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  He hesitated before answering. "I'm not certain. I'd hoped..." He stopped himself, then said, "After you have seen what I have to show you, we will decide further how to carry on." He didn't say it, but the word "alone" hung out there in the silence.

  "You hoped they'd stay anyway, wait for you," I said. 95

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  He closed his eyes, hiding whatever emotion I might have seen there. "It was wiser that they did not. If I'd been taken by Nevan, they all might have been in danger." Suddenly, the message that they'd left him made sense. "You saw the Silver Spoon in your vision, didn't you? That's how you knew to find me."

  "Yes," he said. "But it took me much time to understand the vision and find the correct location."

  And they'd left that spoon sitting out to remind him of the choice he'd made. What a bunch of jerks.

  I moved a little closer to him. "Caelan, I'm sorry."

  "It is of no consequence now," he said. I thought of my parents, gone now forever, and my brother waiting, probably pacing by the phone. He'd never forgive me for this. "Losing someone is always of consequence." I blinked back the tears stinging my eyes and wrapped my arms around my knees, hugging them to myself.

  His hand, now warm, closed over my arm, his thumb pressing gently on the underside of my elbow. "I am sorry for you as well, Zara." I looked over to find him propped up on one arm, his blankets falling open. "For the pain this has caused you. That was never my intent."

  I nodded, giving him a watery smile. "No one ever intended anything in this whole mess." I half-laughed. "Except Nevan, of course. He intended me dead."

  Caelan pushed himself up into a sitting position, the blankets now in a heap on the floor. Even then, he was taller than me.

  "Still, I am sorry." His hand brushed the hair from my face a splitsecond before my tears rolled free. When I didn't object to his touch, he moved closer, shifting so that he held me against him, my back to his side. His arms pulled tight around me.

  "I want to go home." Hot tears leaked from my eyes to drop 96

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  off my chin. "I want everything to be normal again. I...I don't want this to be my life. All this danger and mystery. I just want to have a regular boring life, with two parents still alive to go nuts over grandchildren if I ever get to have them, to have a medicine cabinet full of aspirin instead of the latest in anti-anxiety and mood lifters. To sleep at night, all night, and to have a good dream for once."

  My shoulders shook as I let forth this wave of self-pity, but I couldn't stop myself this time. I felt like I'd been holding it together for so long that when a crack appeared, I couldn't stop it all from shattering.

  Caelan didn't say anything, just held me, his cheek resting lightly on the top of my head. After another few minutes, I straightened myself up a bit, wiping my face on a corner of a sheet. "I'm sorry." Embarrassment at my outburst started to take over. "I don't know–"

  He shifted then, pulling slightly away from me so I could see his face. "Do not. As I said before, your strength is not strength alone. You continue even when you feel too weak, even when you are alone. That is a greater power than never faltering at all." He touched my face then, brushing away tears, and probably what remained of my mascara, from my cheeks.

  "But I'm not exactly alone now, am I?" I tried to smile up at him. But the look in his eyes caught my breath. Warmth, concern. He cared about me.

  His gaze still on me, he leaned a little closer. I watched him come but felt no urge to back away. Only the increased hammering of my heart, shaking my whole body. Before I realized that he truly intended to do what I only thought he might, his mouth brushed against mine. My breath caught in my throat, and liquid heat shot through me, all of it flowing south. He pulled away slightly, still watching me as if trying to determine my reaction. Good luck to him–I couldn't even figure it 97

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  out. Fear, hope, and lust all tangled together in a messy heap inside me. All I knew for certain was that I wanted to feel that again, to tangle everything up even tighter.

  Before I could think better of it, though I'm not sure I would have, I closed the distance between us, moving my mouth over his, feeling the warm of his breath against my cheek, the lines of his lips as mine crossed over them, and the stubble on his chin rough on my skin. Beneath my hands–I didn't even know when I'd moved them–I could feel his chest moving up and down, faster than normal.

