The Arrival (Birthright Trilogy #1) (50 page)

A nagging need to use the bathroom woke Sian, and she slipped out of bed, wincing at the pain in her calves.

Ouch. Guess I haven’t worn heels for a while.
She snuck through the room. Climbing back into her nice warm bed and knowing that today was their free day was fantastic. She stretched out to try and relieve some of the tightness in her legs. Last night had been so enjoyable. She ran through the evening in her mind. Daron had led her through nearly every dance and at the end of the evening they’d enjoyed a walk on the inner gate. It had been very romantic.

Mmm and he is such a good kisser.
She giggled to herself then rolled over.

'Guys wake up!'

Ehhh.

'What?' I groaned.

Why is Sian bugging us? It’s our free day.

'Where’s Kassie?' Sian sounded panicked.

'What’dya mean?' mumbled Loi as she pushed herself up and looked about with bleary eyes.

'Where’s Kassie? Her bed hasn’t been touched.'

Struggling to sit up, I stopped and took a moment to untangle myself, then twisted to look. Sure enough Kass’s bed was neat and tidy, not a pillow out of place. As I started to answer one of the doors to our suite opened and a rather rumpled Kassie walked in.

'Kassandra Boyd. Where the hell have you been?'

Kassie stopped short in the room and gave Sian a look.

Last time I checked I was still the oldest of the group, she thought and ignored them as she headed to the shower. When she came out, a good twenty minutes later, they still hadn’t budged from their beds. The sensation of three sets of eyes watching her was unnerving. She found the long tunic she used as a nightie then climbed into bed. There was a long pause, then three heavy thuds as the others landed on her bed.

'Kassie,' squealed Cat. 'Where were you? Whatcha been doing?'

'We’ll tickle it out of you,' threatened Loi.

Kassie pulled the covers down from her face and gave them all a stern look which then dissolved into a very naughty one.

After a long and pointless attempt to get any more information out of Kass, we gave up, and instead got ready and headed to breakfast. Ms. Kassie snored away as we left the room. We gossiped as we walked the corridors.

'I can’t believe she was out all night.' Loi couldn’t seem to decide if it was scandalizing or not.

I chuckled, 'Well she looked like she had fun.'

Sian snorted. Loi and I exchanged an amused glance; Sian was the prude of our group.

Then she giggled, 'Did you see her neck?'

'No!'

'I missed that!'

Rumal watched the doors to the Great Hall experiencing a bizarre sense of anxiety. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt like this. The sound of the girls voices at the doors had him tensing as he watched them enter.

Kassie isn’t with them, he realized with a pang. He stood to greet them as the other men did, and was surprised when the three girls stopped in front of him.

'Rumal, you look so tired,' Sian had a look of concern on her face that didn’t match the mocking tone of her voice. The other two gave him cheeky smiles.

'Ahh, where’s Kassie?'

'You know, that’s exactly what I said when I discovered her bed, un-slept in, this morning.'

There was a long pause as he considered his options.

'So she’s in bed now?'

'Yup. Seems she’s pretty tired too,' Cat grinned.

'Well then, if you’ll excuse me I’ll arrange to have breakfast delivered to her.'

The girls chuckled as Rumal hurried out the room.

'I think that’s the closest I’ve seen Rumal come to blushing,' Daron glanced at Sian. 'What was that all about?'

'Nothing much. Just Kassie pulling an all-nighter,' Sian slipped into the seat beside him. Daron gave her a shocked look.

'Indeed. Didn’t you notice the extra company in your quarters?'

'No. Rumal didn’t sleep in our quarters last night.'

'Oooooohh,' Loi and Cat chorused teasingly.

After breakfast everyone split up. Daron and Sian headed to the library. Loi and Sabyn went to take their horses out for a ride, and Rumal and Kassie were, of course, rather absent. Which just left Alek and I wandering down the corridor.

'Did you want to do anything in particular?'

I pondered ideas as we walked past the ballroom.

'Can we visit Loushka?'

An hour or so later we were walking in the forest of the Scrodian Mountains. Alek took great delight in showing me different things. I’d marveled over tiny, jewel colored dragonflies with wings like leaves, and now clutched the stems of a delicate green colored flower. Its scent was very much like jasmine, my favorite flower on Earth. I twisted it into the plait in my hair, so to enjoy the fragrance as we explored. Loushka had flown off to the high peaks, so it was just the two of us.

