Gilded Intentions - 1.5

Residual Strength

 

Summer within a fortnight turned to autumn bringing chilly evenings and frost which covered the ground, making the world seem to glitter and look peaceful. With the frost though came ever increasingly annoyed and aggressive Jasper; Melanie wasn’t able to go out on her usual gathering trips because the frost made the ground too hard for her to sniff out or dig up gems.

This in turn meant that there weren’t as many gems for Jasper to use to pay for the machine he was having built, he didn’t like using money.

His aggression came hard and fast, everyone seemed to be receiving their fair share from him, but it was more in the way of verbal which was far better than the latter.

 

Melanie seemed to be able to keep Jasper occupied for most of the time...

 

This gave Adette and Kiren time to work in the garage, most days they continued with the work Jasper had set out for them, but most of the time they were able to relax and just sat talking for hours on end. Adette had meant her apology and Kiren had cautiously forgiven her, not that she didn’t keep the incident or what was said too far from the front of her thoughts.

 

No one seemed to notice they weren’t actually doing anything, but as long as when they returned back inside the mansion, Adette left newish looking equations on the board and Kiren’s broadcasts were heard over the radio if Jasper decided to tune in and listen, things seemed to all be running like a well oiled machine

So everyone thought.

 

On a bitterly cold morning, an alarmed shriek was heard though out the house just after dawn that came from the sitting room.

Kiren, Adette and Melanie arrived to see Jasper wrench back mercilessly on Matt’s hair.

“WHERE ARE THEY?” His voice was harsh and so loud that Melanie had to cover her ears.

“I don’t know, honest... why...” Matt struggled against Jasper’s grip on his hair and the pain it was causing him. “Why... why would I put my family in danger and stay here... someone else has taken them.”

“WHO THEN, TELL ME WHO?” The glass panes on the door rattled slightly.

Reiss was carefully looking over the case where Matt’s family wands had been just the night before, nothing looked as though it had been disturbed.

“There’s still a fine layer of dust around the edges of the seal which shows it hasn’t been opened, and you have the cases were proofed against magic, as is the entire property.”

 

Jasper shoved Matt’s head into the solid wood of the display case knocking him out then let him go so that he slumped to the floor.

Adette was quickly at Matt’s side cradling his head and holding one of his hands, Kiren thought it was a strange reaction since Adette was always saying that she didn’t care for anyone but herself.

Jasper was now yelling at Reiss who seemed un-phased by it.

“THEN WHAT BLACK BLOOD?” His breathing was hard and his eyes flickered over everyone, Jasper was looking for someone to blame and hurt for some of his ‘prizes’ going missing.

Kiren noticed Reiss flinch slightly at the term Jasper had used at him; she couldn’t help but wonder if it had something to do with Reiss’s origin of vampirism.

“My guess...” Reiss rubbed his chin then relaxed his stance. “Someone’s been watching what you’ve been doing, that’s what it looks like to me.”

Jasper narrowed his eyes before taking a step towards Reiss in a threatening manner.

“You’d better be wrong about that...” He snarled looked at the girls and then down at Matt who was still being cradled by Adette. “One hour, everyone is to be out of this house. It seems I have some extra work to do.”

Jasper stormed off muttering and growling to himself, Reiss picked up Matt motioning with his head for Adette to follow him leaving Melanie and Kiren to go and get dressed.

 

In Matt’s room, Reiss leaned against the door, mostly so he could hear if anyone was coming. Adette sat on Matt’s bed carefully looking over a nasty looking lump that had come up on the side of his head; he was going be fine and would just need to take it easy.

“It’s getting out of hand, where are they?”

Reiss snapped at her, Adette looked at him from under her eyelashes and shook her head.

“Oh no, no way, isn’t this how it’s supposed to go?”

Reiss shook his head folding his arms glaring sternly at her.

“Watcher damn it Adette, you’re being bloody stupid about this, and he’s going to do everything it takes and worse to get away with this. You want the globe run by a cut-throat megalomaniac Lycanthrope, bent on enslaving the whole of Simanity along with others of his kind? Not to mention that, they’re going to wipe out all other supernatural’s who don’t help them; or have you forgotten what happened to Denise?”

 Adette opened her mouth to speak but seemed to become mute at the mention of Denise. Reiss nodded and raised an eyebrow to her.

“I’ll take care of everything before I leave, don’t worry.”

“You’d better...” Reiss leaned off the door and left Adette to look after Matt for a few minutes while he went to get changed.

 

An hour later, the girls were sitting in the waiting room of the local salon waiting for Adette to be squeezed in for a tanning appointment.

“So, what do we do after this?” Melanie couldn’t look more bored with being out of the mansion.

“Well, why don’t we go find a coffee shop or something?” Kiren perched forward feeling slightly excited at the thought of cake and coffee again.

