end and handed the phone back to Rick. "So, Frannie has already had her baby. Was anyone going to mention that tidbit of information to me? That could've softened the news about the warlocks having Ettie, when that made a difference to me."

"In the scheme of things, it didn't seem as important as taking care of the other stuff you've done today. She hasn't been here since she had the baby, so none of us have actually been introduced to the little one," Nate told me. He tried to pet my hair a little to get me to calm down, but I had more to be upset about.

"And did anyone know about this surprise guest list for the wedding?" I asked.

"This is the first I'm hearing about it. I know you have a lot of fans on Facebook, but I didn't think she was announcing it to the world and inviting everyone. Sorry, my little butterfly, I know you wanted this to be a small affair. If you want, we can still run away to Vegas and elope," he said.

"You know we'd be shot, repeatedly, for even thinking about that. It'll be fine. The day is about you and me. I'll do my best to ignore everyone else," I stated. "Now, does anyone have a chatterbox? I need you to get Vinnie and the jinn ready to go. Is there anyone other than them and our group here who is going to be zapped back with us?"

"I think everyone else can take the jet back. I know Jimmy was planning to attend along with a lot of the other leaders. Rick, why don't you give them a call and let them know we're leaving," Nate instructed as he took out his chatterbox and told Vinnie to grab the jinn and any projects he wanted to take back to New York and get a move on it.

In five minutes, he appeared with a big plastic container of what I was guessing was his latest experiment. I was glad he maintained a portable lab.

"I'm really close. I may be able to finish it tonight, so we can install it around the house for the wedding tomorrow," he said, putting the container down on the ground.

"Great. I'm not exactly sure what 'it' is, but I know you wouldn't be wasting your time on anything that wasn't important," I told him. "Is everyone ready to go then?"

We didn't really need to pack anything. I had my shoebox that I took with me everywhere, but other than that, we had clothes in all of our houses. I'd managed to tie the shoebox to my movements, so it didn't even need to be in the same room when I teleported.

A round of readies commenced and it was time to get down to business. Since I'd had to travel with the bodyguards, I was used to moving that many people, and it didn't cause me any more strain than just moving myself.

I took out a knife and sliced one of my fingers. "Home is where the heart is and where we want to be; with this blood I offer, take us there for all to see." The second the blood from my wound hit the ground, we were swept away.

CHAPTER 26

Babies are falling from the skies

We arrived in the kitchen. It was the area of the house I was focusing on because I wanted to check on the food. If I was going to have hundreds of people eating there soon, I wanted to make sure the food was great.

The second we popped in, Joseph ran over to Miranda and swept her off her feet into a big kiss. He put her down, and then walked over to the corner of the kitchen where there was a little bassinet and picked something up.

"He's perfect," he said, bringing the baby over to us. "I'd like to introduce you guys to my little boy Adam. I'm sorry that I won't immediately be handing him over to anyone, since this is the first time I've seen him myself. I have to memorize every inch."

He continued to stare at the little bundle and Miranda walked over to join us. I tried to get a look at the baby, but I was mostly stuck viewing a blue blanket.

"He looks just like his daddy," Miranda explained as she rearranged the blanket, so the rest of us could get a better look. Sure enough, baby Adam, who couldn't be more than a week or so old, had dark hair and brown eyes just like his daddy. For the most part, his face was cute and round, but I could see his cheekbones were going to look like his father's as well.

"He's adorable. I guess I knew you were pregnant along with everyone else I know, but I wasn't expecting all these babies so soon." I said.

"Yeah, well sleeping for two months made you miss all the fun parts. Just last week I was as big as a house and cursing Joseph for being born," Miranda said. "Adam was born just two days ago. With everything going on in Chicago, Joseph didn't want to leave you, which is why he hasn't seen his baby and is currently hogging him."

"Joseph, if you weren't holding that baby right now I'd smack you silly. There's nothing in the world that should've kept you away from your mate and child," I told him, and seriously thought about smacking him even with a baby in his arms.

"I love Miranda and Adam with all my heart, but keeping you safe keeps them safe. If Malphas has his way and kills you, the rest of us will be in danger as well. So, as much as I want to spend every second with my family, I will continue to protect you," he said, giving Adam a little kiss.

"We may have to discuss this later. Getting back to babies, there are a lot of babies around here with A names it seems. Maybe it's because this is the start of the next generation. Anyway, he's adorable. Congratulations you two," I said, rambling on as I counted the names in my head.

Miranda finally wrestled Adam away from his daddy and handed him to me. It had been a long while since I'd held a baby, and it took me a second to get my hands in the proper places.

"Hmm. I only know of Frannie's little girl and Adam. Out of the other early bird babies, I haven't heard of any that start with A," Miranda said.

Holding little Adam made me hope I got a chance to hold my own little ones. His big brown eyes stare up at me without blinking as if he was studying me.

"I know in our inner circle there will be at least four more children. Well, I guess I'm for sure of my three, but I'm pretty sure my sister will also add to that number," I said. "Mom is still pregnant, right? I think it takes phoenixes a little bit longer to pop out our young."

"Of course, I'm still pregnant," my very round mother said as she entered the kitchen. "What do you think you're doing in my kitchen? You better not have seen your cake yet."

