Stolen - Nhys Glover Page 0,4

help with the relief efforts. Our instructors had been reluctant to take us, and I recommended safer options, but my brothers had worked together to get their way. And I had chosen to follow my own path rather than join them in their craziness. Yes, I had chosen the place where I felt I could be the most use, but it had also been my way of voicing my condemnation of their plan.

Dad always told me my brothers would grow up eventually. Life would teach them the lessons they most needed to learn. Until then, I should follow my own path whenever possible so I could gain the lessons I needed to learn. He confided that he would have kept himself apart from his pod more often had he not been constantly bombarded by possible futures that might get in the way of them ultimately finding Mother. To him, she had always been his ultimate life-goal.

I’d always respected that about him. The others in our paternal pod saw him as vague and changeable, not quite with-it. But in reality he was the most single-minded and goal-orientated of his brothers. The fact he spent long hours every day walking the timelines, securing the safest paths for us all, showed his focus.

The girl had asked me if I wished I’d inherited his ability. I hadn’t lied. Although knowing the future was a useful skill, it would have been way too stressful for me to handle. As I was growing up, Dad would often sit with me, explaining intricate paths he saw, and voicing aloud his decisions and the reason he’d made them. He’d run those decisions past me, to see what insights I had on the issues. I’d felt incredibly proud when he asked my opinion on such important matters.

Did that mean he’d identified my ability for rational reflection, from an early age, or had he fostered those qualities in me by sharing his inner world with me?

“Rian?” the girl drew me back to the moment. And my shyness.

“Hmm?” I grunted, desperately trying to remember if she’d asked me a question or not.

“I offered to look after the boys, if you have to get back,” she said.

“Oh, oh no. Not yet. Jade said she’d be back by the time my break was over. So, unless those women come back, I’m happy to stay.”

What had happened with the women still shocked me more than I wanted to admit. In my experience, human women were always sweet and kind. There had never been a shortage of caretakers and companions among them while I was growing up. I understood why this group of women were different from the ones I’d known all my life, I just hadn’t processed their reaction to me yet. Emotions tended to be slower to integrate than information.

“Do you mind if I stay too?” she said.

I studied her pretty face yet again, this time looking for ulterior motives. Did she think I needed a bodyguard, to save me from her companions? That ate at my ego more than I wanted.

“I’ll be okay on my own. You don’t have to protect me,” I almost snapped.

The hurt I saw in her green eyes made me want to kick myself.

“O…Okay, sorry,” she stammered out, beginning to rise from her seat.

I hastily reached across the distance between us to place a staying hand on her arm. The contact sent a pleasurable tingle through me.

“No, please. That was rude. I guess that talk of me not being an adult has gotten to me more than it should.”

She settled back into her seat but made no move to draw her arm out from under my hand. For a long time we remained aware of our connection, neither of us knowing exactly what to do about it. Did we separate? How long was it socially acceptable to keep such contact? Would she see it as a threat, her experiences with my own kind still too fresh in her memory?

There were a dozen good reasons why I should reclaim my hand, now I’d convinced her to stay. The trouble was, I didn’t want to. The weirdly pleasant sensations were too good to give up before I had to. And I couldn’t get over how amazing my great white paw looked wrapped around her fragile, cream-colored arm. I could even see the fair hairs on her skin. Mother’s arms had such hair, but hers were dark. If you didn’t look closely, you’d think this girl had hairless arms, like Danans.

“What’s