Chapter Four

SASHA

“A party?” I suddenly choke out in surprise as she pushes past me; strolling into my room, she’s clutching onto a boom box. Circen suddenly turns to waggle her eyebrows at me with a cheeky grin creeping up at the corners of her mouth.

“When the King’s away, the kids get to play.” I’m suddenly blinking back a confused look at her response. I’m about to say something when Liam and Noah suddenly appear in my room carrying two crates. Giving them both a questioning look, I can’t hide the sudden shock on my face,

“Wait, is that alcohol?” Grinning from ear to ear, Noah suddenly gives me a teasing sideways wink,

“You don’t miss much, do you?”

When Circen pulls me closer to the open rug beside the fireplace and gestures for me to join them, I suddenly feel incredibly nervous about whatever they have planned. Looking up at Noah, adding another three logs to the already lit fire, my eyes slowly drift to Liam, sitting on the other side of Circen, flicking through what I can only assume to be a music list on his phone. Wait, what?

“So you guys do use technology here?” I say with a questioning look, and the moment Liam looks up at me, he shrugs nonchalantly,

“We never said that we don’t,” I’m annoyed by that because I was told not to bother bringing my phone through the portal. But if there was some possibility of me phoning Wolf all this time, and nobody told me, I’m going to be pissed off, seriously.

“So why was I told not to bring my phone if devices work here?” Narrowing my eyes questioningly at Liam, he slowly looks up from his phone, only to look surprised by my sudden annoyance. It’s Noah, however, who answers my question the moment he plops himself down beside me,

“If you want to phone Wolf, it won’t work; you didn’t just hop over to another country, Sasha. You climbed into another dimension; things from your world don’t work the same in ours.” The sudden flashback of climbing through that portal has my stomach feeling hollow inside; it’s not an experience I want to relive again unless it’s a one-way home.

Handing me an open cider, I cautiously take it from Noah, only to watch him shrug with a cheeky grin when he comes to clink his with mine,

“Basically, how a realm hop works, which is what climbing through a portal is. We manipulate the infrastructure of time and space; in other words, imagine a flat piece of paper; on the one side is you, and on the other is us. Now, for us to get from here to you if we travel straight across will take us years, but if we bend that reality by folding the piece of paper so both ends meet, it’s called dimension manipulation, a.k.a, realm hopping.” All I can do to stop my jaw from going slack is to shut it because I didn’t expect his answer to be quite so detailed.

“How do you know all this stuff?” I suddenly ask in astonishment, shrugging with an audacious smile. He slowly takes another sip of his drink before turning to look at me,

“We had to learn this stuff the moment we turned five. Ronan chucked us into our first portal, and it was sink or swim from there.” He responds calmly, “Wait, he chucked you into your first portal at age five?” I’m suddenly horrified as I contemplate the sanity of the monster behind the crown. Noah is about to respond when the music suddenly erupts from the speaker; our heads instantly snap over to Circen, who shoots her hands up in the air as she shouts, “Woohoo!” And I can’t help the instant smile creeping up at the corners of my mouth as I watch her. I’ve only known her for two weeks, but she’s such a character, and it feels like I’ve been friends with her all my life.

Jumping up on her feet, Circen suddenly starts singing along to the words of the song,

“This one goes out to Caleb,” She clanks her drink with Liam’s, who’s rolling his eyes at her, taking a big sip; she’s suddenly swaying her hips to the rhythm of Taylor Swift - We are never getting back together. Wait, have they just broken up?

My eyes are still glued on Circen when Noah suddenly draws my attention with a shot glass, blinking twice at the green liquid swirling inside it; I scrunch my nose as I shake my head at him. I don’t drink; it’s not something my father ever allowed.

Noah suddenly gives me his best pleading smile and puppy dog eyes. I can’t help but giggle; he’s adorable, persistent, and utterly unwavering by my feeble attempt at turning him down.

Sighing, I narrow my eyes begrudgingly, but the sudden smile on my face tells him that he’s won, and the moment I take it from him, his grin only grows wider. Tipping his head back, he downs his shot in one second, and I notice that Circen and Liam have done the same. Oh well, I guess it’s just me then.

The sweet smell suddenly hits my nose the moment I bring the small glass up to my lips; only then do I tilt my head back and allow the liquid to flow past my lips and down my throat. It’s sweet, not at all what I was expecting, tasting a bit like peppermint. Licking the last few drops from my lips, I’m suddenly holding the empty glass up to him, Noah seeming ever so pleased with himself as he gives me a cheeky wink and a smile before moving on to collect the rest of the empty shot glasses.

