VII. Home Sweet Home

Cara

"I won't get lost, Ivan."

"I'll take you and that's that." His voice was deeply and rougher than usual. I almost squealed at the sound. It told me to do as he said, nothing more, nothing less.

"Fine....thank you."

"It's my pleasure. Let me just get something." He made off upstairs.

I was left to admire the place in the meantime, not straying far from the dining room. I took myself on a little tour sure that Ivan would not mind me looking around. Unless he was hiding something but what were the chances of that?

It was taking him longer than I expected so I went further and further into the house.

The walls were tall and decorated with all kinds of paintings. Most of them were historical paintings like from famous battles all around the world. They could have been as old as the battles themselves. They were in good condition, probably due to being well maintained.

One caught my eye. It took the centre position between all the other paintings and was larger in size. I ran my fingers over the canvas of the age-old painting as I studied it.

This one's interesting.

The painting was of a battle, just like the others, but this battle was not an ordinary one. It was easy to distinguish the two sides of the war.

What was different was that only one side of the bloody war was human the other was was not. Humans fought wolves in a bloody battle.

The painter must have been very imaginative to imagine such a war. A war between man and animal.

The soldiers were on a cold mountainous terrain, the ground soaked in blood of the soldiers and the harsh rain. It was raining cats and dogs, lightning flashing in the distance.

I could hear the raging of thunder and the warrior's battlecries. It was loud and harsh in my eyes.

A feeling of grief pressed on my chest like a heavy weight.

" You feel it, don't you?" Someone spoke from behind me. The voice was unfamiliar. It wasn't Ivan. " The death."

I turned around immediately.

My eyes were met with striking green orbs. The man standing in front of me was tall and lean with a muscle showing through his casual clothing. His sandy hair hung on his forehead slightly covering his eyes.  He  was holding a large grey zip up hoodie. A small smile tugged at his pink lips as he caught me staring.

"I am Jasper. Jasper Hale...You must be Cara," he had a light Irish accent.

"Yeah...I am."

"I see you've taken interest in this painting."

"Yeah, I have."

He moved closer to the painting on the wall but maintained the distance between us. " Well...as you can see, it's old. Really old. It's been in Ivan's..family for a while...painted in the sixteenth century. What is unique about it is that artists in that time didn't really do such works. "

"It's..." I couldn't find the word for it.

"Scary?"

"Well I wouldn't say that ...but it is in the area. It looks very...real."

"They say that the artist was a man of witchcraft and that he put spells on his works so that those that gaze upon his works would feel every bit of it from the thunder to the death ," He said, his voice serious, "...but that's just horsecrap. That is, unless you believe in the supernatural ."

His tone had changed to a creepy one and I knew he was only playing mind games with me.

One thing was for sure, magic or not, this artist was very gifted.

"Hey, where is Ivan?" I asked.

"Ummh...something came up...so I'll take you home instead. He says he's sorry."

I was somewhat disappointed but it wasn't like I was ever going to see him again. Furthermore, he was a very busy man and I must have been interrupting his daily activities.

Pushing aside my disappointment, I simply nodded then thanked Jasper.

"No problem. Come on."

He seemed trustworthy enough so I went with it.

"Oh he also to me to give you this."He handed me the grey hoodie," Put it on. It's chill outside."

Putting on the hoodie, the intoxicating scent of Ivan flooded my nostrils , dizzying me.

I followed behind as he led me to a large garage full of cars ranging from Audis to Bugattis to Mclarens. All of them were awesome. My fingers inched to touch all of them.

"Nice cars."

" As much as I'd like to take credit...only a few belong to me. The rest are Ivan's and Grayson's."

"Grayson?"

"You haven't met him. He's not here. He's back at co-...He's on a business trip." He went to a wall where a bunch of keys hung in different sections with the names Hale , Vasiliek , Sallow . Their last names. He picked car keys under the name Hale.

"He lives here? So all of you like... live here? Together?"

"Yes and no. Grayson and I both have homes elsewhere but we spend most of our time here...in a totally non-weird way. I promise."

He stalked over to the midnight blue Mclaren. With the car keys in his hand, he unlocked the luxury vehicle and ushered me inside. The inside of the car of was posh with authentic black and blue leather seats.

Pure awesome. Next to this car my lAudi TT must look like a bicycle.

"This is awesome," I commented. Jasper only smiled. He seemed easy going and fun, at least compared Ivan who was unreadable.

He pulled out of the garage giving me a view of the massive house. We were surrounded by the forest and on a mountain range.

The large black gate was opened by two men. "Have a nice day, Mr. Hale," one of the men said to Jasper giving a small nod.

The Mclaren pulled out of the compound and onto a road. On the sides of the road were hundreds -even thousands-  of green trees.

"This place is beautiful..."

"If you think so then you should see up North."

"Like Canada?"

"No...Alaska...it's beautiful there. Ivan has a ...place there."

"That sounds nice."

We were quiet for a while. I stared out the window, breathing in the fresh, unpolluted air,  trying to clear my mind.

In the next  few minutes I was gonna back home. I was going to have to face the fact that my mom was somewhere out there wanting to see me. And most of all I was going to have to face the fact that my own father had been lying to me for the past eight years.

For the past eight years I had hated my mother for abandoning me when I need her most and I was not a hateful person at all. In my mind I had made up this image of her. That she was happy out there...without me and my dad.

The story was different. The question was, just how much of it was dad going to tell me.

"So..." Jasper began, keeping his eyes on focused on the meandering road," what do you think of Ivan?"

His question caught me by surprise. Where the hell did he get that from?

Of all the questions he could ask me, it had to be this one. Seriously?

"W-What do you mean?" I knew exactly what he meant.

"Your thoughts on him."

"Oh...he's...intense...like unreadable and serious. Other than that, he seems like a good person. He did take in an unconscious girl from the woods. Thanks for that by the way." I was candid with him but left out the part about me finding him gorgeous and how drawn to him I was. "Why do you ask?"

"No reason...Just making conversation." I could tell he was lying but let it go." Brantwood right?" He said asking for the directions to my home. I nodded and oddly enough he knew the exact direction. "I have...friends there...you may actually know some like...the Sprouses."

"Yeah...they are my neighbours."

We were getting closer and closer to home. The main gate was opened by a guard. He let us in because he knew me.

The car went past many houses before finally arriving in front of mine.

There it was. Home. Home sweet home.

I stared at my house, immobile. My heart was beating so fast I feared it would jump break out of my rib cage. I had mixed feelings. If I went in, I would see my dad again...If I went in the secrets about my mom would come to light and I wasn't sure I was ready for that.

"This is it, right?" Jasper double checked looking around the neighbourhood.

"Yeah. This is it....thank you for driving me, Jasper."

"No problem....my friends call me Jax." He gave me a reassuring smile. I just sat there for a moment longer...living in the peaceful moment, a moment when nothing matter.The moment ended when suddenly the car door was opened.

"Thanks....for everything,  Jasp- Jax."

Jax sat in the car watching me go up the steps to my house. He said he wanted to make sure I was home before he left.  When  I reached the front door I gave him a wave, mouthing 'bye' and he drove off.

The door was unlocked so I just went in.

***