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“I had not realized…” he responded quietly, then trailed off. He actually had sensed for a while now that something wasn’t quite right, he just hadn’t realized what that “something” was. Now that he thought about it, he was fairly sure that he hadn’t heard Olivia laugh since she got her first bull’s-eye.

  The sisters were all working extremely hard. There had been several times when one or the other of them had fallen asleep right at the dinner table. He had carried Olivia to bed at least twice. She no longer rose at dawn, either. She and her sisters all had to be roused each morning to get started. He had taken to bringing her cup of tea to her room in an effort to help get her moving. Now, he realized even that hadn’t generated her usual smile lately.

  “Let’s get started,” Uriel said, drawing everyone’s attention.

  Gabriel walked over to the girls and offered a hand up to Amber and Olivia. When he bent toward Skye, she didn’t respond until he touched her shoulder.

  “I’m up!” she said, jerking straighter and blinking in a way that said she had been asleep. Without complaint, she accepted Gabriel’s hand and eased to her feet. She used the knuckles of her left hand to rub the fatigue from her eyes.

  Beside James, Caleb frowned.

  Uriel said, “Amber, you will now train with Gabriel in hand-to-hand combat. Olivia, you will train with James using swords. Skye, you and Caleb will move to the range to practice throwing weapons. We will rotate in thirty minutes. Begin.”

  James walked over to the side of the courtyard where the wooden practice swords were kept. He grabbed one for himself and one for Olivia and then returned to the center of the courtyard. She watched his approach with distinct misery on her lovely face. Her forlorn expression combined with the determined drawing back of her shoulders went straight to his heart.

  “This does not have to be a painful lesson,” he said as he flipped her practice sword in his hand so he could pass her the hilt. He gave her a half-smile to try and ease the serious lines of her expression.

  “If you believe that, you haven’t been paying enough attention to my swordplay these past few weeks,” she replied dryly.

  He waited for her smile to lighten the words, but it never came.

  Deciding there was nothing he could do about it at that moment, he started their practice session. It didn’t go well. She was unusually sluggish in her responses, allowing him to break through her defenses with alarming regularity. He found himself having to pause more frequently to show her what she was doing wrong, some of which she most certainly already knew. As they neared the end of their thirty minutes, he disarmed her with a knock to her wrist that would probably bruise and swell. He hadn’t intended it, but she had moved incorrectly, resulting in the violent strike.

  Even as he dropped his sword and stepped closer to where she now clutched her right wrist against her body, he heard Skye shouting at Caleb.

  “I know I missed for the twentieth time in a row! I don’t need you bleating in my ear about it, for all holy’s sake!”

  And then there was the sound of a hand striking flesh from the roped-off fighting ring. Even as James shifted his gaze to the ring, he heard Amber’s cursing. She was on the ground and held a hand to her mouth.

  “You keep lowering your guard,” Gabriel said, his tone laced with frustration. He leaned down to help her up and she waved him away.

  “No,” she said. She rolled out from under the ropes and got slowly to her feet. There was blood on her lips from where Gabriel had gotten in an unlucky strike and broken the skin against her teeth. She would need Gabriel’s help to heal herself, but she deliberately turned from him and started walking toward Olivia.

  “How’s the wrist?” she asked when she got close enough.

  “Hurts,” Olivia replied in a tight voice. She didn’t argue when Amber took hold of her right arm and held her hands around her wrist. With a soft glow of gold light, the wrist was healed.

  “Thanks,” Olivia said. Now she offered a small smile. “You should heal that lip now.”

  Amber shook her head. “I’ll be fine. Skye?”

  The youngest sister had paused in her practice to watch them, so she merely nodded and walked into the center of the courtyard to stand with her sisters. Caleb followed.

  “Look, we need a break,” Amber said, glancing around at all of the males. “We’ve been going nonstop for over a month now. We haven’t had a single chance to recharge our batteries. We’re used to weekends and time off, chances to do fun things like read or play music or just sit and do nothing. I know you’re trying to teach us how to protect ourselves because you’re worried about us.” She caught and held Gabriel’s gaze. “And believe me, we all appreciate it.”

