Page 71 of Sunflower

“You won’t. I have a voice.” Pressing my hands against his pecs for balance, I stepped out of the bath and leaned forward to press my lips gently against his. “If I feel like you’re being too rough with me, I know I can tell you and you’ll stop. Okay?”

“Okay,” he said in a small, uncertain voice.

Oh, my sweet, adorable hunk of an eventual husband. “Sweetness, you trust me, right?”

“With my life.”

“Then trust me when I say you should trust yourself about this.”

He sighed, but nodded. “Okay.”

Patting him lightly on the cheek, I smiled softly, certain that he’d be fine. He just needed some confidence when it came to us fucking. God knew he had confidence in spades about everything else, so it seemed odd that he wasn’t sure about this. I guess I’d just have to show him. Eventually, he’d learn. “Come on. There’s lots I need to tell you.” I looked down at the pile of clothes still sitting on the floor. “You cleared all those, yeah?”

“They’re clear. The only bug I could find was in your scarf, which you knew about. It’s still downstairs next to your jacket.” He dropped his towel and put on his boxers from before.

Following his lead, I dug through the pile of clothes until I found my underwear, still tangled with my jeans. “And I’m assuming it can’t hear us up here? Otherwise, you wouldn’t be speaking so openly.”

“It can’t,” he confirmed with a nod, pulling on his pants. “If you’re worried, though, we can go to your room and put some music on like the other night.”

“Yeah, I think I’d prefer that.” I stepped into my jeans and grabbed the rest of our clothes. “Let’s get settled. Have I got some crazy shit to tell you this time.” I followed him out the door, down the short hall and into my room, before dumping our clothes on the bed. “Shut the door? I’ll grab the TV.”

Once we were all situated, we lay on the bed face to face and I told him everything I could remember about the meeting with the Agent, and the two strange men that had seemed to help at the end.

When I was done, he rolled onto his back and let out a deep sigh. “I was all set to follow the fucker until they showed up. I didn’t want to chance leaving you in case they were working with him, but the way he lit out of there, I’m guessing they weren’t.”

I shook my head and walked my fingers up his torso before I tapped him on his chin. “It sounded like they knew George. Maybe they used to work with him? It’s not like I have a comprehensive list of everyone he’s worked with in the past. Either way, it was obvious that they didn’t like the Agent.”

“At least we have that much in common, then.” He scratched his chin, thinking. “And you said that they disappeared? I lost track of them at the end, but I put that down to the way the sun was shining on them, and I missed where they went. They actually vanished in front of you?”

“Yup. One second, they were there, the next they weren’t.” I snuggled into him and rested my chin on my interlaced fingers on his chest. “Do you have anyone in your team, or know anyone in other teams who can go invisible?”

“Maybe. We don’t have anyone in our team, but I’ve heard chatter about two or three in other nearby divisions that can manipulate their surroundings or viewers’ minds enough to make it look like they’re invisible.” He wound his arm around me and pulled me closer.

I smirked and shook my head. “It’s still crazy to me that this is all real. That people with powers like yours are just wandering around like everyday people.”

He cocked an eyebrow at me. “Weareeveryday people. We eat, we sleep…” Smirking, he leaned down to whisper, “We fuck…” He kissed me on my forehead before relaxing and continuing in his usual voice, “All just like regular folk do.”

“I know that,” I responded, my cheeks burning so much that I buried my face in his chest. “I mean, like you’re all so rare. Like one in a million.”

Callum chuckled at my mumblings. “Technically, each one of us is one in five million. There’s maybe sixteen-hundred of us worldwide? No more than two thousand, that’s for sure.”

My curiosity piqued; I looked up, my previous embarrassment forgotten. “You know how many there are? Are there, like, lists or something?”

He shrugged. “There are family trees and record keepers that look after them. Sure, there have been families we’ve lost track of over the centuries, but otherwise, the records are pretty well kept. And with the world population being what it is, everyone’s reasonably confident that the ratio of powered humans to normies is around one in five million.”

“Huh.” I blinked as what he said sunk in and my eyes widened as a sudden thought struck me. “How secure are those familytrees, Callum? No one can get access to them that isn’t supposed to, right?” Was this how the Agent and his cronies were getting their information?

“None of the family trees are online, if that’s what you mean.” He frowned. “I’ve never asked, because I’ve never been curious enough to see them, but I think Mam said you need to have access granted to you by the elders before they let you see them.”

“Thank fuck.” I let out a heavy sigh of relief. One less thing to worry about and with the number of things I was worrying about, I was more than happy to let one go. “You said last night that you work with normies. Seven powered, seven normies, I think you said?”

He nodded. “Yup. Some other teams around the world have more, some have less. It all depends on what their group purpose is.”

I pulled myself off Callum and leaned on an elbow next to him so I could tap my fingers against his chest again. “So, it’d be safe to say that there are always normies coming and going from teams. Retirements or leaving to work in non-powered related jobs. Right?”

“Retirements, yes. Leaving to work with normies who don’t know about us? Not so much. They’re mostly relatives of the powered and have been brought up knowing about us and our history. Because of that, it’s incredibly rare for any normie to work with us to quit outside of retirement, because it’d be like they’re leaving their families. Most bring in normies from the outside as friends that end up marrying into the fold and giving birth to the next generation.”

“You realize how cult-like that sounded, don’t you?” I teased with a grin. I understood the need for secrecy, but there was only so much you could do before secrets leaked, especially in the world today, where everything was online and so freely available. Closing groups off and creating cults around poweredindividuals was only going to end up getting people killed. I was kind of surprised it hadn’t happened already, given that he’d told me stories of his family that were easily over two thousand years old. Or maybe it had, and I just hadn’t heard about it yet.

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