They exchanged a glance before shrugging. “Probably not, but I for one don’t care.” Chase was straight up.
“Me neither,” Xander said.
Emma clapped her hands together. “Well, it’s settled, then. Tomorrow at school, we’re sitting together at lunch.”
She looked so excited, and the four overlords were clearly enchanted by the human in their midst. Before I could let jealousy rear its ugly head – because I’d always been an outsider – Daniel turned to me, changing the subject.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, and I was so disarmed that I forgot how to speak for a beat. Did he ask that because he cared? Had anyone ever asked me that before?
“A little tired, actually.” I realized how true that was as soon as I said it. There was this weight pressing down on me. I’d been ignoring it pretty well, but it was getting a little more uncomfortable now.
He nodded. “We need to get you back. Say goodbye to badass, you’ll see her tomorrow.”
I tilted my head in Emma’s direction. “Badass?”
She threw a withering glance at Daniel. “I impaled myself on a tree when I fell into the first level of the justices. And didn’t die. He’s been calling me badass ever since.”
On instinct, I reached out and grabbed her hand. I had no idea where it came from, I wasn’t a touchy sort of person. I’d grown accustomed to never being touched. Had to be the death thing again. “You were in the justices?”
She nodded. “Yeah, Laous tried to kill me blah blah – we both have that badge. I only survived because of Lexen and Daniel. Together the three of us made it to the final level. Redemption.”
I shook my head. “I’ll be honest, that world scares me. Those justices were like nothing I’ve ever seen before. I can’t even imagine being stuck trying to navigate through them.”
“Let’s hope you never have to find out,” Lexen said smoothly. “But if you do, Daniel and I will come for you as well. We’re a team.”
“We’ll be there as well,” Chase added, gesturing to himself and then Xander, who was nodding resolutely.
My heart stuttered. It took everything inside of me not to cry like a baby in front of them all. What was this world I was in now?What was it?
Daniel’s chest rumbled at my side, distracting me from the overwhelming emotions. When I lifted my head to see him, his expression was hard, eyes swirling. I raised one eyebrow in his direction – a skill I’d been perfecting over the last two years; it was cool to have a chance to use it.
“You will never end up in the Cascading Justices,” he told me, his voice almost as hard as his face. “You’re going to live for as long as I do, so you have no need to fear death. Not to mention that I’m the acting overlord major. I control that land, and I will not let you suffer for even a second in that place.”
Well, I guess that answered my question about my lifespan. Those tears I’d been trying to hold back surged forward again. A huge ball of emotion lodged in my throat; it was only years of control that stopped the waterworks.
Even harder to control though was my urge to reach for Daniel. Something strong stirred in my chest every time I looked at him now. No doubt the soul link, tying us closer. Whatever it was, resisting him was growing harder.
I had to though. I knew touching him would tip me right over the edge into obsession. And the last thing I needed was to grow obsessed with a guy who was only around because he’d literally been forced to tie our souls and life forces together to save me.
He was definitely a good guy, and would make a perfect mate one day to some Imperial Daelighter. I’d have to be satisfied with the friendship which seemed to have sprung up between us.
Forcing a smile across my face, I said, “Thank you. Thank you for protecting and saving me.”
Xander interrupted then, his voice deep and smooth: “What exactly happened with you and Callie? How did you two become bonded?”
Daniel explained it, starting from the moment he found me in NOLA, my mom’s disappearance, Laous’ attack, and finished up with the details of my death and our new bond.
I tried to block most of it out again. It was bad enough going through it the first time, so I instead focused on the House of Royale territory, or sector, or whatever they called it. My obsession with the beach started during a three-month stint in Los Angeles. I think I was about five years old at the time. Mom would walk me to fight class along the beach, and I would be staring at the water the entire time we traveled. By the end, she knew to never let my hand go or I was likely to wander right off to sit on the sand.
Something about the play of light and color in the waves, the way the water moved and mingled together, so fierce and yet also able to be perfectly calm. Sometimes it felt like my soul was born of the ocean. At times there was no emotion inside me at all, and then other times everything crashed together, unable to be contained.
My insides were definitely tumultuous now. It started in New Orleans – that damn music. Then Daniel was the icing on the cake. He’d ignited emotion inside of me from the first moment his arrogant face appeared in my condo doorway. Then he saved my life. Now my ocean was raging at me, wanting to be released, wanting to flow toward this male.
Dammit, just stay where you are.
“Callie?”
Shaking my head, I focused on the group again, only to find that everyone was staring at me. I’d clearly missed something important. Deciding I didn’t care if they thought I was a weirdo, I just shrugged. “Sorry, I zoned out. What did you say?”
