by Nia Mars
His gaze hardens as it cuts to Uthan. “Keep your hands off her.”
“I’m here to help her, not to serve my own selfish needs.” Uthan’s voice is sharper than usual.
Roax strides out of the room without looking back. He is walking power. There’s something about the way he moves that makes it impossible to look away. He’s an enigma, far out of my realm of experience.
When the door closes behind him, I take a deep breath.
“Tib,” I tell Uthan. “Her name is Tib.”
Wonder lights up Uthan’s face. He moves closer and sits right in front of me cross-legged, like we sat in the library earlier. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
His breath draws in, then rushes out on a shudder. He stares off into space. Mumbles. “...impossible.”
I bump my knee against his. “Do you know her?”
A strangled laugh escapes his masculine lips as his amber eyes blink back to the here and now. “Nobody knows her. Not like you do, in any case.”
Way to be vague. But I’m not about to let him get away with it. “Who is she?”
“Tib is not a she.” He shakes his head. “Tib is not a he, either.”
I feel more bewildered by the moment. “I don’t think I understand.”
“Tib is a spirit.”
Huh? “Like Smys?”
“A lesser spirit. But a higher being nevertheless.”
None of it makes any sense so I might as well roll with it. “She felt familiar.”
“You are also spirit.”
“Koah told me about Smys, but I’m not sure I fully understand the concept.”
“Smys was the original spirit. An ancient consciousness that either evolved beyond needing a physical body or came into existence without needing a physical body in the first place. Smys fractured when that first, dense core of the universe exploded.”
“Are you talking about the Big Bang?”
Curiosity laced with confusion crosses Uthan’s face.
“That’s what people on Earth call it,” I tell him. “The moment the universe was born.”
He nods. “At the same time, Smys fractured into an endless number of shards, which still each hold a fraction of the power of the explosion.”
“What about Tib? What do you mean I’m also spirit?”
I’m so eager for the answers, I put my hand on his as it rests on his knee. Only when he curls his fingers around mine do I realize that I touched him. Then his thumb begins drawing small, soothing circles on my skin, so, for the moment, I leave my hand where it is.
“Different people believe different theories,” he begins. “I don’t know who is right. But there are certain commonalities among the beliefs on various planets.”
I wait for him to continue, and he does.
“Smys is the most ancient and powerful spirit, even in fragments. She’s whole and fragmented at the same time. The parts act separately, but in some ways, they’re still connected. And then there are lesser spirits. Tib.”
“So that wasn’t her name?”
“I’m not sure they have names. It’s like...” He pauses to think. “The wind. The wind that blows today is not the same wind that blew yesterday, or a thousand years ago. The wind that blows on Earth is not the same wind that blows in Merim. But we call it all wind.”
I nod. His explanation makes a curious kind of sense. Then, immediately, I get confused again. “But Tib, my Tib, had a physical body.”
Calling ‘her’ my Tib, feels strange, but I don’t know what else to call her.
Uthan doesn’t miss the wording either. After a moment, he says, “Spirits don’t need physical bodies, but they can make you think they have one.”
“She wasn’t an illusion. I felt her. Her lips were real. Her hands on my shoulders were real. They pushed me under the water.”
He clears his throat, his eyes dazed. “For the purposes of this discussion, maybe you should refrain from bringing up her lips on yours, and her hands on your body.”
“Why?”
He clears his throat again, his expression pained. “It’s distracting.”
Oh. Heat floods my cheeks.
“Anyway,” he says, moving on. “Spirits don’t need a physical body, but they can make you feel like they have one. Supposedly, they can make it feel very real.”
“Supposedly?”
“Tib doesn’t normally reveal itself to people. I don’t personally know anyone else who’s had this kind of an encounter. There are some accounts in ancient histories, but they’re contradicting. Obviously, I’m going to research them now.”
I smile my gratitude. “So what is known about them? It? Her?”
He shrugs. “The spirits don’t interfere with people. They have their own mysterious affairs. Some people think they watch us for entertainment. Some people pray to them, but that doesn’t tend to end well. Never ask a favor from Tib. They always collect payment, and, if the ancient myths are true, it’s never pleasant.”
I nod. Okay. Should I ever see Tib again, no favors. Got it.
“Do not, under any circumstances...” Uthan’s gaze grows deadly serious. “Ask Tib for powers.”
“What powers?”
“Any powers.”
I’m not used to seeing Uthan agitated. I try to soothe him. “It’s unlikely that she’ll reveal herself to me again.”
“It was extremely unlikely that she would reveal herself to you in the first place.”
I can’t argue that.
“How am I spirit?” I ask after a second.
He thinks for a beat, as if unsure how to explain it. Then he raises his right hand and draws an imaginary line high above our heads with his index finger. “Smys is the original spirit.”
I nod.
He draws another line, below the first. “Then there are minor, lesser spirits.”
I nod again.
He draws a third line, below the second. “Below the lesser spirits are the mystics. Mystics are the children of minor spirits and humanoid women. They have physical bodies. Their children, and their children’s children are also mystics to the seventh generation, but the power fades with each consecutive generation.”
I stare at him, trying to process all this.
