With my spectral sight still in place, I ran along a brick path as a strobe light pulsed. It took me a moment to realize I must have tripped a silent alarm. Good, because that meant somebody should be coming soon.

I put the inner peach tree chamber between myself and the entrance, skidding to a stop as I crouched to hide among the calla lilies. A bee buzzed close by my ear, making me cringe as the white blossoms bumped against my shoulders. I gazed up at the chamber's surface before me, knowing for certain it was made of glass and should be clear, but I was taken aback when I discovered my spectral sight couldn't see through to the trees inside. It made me wonder if the glass was infused with dark matter.

Speaking of which... I positioned the book bag between my knees and fumbled with the zipper. I needed to stall for time, stay hidden, and wait for someone to investigate the tripped alarm. With any luck, they would come down here to check on things and not simply reset the security system from a main control panel at the estate. And damn it, where were those patrolling wind devvis? Painting each other's see-through toenails?

Hastily undoing buttons, I let Alex's coat slip from me, and I pulled my aura cloak out and threw it over my head. I couldn't see the umbra—what with the opaque chamber blocking my view of the front entrance—yet I shouldn't assume it hadn't ghosted its way inside, as anything physical meant squat to it. It would be able to pass through any object that didn't project an image onto the astral plane, something like the very manmade glass and steel greenhouse for example.

The blanket framed my face like a hood as I scanned the space from left to right. Inhaling, I blew at the close buzz of another bee as it slowly hummed past, its legs caked with yellow pollen. The only sight umbrae had was spectral. If the chamber's glass appeared solid to me, the umbra couldn't see through it either. Comforting thought, that. Must be a "deteriorating type," since its presence had caused the earth to erode.

Great, an erosion umbra. Shivering, I waited, heartbeat racing. The scarf covering my burn marks felt tight on my throat as I forced myself to hold still and keep my respirations slow and steady. I had to remain calm. Apparently, the more excited I got, the brighter and tastier my aura became.

An electronic beeping filled the space. I waited for a moment, then rose from my crouch expectantly when the security lights ceased flashing. Moving cautiously, I left my book bag and Alex's coat among the flowers as I started forward to see if somebody was there. The aura cloak slid down to catch in two big folds on my shoulders, exposing the top of my head with my one hand gripping it closed at my throat. I walked up to the tree chamber and set a hand against the milky glass. Slowly, I crept along the outside, following its curiously hot surface with tiptoeing caution. Nothing else followed after the pulsing light ceased, not the click of a handle or the snick of a door swinging open. With sinking unease, I peeked around the last few feet to view the entrance.

Oh not good. I grimaced at the yellow fog methodically drifting between the portico's stone pillars, weaving in and out with a fitful, stalking speed. Still outside, but also still there. The closed doors remained silent. Crap, they'd reset the alarm from the main estate. Now what was I supposed to do? Stay huddled among the flowers, trying not to get stung until eleven o'clock rolled around and Micah started to miss me?

Past the portico the forest stood silent, trees unmoving. Where were those blasted wind devvis? With anxiety-laced impatience, I eyed the domed ceiling, the clear glass above me painted dark by the night. The few red glass panels were an odd mixture of blood and sulfur as they bounced back the yellow of the sunshine orb, and I wondered what time it was. I didn't wear a watch, as I always had my phone.

My phone! I spun around to stare dumbfounded back in the direction I'd come. Holy cheddar, were my thoughts so thick with panic I had totally forgotten the darn thing was in my bag? I could text Micah to let him know where I was.

I struggled to keep my movements slow and controlled as I moved back along the curve of the inner chamber. Micah, Micah, each step demanded. Eagerness mounting, I came to a sudden halt as I rounded the last few feet, my excitement dashed to pieces when I spotted my bag—its strap dangling from the iron grip of one silently gloating Bettihemae. Oh crap!

With her cat-like, aqua eyes exuding a heated fervor, her posture was casual, smile taunting when she tossed the bag backward to send it bouncing off the brick walkway and into the plants, creating a narrow path of crushed flowers in its wake. In my spectral sight, her spirit's aura wafted into view, cool and blue, like she was standing on the bottom of the ocean floor, covered with arcs of rippling light and shadow as strong sunlight hit a fitful surface. I remembered Bettihemae was a saltwater devvi. It made me wonder just how closely she and Alex were related.