Adette sighed lounging in her chair. “Hmm, doing what normal people do sounds’ like it could be fun.” She tapped her nails on the edge of the chair showing she was getting impatient with having to wait.

They sat in a lazy silence until Adette was called in to use the tanning booth.

 

After fifteen minutes Adette stepped out of the tanning booth naked, Kiren blushed.

“Watcher Adette, you’re not supposed to go in there naked, here.” She quickly handed her back her clothes, as Adette got changed Kiren rubbed her temples feeling a strained headache coming on.

“What, I wanted a full-body tan, not some half assed one ruined by bikini lines.” She stretched and smiled as Kiren slowly relaxed. “So... let’s go and do this coffee thing you mentioned before. I want to see what it’s like to be normal.”

Melanie gave a short laugh and Kiren sighed rolling her eyes and nodded waving them to follow her.

 

Later that evening the girls met up with Matt and Reiss at a new restaurant/bar that had opened up on the outskirts of town. Matt’s lump had gone down and he seemed fine now.

Matt and Adette found the karaoke room upstairs and after a bit of pleading and hiding in bathroom stalls, Kiren managed to work a little bit of magic and changed everyone’s clothes to their evening wear before they all went upstairs.

As usual, neither Matt nor Adette could sing to save their lives, but with some silly chiding and over enthusiastic cheers, everyone had a really good time and was able to relax for a few hours more before heading back to the Mansion.

 

Once back at the mansion, they headed into the kitchen, all except Melanie who veered off into the dining room to where Jasper was working on his laptop.

“Does everyone want a coffee?” Kiren asked as she found Adette, Matt and Reiss had followed her and happily took to lounging about leaning on the counters, seeming almost happy to be back.

“Yeah, sounds good.” Reiss leaned up against the wall next to the coffee machine and watched Kiren as she made the coffees.

“One day, you’ll make the cutest little house-wife.” Reiss chided as Kiren put the coffee cups on a tray to serve them up.

“Bite me.”

“I just might, ask me again later maybe?” He winked at her and she chewed on her bottom lip feeling her cheeks flush as she picked up a coffee then went into the dining room to have it.

 

 

While everyone sat and enjoyed their coffee, Melanie was standing slightly behind Jasper as he was still busy typing away on his laptop.

Kiren couldn’t help but get the feeling that Melanie wasn’t too happy that everyone had come in and interrupted whatever it was she had been doing.

As quick as she could but without being too quick, Kiren drank her coffee and then bid everyone goodnight saying that she had a headache.

 

Taking off her shoes and getting ready to undo her hair, Kiren paused as Adette came into their bedroom and barred her way to the dresser.

“Ok miss ‘I have a headache’, idiot, you may as well have run out of the dining room to get up here, want to let me in on what’s bothering you?”

Kiren leaned on the bedpost sighing.

“Didn’t you notice Melanie was acting weird when we came into the dining room? And my magic, when we were out I was able to change all of us into our formal dresses with a flick of my wrist and now that we’re back here I can’t even conjure up a pot to boil water in; doesn’t that seem a little strange to you?”

Adette gave a slight sigh as she thought for a moment staring at nothing on the floor.

“Ok, so what are you getting at; you think maybe Jasper put some sort of ‘anti-spell’ voodoo around the mansion?”

Kiren nodded moving away from the bedpost, she quickly got changed into some warmer clothes and motioning for Adette to do the same. When they were both ready, Kiren then opened their bedroom door and looked out, seeing no one was around, she waved Adette to follow her.

 

Going out to the front of the house Kiren took a seat on the front steps, Adette walked down a slightly way along the path then turned as she folded her arms against the chill of the evening and leaned slightly on the fence railing.

Kiren was looking at the banners that ran along the fence line which ran halfway along the front pathway to the mansion.

“Those symbols on the banners... I think it’s those that are stopping us from being able to access the majority of our powers. I’ve never seen a symbol like those before, ever.”

Adette half scoffed but then looked curious about Kiren’s theory; she glanced at the banners then looked back at Kiren raising an eyebrow slightly.

“So what? Well we can’t remove them, I think Jasper will notice.”

“Mhm...” Kiren nodding as she thought to herself, the night air was chilly enough for their breaths to come out in small puffs of visible vapour.

 

A plan was forming in Kiren’s mind. She didn’t know how she was going to make it work nor  if it would, and if it didn’t; the underside pricking from the ring which constantly reminded her of her fate should she step too far out of line, was enough to make her blood run as cold as the frost settling on the ground.

“You’re not going to tell me anything, are you?” Adette asked rubbing her arms again against the chill of the night air.

Kiren smiled slightly looking up at her.

“You tell me yours and I’ll tell you mine...” She chided still smiling up at her.

