Chapter 9

Anila POV

Professor Howl’s brows knitted together as he stared at the fog that accumulated from the crystal ball. I could tell something was wrong, but my nerves prevented me from speaking.

I looked up at Xaden’s whose eyes were fixed on the quartz and his jaw tensed. The white fog swirling within the crystal ball never cleared.

The room was so thick with tension, that I could cut it with a knife. I felt my nerves fray as I struggled to keep my calm. The blankness of the crystal ball put me on edge, and from the look on Xaden’s face, he was on edge as well.

Professor Howl clicked his tongue, releasing the ball and allowing it to clear, before taking a deep breath and touching it again.

The same exact thing happened.

Fog so thick you couldn’t see a damn thing. The professor made a curious hum as he shook his head, looking at an equally perplexed Principal Rapport. It was as if they had an entire conversation with just a glance of the eyes.

Great, as if I didn’t stand out enough already, now I’m really an anomaly. Claire had called me an abomination on more than one occasion and now I was questioning whether or not she was right.

I opened my mouth to question what had happened, but Xaden’s hand was on my chest, halting my words. When I looked up at him, he gave me a small shake of his head that would have gone missed if I had blinked.

Professor Howl looked at me, meeting my concerned eyes and matching them with his own concerned look.

“For whatever reason it isn’t showing me what you are,” he told me, his tone remaining despite the tension on his face. “So, I’m going to try something else. I’m going to see what you were.”

With those words left in the air, he glanced down at the crystal ball and touched it again.

Then, to my amazement, the fog that once filled the crystal ball began to shift and soon, I was staring at myself wrapped up so tight in blankets and being cradled by my father. The look of love was clear on his face, but I saw something else in his eyes.

Sadness.

Something had happened the day I was born that made him both happy and sad.

I fight the overwhelming disappointment in the hopes of being able to glimpse at my mother’s face. But it was only my father.

I was told my mother died when I was only an infant, but I hadn’t thought too much about when or how she actually died. It was never spoken about in our house; it became a sensitive subject to Claire and whenever I brought up either of my parents, she would only get angry. So, I stopped asking about them when I was a little girl.

But telling from the sadness that was evident in my father’s eyes as he held me close to him, I realized this was the day my mother died.

She died giving birth to me.

Pain slammed into my chest at the very thought of it.

“You look just like your mother,” my father whispered, kissing the top of my head.

The fog suddenly returned, blocking all sight and sound, to the viewer as if we had been denied the secrets of my past.

Which sucked, because I’m the one left with all the questions.

Professor Howl grunted again, releasing the crystal ball as he sat back in his chair. “Peculiar.” He mused, and Xaden tensed beside me.

“Maybe it’s your ball,” His voice was thick, and I watched as his jaw ticked, a sign of him working to control his emotions.

Professor Howl shook his head, “No. It’s not the ball.”

Xaden growled, drawing the professor's annoyed glance. “Seriously, Gresham?” He snapped, before rolling his eyes and leaning his arms on the table again as if determined to blow Xaden’s stupid question out of the water.

His fingertips touched the stone again, and soon fog gathered within. Only this time it cleared quickly, revealing Xaden’s wolf, much different than the beastly forms I had seen earlier.

It was a wolf, large and black, with yellow eyes that were calm, and watching. I don’t know how I was so sure it was him, but I could feel from the vibrating in my chest, a reaction to the threads that tied us, that it was.

He stood along a canyon ridge, the setting sun bright ahead of him and turning his coat glossy. His watchful eyes moved to the valley floor, where hundreds of thousands of wolves waited patiently for his command. A much larger wolf beside him, beaming down at him.

I wondered if that was his father.

Beautiful, Powerful, Commanding. Now I understood why they called him Alpha.

The smoke shifted, running over the image and changing into a couple cradling a small black-haired baby. Professor Howl was digging into Xaden’s past with ease and with no regard for his privacy.

Are those both his parents?

I couldn’t help but note the striking similarities between him, and the woman smiling down at the baby's face, her eyes the same striking green as his. Like moss.

I risked a glance at Xaden as the fog made the image change again, this time the previous couple were at an altar, the woman with her long black hair in a slimming ivory dress stole my breath, and it entrapped Xaden’s gaze.

The corners of his lips fall, a heartbreaking and sad frown that makes the threads of our entanglement twitch with a need to touch him. From the grief resting behind his green eyes, I could tell that this was his mother.

And that he missed her terribly.

But with the revelation of these images, and that the crystal is, in fact, fine, the tension becomes so suffocating, that I barely manage to speak.

“Then it’s me…” I whispered. “Something is wrong with me.”

Xaden’s frown deepened as the image of his mother's beautiful smiling face was whisked away, and he turned to me.

“Nothing is wrong with you, Anila. But for some reason we are unable to see what makes you so special and where your werewolf entity comes from,” Xaden said gently, running his fingers down the side of my face, causing me to tremble from his touch.

“She might not be a werewolf,” Professor Howl shrugged. “I guess we won’t know until she’s 19.”

“Impossible,” Xaden growled. “I’m her mate. She has to be a werewolf.”

“Species can mate with others outside of their particular species,” Professor Howl counters.

“She’s my fated mate.”

“And fated mate of Harley,” Principal Rapport chimed in.

“What? That’s strange enough! And now the crystal ball won’t work for her,” Professor Howl breathed, staring down at the ball with a timid frown. “This has never happened before.”

Then he paused and his gaze lifted to meet mine.

“Actually, this situation can only ever happen if someone is intentionally blocking the viewing. Locking up the content to where I can’t see anything.”

I automatically hold my hands up defensively.

“I wouldn’t know how to block anything from anyone,” I remarked.

Professor Howl tilts his head to the side in brief thought, “The only ones I know who could block such information are likely from the Dragon Master’s Side. An immensely powerful Dragon Master at that.”

I blanched; did he just say dragon?

Magic and mythical beings are known to our world, but dragons were never confirmed true beings.

The professor shot to his feet; the sudden movement startled me as his eyes turned to slits. “Who exactly are you?”

Before I could respond, or move for that matter, my body went ridged, and then completely weightless.

My feet lifted from the ground as I was raised a few feet in the air. I struggled to move, but my muscles wouldn’t budge. I was stuck, frozen.

“I don’t even know what a Dragon master is!” I shrieked. “I don’t even know anything about my parents, or myself. I didn’t even know dragons were real!”

I blinked away the gathering tears in my eyes as my heart keened in my chest, lost and utterly terrified.

“Why should I believe you? I can’t see anything about you, I have no way to prove what you say is true and I am not a man of blind faith.” Professor Howl's voice changed, low in his throat as the air around us started to warble.

The pressure increased, and it made my head spin. Nausea punched into my gut, and my breath became short as the beginnings of a panic attack crept along the edges of my consciousness.

Principal Rapport merely watched us, his eyes assessing and calculating as I struggled to breathe. Still as a statue. I blinked, tears running down my face before the link between fated mates trembled, and my eyes found Xaden.

He leaped towards me, his arms wrapping around my waist as he pulled me close. The magic released enough to allow me to draw breath, my lungs stinging as Xaden held me close.

But now we were caught in a suspended web of pressure like gravity had left the room entirely.