Chamber of Magic

Chapter Five - Out of Shape

დ. Ellora. დ

I was out of breath. Red in the face as I leaned my hands on my knees and desperately tried to calm my racing heart. I wasn’t just red in the face from lack of oxygen but from embarrassment as well. I’m not a big girl by any means and I guess due to my small frame, I thought I was fit. Man, was I wrong?

“Come on Ellora,” Manny called out to me and I blushed. Making my face look a bright red tomato. Everyone was looking at me, although I didn’t see them looking, it was more like I could just feel them watching me, laughing at me. “Ok, let’s take five minutes,” Manny suddenly announced. I groaned out along with everyone else. For different reasons of course. They were all groaning out because of the constant breaks due to my lack of fitness. I was groaning out from pure mortification. Damn you, Manny, I thought to myself as I straightened up. A bottle of water floated in front of my face and I grabbed it, drinking the contents thirstily. Glancing over at Jareth, I sort of nodded my thanks. I had no idea that training was going to be this hard.

“You ok?” Annie asked me as she walked over. I threw the empty bottle away, just missing the trash can in the corner and smiled warily at her.

“Do I look ok?” I asked her. It came out quite rude, but it wasn’t my intention. Luckily, she didn’t seem fazed by my attitude and giggled.

“No, you look terrible actually,”

“Gee, thanks,” I mumbled as I watched her walk away.

“For someone as small as you, I wasn’t expecting you to be so…” Manny’s voice trailed off and I turned to look at him.

“Useless?” I suggested with a raised eyebrow.

“Out of shape,” he finished off with a frown. “But don’t worry, you’ll soon get the hang of it,” I nodded and stretched, my muscles aching in protest at the move, but I ignored it and continued stretching. When the five minutes were up, I silently wished it was dinner time. My tummy was rumbling from lack of food and my mouth was dry, despite drinking a whole bottle of water. Brent, Blake, and Kael where the ‘bad’ guys and the rest of us had to stop them from getting a sacred object. Which in this case was a chair? I watched as Jareth flung Brent across the room with a flick of his hand. Kael retaliated by moving Jareth to the other side of the room. Brent threw a small fireball at Jareth, but Jordon sped past and moved Jareth out of the way causing the fireball to hit the ball. Blake started creating a portal for Brent, but Annie blasted him with her plasma thingy. I caught many looking at me and I sighed. This was ridiculous. I blinded the ‘bad’ guys and they instantly yelled out, panic set in and they started to freak out. I heard Jareth chuckle and I smiled.

“No, no, no,” Kael cried out.

“Ellora!” Manny shouted out and I quickly gave them their eyesight back.

“What’s the point of the exercise if she does that?” an irritable guy questioned. His name is Oscar and I didn’t like him. He had the ability to command all of the elements and was quite a d**k. He thought he was everything and everyone else was nothing.

“Do you even know what she did?” Annie asked him and he shrugged.

“She did exactly what she’s been doing for the last hour, blinding them,”

“That’s not all I’ve done,” I spat out, annoyed.

“Well, please, enlighten us,” Oscar shot back, and I flipped him off as Manny made a move to intercept.

“Look, it works and that’s all that matters,” Manny said, and a lot of the others nodded.

“How do you know it will work on others?” Oscar suddenly asked. I frowned, unsure of what he meant by others.

“We don’t know,”

“Then? She needs to try something else; don’t you think? Just in case her little mind tricks don’t work,” Oscar seemed happy with his statement and his posse quickly agreed by nodding.

“The only way to know is by taking her on a hunt,” Brent added his two cents and I flinched. He had a point, but I wasn’t going to just give up.

“If it has a mind, I can control it,” I said defensively.

“You sure about that? You’ve used your mind control on a lot of demons then have you?” Oscar turned to me with a look of pure hatred on his face. I spotted Jareth lifting his hand and I entered his mind quickly.

“No, don’t, let me stand up for myself,” I begged him. He glanced over at me and nodded.

“I haven’t Oscar, yet you seem to think I won’t be able too, shall we make a bet?” I spoke with a lot more confidence than I felt but didn’t back down.

