As soon as Micah requested I close my eyes and hold on tight, I should have suspected something was up with this so-called errand we were running.

"What are we doing here?" I asked as we descended through the shadowy trees to the forest floor in front of the domed greenhouse.

Under the portico, Micah made as if to set me down, but then he thought better of it when leftover tensions from last night made me cling to him with an iron grip.

"You don't have to get down unless you want to," he told me. Good, because I didn't want to.

He reached for the door, and I made a small noise, burying my face in the bronze overcoat of his guardian uniform which he had thrown on before we left. Peeking around the collar, I noted that the broken panes of glass must have been quickly replaced to maintain the proper atmosphere for the plants. The hum of the bees made me cringe when the door opened, and I inhaled sharply, the warm smell of earth and moss settling in the bottom of my lungs.

"I really don't want to be here, Micah," I mumbled, my attention going to the rusted handprint I'd left on a steel beam, the only evidence last night had happened. That, and the scar on my back.

A trickling of unheard water reached out to brush my souls before I spotted him; Alex was here, but he wasn't standing on the physical plane.

"Alex," I called out, suddenly forgetting I wanted to leave. Focusing on the spot I knew he would appear, I watched his hand slip through and push thin air aside, the cloaking veil of reality that separated our two planes of existence parting for him.

"Alex," I said again, and Micah set me on my feet when my squirming made it apparent I wanted down. I hurried up the brick path toward the other, my concern at not seeing him all week crashing down on me.

"Eos? What do you have on?" Alex asked with his attention on my dress, his expression opening wide—in alarm.

A mocking, feminine chuckle filled the air. I froze in my tracks, the champagne material billowing forward around my legs.

"Why look at that, dear cousin. He clothes his charge in substance from the heavens. And what have you given her lately, hmm Alexander? Your polyester suit jacket?"

Bettihemae slipped through the fabric of reality to stand abreast with Alex, her height, bunches of chestnut hair, and sapphire sundress making for a lofty, blue entrance. Next to her extravagance, his tired dress pants and dark shirt coupled with a weary demeanor made it seem like he was attending somebody's funeral.

The she-devvi stumbled forward a step. Water heavily beaded her face to make it look as if she was perspiring. She blinked at me with those glittery aqua eyes, one side of her mouth twisting up into a devilish smirk. "Hi there, Aurora."

Oh hell no!

The room pitched into a swirl of color, and all I could suddenly see was the exit.

"Whoa there, hot foot." Micah caught me about the waist, nearby flowers swaying in the leftover breeze of my hasty retreat. "Wow, you've gotten fast." He looked to the moving plants and then at me when I threw my arms around his shoulders.

Bettihemae smiled sweetly. "Well, well. Apparently, you can teach a half breed her place in a full blood world."

Alex ordered her to keep silent, his tone harsh. Puffing out her cheeks, she simply blinked at him. It was then I realized her hands were bound behind her back.

The water male turned from his cousin, his expression switching to one of concern as he took the two of us in. He started toward us up the path. "Are you sure it is wise to enhance her aura like that?" he asked, gesturing at my dress.

I sent a questioning glance at Micah. My memory touched upon the evening I'd watched aether, shaken from the sky, dowse him and color his aura. There was nothing alarming about it; the effect was beautiful.

"It only adds color. The garment is harmless." My guardian gave me a look designed to reassure. "It's a weave of two percent aether. You are as safe as you would be if you had added a bit of rouge to your cheeks."

"She doesn't need to enhance the color of her cheeks," Alex pointed out.

Bettihemae sighed in exasperation from her spot by the peach trees. "Thus she doesn't need anything to enhance and/or give color to her nova-bright aura—yadda, yadda, yadda—can we please get on with this, people? I have an appointment with a hairstylist in half an hour."

Was she serious? She was going to get her hair cut? Mystified, I turned my full attention to her. Despite the mocking smirk, the she-devvi seemed to be telling the truth. Well, good for her. Maybe our talk last night, before everything went to hell, had gotten through to her after all.

"...please show me," Alex was saying to Micah when I tuned them back in.

Show him? Show him what? I started when Micah swept my long hair aside, and I let out a distressed sound as Alex sent his fingers tracing along the five-inch scar on my shoulder blade.

"It was already healed when you got to her." It wasn't a question, rather an aggrieved acknowledgement. Alex knew how painful her salty saliva was. "I am so sorry, Aurora," he apologized, forlorn.

I wanted to tell him I was okay, but I blinked in silent wonder at the miniature dagger he produced from the small of his back, apparently shoved into the waistband of his pants.

"Your request for retribution is more than justified," he said to Micah, and Bettihemae let out an indignant snort. "My cousin should be so lucky you only requested an eye for an eye. I should banish her to Canada for this." He turned with the dagger in hand.

My head came up, my clairvoyant senses tingling when a pulse of willpower exploded from him. The she-water stumbled forward to reveal her arms weren't bound with anything physical. What the hell?

Bettihemae jerked forward a few more steps at the will of her cousin, her twisted arms writhing even tighter when she snarled and started to struggle. Chestnut hair wild, she bucked her head. As a water devvi, Alex apparently had control over even the fluids in another's body. Heck, even bones were composed with a certain amount of water. He can control her like a puppet.

She lurched forward again, doubling over so her hair was now dragging on the ground.

"Stop!" I found my voice, my protest echoing in the enclosed space. Retribution? An eye for an eye? He was going to carve a scar into her back to mirror mine. "You don't have to do this!"

