48. Bree

48

Bree

As I lay entangled in Caliel's arms, it slowly dawned on me that Nikolai had been right about the moss.

I was going to have a wet butt.

Caliel picked up on my thoughts. It will only emphasize your Junoesque hindquarters, he said with amusement. But if it's any consolation, I think mine is wet too.

I snorted a laugh as Riggs prepared to Jump with another group of Dragons. Apparently, they were giving him a hard time about jerking off behind a tree.

Tez, meanwhile, had books on the brain. Why do you need a library? I asked.

He offered his equivalent of a mental shrug. Why does anyone need a library, mi naranja?

What? Caliel definitely sounded confused.

He just called her an orange, Riggs teased.

Half an orange, Tez corrected.

It means soulmate, I stated firmly. To have all three of them, in my head, filled me with joy. I pushed myself to a sitting position. Wet butt, check. But after what I sensed from Tez, I decided the casual approach was best.

Whatcha up to? I asked. You're supposed to be resting.

Been there. Done that. Got woken by someone screwing in my head, rather than with it, he replied . Have something to do.

When I probed, and he pushed me away, I threw casual out the window. You have three seconds to tell me what you are up to.

Or what?

Or Caliel and I will wait until you are surrounded by small children, and go another round.

We seem rather short on small children, Tez commented, but I sensed him hesitate.

I upgraded. Well, Cara, then.

I am up for another go. Caliel wrapped an arm around my waist.

Hey. I'm just about to Jump back to the complex with a bunch of hulking, nosy warriors, Riggs cut in. At least wait until I can find a closet.

Tez snorted a laugh. Closets are overrated .

Multiple small rooms with doors are vital when the IBTM club has such a large membership, Riggs pointed out.

I don't suppose you could all just let me do my own thing for a bit?

The annoyance in Tez's voice got me to my feet, and I yanked on my clothes. Caliel was still busy doing up the laces on his pants as he followed me into the complex. It left him rather deliciously naked from the waist up.

I ripped my appreciative gaze away from his mountain of bulging muscles to answer Tez. Not a chance in hell . You are no longer flying solo. You need to learn to work as a team.

I don't need all this fu—ricking help, he growled.

Well, you have it, Caliel said . Now what are you looking for?

His mental sigh carried along the link. Look. If I'm going to be any use in the fight that's coming, I need info on my inner Serpent. I have no idea what it can really do. I thought the library would be the place to start.

We'll meet you there, I said. My heart warmed as I glanced at Caliel. He strode beside me with a new grace to his movement.

I paused at an intersection, and his blue eyes gleamed at me. This body is truly mine now. Thanks to all of you.

He leaned down to kiss me, which effectively wiped my mind clear of any coherent thought. Especially as I couldn't help but run my hands over the hard muscles of his chest…

You have a lot of muscles for a healer, I purred.

No healer I know has muscles like this, he agreed, as a pulse of his talent set every nerve on fire.

Hey. I have company, Tez protested.

So do I, Riggs growled.

I broke away from Caliel and looked right. And then, left. I had no idea where we were.

Caliel kindly refrained from complaining when I asked a carpenter how to get to the library…

The directions were rather more complex than I anticipated. After three turns, I lost track of what he'd told us.

We came around a corner, and there stood Tez.

"How did you find us?" I asked. " I don't even know where we are."

He gestured upward—to Nemi, hovering near the ceiling. "She found you."

"Very well. You found us," Caliel stated. "But can you find the library?"

Tez gestured to Nemi. "Lead the way," he told her.

We all followed the tiny flitting form as she ducked and dove through the halls. One pretty much looked like the other, but after only a few moments, we walked through a door and into the library.

"And there was much rejoicing," Tez commented.

A bit of an odd remark, but it did feel like a major accomplishment. Sid and Adilyn were already there, and I was surprised to see Leah sitting in a chair in the corner.

"Where's Nar?" I asked.

"Swimming," Adilyn answered. She glanced at Leah, who didn't look up from her book.

"That's good. He can stay there." Tez shot Leah a glance that was all dark menace, but she didn't even acknowledge it.

What's your issue? I asked him.

Someone told Victor's crew that Caliel and I weren't on their team, he snarled. And my money's on Nar.

Tez had hinted at Nar being trouble before, and all I could offer now was, That doesn't mean Leah's involved too.

They are together, aren't they?

Not lately. There had been a noticeable rift between them.

Tez pulled out a chair at the table for me, and then took the spot beside it.

