The Dracons' Woman (44 page)

Garen closed the gate and took a step forward, turning toward Eldar Hamat to introduce him to Lariah.  He stopped at the expression on the older man’s face.  He looked as though he had been hit by lightening.  Garen frowned with concern.  “Eldar, are you well?” he asked.

Eldar Hamat shook his head a tiny bit, his eyes never leaving Lariah. 

Lariah hurried forward, her delicate brows drawn into a concerned frown.  She immediately reached out to touch the older man’s shoulder, concern and worry in her eyes. 

“Please sir, come and sit down over here,” she said, her soft husky voice gentle and soothing.  Eldar Hamat placed his hand over Lariah’s, allowing her to lead him toward the patio.  Riata had been sitting there, watching Lariah play with Tiny, and she now stood up to slide a chair over for the man.

Eldar Hamat did not sit down though.  Instead, he stood and gazed at Lariah intently for a long moment.  Garen, Val and Trey stepped onto the patio and took up a position near Lariah, while the Lobos and Katres remained on the garden path, near enough that they could see Lariah, but out of the way.

“I apologize for staring,” Eldar Hamat said at last.  “It is just that you are the very image of my Arima.”

Everyone stared in shock.  “Really?” Lariah asked, nonplussed. 

“Oh yes,” Eldar Hamat replied with a smile.  “I could never forget a single freckle of her face.  You are her exact image.”  The old man blinked hard a few times, then cleared his throat.  “I no longer have strong magic, but there is one thing I am yet able to do,” he said.  “It is the reason I have been able to endure alone for so long.”  The man stepped back, focused on a space next to Lariah, and waved his hand.

Everyone gasped as the figure of a young woman dressed in a long golden gown appeared next to Lariah.  They could have been exact twins.  The only difference between them was that Lariah’s red-gold hair hung to her hips in soft waves, while the other figure’s was a deep flame red, and hung in long spiraling curls down her back.  The woman smiled Lariah’s smile and reached out as though to take someone’s hand before slowly fading away.

Eldar Hamat wavered on his feet, and Riata stepped quickly to his side, lowering him into a chair.

Lariah did not know what to say.  Was it possible, she wondered, that this man’s Arima had escaped to Earth, and was a distant ancestor of hers?

“Riata, I would like to ask for a favor please,” she asked.  “I know I shouldn’t since you’ve already done so much for us, but if you wouldn’t mind?”

Riata smiled at Lariah.  “I am pleased to help if I can,” she said.

“Garen told me that you were able to take a mental image of my genetic code,” she said.

“And you would like me to see if there are similarities between yours and Eldar Hamat’s,” Riata guessed.

“If you would not mind, yes.”

“I do not mind,” Riata replied.  “In truth, I am curious myself.  If you agree?” she added, turning to Eldar Hamat.

“Yes, I would very much appreciate it,” Eldar Hamat agreed at once.

Several minutes later, Riata lowered her hands.  “Though Lariah’s genetic code is now dracon, while Eldar Hamat’s is katre, there are yet enough similarities that indicate a clear familial relation between them,” she said.  “Although more than a hundred generations separate them, I believe that Eldar Hamat is Lariah’s ancestor.”

Eldar Hamat was without words.  He stood up, and bowed low to Riata.  “You have given me back something I thought forever lost to me,” he said, his voice trembling.  “A connection to my Arima.”

“I cannot take such credit,” she argued. “I only looked at what was there to see.”

Eldar Hamat merely smiled at her.  Then he looked to Lariah.  “I am pleased to learn that you are my granddaughter from across the ages,” he said.  “I hope you do not mind if I claim the kinship.”

Lariah returned his smile, then, impulsively, stepped forward and hugged him.  “If you don’t mind, I certainly don’t,” she said.  “I have very few to call family.  To have another is a blessing for me that I would never turn away.”