"What are you talking about? I'm pretty sure even though I've been away for a little while, this is still my kitchen. I don't care if you're pregnant, Mom, you don't mess with a girl's kitchen." I handed Adam back to his mother and turned to greet my own mother.

"It's good to see you honey," she said, coming over to give me a hug. "Your father is out training the newest group to call this home."

"It's nice to see you too, Mom. Is everything in order for tomorrow? I know it was short notice, but I'm being stubborn for once and putting my foot down."

"Ha, you're hilarious, sis," Rick said. "You've always been a little stubborn thing."

"Have not," I said, not really sure why I appeased him by having a reaction. "So, is there anything I can help with in here?"

"No, now you should go bug Frannie for a while. We'll finish things up and I don't want to find you back in here until well after your wedding. Do you know when the wedding will be tomorrow?" she asked. "Frannie says it will be towards evening, but I know she sometimes makes her own plans."

"Tomorrow evening will be fine. I don't really have a preference, I just want it to be done."

"Just think, guys, tomorrow this romantic woman is going to be my wife. I have to be the luckiest man alive," Nate said, wrapping his arms around me. "I've already congratulated Joseph, but Adam wouldn't be here without you, Miranda. You did great job."

"Thanks, Nate. Your queen had a little hand in bringing us together and saving my life. For that I'll always be thankful. In fact, Adam's middle name is Avery after her," Miranda said.

"You're joking. That isn't necessary. I'm sure you have plenty of family members who you should be naming that baby after," I replied. "I've even met some of the men from your extended families, so you can't say there weren't other options."

"But no one has done as much for us as his Aunt Avery. You're the proper choice and we aren't the first to name their baby in part after you. What do you think Adina's middle name is?" Miranda asked.

"Please tell me this isn't something that's becoming a trend. I'm just a person. I don't need to have people naming their kids after me. That's just silly," I said.

"Come on, it isn't that bad. Plus, we know it'd be weird if all the babies have your name, so a couple have been named after Nate and some have been named after your past reincarnations," she explained.

"You guys are all crazy," I said, turning to my guards. "We're home, guys, so go do whatever it is you like to do. I'm going to go find my crazy best friend and see what she's done to my home."

Vinnie ran off, probably to his lab with the female jinn, Sammy. The rest of the guys stayed put. Maybe they wanted to help in the kitchen, it didn't really matter to me. I took off towards the backyard.

After only going about five steps, I heard Frannie's voice bossing people around as she walked in the door. It was nice to see some things didn't change.

"How's everything going, Jelly Bean?" I said, talking over her.

"Everything is right on schedule. No need to worry," she replied. She walked over and intercepted me, leading me away from the outside and towards the living room. She pushed me down on the couch and joined me. "So tell me about your time away."

Nate and the guys, except Joseph, followed me along and found seats. I wasn't sure if they thought it was going to be amusing, or if they needed to clean out their ears. I was pretty sure I'd just told them to scamper off and do their own thing.

"I spent a lot of time sleeping. There isn't really anything to say. Why are you not letting me go outside?"

"Wouldn't you much rather see your little niece? She's the cutest little thing you'll ever see," she said, taking out a phone and speaking into it. "Her babysitter is going to bring her right down."

"What have you done to my backyard, Frannie? I know it's something you're trying to hide from me, so how much am I going to hate it?"

"You'll love it, I just want you to be surprised when you walk down the aisle tomorrow," she said. "Oh look, here's little Adina Belle now."

A woman brought in a little pink bundle and handed her to Frannie. Adina was propped up in Frannie's lap for everyone to see. She had bright blue eyes and a dusting of light blonde hair.

"She's precious, Frannie," I told her, looking down at the little one. "I can already tell you're going to have to fight off the boys when she gets older." Adina was a cute little thing, but I'd always be partial to my own children.

"Gary gets to worry about that. Mommy will just teach her how to flirt and go shopping," Frannie said.

It sounded like it'd be up to Aunt Avery to teach the girl to read and write. It was a good thing I was more than capable of doing both of those things.

"Is she too little to do tricks?" Kyle asked.

"That would be cool," Rian agreed. "With all the babies being born, we could have a little baby circus."

"They're babies, not puppies. If you want something to perform tricks for you, go find Romeo and Juliet. These little guys can barely keep their heads up. What do you think they could do to entertain you?" I asked.

"They can't even rollover?" Kyle asked.

"No, they can't rollover. Just wait until you have your own children, and then you'll see what fun they really are," Frannie told him.

I watched both guys shiver at the thought of having children. "Maybe in a couple hundred years," Rian said. "I'm not through with my Casanova ways just yet."

"But the process of making babies can be so much fun," Nate said. With the five children already alive and a few more coming in the near future, I supposed he'd be the expert on the subject.

"Hey, that process can be fun without the children being a byproduct. As long as I don't mate or bond with the girl, I can have all the fun I want," Rian insisted.

I understood his thinking. I wasn't in to the whole fun part of the equation, but before Nate came around, my "human" thinking mind had no intentions of settling down and having children. It made a difference when you found out you already had five of them and had been married more times than you have fingers and probably toes.

