Flight: The Roc Warriors (Immortal Elements Book 1)

by Sarah Zolton Arthur

  We walked back slowly, my head resting on his shoulder, our fingers still linked, my left hand clutching his biceps.

  What a pair—we looked like lovers out for a midnight stroll.

  With the night being so beautiful, the way he held me, the touches we shared… His freaking unbelievable scent of spice and male. I wanted that. For us to be lovers out for a midnight stroll before he took me back home to make love to me.

  I wanted all that.

  And for a glorious moment, I thought that was what he was going to give me. We bypassed the train opting to walk the rest of the way to the boarding house. The added time to our trip allowed my anticipation to grow immeasurably.

  Almost an hour passed before we made it back. Shadow held the front door open for me, then he continued to hold my hand while he led me down the hallway and up to the second floor to my room.

  I fished the key from my pocket. He snatched it from my hand to unlock it. I walked in first, expecting him to follow, when I felt a tug on the back of my shirt and turned. Shadow remained standing in the doorway.

  “Wha—” I started to ask, though he cut me off by putting a finger to my lips.

  “You are going to have a busy day tomorrow, eaglet,” he promised. I didn’t know if he meant from work or spending more time with him. Either way, I knew he wasn’t coming in when he pulled me close, pressed his forehead to mine, and then proceeded to give me the tenderest, softest, sweetest kiss I’d ever received. And he finished by touching his nose to the tip of mine, then ran it delicately up the bridge and back down before he backed away and left me watching him go.

  First my hand moved to touch my lips, then I’d moved it to touch my nose. I loved it when he did the nose thing. He’d only done it once before, but it felt special, like it was our thing.

  I’d never had a thing with anybody before.

  I’m sure I walked, but it felt like I floated to my bag where my nightshirt rested. And I floated back over to the bed while undressing and slipping on the nightshirt, finally coming to rest under the covers.

  And finally, finally, I floated off to dreamland.

  The glorious dream state broke when I became aware of a knocking on my door. After a good, long stretch, I smiled as I flung the covers off, bounding to let Shadow in.

  I threw open the door and… well, the smile didn’t drop from my face altogether, but it sort of froze on my face in a state of confusion, along with the rest of me.

  “Wow, you are tiny,” the man, not Shadow, said to me as he moved his eyes to take all of me in. His smile reminded me of Shadow’s, though his eyes were more of a honey amber—that is, less yellow than most of the people I’d seen, but not the brilliant full-on deep amber of Shadow’s. Still beautiful in their own right, however.

  Actually, everything about his appearance reminded me of Shadow, in that he-had-to-be-related to Shadow sort of way.

  Realizing he was waiting for a response, I gave him one. “I’m not that tiny.”

  “He said he calls you ‘eaglet.’ I totally see why.”

  “I wish he had told me about you. Who are you?”

  “Right. He didn’t tell you I’d be here this morning?” the man asked.

  “Uh, no.”

  “I am Rogue. Shadow is my older brother. By minutes, but he is still the oldest.”

  “Rogue and Shadow. Your mother had interesting taste in names.”

  He laughed. “Can I come in?”

  I moved out of the way, holding the door until he cleared it, then closed it. “What are you doing here? Where’s Shadow?”

  “Shad cannot be here today which means you get me,” he replied.

  Can’t be here? I wonder what would keep him away after that amazing date we’d shared. Even though I wondered it, I couldn’t come out and ask. Anyone say stalker? “Oh-kay…” I gave in, resigned that this gorgeous hunk of man was my date for the time being. “Then, what are we doing today? I only have field clothing, so you know.”

  “Yes, I heard my brother never bothered to take you shopping. So that is our first stop. After, I thought we might take in a few of our museums. Let you learn a little about our culture.”

  That sounded like a great idea. “I love museums.”

  He smiled brighter and I had to admit, he had a freaking beautiful smile. Different from Shadow’s. It hit me in a different place than Shadow’s, but it hit me nonetheless.

  “Have a seat,” I offered. There were only two choices, the messy bed or the chair pushed underneath the built-in desk.