“What kind of bet?” he asked, curious as he was obviously interested in winning a bet against me.

“If you are right, and I can’t control or manipulate the mind of a monster, then you can um…well, what do you…ok, ew,” I paused as an image of him kissing me flashed through my mind. He smirked as he knew I had seen it. “Fine, if you win, you can kiss me,”

“No, you have to kiss back, and the kiss has to last at least a full minute,”

“Fine, but if I win,” I scanned his features and I saw the panic in his eyes. He knew I already knew his weakness and I smiled. “If I win, then you have to kiss someone of my choosing, same rules apply,” I could see he was trying to hide the blush that had crept up.

“Alright, I accept,” he said as he raised his chin, showing everyone in the room that he wasn’t afraid of me, even though he was going crazy in his mind, calling himself a stupid d**k. I giggled as I looked over at Manny.

“You got that?” I asked him.

“Yup, now, let’s do another round, let's change it up,” Manny made me one of the ‘bad’ guys, grouped with Oscar, Annie, Kael, and Blake. I was immediately tempted to blind everyone but stopped myself. Brent formed a fireball ready to throw it and I quickly entered his mind and changed the fireball into a bunch of flowers. I watched as he frowned and then looked at me. I grinned as he dropped his hands, the fireball disappearing. Jareth moved Annie upwards and let her hover in the air as he used his other hand to fling Oscar against the wall. Kael snapped his fingers and got Annie out of the sticky situation as Blake created a portal. I cringed at the sight. Blake’s ability was stupid, but I stepped from the one portal to the other and grabbed the chair. As soon as my hands hit the back of the chair, I felt myself being lifted away. Jareth had me up in the air and I used my power, to make him think he had to go take a s**t. His eyes widened and a look of terror crossed his features. He dropped me and I braced myself for the impact, but Kael blocked the fall and I found myself back in front of Blake’s portal. I quickly grabbed the chair and Manny whistled.

დ.დ.დ

“How was practice?” Riley asked me as I entered our room.

“Delightful,” I remarked sarcastically.

“That bad huh?” I ignored her and went into the bathroom for a much-needed shower. As I stripped and climbed into the shower, I thought about the day’s training. A month of training and I was still unfit. Manny’s little comment about me being out of shape was a nice way of telling me that I was useless. Although I could manipulate and control the mind, others could still do whatever they wanted to me. Jareth had levitated me; Brent had thrown fireballs at me and so much more. It was exhausting and my body was tired. I stood under the hot water and felt myself slowly begin to relax. As I remembered the bet I had made with Oscar, I quickly bathed myself and climbed out of the shower.

“Oscar is a pain in my ass,” I announced as I re-entered our room. Riley looked up from her phone and arched an eyebrow.

“How so?”

“He thinks because he can control all the elements that he is some hotshot,”

“Well, he is the only one that has the ability to control them all,” Riley said reasonably.

“So? That doesn’t give him an excuse for being a douche,” I dried my body and pulled on a pair of black skinny denim and a blue tank top. “He thinks he is king,”

“King of what?” Riley asked as she continued playing on her phone, clearly uninterested in my rant.

“Oh, come on Riley! The guy is such an ass! He speaks down to everyone, he doesn’t appreciate anyone else’s ability and he is secretly bisexual!” the last part slipped out and I quickly covered my mouth. Riley was staring at me open mouthed.

“What?”

“Never mind, forget I said that,”

“Oh, hell no, does he like someone here?” Riley asked curious to know who his crush was. I nodded but refused to speak further. “Ah, tell me,”

“No, I mean it's bad enough that he knows that I know and now you know and I don’t think he would be very happy with the fact that now you know and to top it all off you want to know who his crush is? No, Riley, I’ve got nothing against it, zero, but why is he hiding it? Well, that’s a stupid question since I already know why he is hiding it,” I finished drying my hair and sat down on my bed. Riley looked as if she was trying to figure out some weird-ass riddle, so, I shrugged and braided my hair.

“I’m so lost just by what you said, he knows, she knows, who the f**k knows, I don’t care! I just want to know if he is crushing on Kael!”

