Chapter Twenty-three
“Nothing about the future is set in stone, though sometimes all probabilities lead to the same conclusion.” - Sparrow, Elvwist precog
JADE OPENED HER EYES. SHE WAS peering into Kendis’ sleeping face. His arm was laying over her and she was huddled in close to him. Her right hand felt odd.
Her mind felt foggy. She wondered if she was dreaming again. She didn’t think so but what was he doing in her bed? Or was she in his bed? The bed couldn’t be her camp cot, not if he was lying beside her. The cots were much too narrow for that, unless two had been pushed together.
She gently moved his arm and sat up. No, not her cot. She was in her tent but the bed had changed. It was much bigger. In fact, it was one of the huge Elvwist camp cots. She looked at her odd feeling hand. There was an IV line taped to the back of it. She looked down at herself: she was wearing her pink nightie with the lavender cows. She could see Kendis’ bare shoulders and hesitated.
She lifted the sheet slightly and saw he had on black pajama bottoms. She felt relieved - but also a little disappointed. She put the sheet back down, blushing because she wouldn’t have minded a tiny peek.
But what were they doing in the same bed? Her brain fog began to lift and she remembered falling asleep in the rescue vehicle on the way back to camp.
A thrill of anxiety rushed through her. What about the sea creatures that had attacked them and last time she looked, were following them back to camp?
She wasn’t going to be able to get up too well with that IV in her hand so she would have to wait until Kendis awakened or someone showed up.
Ten minutes later, Cybil came through the tent entrance.
“Oh! I see you’re awake, dear. My goodness, don’t you look bright eyed this morning,” she said with her usual cheerfulness. She had a food tray with her and following close behind was Rachel with another tray.
Jade could see steam curling up from a teapot on Rachel’s tray, and she could smell bacon. Visions of three-egg omelets, fluffy wheat pancakes, pan-fried potatoes, and bacon, played around in her head. Her stomach rumbled loudly.
“Good morning, Jade,” said Rachel grinning as she and Cybil set their heavily laden trays down on a large table that someone had put against the tent wall next to her smaller one.
“Great to see you’re up. I see your stomach is awake too. Wake Kendis up, you both need to eat. Cybil will get that IV out of your hand.”
“Morning? It’s morning?” asked Jade, in astonishment. “What happened, Aunt Rachel, with the slug monsters, I mean. Where’s Mom and Uncle Morgan?”
Cybil came around to her side of the bed, pulled her bandage off and deftly removed the IV. She placed a fingertip over the tiny puncture and it healed over as Jade watched.
“Now, now, Honey, they’re fine. Eat first. I’ll explain. And wake that boy up! He needs to eat.” said Rachel.
Feeling dazed, Jade leaned over Kendis. He seemed to be sleeping so peacefully, that she kind of hated to awaken him. She shook his shoulder gently, and he opened those incredible eyes and looked at her. And smiled. Her heart blossomed. He reached up and caressed her face.
“Hello, Love, you’re awake.” he rumbled, softly.
“Huh? You’re the one who was still asleep!” she said, disconcerted.
He brought her down to him and kissed her gently. Then he chuckled and shook his head.
“No, Love, you’ve been asleep for two days. You were worn out. Lark had Cybil put up that IV saying you would be out of it for a couple of day. I was exhausted too but not as much as you. You took the brunt of the strain of our escape from the Dimmers.”
“The whats?” she asked, puzzled.
“Dimmers.” said Rachel. “Everyone’s taken to calling them Dimmers. Because they smell like Dim Spots and they crawled all over our shield and turned their bodies opaque, dimming the light coming in.”
She looked at the both of them sternly, and said, “Okay, enough talk for now. Come get your breakfast, you need your nourishment.”
Kendis rolled out of the huge bed and helped Jade out.
She was sure going to ask him later why they were in the same bed. And had he bathed and dressed her again? Right now though, the smell of the food was intoxicating and overwhelming, making her stomach grumble again.
As they ate, Cybil and Rachel filled her in on the last two days. The rescue vehicles brought them in ten minutes ahead of the Dimmers. Sparrow and Morgan had worked fast to strengthen the camp’s shields as much as possible before the things arrived. Even so, two got in through a weakened area near the big supply tent at the edge of the camp.
Dots and Tally, and two other Dogs and four Cats - one of them Tally’s friend, Journey - newly arrived in camp, were searching the perimeters, looking for breaches in the shields when one of the new Cats had discovered one of the interlopers, and was attacked. The entire camp heard his death scream and everyone who could ran to help. The other Cats and Dogs reached him first, sending a warning to the Humans and Elvwists.
