Alawahea

by Sara L Daigle

“Good thing,” Merran muttered. “They’re going to have to manage the indoor part themselves.” The trunk and struggling students disappeared indoors, and the four Azellians pulled their minds back to themselves.

  Not long after, Greg and Tamara came down. Merran jumped a little. Greg was right. He hadn’t seen Tamara since the embassy party, and she was heavily shielded, so much so he couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Although she looked composed, his empathic sensitivity told him she was hanging on by a thread.

  Is she all right? He sent the question to Greg’s intimate level.

  She’ll be fine. She just needs something to distract her a bit.

  Did she just find out someone’s dying or something? Merran asked, studying the shining shields that prevented him from reading her. Her misery leaked around those shields like a mist rising from a moist stone wall. The tone of it was familiar—too familiar.

  She’s shielded so tight I didn’t think an aarya could read her! Greg’s mind tone carried a rueful astonishment. She’s putting out a Call loud enough to deafen me, but if she hadn’t told me that her mother was sick, I’d be clueless. How did you manage to know that? You’re not a Healer!

  Can’t you feel her leaking around those shields? It reminded me of my own experience when my father died and I had to live with my older sister. That kind of thing tends to resonate pretty intensely, if you’re listening for it.

  Greg was silent for a moment. She is leaking, isn’t she? Huh. It’s on a different level than I usually scan during my Healing. Wow. That’s weird. She’s resonating on a level I’m surprised a human can reach.

  What do you mean by that?

  Well, you know Azellian families have their own unique psi signature, the vibration at which they resonate, right?

  Everything and everyone does, Merran sent back. So?

  So she’s resonating like an Azellian right now, which is why you picked it up and I didn’t. I’ve been spending the entire week assuming she’s a human with shields. Most of the other humans I’ve met this week don’t resonate on the Azellian frequencies at all, so I haven’t been looking for it.

  Are you telling me you think she’s Azellian? How? You know the workup the Council does on the people who come to Azelle … and James Carrington had a full workup. The Carringtons are human.

  No, no. I don’t think she’s Azellian. I just have to rework my assumptions about humans and pay attention to those frequencies I was ignoring before. I’m really glad we’re inviting her to join us tonight and that she’s agreed to hang out with us, though.

  Why?

  Because human or not, if she’s actually going through something like our process of Awakening, she’s going to need our support. It will be much easier for her if she trusts us before that happens. He switched to spoken words. “Hey guys,” Greg said in English, his voice lighthearted and easy. Merran was sure it was for Tamara’s benefit, since it didn’t match his mind tone at all. “You look like you just lifted weights.” He cocked his head and studied them.

  Alarin grinned and got to his feet, accepting the tone Greg set. “Merran decided to help some students lift a trunk full of books. We all joined in.” He put his hand on his back, pretending to be in pain. Merran wasn’t sure how much of Tamara’s mood Alarin picked up, but his clowning was definitely aimed at Tamara too. “What exhausting work it was.”

  Greg frowned. “Don’t tell me you were nuts enough to handle the task physically.”

  Alarin winked at him as Mellis laughed. “Don’t let Alari fool you, Greg. We no more helped physically than we flew,” she said.

  Despite feeling better than she had before, Tamara still felt disconnected from the world, lost in the fugue where heavy crying always left her. She stood quietly as the Azellians bantered, not listening to much of anything, too numb to pay attention. Several people hustled by, talking and laughing, or just being quiet as they walked, reminding her that the continuing students were coming back in a week and life was going on, despite her feeling that it should be ending. She followed the Azellians as they headed off campus toward a bar where the locals liked to hang out. Traffic whizzed by on the busy street, and Tamara was suddenly glad to be a part of a group where she didn’t have to pay attention to what was going on around her.

  “Are you all right?” Mellis asked, linking her arm through Tamara’s as they came to a stop at the crosswalk. “You look distracted. Greg said you got some bad news. Is everything okay?”

