by Ann Macela
No one gave a signal that he noticed, but all extended their hands at the same moment. Saxt kept his to his sides.
Shining balls of multi-colored energy coalesced at the tips of their fingers, floated about six inches away, and grew in volume. When they expanded to a foot in diameter, the multicolored spheres elongated until they touched those on each side. Looking like long balloons, they began to melt together to form the usual ring with a diameter of about twenty feet and waist high from the floor.
Nothing new here—until he realized the balloons weren’t simply melting together. Each person’s contribution was lengthening into a strand, stretching and spiraling around and around the circle, and twisting with itself and with the others’ threads. What had Johanna called it? Weaving?
Soon he couldn’t tell where one person’s stopped and another’s began. The strands multiplied and grew into a foot-thick cable.
Floating in the air still six inches from the Defenders’ hands, the ring changed from a jumble of spectrum hues to a light gold, the usual color. Saxt relaxed. No matter how they created the hoop, the result was normal.
Clyde made a sort of shoving motion to the left with his hands, and the others did the same.
Like the rim of a wheel on the axle of the pedestal, the structure began to revolve. Slowly, then faster.
A spinning ring definitely wasn’t normal, and Saxt watched intently. A slight wind of latent magic began to swirl in the pentagon.
As it increased in speed, the ring’s color overall intensified into a rich, deep honey, like the old gold in ancient jewelry. No individual threads were visible in the spinning mass.
Saxt could feel the ring’s magic level rising. Fourteen to fifteen, fifteen to sixteen, sixteen to …
He glanced at the Defenders on either side of him. They still held their hands out, supplying power to the ring. The visible energy leaving their fingers, however, manifested itself only as thin threads, not the normal substantial band or ribbon.
Normal? Nothing was normal about the procedure. In addition to the spin, the color change, and the level increase, this ring produced a sound, a slight, continuous whoooooosh, a little like the white noise produced by an overhead electric fan.
As the strands multiplied, the ring revolved faster, became denser and wider, deeper in color, and it … called to Saxt.
No, the whirling energy did more than simply call. It enticed, it beckoned, it summoned. He could feel it in his bones, in his center, in his every cell. Join us. We want you. We need you.
Saxt raised his hands. How could he not? What had they said about trust? He knew in his heart, in his brain, and in his center, he would be safe in the ring and with the people creating it. He gave himself over to the revolving band and the power inside it.
Marshalling the magic in his own center, he extended his fingers. Slowly he sent a thread of power from them into the revolving, spinning mass, where it tangled and twisted and wove with the other threads.
And spun with them.
Yeeeesssssss!
Such a soaring, joyous weightlessness infused his body, Saxt had to move his feet to make certain he wasn’t floating. Energy rushed from his center, gushing, flooding into the ring. Saxt was beginning to worry about expending his total supply when the power flow slowed, stopped, and reversed itself, returned fourfold to his center. The exchange to and from the ring settled into an astounding pattern—a tide ebbing and flowing.
What had he most desired when he came here? That free-form pouring in and out of power without regard for depleting reserves?
He had it now—more than he’d ever dreamed of.
No worry about depletion. Instead, his center, his power well, his energy repository was growing, expanding, filling, emptying.
The ring of combined energy grew, the threads multiplied, and the speed increased. Its level had to be up to at least seventeen.
By their threads, he became conscious of the others in the ring—Clyde, a strong leader urging them on; Pat, a solid bulwark of strength; Rosa, a true chef at mixing and blending the threads together; Dorothy, an organizer, keeping order; Jim, helping weave the threads together, stylishly and perfect; Jazara, adding dash and just a touch of joie de vivre; Johanna—ah, Johanna, bringing up the rear, making sure no one fell behind.
Somehow in the surging, spinning, swirling mass, one of Saxt’s threads found one of Johanna’s. He couldn’t see either strand, but he could feel her power, almost taste it, the same energy that had washed over him when they cast the fortress for the students and again when they started here. Their threads met, matched speeds, began to coil around each other, sharing energy, growing stronger, holding tighter.
As the threads combined their energies in a burst of power, Saxt’s center rejoiced, and exhilaration flooded his very being. The pleasure was so intense, so immense, so astonishing, so unexpected, he could not think, could barely breathe, could only enjoy and wonder.
Saxt looked up and over the glowing ring, straight into Johanna’s bright blue eyes. She stood across the circle, her hair a golden halo repetition of the spinning wheel.
She could see into his soul. He knew it, he felt it, he believed it.
He could see into hers. It was, she was, absolutely beautiful.
And he knew in that instant he’d found a second soul mate.
She was his.
He was hers.
He knew it with his head, his heart, and his magic center.
He knew it physically, intellectually, spiritually.
The knowledge stunned him. He could only stand frozen, lost in her gaze while the ring spun between them.
“Saxt!”
He jumped, and his movement broke the spell.
“Sorry,” he told Clyde while he tried to wake his mind from its dream state.
“Perfectly all right,” the older Sword said with a big grin. “We understand completely. We’ve all been caught up in the power ourselves. Cut your energy into the ring.”