"Well, Peaches, it's been fun, but I really need to get back to work. I'm sure Adina is ready for her nap too," Frannie said, handing the baby off to the babysitter. "After the wedding we'll catch up." With that she was gone.

"Do you guys really have nothing better to do than stalk around wherever I go?" I asked. I could understand Nate and Rick to a certain degree, but the rest of the guys were a bit much inside our home.

"You tend to be where the action is," Elan said. "Plus, there's that whole threat of something happening at your wedding. If that threat shows up early, we want to be ready."

"I doubt anyone is going to show up in the living room. Plus, this is our most fortified location. Someone would have to be nuts to try to get me here."

"Now it's our turn to remind you, the people we're up against aren't the brightest bulbs in the pack," Liam said.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mak, you want to help me do some practicing against magic?" I asked. "It seems I'm cut off from wandering around the house, so I want to do something other than sit here and look at babies. My usual options to fight off boredom are either cooking, watching movies or working out. With the kitchen cut off and me not feeling the need to sit through a movie, I'm left with hitting the gym. It'll do me some good to limber up against another magical being." I was tired before we'd arrived, but being home had revived me a little.

Mak looked around uncomfortably, trying to get input from the rest of the guys. They all started out that way, at least until I kicked their butts.

"Believe me, you won't hurt her," Kyle said. "We've all had a shot at her and failed. Maybe with your magic, you'll actually have a chance."

"If that's the case, I'm always up for a good challenge. I just don't want you to do too much on your first day back," Mak replied.

"Don't worry about me, just prepare for the ultimate battle preparation, because what you've experienced with the other guys is nothing compared to the havoc you'll face taking me on," I said, and got up to lead the way to my second, or maybe third favorite room of the house.

Mak didn't need to know I was only fighting defensively. Usually if I told my opponent that I was going to stand around while they threw things at me, they chickened out.

CHAPTER 27

Everybody was Kung Fu fighting

In the gym, I started by doing some stretches. I didn't want to hurt something that could impede me walking down the aisle. It was a little silly since nothing I could do would be permanent, but it was part of my routine. After I got my shoulders loosened up and cracked my neck a few times, I was ready to go.

The rest of the guys took seats in the folding chairs they managed to set up along the walls of the gym. There was also a small group of trainees who'd decided to stick around to watch the fight. Mak and I took our places at opposite sides of the mat.

"How do we do this?" he asked.

I was pretty sure I remembered hearing that he'd been through training, so he should've known how to proceed. I imagined our little matchup was a little different than the battle training he'd gone through, but the general way things worked remained the same.

"You've been practicing with the others right?" I responded.

"Of course, but they're guys, so it's a little bit different. Plus, I didn't use magic against them."

"Really? I didn't know the fact that I have boobs makes it so I can't fight a guy. You do know there isn't a person in this organization who hasn't gone up against me at least once, right? Granted, I've been out of things for a couple months, so there may be a few newbies who still need to go through my special one-on-one training."

"If you say so," he said, and threw a red energy streak at me.

I'd never really figured out the difference between the blue, red and green energy I'd faced, because it all felt about the same when it hit you. I liked to think it had to do with their mood. I hadn't figured out how that really matched with the colors, but I thought there had to be a reason for everything.

I didn't allow it to actually hit me. Instead, I held out my hands and reformed it into a ball between them. It didn't matter who threw it, or what color it was, I could control all forms of energy.

"The red energy is always my favorite," I said, tossing it up like a ball, but not letting it touch my hands.

I didn't think it would hurt me while it was in my control, but it was always smart to be on the safe side. I quickly imagined the ball away and it disappeared. I hadn't technically done that trick before, but it was pretty cool that I could.

Mak started getting into it and throwing practically everything he had at me. He began with a rainbow of different energy balls that I ended up turning into a literal rainbow and sticking in the corner of the room. Then he proceeded to try the elements against me.

He had to be even stronger than I thought, because he seemed to have no problem controlling all of them. He started with fire, which was pretty silly on his part. Those days it wouldn't hurt me, even if I let it hit me. I just called it to my hand and put it out.

Obviously remembering fire didn't work for me, he moved on to water, thinking that would be a better option. He caused water to pour from a bucket that appeared over my head. I redirected the stream to splash the guys standing, or sitting, by. Hopefully Mak was starting to realize that if I could sense it, I could move it.

He tried a sneak attack of wind, that was pretty quiet, but I still felt the pressure change in the room as he wrapped a cyclone around me. Being in a twister was invigorating when you had no worries about it hurting you.

I couldn't actually see the wind around me, because it was clean and clear, but the pressure was nifty. I could feel him speed it up, trying to unnerve me, but I just kept it off me and eventually lifted myself up in the air, so I could pretend it was taking me away.

"That's awesome," I said when he finally toned down the air. Before then, I didn't think anything I'd say would be heard over the noise.

"Let's see how quick you really are," he said, turning himself into his smoke form, then rushing at me.

My berserker training kicked in, and I moved around in super speed as he tried to hit me in his mostly invisible form. He wasn't as see through as the air he'd tried to use against me was. There were little puffs of gray and white smoke, so I could get a sense of where he was.

