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Clever bastard.
He had a point, though.
“Ari. Short for January.” I didn’t know why I tagged on that last part. He didn’t need to know my full name. There was a reason I didn’t go by it.
“January,” he murmured, as if trying to get himself used to the name, which was a word they probably didn’t have in whatever his language was. I had been able to understand them since they first appeared on Earth, which I was chalking up to whatever magic they had that could connect our two worlds, even if it only worked on Winter Solstice like they claimed.
“Do you have a name?” I asked. Maybe the question was rude, but they were a different kind of creature than I was.
“All living things have names in Vevol.” He sounded amused by my question, rather than insulted, which was good. “Names have power here.”
Names had some kind of power, and I’d just given him mine without a damn thought about it.
Fantastic.
“You’d better give me your fucking name then,” I huffed at him.
He chuckled. “Calian.”
“Cal-ee-in,” I sounded it out, testing the unfamiliar word.
“Mmhm.” His murmur sounded a bit different, but I couldn’t pinpoint how or what about it seemed that way. “Don’t give anyone else your full name, whether male or female. Should they learn it from someone other than you, it won’t harm you. But if you give it to them yourself, you give them power to call on you. Your full name should only leave your lips the first time you give it to your mate.”
Power towhat?
“That’s absolutely fucking insane,” I told him, panting a little thanks to the pace I was pushing myself to keep.
There was no way Calian was his whole name. He clearly didn’t want me to be his mate, so he wouldn’t have given me a way to call on him, whatever that really meant.
Asshole.
“We’re here. Slow down, before you—”
I slammed into something really fucking hard, and really fucking invisible, before I could slow down.
Curses flew from my lips as I crashed to the ground, my face aching from collision. My nose was throbbing, but my eyes weren’t watering and I didn’t feel any blood dripping from it at least.
“Damn you,” I groaned at Calian, peeling myself off the dirt. He was kneeling beside me, a hint of a smirk on his lips as he offered me a hand.
I took it, swearing and jumping back when he shocked me again, like he had the first time we touched. “What the hell was that?” I grumbled at him, shaking my hand out and taking a couple of steps away from the guy.
He was doing his stupidly-attractive half-smirk thing again as he turned toward the invisible wall, and I didn’t realize he had ignored my question until he knocked on the invisible thing I’d attacked with my face.
The sound that echoed from the rap of his fist reminded me a hell of a lot of a front door.
He stepped back after knocking, and I followed suit, rubbing at my nose. Strangely enough, it had stopped hurting already. Probably because I was a fucking phoenix now.
The place he had knocked on swung open a moment later, and a woman holding a gigantic sword and wearing a fierce scowl stood in what was definitely a doorway. The door had way too many locks, though—and the thing was at least six times as thick as any other one I’d seen. Looked like it was made of solid stone, too.
Her gaze landed on me, but she didn’t lower her sword. Her eyes were an unnatural bright gold, and her hair was a normal, human deep brown. Like me, she had pale skin and thin lips. “Name?”
Suddenly, I understood Calian’s warning.
If a simple name could give me power over someone, or give someone power over me, that was a loaded fucking question.
And he had set me up to protect myself.
A wave of gratitude hit me hard, though I knew better than to thank him for what he’d done. Thanking someone implied that they’d done you a favor, and that you owed them… and I didn’t want to fucking owe him.
