by M. K. Eidem
"What?!" Cali barely had a towel wrapped around her before she pushed her way between Jamis and Taarig, ignoring their growls of disapproval to accuse, "You contacted my parents?!"
"No, you did," Xanto corrected.
"I did no such thing," she denied.
"You did, when your Beast howled," Xanto informed her. "It was recognized by everyone in your bloodline for what it was. A howl of extreme distress."
"Gods," Cali breathed out, remembering exactly how she'd felt at that moment. "So, you're saying my entire family is showing up?"
"I managed to assure your broders that you were okay," Xanto told her.
"Thank the Gods," Cali muttered.
"But your parents refused to take my word for it. They will be arriving in less than an hour."
Cali cursed. "Alright, thank you, Xanto."
With a nod, Xanto left the room, and Jamis waited until the door closed before speaking.
"Do you want to explain why you're so concerned about your parents arriving?" he spoke quietly, but there was no doubt he expected an answer.
"Because it's not going to be pretty," Cali said over her shoulder as she entered her resting chamber. She was surprised to find the bed made with Jamis’s and Taarig's formal uniforms laid out on it. Xanto had been busy while they'd been in the cleansing room.
"Explain," Taarig demanded as he and Jamis followed her into her resting chamber.
With a heavy sigh, she turned and faced them. "Introducing you to my parents was going to be tricky no matter the circumstances. Now they think I was hurt; they’re going to come in hot and aggressive. I just wanted us to have some time alone, just the three of us, to adjust to each other without all the drama."
Taarig moved across the room and wrapped his arms around her. "We'll have that after we deal with your parents."
"I hope so."
"Xanto has assured them you are fine, so why are you so concerned?" Jamis had been watching her closely while she and Taarig spoke and could tell there was something else. "This is one of those things we need to know, Cali. Not just because we are now Zagreus but because we are your mates."
Cali rested her head against Taarig's chest for a moment, knowing Jamis was right. "Can we get dressed first?" she asked, giving each of them a pleading look. "Then I vow I'll explain everything."
"Go," Taarig told her, kissing the top of her head before releasing her.
She moved out of Taarig's arms, but instead of heading toward her closet, she stopped in front of Jamis. "Jamis?"
While his eyes were still swirling with questions, Jamis leaned down and gently kissed her lips. "Go get dressed."
Slipping out of his arms, she entered her closet.
∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞
"What do you think has her so worried?" Taarig asked, looking at the uniforms laid out on the bed. Xanto had let himself into their quarters again. Why he thought they needed their formal uniforms, Taarig didn’t know, but it was the only thing here, so he began putting it on.
"Something to do with her parents," Jamis said as he reached for his uniform. "What do you know about the Zagreus besides what Xanto told us?"
"Nothing much, other than their leader is called the Paramount. He’s supposed to be the most gifted and powerful of all the Zagreus. He's rarely seen. Oh, and he's the sole owner of Wik Corp."
"That's the extent of my knowledge, too," Jamis replied, fastening his jacket. "It's strange that you don't see or hear more about the other Zagreus."
"That's because most Zagreus are even more arrogant and insufferable than the Apre," Cali told them, walking out of her closet, a teasing smile on her face. "They're also egotistical and condescending to any being they believe less powerful than them."
"Does that include…" Jamis began only to trail off when he turned and saw what Cali was wearing. Gods, their Lalla was gorgeous. She was wearing the same tight, black-and-brown, serpe-skin pants she'd worn on the transport. How he ever could have chosen Tecumseh over her, he'd never understand. She'd matched the pants with a form-fitting, brown shirt and black jacket with a shirt collar that closely resembled theirs. Her black boots had a low chunky sole and came up over her calves. Cali had pulled her glowing hair back in a single, long braid. The overall effect as she walked over to them was that they were a matched set.
"Gods, Cali, you outshine every star in the universe," Taarig growled as he took her in.
