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  Beryl was friendly, cheerful, and she chided her son for hauling Yadeel through the sky in her med gown.

  Yadeel made a face. “Yeah. Bad judgment on your part.”

  To her shock, in front of his parents, Toryl slid a hand under her hair, tilted her head up, and kissed her.

  She stared at him when he backed away, and she staggered away from him. Beryl caught her. “Easy, Yadeel.”

  Toryl smiled. “I will see you in the morning, Yadeel.”

  Toyo shook his head and sighed. “Why did that one have to be my firstborn? He is way too cocky.”

  Beryl led Yadeel to the guestroom and got her a nightgown to wear. She waited until Yadeel was in bed before she came over and smiled down at her. “He could do a lot worse than you.”

  Yadeel looked up at her, and she whispered, “But, I am not his type.” Tears welled up, and she started to bawl.

  Beryl lifted her up and held her as the day’s fear and frustration came out.

  She was mortified as the day of keeping herself under control and looking for a solution to her immediate problem suddenly broke loose.

  “Yadeel, how did you get out of the cell they had you in?”

  “I picked the lock. Why?”

  “Did you have a hairpin or something?”

  “No, I got a splinter of metal off the edge of the bars. I used that to pick the lock like Sorryl showed me when I was younger.”

  “Sorryl showed you?”

  “She was fourteen, I was ten. It was on one of our playdates.” She sniffled. “She is really kind.”

  “She found you interesting, or she wouldn’t have played with you. So, you picked the security lock, and then what happened?”

  She told her about the path through the levels and the crack in the wall that led to the footholds.

  “So, you did all of this without a talent?” Beryl looked at her with an amused expression on her face.

  “Uh...” She sat back and pulled her legs up, realizing that she had just been played.

  “Don’t worry about it. More than you have fallen for my easy manner. Let me get you a cloth to clean your face, and then, you can get to sleep.”

  Yadeel stared after the elegant Terran’s back. Sure, Beryl had completed her transformation into a W’lyn, but her attitude was completely that of her point of origin. Yadeel’s father had the same determination.

  When Beryl returned, she handed Yadeel the cloth. “Why didn’t your parents register your talent?”

  “It is dangerous. Since I have Terran Syndrome, if I came out with my talent, I would have to go to the secondary education and training with mixed sexes. My body hadn’t been stabilized yet, so there was no way I was going to be able to exert myself around a lot of strangers.”

  “Ah. Got it. So, what is your talent?”

  “I can see clues.”

  Beryl gave her a stunned look. “What?”

  “I can see clues. I can see what is safe and what isn’t. I can see danger, and I can see points of interest in glowing detail from the world around it.”

  “That sounds fascinating. I want to discuss this further.”

  “You really don’t want me to sleep tonight, do you?” Yadeel sighed.

  Beryl sighed. “Don’t worry about it. What will be, will be. You get some rest. You are terribly pale.”

  She pulled the blankets over her head and waited until the matron guardian had left the room, and then, she took a few deep breaths. Sleep rushed up to her. It was never really far when she needed it.

  The dawn woke her, and she got up and slid on the robe that was draped at the foot of the bed. She walked out the glass doors and stood on the balcony. Yeah, she could see why Toryl had dropped her here. No one in their right mind could get to her up the side of the mountain. The sight of Toryl approaching drove her back inside.

  She closed the doors and then locked them. It was a stupid reflex, but it was hers.

  Beryl came in after a brief knock. “Yadeel, come for breakfast.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “Call me Beryl or Bebe.”

  “Aunt Beryl?”

  “Good enough. Or Auntie. I am good with that as well.” Beryl ushered her into the kitchen where Toyo was making breakfast.

  “Toryl will be here in a few minutes.”

  Yadeel took a seat at the table. “Three minutes.”

  “What?”

  She poured tea for all three of them. “He will be here in three minutes. I saw him on approach.”

  A fourth cup was placed on the table. She sighed and poured for him as well.

  She was into her first stack of pancakes with a paste of roasted insects between them. Gashki wasn’t usually on her preferred diet, but it was fine when you covered it with syrup and spread it on pancakes.

  She ate and ignored Toryl while he greeted his parents. He sighed and said, “Still mad at me?”

  “Can’t talk. Eating.” She continued until she finished her plate, and then, she guzzled down her tea and wondered how she was going to fit more food in. Her body wanted it, but it just couldn’t hold that much.

  He sat and chatted with his parents, but when she got up to put her plate in the cleaner, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her onto his lap.

  She muttered, “Inappropriate.” She sat straight and ignored the fact that he smelled amazing for someone who had already exerted themselves that morning.

  Toyo grinned. “Ah, so he is my son, after all. I had begun to wonder if he was strictly his mother’s child. I would not put it past Beryl.”

  Yadeel tried to get out of Toryl’s lap, and she was pulled back in with a thud.

  Beryl snickered. “Definitely your son. Now, Yadeel, tell me more about your talent.”

  Toryl stiffened under her. “What?”

  “Oh, you didn’t know? Yadeel has a detector talent. She just can’t be around mixed sexes yet. That will be dealt with eventually.” Beryl ate a slice of pancake with a smirk.

