Central (39 page)

“Please don’t cry,” he whispered in an anguished voice. The words could barely get past the tightness of his throat.

She finally pulled away enough to look up at him. He opened his eyes to look at her and had to blink to clear his vision. Although her tears continued to flow, she managed a small smile. “Why not? You are.”

He reached up with amazement and touched his face, felt the moisture there. He really was.

“Quit hogging Olivia,” Gabriel griped from a foot behind them.

Releasing his hold, James turned with her and watched as she gave Gabriel and Caleb each weepy, grateful hugs and then latched onto Amber and Skye in a three-way hug. All of the girls were crying and babbling, their emotions ranging from relief to happiness to remembered fear. As they stood together on the beach, the elders approached from the group that had landed behind Olivia.

“We have to get back to Central,” Gabriel said as he intercepted the elders’ thoughts, though he was obviously hesitant to interrupt the sisters’ tearful reunion. “We’re not safe here.”

Olivia nodded and wiped ineffectively at her face. Her wrenching sobs had stopped, but the tears continued to drip in a steady flow from her beautiful eyes. She was expelling a great deal of pent-up emotion.

Turning, she faced the huge number of silent beings behind her. “There isn’t a way to thank all of you for coming to get me,” she said in a loud voice, wanting her words to carry. “You saved my life.”

“Actually, Olivia,” Uriel said, giving her the first smile any of them had ever seen from him, “you saved your own.”

It was nearly dawn before they made it all the way back to Central and got showered and ready for bed. Olivia had been greeted by the Estilorians still remaining at Central with more warmth and enthusiasm than James had ever seen. Brenna and Pavati had shed tears when they learned everything that had happened, prompting Olivia to shed even more of her own.

Then there had been Olivia’s reconnection with Aurora. Watching her interact with the two panthers had been quite an emotionally-wrought experience. She had simply sat on the ground and clung to their necks as she wept.

He knew despite his lack of experience with such things that by the time they got up to their rooms, she was emotionally wrung out.

He and Caleb did their usual swap in listening for Olivia and Skye while they each showered. He moved his mattress into Olivia’s room while she showered, then took his turn to shower in his bathroom as soon as Caleb was out and on guard duty. Washing away the day’s grime was a welcome relief, but he hurried through the task so that he could get back to Olivia.

After finishing his routine and dressing in a sleep tank and pants, he closed the door between his room and Skye’s, bid Caleb a mental good night and walked over to Olivia’s room, extinguishing all but a single ball of light as he walked.

She was standing in the middle of the bedroom. The light pink nightdress she wore with a filmy, sleeveless overwrap served to enhance her innocence and vulnerability. He had never seen another being as beautiful as she appeared to him just then.

When she held her arms up, he walked right to her and pulled her against him. The weight that he hadn’t even realized had settled on his chest suddenly eased.

“I’ve been waiting for what feels like a lifetime just to hold you and tell you how much I love you,” he whispered as he pressed his cheek against the softness of her hair. “This entire experience has shown me how foolish I was to not acknowledge my feelings sooner.”

He felt her smile against his chest and shake her head. “You’ve had nearly a century of life without any concept of love or similar emotions,” she responded. “How could you have understood all there is to know about such an emotion in just a few months? I was the foolish one for not considering that and placing such expectations on you.”

Pulling away enough that he could look down at her, he said, “Olivia, I feel as though my life didn’t truly begin until you transitioned into it.”

She slowly lifted her head and stared at him incredulously.

Thinking she didn’t believe him, he explained, “When I think back to my life even four months ago, it seems…without color. Perhaps there were a few interesting lessons during my training just after I transitioned, and there was always the potential to grow and advance among the Gloresti. But I only accepted that depth of existence because it was all I knew. Now I know better.

“Now I know what it is to experience joy. To watch someone learn to use her wings for the first time. I now know what it is to laugh. To tease and to encourage. I now know that I have with Caleb and Gabriel what you do with your sisters. Brothers in every sense to me.

