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Chapter One

When she was only five years old, Olivia Murdoch understood what it meant to be seduced. In the Chicago city park down the road from the apartment where she lived with her adoptive mother, she stood in thrall. Her gaze could not tear away from the object that held such strong allure for her.

And she was determined to climb that giant poplar tree if it was the last thing she did.

The tree had a few low-hanging branches, but they were still too far up for her to reach. Undeterred, she found a boy in the park who was willing to lift her up high enough to reach one of the lowest branches. She didn’t tell the boy that she didn’t intend to stay on that low branch, but since he didn’t ask, she didn’t feel like it was a lie. Exactly. Her mother, Jean, was chatting with some of the other neighborhood mothers on a nearby bench, giving Olivia occasional glances. In between those glances, Olivia had the boy lift her up, and as soon as he turned away to get back to playing, she scrambled up the branches of that tree as quickly as she could.

When she reached the top, she simply sat up among the green leaves and basked. Nothing had ever felt more natural and embracing than the limbs of that tree. She gently touched the leaves she could reach and ran her fingers over the tree’s textured bark. She watched small insects crawl and birds build their nests. She listened to the different sounds the wind made when it streamed through the branches. For her, it was nirvana.

So engrossed in her experience was she that she never heard her mother calling for her. The search party that congregated in the park and the flashing lights of the police cars never even registered. It was as if she was in her own little cocoon. Had the boy who had lifted her into the tree still been there, her experience might have ended differently. But he had gone home shortly after she climbed to the top. And so she rested among those limbs for hours. She barely blinked as she watched the changing colors of the leaves as the sun set. When it grew dark, her heavy-lidded eyes closed.

They figured it was shortly after she fell asleep that she fell from the tree. Her next memory was of the hospital room when she woke with her left arm in a cast, Jean hovering over her. Even though she knew she had caused her mother immeasurable worry and the cast resulted in weeks of discomfort, it was among the best moments of her childhood.

Some things never change
, Olivia mused now.

She was once again nestled among the branches of a much taller tree, essentially isolated from the rest of the world. The difference now was she was thirteen years older, she was living on an alternate plane of existence and she now understood she wasn’t fully human.

Okay, so maybe some things change quite dramatically
, she corrected herself with a mental chuckle.

“And what did Jean say to you when she got you home from the hospital with your broken arm?” James asked from his perch on a nearby branch, interrupting her thoughts.

Her lips curved into a smile as she glanced at her paired Gloresti. Discovering after she transitioned to this plane six weeks ago that he was nearly as young as herself—in appearance, anyway—had come as a surprise to her. She only learned after her transition that nearly all Estilorians were youthful in appearance when they transitioned from being human and that they never aged.

With his straight, dark-blond hair arranged in a rather choppy cut around his handsome face and the dark blue eyes marking him as a Gloresti, he could have walked onto any college campus in America and fit right in. Although, she reasoned, his rather pronounced Gloresti musculature might have singled him out a bit.

“Jean is a very patient person,” she responded, brushing a stray curl behind her ear. “She just told me to let her know the next time I wanted to climb a tree and she would climb it with me.”

He nodded soberly. “Like I do.”

She laughed. This was far from the first time he had sat up in a tree with her over the past couple of weeks. Like most Estilorians, he didn’t have much of a sense of humor and was largely in the dark when it came to human emotion. But she could see him really trying to understand her better. It was an effort she deeply appreciated.

“Yes, like you do,” she agreed. “I suppose with Amber and Gabriel set to return from their honeymoon soon, we won’t get many more tree-climbing opportunities for a while, though.”

“We can try to work some climbing in around your future training,” he said graciously, making her smile again.

The training he referenced was intended to help prepare her and her sisters, Amber and Skye, for life on the Estilorian plane. After living as humans for the first eighteen years of their lives, the sisters had a lot of education to undertake. Olivia was actually very much looking forward to it.

The elders of the Estilorian classes had given the sisters time to adjust to their new environment before launching them on the rest of Estilorian society. At first, that had been an act of necessity. Amber had been struck by the cursed blade of the fearsome Mercesti commander, Angius, shortly after the Becoming ceremony where the sisters assumed their powers. A cut from his black blade was something no Estilorian had ever survived.

Amber, however, ultimately had. It had taken over a month of terrible uncertainty for her recovery. And during that time, Olivia and Skye had stayed near Amber in the elder Ini-herit’s home, where she had battled the effects of the deadly curse while under Gabriel’s care, and where they now awaited the newlyweds’ return. They had wanted to remain nearby in case their sister needed them.

Right after Amber recovered, she and Gabriel had been married. Olivia had been more than a little surprised over it. But, well, Amber and Gabriel had been best friends on the human plane for more than six years, and they
were
already avowed, the Estilorian equivalent to “bound for life.” And there was no denying that the two of them were meant to be together. If they weren’t the epitome of love, Olivia didn’t know what was. So she had simply stood up at their wedding and wished them well.

“Did Jean always know that you were not fully human?” James asked then.

“Yes, though she didn’t tell me, just as she never mentioned I had sisters. The Corgloresti who brought me to the human plane as a baby told her to do this. The elders knew that if Amber, Skye and I were ever brought together, our powers would surge. It could have endangered us and anyone near us.”

James nodded as he considered this. His question brought her back to a few weeks before her eighteenth birthday, when she had experienced a surge of what she later learned was her innate power. The experience had caused her to black out. It had also resulted in her having a mental connection with her cat, Aurora. As soon as Jean had realized what had happened, she had made a call. The very next day, Olivia received a visit from the Corgloresti elder, Ini-herit, in human form.

