all the love she’d poured onto her father over the years had bounced off him and come back to her and she had this great store.
Getting up, she found her clothes washed and folded on a chest at the end of the bed and just stared at them. Someone had been in her rooms? Who had the key?
Surely it would only have been Alexa or Marian checking on her. Still, the sooner she had her own rooms and key, the better. Next to her things was a stack of underwear. In her size. Must be magic, there, too—she touched her old clothes, noticing the texture of denim and cotton. Alien to this world.
She turned, staggered back at the sight of a small neon-blue volaran hovering near the corner of one of the bed’s foot posts. The animal was only about a foot long.
She pressed a hand against her pounding heart. “My God, you startled me!” She knew this…person. The energy of the being was familiar. There was her sixth sense again and she disliked how much she was depending upon it.
I am Sinafinal, the feycoocu.
Of course she was. Staring at the creature, she realized she’d seen it before. As a hawk. As the cat. Calli sat on the chest.
You are not crazy. You are on Lladrana. You should go through the Choosing and Bonding ceremony.
“And I should listen to you, too, huh?”
Yes. The volaran loop-de-looped a couple of times, leaving a bright blue trail behind her.
“Why—”
You should stay here on Lladrana. Here you will have a love of your own, children, land, a home.
“Guaranteed?” Calli infused great sarcasm into the word.
Sinafinal fluttered up to within six inches of Calli’s eyes and hung there. Yes, guaranteed.
Calli’s stomach clutched.
Everyone wants to be loved. Why do you see your big heart as being a fault?
Because Dad never valued love? This introspection was getting too damn intense. She didn’t like it. She preferred action.
By this time tomorrow night you will be sharing a big bed with a lover, a man drawn particularly to you.
“Uhn.” That idea was so good it hurt. Made Calli’s chest ache.
When you both awake the next morning, you will choose your land. You will have enough zhiv from the land and an annuity as an Exotique that you will never want for any material thing for the rest of your life. Enough to build the perfect stables and training grounds for horses and volarans.
The little volaran was sure spinning a sweet story.
In three weeks you will have adopted a child.
Calli flopped back, banged her head on the wooden footboard behind her. “Ouch! Dammit all!”
Sinafinal zoomed over and perched on her head, Calli could feel four little hooves, and goose bumps covered her body. With two flaps of the magical being’s wings, Calli’s headache was gone. Oh, boy. She rubbed the back of her head anyway. “Why are you being so insistent about this?”
Because without you, the volarans will not bond as much as needed with humans. They won’t be ready for the great, final fight.
Calli swallowed. “Who won’t be ready? What final fight?”
There will be much more loss of life.
“I don’t want to hear this.”
That’s why I am telling you.
I don’t want to believe you. Though she hadn’t said the words aloud, the feycoocu answered her anyway.
I know.
“Hell.”
The neon-blue volaran examined one of her wingtips. If you do not believe me and do not continue with the Choosing and Bonding ritual, I will convince everyone that you should consult the Singer for a Song Quest. Perhaps a strong vision direct from the Song will be powerful enough to convince you of your worth here.
Ooooh. Zinged several hot buttons all right. “Damned if I do, damned if I don’t,” Calli muttered. “This had better be a dream.”
It isn’t. You will awake here. The little blue volaran’s muzzle stretched in an unnatural smile.
“Go away. I’m planning on waking up in my own bed on the Rocking Bar T.” But it sounded weaker and weaker to her.
Sinafinal circled the room. All the Exotiques will have companions. Alexa has me. Marian has Tuckerinal. You have Thunder.
Calli snorted. “Sidekicks. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m going to bed. I hope not to see you in my dreams.”
Sinafinal dipped a wing and flew through a closed window into the night.
Calli looked out at the darkness below—no lights. She looked at the moon and star-bright sky. Not Earth’s sky, not even from the southern hemisphere, too many stars for that. She shrugged. When she woke she’d either be home or not. If she was here, the day would be packed with fateful events from the moment she opened her eyes.
9
Calli woke and stretched luxuriously. The bed was wonderful, too bad she was alone in it. She must be treating herself to a good hotel near the next competition…everything rushed back.
She was in Lladrana. Or at least she wasn’t in her own bed back at the ranch. What was written in those old-time black-and-white movies? “Meanwhile, back at the ranch…” A hollow laugh rasped from her. What little peace she’d felt when she woke up vanished.
But there were compensations. She walked from the bedroom to the den where she could see the Landing Field. A couple of volarans and riders were already out, lifting their wings and soaring. Her breath caught at the beauty.
That could be her…flying into the dawn. She watched until they diminished into specks and she became aware of standing naked in a strangely furnished den—with books and scrolls in an alphabet she couldn’t read.
Her breath came in short bursts and she felt the way she did just before a race, scared and excited and determined. She’d get through this day and the one after that…Back in the bedroom, she dressed near the windows. The only person who’d see her would be riding volaran-back and she’d see them first.
Lladrana. Fabulous flying horses. Horrible monsters. Nobody had talked much about the monsters she’d be expected to fight. Trying to keep the really bad downside of this life low key. Her stomach clenched. As if they could. As if she hadn’t seen wisps of them in Alexa’s mind, in Bastien’s and Jaquar’s and in Marian’s—a man with tentacles on his face reeking of evil power. Yeah, she had inklings. Enough that it made her pace, unready to open the door and explore on her own. Silly, but with a day full of such strange and magical experiences as the day before, she intended to be cautious.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch…what would her dad be doing? Thinking she’d run somewhere, no doubt.
