KALLE

An hour later, her blood still fizzing a little because Gahrye, true to his word, had not taken her on the table like she'd thought he would—what guy had that kind of self-control?—Kalle was struggling to concentrate.

She ran a hand through her hair and flipped the page. Gahrye was on the other side of the table—she'd insisted on the space, because if he was going to stroke her and kiss her, then not follow through, she would be a mess by the time they left. This way at least she could pretend to get some work done.

Then she frowned. She didn't want to pretend.

She hadn't told Gahrye, but she was digging deeper on the disformed. Something was niggling at her, but she couldn't figure out what. Something kept pressing at her.

Why was Elia—who was human, or at least started that way—able to shift, yet he could not?

She'd gone back to the oldest records she knew, the myths and legends of the Anima's Creation. There were several different accounts, and she'd never known which to take more seriously.

But when she'd gone back over them, two things stood out: The first was that the humans were one of the original tribes. All the earliest stories of the Anima included humans as if it were assumed they would be there. And, by all accounts, they were humans like Kalle—no special powers. No different, better, or worse than she. They were notably not as physically strong, but also notably focused on invention, inspiration, and building. Industry. The earliest humans in Anima were builders and inventors. Creatives. In all the accounts, no matter how fantastical, the humans solved problems.

Interestingly, in more than half of the accounts of Creation she found references to Protectors, or Anima that held what she now understood to be the Protector's role—to keep the Ruler's safe when dealing with…

Kalle blew out a breath.

Each legend was different, but they all had a villain. In some, the villain was an individual. In others, it was a group. In one it was a group of what could only be called spirits, or supernatural beings.

But no matter which account it was, the Protectors were always assigned by the Creator to stand between the King and Queen, and the person or faction that was trying to destroy the Anima as a whole.

Kalle gave a nervous chuckle. She wasn't sure why these stories affected her so. She'd read them a dozen times before. Perhaps it was because she saw Gahrye's face, and Elias. Now, when she read of a King, she imagined the male that had Elia's heart and devotion.

The stories suddenly seemed real.

The thing she wasn't finding, was any reference to the disformed. In fact, even while she was researching other things she'd been paying attention. And a pattern was beginning to show: The disformed were never mentioned until three or four hundred years earlier.

As if they just appeared, suddenly, centuries ago. It didn't make sense.

And where they were mentioned, no one ever explained why they couldn't shift. It was either assumed, and not addressed at all. Or they were criticized or derided, and overlooked.

Disformed never played the hero in the stories. And if any of the historians were themselves disformed, it was never mentioned.

It was as if the Anima wanted to ignore that they existed.

And that thought made her spitting mad.

She looked up. Across the table, Gahrye was reading through a page, hair falling over his crinkled brow and eyes that read quickly, determined to find the secrets they sought.

Why would the Anima want to ignore him—or others like him? What was it about them that made the others so uncomfortable?

She must have voiced the question without realizing it, because Gahrye blinked suddenly and looked up at her.

"The disformed?

"

"Yes.

"

His lips twisted.

"Apparently, we smell wrong,

" he said darkly, his eyes returning to the book as he began to flip through pages to a specific chapter.

"But I think it's mainly that they don't want to think about if it happens to them, or their offspring,

" he muttered.

Kalle frowned.

"Being disformed is catching?

"

Gahrye flapped a hand.

"No. I just mean, they don't want to be us, so we're just a problem they don't know how to solve. Don't humans do that too? Try to pretend a problem doesn't exist—or that it's someone else's to deal with?

"

Kalle snorted.

"Oh, yeah.

"

"So, I think it's that. I think instinctively they know we're different, but they don't know why. And so that leaves a lot of questions they might not want the answer to. They'd prefer to ignore the problem.

"

Anger burned in her chest.

"Well, I don't want to ignore you, Gahrye. I'm… humbled by you.

"

"What?

" He sat up straight and stared at her, his eyes wide.

"What do you mean?

"

"I mean what I told you at the beginning. You're way out of my league. I'm still waiting to wake up one morning and find out you came to your senses and left me.

"

"I will never leave you!

" he said fiercely.

"I mean, not by choice.

"

"Hey, hey, it's okay.

" She leaned across the table to reach for his hand and he caught hers, gripping her fingers in his long, strong hand.

"I didn't mean I thought you would. I meant, I thought you should.

"

"Why would you think that?!

" he was aghast, and she realized she was scaring him.

"Oh, Gahrye, you are so wonderful. Please don't ever change,

" she said, squeezing his hand.

"Don't listen to me, I'm just being silly. I'm going to go back to my reading, and you go back to yours. We'll be fine, okay?

"

*****

GAHRYE

Kalle's talk of him leaving, the way she'd looked at him, like he was a prize… the whole thing made him so uncomfortable. When she'd settled back down into her reading, he'd excused himself to use the bathing room.

He didn't really need it, but he did need to move, and he loved to see the beautiful building they were in. Every time he used the rooms here at the library—no showers, just hard, stinking, metal stalls, and the little water fountains—he took his time walking back through what Kalle called the stacks—the long, high rows of books that ran floor to ceiling throughout this side of the building.

It was an old building, though Kalle had explained that much of it had been rebuilt or restored in recent decades and was no longer original. The tall windows with carved frames, the vaulted ceilings, so much higher than any hand-made structure in Anima—taller even than the ceiling of the market!

He crossed between stacks and trailed his hands along the books. They were all older in this section. They still had an odor, but it wasn't as offensive as the brand new books on the other side that stank of these chemicals and… whatever this world seemed to be made of.

As he stepped into the aisle that would take him past the desk where her grandmother worked, and beyond that, to the research room, Gahrye thanked the Creator for her. Again.

His mate.

It still blew his mind to even think that. And to think she thought he was too good for her! He couldn't fathom it.

He smiled as he turned in the doorway of the little room. Perhaps he would take her on the table after all, if she'd—

He stopped just inside the door to find Kalle, halfway around the table, her face a thunderstorm.

And that asswipe of a male, Dillon, looming over her.