A Lost Kitten (11 page)

John’s eyes grew in size.

“You cannot see them because you have no Surrealan blood in your veins. However, they are here, all around you. Surreal feeds her peepuhl with energy that allows them to go about their lives as you do.”

“That’s…that’s not possible.”

“Welcome to Surreal.”

“You’re not…a ghost.”

The king took a deep, sad intake of breath. The lines on his face deepened, making him look older than he was. “I was one of the lucky few who survived the attack. Because I am a Surrealan, I can see them, speak to them. They are alive. Just not like us.”

“You call that being alive?”

“It’s better than being dead.”

“They are dead. Their spirits were bound to this planet by the Medlothians. Can’t you see that?”

Yudit stood. “You do not understand.”

“Oh, I understand, all right. The reason why I’m freezing my ass off is because Surreal is a ghost planet. I’ve felt them from the beginning. This place is infested with them, and I’m stuck in the middle. The only place they don’t enter is Jasira’s house, because she won’t let them.”

“Where you will not be entering, either.” Yudit walked to the door. “After what you did, I would not be surprised if she never wanted to see you again.” Yudit called for another guard.

John tried to understand his meaning. “Are you saying the ghost who assaulted me was Jasira?”

“Yes,” said Yudit. He addressed the soldier. “Please escort Seacat McCall back to his old room.”

“Yes, my lord,” said the guard as he bowed.

Yudit looked at John. “Goodnight, Seacat.”

John stood from his seat and followed the guard in a trancelike manner. The night’s events repeated themselves in his head. None of it could be real. How could Jasira be the ghost? He had believed she was real and his room held a secret passageway. He arrived in his former room and entered without acknowledging the guard.

If Jasira was a ghost, then she needed no passageway to enter his room. John sat on the bed. His senses were right all along. There was a large population living within the walls of the city and the castle—a large population of spirits.

Dena arrived to build the fire. She directed the men who brought a tub to the room to place it before the fire. John secretly watched her as she poured the buckets of steaming water into the tub. She was indeed an attractive woman and a skillful kisser. He could easily forget himself in her arms if it were not for the mind-boggling kiss he had shared with Jasira.

Jasira…is a ghost?
He was having a hard time accepting it. How could he have shared the most amazing kiss of his life with a spirit? It was not possible. He must be dreaming. John rubbed his face with both hands. It had felt so real.

As long as his eyes remained closed and he kept his hands to his sides, Jasira was real. Her touch, her scent, her taste—he experienced them all like he experienced Dena’s and all the women before her. John shivered. It was eerie, yet his soul longed to experience it all again.

Dena spoke to him. “Your bath is ready.” Her eyes roamed over him. “Do you need help?”

John did not respond. He needed to forget what happened. He needed to forget Jasira. He slowly stood from the bed. He allowed Dena to aid him in removing his jacket. She folded the jacket and placed it on a chair.

John was halfway done with unbuttoning his shirt when she returned. Her eyes gleamed with excitement as she smoothed her hands over his bare chest, stomach, and arms, slipping the shirt off him. John wished he felt the same. What he felt was dirty.

He sat back down and allowed Dena to remove his boots. She knelt before him and eagerly reached for the buttons down the front of his pants. One by one, she slipped each button through its hole. John carefully watched her. Her breasts seemed desperate to escape their confinements. His hands stayed at his sides. He could not bring himself to touch her as he had before.

John allowed Dena to caress his manhood over his pants. The only thing that rose was a feeling of guilt. Dena licked her red lips. He recalled their taste. They were nothing compared to another set of lips that made the fire in him blaze out of control. Dena slipped her fingers beneath the material and parted the sides. Her fingertips brushed his placid member. John grabbed her wrists and stopped her.

Her eyes questioned his. “Are you all right?”

John regarded Dena carefully. Her arousal reached his nose. There was a time when he would have forgotten the world around him and lost himself in a woman’s call to mate. As he sat there, keeping Dena from touching him, his senses compared her scent to another woman’s call.

