Shielded

Jesus, she was beautiful. Ray was slowly swaying to the acoustic music and the firelight flickered on her golden skin. I would do almost anything to have her be the one rubbing up against me while we danced on the beach. But that would never be in the cards for me, and it wasn’t fair to Annabell to be looking at another woman while my hands rested on her hips. I just couldn’t stop thinking about how none of this had gone as I had predicted. Ray wasn’t like any other female Valkyrie I had ever seen before. She didn’t seem to be particularly motivated to leave the life that she had carved out for herself to embrace all of the power and wealth that was her birthright. Instead, she was perfectly happy with a red solo cup filled with cheap beer and poorly played music on the beach.

When Jonas Pope, Kaiden’s right-hand guy, started dancing with Ray and her face lit up with a welcoming smile, a spike of jealousy drove itself through my heart. This could be good, I reminded myself. If they couldn’t link Ray’s birth to a particular royal line then she might be able to choose who she aligned herself with. If she picked the Collins’ Royal Line then at least she would still be in the area. We would be able to remain a part of her life. So Ray starting something with Jonas or Kaiden was a good thing. I just had to keep reminding myself of that.

--Max

After school, we had all gone our separate ways until it was full dark. I had ridden the bus with Jack back to the trailer park and we spent the afternoon with Amy. After dinner, I went to the truck stop to take a shower and changed into light capri pants and a seafoam green cotton long sleeve shirt. I switched my boots out for sandals and ran a brush through my hair in an effort to look a little nice for tonight. Jack and I had walked down to the Walmart parking lot that was several blocks from the beach that we had told the guys we would meet them. I figured they were going to drive their fancy cars and didn’t want them to park them in the neighborhood we were going. They would be stripped and up on blocks before the engines fully cooled.

The guys along with Maddison, Annabell, Jennifer, and Isabell had arrived before us. They had formed a loose circle and were quietly talking when we walked up. I was surprised but not disappointed to see that Jonas had somehow become a part of the group that was coming with us tonight. When I asked, he said that he had also been ditched by the rest of their group so he had decided to hang out at the Oakland Clan house after school.

Jack and I led the way and when we arrived at the rundown house with beach access that most definitely had squatters inside, we talked to Big Jim who was stationed at the door. I handed over twenty dollars and explained that even though they were dressed in designer clothes, that the guys were with us. Big Jim gave the group the side-eye and hesitated to step aside to let them in. However, when I told him that he could charge them double he decided that he would give them a chance.

This house had basically been stripped down to its studs during an attempted renovation, but when the investors ran out of money they ended up abandoning the property. It was now a meeting place for the street kids and the homeless could crash here if they wanted a solid roof over their head for the night. Big Jim and Calypso bunked here full time and kept out the really bad element and lost cause drug users. The cover charge on bonfire nights went towards getting the kegs and firewood. It was a good system that worked for us.

Jack led our group through the house and out the back door to the private beach. We had to walk down a steep incline to reach the sand, but the fire was so big that it provided plenty of light for us to see by. I took a moment to close my eyes and breath in the cool air that was blowing off the ocean before grabbing a red solo and filling it from the keg. I took a sip and walked down closer to the water. I loved being on the beach. The sheer size of the ocean made me feel small in comparison. It helped me put things into perspective.

I felt someone walk up next to me and I looked over to see Jonas standing with his hands deep within his pockets. With his buzz-cut hair and strong jawline, Jonas could be the poster boy for the U.S. Military, but he seemed just as at peace on this beach as I did.

“What’s your story?” I asked. It felt like everyone was demanding to know about my life. I was in the mood to turn the tables a little.

Jonas looked over at me and considered his words before saying anything. “Not much to say really. I was born into the Blade Clan so I have been rubbing elbows with the more powerful element of the supernatural world since I was a kid. Clans like to socialize kids of the same age so I grew up with Kaiden and Regina. I have Weapons, Shield, and Empathy. Blade Clan already has an Empath and I never really felt like I fit in there, so I am trying to figure out where to go next. But there are only so many options for someone with three Gifts.”

