A Child shall lead them 2/5
Chapter 2
His mother’s scream was what sent him running to her chambers. Jensen had been enjoying a game of chess with his younger sister MacKenzie just as his father had done with him and their older brother Josh before his death. For her it was a game of pleasure, but for them, heirs to the throne of Alfheim, it was another way to teach them strategy and patience to help defend their city. Patience that deserted him as he raced to see what had caused the anguish he heard in his mother’s voice as it echoed through the palace.
It had been almost five years since that day at the falls and Jensen had changed from the carefree mischievous elf to a serious almost withdrawn one. He no longer tried to escape his parents or the duties they required him to perform, and much to his father’s delight, he’d finally cut his hair. He father believed it was because he had finally grown up, but Jensen knew that it was because every time he combed it, he felt himself being dragged by it and he didn’t want that memory, but his father died with the belief that it was his influence.
He didn’t let things upset him or excite him anymore much to his brother and his friend’s dismay. He’d felt as though he was getting over the unwanted blot bond until Jeff, his Alpha and a Logretta from the Council came and took his child while he was still covered in Jensen’s blood and took him to live with the wolves. To hear his mother’s blood-curdling scream cut through all of his indifference and caused a panic that sent him running.
When he reached his mother, no one had to tell him, he could smell it before he had even reached her chambers; his senses was assaulted with the stench of his brother death from the large amount of his blood that coated the guards clothing. As he reached the door he held his sister behind him, not sure what he would find, however, when the guards and women in his mother’s court parted to let him through he saw that they had not bought Josh’s body back with them, only the news of his death.
As he walked towards his mother, Danneel, a member of his mothers’ court, moved alongside him to his mother’s side to offer her comfort at the same time his sister broke free from his hold to do the same.
“Who’s with him?” Jensen asked the guards.
“Tom, Matt and Steve,” Chris answered from behind him as Mike came to stand beside him.
“Take me to him. Now!”
Prince Joshua Ackles stared up at Jensen, his eyes were blank and unseeing, his skin was unnaturally pale, his body stiff and his life… gone. Someone had carelessly taken it and left his body to be discovered on a well-traveled path between two cities. There was Alfheim, the city of the Elves that lay deep in the old growth part of the forest to the east, and Lycaon, the city of shifters, wolves that made their home closer to the humans and the bigger lakes in the newer part of the forest to west.
As Prince of Alfheim, Jensen rarely left the city these days unless it was official council business; otherwise, everything he needed was bought to him. When he had been told that his brother’s body had been found he dared anyone to touch him before he arrived at the scene.
The scents of the forest, the smell of pine, musky earth and decaying trees were fragrances of home and usually brought Jensen comfort, but today those smells were foul and tinged with the pungent odor of copper, wafting from his brother’s blood as it seeped into the forest floor taking his life with it.
Jensen knelt at his brother’s side and reached to close the unblinking eyes, as he took in the condition of his body. There were claw marks across his face and his stomach, the marks were so deep that he had nearly been eviscerated, but the killing wound was the huge gouge in his neck where it had been ripped out. His heart was gone, but he was sure that happened after his throat had been ripped out. Wolf.
Had the body been found sooner, Jensen could’ve gotten the information he needed just by touching his brother. His heightened elfin senses could pick up not only the scent of the wolf but also a vision of the shifter that had attacked and killed his brother. He was too late, Jensen could tell by the stiffness of the body that it laid there much too long to get a reading, but he had to try, so Jensen picked up Josh’s hand and nothing. The smells of the forest that Jensen loved had permeated the body so that all traces of the attacker were gone and the only clue Jensen had to work with was the marks on Josh’s body.
Bowing his head, Jensen said a silent good bye to his brother before he stood up to face the guards who had accompanied him this far away from their city. “Take him home,” Jensen commanded them. “Take him to my mother so that she can prepare him for the Pyre.”
