by Sadie Jacks
I nodded. “So what does that mean?”
“If you hold even a smidgen of Prime-direct powers, then your final ascension is going to be…difficult. For all of us.”
I felt the bottom of my stomach drop out.
“Difficult how?”
“It is too soon to tell. Ascensions took about a week on Earth. There’s no telling how long it will take here. But good news: you’ve already hit the second level.”
“Was that when we blew out the lights?”
Ransom growled low in my ear.
“Yes,” Tenny/Saint said, slapping at Ransom’s arm around me. “Not now, Ransom.”
Atlas nipped at Ransom as my head buzzed again.
“Fine,” Ransom said, sounding like a little boy being disciplined.
“Now, about spirit characteristics and anatomy,” Tenny began. His green gold eyes were bright. He looked a little zealous.
Here we go, information overload time.
Taryk nosed over a stool for me. I patted his head again, scratching behind his ears. He licked my arm, the texture a little rough on my forearm.
“Spirit is unquantifiable. As such, there is no way of knowing how much any particular person has. It is somewhat of a misnomer really, Spirit. Everyone has their own spirit, their own lifeforce. This is what binds them to nature, to the physical world around them. Each person also has a Spirit, a soul, if that term is easier for you to understand. This is the power that Anda, and now you, Kiema, have dominion over.”
“What does Soul Power do, then, Ten?” Asher asked, sitting on his own stool.
“It is the ability to bring to life the heart’s greatest desires.”
“So, if I want a trillion dollars, all I need to do is have Ki-Ki wish it up for me?” Asher asked. He looked at me, shot me a wink.
“Of course not, she is not a lamp dweller.” Tenny scoffed.
“Back up. Lamp dweller?” Xander asked.
“A djinn. A genie. A wish granter.” Tenny looked at each of us. “Aladdin and the Forty Thieves?”
I shook my head.
“A mystical creature that can grant its owner three wishes.” Tenny waved the whole idea away. “Not important. No, Asher, she cannot wish you money.”
“Then I’m going to need some more to go on, Ten man.”
“When Kiema healed each of you, what happened?”
“We gained the ability to shift,” Ransom said. “And all of our pain stopped.”
“Exactly. By whatever method, you all received magic that was foreign to your bodies. You wanted nothing more than the pain to cease. Kiema was able to do this by using her healing power.”
“What about my animal?” Xander asked.
“You carry some ancient type of magic, just as Kiema does. You both wield Spirit. Yours in a much smaller amount—or even different flavor, if you will—than Kiema’s because it is defensive or passive in nature, rather than offensive or active.”
Xander nodded.
“You two are bonded as Sacreds: two Spirits who share lifelines.”
“This is why I had to know everything about my Seekers in order to heal them. I couldn’t just jump into their bodies and rummage around trying to find what was wrong,” I said.
“Exactly, Mate. Spirit power identifies the most closely guarded, privately held, secretly wished, and fervently prayed for outcome. Our lips and minds are easily led. Our souls are more singular in focus.”
“Why can’t I touch other people though?”
“When Saint touched your fiery thread, he jerked and yanked his arm back, yes?”
I nodded.
“Spirit does not like to be forced. In fact, it cannot be. It has an internal defense mechanism, much like Xander’s elemental tiger, to ward off intruders.”
“When Saint touched your thread again, I imagine he was much gentler.” Tenny’s eyes unfocused. “He says that he asked if he could follow the thread to find out how to help you get better and wake up.”
I blinked. “He didn’t tell me that.”
“It might not have dawned on him to share the information.”
“I’ve had to ask each of the shifters, except Ransom because I didn’t understand what was happening, if I could help them.”
Tenny smiled like a proud teacher. “Yes, animals have their own spirits. Their black thread, as you describe it.”
“Why does she lose six months of her life whenever she heals someone else?” Ransom asked, his voice tight.