“I thought that clans liked to have members with more Gifts,” I said, not understanding his last comment.

“Well yeah, but joining a clan under your station is looked upon badly in our culture. For example, if Connor ends up bonding with the Oakland clan he will be dishonoring the Gifts he was blessed with. That’s why his father hasn’t talked to him since he made the choice to join a clan that would take both him and Blake,” Jonas explained.

“Ransom Berg had dinner with Blake and Connor just last night,” I said.

“Not by choice. Clan Leader Greer put that whole thing in motion so that the Blade Clan could not only make amends for what Hunter Peterson did to you but also to get closer to you. Hunter Berg has been having a hard time in the Blade Clan since Connor turned down the offer to join us. This is the first time in a long time that the twins’ father has been asked to do anything other than the shit jobs assigned to our clan.” Everything Jonas was saying was the truth, but it put a sour taste in my mouth.

“Why couldn’t both Blake and Connor join the Blade Clan?” I asked.

“Blade Clan doesn’t have a single bonded member that only has two Gifts. It’s a point of pride with them. Blake doesn’t have any extra abilities and thus isn’t good enough to be a hunter within the Blade Clan,” Jonas said but I could tell that he didn’t feel the same way that his parental clan did.

“So what clans are available and acceptable for you to join?” I asked to bring the conversation back to him. I didn’t feel right talking about the twins like this behind their back.

Jonas blew out a breath before replying, “there are a couple of other hunter clans throughout the Americas West Kingdom with good reputations that I am considering. On paper, I like one out in Denver, but I haven’t gone out to visit them yet. There is another one in Seattle that doesn’t seem to be too bad. Then of course I could also join the Royal Guards. That is what my father expects me to do.”

“But you don’t want to?” I pushed, interested to know why.

He turned to look at me and said, “As I said before, I grew up with Kaiden and Regina. I am tired of living in their shadow. If I had my way I would move away from here and start my own life somewhere new. “ I could understand that. I hadn’t left the Bay Area since my father had died and stranded me here four years ago, but when I got placed with Stella I had decided to start fresh and on my own terms. That is why I loved my bus so much. It was my somewhere new.

“Then I think you should go to Denver and meet that hunter clan,” I told him while maintaining eye contact.

“If only life was that easy,” Jonas replied cryptically as Felix and Blake joined us by the water.

“What are we talking about?” Blake asked

“Choosing clans to join,” I said. “Felix, how did you end up all the way out here from Boston?”

Felix looked a little surprised at my question but didn’t hesitate to answer. “I have the Communication Gift. It’s rare enough that there are only a couple dozen of us in all three of the American Kingdoms, so when a royal turns twelve they sometimes have to relocate the interpreter. Queen Florence reached out to my parents and negotiated the contract for Regina when I was about six, so it wasn’t a surprise or anything.”

“You make it sound like you were given to Regina on her twelfth birthday,” I remarked with disbelief. Felix ducked his head and looked down at the sand, not giving me an answer. I looked around and my stomach sank when Jonas gave me a slight head nod. Felix was really given to Regina like some sort of language encyclopedia.

“It’s an honor really,” Felix said to the ground before him. “My entire parental clan only has two Gifts and they don’t do much other than accounting work for the important clans in the Boston area. They don’t even have a territory of their own. So working directly for a royal is a big step up for me and has brought honor to my father.”

I could feel the sadness and hurt pride radiating off of Felix, so I reached out and squeezed his hand to show my support. The clan bond flickered between us, providing warmth. Felix took a moment to stare at our joined hands before slowly glancing up to meet my eyes. I gave him a small simple and tried to show him that I understood. I knew what it felt like to be used for my Gifts. To be seen as an object that someone else could control. He may have not chosen to move to San Francisco but we could make sure he didn’t feel alone here.

