The Tribrid

Learning Control

  Liam's POV
  I wake up in the dark and alone. I stretch out across the empty bed and rub my eyes. I can still smell Em so I know she hasn't been gone long. I set up and get out of bed to turn the lights on. With the lights on I can see she went through some bags. I drag myself out of bed and use the bathroom before taking a quick rinse shower. I brush my teeth and rummage through my bags looking for something to wear. I settle on a blue shirt and black joggers. I brush my hair real quick before heading out of the room. I head down the hallway and come across two guards.
  "Good morning. Have either of you seen Emily head out this morning?"
  "The Tribrid and her family have gone down for breakfast." One of them says.
   I hope they know I will never call her that.
  "Which would be?" I ask.
  "Down the stairs to the dining hall." The other one says.
  Great, super helpful guys. I take off down the stairs and through a door back to the room we ate dinner in. I see Emily talking to some guy she is sitting next to. Then Emily giggles at something he says. Lucas was going crazy in my mind.
  "Who is making our mate laugh." He growls.
  "I don't know, but I don't like him."
  "Liam." I hear her in my mind and look over at her. She is staring at me.
  "This is why we need to mark our mate." Lucas says. I walk over to the table next to Emily.
  "Good morning Liam, how did you sleep?" Emily's mother asks. I take a seat bed to Emily. Then I grab her chair and scooch it closer to mine.
  "I slept very well, thank you." I reply to Angela. Lucas calms down a bit since Em placed her hand on my thigh.
  "Why didn't you wake me up?" I ask Emily when everyone goes back to talking.
  "I wanted to let you sleep. I know how much you pushed yourself during the journey here."
  She's not wrong, I barely slept while she was asleep after the battle. And I spent most of my days helping the wounded and others make the journey.
  I grab my self a plate of eggs and sausage and 3 biscuits. I cut up the sausage into little pieces and mix it together with the eggs. I take a bite. Mmm this is good. I grab some seedless raspberry jam and spread it on a biscuit. I eat it in two bites. It went down so easy I grab my self another biscuit. I try to focus on eating my breakfast so I won't think about Emily giggling at that frilly little prick sitting 2 seats away from me. I eat another biscuit this time in one bite. That was a bit of a mistake. Emily sees my struggle and hands me her coffee to help me choke it down. My mate is so in tune with me. I need to relax. I trust Em. She can handle herself.
  We finish eating and listen to the large man at the end of the table tell stories about Hiroen. Suddenly the guy sitting next to Em says.
  "Well are you ready to get started?"
  "Started?" I reply looking at him. He has a stupid grin on his face.
  Oh he so knows what he's doing.
  "He's-" Em starts
  "I'm going to train her how to control her magic." Douche bag cuts her off. Lucas wants to rip his head off. But then I feel Emily's hand on my hand and our mate bond calms me down. She leans in and kisses my cheek. Then she stands.
  "Well, are you coming?" She asks the douche bag. Well at least she sounded annoyed at him. He gets up from the table and they head out of the dining hall. After they leave the table is silent. That kid is going to be a problem. Lucas needs to get some air.
  "Liam how about a run." Hiroen asks. I nod and get up from the table. I follow Hiroen out of the room. It will feel good to let Lucas out.
 
