Kat
When I woke, it was like a light switch flipping on. One moment there was nothing, and the next, everything I’d heard, everything I’d seen slammed into my consciousness with such force I had to bite back a wave of nausea. Or maybe that was the headache. I couldn’t be sure; the bass drum in my head made thinking too hard. I did realize after a few moments that I wanted to sit up, that I could sit up, and I did, bracing a hand on the covers to hold myself still until the room and my stomach settled into something reasonably stable. Then I took stock.
A quick glance didn’t reveal much: A dark, gloomy room. Clothes…yeah, clothes were on. Very important. A different bed than before, I was pretty sure, even if the time between my attack and now remained foggy as hell. Unlike the previous lumpy, narrow version, this bed was wide, soft, and comfortable.
I was alone. Was that a good thing or a bad thing?
Where was I?
My choppy breath sounded loud in the otherwise silent room. Throwing the covers back, I scooted to the edge of the mattress, the cool air painting goose bumps across my bare thighs. My legs shook as I put my weight on them. God, I felt even worse than that Christmas I had pneumonia, my junior year of high school. I remembered sitting in front of the dirty window in the room I shared with four other girls, looking out over the empty backyard of the group home, frigid air my only comfort as it seeped between the cracks and through my nightgown as my fever peaked and finally broke. I’d felt as wobbly as a newborn colt that night, alone, everyone including the housemother asleep and oblivious.
But now that colt could barely stand. And as I came upright, the pressure of a full bladder only added to the miserableness.
An awkward shuffle got me across the room and through one of two visible doors. The sight of a full bathroom caused me to sag against the doorjamb in relief, then hurry as fast as I could into the smaller space.
After taking care of my bladder, I hobbled to the sink and turned on the water. An automatic glance up brought a gasp to my lips. My skin was ghastly, ghostly pale, death before the warmed-over part. My hair tangled in knots around my head, and a palm-sized bandage covered one side of my neck.
The bite.
Closing my eyes against flashes of memory that made my empty stomach roll, I focused instead on washing my hands, then cupped handfuls of the cool water and splashed my face. It stung my skin, including the rough, raw patches that circled each wrist like a bracelet. I refused to think about their cause, instead digging my wet hands through my matted hair until a bare minimum of order was achieved. Then I dried off and hobbled back to the bedroom.
As I climbed back onto the bed, the second door in the room squeaked open. A hasty scramble brought the blankets up over my breasts before a man entered, tray in hand.
Arik. My fingers twitched, searching for the soft fur of his feathers. I buried them into the abundance of soft covers instead as he crossed the room, and forced my focus to the tray Arik carried and the aroma of hot food that dragged a needy growl from my stomach.
“Hungry?” Arik asked, a grin playing around his lips.
I had to clear my throat to get my answer out. “Yes. Very.”
“Good. No, let me,” he said as I reached trembling hands out to grasp the tray. I crossed my arms over my chest and allowed Arik to settle the tray directly, carefully on my lap. His gaze traced my face, seeming to see everything. “Not feeling so good, huh?” He nodded to the full tray. “You need to eat. People think psychic energy isn’t real energy, so it must not tire you to use it. But you might as well have run a marathon, or a couple of marathons.” His lips quirked. “You’ve burned through a ton of calories in the past week.”
Bacon. Oh God, I hadn’t allowed myself the luxury of bacon in forever. And butter. Eggs. And grits with a translucent crust of what I assumed was sugar. Suddenly my belly button felt like it was trying to gnaw through my spine. I had the fork in one hand and a piece of crispy bacon in the other before a glance up at Arik stopped me. “Uh…thank you.”
Amusement danced in the surreal silver of his eyes. “Eat.”
I was halfway through the food before I thought to ask about Grim and Sun. Arik straightened where he sat on the edge of the bed. “They’ve gone back to the clan.”
“The clan?” And because I had way too many questions to ask only one, “When will Grim be back?”
“He won’t.”
I hid a frown behind my water glass as I took a sip. Arik didn’t miss it, however. He nodded toward the food. “Keep eating. I’ll explain.”
