Ayn's Healing

Chapter 36 - Ayn

 I returned to Lake Three to train with Lex punctually, every third Friday. 

Kari had assigned Yann, one of the Gamma twins, as escort to drive me to the Witches Planes. When he informed me about it, I told him his need of control is disheartening and reminded him that I am a grown up woman, who can drive her own damn self across the River, without potentially having to sit through border control and explain why she is traveling with an unrelated male shifter. 

My mate's green eyes briefly switched colors to the dreaded turquoise that signaled Storm's displeasure, and then he smiled his condescending smile, told me I will thank him when I am back, and dismissed me with a kiss.

I did end up thanking him that first time and then every time when I returned in the backseat, behind Yann. Once the sessions were done, I was always barely able to walk to the off-roader, articulate a proper greeting and hand the Gamma my orange card to show at the border, before falling asleep with my hand on the seatbelt buckle.

The sessions were exhausting, Lex was a patient but demanding mentor. Although I could reproduce new movements quite quickly, he was never fully pleased with my inconsistent control of the intensity.

And so today, on a foggy winter morning, I hear again:

„Milady, you need to find a way to scan slower. You have to focus only on the very core of the emotion from which you channel the movement"

There is no frustration in his voice, although we had been practicing for two hours and I never managed to move him twice in a row with the same force. All the time my pushes were too gentle, like a playful tap on his chest. I knew what he meant, and I also knew what held me back from focusing like he asked. The idea of using the mind power in a way that could potentially harm my mentor was conflicting with my healer core. Fire wizards like Lex and my dad did not have this problem, since the mind power was almost a natural continuation of their innate strengths.

However, as I bow my head in acknowledgment to him - forgetting that this makes him cringe with discomfort - I call to mind the memory of an incident when I did channel mind power from the very core of an emotion, with that emotion having been blinding rage.

It happened some months ago, on an unusually hot summer afternoon. It must have been Friday, because Kari was out playing basketball with Rio. I had finished my Luna duties, Teresa and I had organised dinner and I thought I would go to the edge of the forest to pick some wild strawberries for dessert. I found enough for all of us, but then I got distracted because I remembered nearby was a clearing where blackberries grew, and I wanted to have some of those too. I crossed the forest edge and I had only taken a few steps on the thick pine needle carpet when I heard a female voice whimpering and pleading with somebody to stop.

Following the source of the cries, I soon stood in front of a scene that activated all my rage snakes at once. One rose and wrapped itself around my shoulder blade as I saw her uncovered legs scratched and dotted with pine needles. Another one shot through my spine when I recognized the large frame of Lance, the strongest of the lambdas, pressing her body into the forest floor, deaf to her whispers that she had just gotten her wolf and she was saving herself for her mate.

I whipped my hand through the air and sent him flying next to her. He looked at me first with angry surprise and then, when he realised he was looking at his witch Luna, with terror. I made him hover above the ground and, as he begged for mercy, I moved my other hand to slam his giant body against a tree. He landed with his eyes closed and a wave of light red blood stained his chin and bare chest.

I went back to the woman, Yael, a sweet omega girl who had grown up in the valley and had only recently come up to Eagle Rock to start working in our kitchen. I told her she was safe as I covered her with my cape, I wiped the mud and pine needles from her legs, and I held her until she said she thought she could walk. I smiled and replied to her that I will get us a ride. I then called Timo, to send me the Gammas. I needed both of them, one to carry a girl and one to pick up their trash.