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Instead, he snapped, “Cease your ridiculous weeping. You are not a child.”

“What?” she asked, sounding shocked and bewildered.

That wasn’t his goal, so he added in the same hard voice, “Sitting in here and wallowing in self-pity is completely unproductive. You all knew what you were getting into when you transitioned here. You cannot control the actions of the beings on this plane, but you can control your own.”

Finally, he saw the hurt fading from her gaze, anger and indignation slowly building to replace it. Before she could speak, he continued, “I thought you were stronger than this.”

And watched the remark hit her like a slap.

Knowing he had reached his limit and seeing that he had successfully stopped her tears, he abruptly turned and walked back through the door to his room. He left it open, as he had intended to do before she slammed it closed, so he could properly guard her through the night.

Then he sank down on the side of his bed and braced his elbows on his knees. An intense and excruciating heat spread through his chest and seized his throat, bringing a strange sting to his eyes. Confused and overwhelmed, he pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes in an effort to alleviate the pain. It didn’t seem to help. His jaw clenched.

He was so focused on trying to control himself that he didn’t hear her approach until she was nearly upon him. Surprised, he looked up. He expected her to be furious.

Instead, she watched him with amazement. She stood in front of him, her face still shimmering with tears and achingly beautiful, and reached out to touch his cheek. Her touch inexplicably relieved the pain in his chest. And when she pulled her fingertips away, he saw the wetness there.

It was then he understood with a tremendous amount of shock that he had shed a tear.

“Thank you, Caleb,” she said, her voice a caress.

Then she leaned down and pressed her lips to his. His mind emptied of all thought. He could hear the blood rushing through his head and pounding in his ears. The kiss was incredibly gentle. She lifted her lips once, pressed them equally tenderly to his again, and then she stepped back. And smiled.

“I’m going to shower,” she said.

He waited until she was out of the room before he allowed himself to fall back on the bed and tried to stop his head from spinning crazily.

She was going to be the death of him.

“I sure hope Aurora is okay,” Olivia said loud enough to carry to James’ room.

She was sitting cross-legged on her bed after her shower in her pajamas and robe, brushing her damp hair. He was changing into his pajamas in his room. They had left the door between their rooms open because James wasn’t willing to separate himself from her by even that barrier in case someone tried to get into her room. The fact that this was at all a concern had her agreeing to the open-door policy.

“I am sure she is fine,” he called back. “We will check on her in the morning.”

“I don’t—”

I’m okay, Amber and Liv. Sorry for wigging. I kissed Caleb. See you in the morning!

Olivia choked off abruptly as Skye’s thoughts flashed through her head. She simply froze as she processed this new information and Amber’s responding mental head shake.

Then she glanced over instinctively when she saw movement in James’ room.

“Is everything all right?” he asked, walking quickly into the room and looking around.

Since her mouth was already hanging open on Skye’s confession, she didn’t bother to close it when she took in the sight of his bare upper body. He had hurried into the room still holding his sleep tank because she had stopped talking in such an odd manner. He wore only a pair of dark blue pants that sat low on his narrow hips.

She simply couldn’t believe the impact removing a tank top from a person could do to one’s mental picture. God, he was gorgeous. Lean in the waist with a chest and abs that she swore looked like they had been lovingly sculpted beneath his skin. Heat suffused her face when she realized he was staring at her, staring at him. She worked to swallow and tried very hard to tear her eyes away from him. She failed miserably.

“Olivia?”

Taking a deep breath, she managed to ask, “What was I saying?” She still couldn’t move her eyes. And when he took a couple of steps closer, she even forgot to breathe.

“You were talking about Aurora.” He paused and raised an eyebrow. “Are you okay?”

She nodded quickly. Her heart was racing. She wondered if he could see it thudding right through her robe. Why couldn’t she stop staring?

Finally, he seemed to realize he was still holding his tank top and put it on. She let out her pent-up breath and started brushing her hair with a great deal of energy. She thought she would simply die of embarrassment if he figured out what had caused her weird behavior.