I finished off my last piece of bacon. Where was the coffee? I reminded myself to ask. Handling mornings without coffee was like marriage without sex—why bother?
Not that I knew anything about that, really.
“The Archai live in clans, congregating together for support and safety. Community. The largest of the clans happens to be here in the Southeast.”
Convenient. I’d managed to get myself “changed”—what had Grim called it? Triggered?—in proximity to the largest Archai clan. What would’ve happened to me if I’d been somewhere else?
“Sun and Grim live with the King’s Clan.”
“But you don’t?”
“I’m here to train you.”
I didn’t miss the fact that Arik hadn’t exactly answered my question. “Train me to do what? Are there other students?” There had to be more like me, right?
Arik reached for my fork. “You’re not eating.” He speared a couple of pieces of fluffy scrambled egg and raised them to my mouth. I stared, frozen, too off guard to even part my lips. No one had ever fed me, not that I could remember. No one had cared if I ate. Now here was this über-sexy man—male, Archai, whatever he was—coaxing me with bites of food he’d cooked. For me.
Unbelievable.
I pushed away the schoolgirl-crush silliness and accepted Arik’s offering. I couldn’t hold his stare, though. He was too much, too intense.
“I can do that,” I said, reaching for the fork. The warmth of his fingers as they brushed mine sent a shiver through me.
I cleared my throat. “So…training? What am I learning?”
“To use your gifts, protect yourself. How to live as an Archai.”
So they weren’t just healing me and dumping me on the side of the road. I guess that was good to know. Still, I kept my gaze on the last bite of eggs as I asked, “Once I’ve learned what I need to learn, will I go home?” Back to my empty apartment and lonely existence. Despite past experience, I couldn’t help the tiny flare of hope that rose inside me, the hope that maybe, just maybe, this new life meant I wouldn’t be alone in the world anymore.
For a moment some emotion I couldn’t name crossed Arik’s face, then, “Going back isn’t an option.”
That flare got the slightest bit bigger. “So…where will I live?”
“Right now? Here, with me. Training works better that way. Later? We’ll see.”
The hope imploded with only two words: We’ll see. The weight of those two words landed on my chest like two feet, crushing everything beneath them. Was my value based on how well I performed in training? Because I’d never lived up to expectations. Never. And the thought of losing even the chance at something more than the life I’d known…
I shook my head, cursing the tears that sparked in my eyes, hating the struggle to breathe. “I…I can’t—”
Arik’s frown softened with concern, his hand coming to rest over mine where I hadn’t even realized it lay clenched, knuckles white, on the quilt. “You can. It’ll be fine, you’ll see.”
“Right.”
Arik squeezed down for the briefest moment. I dared to meet his eyes and found them intense, probing…almost as if…
I jerked my hand away. “You’re not reading my thoughts, are you?”
Arik’s laugh held a rusty note, like he rarely used it. “No, I’m not reading your mind. I can’t.”
I opened my mouth to question that statement. His raised hand forestalled me.
“Grim can because he’s the Aomai, but other Archai males only possess telepathic gifts…” His voice continued in my head. “Like this. I can send thoughts, even receive them if you send them, but I can’t pluck them out of your head.”
How… “How do I send them?”
“You don’t. That’s part of your training. For now, those synapses”—he nodded in the direction of my forehead—“need to heal. Just a few more days. Until you’re ready, Grim built some mental barriers to help control your psych abilities and allow you to rest. No excuses,” he said, his stern tone reminiscent of Grim’s.
What abilities? What did the barriers do? I rubbed the ache developing between my eyes. I had more questions than I could count, and I had a feeling answers weren’t going to be easy to get or understand. This new reality was screwing with my head in more ways than one.
I finished off my food and leaned back against the pillows, glass in hand. Arik pulled his knee onto the bed, shifting to face me more fully, seeming content to stay as long as I needed. What I needed was to stop staring, but looking around only revealed the brushed concrete walls, lack of windows, and dim recessed lighting to which I’d woken up. “So…this isn’t the same place as before, is it?”
Arik shook his head. “That was just a quick stopover.”
“Is this your home?” I let my gaze wander the room again. “Are we underground?”