  Tamara looked over at the young woman with whom she’d spent quite a bit of time this past week—over dinner, lunch, breakfast, and the first-year student events that all four Azellians talked her into attending with them. She blinked. The benefit of having cried all day was that she didn’t have any tears left to interfere as she talked about it. “My mother’s sick.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that.” A sense of warmth not unlike Greg’s, although not as intense, spilled up her arm from where Mellis gripped her upper arm. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Not right now,” Tamara said, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, feeling some of the fugue lift as she spoke. “I’d rather not think about it anymore. It’s been a pretty stressful day.”

  “We can do that,” Mellis said cheerfully. “Hey, Mer,” she said, interrupting his conversation with Alarin, Greg, and Justern.

  The ambassador dropped his conversation and turned to Mellis. “Yes, Mel?”

  “Tamara needs some cheering up. Why don’t you tell us a story? He’s very good at telling stories,” Mellis said, squeezing Tamara’s arm.

  Tamara could feel the hot blush crawling up her cheeks. “Oh, you can finish your conversation. We can wait until we get to the restaurant,” she said hastily. Although she’d spent the past week with the four Azellian students and knew how very friendly and welcoming they all were, she hadn’t spent any time with the Azellian ambassador. And though all four of the Azellian students referred to the ambassador as though he was their close friend, she didn’t see him that way at all. His calm reserve was more than a little intimidating for Tamara.

  The ambassador frowned at Mellis. “I think Tamara’s right, Mel. We’ll wait until we get inside.”

  Tamara fought off a sense of embarrassment as he returned to his interrupted conversation and the walk light turned white. “He’s not angry, is he?” she asked Mellis in an undertone.

  “Merran? Goodness, no. Why would he be angry?”

  “Well, you did just interrupt him.”

  Mellis laughed. “Oh it takes more than interrupting him to get him angry. Hey, Mer?”

  The ambassador looked over his shoulder at her. “Yes, Mel?”

  Mellis grinned at him. “Nothing. Just seeing if you were paying attention.”

  He gave her a long look. Is he talking to her telepathically? Tamara wondered. Greg had said they often communicated that way, especially when they wanted to have a private conversation. Neither Azellian’s body language gave anything away, though. They both remained relaxed, even as the ambassador broke his stare and turned back to the other men.

  “Oh, you know you love it,” Mellis said to his back, strengthening Tamara’s impression that something else had happened. Mellis grinned and gave Tamara’s arm another squeeze as they walked down the street toward the pub.

  When they came up to the door of the pub, Tamara halted in confusion. “Wait, wait. I can’t go in there. I, uh, don’t have my ID on me.”

  The ambassador motioned to the upper floor of the building. “They have a restaurant section upstairs. No ID required. Anyone else hungry? My treat. There’s a lovely balcony and everything. We don’t need to leave anyone out.” He gave Tamara a warm smile. Her heart skipped a beat. He was really attractive, almost intimidatingly so. Over the past week, through familiarity, she’d lost her feeling of intimidation from Justern, who reminded her of a male version of her sister Andreya, and mostly of Alarin, who had a girlfriend. The ambassador, however, was a celebrity in his own right,
and it was odd seeing him as just another person.

  “Talked me into it,” Justern looked at the bar with a sudden, somewhat greedy interest. “Food, glorious food.”

  “Is that and sex all you think about, Justy?” Mellis asked, linking her other arm through Justern’s so that she was sandwiched between Justern and Tamara.

  Justern looked down at her. “What else is there?”

  “Architecture, for one thing.”

  “Who cares about architecture?” Justern shrugged, although his arm snaked around her waist to pull her against him in an undeniably sexual manner. Feeling more than a little uncomfortable, Tamara stepped away. Mellis snuggled up against Justern, his hand sliding up under her shirt to rest against her bare waist. Although she’d seen a number of affectionate interactions between all four Azellians this past week, none of them had been this overtly sexual. This one was still mostly within the bounds of acceptable, but it made her jumpy, probably because she’d never before been at ground zero between a couple getting ready to be intimate.

