Rayne's Return (Hearts of ICARUS Book 3) (19 page)

“I know.  I’m just glad I was able to help.”

“What about you?” Landor asked.  “How do you feel?  Are you in any pain?”

She looked up at him in surprise, then shook her head and picked up her fork.  “I feel a little weak still, but that’s all.”

“You look tense,” Con said.

“I am, a little,” she admitted.  “Earlier today I said I wanted to tell you something, and I think now’s the time.”

“If it’s making you tense, maybe now isn’t the right time,” Ari said.  “There’s no need for you to rush anything, Rayne.”

“Thank you, Ari, but I really do need to do this now.”  She frowned.  “I guess I should first ask if you tried to fix the alarm system while I was sleeping.”

“No, we didn’t want to wake you up, so we decided to do that after dinner,” Con said.  “Why?”

“Because there’s no need,” she said. 

“Why not?” Landor asked.

“I suppose you’ve already figured out that my psychic ability is a shield.”  

“We’ve come to that conclusion over the past couple of days, yes,” Landor replied.

“Because you can’t always tell what I’m feeling?”  They all nodded.  “That’s just what I call my partial or half shield.  When it’s all the way up, I can’t be detected by sight or scent, and not even my sisters can sense the most extreme emotions from me.  I don’t make myself invisible exactly, but when my shield is fully up not even electronic components register my presence. 

“It sounds like a personal Blind Sight,” Ari said.

“Not quite,” Rayne said.  “I can’t hide sound.” 

“But we
can
feel emotions from you,” Landor said.  “Now that we’ve spent time with you it’s easy to see that the unruffled calm we always feel coming from you doesn’t match what we see on your face or in your eyes, which is confusing as hell, but we definitely feel you.” 

“I know,” she said.  “That’s another component of my shield, one I’ve never told anyone about.  Until now.”

“You know you can trust us, right?” Landor asked. 

“Yes, I know that,” she said, smiling a little.  “When my sisters and I were very young, one of the first skills my parents tried to teach us was to control our emotions.  It was more important for my younger brothers of course, as it is for all male Clan Jasani, but they wanted us to develop the ability, too.  Tani and Salene didn’t have any trouble with it, but for me, it was impossible.  If I was sad, or scared, or angry, then that’s the way I felt.  I couldn’t change that just by
wanting
to no matter how hard I tried.  So, I taught myself to raise my shield just enough to hide my emotions, but nothing more.  That didn’t work out so well because not even my sisters could sense anything from me, which gave away the fact that I was using my shield.  I kept working at it until I discovered a way to hide my true feelings, and at the same time project an aura of calm.  What you call
contentment
. 

“Part of the reason I felt I needed to tell you this is that I can’t watch you waste time on the alarm system when I know it’s not necessary.  I went out this morning, and then returned, and I had my shield all the way up the entire time so no one could see me.  That should have kept the alarms from tripping, so I’m guessing that the alarm was on the door itself, which would explain why it went off.”

“Yes, that’s right,” Con said.  “Thank you for saving us a lot of time and frustration.”  Rayne nodded, then took a bite of her dinner.

“You said that the alarm system was only part of the reason you wanted to tell us about your shields,” Landor said.  “What’s the other reason?”

Rayne finished chewing, put her fork down and gathered her courage.  “I know I’m not what you had in mind for an Arima, and I know you’re disappointed, but the fact is that I’m your
berezi
and we need to face that.”

“We’re not disappointed,” Landor said, interrupting her.  “We just made a mistake.  We were so focused on restraining ourselves, so worried that we’d claim you before you had a chance to grow up, that we stayed away from you far more than we should have.  If we hadn’t, we would have noticed that the emotions displayed in your eyes didn’t match the emotions we could feel coming from you.  It was an enormous error on our parts, and we’re very sorry for it.  Hurting you is the last thing we wanted to do.”   

“I understand,” Rayne said.  “But I’m afraid you’ve made another mistake that you aren’t even aware of.”

“Which is?” Landor asked.