Saxt stopped his power flow. Neither the ring’s energy radiance nor its output nor its speed diminished.
He gave Johanna a glance. Her face pale, she was staring at her hands. Did she realize what had happened?
Clyde, however, didn’t give either the chance to regroup. “Johanna, you and Saxt go inside the ring now. I’ll stay out here. Saxt, tell us what it feels like after you cross it.”
Saxt stepped through the ring. “Whoa!”
He had to stop to regain his breath before he said, “That was like a plunge into a warm sea. Total immersion. For a split second, I was completely full of power.”
He gazed across the pedestal at the woman on the other side. Wearing a confused frown, she was staring at him again.
Clyde must have noticed because he asked, “Johanna? Are you with us?”
“What? … Oh, yes, sorry. I succumbed to the euphoria of the ring for a second.”
“That’s exactly the sensation I had,” Saxt told her. Euphoria, but not from the ring.
“All right, Swords, let’s get to the business at hand,” Clyde ordered briskly. “Draw your blades, and keep them pointed vertically. Bring them up to full strength, please.”
Each Sword cast a blade of his or her own design, one that often reflected its wielder’s personality. Johanna’s weapon was slender and elegant with no ornamentation—a blade deceptively simple in design and exactly perfect for its purpose. Exactly like its wielder.
He cast his two-handed long sword—another plain, utilitarian design. Neither blade wasted one iota of its creator’s energy.
Moving up the color spectrum from indigo to silver tinged with violet, the level-fifteen blades gleamed in their hands. Johanna and Saxt both said, “Ready.”
“What we want you to do, Saxt,” Clyde explained, “is draw all the power you can from the ring behind you. The Defenders are going to push energy into it, and you’ll have more than you need. Fill your center and your blade until you’re about to burst from the pressure
. Nod when you’ve hit that point. I’ll count to three. On three, you Swords will bring your tips to bear on the item. When I count to three again, shoot your beams at the item with as much power as you can force through your sword. A big blast. One huge boom. Like a cannon shell or a bullet. All you have. Understand?”
“Don’t do like we usually do—shoot, then increase the power and hold the beam on the item in a continuous flow? Instead, hit it with all I have at the first in one concentrated shot?”
“Exactly. Don’t worry, you won’t run out of energy. We’ve also found it helpful for maximum flow if you back up almost into the ring while drawing power from it. Brace yourself before you shoot. Although there shouldn’t be a recoil, the energy goes through you and your blade extremely quickly, and you’ll want to keep the tip targeted at the item in case you need another burst. After you shoot, hold that position. You may be surprised at the results.”
“Got it. I’ll nod when I’m full.” He took half a step backward and could feel the ring’s “wind” ruffle his robe. The energy was almost reaching for him by itself, and it was easy to pull it into his center, which expanded even more to accommodate the influx. Huh. His center had never grown like this before. Of course, he hadn’t had so much energy available either.
Saxt poured the stuff into his middle until he could hold no more—in fact, his entire torso did feel like it might explode. He pushed the power up his chest, into his arms, and out into his sword. When he couldn’t hold any more, his blade became almost pure silver. So did Johanna’s.
He didn’t let himself dwell on the changed color. Not with an evil item to destroy right in front of him. He was full of magic, his sword was primed. He followed instructions and nodded.
Clyde said slowly, “One, two, three.”
Saxt and Johanna lowered the tips of their swords to aim them at the evil crystal shard. Its darkness deepened under the bright light of the blades.
“Get ready,” Clyde murmured.
Saxt gathered himself and the energy inside him.
“One, two, three.”
He threw all he had into the shot, blasted it out the blade, and felt the energy rush through him like water through a high-pressure fire hose. Johanna did the same.
Two silver laser bullets of magic power flooded the bowl and the object in it. When the beams hit the item, they flashed into pure white light.
The crystal disintegrated.
No boom, no bang.
Just like that, and without the slightest sound.
Gone.
Only a few gray ashes lay in the bottom of the bowl to indicate the item had existed at all.
Vaguely registering that his center was refilling with energy from the ring, Saxt stood absolutely still, staring at the bowl. Where did the item go? One shot and they killed it?
Clyde said, “You can sheathe your sword now.”
After cancelling his blade spell, Saxt turned abruptly to the older Sword and pointed at the ashes. “That couldn’t have been a level twelve! They can take an hour or more to kill. What the hell happened to it?”
“That,” Clyde said with a big grin, “was a demonstration of the power of our energy-delivery method. How do you feel?”
Saxt had to think about that a few seconds. “Like I climbed Mount Everest into extremely rarefied air. Absolutely amazed and overjoyed and totally shocked.”
The Defenders and Clyde shut off the power to the ring, and it dispersed with a slight “poof.”
Saxt shifted his gaze to Johanna’s face. She appeared as surprised and confused and exultant as he felt. And a tiny bit frightened.
“Are you okay?” he asked her, stepping closer. He lifted his hand, but let it fall again before he came in contact with her. Who knew what his touch might do to either of them? His entire body felt charged with power. Also with a deep—no other word was accurate—lust. His adrenaline was still pumping, his body, especially his cock, was like granite, and he wanted no more in this moment than to pick her up and carry her off to some place private.