  “A detector talent? Why didn’t you go through assessment training?” Toryl murmured it in her ear.

  “I didn’t need to. I was having enough of a problem with pheromone containment without going through physical training.”

  Toyo frowned. “When did they get the containment sorted?”

  “Eight years ago, just before I headed out to school for my teacher training. Now, it is all blown to hell, of course, but that will be dealt with as well.”

  Toyo lifted his tablet. “This says you have a maximum of three months before organ damage begins to occur.”

  She was mildly horrified. “You have my medical records?”

  Toryl chuckled. “They have clearance.”

  She covered her eyes with one hand. “Of course, they do.”

  Beryl smiled. “Your mother has been on calls with me already. I have told her you are safe, and she listed every legal issue that our taking you on could have.”

  “Yeah, Mom is good like that.”

  Beryl grinned. “She made me sign a custody contract, and then, she made me sign a waiver of her responsibility for any havoc you cause in this household.”

  “How much trouble can I get into? I have no job, Toryl is at the guardian base, so he won’t make me flip out, and Toyo is a married male who is firmly linked to his mate.”

  Beryl shrugged. “Give yourself more credit. I am sure that you can go completely insane.”

  Toryl chuckled. “Oh, I have your shots, and we just need to have you monitored twice a day to satisfy the doctors. Oh, Mom, Dad, can I stay with you for a few days?”

  She squawked in shock, and his parents authorized him to stay with them.

  Beryl grinned. “We will get you a tablet, and I believe your personal effects are on the way here. Don’t worry. We will get you up and on your feet before the festival.”

  She groaned. “I am not going to the festival. That is way too many people for me.”

  Tor
yl murmured, “We will discuss it after we get you some clothing.”

  Beryl nodded. “Right. I have some spare suits, and they are adaptable enough that you will be accommodated.”

  The older woman got up and headed into the house. She came back in three minutes, but it was three minutes of silence where Yadeel was perched on Toryl’s thigh like a puppet from Earth.

  Beryl handed her half a dozen bodysuits, and Yadeel thanked her and quickly jumped off Toryl’s lap and returned to the guestroom.

  She got into one of the lightly armoured bodysuits, and then, she twisted her hair into a thick braid before she looped it around and pinned it in place. The bathroom was well supplied.

  She unlocked her balcony doors and stepped out to breathe in the fresh air and enjoy the daylight. When she heard a voice next to her, she nearly jumped into the open air.

  “Well, this is a lovely view, but was there a need to put your hair up?”

  She looked up at him, lounging around against the side of the house as if perching on the stone on the side of a mountain was the most normal thing in the world.

  Her heart was thudding in her chest. “Sneaking up on people isn’t polite.”

  He chuckled and landed on her balcony. “Here is the tablet that my mother promised.”

  She took the tech and sighed. “Thank you.”

  He cocked his head. “What? No kiss?”

  Pushing him off the balcony wasn’t really an option, but it was tempting.

  “No, nothing. I just need to start applying for jobs and check in with the physicians for the timing of the injections.”

  “Five in the evening for the injections, and they are waiting for your information. The pack is on your bed.”

  She looked behind her, and there it was. “You are very creepy when you want to be.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Don’t you have to be off rescuing fresh ladies or something?”

  He grinned. “I am on call. If we get a call, I fly. Fortunately, since the population boom of folks with guardian-level talents, it means that I don’t have to zip all over the globe like my father did.”

  “Oh. Great.” She sighed. “So why are you here?”

  He walked toward her. “I want you.”

  She turned to him, and rage spilled out. “I don’t give a fuck what you want! You have been fucking everything that moved and several things that didn’t for years, and all of W’lyn watched. Go back and play with your toys. I am not interested.”

  She stalked into the house and closed the door, locking it and then continuing to the desk as he stared at her in confusion.

  She couldn’t tell him what the problem was. It was far too humiliating.

  Chapter Five

  Toryl spoke to his mother for a few minutes, and that is when he got the idea to figure things out. He would speak to Yadeel’s mother.

  Ahska Sanderson sat behind her desk, and she looked at him blankly. “You mean you can’t figure it out? Your mother told me that she stated that my daughter is a detector talent.”

  “Yes, madam, she mentioned it.”

  “Did she say how it manifests?” Ahska played with her pen.

  “No. She did not mention it.”

  Ahska sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose the same way Yadeel did when she was formulating something detailed.

  “My daughter can activate an instinct, a secondary vision that helps her see clues, find trapdoors, and find the people who are dangerous and who are safe.”

  “That is handy.”

  “It is. Very. However, she can also see things that are meant for her, and she becomes possessive until they are in her grasp.”

  He frowned. He was starting to figure this out. “So, I have been in her vision in the past.”

  “When she was fourteen. She knew you were meant for her, and you were seen on the news with a starlet. The next month it was an ambassador, the following month, a club owner was clinging to you and whispering in your ear. To sum it up, her heart was broken. In her teenaged mind, if you didn’t want her enough to wait for her, then she didn’t want you, so she has been convincing herself of that for the last twelve years.”