Stepping aside, Jensen watched while his brother’s body was swaddled and prepared to take home to his mother, who was just showing signs of recovering from his father’s death from a heart attack a year ago. Now she would have to deal with this, the death of her beloved first born, who had not allowed himself to be life bonded to a shifter. He was the head of the family now and as such, he wanted to be able to tell her that he had bought the wolf responsible for her son’s death to justice.
“Chris, Tom, Steve and Mike,” he called his closest friends and highest ranking guards, “the four of you are coming with me.”
“Coming where?” Tom asked as he followed his prince.
“To find my brother’s killer, to Lycaon,” Jensen answered.
“Jensen you can’t be serious,” Chris, probed. “We can’t just march into Lycaon without any proof and accuse a shifter of killing Josh.”
“His missing heart and ripped out throat are proof enough for me, Chris,” Jensen answered through gritted teeth and threatened, “If you are too scared to go with me, then please help escort my brother back and Matt will be happy enough to take your place.”
“I’m just saying, go to Council first. This can only end badly, Jensen. You don’t want your mother to have to put two sons on the Pyre, do you. Besides Jensen, he’ll be there.”
“I know Chris, but I’m all mother has now to get justice for our family, so I’ll have to face him.”
Jensen understood Chris’ desire to go to the governing Council and present their facts. The Council was their governing body that had a representative from all groups calling the forest their home. Even the Dvergar, the dark elves had someone sitting on Council. Normally Jensen would be the first to go before them but he wanted this matter settled so that they could release his brother’s spirit in four day’s time so that it wouldn’t be trapped here and become earthbound.
“What about the three of you, do you also doubt my ability to come out with my life? Our lives?” Jensen turned to the other guards.
The elves stepped closer to him in answer, and issued a silent challenge to Chris, would it be him or Matt that would help defend the royal family’s honor.
“I’ll take point,” Chris declared as he walked ahead of the group but said nothing as Steve moved to walk beside him.
The mood was somber among the group as they made their way to Lycaon. This was a trip they had taken many times before as young elves and one Jensen hadn’t taken in five years after Jeff had brutally taken him and left him alone in that clearing to be found by his guards bruised, battered and bonded. And unwanted. He had obtained his goal and that was to impregnate Jensen and leave him so that no other could have him.
Halfway between the two cities was that waterfall that had been shared by both elves, shifters and other creatures for centuries. Their fore fathers had been in this forest when it was just a mud hole and watched as it became a life sustaining lake and waterfall, so they had agreed to make this a place of neutrality between all groups. For Jensen it’d once been a place of fond memories and simpler times.
Jensen himself had not visited the waterfall in almost five years, not since he had bonded to someone who had no right to claim him. It seemed as though the closer that they came to the waterfall the more his wrist, the site of his mating bite, grew hot and itchy as though it sensed the unwanted memory.
If he closed his eyes, Jensen could still see Jeff as he loomed over him, large hands hitting him repeatedly, and him begging the shifter to stop. Not only could he see him, but also he remembered how Jeff smelled when became aroused by Jensen’s fear as he tried to escape but by then Jeff had been too caught up in the heat coursing through his body to let him go.
For some reason Jensen expected the waterfall to be different, as though there should be some marked change for an event that was so life changing as a blot bonding, but it was the same place, and the waters looked just as enticing as it had five years ago. It seemed that the only thing that was different was him. He hesitated for a moment to see if the pain was still there, but there was probably nothing left after five minutes, let alone five years. Once he took Jeff’s blood into his body, his mind told him that it was a good thing that happened to him, but his soul still screamed with the pain.
“Are you changing your mind about going further?” Chris asked at Jensen’s brief hesitation.
“Not at all, Chris, just recalling a memory,” Jensen explained.