Surprisingly, the little Cat had managed to inflict damage to the Dimmer before it died, and Tally and the other three Cats killed it. Nothing the Dogs did seemed to hurt it, so they stayed out the way and let the Cats handle it.
Dots detected the other Dimmer before it attacked and the Cats took care of it too. Journey was hurt in the skirmish though, and was now being treated by Lark who said she would recover.
As it turned out, the Dogs were able to detect the presence of the Dimmers better than anyone else but couldn’t actually hurt them. However, the Cats could kill them.
The Elvwist were puzzled at first, as to why the Cats, but not the Dogs, could do this, until what was left of the dead ones was examined.
Lark and Cybil, and the newly arrived Human Healer, Ross, had determined the Dimmers killed by first subduing their prey with the toxic slime they exuded through pores on their undersides which also eased their movements while on land. This slime had the effect of paralyzing the victim. Then they would engulf them directly into their stomachs, absorbing everything except the bones, which were excreted as waste. This explained all the mouse bones the original expedition had found lying around the ship.
The Dimmers could heal themselves almost instantly as they’d found out when Louis had tried to set fire to one, but it turned out they were highly allergic to the bites and scratches of the Cats, and their slime had no effect on them. It had rolled over the Cat it killed, trying to ingest him, and the unparalyzed Cat had fought as he died, biting and slashing at the underside of the much larger monster. The Cat had died of suffocation.
The bites and clawing from the other Cats had finished it off by throwing it into near-instant anaphylactic shock, rendering it unable to heal its wounds.
Sparrow and Morgan thought they may also be able to kill them by electrocution and was in the process of trying to rig up something to at least keep them from covering the force shield.
The Dimmers had all gone back into the ocean by early the next morning but showed back up during the evening, again covering the shield. So far, neither the other camp or any of the people staying at the other ships had been attacked. Sparrow theorized that since those were farther inland, they were far enough away for the Dimmers to not be aware of them.
To be on the safe side though, their shields had been reinforced and extra precautions taken. Since everyone had to go through the same door to enter or exit the Dome and it was nearer the ocean, volunteer Dog and Cat guards had been stationed there.
The Dimmers had, so far, not gone anywhere near the ship but as a precaution, Morgan was setting up a shield around it to keep anything out when no one was aboard, and to keep them safe when they were.
This was as far as they had gotten with defense in the two days since the attack. Currently, everyone was cautiously going about their jobs.
Jade cast around to see where everybody was: her mother was
aboard the ship; Alex and Ro, who refused to be separated, were in their tent. It looked as if they were preparing to go to the ship.
Louis had been exhausted from expending a lot of energy lighting all those delaying fires and needed extra rest. Hester was with him, watching over him, and Cybil had taken care of the worst of her bruises and left a mixture for her to soak her sore feet in.
Loretta was lying on her cot in her tent. Apparently, Healer Ross had attended her when they were brought in, healing the cuts in her feet, and he was currently in her tent attending….oops!
Jade hurriedly turned her awareness away from them. She couldn’t see their thoughts but she definitely knew what they were doing.
That esa of hers had gotten stronger than she’d realized. This was not something she needed to know about. She was surprised, though. Not that the Healer was attending Loretta in that fashion, but that Loretta wasn’t being attended by Reece.
She wondered what had happened between them in such a short amount of time to cause this apparent rift. She cast around for Reece and found him in the mess tent talking to Sparrow.
Tally was with Journey at Lark’s tent. Dots was on her way to Alex and Ro’s tent.
Her hunger finally abated enough for her to quit shoveling food in, and she asked, “Does anyone know where these slug…um, Dimmers come from, yet? I mean, other than the ocean. It’s obvious, at least to me, that they can’t be native to this world.”
“No, no one knows, Jade,” answered Rachel, “though they are working on finding out.” She shrugged. “It’ll be hard. We don’t really have anything to go on. They smell like the Dim Spots so we speculate there is some connection with the Dome builders but of course we don’t know what that is. And you’re right, they’re not natives. This world was chosen by the Elvwists because there were no higher life forms here. They sent probes to ensure they weren’t usurping someone’s world before they ever started the terraforming process or immigrated. They did this for any world they found, including our home world, Earth.”
Jade knew that the Elvwist had visited Earth ages ago, from Elvwists history lessons in End School.
They finished their breakfast in thoughtful silence. Rachel hugged them both, gathered up the dishes and left. She was going to the ship to work with Maggie. They were still trying to break the security codes on those files they’d been trying to get into ever since leaving the Dome.