  Tamara’s shields were too strong to sense what was going on in her mind, but Merran could imagine. She wasn’t leaking as she had been earlier on campus, but he’d been around enough humans to recognize the tension in her body as discomfort, and he knew both humans and his friends well enough to guess where the discomfort was coming from. Before Justern and Mellis could launch into a teasing argument that almost always ended up in them wandering off to have sex somewhere, he stepped in. “Food. Right now, that’s the only thing on my mind. Let’s get in there. I need to unwind.” He turned to the bouncer. “We’re going to the restaurant upstairs,” he said.

  The bouncer waved them through, toward the outer edge of the crowded bar. People were amassed around the bar area, fighting for a tiny corner where they could stand. His desire to unwind would be almost impossible to realize in this frenzy. Spoken and unspoken thoughts flew through the air, forcing him to shield himself as the music blasted toward them from the interior. Behind him, Tamara stopped. Merran could sense her dismay and feel the surge of fear slip through her heavy shielding. He moved aside to let his friends pass. Justern plowed in, followed closely by Mellis, Greg, and Alarin.

  Tamara stared at the crowded bar and suddenly wondered why she was here at all. The old unease in crowds moved up her throat and choked her. So loud, so many voices overwhelming her! What if they triggered another migraine? Her head throbbed a little in memory of the previous one, and she felt her stomach drop to her toes. The others did not seem to notice her hesitation.

  No one noticed, that was, except for one in the group. As the ambassador held the door for her, his eyes sought hers and paused. He seemed to sense something was wrong—maybe he even knew, with his sensitivity. Without a word, he held out his hand. Tamara could feel a blush rise up her neck as her heart jumped into her throat. His hand with its long, tapered fingers stayed outstretched and steady. Tamara gave him a quick, shy smile and ducked in front of him, her head down. The noise seemed less, somehow, and she was able to enter.

  Merran stepped into the bar behind her, maintaining a light shield around her. That seemed to relax Tamara, even though he couldn’t tell much with her mind shielded as heavily as it was. She was certainly attractive enough in a wholesome girl-next-door way, not overdone or overly made up. Her body was attractive, too, although she was more shapely than most of the human women he tended toward, with quite generous curves. His body stirred, startling him. He knew she was attracted to him—he could hardly have avoided it during that embassy party—but he found himself watching her as he would a potential sexual partner. Despite his reputation in the human media and with his staff, he was actually quite careful about picking his sexual partners, so his body’s reaction to her took him by surprise. It made him look at her differently. A human psi user? It might be interesting, especially if she were the human version of a projecting empath like he was. He’d never had the pleasure of an empathic partner himself—although the stories he’d heard about it and the reaction of his own sexual partners made him think it might be worth the experiment.

  Using his body to help shield her from the people piled at the bar pressing and shoving against each other, he pushed through the crowd. She brushed against the outer edge of his aura, sending prickles through his whole body.

  He rested his hand lightly in the air just above her back, feeling the sensation of her aura tingle up his arm as he guided her through the crowd. Human she might be, but she most definitely had an aura, and a much stronger one than most humans, probably because of that dormant psi. Aura play like this was foreplay to most Azellians; he had to caution himself that she had no idea what he was doing. It felt really good, though, reminding him that it had been a little while since his last sexual encounter with a psi user, so he allowed himself the indulgence.

  They made their way through the crowd to the stairs leading upstairs. Only Greg and Alarin stood at the bottom of the stairs as Merran and Tamara approached. “Where are Mel and Justy?” Greg asked as Merran and Tamara joined them, his voice quite loud in an attempt to get over the noise of the crowd.

  “Have no idea,” Merran shouted back. “Lost in there somewhere.”

  Alarin shook his head. “Kids. Let’s get upstairs. I think it’s quieter up there. They can join us if they feel like it.” He motioned for Tamara and Greg to go ahead of him.

  Tamara climbed the stairs behind Greg, in front of Alarin and the ambassador, her body humming oddly as she climbed. Had the ambassador walked her through that crowd downstairs, shielding her from not only the noise but the people at the bar? It had felt like it, and she’d been very aware of his body inches from hers as they’d made their way through the crowd. Her body tingled all over—a rather nice, if strange, feeling.