On the other side of the falls, the five men’s hearing was assaulted by the most mournful howls they had ever heard, and as they got closer, they could smell it, death had touched the shifters as well. When they crossed over onto the shifters territory, they knew that they were being watched and felt the unseen eyes on them with every step they took. They also knew it would be wise not to make a move that would’ve appeared to be aggressive. With no prior approval from the Council, their unannounced arrival could be seen as a threat and their deaths would be justified. The only reason they had been allowed this far onto the shifters territory was the fact that Jensen was bonded to their crown prince Jeff. Even with that knowledge, the four men still flanked Jensen, with Chris and Steve still in the front and Tom and Mike in the back in the event of an attack on the sole heir to the throne of Alfheim.
The closer that they were to the clearing the wolves used for meetings the more off center Jensen felt. His heart began to race, his skin itched and he felt as though he wanted, no needed to crawl out of it because it was too tight. Suddenly he was hard and aching, his cock leaking and he knew the guards could smell the arousal, but said nothing. Taking in huge gulps of air, a scent permeated his nose and overwhelmed him, blocking out the foul odor of death. The smell was earthy, musky yet sweet. It was his mate, Jeff. The closer he got to Jeff, the more his body craved for something his mind did not want. As they reached the clearing, Jeff was nowhere to be seen, but instead there was a group of shifters gathered, and in the middle of them, he focused on the tallest one with shaggy brown hair that somehow he was drawn to like a beacon, as though he was Jensen’s mate.
Jensen sensed a deep sorrow in the tall shifter and he fought back the urge to cross the aisle and offer him comfort. It would be an embarrassing action for the new Crown Prince of Alfheim, especially since the shifter was getting all the comfort he needed in the form of tall blond man and a short brunette woman. Wrenching his eyes away from the unknown man was when he became aware of the reason for the gathering. The man was standing with a group of shifters in front of a body swaddled in white and laid on a funeral pyre about to be lit. However, that wasn’t what captured Jensen’s attention, and it was the person in front of the tall shifter that Jensen couldn’t stop staring at. It was a little elfin boy about four years old with green eyes, cinnamon spots across his nose and blonde hair. There was no doubt about it, this was his son.
Chapter 1 Chapter 3
His mother’s scream was what sent him running to her chambers. Jensen had been enjoying a game of chess with his younger sister MacKenzie just as his father had done with him and their older brother Josh before his death. For her it was a game of pleasure, but for them, heirs to the throne of Alfheim, it was another way to teach them strategy and patience to help defend their city. Patience that deserted him as he raced to see what had caused the anguish he heard in his mother’s voice as it echoed through the palace.
It had been almost five years since that day at the falls and Jensen had changed from the carefree mischievous elf to a serious almost withdrawn one. He no longer tried to escape his parents or the duties they required him to perform, and much to his father’s delight, he’d finally cut his hair. He father believed it was because he had finally grown up, but Jensen knew that it was because every time he combed it, he felt himself being dragged by it and he didn’t want that memory, but his father died with the belief that it was his influence.
He didn’t let things upset him or excite him anymore much to his brother and his friend’s dismay. He’d felt as though he was getting over the unwanted blot bond until Jeff, his Alpha and a Logretta from the Council came and took his child while he was still covered in Jensen’s blood and took him to live with the wolves. To hear his mother’s blood-curdling scream cut through all of his indifference and caused a panic that sent him running.
When he reached his mother, no one had to tell him, he could smell it before he had even reached her chambers; his senses was assaulted with the stench of his brother death from the large amount of his blood that coated the guards clothing. As he reached the door he held his sister behind him, not sure what he would find, however, when the guards and women in his mother’s court parted to let him through he saw that they had not bought Josh’s body back with them, only the news of his death.
As he walked towards his mother, Danneel, a member of his mothers’ court, moved alongside him to his mother’s side to offer her comfort at the same time his sister broke free from his hold to do the same.
“Who’s with him?” Jensen asked the guards.
“Tom, Matt and Steve,” Chris answered from behind him as Mike came to stand beside him.
“Take me to him. Now!”
