Page 13 of Guiding Desire

Yet, while not a few of his cohort had fantasized about what it would be like to have one or another Guardian imprint on them, something about it had never quite sat right with Orrey.

“But you have to be wrong,” Orrey said, his voice sounding far away.

Guardian Senlas reached for his hand. Orrey felt the zap of static energy at the touch. That shouldn’t have happened on servi-carpet, but Orrey had always had a tendency to zap people when he shook hands, handed them things.

“You’re buffering again, by the way. You’ll be pretty beat, but it should still calm you.”

“I’m not doing anything,” Orrey said. He tried pulling his hand back, but Guardian Senlas wouldn’t let him.

The larger man reached for the tray instead, picked out a tara leaf, and brought it up to Orrey’s lips.

“Come on, kitten. It’s just a morsel.”

Orrey gave in.Not kitten,he wanted to say, should say. Instead, he sat there, chewed, that idea taking up space in his foggy head: a Conduit, one who’d been imprinted upon.

“You’re really an S-classer?” Orrey asked after swallowing the bite of tara, the delicate flavor of it lingering like a warm spring breeze.

“Yes. Imprinting happens most in S-classers, sometimes in As, almost never in anyone below that.”

Orrey nodded. “Guardian Wilan imprinted on two Conduits, right?”

Guardian Senlas scratched his head. “Well, after his first Conduit died, he imprinted on another. At least that’s how the history books tell it.”

“But then that’s how it happened. Maybe…maybe you mistakenly imprinted? Does that happen?”

“It doesn’t. Ugh. I hope Col lines you up with an instructor. You went through regular school. You don’t know anything.”

Something else fell into place then, because while Orrey had missed whatever the fancy G&C schools taught, even regular schools touched on the basics of channeling.

“You…you want to have sex after all.”

The Guardian didn’t just frown this time. He was actually angry, and his hold on Orrey’s hand tightened.

“I won’t sit here and tell you I don’t want to have sex with you, but not right now and not without you wanting it too. Not without you consenting. You don’t really make it all that far as a Guardian if any of the Conduits you work with get even the slightest hint of you being that kind of person. I know it used to be different a hundred years ago, but it’s not anymore.”

Orrey, if he’d had the energy, would have been shocked at the Guardian saying that much about Guardian behavior. In a regular, this kind of slander would cost you.

He chuckled. “What you just said constitutes grounds for a fine of up to five hundred decimes.”

The Guardian tilted his head. “Like showing off those claws, kitten?”

Orrey rubbed at his eyes with the hand the Guardian hadn’t occupied. “No, I…not kitten. Can I please go home now, Guardian Senlas? I can’t think about this right now.” The Guardian’s neck muscles worked. “Senlas?”

“I want to say yes to you, but I wouldn’t be able to let you go anywhere without me. Am I right in assuming you have protector housing?”

Orrey nodded.

“Perhaps it would be easier on your roommates if you stayed here, just for now? My entire team has overnight stuff here, and Col’s clothes should fit you okay. The guest rooms’re pretty nice. And there’s tons of my aunt’s cooking in the freezer you can help me get rid of after you’ve relaxed a little.”

It was the mention of Orrey’s roommates that convinced him. It wouldn’t be fair to them, making them tiptoe around a Guardian, and Orrey didn’t feel up to having to explain why that was in the first place.

“Of course. That sounds best,” he said, focusing on his headache instead of thinking through everything he knew about custody-ship or how such a thing could possibly relate to him.

Which it couldn’t, not really, but that was a problem for a time when his head didn’t hurt like the entire Guardian Parade had walked over it, including Guardian chasers with their parasols.

5

SENLAS