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “That is... shit.”

  “Yes, but when she says that she is not your type, she knows. She has watched each woman who was seen with you, averaged them out, and concluded that she was all wrong. So, she left home because seeing you flitting around was agony.”

  Toryl looked at her. “I didn’t know.”

  “I know. She knows. But she also knows what she looks like and what those elegant women looked like, and she considers herself lacking. It isn’t hard to figure out. You have a type, and she isn’t it.”

  He growled. “I am really tired of hearing that.”

  “Tough. You have to get used to it because it spirals in her mind all day, every day.”

  He grimaced. “She will accept me if we dance at the fire festival.”

  “Optimistic, but she won’t go.”

  “Everybody keeps telling me that as well.”

  Ahska held up her hand. “This is a simple thing. She won’t go because she doesn’t know how to dance. Her condition makes men stare, and she doesn’t want to embarrass herself, so she was never able to learn, and now, she is self-conscious. So, she doesn’t dance and won’t go to the festival.”

  He growled. “I will teach her.”

  “You had better work fast. She doesn’t have an instinct for physical arts. Her talent gets in the way.”

  “I will teach her to dance. I taught her self-defense when she was eight, and she took to it then.”

  “Her talent hadn’t developed then.”

  “Right. Well, thank you for that information.”

  “I will bill you if this doesn’t pan out.”

  His eyes widened, and he bowed to her. “Thank you for your assistance, Madam Sanderson.”

  “Call me Auntie.”

  “Thank you, Auntie.” He paused. “Can you arrange a festival gown for her?”

  “Sure. She hates the ones with no straps, so I had a special outfit made in case she ever changed her mind.”

  He grinned at the mental image. “I look forward to seeing it.”

  “Well, you have three days to get her comfortable with the idea. I wish you luck.”

  The dismissal was obvious, so he bowed again and left his soon-to-be mother-in-law’s office. He was not letting Yadeel out of his grasp now that they were both adults and the timing was right.

  If she had known that he was what she wanted, his living his life as a new guardian would have looked like the ultimate betrayal. She would have kept track of each infidelity, and it would have burned, just as the thought of her turning to anyone else scorched his soul.

  He flew off and tried to figure a way out of the situation that he was in. Using his parents wasn’t going to be fair, but it might be his only recourse.

  * * * *

  Yadeel was in the gym with Beryl when Toryl arrived, and Toyo was on his heels.

  Beryl paused while spotting Yadeel on the bench press, and she said, “What is going on?”

  Toryl picked up the weight with one hand and set it back on the rack. He took her by the hand and pulled her out of the machine. “Right. Family meeting.”

  Yadeel staggered back, and she stepped away from them. “What do you mean?”

  Beryl snorted. “You know how things go on W’lyn, the scent and the blood lead the way.”

  Toryl waved that off. “Yadeel, when did you know that I was right for you?”

  She had a sinking feeling in her stomach. “Who did you talk to?”

  “When did you know?”

  She looked at the three pairs of eyes staring at her. “I don’t think this is the right time for this?”

  Beryl smiled. “How long have you known? Was it your talent? Did it actually show you that Toryl was suited for you? How
did that manifest?”

  She winced and stepped away, turned around. “Sorryl’s graduation party. I was talking with Auntie Wren and looked over, and you had started glowing white with a green tinge. It was the same glow that I looked for on buffets for things that wouldn’t set off my allergies.”

  Beryl blinked. “That was twelve years ago.”

  Yadeel nodded. “I am aware of that.”

  Toyo snorted. “And he was sleeping with anyone who would have him in those days.”

  Yadeel nodded. “Correct. So, it was best for me to leave as soon as my schooling was done.”

  Beryl walked over and put her arm around Yadeel. “That must have been infuriating.”

  Yadeel chuckled. “It was, but I wasn’t an adult, and beating him to death with a chair wasn’t in the cards because... you know. So, the dark continent was as far away as I could go with restricted tabloid information. It helped.”

  Toyo smiled. “I am surprised you were content to wait.”

  Yadeel looked at him, and he stepped back. “It was quite clear that I. Wasn’t. His. Type.”

  There was a green glow in the room, and Yadeel inhaled and exhaled with her eyes closed. When she opened them, the three guardians were staring at her in surprise.

  Beryl was smiling. “Did you get angry just now?”

  Yadeel nodded. “A little bit. Why?”

  Toryl spoke with a strangled tone. “You burned through your suppressor.”

  She grimaced. “Shit. Please excuse me.”

  She tried to leave, but Beryl had a grip on her. “I saw the med report. You aren’t going to be using that injector unless you can give me one reason for it.”

  Yadeel looked at Beryl. “So that your son stops looking at me like I am edible.”

  Toryl took a shallow breath, and he smiled brightly. “Is that better?”

  She looked at him, and he had banked the heat. Beryl let her go, and she stalked up to him. “Really?”

  His muscles jumped as her scent hit him at close quarters. She walked around him as his body twitched like he was experiencing low-level electrocution.

  An alarm sounded, and he exhaled in relief. “Right. A mission. See you soon, Yadeel.”