Somehow my two months off didn't hurt my skills at all. In fact, I seemed to be moving quicker than I had in the past. I wondered if part of it was remembering Scott. Maybe something in that moment triggered some switch. I didn't really know what else could've improved my skills while being comatose.

Whatever it was, I couldn't help but think it was awesome. Mak continued for a couple more minutes, but he never really came close to hitting me, which was a little sad. As fun as batting away all his tries could be, I wanted a challenge.

He reformed back across the mat from me. Neither one of us had broken a sweat. I pondered calling someone else into the fight to make it more interesting.

"Wow, you're even faster than the berserkers in battle. That's amazing. Let's try this," he said, making about thirty knives appear out of nowhere. I'd gone up against ice daggers before, but even I tended to try to stay away from the receiving end of a throwing knife.

"I don't know about this one," Nate said, getting up. He liked to think he had the power to veto things, but I could usually talk him out of it.

"He's right, I'm faster than I used to be. I want to try it and see if I can block them all," I told him, using a voice that let him know there wasn't any room for questions.

"I'm afraid something has scrambled your brain a little, sis," Rick said. "Those look like real knives to me and no sane person would allow them to be thrown at him or her. We should probably call a doctor in to have a look at you if you're seriously thinking about going through with it."

"No one said I was all that bright. Sure, one of us had to be the smart twin, but even this little lapse in judgment still has me on top in that category," I remarked. "Go ahead, Mak. Let's see if you can shish ka-Avery. I think I have a pretty good chance of coming out of this without any extra holes in my body."

On my command, he let them fly, not even bothering to say a word to let me know he was. Having that many knives flying straight at you gets your adrenaline flowing. The distance was only about fifteen feet away, so there wasn't a lot of time for thinking.

I took a deep breath and just before they got to me, I thought of myself standing right behind Mak. I didn't know why that thought came to mind instead of stopping the knives or levitating to the ceiling, but that was what I thought.

Sure enough, when I opened my eyes, I was behind Mak and everyone was staring at the spot I'd vacated. The knives had all continued their paths and clattered to the ground when they didn't find anything to penetrate. Wow, was all I could think.

I'd said spells before to teleport, but I hadn't done it by just thinking about being in a different location. I knew it should theoretically work because of my telekinesis, but I was always surprised when I did something unexpected.

"Where did she go?" Mak asked. Evidently his spidey senses weren't strong enough to pick me up behind him.

The crowd looked at him and saw me standing there. Most of them knew I was there, but their eyes had been too busy watching the knives. I raised my pointer finger to my lips, indicating they should be quiet.

"What do you mean where did I go? I'm right behind you, silly," I shouted, causing Mak to jump off the ground, and then spin around.

"I didn't think you had the ability to move around like that without saying a spell," Mak said.

"I didn't, or maybe I did, but never used it. I also didn't have that sixth gear of speed before today or the ability to make things just disappear. If you hang around me long enough, you'll find I'm always developing. It's one of the benefits of spending time with the super cool crowd."

"You really should start up that circus sideshow act, baby girl," Rick said, knowing I hated even hearing the word circus. "You could make a killing."

"Totally," Kyle agreed. "I was on the edge of my seat for that one. You let the knives get practically right on top of you. How did you know you'd be able to transport yourself?"

"I didn't." I felt like I'd been using those words a lot. "In fact, it was kind of weird. Right after I envisioned myself behind Mak, I wondered why I didn't try options that I knew would work because I'd used them before. Somehow, I just knew that I'd be able to do it. Do you have any more fun experiments we could try? How about if we play Avery versus two jinn? That sounds like fun to me."

We had Manny available and sitting right in the room with us. Glancing over at him, there was a little bit of excitement on his face, but fear was the main emotion I saw. I wasn't sure if he was fearful of hurting me or me hurting him, but I knew I could talk him out of whatever bothered him.

"Not today, sweetie. I think you've done enough and proven what a bad A double S you really are. We need to get to bed, so we can be ready for all of tomorrow's preparations. The wedding will be at four-thirty, so I expect you guys to all be ready," Nate said as he dragged me out of the room, not even allowing me to call an end to the match. I was just taking a little break.

I knew he was right about needing to rest up. Frannie was planning something that I was afraid would surpass even her wedding. I hoped ice sculptures couldn't be built on short notice. If I had to see myself in ice, I was going to melt it on the spot, whether it caused a mild flood or not.

After changing into my pajamas and savoring the feel of my real bed underneath me, I rolled over to face Nate.

"How often did you climb into bed with me at night while I was in my coma?" I already knew the answer, but I wanted to hear him say it.

"Every night. I can't say that I slept very well each of those nights, but I enjoy talking to you when you don't have the ability to talk back and undermine everything I say."

I loved the smile that lit up his face. I couldn't let him get away with saying that, though, so I smacked his cheek gently.

"Any more comments like that from you and you may find yourself a little lonely at the end of an aisle tomorrow."

"We both know that's a lie," he said, kissing the tip of my nose. "I'm the one who's said all along I don't care if we have a traditional wedding. As far as I'm concerned, I can tell you what I was going to say during the ceremony now and we can pretend tomorrow is just another day."

I snorted. "That's a great idea after Frannie invited half the world, and I opened my big mouth about letting the media in."

