Betrayal: Book 3 of the Guardians Saga

Ch. 3.2 Release Me

A/N

Please listen to the music video to help you understand the chapter.

*****

The staff hurtled toward Gabe's face but he plucked it out of the air and expertly stop blocked it. Next he was assaulted with music, but it was his youngest brother's impudent grin that infuriated him.

"Listen to the lyrics," Rile said. "They're a message from Alex." He lunged and jabbed as 'Release Me' echoed in the room.

"Shut up." Gabe struck back hard with the staff that he had caught.

"I will, so you can hear the lyrics better." Rile blocked Gabe's attack and went on counter offensive. "Listen how she's begging to be released because she can't do it on her own."

Gabe tried to sweep Rile's feet. "I said shut up."

Rile came at Gabe so fast and hard that his older brother was forced back against the wall. When they were muzzle to muzzle, Rile's grin faded.

"Release Alex. You're restarting the clan on Olam. What you're doing isn't right," Rile said.

"Since when do you care what's right? You want what's mine. Or do you want a female mammal for your trophy case?" Gabe threw off Rile.

"Can't touch what's in your trophy case?"

Rile avoided Gabe's lunge, but his oldest brother's fist connected. Gabe stalked out of the door while Rile held his bleeding muzzle.

*****

Cale sat down cross-legged on the floor of the training area. He looked up at the startled Alex and patted the ground in front of him. She sat across him, expression a mixture of puzzlement and wariness.

"What do you hear when I say I love you?"

Alex's eyebrows shot up and she jumped to her feet. "Cale! No!"

He sighed. "I promise that I am not propositioning you. Please repeat back what you heard."

Alex looked left and right. "What's going on? Who's here?"

Cale stood up. "Let me try again. What do you hear when I say that I love my brothers?"

"You love your brothers."

Cale's eye-ridges rose in surprise. "Oh, I think I see the problem. What do you hear when I say that the Creator of All loves us?"

"Uhm, that the Creator of All loves us?"

With a sigh, Cale sat back down. "So if I say love, love, love, what do you hear?"

Alex sat across from him. "Cale, I hear love, love, love. Whatever are you getting at?"

"American English is strangely stunted in its vocabulary, although I suppose of what I've seen of its culture, it makes sense. I am saying three different words, and you are repeating one back to me, the word that means erotic emotion. No wonder you are paranoid, I mean, suspicious, of the word love."

Alex rested her chin in her hands. "Let me think. There's something on the edge of my mind. Something about love in another language, an ancient language." She pulled out her phone and tapped on it. "Here it is: phileo, eros, and agape."

Cale slapped his fist into his palm. "Finally! Thank the Portal Guardian, I understood those. I phileo my brothers and the Creator of All agape us." Impulsively, he leaned forward and hugged Alex. "I phileo you, Alex. You have nothing to fear from me."

Stunned, Alex didn't return the hug and said, "Oh, uh, yeah, I uh, phileo you, too, Cale."

So when Gabe and Rile said 'love' to me, what did they really say? I'm a bigger idiot than I thought.