I looked at Alex—his face was placid and determined. I turned to Micah—he too seemed serene. Bettihemae was struggling against it, probably from the discomfort of being controlled, but it seemed even she wouldn't protest. Good grief, they were all okay with what was going on here?

I retched loudly and slumped in Micah's arms, the wrongness of it making me sick.

"What's wrong, little Aurora?" Bettihemae panted from her submissive position. She managed to force her head up. "Have you learned something about us that isn't to your liking?" She let out a slow giggle that ended abruptly in a pained cough when Alex willed her head back down.

"I don't want this! I forgive her," I insisted, hoping it would do some good. "I forgive the mark she put on me. I'm clean-slating everything that has happened. So see? This is completely unnecessary."

"This is needed. She has to learn hurting you is not acceptable," Micah said softly beside my ear.

Not a hint of ill will colored his words. Bettihemae let out another pained wail and abruptly went silent. She was losing consciousness.

"No, no it's not!" Grimacing, I sent my awareness out to target Alex's will with mine, the way I could with a cloud.

I found the resistance between her rigid body and his control. The connection was tangible to me. His thoughts suspended her, kept her from falling as he put the blade to her shoulder where it glinted wickedly.

"Stop it," I screamed, and the force of my outrage smashed into his will. The control he had on his cousin was shattered. I struggled against Micah's hold with everything I had to escape and dove for the limp girl when she fell.

"She broke through my will." Alex dropped back a step in wonderment as I landed hard on my knees.

I made it a moment before her head hit the brick. Micah was right. I was a lot faster.

"You think that's something; at least you didn't get bitten," Micah exclaimed, bewildered. He was probably holding a sore wrist. Yeah, I might have used my teeth. My bad.

"It's going to be okay. I've got you," I told the groggy young woman.

Dazed, her unfocused eyes fluttered open, their depths extra shiny. She grunted and started to move, realizing she had control.

"I won't let them do this to you," I babbled when her gaze focused on me, eyes narrowing. I tried to make her understand I was on her side. "It is hard for you. I get that. I know you don't like me, but that doesn't mean I don't understa—"

The world spun and in the next instant I was staring into bronze fabric—Micah's coat—trying to comprehend what just happened. Am I bleeding? His tongue moved across my cheek before the pain in it registered.

"I got you," he murmured, and Bettihemae let out a screech when a furious Alex tackled her to the ground, dagger clenched between his teeth.

"Don't disgrace me with your pity," the writhing girl shouted at me. Her howls echoed, and tears spilled over my cheeks to make the healing cut sting. "Do you think your empathy will make things better for me? I scarred you in a moment of complete idiocy, and I take this punishment to save my honor."

She tried to elbow Alex off her. His wrist became discolored with a creeping purple like frostbite in her grasp while they struggled over the knife. Sure, she had been willing to comply with said punishment before I jumped in, but now that her instinct for survival was triggered, she was fighting it.

Damn it all, if I hadn't leaped right into another situation that was foreign to me and screwed it up. Again. But still...

"This isn't right," I whimpered when my guardian turned me away from the struggling cousins. "Micah, this makes my stomach hurt. You guys might not think so, but my clairvoyance says this isn't right." Then again, maybe my extrasensory dial was set to human standards? "Micah, please!" I tried to turn back around to watch, but he wouldn't allow it.

Doubt finally crept into Micah's eyes. "I shouldn't have brought you to this, but the physical grievance had to be publicly declared. You're much too sweet natured to understand."

"I understand much better than you think." I panted, and then moved on to coughing when my heart started to palpitate from the high emotional build up in the confined space. The edge of my vision was going dim. I was about to pass out.

"Aurora! Aurora, look at me. Concentrate on me." Micah's voice, too, was fading.

I shook my head no, still struck by the belief this was wrong, and his nose nudged mine, his face coming close.

"Just look at me, sweetheart." Fingers traced along my jawline. "Look at me and make it all go away."

He wanted me to escape inside of him, the way I had done the evening of my transitioning. "I can't do this...any of it," I whimpered. "I'm not as strong as you guys."

"You are with me here."

"I am not!"

"Take it." He pushed his gaze through my drooping lashes. "Take what strength you need. It is yours, Aurora. It has always been yours."

Take—what is mine? The world was fading away, bit by bit, when I finally drank in what he offered.

The plants that surrounded us blurred into a swirling collection of greens. The buzzing of the bees was warm—no wait, that was the dress. The struggle behind us broke apart as air, and my nausea drifted away from me like dandelion seeds loosened from the plant.

I took in a breath, and my lungs filled easily. I took in another and—found I couldn't. The warmth and green leaned into me, and Micah's lips were moving, moving against mine, giving me what was mine. Wait a minute, why is he kissing me? We didn't need to kiss to transfer his strength. What was he doing?

Oh shit! Alex! Jerking back, my eyes flew open when a tremendous crash shook the greenhouse.

Unabashed, Micah turned from me to send a heated look in the direction of the broken pane Bettihemae had launched herself through the moment her cousin became distracted. A cool breeze, smelling of approaching rain, slipped in to tousle Alex's wildly tossed hair as he stood frozen, shock radiating from him.

A low rumble started in Micah's throat. "I told you at the beginning of all of this she is my fem—" he started to say, and I promptly clamped my hand over his mouth with a shudder of disbelief. He'd used my vulnerability just now to get in a dig at Alex? Oh, we so needed to have a discussion.

His perception of me clearly crushed, Alex eyed my healed-over cheek before lifting his gaze to the splintered glass.

"The Retribution will be expanded to cover for the new damage," he said in a controlled tone.

Please, don't go.

With one last glance at me, he crouched to gather his strength and leapt impossibly high through the broken window.

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