Leo

Sternenberg, Switzerland

Leo woke up to two male voices yelling at each other about something. After his obligatory morning grunt, he opened his eyes and found himself in an unfamiliar room. Too much pink to his liking decorated the ceiling above the bed with various goth band posters on the walls. ‘What the…?’ he thought before turning to his right, discovering a sleeping female form with midnight black hair.

His face drained of color as he struggled to remember what happened yesterday evening or where he was. ‘Right. The dinner. Though who is this?’ he thought looking at the girl next to him, gathering the courage to get the hell out of the room. Then it hit him - he was naked and had no idea where his clothes were. Biting down the urge to jump out of the bed and run, due to Seb’s warning the previous night, he gathered his wits.

‘First things first - the clothes,’ he scanned the room in hopes to find his stuff, hitting jackpot. His plain jeans, shirt, and boots lay comfortably next to the door in one big pile. Turning his gaze to the left, he noticed a photo on the bedside table of two girls - one brunette and the other with the same midnight black hair as the sleeping female.

Leo deduced that one of them must have been the owner of the room he was in. At the bottom of the photo, he read, ‘Thank you for the trip, Lis!’. Leo paused for a second to evaluate the icy blue eyes, distinct cheekbones, and plum lips with dark lipstick of the raven-haired beauty in the photo. Feeling his mouth hanging agape, he swallowed slowly and got out of bed carefully.

Creeping across the room, Leo paused to evaluate the girl for the one last time but could not make her out as she was sleeping on the side. He took his shirt and jeans and slowly pulled them on before stepping into his boots. Then he put an ear against the door and listened. After making sure no one was near, he walked out of the room and closed the door slowly behind him, not noticing a smirk on the girl’s face.

Leo took two steps and almost screamed out loud at Evan’s question that came behind him, “Where the hell you vanished to last night?” Turning behind him, he saw a frowning Evan stepping out of the room right across the hall from the girl’s room. ‘Great,’ he thought and quickly walked over to him and back inside the room.

“What happened last night?” he asked Evan in a quiet voice, afraid that someone would overhear them.

Evan frowned and answered, “What do you mean? We arrived at the manor of Alpha Peter. At least that is what Seb called the place. The guy seemed intimidating at first, you know, given his size and all. But then threw us a surprise dinner. Oh, and he even invited his kids. We hit it straight away. At least I and Stefanie did. You acted weird all evening.”

Leo sat down on one of the twin beds in the room and clutched his head, “I think I woke up to one of them. The one with dark hair? Lis?”

Evan looked at his misery and barked out a laugh, “Yes, the resting bitch face. Lisbeth is her name. She continued to eye you across the table the whole night. Did not say a word. Creepy. As if she knew some truth we all were missing. How did you end up with her? Now that I think about it I did not notice you were gone.”

“Man, I have no idea. But I can imagine if Seb or her daddy finds out they are going to hang me. You know?” he raised his eyebrows. “The dad thing? Wolves protecting their cubs?”

Evan laughed again and said, “Come on, stop dramatizing. She looked to be well over twenty. So she is no mere cub anymore. More like a full-fledged wolf - ready to pounce, if you know what I mean?”

Leo did know what he meant, but could not remember a second of it. Dread filled him, as he understood that the wolves could smell her on him. “Say do we have a bathroom in this place?” Leo asked, looking around the room, reminding him of a country retreat home.

“Yea, our own, right there,” Evan answered pointing to a white wooden door on his right. Leo nodded to him and started stalking toward the room, finding his bag of clothes and other things. The spatial bag lay right on his bedside table and he remembered the lessons he was supposed to be taking.

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“Will go and have a shower?” Evan asked. Leo just nodded and walked inside the bathroom. “Alright, then I will go and see Seb. He mentioned some exciting jobs for me here. Will you join me later?”

“Cannot, man. Have to continue studying, if you know what I mean,” Leo responded by getting in the shower.

“Alright, no problem. Catch you later then,” Evan said and exited their room, closing the door loudly behind him.

Leo turned on the water and winced at the cold stream coming out, waiting for the hot to kick in. He took a healthy portion of shower gel and scrubbed himself thoroughly, hoping to get any remnant smells off him, not to out his night activities. Little did he know that it would do him no good.

After the long and hot shower, he got out and got dressed. Not willing to risk it yet by running into the girl in the hallway he sat down on his bed and went to meditate. Eager to check if by any chance his core had any progress by drawing in ambient mana.

As he settled in his breathing and arrived at his core space in a second he was startled to discover that the funnel that led to his core had vanished. No specks of light slowly trickled into his core and no grand highway connecting to god knew where. His core just sat there, its vibrant green colors swirling idly.

Willing it closer he started to observe it and discovered streaks of black and white among the green mana inside his core. The colors reminded him of the lightning he saw in his dream and he felt himself frown if that was even possible for a metaphysical projection of himself.

Looking at where the funnel was above his core, he noticed a white thread stretching out of it to the black vastness. The thread was so small that he barely noticed it, but adjusting his senses and focusing on it he felt the power that thrummed through it. Looking closer he noticed the stream of white that was constantly feeding his core mana.

Leo jolted to awareness, shocked. Finding himself still sitting in the lotus position, he released it and laid down on the bed to reflect. ‘What the hell happened while I was out?’ he thought to himself, looking at the white ceiling above him. The only explanation he had was related to the dream he had when they were driving here. Though it did not explain what the changes meant for him.

Casting his doubt aside, Leo sat up on the bed and cast one last look outside, noticing that the sun was now high up signaling a beautiful and sunny day. He decided that the best course of action would be to meditate some more and continue with opening his close to non-existent mana channels.

Right before he decided to jump back to meditation he was interrupted by a knock on the door. That brought him out of his thoughts and he felt his heartbeat pick up. ‘I hope that it is not Lis,’ he thought. ‘I have no idea what to say to her.’ He slowly went to the door and opened it up to find a frowning Heidi standing there. She raised an eyebrow at him and brushed past him inside the room.

Leo blinked a few times at the empty hallway and closed the door, turning back to find Heid sitting on his bed. “What’s up?” he asked, eyeing her warily.

She looked at her nails, her hand stretched out, and crossed her legs, “Oh? Nothing much. Just enjoying the morning with my uncle. He is handing out some interesting jobs to Evan. Though I believe he would be happy to give some to you as well.”

“Jobs? What kind?” Leo asked sheepishly and moved to sit in one of the chairs available.

Heidi smirked at him, with what looked like an annoyed expression and said, “You will find out soon enough. Evan will not be able to keep quiet about it. On a side note, did you hear the commotion outside today?”

Leo kept his face straight and thought about it before asking, “I heard something. Two males yelling at each other, though I have no idea what it was about. What happened?”

Heidi looked at him for a second and responded, “Nothing much. Pair of the Stump brothers got standoffish about something. Their little sister Lis or Lisbeth did not join them at the morning practice and they debated whether to fetch her or not. Decided not to bother her as they drank too much beer yesterday anyway. You would not know anything about that?” Heidi raised her eyebrow and Leo could swear she knew something and was implying but he wisely kept his mouth shut.

“No idea about that,” he said and decided to change the topic quickly. “So what is the plan for the day? I thought about meditating though maybe you have something exciting in mind?”

Heidi grinned at him and said, “I sure do. It was time you did some practical lessons and tried to apply that magic to something useful.” She got up from the bed in a flash and pulled Leo by the hand out of the room and into the hallway, not leaving time for him to argue.