“I was interrupted by a few unexpected thoughts by Skye,” she blurted, shamelessly throwing her sister under the bus. “She’s okay though,” she hurried to add.

“Oh.” He seemed to consider this. “That is good to hear.”

“Yep!” she said a little too brightly. Consciously toning it down when he gave her another curious look, she deliberately caught his gaze and said, “As I was saying before, uh, Skye’s interruption, I’m not receiving any thoughts from Aurora even though I’m sending them out to her. She’s been unhappy and uncommunicative for a while. I think she’s upset that her mate never came to Gabriel’s.”

His brows drew together. “I will go and visit her tomorrow to ensure she is all right. You will have to remain out of sight until the dinner event, but I will have the ability to venture out.”

She smiled. “You will?”

“Of course.”

Her heart all but melted into a pool on the bed. When he turned without another word and walked over to his bedroom, she got up to put her brush back on the vanity where it had been set out for her and removed her robe. She was pulling back the covers to climb into bed when James walked into the room with a pillow and blanket. Her eyes widened when he reached behind him and waved a hand, extinguishing the balls of light in his bedroom.

“What are you doing?” she asked, her voice an octave higher than usual.

“I am sleeping on your floor,” he said, as though it should be obvious.

“Um. Huh?”

“I am not comfortable sleeping in the other room, even with the door open. I might not be able to hear the door to your room open in time to come to your aid.”

She blinked several times. Surely this was taking guarding her to a whole new, obsessive level. But when he tossed his pillow down onto the woven rug beside her bed, she realized she would not be able to deter him.

“You are not about to sleep on that floor, James,” she said firmly. “That will make for a perfectly miserable night’s sleep. That floor is harder than Amber’s head.”

He sighed, obviously recognizing the inflexible line in her voice. “What do you propose then? I am staying near you.”

She studied the huge bed consideringly, then glanced back at him. He dipped his head and gave her an incredulous look from beneath the hair that fell in front of his eyes.

“
Archigos
Gabriel would positively kill me.”

She frowned. He was right. “Fine then. I’ll help you drag your mattress in here. That’s my final offer.”

“Guess I had better take it then,” he said with a smile.

Amber lay on her side in the big bed, propped up on her right elbow, watching Gabriel emerge from the bathroom after brushing his teeth and finishing his bedtime routine. The troubled look that had been in his blue-gray eyes since Skye left the room in her typically dramatic fashion was still there. It went straight to her heart.

Her expression neutral, she watched him pull back the sheet and start to climb into the bed. Then he frowned.

“How many pillows do they think we need?” he asked in true bafflement, noting the plethora of dark blue pillows filling the bed where his head was supposed to go. He began tossing them carelessly onto the floor until he had just two.

She didn’t comment. If he had looked on her side of the bed, he would have seen most of her pillows on the floor, too.

He sighed as he got into the bed and flopped back onto the pillows. He brought his hands up to rub them tiredly over his face. Her gaze touched on the ring he wore on his left hand. Made of white gold and honey amber, it was a more masculine version of the ring she wore on her left finger. The rings had been promise rings on the human plane. Here, they signified both their avowed status and their marriage. She knew now was one of those times where she needed to be a supportive wife.

“Skye sent a message,” she began, reaching over and brushing a dark wave of hair off his forehead where it had fallen into his eyes.

He looked at her, obviously miserable.

“She said she’s okay, and she’s sorry for ‘wigging out.’”

He raised an eyebrow, then looked up at the dark blue canopy in consideration. “Well, I guess that’s better than trying to get to sleep picturing her crying all night.”

“And she kissed Caleb.”

“
What?
”

“And don’t you go chastising Caleb,” she said, tapping his forehead gently. She knew him very well. “I got the distinct impression that he had nothing to do with it. And he cleaned up your mess.”

He opened his mouth to protest, then closed it and briefly pursed his lips. It was obvious that he was wrestling with his gentlemanly sense of propriety and the knowledge that it was really none of his business.

“Fine,” he said. “Just—fine. As long as she isn’t upset anymore. I don’t know what I was thinking. I really don’t.”