Jasira. Her perfume was more alluring, arousing, and intoxicating. John’s world had tilted off its axis when her fingers wrapped around his erection. Dena’s arousal had no power over him. Her touch fell short. His fingers tightened around Dena’s slender wrists. He read the concern on her face.

“What’s wrong?”

“Why didn’t you tell me there are ghosts here?”

Dena shook her head. “Ghosts?”

John vaulted off the bed, away from her touch. “Don’t start with me!” He stopped in front of the fireplace, staring into the dancing flames. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It’s not something we readily tell outlanders.” She snaked her arms around his waist and pressed her body to his backside.

John immediately remembered the incident at the schoolhouse. “Can you see them?”

“Of course. I’m a Surrealan.” She placed soft kisses along his spine.

John’s features tensed. It was not the same. He felt no need to press into her. Dena’s actions were not soothing, not arousing. He grew irritated.

“And you had no intentions of telling me?”

“Do not be angry. We are forbidden to speak about this with outlanders. I did not wish to keep a secret from you.”

John could not endure her touch any longer. He moved away from her. “But you did.”

He did not face Dena. He felt disgraced and disloyal by allowing her to touch him. It puzzled him. Why was he feeling loyalties toward a ghost?

“John, please understand, I was forbidden.”

“Goodnight, Dena.”

“John, please—”

“Goodnight,” he clipped. He did not see Dena’s eyes fill with tears.

John heard the door close. He went to the door and lowered the wooden lever onto the metal receiver, locking it. He returned to his bed and removed his pants, then threw them on the bed. He lowered into the hot bath.

Deep in his troubled thoughts, John did not notice his transformation. He sat in the tub for several hours staring into the blazing fire without really seeing it. He wondered how it had come to this.

He remembered saying goodnight to the night shift on Sea Base Ten. He had just finished taking a shower and was choosing a set of pajamas to put on when he heard the first blast. He grabbed a clean shirt and pants from his closet. As he was putting on his boots, his little brother Alan burst into his room shouting they were under attack.

It was the beginning of John’s nightmare. A nightmare he had yet to awake from six and a half months later. And until Bogdan returned, he would have to live amongst the dead. How was he going to do it? He sneezed.

John lowered into the tub. Only his head remained above the water. He could not stop thinking about the apparition. The ghost with the amazing kiss and burning touch was Jasira. He had guessed correctly; however, Jasira being dead had never entered his mind.

“I don’t know what’s worse. The war or the ghost.”

John lowered his head. He tried to find a comfortable position. Unfortunately, the tub was not made for someone of his tall stature.

Will I ever sleep in a warm bed again?
By the time John dozed off, dawn’s first light was filtering through his window.

.

Chapter 6

Tuesday, the 1st of December

John’s head broke the water’s surface. He was aching and in a fouler mood than before. He checked his wristguard for the time. He had to blink several times to adjust his focus to see the small numbers. It was six in the evening. He grabbed the soap bar and washed. After he rinsed off, he stepped out of the tub and dried his body. He reached for his clothes.

There was a knock. He glanced at the door. Should he answer? The cold was slowing down his transformation back to normal. The sunlight that filtered through the window was blinding him, for his pupils were still dilated; black covered most of his irises. His hands and feet were webbed. There were fins on the back of his calves and forearms. And his spine, from his middle-back to tailbone, was a glossy luminescent brown.

John gritted his teeth. What did it matter? Their secret was worse than his. He wrapped the towel around his waist and unlocked the door.

A young boy, around sixteen, stood in the corridor holding a large sack. His eyes grew at seeing John’s dark eyeballs; his gaze swooped over John’s body. He stepped back two steps, and stumbled over his words as he offered the sack to John. “These…these are your…your clothes you left in…uh…uh…Jasira’s houz.”

His words stirred negative emotions in John. John snatched the sack from the boy’s hand. The teenager bolted from his spot before John could slam the door in his face. He snarled at the boy’s departing back and slammed the door anyway.

How dare they bring his clothes to him? How dare Yudit say he could not return to the house? John felt insulted, like he was thrown out of his own home. It was ridiculous, and he knew it. The house belonged to a ghost. Still, the feeling was there and he could not ignore it. He threw the bag on the bed and began putting all the clothes on.

