He smiled. “Oh, Babe. I understand, but you know there is more to it, right?”
“What?”
“Look up the stages of love. Even in humans, one of the first stages of love is the attraction stage where chemicals produced by the brain make one want to touch the person they are falling in love with. It makes a person obsess over the object of their love, lose sleep and everything else. It may not be magical, but it is just as biological as the bond is for Shadoewynne. You are fighting biology and magic.”
“God damn it!”
He just held up his arm, inviting me in. I glared at him for a minute before moving over to cuddle against him. It wasn’t his fault, and it did feel good to lay against him. We watched a few more episodes in silence before he finally asked, “What in the world are we watching?”
“Inuyasha. I love this series.” He just shrugged and kept watching.
All in all, we watched ten episodes before David and Kait came back. That was over five hours of shows. I was stewing the whole time. Kait poked his head in.
“We’re back. We are going to clean up, then it’s time for a family meeting.”
“Fine.” He left. I looked up at Travis. “What do you think it is now?”
He shrugged. “Damned if I know.”
We watched another episode, then turned off the TV. Travis slung his arm over my shoulder as we went into the dining room, where David and Kait were already waiting for us. David was staring at the table, and Kait was pacing with his hands behind his back.
We went in and sat down. I chose the seat next to David, and Travis sat on my other side. David scooted closer and put his arm around me while resting his head on my shoulder. He seemed very upset, so I ran my fingers through his hair while we listened to Kait.
“David and I ran a little recon today. I am sorry, Princess, but it is true that they have a clone of you. I don’t know how they did it, but it looks to be the same age you are now. It didn’t seem to have much personality. That must be why they wanted a download of your memories.”
I pushed aside my anger at being left out and rolled my eyes. “Fine. You were right. What do we do about it?”
“You need to stay out of sight.”
“Where, Kait? They took me from David’s home, they found our safe house in the woods, then they took me from the safe house in-between dimensions. I think me staying out of sight is behind us. We need to take the fight to them! I’m tired of hiding, and I am tired of running.”
He smiled. “I thought you would say that, but I had to try. Okay, then, we need to attack their stronghold. My soldiers have rounded up most of the underlings we have identified, and we only have the big dogs left. We have reason to believe that there will be an organization wide meeting in two nights. We, and my soldiers, will infiltrate the gathering and arrest as many as possible. You all need to train, all day tomorrow and a good portion of the day after. We will meet to go over the plan, then we will bring them down. The other thing we found out is that Alarr is alive, and he is working with the Svikari. I don’t know how he hid that from me, but it’s the truth.”
I made a face at Kait. “Is it, though? Maybe whatever you saw was a clone of him too.”
Kait’s eyes widened a little. “Maybe, but then they must have gotten to his memories, because the person I saw mentally felt like Alarr as well as looked like him. I suppose it is possible, though.”
I looked at David. “What’s the matter?”
He glanced away, refusing to meet my eyes. “Nothing.”
I raised an eyebrow at him, then glanced at Kait, who shook his head and mouthed “later” at me. This was getting old, but I wasn’t going to push it. Whatever was going on, David wasn’t willing to talk to me about it.
“Did you find out where Sarah, Janelle and Sibhre are?” I asked.
“Yes. I sent some of my soldiers to free them. They should be joining us later today or tomorrow.”
“Okay. I will make dinner, then.” I volunteered because I felt like I haven’t been pulling my weight.
Travis spoke up. “I’ll help, since I bought the supplies. I know what we have and what we can make.”
“Okay. Let’s go start dinner then.”
We all stood up. Kait touched my arm. “I would like a word alone with you before you start dinner.”
I stopped. Travis said, “I’ll go start and you can join me when you’re done.”
“Okay.” He left the room, closing the door behind himself.
Kait sighed. “I need your help with David.”
“What’s going on?”
“His powers are evolving, and he is having trouble controlling them, and himself. He needs a stabilizer, and you can be that for him.” He came over to me and rubbed my arms.
“What do I need to do?” I leaned into his body, putting my head on his shoulder.
“Just spend more time with him. It will help him settle his mind, and his powers.”
“Okay. Why is this happening?” He wrapped his arms around me.
“I don’t know, but we need to support him through it.”
“I will.” I looked up at him. His brown eyes were on mine. I went up on my tiptoes to press a kiss against his lips. “I’m sorry, Kait. I talked to Travis this morning, and I feel like I was a bit harsh with you last night. I don’t like feeling like a magical puppet, but the feelings we have for each other are real, so I shouldn’t be so resistant to them.”
His arms tightened on