  I looked up to find him watching me, eyes wide, the brown in them swallowing the silver whole. I nuzzled in a little closer, nudging his lips with mine, encouraging, but not demanding. I wasn't entirely certain how far I wanted this to go, only that I needed to keep feeling that heat, the hungry flames low in my belly that craved to go higher.

  Then his mouth opened beneath mine, and I was lost. His tongue swept along my lower lip, coaxing for entrance and I let him have it, pulling him closer to me, wrapping my arms around his neck, and shifting until we faced each other. Thoughts in my head all jumbled together. I could feel his hand slide down my back to my hip, urging me into him and somewhere inside my head, the realization that he was still kneeling but I was now sitting on him, facing him, my legs on either side of him, his hand holding me in place. Directly beneath me, I could feel him, hard and heated, pressing between my legs. And despite the lovely way that sensation fed the flames building within me, that might have been enough to stop me. Probably should have been enough. But just as the realization made it to a conscious level, one where I might have protested and backed away, his other hand slid up under my hair, and his tongue dipped in and out of my mouth, a motion I couldn't help but imitate with my hips. With the feel of him against the roll of my 98

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  hips and the friction between us...nothing existed then but need. Greedy for the feel of his skin, I leaned back from him enough to unzip his jacket and slid my hands beneath his shirt. I opened my hands wide to his back, feeling the smooth warm skin slip under my hand, and pressed him ever closer to me. His ragged breath caressed the tender skin under my jaw as he laid his mouth against my neck, directly above my pulse.

  I wanted more. I tilted my face toward him, taking one hand from his back to pull his mouth to mine again to suck at that full lower lip that had called to me from the very first moment I saw him. My other hand slid between us...

  But then he caught my wrist and pulled away from me before I could register what had happened. I opened my eyes to find him staring over my shoulder. I looked back but saw nothing. Just the entrance to the lounge, and the hallway and the door into the lodge beyond that.

  "What–" I started to ask, but then he released my wrist and stood, dumping me to the floor.

  The lust-filled haze cleared up real quickly after that. I got to my feet, feeling the unanswered blood call and the now uncomfortable dampness between my legs that showed exactly how far I might have gone. "What's wrong with you?" Humiliation burned through me. If he hadn't been interested, he certainly hadn't shown it until that moment. Dear Lord, I'd thrown myself at an Observer. The tips of my ears felt like they were on fire. I started to walk past him to grab my shoes, not certain where I was going after that, but then he grabbed my wrist again and shoved me behind him.

  "Hey!"

  "Listen carefully to me. Don't speak to them, don't look at them, remain behind me."

  I stared up at the back of his head, a potent mix of anger and fear suddenly raging in me. "What are you talking about?" 99

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  He turned then just enough so I could see his face. Worry drew his brows together. "She will be looking for an excuse to kill you. You must stay clear of her. Do as I say and you will survive." He released my wrist long enough to touch my face with what might have been a look of regret. But whether it was due to what we hadn't finished or my apparently impending doom, I didn't know. Either way, I wasn't happy.

  "Caelan, please, just tell me what's going on." I tried to keep my voice
steady. But he turned and faced front again without another word.

  I would have continued asking, but then the outside door opened and a blast of cold air blew in, wrapping around us and making the fire crackle and jump. With that sudden chill, all desire to question him further disappeared. Like that rabbit who knows the hounds have scented her, all I wanted then was to go to ground and curl into the smallest form possible, hoping the predators would pass me by.

  The door slammed shut and leather squeaked and creaked as someone, multiple someones, it seemed, moved into the lounge.

  "It seems we have arrived at an inconvenient time," a woman's voice, no, a female, rang out rich and almost purring into the emptiness of the room.

  My breath caught in my chest. I recognized that voice. I'd heard it just once before. On the other end of Caelan's phone. This female was pre-set button 1 on Caelan's phone. A...for Asha. The leader and the strongest one of Caelan's team. She'd returned. And she sounded really miffed.