  Olivia and Skye nodded their agreement.

  “But right now, we’re taking a couple of hours. Just the three of us. And no offense to any of you, but we don’t want to see or hear,” she tapped the side of her head, indicating her telepathic connection to Gabriel, “from a single one of you in those two hours.”

  There was a long silence after she spoke. James glanced at Olivia and saw the light of hope in her eyes. When he glanced at Skye, he noticed she was smiling.

  How could they say no?

  “You walk. No flying,” Gabriel responded as he bowed under one of the ropes and stepped out of the ring. “You stay near enough that we can reach you if needed. And you bring Aurora and Tomaganuk with you as added protection.”

  The sisters all voiced their agreement with this arrangement. This time, when Gabriel reached for Amber, she didn’t resist.

  “Let’s heal that lip first,” he said, and gently touched his lips to hers to help her generate the healing energy she needed.

  When they parted, she smiled at him. “Thanks.”

  Then the three girls turned and hurried out of the courtyard. Skye issued a shout when they were out of sight that sounded like, “Yeehaw!”

  James wondered how they would fill their two hours. He exchanged looks with Caleb and then noticed that Knorbis was smiling. The Wymzesti elder approached Gabriel.

  “It worked,” he said.

  Gabriel nodded and rubbed his right hand where he had accidently connected with Amber’s mouth. “Took longer than we thought.”

  “They are all stronger than we thought,” Ini-herit observed as he also walked closer.

  Seeing the puzzled expressions worn by James and Caleb, Gabriel explained, “We noticed that Olivia and Skye model themselves off Amber’s behavior. They look up to her, and they won’t quit as long as she’s still going. Because she’s the physically strongest of them, Olivia and Skye have consequently pushed themselves to the bounds of their abilities. We’ve been counting on this.”

  “Amber must assume a position of leadership among her sisters,” Knorbis added. “She is not one who thinks of her own comfort, but we reasoned that she would ultimately note her sisters’ flagging energy. As we hoped, their exhaustion has served as the impetus to push her into that leadership role.”

  James blinked in surprise as comprehension dawned.

  Gabriel smiled and then clapped his hands together. “Okay…who wants to go a round in the ring?”

  Chapter Twelve

  “Thank you, Amber!” Skye exclaimed as they walked out the front door of the castle and headed into the forest. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited about two hours in all of my life.”

  Olivia couldn’t help but agree. Not even the first taste of summer vacation compared to the sense of freedom she felt at that moment.

  Where are you going?

  Smiling, she glanced to her right and saw Aurora watching them with sleepy eyes from a low-hanging tree branch. I have no idea. But we’re taking a two-hour break and Gabriel asked you to come.

  Without hesitation, the cat stretched and leaped gracefully from the tree, landing right beside Olivia. On her other side, Amber and Skye both started. Skye squeaked and Amber cursed.

  “You could warn us, you know,” Amber glowered at
Olivia. She shook her head when Olivia just grinned at her. “You have a real mean streak, Liv.”

  She shrugged unapologetically. Her smile widened.

  There is a nice pool nearby with a waterfall that you might enjoy.

  Glancing down at the cat, she thought, Do we really smell that bad?

  Yes.

  She laughed. When her sisters asked her what was so funny, she told them about the pool. Amber looked unconvinced, but because her sisters were quite enthusiastic about the prospect, she didn’t argue.

  It turned out to be a spectacular sight. The waterfall was the result of a large, dark-gray outcropping, at the top of which was a fresh water spring. The falls were wider than they were high, so the water cascading down wasn’t flowing in a wild and dangerous gush. It spilled into a clear, deep pool with smooth rocks and sand on the bottom. Behind the waterfall was a shadowed and hidden cave. The girls found it while they were exploring.

