She moistened her lips and took the necessary step to put herself there. “What?”
“My woman kisses me before she goes to bed.” He made it a declaration.
“She does?”
“Most certainly she does.”
She stood there for a long moment, deciding, and then she put both hands on his shoulders, leaned forward and brushed her lips across his. His heart did a funny shift in his chest. She pulled back immediately, lashes covering the silvery blue, and then she climbed up to the loft.
“Good night, Jonquille.”
“Good night, Rubin.”
“Someone could say good night to me,” Diego groused.
Rubin laughed. “I’m heading out for the first watch. I’ll wake you in four hours.”
5
Jonquille thought she wouldn’t fall asleep with two men in the same house—virtually in the same room with her—but she did. Both men were incredibly silent sleepers. Rubin had taken first watch, patrolling around the cabin for the first few hours and then waking his brother. She was vaguely aware of Rubin coming in and Diego leaving, but there was no whisper of sound to give them away, only that slight heightened energy she felt when they spoke telepathically to each other. She had gone right back to sleep until Diego had awakened her for her shift.
She loved the early morning hours just as the sun was coming up. She had a small backpack with her, water and her sketch pad. Being as light on her feet as she was made traveling through the woods very easy. Patrolling through the woods, she was silent enough that she never bothered the wildlife or insects. This time of the morning she often came across both the night hunters and feeders as well as the early morning animals and birds. There was so much diversity, and all very close to the Campo cabin.
Jonquille knew it was because the brothers didn’t live there year-round. They encouraged their properties to grow naturally and took care to manage the wildlife and forest in the best possible way. Animals that hadn’t been there in years were returning—cautiously, but they had come back. Because they came back, the ecosystem was thriving, improving the conditions of the surrounding woods.
Walking slowly and without making a sound, she could enjoy the songs of the birds, one of her favorite things. She loved all the different early morning melodies mixed with the night birds calling out to one another before they began or ended their hunt for food. Inevitably, she came to the point overlooking the stream. She didn’t go near it, because that was where the animals drank. The overlook was the best place to observe them.
Jonquille settled into a small depression above the stream and waited in silence. It was still relatively dark, although the sky was beginning to be streaked with gray. She could tell a storm was brewing just by the way her body reacted, but it was still a distance away. The stream sparkled at times as the moon shifted through the slow-moving clouds. Something about the way the water looked like diamonds and then would go almost black coupled with the drone of the early morning insects and mournful notes of the male frogs as they gave up calling for their ladyloves made her smile.
Suddenly, a chilling shriek, sounding all too like a child’s cry, cut through the night and then faded away. She rarely allowed the doors to her childhood to unlock. Perhaps just talking with Rubin had cracked open the door enough to allow another recollection to slide out. In any case, that cry, she was certain, had been a bobcat, which brought another memory to the forefront of her mind.
She was younger than the other girls and very, very small. Even they treated her like a little doll. Her diminutive size tended to annoy Whitney. He was aware, even then, when she was three, that energy collected in her body. But she was so small, he didn’t think it was enough to do the things he wanted, like draw lightning to her. She needed to be tall so that when he put her out in a field, she would attract the lightning. He ignored her for the most part, telling the nurses to find a way to make her grow.
She heard the muted cry of one of the girls down the hall and knew immediately it was Iris. None of the other girls called her Iris. She was always Flame. She defied Whitney at every turn and he despised her. He experimented on her and told her she should be happy to suffer for science. He repeatedly gave her a form of cancer and then put it in remission to see if it could be done. He couldn’t care less whether she lived or died. To him, she wasn’t human. She was a laboratory experiment. It didn’t matter how often she got sick or her hair fell out. It only mattered to him if he was successful in stopping the cancer.