Beauty's Beast

by Jenna Kernan

  “My sister and I are the first of the Ghostlings to be adopted by my parents. My father found my sister and me in a Dumpster on Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco. I was naked, afraid and starving.”

  She wanted to ask why none of their mothers survived, but that would imply an interest.

  “He brought us here and gave us clothing, food, a home and a purpose.” He met her eye. “To protect the Balance and to protect Mankind.”

  She cocked her head. His adoptive parents had combined each of their purposes. Bess, a Skinwalker, protected the Balance of Nature. Her husband, a Spirit Child, was charged with the care of all Mankind.

  “But the two aims often run in opposition.”

  “True.”

  “Is that your purpose?”

  “I accept the need to protect men and the need to guard nature. But I do not know if it is my purpose.”

  She sensed the honesty of his answer, and that surprised her. It would perhaps have been wiser to lie. She started to tell him that she knew her purpose, but that she had never been able to use her abilities because of Nagi. In the end she said nothing about that and instead asked another question.

  “So they adopted you?”

  “Yes. All of us. They teach us in that school.” He pointed to the building to the right. “My sister, Aldara, is very good at finding newborns and bringing them here. Our parents have never turned away a set of twins.”

  “What happened to your real mother?”

  He glanced away, hoping to hide the rush of shame. “Died giving birth. She was human. I don’t remember her.” He cleared his throat, but the emotion lodged there like a chicken bone. “We have forty-eight twins now, but six are under one year.”

  Her eyes rounded at the number.

  “Why are there so many orphans?”

  He held her gaze even as the guilt consumed him like a forest fire. “All humans die giving birth to my kind.”

  She gasped. “All?”

  He nodded and dropped his gaze to his folded hands.

  She could see the anguish on his face. His eyes pinched shut. All traces of the calm self-assurance vanished, and she felt that she was seeing him for the first time. The rawness of his pain stirred an ache deep inside her. She had believed that his handsome veneer was a mask. Now she wondered if his confident air was a facade, as well.

  His birth caused his mother’s death. What a terrible burden to bear. This was too awful to be a lie. Her instincts told her that his words were true and his pain genuine. She did not know whom she felt most sorry for, Alon, never knowing his birth mother, or the humans, used by Nagi and discarded like old wrapping paper.

  She didn’t remember crossing to him or sitting next to him, but there she was at his side, taking one of his hands in both of hers. Suddenly the grief drenched her until she swam in it like a river. He glanced up at her now, the pain still glittering like shards of glass in his pale eyes.

  “I’m sorry for your loss, Alon.”

  “I didn’t know her,” he whispered.

  “That only makes it a greater loss.”

  He nodded and his Adam’s apple bobbed. Why had she assumed that he was incapable of feeling pain? He wasn’t. He was a Halfling like her, and that meant he was half human.

  The other half was Nagi. She slipped her hands back to her own lap. He let her go but stared at her hand as he struggled to gain control of his ragged breathing.

  “My parents know Nagi is hunting us. They are trying to find a safe place for our family. I wanted to accompany them, to protect them, but she bade me to protect the young ones. They cannot yet reason and do not understand the need to flee. But there have been ghosts here, scouts of Nagi. I know he will find us sooner or later. We must be gone before he comes for us.”

  She reached for him again and checked herself. “Protect them? How does one protect against an immortal?”

  “We have had this discussion many times. I do not know how to stop him, but I can stop his ghosts and I can stop the Ghostlings who have joined him.”

  His own siblings, she realized, half brothers and half sisters. She shuddered. He caught her physical display of aversion and narrowed his eyes on her.

  “I would prefer to fight than run.”

  “Just the opposite of me.”

  “You are a good runner. But it is not your nature.”

  She threw up her arms, flapping them uselessly at her sides. “Oh, you’re wrong. I’ve been running my entire life. Hiding, pretending I have no powers.” She stared at him, feeling a connection that was not there before. “All I want in this world is to use my powers to protect the Balance and keep men safe from Nagi. Do you know what it is like to have the powers to help, to save lives, and never be able to use them? I want my family safe, but sometimes...”

  There was that protective wall again. What had she been about to say?

  “Sometimes?”

  She cradled her forehead in her hands. “It’s not me. I want to be useful, but I also need my family safe. I just wish I could figure out a way to do both.”

  Alon stared at the woman at his side. This conversing was difficult, like a dance they had been taught. Two steps forward, two steps back and swing. Still he felt more comfortable with Samantha than he did with any other except his twin. Why was that?

  Certainly he had never told a living soul what he had shared with her. She had the power to use that information to hurt him. Did she realize the risk he had taken to earn her trust? If it helped him protect her, it would be worth the hazard of laying himself bare before her.

  “I have the opposite trouble. I want to find a place where I won’t ever need to use my powers. I do not wish to steal away souls.”

  She wondered if that was why he had said he wanted to be left alone.

  “You are lucky to have a gift that is of some benefit. Mine is a curse.”

  “But you can return souls to the body. That’s positive.”

