"Relax, little one," his honey-smooth tone hummed deep inside of me. "I'm not going to drop you. Look down there. See? Between the clouds? Everything is still where we left it."

"Clouds?" I gasped. My nails were probably leaving semi- circles in his back when a break in the dull white below gave a glimpse of treetops. "But we just left my shoes and your motorcycle back on the hillside!" I arbitrarily burst out, and then added, "and you can fly?"

"Before I could walk," he quipped. His hair was damp from the clouds and his scent smelled really good, enhanced, the farther up we were in the sky. "Gravitational manipulation, actually. I'm not as adept with it as a true gravity walker, but I've got control over myself and some limited influence on small-massed objects." He grinned at me when my eyes went wide with wonder. "How else did you suppose I got you out of the compromised building back in New Mexico? We certainly didn't use the front door."

Flying in the sky, people from another plane of reality, how many more things that were deemed impossible was I going to find out were real?

I folded myself a little more tightly against Micah when I looked around and realized the clouds were beginning to take on a gray pallor, one that grew more ominous the longer we sped on. The air became thick, substantial enough to give weight to my anxiety, and I put every ounce of concentration into trusting the hands holding me. He was my guardian. He wouldn't let anything hurt me, ever. But I couldn't help it when my heart gave a little leap as lightning flickered in the distance.

"Sorry about that. I'll keep my energy better contained," he apologized, closing his eyes.

A trembling I hadn't noticed in him before disappeared, leaving his face smooth and serene. The tension appeared to be directly connected to the sky, as the sky itself seemed to take a giant breath, relaxing.

"Just your presence can influence clouds to call up inclement weather?" I guessed.

"Yes. I didn't mean it just now; I was distracted," he said, opening his eyes to search my face.

"It's okay."

"No, it's not. You are afraid of storms."

"I am..." But the smell afterward was different, amazing. Breathing it in, I enjoyed the sensation left inside me. "Your scent becomes enhanced up here. Though you always carry it with you, faintly."

"I carry the scent of what you are afraid of," Micah said, looking crushed.

I gripped the back of his shirt. "You smell good to me."

He made a sound of disbelief in the back of his throat. "I do?"

"Yes. I like your scent," I repeated without returning eye contact.

God, I shouldn't be telling him stuff like this, encouraging him. I loosened my grip on his shirt, hands shaking as I smoothed the fabric, and then went back to hugging him.

"I'm glad I don't scare you," he finally said, and I nodded. "You said so before, but it is hard not to think my nature doesn't bother you, as fearful as you are of the real thing." He looked off to the side then. The slightest hint of red rose in his neck. I was okay with him knowing the truth—that I was drawn to the way he smelled—but still, I shouldn't be saying such things. I curled my fingers against him. I'm too frail to be what you deserve.

With the clouds above and below us once again a serene white, I bit my lower lip as Micah inclined our forward progression to take us higher. We disappeared into the bottom of a thick cloudbank and I lost sight of everything. Only his touch against me remained. They said I would be stronger after my body adjusted to my new vitals, but even then, would that be enough?

With the moisture in the clouds soaking our clothes, he rolled over with his back to the earth and adjusted his hold on me so that my legs were secure against his, and then, as the cloud cover suddenly gave away, we burst through the top like a dolphin leaping from the water, arching to fly parallel to the sea—and what a sea it was.

"This is...oh my gosh!" I was lying on top of him, my arms around his waist as I lifted my head to an endless spread of nimbus, kissed gold by the ending of the day. I inhaled sharply, amazed by it all. The sun was life's beacon, hung bright on the horizon by time, and we were life's musings, thoughts enjoying this earthly ride.

"Spread your arms wide like mine."

"What? Why?" I looked down at him, stretched out and relaxed, as if he was lying in a field of ripe wheat.

"Just do it." His hands came in to grip my waist, and his eyes went soft. "Fly with me, Aurora. Become my partner instead of my cargo."

"I...don't know." My awe gave way to panic. "I don't think I can let go." Muscles locked; my arms were too tight around him.

"You can trust me."

"I already do," I cried, on the edge of hysterics. "I trust you, Micah. Crap, nobody else knows me like you do. Cares about me and for me. I. Trust. You."

I really did, I realized, looking down into those amethyst eyes and seeing beyond, knowing him from within. I might not be strong enough for him right now, but maybe, given time, if I wanted it badly enough, someday I could be.

Enough energy to light a small city existed at the end of his fingertips, but he was gentle with me, in control. Even though he might be powerful, Micah wasn't going to hurt me, no matter what Indy might think, or so I was going to allow myself to believe. Might be wishful thinking, but at least I didn't ache when I gave myself over to it.

"I trust you, Micah," I said again, my rigid hold loosening. I wanted to give him something good. This seemed good.

"Then fly with me." Sending his gaze into mine, his emotional signature disappeared like it had done back at the house. I agreed. I would pretend to fly.

Still wondering what it was that totally cut off his emotions from me, I let go of his waist, and he lifted me parallel above him. I spread my arms out as if I had grown wings. His grip loosened, hands sliding up my waist and sides, until my arms rested on his open palms, but still he held me steady. His eyes were wide, concentrating on mine—and then he let go.

Like a magnetic force was holding us together, he had willed a cocoon of gravity around us, binding us. I grinned at him, and a chuckle rumbled through him.

"This is too much," I exclaimed after several moments of hang time.

"This is who I am," he answered back. "Something I've ached to share with you for years."

I reached for him, trailing fingers up the side of his face. "I already thought highly of you. Even before this."

His eyes closed, and he seemed to enjoy the tracing of my hand. He wasn't just any ordinary lion. Micah was a sky lion. Magnificence that existed above all that was mundane. Untouchable.

But I was allowed to touch.

Splendor I will never come close to matching, even if I do become stronger. I could never be like this.

His hands found my waist again and he pulled me down to hold me close. "Stop that."

"Stop what?"

"That. You're thinking poorly of yourself again." He touched my chin. "I can read it in your eyes, Aurora. I don't take it lightly when somebody thinks poorly of the person who is my home. Especially you."

"You consider me your home?"

"My black-haired, blue-eyed home. The person to whom I'll always return," he said, closer now, brushing his lips against my ear. "And it's a good thing that my home is currently barefoot." Micah's toes wiggled under my socked feet. Really not so entirely bare.

A spike of deviancy broke through the emotional void between us to cause my heart to flutter.

"It's good that I'm not wearing my new shoes, and why is that?"

He grinned, and his expression went sly. "Because this next move I'm about to show you would surely knock 'em off."

With a growl of eagerness that echoed across the sky, he swung our embrace up high to come down fast, slicing a quick path through the clouds. A twist of his body sent us into a spiral, and with the enthusiasm of a shooting star hurling itself kamikaze style toward the earth, space and time, light, life, and color all blurred together in a squeal of unchecked delight as I squeezed him tightly around the waist.

Panting from the rush, I gasped and pressed my forehead against him when he leveled off over the treetops of a rural area, every inch of our bodies tingling where we touched. Heaven help me—I slid my hands under the back of his shirt as one of my legs slipped from him to dangle my foot into the rushing, leafy canopy—I wanted more! I wanted so much more.

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

VOTE if you wanna go flying with Micah...but maybe he leaves the barrel-rolling plunge toward the ground out, lol. My stomach wouldn't like that ;)