Tenny’s head tipped to the side. “What is this? I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“My par—Juan and Ferria told me that every time I heal someone else, my cells die faster.”
Dark brows furrowed over green gold eyes. “No, this should not be happening. May I touch you?”
I lifted my arm.
Tenny looked to Ransom. “You will need to back up. I need to read only her magic.”
Ransom didn’t respond, didn’t move.
I looked up at him.
He was staring at Tenny, his eyes hard.
I brushed my palm over his arm. “He’s still Saint, too, Ransom. He won’t hurt me. Not on purpose.”
“He better not.” Ransom finally stepped back.
“Xander, if you could shift for me please? You can act as anchor and guardian,” Tenny said.
All of the men in the room settled a little after hearing that.
Men. I wasn’t a damsel in distress. The man wanted to touch me, not rip me apart and then beat me with my own limbs.
“I’m not sure how to make it happen on its own,” Xander said.
Chapter 31 – Xander
I moved around the island, kneeing Atlas’ wolf form out of the way so I could stand by Kiema. Setting my hand on her shoulder, I tried to relax and will my tiger out.
Nothing happened. Although I hadn’t really expected it to, it was still a disappointment when it didn’t work.
Ten/Saint smiled at me. “Think of your tiger. He will be located somewhere in your body. Typically, I’ve been told, spirit animals feel either like a cozy cage or like a deep pit. You’ve always known this was in your body, you’ve just never had a way to access it. When your tiger pulled from your physical form the first time, it would have felt like a void of some kind. Made you itchy or uncomfortable even if you might not have recognized it as such at the time.”
I knew exactly what he was talking about. And he was right, I’d felt it my entire life. It felt like sticky gossamer threads that encased my whole being.
“Okay. I got it.”
“Close your eyes.”
I did so. I swear I could feel my tiger looking back at me behind my lids.
“Let him go. He is held to you by your will alone. Release him and allow him to do his job.”
Mentally, I waved at him. He still sat there, staring at me. I swear, the large cat made me feel like an idiot. “We need to help Kiema. Go,” I said to him mentally.
With a burst, he leapt from my body and landed on the kitchen island.
Asshat rolled his eyes at me.
“I’m naming him Junior,” Asher said. “Even his facial expressions remind me of Xan.”
I rolled my eyes at my brother.
“See! Exactly like that.” Asher pointed at my tiger and me.
Jerk.
“Okay, Ten, I’m ready on my end.”
Ten lifted his hand, settled over Junior—I need a better name than Junior for my kickass tiger—without actually touching him. My tiger settled. “I’m going to spirit walk with Kiema. You will be our guard and warning system. If something happens here or in there, you will warn Xander. Agreed?”
Junior—damn it—lifted his head up and through Ten/Saint’s hand.
“Excellent.”
“What do we do if something happens?” Ransom said. “It’s great that we have an alarm system. But if you’re in trouble, what do we do to help you?”
“You will know what to do if it happens.” With that Ten/Saint
and Kiema went to mannequin status. My tiger jumped after them.
“Oh man, this is fucking trippy,” I called. “Grab me a seat, bro.” I was watching through my tiger’s eyes as everything went black. Starting to get dizzy, I closed my physical eyes so I could concentrate on what was happening to my tiger.
“It looks like Anda and Ten are just strolling down some kind of path.”
“Is Ten in dragon form?”
“Yeah. And Anda is now as tall as he is.”
“Damn. A twenty-foot lady?” Asher said. “You could straight dive in her pussy and probably get lost.”
The sound of flesh against flesh had me smiling.
“Damn, Ransom. You can’t say you wouldn’t be interested in that.”
“Kiema having a vagina I could jump into with my whole body? No. Not even a little, you weirdo.”
“It might help when she has kids,” Asher said.
The silence was thick in the room.
“That will…” Ransom swallowed heavily, the heavy thump in his throat loud in the quiet. “If we have kids, then maybe.”