“You thought I was
immature
, as you put it, because I seemed to be calm and unaffected all the time.  Once you realized that my true emotions were different from what you sensed, you swung a bit too far the other way.  Even though your reasons for thinking I was immature were wrong, your conclusion was
not
wrong.”  She waved a hand at their surprised expressions.  “Oh, I know that right now I’m a bit of a mess.  But when all of this is over and I’m back to myself again, you’ll see that what you label
immaturity
really is a big part of who I am.  I don’t think
immaturity
is the right word for it, but I’m sure that once you get to know me, that’s what you’ll think.”

“I’m afraid we don’t understand,” Landor said, frowning.  “Why would we think that?”

“I like to be happy, I love to laugh, and I always try to see the good side of things if at all possible.  I love to write music, and I have enough talent that I’ve been told, more than once, that I’m a fool for not pursuing a career with it.  But I don’t want a career.  Not a full time one, anyway.” 

“What do you want, Rayne?” Landor asked.

“I want a warm, loving relationship like my parents have with each other, and a big, happy family with lots and lots of children,” she said, her eyes lighting up as she spoke, giving her a glow that had them momentarily captivated.  “That’s what I’ve always wanted.  I want it so much that I’d decided to put my name on the list for Arima House as soon as I got back to Jasan after Tani’s wedding.”

She paused and studied their faces for a long moment, but she couldn’t tell what they were thinking or feeling.  But she’d started this, so she was going to finish it.  “I know you think I’m hurt because you thought I was too immature for you, but it’s not true.  Believe me, it’s not the first time I’ve been called that.  But I am hurt that you rejected me without even giving me a chance
because
of it.  

“That said, I also have to say that I know I’m not the only one with dreams, and I truly am very sorry to have disappointed you in yours, especially now that I’ve come to know you a little.”  Landor opened his mouth but she hurried on.  “Please, don’t misunderstand me.  I’m sorry about it, but I’m not willing to pretend to be other than I am to fit your ideal.  Even if I were willing, I very much doubt that I could.  So if that’s what you have your minds set on, then we have a problem.” 

“We’ve certainly made a mess of things with you,” Ari said sadly.  “But you’re wrong in thinking that you’re not the type of woman we wanted.  We’ve always known that our Arima could be anyone, so we were careful not to set our hearts and minds on any particular trait.  All we wanted was a woman to love, who would love us in return, and one who, we hoped, would want a big family.” 

“We stayed away from you because we thought
you
weren’t ready for
us
,” Landor said.  “Not because we didn’t like you.”  She raised her brows and he shrugged.  “Okay, yes, we were frustrated by the fact that it seemed to be taking so long for you to grow up, but that’s not the same as disliking you.”  She thought a moment, then nodded, accepting that.  “We ask that you give us a chance to get to know you.  And we ask that you take time to get to know us, as well.  Will you agree to this?”

Rayne’s heart leapt.  She was so happy that he’d suggested the same thing she’d been about to suggest.  It told her that they wanted to make things work between them as much as she did, and that went a long way toward healing her hurt feelings.  Just as she started to agree wholeheartedly, a thought entered her mind, instantly dampening her enthusiasm.

There was one very important issue that they hadn’t mentioned, so it looked like it was up to her to bring it up.  Unless she could prod them toward it.

“I do want to get to know you, and it makes me happy that you want the same thing.  But, I think we should put any
other
concerns we might have on the table before we come to an agreement,” she said, then looked at them hopefully.  Landor frowned, getting that she had something specific in mind, but unable to imagine what it was.  He looked at Con, and then Ari, but they appeared to be as clueless as he was. 

“We have no further concerns at the moment,” he said.  “If you do, we would hear them now.”

Rayne hesitated, then lifted her chin.  “I know that you don’t have a…,” she paused, searching for a word that was less embarrassing that what she’d almost said.  “I know you don’t have a
physical
attraction to me.”  She paused, so relieved to have that part out that she missed Landor, Con, and Ari’s surprised reactions.  “I’m concerned about that because I was taught that identifying your
berezi
was, for male-sets, a…well…
physical
…thing, and you told me that you didn’t have that…reaction.”  She pressed her palms to her cheeks, wondering if it was possible for them to actually catch fire due.

