Page 101 of The Lost Ones

“Sweet baby Jesus I am so sorry.” She apologises as we enter a typical looking academy heads office and shocking the shit out of me.

“Do you have multiple personalities?” Kai asks seriously and I elbow him.

I don’t correct him though because I’m freaking curious now.

“No. I do know who your fathers are and that you are part of a Soulmate bond, although I was not made aware of your bound gifts or I would have never let you go through the usual screening process that we do. Not that you seemed to have any problems handling it though.” She compliments as she sits down behind her giant mahogany desk and motions for us to take the seats in front. “You handled it incredibly quickly too.”

“I’m sorry I just don’t understand the change.” I say unable to help myself.

“You and your Soulmates are very rare. We only have four centres and their mates training here. Three of the centres have two mates and the forth has three. They are the only centres in the whole of the world apart from the centre and her mates that teach here. It would not be wise to show you any sort of preferential treatment. These students are going to be harsh with you anyway. I have a feeling you can handle it though.” Shefinishes.

That kind of makes sense I guess. I nod and she continues.

“Now I have to ask, why are you here with your gifts still bound? They should have been unbound before you even thought about attending.”

“The centre who bound my gifts is supposed to be here according to my fathers. I’m really surprised you didn’t get any sort of communication from them.” I reply trying not to sound suspicious.

She pauses thoughtfully before continuing.

“I will have my assistant double check, although she is usually quite good at passing messages along. After you’ve gotten cleaned up, we need to get you straight over to Nicole, she is the centre that will be teaching you about yourself and your history Sage. She is the only Centre at the school that could be the person behind binding your gifts and we need to get them unbound as soon as possible. Fortunately the ritual isn’t too hard to organise at such short notice.” She ponders for a minute, “I will get my assistant to show you to your room and come to get you when everything is arranged in an hour or so. You’ll need witnesses.” She finishes murmuring as if it’s a thought that wasn’t supposed to escape as she dismisses us easily and calls in her assistant.

Chapter Five

Abubbly blonde soon enters the Director’s office not even bothering to communicate with the Director, who just waves us off clearly preoccupied with writing her list of things that need to get sorted, before we can do the ritual. The blonde introduces herself as Becky and then proceeds to rapidly lead us in the direction of our rooms. Pointing out things like the cafeteria, indoor gym and power practising rooms. She moves so rapidly that I honestly can’t keep up with what she’s saying or where anything is. From the confused looks on the guys’ faces they can’t either.

“I really hope there are map’s in our rooms like the Director said,” Hunter whispers in my ear as he swings his arm around my shoulder and pulls me in close to his side, I smile up at him. My blood crusted attire obviously doesn’t bother him now that it’s dried.

All of us are still on high alert and keeping an eye on our surroundings. The Director clearly thought that there should’ve been only two vamps at the so called entrance exam and I have to admit that if there were and we had our gifts unlocked like everyone else then it would’ve been pretty damn easy to defeat them. That raises questions in of itself though, like where are they getting these rogue vamps? Do they get them from some kind of supernatural prison or what? The biggest question that is plaguing me is why were there so many damn rogue vamps after us?

It’s certainly not a promising sign for us and our time here.

“The Director said that you were on a time crunch so I haven’t got the time to give you the full tour but I do need to show you the weapons and history hall.” She says and instantly I perk up.

Two of my favourite things are weapons and history. It occurs to me though that there is a hell of a lot of history that I don’t know anything about. I know the vague details about what happened with the centres and soulmates but that’s it. I want to learn the history of the other species as well and how all of us interconnect. I have to admit that it excites me that we get the opportunity to learn this here. At least I hope we do.

She leads us down a hallway wide enough that me and the guys couldwalk side by side and not touch the walls. There are no other doors down this wide length of hallway and at the end are two enormous intricately carved wooden doors that stretch twenty feet up towards the high ceilings. Becky mutters something I don’t quite catch as we approach and the doors swing open effortlessly without her touching them.

That’s a handy trick.

All of my thoughts are cut off as I stare in wonder around the truly cavernous room. It seems like that’s a common theme for this training academy but then again it is a castle so I’m not sure what else I expected.

The front of the grand room is set out with rows and rows of shelving units with different weapons placed in them. I’m about to comment that it doesn’t look that secure when Becky answers my unspoken comment.

“These are the weapons that you can sign out for various classes or personal practice. Although they don’t look very secure I can assure you that every single one of them has protections spelled onto them and they’re not only on the weapons themselves but also on the cabinets. If you try to take one without the instructors express permission you physically won’t be able to move it but you will get a pretty nasty shock in order to deter you from trying to take it in the future as well.” She explains and my eyebrows hit my hairline.

I guess it makes sense, this is a training academy not some normal main stream human school and although there are students here that are human they have all been exposed to the supernatural and I’m assuming are trained with the rest of us. I also assume that they deal with the slightly easier arrests or complaints and get to deal with purely human affairs as well like Erin and her team did when they were keeping Brent under surveillance.

Actually now that I’m thinking about it I wonder if they make the human students go through the rogue vamp initiation shit that they made us go through? I’m hoping not since the Director seemed so horrified when I said we were only human. Not only that but as far as I’m aware the human students that are here are here because of their exposure to the supernatural. I’d be willing to bet that nine times out of ten it was a situation that exposed them to it.

“Feel free to have a quick look around. At the back where the white tile turns to carpet is the history side of the academy. It doubles as a library and holds displays of various important artifacts and weapons from our history. Those weapons you will never be able to use or touch as they are all extremely powerful and ancient. Some of them are even cursed so it’s not a great idea anyway. Having said that the protections they are under are pretty much impossible for you to break unless you were the one that cast them.”

As the guys all start exploring the weapons that we can play with I immediately make my way towards the ones that we can’t. The closer I get the more a strange tugging sensation overtakes me. I shake offthe feeling and weave my way through the various displays. Each more interesting than the last and I feel like I’m going to be spending as much time as possible in here. Right at the very back of the room are giant dark wood bookshelves built into the back walls and seven or eight towering bookcases big enough to need ladders to reach the top shelves set in front of them. Which then means that the display cases are set into the large unoccupied space between the weapons and the library.

I stop in front of a display case holding an ornate shield dotted with ruby red gems and If I didn’t know any better I’d swear it had dried blood still on it from whatever last battle it fought in. The small plaque doesn’t give much more information.

“The cursed shield of Athena, those who lay a finger upon it are said to experience the most excruciating death.”

“Pleasant,” I mumble out loud.