Cali felt her cheeks heat at the compliment because she could feel their sincerity through their strengthening bond, then her gaze ran over them. She'd never seen them in their formal uniforms before. The black pants and jacket weren't as form-fitting as hers, but it still enhanced their impressive physiques. Crystals emblazoned across their chests represented all their achievements and citations. Their ranks at the collar left no doubt they were both mighty Apre warriors. If she hadn't already thought them to be the most handsome males in the universe, this would have done it. "You two look pretty amazing yourselves. And yes, Jamis, that includes me, even though most are smart enough not to reveal their prejudice around my father."
"Just around your father?" Jamis caught the way she said that. "Not around your mother or other father?"
"Dad, I call him Dad," Cali told him, "and no. Mom and Dad were once pure Earthan, which is unacceptable to some Zagreus, as many consider them an inferior species." She saw a flash of shame cross Jamis’s face. "I’m sure the Zagreus would have shunned them if it wasn't for my father being so powerful and the gifts Mom and Dad received because of their meld."
"Gifts?" Taarig asked, frowning at her.
"Yes," Cali gave them a confused look then sighed. "You didn't realize that besides physically becoming Zagreus from the meld, you would be gifted powers?"
"What kind of powers?" Taarig asked.
"It depends on the powers of the Zagreus you've melded with," she told him, "and even then, there's no guarantee, just like there's no guarantee any young we have will. My mom was a brilliant engineer back on Earth. After she melded with my father, she became beyond brilliant. She now designs amazing things for Wik Corp, but that's the only gift she received. My dad, on the other hand, received several."
"Because your Father has these gifts?" Jamis questioned.
"Yes, and many more."
"How many do you have?" Taarig asked quietly.
"So far, three have manifested," Cali told them.
"Manifested?" Jamis frowned at that.
"A Zagreus's gift or gifts don't just appear when they are born or meld. They manifest over time as the Zagreus matures and has the power to control the gift. The earlier the gift appears, the more powerful it will be."
"So, besides healing…?" Taarig asked.
"I can memory walk and block," she told him. "Memory walking is just as it sounds. I can slip into a being’s mind and see what they are remembering." Jamis and Taarig gave her a shocked look. "It was my first gift to manifest, and I've only used it once, and it wasn't with either of you."
"Why?" Taarig asked.
"Why?" she frowned at him.
"Why only the one time?" Taarig clarified.
"Because it felt like a complete invasion of my mom's privacy, and I didn't like what I saw and felt."
"You're saying you not only saw but experienced everything she did as she remembered it?"
"Yes, and I recently learned that the memory wasn't completely accurate."
"And blocking?" Jamis questioned quietly.
"I can block others from entering my mind, reading my thoughts, memory walking, or trying to influence me. That gift manifested right after the memory walking."
"So healing is your newest gift to manifest." Taarig silently thanked the Gods for that because, without that gift, he wouldn’t be here.
"Yes, but I've only had it for the last two hundred years. So, I haven't mastered it. Before meeting you two, I only used it for minor things that no one would notice," Cali said, reaching out to cup each one’s cheek.
Jamis op
ened his mouth to ask another question when there was a knock on the resting chamber door.
"Come in, Xanto," she called out.
"Looks like he's finally learning to knock," Taarig muttered.
"He better, or I'll teach him to," Jamis replied.
"As I said before, I would only do so if the situation was dire, and while this isn't, it's close."
"What now, Xanto," Cali asked.
"Your mother's ship is docking," Xanto told her.
"Just Mom's onboard?" Cali released a sigh of relief at that. Her mom she could handle.
"Yes, your parents were in three different locations when they heard your call."
"We should get to the flight deck and greet her," Jamis said and moved toward the door, then tensed when instead of doing the same, Cali and Xanto exchanged a look. They knew something he didn't, and he could tell he wasn't going to like it. "What?"
"Umm," Cali told him, cringing as she spoke. She'd explained a great deal to her mates, but there was still so much they didn't know, and this was going to enrage both of them. "There's a private landing bay beneath The Brink," she quickly told him.
Silence greeted her words, but she could sense the rage building in Jamis.