  Great.

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  Chapter 9

  "Why have you returned?" Caelan asked. Only his tight grip on my wrist revealed his tension. His voice remained even and smooth.

  "I could ask of you the same," the female, the one I presumed to be Asha, spoke again.

  "I came to seek your assistance against Nevan, now that I have found the human," he answered. I flinched hearing him refer to me in such a cold manner.

  "If you have her, you have no need of our assistance," she answered just as smoothly. But there was an underlying bite to her words, like a razor blade buried in saltwater taffy. Be careful, I thought at Caelan, hoping he could hear me. Her laughter burbled forth, bringing that deep richness of her voice in abundance. "She fears for you, Caelan." Crap. Apparently, they could all hear me.

  "Let us see this one you've found then," she continued.

  "No," Caelan answered. His grip tightened on my arm to the point of pain. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from making a sound. Showing weakness didn't seem like a real good idea at this point.

  "If you desire our assistance, then do we not deserve to at least see the one for whom you wish us to fight?" she asked. Caelan didn't answer for a moment. I was busy pleading, not even sure for what, but just to get out of this. Then his hand tugged at my arm, urging me out from behind him.

  I tossed him a panicked look as I passed his side.

  "This is Zara, the human from my vision," Caelan said. I tore my gaze from his face to look upon Asha and the others for the first time. It took only a half a second for me to wish I 101

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  hadn't. Sometimes the devil you don't know is better than the one you do. In this case, my worst-case imagination hadn't quite gone far enough.

  Asha stood in front, directly opposite of Caelan and now me. I knew it was her without being told. She radiated power and authority. Deep red leather pants clung to her long legs, ending in boots with outrageously high heels. With them, she stood a full foot taller than me. Long mahogany hair curled loosely over her shoulders, blending with the heavy fur coat that covered her, shoulders to knees. And her face was perfection. She was, without a doubt, the most beautiful woman, female, I'd ever seen. Pristine tanned skin, high arching eyebrows, cheekbones that could slice cheese, and silver and brown eyes, a shade not too far from Caelan's.

  Behind her, a male and another female stood in the doorway. The male was slightly shorter than Caelan, but much broader, like body-builder size. His black hair hung long, past his jaw, though most of it was tucked back behind his ears. Bright blue eyes, startling in combination with the silver, stared at me without blinking. He too wore leather pants, but in a far more basic black and a heavy woolen sweater with bright patterns peeked out from the opening in his black leather coat.

  The other female, as soon as I got a good look at her, caused the air around me to become too thick to breathe. She looked almost exactly like the female who'd haunted my dreams for the past two years. Silvery white hair cascaded over her shoulders and down the front of her white tunic. Either she'd already shed her coat or she hadn't been wearing one. White vinyl or leather pants climbed her legs under her tunic, the sheen of that material the only way to tell where one ended and the other began. Her pale eyes, the gray only slightly darker than the silver, watched me as I fumbled in my pocket for my inhaler, convinced that she would surge past Asha and try to shove me in a dark box. 102

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  I sucked in a breath from the inhaler, letting the medicine sit on my tongue. Asha laughed, startling me almost into dropping the damn thing.

  "She cannot even breathe without the help of that device," she said. "How do you expect her to triumph over one stronger than any of us?"

  "She is the one I saw. She will defeat Nevan and provide us with the answers we seek," Caelan answered steadily. Asha's expression shifted, amusement giving way to something closer to grim satisfaction. "You claim that she can defeat Nevan?" she asked.

  Little warning bells started ringing in the back of my head. Be careful, Caelan...

  But either my warning didn't reach him or he chose to ignore it.

  "Yes," he answered.

  And Asha pounced. "Then she should easily be able to defeat one of us in a challenge."

  Air escaped through my teeth in a hiss of disappointment. I'd seen that one coming. "No," Caelan said, unfazed. "The logic does not apply in this case. I have seen her in triumph against Nevan, not against you or Thane or Namere."

