Something was happening to him. He could feel it building, and from the corner of his eyes, his color glowed brighter. It was becoming harder and harder to remain solid.
Aveline cried out, and her body twitched and shuddered. It set the air to dancing, and it was enough to explode Aaddhar into a million pieces.
He lost his form, and like a supernova, shattered into nothing. Never before had he split apart so far, so quickly, only to be sucked back into one piece.
His color became so blinding, so bright, it blotted out the sun.
When he finally came back to himself, he had wrapped himself around Aveline. Held tight in his arms, head resting against his chest, her breath cooled his skin.
Inside his body, his heartstone sent out ribbons of air, tying themselves invisibly to the being in his arms.
Aveline—whatever she may be—was his one.
Chapter Seven
Aveline
So, unless that was an anger bang, Aaddhar didn’t hate her.
As Aveline's heart rate slowed, she rested her head against his chest, a breeze caressing her body. She wondered, was that him? Her eyes had closed, and now she opened them.
Tall, brown blades of grass grew between large boulders, but they stood straight. She smiled; the breeze was him.
She didn’t know how he’d done it, but he’d just given her the first orgasm of her life.
Her clothes were in place, but they’d been nothing to him. Aaddhar had been everywhere and nowhere, overwhelming every sense she had.
And something had happened to him as well, because before he’d turned back into a man, he’d disappeared completely. She’d been caught in a hurricane, but it had lasted only a second.
He touched her hair, flipping it over her shoulder before smoothing a hand down her back.
Aveline loved this. She loved touching him. For so long, any touch she’d received hurt. Dr. Bates. Her sister.
A sudden memory assaulted her. In it, she remembered the sharp slap of Marisol’s palm against her cheek when the justices had rounded them up. “Why?”
Aveline sighed, holding on to Aaddhar a little harder. Beneath her palms, he was hard. His body was similar to Thanasis, though he wasn’t as broad. She could trace his muscles, feel them even along his shoulders and neck.
Yet he’d been so gentle with her.
“You are my one,” he whispered in her ear, and she let it bounce around her head. He was mistaken; she was no one’s one. But it was nice he thought it. Perhaps like her, this had been his first sexual experience. She’d been struck senseless, therefore it made sense he would be, too.
Rather than argue, she reveled in the emotion. She wanted it to be true.
“Aaddhar,” a deep voice interrupted them, and Aveline moved back to peer around his shoulder. Thanasis stood, his colors flashing from an uncertain gray to a depthless obsidian. “Aaddhar, what is happening?”
“She is my one.” Aaddhar straightened her collar before standing tall. He smiled down into her face. “My one.”
Thanasis frowned. “How do you know?”
Surely, Aaddhar would not tell him what they had— “I was unable to maintain my form when I achieved release,” he stated baldly, and, if Aveline wasn’t mistaken, proudly.
Whatever it was Aaddhar had expected from his brother, it was not the reaction he got. “No!” Thanasis shouted. “No, she is not!”
“Thanasis.” Branesh touched his brother, blues and pinks swirling along his arm and down his fingers. “Thanasis, peace.”
“No, Branesh. Brother. Aaddhar took her, and he was cruel. He hates her. You heard him.” It was the most Aveline had heard this man speak, but it was clear from the way his voice shook, he believed what he said.
“None of us know what the other truly believes. If Aaddhar says she is his, than we must honor that. No matter what we may feel.” Branesh glanced at the ground, and his skin darkened. His body burst apart and then reformed, but he was a deep gray.
Leaving her hand on Aaddhar’s back, Aveline moved around him. “I am not his one.” Brothers. Aveline knew what happened when people came between family. “You are brothers.”
Branesh took a step back, right into the golden Ettan, who’d appeared behind him. “We are,” he replied, glancing quickly at Thanasis and Ettan. “I understand you.”
“Yes,” Aveline said. “I understand you, too.”
“How?” Thanasis interrupted. “Why?”