"That's impossible," Taarig finally said. "The Star Base's security system locates and identifies every ship within half a light-year of it.
"There are certain Zagreus ships that can get around that," Cali informed him quietly.
"One of which your mother has." Jamis shook his head in disbelief.
"All her parents have them. Cali's mother designed them," Xanto piped in and found himself on the receiving end of three pairs of glowing eyes. Realizing he'd overstepped, he quickly turned to leave, saying on his way out, "I'll just go and escort your mother to your living quarters."
"I swear I would have told you about the landing bay. There just hasn't been enough time."
"Time we don't have now because your parents are arriving," Taarig replied.
"Yes, and I need to go to her and reassure her that I'm okay." She gave them each a beseeching look. "I'd also like to introduce her to my mates."
"Then we'll go do that," Jamis told her, pulling her close. "But after, we're going to have a long, long talk."
"Agreed," she said, and stretching up, she gave him a grateful kiss.
Chapter Twenty-Two
"I don't care what you say, Xanto. If my daughter were fine, she would have met me at my ship!"
Jamis, Taarig, and Cali had just entered her living quarters, where Jamis had gotten his first look at her floor-to-ceiling viewport. Taarig had told him about it but seeing it was still shocking. The anger and concern that filled the female's voice had pulled his attention away from the stars to yet another secret passageway he knew nothing about.
And Jamis was shocked again!
The power emanating from the female's words prepared Jamis for a being just as large. Instead, the female that exploded out of the passageway was tiny. She was even shorter than Cali, who only came up to his chest, but that's where their differences ended. She had the same frame, glowing brown hair, and topaz eyes of their Cali. It made Jamis’s heart skip a beat when he realized he saw what their future offspring with Cali might look like.
"Now, where is she?"
"I'm right here, Mom!" Cali quickly moved across the room and was in her mother's arms.
"Oh, Gods, Cali," Dakota whispered into Cali's hair, having pulled her down into her embrace. "Never do that again," she admonished. "I thought my life span was ending."
"I'm sorry, Mom. So sorry." Jamis was shocked to hear the emotion in Cali's voice. He didn't like it. It tore at his heart. There should never be a reason for his Lalla to cry. "I didn't realize that would happen."
"What did happen?" Dakota pulled back and ran critical eyes over her daughter. She couldn't see any obvious injuries, but there was something different about her daughter. She couldn't tell what.
"I'll tell you, Mom. I promise, but first, there's something more important I need to do."
"More important?!" Dakota demanded. "What could be more important than the reason you howled in distress?"
"Introducing you to my mates." Cali ignored her mom's shocked look. Wrapping an arm around her waist, she turned her so she could see Jamis and Taarig. "Mom, this is Star Base Commander Jamis Dexxirs," she gestured to Jamis, who gave Dakota a slight bow, "and Sub Commander Taarig Ynn," Taarig repeated Jamis’s gesture. "Jamis, Taarig, this is my mother, Dakota Baker-Wik'ax."
Cali was surprised when instead of being excited and congratulating them, her mother stepped out of her arms and slowly moved toward Jamis and Taarig in a predatory way Cali had never witnessed before. What the ruk?!
"Mom?" Cali asked carefully.
Dakota ignored her daughter and continued to advance on the two males, running a critical eye over them. "Are you two the reason my daughter shifted into her primal form?" Dakota's growl was as deadly as Cali's Beast. "The reason she was in such pain she howled for the universe to take her back?"
"That's not what I was doing, Mom!" Cali immediately denied.
"Oh, really?" Dakota turned and raised an eyebrow at her daughter. "Because that's what I heard. What we all heard."
"It was my fault she had to shift," Jamis told Dakota, and her eyes glowed even brighter as they shot back to him.
"And it was because of me that she howled," Taarig said, drawing Dakota's scowl.
"It wasn't the fault of either of you," Cali immediately denied. "It was Nalo's."
