Blue Violet - By Abigail Owen Page 0,50
the couch. Alex adjusted his position to accommodate her. “I have two other ideas, and both of them have to do with my gifts.” She looked each person in the eyes, gauging their possible reactions. “But you’d really have to trust me.”
No one said anything, so she continued. “My first idea is to use my ability to tap into to your powers. But I want to try to use it with all of you at once.”
“What do you mean all of us?” Adelaide asked, tilting her head.
“I’ve never tried this before since my power didn’t develop until… well… you all saw. I’ve only ever had Griffin to practice on.” She gave Griffin a little nudge with her knee.
“But I think that if we’re all touching at once, maybe by holding hands, I can channel all our powers. Try to coordinate us somehow. I can at least protect us using Griffin’s defensive shield. I can move us around using Charlotte’s teleporting, and so forth. Between Lucy’s ability to see intentions and Griffin’s mind reading, I should be able to stay a step ahead of the wolves.”
Alex frowned. “You said you’ve never done it before.”
“Like I said… only Griffin to practice on, and he only let me do so much.” She gave a little apologetic shrug. “We’d have to try it out.”
“What’s your other idea?” Alex was still frowning.
“This is the biggest question mark in my mind.” Ellie grimaced. “I’m fairly sure I can do the first part, and we’ll be able to confirm that soon enough, but this other idea is much harder.”
Ellie paused. She wasn’t quite sure how to go about explaining this. One had to see it to believe it.
Sensing her hesitation, feeling the tension in her body, Alex said dryly, “I’m guessing it’s not something you’re entirely comfortable with.”
Ellie took a deep breath. It’s now or never… “You know that one of my gifts is the ability to morph. I have four different forms.”
“But wouldn’t that be multiple gifts?” Adelaide asked, wrinkling her brow.
“It’s a facet of my two gifts combined. Two of my forms were inherited. Two other forms I… ummmm absorbed is the best description, I guess. I showed you how I got my wolf form on the night my family…” She trailed off.
“What shapes?” Nate prodded, clearly fascinated.
“You’ve seen the falcon, which is my strongest and inherited through my grandmother. The jaguar I pulled from someone in my tribe, although I didn’t know it at the time. I hadn’t yet realized I’d come into that power. You saw that I have the wolf, but I never use it. The pack mind is too powerful…it’s too dangerous.” She paused.
“That’s only three,” Alex said, and felt her body tense.
“My fourth form I’ve only ever tried once, when I was very young. The attempt was a…” Ellie searched for the right word.
“A disaster,” Griffin supplied quietly.
“Is this what your plan is about?” Hugh asked.
With a nod, Ellie continued. “From my great-grandfather, I inherited the ability to change into a…well, a… dragon.”
Total silence greeted this declaration. And then Alex let out a loud exhale.
“Did I say whoa earlier?” Nate asked, his eyes the size of saucers. “That really doesn’t quite cover it….I mean Holy mother of all that’s crazy WHOA!”
“That is so cool!” Lila added, practically clapping her hands in excitement.
Ellie shot her a stilted smile. “Thanks.”
“So why was it so disastrous?” Charlotte asked.
“The problem is that when you morph into a form, part of that form’s inherent traits takes over. You can lose your humanity. It’s the same danger as being a wolf. I’ve learned to control it in the jaguar. But the dragon…” Ellie shuddered. “The one time I tried it, it completely took over. My great-grandfather, who could eventually control himself as a dragon, pretty much had to take me out.”
She looked at Griffin to finish the story.
“It took all of our clan to force her out of the morph,” Griffin added, a grim set to his mouth. “It’s possible for the dragon to take over so completely that she can’t get back. But it’s also dangerous for everyone around her. According to our great-grandfather, everything you’ve read about dragons, though just folklore and mythology, is based on people with the ability to morph into one. And they all decimated villages and killed many people before they were killed themselves. As far as we know, only our great-grandfather ever had the ability to control the dragon.”
Alex’s grip on her hand tightened to an almost painful point.