Branesh was silent as he stared at Aaddhar, and then began to speak. “It wasn’t until the Creators stole our heartstones that we were unable to understand or communicate with each other. Our heartstones allow us to understand those who do not speak Ventos. It is the reason we can communicate with all other Creator-made valos. It must work with her as well. Wherever she comes from.” Branesh rubbed his hands down his face and then through his hair, leaving the silky, dark strands messy.
In the short time Aveline had known Branesh, his skin had remained a rosy-pink. Now, however, it was mottled. The pink swirling with gray and brown.
He was upset, too.
Like everything she touched, she was hurting these men.
“You ruin everything!” Marisol’s voice echoed in her mind, and Aveline shut her eyes tight. No. Don’t think about it. Stop.
Aveline touched her face, trailing her fingers along her scars and over her eyelid. She’d paid for her mistakes, surely, but she didn’t have anything left as payment for more of them.
She’d lost her freedom, her sister, her sight. What would these men take from her?
“I am not anything,” she said, forcing her voice to be strong. “I am a thief. A criminal. You don’t want me.” Making sure she was facing Aaddhar, she repeated herself. “You don’t want me.”
“Criminal,” Thanasis said. His voice deepened to that resonant bass that seemed designed to make people afraid. But she wasn’t. Despite his outward appearance, the way he seemed to be covered in armor, he didn’t stare at her like she was evil. “A criminal.” He took a step toward her.
“Thanasis, no!” Aaddhar cried out. She heard the echoing cries of Thanasis’s brothers right before his hand touched her head and the world disappeared.
Aveline was thrown back in time. Like images in an ancient picture book, memories assaulted her one after another.
Her mother’s face, lips tinged blue as she gasped her last breath.
Holding tight to Marisol’s hand and being cold—so, so cold—as they climbed the metal steps toward the orphanage.
Marisol’s voice, begging her to steal. Her sister’s cough as she lay sick in their apartment. “For me. I’ll die without it.”
And after that, every crime she’d committed. The crimes she’d done to keep herself and her sister alive, and those she’d committed because she could.
She felt the cold bands of metal around her wrists as the justices snapped them into place. Heard her sister’s angry sobs as they were led onto the shuttle that would bring them to the Concord.
Dr. Bates—staring with unveiled interest at her sister. Spitting in his face to get his attention. Ignore her. Look at me. Me!
Marisol. “We’re going to die here.”
Dr. Bates. Cutting, rending, tearing. Digging into her eye, her head, all the while smiling. Her blood splattered across the protective glasses he wore.
And pain. So much pain. Burning, blinding pain. She couldn’t see. Couldn’t see!
With a scream, she was wrenched back into the present. Thanasis’s hands wrapped around each of her arms, holding her upright.
Weak and breathless, Aveline didn’t try to get away from him. He was the only thing keeping her off the ground. She heard something, a sob, and realized it came from her.
Thanasis knelt. “Look at me,” he commanded.
But she couldn’t. Each one of her crimes was as clear as the day she’d committed them, and she couldn’t meet this man’s eyes. For some reason, she didn’t want him to see what it did to her
to relive them.
“I have judged you,” he said, quietly now. “And I find you have paid for your crimes. You are not a criminal.”
Shocked, Aveline lifted her gaze to his. Gently, he released one arm and reached toward her. She flinched when he touched her eyebrow, the one above her injured eye. “I have lived your memories along with you. I have seen your crimes. I know your reasons. You have paid for them, Aveline. Paid too well.”
Thanasis said he saw what she had done. If he had, then he knew what she was. “This is the Concord.” She pointed at the pod. “It’s a prison ship where criminals like me are kept. You’re wrong, Thanasis. I was to spend many more years aboard the ship. I haven’t paid for my crimes yet.”
He shook his head as she spoke. It was a strange movement for him, as if he had adopted it and was trying it for the first time. Nearby, his brothers watched them. Ettan frowned, his eyebrows drawn together. The gold on his skin mixed with gray, like Branesh’s had, and a dark ribbon of red.
Anger.
