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  Beryl cocked her head. “Trouble sleeping in a new bed?”

  “Something like that.” Polly mechanically ate the pancakes and fruit in front of her.

  She could see Loesh’s hand on the table, and it was clenched in a fist. She finished her breakfast as quickly as she could, and then, she put her plate and cutlery in the washer and said, “Call me when it is time to go.”

  She went outside and stretched before heading down the path at a light jog to continue her exploration of the island.

  The island was divided into several small environments that each had their own charm. She paused on a hilltop and looked out over the island; the base was a few kilometres away, but she could see it clearly from her vantage point. She could also see Loesh moving at an astonishing speed toward her.

  Running wasn’t an option, there was no way she could outpace him.

  Loesh ran right up to her and stopped short. “Polly, you don’t seem well this morning.”

  She stared at her toes. “It is just lack of sleep. I will be fine tomorrow. Why are you here?”

  “To correct a mistake.”

  To her surprise, he slid his hand into her hair and lifted her head with a light tug. He didn’t say anything, simply kissed her.

  His fingers in her hair held her head as his tongue slipped inside and teased hers. She tasted the morning caf and the fruit that he had consumed. Her hands went from tightly curled fists to relaxed palms as she held tight to his neck.

  The fabric of his suit was smooth under her fingers and his hair tangled around her fingers.

  His hand finally released her hair and she blinked warily.

  “Are you going to tell me to go look for other guys right now, because I have to say that you are giving me mixed messages?”

  He smiled and stroked her cheek. “No more messages. I think my talking has gotten me into trouble. From now on, actions will speak.”

  She curved her lips in a shy smile. “I do better with action.”

  “I have noticed that. I worked it over and decided that if you choose me, I will accept your decision.”

  “And if I change my mind?”

  “I will try to manipulate you into changing it back.”

  “Manipulate sounds bad.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Seduce?”

  She giggled, “Better.”

  She was pulling him in close for another kiss when her transponder went off in her ear.

  “Polly, can you and Loesh get back here? We have a call.” Beryl’s voice came through loud and clear.

  Polly sighed. “Did you hear that?”

  Respect flared in his eyes for her acknowledgement of his enhanced hearing. “I did.”

  “Then, I suppose we should get back to the base.”

  He scooped her up in his arms and ran down the trail until the trees were a blur.

  Polly closed her eyes until he stopped moving and set her down.

  “You can open your eyes now, Polly.”

  She opened them one at a time, sighing in relief when she took in their surroundings. They were in the larger atmospheric shuttle and she strapped herself in place.

  The other Guardians settled into their seats and they took off.

  The briefing that played on the display was narrated by Beryl and showed a devastating wave approaching a seaside community. When she was done, Toyo continued the briefing.

  “Rand and Nanette are meeting us there. They are going to help build shielding walls to take part of the hit.”

  Polly nodded. “What are we doing?”

  “Evacuation. We need to get as many people up and into the nearby hillside as we can. They have started, but any effort we can make to speed things along will be welcome.”

  Loesh nodded. “How long do we have?”

  “Three hours.”

  Polly bit her lip. “When will we be there?”

  “Twenty minutes; we are travelling at full burn.”

  Polly tried to think of all the things that were possible for her and came up with a number of ideas. She asked Toyo a few pointed questions, and when he looked up the answers, she tried to ignore the fact that lives would depend on her.

  Toyo turned his head. “No offense, Polly, but stick with Loesh. You are new to this kind of situation and need a little practice before you can work solo.”

  She nodded. “Right. What if I need help?”

  “Loesh will call us.”

  Polly wasn’t too pleased with that, but she nodded. She didn’t have experience with natural disasters. She had always lived in places with stable weather.

  She kept herself calm and internalized the energy that started swirling inside her. This wasn’t her normal talent; something was building.

  By the time they reached the community, her hair was standing on end.

  Toyo assigned her to the shoreline and nearby communities with Loesh acting as seeker for those who hadn’t left yet and as her partner.

  A small riot runner was deployed to take them around the community.

  “Come on, Polly. We need to check the beach-front homes.”

  “Didn’t everyone evacuate?”

  “They haven’t all checked in, so we are going in search of them and oust them if they haven’t left yet.”

  She rubbed her hands together. “Fine. I feel a little odd. Do you feel that? There is a tingling pressure in the air.”

  He cocked his head and nodded. “There is something odd, but I thought it was just proximity to you.”

  He settled on the runner and beckoned her to get on behind him.

  She settled and wrapped her arms around him a moment before he took off.

  They moved swiftly through the streets, past the empty homes and the lashing waves.

  Polly wished that she could appreciate the feel of Loesh under her hands, but she was too busy trying to hold in the energy so that their conveyance wouldn’t drop to the ground.

  She felt relief the moment that Loesh found an occupied building. She hopped off the runner and headed to the building with Loesh right behind her.

  “Polly, what is wrong?”

  She gritted her teeth. “I don’t know. I am all powered up, and if I don’t find somewhere to expend this energy, I feel like I am going to fly apart.”