Prince Joshua Ackles stared up at Jensen, his eyes were blank and unseeing, his skin was unnaturally pale, his body stiff and his life… gone. Someone had carelessly taken it and left his body to be discovered on a well-traveled path between two cities. There was Alfheim, the city of the Elves that lay deep in the old growth part of the forest to the east, and Lycaon, the city of shifters, wolves that made their home closer to the humans and the bigger lakes in the newer part of the forest to west.
As Prince of Alfheim, Jensen rarely left the city these days unless it was official council business; otherwise, everything he needed was bought to him. When he had been told that his brother’s body had been found he dared anyone to touch him before he arrived at the scene.
The scents of the forest, the smell of pine, musky earth and decaying trees were fragrances of home and usually brought Jensen comfort, but today those smells were foul and tinged with the pungent odor of copper, wafting from his brother’s blood as it seeped into the forest floor taking his life with it.
Jensen knelt at his brother’s side and reached to close the unblinking eyes, as he took in the condition of his body. There were claw marks across his face and his stomach, the marks were so deep that he had nearly been eviscerated, but the killing wound was the huge gouge in his neck where it had been ripped out. His heart was gone, but he was sure that happened after his throat had been ripped out. Wolf.
Had the body been found sooner, Jensen could’ve gotten the information he needed just by touching his brother. His heightened elfin senses could pick up not only the scent of the wolf but also a vision of the shifter that had attacked and killed his brother. He was too late, Jensen could tell by the stiffness of the body that it laid there much too long to get a reading, but he had to try, so Jensen picked up Josh’s hand and nothing. The smells of the forest that Jensen loved had permeated the body so that all traces of the attacker were gone and the only clue Jensen had to work with was the marks on Josh’s body.
Bowing his head, Jensen said a silent good bye to his brother before he stood up to face the guards who had accompanied him this far away from their city. “Take him home,” Jensen commanded them. “Take him to my mother so that she can prepare him for the Pyre.”
Stepping aside, Jensen watched while his brother’s body was swaddled and prepared to take home to his mother, who was just showing signs of recovering from his father’s death from a heart attack a year ago. Now she would have to deal with this, the death of her beloved first born, who had not allowed himself to be life bonded to a shifter. He was the head of the family now and as such, he wanted to be able to tell her that he had bought the wolf responsible for her son’s death to justice.
“Chris, Tom, Steve and Mike,” he called his closest friends and highest ranking guards, “the four of you are coming with me.”
“Coming where?” Tom asked as he followed his prince.
“To find my brother’s killer, to Lycaon,” Jensen answered.
“Jensen you can’t be serious,” Chris, probed. “We can’t just march into Lycaon without any proof and accuse a shifter of killing Josh.”
“His missing heart and ripped out throat are proof enough for me, Chris,” Jensen answered through gritted teeth and threatened, “If you are too scared to go with me, then please help escort my brother back and Matt will be happy enough to take your place.”
“I’m just saying, go to Council first. This can only end badly, Jensen. You don’t want your mother to have to put two sons on the Pyre, do you. Besides Jensen, he’ll be there.”
“I know Chris, but I’m all mother has now to get justice for our family, so I’ll have to face him.”
Jensen understood Chris’ desire to go to the governing Council and present their facts. The Council was their governing body that had a representative from all groups calling the forest their home. Even the Dvergar, the dark elves had someone sitting on Council. Normally Jensen would be the first to go before them but he wanted this matter settled so that they could release his brother’s spirit in four day’s time so that it wouldn’t be trapped here and become earthbound.
“What about the three of you, do you also doubt my ability to come out with my life? Our lives?” Jensen turned to the other guards.
The elves stepped closer to him in answer, and issued a silent challenge to Chris, would it be him or Matt that would help defend the royal family’s honor.
“I’ll take point,” Chris declared as he walked ahead of the group but said nothing as Steve moved to walk beside him.
