Free Rejar by Dara Joy Page A

him like this?
    It was ... irritating.
    But not beyond repair.
    The night had just begun and he fully intended to make it a long one. For her.
    He immediately left the soiree, heading back to his hotel room—a room specifically chosen for his cat self to be easily accessed by a series of outside ledges and windows.
    When he left the room again a few minutes later, he was stalking on four paws.
    And his difficult prey had the unlikely name of a flower.
    Chapter Four
    Planet Aviara, Star System Tau Hydra, 5187 m.u.
    Yaniff, the ancient wizard of Aviara, slowly stepped off the platform lift onto the limb of the enormous tree that his student Lorgin ta’al Krue called home. Deep in the Towering Forest, such trees were of incredible breadth and height, the flat intersecting limbs of this one forming entire levels.
    Crystal chimes tinkled in the soft breeze.
    In the distance, out of sight, he heard two distinct voices; one deep and coaxing, the other disbelieving—followed by the happy sound of mingled laughter. Lorgin and his wife, Adeeann.
    Smiling, Yaniff reached up to his shoulder to stroke the feathers of his winged companion. “We did a good job with that one, eh, Bojo?”
    The silent companion ruffled his feathers by way of answer.
    “Now we enter into a most delicate time, my friend. A time of great discovery; a time of overflowing happiness and intense sorrow.” Yaniff looked off into nothing. “A time of awakenings.”
    Walking down two levels, following the semicircular pathway, the old mystic stepped through tall, flowering plants into an open glen.
    The sight he beheld made him chuckle.
    Lorgin and his very pregnant wife were lying together in a hammock. Lorgin had just leaned over to murmur something in her ear as the palm of his hand glided lovingly over the swollen expanse of her stomach. Adeeann elbowed him smartly in the side.
    “Did you not see that, Yaniff?” Lorgin laughed over to the old man. “Mayhap it is time to take her into yet another universe?” He joked. “Surely, it would improve her mood.”
    “I wouldn’t be in this ‘mood’ now if you hadn’t kidnapped me from that science fiction convention in the first place.” Adeeann, nee Deana Jones, formerly of Boston, Massachusetts, shook her head in exasperation. At the best of times, her warrior knight was a handful. She smiled wickedly at the very thought.
    “I do not like this face you wear.” Lorgin shook his finger at her, spoiling the effect by grinning at her.
    “You might get your wish, Lorgin.” The wizard’s words stopped him cold. Lorgin’s golden head whipped toward his ancient teacher, the smile on his face instantly replaced by intense regard. “You have found him, Yaniff?”
    Yaniff inclined his head. “It is so.”
    Lorgin leaped off the hammock. “Where? Where is my brother?”
    “Rejar?” Deana tried unsuccessfully to exit the hammock, her unwieldy bulk making it impossible. “Is he all right?”
    They had all been so concerned these many months with the welfare of Lorgin’s Familiar half-brother. To finally get some news was something of a shock.
    Deana made it to the edge of the hammock again, only to topple backwards toward its center.
    “Is he unharmed? How does he fare? Is he—” Lorgin’s worried questions were interrupted by the sound of a grunt coming from the direction of the hammock.
    “For heaven’s sake, Lorgin, get me out of here!”
    Lorgin quickly went to the assistance of his wife. Yaniff hid his smile behind his hand.
    “Don’t keep us in suspense any longer, Yaniff.” Standing, she tugged her caftan down over her bulky middle. “Tell us.”
    “Rejar finds himself in a most unusual predicament. He is, in fact, on your world, Adeeann.”
    Deana gasped. “My world? You mean he’s on ...” Her glance skittered to her husband, then back to Yaniff. She hadn’t yet let Lorgin in on the little joke she had played on him when she had first met him and he had demanded to know what planet