Her feet were bare and she wore a sundress, its pale color making her appearance sweet, harmless, and elegant. I gulped as she paced, taking care to keep me in my position. This female was anything but harmless. Deep pockets were stitched into the fabric just below her hips. There was something heavy in the left pocket, weighing that side of the sundress down.

The intimidating sea female tilted her head to one side with a hint of rainbow shining through her blue aura. Body shimmering like a jewel, her forehead and shoulders were beaded with water which reflected her aura's light, scattering it, throwing specks of brightness across the tall, dark glass walls.

"Sooo," Bettihemae finally drawled with an accent close to Alex's but more deliberate, showing a slip of sharp teeth that were extra white to my second sight. "This is what has my Sheeshoe in a mood? She's trapped herself a rabbit."

Sheeshoe? I stole a backward glance to make sure there was no yellow fog seeping around the milky glass. Was Sheeshoe the type of umbra the thing was, or the creature's name, like a pet?

"Poor little rabbit. You're early." A plastic shopping bag bumped against her hip with an audible crinkle when she pivoted on graceful feet to pace in the opposite direction, continuing to maintain a half-circle around me.

I recognized the bag's red, orange, and blue logo from an armful of groceries Indy had come through the door with the other day. Apparently Alex's cousin had just come from the 24-hour UniMart downtown. Curious, I eyed the bag. There was something lumpy inside.

"What am I early for?" I asked quietly, and her eyes lit up, happy I found my voice. She was in a chatty mood. Yippee.

Making a soft sound after I spoke, the she-devvi's eyes went wide. Her gaze went to the peach trees behind me. Is her hair even more haggard than when I last saw her? Her grossly uneven bangs spilled to either side of her temples as her chin lifted. Good cheddar, has she been cutting big chunks out of them?!

The glass that encased the trees would appear clear to her because she was using her physical sight. "There aren't any... peaches. Just yet," she intoned disjointedly, playing her fingers about the edge of the shopping bag to make it crinkle more. "You know he built this for you. Don't you?"

Bettihemae's gaze scanned the greenhouse before coming back to me. "Hired an arborist and everything to bio-engineer your own peach tree. He wanted a fruit for you that held within it the right amount of sweetness with every bite. Pale in flesh—"

Her scrutinizing gaze shifted to rove over me. I jumped in surprise when she was suddenly close, her burst of movement a cool breeze. My god, she was fast! An "everywhere-at-once" fast. Crap, crap, crap! I am so screwed!

"—and the glow of its skin should be that of the deepest scarlet," the she-devvi purred.

I could taste the wine of heightened emotion coming from her lips as she bent toward me. I cringed when a long thumbnail glided across my cheek, the pressure with which she pushed hurting. I felt my rapid pulse in the momentary pain of it.

"There it is," Bettihemae said, patting my cheek. "There's the scarlet. Such a robust thing you are for one who isn't supposed to be alive."

"I'm...I'm sorry!" I blurted out, not sure of what else to say.

Her eyes were full of wonder as she seemed to ponder my unprompted apology. Her lips set into a considering pucker, turning her angular features soft, like she was going to kiss me before she straightened and put space in between us once more.

"You are sorry, for what?" Her thin eyebrows went high. "For being alive?"

I blinked at her, silent.

"Don't be," the she-devvi said. "My Alex would be miserable otherwise." The constant breeze in the greenhouse shifted her long hair to send it into her mouth as she spoke. She spat it out and frowned. "I make him miserable. Me and my condition." She fought with a few bothersome strands, still stuck to her face, and ended up ripping most of them out. They drifted, feather-light, from her fingers. The young woman's expression became almost sad as she watched them float away.

"He would never build me such a lavish greenhouse." Bettihemae's attention shifted to watch a bee hum past. "I was supposed to give him offspring, you know," she said, shocking the peas out of me. And that right there answered my question of just how closely the two were related. "He likes you." Her eyes narrowed and a pulse of fear rippled through me when she let out a huff tasting of extreme jealousy, bitter and strong.