Eldar Hamat returned Lariah’s hug, smiling down at the top of her head.  Suddenly, he gasped, his eyes widening once more in surprise.  Lariah leaned back at once, looking up at him with startled eyes.  Eldar Hamat reached out and lifted a lock of Lariah’s hair from her shoulder, staring at it intently.  He released it slowly, turning toward Garen and opening his mouth to speak.  Nothing came out, so he swallowed and tried again.

“Your Arima is Nahoa,” he said hoarsely.  He sat abruptly. 

“Nahoa,” Garen said the word softly.  “The word is not familiar to me.”

Eldar Hamat shook his head slightly, nearly overwhelmed by his discovery. 

“Nahoa is a difficult word to define,” he explained.  “It is more than a word, it is, in a sense, a title.  It refers to one most rare, most unique, most glorious of all.”  Eldar Hamat paused a moment, then met Garen’s gaze once more.  “I would ask you a personal question,” he said.

Garen nodded in acquiescence. 

“During the soul-link triad, there was a point at which all four of you witnessed a glowing light within Lariah.  I would ask, what color was the light?”

Garen’s eyebrows rose.  “Golden,” he replied at once.  Val, Trey and Lariah all nodded in agreement.

Eldar Hamat’s eyes closed as he whispered softly to himself.  When he opened them again, they were alight with joy.  “The two signs of a Nahoa-Arima are hair cut with glimmering gold, and a soul of golden purity,” he said.  He looked up at the blank stares surrounding him, and smiled.

“There is a legend among our people, of an Arima that is…more.  As you know, once you are soul-linked, your magic together becomes stronger by a thousand-fold.  As you also know, females, whether they be Arimas or not, do not own their own magic.  Unless the Arima is a Nahoa.  The male-set lucky enough to have a Nahoa for their Arima will have magic ten thousand times stronger than before they are linked.  And the Nahoa-Arima herself will also have a sort of magic of her own.”

“What sort of magic?” Garen asked, astounded by this new information.

“It varies,” he replied.  “But in general she will be able, by her very presence, to bring peace and calm to those around her.  She may be able to heal hurts of the heart and soul.  She may be able to draw others to her.”

“Why have we not heard of this before?” Garen asked.

Eldar Hamat smiled.  “My Prince, as you know, I am a Past Seer.  As such, I am perhaps the only one of our race who even owns this knowledge.  Even I cannot tell you much more than I have already since Lariah is the first Nahoa-Arima since at least a thousand years before the Dark Time.”

There was a stunned silence among those gathered on the patio, broken only by the distant music of the birds singing in the garden.  Suddenly, Garen chuckled.  All eyes flew to him, but he hardly noticed as he only had eyes for Lariah.

“Apparently your wish to avoid being called Lehen Arima has been granted,” he said with a grin.  “You will have to settle for Nohoa-Arima instead.”

Lariah scowled.  “I prefer Lariah,” she grumbled. 

The tension broke as everyone laughed, and even Lariah was unable to maintain her scowl.  After a few moments she smiled shyly and looked for a reason to get the attention away from herself.  She spotted the Katres standing on the garden path near the Lobos and flushed red with embarrassment that she had forgotten they were there.

Garen noticed Lariah’s blush and quickly determined its cause.  “Forgive my manners,” he said to the Katre male-set. 

Maxim bowed slightly.  “There is no need,” he said graciously.  “Much has happened in the past few minutes that we are most blessed to have witnessed.”

Garen nodded, then introduced Lariah to the Katres.  Once the introductions were complete, Garen waited for Lariah to bite her lip.  He smiled when she did it within moments.

He freed her lip from her teeth.  “What would you like to ask?”

Lariah grinned at him.  “Would it be rude to ask if I might see your katrenca?” she asked Maxim.

Maxim smiled back.  “We would be honored,” he said at once.  Without being asked, Lonim stepped back and called his katrenca.

“How amazing!” Lariah exclaimed as she gazed at the giant cat, nearly 9 feet tall at the shoulder, with thick tawny colored fur that exactly matched his hair when in his human form.  Aside from the color and the two large horns protruding from the animal’s head just above the ears, the katrenca looked very much like an old Earth panther.