  He made a sound that seemed a growl. “Rarely. When a soul escapes it is because the body can no longer hold it. It seeps away like rain into sand. I put it back and it only bleeds away again.” He turned his gaze on her, and the look was one of exquisite sorrow. “I would need someone who could heal the body before I could return the soul.”

  She looked quickly away. He was right. With her healing skills and his ability to retrieve a soul, they could save many who would otherwise be lost. The prospect both terrified and thrilled.

  Was it right to save one whose soul had already begun its journey to the Way of Souls? She didn’t know.

  “I fear the day Nagi finds us. But even more I fear leaving the Gamma Pack behind.”

  “Because they would die without you?”

  He lifted his face to the night sky as if choosing his words with care. At last he spoke. “We can survive without any assistance from birth. I am not afraid for them. I am afraid of them. Without guidance they could easily join Nagi, and then I would have to kill them.”

  “He would take newborns?”

  “Yes.” He scrubbed his palms over his cheeks as if the topic exhausted him. “It is one of the reasons my mother asked my sister and me to stay behind. If we are not found within the first year it is much more difficult to civilize us. Any we have not found will likely join Nagi. They will become like the ones who attacked your family. A new deadly race.”

  Instead of the fury she expected, she felt sorrow. These infants were born with no one to protect them or raise them. Only Bess Suncatcher and Cesar Garza gave a damn about them.

  She sat up straight and stared at Alon as she felt the sensation of icy fingers creeping over her skin. He had done it. Somehow in the course of a simple conversation he had made her feel sorry for those hideous monsters that had attacked her family.

  At last she said, “Your parents are very wise.”

  Chapter 6

  Alon sat beside Samantha on the bench.

  A quarter-moon crept over the tall trees, the silvery beams pouring bet
ween the mighty trunks. It was not enough to illuminate the dark places on the forest floor.

  All that he had told her had made a difference. She still saw the Ghostlings as enemy, but now she also saw them as something more than feral, evil interlopers. Could they also be victims of Nagi’s reckless need to control the Living World?

  She didn’t like to think of them that way. It would make it harder to kill them when the time came, and she would need to kill them when the fighting began.

  Samantha glanced at Alon. Which side would he take—that of his adoptive parents or that of his real father?

  She rose and walked to the rail of the balcony. The chorus of peepers filled the air and leather-winged bats darted through moonbeams in pursuit of their next meal.

  He followed her, standing close enough so she could detect his presence, but not so close that she could feel his heat. Her aura flared at his proximity, shining violet and cinnamon. She did not think he could see auras, for he never glanced to the place where one would find them.

  His fair hair seemed to glow as pale as spun silver in the moonlight. She glanced toward him and then forced her gaze away and then finally gave up the battle and turned so her hip rested against the rail and her eyes rested on him.

  The disturbance he caused her had changed from fear to something more troubling. Now she felt him on her skin like the wind before a storm. She breathed in his scent and found herself hungry for more. He was invading her senses as surely as his kind had invaded her world.

  She wouldn’t have it. She would not be controlled like a human possessed by some evil ghost. Her heart went cold. Was that what he was doing, some sort of possession? Samantha gripped the rail until her fingers ached.

  The dampness of her skin and the heat of her face worried her. She met his steady gaze, refusing to be the first to look away, knowing the wise thing was to break this spell.

  Alon moved closer and Samantha resisted the urge to step back. Why was she always running?

  “It’s late,” she said, or she’d meant to say it. Instead her words were a low, hushed murmur, as if she feared to wake some sleeping tiger between them.

  Alon was more dangerous than all that. She knew it. He was the stronger and he compelled her in some way that she did not understand. He made her breathless with only a look, and she wanted to touch the intriguing planes of his cheeks. But that was only one of his faces, she reminded herself.

  Instead she pressed back to the rail, holding on with both hands as her control thinned until she feared a single breath might break it. She looked away. It wasn’t a retreat, exactly, just a moment without looking into his blue eyes. Her attention fixed on the false security of the bedroom she had chosen on the second floor. Poised between the unfamiliar woods and the unfamiliar home, she felt lost.

  She turned again to Alon and found him a step closer. She never heard him move. Her skin prickled a warning. He reached, and she leaned away in a halfhearted effort to evade. A moment later he had captured her just above the elbows. Her gauzy shirt did not cover her arms, and she felt the heat of his hands on her bare skin. His earthy scent intoxicated. She rolled her weight to the balls of her feet, knowing she appeared too eager but unable to hold herself back.

  Dangerous and alluring all at once, she decided.

  “I have to go,” he said.

  She nodded, wanting him to go and wanting him to pull her near. The urge to press herself to him beat in her with the rapid pounding of her pulse. “Stay in the house,” he ordered. His voice, now low and full of a gravely tenor, vibrated through her deliciously.

  She shivered and pressed closer.

  Alon glanced toward the bedroom above, glowing now with the soft artificial light she’d left on. She followed his gaze.

  “Is that the room you have selected?”

  She nodded.

  “Interesting that of all the rooms in this house, you have chosen the one that I once occupied.”