Jack broke through our moment when he came and pulled me towards the fire to dance with him. One of the local guys was playing what I considered coffee shop music on his beat-up guitar and raspy smoke-damaged voice. Together with the sounds of the ocean and the crackling fire I found a rhythm and danced with my best friend. I didn’t drink much, so even a cup of light beer went straight to my head and before long I found myself completely lost to the moment. I cloaked myself lightly and just watched the people around me as I let everything that had happened this week go.

Max was slowly dancing with Annabell on the edges of the crowd and she looked really happy to be within his arms. Jennifer and Isabell were grinding up against a very excited-looking Felix who was trying not to spill his drink. Connor and Maddison were sitting on a log making out while Blake and Jonas were still out by the water talking. There were probably about eighty other people on the beach. Most of them I had seen at one time or another and if I wasn’t cloaked I might have even said hi to them. Before meeting the guys and getting drawn into all of this Valkyrie drama, this is the closest I had ever come to having a community.

A while later Jack and I went to get refills from the rapidly depleting keg and Blake came running at me from a little way down the beach while calling, “Ray-Ray!” I quickly passed my full solo cup to Jack and braced myself for impact. Instead of tackling me like I thought he was going to do, Blake lifted me from under my arms and started twirling me around like I was a little kid. It was surprisingly exhilarating and when he put me down I had a giant smile plastered on my lips. Then when Blake grabbed my hand and gently pulled me down the beach. I didn’t hesitate to follow him.

“So, Ray-Ray, what did you think of Prince Kaiden?” Blake asked in a teasing voice while still holding my hand. It was an oddly intimate moment for me, walking hand in hand down the beach.

“I think he is an asshole,” I murmured, distracted by the feeling of his hand in mine. Blake might be used to casual touch like this, but I wasn’t.

“Yeah, I think that’s because he is the only one of his siblings that won’t end up as a King or Queen,” Blake answered in a more serious voice.

“What is his brother like? The one that is marrying that princess from France?”

“Damon? He is about as serious as they come. All responsibility and zero fun. Plus he has Energy which is a big deal to the Collins’ Royal Line,” Blake said. “I feel bad for Princess Noemie for getting stuck with him for the rest of her life.”

“Alright enough about the freaking royals,” I said and was happy to see Blake give me a side smile. “I want to talk about you. How are you doing after last night? Dinner with your dad must have been kinda weird.”

Blake was quiet for a few moments before he answered, “Yeah, it was weird. It was like Edison was forcing him to be there but you could tell that he would have rather been anywhere but eating dinner with us. I mean, I know that I’m not the greatest person, but I did everything I ever could to make Dad proud. I trained twice as hard as Con, did good in school, and was the captain of every sports team growing up. I never complained about the extra clan chores that he assigned me, and always helped him with his reports after he came home from a job. But just because I don’t have a third Gift, I will always be lesser in his mind. After Con chose to officially turn down the Blade Clan offer, Dad just stopped talking to me. He will still talk to Con, just not me. Like if it’s my fault that I don’t have another Gift or that Connor chose me over him.”

I didn’t know what to say to something like that. It must have sucked to have always been compared to your twin and to always fall short in your parent’s eyes. “Blake, you don’t need another Gift to be impressive. You carry yourself with such confidence and grace. Things that would get to the rest of us, you just let roll off your back. I think that is because you know that at the end of the day you are enough. You are more than enough,” I said in a strong voice, believing in every word.

Blake stopped walking and tugged on our joined hands until we were standing face to face. He then used his free hand to cup the side of my face and looked into my eyes with crazy intensity. “You really think that I am enough?” Blake asked with a breathy voice that had butterflies exploding in my stomach.

The clan bond burned through his touch making me feel a little lightheaded, but I knew that this was important for Blake to hear. I reached out and placed my free palm on his chest over his heart to cement what I was about to say. “Blake, you are so much more than enough.”