“And most importantly, I now know you. I can’t imagine my life now without you, Olivia. I can’t imagine not getting to see your smile every day, not hearing your laughter. I can’t imagine not getting to show you all of the many things about this plane you have still to learn and watch you absorb and enjoy every experience with your unshakable enthusiasm and intensity. I can’t imagine what my life would be like without your love to fill me so completely.”

Her expression had only grown more stunned the more he spoke. He was becoming alarmed, wondering if he was saying something wrong. How else could he possibly convey what was in his heart?

Then she said a little breathlessly, “You have absolutely no idea how romantic all of that just was.”

His brow knit. “Romantic? Is that…good?”

And then she laughed, obviously delighted. She reached up to touch both sides of his face. “You always speak the truth. It’s one of the things that I first loved about you. And when you say things like you just said, with the full force of that honesty behind them, it hits me like an arrow.” She reached down and lifted his hand, placing it over her heart. “Right here.”

“Oh.” He blinked at that. His gaze settled on his hand where it rested against her breastbone. He felt her heartbeat beneath his fingertips. He was suddenly mesmerized by the rise and fall of her breasts. Flushing, he started to pull his hand away.

She grabbed it before he could. Then she slowly guided his hand until it was near the base of her neck.

“Would you kiss me again, James?” she whispered, her gaze not moving from his. “I would very much like that to be the memory in my mind before I go to sleep tonight.”

Unable to deny her, he lightly wove his fingers into her silky hair and cupped the back of her head, pulling her closer. He settled his other hand on the tantalizing curve of her hip. Then he bent his head and touched his lips gently to hers.

She responded by bringing both of her hands up and holding his head down when he would have stood back up after the one brief kiss. She wasn’t willing to allow the restraint he was trying to impose on himself. No…she wanted his passion.

The kiss didn’t remain gentle for long. Before he even knew it had happened, his hands were both in her hair and cradling her head so he could encourage the tilt of her mouth toward his again and again.

And he finally tasted her again as he had envisioned for weeks now. It was every bit as glorious and arresting as he remembered. His heart pounded like it was going to launch itself out of his chest. His body felt like it was on fire, nerve-endings blazing in foreign but incredible ways. When her hands moved to stroke his chest, he understood just how much impact mere touching could have on the entire experience. His hands moved along her shoulders, bare arms and back, and he noticed the sounds she made indicating pleasure. It served to escalate his own to a point he instinctively knew was unwise.

Finally, he tore himself away from her, almost stepping back and falling on his mattress due to his weak knees and fuzzy brain. Remembering what Amber had said about the feeling of rejection that such a move could cause, he caught Olivia’s gaze as he tried to steady his breathing.

“I didn’t stop because I wanted to,” he explained a bit hoarsely.

She nodded, breathing raggedly. “I know.” Then she gave him a rather dazed smile. “Wow.” After a moment of just standing and staring at him with that same dazed expression on her face, she took a few backward steps until she felt the bed behind her.

“Well, good night then,” she said, climbing into her bed and pulling the covers up to her chin.

“Good night, Olivia. I love you.”

She sighed happily. “I love you, too. Thanks for the nice memory.”

The nightmares began an hour later.

James was dead asleep, but he heard the murmur from Olivia’s bed. His eyes flew open, adjusting very quickly in the darkness. Not seeing any visible threats, he rose and moved closer to the bed.

She made a pained sound in her throat and arched her back. Alarmed, he reached out to wake her.

When she sat up in the bed, her face was white as bone, her eyes haunted. He didn’t think she even recognized him or her surroundings.

Tossing a dim ball of light toward the ceiling, he sat beside her on the bed and gently touched her shoulder. “Olivia, are you all right?”

She started shivering in reaction to her dream, but managed to give him a weak smile. “I’ll be fine. It was just a nightmare. I kind of figured it would happen after all of the drama today. Thanks for waking me up.”

Not knowing what else to do, he sat and held her until she again grew drowsy and insisted he go back to bed. He did, only falling asleep when he heard her breathing steady.