I still have the cider in my hand when I look down; feeling a bit braver, I suddenly take a sip. I’m instantly surprised by how sweet it tastes, like cherries and apples. Looking over at Noah, he gives me an approving smile,

“It’s Loxtonia, you like?” Plopping down beside me, he nudges me playfully with his shoulder. If it were anyone else, I would feel weirded out by how comfortably close he’s getting to me, but I don’t; it’s Noah, and I’ve come to learn that Noah is just generally happy and a nice guy.

Three ciders and five shots in, and Circen has decided we should all play a game called truth or dare. And my head is suddenly feeling pretty strange, almost like I’m floating, light and carefree.

She grabbed the chessboard off the small table and turned it upside down in the middle of the rug. I’m smirking at the irony of her using Ronan’s chessboard for this game. I’m warm and tingly all over my body, suddenly unable to focus on anything for too long. The moment she places an empty cider bottle on its side on the wooden board, I cannot help but give her a questioning look. Liam suddenly turns the music down a little bit just as Circen returns my questioning look,

“It’s spin the bottle; haven’t you ever played it?” Shaking my head, my brows suddenly furrow in response; what does spinning a bottle have to do with truth or dare?

And it’s as if all three of them suddenly look at me with bemused expressions on their faces,

“Seriously?” Circen asks again, clearly unconvinced by my response, shrugging my shoulders with another shake of my head; she suddenly has a mischievous grin. “Well, then you’re playing,” The moment Liam rolls his eyes at Circen, I’m suddenly wondering precisely what truth or dare entails.

“So how it works is, someone will spin the bottle, and if it lands on you, you’ll be asked to pick truth or dare. Choosing truth, the other person can ask you anything they want, and you have to answer it truthfully; choosing dare, that person can dare you to do anything, and you have to do it.” Furrowing my brows, I smirk,

“But what if you don’t want to do it?”

“Well, you can choose to chicken out, but the rules are as follows: if you do, then the person who truthed or dared you gets to shave your entire head. My smile suddenly drops,

“Seriously?”

“Seriously,” She repeats with a sinister grin. I’m about to opt out of playing when Circen suddenly spins the bottle; crap, I guess I’m playing spin the bottle.

After a few rounds of the bottle landing on each one of us, the game isn’t so bad. Everyone mostly opts for truths over dares, except Noah; he seems to relish being dared to down more shots. The problem is he keeps sharing his shots, which is against the rules, so he has to take more shots. When it’s my turn to spin the bottle again, I’m in giggling fits with my friends, and we have all had way too much to drink. Spinning the bottle, it lands on Liam, and I’m still giggling,

“Truth or dare, Liam?” I ask him with a bright smile, to which he responds with truth, “Okay, let me think.” A question pops into my mind, and I’ve suddenly got all the courage to ask it, “Earlier today, Ronan wanted to mate me off to either Noah or Caleb, but he never mentioned your name. Why?” And the suddenly surprised looks I’m getting from all three of them have me questioning myself for blurting it all out like that, but I’m too far gone to back out now.

“Wait, what?” Noah suddenly choked out a nervous laugh, but before he could say anything else, I quickly rested my finger against his lips with a “Shh, you’ll get your turn; I’m waiting for Liam’s answer first.”

Looking back at Liam, I’m smiling, but he’s not. Okay, did I ask the wrong question?

Taking a deep breath, Liam looks up at me with a frown when he swallows hard,

“I’ve already found my mate, that’s why.” Blinking twice at his confession, my jaw suddenly goes slack in surprise,

“What, who?!” I’m suddenly feeling a slight bit confused. Is there another witch in this castle I don’t know about?

“Liam’s mated to the Seelie fae princess, aren’t you, Liam?” Giving him a teasing wink, Circen suddenly hooks her arm around Liam’s neck to plant a kiss against his cheek; cringing, Liam pushes her away playfully. Still, he’s suddenly blushing bright red, and for Liam to blush, it’s entirely something; his skin is quite fair, and his hair is white, his eyes a sky blue.

So the moment his cheeks flush and his ears turn pink, all three of us are suddenly teasingly saying” Ahhh” simultaneously.

Shaking his head, he rolls his eyes with a smile on his face, and I’m suddenly curious as to why he’s not with his fated mate, especially if she’s a princess.

