Blue Violet - By Abigail Owen Page 0,65

and rolled.

With just the girls, Ellie was limited in what she could do. She didn’t have any defensive skills. She could keep the girls away from the guys like this indefinitely, but she needed a way to finish things, too. So she decided to cheat a little bit. Seeing Ramsey wind up to deliver a fireball straight at them, she tapped into Griffin’s defensive shield. As a result, Ramsey’s fire hit an invisible wall and was repelled straight back at where the guys stood. Ramsey immediately doused the flame before it touched any of them.

“No fair!” Griffin called out. “You can only use the girls’ powers.”

Ellie grinned. She moved the girls out of Nate’s way as he tried running directly at them.

“What if the Vyusher have a power I can tap into, since I am technically a wolf too?” she asked.

“You wouldn’t be able to without touching them,” Griffin insisted. Just as he finished talking, Ellie felt the ground shift slightly beneath her feet and knew it was his shield. She immediately transported the girls to a new spot. Just in time too, as Griffin jerked the shield up, barely missing them.

“Nice try!” Ellie laughed. With Griffin’s abilities out, Ellie worked another tack –something she’d been thinking of for a few days now. She pulled on Lila’s ability to heal emotions and decided to see if the reverse of that might be possible. She concentrated on the dark areas in her attackers that represented the lower emotions. Deep within that darkness, she could feel small parts of fear and confusion. She worked on making those parts grow, specifically confusion, though she took every care with how she let it affect Ramsey.

It worked beautifully. Ellie grinned as all the men stopped their attack and stood silently with increasingly bewildered expressions.

“What’s going on with them?” Lucy asked.

“I’m using Lila’s skill to force confusion on them.”

Lila giggled beside her.

“I’ll definitely have to teach you this,” Ellie whispered to her. “It’ll be a good defense for you.”

With a delighted laugh, Ellie let up on the guys. “I think that does it for the day,” she announced. The boys groaned at having lost. They were sure they’d win today since they had all the active skills. They gave in good-naturedly, though, and together everyone headed home for some well-deserved rest and relaxation.

“Who’s down for a game?” Nate called as they all trooped into the house. Lucy headed to the kitchen to start dinner and Hugh to the dining room table to get some work done while the rest of the family pulled out Trivial Pursuit. Playing games was an almost nightly tradition.

They played until dinner, paused to eat, and then returned to the game. It didn’t take long for Ellie to clean house. This was her favorite game.

“Ellie Aubrey, you cheater!” Nate pointed an accusing finger her way. “You totally used Griffin’s mind reading.”

“I did not!” she responded indignantly. “You just can’t handle the fact that I kicked your ass at Trivial Pursuit.”

“There’s no way you knew the answer to that question.”

“I’ve been living a lot longer than you, kiddo,” Ellie popped a piece of candy in her mouth and grinned as she chewed, well aware that being called kiddo drove Nate nuts.

“And besides, we knew him,” Griffin added.

“Hold up,” Alex froze in the process of picking up the game pieces, his expression incredulous. “You knew Abraham Lincoln?”

“Uh-huh. He was Svatura,” Ellie confirmed.

“No way! What was his power?” Nate asked.

Griffin leaned back linking his hands behind his head and answered, “A really subtle power of persuasion. He just had to speak, and you could listen to him for hours and do anything he asked willingly. Our tribe wasn’t thrilled that he went so public, but ultimately that was his choice.”

Everyone sat for a moment in stunned silence, just staring at them. “Well on that note…” Alex stood and offered Ellie his hand. He pulled her up from her seat on the couch and they headed toward their bedroom.

“Night everyone,” Ellie called out from the stairs, receiving a chorus of goodnights in return.

Ellie and Alex spent as much time as they could together. Even though they were te’sorthene, they still had so much to discover about each other. The more Ellie learned about Alex, the more she felt for him. She knew she was falling in love with him and he with her. Their bond grew stronger day by day.

As they entered their room, Alex spun Ellie around so that she stood with her back against