Journey 'The Chosen One Trilogy: Book Two'

JOURNEY

The Chosen One Trilogy:

Book Two

A Quelondain Novel

Mireille Chester

Copyright © 2011 by Mireille Chester

Published by Mireille
Chester

Smashwords Edition

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and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work
of this author.

A big thank you to Corinne Linfitt and
Leslie Morgan for the time they took to edit my
mistakes;

Thanks a million times over to Marc
Renaud for all the time he put into making my website;

Thank you to everyone who made it to
the book readings; having so many of you show up was mind
blowing;

And of course a huge thank you to the
staff at Baico Publishing without whom this may never have
happened.

This book is for everyone who told me
they couldn’t wait for it to come out and of course for my terrific
husband, Kyle, who still insists on reading over my
shoulder.

Prologue

“Nothing is as it seems.”

It was such a simple statement and yet
it held all sorts of meaning for me. If nothing was as it seemed,
then what exactly was real? When Damian had thought to give me the
warning, what had he meant? He must have had something in mind at
the time. Could it be he was letting me know that all of this
really was a dream after all? I thought of Jasper, Dodge, and
everything I’d been through. No. Definitely not a dream. So then,
what?

It had been almost two years since I
had first crossed over to the world of Quelondain and found that I
had been born here. I still thought the prophecy might have been
wrong; that I wasn’t supposed to be the Chosen One, but, really,
who was I to argue.

Maybe that was what Damian had been
talking about. If nothing was as it seemed, could it be that even
though everyone thought I was supposed to be the one who could save
or destroy them all, that I wasn’t? Every sign indicated that I
was; the fact that I was the only half bred being in this world (my
father being human and my mother being a Wedelve); the fact that I
could do sorcery as well as healing; there was also the fact that I
could see the future in my dreams.

But no, the prophecy was probably
right.

Was it a situation he had meant to warn
me about? Maybe it had been a person or persons.

No. It had to be a situation. Everyone
close to me, dear to me, had proved beyond loyal. All of them had
proven themselves more than once by risking their lives to save
mine. Everyone in our pack was who they seemed. I was sure of
it.

Chapter One

The wind was blowing hard and I
shivered.

“Come here, Shlova.” Jasper pulled me
closer to him and wrapped the blankets around us
tightly.

Brice put a few more pieces of wood on
the fire and came to sit next to us.

“Do you think Dodge will be ok?” I
looked out the mouth of the cave even though I knew I wouldn’t be
able to see him. He was a little farther down the trail in a
shelter Brice and Jasper had thrown together at the first signs of
the storm. The only thing I could see outside was the snow blowing
horizontally.

“He’ll be fine. He’s a horse, Hayden.”
I could hear the smile in Jasper’s voice.

Brice gazed out into the snow. “On the
plus side, we know no one will be following us and when they start
the search again, our trail up to here will have been
erased.”

It had been two days since we had left
Kantong’s abandoned cabin. At the rate we were going, it would take
us another week and a half to reach the Northern Regions which was
our final destination.

“Blasted Namaels,” I
grumbled.

Jasper grunted.

I glanced back at him apologetically.
“Sorry. Not you two. Just cats in general right now. Why couldn’t
they just leave us alone?” I hated being cold and at this moment in
time I was freezing. It made me grumpy.

Brice got defensive. “Why are you
grumbling about cats? It seems I recall a couple of instances where
the dogs were a pain in the rear.”

“Yeah, well, blast the Majs,
too.”

I felt Jasper look over to him and
Brice was quiet.

“And you never mind,” I mumbled to
Jasper. “If he has something to say, let him say it.” Another blast
of wind made its way into the cave. I stared into the
fire.

“No. I’m fine.” Brice glanced at me. “I
just don’t like being stuck in a cave when there are scouts from
two different armies looking for us.”

Jasper grunted in agreement.

“You’re grunting a lot,” I said to
him.

All I got in return was another
grunt.

I took a few deep breaths and got
myself to relax. I felt him relax in answer. “Man, I wish we could
just go home.” I hugged Jasper’s arms and ran my fingers under his
sleeves to warm up my hands.

“Do you regret coming back?” he asked
quietly.

“What? No! Why in the world would you
ask that?”

I felt him shrug behind me. “It’s
just…living on the run, having to kill. I know you don’t like
killing. You could be with your parents, going to school. Not
having to worry about all this.”

To go back to the world where I had
been raised, where cars, showers, and cell phones existed. To leave
Quelondain, where I had been born, where supposedly I was going to
be a major part of whatever future was coming. It might have been
tempting were it not for Jasper or all of my friends. He was right.
I didn’t like killing or fighting. That was one of the reasons we
were forced to hide like this. Maybe all I needed to do was pick a
side. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t pick sides and I couldn’t leave
and so we hid.

