Central

  James considered all of this in silence. She had just put into words some of the very things that he hadn’t even realized rested in the back of his own mind. This was why he so enjoyed conversing with her. She opened doors for him.

  “Estilorians do not put so much meaning into touch,” he admitted. “Physical interaction for us is done really out of necessity. We cannot conceive children with each other like humans do, as you know. Centuries of this knowledge has evolved into males and females seeing each other as, at best, friends. We appreciate each other’s forms, but do not generally attach emotion to those observations.” And here, he turned to face her. “But you touch me, and I find emotion attached to it. You reach out and touch me when you are happy or nervous or humored.”

  When he paused and just looked at her, she lowered her gaze to the ground. “I’m sorry. I didn’t even think—”

  “Do not apologize. I am not censuring you. I am thanking you.”

  Surprise flashed over her features as she again looked up.

  “You are teaching me, and very patiently so. I would like to touch you.”

  Her breath caught in her throat. “James…I think you should understand that humans don’t touch each other just to touch. We touch each other to express ourselves.”

  “I realize that.”

  “Oh.” She blinked, appearing flustered. “Well…okay.”

  As soon as she gave her permission, he lifted his right hand and placed it on top of her head, the pad of his thumb touching the middle of her forehead, then the side of her face as he stroked his hand downwards. Her skin was remarkably soft. She tilted her head into his touch when he rubbed the backs of his fingers along her cheek. Then he moved closer and lifted his other hand, allowing all of his fingers to weave into her hair. The silky strands felt incredible against his calloused palms. The moonlight seemed to sparkle on every curl.

  She shivered. He sensed that it wasn’t from the cool evening air. Moving his hands from her hair along her shoulders and then around to her back, he gently pulled her up against him. He had wanted to do this for a week, ever since she had hugged him so fiercely the day she learned to fly. When she seemed to melt against him and pressed her right cheek to his chest as her arms went around his waist, he leaned down and inhaled deeply. She smelled vibrant and ridiculously alluring to him. Her scent seemed to pervade him. He suddenly thought he would be content to stand there with her for the rest of his days. Closing his eyes, he rested his chin on the top of her head.

  “Thank you, Olivia.” he said. “I truly understand now.”

  Chapter Six

  “That makes two new additions this month, my lord. One Scultresti and one Waresti.”

  Grolkinei, eldest of the Mercesti class, looked at his head of intelligence and nodded. “That is acceptable, Cesaro. You know adding too many to our numbers at once would draw too much attention. We have had patience for more than eighteen years now. We can wait a bit longer.”

  They sat together on the porch of Grolkinei’s gorgeous lakeside home. Glasses of amber-colored liquid sat on the table between their two chairs. The remainder of Grolkinei’s commanders was in the process of training their newest recruits. Their numbers were beginning to swell, something that made his dark heart swell right along with it. Soon—very soon—they would have the army necessary to take control of the Estilorian plane.

  The Mercesti had not always been at odds with the other classes. Before the creation of the Estilorian plane when Estilorians and humans lived in supposed accord, the Mercesti had been relied upon by all Estilorians for their skills in strategy and innovation. It was only after the creation of the new plane, when Grolkinei and like-minded Mercesti realized that their elder and class leader, Volarius, had permanently removed them from the human realm, that their class morphed into something much darker and incongruous with the rest of Estilorian society.

  Killing Volarius had been Grolkinei’s greatest triumph. The weak old fool.

  Grolkinei believed Estilorians belonged on the human plane. Humans should have been made subservient to the Estilorians millennia ago. The weak, whining, short-lived creatures whose wars between each other had prompted the nine Estilorian elders to create the new plane didn’t deserve the display of power it had taken to do it. Had he had any inkling of what was going to happen, he would have killed Volarius before the event. But that was then.

  Nothing to do now but find a way to reenter the human plane.

  When news of the Corgloresti Saraqael’s pregnant human lover had reached the Mercesti, Grolkinei could simply not believe it. Never in all of history had an Estilorian ever successfully impregnated a human, though attempts had been made over the centuries. Then he found out there had been a scroll used by Saraqael, one involving incredibly powerful energy. It had been so powerful that Saraqael, a relatively young Estilorian, hadn’t been able to control it, killing himself in the process. Ironically, the scroll had not been intended to result in pregnancy. It had been meant to save the life of the human, who had been dying of a rare disease, and who died anyway following giving birth.

  As soon as he heard about it, Grolkinei had determined that he would take Saraqael’s child after it was born. He knew that, given enough time, he would be able to work with the child and figure out how, at long last, he could transfer to the human plane. Once he transferred, he could figure out how to bring over the rest of his army. Surely a child of half-human and half-Estilorian blood—Corgloresti blood, at that—would be able to transition between the planes. And when the news came that it would be three children rather than just one, he figured that simply increased his chances of success.

  He used subterfuge to disguise his true plans, generating rumors and discord that led the others to believe he wanted the children dead. He figured once he took them, the Estilorians would believe he had killed them, when in truth he would be using them for his own purposes. The elders had managed to keep the location of the births a secret until just before it took place. Then Grolkinei’s commander, Layla, intercepted the single thought that he needed to hunt them down. He set up a trap, leading everyone from the birth site except for a small contingent of Waresti fighters. They were no match for his best fighters, led by the fearsome Angius.