“What is happening, Xander?” Taryk asked over the implant.
“We’re still just walking around. I can’t see anything; everything is solidly black,” I answered out loud. I didn’t know if Saint was in there with the others, but if he was, I didn’t want to bother him.
“So is it Kiema or Anda?” Ransom asked. It sounded like his teeth were clenched.
“To me, it looks like Anda,” I answered.
The group of spirit walkers continued our trek into the void of nothingness. I could tell my tiger was making progress, but for the life of me I couldn’t see that we were actually moving at all.
The hairs all over my body stood on end.
“Something’s in here with us,” I said out loud. My voice filtered from my tiger’s mouth.
Everyone on both ends of the journey stopped. The room my physical body was in erupted into growls and angry speaking.
“Guys, shut up. I need to focus. Anda, Ten, do you feel that?” My tiger’s ears pricked forward, his mouth open to taste the air around him.
“No, Guardian. What do you feel?” Anda asked.
“I don’t know. But it is hunting us.”
Ransom growled low in his throat. My physical eyes still closed, I turned to him and made a cutting motion over my throat.
“Ten, what do you sense?” I asked him.
He stopped what he was doing. Went as still as a statue. His tail twitched ever so slowly. “I, too, feel a presence, but I cannot identify it.”
At least I wasn’t pulling things out of my ass.
My tiger snorted. He didn’t make those kinds of mistakes. Humans.
I shuddered. Having a deeper part of myself talking to another part of myself was wicked disturbing.
There! My tiger leapt forward and to the left. With his tail, he knocked Anda into Ten’s body.
He locked his jaws around something neither of us could make out. It wiggled in his mouth, reminding me of a fish. A deep rumble shook my tiger’s jaw. He clamped his teeth tighter around whatever he had caught.
With his jaws locked tight over the intruder, I couldn’t talk to either Ten or Anda. I had to hope Saint was along for the ride. Or at least could communicate with Ten from his end.
“I need some light in here,” I called over the implant. “Saint? You there, bro?”
“Saint cannot answer here, but he told me your request. Hold tight, Xander,” Ten answered.
From the corner of my vision, I saw a flame shoot from the dragon’s mouth. It spewed into the black tunnel we occupied.
Anda lifted her hands and wove them through the air. With some muttered words, the flames were encased in rectangular boxes. Like lamps of old, they floated in the air.
With the new illumination, I looked down my nose and inspected what I had caught.
Shiny black eyes were narrowed as whatever it was watched me. “You should have never come here, Guardian. Now you will pay.” The voice was neither male nor female. More gravel than tones, but it slithered over my tiger’s skin like oil.
“And you should know he would not have come alone,” Anda said. A bolt of lightning shot from her fingers. It wrapped around the seething black mass in my tiger’s jaws. The blackness slowly melted away.
One wisp of blackness at a time, a woman of startling beauty was revealed. Short blue hair topped a head of almost icing white skin. Darker blue eyes almost popped from the face that was graced with pale pink lips. My tiger’s jaws were locked around her slender throat. The rest of her body disappeared from my view.
“Sister.” Anda sighed. If an exhalation can sound old, this one was leaden with sorrow, disappointment, and eons of exasperation. “Why do you meddle in the affairs of men?”
“Why do you?” Asta asked. She pulled against my tiger.
My tiger was pissed. He tightened his jaws until Asta winced and stilled once again.
“How little you know of me. What brings you to this world?” Anda stepped closer, crossed her arms.
“Why only conquer one when there are a multitude of them to worship me?” A husky laugh that ruffled my tiger’s fur fell from her candy pink lips.
Anda grimaced. “Your love of self knows no bounds.”
“Just as your insufferable compassion for these lesser beings. We should have ruled the galaxy together, Anda. You should be by my side, fighting with me. Not against me. You’ve brought this tragedy on yourself.”
“All I’ve wanted was to live in peace with my children. Why is that so hard for you to understand? You have more children than you can count. Why do my few anger you so, Asta?”