Suly appeared with a large tray of snacks, Pater at her heels with another large tray of glasses and two pitchers of iced juice.  As the party gathered around the table, Garen noticed that Eldar Hamat made a point to sit near Lariah.  Lariah smiled at the man and placed her hand over his on the table. 

Garen looked on, happy for both Lariah and Eldar Hamat that they had found each other.  He had a feeling that Eldar Hamat would be a regular visitor to their home in the future.  He also realized the far reaching implications of the familial relationship between them. 

At least one pod carrying females had reached Earth three thousand years earlier.  A pod carrying Eldar Hamat’s Arima and three young daughters, along with many other women.  Since Lariah was a descendant, it was now certain that at least one of the three daughters had survived.  And if one had survived, it seemed logical to at least hope that there were others.  More potential Arimas for his people.  He had realized the moment Lariah revealed she had a sister that the woman could be an Arima, but Lariah had no other family.  Now, apparently, there was hope for many more male-sets than he had thought. 

At long last, Garen realized, there was real hope for the Jasani to once again become a true people.

Epilogue

Lariah stormed into the guest room where she had first stayed when she came to Jasan.  She waited a brief moment until she was certain that Tiny was all the way through the doorway, then she slammed the door shut as hard as she could.  The sound was satisfyingly loud. 

She stomped toward the bed and threw herself down, her anger evaporating as quickly has it had flared.  She sighed and shook her head mournfully.  She had no idea what was wrong with her.  One minute she was happy, the next angry, the next near tears.  And in between, she all but attacked whichever of her three men was closest as though the mating heat was still on her.  She had even called Riata to ask her if that were possible, but Riata had assured her that it wasn’t. 

Lariah felt tears run down her cheeks and she sat up and wiped them away.  Her emotions were all over the place and she couldn’t seem to control them no matter how hard she tried.  She wondered again if it was her inability to shift that was causing it.  She knew that when Garen, Trey and Val went too long without shifting they got tense and irritable. 

The problem was she couldn’t seem to make it work.  Everyone seemed so certain that she could shift if she wanted to, but she had tried everything everyone had suggested and a few things of her own with zero luck.  She admitted to herself that she felt like a failure. 

She heaved a big sigh, wondering if she should go apologize to the guys for losing her temper again.  She couldn’t even remember why she’d lost it this time.  “Honestly Lariah,” she admonished herself, “you are getting absolutely ridiculous.”

A soft whimper caught her attention and she turned to see Tiny standing patiently at the door, waiting to be let out.  “That’s a good idea,” she said.  “Maybe a little walk and fresh air without the hovering trio will do me good.” 

She crossed the room, opened the door, and stepped out onto the patio, pausing a moment to inhale the sweet fragrance of the garden.  She could never get enough of all of the plants flowers and trees.  Tiny headed toward the gate, Lariah following him, opening the gate and closing it behind them before trailing him toward the copse of trees set back from the house on the hill.  She let her mind wander absently as she walked, just trying to relax a little.

A deep, warning growl startled her out of her reverie and she looked up to see Tiny standing just in front of her, his hackles raised, teeth bared.  She followed his stare up the rise to the trees but didn’t see anything unusual.  She stepped up beside the dog and put one hand on his back.

“What is it boy?” she asked softly.  Three figures stepped out from the trees and for one long moment Lariah’s heart seemed to freeze in her chest.  She recognized them immediately, thought she would never forget them.  The man in the middle, short, round, and deceptively soft looking, was Loggia.  The two hulking brutes on either side of him were the men who had followed his sadistic orders while he sat watching, as though what was being done to her was a show put on for his entertainment.

Something deep inside of her awoke with a roar as the three figures moved toward her, all of them smirking at her, swaggering confidently as they approached.  Tiny growled louder and tensed beneath her hand.  The bodyguards eyed the massive dog warily, but Loggia ignored him.

“You gave us a merry chase, Ellicia,” Loggia said, his high girlish voice sending chills down her spine as her anger rapidly grew, outdistancing her fear by leaps and bounds the closer they got.  “It will be fun making you pay for that.”