She blinked at him and seemed to return to herself as she spoke softly. “I think so. That … that was the most powerful … I’ve never …”
“Yeah,” he told her. He forced himself to calm down and be civilized. “Me, too.”
“Comin’ through,” Pat proclaimed, heading toward the bowl. “Time to take care of the puny ashes.”
The interruption separated Saxt from Johanna, and the rest of the team drew him out of the pentagon. When he glanced over, Johanna was helping Pat place the remains into the vials they would scatter later.
While Saxt answered the group’s questions about his experience and listened to them tell of theirs, a part of his mind worked on the problem of separating Johanna from the herd. He had to find out if his revelation was true—that they were, in fact, soul mates. Then and only then would he make future plans.
His magic center jiggled as if laughing at his thoughts and sent a surge of yearning through his body, particularly his heart. His cock, however, wasn’t laughing. It was trying its best to push through his pants.
Idiot! Both his center and his erection were right. Of course she was his mate. Thank God for his voluminous Sword robe. The last complication he needed was for her team to take notice of his personal discovery—and its effects.
He glanced at his soul mate again. She raised her head and, frowning as if she was trying to figure out what had happened, met his gaze. But only briefly, before she quickly turned to help Pat.
She didn’t know, hadn’t realized they were mates. That was the only conclusion for her confused reaction.
He knew her story—the tragic death of her young mate was common knowledge because of the resulting teaching and security reforms. What had she done for companionship since then? Found it in the arms of non-practitioners as he had? Somehow he doubted it.
Would she be ready or even amenable to having another soul mate? Would it be best to let her realize the situation on her own, or should he tell her? Decisions, decisions.
No, he wouldn’t spring it on her. Give her some time and see if she came to the same conclusion.
What about him? Was he ready for a soul mate again? To open himself up to everything the relationship implied? To replace Maddy? To perhaps have children? A wave of memories of his Maddy and their son washed over him and almost brought him to his knees. He stiffened his backbone and forced the remembrances away.
Control, Falkner, control. You need to think, to decide how you feel, to decide what to do.
Johanna and Pat finished their task of transferring the ashes to vials and handed one to each team member for emptying in distant places. No one took chances with an item’s reconstituting itself. Saxt accepted his vial from Pat and busied himself putting on his coat.
He wouldn’t rush Johanna. In the meantime, he’d get to know her. Wasn’t that what everybody’s parents said to do?
One fact he knew with absolute conviction. He wasn’t going to lose a second soul mate as he had the first one, to his own stupidity, blindness, and overconfidence. He’d protect her, no matter what.
Chapter Seven
Johanna munched on her sandwich and watched Saxt charm her team. As always after a practice, they were replenishing their energy around the dining table in Dorothy’s HeatherRidge condo with her husband Will also in attendance. The team members were overjoyed someone else had actually joined completely in the ring’s creation and an item’s destruction. Saxt appeared confident and still somewhat amazed by the outcome.
She, however, was mostly confused. Something important had happened during that magic energy exchange. She’d felt her thread and Saxt’s wrap around each other, and the exultation blasting through her had almost lifted her off her feet. Contact with another’s thread had never done that before.
Then his hot, magnetic gaze seemed to see directly into her mind. The heat made her toes curl and sent such a river of energy through her, she was afraid she might spontaneously
combust.
Fireworks were all well and good, but what did it all mean? Besides confusion and exhaustion? Her reactions made no sense at all.
Her center, tired from the session, hummed to itself contentedly. Sort of … smugly. What was going on with that?
Too many questions, not enough answers.
Meanwhile, Saxt praised their development and asked questions about its discovery. He laughed at the bickering between Pat and Jazara about who actually started the ring spinning and at Jim’s first reaction of feeling drunk with power when it stopped.
When they related the problems with the practice visitors—all Indies—he agreed with their notion about needing trust to join in completely. Teams built the trust over time. The consensus became that Indies, unused to team togetherness, simply wouldn’t let go and give all they had. Rosa thought they would try, once they’d seen the ring in action and knew the worth and outcome of the method.
“Saxt, you joined us and contributed power with no reservation. Why did you do it?” Clyde asked.
Saxt looked thoughtful for a few seconds before he answered, “I had no problem with the trust issue. Never even thought of it. The ring was spinning, and … it was practically calling to me. I couldn’t bring myself not to join it and you. I’ll tell you what’s funny, or fate, or plain weird. The other day I was hoping to find a team with whom I could freely exchange energy, exactly the way we did tonight. Pour it in and out, no thought to depletion or replenishment. When the opportunity presented itself, I grabbed it.”
He gave Johanna another glance she couldn’t interpret. Like he’d done across the ring. The glance only confused her more. Was she his opportunity? Did she have something to do with his trust? How could that be? She’d just met the man. Nothing made sense here.
Mercifully, his gaze didn’t linger. To divert herself from staring at him, she quickly served herself a piece of cherry pie, and when she lifted her eyes again, he was concentrating on Dorothy.