“The answer to that is no,” I winked, and she giggled, relief evident in her features. My phone suddenly chimed, indicating that I had received a message. I quickly picked it up and checked.

Adam    ➺ Can you come to the office before dinner?

Ellora     ➺ Sure

I slipped my phone into my back pocket and looked over at Riley, who was once again playing a game on her phone. I snuck out of the room, knowing that so long as I was back before dinner, she wouldn’t care. I hurried to Adam’s office but froze on the spot just a few steps away from the door. We hadn’t really spoken since that night and although I had seen him around, he was friendly but didn’t stay in my presence long. He got Manny to inform me of whatever and that was that. I frowned wondering why he wanted me to come to his office. Had he changed his mind about pursuing me? I wasn’t sure but I brushed off the uneasiness and quickly took those couple of steps and pushed open the door.

“Ellora, please come in,” Adam called out to me as I hovered in the doorway and then quickly moving to the chair in front of his desk. Sitting down, I took in his profile. He was tired, stressed and who knows what else. His eyes where dark and puffy, his lips were chapped and dry. He didn’t look good and I frowned. “I wanted to give you this,” he handed over a small white flash stick and I reached out and took it.

“What is it?” I asked him.

“It’s called a flash stick and if you pull that cap off, you’ll see it has a USB port that you can put in-”

“I know what a flash stick is, I meant, what’s on it?” I interrupted him. Before he could answer me, my phone started ringing, I stood up and took out my phone and seeing that it was Riley calling me. I threw Adam an apologetic smile before answering.

“What?”

“Where’d you go?”

“Oh, I’m with Adam at the office,”

“Ok, be done before dinner ok?”

“Sure, I’ll meet you there,” I said and then hung up, pushing the phone back in my pocket. “So? What’s on it?” I asked again.

დ. Adam. დ

“It’s a video of our last hunt, watch it and then we can talk,” I watched as she sat down again and I then stood up, not really wanting to hang around in her presence. “We don’t normally record our hunts, but actually Kael suggested it and I thought it might be a good way for you to see what we are up against,” she looked up at me and nodded.

“Alright, thank you,” she stood up and I walked out with her.

“Enjoy dinner,” I said before turning around.

“Wait, Adam,”

“Yes?”

“Are you still upset?” her question threw me off guard. I wasn’t expecting her to ask me anything personal.

“About?” I acted dumb. I was in fact still upset but I was slowly getting over myself.

“About you know, us,”

“Us?” I continued to play dumb as I raised my eyebrow at her. I enjoyed watching her blush.

“Never mind,” she mumbled before rushing off. She didn’t need to know that I was still upset about her rejection. I didn’t know who the other guy was, but I had a suspicion it was Jareth Yates. I couldn’t compete with someone like that. I am a guy, but I am not blind. Jareth is crazy hot. He has the looks and personality. Great guy with quite an awesome ability. No wonder Ellora was drawn to him, whereas I have a weird and ‘evil’ (according to Ellora) ability. I knew I wasn’t as good looking as Jareth, but I did think my personality was slightly better. I sighed as I made my way to the kitchen. My heart sunk as I saw that Ellora had gotten over our situation a lot faster, as she was chatting with Riley and laughing. I turned my gaze away and found Amelia looking at me. I gave her a small smile before heading to the island to dish up.

“Hey there,” I didn’t need to look to know who it was.

“Hi Amelia,” I greeted her back as I dished up some of the pasta and steak. Once done, I went over to the dining table and stopped. Ellora was seated next to Jareth with Riley and Kael. I wasn’t sure what to do but Amelia nudged me softly in my side.

“Come on, let’s eat outside, the weather is good,” she told me, and I nodded following her outside. I avoided the people at the table’s gaze, including Ellora’s and joined Amelia at the outside picnic table. A few others were seated here as well, so I didn’t feel too uncomfortable. I listened to the others talk while I ate my food. Amelia was unusually quiet, and I wondered if she was doing alright. I finished eating and waited for her to finish.

“Shall we go for a walk?” I suggested as I realized that I did want to make sure that she was doing ok. She nodded and we made our way out the small gate and to the park. We walked in silence until we reached the bench. Sitting down, I turned to look at her. “Are you alright?” I asked softly.

