“You know you can shut up right, old man?” I shot back, and he chuckled.
Nix slunk out of the trees in my inner sanctum. And she slowly approached me.Amy, are you sure this is safe?
“Not at all, but we have to hide our scent, and this is the way we learn.” I shrugged and waited until she came closer. I felt my eyes shift as she got closer to the surface of my soul and I opened my eyes to face my father. “Okay.”
My father cocked his head toward me and Ronnie got up. Once he was next to me, he knelt down and sniffed around me. I held still as he scented me and waited until he pulled back to look me in the eye. “You’re hiding things, little pup.” Ronnie’s eyes had shifted to his wolf’s gray eyes and leaned in again. “But I have her scent.” He leaned back and popped back to his feet.
“Okay, close your eyes again Amy.” My father leaned down on his desk, and I settled back into myself. “Connect with your power.” I stumbled on what I was supposed to do, but then I remembered the pot. Nix, Megan, and I rushed to the clearing, and I slid to a stop in front of it. I placed my hand on it and I felt a rush through my body. This was power. “Soon you will connect to it without a thought. But for now, you may have to touch your power source.” I nodded along. “Now I want you to picture a blanket.”
“A blanket?” I furrowed my brow and waited.
“Yes.” My father’s voice was amused. “It’s a huge blanket that you toss over Nix, and you tuck her in.”
“How does this help? Tucking her away? And how does it help when she is out?” Uncle Ronnie chuckled and my dad growled softly.
“It’s just a metaphor that you can imagine helping with the cloaking.” He explained, but I couldn’t get past tucking Nix in out of my mind. I giggled and shook my head.
“It’s not going to work. I keep picturing her as a baby.” Nix growled, and I laughed outright.
“I need you to picture a way to either change your scent, or picture a way to keep it in.” My father explained.
“Like a scented candle or something?” I just stared at my dad, and he smirked.
“Something like that. We just need something your mind can picture, and hold on to in the back of your mind. Something that will come easily so you don’t have to focus on it.”
“Okay…” I trailed off and closed my eyes. “What works better?”
“Why don’t you try one and we will check, and then the other? Whichever works the best is the one we will focus on.” I started with the scented candle since it was the easiest to picture. I walked back to my clearing and sat down by the pot. Nix dropped a candle at my feet and I placed it on the stump.
“How do I light it?” I turned to Nix, and she chuffed before she leaned down and huffed out a soft breath, lighting the candle. The soft scent of vanilla and cinnamon wafted out. “How’s that?”
I waited for Ronnie to get up and I heard him take big breaths in, taking in my scent. “You originally smelled of citrus and berries. Now you smell confusing. Like you added vanilla and cinnamon. It’s weird.”
“Okay. Now let’s try removing your scent altogether.” My father tossed out and I had to think. What removes a smell from the air, other than air fresheners or candles?
“I know this will sound stupid…” Ronnie started, but I just scoffed.
“I’m picturing a scented candle in my mind to protect me from my shitty mate. Something that shouldn’t work, and it’s just ridiculous. I don’t think we can get any worse.”
He pointed at me and smiled. “True. I was just thinking, a vacuum. It sucks everything in.” I debated the idea.
“It doesn’t have to be a perfect idea. Just something you can focus on while your power does the thing you need.” My dad stood and walked over to me. “It’s more about an outlet for your power to flow through. Your power will flow the way you intend it, but you need something to start it.”
I closed my eyes again and pictured a vacuum in my clearing. I angled the hose up and plugged the vacuum into an outlet that appeared on the pot, and clicked it on. The noise was deafening in my mind, like it would be in real life, and Nix and Megan huddled down, covering their ears.
“Okay.” I focused on the noise of the vacuum and ignored everything else.
After a few moments, Ronnie’s voice sounded next to me. “I smell nothing.” My eyes popped open and found him right in front of my face. “Your scent is completely gone.” My eyes snapped to my dad, who stood and came over. He leaned down and scented me right at my cheek, and then he nodded.
“No scent. Good.” He pulled back and I focused on him and he smiled. “There you are.”
“What?” I was confused.
“You lost focus and your scent came back. But now we know we can shift your scent and completely cloak it. Now we can focus on keeping it up while doing other things.”
“Why are you so happy?” I asked when he wouldn’t stop smiling.
“You pick things up quickly. I took weeks to learn how to cloak myself. And you did it within minutes.” He clapped me on my shoulder. “I want to focus on changing your scent at first, though.”
