Chapter Four

Icould feel him watching me. My body reacted to every glance and lingering gaze. I could feel exactly where his eyes trailed along my body and gods help me, I loved it.

Even thinking about his eyes undressing me as I walked along the path sent shivers through me. I hated it.

I hated that I loved it so much. That I craved it.

My wolf panted in my mind anytime I so much as thought about him. She would howl and yip whenever I would imagine his hands replacing his gaze along my curves, and urge me to make it a reality.

‘Sasha, he is perfect. No one could be stronger than him. Why won't you accept our mate?'She whimpered when I shut the images from my mind and pushed against the urges they manifested within me.

‘You know why,'I said.

‘If The Fates didn't want us to be together, then why would they pair us as mates?'she argued, and as hard as I tried, I couldn't come up with an answer to that.

I watched as he stepped through the portal, the image of the tree rippling even more as he stepped through. The movement reminded me of a pond after a pebble had been dropped in. It was beautiful and seamless. A never-ending movement through the air.

I moved to go next, but Baer stepped ahead and held up his hand. He waited a few minutes before nodding and stepping out of Rory's and my way.

I went first, the world almost flipping around, like I had fallen down the rabbit hole like Alice. And just like Alice, I found myself in a world of wonder.

My eyes widened as I looked up into the glittering trees above me, their colors like nothing I had ever seen before. New hues and shades of familiar colors swirling with a new vibrance I could never have imagined in all my life.

There was magic here. Ancient and powerful magic. Magic that had long been lost to the world I was familiar with. Magic that desired to remain forgotten.

I could feel it beginning to shift around me, its scent overwhelming my senses as it fought against me. Ayden's hand reached out and pulled me by my wrist, my cheek pressed against his hard chest as the world slowly stopped spinning.

"You need to ground yourself," he whispered to me. "The forest has a habit of shifting around and moving those who step foot inside. If you don't ground yourself, you can easily get lost. Just use the magic that my uncle taught you. Find that pulse of magic within the earth and hold onto it."

I closed my eyes and searched my memories for the lessons his uncle had given us one week. It had been the only week his uncle ever came to the school and taught this magic. He had refused to return the next year and told us to teach each other. The lessons hadn't been that in depth, almost as if his uncle didn't want us to learn what he was teaching, but still, I knew enough to understand what Ayden was telling me to do.

The roots beneath my feet were all connected. The forest's mapped out by the paths beneath our feet.

"That's it," he whispered to me as I found the exact place in the forest we stood and held onto it. "Keep holding onto this spot. Don't let the forest drag you anywhere else but here."

I nodded as he coached me, my cheek still firmly pressed to his chest. I could hear his heartbeat against my ear. The sound soothing both my wolf and me. It helped me remain grounded, and I soon realized that I was no longer grounded to this spot in this forest, but to him. Where he went, I was sure to follow.

I slowly looked up at him, his eyes locked on me as his arms tightened around my waist. My hand replaced my cheek against his chest, the feel of his heart still beating against my skin, still grounding me to this place within his embrace.

His lips parted slightly as he looked back at me, his eyelids seeming to grow heavy as they drooped over his eyes. He leaned towards me, my body leaning into him, if only for a taste of what The Fates deemed my destiny.

"This is amazing! It looks like something right out of a fairytale book!" Rory's voice startled me out of the trance I had fallen under, my hand against Ayden's chest pushing him back as I gathered my senses and focused back on the roots beneath my feet.

"You need to ground yourself like Atlas Voland-Humphris had taught us," I told her quickly, hiding my shame at what I had nearly done. "The forest's magic is designed to whisk us deeper into the forest so that we will get lost."

"And forgotten," Ayden added. "The Forgotten Forest is the entry and exit point for the Forgotten Realm. Like all things in the Forgotten Realm, it has been forgotten and aims to make all those who enter join it in a world of lost history."

"Wasn't this place the home of the gods before?" Baer asked as he joined us on this side of the portal.

Ayden shrugged. "That's what some say. Others claim that it's the world of the Fae, where King Arthur of Camelot disappeared to with promises of returning to take his place as rightful king. The stories are countless, but the singular fact is, if you aren't careful here, you will be lost and forgotten till the end of time."

I rolled my eyes. "If that's the case, then where do these stories come from? If it was really forgotten, then how do we know its name?"