Landor reached across the table and brushed her hand with his fingers.  “Don’t be embarrassed,
Kisu
,” he said.  “You’re right that this is a subject that needs to be addressed.”  Rayne took a deep breath and blew it out, then reached for the
sasuna
, hoping the cold drink would help cool her face. 

Landor decided that she deserved to know everything.  From the beginning.  “One day you and your sisters were crossing the spaceport on your way home for a school break.  We always went down to greet you when your transport came in, so we’d seen you, and scented you, countless times before.  But on that day, at the exact moment your honeysuckle scent hit us, so too did the knowledge that you were our future.  Why it happened when you were barely fourteen years old, we don’t know.  We didn’t have a sexual reaction to you of course since you were still a child, but we
knew
, and it was one of the greatest moments of our lives.  But, we also knew that you had many years to go before you’d be ready to be claimed.  So, we decided it would be best for us all if we put distance between us.  The next day we resigned our positions at the spaceport and volunteered to handle security related issues for ICARUS.  It was the most difficult thing we’d ever done, but we knew then, and still believe now, that it was the best thing for you.

“After your eighteenth birthday, when you were legally an adult, we began allowing ourselves to get close enough to feel you and scent you during public occasions, when we knew there would be a lot of other people around to camouflage what we were doing.  We never had any reaction to your scent, never even scented you at all, actually.  We thought that meant that you were not yet mature despite your age.  And we also thought that you lacked emotional maturity, as we’ve already explained.  So we’d go back to work for ICARUS for another year or so before trying again, and again.  It was always the same though.  Every time.

“When we got the invitation to Tani’s wedding, we were very excited.  Tani was getting married, and we knew that Salene was planning to formally link with the Gryphons.  We told ourselves that had to mean that you’d be ready to be claimed, too.  During the wedding we caught your scent as you passed by us and we were in no way disappointed by our sexual reaction to you.  It was everything it should have been.  Next to identifying you as our
berezi
, it was the happiest moment of our lives because, finally, the waiting was over.

“Imagine our confusion when, a little while later, we couldn’t catch your scent at all.  We got as close to you as we could, as close as we are right now, but there was nothing.  No scent, and no reaction.  That’s partly why we were so frustrated when we reached the mesa that night.  We didn’t understand what was happening, or what it meant.”

“Wait,” she said, frowning.  “You could see me, but not smell me?”

“That’s right,” Landor said with a little smile.  “When we can’t feel you, we can’t smell you, either.  We realize now, of course, that that’s why we never reacted to your scent before.  You must use your shield a lot when you’re surrounded by a lot of people.”

Rayne dropped her eyes.  “I do,” she agreed. 

“Why?” Ari asked.  “I know it’s off the subject, but I’d like to know, if you don’t mind telling us.”

Rayne hesitated, then nodded.  “Of course.”

“No, Rayne,” Landor said, stopping her.  “You don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to.”

“I don’t mind telling you guys,” she said.  “It’s just a little embarrassing.  When Salene, Tani, and I were really little, just toddlers, we were walking with our mother across a field.  I don’t remember much, but I do remember the feeling of being surrounded by sunshine, tall grass, and Mom’s laughter.  Then all of a sudden a stranger came out of nowhere, grabbed my arm and yanked me up into the air.  She stabbed me with something sharp, then just let go of me, letting me fall to the ground.  I wasn’t seriously injured, but the incident terrified me and I never forgot it.”

“We weren’t there that day, but many were, and we were told about it,” Landor said.  “I don’t understand why it embarrasses you though.”

“I’m not embarrassed about that part,” Rayne said.  “When I got older I learned that the woman was after a blood sample, and even though she was carelessly cruel about it, she didn’t intend to cause me any real harm.  But, knowing that didn’t help, even though my parents seemed to think it should have.  I’ve tried, I really have, but I can’t change the fact that I don’t like being in large crowds, especially when there are a number of people I don’t know, because it’s difficult for me to keep an eye on whoever gets close to me.  It’s exhausting, stressful and, I know, foolish, and that’s what’s embarrassing.