  He chose the unmade bed.

  I gathered my clothing and went into the bathroom for a quick shower.

  Once ready, I walked back out to Rogue, who seemed to know I was ready because he already stood waiting on me.

  “You look hot even in field gear. Can’t wait to see you museum ready.”

  Huh. Shadow didn’t care what I wore. And come to think of it, wasn’t that comment a little forward aimed at someone dating, or starting to date, his brother? Was this a competition thing? Some brothers had that.

  But Rogue wasn’t Shadow. I had to remember that.

  After leaving the boarding house, he took me out for breakfast at a nearby little diner for a Cloud City version of a greasy spoon breakfast. When we finished, he whisked me to the train, where we headed into the shopping district. The city itself reminded me of New York, but the people felt more Chicago. More laidback. Not as rushed to get where they needed to be. They seemed to smile quite a bit. Peals of laughter rang out from groups of passersby.

  Though I supposed if I looked like they did and lived in such a magnificent city, I’d be laughing all the time, too.

  We walked into the first shop of couture fashion, where a little bell jingled overhead as we opened the door. An employee approached us. Her eyes grew wide and like Vista last night with Shadow, she dipped her chin reverently. “My lor—”

  He cut her off just as Shadow had cut off Vista. What was going on?

  I opened my mouth to ask but closed it again when her gaze shifted to me. She looked me up and down. “You might want to try the children’s store across the street. We will not have anything in her size.”

  I grumbled.

  Rogue laughed.

  “At least, not without major tailoring,” she amended.

  “No time for that yet,” said Rogue. Then without another word, he grabbed my hand to pull me out of the store. He continued to pull me across the street between the electric cars, which stopped abruptly when their drivers caught sight of Rogue.

  Only electric cars, I noticed. Zero exhaust entering the atmosphere.

  Safely on the other side of the thoroughfare, we did, indeed, enter a children’s clothing shop. High end. Very fashionable. More fashionable than my usual wardrobe. This time, instead of a bell, a ding-dong like the sound of a doorbell rang as we entered.

  A salesperson who’d been arranging clothing on a rack near the front entrance looked up at the sound.

  Unlike the other store, he didn’t even glance at Rogue. Clapping his hands together, he immediately reached a hand out to seize my wrist and pulled me behind him deeper into the store, snatching items from the racks along the way until we stood in the back in a fitting room where he pieced together several outfits for me to try on. Never once did he ask my size or what might interest me.

  Apparently, the man was skilled enough at his job that he could look at me and know my size.

  The first outfit I tried on, an oatmeal-colored cashmere sweater with an unfinished neckline that curled under at the edges, an extremely slim-fitting pair of brown slacks that hugged every curve, and a pair of brown suede knee-high boots with small heels, as they were made for children, looked amazing. Amazing.

  It made me feel almost sexy. The sweater hung slightly off one shoulder. On the kid mannequin, it looked fashion-forward. On me, with my woman’s curves, it looked hot.

  A thought reiterated to me by the salesperson while he stood behind me, both of us
staring at my reflection in the three-way mirror. “Let us show your friend,” he said.

  Then he threw open the curtain. Rogue stood just outside the cubicle waiting on us, and his eyes glinted as he looked me over. A slow smile spread across his lips. Though he didn’t comment except to say, “She will wear it out.”

  “Yes, sir—my lord,” the salesperson said. Again, Rogue shook his head which puzzled me and the salesperson continued. “My lord, is it nice to actually get to fit an adult figure.”

  That caught a chuckle from Rogue. “You have obviously got an eye for this; we will take the rest of the outfits, too.”

  “Yes, sir,” the salesperson replied with much more enthusiasm.

  I ended up leaving with seven outfits, including a dress that no little girl of mine would wear out in this overly sexualized world we lived in. I was a feminist and thought women should wear what they liked. But weirdos existed in the world, weirdos attracted to little kids. I shuddered.

  Rogue paid extra to have the bags taken back to my room.