"Up until now, you never heard of it. Up until now, Baer and Aurora thought this place was only a story told to children to help them sleep. All fairytales have an origin of truth, but no one ever knows or remembers what exactly that truth is. It's forgotten history that will never be recovered."

"Then how do you seem to know so much?" I demanded. Rory and Baer both looked between us, their glances to Ayden, asking the same question.

Ayden sighed. "Because I'm not the first member of my family to come here."

I balked at that answer. We all did. It wasn't what we had expected to hear.

I furrowed my brow as I waited for him to explain. His back turned to us and hands linked behind his head lazily. I could feel myself growing impatient as I waited, the forest trying its best to shift around us as I held onto my grounded spot for dear life.

Finally, he let out another sigh and looked back at us all. "My uncle was sent here twenty years ago by the ancient dark witch who stole his magic. In order to gain back his magic, he had to undergo three trials. The first brought him here to this forest. And it was here in this place that he discovered the magic he taught you all. A forgotten magic that only the most ancient of beings remembered."

"Why would a dark witch send your uncle somewhere to learn a forgotten magic?" I asked, skepticism tainting my voice.

He looked away, his eyes looking anywhere but at us as he gave his answer. "Because she wasn't just a dark witch. She was our ancestor. The first moon witch, Alkmene."

"Of course, you have yet another dark witch in your lineage," I growled. "And you two still think we can trust him?"

I rolled my eyes as Rory nodded without a word. It seemed that I was the only one who saw the obvious pattern with the Ayden's bloodline. They were far too susceptible to the darkness. And to trust him as we go up against the ultimate darkness, it was insane. Pure insanity.

"Why did she take his magic?" Rory asked, seeming to me more concerned with that part of the story than the fact that he was related to yet another dark witch in history. "And why didn't he get it back?"

Ayden shrugged with his hands now in his pocket. "That's not my story to tell. All I can say is that I have knowledge of this place, and my family has done more research since my uncle was last here. We wanted to be prepared just in case we ever had to make another journey within this place. Or anyone else in our future bloodline finds themselves wandering around the Forgotten Forest."

"So that's how you knew to have us all ground ourselves," I said finally. "Then what else did your family learn? What else is your coven keeping from the world that should be knowledge for everyone?"

"What has your pack and coven been hiding from the rest of us, Rigel?" Ayden countered. "Whatdoes your family know that should be shared with the world?"

I frowned at him. I wasn't sure what he meant by that. Our family had an open-source library and a school open to all packs and covens to attend. We didn't hide knowledge, at least not knowledge that affected everyone.

There was of course, some instances where it was simply pack business and didn't need to be shared across borders. Like this quest against Minerva. It had been our pack that had been targeted on more than one occasion by the dark witch. So, it was natural that we kept those instances of failed defenses to ourselves.

Ayden scoffed at my silence, then turned to Rory. "Here," he drew a sigil with a stick on the ground. "Draw this symbol in all four points, east, west, south, and north. It has to be exact. Once it's drawn, you can relax your hold on the magic here. This symbol creates a ward that grounds anyone who is within it. It will help us save energy."

Rory nodded after inspecting every curve and dotted line of the sigil. "Got it."

"We'll have to make camp here," Ayden continued. "It's not impossible to navigate the Forgotten Forest at night, but it's not exactly ideal. There are still beasts who live here, but the symbols will keep them away as well. And if they don't then, I can handle them."

"Who elected you leader?" I demanded. "We can handle the creatures in the night. We need to keep moving so we don't lose Minerva."

Ayden shook his head. "If you want to continue on, be my guest. But I for one don't want to deal with something like a chimera or a basilisk in the darkness of a forest that has no intention of allowing me to freely pass through it. And as far as leadership is concerned, I don't give a rat's ass who is in charge. But I know this place better than any of you and if I were in your shoes, I'd listen to the guy who knows what the hell he's talking about."

Rory nudged me as I scowled back at Ayden. I hated that he made sense. Hated that I was agreeing with him. I hated everything about anything to do with him. Especially that I liked the way he took charge, at the way he challenged me.

To be honest, I always had enjoyed that about him in the deepest reserves of my mind. I would never admit it to anyone, though. I'd never show that kind of weakness.

"Fine," I said as I grabbed a stick. "I'll help with the sigils then."