  Unfortunately, the elders were not so foolish as he had believed. The mother of the children was transitioned almost immediately back to the human plane after the children were born. Then three Corgloresti, one per child, had escaped before Angius and his team arrived at the birth site.

  Still, Grolkinei had been so certain he could catch them when Layla intercepted another thought leading him to the site where one of the Corgloresti would transition to the human plane. He couldn’t stop the first two Corgloresti from transitioning. But he saw the last of them and simply knew he would defeat him. The child would be his.

  And then suddenly, the child was gone. He had realized the Corgloresti had somehow managed to transition it to the human plane. It was certainly dangerous. That meant the child was somewhere on the human plane as a newborn baby without a Corgloresti guardian to attend it. But the Corgloresti obviously knew the alternative was even more unacceptable. Killing that Corgloresti had been hideously easy for Grolkinei, and sadly unsatisfying.

  Learning that Saraqael’s progeny were returning to the Estilorian plane after eighteen years had once again ignited a spark of excitement among the Mercesti. The plan to overtake the other elders, and thus, control of the Estilorian plane, had continued even with the children having been sent to the human plane. Grolkinei and his followers had been slowly and steadily adding to their ranks, fueling the blind rage, jealousy and hatred needed to encourage other Estilorians to cross the line that would convert them to Mercesti: kill or intend to kill a fellow Estilorian for a reason other than defense. Ever since Volarius’ death, this was the only way the Mercesti could increase their numbers.

  So be it.

  “Still no news on the daughters of Saraqael?” he asked at last.


  Cesaro frowned. “Nothing. We have not learned where the daughter we know is alive—the one who commands holy light—is being kept. There has been no news of any kind about the daughter Ryce believes he killed by slicing an artery in her neck. And the only news we have heard regarding the warrior daughter who fought Angius is that she was stabbed by the cursed blade. The other Estilorians mourned the loss, knowing none can survive such an injury.”

  Grolkinei sipped his drink and then said, “I mourn the loss, too. I still believe it would have been a pleasure to convert her. I would have given her a position of command in my army. She fought well enough with her sword after only days on this plane to give Angius several wounds that will never heal. And she would surely have been the key to get me onto the human plane.” He paused. “Still, it does my heart good to know she was bound to Gabriel. He is certainly mourning far more than the rest of us.”

  “Indeed. So we will do this the way we planned before the half-humans crossed planes,” Cesaro said, lifting his own glass. “We will finish amassing and training our army, convert a class commander or two who are ready to see a new regime, and we will take out the old one.”

  Grolkinei toasted that. “And the elders will either join with me to reunite the planes or we will kill them and rule this one instead.”

  A terrible thunderstorm the following day kept the other elders from making the trip to Ini-herit’s house as initially planned. It also kept everyone homebound.

  Olivia hadn’t slept well. Not only had the monstrous thunder and lightning rattling the windows made her jolt awake every few minutes, but she hadn’t been able to get the memory of James touching her out of her mind.

  He claimed that he understood what touching her meant. But how could he, really? Yes, he had paid rapt attention to everything she had shared with him about humans and their emotions over the past couple of months. But he had nearly a century of being an Estilorian making up the bulk of his awareness. Modeling behavior after something you were told or off of someone else’s actions didn’t make it genuine. She knew that.

  She also knew that he was an avid and eager learner, at least as much as she was herself. His learning curve simply staggered her. He could already read most of her expressions and gestures when she knew he’d had absolutely no understanding of any of them two months before. It was spectacularly impressive considering he didn’t have a mental connection to any of them like the elders did.

  So, could he genuinely be interested in her as more than just her guardian? She considered the fact that yes, he was modeling his behavior after Gabriel’s, which might make it seem less sincere, but then, Gabriel was the only male, non-Estilorian-like model he had, and James didn’t have to try and change his behavior at all. Didn’t the fact that he was trying to change so that he could please her mean he was interested in her a significant way?

  She was what she could only term as befuddled. Even before his “touching lesson,” she had been obsessing about the adorable cleft in his chin and the way that his hair sometimes fell into his eyes, giving him a devilish appearance. His slightly-more-frequent smile made her heart stutter every time she saw it. She believed that it was even more powerful because it appeared so infrequently, not to mention the fact that he only smiled for her. He was the first thing she thought of when she woke, and now thoughts of him were keeping her up at night.

  Yep, she was ridiculously hooked.

  So it was with grainy eyes and the start of a headache that she dragged herself out of bed before dawn and made her way to the kitchen. She pulled her robe on over her pajamas and shuffled through the quiet darkness as the rain lashed at them outside.

  When she entered the kitchen, she was rather unsurprised to find James there in his navy blue pajama pants and a matching sleep tank, putting some tea in a cup to steep. It didn’t seem to matter when she woke up, he was nearly always there before her. And he always prepared tea for her. No one had modeled that for him, she suddenly realized. He had started doing that all on his own, as soon as he realized she liked the brewed beverage.