  He put his hand on her shoulder. “Go and expend it; I will speak with the inhabitant and call you if I need you.”

  She swallowed. “I will try.”

  Polly walked to the edge of the beach, and she stared out at the ocean. She prodded at the water with her magnetism, and she managed a shallow shove. Her inner tension released a little, so she put the extra energy into her grasp and she pushed as hard as she could at the incoming waves.

  She watched as the water rose and tumbled back on itself before she gave a final shove that sent a roll of seawater streaking back toward the open ocean.

  Polly fell to her knees and sighed in relief. Whatever had piled up in her nerves had left with that large surge.

  She stood and headed back to Loesh and his conversation with the man who refused to evacuate.

  The moment that the wind took her scent to the muscle-bound jerk, she saw him straighten and his attention was firmly fixed on her.

  “And who might you be, lovely?”

  Loesh crossed his arms and raised his eyebrows at her, encouraging her to speak.

  “I am Guardian Polly. You are?”

  “Tomyos, and you are striking. Where have you been all my life?”

  To Polly’s surprise, he came out of his home and approached her. He was a hulk of a man, wide shoulders, thick neck and glossy white hair that tumbled to the small of his back.

  She leaned back as he leaned in to sniff her. She would have used her grip on his clothing to push him back, but he was only wearing a short wrap around his hips. The wrap was distinctly tented by his erection.

  “Back away, sir. I am not interested.”
/>   “Oh, but you smell like you are. With a little bit of effort on my part, I am sure that we could have a lovely few days.”

  He reached out for her, and she did what she had been trained to; she grabbed his arm, pulled him off balance and kicked his knee out from under him, with one fist to his jaw to stun him while she backed up.

  Loesh grinned. “I don’t think that she wants to spend time with you, Lord Mayor.”

  Polly glared at him. “Stop grinning and grab his ass to haul him out of here.”

  “Can I grab his arm instead?” Loesh was laughing as he hauled the man to his feet and escorted him to his vehicle.

  When the mayor drove toward the evacuation zone, they continued their search for holdouts.

  “You were going to let him grab me?” Polly scowled.

  “You are a Guardian and you must be able to defend yourself against any who would threaten you.”

  “He didn’t threaten me. Well, not really.”

  “Until you select a W’lyn mate, you will be subjected to that kind of attention. Our people operate on scent and you smell like sex.”

  She made a face. “I have heard that.”

  “It is true. You smell like an aroused W’lyn female. Beryl smelled the same when she arrived. Toyo got to her before Rand could and he managed to make a favourable impression on her. It is distracting as hell.”

  She snorted as they walked on, “You seem to be coping.”

  “I am very well trained, but it does affect me as well.”

  She chuckled, checked the estimated time of the wave strike only to find that there was an alert.

  “Can you check in with Toyo? I think something is up.” Polly looked at the screen only to see conflicting times as well as additional alerts.

  He nodded and made a call.

  Loesh and Toyo spoke for a few minutes before he smiled at Polly. “We are ordered to the evacuation site. The city is clear and it seems a cancelling wave is moving toward the original one. We will remain with the population until it is ascertained that the wave is no longer a threat.”

  She nodded. “To the riot runner?”

  “Indeed. I will admit I love it when you wrap your arms around me.”

  Polly smiled, “Just be glad I don’t give in to my impulses and let them wander. It would be dangerous.”

  “I hereby give you encouragement to do whatever comes into your thoughts.” He waggled his eyebrows at her.

  As they returned to the runner and got settled, she grinned; he did a lot of speaking through his eyebrows. Those poor pale blue arches had a lot of communicating to do.

  She flattened her hands against his chest and held him tight as the riot runner lifted off. They had to drive through the town and up into the hills, so she started by slowly moving her hands up his chest and down to his upper thighs before stroking lightly in between his parted knees and up his inner thighs.

  It was an act that required attention to detail. She wanted to get close to his cock without touching it, and when they began to jerk and shimmy, she behaved and placed her hands flat on his abdomen again.

  She was surprised when he took her left hand and guided it back to his inner thigh, but she stroked the fabric of his suit slowly as they approached the evacuation site.

  His muscles were completely tense by the time they landed, and she dismounted from the riot runner easily, heading for the Guardian ship that was acting as a communication centre.

  A woman stood near a man made of metallic colours. Her own skin had the silvery sheen that Polly had come to associate with the Terran transplants.

  “Hello, Rand, Nanette.” Polly smiled brightly.

  Nanette extended her hand and there was definite heat in the grip. “You must be Polly.”

  “Guilty as charged.”

  “I am glad you have come. Now that we have a solid bank of Terrans here, the boys don’t stand a chance.”

  Polly giggled. “I don’t think they stood a chance from the moment Beryl landed.”

  Nanette snickered. “You may be right about that.”

  They entered the ship and stood for the briefing. Something had created the negative wave and it was heading out to sea. With nothing else to do, they were assigned to mingle with citizens and keep them calm.