“Yeah, I mean, I’ve been better but I’m ok. What about you? You look like someone took away your favorite toy,” the reference she made was exactly how I felt.

“I’ll be fine,” I told her with a smile.

“You know, I’m not a bad person. I know I get on people's nerves because I just say whatever is on my mind and I do whatever it takes to get what I want,” she smirked over at me and I shrugged. I understood what she was trying to say. “But the thing is, people don’t realize that we have feelings too, we hurt too,” she looked down and I felt guilty. It wasn’t that I didn’t think she had feelings. It was just that I was too preoccupied with my own things, to worry about others.

“I’m sorry for hurting you, Amelia. I’m selfish like that, I don’t think of others when I’m stressed out or worried about my own personal drama. I never meant to hurt you,”

“It’s ok, so do you want to talk about it? Maybe I can give some girly advice,” she smiled, and I figured she must be ok if she wanted me to talk about it. Since I didn’t really have anyone to confide in, I took the opportunity to get things off my chest.

“She came in like a whirlwind, you know? Took me by surprise with her feisty attractive attitude, plus she is truly beautiful. I didn’t hesitate, I guess I just knew what I wanted. I let her know that I was interested, she knew I was interested,”

“Was?”

“Ok, I still am but she rejected me,” I glanced over at her to see her reaction, but her expression was blank. “She said she likes someone else,”

“I assume you’re talking about mind control girl?”

“Yes, Ellora,”

“Right, well Ellora is an i***t,” Amelia snorted, and I couldn’t help but chuckle.

“How do you figure?”

“Easy, you are such a catch, bright, funny, sexy, goofy and so much more. She has been here for what? A month? And she shot you down so quickly?” I just nodded at her words. “If you ask me, she is an i***t. Do you know the other guy?”

“I have a good idea, yeah,” I admitted.

“Well, pray tell, who is the lucky son of a b***h?” she asked sarcastically.

“Jareth,”

“Jareth Yates? The Jareth Yates?”

“Yup,” I sighed as I looked up at the dark sky.

“Jareth Yates is as cold as ice. Sexy as f**k, but cold as ice. She is a lot stupider than I originally thought. Look, Adam, I don’t mean to toot your horn, but if she’s not interested, that’s her problem. Just you be you, either she’ll come back or she won’t, your young and you don’t need to put all your eggs in one basket,”

“Woah,” I laughed at her use of aphorism or her attempt at it anyway. “Thanks, Amelia, I do feel a lot better,” she blushed and gave me a shy smile.

“Good, I’m glad. I know we haven’t always seen, um, eye to eye, but you did say we are friends,” she looked hopeful and I wasn’t about to crush her again.

“Good friends,” I said smiling.

დ. Ellora. დ

Riley and I decided to watch the recording together. She had been on two hunts before but not since then. We both got comfortable on her bed and she stuck the flash stick in, and we waited. Listening to the soft hum of her laptop, my thoughts drifted to dinner.

დ. Flashback. დ

“Who is your favorite superhero?” Kael was asking. I didn’t pay much attention to the conversation as I was acutely aware of Jareth sitting next to me.

“Batman,” I glanced over at him and wondered why.

“Ah come on man, why batman?” Kael asked him, I listened closely, needing to satisfy my own curiosity.

“Batman isn’t some supernatural being that just happened to arrive on earth. He worked hard on himself, trained to be the best he could be. He is human in every sense of the word but yet, he saved lives,” Jareth answered. I picked up on the slight excitement and realized he truly was a batman fan.

“You do know, Batman isn’t real, right?” Riley remarked and I rolled my eyes at her.

“Of course, however, there is plenty of real batman’s in the world, plenty of good people doing good things. For example, aren’t the police considered batman’s?” I wasn’t expecting Jareth to be so passionate about something, it was both unexpected and sexy.

“I guess,” Riley and Kael looked at each other and then burst out laughing, obviously wanting to make Jareth look like a fool. I thought about his answer and smiled. He believed in people. Silly to some, like Riley and Kael, but admirable to others, like myself.