Keeping her expression and thoughts carefully contained, she said, “I know. Calling us freaks was rather harsh of you. Especially since you’re married to one of us.”

His jaw fell. Disbelief lighting his gaze, he propped himself up on his left elbow. “Oh, get out. You don’t seriously think I—you don’t…” He paused, unable to read her. “Amber, you can’t possibly believe that I think that.”

After a long moment of dragging out his worry—during which she felt only mildly guilty—she waved a hand dismissively and made a buzzing sound with her lips. “Puh-lease. You think I’m a total babe. I can read your thoughts, remember?”

Then she grinned cheekily and batted her eyelashes at him.

His eyes narrowed. Then his lips twitched. “You are evil.”

She shrugged, completely unapologetic. “You were beating yourself up, just like Olivia said you would. Now you know how silly and undeserved that is.”

“Is that right? Well, now I’m more in the mood to beat
you
up,” he said, leaning over and encircling her waist so he could pull her closer.

“Sorry. I’m pregnant. No beating allowed.”

He leaned down, lifted her tank and kissed her bare belly. Then he moved up toward her lips. “Then I’ll find some other way to exact my revenge,” he whispered meaningfully.

And when her eyebrows winged up, he tickled her breathless.

Chapter Nineteen

The next morning, James awoke to a soft sound that he recognized as something other than Olivia’s sleeping noises. He was on his feet almost instantly, his gaze adjusting to the darkness to take in the form of a shape easing through the doorway from his bedroom. A faint light emanated from the room, highlighting the figure opening the door with backlight.

James?

Mentally wincing at having been caught sleeping in Olivia’s room, as he had intended to move the mattress before anyone else woke, he thought back toward Caleb,
Yes?

I want to take a shower, but Skye is still sleeping. Keep an eye and ear out, will you?

Of course.

Caleb stepped a little further into the room and eyed the mattress on the floor for a long moment. Then he looked up and caught James’ sheepish gaze.

I wish I had thought of that
, he silently conveyed.
Skye’s floor is ridiculously uncomfortable.

He held up a fist and James tapped his to it, then watched him walk back through the open doors to Skye’s room, negligently tossing another dim ball of light over his shoulder into James’ room as he walked.

It was at that moment that he realized Caleb had become more than just a fellow Gloresti to him over the past few months. He had become the human equivalent of a brother.

Nodding to himself, he quickly got to work hauling his mattress back over to his room so he could start his watch.

Gabriel’s eyes flew open. His Gloresti energy surged as he realized there was another presence in the bedroom. Because he had left a single, dim light glowing in case Amber needed to get up during the night, he easily identified the presence.

“Good morning,
archigos
Gabriel,” Caoilinn murmured deferentially from less than a foot away from the bed. Amber’s side of the bed, closest to the door.

Without a thought, he threw his power at the Lekwuesti commander, making her stagger back with a surprised gasp. Furious over her disrespect of his and Amber’s privacy and wondering how he hadn’t heard her enter the room, he pulled the sheet up over Amber’s still-sleeping form. She was sprawled over him, her back to the door, but she hadn’t put her pajamas back on the night before.

He, on the other hand, had pulled his pajama shorts back on before sleeping, knowing there was a possibility for just this kind of scenario. Estilorians as a whole had no real concept or understanding of the human penchant for privacy. That didn’t ease his fury a bit.

Carefully and quickly extricating himself from Amber’s hold, he leaped from the bed and advanced on Caoilinn, who was standing back by the bedroom door. She all but pressed herself against it when she saw the look on his face as he neared.

“Why didn’t you knock?” he demanded in a viciously soft voice. “I know as Sebastian’s commander that you were instructed to do exactly that.”

“I-I did knock,” she insisted, pressing her hands together and gazing back at him as if willing him to believe her.

But he had nearly lost Amber due to another Estilorian female’s jealousy, and he wasn’t about to make the same mistake again. Going with his instinct, he grabbed her arm and pulled her behind him toward the door to Olivia’s room.