She examined each of the brothers and saw the same. She remembered Aaddhar had similar tint, but one brighter and glowing when they’d kissed.
It made sense. Red reflected a strong emotion.
Apparently, though, she’d made them angry.
“I can’t go back,” she continued, hoping to make them understand. Now, surely, Aaddhar understood what she was and would see she couldn’t possibly mean anything to him. “I don’t know how. But I can find a place, perhaps the place Aaddhar brought me from? I’ll leave you alone. I promise.”
The men exchanged glances, and Thanasis stood. “No,” he answered.
“No?” she asked. “But I’ll be quiet, and I won’t bother you. I can make it so you’ll never see me, if that’s the way you’d prefer.”
“No,” Thanasis repeated. “No. I do not prefer.”
“Neither do I,” Branesh added.
“Nor I,” Ettan said.
Aaddhar stepped around Thanasis into the line of sight of her good eye. “I have told you. You are my one.”
He didn’t understand. None of them did, and she had to make them. “I am a bad person,” she explained slowly. She pointed to her chest. “Bad. These are your brothers, and you are good.” She remembered the warmth of Ettan’s hands and the way, for a moment, he’d taken away her pain. And Branesh. She could see his face when he felt her heart. Aaddhar—his kisses left her breathless.
Yes. These men were good. But Aveline was not.
“Stay with your brothers,” she said to Aaddhar. “Stay with your family.”
“You say you are not good, but you would keep Aaddhar from choosing between us,” Branesh interjected. “Before the Creators—” This wasn’t the first time the word had been used, but Aveline still didn’t know what it meant. At seeing her confusion, Branesh explained. “The beings who took from us our self-control and awareness. Before they came to Sonhadra, I was a historian and a priest. I kept the knowledge, the history, of my people. It was my job to understand it and teach it. The breath of Sonhadra formed the Ventos. All of us, we are made of the element of life—air. And each of us has a knowing. When my brother was forced into his Ventos form, he knew who you were to him. For him, there is no choice. You are part of him, you make up his air, and he can’t survive without you.”
“No,” Aveline whispered. They still didn’t understand.
“But,” Branesh continued, “I believe you may be my one as well. I believe, when you released our heartstones, it was Sonhadra’s way of telling us we all belong to you.”
Wide-eyed, Aveline studied each brother. Aaddhar stared at Branesh, but his color swirled, clearing to a cerulean blue. Ettan’s gold gleamed so brightly it was like sunlight, and Thanasis? He stood, covered head to foot in black, and touched her cheek. “Not a criminal,” he said. “Ours.”
Chapter Eight
Branesh
Branesh couldn’t tear his gaze away from the creature in front of him. When Thanasis had spoken, “Ours,” nothing had ever rang so true.
He knew it was not unheard of for male Ventos to share a female. And here he and his brothers were, the last Ventos on Sonhadra.
And there was Aveline. A female from another planet, who’d released them from an eternity of nothingness.
What he felt toward her was more than thankfulness, though gratitude was part of it.
Her cheeks had flushed again, and she stared at Thanasis, disbelief written clearly across her face. “That’s crazy.”
He didn’t know the word, but somehow, he understood what she was trying to say—they were being illogical.
“You don’t need to believe us yet,” he said, and Thanasis flashed him a look of appreciation. “We have plenty of time to assure you of what we know.”
“Come,” Ettan said. “We’ll bring you back to the lower strata of Zephyr. You were most comfortable there, weren’t you?”
Her head whipped from one brother to the next as she tried to read their emotions. She studied them with her good eye, dropping her gaze from theirs to roam their skin.
An intelligent creature, she was figuring out that much could be discerned by the colors they flashed. Right now, Branesh was happy, and he knew he wore rose. The same shade wove along Ettan, and even Aaddhar. Only Thanasis remained shrouded in his executioner’s black.
He had let it drop, but only briefly, and Branesh wondered if his eldest brother was using the color as armor.
As if the thought made it be, a stream of gray wound its way down Thanasis’s neck and around his arms before settling across his chest.