The mood was somber among the group as they made their way to Lycaon. This was a trip they had taken many times before as young elves and one Jensen hadn’t taken in five years after Jeff had brutally taken him and left him alone in that clearing to be found by his guards bruised, battered and bonded. And unwanted. He had obtained his goal and that was to impregnate Jensen and leave him so that no other could have him.
Halfway between the two cities was that waterfall that had been shared by both elves, shifters and other creatures for centuries. Their fore fathers had been in this forest when it was just a mud hole and watched as it became a life sustaining lake and waterfall, so they had agreed to make this a place of neutrality between all groups. For Jensen it’d once been a place of fond memories and simpler times.
Jensen himself had not visited the waterfall in almost five years, not since he had bonded to someone who had no right to claim him. It seemed as though the closer that they came to the waterfall the more his wrist, the site of his mating bite, grew hot and itchy as though it sensed the unwanted memory.
If he closed his eyes, Jensen could still see Jeff as he loomed over him, large hands hitting him repeatedly, and him begging the shifter to stop. Not only could he see him, but also he remembered how Jeff smelled when became aroused by Jensen’s fear as he tried to escape but by then Jeff had been too caught up in the heat coursing through his body to let him go.
For some reason Jensen expected the waterfall to be different, as though there should be some marked change for an event that was so life changing as a blot bonding, but it was the same place, and the waters looked just as enticing as it had five years ago. It seemed that the only thing that was different was him. He hesitated for a moment to see if the pain was still there, but there was probably nothing left after five minutes, let alone five years. Once he took Jeff’s blood into his body, his mind told him that it was a good thing that happened to him, but his soul still screamed with the pain.
“Are you changing your mind about going further?” Chris asked at Jensen’s brief hesitation.
“Not at all, Chris, just recalling a memory,” Jensen explained.
On the other side of the falls, the five men’s hearing was assaulted by the most mournful howls they had ever heard, and as they got closer, they could smell it, death had touched the shifters as well. When they crossed over onto the shifters territory, they knew that they were being watched and felt the unseen eyes on them with every step they took. They also knew it would be wise not to make a move that would’ve appeared to be aggressive. With no prior approval from the Council, their unannounced arrival could be seen as a threat and their deaths would be justified. The only reason they had been allowed this far onto the shifters territory was the fact that Jensen was bonded to their crown prince Jeff. Even with that knowledge, the four men still flanked Jensen, with Chris and Steve still in the front and Tom and Mike in the back in the event of an attack on the sole heir to the throne of Alfheim.
The closer that they were to the clearing the wolves used for meetings the more off center Jensen felt. His heart began to race, his skin itched and he felt as though he wanted, no needed to crawl out of it because it was too tight. Suddenly he was hard and aching, his cock leaking and he knew the guards could smell the arousal, but said nothing. Taking in huge gulps of air, a scent permeated his nose and overwhelmed him, blocking out the foul odor of death. The smell was earthy, musky yet sweet. It was his mate, Jeff. The closer he got to Jeff, the more his body craved for something his mind did not want. As they reached the clearing, Jeff was nowhere to be seen, but instead there was a group of shifters gathered, and in the middle of them, he focused on the tallest one with shaggy brown hair that somehow he was drawn to like a beacon, as though he was Jensen’s mate.
Jensen sensed a deep sorrow in the tall shifter and he fought back the urge to cross the aisle and offer him comfort. It would be an embarrassing action for the new Crown Prince of Alfheim, especially since the shifter was getting all the comfort he needed in the form of tall blond man and a short brunette woman. Wrenching his eyes away from the unknown man was when he became aware of the reason for the gathering. The man was standing with a group of shifters in front of a body swaddled in white and laid on a funeral pyre about to be lit. However, that wasn’t what captured Jensen’s attention, and it was the person in front of the tall shifter that Jensen couldn’t stop staring at. It was a little elfin boy about four years old with green eyes, cinnamon spots across his nose and blonde hair. There was no doubt about it, this was his son.
Chapter 1 Chapter 3