“Because you are mine!” The goddess’ dark blue eyes went electric, white heat streaked across the color.
“Why are you in this world, sister?”
“I’ve already answered this question.”
“But why this one? There is barely any magic here. The world is not designed to hold it. Can you not feel it?”
“When I gather enough followers, I will be able to harness that of Earth’s—”
Asta disappeared. My tiger’s jaws snapped closed with a click.
“Xander, where did she go?” Ten turned and asked my tiger.
“I can’t feel her anymore.” Junior turned to look at Anda. “Can you feel her?”
The goddess shook her head, her multicolored hair slowly shifting in a rainbow of colors down her back. “She has gone. If she is doing what I think she is, then we must make sure Kiema is at full power and strength.” She waved both Ten and my tiger to follow her.
“Ten, you said that Kiema loses some of her life force when she heals others. Does she know the origin of her power?”
“Not to my knowledge.” He turned to me. “Saint says that Kiema’s guardian, Lukas, could know more about her power than she does.”
“I’ll ask him.” I opened my physical eyes. Looked around. I could still see through my tiger’s eyes, but this time it was more like wearing sunglasses instead of being plunged into a dark room.
“Where’s Lukas?” I asked Ransom and my brother.
“I don’t know. Atlas was with him last in the lab with Aeron,” Asher said.
We all turned to look at Atlas in wolf form. “Last I knew he was getting a shower on my floor,” he said over the mental link.
Asher took off.
“What is going on in there?” Ransom asked. I turned to look at him more fully. His body was wound like a fucking top as he watched Kiema. His fingers were wrenching on each other, the knuckles white. He was careful to keep his distance from her body, but I could see the need, the drive to pull her into his arms. He was about to break.
“Asta showed up. Something pulled her away just before her full plan could be revealed though.”
I gave him the rundown of the situation, using both physical and implant to share it with everyone at the same time.
“I think we’re going to need to
do some serious magical training. That means we need—”
“Me,” Lukas said as he jogged into my space, Asher just behind him.
Lukas had a towel draped over his neck, a pair of Atlas’ sweatpants on his hips. His abs were almost as ripped as Saint’s.
“Yeah. Tell us everything you know about Kiema’s magic,” Ransom said, charging around the kitchen island like he was about to physically force the information from Lukas’ body.
“Easy, mate. I’ll tell ya. She’s got three kinds: healing, revelation, and defense. The last definitely being the least.”
“You don’t know where it comes from or why she loses time off her life when she heals?” I asked, pushing between Ransom and Lukas.
Lukas looked at me like I was insane. “No. Where does any of our magic come from? Or my ability to nullify it? I’ve no bloody clue, gov.”
I relayed the information to Anda and Ten in the long black tunnel as I took my seat again and closed my eyes.
“Then we’ll need to go to the deepest part of her soul,” Anda said.
“Why was Asta in Kiema’s spirit landscape?”
Ten and Anda turned to my tiger. “We are in the Gateway to Spirit Realm, not Kiema’s individual landscape,” Anda replied.
They both had their heads tilted to the side.
“They’re not the same space?”
They shook their heads in unison.
“But why…” I trailed off, not even knowing what question to ask next. I was so far out of my league with this shit. I closed my mouth, content to sit back, listen, and learn. “Lead on.” My tiger dipped his head at them.
They turned, continued walking.
“Kiema’s healing power is unique. I’ve never seen anything like it in all my years,” Ten said. I could hear the unvoiced implication in it.
“I’m not her mother, Ten.”
Turns out Anda was up to date on human vocal inflection as well.
“Then where—”
“I have no idea. She is not of me, but I will protect her as if she were.”
Something in me settled. I hadn’t even considered what it would mean if Kiema wasn’t actually Anda’s child.
“Ah, there she is. Come along. We need to be as brief as possible,” Anda said.