  His room? She had picked his bedroom.

  Samantha couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t swallow.

  She’d be sleeping in Alon’s bed.

  “You’ll be safe here. My siblings know not to come into the house. Stay indoors until I come for you.”

  She wanted to tell him that she did not have to obey his orders. Instead she nodded her consent.

  “How long?”

  “Until morning.”

  He lifted a hand and stroked her head, running long pale fingers down her shoulder. When he reached the middle of her lower back, he eased her forward until their bodies met at the hip.

  “Then you’ll bring me to your mother?” she asked.

  Alon did not answer. Instead he held her with one hand while the other gripped the rail, as if he needed it to stay upright.

  “Will you?” she asked.

  “Once I know where to find her, yes.”

  She reached for him now, eager to put her hands about his neck, angling her mouth to meet his. But he captured both her wrists, staying them for a moment until she realized what she was doing and had time to reconsider.

  “Don’t, Samantha. I’m not this face or this form. I have three shapes. This one is a lie. Think. Remember what I am.”

  Then he let her go.

  What was she doing? This was no friend and certainly no lover. Alon was a Toe Tagger. The fact that she’d forgotten, even for an instant, only emphasized just how dangerous he was.

  He nodded his approval. “Now go in the house and stay there.”

  She backed toward the French doors, wanting to run and wanting to object all at the same time. He was treating her like a child, treating her just as her parents had done. She didn’t like it. Samantha’s shoulders sagged as she realized she was still acting like a child.

  When she bumped the glass, she fumbled for the handle. Samantha gripped it as she looked to Alon, but he was gone and all that remained was a pile of discarded clothing. How had he vanished like that?

  She made it inside and locked the door, knowing the ridiculousness of that as a method to keep Alon out. If he chose, he could break any lock more easily than she could.

  It was a long time before she left the window, before her heart returned to a normal rate, before her skin lost its tingle.

  Samantha made her way upstairs and prepared for bed as if this was any normal night, but nothing was normal. She checked her email again and discovered that her mother had arrived safely in New York and had already met with the chief of the Northeastern Council. Blake’s second email said that Chien’s father-in-law, a Peacemaker, would bring him to meet the chief of the Northwestern Council in Spokane, Washington, tomorrow. There was still no word from her dad. But Nicholas Chien was tracking him. That gave her reason for hope.

  Samantha slept restlessly. She woke with a start to find the room bathed in sunlight and Alon standing at the foot of her bed. Or was it his bed?

  She startled up and back, hitting her head on the wooden headboard.

  “Are you trying to scare me to death?”

  “I just have that effect on people.”

  “I’m not people.”

  “Right.” He lifted a mug. “Coffee?”

  She extended her hand in acceptance, using the other to cover herself. She had fashioned her cloak into a cotton shift on the chance that something like this might happen, but it was short and sleeveless and Alon had a way of making her feel exposed even when she was fully dressed.

  Alon backed away and Samantha took a sip. The coffee was black and sweet.

  “How did you know I take sugar?” she asked.

  “I could smell it in the mug you used downstairs.”

  “I washed that mug.”

  He shrugged. He was more handsome today than she remembered. The dove-gray shirt and darker gray trousers made his eyes seem bluer than she recalled.

  “How long have you been standing there?”

  “Only a moment, unfortunately.”

  She drew up her knees and used both hands
to embrace the mug. Should she order him out or ask him to sit?

  “You should have knocked.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s impolite to enter a woman’s room without permission.”

  “It’s my room and you are not a woman.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “But I am still your guest. Or am I a prisoner?”

  “I have no hold on you. I only try to keep you safe out of respect for my mother. But you interfere with my work.”

  She leaned back against the headboard, took another sip of coffee and then cradled the mug between her hands.

  “But you’d rather be left alone?”

  “Yes. It would have been better for me and for you if the Great Birds had not carried you to me.”

  On that, at least, they agreed.

  “How did you disappear like that last night?”

  “My second form is a kind of vapor that resembles smoke or mist.”

  He could turn into smoke? “Is that how you caught me in the forest?”

  “Yes, but I could have run you down.”

  “You said second form. How many do you have?”

  “Three. The one that you saw at your home, the vapor and this.” He waved a hand over the front of his body. “Our final form.”

  He rubbed the back of his neck and glanced toward the balcony as if planning his escape.

  “I heard from my mother,” she said.

  “Is she well?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you have not heard from your father, the great bear. And so you are worried.” Alon looked away.

  She knew what he thought. But he was wrong. Her dad wasn’t dead. He couldn’t be.

  “When can we go find Bess?”

  “Perhaps tomorrow.”

  She slammed the mug on the side table, threw back the covers and slipped from the bed. Only when she noted him staring at her legs did she remember she was not well dressed for a fight. Or perhaps she was perfectly dressed. He was obviously distracted.

  “I can’t sit around the house doing nothing.”

  “I have already written to my mother of your arrival. She has yet to reply.”

  “Tell me which way she went and I’ll find her myself.”