Sauter (Ironside Academy, #3)(3)
“Well …” Isobel swallowed. “Okay then. What made you think this was a … soul artefact?”
“A chain of exquisite design long enough to wrap all the way around two people lit within by a subtle glow?” Maya returned dryly, before pulling a folded piece of paper from her pocket. It was a photocopied image from a book. “Because of Aphelina,” she explained. “In the older texts, she’s called The Celestial Enchantress.”
The woman in the picture was nothing short of radiant. Her appearance hinted at so many different lineages it was impossible to tell which race she belonged to. It should have been confusing or overwhelming, but … it made sense, somehow. It was as if she had been assembled with the ideals of beauty from each individual race, turning her into a tapestry of humanity so complicated it somehow became simple. She was beauty. Her eyes were deep and expressive, a gradient of colour that ran from rich brown to pale gold. Her hair was lustrous, floating around her like a cloud. It was inky black and auburn closer to her skull, but soft pastel shot through with bright white along the ends. Her skin had beautiful patches of ivory and oak, light and dark. Even her full and shapely lips seemed to shift from a soft rose to a warmer peach, to a deeper berry. Her face was a balance of symmetry that exuded a calm, harmonious nature in every line, slope, and curve … but the most shocking detail about her was the chain.
Despite the extremes of her appearance, she only wore a thin linen dress, the chain looping around and around her like a living, cognisant thing, appearing to glow softly from within.
“Is that one of the Gifted gods?” Isobel asked, handing the picture back. She didn’t comment on the similarities of the chain, even though something hard and fearful lodged in the back of her throat. They were talking about gods, now?
“One of them, yes.” Maya folded the paper and tucked it back into her pocket. “Aphelina inspires both the mortals and the gods toward aesthetic expression. In layman’s terms, you could say that she’s the goddess of love and beauty. She is always the most liberal with her gifts, though I haven’t heard of her bestowing any in some time—”
The door flew open, Kalen striding into the room without a knock, Niko right behind him. They both stopped short when they saw Isobel sitting up in Theodore’s lap. Kalen’s gaze flicked down to her arms before settling on her face again, his huge chest swelling as he sucked in a breath.
Niko didn’t give anything away, but he only tore his eyes from her for a quick moment to do a rapid sweep of the room before settling his attention back on her. It was heavy, watchful, but his expression was blank, his beautiful eyes guarded. He situated himself out of the way, leaning back against the wall and crossing his arms. The lopsided smile he always gave the cameras was thinned into pressed lips, his muscles twitching even as he kept himself still, his broad shoulders hunched inward.
“Guardian Rosales.” Kalen greeted the woman tersely. “I see you returned.” His tone suggested that she had been asked not to return.
“I have free rein of the hospital.” Maya faced off against the massive Alpha, her backbone apparently made of steel. “The patients find us comforting.”
“You’ve seen her eye.” Kalen didn’t bother engaging in the pleasantries Maya’s tone suggested she was trying to draw him into. “None of us find that comforting. Least of all Carter.”
Kalen’s power rippled through the room, causing the boy, Luis, to whimper. Sophia tucked him beneath her arm, edging him behind their mother. Both of them were bowed over, their heads lowered in submission. Unlike their Alpha mother, they appeared to both have the rust-coloured Delta rank ring around their irises.
“I’m surprised to learn that you’re in on this as well, Professor.” Maya flicked her hand to the bed. “I know how Alphas can be, but surely some lines of proprietary remain—”
“And yet, they don’t.” Kalen sighed, rubbing the side of his face. “I have to protect my Alphas. If you tell anyone about the Sigma’s aberration, they’re going to resume their search for her mate within Ironside and we both know the very first place they’ll turn to. I need my Alphas to stay focussed on narrowing down their specialisations and building their fan bases. I’m already allowing several of them to surrogate for Carter—since it does so well for their ratings—but I have to draw the line somewhere. I need their heads in the game, and there’s only so much time until summer break. Who knows how long they’ll be gone if the officials bring them in for testing? Screen time is everything, Rosales.”
“After the Colorado shooting and the Vermont attack, I’m surprised you’re willing to speak so freely against the OGGB.” Maya took a small step back like she didn’t particularly want to be caught standing too close to Kalen. “They’re on the hunt for anti-loyalists, especially here.”
Here, because of … Eve?
The Vermont attack?
Isobel recoiled, acid spilling into the back of her throat. Theodore slipped his hand through the ties in the back of her hospital gown. His palm pressed against her bare skin, surprisingly cool despite the absurd heat of his body. The touch gave her something to focus on, and she concentrated on the way he gently drifted his fingertips over the subtle bumps in her spine until some of the panic had subsided. Niko still hadn’t taken his eyes off her, and it seemed like he released a short breath when she blinked back into focus.