  “I’m going swimming,” Skye declared as she kicked off her shoes. “I feel like a well-used Kleenex right now. Totally gross.”

  “Me, too,” Olivia agreed. She started to unbind her hair. “Come on, Amber.”

  Their older sister eyed the waterfall warily. “I don’t know how to swim,” she admitted.

  Skye gaped at her as she pulled pins out of her hair. “Well, we’ll have to teach you then.”

  “Skye’s right,” Olivia said. “You’ve said yourself you’re not that great at flying. What if something happens and you end up in the ocean or something? Won’t you want to know you can at least float yourself to safety?”

  That was enough to convince Amber. She nodded resolutely.

  “Awesome.” Olivia and Skye exchanged a high five. “Let’s go!”

  Gabriel knew his wife very well. He knew, for example, that she had every intention of honoring the two-hour timeframe they had been granted. But he also knew that she had never lived by a watch, and this first bit of freedom after so many weeks would likely be heady enough to keep any of the sisters from realizing how much time had passed. And so, with fifteen minutes left on their break, he set out with James and Caleb to hunt the girls down.

  He thought again as they entered the forest how very proud he was of Amber. She had never been the type who wanted to stand out—certainly not to lead. When given the choice, she had always opted to blend into the background and do as directed, as long as she felt like it. And she had lacked faith in herself and her abilities.

  Such was not the case any longer. Over these past few weeks, he had watched her blossom into an inspiring and capable leader. She had learned to identify her limits and then find ways to extend herself beyond them. Even as she worked herself into an exhausted stupor every day, she monitored her sisters’ progress and discussed their routines every evening with Uriel without them knowing about it to preserve their pride. Her input as a female and a half-human had been invaluable in determining the best approaches to take with them. Although she didn’t talk about it, he knew she was aware of the responsibility she was going to have to shoulder as the eldest sister. Her actions today told him she was finally ready to accept that.

  “I hear them,” James said a couple of minutes later.

  Gabriel heard them, as well. Their laughter made him smile. He had missed that sound very much. “It sounds like they’re having fun. We may have trouble dragging them back.”

  He prepared himself for their complaints as they reached a break in the trees. Then he stumbled to a halt, his mind completely blanking. Beside him on either side, James and Caleb did the same.

  After what felt like a long, frozen moment, Gabriel got enough of his senses back to turn and put a hand on a shoulder of each of the males beside him. With a good deal of force, he pushed them back into the woods and out of sight of the pool.

  As stunned as he was, he had to admit that he would have given a lot of money right then to have a camera. Their expressions were priceless.

  “Wait back here.”

  Without waiting for their agreement, as they would never deliberately disobey a direct order, Gabriel went back to the break in the trees. He once again looked at the pool and confirmed that his eyes had not been deceiving him.

  The three sisters were all swimming without a stitch of clothing on.

  The waterfall disturbed the water’s surface enough that he couldn’t really see anything clearly beneath the surface, and Olivia and Skye both had long enough hair that it practically covered them. Still, there was more than enough skin visible to provide enough fodder to fill a guy’s dreams for years to come. At least Aurora and Skye’s spirit guardian were nearby, as he had ordered.

  Have you lost your mind? he thought toward Amber.

  As she was presently trying to tread water while the waterfall beat down on her shoulders, she shook her head to clear the water from her vision and caught his gaze across the distance.

  “Oops,” she said. “Looks like we’d better go and get dressed, gals. I think our time is up.”

  Olivia and Skye followed her gaze and spotted Gabriel. They both made a comical attempt to duck further into the water in a show of modesty, but their laughter echoed off the rock face. Amber disappeared behind the waterfall, followed within seconds by her sisters.

  We need to chat. Please send Olivia and Skye out here when they’re dressed. Then I’m coming back there.

  Yes, dear.

  He did laugh then. Shaking his head, he turned and walked back to James and Caleb. “Olivia and Skye will be here momentarily. Please take them back to the house. I want to have a conversation with Amber before we join you.”