Last night’s foul mood had grown worse because of the dream he’d had. One dream, all evening, filled with Jasira’s incredible hands and fervent kisses. John inhaled deeply as he buttoned his third shirt. He smelled food and manure in the air. Nothing else.

A sharp pain stabbed his chest. His brows drew closer together. Was he crazy? Why would he want to smell vanilla? He did not want Jasira near him. She was a ghost not a real woman. He hated ghosts. He had to remember that. Jasira touched him when he did not want to be touched. He had to remember that, too. He stormed out of his room bundled up like an Eskimo.

John entered the dining hall. The usual people who resided in the castle were scattered about the room, eating their evening meal. The temperature in the room felt like several degrees below zero. John sensed a multitude of invisible beings in the large room. Were they actually there? He felt better blaming the intense cold on his haywire senses.

He glanced toward the king’s table and saw Yudit talking to himself. The young king noticed him and gestured to an empty seat. John walked in his direction, unsure if he wanted to speak to Yudit. He resented the man for forbidding him to return to Jasira’s house.

“I didn’t want to interrupt your prayer.”

“I was not praying.” Yudit motioned to the chair on his left. “I was talking to an old fend of my fahder’s.”

John saw no one in the chair. He was not about to believe what he felt.

“Please, have a seat.” The king nodded to the chair in front of John.

“Is it empty?”

“It is.”

John detected it was. “Good.” He pulled out the chair. “I didn’t want to sit on anyone.”

John noticed the pitcher of wine in the middle of the table to his right. He did not drink wine that was not made from Aanari. Aanari wine was made by extracting the red fluid of a giant plant that was native to Oceana called Aatar. This liquid could get an individual drunk—even kill him—if large quantities were consumed. However, if mixed with the sweet nectar from an Engari tree, it served as a relaxing agent, without fear of intoxication.

It was against Sea-anan law for Seacats and Sea Rangers to be under the influence of any substance. They had to be prepared for battle at all times. Therefore, Aanari wine was the only alcoholic beverage for warriors.

After everything he had endured—from being attacked on Sea Base Ten, to crash-landing on Cerko, and now, to meeting Jasira—hot tea was the last thing John needed or wanted. He reached for the pitcher. He yanked back his hand as the pitcher rose in the air and floated toward his goblet. It poured its red contents into John’s cup, then floated back to its place on the table. John’s heart pounded at what he had witnessed.

“What just happened?”

The king swallowed his food, unaffected by the moving pitcher. “Malinda poured you some wine.”

John’s eyes grew bigger at spotting a plate heaped with food sail across the room in his direction. He jumped from his seat and took several steps away from the approaching meal.

“Relax. Celia is only bringing you your dinner.”

John was unsure if he wanted to sit back down. “This didn’t happen before.” He stared at the plate, expecting it to do something else.

“You did not know about us before. Now that you do, they will no longer pause in their chores when you are around.”

John inched his way to the seat. “Pause in their chores?”

Yudit set his goblet down and nodded while he wiped his lips. “They did not want to scare you.”

Scare?
His mind repeated. John quickly switched his attention from the plate to the king. “Scare
me?
” Anger flared in his chest. His eyes grew cold. “I don’t scare easily.”

Yudit’s expression turned doubtful. “Of course not. Have a seat.”

John plopped in the chair.

“Rodin, this is Seacat John McCall. This is Rodin. The two of you met last night.”

“Last night?”

“In my office. Rodin and I were engaged in a private discussion when you barged in and decided to sit on him.”

John’s eyes rounded. They landed on the chair.

“His suhd, Rau, owns the stables.”

John tried to read the king’s features for the truth. “I sat on him?” He remembered when he initially sat in the chair; it felt like he had dived into a frozen lake.

The king swallowed his meat. “Yes, you did. He was quite offended by that.”

John looked at the empty chair. Should he apologize? Was the man actually there? Was this real? Or was he in a hospital somewhere trapped in a coma?