I shot him a glance as I sat down. I can't believe that anyone here would expose us, I protested.

Can't, or won't? He insisted. Someone also reported about the royal family being alive—before Daize discovered it, Tez added.

Leah would never let Nar do such a thing, I stated firmly.

Well, she's right pissed at him, or she wouldn't be here, alone, Tez pointed out.

She's been pissed for a while now, Riggs added as he and Riley Jumped their last group into the amphitheater at the complex. And not many would have been in a place to inform on those things.

Nar hasn't been in on everything, I said. How would he have known about your family?

Who knows where he's been, Riggs pointed out . He can make himself kind of impossible to see.

I swallowed. It was true. If Nar didn't wish to be seen, he wasn't seen. And he definitely had his issues. There had been many times he hadn't seemed happy at the academy. But would he betray us?

I didn't want to believe it.

"We could try these." Sid had been standing by the shelves—which were now lined with books—and he plunked a stack of them on the table. Adilyn was seated across from me with one open before her. It had brightly painted images of Faeries. She was, however, staring at Caliel.

"You're the other guy who was at the stronghold?"

Caliel smiled at her. "Hello Adilyn."

Her brows rose. "Were you really trapped inside Bree?"

"Yes, I was inside her."

The raunchy images that shot along the link caused Tez's breath to hitch. Amigo! You are obsessed.

Unaware of the exchange, Sid stayed on task. "Haven't found much on Feathered Serpents yet," he told Tez as he sat beside Adilyn. He gestured to the top shelves. "Think the books on the rare and extinct critters have a higher calling."

An hour and much sneezing later, we'd perused many books that, despite being moved here recently, hadn't been cracked open in eons. And discovered precisely nothing.

"You have transformed when you really needed to," Caliel pointed out to Tez. "Maybe you're just going to have to wing it."

A muscle jumped in Tez's jaw as he regarded him. "It didn't help with you."

"I did not have full control over my body then. I do now. And I intend to use it."

My heart constricted. "What do you mean? You're a healer, Caliel. You aren't going to fight, are you?" It was bad enough that Riggs and Tez were going to be in the thick of the battle—I hadn't thought Caliel would be too.

I'd already wrenched him from death's clutches once.

Tez's brows had dropped as he stared at Caliel. "Even if you shift—and we don't even know that you can yet—you have zero fighting skills."

"If I have claws and teeth. I can fight," Caliel argued.

"Show them to me then," Tez demanded.

Caliel stared at his hands. I sensed him trying very hard to push claws from the fingertips. Nothing.

Sid examined Caliel with considerable interest. "What do you shift to?"

"Some kind of Sabre, I think."

"You don't know?" Adilyn asked.

"Not really, no."

"Slade was special," Tez said. "A hybrid cooked up by an underlord."

Whoa, dude. A deep rumble cut through our thoughts. I sensed Riggs was preoccupied, and I caught a glimpse of the medical ward—he was with Mykal. Shifting requires visualization of what you are about to become, and enough emotion to make it happen. If you don't know what that is, it can be tricky.

Is there any improvement? I asked.

Not yet. Two simple words, but a wealth of pain laced through them. My heart constricted.

He's no worse, Riggs said, in an effort to be encouraging.

Focus on your own shit, Tez told him. I've got this.

Oh? And how often have you shifted, exactly? Riggs commented.

Caliel's frosted brows lowered as he glared at Tez. Blind leading the blind comes to mind…

I have shifted , Tez stated. Just not often. And I thought you'd forgotten how to do it?

The flare of anger along the link prompted me to quickly say, I've shifted often enough, now . We should be able to handle this.

A heavy sigh along the link. I'll be standing by if needed.

Tez rose. "Come with me," he told Caliel.

I stood too. "Where are we going? We need some room."

He hesitated, but then took my hand and turned to Sid. "We have somewhere to be."

The Anisau regarded him solemnly. "We'll keep looking for your information."

"We will?" Adilyn asked. When the big Anisau's eyes flashed, she sighed. "Apparently, we will."

Tez took us out into the hall and down another. Eventually he found a door, and we went through it—into a closet.

"Nice place you have here." I looked around the storage room that was lined with shelves that were still mostly empty.

Caliel sniffed, and his eyes narrowed at Tez. "Have you been here before?"

"Never mind that," Tez stated. "Strip."

"Yes, please strip," I said.

Caliel's eyes gleamed at me as he peeled off his pants. I ogled.

