Read Online Protector of the Flight by Robin D. Owens - Free Book Online

shower. She yearned for the shower but wasn’t about to take her
clothes off. The way this day was going, anything could happen and she wasn’t
about to be naked and vulnerable if it did.
    When
she returned to the main room, the Circlets smiled at her with identical gleams
in their eyes and Calli didn’t like it. Especially when she saw Jaquar shaking
a dark purple bottle about two inches high. “What’s that?”
    “The
language potion,” they said in unison.
    “Nope.”
    Jaquar
sent her a winning smile. “You see how it worked for me.”
    “Like
a charm,” Marian said.
    “Nope.”
Calli wanted to slip her hands in her pockets but thought she should keep her
hands free.
    “You
could try just one drop,” Marian said. “That would be temporary.”
    Again
shaking the bottle, Jaquar said, “There’s about three months’ worth of potion
in here. The magical properties fade with time, so you learn the language
gradually. After three months, you should know Lladranan.”
    “So
you know English now, but if you don’t use the language every day, it will fade
away?” asked Calli, intrigued.
    Jaquar
frowned as if he didn’t like the idea of losing a skill. “True.”
    “Pillow
talk,” Marian said. “And if you marry a Lladranan and bond with him mind to
mind, you also learn the language, the more, ah, intimate you are.”
    “Many
pathways are opened during sex.” Jaquar grinned again.
    That
sounded even more frightening. “Absolutely not.” Calli smiled herself. “I’m not
convinced this isn’t a dream.” She looked around at the color of the
furnishings. “Though there’s more purple than usual in my dreams.”
    “That’s
the heraldic color assigned to Exotiques, especially Marshalls. Alexa’s suite
was mostly purple, she’s switched out a lot of furniture from there to here.”
    “Purple
is not my color,” Calli said.
    At
that moment a triangle rang. Calli sensed an inrush of bright and healthy
volaran minds.
    “The
Marshalls and Chevaliers have returned!” Marian said. Jaquar stood and pocketed
the bottle.
    Calli
ran to the window where she’d caught sight of beating wings. The whole army
swooped down to the landing field out of her sight.
    I
am here, too, Thunder called.
    Calli
exited the opulent rooms without a backward look, running down the tower stairs
to the outside door. She flung it open only to face the tall hedges of a maze.

6
    A young woman in
her mid-twenties, dressed in buff-colored Chevalier leathers, but obviously not
a fighter, hovered between the hedges. Shifting from foot to foot, she smiled
and bowed to Calli, then pressing her fingers to her chest, she said, “Seeva
Hallard.”
    Calli
nodded, probably a relation to Lady Hallard, daughter maybe. “Hey, Seeva.”
    Seeva
swept a hand toward the interior of the maze and said something in the
French-like language. Once again the strangeness of this place struck Calli,
but when the woman took off through the maze, Calli followed. It took longer to
wend their way through than Calli anticipated. Impatience to see a lot of volarans again nibbled at her. She let her mind reach and knew all
the winged horses were fine. Thank God.
    Finally
she and Seeva made it to the field, and all the volarans, even those being led
away by grooms, stopped and turned to Calli.
    Thunder
pranced up to her. His hide rippled. Grooming time. The strong scent of
amber rose from him. Volaran sweat, Calli guessed.
    I’m
sure, she replied to him.
    I
would like a rubdown.
    He
was demanding, but Calli felt indulgent. “I can do that,” Calli said, sending
images of standard grooming. He whickered.
    Three
people separated themselves from the rest and walked toward her—Alexa, Bastien
and the older Chevalier who Calli had heard was the “representative to the
Marshalls.” She wore yellow and gray. Her tunic, which Calli recalled as being
pristine, was stained and torn. Yeah, she’d been fighting.
    Against
monsters that Calli hadn’t seen.