The next nightmare occurred not even thirty minutes later. He went through the same routine, waking her up and calming her down, holding her as tremors coursed through her. His heart started to ache at the terror he saw on her face each time she awoke. Was it not enough that she had defeated her demons in person? Now they must plague her dreams as well?

This time, he left the ball of light near the ceiling, hoping it would help. It didn’t.

Three hours after everyone else had gone to bed, with the sun likely high in the sky, James held an exhausted Olivia as she wept. He simply couldn’t bear it. She was utterly exhausted and needed her rest. So this time he remained in her bed, lying on top of the covers while she was mostly underneath them, and let her sleep against him.

Only then did they both sleep peacefully.

James came fully awake hours later, sensing another presence in the room. He found himself staring right at Gabriel, who was looking at him with his arms crossed over his chest and an eyebrow raised.

Glancing down and seeing Olivia pressed against him, no longer under the covers since she was warmed by his body heat, James felt his face flooding with color. There simply was no way to get out of this gracefully, but he certainly had to say something.

“Good morning, Gabriel,” he said sheepishly. “Um…I can explain.”

Chapter Thirty-Six

Two days after Olivia’s abduction, there was another meeting of all the elders and their commanders. Also in attendance were the three sisters, James and Caleb. They sat around the long conference-style table, discussing what had happened and its implications on the future.

Olivia stifled a yawn. She still hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep, even with the generous two-day delay in having this meeting.

Her nightmares embarrassed her. She hadn’t discussed them with anyone except for James. After being found together by Gabriel after the first night, he had attempted to sleep again on his mattress the next. That hadn’t lasted more than two nightmares. They both decided they would have to risk their brother’s wrath just to have some semblance of rest.

But now she was rather exhausted and truly dreading rehashing her experience in front of all of the Estilorians seated around her, no matter how dear they were to her.

“We traced Grolkinei to his home,” Uriel was saying, “but by then he and his commanders had fled. From what we have gathered, one of the commanders, the one called Layla, had been left behind in the home while the others were with Olivia. She must have received some kind of alert that allowed her to pack up some items they needed and escape before we found it.”

“Kanika probably sent her a thought,” Malukali responded. “They are both former Orculesti, so such a connection might be possible even after their transformations.”

There were agreeing nods around the table.

“We do not believe that Grolkinei’s main forces were present at this location,” Hitoshi said. “Their numbers were too small for that to be true.”

“He didn’t expect us to find him,” Gabriel added. “He’s probably been at that location for decades without it being indentified.”

“It was heavily camouflaged,” Harold acknowledged. “If it had not been for the Orculesti and Wymzesti along with us, we would not have found it, even with the cat’s considerable aid. The enchantment was quite powerful.”

Olivia suppressed a shudder at how close they had come to not finding her. James reached over and put his arm around her. She leaned gratefully into his side.

“The commander known as Cesaro died as a result of his injuries,” Uriel said, making Olivia’s eyes widen in shock. “And the commander known as Ryce is now also deceased. Apparently, the cat, being a bit wild, attacked the Mercesti commander just as he regained consciousness. It was…” he trailed off briefly and met James’ gaze, “unfortunate.”

Catching the look, Olivia also glanced at James, but he was looking at the Waresti elder and didn’t notice her considering stare.

“Yeah,” Amber said dryly. “We’ll light a candle.”

Gabriel winked appreciatively at her, running a hand briefly along her hair.

“I was able to read Tabitha’s lingering essence,” Malukali said then, her voice deeply saddened. “She had been led astray by implanted thoughts. I fear the Mercesti have found a way to prey upon some of us through our enchantments. ”

“We will need to consider new ways of enhancing the protections already in place,” Ailfrid added. “The Mercesti have continued to evolve as a class, and we must make adjustments for that.”

“You are correct, Ailfrid,” Jabari said. “We will consider the best way to make these adjustments in the coming weeks. It will involve a great deal of planning and preparation, but it should be done. We do not want anyone else to go through this.”