"Why would he need me if you can provide both affection and children? He's screwing up a millennium's worth of tradition. Oh, but what sway does tradition hold, really, when one's faced with one's true love?"

I cowered in my silence, listening but not fully understanding. "What in the hell are you wearing?" She briefly scrutinized the dark aura cloak I held about me before dismissing it.

Clearly irritated, she jerked the shopping bag open, deftly ripping one side. The plastic package inside was ripped open next, and shapely white puffballs spilled out, falling among the calla lilies.

"Oh, why the hell does any of it matter?" she grumbled.

"No!" I burst out as a marshmallow disappeared into her mouth.

"What?" She ran her tongue over her lips to lick at the sweet powder lining her mouth. A taunting chuckle slid through her, and she bent to search among the flowers, hunting for the few that escaped. "You've already stolen my offspring's sire. I didn't know I was expected to share my evening snack with you as well." Another of the treats went from the ground and into her mouth, dirt and all. It crunched as she bit down, and Bettihemae grinned at the disgust that crossed my face. Eeeww.

"Hyper-glucose hormonal disorder," I struggled to get out and she raised an eyebrow, still chewing. "Your body isn't able to break down the manufactured sugars in human foods, and over time it builds up in your system. You may not even notice it prior to mating age, other than unexplained spells of fatigue and periods of extreme highs." I took a deep breath, thinking that I might just be able to get through to her. "Your hormones are out of balance because of the sugar. That's why you feel the way you do."

"And just what could you know about the way I feel?" Bettihemae remarked after slowly licking powdered sugar from her thumb, her expression still placid. Then her emotions took a nosedive, and she let out a snarl at the sweets in her hands.

I can clearly sense your frustration. I kept quiet as she chucked the bag to the ground. It landed in the flowers, the action exposing Alex's dress coat where it still lay. A flash of metal in her left dress pocket caught my eye as she bent over to touch the coat, clearly recognizing it.

The steel in her pocket caught the light again. Scissors! The ones she had probably been cutting her long hair with when it bothered her!

I took in a deep breath, and the aroma of sweet and sour, bitter, salt and peppermint all rolling off Bettihemae in great billows almost made me dizzy as she straightened. The coat remained on the ground. The young woman felt as though her life was out of control, but all she really needed to do was change her eating habits.

"You!" Alex's cousin bared her teeth and stomped a foot, crushing a lily. "You don't know anything about me, half-breed. Don't pretend you do. Hyper-glucose hormonal disorder, you say? I honestly wish that was what I'd been born with. At least then my problems would be manageable."

So then the disorder I read about wasn't the source of her issues? The scissors in her pocket showed again when she gathered the skirt about her in a fit of angst and let it unfurl with a billow of material, shiny handles catching the yellow light, and I felt a stab of fear. Then, just as quickly as a darting rabbit could change directions, the she-devvi was placid again. Almost serene. Bettihemae straightened her posture and smoothed the wrinkles she had wrung in her dress. Good cheddar, serenity made her even scarier.

Micah, where are you? Is it eleven o'clock yet? With my own emotions flip-flopping, her erratic mood swings had me wanting to run for the door. But no, Sheeshoe was still blocking the exit.

What have I gotten myself into? I promised that I wasn't going to confront her by myself. But it wasn't as if I had intentionally tracked her down. I watched with fearfully wide eyes while she paced.

Without warning she spun around and came back, stopping toe to toe with me. I held very still as she gathered a portion of my hair from my shoulder to contemplate it against a soft palm. No, I hadn't broken my promise. I so didn't want to be here right now.

Female devvis are as ill-tempered as they are territorial, Micah told me once as a reminder to stay away from her. And here I was on her family's land. Every hormonally-primed instinct was triggered to defend.

Bettihemae brought my hair to her nose, head tilting, and sniffed it delicately, as if she were taking in the scent of a rose. Her smile spread slowly wider and aqua eyes lifted to mine.