Tez rubbed his hand over his face. "Let's stay on task, here. There is only one way for you to start shifting. And that is to do it."

Caliel's gaze took on glare status. "‘Just do it' does fucking not work."

"It's ‘doesn't fucking work,'" Tez corrected.

As a surge of pure exasperation shot along the link from Caliel, Tez's eyes gleamed turquoise at us. "If you can't fight, you shouldn't be out there. You'll be cut to pieces."

I had the distinct impression that I wasn't far from Tez's cannot-fight-shouldn't-go list, but I agreed with him. "You're a healer, Caliel. You can help, but by healing the injured."

"This body has more to fucking offer, and now that I'm truly in it, I want to have it all."

Tez's brows rose. "All right then," he said. "Bring it on."

"What?"

"It means do something."

"You could just say fucking that."

"I could. I didn't. And you can now stop saying ‘fucking.'"

Caliel glowered.

"Visualization and emotion," I coached. "You were with me often enough while we shifted."

He sighed, raised his hand and frowned at it. Bits of silvery fur sprouted along the back, and then fell out.

"Impressive," Tez stated. "A Dire might slip on that. If we're lucky, he'll twist an ankle."

Caliel snarled at him, and I saw that his canines had lengthened.

"You could always nibble on his leg," Tez goaded him. "I've seen kitty cats with bigger teeth."

"What's a kitty cat?" growled Caliel.

"Cute little furry critter that humans keep as pets," Tez replied with a sneer. "Maybe that's what the Priests will use you for."

I saw the moment Caliel's eyes lit with blue fire, and then the muscles in his arm writhed and expanded. He grimaced as the fingertips sprouted huge, five-inch claws.

Tez and I hugged the walls of the closet as Caliel's beast emerged. He was truly impressive, bigger than any Sabre I'd seen, and snowy white with black stripes.

"There he is," Tez said with relief. "You just have to get pissed off to wolf out."

I frowned at him. "Isn't a wolf more like a Dire?" I looked at the stripes in Caliel's hair. "He's not very wolfy."

"More like a tiger," Tez agreed.

I opened my mouth to ask, but he beat me to it. "A big cat with stripes."

Caliel frowned. "I thought cats werre small furrry pets?"

"Tigers don't make good pets," Tez enlightened us. "They tend to eat their owners."

I rubbed my temple.

Tez regarded Caliel. "It's good that you now know how to shift, but that is a long way from knowing how to fight."

Caliel stiffened and raised his claws. "I have these?—"

One second, he was beside me, the next, Tez had vanished. He somehow spun around Caliel's huge form in the confines of the closet, and before any of us could blink, was wrapped around him from behind. There was a knife in his hand, and he held it to Caliel's throat.

We all stood, frozen. And then Tez removed it and slid off. "You'd last seconds out there, my friend. Fighting isn't where your strength lies."

Caliel growled, long and low. I reached out to the massive jaw, and whispered, "We are going to need your healing skill."

His vivid-sapphire eyes bored into mine, and then, he closed them and exhaled. "Very well." His body writhed, and he grunted in pain as the human re-emerged.

Tez looked down at the resulting pile of fur. "You are very messy."

"At least fur doesn't slice you to pieces," Caliel growled. After he'd pulled his pants back on, he asked Tez, "Why didn't you just say ‘you have to get fucking mad'?"

"Because you wouldn't have gotten fucking mad," Tez said.

Caliel tilted his head. "There are other emotions I could have used."

He shrugged. "Being pissed off seems to work for me. But then, I'm just an angry kind of guy."

Anger is always effective. Riggs's rumble through the link had undercurrents I couldn't quite decipher, but they were powerful, and tinged with frustration.

Through his eyes, I saw Mykal. His son still lay as though dead.

We'll come to you, I said.

I sensed his effort to control his emotions. Are you guys done throwing fur around?

Yeah. Tez commented. And we found another one of Caliel's talents. He sure can make one hell of a mess.

I brushed a few errant tufts of fur off Caliel. "If you are finished shedding, maybe you could have a look at Mykal?"

Caliel's mouth had pulled straight, but he was getting better at ignoring jibes from those that lived in his head. "I am not sure I can do anything more than Aphostra did. She is renowned as a healer. But I will try."

Tez opened the door and peered out. "Library I can do. Anyone know which way to the medical ward? I wasn't exactly paying attention when I staggered this way."

Nemi chirped, and took off left.

"How is she doing that?" I asked.

"I have no idea," Tez replied.

