Reborn by Hailey A Fowler (fun books to read for adults txt) 📕

you hit a certain spot, but anyways. He shot you and I had to do something, I would never forgive myself if I had let you die. I used a spell my mom taught me years ago, to give you half my soul, see they call us casters and-”

I cut him off mid rant.

“Whoa Whoa Whoa, Hold on here, How do you know my mom? What the hell is a caster and how does any of this involve me?” I asked a little impatiently.

Jessie frowned. “I'm sorry, I know this doesn't make any sense. Let me start from the beginning.”
“I'll start by explaining what you and I are. We're whats known as Casters, kind of like.. Sorcerers and witches but in reality we're also sort of like shamans, with healing powers. See a caster can, well, cast a spell. Men have to use incantations but girls just have to think what they want to happen and it does. I mean you can't just do what ever you want, it's more like telekinesis with a twist. The twist being that if you need a different kind of protection like an energy bolt to incapacitate your opponent, you can cast the male casters spells. Male casters are just called Casters and female casters are called Gallicanae, Galli for short.” He paused. “You're awfully quiet. You still following?”

I nodded and got up for another cup of coffee. Jessie continued.

“There are a couple of things that are specific to the gender though.” Jessie paused and took a sip of his half full coffee.

“What do you mean?” I pushed. He set his coffee down to look at me.

“A Galli can shape shift into anything, though they normally only have one other preferred form, other than human. Also they have very specific rituals for healing that no caster can do. Let me warn you though, shape shifting is very painful and you can only shift to something that has the same body mass as your human form. You can't grow or shrink, just shift.”

I stopped him by putting my arm in the air like an elementary school kid.

Jessie chuckled and pointed at me. “Yes? The young lady in the front?” I laughed and punched his shoulder.

“Stupid. You said I could shift into anything I wanted, now your saying I can't? Make up your mind.”

He lifted his index finger to his lips and gave a dramatic “Shhh!” sound.

I rolled my eyes and he continued.

“Let me rephrase the former sentence. Like I said, yes you can be whatever you want, so long as it is the same size and weight as you. If you wanted to shift to a house cat that would be very painful and extremely dangerous. It wouldn't work but If you were to shift to a wolf or a big cat like a cougar or even a large bob cat, that would work fine. No matter what though, a shift is painful.”

He stood and started putting dishes away from the dry rack.

“A Caster's little” He stopped and made little air quotations with his fingers.”Ability..” He rolled his eyes.

“It's more like a damn curse. You got to experience it first hand. A Caster can save a person by giving up half their soul in a blood ritual.” He stopped and glanced at me.

I couldn't hide the disappointment on my face fast enough. Jessie frowned “Whats wrong?”

“You feel cursed from saving me?” I asked. Jessie's frown deepened.

“Sweetheart, I don't regret saving you, if that's what your asking.”
I didn't answer.

“I say it's a curse because turning someone means bringing them into this life. One more thing you really need to know is that casters and Galli are both semi immortal. A good shot to the head or heart or hit by a bus or even bleeding to death will kill us but we don't die of sickness or old age. I look what, twenty seven? I'm really six hundred years old. Immortality is lonely Taylor. I've lost more people than I can count. I out live them.” The grief in his voice almost made me cry. It was like an open wound that would never heal for him.

I nodded, I didn't know what to say. Jessie did what he had to do, but I didn't know how to deal with that, immortality. So I did what I do best and bottled it up and set it aside for later when I could sit and think or cry it out on my own.

Jessie stopped doing his dishes and strode over, Standing only inches from me. He lifted my chin to meet his gaze.

“We're bound now Taylor, Right down to the soul. I will never regret saving you. I would do it over again a million times if it meant that I could keep you in this world forever”

Forever. It did have a ring to it.
Chapter Three Ella

Later that day Jessie got a phone call from Ella. She had heard what had happened and freaked right out. Jessie insisted I was okay and held her off from bothering me the past five days but now that I was awake, she decided she was going to check on me and that was that.

It only took Ella exactly three minutes to get here after her call.

Jessie opened the front door after hearing her knock. All he got to do was open his mouth in greeting before Ella flew past him and threw her arms around me.