"So? We'll make sure everyone gets fed some cake and I'm sure things will be fine. Let's get some sleep and see how things go in the morning. You may just come around to my thinking after you see all the cameras."

Nate kissed my lips, but didn't try to take things any further, which was welcome, yet not. The man always conflicted me and I knew I had a big decision to be made about how we were spending the next night. Thankfully, I was sleepier than I thought and drifted off before I had to put a lot of thought into it.

CHAPTER 28

Beauty comes with a price, but today I don't have to pay

The other side of the bed was empty when I finally woke up in the morning. That was probably a good thing, with that whole silly superstition about the groom seeing the bride before her wedding. I didn't believe in it, but I found myself wanting to do everything I could to make the day perfect.

I figured Nate stood all creepy-like over the bed for a while that morning watching me just to prove it wrong. I knew he liked to do that, and the superstition wouldn't keep him from being his creepy self.

"Did not," I heard him say telepathically from somewhere in the house. He didn't like it when I started calling him creepy. He thought the word should be reserved for my brother.

Whatever, I'd still be avoiding him as much as possible before the wedding. I looked at my alarm clock and saw that it was just after nine. I wasn't expecting it to be that late, and I was surprised Frannie hadn't been trying to drag me out of bed. We did have less than eight hours to make me pretty after all, and I imagined we needed every single one of those hours.

If it was left to me, I would've showered and threw on my wedding dress, but since I didn't even know where they'd put the dress, I didn't have a lot of choices other than waiting for assistance. Chances were I'd need some help getting into the blasted dress anyway.

I decided to go ahead and take a shower. I imagined that was somewhere on the day's itinerary. As I was rinsing the conditioner out of my hair, I heard noises coming from the other side of the shower curtain. I couldn't tell exactly what was going on, but it was disturbing hearing someone out there.

"Nate, what have I said about trying to use my bathroom while I'm occupying it?" I said, not bothering to verify that he was the perpetrator. I didn't know anyone else who'd try to sneak a peek of me in the shower.

"Sorry, Peaches, it's just me. I'm setting up my beauty station. How much longer do you think you'll be?" Frannie asked.

"Two more seconds," I said, ringing out the extra water from my hair, and then turning off the water. "Since you're in here now, do you think you can hand me my towel?"

I wasn't comfortable being naked around other people. I knew in my past lives it wasn't usually an issue, but I was in control of my body, and nudity didn't settle well with me.

"Sure, no problem," she said, handing me the towel. "I have a robe you can put on after you dry off, so you won't mess anything up by trying to lift a shirt over your hair."

"You're always thinking ahead, Frannie," I said as I quickly dried my hair and body. "Ready for the robe now."

She handed it to me and I put it on, then moved the shower curtain back, so I could get a glimpse of what she'd planned for me. Looking at the piles of cosmetic products and things I could only assume had to do with hair, I saw the horrific scene I was expecting. I knew I wasn't as gorgeous as she was, but I didn't think pouring vats of product on me would make a lot of difference.

"Is it all really necessary?" I asked, stepping out of the tub.

"Of course, you want to look your best, don't you?" she asked, like that amount of stuff was normal.

"Don't you have some decorating to finish up or supervise? I don't think we have to do this all right now, do we?" Maybe if I put her off for a few hours, she wouldn't be able to use everything on me.

"Nope, that was all taken care of last night into this morning. I put some Brownies on the task and they're great at handling all the last minute details I asked of them," she replied, directing me to sit on a little chair she'd brought in.

"Mom isn't going to be too happy if you're using brownies she planned to serve at the wedding," I said jokingly, knowing the Brownies she was referring to were a race of Faie.

"Good one, you crazy person. Now sit still here, while I start with your mani-pedi," she said as she shook a bottle of dark purple fingernail polish.

"I don't really think my nails are in any kind of shape to be painted," I told her. They'd had a chance to grow while I was asleep and breaking them was impossible, but I wasn't used to having them prettied up.

"Don't worry, just sit back and let Frannie take control," she said as she started torturing my fingers.

It wasn't my idea of fun on any level. I could only hope Nate was being similarly tortured somehow. Feeling him lounging in the living room watching television, made me think he was having way too easy of a day.

An hour went by and Frannie finished the polishing. Thank God I wasn't actually paying money for her services. Even knowing the person torturing me, I hated having someone playing with my hands and feet.

"Next, I was thinking we could give you a few highlights," she suggested. I wasn't sure if she was just testing my limits, but her face looked sincere.

"Absolutely not. I don't want to change my hair color," I screeched. I loved my brown hair and I didn't want to take the chance that whatever she did would change it green or something.

"Fine, how about if we wax your legs. You're just a tad hairy after the two months in a coma," she said.

I figured my dress would cover that and hadn't felt like taking care of the problem with a razor blade. Being a glutton for punishment, I allowed her to do her worst.

"Do you mind warming this jar up just a smidgen?" she asked, handing me a jar of wax. I concentrated on warm thoughts, and then handed it back to her. "Perfect."

She proceeded with the hair removal process. When she was done, my skin was slightly irritated, but she took out a balm or something that immediately took the red away from my skin and soothed away the irritation.

