Page 17 of Wishes in the Moonlight (Rocky Mountain Wolves #4)
~Amanda~
Before calling Kalo in to speak with me again, I took a moment alone in my office to reflect on the task ahead of me.
Maybe Kalo will turn out to be a friend, Calista said, but she failed to take into account the fact that I had very little experience with making friends.
Oh, I had a wide social circle, to be sure; as the Alpha’s daughter, everyone in the pack knew me and was friendly with me, but close friends I could be truly myself with? Those had never been easy to come by.
From my desk, I walked over to the large window overlooking the lake and mountains.
Despite the cool autumn air and rapidly-darkening sky, a few children played on the beach, chasing each other with sticks in some kind of game they’d invented.
Bracing myself to the cold, I cracked open one of the window panes, letting the noise of their cheerful shouts and shrieks drift up to me along with the blast of chilly air.
Vague memories flickered in the back of my mind at the sound, memories that were mere fragments rather than fully-formed scenes, of playing and laughing with other children when I was very young.
That was before my mother’s multiple miscarriages and the gradual acceptance that I would be my parents’ only child.
Almost overnight, I went from being a carefree, doted-on child to a commodity that needed to be protected at all costs.
Reading in the library replaced running around outside and my tutors took the place of the budding childhood friendships I’d only just started.
Small talk, I could do. Pleasant dinner conversation with the upper ranks of any other pack?
All in a day’s work. But getting someone to open up to me on a personal level remained a skill I never mastered.
With Savannah, I’d made some progress, but that had much more to do with her general openness than any action I’d taken.
No one would ever use the word ‘open’ to describe me.
Still, with my pack’s safety and perhaps even my life on the line, I would have to try.
Closing the window again, I headed towards the fireplace to brush off the chill.
The logs crackled quietly, the embers burning red as they maintained a steady heat.
With the poker, I shifted the wood to give it some new air, allowing the flames below to breathe, and watched the dancing colours for a moment.
The golden glow reminded me of Kalo’s eyes, and I wondered, now that we knew a little more about him, if that glow represented his true, non-corporeal form.
Could he change his appearance to any form he liked?
Had he always been a genie, or were genies ‘made’, the same way species like vampires were?
The more I dwelled on the subject, the more my curiosity grew, and it occurred to me that letting my genuine interest show by asking Kalo those questions directly might be the best way to begin.
Please bring our visitor to my office , I instructed my staff through mind-link, and a few minutes later, Kalo once again appeared at my door.
“Come in. Have a seat by the fire.”
He followed my instructions, pulling his chair a little closer to the fire’s warmth. “Your pack members have done a good job of keeping me occupied, but I’m hoping you’re ready to continue our negotiations now.”
Despite myself, I found myself smiling at how easily he’d seen through our attempts to distract him. “I am. Now that I know your species, I think our conversation will be much more productive.”
For just a second, he went unnaturally still, as if his consciousness had left his physical form, but he quickly covered it with a short, forced laugh. “I doubt that you’ve figured me out quite so quickly.”
“Then you underestimate me, Kalo. And apparently, I’ve underestimated you too. But perhaps you can forgive me since I’ve never met a genie before.”
A beat of silence passed, and another, with only the fire’s gentle crackling filling the space between us. Kalo’s golden eyes blazed into me so fiercely, I thought they might quite literally erupt.
But then, to my surprise and great relief, a dazzling smile flashed across his face.
“I must congratulate you, Alpha Amanda. Most people I meet don’t have the imagination to make such a leap. Even when I tell them, they don’t believe me. It gets awfully tiring trying to convince someone of the very essence of your being, and I truly appreciate you saving me the trouble.”
Although not what I expected, his reaction opened the door to further enquiries, and I walked straight through. “Is that why you wouldn’t tell me right away? Or are you not supposed to until I make a wish? Are there rules that govern how you interact with people? I have so many questions.”
His smile widened as he let out a deep, throaty laugh, showing off his bright, white teeth.
“I would be very happy to talk about this with you at length, but first, we really should secure your border. When your captain took me to the lookout point, I noticed a small gathering to the south that I suspect is intending to make an incursion into your territory tonight. With the sun setting soon, it’s imperative to shore up your defenses as soon as possible. ”
He continued to smile at me, but my lips pulled down into a frown.
Troy hadn’t said anything about seeing people beyond our borders that afternoon.
Could he have forgotten to tell me about it during our conversation about Kalo?
Or did he not mention it because he was involved in the plot against me?
The trust I had started to put in him over the course of the day suddenly felt premature.
As before, Kalo seemed to read each of my thoughts in my expression. “Oh, the captain couldn’t see them. I’m blessed with powers of observation far beyond most other species. The gathering wouldn’t have been visible to a werewolf from our vantage point.”
My breath came a bit easier at knowing Troy hadn’t done anything wrong, but that didn’t mean I fully believed Kalo either. “In other words, he can’t corroborate that any threat exists, and I just have to take your word for it.”
“Not at all.” He extended his hand towards me. “Now that you know what I am, there’s no need to hide my other skills either.”
My eyes darted between his offered hand and his face, trying to read his intentions. “What skills?”
He smiled once more, almost wistfully that time. “Trust me, Amanda. Just this once.”
Trust him. Get to know him. Perhaps by doing the former, the latter would follow? Tentatively, I reached out and placed my hand in his.
The floor fell out from under me.
Colours and lights flashed past until, with a start, I realized I stood at the lookout point, Troy beside me. Beside Kalo , actually, because the eyes I looked out from didn’t belong to me.
What the hell? Was I inside his mind? Was this a trick? An illusion?
“Look,” a voice echoed around me, coming from nowhere and everywhere all at once. “In the distance, to your right.”
I looked, squinting even though I didn’t seem to have eyes of my own at that moment, and the view appeared to zoom in. Distant smoke curled over the tops of the trees, just barely visible, with flashes of movement below.
When the view zoomed out again, seeing the world more normally, none of what I’d just noticed could be seen.
A second later, I was back in my office, landing in my chair with a heavy thump, though my body had never moved at all. My stomach heaved, and Kalo immediately knelt at my feet, a gentle hand on my back.
“Lean forward and focus your vision on one spot. The nausea will fade.”
Again, I did as instructed, and slowly, the motion sickness eased. With my stomach settled, I sat back up and Kalo took his seat next to the fire again, as calm and unflustered as always.
“What just happened?”
“You saw what I saw,” he confirmed. “Activity in the woods, not far from your border. You could send your forces in, but you don’t know what kind of weapons they have, or if they’re merely a distraction from a larger attack.
It would be much more efficient to enhance your entire border, which I’m capable of doing. ”
If it was a trick, it was a damn good one, and I didn’t particularly like the idea of gambling that he might be bluffing. “And that would be the first of my wishes?”
“Yes. And I know it’s uncouth of me to keep reminding you of the time pressure, but I really wouldn’t wait too much longer if I were you.”
I glanced up at the clock above the mantle, calculating the time left until sunset, but before I could respond in any way, the door to my office burst open and Troy stormed in.