He draws a fourth line, below the third. “Then there are the kreks. Kreks have some powers. They are said to have some shard of the original spirit in their bloodlines.”
Now I wonder what powers my kreks have. Also, I wonder why I keep thinking of them as my kreks. I should really stop that.
Uthan draws a fifth line. “And then there’s everyone else. They have some trace of the spirit, but no powers.”
“So, basically,” I say as I try to wrap my head around the idea. “We’re all spirit.”
“In a way. Like, say, take an iron sword made of pure iron. It’s iron. On the other hand, you have iron in your blood, but nobody says you’re iron. Think of it more like trace elements.” He shakes his head. “It’s difficult to explain.”
“No. I think I get it.”
We sit there in silence for a while.
Suddenly, he lifts a finger. “Also, sometimes Tib is kind of like an energy vampire.”
I blink, back to understanding nothing.
“Some part of Tib. It can settle on a planet and suck up all the good energy. Those planets tend to self-destruct. Hate. Discord. War. Earthquakes. Drought. Fires. Flood. Famine. Disease.”
“My Tib isn’t like that.”
Uthan’s lips stretch into a smile. “I don’t think so either. From what you said, she likes you. In all truth, Tib mostly creates good things.”
“How can Tib be good and bad at the same time?”
“The universe craves balance.”
I drop my forehead into my hands and mutter, “Thinking about this makes my head hurt.”
Literally. The tension in my brain has transformed into a dull pounding behind my eyes.
Uthan sits with me in sympathetic silence before suggesting, “Would
you like to go for a swim with me?”
I lift my head and open my mouth to remind him that I can’t swim, then realize that he meant his own private ocean that lives inside him. “Yes, please.”
Chapter Four
UTHAN OPENS HIS ARMS in a silent invitation for me to slide onto his lap. As soon as I move over, his arms close around me. I tuck my head under his chin.
The contact feels right. I settle in, and our heartbeats synchronize. Huh. That’s weird.
When I close my eyes, I can hear the waves. The warmth of Uthan’s body surrounding me soon transforms into warm water on my skin. I’m floating. Like before, Uthan is supporting me.
Same azure sky, same golden waves. But this time, there’s a small island nearby.
“What’s that?”
“My sanctuary,” Uthan murmurs above my head.
For a while, we just float, his strong body beneath me holding me safe. His arm over my midriff feels incredibly right and necessary. My worries drift away. I feel as if I could fall asleep, but the island keeps drawing my attention.
“Would you like to see it?” Uthan asks.
“Yes.”
In a blink, we’re walking out of the water, somehow without having had to swim to shore first. The instant change of location is only disconcerting for a second.
The beach is only thirty feet or so wide, edged by a thick forest.
“Let’s dry in the sun,” Uthan says as we stop just a few feet from the ocean.
We lie down next to each other.
I’m lying on a beach for the first time in my life.
“Back on Earth, my whole world is sand,” I tell him. “Gets in every place. It’s uncomfortable. I hate it.”
He takes my hand. “You’ll like the sand here.”
He’s right. This sand is soft and warm. This sand could lull me to sleep.
The sun kisses our skin. The waves crashing against the shore make a soft music. I keep my eyes closed, leaving my hand in Uthan’s and enjoying the simple touch.
“We can explore if you wish,” Uthan offers after several minutes.
“I’d like that.”
The words are barely out before he’s on his feet and pulling me up. We’re both dry, the air is balmy warm, more than comfortable.
He doesn’t let go of me as we enter the forest, on a path I didn’t see until he stepped forward. It’s almost as if the forest is pulling apart to let us in, creating the path just for us.
Sunlight filters down through the leaves. The trees are so tall they seem to touch the sky, a lush celebration of green. The rainbow flashes of color in the canopy are exotic birds. They welcome us with joyful cries, then fly up and up, in a flurry of wings.
As full of life as the forest is, at the same time, there’s a deep, sacred silence here, waiting for us as we walk farther in.
“It’s like a cathedral,” I whisper.
I once walked through the ruins of an old cathedral on Earth. Cathedral Santuario de la Virgen de Guadalupe, Lily told me when I got back home. She’d looked it up on her comm unit. She didn’t go with me on that trip, too far and too dangerous. The cathedral felt different from any other place I’d ever been. There’d been an ancient kind of hush. I feel the same way here in Uthan’s forest.
“It’s my spiritual space,” Uthan says. “Gardens are special to Smys and the lesser spirits. It’s not a coincidence that Tib came to you in the garden. Most homes on the Federation planets have courtyard gardens, and most cities have at least a small park on every block. It’s how we keep in touch with the original spirit and pay our respects.”
We walk side by side, and I let the sacred peace of the forest settle on me, comfort me, give me peace. It’s incredibly soothing and filling. Even the air smells different here, somehow clearer and lighter.
“I wish I could take this peace back with me to the palace,” I tell him as I gawk at the trees. “I wish I could leave all my worries here.”
He stops and takes both of my hands as he holds my gaze. He waits until I give him my full attention. Then he speaks in a shaman voice, a voice rich with ancient wisdom, a voice that puts goosebumps on my skin.