"It's made of a blend of botanicals from Faiery," she explained.

I'd heard stories from her about her home. It was on a different plane than we lived on and most of the Faie stayed there. There were certain things in our plane that somewhat weakened them, and they didn't like the feeling.

I was honored to receive visits from the queens of both the dark and light courts they had there. Of course, they came on different weekends, because they didn't tend to get along very well. Frannie was from the dark court, and was very close friends with the queen. When I asked her why she stayed in the human world, she told me humans were so much more fun to watch than predictable Faie. Not having met many myself, I had to take her word for it.

It was still early and I was starting to get hungry, so I called a halt to the festivities until I could get some food. Frannie took out a chatterbox and asked for a platter of fresh fruit to be brought up. I was hoping for a little something more, but didn't seem to get a choice in the matter.

While I started munching on my berries, melons and grapes, Frannie turned her attention towards my hair. She put a couple of different products in it, and then brushed and blow-dried it out. From there, she pulled and scrunched it up the way she wanted it. I didn't know exactly how long it took her, but I imagined I was stuck there for close to two hours.

"Okay, that looks great, now it's time for the makeup," she said, opening her many items. I did my best to keep still, for fear she'd stab something in my eye.

She finally finished up, and I thought that was the end, but she took out a bottle of lotion and started rubbing it into my hands and arms.

"What are you doing now?" I asked, getting a whiff of the pleasant aroma coming from the lotion. I couldn't quite place the different scents.

"It's just a tradition in my culture to wear this lotion on your wedding day. It's made up of the most beautiful flowers in Faiery. They're known for their ability to protect the wearer from danger. It helps keep women from marrying men they aren't meant to be with. For today's purpose, though, I've heard we may have wedding crashers, and I want to make sure I do my part to keep you safe," she said.

It was probably one of the nicest things she'd ever done for me. I knew she couldn't fight in the battles, because she wasn't made for it, but the fact that she found her own way to try to help made me swell with pride.

I was so happy at that moment, I did the unthinkable and wrapped my arms around her for a hug. "Thank you for being there for me, even before I knew who I really was," I whispered in her ear.

"Avery, it's been my honor and pleasure to be your friend. Now, stop trying to be sentimental, because I spent a good amount of time on that makeup and I don't want to see it ruined," she said, breaking free of our hug.

"We still have a couple more hours before we have to be downstairs, what are we going to do in that time?" I asked, starting to think we began the process way too early.

"I'm going to go get your dress and bring it to you. Then, you're going to put it on and spend a full hour staring in the mirror to see the regal queen I've turned you into," she said, getting up.

While she was away, I avoided the mirrors, preferring to wait until the dress was on for the full effect. I put on my strapless bra and some cute lacy underwear, and then put the robe back on and sat on the edge of the bed, waiting for Frannie to return.

She came back with two garment bags. I guessed the second one was her dress. She laid the bigger of the two down across my bed.

"We aired it out, but I put it back in the bag to carry it around. You can take yours and put it on in either the bathroom or the walk-in closet. I'll take the option you don't choose," she said, heading towards the bathroom.

"I guess I'll take the closet," I said, seeing that was what she wanted and started moving myself in that direction.

"Good choice," she said as she closed the bathroom door.

I quickly took the robe off and stepped into the dress. When I had everything zipped and buttoned, which I miraculously accomplished myself, I headed back out to the bedroom to wait for Frannie. I was too afraid to sit down and cause wrinkles, so I stood in the middle of the room and twirled around a little.

"Look at you," Frannie said, whistling from the bathroom door. She was in a beautiful knee-high purple dress, which matched my fingernail polish. I was starting to get the feeling the color theme of the wedding included purple. Since it happened to be my favorite color, I had no problem with the choice.

"I think I'm finally ready to look in the mirror," I told her.

She led me back into the bathroom, where a full-length mirror hung on the back of the door. The scene that met my eyes was unbelievable. I looked like a Faiery princess myself. She'd styled my hair in loose ringlets with a gorgeous tiara atop my head.

The makeup job wasn't anywhere near as bad as I'd feared. I could still tell it was me, but it was a softer me than anyone was used to seeing. Everything put together with the magnificent dress, had me gawking at the mirror.

"I know, I do work miracles," Frannie said with a little laugh to indicate she was joking. "My royal friend, you're going to knock their socks off."

We stayed upstairs for a little while longer, just catching up a little on things that had transpired in her life since I'd been away. It turned to mostly talk about Adina and how wonderful it was to have children. Even though we couldn't die, having a legacy was still important to us.

After an hour had passed, my dad knocked on the door and entered without waiting for us to say the coast was clear. We were standing in the middle of the room, and he stopped and smiled when he saw me.

"You look as picturesque as ever, princess," he said, taking everything in before walking over to sneak a quick kiss. "Everyone is gathered outside, so we better head down."

"Let's go, Daddy-o," I said, and we journeyed down to make our grand entrance.

CHAPTER 29

I now pronounce you crazy husband and neurotic wife

We got to the doorway to the backyard to find a curtain blocking the view. Rick was waiting for us, so he could escort Frannie down the aisle. He looked dapper in a tuxedo with a bow tie that matched the purple of Frannie's dress and my toes.