Alek watched as she examined things, it was interesting to see what caught her attention. Being so close to her, with no one in the immediate proximity, felt almost reckless. When she turned back to ask him something about the beetle she’d found, he reached out to pull her close and was pleased when she started to glow. It was an easy way to tell how she felt, until she learned to conceal it. Every day the girls developed more skill with handling their energy, but until then he was going to enjoy watching her visual barometer. She made some pathetic attempts at protesting when he wrapped an arm around her and tipped her chin up.

Alek chuckled at me when I objected. Curse my silly energy reaction. He seemed to recognize the different shades now and while I wasn’t about to admit it to him, at least not verbally, I was quite ready to throw my ‘go slow’ oath away.

Heck might as well try before you buy,
thought my rational voice in a teasing tone.

Mmmm, now that’s a good thought.
My energy flared out brighter as he kissed me.

Elena had a surprise for them when they arrived at the training circle the next day.

'Today we are going to practice attacking and defending. On each other.'

The girls froze and stared at Elena with alarmed expressions.

'Isn’t that dangerous?' Loi asked dubiously.

'Only if you do not defend yourselves.' Elena replied, somewhat smug. Then she chuckled, 'I don’t think you will be able to do any damage to each other as you’ll be hesitating. But you’ll get over that, and by then be prepared to attack and defend yourselves adequately. It’s the best way to learn, probably not unlike your Jujitsu.' They kept up their dubious expressions.

'And I can heal any injuries you have,' she smiled brightly at them. 'So you will be fine.'

What she didn’t mention was that she could heal our injuries
once we were back at the castle
. There was a bit of preparation involved, you see. Nothing makes the flight back to the castle seem eons longer than it is than a decent injury. And if you happened to cause it, you got to spend the ride back feeling like an utter bully.

'I’m so sorry.'

It was the eighth time I’d said that.

'Seriously, Cat, shut-up. This is part in parcel of the training and I get that, but right now my back is really stinging and I’d love to hurt you. So shut-up.'

I flinched at her tone. Elena had split us into teams, and Loi and I faced off against Sian and Kassie. We’d won, thanks to Loi’s clever idea to create a tunnel through the ground through which I’d then directed a hard stream of fire. And singed a good layer of skin off Sian’s back. I’d say it was payback for her nearly drowning us, but a burn like that is pretty vicious. The look Daron shot me, when he helped Sian down, was cold. All the guys had issues with this, even though it was the third session of the week. Only two days until our rest day. I was looking forward to it.

So far this week I’d had my feet broken by Loi when she buried my legs, not realizing that area contained mainly rocks. Kassie had electrocuted us when she pulled in a storm with Sian’s help. The look on Alek and Sabyn’s faces when they saw our hair that evening had been classic. Loi had broken her leg when Kass dropped her from a decent height, and otherwise, we’d all received numerous cuts, bruises, scrapes and burns. It easily proved Elena’s healing gift, but you weren’t sure whether to be grateful or not.

Grateful, because it didn’t hurt anymore and you were fine, not so grateful as it meant the following day was physical training. Then there was the other kicker we’d discovered through injuring one another. We can sense each others pain through our gift. Being Elementals means we really are linked to an extent, so that too, made the ride back feel long.

Elena’s healing touch was fascinating, and we crowded around to watch. It was bizarre to see skin heal before your eyes, and to feel the stinging sensation we all felt, thanks to our link, vanish at the same time. Sian relaxed straight away and we settled down to dinner in our room. It had become a habit after our Elemental training, as we were too tired to dress for the Great Hall.

Yakov, Elena, and the men joined us, making them enjoyable evenings.

'What did Sian do?' Yakov deadpanned after seeing her back.

Everyone laughed as I blushed and apologized again.

Dinner flew by and it seemed far too soon that Alek kissed me goodbye. I kept my arms locked around his neck as I grumbled, 'I don’t want to go to sleep. ‘Cause tomorrows not the rest day and I’m tired.'

'Awww, Kitten,' he teased, chuckling when I narrowed my eyes at him.

Kitten had never been a pet name I’d envisioned for myself.

'But we get to practice sword fighting tomorrow and then you girls get to annoy Iggy in the afternoon.'

That’s true. Iggy had been trying to best one of us ever since Kassie’s demonstration with him. He had yet to win.

Cat pouted at his words but they appeared to appease her a little. At the mention of Iggy a smile had tugged at her mouth.

Actually I think it's Cat’s turn tomorrow, can’t wait to see her kick his ass.
He wrapped his arms tighter around her waist, savoring the kiss, until Loi started to tease them.

I threw a pillow at Loi when I got to my bed. 'Thanks a lot.'

'Some of us want to sleep, Cat, you two could have been at it all night.'