“Safest place to be, really. Cooler too, at least in the summer.”
I met his humor with a strained grin. “Are the myths true, then—you can’t be in sunlight?” No, that was vampires, and the Archai weren’t vampires; they were shifters. Except, the one who’d caught me had bitten me.
Could I get any more confused?
Arik chuckled. The curve of his full lower lip gave me the strangest urge to nip it, suck on it.
I so needed to get a grip.
“No, not afraid of sunlight. Think about it”—he leaned back on his hands, putting the well-defined muscles of his chest on sinful display—“if you have a home, do you really want to be leaving it every few decades so people won’t suspect what you are? We go out mostly at night and build our homes in places that are less out in the open for a couple of reasons, not the least of which is the whole taxation and inheritance mess immortals would have to deal with to keep their identities secret. Modern surveillance makes staying under the radar even harder. And yes, we have enemies.” He gestured toward my neck. “As you already know. Underground lairs are more easily defended, less easily destroyed.”
I nodded like a marionette whose string had been pulled, my brain still tangled in the word decades. “How many more years will I live?”
“Didn’t that healer teach you anything while he hung out in your brain?” He cocked his head to the side, his look assessing. “You’ll be around a long time, Kat, assuming you learn to stay safe. A long time.”
“How long have you been around?”
“A thousand years, give or take twenty.”
I choked on a sip of water. Seeing the seriousness in Arik’s eyes, I had a sudden wish that I were drinking alcohol instead. I was pretty sure I needed some right about now. “Uh…you’re awfully well preserved.”
A hot wave washed over my face, but when I dared a glance at Arik, he winked—actually winked—at me. “Thanks.”
My blushing got worse. Desperate to change the subject, I stammered out, “Y-You said something about training? How long will that take?”
Arik sat up. I breathed a sigh of relief. “That depends on you—how fast you get well, how fast you learn, how good your control is.”
No pressure there. “Are there other students?”
“Nope.” One corner of his mouth quirked. “You’re special. I’m afraid you’re stuck with just me.”
The butterflies in my stomach took a nosedive. “And…you’ve done this before, haven’t you?”
“Well, yes and no.”
His expression had gone blank. What exactly was he not telling me? I remembered now, I’d gotten that sense from Grim a lot too. How could I learn about this new life, the new me if they were holding things back?
Or hiding them on purpose. But why?
“Can you just spit it out, please?”
Arik stared me down for a minute, that impassive look concealing whatever he was thinking. I forced myself to wait, to let him see whatever it was he needed to see. He must have found what he was searching for, because he finally spoke.
“Okay, no taking it easy with the new girl. Got it. So…the Archai have fewer females than males—long story,” he said as I opened my mouth to question him again. “You don’t need a couple thousand years of history right now. The point is, we have trained females before, but I’ve never worked with one that has your level of power. I’m not even totally sure what your gift is. But once we get a firm handle on it, we can lock down a training schedule that will benefit you.”
What did he mean, your level of power? This was sounding more and more surreal. “We?”
“You and me.”
So not Grim or Sun. I dropped my head into my hands, a groan escaping as a thousand more questions popped into my mind.
Arik standing distracted me. He lifted the tray from my lap, the sympathy in his eyes providing temporary relief from my frustration. “You’ll have answers, Kat; I promise. There’s just too much to cover in one sitting. Why don’t you grab some fresh clothes from the dresser over there, then come find me, okay? I’ll show you around.”
“I’m not sure I can handle this much new information,” I told his back as he crossed to the door.
The wry grin he threw me over his shoulder said my sarcasm was received—and summarily ignored, if the follow-up wink was any indication.
I caught a glimpse of more bare gray walls and dim lighting before Arik’s broad shoulders blocked the view. The realization that I was about to be alone again brought a surge of panic.
“Arik?”
He tucked his head back inside, one eyebrow quirked up. I swallowed hard. Come on, Kat. Get a grip. “Thanks,” I finally squeezed out.
“Anytime.”
The door closed with a firm click. I threw back the covers. Ready or not, it was time to face my new life and get what answers I could.