Protector of the Flight

Calli must be dreaming.

A tall, auburn-haired woman, plump and pretty, came to stand next to Alexa, the second woman who’d spoken in English. “Hi, I’m Marian Dumont, late of Boulder, now a Circlet of Lladrana.” She touched a golden band she wore around her forehead. The hammered design showed clouds and lightning.

Sticking out a hand, Alexa said, “I came from Denver in the spring. Pleased to meet you, Ms.—”

Letting her gaze roam, Calli figured out that the rest of the folks were watching intently and not talking because they didn’t understand English. She wondered what language they spoke. She looked at Alexa’s hand, put her own in it and received a surge of warmth that flooded her and left her fingers tingling. She licked her lips and tried her voice. “I’m Callista Torcher. Calli.”

The redhead jostled Alexa aside in a teasing manner and held out her hand. There was something about the gesture, maybe the way Alexa and Marian stood, that warned Calli that she was being tested somehow. Besides the incredible little surge of…something…she’d felt from Alexa, the smaller woman’s grip had been firm and strong, her hand callused.

Calli shivered and slid her fingers against Marian’s. This time she felt a heady zip that made her head buzz. She shook her head to clear it. Marian released her fingers and chuckled, a richer sound than Alexa’s.

Large hands squeezed her shoulders, making her aware of them once more. Man’s hands. Thumbs brushed her shoulder blades, then the hands vanished as a man to her left circled the bed she was on. He wore leathers the color of butterscotch that were obviously expensive. He made a flourishing bow to her. “Faucon Creusse,” he said, and she decided that was his name.

Never in her life had a guy bowed to Calli. She nodded at him, but too-handsome men made her a little wary. They usually had great expectations of a woman and didn’t return much. At least the rodeo cowboys she’d known tended to be that way.

“So, how much French do you know?” Alexa asked briskly, drawing Calli’s attention back to her right.

“Uh, none,” Calli said.

Marian nodded. “How good are you at languages?”

Calli shrugged. “Pretty fair. I have quite a bit of Spanish.”

Alexa made a face. “I’m terrible. I’ll have a bad accent for the rest of my life. I chose to stay here on Lladrana.”

Calli froze. She wasn’t ready to accept she was in a different place—who would? And if, by some impossible chance, she was somewhere else, she wasn’t ready to cope with that, either. The hurt of her father’s rejection still shadowed her heart, echoed in her mind.

An older lady spoke, and the language was French sounding, for sure. This woman wore tough, dark brown leathers. She walked up the right side of the bed to stand next to Alexa and did a half bow. “Nuaj Hallard,” the woman said.

Again Calli nodded. Who knew what they did as greeting here? From the long robe with no armor that Marian wore, they might even curtsey. Like bowing, curtseying had never been an item in Calli’s life.

“Lady Hallard’s right,” Alexa said. “Callista doesn’t need to know Lladranan to get a tour of the Castle.”

Lady? Castle? Uh-oh. Sure didn’t sound like Colorado.

With glee in her eyes, Alexa smiled at Calli, and Calli braced herself for a zinger. “How would you like to see the winged horses again?”

The flying steeds couldn’t be real, could they? She just stared at the grinning Alexa, the smiling Marian and the serious Lady Hallard. After a minute, Calli said, “Say again?”

“Winged horses,” Alexa said.

“Flying horses,” Marian said.

The words rang in Calli’s ears, but she could almost see a big question mark hovering above her head with the word duh?

“It’s true,” Alexa assured. “We have flying horses here, called volarans.”

“From the French word fly,” Marian said.

“Uh,” Calli said. She did want to see them again.

“So,” Alexa said, “do you want to humor our madness?”

Once more, Calli scanned the room full of men and women—some in robes and armor, some in leathers that looked to be for fighting. Caution, deep and strong, swept her. Weapons. Armor. These people were at war. If they were being nice to her, it was because they wanted something.

If they were really here at all and she wasn’t crumpled on the ledge of the hillside from cracking her head hard—having a dream more imaginative than ever before.

A man said something and Lady Hallard withdrew and Alexa and Marian stepped aside. Another guy, this one not as tall but more solid and with a gleam of devil-may-care that Calli knew all too well from her rodeo days, bowed in front of her and offered his arm. Alexa circled his other biceps with her fingers. “My husband, Bastien Vauxveau.”

He was married. Good. But to Alexa? She’d married a guy here? Then Calli noticed a strange thing. They both had a golden color pulsing around them, merging where they touched, sparkling with glitter. Wow. And they looked really good together. Happy.

A bolt of yearning for such love struck Calli so hard she nearly doubled over. She’d thought she and her dad were partners. She’d loved him, ignoring some of the offers for sex and a serious relationship with rodeo men. She’d had her plans to build up the Rocking Bar T to a fine horse-training ranch with Dad and when she was successful look around for a man.

All gone.

Bastien quirked a brow at her, wiggled his elbow. Alexa grinned. Yep, a happy couple. Partners. Calli turned wide eyes to Marian.

“Yes, I’m married, too. To a sexy Sorcerer. A Circlet like myself.” Marian answered Calli’s unspoken question.

Oh, wow. The back of her neck tingled. Slowly she turned her head to see Faucon Creusse smiling at her.

“He’s unmarried and available,” Alexa provided. “But we need to talk a little.”

“We need to talk a lot.” If she weren’t dreaming. From the corner of her eye, she saw a woman bobbing her head.

“She’s available and unpaired, too,” Marian said. “This culture has no bias against homosexuality. There are different levels of commitment, here, too.”

“I’m straight,” Calli said absently, doing another scan of the people in the room—different colored and worn leathers—some people wore bands around their arms. Did that mean anything? From the gazes she met, she thought about a third in the room were “available.”

“Marian’s right,” Alexa said. “She and her husband were married in a formal, long, magical ceremony that bound them together, hearts, minds and souls.”

“Not to mention bodies,” Marian murmured.

“Bastien and I haven’t done that yet. But we’re Paired. The guy, here—” Alexa poked him gently in the chest “—is commitment shy.” Bastien winced as if he got the gist of Alexa’s words. Calli didn’t doubt the statement.

“I see,” she lied, turning back to the women and Bastien. She looked at Marian, dressed in a long linen dress of beige with a deep over-robe of dark blue, remembering her words. “You’re a Circlet, a Sorceress?”

“Yes,” Marian said. “I’m only visiting the Marshalls’ Castle, to help in the healing spell and to aid you in adjusting to Lladrana. Alexa called me by crystal ball,” she ended blandly.

Calli let that one go. She stared at Alexa, who wore a blue-green robe over chain mail, had a sword at one hip and a short, cylindrical sheath at the other—and a nasty scar on her face. “You’re a…” Calli didn’t know what.

Alexa dipped her head. “I’m a Marshall.” She tapped the short sheath. “This is my Marshall’s baton.”

Calli vaguely remembered the words from long-ago history lessons, but the concept still eluded her. “And that means?”

“She’s the crème de la crème of magical warriors in this society,” Marian said.

So Alexa had landed on her feet. Calli wasn’t surprised. The woman had an air of complete competence about her. Calli gestured to Lady Hallard. “She doesn’t wear the same sort of clothes, so she’s a…”