He had sat very calmly in the living room of their apartment and explained to Olivia that she wasn’t fully human, but was, in fact, half Estilorian. Estilorians, he had explained, had evolved alongside humans for centuries. However, because Estilorians differed from humans on a critical cellular level and could command great powers and abilities, humans had grown to resent them. Estilorians went from being heralded as heroes and gods to being a reason humans warred against each other. And because the Estilorians could not in good conscience stand by while their human friends were uselessly slaughtered, the elders had joined together in an unprecedented display of power to create an entire new plane of existence. In removing themselves from humanity, they became the objects of human myths and legends.

James asked, “Did you always know Jean was not your mother?”

“She was my mother,” Olivia clarified, “just not my birth mother. In human terms, she was my adoptive parent. And yes, I always knew.”

What she had not known was that she was one of three daughters born to an Estilorian father and a human mother. An occurrence that the world had never seen.

It weighed on her, this abnormality of her very existence, though she would never say as much to James. She understood and could appreciate the fact that her father, Saraqael, had deeply loved her human mother, Kate. It was even tragically romantic that he had found a way to cure Kate of her human illness through powerful Estilorian means, only to kill himself in the process and leave Kate impregnated.

But Olivia was an intelligent young woman. She reasoned that there would be Estilorians who thought she and her sisters should have never been born. There would be others who might disagree with that sentiment, but felt the girls should have remained on the human plane. No one had said as much. But there had been very few Estilorians at the ceremony welcoming Olivia and her sisters to their plane. The fact that the coliseum where they had Become had been so lightly filled spoke volumes to her. Either the elders who had attended the ceremony hadn’t trusted the others enough to share the ceremony’s location—and wasn’t that an alarming thought?—or the others hadn’t wanted to come.

Neither option prompted her to feel very welcome.

“Jean sounds like a very good mother,” James said, once again interrupting her thoughts. “You were fortunate to have her care and guardianship.”

“Yeah, she’s great,” Olivia agreed, refusing to speak of her adoptive mother in the past tense. Because thinking of Jean made her melancholy, she flashed a deliberately cheerful smile. “And now I have you as my guardian. So I’m lucky twice over.”

He looked down, avoiding her gaze. “I will certainly endeavor to be a better guardian for you than I have proven thus far.”

Her smile faded.

Along with Amber, she and Skye had both been targets in the attack by the Mercesti after the Becoming ceremony. But while Skye had been able to fend the attacking Estilorians off with the holy light that she could command and Amber had used her blessed sword with equally natural skill, Olivia had fallen easy prey to the Mercesti fighter known as Ryce. Only because Aurora had come to her aid had she been able to escape. And even then, her throat had been cut to a point where Amber had to use her healing power to save her life.

She never wanted to feel so helpless and useless again.

“You can’t blame yourself for that, James,” she said quietly, reaching out and touching his hand where it rested on his knee. “It was Kanika who led us to that tunnel. And with Layla using her abilities to keep you, Gabriel and Caleb from sensing anything was wrong, there was nothing you could do.”

He tilted his head the slightest bit when he looked at her hand on his. Feeling herself blush, she pulled her hand back and folded it carefully in her lap.

Rather than comment on her actions, he said, “I am hopeful you will learn more about your abilities in the coming weeks. You must learn to protect yourself.”

She agreed, and had spent much of these past two weeks during her sister’s honeymoon gently probing her innate abilities. Her power, so she had been informed by the wise Elphresti elder, Jabari, drew on nature. That hadn’t surprised her. Her utter fascination with everything living around her lent credence to it. Her mental connection to Aurora, for whom the Scultresti had provided the form of a beautiful white panther upon transitioning to the Estilorian plane, was another testament to her affinity with nature.

She had realized that with a great deal of focus, she could enter the minds of the animals in the forest around her, much as she had once done to a pack of wolves on the human plane. She could sense what they sensed, giving her an unusual and quite stimulating education. Thus far, she hadn’t been able to influence the animals’ behavior as she had done on the human plane with those wolves, but she suspected with the right amount of time and focus, she could learn how.

“I have a distinct feeling self-defense has a whole other meaning on this plane than on the human one,” she said at last, thinking of classes full of soccer moms held in community YMCAs.

“What does it mean on the human plane?” he asked curiously.

“I didn’t mean…” she shook her head, fighting a grin. Sarcasm was lost on him. “I was just pointing out that things on this plane aren’t like those on the human plane, as you know.”

Tangible things couldn’t cross over to this plane from the human plane. Well, there was the notable exception of the rings worn by Amber and Gabriel, but that was a total anomaly. In essence, everything on the Estilorian plane was much as it had been a couple of thousand years ago when the plane had been formed. There had been some innovations over time, of course. But while a few of those updates, such as indoor plumbing, were apparent on the Estilorian plane, most everything was more antiquated.

“Ah, yes,” he said, nodding in understanding. “Well, you have managed to get along without your cell phones and internet and automobiles so far. I imagine you will do the same when you begin your lessons in defense.”

She knew he enjoyed her stories about life on the human plane. Hearing him mention the things that had absorbed so much of her time in her human life made her want to sigh. There were many things she missed. But there were also many new experiences awaiting her.

“I’m sure you’re right, and I’m quite enthusiastic about it. There’s so much I want to learn. Especially flying.”

She hadn’t yet learned how to extend her wings, but she knew it was only a matter of time. Skye had been able to call forth her wings instinctively, something that completely awed Olivia.

“Do you think we’ll be learning how to fly when Amber and Gabriel return?” she asked.

“Sure,” he replied without expression. “That is one of the first lessons you will need to learn.”

For some reason, his unflappable nature constantly humored her. She found herself wanting to try and get a reaction out of him. So far, she hadn’t succeeded.

Reaching over, she patted him on the knee. “Thanks for climbing up here with me. But I guess it’s getting to be time to head back down.” Then she gave him what she hoped was a winning smile. “Will you fly me down?”