Chapter 1

He wasn't sure why he had felt drawn to come to a podunk college to work on his art degree. He could afford, and had applied at, better schools. Still, he rejected the other acceptance letters and moved to the little town of Sheephriam. His intuitive knowing to be somewhere or do something had never been wrong, yet. He was just leaving his algebra class when a young woman caught his eye. She held herself with confidence while she talked to his art professor. Her expression was serious and her stance firm. A different feeling entered his gut. He tried to name it, but it was gone when she stepped out of sight.

Never before had he felt that. Yes, he had experienced similar feelings, but that was before his gifts had been fully awakened. He adjusted his shoulder strap then went to art class. Setting up one of the easels, he set his large drawing pad on it before sitting on a stool. His professor entered and pulled out a screen. The silhouette of a man was shadowed on the screen before it was pushed aside to allow the students to draw the musculature. The same happened with a woman—silhouetted before being revealed. He had been drawing with half a mind as he worked out the details of her feet and lower legs.

The odd feeling stirred his gut as his eyes glanced at her thighs. Lifting his eyes to her face, it was her. Her attention remained elsewhere, but this time he could hardly pull his gaze away. The different feeling started to spread—encompassing the whole of him as he drew in her curves, the details of her form, and even to the gift energies he saw flowing out of her. He was not conscious of what he was adding to her nude form until her head turned and their eyes met.

'You are ready to awaken,' he thought.

Her eyes widened slightly before she was given a drape. The cloth broke their gaze and she left to dress. He sat puzzled as the feeling slowly started to fade. What had just happened? Turning to his drawing of her, he took in the details of the dragon tail that snaked around her legs, the eagle wings that were partially extended behind her back, and the perky tiger ears that rose out of her hair like a child's cat ear headband. He closed the drawing pad then waited for her to come back out while the rest of the class filed out. But she never came back out.

"Parvathi?" his professor asked, grabbing his coat. "Did you have a question?"

"The second model," Parvathi replied.

"She left a while ago. Was there something you didn't get?"

"No. Thank you Prof. Darton."

Parvathi picked up his drawing pad and left. He carried it in his hand as he left the humanities building and crossed campus to his apartment. He climbed the stairs to the third floor. Unlocking the apartment door, he went in and locked himself in his room. Parvathi tossed the drawing pad onto his desk before flopping onto his bed. Was she the reason he felt to attend here? She had heard his thoughts like he had with Gifted Sister as she helped him awaken.

He remained on his bed puzzled by the feeling he got when she met his gaze. When seven o'clock rolled around, he got up long enough to make dinner and eat. Parvathi returned to his room and stood by his window to think, not being able to see much other than the buildings of campus across the street and the little sidewalk that ran next to the apartment building. He was still looking at the buildings when the feeling returned. It wasn't sexual in nature, but the call he had felt when he saw her became stronger—calling to him, for him; he wasn't able to tell. His gaze dropped to the sidewalk and there she was. She was looking around, her energy very self-conscious.

'Above you,' Parvathi thought.

She turned to look at him then ran.

"No, wait!" he called.

She turned back once, but kept running.

He sighed, but the feeling didn't leave this time. The call didn't change, the urgency to wake her up only increased. Slowly he turned from the window and opened his sketch pad to her nude, but altered form. Whoever she was, she was gifted with energies that needed to be used; used soon. He had been the same many, many years ago until Gifted Sister woke him to his work.

Gifted Sister was not blood related, but her presence—her flow with the plants—had intrigued him, inspired his drawing. At first she'd say little to him. She would touch the places on his body that ached while he drew. How she knew where he hurt, he didn't understand, but her touch was always soothing. He had always felt his eyes shift after their time together.

A massive headache would follow for days afterward. When next he felt good enough to see Gifted Sister, he started to see the energies associated with her gifts. She explained then what was happening as his own gifts opened. Now Parvathi wondered if this odd feeling he was experiencing was one she had felt before awakening his gifts.

He called to her in thought.

'Found a gifted one, did you?' she answered.

'If they will open,' he replied. 'I've started getting this really weird feeling when they are close by. Almost like I'm calling to them or they are calling to me.'

'They call you, Gifted Brother. When they are ready to open they call you.'

'And if they are not ready?' he asked, thinking of her flight away from him.

'Then they would not call to you as strongly as they are.'

'I might have scared them off.'

'Well, yeah. You're being too direct. Ignore them as best you can and let them come to you.'

'All right, Gifted Sister. Thank you.'

'Good luck.'

They mentally disconnected before Parvathi closed his drawing pad and turned to the rest of his homework. The strength of the feeling increased and decreased several times as he wrote his English paper. This shift made it difficult to remain focused, but he managed. His other roommates came home and made noise in the front room. Parvathi avoided spending a lot of time with them because he tended to see things he didn't care to know about his roommates. The feeling increased once more and stayed. Getting up, he closed his blinds, not bothering to confirm that she stood on the sidewalk below.