  She reached the top step and moved to the side so Alarin and the ambassador could join her on the landing.

  The hostess met them at the top of the stairs with a wide, welcoming smile. “Four?” she asked politely, a tall, leggy blond with skintight black jeans and a painted-on black blouse with a white vest. Tamara felt a sudden surge of jealousy as the hostess studied all three young men appraisingly, her expression quite appreciative.

  The ambassador stepped forward, cocking his head and motioning downstairs. “Six, potentially, if the other two ever get free of the mob downstairs. Could we have a balcony table please?”

  The hostess collected her menus. “Certainly, sir. This way please.” Carrying the six menus, she walked in front of them toward a table on one of the open balconies.

  Air conditioning blasted Tamara as they moved through the restaurant, making her shiver and hug her arms to herself. The shorts and top she wore might be appropriate for Denver’s typical summer weather but she’d forgotten how cold restaurants kept their air conditioning.

  “Cold?” the ambassador asked her as they walked.

  Tamara nodded as another blast of cold air slid down the back of her neck. Greg and Alarin, who were also dressed in shorts and t-shirts, didn’t seem to notice. “I forget how high everyone keeps air conditioning in the summer,” she said.

  He slipped off his suit jacket and dropped it over her shoulders. “Here. This should help.” The jacket was quite large on her, hanging below her waist. She slipped her arms into the garment, and they hung beyond her wrists. She almost felt like a little girl wearing her father’s clothes, although when she was a little girl, she’d never felt quite like this playing dress up. His jacket, still warm from his body heat and smelling like him, made her suddenly feel dizzy. She was nonetheless grateful for the added warmth. “Better?” he asked, glancing over at her.

  “Yes, much. Thank you.”

  Merran didn’t comment further when he noticed the blush spread across her cheeks.

  The hostess led them to a table on the balcony. The view was phenomenal, since most of the other buildings in the area were short enough that the setting sun and the massive Front Range took center stage. Tamara had ne
ver been to a restaurant like this before—for a moment she wondered how expensive the food would be. The hostess pulled out a chair for her, then handed out menus, flipped glasses upright, and shook out napkins. “Your server tonight will be Glen. I can take your drink orders for you now, if you like. What would you like to start off with?”

  Tamara settled into the chair, keeping the ambassador’s suit jacket draped over her shoulders. Even though it was warmer out on the balcony where the heat of the day mingled with the intense air conditioning to create something almost comfortable, Tamara knew the sun would be setting soon. Although it was August, temperatures could drop at night. She rubbed the edge of the suit coat. The soft material was unlike anything she’d ever felt before. It was both sensuous and sensual, and very comfortable. There was something soothing and almost hypnotic about the feel of the material under her fingertips.

  “Tamara, what would you like?” the ambassador asked, startling her.

  She cleared her throat. “Uh, an Arnold Palmer please.”

  The hostess nodded and turned to Alarin. “And for you, sir?”

  “Hmm. What looks good?”

  “I don’t know what you might like,” the ambassador said. “Margaritas are tart. Daiquiris tend to be sweet.”

  “Tart sounds good. I’ll have a margarita.”

  “I’ll have a strawberry daiquiri,” Greg said, putting aside the drink menu.

  “A margarita for me as well,” the ambassador said.

  “Glen will be here to take your food order shortly,” the hostess said with a smile. “I’ll be back with your drink orders. Thank you.”

  The ambassador leaned back and loosened his tie, unbuttoning the top couple of buttons of his shirt, a hint of chest hair peeking through. He then unbuttoned his shirt cuffs and rolled up the bottom of his shirtsleeves, revealing more body hair. Tamara flushed and stared down at the menu, trying to pretend she hadn’t noticed. “Is it me or do hostesses not normally take orders?” he asked.

  “Don’t ask me. This is the first restaurant I’ve ever been to,” Alarin commented.