“Your vast potential and limitless soul are not to be wasted on the petty problems of the day, Ava Smith. Your magnificence is not to be drowned in the trivial.”
I think he means I shouldn’t sweat the small stuff. Except, the way he says it, those words make my heart flutter. I can tell from the expression on his face that he really does think that I have vast potential, that I’m magnificent.
My fluttering heart soars.
The way I feel about Uthan right now... Falling in love with him would be insanely stupid, wouldn’t it? For one, what if I do get kicked out and sent away?
My heart is going to break so freaking hard, it’s going to kill me.
I turn to the path in front of us and move forward.
When we come to a narrow creek, I stop. Uthan bumps into my shoulder. His skin touches mine in a tingling kiss.
Wait a minute... “Why are we naked?”
I’m pretty sure we had clothes on earlier, in the water. I’m pretty sure we still had clothes when we were on the beach.
Uthan doesn’t seem to be disturbed by our nudity. “According to our most ancient myths, the first people lived naked in a garden.”
Oddly, I accept that as a perfectly valid explanation. Yet it doesn’t mean that I’m not bothered by our unexpectedly discovered nakedness.
I don’t want to stare at Uthan’s body, but I can’t force myself to look away. The dappled sunlight on his golden skin makes my pulse leap. His dappled skin... It’s like he takes this place with him when he leaves here.
“Ava.” His voice is filled with hot, desperate need as he catches me watching him with whatever look I have in my eyes.
As if I have no control over my actions, I reach out to touch his chest with the tips of my fingers. He holds completely still.
He has no body hair. None. His skin is so warm.
I want his warmth.
I step closer and lay my cheek on his chest next. He doesn’t move at all.
My fingers descend in a slow slide, over valleys and hills of hard muscle covered in soft skin. I can’t exactly block out the sight of his hard cock straining toward me, but I don’t look straight at it either.
First my fingertips tingle, then the rest of me. Then the diffused tingles concentrate between my legs.
I raise my gaze to his and find his eyes filled with ravenous hunger. Yet he still doesn’t move. The choice is mine.
I press my lips against his.
Despite the sudden heat between us, the kiss is soothing. The soft way Uthan tastes me takes some of the fever away from my blood. Then he licks the seam of my lips, and when I open for him, he sweeps inside.
The fever rushes back a hundred-fold.
My body connects with his, full-length. I know he hasn’t moved, so I must have been the one to close the distance.
His fingers close around my arms above the elbows.
Please, don’t push me away.
He draws me even closer.
I melt into the kiss.
His cock is a hard, throbbing need between us. We float on passion as we’d floated on the ocean earlier. Once again, he’s holding me up.
It’d be so easy to sink into this feeling, to sink to the ground, letting Uthan’s hardness sink into the softness of my body.
Had I ever thought I didn’t want him?
I’m burning with need for this kind, careful man, the thoughtful way he always treats me, the way he always looks out for me, the way he never demands but waits until I’m ready.
My hands go around his waist and roam up over cords of muscles to his shoulders. I rub my pelvis against him. I’m crazy with breathless need.
I so hadn’t planned this, but now it’s all I want.
I so hadn’t planned this...
“What are we doing here?” I whisper against his lips as my e
yes flutter open.
“Maybe you’re ready to accept me?” His tone is thick with hope. He pulls back a few inches so he can look into my eyes, but he doesn’t let me go. “Are you, my Ava? Did you decide to make me your first?”
I’ve made no decisions at all. The thought sobers me. Grounds me.
God, I don’t even know if this is real. We are in our heads, daydreaming together, right?
I untangle my arms from behind his neck and step back. I hate the distance between us. Hate it. But I say the words anyway.
“Maybe we should return to the palace.”
He doesn’t allow himself to show disappointment. No pressure. I love him for that.
Birds trill above us. I feel refreshed, restored, a thousand times calmer and more balanced than before we came to the island. Even with my body’s conflicting signals.
“Thank you for bringing me here.”
He smiles. “Anytime, my Ava. Just say the word.”
We walk back toward the water. I find it difficult to look away from his wide back and hard ass. So I hurry to catch up with him, and walk next to him, putting an end to my shameless ogling. When he takes my hand, I let him.
“Do all the kreks have oceans like yours?”
“Just me.”
I wonder why that is. He said all the kreks have some shard of the original spirit. Some power. So why aren’t they all the same?
Then a new thought occurs to me. I stop and whirl to face him. “Are you a mystic, Uthan?”
A smile stretches across his handsome face. “Seventh generation. The last of my line.”
Chapter Five
I TRY NOT TO THINK too much about Uthan being a mystic—whatever that really means—as I spend the afternoon with Tiam in the palace garden learning about the Zebet. I definitely try not to think about the naked kiss I shared with Uthan. I have a feeling Tiam wouldn’t be amused if he found out. Dason would be crushed. Koah might be driven to murder. Roax would definitely be driven to murder.
At this moment I clearly understand why, in most cultures, a woman does not have five husbands.
“So if the Zebet decides that I’m not the Oath Forger, is there a punishment for pretenders?” I ask, glancing behind Tiam as we stand by the waterfall, hoping to catch a glimpse of Tib.
