A week had passed and Dawn was becoming increasingly hungry. And Quetz was insisting that she come and visit him.
Dawn, I need to unlock your potential… and mine,' he said one night when he could no longer let his powers stay confined in his body. He was desperate, he was dying to unleash them.
She was relaxing after her dinner. With her legs on Daryn's back and her head propped up on the pillows, she was reading documents, related to the next trial. For two weeks, Anne had sent apologies after apologies to Dawn in order to avoid another litigation but Dawn wasn't relenting. She knew that for the last case Lily Wyatt had presented a certificate of Parkinson's to the court and somehow wriggled out it. This time they had no excuse, they had no way to come out of it. If she became soft, the Wyatts would only bite her again. So she didn't reveal her cards.
'I don't understand,' she replied.
'You will understand when you are here. You must come to meet me as soon as possible.'
'Hmm…' She closed the document and placed it on the bedside. 'Okay, I will come tomorrow in the evening after office.'
'I'll wait,' he said and she listened to him, flying away quietly. It was so much unlike him. From the past few weeks she could sense as if he had a lot to say, as if he was containing a lot in himself. She had to meet him.
"Are you tired, baby?" asked Daryn, turning his head towards her when he heard her flipping the papers on the bedside table. He had volunteered to be her pillow for her feet because they had swollen a little and the doctor had asked her to put them higher on a pillow while sleeping. In a few days they were about to have their first ultrasound and he was very excited. In fact his excitement matched his father's.
"I will be going to meet Quetz tomorrow," she informed him.
"Why? You aren't even feeling well."
"He wants me to unlock my potential, whatever that means." By this time she was already of the green strands of hair that was on the backside of her head, and she suspected that it had to do something with being a dragon rider.
Daryn's body froze. "Baby, you are just going to meet him. Okay?"
"Yes, of course! What else do you think I will do?" she shrugged. It was a regular meeting.
Very gently, Daryn placed a set of pillows out beneath legs and went to lie beside her. He placed his arm beneath her head and she curled up next to him, burying her face in his chest. He was about to say something when his phone buzzed.
"Illeus!" he exclaimed as soon as he picked up the phone. "Where have you been my boy?"
"Lykae, I need you! Something very urgent that has come up!"
"Sure cousin. Come over anytime you like," he replied sensing the urgency.
"No, you have to come here," said Ileus. "I am stuck in between a few demons from Seraph's empire. And there are a few rogue vampires too! I need help."
Daryn's whole body tensed. Ileus was a half wizard and half werewolf, one of the strongest men he had ever come across. If he was the King of Lykae, Ileus was a power whose potential was unleashed. That boy exuded dominance, energy, strength and magic. Daryn was in awe of him and he had rightly made him the Captain of his rugby team. Ileus played by the law. Not even once had he gone against the human laws having been studied in a human school in Switzerland till his high school.
"Give me your coordinates," said Daryn.
"I am in the Tongass Forest, Southeast Alaska!"
"That will take a lot of time to reach man!"
"I am counting on your Lykae speed!" he said.
"How am I gonna find you? That place is huge?" Daryn was getting frustrated at Ileus cryptic information. "Tell me more!"
Ileus gave him his coordinates and the line went dead.
How the hell did Ileus find himself in the Tongass Forest? That was the wildest place to be in.
Dawn looked up at Daryn with a puzzled and worried look. "Will you be going?"
"Yes!" he said with a tight expression. From what he could gather, Ileus needed help to escape the demons and rogue vampires. Or with something else? Because he couldn't believe that a man like him could get trapped so easily.
Dawn curled further into him. "Please be safe. Else I am going to be at my wits end."
"I will be darling," he reassured her. "Now sleep." He covered the two of them with the blanket, and stroked her back until she fell in deep sleep.
When Dawn woke up in the morning, she saw that the bed was empty. Daryn had left. Unknown fear gripped her. When after taking a bath she went to have her breakfast, she apprised Gayle about Daryn's absence. Then she noted that even Caleb was not there. Pia was sitting and having her breakfast quietly. Her left eye was swollen. Dawn knew that there was something wrong between Caleb and Pia, but she didn't ask. After what the two had done to her, she was in no mood to even talk to her.
Gayle looked indifferent to what she said. "Ileus." He nodded. "Well, it's not the first time that the brothers have gone to help him."
So that meant that even Caleb had gone and that is why Pia was sitting with them on the breakfast table. Dawn couldn't help wondering about this cousin of theirs who could call both the brothers at a time and even though the brothers had their own differences, they both went together to help him out. She was extremely worried on the inside and her stomach was in knots. Pia looked very bored and apathetic – like she didn't care.
"When will they return?" she asked.
"Can't say," said Gayle as he buttered a toast.
For the entire day Dawn stayed worried. The way Daryn had left, it was as if he loped to the mountains, as if instead of taking the plane to Alaska, he had run there, cruising through the jungles.
Once again she had rejected over five calls from the lawyer team of the Wyatts.
In the evening when she came back home, she attacked food. She was getting scared of her diet. She had read that pregnant women eat a lot, but she was eating like a cow.
She got dressed in easy black leggings and a sports bra and walked towards the Ensmoire Forests to meet Quetz. Soon she was jogging, but with caution.
'You can shift, in case you forgot,' said Quetz, impatiently.
'I am pregnant,' she replied in protest.
'That doesn't stop you from shifting.'
Dawn stopped in her tracks. 'Wouldn't shifting affect my baby?'
'No, you are a werewolf Dawn. That's in your nature.'
"Ah!" she said aloud. With a smile, she broke in a run and then shifted. Within a few minutes she was in the Ensmoire Forest. As soon as she crossed the thick fog, she shifted back to her human form.
Quetz was waiting for her impatiently. 'Come and fly with me.'
Dawn grinned. She had come to this place after a long time. Gods! She missed it. Holding his spike next to the neck, she climbed up on him and perched just behind his neck. Quetz spread his wings and with powerful strokes, he soared in the sky.
'I need you to explore your magic with me,' he said in an urgent voice.