  From there, we headed next door to a cosmetics shop where I got a makeover and three bags worth of high-end products. Lotions. Fragrances. Makeup. Then we headed to a jewelry store two doors down. That salesperson had been even more excited to wait on us, seeing as at the end of the visit I owned several earrings from beautiful morganite peachy-pink studs to long, gold hoops. Necklaces, from chokers to layering pieces almost all in gold—the gold being rose gold, my favorite gold—and silver.

  The morganite studs he had me wear out of the store, along with a brown suede leather choker with a three-karat morganite stone surrounded by chocolate diamonds embedded in the center of the choker.

  “It’s too much,” I told him.

  He stared blankly at me.

  “You’re spending too much. I’m not comfortable with you spending so much money on me.”

  His stare shifted from blank to highly amused. “I can afford it. My family is loaded. Old money. Ancient money. It all comes from the kitty.”

  Oh. Well, that made me feel a little better, I guessed. At least I didn’t feel indebted to one brother. Though, to be honest, I didn’t know what was exactly going on in that family. Rogue hadn’t mentioned his brother since showing up at my room this morning.

  One thing I realized was that as Rogue and I made our way around the city, the pins and needles feeling from yesterday had vanished, which meant I must have acclimated to the altitude at last.

  After all the shopping, we finally made it to the first museum—an art museum, not the museum of history, which was where I really wanted to go. Still, I loved art and art museums and knew I’d enjoy the time spent.

  Their art history seemed to parallel with ours. The Renaissance. Impressionism. Beautiful sculptures formed in both a representation of man and bird. Not by names I recognized, but names famous in this culture. More than halfway through our tour, we reached the exhibit I wanted most to see.

  Ancient art, though not primitive. Figures on stones and clay pots using all the colors of the earth, from burnt umber through terracotta. It all told the same story, from what I could gather. A woman, human. Sparks from her fingers might have implied some sort of magic but more than likely represented a woman who needed to adjust to the altitude—an uncanny coincidence, to my mind. Magic in this enchanted city above the clouds came in the form of its inhabitants.

  The woman with sparking fingertips looked lovingly on a great eagle. Large and majestic, the stone and pottery depicted the magnificent bird with copper feathers and deep amber eyes, reminding me more of Shadow than his brother.

  Rogue didn’t want to linger at this exhibit, but I refused to leave. He seemed a man of action, not wanting to linger too long anywhere. All day we’d been go, go, go.

  He’d never make it as a volcanologist, where much of our time was spent in a hurry-up-and-wait capacity.

  “There is so much more to see,” he told me, using this sexy, seductive voice that I was sure got him his way on most occasions.

  “We’ll see it all. But when art speaks to you, it speaks to you. Nothing to be done. No moving on until the art allows it.” I shrugged.

  He laughed. “You are quite odd, Meena.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “I might have meant it as one.”

  After about ten more minutes, I took pity on him and moved on to the next exhibit, never staying as long at any of the others. But after several hours—because as I said, I loved museums—we closed this one down, cracking up when we heard “The museum is now closed,” over the loud speaker.

  From there, he whisked me to a restaurant for a late dinner. Not a quiet bistro as Shadow had brought me to. No, this was a real see-and-be-seen, full of glittery lights and sparkly people in sexy, sophisticated club gear.

  I spent dinner consuming drink after drink of Cloud City’s version of a Cosmopolitan composed of vodka, thimbleberry replaced the cranberry juice. A bitter berry called, coincidentally, a cloudberry replaced the triple sec, and prickly pear instead of the squeeze of lime at the end.

  It tasted phenomenal. Different from the delicious warming mug of the mulled elderberry.

  The food tasted authentically Latin American. Dishes I’d never heard of, but definitely from that part of the world, making me wonder if they had a city high in the Andes somewhere.

  People approached the table left and right; always almost calling him some name he didn’t want me to hear and always bowing their heads before they left.

  Other than that, they, like Rogue, were there to party.

  And we did, party well into the night.