  “Good morning,” he said, glancing up and spotting her.

  “Good morning,” she responded. “Or wet, stormy morning, however you choose to look at it.”

  He turned and glanced out the window. “I know. This storm is one of the worst we have seen in a while.” Then he looked back at her. “I have been worried about Aurora. Did she find shelter?”

  And just how was she supposed to protect her heart from a question like that? She just gave up. She simply couldn’t hold out against such obvious affection and concern for her dearest friend.

  Smiling, she responded, “She’s fine. She found a nice, dry cave before the storm hit.”

  “Good,” he said simply.

  Stepping closer to him, she reached out and rubbed his arm. The hard, corded muscle there never ceased to surprise her in light of his overall gentle demeanor. “Thank you for my tea,” she said softly when he caught her gaze.

  There was a humming pause when she thought he might lean down or reach out to her, but a noise from the hallway drew both their attention. Skye walked into the room wearing a gossamer blue, spaghetti-strap nightgown. She was rubbing her eyes and yawning as she walked. When she uncovered her eyes and spotted them, she let out a small shriek.

  Even as Caleb appeared silently in the room wearing a pair of pajama pants and no shirt, his dark hair unbound and wild around his head, Skye declared, “Why didn’t either of you generate some light? Good gracious, I think half my hair turned gray!”

  She whirled with her usual energy to step away from them so she could have a hand at creating one of the balls of light that usually floated around the house, and crashed right into Caleb. If he hadn’t reached out to grab her, she would have hit the floor.

  “Jiminy Cricket—it’s like hitting a brick wall,” she complained, bringing a hand to her nose. “Ow, that hurt!”

  Caleb looked down at her and frowned. “Your nose is bleeding.”

  “It is?” she asked, her voice much higher than usual. When she brought her hand away from her face and saw the blood, she swayed. Caleb eased her into a chair as James grabbed a towel.

  “Skye, it’s okay,” Olivia said, sitting in the chair beside her sister’s. “It’s just a little nosebleed.”

  “Just?” she retorted. “Just?”

  “Come on, we’ll mop it up. You’re made of tougher stuff than this.”

  “I think he broke it,” Skye said miserably.

  “I did no such thing,” Caleb responded in a deeply affronted tone. “I came in here to protect you because you cried out.”

  “I was startled, for all holy sake.”

  “What’s all the ruckus about?” Gabriel asked from the kitchen doorway.

  They all turned to look at him. “Skye thinks Caleb broke her nose,” James summed up.

  Everyone started talking at once. Skye was trying to support James’ version of events while Caleb defended himself and Olivia made an effort to explain what had actually happened. Gabriel waved his hands at all of them as though fending them off.

  “Guys, it is way too early for this,” he interrupted wearily, shaking his head. “I’ll go and get Amber up so she can heal you, Skye. But I’m telling y’all now that you’d better connect with a Lekwuesti so she can have her orange juice, or there’ll be the wrath of Amber to pay.”

  So when Amber was led into the kitchen by Gabriel with bleary eyes and out-of-control bed-head, James had already connected with his paired Lekwuesti and conjured a glass of juice. Olivia handed the glass to Gabriel when he turned to them. He pushed the glass into Amber’s hand and she automatically brought it to her lips and drank most of it before she did anything else. It probably saved a lot of time and additional drama, Olivia thought.

  Without a word, Amber set her glass down and reached out to touch Skye’s nose. Even as her gold healing light faded, Ini-herit filled the doorway and looked around the room.

  ??
?Why is it you did not set up a light?” he asked.

  Since Jabari was right behind Ini-herit and they were all awake, they all sat at the kitchen table and ate a breakfast of fresh sliced fruit, wedges of cheese and crusty biscuits with honey. One of the most fascinating things Olivia had encountered on this plane was the hospitality methods of the Lekwuesti. The lavender-winged Estilorians dedicated to fostering comfort and culture among the other classes could use their power to send all kinds of food and beverage anywhere on the Estilorian plane. They had to have a formal pairing with the particular Estilorian requiring the refreshments, however, so the three sisters were currently unable to request anything since they didn’t have such a connection. It was also something that could only be done once per day to avoid exhausting the Lekwuesti. This was how the Estilorians got around their lack of electricity and refrigeration.

  Caleb and Amber had both tamed their unruly hair and now wore ponytails, tank tops and loose pants. Skye had changed into a tank and shorts since her nightgown had gotten bloodstains on it. Olivia was still in her robe. As they were finishing up their meal, Jabari informed them that the big meeting with the other elders had been delayed due to the weather.

  “Gosh, it’s going to be a long, boring day without tube, flicks or tunes,” Skye sighed.

  Olivia noticed James’ confused expression, but before she could say anything, Caleb translated for him. “Television, movies or music,” he said.

  Everyone looked with some surprise at the usually silent and serious Gloresti. He just shrugged, his expression neutral. Olivia figured he did much more listening to Skye’s babbling than anyone would have imagined. He had likely learned quite a lot about humans in the past couple of months that way.