She said they were going to have a meeting with the other ruling council members, later. They were going to be working on a strategy for dealing with the Dimmers.
Cybil pulled a wheeled screen out of the far corner of the tent, putting it between the bed and the table and gave Jade a quick check. She pronounced her “fine and good”, and also left the tent.
Jade sat looking at Kendis. He was still in his pajama bottoms but had pulled on a black sleeveless shirt so he was no longer naked from the waist up. Privately, she wished he had left the shirt off. But, who had undressed, then dressed her, she wondered. She felt her face flush when she remembered that he had been the one to bath and care for her during her fugue state.
Kendis looked back at her and grinned.
“Wondering who undressed and took care of you, right?” he grinned wider at the guilty look on her face.
“Wasn’t me this time, Love, though I wish it had been.” He laughed when she blushed red enough for it to show.
He sat on the bed with her. He put his arm around her shoulder, knowing what the blush was for.
“Don’t be embarrassed, Love. I wanted to take care of you then, and at the time I was too worried about you to think of anything else. But, come to think of it,” he said, grinning, “it’s probably just as well I didn’t do it this time.”
He patted the bed. “Nice bed. Lark and Eagle brought it in. They assumed we wouldn’t want to be separated so they donated this large cot for us. Nice of them, huh? Oh, and Lark undressed the both of us when they brought us here since we were both out of it. Cybil has been caring for you.”
He turned serious and looked steadily at her.
“Jade, I want to share a tent with you. I love you, and I want to be with you. I…I think I have to be with you. I know you’re not ready for sex with me yet, but we don’t have to do that to share a tent. I just want you as near me as possible.” He pulled her into his arms, hugging her tenderly.
She could feel his strong heartbeat against her face and she put her arm around his waist pulling closer to him.
She rested there thinking. She wanted to be with him too, but was it right for them to share a tent and a bed when she hadn’t ever been with anyone before? She quivered inside. Yes, she wanted him near her too. She thought of how miserable she was every time she awakened and he wasn’t there, so with only a little trepidation, she said, “Okay Kendis, I’ll share tents with you.” She felt his heart lighten with relief, along with hers.
She was willing to move into his little tent; they could push two camp cots together the way Alex and Ro had, and that would have been fine with Kendis. However, he felt she should ask Lark first. After all, if it still needed to check her or attend to her from time to time, it may want her to stay in the big tent.
They needed to get dressed so they showered - separately - and Kendis went to his tent to dress. Jade was just putting on her brown boots, mourning the loss of the black ones she’d had to run off and leave at the beach, when Kendis came back in.
“Let’s walk over to Lark’s tent. We need to pick up your mixtures, and you can ask it whether or not you need to stay in this tent.”
Jade wanted to go see Journey and Tally anyway, and that’s where they were, so she agreed.
The big Elvwist tents were all in the same area, so they didn’t have far to go. They paused at the entrance and asked permission to enter.
Once inside, Jade looked around. Lark’s tent was much larger than the one she was in. She didn’t see a bed, but one end was screened off and she gathered that’s where Lark’s private quarters were.
The camp didn’t have a separate medical tent yet, and Lark had a couple of small cots and camp chairs folded up against one wall; what appeared to be an examining table behind a screen on another side, and there was a another screen closing an additional area off.
She could feel Tally in that direction and caught Journey’s signature there, too. There were various cabinets around the sides, including a huge one near the entrance.
Lark smiled at them. “Hello, Jadewyn and Kendis,” it said in its musical voice.
It was seated at its desk near the screened off end.
“I have your elixirs ready, Jadewyn. I was going to bring them to you later but you may get them now.” It indicated the stasis unit sitting on a stand near its desk. “Thank you for coming, I needed to talk to you. Please bring chairs and be seated.” It indicated the folded camp chairs.
They settled themselves in front of it.
Jade felt uncomfortable but knew it would need to know so she took a breath and blurted out, “Lark, Kendis and I have decided to share a tent and we wanted to know if it would be okay if I moved to his smaller one or if I should remain in the big tent.” There. She’d gotten it out.
Now it would think they were going to want to mate right off.
Which is what the Elvwists always called it, and they never had problems discussing it. They always formed mate-groups of four as that is how many it took for them to reproduce, and while they loved their mates, they usually only got intimate to procreate, as, because of their overall fertility problems, they had a need to not “waste” anything. Single ones who didn’t have group-mates yet, were encouraged to go to what the Elvwists called luanna houses - which in their language meant “sex” or more precisely, “mating” - and mate with the surrogates there at least once a week.