“Oh honey, you must have been so scared.” Ella squeaked. I hugged her back and peeked at Jessie who only stood there with a big cocky smirk glued to his face.

“Nope I'm good thanks.” Jessie said.

Ella just rolled her eyes and held me out at arms length.

“Dear god, look at you girl! Your beautiful!” She said with a grin.

“I look like an over grown barbie...”

“I always did love barbies.” She said.

I gave her a slight smile.

Jessie walked over and took Ella's jacket. As he went to hang it up Ella pulled me into the living room to talk. Her and I talked for about five minutes before Jessie came and offered drinks. I asked for a glass of apple juice and Jessie already knew what Ella would want so he took off again to get us our drinks.

Ella sat beside me on the couch. For only a moment after Jessie had left she was quiet. She broke the silence by grabbing my hand and asking “Are you really okay Taylor? I mean.. Emotionally? I know you maybe don't want to talk to Jessie. Please don't blame my brother, he didn't mean for any of this to happen. he.. well -”

I stopped her. “Its okay Ella, I don't blame him, I thanked him for saving me already.”
Ella nodded. “Okay but, I think you should know why he couldn't just let you die Tay.”

I looked up at her, curious now. I had wondered this but hadn't bothered asking Jessie. “Okay” I said.

Ella's grip on my hand tightened slightly. “Well, you know Jess and I are only half siblings right?” I nodded and she continued. “Jessie's dad died when he was little. He got caught up in a house fire. His dad was a caster. We think the fire was set on purpose. Anyways, Jessie smelled the fire and got mom out of the building he was pretty young back then.. for a caster that is. It was only around ten P.M but his dad had to go to work early so he went to bed early. Jessie ran back in the house before mom could stop him. He ran to his dad and tried to wake him but the smoke had already gotten to him. Jessie didn't want to leave his dad but he knew he had to, for mom. He's been traumatized by that. I think that's why he couldn't watch an innocent girl die. No one could, if you really think about it, I mean I know if I had the power to save someone I wouldn't stand back and watch them die, no matter the cost.” Ella smiled and let go of my hand.

“I guess I should be thankful though. A few years after the death of Jessie's dad, Mom met someone who could finally make her smile and had a baby with him. My dad!” Said Ella. “My dad's a fairy” As she said it she showed her real skin colour, green, just like her eyes.

“Wow...” I couldn't help but stare “Your beautiful... How do you hide it like that?”
She grinned “Magic, mostly but its a sort of camoflauge for fairies. We can all do it, fairy magic is pretty limited we can't fly or shrink into little people” Ella laughed a cute tinkling laugh.”We really cant do much.. well I'd be able to do a lot less if it hadn't been for my mom...”

I spoke before I could stop myself. “What is your mom? Galli?” I stopped. “I mean if you don't mind me asking.”

She smiled. “Kitsune” I must have had a blank look on my face, Ella opened her mouth to explain but Jessie walked in from the kitchen with our drinks and beat Ella to the explanation.

“Kitsune is the Japanese word for nine tailed fox.”

“Nine?..” I asked. He nodded.

“Our mother has nine, in legend they say a fox gains a tail for every thousand years or so and are only ever depicted as having one, five or nine tails. Our mother has nine tails and seemed to get one every one hundred years rather than one thousand. Meaning shes nine hundred years old as I said before, I'm five hundred years old, Ella is still practically a baby in our world at only twenty five years old.” He stopped to smile at her.

“but if your moms a fox then how did she.. you know... have you?”

Ella laughed again. “She shifts to a human”

“So she's a human who can shift to a nine tailed fox?” I ask a little confused now.
Ella grinned. “Other way around”

“Our mom is a fox who can turn into a human.” Jessie said

“but wouldn't that make you..-”

“We can shift too, but I assure you we are definitely human. Because of our dad's genes we are human.” Said Jessie.

“So where is your mom then?” I asked, feeling a little nosey now.

Jessie reached over and patted my head like he had in bill's grill. “Don't worry about it okay?” He nodded slightly toward his sister. When I looked over at Ella she had her head hung a little bit as she looked sadly into