smile.
“Promise me you’ll be open to hearing from Spirit, open to new perspective,” she added.
That seemed like an easy enough thing to do. “You have my word.”
The three smiled. “Attending the academy may be the vehicle that brought you to Sanluuk, but your destination may not be what you originally believed,” Lehua stated.
There was only one flaw with what the sisters suggested. “I think you may be slightly off with your prediction, though. Ori hates me,” I stated with a cynical laugh.
Kalea waved me off. “Oh, he’s harmless,” she insisted. “Actually, I’d even go out on a limb and say he’s got the biggest heart of them all.”
“Which is part of the problem,” Nayeli chimed in. “Just be patient with him. Poor thing has been through a lot.”
I hated that I wanted to know what his story was, but it was true.
“When Spirit called him, he was on a very different path,” Lehua shared. “He was engaged to one of the Advisors daughters, had his heart set on being a doctor, and planned to open a clinic here on the island. So, needless to say, when he woke up with his mark, it came as a bit of a shock.”
“Understatement,” Nayeli chimed in. “For one, his feelings for the woman he’d dated for more than two years completely evaporated.”
“Poof. Overnight,” Lehua popped back in. “It was like he never felt anything at all for her.”
That blew my mind, the idea of waking up and falling completely out of love with someone who’d once meant so much to me.
“It sent her into a downward spiral,” Lehua continued. “Since the start of their relationship, it was no secret how much she depended on Ori—for emotional support, making decisions. Only, when he was madly in love with her, it wasn’t clear how unhealthy her attachment to him was, but then …”
Lehua’s voice trailed off, and the three were silent. The tone of our conversation changed in an instant, and I had no idea why.
“…What happened?” I hesitated to ask.
Lehua’s gaze lifted and the sorrow in her eyes was heavily apparent. “Within the year, she took her own life.”
“Now, as a result of losing her that way, Ori’s rendered himself emotionally unavailable to any other woman. I believe as a means of punishing himself for her death,” Nayeli chimed in.
“And because he’s afraid,” Lehua added.
“Afraid of what?”
She peered up when I asked. “Afraid he’s broken. Afraid that the switch being flipped means he’s incapable of love,” she clarified. “I mean, after all, he became completely distant from the girl who, just before receiving the mark, he believed to be his soul mate.”
“The other Omegas weren’t in relationships when they were called, so they have a different outlook,” Kalea explained. “Being chosen changed each of their personalities drastically, but being mated, finding their queen is such a defining aspect of who Firekeepers are, none of us believe this about Ori. Not being able to love is a direct contradiction of how Spirit has called the hives to live.”
“I’ve heard that before,” I spoke up. “The part about having a queen being important. Why is that?”
The other sisters looked to Kalea to answer this one. She didn’t speak right away, instead choosing her words carefully.
“The Queen is like their power cell,” she explained. “Once she’s plugged into their hive, they function more smoothly, they’re more powerful as a unit.”
“And … you all are as okay as the guys are with you being shared?” I probably shouldn’t have asked, but I felt comfortable with them. Inexplicably so.
Lehua laughed. “You’d think it’d be exhausting being available for all these big, virile men, but … you get used to it.”
“More than used to it,” Kalea laughed. “Take a look around. None of these smiles are fake, none of this love diluted.”
“Once you’re linked in with your hive, it’s unlike anything you could ever experience,” Nayeli insisted. “Better than anything you could ever dream of.”
My eyes and mind were open in ways they hadn’t been before meeting these women. And thanks to Nayeli’s request, my heart was open, too.
“How about one more favor?” she said with a coy grin.
When I nodded, she reached into the cooler beside her. “Take this to Ori, and just … talk to him,” she suggested.
A cold drink was placed in my hand. I know, to her, that didn’t seem like a big deal. However, to me, she’d just asked me to take the biggest step I had with Ori so far.
And I wasn’t sure either