Their Healers had a better understanding of Human sexuality than the average Elvwist, having had to study it as a part of their overall me
dical education in learning to treat Humans, and recognized it was different for them.
Lark knew Humans, especially young Humans, often mated with several different partners just for pleasure before they took vow-mates. So it was not surprised that the two young ones before it now were going to share a tent. In fact, it had been expecting it. After all, these two were soul-bonded.
It said, “I wish you to remain in your tent, Jadewyn. You are still not where you should be physically, and the energy you had to expend to escape from the Dimmers depleted you. Kendis can move in with you.” It looked from one to the other.
“You should wait at least a week before you mate, and Kendis, remember to be gentle with her when you do as she has never mated before.” It knew Human females could have difficulties the first time they mated if the male wasn’t careful. Kendis was not a small Human and it did not want Jade to be accidentally hurt by her large mate.
Uh-oh! She had forgotten Lark would know that. After all, it had attended her during her illness, and of course had to examine her inside and out. Any kind of Healer at all would’ve have noticed that. Come to think of it, Cybil would know too, as had Healer Chen.
Jade sighed. Couldn’t a girl keep a few things to herself? Shards!
She heard Kendis draw in his breath and he looked at her in shock. She wanted to just sink right down through the floor. She felt her face growing hot. She squeezed her eyes shut.
“Lark, I need a few minutes alone to talk to Kendis, if you don’t mind,” she said through clenched teeth.
Startled, Lark stared at her, then nodded. “I will need to talk to you both before you leave, so come back when you have finished.”
They nodded, and went and sat by the large cabinet near the entrance.
Kendis pulled his chair around in front of her, his knees touching hers. He leaned forward and took her hands in his, looking deep into her eyes.
“Never? With anyone?” he asked gently.
She felt her face flushing again and she dropped her eyes.
“Never. With anyone,” she mumbled. “I was going to tell you before we did anything,” she added defensively.
“But…” he searched for words, “You’re eighteen. I thought everybody had sex by that age. I thought you and Reece…” He stopped.
Oh. Now he understood why she’d been so reluctant that night with Reece. She and he hadn’t actually ever had sex together…gods. He knew it wasn’t, but that made what Reece had tried to do seem even worse. He felt a flash of anger and forced himself to control it. He didn’t want her thinking he was angry at her.
He wondered if Reece had known.
She shook her head. Shards! Did he have to make it sound so awful? She couldn’t help it if she was a late starter.
“Not me.” She shrugged. “I wasn’t interested in boys when I left home and I only started dating in the last year. I’ve never been with anyone I wanted to do that with.” She peeked up at him, then dropped her eyes again, “until now,” she added, softly. “I’ll understand if you don’t want to share that tent just yet,” she said in a low voice.
Kendis looked down at her and he, very gently, lifted her face up and gazed intently into her deep, dark brown eyes. He squeezed her hands. He wanted her but he would never try to force her to do anything she didn’t want to do. And she did want him; she had just said so. She was just, understandably, a little anxious about it.
“Jade, of course I still want to share your tent! We don’t have to have sex to share a tent. I’m patient. I’ll wait for you to be ready for anything else.” He’d told her that before, but wanted to reassure her.
Jade thought about that time with Reece, when he had promised to behave and not try anything. Then he’d tried to impose himself on her and she’d had to forcibly throw him out of her house. She couldn’t imagine Kendis trying to do that. He was miles above Reece in integrity, but she looked at him worriedly.
Wouldn’t it put an undue strain on him to sleep in the same bed with her - platonically - night after night? She asked. “Won’t that be kind of hard on you? I mean, I don’t know a lot about it, I just know what happened with Reece when he wanted to have sex and I didn’t. Thinking back, I don’t think he really meant to harm me. He just didn’t believe me when I told him I didn’t want to and thought all he had to do was to get it started and I’d enjoy it.”
She exhaled. “In retrospect, I should have told him I’d had no experience. I guess I was just naïve to believe that he’d wait until I said so.”
The last thing Reece had yelled at her from her driveway after she’d thrown him out was he was sorry. But she hadn’t heard from him again either, until he’d shown up here.
Kendis knew it would be hard but he also knew he wanted to be with her. He looked at her, and said, seriously, “Jade, I have much better control over myself than that. Believe me, I have never tried to force myself on anyone. There is no excuse for what Reece did and none of it was your fault.”
