There is a little-known fact that all of the plastic produced in the last half century is still around today. Over one billion tons. Not one bit disintegrated, as plastic's polyethylene is not biodegraded in any practical time scale. I lay there, naked, on my own piece of plastic, which covered my bed to protect the sheets, not really listening as Micah and Indy argued downstairs. The plastic crinkled when I shifted to put my back to the door, the dark wall spotted with orange factory light. The corrosive, core-deep vibrations had dissipated some time ago, but I refused to reach for the comforter to cover my shame.

A soft sound escaped me when the arguing cut off and footsteps ascended the stairs. Eyes closing, I sobbed inwardly. I didn't want to live this way. Lacking control.

"Aurora?"

I didn't answer him. Eyes closed, squeezed tight, I couldn't breathe. I honestly didn't know what I wanted.

A buzzing sound filled the room, and I flinched, mistaking it for a bee until Micah took out his phone, the ringer set to vibrate. "Yes, I have her," he said.

The other voice—a male—asked something in return, his accent thick with worry. Alex.

"No! You cannot speak to her. As of yet, she isn't even speaking to me. And if she was I still wouldn't allow it. You will pay retribution for this," tone gone menacingly soft. "The female saltwater is under your wing. For every scratch I find on my charge, I will have my reprisal or you will never speak to her again."

Plastic crinkling, I stirred, unhappy with his threat to keep me from Alex.

"Tomorrow evening then," Micah confirmed after a short pause where Alex set a time for this 'act of retribution.' Whatever that was. I turned my face back into my pillow, the protective layer sticking to my cheek, and wished I could hug my Mad Hatter. As Bettihemae had pointed out, I knew next to nothing about the ways of the devvis. Lack of knowledge meant lack of control.

"You better interrogate your so-called security. I want to know why the patrol was on the other side of the valley when she needed help." The phone cut off as soon as Alex assured Micah of his intention to investigate fully.

"Little one?" Micah tried again. He touched my shoulder, running fingers down my arm. "The power seems to have spent itself from your system. Aurora, please talk to me."

"A bee stung me," I mumbled.

He sighed. "The swollen bump on your wrist isn't what's bothering you."

I kept silent. The room filled with the deep rumbling of a tanker truck leaving gate #2 of the oil refinery, laboriously shifting gears in its slow-start struggle to take the rise in the road below the house. During the truck roar, my hearing picked out a separate sound altogether, what may have been a zipper.

Staring at the wall in disbelief, I listened to fabric as it fell. With a couple of tugs, he removed the plastic out from under me and bunched the comforter against my bottom before he joined me on the bed. His taller frame curled around my huddled form to spoon me from behind, his lap soft through the blanket.

He combed fingers gently through my hair. "You can't lie here and feel bad about yourself if there is someone else next to you in the same state," he said against my ear.

My face flushed hot. Although the past week had seen an increase in intimacy between us, we had yet to remove any clothing.

"So your solution to get me to talk is to get stark naked?"

"You're talking. Seems like it worked." He chuckled.

I reached across the bed for my doll, his big top hat with its peacock feather covering my front. "Yeah, I bet getting nude was a real hard decision for you to make," I snapped even though the natural hum of his body pressed to my back was soothing my tension. He always seemed to know what I needed, even when I didn't.

"Easy girl." His fingers stopped in my hair. "Have I done something to upset you?"

"No."

His lips were soft as they replaced his fingers on my shoulder. His kisses were cool and in control. "But something still troubles you."

I inhaled, then let the next breath out in a rush, "You say that you love me..."

"You doubt my feelings?"

"Why?" I shifted to look at him, finding his amethyst eyes bright in the dark. The stark beauty of them gave my middle a squeeze. "My aura, my extra bright aura, is attractive to you. Isn't it?"

Bettihemae's earlier claim that a lightning devvi couldn't help but desire me for the wattage of my glow left my mouth tasting of worry and dead things. I didn't want it to be true, that the first person to possess feelings for me in the decade since I'd lost my mom was literally hardwired to love me.

"You are good for me." His arm came over me to hug the doll to my front. "All these years," he said softly, "growing up from a young boy into the adult you see today. Aurora, not many lightning males have such an iron-clad control of their tremendous power that they are awarded with the highest rank of Savior and allowed to walk among humanity. I had to seek out that rank. I had to be able to walk beside you, so I could give you what you needed most of me."

"And just what would that be?"

"Friendship," a gentle whisper.

His hold loosened to make room for Hatter as I rolled onto my back to look up into his eyes. "For ten years," my sky lion rumbled, "I have followed from the astral plane on the heels of a girl who was the most wonderful creature I have ever encountered." Touching my chin, "Aurora, you have given me something no one else ever could, and you continue to give it to me this very day. This very moment."

