"Of course you did." He was intimate and flirty, like he was my boyfriend and I was being kinda shy about admitting how much I liked him.
"No," I spoke without looking at him. "I did not call you to me," I repeated. "And I don't have any idea what you're talking about."
"My musings are unimportant. All will be clear with time. But, A-ya, if you did not call me, then explain how I joined you in your dream."
Steeling myself against the allure I already felt from just the sound of his voice, I turned my head to look at him. He was young again, and appeared eighteen or nineteen. He was wearing jeans that were comfortably loose and had that sexy, these-are-my-favorite-pair- because-they-fit-perfectly look. And that was it. He didn't have shoes or a shirt on. His wings were miraculous. They were the black of a starless sky and glistened in the fading light with a silky beauty all their own. His flawless bronze skin seemed to be lit from within. His body was beyond incredible. It was like his face--so handsome, so perfect, that it was impossible to describe.
With a deep sense of shock I realized that was just like how Nyx's appearance had seemed to Aphrodite and me. She had been so otherworldly in her beauty that we'd been unable to describe her. And, for some reason, that similarity between Kalona and Nyx made me incredibly sad, sad for what he might once have been and for what he had become.
"What is it, A-ya? What has made you look as if you would weep?"
I started to pick and choose my words carefully and then stopped. If this was my dream--if bringing Kalona to me was somehow my doing--then I was going to be nothing but honest. So I spoke the truth.
"I'm sad because I don't think you were always what you are now."
Kalona went utterly still. It seemed the perfection of his features solidified and turned him into the statue of a god.
In the dream I felt timeless, so it might have been a second or a centu2-' Ayry before he responded. "And what would you do if you knew that I have not always been as I am now, my A-ya? Would you save me or would you entomb me?"
I stared at his luminous amber eyes and tried to see through them into his soul. "I don't know," I said honestly. "I don't think I could do either without some help from you."
Kalona laughed. The sound danced across my skin. It made me want to throw my head back and my arms wide and embrace the beauty of it. "I think you are correct," he said, smiling into my eyes. I looked away first, staring out at the ocean and trying to forget how incredibly seductive he was.
"I like this place." I could hear the smile in his voice. "I feel power--an ancient power. No wonder they chose to come here. It reminds me of the place of power from which I arose inside the House of Night, though the earth element is not strong here. That is a comfort to me. It is pleasant."
I focused on the one thing he'd said I could actually understand. "I guess it's no surprise you'd be more comfortable on an island. Being as you don't so much like the earth."
"There is only one thing I like about the earth, and that was resting in your arms, though your embrace lasted too long for even my great capacity for plea sure."
I looked at him again. He was still smiling gently at me. "You have to know that I'm not really A-ya."
His smile didn't falter. "No, I do not know that." Slowly, he reached out and took a long strand of my dark hair between his fingers. Staring into my eyes, he let my hair slide into his palm.
"I couldn't be her," I said a little shakily. "I wasn't in the earth when you got free. I'd been living on the earth for the past seventeen years."
He kept caressing my hair as he answered me, "A-ya had been gone for centuries, dissolved once more into the earth that made her. You are simply she, reborn through a daughter of man. That is why you are different from the others."
"That can't be true. I'm not her. I didn't know you when you rose," I blurted.
"Are you quite sure you didn't know me?" I could feel the cold of