"You look great, baby girl," he said with a grin. "The poor boy doesn't know what's in store for him."

"I'm pretty sure he's seen me all dolled up before. Sometime over the thousands of years we've been together, I'm sure I dressed up."

"It's been a little while, though. He's in for a nice surprise. You ready, Frannie girl?" he asked, taking her arm.

"I was born ready," she answered, and they made their way outside, leaving me and Daddy.

"You sure you're ready for this?" my dad asked, taking my arm. "He's been my son-in-law for eons now. You can take some more time to get used to being his soulmate this time around."

"I think it's time, Daddy. I was committed to the wedding before most of my memories of him returned. I think us having this connection, even if it isn't our first time around, will be important going into the fight."

"I know, sweetie, I've just heard human fathers always try to talk their daughters out of walking down the aisle and out of their life. I thought it might be a fun twist. I guess if we don't start moving, they're going to think you ran, and we wouldn't want that."

"No, we wouldn't. Let's get this show on the road."

We walked through the curtains to be greeted by a fairytale. I paused for a second to look around. There were way more guests than I imagined standing by their seats. I was walking down a royal purple runner that spanned probably fifty feet to a stage-like area where Nate, Rick, Frannie, and a minister were waiting.

It wasn't at all how I'd envisioned the day, but somehow it was working for me. Purple and yellow flowers were everywhere and petals were lining my path. I glanced around the crowd a little, but the people were making me nervous, so I focused on Nate and we began marching towards him.

When we made our way to the front, my dad gave me a kiss on the cheek and took a seat next to my mother in the front row. It was obvious she'd already been crying, but she had a bright smile on her face to let me know how happy she was. The music from a live band ended and the crowd took their seats.

"Thank you all for joining us here on this very special day," the minister said. I had no idea who he was, but I figured he checked out as far as making things official. "I have to start by asking, who gives this woman to this man?"

"We do," I heard voices say from behind me.

I turned around to see my five children standing in the front row on the opposite side of my parents. One of my girls I still didn't recognize, but I could see she looked similar to her siblings. I also saw that Sophia had changed her hair back to her normal color and it looked so much better than the blonde. With her being pregnant, I wasn't sure she'd be there because of the fact I decided to broadcast the ceremony and she didn't exactly live close by.

I smiled and waved at them, trying not to tear up seeing them all together. I was so happy they could all be there that the task was hard.

"Did you know?" I asked Nate real quick telepathically. He shook his head and grinned.

The man in charge started going through the usual motions of marrying two people. After a couple minutes he stopped and said, "I understand you two have written your own vows. Nathaniel, why don't you go ahead and read yours."

He was already holding both of my hands, so he gave a little squeeze, and then started.

"My beautiful, little Yara. We've met in this situation many times over the years, but this time I will always remember as my favorite. They say you don't really know what you have until you lose it, and a few decades ago I learned that was true. When I thought you were never coming back, I became a broken shell of the man who stands before you today.

"You are my one true love, now and forever. I'm sorry to say you're stuck with me, but in that same sense, I'm stuck with you. I vow to do everything I can to make our lives something other people can only dream of. I respect you, I cherish you, I worship you and most of all I love you," he said while staring into my eyes for his whole speech.

"Thank you, Nathaniel, and now, Avery, if you'd like to start," the minister said.

"Mali, let me start by saying, you know how difficult it is for me to be romantic, so don't be expecting some huge sentiment here. Speaking strictly about my most recent memories of you, you came into my life like a whirlwind, changing just about every aspect of my way of thinking. I spent a lot of time being mad at you for things that just didn't make sense at the time.

"I now get where you were coming from. I spent about five seconds with my memories of you and felt lost without our bond. I don't know how you did it for as long as you did, but you have my utmost respect for being able to pull it off.

"You are the other half of my soul and I vow that it will never be separated again. From this day forward, we live and die together, for better or worse death will not even part us," I said with enough conviction to make the spell work, no blood sacrifice needed since a death was in the spell.

We weren't exchanging rings, as I already had the one I'd be wearing back on my finger and he had my name tattooed all over his body. It was already apparent we were spoken for. The minister finished up the ceremony and announced that Nate was free to kiss me. Boy did he ever. It was totally one of those lift up one of your legs moments. Too bad I was stuck in my wedding dress, so it was a little bit difficult to try.

When he finally decided my tonsils were good in their present location, he released me and we turned towards the crowd. Everyone stood and cheered for us. My kids were smiling like idiots and my mother was crying like a, well, like an idiot.

We started walking down the aisle and once we got to about the halfway point, I noticed a black mist develop at the curtained entryway in front of us. Not knowing for sure what it was, I reached into the custom pocket I'd had sewn into my wedding dress months ago and grabbed out the demon-killing knife.

"Now, Avery, that won't be necessary. I'm only here to congratulate you on your nuptials," a sinister looking man said as he formed out of the mist. I recognized him immediately from a couple of the visions I'd had.

"Malphas," I hissed. Even though it was supposed to be my special day, just because of the wedding, defeating Malphas would make it super special.

"Oh good, you do know me. I was hoping to not have to do a big introduction. After all, I don't want to keep you too long from your guests," he said with an evil grin.