“You think I didn’t worry about all of
this when I went back? That’s all I did! I barely functioned. All I
could think about was where were you and were you ok? Was Dodge ok?
And Tara, Ben, and Luke, Mel and the twins. I even worried about
Brice!” I grinned over at our friend. He was really more like an
overprotective little brother.

Brice accepted the peace offering and
smiled back.

“There’s a crossing about a half day
from here.” Jasper let the statement hang in the air.

I shook my head. “I thought about it
once. After Luke took me and I thought you were dead. I was sure it
was best for everyone if I left. But even then, deep down, I knew I
couldn’t go. My life changed from the first moment I saw the hill
crossing and even though I’m glad it was you who found me first, I
know I would still be here if it had been another Namael or one of
the Majs that had met me. I know life would have been different at
first, but I’m positive I would have come to this point eventually.
I would have made up my mind not to fight, and I would still be
hiding.”

I kissed his cheek. “And what would you
have done had I been found by the Majs first and we had met on the
battlefield?”

He smiled. “Well, that’s simple enough.
I would have walked past everyone, killed anyone who had gotten in
my way, grabbed you by the arms and kissed you.”

I laughed. “Could you imagine? Everyone
would have walked away in shock.”

“To stop a battle with a kiss. If it
were only so simple.” He wrapped the blankets around us
snuggly.

I looked up at him. He looked so tired.
His eyes were closed, but I knew he wouldn’t let himself fall
asleep any time soon. “You’re not trying to get rid of me, are
you?”

His eyes flew open and he looked down
at me, shocked.

I smiled and reached a hand back to
touch his cheek. “You don’t have to answer. Your reaction was good
enough.”

He grunted, annoyed, and closed his
eyes. He opened them again. “You didn’t truly believe that, did
you?”

“Not that you don’t want me here. Just
that you want me safe over there.”

He grunted again. “It doesn’t matter
where you go, Hayden, you’re not safe. Or do you forget the
situation I found you in the last time you were there?”

I shrugged. “Maybe I do it on purpose.”
I smiled at him. “Maybe I like to watch you swoop down and save
me.”

His sky blue eyes squinted with his
smile. “Your own personal knight in shining armor, am
I?”

I was laughing at the memory of Jasper
walking up behind me while Dave had been trying to force himself on
me. “The look on his face when he saw you! ‘What is it with you and
big Scottish guys?’! I’m sure he thought I was lying to him when I
told him I had a husband.” A warm feeling washed over me and I
found his left hand so I could feel the gold band on his
finger.

He kissed the back of my neck and I
knew he was feeling how much I loved him. Having your mate be able
to feel what you were feeling was a handy thing is some situations,
but could be very annoying in others. I was getting pretty good at
shielding him from feeling my emotions all the time, but sometimes
I would forget. There were also times when I would make sure he
could feel it, like now.

“Why don’t you two get some sleep? I’ll
keep watch.” Brice didn’t wait for an answer. His form blurred as
he shifted into a jaguar and went to sit at the entrance of the
cave.

I looked at Brice and
smiled.

“What?” Jasper looked over at his
friend.

“I was just thinking of the first time
I saw you shift into a tiger.”

He laughed. “You were positive that you
were dreaming.”

“And when you were trying to explain
the difference between the Namaels and the Majs. I couldn’t grasp
that the dogs you were talking about were actually people shifted
into dogs.”

“The look on your face when I told you
the dog had sliced me with his dagger after jumping out of the
tree!”

I laughed. “All I could picture was a
big German Shepherd in a tree holding a dagger in his
mouth!”

Jasper reached over and grabbed the
blanket Brice had been using. He spread it over the ground and lay
us on it. “A shlova yan,” he whispered.

“I love you more,” I whispered
back.

“I’ll shift so you can stay warmer.” He
kissed me softly. “Try to have a good sleep.”

I snuggled into the tiger lying beside
me and wondered again why it was that Jasper always managed to be
warmer than me. I ran my fingers in the fur on his side and smiled
when he started to purr.

Sometime during the night, I felt him
get up. A few moments later, Brice was laying with his back to me.
He looked back at me, his greenish blue cat eyes blinking once,
then settled back down.

“Get some rest, Brice.” I covered both
of us up with the blanket and lay my arm over him. It didn’t take
long for me to fall back asleep.

When I awoke the next morning I
realized that for the first time in two days I was actually hot. I
stayed lying with my eyes closed, enjoying the feeling. My hand ran
through the fur under it and the purr was almost instantaneous. I
cracked open one eye just long enough to make sure I really did
recognize the purr and that the fur was striped and not
spotted.

There was a big sigh from the furry
form behind me and I realized I was sandwiched between the two of
them.

Jasper shifted and turned so he was
facing me. He kissed me tenderly and chuckled.

“What?”

“What would you have done if I had been
Brice?”

I blushed. “You caught that, did
you?”