He visibly inhaled at my words and slipped his hand back into my hair before slightly tightening his grip. His eyes burned with emotion and I felt my breathing starting to speed up. The butterflies in my stomach doubled and my lips parted on their own accord. Blake stepped closer, bringing our chests together and trapping my hand between us. Then he started to lean his head down to mine and my mind went blank as my emotions and hormones took over. I let my eyes fall close and I could hear my heart beating at about a thousand beats per minute.

“Blake!” someone yelled, snapping me out of my daze and Blake jumped away from me like I was on fire. I pressed my palm to my chest to try to calm my racing heart and scanned the area to see who had interrupted what should have been my first kiss. Connor stood maybe ten feet away with Madison half hidden behind him. “What the fuck do you think you're doing?” Connor angrily said, causing my stomach to drop.

“Stay out of this Con!,” Blake yelled back and Madison stepped out from behind Connor and gave me a disgusted look. Oh my God. I had almost kissed Blake. I had almost kissed Blake and he was dating Madison. I wasn’t sure what I wanted my first relationship to look like, but I definitely didn’t want to start it with cheating. Then I remembered everything I had heard and seen about how Blake treated girls. He would flirt with them, kiss them, maybe even sleep with them, and then dump them. I wasn’t okay with being used like that. I had let the moment and my hormones get the best of me, but I was smarter than this.

“No Blake, I will not stay out of this. This is not something you can do,” Connor hissed after stepping up and grabbing Blake by the front of his shirt. I raised my hand from my chest until I was covering my mouth, suddenly feeling sick to my stomach.

Blake moved his arms in between Connor’s and pushed them out, breaking Connor’s hold on his shirt, and then shoved Connor back. “Why the fuck not?” Blake yelled. “You fucked Regina and I kept my mouth shut. Why do you have to ruin everything for me?” Of course. This wasn’t about Blake actually having feelings for me. This was about him adding a female Valkyrie to the long list of women that he had fucked. I swallowed down the bile that was collecting in my throat and straightened my spine. I had been so stupid to assume anything else. Blake never tried to hide who he was or what he expected out of girls. It was my fault for not understanding the situation from the beginning. Now, I was grateful to Connor for stepping in when he had.

“I am protecting you!” Connor growled out and I felt like he had reached out and physically punched me. I had it all wrong. Connor wasn’t stopping me from making a mistake, he was acting to protect his brother from getting too close to me. Connor thought that Blake needed protection from me. That somehow I was the villain in this story.

I raised my chin as my eyes started to sting with tears. There was no way that I was going to let these guys see me cry after this shit, so I pushed back into the void and sealed myself off. “I know that you may think that you are protecting me, but I don’t want it. Ray is different,” Blake said, but all of the conviction and anger that he had earlier was gone and the buzz in my head told me that he was lying. He too thought that he needed protection from me. Maybe they were right.

Before Connor could say anything in response, Max and Jonas came running down the beach clearly upset about something. Well, they could join the party. Max reached Connor and told him to make Madison leave. When simply asking the girl didn’t work, Connor actually compelled Madison to go back to the party and my anger grew. Blake was scanning the surroundings, finally remembering that I was on the beach too. He tried calling out my names a couple of times, but the last thing I wanted to do right now was talk to either of the twins.

“Blake, we need to tell you something!” Max called finally getting Blake’s attention. When Blake walked over to the other three I followed, curious to hear what was going on now. “Jonas just got an update from one of his clan members. Remember how Ray asked Edison to use the Blade Clan Tracker to find Logan, the missing shifter? Well, Edison formed a small group to do just that, but now they can’t find them. They went out early this morning and no one has heard from them since. They missed their designated check-in time and the Blade Clan has officially declared them missing.”

“Okay, that is serious, but why are you telling us?” Connor questioned and I started getting a bad feeling.

“Because your father was one of the men assigned to find Logan,” Jonas said in a straightforward voice. “Ransom and two other Valkyrie are missing.” I looked over at the twins and found differing reactions. Connor was clenching his jaw and his hands were curled into fists. Blake was visibly paling and looked a little unsteady on his feet.

The group of Valkyrie remained silent for a good amount of time processing the information until Jonas looked around and asked, “Where is Ray? I thought she was with you?”