  Polly stayed next to Loesh while they mingled with the locals. A flicker out of the corner of her eye got her attention, and she turned toward it.

  “What is it?”

  “Do they have small animals around here?”

  “They could have. Why?”

  “I have been seeing something all day; it is flickering just out of my field of vision. It is small and red and looks like an Earth squirrel.”

  “A what?”

  She looked around at the crowd that was staring at the shoreline far below and held her hands out about a foot apart to indicate height. “It is a small rodent about this tall with a bushy tail and red fur.”

  “I haven’t seen anything. Where was it?”

  Loesh’s nostrils were flaring as he tried to find the scent of something that shouldn’t be there. “I can’t sense anything.”

  She looked around and saw a twitch of a furry red tail behind an emergency shelter. “Excuse me.”

  She left Loesh and followed that fluffy tail. Polly passed curious W’lyn males that she glared down, and she continued to stalk the flickering traces of the familiar creature.

  Polly set up a repulsion field around her as she walked to minimise the contact with horny W’lyn males. She didn’t care that she was shorting out immediate digital displays; she wanted to find that squirrel.

  Chapter Seven

  Loesh couldn’t find Polly and it made him excessively uneasy. Her trail led off behind one of the emergency shelters and disappeared into nothing.

  He returned to the makeshift headquarters and asked, “Has anyone seen Polly? She was with me and excused herself for a moment. That was an hour ago and I can’t track her.”

  Drovin looked at him. “What?”

  “You heard me. She was talking about seeing a creature from Earth and then she disappeared.”

  Nanette looked up from one of the geological displays. “What kind of creature?”

  “She called it a skwool? Something like that.” Loesh looked to Nanette for clarification.

  “What did she say it looked like?”

  He described it and she went to the terminal, bringing up an image.

  “Does that look like what she described?”

  Drovin leaned forward and his eyes were wide. “Oh, damn.”

  Loesh blinked, “What? What is it?”

  Drovin sighed and ran his hand over his face. “On our first assignment, she held onto a case, within that case was an experimental intelligence. When we returned that case to the researchers, they discovered a leak, but as the majority of the experiment was contained, they dismissed it as being destroyed in the attack.”

  “I am not sensing anything.” Loesh was tense.

  Drovin nodded. “That is the point. It is undetectable. If she is seeing something from home, her mind is creating the shape and giving it substance.”

  Toyo stood up, “We need to find her.”

  Loesh nodded. “We do. When does the wave strike?”

  Rand pointed to the display. “It doesn’t. Something cancelled the wave out. The origin point was your little spot on the beach where you confronted the Lord Mayor. Nothing was seen on any monitors or displays.”

  Loesh scowled. “That isn’t right. Polly was at the seaside. She stood there for five minutes while I coaxed the mayor to the door.”

  Toyo turned to the coastal monitors, and they could all see the wave of energy move from the shoreline and out to the expanse of the water, but there was no one on the beach.

  “That is impossible, she was there.”

  Drovin nodded, “We know. We will comb the surrounding area and find her, I promise.”
/>   Footsteps behind them made Loesh turn. Polly was standing there with her hands wrapped around something small. She smiled at him. “I caught it!”

  Nanette stared at her. “Caught what?”

  * * * *

  “You seriously can’t see it, can you?” She looked at the adorable squirrel in her hands.

  The Guardians shook their heads.

  “Well, damn.” She put her face close to her captured prize. “What are you?”

  He chirped happily at her and squirmed until he scampered up her shoulder and clutched her hair for balance.

  The faces staring at her saw her hair move, she could see that much. “So, you can’t see him.”

  The Guardians shook their heads.

  Loesh came toward her. “You are completely invisible to my senses right now. I can see you, but I can’t smell you.”

  She reached out to take his hand and her new little buddy ran down her arm and up onto his shoulder, rubbing the blue locks of his hair against the small fluffy face.

  He jerked to one side.

  “So you can see him now?”

  Loesh shook his head. “No, but I feel something. There is a tingling on my shoulder that wasn’t there before. Is my hair moving?”

  Polly grinned. “It is. He is wrapping himself in it.”

  Nanette cleared her throat. “Polly, do you know what it is?”

  “Aside from a squirrel? Nope. I had a pet squirrel growing up and this little guy looks just like Gerald.”

  Nanette chuckled. “Gerald?”

  “He was a serious squirrel; he needed a serious name.” She chuckled. “What happened to the wave?”

  Toyo leaned against the command console. “It was cancelled. Do you know anything about that?”

  Polly looked at the images of the incoming wave as well as the one that seemed to have left from the shore and gone out to meet it. “I remember standing on the shoreline and getting rid of all that pent-up energy. Once it was gone, I felt much better.”

  Drovin cocked his head. “Was the energy an over stimulation of your talent?”

  She shook her head. “No, it was from the outside. It was like wearing a static charge on my skin. The more I walked around, the worse it got. I had to discharge it, so I did.”