"I spent our last board meeting in the lap of one of the CEOs who heads our wildlife reservations out at Salt Lake," she told me unexpectedly. "He was a young buck, unmated, who couldn't help but be drawn to me by my high pheromone levels."

"But you didn't like that you were doing it," I said when she went silent, eyes pensive. The look was haunting on her, really.

She sucked her lips inward and closed her eyes with a shake of her head, confirming my guess. Palm tilting, she let my hair fan away.

"Don't think me a half-wit, Aurora." She opened her eyes and addressed me by my name for the first time. Tiny flecks of light in her eyes, like glitter, caught me by surprise. Her features were soft again, mermaid-like. "I am informed on the hormonal disorder that you have clearly gone out of your way to research. And while diet does partially factor into it, there is a lot more 'going on' with me beyond what any book with common disorders would define." Bettihemae shrugged, a look of helplessness passing over her, and then she frowned. "The green diet does make the energy highs and lows go away, but it hardly puts a dent in my over-active desire to breed."

Restless, her attention turned to her own hair as she touched it, a grimace betraying that she was unhappy with its tattered state.

"My strong urge to mate would probably dissipate if I started procreating, and yet, I just don't want to...to deal with everything that comes along with that," she said while continuing to inspect the damage to her hair. "It is crippling, really, for females from my particular lineage to start having children at an early age. We end up becoming broodmares. Such a life sentence is hard on the body. You could say, that toward the end of her very short life, my mother was the dilapidated epitome of what I do not wish to become, saddled with five males and over three dozen children." She said this last with pain dripping from her words.

That was an awful lot of kids. So the condition she had was inherited. Her mother had five mates?

Attention rising from her tattered hair, Bettihemae's gaze went off to the side, as if considering something, trying to decide. "Water devvis mate for life," she suddenly informed me, her eyes returning to mine showing a cautionary subtext that made my stomach twist. "I won't, because of the specifics of my condition. But most everyone else does. So any that you bed, you'll be stuck with them."

She was forewarning me about Alex. If water devvis mated for life, what would this mean for him and me if anything were to happen between us?

"I want to be successful in life," the young woman confessed as she shifted the conversation back to herself. "I want to be more than a prized incubator to be passed around."

"So date someone outside of your own element!" I shot back then retreated a step when her eyes narrowed at the suggestion. Less brazenly, I added, "It might help to take off some of the edge if you simply just do it with someone."

Her expression collapsed into disgust. Apparently it was her turn to give me a look of "eeeww." Okay. So maybe female water devvis didn't like to hook up with devvis outside of their element?

"The guys at school seem to like you a lot," I offered, deciding to go in a direction that was non-elemental. "And you don't seem to mind batting your eyelashes at them."

I'd seen the interaction between her and some of the guys in our phys-ed class. Whenever she wasn't being unapproachable, she was engaged in conversation with one boy or another, which almost always bordered on casual flirting.

"A human male?" Her pitch rose with surprise, as if this were something a she-devvi would never consider. "You want me to bed a human?"

"And go to a beautician and get that fixed." I boldly pointed to her hair. Well, if she was going to kill me for suggesting she have sex with a human, I might as well go down offering grooming advice, make my mother proud. "Don't be timid about styling it short. Get it pixie-bobbed. Be daring, but cute."

Good cheddar, I just told her to get a haircut. Alex's cousin cocked her head as if in consideration of what I'd so idiotically blurted out.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. Her expression became all doe-eyed innocence. She pulled the scissors from her dress pocket. Big, dagger-like scissors.

"What's that, little rabbit?" A snip sent a foot-long section of chestnut hair to land across my shoes. "You don't like how I've cut my hair?"

Micah—wind devvis—anyone? My back touched the glass behind me. I'd retreated enough to press myself against the peach tree's chamber. Another chunk of hair fell to the ground.

"Soo," Bettihemae drawled, her accent thicker. "Your advice to me is to eat veggies, get my hair cut by a professional, and bang the brains out of my human lover the night before I have a board meeting. Do I have this correct?"

"You're not crazy, so stop presenting yourself as such," I said firmly, trying not to appear too unnerved by the point of the scissors flying around as she made broad gestures while she talked. Oh crap, those look sharp. And damn it! I jerked my wrist from the glass. A bee stung me.