“She was, but - “ Blake started but let his words hang in the air without finishing his thought.

“But we screwed up and she disappeared,” Connor filled in, anger evident in his voice. I didn’t know whether it was directed at me or at the situation with his missing father.

“Like took off and we should find her to make sure she is okay, kind of disappeared. Or just turned herself invisible and is probably listening to everything we say, kind of disappeared,” Jonas asked. I was surprised that he already had such a good understanding of my cloaking. It also said something that the guy that I had only known for a day was the one most worried about my well-being.

“Probably the first one,” Blake admitted looking down at the ground.

“What did you do?” Jonas asked, clearly accusing Blake of something and I was a little curious what kind of emotions Jonas was picking up from the twins. But it didn’t matter. This was ridiculous. The twins’ father was missing, my hurt feelings were irrelevant at this moment.

I pushed free of the void, revealing myself in between Connor and Max. “Nothing that matters right now,” I said and all eyes turned towards me. “Jonas, can you take Felix and go back to the Blade Clan? Maybe you can find out some information that the Oakland Clan can use to help find Ransom.”

“Ray, the people best equipped to find them is the Blade Clan,” Jonas said in a soft placating voice. “We should just let them do what they do best and hunt.”

“Do they have another Tracker that can locate them?” I asked, hoping that they did. That would make this a lot easier. The moment I said the work Tracker, Connor’s and Max’s gaze became sharper on my face.

“No, but very few hunter clans have someone with the ability to Track, and they are trained not to rely on them. There are other ways to find someone, and the Blade Clan is the best.” Jonas said and he wasn’t lying. He really believed that his parental clan would find Ransom and the other Valkyrie. The question was, would they find them in time.

“Okay, then can you just keep us updated on their investigation the best you can?” I asked in a sweet voice. I didn’t trust Jonas with the knowledge that I was a Tracker and I wasn’t going to leave the twin’s dad out there when I could help him.

“Sure, I can do that. I have Connor’s number. I’ll text you what I find out,” Jonas said and then thankfully walked back to the party to hopefully find Felix. The moment Jonas turned his back I focused on a mental picture of Ransom and willed my body to find him. Immediately I felt a tug in my chest and had the urge to go to the right. From what I read in the book Max gave me, that meant that Ransom was both alive and in my range. I would be able to find him.

“Ray, about before,” Blake said and took a step towards me. I leveled him with a glare that clearly showed how much I didn’t want him to touch me right now and he froze in place.

“I am pretty sure I can find where your father is, but I would like to keep my Tracking Gift from the Blade Clan and the royals. Obviously, that is not as important as saving Ransom. But I was thinking that we could get Elijah and Derik and go to where the missing Valkyries are and then you guys could step forward with some sort of information and call in the cavalry,” I said in a flat tone. Now was not the time for emotions.

“That’s some quick thinking, Ray. I’ll call Elijah,” Max said and stepped away from the group. A shiver ran down my spine as a gust of cool air blew in from off the ocean and I wrapped my arms around myself.

“Ray, what you heard before was taken out of context. It wasn’t about what you must think it was,” Connor said in a calmer voice but I could tell he was only managing his temper by sheer force of will.

“As I said before, it doesn’t matter right now. Let’s just focus on finding your father and the other missing Valkyrie. Obviously, something went wrong the last time someone tracked the missing shifter, so we need to be extra careful and only focus on this,” I said while looking at his chest. I had too much pride to hide my eyes but for the life of me, I couldn’t look at either of them right now.

Max cursed and then came over to tell us, “Elijah and Derik are all the way in San Francisco right now, talking to the royals about Ray and the new Vals coming to our school. They won’t be able to get back here for at least two hours.” Both twins cursed too and then looked at me, but this was not my decision. It was their dad and their clan. Hell, I was stumbling around in the dark when it came to the rules and expectations of the supernatural community. If they wanted to go and find Ransom, I would help them, but the choice to go or not was completely up to them.