Chapter 7 Drawn To You

Cave Mountain

"Ouch... my butt hurts!" James cried out.

They just made a rough landing in front of an unknown location. While James was still on his butt, Lacey sprang to her feet. She quickly rushed to help him up.

"Are you alright?" she asked expressing concern.

"Yeah, I will live." James nods his head. He switches his gaze on Zed. Narrowing his eyes on him, "Where is this place?" he asked sternly.

What James could see were trees of different kinds and right before him was a large rock. He could size the rock up in his mind. It's a rock rising at least 300 meters above the surrounding land. With trees around, he could tell that they are still in the woods.

On the feet of the rock was a natural opening large enough for human exploration.

Zed smiled to himself. With his gaze on James, he opened his mouth to speak. "This is where I call home and you will be safe here."

"That doesn't look like a safe place." James moved closer to the natural opening. Around the opening were symbols scribed to the rock. Some of the symbols have the shape of a star drawn inside a circle. Some are made up of endless lines which interweave above and below each other.

These symbols were large that even someone standing a few paces away from the rock could easily see the symbols. James glanced at Zed. "What are these markings?" His voice was filled with nervousness. Never in his entire life has he ever seen symbols like this.

"I told you this is a safe place." Zed approaches. With his bronze staff pointed directly to markings on the wall he opened his mouth to speak. "These symbols are magical marks often scribed to a rock, the front door of a house, windows, the floor of a house, and even trees to keep the enemies away. It's a magical protection mark."

Symbols like this will keep supernatural uninvited guests away. These marks are often used by wizards and witches to protect themselves from werewolves, vampires, and warlocks including evil spirits that prey in the night or the dark beings that stalk in the day.

When these symbols are scribed anywhere to keep enemies away, the enemies could only have access if invited in by the wizard or witch that scribed the symbol on the surface of the house or rock.

Zed turned and made his way to one of the trees a few paces away from the rock. He gestured at James to come. With his bronze staff in place, he points James' attention to the symbols scribed to the tree. "With these symbols, no uninvited creature or being could get any close to this place without being invited in by me."

James emits a long-deep audible breath expressing relief. "It's a safe place after all," he mutters.

"I have known Zed for a long time now," said Lacey as he makes her way to James. "He's good at keeping anyone he wishes safe and I know you are in good hands."

James cast a searing gaze on Lacey. "Is this a goodbye speech?" he asked with curiosity.

"I need to return to my father. Perhaps I could talk him out from chasing after you or desires to see you hang on a burning stake."

Being the daughter of an Earl is the hardest thing Lacey could experience in her entire vampire life. She has lived for 300 years with vampirism and her life has never been easy or moving smoothly as she expected with her father always bossing her around with the laws of vampires.

She's a lady that wants to have friends amongst the werewolves but her father has forbidden her from even crossing into the territories of the werewolves.

No one has ever crossed Ambrose and still has his head to himself. The humans live in fear of him.

Before James could say "please stay with me for a while," Zed clears his throat pushing James' words back to his throat. "You're not going anywhere," Zed said narrowing his gaze on Lacey. "At least not yet."

Lacey rolled her eyes and sighed silently. "Why not?"

"You two come with me." Zed turned and started making his way to the natural opening. He swirled, seeing that neither James nor Lacey was following him, he gestured at them, "Come, we don't have all day -- night will soon be against us."

James glanced at Lacey. "Let's see what he wants to show us."

James feels safe around Lacey and did not want her to leave him for a second. He's becoming comfortable with her around. She's the first lady he has ever come close to or even have the nerves of engaging in a conversation with her. James isn't the type of dude that keeps ladies around. The mindset his colleagues at work stirred up in him is that he's ' a jerk that can't even speak to a lady or even win the heart of a lady.'

Since he spent the first night in the woods with Lacey, something in him is drawing his soul to her. The certainty of knowing someone belongs to you. He could hear the wolf in him yell, 'don't ever let her go or I will rip through you to get to her!'

Each time he wants to shut the wolf in him up, the more loudly he hears his wolf yell from within. 'I'm telling you, dude, she belongs to you. Make her your mate.'

No wolf in his human form could hear the wolf in him yelling to get a mate. The only yelling the wolves could hear is the yelling of the bloodlust of their wolf daring them to slaughter the humans.

James' wolf has never yelled at him to satisfy his bloodlust. Not even when he first turned. Werewolves 'wolf rage' could be triggered by the loud yelling of their inward wolf seeking to be brutal.

James cast his gaze on Lacey. He smirked to himself as he gently grabbed her hand. "The wizard is waiting for us," he said.