He’d never been turned down by anyone, they’d all been more than willing, but he was smart enough to know he shouldn’t say that. Besides, even if he had been turned down, it would never have occurred to him to even try something like that.
“I would never hurt you like that. I love you!” He lifted her face and kissed her gently. Then he pulled her over to him and wrapped his arms around her. His heart thumped with joy. She was going to live with him. And that was enough for him.
They went back over to Lark and sat down to hear what he wanted to talk to them about.
Lark, who had very acute hearing, knew from their conversation it had told Kendis something he hadn’t known, and, apparently, it was uncomfortable to Jade. It regretted that. It had not been its intention to cause stress to either of them. It had assumed they had already discussed this.
It wondered, ruefully, if it would ever fully understand Humans about mating. At least they seemed to have resolved the issue for now.
However, it felt a twinge of shock and anger towards Reece, whom it had met and examined after the young Humans escaped from the Dimmers. He tried to force a mating on her? It had heard of such a thing occurring among Humans although it had become rare since their Change, especially in the current generation, and the perpetrator was always severely punished.
Considering what Reece’s esa was, it should have been unthinkable to him to even try. Lark didn’t want to embarrass them further by letting them know it had overheard their conversation so it said nothing about it. However, it was going to speak with Reece. It would be discrete but it needed to know that the young Human knew the significance of his esa and how to use it.
It studied Jade and Kendis. “Do you know what happened to you when you were escaping from the Dimmers?”
They looked at each other. They’d known something had happened but they hadn’t had time to think about it at the time, and hadn’t had a chance to discuss it, yet. But they both remembered the feeling of completeness they had felt when Jade had taken flight riding on Kendis’ shoulders.
They eyed Lark and shook their heads.
“I know that, for the first time, I could suddenly move things without touching them. Sparrow said I was on the verge of being able to do that anyway, and the stress of the situation precipitated it into happening. When Jade and I took flight together, we felt…something,” said Kendis, “but I don’t know what it was or what caused it. It was like we connected with each other on some level we hadn’t known was there.” He looked at Lark, curious.
Lark was silent for a moment, composing its answer.
“You and Jadewyn have complementary esa’s. You have telekinesis and she is a levitator. This is a combination that has never occurred in Humans before. Up until now, no Human has been a levitator so it was never necessary to educate you in these matters. Levitation is uncommon among Elvwists but we know of this combination and it is powerful.”
It smiled. “Yours is even
more-so since you are bonded with each other. Kendis, heretofore, you could only lift inanimate objects, but as I am sure Sparrow has told you, you always had the potential to lift anything, including living creatures. This ability manifested at last when you unconsciously used it to help Jadewyn save you and your friends. Jadewyn was able to use your ability to enhance her own, which is why she was able to fly three grown, and heavy, Humans to safety.”
It chuckled, “Eagle was really astonished to see you do that, Jadewyn. It went as fast as it could to get your friends to safety and try to get back to retrieve whomever you had to leave behind. It thought you would only be able to carry one of them - two at best, one of the larger ones and maybe the smaller one. It said when it saw you flying toward it carrying all three Humans, it thought for a moment it was hallucinating. It had not been made aware of Kendis’ esa of telekinesis, or it might have been less surprised.”
Jade grinned as an image of Eagle - eyes bugging out, rubbing its eyes in mid-air, mouth dropping open in astonishment - popped into her head. She sent it to Kendis along with one of her sitting on his shoulders, Alex clinging to his waist and Reece hanging off her arm, eyes squeezed shut.
Kendis struggled to keep a straight face.
The image leaked to Lark who looked at Jade and grinned.
This surprised her as she had never seen Lark grin. Smile, even chuckle a little, but never grin. It looked nicer, less stern and more relaxed with a grin on its face. She blushed though. She hadn’t meant to leak the image.
Lark shook its head at her. “Don’t ever be afraid to use humor, Jadewyn, laughter is good for the soul.” It was planning to save the image to show to Eagle and Sparrow later. It knew its mates would get a good laugh out of it.
“Now,” it said, getting back to its conversation, “Using your esas in the way you did caused you both to expend a lot of energy, mainly because it was sudden and you were not prepared. It took a bigger toll on you, Jadewyn, because you are still in a weakened condition. Once you are entirely healed, you will not get so exhausted. Eagle is anxious to begin teaching the both of you. It has sent for one of our telekinetic Elvwist friends to assist it in this. Jadewyn, you still need practice in controlling your levitation, so Eagle will practice doing that with you.