"Why, pray tell, am I attracted to a human when I can't procreate with him?"

"Life and relationships, they don't have to be all about making babies," I stammered as I struggled to keep my hold on the aura cloak and rub at the red spot forming on my wrist.

The point of the scissors pressed into her cheek, twisting, but not leaving a mark. "Oh, my dear, dear rabbit," the female drawled, her eyes almost pitying me. "That is so easy for you to say now. But, you will see." She touched a finger to my chin, and she smiled. "You will see, my pet. For you are bound to have it worse than me. That is, if you aren't a mule of sorts, born infertile."

I frowned and turned my chin away from her touch. "What do you mean by worse? Worse how?"

A chuckle warmed her throat, and I steeled myself against lashing out when the handles of the scissors lightly jabbed my abdomen. "Poor poppet!" she taunted my lack of knowledge. "Why, it is the only reason they are interested in you, my Alex and the other!" The dark centers of those mocking eyes sank, proving she could change her eyesight without blinking. "Gods, you're so damn bright!" She squinted when my aura's light hit her full force. The cloak was starting to slip.

She began her slow pacing again. "Did you know unmated lightning bucks are lured to the female of their eventual offspring in accordance to the brightness of their aura?" Bettihemae paused just long enough to take in my blank look. "No, no. Of course you wouldn't." She went back to pacing. "A bright aura makes for the promise of strong offspring. It's nature's way of ensuring another generation." The scissors then pointed in my direction, tip inches from my nose. "I've seen it. The way he looks at you. Let's face it, dear rabbit, your guardian was hardwired to desire you."

"That's not true." I flinched when the beautician's shears swung my way again. The red welt from the bee sting pulsed. Micah cares about me. He wasn't getting close just to get into my pants. I would be able to sense something like that—I think.

"Isn't it? How would you know? You weren't raised in our society. You don't know what is true about us, Aurora. I bet with those fragile human sensibilities of yours, the longer you hang around us, the more likely it is you'll be witness to something that you won't like. We're savages, really. Of course, you haven't seen it from your male friends," she sneered when a look of disbelief crossed my face.

"They are perfectly well mannered." Swallowing, I accepted the bitterness of the half-truth. Well, they were...mostly. Unless they were at each other's throats in some disagreement over me, but things were getting better. Or at least, I was optimistic.

"Mmm, ri-i-ight." She mocked as she swept her ocean-lucid eyes over me while twisting the scissors in her grasp. Her roving gaze stopped to scrutinize the neck scarf I was wearing, as if sensing there was something off about it.

"Oh, they'll act all tame with you around, poppet. To impress you. That is for certain. Peacocking for your attention so you'll decide to take them as your mates."

A numb wisdom flooded her eyes. She touched a hand to my chin again, fingers fanning out to whisper against the scratch she had raked across my cheek to induce its blush. Willing myself not to shiver, I dared not move.

"So soft, so sweet, so petite in stature. They crave this gentleness from you. Coupled with the ability to bear live children. Oh, but don't think every male that crosses your path will be as tame as the two circling you now." Her expression was wicked. Stepping to the side, she angled her body so I could no longer see the scissors.

Crap! My transformed eyes went fearfully wide. I tried to search her intentions as her fingers on my chin gripped my jaw tightly. But I discovered that in my transformed state it was impossible to read her soul. What an awesome time to learn this.

I let go of my grip on the aura cloak to free my hands, readying myself for a struggle—one which I knew I could never win.

"Others won't bother with the time it takes to impress." Her tone took on a harsh rasp. "Rather," she spat, "they will try to steal you away whenever the opportunity presents itself. For you are like the rarest drug to them. A sweet intoxication. And I wonder, small Aurora..." A quick flash of scissors came into view overhead, point coming fast for my shoulder. "I wonder if you taste just as sweet."

------------------

Bettihemae! Eep! Getting her *Mean Girls* on!

VOTE if you think Bettihemae should lose her scissor privileges. :D

See y'all back here next Friday for the second half of this...very one-sided girl fight? ha ha