დ. End of Flashback. დ

“Ok, here we go,” Riley got my attention as she pressed play on the video. It wasn’t very good quality, but I could clearly see Manny, Jareth, Kael, Oscar, Brent and a few others whose names I didn’t know. I wasn’t sure what they were fighting but I watched in awe as the team worked well together to destroy the enemy.

“What are they fighting?”

“See,” Riley paused the video and pointed to the top right-hand side of the screen. I squinted trying to make out what it was but all I could see was what looked like black shadows.

“I don’t see anything,” Riley fiddled around for a bit and then zoomed in. The black shadows took on the shape of a large animal. “What is that?” I asked.

“Berserker,” Riley stated. I looked closer and could see they looked like bears, but not quite the bear we see in the forests. Not quite the normal brown grizzly. We continued to watch the video and I was impressed. The team managed to spot the bears and save the day. Although I wasn’t sure what they were saving. When the video finished, Riley turned to me.

“What?”

“Well, what do you think?” she asked me.

“I don’t know, what am I supposed to think?”

“Ah come on Ellora, you’ve just watched a team take down three berserkers, which isn’t easy to do by the way,”

“I don’t understand it though, why they would need to take down those things?” I questioned. I didn’t quite understand the reasoning. Riley rolled her eyes.

“Berserkers are quite terrifying creatures, they hunt and eat their prey,” she stopped and gave me a look and I shrugged. “They eat newborn babies, Ellora,”

“Oh,”

“Oh? That’s all you have to say?” Riley took out the flash stick and handed it back to me. “You know what, tomorrow you should talk to Manny and Adam, they can explain it better to you,” I climbed off her bed and stood facing her.

“Just because I don’t understand, doesn’t mean I don’t care. I realize I have much to learn,”

“Stop, just stop, you’re giving me a headache,” Riley interrupted me and closed her laptop. “Let’s just get some sleep ok?” without waiting for me to respond, she got up and went into the bathroom. I groaned as I took out my phone and sent Adam a message.

Ellora     ➺ Just finished watching the video. When can we talk about it?

Adam    ➺ Tomorrow at 10

Ellora     ➺ Ok, goodnight

Adam    ➺ Goodnight

Putting my phone down on the side table, I sighed as I got into bed. Riley came out of the bathroom soon after and she too got into bed.

“Night, night, Ellora,”

“Goodnight Riley,”

დ.დ.დ

I ran to the office. I was late. Jareth had been talking about a book he was reading, and I forgot the time. I didn’t knock as I burst through the doors.

“Sorry I’m late,” I breathed out as I stopped next to his desk, trying to catch my breath.

“It’s alright,” Adam said as he checked me out. “Why are you out of breath?” he asked.

“I…ah…ran…”

“Oh, ok, well, when you are ready, take a seat and then we can talk,” Adam turned back to his laptop and I slowly lowered myself into the chair. I sat there, my heart finally beating at a normal pace and my breathing paced and I felt better. “You need a schedule, Ellora,”

“Huh?”

“You’re out of shape and easily winded. You need to work on your body,” he stated simply. I blushed at his words but quickly looked down, avoiding his intense gaze.

“Yeah, sure, I’ll speak to Manny about such a schedule,”

“Good, so what did you think about the video?” he asked me.

“Well, the first thing I thought was how well the team worked together, but I will be honest, I didn’t see the bear-like creatures until Riley showed me. She told me they hunt and eat newborn babies, is that true?” I felt exhausted already and I leaned back in the chair waiting for him.

“Look, Ellora, I know you are still new to everything here and I know you aren’t aware of all the kinds of things that go bump in the night can do, but let me tell you this,” Adam paused as he leaned forward and placed his hands on the desk. “As much as you’ve been training physically, I think you need to study too,” as he mentioned studying, I paled. I hated studying. He seemed to pick up on my immediate discomfort. “Not that kind of studying,”

“Oh,”

“Ellora, hang on a moment, let me get Manny here,” I nodded as I watched him call Manny. We sat in silence for about five minutes when Manny arrived.

“Hey, what’s up?” Manny asked as he sat down on the chair just next to me.

“Let’s draw up a training schedule for Ellora,” Adam suggested. Manny nodded as he looked over at me.