When we arrived in the medical ward, I couldn't even see Mykal through the ring of concerned individuals surrounding him.

Riggs turned to us as we entered, and although his face was stoic, my heart constricted at the worry radiating from him.

"Why hasn't he woken up?" I asked Aphostra.

"We are not exactly certain." The Gryphona tapped her beak with a claw. "Our suspicion is that the collar might be holding him in the coma."

Bess shook her head. "We didn't think the collars had that ability," she countered. "But they seem to be coming up with new designs all the time." The tall Watcher exchanged a look with the Gryphona. "Should we take it off, then?"

The Gryphona considered. "I don't like to do it while he is unconscious, but I don't see that we have any choice. If it is holding him under, we won't get him to surface until it is removed."

"I still don't like what I sense from him," Bess said. "It is so chaotic. Like his mind is fractured."

Cara came up behind us. "Bring Rafael in before you proceed," she suggested. "He should be able to control him, if he awakens and lashes out."

"Rafael went with Marcus—they're at the academy getting some of their things." Bess tapped her chin. "We'll have to send word to him. But we need to confirm, first, that the collar is causing the issue."

"We thought Caliel might be able to help," I said.

"You are a far more experienced healer than I." Caliel bowed to Aphostra. "I'm not sure I can be of any assistance."

The Gryphon rolled her huge amethyst-hued eyes toward him. "If you join with me, we can look together? Perhaps you can detect something I have missed."

Caliel moved to stand across from her and placed his hands on the inert form. Aphostra did the same, flattening her digits so that the claws rested across his chest, and then Bess folded her fingers around Mykal's wrist. They all closed their eyes.

Riggs wrapped an arm around my shoulders and whispered in my ear. "I'll be back."

I looked up at him and wasn't entirely happy at what I read in his eyes. "Where are you going?"

"Just checking in with Tyrez. They're up to their eyeballs in processing the warriors we recruited."

Made sense. I wasn't sure why he hadn't told me that through the link, though. It was almost as though he didn't want me in his head? My gaze fell on Mykal, and I shook the thought away. Riggs had enough on his plate right now.

He dropped his face into my hair, and inhaled, before his arm withdrew and he left. I watched him go, feeling a bit uneasy, but not certain as to why. Then I returned to observing the healers at work.

Tez pulled himself up on a cot and patted the padding beside him. This might take a while. Should have brought popcorn.

What's popcorn?

A treat one snacks on while waiting for drama to unfold.

Is there going to be drama?

Around you, mi tesoro, there is always drama.

I glared at him while he flashed me a heart-stopping grin and offered me a hand to pull me up beside him. We sat and watched the frozen tableau of healers at work.

Chess is more exciting, Tez said with a yawn.

I was just happy that I knew what chess was. Had even played it a few times with Victor. Until I won, and the entire game disappeared.

Tez caught my mood and bumped his shoulder into mine, then shuffled close enough that I could lean back against it. Nemi cheeped and regarded me with her bright little eyes.

I regretted many things in my life, but the path I'd chosen had brought me to this. To the men I loved. My mates . Until now, love had seemed forever beyond my reach.

The word itself now seemed inadequate to describe how our minds, hearts, spirits, and souls were inextricably linked. The three of them filled me to completion. I couldn't imagine losing any of them.

How likely was it that we'd all survive the battle to come? Even the thought instilled panic, and Tez grunted before folding an arm around my shoulder.

It will be all right, mi amor. I was born to fight.

His reassurance didn't work, mostly because I finally realized that Riggs had dropped out of the link.

There were times that we wanted privacy or were so focused on other things it pulled us out. But when I gave it a few moments, and reached for him, I encountered a wall, like he was blocking me.

Maybe he isn't getting enough fiber in his diet, Tez offered . Dragons and their steaks…

I appreciated his attempt to alleviate my worry, but earlier, I'd sensed something within Riggs that fed into my uneasiness.

That Tez agreed with me became obvious when he slid off the cot and brought me with him. It's likely nothing, he said. But checking it out is better than watching grass grow.

He did say the oddest things sometimes, but my focus was on pushing through the walls surrounding Riggs. As we left the ward, Tez joined me with a determined mental shove.

We caught an impression of wild wind and the crash of waves, before it shut off again.

My heart accelerated. Outside, he was outside .

Is there a roof to this place? Tez asked. He seemed high up.

An elderly Centaur worked on a set of shelves along the wall. I headed for him with determination in my steps.