¤Sang¤

James is on me as soon as I walk in the door after coming home from visiting Luke and Gabriel. His narrowed eyes and pinched face says that he's more than just a little peeved at me for ditching him at the pack house.

His mouth opens, most likely to tear me a new one, but I hold up my hand, halting his verbal backslap.

"I'm sorry I left you with the wolves, but Luke needed answers and I know that you can handle yourself. No matter how much Nathan gets under your skin."

His chest, which is puffed up with all the breath he needs to rip into me, deflates just as quickly. He leans back on his right leg and crosses his arms, his eyes opening back to their normal size.

"Fine," he huffs. "Just don't let it happen again."

"Duly noted," I say with a small smile.

He moves to the side, allowing me to walk further into our home. I curve to the right, entering our rather modest living room, if I do say so myself. There's a fire place in the back corner, and a flat screen T.V. on the wall next to it. A black suede two-sided couch faces it, with a black glass coffee table in the center. Matching end tables flank the couch with vases of pink and red chrysler imperial roses. A bay window opens behind the couch, looking out into the front yard where James's herb garden is.

I plop down in the center of the couch, in the nice rounded space, and curl my legs under me. I grab a throw from the back of the couch and drape it over my legs before reaching for the remote on the coffee table. James takes a seat next to me and rolls his eyes at my choice of program before turning to me.

"So what are we going to do?"

"What do you mean?" I ask, rolling my eyes at the unnecessary drama unfolding between Yandy and her mother in law on Love and Hip Hop: New York.

"I mean with the guys. Are you sure they're all game?"

"They have no choice. It's either join the team or allow the sups to get out of hand. They're all too good to let something like that happen."

"So where are we going to have this meeting?"

"Here, of course," I say with a duh tone, narrowing my eyes like he's lost his marbles. "We have the advantage."

"You don't think it's a little too soon to allow them to see where we live?"

"I think if they have any chance of helping us defeat the king chimera, then they'll need the best training equipment. And we have the best."

"Ok." He nods in resigned agreement. "But if this thing goes sideways, don't say I didn't warn you."

"Duly noted."

¤Kota¤

"Are you sure this is the right place?" I murmur, glancing up from my phone at the hidden wrought iron gates in front of us. The swirling designs in the iron depicting hidden hearts between flowers, trees, and animals.

"You're the one who read off the directions," Victor answers, leaning over the steering wheel, trying to see beyond the gates. "Who builds a house in the middle of nowhere?"

"Someone who doesn't want to be found," a female voice responds.

Victor and I both jump in our seats, looking around the car frantically, only to see that we're as alone as we were the whole ride over here.

"What was that?" he asks, his eyes still dancing around the car wildly.

"I have no idea," I answer slowly, redirecting my gaze back to the gate in front of us. "But it looks like we're about to find out."

Victor sends a quizzical glance in my direction, and I nod my head to indicate the gate, which is now slowly easing open like something out of a horror movie. Victor sends me another look I'm unable to decipher, since it's gone just as fast as it appears, and then eases us through the gate.

A few feet in, the road turns to the left, and we're able to see the first signs of life. There's a large circular driveway going around a water feature that sits in front of a two-story castle-like home with a widow's walk. A few cars line the cement courtyard around cobblestone the driveway, and I wonder if any of them belong to our new teammates, or if whoever resides here is really just that rich.

With another shared look, Victor and I get out of the car and amble up the small staircase to the front door, where the stained glass continues the same outdoor theme as the gate.

Before we can even knock, the door opens, revealing the guy that appeared with Sang that night in the woods, James. His brown hair is combed back away from his face, and the stubble on his jaw gives him a menacing look. His amber eyes glow slightly before settling into a more subdued dark brown.

"Sang says I shouldn't show my true eyes because they scare people," he says in a bored tone, his deep southern voice laced with tendrils of magic. "But I don't think you two scare easily. Do you?"

Victor opens his mouth to answer, but James gets a glazed over look in his eyes, like he's not really there with us anymore. His lips turn up in a scowl right before his eyes clear and they're back to that dull brown.

"Don't answer that," he huffs. "I didn't wanna know the answer anyway. Come in and take the doorway on your right."

He almost sounds like he's pouting as he opens the door wider and steps back, allowing us to pass him.

There's a long central hallway off the beige foyer, with a small alcove on the left, a pair of stairs leading up. The large doorway to the left is closed, leaving only the open doorway for the right for us to walk into. The living room we walk into is rather cozy, the opposite of what one would expect by the look of the outside.

The room is done in muted colors, black and beige mostly. A soft looking couch is the centerpiece, an unusual curved L shape. I say unusual, because instead of it being like two couches came together like a normal sectional, this one curves seamlessly, making the corner more of a bucket seat instead of a point. 