  They nodded briefly. He walked back to the pool and kept walking when he saw Olivia and Skye emerge from behind the waterfall. Their clothing clung to their skin in big, wet patches because they didn’t have anything to dry themselves with. They were each twisting their hair as best they could to wring it dry as they walked.

  “It was my idea to go swimming,” Skye blurted when they were closer. She looked a bit worried.

  Gabriel raised an eyebrow.

  “And I convinced Amber we should teach her how to swim,” Olivia added. “In case she crashes while she’s flying and lands in the water.”

  “I see. And whose idea was it to swim naked?”

  Oh, let them go, for heaven’s sake. You can lecture me without further embarrassing them.

  He sighed. “Never mind. Please go straight back into the woods. You’ll see James and Caleb waiting for you.”

  “James is here? And Caleb?” Olivia asked. She and Skye exchanged wide-eyed looks.

  “Yes. They’re waiting for you.”

  The girls moved on without another word. He knew they would be wondering whether their Gloresti had seen them in the water. With that thought in mind, he frowned and ducked under the waterfall.

  Amber sat on a large rock, her hair dripping all over her skin. The navy blue tank top she wore was nearly soaked through. It clung to her like a second skin.

  “I know, I know,” she said, getting to her feet and walking toward him. “We shouldn’t have been swimming without our clothes on. It was indecent and your fellow Gloresti got an eyeful. But I’ll have you know that we were actually about two minutes from getting out of the water and putting our dry clothes back on. If you had just trusted us to come back from our break on time, this wouldn’t have even been an issue.”

  He opened his mouth and started to argue, but realized she had a point. So he sighed instead. “I see.” He reached out and pulled her closer. “I apologize.”

  “For what?”

  “For making you very, very late returning from your break,” he said, just before he leaned down and captured her surprised mouth in a kiss.

  From that moment, they included a one-hour break for the girls every day, and took most of one day off each week. This change made their training go much more smoothly. Olivia and Skye seemed to benefit the most from the adjustment. Their focus and agility improved remarkably. They we
re obviously more alert and receptive to their lessons.

  Amber continued to excel at her training, as well. But her energy level didn’t respond nearly as dramatically as her sisters’. She continued to fall into an exhausted slumber immediately following dinner and had to be prodded awake every morning. The elders reasoned that she was expending the most energy and building the most muscle, so she likely drained herself more completely than her sisters every day.

  “What’s for breakfast?” Amber asked groggily as she shuffled into the family room.

  It was the morning of a day they were scheduled to take most of the day off. The girls would each practice with their primary weapons, but would otherwise be free to do what they wanted. Olivia looked up from the book she was reading. They had all collected in the family room and she was curled up in a large chair. Gabriel, it turned out, had an extensive library, and she had raided it. James sat across from her in a second chair, also holding a book. Everyone else was gathered around a small table playing cards.

  “Uh, well,” Skye said, “first off, it’s almost noon. And second, we ate yesterday. Don’t you remember the huge dinner buffet?”

  Amber frowned. She looked truly perplexed. When she reached up and started twisting a lock of hair around her finger as she considered this, Gabriel laid his cards down and walked over to her.

  “Do you feel okay?” he asked, pressing a hand to her forehead.

  She swatted at him. “I’m fine. Just hungry. I feel like I haven’t eaten in a week.”

  Ini-herit, Knorbis and Uriel exchanged looks. Gabriel was so focused on Amber that he missed their shared thought. Olivia tilted her head in consideration.

  “You’ve been pressing yourself too hard,” he guessed. “Your body can’t keep up. I’ll bet you’re metabolizing your food more quickly than you used to.”

  She glanced at Olivia and Skye. “Are either of you hungry?”

  They shook their heads.

  Sighing, she walked over to the couch and flopped down. “I’ve been feeling hungry every day, even when we eat,” she admitted. “I just ignored it before, but now, I’m starving!”