“Okay, so why isn’t she here, or are you there with her?” And that’s the moment his smile drops, and he looks down,

“Ronan won’t allow it,” He mutters solemnly. I instantly furrowed my brows in confusion,

“What, why? If she’s your fated mate, then why keep you apart?” The moment Liam looks up at me, I can suddenly see how hard he’s trying to hide the hurt in his eyes. Shrugging, he tries to pretend like it’s no big deal,

“She’s a princess; she can’t leave her people, and Ronan needs me here. Ronan decided that it would be in everyone’s best interest not to reject one another; this way, we keep our alliance strong with the Seelie court, but that’s as far as our mate bond will allow us.” I want to say something, but by the look in Liam’s eyes, I decide to go a different route,

“So, what’s her name?” Looking up at me, a sudden spark twinkles in his eyes,

“Lana,” His smile instantly lights up his whole face, and my heart suddenly breaks for him; how can Ronan be this cruel? But before I can say anything, Circen suddenly grabs the bottle, and she’s still riding the high of being a happy drunk when she says, “Okay, enough with all this heavy truth.” She’s about to spin the bottle when a sudden hard knock has all our eyes shooting up towards the door; were we expecting someone else?

Jumping up with a huff, Circen quickly moves over to the door, mumbling, “It had better be an emergency,” as another loud knock suddenly has her pulling at the doorknob, the door flying open to reveal a very pissed-off Atlas standing there.

My stomach suddenly drops when I see him; he’s been trying to mind-link me all afternoon. I don’t know how he knows about Ronan coming to see me, but he’s been asking me questions nonstop while I’ve been ignoring him nonstop.

“What do you two want?” Circen suddenly snaps with a hand on her hip, narrowing his eyes. Atlas smirks at her,

“Having a party again, Circen?”

“Yeah, and what of it?” She retorts, instantly annoyed, rolling his eyes; he suddenly scoffs,

“We want to come in.”

“No.” She snaps at him. “No party poopers allowed,”

“Excuse me?” Atlas smirks, giving her a challenging look, “I’m coming in one way or another.” He grumbles with that same hard look in his eyes.

And there’s a long pause, which has a sudden lump forming in my throat; I want to get up to go to the bathroom. I want to lock myself in there and away from Atlas; maybe he doesn’t know I’m here, I suddenly think to myself.

But the mere thought of getting up right now has me feeling unstable; my head is spinning, and I’m just trying to keep from toppling over.

“Okay, you can come in on one condition,” The moment Circen says that I want to physically launch the empty bottle we’ve been using at her, why would she tell them they can come in?

“What is it?” Atlas groans, suddenly annoyed. Scoffing, Circen turns to the one crate on the floor right beside the door; picking up two bottles, she suddenly holds them up to them,

“If you two can both down these clean bottles of whisky, you can come in.” A sudden low chuckle rumbles from Atlas’s chest as he narrows his eyes at her; if I go now, he’ll never even see me. I think to myself as I try to get up, but Noah suddenly pulls me back down,

“Where are you going, Sasha?” I’m instantly trying to silence him, but it’s too late; the moment my eyes fly up to the door, Atlas is already staring down at me, his eyes narrowed and his jaw tight; shit, he looks mad.

“Fine,” Atlas says, grabbing the bottle from Circen and unscrewing the top; he suddenly starts downing the whole bottle, and by the looks of it, so does Caleb. How the hell are they consuming those so quickly? I think as my jaw drops. When Atlas finished his bottle, he pulled it from his lips and handed an empty bottle to Circen, “Happy now?” He retorts nonchalantly; that bottle didn’t even touch sides with him, how the actual...

With a grin, Circen steps aside to allow them entry. Shit.

Atlas and Caleb stroll into the room, but Atlas’s eyes are glued to me. My eyes immediately drop down to my lap; I instantly wish that I was invisible. Why can’t I have the ability to go invisible?

“So we’re playing Spin the Bottle if you wanna join?” Scoffing, Caleb shakes his head, “No thanks.” And he grabs a drink off the table and plonks himself down on the couch closest to Liam. Caleb’s dark and dangerous routine freaks me out, but I don’t dare look up; my head is spinning too much, and I don’t want to face the wrath of Atlas.

“How about you, Atlas?” Circen asks with a slight slur,

“Yeah, sure, why not.” He replies dryly, and I can feel his eyes boring into my skull. The moment he comes to sit right opposite me, I’m trying to distract myself with anything besides looking up.

Circen hands the bottle to Atlas, who takes it from her. His eyes are still on me, and the moment his mind links with mine, I want to crawl into a hole.

“Having fun?” I suddenly clench my jaw; I don’t want to respond or want anything to do with him. The wolf cuffs on my wrists suddenly have my wolf rattling behind my rib cage as a reminder of what he did to us. There’s a few seconds of silence, and then he links me again, “Would Wolf approve of you drinking?” And I instantly have bile rising in my throat when I suddenly look up at him, my eyes narrowing as I glare at him. How dare he judge me and use Wolf’s name to do it.” There she is,” He suddenly smirks with a sinister grin,” Tell me what my father wanted with you.” My eyes instantly drop to my lap when I link back,” Get out of my head.”