“Kendis, you have done well according to Sparrow, in learning to control your telekinesis, so you just need to practice using it with Jadewyn. Jadewyn, you need to rest - and I do mean rest,” it emphasized this because it knew how impatient she could get, “for the next two to three days, then you can begin practice with Eagle again. Owl, the telekinetic Elvwist, will not be able to get here until next week so that is when your combined lessons will begin. Is this agreeable with you?”
“Um, sure, Lark,” said Jade, though she was disappointed. She’d really looked forward to going to the ship and trying her hand again at finding the USCOMS.
Kendis nodded. “Then it’s okay if I go to the ship to work?” he asked.
Lark had not released him to work since their return. He was not used to doing nothing while everyone else worked, so he was beginning to feel guilty, and was anxious to go do his share. Even though it meant he would have to be away from his soul-mate.
“Yes, Kendis, you may go back to work. However, you will need to prepare to practice mornings when Eagle is ready.”
They stood, and Jade asked Lark if it was okay to look in on Journey before they left. Lark nodded, saying Journey was coming along fine and would soon be well enough to return to patrolling.
They visited with Journey and Tally for a while, and Tally told them there was to be a memorial service for the Cat who had been killed by the Dimmer. Jade hadn’t known him, but Kendis had met him once; his name had been Saber and he had been a very nice Cat.
They walked back to Kendis’ tent to pack up and move his things to her tent.
She picked up an empty box she spotted under his cot, and went to gather his ancient magazines from the desk. She was placing them in the box when she noticed one on the bottom of the stack had the image of a very beautiful female on the front cover lying on some type of lounge chair, with a parasol stuck in the ground shading her from the rays of the sun.
She was an even, medium brown all over and had very tiny blond braids all over her head. She was grinning, showing blindingly white teeth, and was wearing a garment that covered very little of her body. Her cleavage was very prominent.
In the background was an image of a lot of blue water and palm trees. The woman appeared to be on a beach of tan sand, and in the distance, sailing upon the water, were several boats with colorful sails. There were little fluffy clouds standing in the deep blue sky.
Jade assumed the words across the top of the magazine - “Illustrated Boating” - was the title, though she wondered why the woman wasn’t on a boat if the magazine was about boats. She looked closer and saw there was a sub-title: “Swimsuit Edition”. Oh.
Okay. This particular one must be showing some of the swimwear worn by people of ancient Earth when they went sailing. Interesting.
She turned the page and several opened at the same time to about the middle of the magazine. She noticed the page was folded on one side so that only one part of an image was showing: some feminine looking bare legs, so she unfolded it out to see the full image.
She gasped, her mouth dropping open. The whole body image was of a brown female, wearing nothing but some kind of strings around her breast and on her bottom. Except for that, Jade could have been looking at an image of herself, although the woman in the image had a little more meat on her bones than Jade currently had, and her jet black hair was straight, and in a style similar to Ro’s: shoulder length with a slight curl.
Kendis heard her gasp from where he sat stuffing items into his pack and looked up just as she looked at him, mouth open. He knew immediately what she was looking at, and hopped up and came up behind her.
Anxiously he said, “Jade, she reminded me so much of you --”
“Shards, she could be one of my ancestors!” exclaimed Jade, breaking into a smile. “Except for the straight hair and the extra weight, she could be me.” She turned and looked mischievously at Kendis. “Do you think I would look that good in those strings she’s wearing?”
She didn’t think so, she was much too skinny to wear something like that. Why, it would just fall off and she’d be standing there in the nude! Then she blushed when she remembered Kendis had already seen her that way, even if she hadn’t been aware of it at the time.
Kendis grinned at her. “Love, you’d look gorgeous in anything.” Or nothing, he added to himself. He pulled her to him. “Maybe she is one of your ancestors, you sure look enough like her. That image is the main reason I kept this particular magazine. Now let’s finish getting my things together so we can move me in with you.”
He was relieved she seemed to understand. He had sometimes fallen asleep looking at that image, pretending it was her. He bent and brushed his lips across hers.
She reached up and put her arms around his neck and returned his lip brush with a full kiss. He hugged her tightly, kissing her passionately, and she felt that…pulsing sensation again. He pulled back and looked deeply into her eyes.
“Jade, I think we’d better stop now,” he said, his voice going deeper, “or we’ll never get this stuff out of here and Lark will have Eagle drop me down from a long way up.”
She shivered, nodded wordlessly and moved away from him. She felt warm and flushed. She could see that he wanted her. Shards.
She shivered again and turned back to putting his magazines into the box.