"What is that?" eyes closing to inhale the emotion welling up in him. I knew what he was referring to, but wanted to hear him say it out loud.

"You give me peace."

I lifted lips to his to give him one, slow kiss.

"In you and you alone, I have found a tranquility that exists for no other lightning buck," he said when we parted. "So of course I will love you for that."

Micah's eyes were transformed when he opened them. With an appreciative mien, he sent his amethyst-swirled gaze down my exposed body. Only a peep of me showed from around the doll's top hat.

"I love you for who you are and what you have made of me. That your body shines just a few ticks shy of a noon-high sun poised over L.A. I consider as my reward for being so well-behaved."

"Good cheddar." I rolled my eyes and put my arm around him, the doll squashed between us.

A sense of relief spilled from him into me, one I hadn't known he was teetering on. His tongue located the scratch above my collarbone where the she-devvi had grabbed me. I waited patiently as he worked a healing voltage into the gash, my thoughts running through the colorful gamut of tonight. Just like out in New Mexico, the power of an umbra was transferred into me. Violently.

"Micah. I'm scared," I admitted.

"Of?" he asked, settling in close. "What do you think I won't be able to protect you from?"

"From my—myself! The umbra earlier—it struck me to the core..."

"And filled you with its power to deteriorate anything outside of yourself."

He described perfectly the state he found me in when he ran Bettihemae off: dizzy and clinging to scraps of my clothes. Though at that point my glowing had ceased. He didn't know I had seen my own aura.

"There was no control."

"Yet, when you siphon from me, there is?"

"Yes. I can spindle your power, contain it."

"Then there is no need to be so worried. After all, where there are the beginnings of control, there is hope that complete control can be achieved. I will help you get through this, as I know all too well about managing one's power."

His hold on me tightened before he eased free. With a soothing stroke of his hand, he turned me onto my side to inspect my back. Fingers trailing over skin, his touch rose and fell with the abnormal wrinkle he discovered on my shoulder blade, the spot where Bettihemae slashed me with her scissors. I tried not to squirm while he ran his tongue across it.

"This has already been healed," Micah said, an angry growl distorting his words. "Improperly."

So there was a scar on my back now? I tried to imagine what it looked like. Well, no matter. I probably deserved it. That the territorial instincts of a hormonal she-devvi hadn't done worse was probably her giving me her blessing. Live on another day, oh ignorant half-breed, but consider this a lesson.

There was still so much I needed to learn about devvis. "Can you show me where the bee stung you?"

He took my wrist when I offered it, and I managed not to flinch when he carefully bit into the swelling and sucked on the small wound to heal it. Stupid bee.

Prompting me to stay still, Micah shifted lower on the bed to explore my legs. He healed the few scratches I'd picked up from tumbling on the ground. I had gotten a long, thin scratch on my hip, located just above where my shorts had been, and with his arm curving around my waist, he healed that, too. Afterward, when he returned to spoon me from behind, his lap through the bedding was no longer soft.

"Mmm," my sky lion rumbled, his nose skimming the sensitive skin below Mr. Hatter where my right breast was hidden.

Totally at ease with him, I let go of the doll and flipped onto my back. My earlier decision that he should be my lover resurfaced now as my skin tingled where his saliva lingered. I drew fingers through his tangled hair, giving permission to a soft brush of his lips across the generous rise of my breast, the area virgin to him, unexplored.

My mouth opened in a silence gasp, and I closed my eyes, noting that when I was with Micah, like this, I felt like the twenty-something woman I was supposed to be. Underneath it all, we were two normal people, both innocent in body and completely trusting of the other, gently exploring the things we hadn't yet known. My breath quickened while he enjoyed himself, his mouth becoming eager against me, and my grip on his hair tightening as my lower region began to awaken, stirring and swelling in my untouched depths.

A hint of anxiety leaked from him, his bottom lip catching briefly on my nipple before pulling away to betray his concern that he might be leaving marks.

Making a small noise, I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling. "We're never going to be able to have a normal physical relationship, are we?"

"Don't say that."

Lowering himself back to the covers, my guardian settled in next to me. My hand went to his neck. Exploring him, I ran a palm from his throat down over his toned contours to just below his navel where I found a beginning trail of curling hair.

"Who's to say what is normal?" He shivered under my inspection, taking pleasure from my unconcealed interest. "If a physical relationship is what you want from me, my sweet female, we will find a way to make things work."

I laid my arm across my stomach and breathed easy while my lion's careful lapping and kissing renewed, lulling me toward slumber. Through my sleepy haze, the threat of rain rumbled in the distance. Another storm? Wasn't this the sixth or seventh thunderstorm this week? For mid-autumn, the frequency of violent weather seemed...

Not right.

Thunder sounded again, the distant reverberation confirming that it hadn't yet located our valley. I snuggled closer to Micah,thankful I wasn't afraid anymore.

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