There’s another moment of awkward silence when Atlas suddenly spins the bottle; it goes around and, as luck would have it, lands straight on me. Great.

Smirking, I can practically feel his satisfaction the moment he clears his throat,

“Sasha, Truth or dare?” I’m suddenly moving around nervously, everyone else vibing to the music playing in the background as they wait for me to choose. I know what he wants; he thinks if I choose truth, he’ll be able to get me to confess to why Ronan was here, but it will not happen.

“Dare,” My eyes suddenly fly up to meet his in a challenging way. He can dare me to do whatever, but I’m not telling him a damn thing.

Smirking, he suddenly grins, and by the look in his eyes, I know I’m in trouble,

“Alright, I dare you to tell me what my father was doing in your room this afternoon.” My jaw drops as a puff of air leaves my chest; how did he manage to turn the tables on me? Great. Blinking, my mouth suddenly goes dry; what is he insinuating with that question anyway?

“Well, he didn’t want to kill me if you’re worried about that.” And I know it’s not, but I’m trying to stall or divert the question because damn him if he thinks I want to tell him anything after what he did to me.

“That’s not answering my question, Sasha. Remember, the rules say if you don’t answer truthfully, I can shave your head.” And I swear he’s suddenly got a shimmer in his eyes. Is the thought of shaving my head honestly exciting him?

Narrowing my eyes at him, I swallow a heavy lump; then, an idea pops into my mind as I look up at him with new confidence.

“He said that I can take Noah as my witch mate,” I reply with a smirk as I look over at him with a grin. And I suddenly want to face-plant my hand against my forehead. I mean, I’m not lying, but I’m not exactly telling the truth either, and pulling Noah into this isn’t exactly fair on him.

Circen suddenly sniggers, and Liam chuckles under his breath; the moment I turn my head to the right and look up at Noah, he looks like he’s instantly sobered up as he stares at Atlas. Moving my hand over to his, I lace my fingers around his hand and give it a reassuring squeeze. Noah suddenly looks down at me, and I can see the uncertainty and surprised look on his face, but it’s like he quickly catches on when he looks into my eyes; smiling at me, he suddenly nods in understanding,

“Yeah, we’re a couple now.” He says with a nod as he moves his hand from mine to fold his arm around my shoulders, and the moment he pulls me close to his side and places a kiss against my head, I can’t help but notice Atlas fuming with anger.

He’s seething, and I won’t lie; there’s a slight ping of satisfaction suddenly seeing him all clenched up and pissed off. The moment he glares at Noah, however, I instantly question whether or not this is a good idea. I don’t want Noah to get into trouble, but seeing the look on Atlas’s face even has my wolf feeling satisfied right now.

Circen suddenly breaks the awkward silence when she jumps up and shouts, “Okay, I think that’s enough games for now. Let’s crank up some tunes and get something to drink,” and just like that, the music is suddenly back on. Circen and Liam are busy pouring shots while leaving Atlas, Noah, and me alone on the carpet.

Looking from Noah to me, Atlas takes a deep breath, clearly annoyed.

“He is not your fated mate, Sasha; you can’t just go around choosing a witch mate; that isn’t how this works. He has a mate out there somewhere.” And his sudden response only fuels my irritation when I retort back.

“Well, you don’t have any right to preach, Mr. I’m getting married to someone who isn’t my fated mate.” And the sudden blue spark in his eyes makes it clear that I’ve struck a nerve.

“That’s different.” He grumbles lowly.

“How?” I snap, suddenly angered.

“It just is.” Scoffing, I shake my head as I narrow my eyes at him,

“It’s not.” And I shouldn’t be pissed off about this, but it’s like it’s been this build-up over the past two weeks, him cuffing my wolf and then Ronan blatantly putting it out there that I’m not good enough for Atlas.

He gives me a sudden hard stare before puffing out a breath of irritation and getting up,

“You’re impossible.” He mumbles, and with that, he turns and heads over to where Caleb is sitting on the couch, grabbing a shot and a drink; he suddenly downs the shot before starting on the other drink in his hand.

I’m so pissed off at him that a little gasp escapes my lips when Noah pulls me up to stand unexpectedly.

The moment my eyes connect with him, he’s suddenly giving me a little wink, “Come, my lady, I think we both need a drink after that performance.” He says with a grin, nodding. I allow him to take my hand and pull me towards where Circen and Liam are standing. Giving Atlas a sideways glance as we pass, he’s leaning back against the couch, downing his drink with a dark hooded look on his face.

What have I started?