Dakota watched as her daughter moved between her and her mates. It revealed the depth of their bond and the lengths Cali would go to protect them, even as she argued with them. Dakota did the same with Caradoc and Paul, but that didn't mean Dakota wasn't going to get the answers she wanted.
"Explain," Dakota demanded, and three heads turned as one, each male putting a hand on Cali's hips to pull her back against them.
"There was a Si male who believed Jamis was responsible for his mate ending her life span," Cali began.
"I was," Jamis said quietly.
"You weren't!" Cali and Taarig said in unison.
"Did you threaten this female?" Dakota asked, her glowing eyes capturing Jamis’s. If that were the type of male her daughter had bonded with, Dakota would end him here and now.
"Of course not," Jamis immediately answered, maintaining eye contact with Cali's mother.
"Her family?" Dakota continued to question.
"No."
"Encourage her to end her life span?"
"No."
"Then I'd say this female was the one responsible for ending her life span," Dakota told him, relaxing slightly. She should have known her daughter was wiser than that.
"Perhaps, but it was the reason he shot Taarig and ejected Cali out an airlock," Jamis told her.
"You were ejected into space?!" Dakota’s gaze shot to Cali.
"That's why I changed into my Beast form," Cali told her.
"And howled," Dakota reminded her.
"No, that was because of me," Taarig corrected.
"You?" Dakota's gaze ran over him.
"His life span…" Cali's voice broke, but she forced herself to continue, "was ending."
Dakota's eye widened in shock. She now understood what had happened and what her daughter was saying because it was the same situation she and Paul had been in when Caradoc had found them. Still as powerful as Caradoc was, he couldn't have saved them if he wasn’t gifted the ability to heal, which could only mean one thing.
"You can heal," Dakota whispered.
"You didn't know?" Taarig frowned down at Cali. "But you said you're healing gift appeared two hundred years ago."
"When you were only a hundred and twenty-five?" Dakota hadn't thought she could be any more shocked or hurt. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"You know why, Mom," Cali told her.
"Wait," Jamis’s order had both mother and daughter glaring at him. "Are you saying you’re thr
ee hundred and twenty-five?" he directed the question to Cali.
"Yes," Cali told him.
"So, you're older than us?!" Jamis had never considered that, especially not when her mother looked more like her sestra.
"Am I?" Cali just shrugged her shoulders. "Age doesn't matter to a Zagreus."
"It seems you've been keeping a great deal from me, California Rose," Dakota pulled her daughter's attention back to her.
"Because I wanted to live my life the way I wanted to live it. Not the way my brothers do, always trying to earn Father's approval. It's why I embraced my Earthan side. It allowed me to grow into the being I wanted to be and choose my own mates."
"Oh, Cali, you can't possibly think…" the rest of Dakota's words were drowned out by an exclamation that had everyone looking toward the passage Dakota had used.
"Where the ruk is my daughter?" another even more powerful voice demanded.
"Paul," Dakota whispered.
Jamis watched as Dakota hurried toward the male just emerging from the passageway. He was tall, not Apre tall, but taller than Cali, which meant he came up to Jamis’s shoulder. His pants and loose shirt covered his arms and protruding stomach. His hair was shades of grey, and he had the facial wrinkles of an elder.
He was the Supreme Chairman of Wik Corp.
"What the ruk?" Taarig muttered, his gaze fixed on the couple. Then before their eyes, the wrinkles, grey hair, and extra weight disappeared and were replaced by smooth skin, glowing black hair, and a muscular body that his shirt's fabric retracted and conformed to. The Supreme Chairman pulled Cali's mother into his arms and kissed the top of her head as his glowing, topaz eyes scanned the rest of the room, coming to rest on the three of them.
"I told you to wait for me," he admonished Dakota.
"I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself, Paul Baker-Wik'ax," Dakota told him, stepping back slightly so she could look up at him.
"You didn't know what you were walking into," Paul argued.
"Which wouldn't have changed if you'd been with me. It just would have made a complicated situation even more so."
"Oh really," Paul raised an eyebrow at his mate.