“I will carry you,” Thanasis stated, and Branesh sighed. If they were all to share this female, things would need to be made more equal. Already, Aaddhar had touched her intimately, and now Thanasis would get to hold her, albeit in Ventos form. When Ettan had healed her, even he had touched her skin.
Branesh hadn’t had enough of her.
The knowledge of Aveline being his one made him greedy. In the history books, Ventos who had been strangers had sometimes realized they had to share a female.
Until faced with Aveline, Branesh hadn’t realized he could be jealous of his brothers. He was tempted to shake his head in that way Aveline had when she dismissed or was confused by an idea.
Thanasis didn’t wait for his approval. He dissolved and wrapped his Ventos form around Aveline, hiding her from the rest of them before spiriting her away.
At once, the three of them took their Ventos forms as well, rushing behind Thanasis, following him along ancient paths toward the lowest strata of Zephyr.
As he followed his brother, Branesh’s anger grew. He knew his brothers were impulsive; Aaddhar especially defaulted to anger. Usually, Thanasis, in his role as judge and executioner, was more measured in his responses. Twice, Aaddhar had swept Aveline away from them.
And now Thanasis?
How were they supposed to form a relationship with the female when one or the other of them took her away?
By the time Thanasis stopped, Branesh had worked himself into a fury. Aveline’s feet hadn’t touched the ground before he flew at his brother, hitting him with the force of a storm. Their forms tumbled over each other, churning angrily, a heavy gloom of gray and black.
In a flash, they took form, and Aaddhar launched himself between the two of them. He hit Branesh, but he didn’t hold him for long. Immediately, he shifted again and attacked Thanasis, this time solidifying at the very moment his form touched his brother’s.
Meeting his assault, Thanasis shifted as well, landing blow after blow on his back and sides. Branesh could have changed into his Ventos form, but it wouldn’t have been as satisfying. Each hit Thanasis landed, Branesh met with one of his own.
Aaddhar hit him again, and Ettan threw himself into the fray as well. Palms outstretched, their youngest brother held off the elder. “Enough, brother,” he chided. “Enough.”
Branesh stood slowly, wincing when his body protested. His brother had managed t
o inflict some injury upon his form.
But he’d done some damage as well. Thanasis’s color was flashing—gray, white, black—as he stared at Branesh. “You attacked me!” He sounded surprised.
“You took Aveline,” Branesh replied.
“So?” Thanasis asked.
“You took her,” Branesh said, as if speaking to one of his students in a long ago classroom. “First Aaddhar, and then you… You can’t merely take her whenever you feel like it.”
Thanasis straightened his shoulders. “Why not? She’s ours, is she not? I wanted time with her.” His tone changed, reminding Branesh of a child. “Aaddhar did.”
Things were not as simple as Thanasis made them out to be. For one thing, Aveline had shown hesitation at Aaddhar’s declaration. They needed to explain things to her. But even before that, they needed to find shelter and nourishment. Branesh was unsure whether there would be anything left in Zephyr.
And what about the female? Her system was different than theirs—Branesh’s mind churned with concerns and worries.
He glanced away from Thanasis, moving his gaze to the place his brother had set Aveline.
But she wasn’t there.
He studied the surroundings, struck dumb by the sheer beauty that had returned to the world since the time the Creators had stolen their consciousness, turning them into mindless guards who hovered around the city.
“Where is Aveline?” he asked, striding toward the verdant forest. He touched the trunk of a tree. It was so wide, he couldn’t wrap his hand around it. How much time had passed?
Another thought struck him.
Long ago, Zephyr had included many types of species, not all of which were benign. While Ventos lived in harmony with the creatures, the same couldn’t be said for other tribes. What if these creatures came upon Aveline and harmed her?
A catalogue of species shuffled through his mind, and he lost his form for a moment before returning again. Aaddhar flashed next to him. “We need to find her,” his brother stated and with that, became fully Ventos and flew away from him.
Thanasis changed next, a streak of white that whipped Branesh’s robes around his body.
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