  Emily's POV
  As soon as we are out of the dining hall I stop.
  "What is your deal?" I ask harshly.
  "What do you mean?"
  "Oh don't play dumb with me. Back there with Liam."
  "Just causing a bit of drama. It can get so boring here in the borg."
  "The borg?" I ask
  "Yeah, that's what the people who live here call it. More like borg-ing. Get it."
  I have to admit that was a little funny.. 'Borg-ing' but I hold my smirk inside.
  "Look I don't care what you call it, don't antagonize my mate."
  "That guy? The mate to the Tribrid? Please, he's a meat head. He doesn't understand you. I mean how could he, he's not a witch or a vampire."
  "And you're not a werewolf, and I'm pretty sure you aren't a vampire."
  "True. But I hate to say this, you are the only one of your kind. You won't find one guy who fits all the parts of you."
  "So what are you saying." He moves closer to me.
  "Instead of finding one guy to fit three parts, find one guy for each part." He gives me a cool smile and lifts his eyebrows moving closer to me. I stare at him while he gets inches from my face. Then I blurt out loud with laughter.
  "Is that seriously your move right now?" I laugh so hard I hurt my side. Marcus does not look as amused as I do.
  "You should have seen your face." I keep laughing.
  "Ha ha ha." He mocks.
  I hold my side.
  "Oh it hurts it hurts." I try to regain myself.
  "Are you done?" He asks.
  "Yes, as long as you never do that again."
  "Deal. Let's go on a magical walk a'bout."
  "A what?" I follow him up a different set of stairs and up and up. We reach a door that leads to a look out. The view is amazing. I can see so far off in the distance.
  "Great view huh." Marcus says.
  "Yeah, it's amazing. I need to show Liam." I say. He huffs.
  "Come on. Have a seat." He says pointing to the middle of the floor. The pattern on the floor reminds me of the pattern Miranda drew on her floor when Hiroen and I did the knowledge transfer. I take a seat in the middle of the floor and Marcus sits in front of me.
  "Now I will say this takes a bit of trust on your end. I need you to clear your mind."
  "Well let's just give up here and now." I say jokingly.
  "I'm going to put images in your mind. It's going to feel like a real place." You have to trust me to accept them.
  "Okay I guess I can do that." I reply.
  "Now close your eyes. And empty your thoughts. Focus only on the sounds of your breath. Im going to create a world in your mind, think of it like virtual reality. I'm going to play out scenarios and you are going to use magic to help."
  "Alright let's do it!"
  "Okay your gonna need to trust me more." Marcus says.
  "For what?"
  "Well I will essentially be in your mind. Sometimes your memory will add to the scenarios to make them more real for you."
  "Will you be able to see my memories?" I ask.
  "Some, not all. Typically it's only the more recent memories."
  I think about what Liam and I did yesterday.
  "Alright, we can give it a shot." I say.
  "Ok, close your eyes and try to clear your mind. Try and think about nothing." He says for the third time. I close my eyes and do so for the third time.
  He places two fingers on my temples. Suddenly I am in the middle of the field I always see in my visions.
  "Hello? Marcus!" I yell.
  "Hello there gorgeous." I turn around to see Marcus.
  "Where are we?" I ask.
  "Your mind. Here we can practice magic in a controlled environment." Marcus makes a fireball appear in his hand. Abruptly the scene changes. It's now night time and we are at the cliffs. Marcus extinguishes the fire ball and looks around.
  "What just happened!?" I ask.
  "I must have triggered a memory. Your mind brought us here. We can play out the memory and you can use magic to try for a different outcome." He says.
  Do I want to watch Brody die again. But wait he said I could stop it?
  "So I could save my friend?" I ask.
  "If that's what happened here."
  "How do I do it?"
  "Where were you standing?" I point over to the tree line. He takes my hand and we tuck behind the trees.
  "Now just pull the memory forward." I think back at the memory of Brody and Luther.  Suddenly they appear, Brody standing by the edge, Luther in front of him, Alpha James and Luna Jackie all together. But this time I can save him.
  "All you have to do is join us son, and you can be apart of something great." Luther offers.
  "NO! I would rather die!" Brody shouts at Luther. But then suddenly they all freeze.
  "This is your memory?" Marcus says. He walks out of the tree line and out to the cliff. I follow.
  "Yeah, why?"
  "The leader of the Seekers?" He points to Luther.
  "Yeah, he kills my friend." I point to Brody. He sighs.
  "When you pick and enemy, you pick powerful ones." Marcus studies the scene from different angles.
  "Ok, how would you save your friend?"
  "Kill Luther." I say.
  "I appreciate the blood lust, but there's no way you could kill Luther without completely losing yourself. So, what else?"
  "Well I could protect Brody, help him escape. Separate him from Luther."
  "That could work. You throw a spell that shields him from the fireball and then catch him when he falls off the cliff. That way he's safe and they think he's dead."
  "Why are we doing this? This won't bring him back."
  "No it won't. But this is helping you think about magic practically. Magic isn't a big hammer you can use to smash everything your way. Magic is a knife. Small precise movements will keep you in control. No one has learned magic like you did. Some memory dump. We all have been practicing all our lives. You need to stop thinking like a werewolf and start thinking like a witch. Look I'm sorry about your friend and I know seeing this is hard. We can change the memory if you want."
  "No it's fine. I want to learn."
  We spend the next few hours filtering through different memories and changing them using magic.