“I think a morning run to start,”

“Ok,” I said, thinking that a morning run wouldn’t be too bad.

“Then we can hit the gym for an hour,” I nodded again. I knew I had to get fit and if I needed to spend two hours a day to get there then so be it.

“Alright, so take her off the group training for now,” Adam said to Manny and then turned his attention back to me. “When you are finished with your fitness, we can study,”

“Oh, s**t yeah that would be great,” Manny burst out and I frowned over at him. “It would be wise for you to know about the kind of monsters we hunt and get rid of,”

“Such as the bear things?”

“You mean the berserkers?” Manny asked, looking confused.

“Sure, whatever,” I shrugged and noticed Adam give Manny a wild look. “Ok, I get it, get fit, study, can I go now?” I had lost interest and was feeling tired. An afternoon nap seemed like a wonderful idea.

“Yeah,” Adam dismissed me, and I quickly left and headed back to my room. Luckily, I knew Riley wouldn’t be around and confirmed this when I entered the empty room. I wanted to think, and I wanted to think on my own. I knew I had to work on myself in order to get more fit and not get so tired just from a little bit of exercise. I took out my phone and started researching diets. I came across a pretty good one and saved it onto my phone. An idea popped into my head and I quickly sent a message.

Ellora     ➺ Hi, Jareth, it’s Ellora. I wanted to ask if we could talk?

Jareth   ➺ What do you want to talk about?

I thought about it for a moment. How I could approach this and then decided that the best thing I could do was just be honest with him. There was nothing wrong with asking for help? Was there? No of course not. I mean it didn’t matter if I had an alternative motive. Smiling and happy with my self-reasoning, I answered his text.

Ellora     ➺ Actually I wanted to ask you if you would help me with physical training…

დ. Jareth. დ

I re-read Ellora’s text and smiled. I wasn’t sure what kind of physical training she was asking me to help her with and the thought of being close with her was enough for me to answer positively.

Adam    ➺ Sure, do you have something in mind?

I was curious none the less as to what kind of training she had in mind, but I wasn’t fooled into thinking it was something s****l. I had seen that she was already struggling with group training. Maybe that is what she is asking me to help her with. I had no problem in helping her, although, I did wonder why she had asked me. Why didn’t she ask Manny?

Ellora     ➺ Can you come to my room? Then we can discuss it

Jareth   ➺ Ok, be there in five

I looked over at Kael and Riley. They looked cute together, even though they hadn’t made anything official as yet.

“Hey, I’ll be back later,” I said to them. Riley nodded but Kael gave me a look. I shrugged and got up, leaving the room, I knew he would ask me questions later. I went upstairs and knocked on her door.

“Come in,” she called out. I pushed open the door and saw her sitting quite comfortably on her bed.

“Hi,”

“Hi Jareth, thanks for coming to see me,” she said as she smiled. She is so stunning. I smirked as I pulled her chair out from her desk and sat down.

“Sure, so, talk to me,”

“Ok, so as I am sure you already know, I suck!” she pouted which drew my attention to her lips. Suddenly the room felt small and I started feeling claustrophobic. I struggled to breathe as I realized I was alone with her for the first time and she had to go and be all damn f*****g cute. “Jareth?”

“Yeah, sorry, I don’t know what you mean about you suck?”

“You’ve seen me in group sessions! I get tired way too quickly,”

“I agree, so you want me to train with you?” I asked stupidly.

“Manny and Adam want me to do a morning run and then an hour at the gym, will you help me?” she asked me so nicely, how could I possibly say no? Besides, that would give me time with her and I was always looking for ways to spend time with her.

“Sure, but I must warn you, the first two weeks are going to be tough,” she frowned at my words but then nodded. “I mean, your body needs to get used to getting a workout,”

“Yeah, I looked up some diets online though,” she picked up her phone and passed it to me. I took it and checked out the one she had picked out. I nodded slowly.

“It looks good, you should discuss it with Jane,” I handed her the phone back and our fingers brushed. I froze. You would think I’ve never liked a girl before the way I was acting. I stood up, knocking the chair over and as I bent to pick it up, my hip bumped her desk, sending all kinds of things to the floor. I stumbled around as I tried to put everything back in its place.

