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Lucien suddenly jumped with a yelp, releasing Calder. He twisted around and grabbed at the air. Gio appeared, laughing, and kissed both his mates.
“I guess we should get back to it. I’ll have to reorganize all the papers Hale blew everywhere.” Wiley turned and headed through the open French doors.
Harrison looked to the sky one last time to find Hale still flying about, sunlight glinting off his long, blond hair as it blew out behind him, a grin on his nearly transparent face. He acted as though he didn’t have a care in the world, and in this speck of time, he didn’t.
But that was going to change in a couple of days.
Chapter
Five
Hale drew a deep breath, and he swore it made him lighter, carried him higher into the air. He was lighter than oxygen and nitrogen. He was helium.
No, he was hydrogen! Atomic number one. One proton. One neutron. And one wild electron spinning round and round.
Laughing, he soared higher, hundreds of feet above the ground until he could barely make out Calder and Lucien beside the glittering pool. Common sense said he should be afraid of climbing so high, but how could he be afraid of something so wonderful? He was the air, connected to everything.
This strange and unexpected gift enabled him to fly. He’d spent a lifetime staring up at the stars at night, trying to unravel the great how and why questions of existence, and now he felt like he was truly part of it all. It was so humbling.
Get your ass down here.
The voice had been so clear in his brain, he stumbled. Well, stumbled as much as a person could on pure air.
His grasp on his gift faltered and he dropped. Well, he didn’t exactly fall—more like floated lower like a feather on a breeze. But it was enough to pull him out of his reverie and look at the ground again.
You’re too high. Get your ass down here.
The second time was a little clearer. The voice sounded like Grey.
Whoa. The Soul Weaver was actually in his head, speaking directly to his thoughts. Wasn’t that the most interesting thing in the world?
Hale did his best impression of a lazy cat, stretching his entire body while turning to look on the ground. Calder and Lucien were gone. Ruby was stretched out in the sun, and Baer was lying in the grass next to her in his human form again. There was Grey. The man was striding across the backyard, heading toward what the guys had described as the practice field.
Coming, O Great Weaver, Hale thought intensely, not sure if Grey could read the response.
He didn’t hear so much as feel a sense of mocking amusement from the man. Don’t strain your brain.
That was amazing! Now he wanted to get closer to Grey, talk to him, learn about his gift as much as he wanted to learn about his own. Grey had arrived at the house about the same time as Baer and Clay, making them the most experienced with their powers as well as their destiny. He was definitely a good one to talk to.
Tightening his grip on the ball of energy resting just behind his heart, Hale carefully sped up his descent while following Grey to the practice field. The man was dressed in a pair of jeans and a black button-down shirt. His dark hair had been ruffled by the wind while the silver threads caught the sunlight.
With his hands in his pockets, Grey stopped in the middle of the field and waited. Laughing, Hale circled him once and then made a neat landing a few feet away right in front of him. And the second he released his powers, Hale’s knees gave out and he plopped down on the damp grass on his ass. So much for grace and elegance.
Hale glanced up to see Grey watching him, a less-than-impressed expression on his harsh face. The author was a handsome man, but there was a cold hardness to him that seemed to be wiped away only by his mate, Cort.
“Exhausted yourself,” Grey stated. Not a question. A clear statement.
Hale’s grin was lopsided, even his lips too tired to respond to his commands. He hadn’t realized he’d drained himself so completely while he was flying about. But the second he’d let go of the power, everything in him sort of went limp.
“That flying takes more out of me than I’d expected,” Hale admitted. He planted his hands in the dirt on either side of his hips and tried to push himself into a standing position, but he couldn’t have gotten more than an inch off the ground before his arms wobbled and he dropped again. Well, apparently, he wasn’t going anywhere soon.
“You have to be careful in the early going. You need to build up some stamina when it comes to using your powers. They’re more draining than you might expect.”