  When he brought me back to the boarding house, he too walked me to my door. And also like his brother, he didn’t enter. But he did kiss me. Being tipsy and high on life, I let him. Maybe I shouldn’t have as I really wanted them to be Shadow’s lips. Rogue and I just didn’t have that same connection. Shadow, however, sent his brother to hang with me today without explanation and really, he made me no promises. We weren’t a couple. So yes, I let it happen. But unlike his brother, Rogue’s kiss wasn’t sweet or tender, oh no, no, no. His kiss was hot. As in H. O. T.

  He tasted of the Cloud City Cosmos he’d imbibed along with me. He smelled of exotic spices. He turned me on. But unfortunately for him, I longed for Shadow to relieve that burn he’d ignited in my lady bits. I mean, a girl could do worse than Rogue. Still, Rogue simply wasn’t Shadow. Period. And that kiss made me determined to win Shadow’s affections, whether he wanted me or not.

  Though I thought it prudent not to tell Rogue all that. I mean, rude much? And besides, he wasn’t pushing his advantage or anything. So I let it go. “Thank you for a wonderful day, Rogue. You’re a great date.”

  I was considering how to let him know there wouldn’t be a second date when he winked, not even saying goodbye, then left without any extra fanfare.

  How weird.

  More than that, would I get Shadow back tomorrow?

  Chapter Five:

  Another Choice

  The answer to that was no.

  I’d been drunk. Off-my-ass drunk. Stumbling-to-the-bed-and-passing-out-still-dressed-in-my-expensive-museum-chic-outfit drunk. I had a hangover so bad, it felt like my head had been run over by one of those electric cars, then someone had smashed the remaining bits with a sledgehammer for good measure.

  And that was exactly how it felt the next morning when my eyes cracked open to the continuous rap on the door, booming through the room and through my head. I groaned. “Go away,” I said, trying to muster a shout, but I ended up groaning again.

  “Come on, princess. Let me in.” That voice I didn’t recognize. Although it sounded just like Shadow and Rogue. Another brother?

  “No,” I yelled into the comforter. “Go away.”

  “Nope. That is not how this works, and my brother is getting impatient.”

  His brother? Which brother?

  I somehow managed to haul my butt out of bed a
nd stumbled to the door to open it. The man grimaced, making another normally handsome face look distorted to my blurry eyes.

  “You smell like a bar,” he said instead of introducing himself. What I could make out of him, he was attractive like his brothers. A bit more conservative with his style of dress, but what stood out most were his honey-amber eyes. Their shading was different from either of the other two men. And although highly attractive, didn’t give me the tingles that Shadow’s deep amber eyes did from just thinking about them.

  “Nice to meet you, too.” I barely got out in a whisper. “But as you’re right, I’m going to shower.”

  “Try not to drown,” he teased.

  “Don’t yell,” I ordered back.

  “I am not yelling. Saēna, you are tiny. Like an—”

  “I know, like an eaglet. So I’ve been told.”

  His soft snicker boomed in my head. Somehow, I managed to grab a bag of clothing and stumbled on shaky legs to the bathroom. It might have taken me longer to get ready because the steam cleared my head some and I didn’t want to leave it.

  When I made it out of the bathroom, I did it wearing a black long-sleeved tee with thumb holes at the wrists, also with an unfinished neckline that curled under at the edges and hung off one shoulder. Apparently, that was this season’s style for their girls. I cinched it with a wide white leather belt with silver rivets that rested below the waist. Then I wore a skinny pair of black jeans that clung to me like a second skin, and because they were for kids, a pair of white leather go-go boots with a short two-inch heel. Even two-inch heels lifted me enough to give a long, lean line.

  In my ears, I wore silver hoops. Around my neck, layered silver chains. My hair I’d done in an offset messy bun, and my face I’d made up with light eyes, dark lashes, dewy peach cheeks but a bold, wet red lip stain.

  My visitor’s mouth dropped open.

  I smiled.

  “More like it,” he stated as he stared. Hard.

  “Do you have a name?” I asked.

  “M-My name is Crest,” he stammered, but quickly got himself together. “You met my brothers, as I’m sure you have guessed.”