"I've heard rumors that you may be attacking today. Where's your army hiding?" I asked. My personal guard had all taken position around me, with Rick in front of me. I didn't like the idea very much, so I nudged him out of the way a little.

"No need for the minions today, it's your wedding. I just wanted to come and give you a gift," he replied.

I still had the knife out and ready. I was pretty sure it was a known fact everywhere that things called demons tended to lie, and I didn't trust the guy one bit.

"I think we have enough chafing dishes, so why don't you just give yours to charity," I said.

He started chuckling. "I've heard of your great wit and am really sad that we're on opposite sides of this battle. We could have been best of friends."

"Sorry, but I try not to be friends with soul-stealing psychopaths. I think my neighbor two doors down is into that kind of thing, so why don't you go check there." Two doors down would have him falling off a cliff, so it sounded good to me.

"Nevertheless, here we are. I know it's cliché, but we aren't that different. We just have different leadership styles. I doubt you'll find one of my followers able to say anything against me, just as I'm sure yours adore you. For now, we'll just agree to disagree. Let me give you your gift," he said, waving his hand in the air.

A gust of something knocked me back a little, but I had plenty of people to catch me. Things went a little hazy, just before scenes started flashing before my mind in rapid fire, quicker than any of the other times I'd remembered my past. When they were all done, I opened my eyes and saw a group of soldiers had surrounded Malphas.

"See, I told you she'd be fine," he said, trying to ignore the guns, knives and other weapons pointed at him.

"He's right," I said. "For some odd reason he just gave me all of my memories."

"I already mentioned I wasn't all bad. I decided since my forces weren't doing very well bringing you to me, we might as well meet on an even playing field when the time comes. If we don't, I'd never know which of us is the superior warrior," he said.

"I guess I should thank you for that," I said, happy for the memories, but feeling a little odd that it was him who gave them back to me.

"One thing before I go. I'd be willing to stop all of this, if you'd give me your next born child," he said.

He knew of the prophecy about me having an oracle. He had to have thought it'd be the very next baby that I conceived. I doubted he knew it would actually be triplets.

"Are you sure you didn't escape from the mental institution? There's no planet in the universe where that would be a possibility. I plan to protect all of my children, present and future, from the likes of you," I said, sneering at him.

"I thought that's what you'd say. Too bad," he said, shrugging. "I believe you know the general direction where my troops are meeting up for this battle. Why don't you figure out the exact location, and then meet me there in a month. That should give you plenty of time to put the bun in the oven, so I can remove the egg and keep the child for my own."

"Over my dead body will you ever get my child," I told him, raising the demon knife and throwing it into the circle he was standing in.

He dissipated before the knife reached him. As the black mist left the area, I heard on the wind, "That is my hope, my dear. See you soon."

Well, wasn't that peachy. At least I had all my memories back. I just had to decide what to do about Nate's promised wedding night. Did I go ahead and get pregnant, confident that I'd be victorious, or take the safe route and wait to grow my little triplets? I bet within the next couple hours someone would know the answer.

**THE END**
AFTERWORD

The end is in sight

I feel a little sad that I can see the end of this little adventure. I really wanted to include the triplets in this book, because I know by the end of the next one they won't be born yet and I haven't decided if we'll go past that. I can see more stories in Avery's future, but I'm not sure what kind of villain could take Malphas' place.

I think Aisling is my new favorite character, passing Avery and Eva. That little girl is hilarious with her grown-up talk coming from her little body. The other kids were cute enough, but Aisling stole all of her scenes. If nothing else comes after the next book, I'll make sure there are some novellas detailing what it's like to be in a house with a mouthy little oracle growing up.

I'm a little surprised at how emotionally involved I've really gotten with these books. There are times when my characters do things that practically have me in tears. Of course no tears actually fall, but I feel my heart strings being pulled.

The next book will end up with a resolution to this whole war concept. I've known since the third book what was going to happen and it will be great to finally get it down on paper. Hopefully then, I can clear room in my brain for other important things.

**Amber**
About the Author

Amber has always had a passion for the written word. Along with that, she's always had ideas for stories swimming around in her head. It finally got to the point where she couldn't take it anymore and had to start getting her thoughts down on paper. There are still too many ideas, but she is working to get them out as fast as she can. Her hope is that one day her brain will be hers again.

Other hobbies of Amber's include: drawing, baking, arts and crafts, motorcycles, hockey and archery. She likes to think she has eclectic tastes where her hobbies are concerned. She loves to laugh and tries to make herself smile at least once a day. With the crazy thoughts going on in her head that usually isn't hard.
Other books by Amber Lynn:

Argonauts' Adventures

The Witch's Web

The Dragon's Fire

Daughter of Gaia Series

Daughter of Gaia

Queen of Aquima

Nightwalker Saga

The Nightwalker Knocks

The Nightwalker Teaches

Unlucky in Love series

Calypso in Love

Nani in Love

Rhea in Love

Hermia in Love

Desma in Love

Nyx Slaughter series

Night Calls

Night Marks

Night Bites

Night Howls

Night Lurks

Night Finds

Night Rises

Nyx Slaughter: Books 1-7

More Books

Searching for Home

Between Blood