  Asha's victorious look hadn't faded, so I had the feeling she wasn't done yet and we were just dancing to her tune.

  "Very well," she said. "Then consider this. If she is to defeat Nevan at some point in the future, destined as you say, then she should be able to fight now and survive to reach that confrontation with Nevan."

  I could practically hear the steel cage doors slamming shut all around us. But Caelan kept going. "Nothing has indicated that destiny cannot be changed, that free will cannot intervene. If you kill her," I winced at his words, "then her destiny will be altered." Asha strolled forward, her fur coat rustling and the leather on 103

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  her legs creaking. "Come now, Caelan, either she is the one or she isn't. You can't expect us to fight beside you with empty words and half-promises."

  With a lazy smile, she leaned into him, so close I could smell the odd tangy scent from the snow melting on her fur coat. "You either believe in her, Caelan, or you don't." She nuzzled his cheek, and an unexpected bit of jealousy swarmed up inside me. This wasn't just leader to subordinate, but something far messier. The room felt thick with the tension between them. They had history, something Caelan had failed to mention before kissing me. But he didn't respond to Asha's overtures, except to further tighten his grip on my wrist. His lack of reaction only seemed to make her angrier. She backed away, staring at us both. "So which will it be?"

  And then, unbelievably, I felt Caelan's hold on my wrist slacken. My anger at him and humiliation melted away into freefloating fear. I turned to stare at him, and he met my eyes with a face empty of emotion. His hand fell away from me, leaving me standing there alone, in a room full of aliens.

  "Excellent." Asha shed her coat, dumping it into a heap on the couch. She wore a tightly fitted red leather jacket that matched her pants, and a white stretchy shirt beneath it.

  "Caelan, what are you doing?" Panic lifted my voice as he stepped farther away from me to stand by Thane and Namere. He did look to me then, some hard to define emotion flickering across his face. It might have been concern, it might have been sadness. "You are the one from my vision," he said. And he was willing to risk my life to prove it.

  "You son of a bitch." I darted after him, ready to use what little strength I had in comparison to him to beat the hell out of him, or at least bruise him a little.

  But before I reached him, Thane and Namere, I still wasn't sure which one was which, stepped forward, blocking
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  I stopped dead, my momentum almost carrying me into them. But I didn't want to be even that close to the silver-haired female. I backpedaled slowly toward the corner of the room. "You knew," I shouted at Caelan. "You knew this would happen from the second you sensed them coming." I never should have let him save my life in the first place.

  "You must demonstrate your strength, Zara," he said, his face still impassive.

  "Yeah, like this is going to be fair. You're all twice as fast and strong as me without even trying. Not to mention your super powers." I slid a panicked look around the room, but my logic didn't seem to be registering with anyone.

  Asha came toward me, a slow, easy prowl, like she had all the time in the world to eat me alive, and let's face it, she probably did.

  "Wait." I held up my hand.

  She paused, cold amusement curling her mouth. "What is it, human?"

  "I have never claimed to be anything special. I'm not even sure I believe what Caelan's told me." My words tumbled out in a rush. I wasn't going to have to fight her, surely. Someone would stop this. It was like a professional wrestler picking on a toddler. Asha smiled wide this time, her lips pulling back to reveal white, even teeth. "His word is good enough for me." And with that, she threw a hand out toward me, and I flew backward into the wall, then slid down into the pile of firewood. Kindling spun out in every direction, some even half into the fire, and mounted animals came crashing down around me. My back spasmed in agony and my lungs wouldn't work, stuck together like two sides of a wet balloon. I watched without being able to move or protest, as Asha came to stand over me. I struggled to get a breath. She raised her hand again, and no one, not even Caelan made a sound to stop her. She was going to pick 105

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  me up and slam me into the wall over and over again, until she no longer had need to.

  "Wait," I wheezed. An idea had rolled forward into what was left of my brain, the part of it that wasn't squished against the back of my skull.