The next piece my eyes land on is the large stone fireplace in the back corner which seems much more appropriate in this kind of house than the rest of the decor. A large screened T.V. on the wall, and a bay window completes the modern inside of this rather old world home.
My eyes take all of this in, in the few seconds it takes us to walk into the room, before settling on the other occupants. It seems that we're the last to arrive, as everyone else from that meeting in the woods is present, save for Dr. Roberts.

The wolves are leaning on the wall by the fireplace, the nymphs are seated rather relaxed on the couch. The vampires are leaning on the wall by the T.V. and our supposed team leader is lounging lazily on the window seat of the bay window.

"Well, glad you two decided to show up," she smirks, seeing that my attention is on her.

"We didn't really think we had much of a choice," Victor murmurs.

"Oh, you didn't," she shrugs. "But it's nice that I didn't have to drag you here kicking and screaming."

"Your voice," I muse. "Was that you in the car?"

"Well, who else would it have been?" she asks with a frown.

"How did you do that?" Victor interrupts, his eyes pinched in curiosity.

"You two are witches aren't you?" she asks with a tilt of her head. "We all have magic inside of us."

My eyes widen as she winks at me. "Did you just quote J.K. Rowling?"

"Maybe," she replies with a coy smile.

"You'll get use to it," James says, walking around us to take a seat next to Sang at the window.

"Ms. Sorenson?" The vamp, Owen, asks. "What exactly are we doing here? Who's house is this?"

"We're here, Owen," Sang starts, standing up from her relaxed state. "Because I need to make sure we're on the same page before we start to train."

"Train for what?" One of the wolves, Nathan, I think, asks.

"To kill the king chimera," she answers.

"I thought you already killed the chimera," says Gabriel.

"I killed a chimera. Not the king. Just like there's more than one wolf, there's more than one chimera. But there's only one king."

"Like a pack leader?" Nathan asks.

"More like the pack leader of all packs."

"How is that even possible?" I ask.

"Anything's possible, Kota" she tells me. "I think we're all a great example of that."

"There is no such thing," the gruff one, North, speaks.

"Maybe not for wolves, but there is for the chimera. Once you're turned, you can't turn others. Only the original can do that. The king."

"How ancient is this king?" I ask. "I mean, this guy must've been around for a while if he's created enough chimera's for us to have a problem."

"He's actually relatively young," Sang answers. "The chimeras have only been around for the last fifteen years. They were originally a science experiment. Someone tried to alter the werewolf mutation. Needless to say it didn't go so well."

"How did they alter it?" Sean asks.

"They mixed it with snake blood," Sang answers in a duh tone, her expression of one who just asked her a stupid question.

"Well, how was I supposed to know?" Sean pouts.

"You're a doctor."

"Yes, a doctor, not a geneticist."

"Chimera literally means snake monster. What else could they have mixed it with?"

"Well, I don't know," he throws his hands up. "That's why I asked!"

"Actually," I interrupt, raising my hand in the air like we're in class. "The Greek mythology says that a Chimera is a female monster with a lion's head, a goat's body and a serpent's tail."

"Really?" her face scrunches up, creating a little wrinkle between her eyebrows. "Then someone needs to tell Jeff Davis that he got it wrong."

"You mean the guy who created Teen Wolf?" Nathan asks. "Man, that guy got everything wrong."

"He didn't get the Kitsune shit wrong," Gabriel interjects.

"Ok, moving on," Sang says with a slight eye roll. "Bottom line, this guy is tough, and beating him will not be easy. He will also not be our first target."

"Why the hell not?" North asks. "I'd rather us be done with this team shit as soon as possible."

"North," Sang says with narrowed eyes. "Cut your shit. You're on this team for as long as I need you to be, so you better get used to it. Like it or not, you signed up for this, and I need you. So nut up and shut up."

"I thought it was nut up or shut up," Nathan mock whispers to Silas, earning a chuckle from the big guy.

North growls lowly before slapping Nathan on the side of his head.

"If you're all done acting like children," Sang drawls. When the wolves straighten up she continues. "Now, I've never faced the king myself, but for him to still be kicking while we've actively been hunting him says something to his talents. We need to be able to all work together, and that starts with training together."

"You still haven't answered my other question," Owen says, his attention still on Sang.

"Which question was that again?" she asks coyly.

"Who's house is this?" he asks slowly.

"Oh, that question," she says dramatically. "It's mine."

"Yours?" Victor asks with wide eyes.

"Yeah. I've had it for a while now. So, are we all ready to train? Good. Let's go."

Sang flows through the room, maneuvering around all of us as if we weren't even there, leaving us to follow after her like a trail of ducklings. It has me wondering if this is some sort of sign for what it will be like in the future.