Adette’s face grew pale, even under her new tan; Kiren laughed slightly as she shook her head before leaning it into her hand. Adette moved away from the fence and paused for a moment, then went inside leaving Kiren to her own devices.

 

Kiren found herself wandering into the backyard lost in her own thoughts; she stood staring at a statue of a fairy that seemed to be a centre piece of the lavish pool at the back of the mansion. She found it odd she had never noticed it before; somehow sadness seemed to radiate from it making her want to curl up in a ball and cry.

 

Turning from it she bumped into Jasper and being started caused her to let out a short scream, it echoed in the stillness of the night up the valley.

“Isn’t it a bit cold out here for you?” He touched her face and Kiren stayed as still as a statue keeping her eyes locked into his. “Such a strange woman you are, last month you fight me off like a wild cat and now, you freeze like a rabbit hiding from a kestrel.”

He chuckled before taking her by surprise and kissed her, for a moment Kiren resisted, and then she half fell into the kiss as her plan tumbled about in her head as to how she might be less noticed if she did more of what Jasper wanted; she would add the usual slight resistance so as to not raise suspicions.

 

As Jasper released her from his kiss, he smirked at her.

“See, isn’t that nicer than feeling the sting of my hand ruining your beautiful face?”

Gritting her teeth she nodded and felt a chill run up her spine, she wasn’t sure if it was from the chill of the evening or Jasper’s presence.

“You should warm up... perhaps a hot shower and... exercise might do the trick?” He raised an eyebrow at her, Kiren felt sick; the thought of lying with him repulsed her and yet her mind rambled loudly at her that if her idea was going to work she would have to work.

Swallowing back bile that wanted to rise in her throat, she gave an uneasy smile and then a small squeal as Jasper picked her up and carried her inside and up to his bedrooms ensuit.

 

He undressed her painfully slowly, Kiren wanted to be anywhere else but where she was, she began wondering what throwing herself into a volcano would be like.

Jasper then turned on the water for her and gently placed her under it before he moved over to a chair that was beside the bath tub and sat down to watch her as she showered.

In her entire life, she had never wanted to melt away and disappear so much as she did right now, every so often he gave small throaty growls of satisfied approval and as she finished he leaned forward resting on his knees, his feet moved slightly showing that he was more than ready to pounce on her as she turned off the water.

 

Without even letting her dry herself off Jasper took Kiren into his bedroom and after basically ripping his own clothes off, he moved against her over to the bed and happily ravaged her for the few hours remaining until just before dawn and he lay himself next to her on the bed and draped an arm carelessly over her panting and staring at her as she let her head lounge back off the edge of the bed with her eyes closed as she imagined she was elsewhere.

 Kiren responded as she was taught to by Reiss, the entire time her mind kept flashing back to his ‘lesson’ evening, he had been right, there was nothing soft or warm with Jasper he was rough and uncaring. Sex was just that to him, sex. Kiren noticed it as his hands rambled fast and aimlessly over her body, never finding a spot to rest or pause on.

“See my little sparkling one, aren’t thing so much better when you just let me take control and do as I ask?” His arm was heavy on her stomach, but she lay still except for nodding her head to his question.

“Good, now you can go away, I have some important work to do and I don’t need you bothering me.”

Letting Jasper undrape his arm off her, Kiren got off the bed and dressed quickly. As she got to the door he shifted on the bed.

“Tell Melanie to meet me out the front before the sun rises.”

Again, Kiren nodded and left the room.

 

Melanie and Jasper were soon out the front; they transformed into their lycanthrope state and began to go hunting together around the woodlands of the mansion.

Jasper had begun hunting with her and found that together they were able to sniff out more precious gems easier.

Two being better than one, so they say.

 

As dawn cast its silvery grey light across the woodlands and valley, Kiren stood outside the gym on the balcony watching Melanie and Jasper run about the trees without a care in the world.

The doors to the balcony opened and closed gently and she heard Reiss yawn from behind her.

“Morning, have a busy night last night?” His voice was sing-songish and tinged with annoyance.

Kiren chose to ignore him and kept staring out to the trees, her mind was still trying to sort out her plans and Reiss’s cologne wafting in her nose and very presence wasn’t helping her to feel like she was getting anything organised in her head.

 

She breathed in the crisp air giving a small shiver.

“You can’t tell me that in all your years, you’ve never had to do things you didn’t want to, so that you could get something else done?” There was silence from Reiss, Kiren nodded faintly in a ‘knowing’ way. “Then you should understand why I’m going to be doing things that I don’t want to for a while.”

She heard Reiss shift behind her, she could tell he was thinking, the silence from him may as well have been screaming at her.

“Well... if you want any help, at anytime, just ask.”

Again, he shifted and Kiren heard him go inside. She watched the suns first morning rays streak across the grass in a slow liquid gold growth and smiled to herself.