“Relax,” I heard her whisper and I stopped. Giving her a sheepish grin, I ran my hand through my hair nervously.

“So, talk to Jane about the diet and I’ll meet you at the front door at five tomorrow morning,” I informed her as I started moving towards her door.

“Sure, see you then, oh and Jareth?” I turned to her.

“Yeah?”

“Thanks again,” she smiled softly, and I bolted. I literally run from her room like a frightened child. Ellora Stone made my heart beat fast, my palms sweaty and my d**k hard. I barely knew her, but I would make it my business to get to know her. The sooner the better.

“Back so soon?” Kael asked me as I entered our room. I looked around wondering where Riley had disappeared too.

“What did you do with Riley?”

“Bathroom,” Kael answered.

“Done so quick?”

“No man, it’s not like that,” I raised an eyebrow at his answer and he quickly added. “I like her man, I don’t want to mess it up,” I nodded as I laid down on my bed, picking up the book I had put down when Ellora had texted me. “So? Where’d you go?”

“Ellora wanted to talk,” I said, bored.

“About?”

“About me training with her,”

“And?”

“And what?” I asked.

“And are you going to help her?” Kael leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees.

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I?” silence filled the room and I continued reading my book. I heard Riley come back into the room and they continued watching some movie on Kael’s laptop. I tuned them out as I read the words in front of me. It wasn’t easy, my mind was filled with the image of Ellora relaxed on her bed, her lips soft pink and pouting. I groaned out as I thought about kissing her.

“Man?” I peeked over at Kael, who was throwing daggers my way with his sharp gaze. I smirked and hid back behind my book. I would train Ellora, get close to her and then I will reveal my feelings. I really do like her. I put the book down and closed my eyes.

დ.დ.დ

I stood waiting for Ellora. It wasn’t yet five but I was ready and eager to see her again. I wasn’t worried about the way I had left her room yesterday. I already knew that she liked me. She was probably more nervous than me.

“Good thing I set my alarm for half,” Ellora said as she came up behind me. I turned and froze. Ellora wore a dark blue sports bra with matching shorts. I couldn’t help but look her up and down, pausing on her legs and letting out a small whistle of approval. The girl had stunning legs. I smiled as I took in the pair of black trainers. I nodded as if I wasn’t just checking her out, yet as my gaze reached her face, she was smiling at me. She knew I had just checked her out. “Like what you see?” she asked me, innocently.

“Um, ah come on Ellora, you know you are a beautiful girl,” I shrugged and opened the front door. We walked down the path and out the gate. “Let’s do some stretches then we can start off slow,” she nodded and I showed her a few good stretch moves to warm up the body. Happy that we were both ready, I set the pace quite slow to start. We jogged side by side up the road. It was dark and no one else was around.

“You do this every morning?” I heard her ask me.

“Every morning for the past ten years,” I answered.

“Nice,” I slowly picked up the pace, making sure to listen to her breathing. After a good twenty minutes, I picked up the pace a bit more. After five minutes I heard her breathing badly. I slowed down and turned to look at her.

“You have to breathe correctly,”

“S-sorry…I…didn't…re-realize-”

“That’s not what I meant,” I interrupted her. “I meant you have to control your breathing, as the pace increases, you need to maintain your breathing otherwise you will become short of breath, understand?” I saw her nod and I picked up the pace, making sure to listen to her breathing. She struggled a bit but then got the hang of it. I led us around the corner and headed back home. She followed easily enough. I didn’t want to overrun her on the first morning, so I slowed the pace back down. when we reached the mansion gates, she stopped and doubled over, breathing hard.

“That. Was. Exhausting.” she stated and I chuckled as I hunched down.

“Was it?” I asked teasingly as I looked up at her red face.

“Grrr,” she growled out and I smirked at her before standing up.

“Come on, let’s hit the gym,” she followed me silently as I led her to the building outside. It was the bigger training room but it was also used as a gym.

“You are going to kill me,” Ellora commented as she looked around at the gym equipment.

“I would never,”