by Cara Wylde
Hauled down the hall unceremoniously, Pippa struggled and screamed in protest.
“What stunt, you jerk? He took advantage of me! He told me he would take me to Uthea!”
Kay pushed her toward the stairs that led to the tunnel underneath the villa.
“You tried to seduce all three of us,” Kay said. “You only care about yourself!”
Pippa freed herself from his grasp and turned to stare him in the eyes. The intense hatred and anger he saw in her beautiful blue orbs threw Kayvor aback.
“Can you blame me? Neither of you cares about me, or that I’m innocent, that I was tricked into boarding that godforsaken ship, and I’m not a slave! I never meant for any of this to happen. I’m just trying to survive!”
Kay’s dark eyes turned into menacing slits. He grabbed her by the jaw and sneered into her face.
“I won’t allow you to break us apart. Now, walk!”
* * *
Pippa
She sobbed as the three Iarnians made her walk in front of them, down the tunnel that led to the Temple of the Heart. They were holding torches, but she wasn’t allowed one, which made it impossible for her to even protect herself. What would she have done, though? Hit Kayvor V’tal in the face? Set him on fire? And then what? To her chagrin, not even Ash seemed to care what happened to her. She’d hoped he would develop at least some feelings toward her after she’d offered herself to him so freely and completely. What had happened between them just an hour and a half before had been more than just an act of lust. To her, at least. She could still feel his body against hers, his heart beating in her ear... Even after taking a shower, she still smelled like him.
Pippa wasn’t stupid. She knew what Kay’s reaction actually meant. Trev seemed to be distressed, too. Neither of them even looked Ash’s way. They were jealous. The General had tasted the forbidden fruit, and now they were trying to fix it by throwing the fruit away altogether. And then pretend that it never happened, that she was never there, on their planet, in their house, in their lives. She felt powerless, which was ridiculous since, at the same time, she was becoming more and more aware of how much power she had over them. Kay had said he wouldn’t allow her to break them apart. If they had already fought over her, then maybe Pippa had an advantage she wasn’t quite able to grasp yet.
They reached the Temple, and this time it was Ashtar who placed his hand on the small of her back and pushed her forward. Her energy field buzzed at his touch. Her heart started beating faster, and her skin felt like it was on fire where his hand touched her through the thick pajama blouse. It was cold down there, but her whole body felt too hot, and her palms were sweating. When she entered the room where the red stone was being kept, she knew that something was wrong. Or right. Too right. Depending on whose side you were: the Iarnians’, or hers.
Pippa walked ahead just to put some distance between herself and the three men. Her body felt like it had been activated. By their presence, but also by what she and Ash had done. Sex energy was the riches, most potent kind of energy, and as much as she liked to think that she had her energy field under control, Pippa knew that this time it was different. Her field had expanded so much that she could barely contain her own power.
“I don’t want to be here,” she told them, a pleading look in her eyes. She avoided looking at the red stone. “Please. You’re making me do something I swore I’d never do again. You’re making me break a promise.”
Ash was taken slightly aback by her words, and Pippa realized she’d hit close to home. Unfortunately, Kay saw it too, and he stepped forward, blocking Ash and stopping him from doing something that wasn’t part of the plan. Pippa turned to Trev, but the priest was too focused on the red stone.
“Trevkon said he saw something when you first touched the Heart of Iarna,” Kay said. “Do it again.”
“No.”
Kay sighed in annoyance, marched toward her, took her by the hand, and dragged her to the stone. She fought him, but it was no use. He was stronger than her.
Pippa felt it even before Kay forced her to place her hand on the red crystal. Her energy expanded toward it, first embracing the dead field of the crystal, then diving deep inside the stone to revive it from within. When her palm came in touch with the cold surface, the process had already begun. The Heart of Iarna started glowing from the inside, the red light growing and growing until it reached the surface and pushed out of the crystal, forming a field of blood red energy that kept expanding and expanding until it bathed the entire room in crimson light. Unable to fight it anymore, Pippa sighed and gave in. She relaxed her shoulders and closed her eyes, focusing on what was happening inside the alien crystal. She’d never felt such intense, exquisite, almost overwhelming power before. The natural crystals on Earth were incredible, sure, but their vibration was feeble compared to what the Heart of Iarna was capable of.
Kay, Trev, and Ash couldn’t believe their eyes. They took a couple of steps back and looked around in awe. They were so entranced by the red light surrounding them and making the walls themselves pulsate, that they didn’t see Pippa lose her balance and fall to the floor until it was too late.
Ash ran to her, taking her tired body into his arms and patting her on the cheek lightly.
“Are you okay? I’m so sorry, Pippa.”
She opened her eyes. “For what?” Her head was heavy, and she could barely find her way through the fog clogging her thoughts. “It drains me,” she whispered. “The crystal. I’ve never worked with anything like it before. It drains my energy until I can’t stand anymore.”
“It’s okay. I got you.”
“No! The Heart is fading again!” Trev’s voice shook with fear. “It doesn’t... It doesn’t last.”
The light in the room was getting back to the cold, grayish color all the people on Iarna had grown tired of a long time ago. Now that Ash, Trev, and Kay had seen what the power of the crystal could do, the realization that the red stone was falling back into its frozen sleep hurt even more. Trev was touching and rubbing the stone frantically, as if he hoped that he could replicate what Pippa had just done. Kay took a couple of deep breaths and regained his calm in seconds. He knelt next to Ash and Pippa.
“Do you know how you did that, or was it involuntarily?”
Pippa looked up at him. She studied him for a moment. His dark eyes, his slightly furrowed brows, his pursed lips... His voice was, once again, calm and pleasant.
“I know,” she said. There was no use in lying to them now. They’d seen too much. “But I don’t know how to make it last. Yet. If you show me the text of the Prophecy... If you translate it for me... Maybe I can find out how to make it permanent.”
“Deal,” Kay said. “But if we show you our sacred text, then you have to tell us the truth about you. Everything. Who you are, why you ran away from Earth... What you can do. Because you can do things, things that are beyond our comprehension. We need to know.”
Pippa bit the inside of her cheek. She closed her eyes, sighed deeply, then eventually relaxed into Ash’s arms and nodded in approval. It was done. There was no going back, so all she could do now was to move forward.
CHAPTER NINE
Kay
As Ash helped Pippa off the floor and onto a chair, and Trev went to bring her the book of the Prophecy of the Heart, Kay was pacing back and forth. He almost couldn’t believe what he’d seen with his own eyes. He touched the red stone, but it was just as cold and dead as before. Not dead. Asleep. Kayvor had always been the rational one. He believed in science and hard facts. He’d been born long after the crystal in the Temple of the Heart had lost its glow, and because he’d never seen its magic with his own eyes, he’d never believed that magic had actually existed. His very world was being turned upside down. He was hiding it well, but he could barely cope.
He sighed in frustration, ran his hands through his long, black hair, and walked to the nearest window. Pippa was starting to feel better. He couldn�
��t look her in the eyes. Not yet. Trevkon had been right all along, and she was the one who could save their entire planet. Now that he knew that, what was his next step? He felt bad for having called her a slave over and over, for having treated her so harshly, never allowing her to prove herself. He’d convinced himself that she was nothing but trouble, and now it turned out that they needed her more than they’d needed anything in their whole life. As he leaned against the window, his head resting on the cold glass, he could hear Ashtar apologizing to her and asking her whether there was anything he could do to help. She asked for a glass of water. Kay cursed under his breath. He’d have to apologize, too. Soon.
Kay raised his eyes to look beyond the frozen glass, and his heart jumped in his chest. Something wasn’t right. He could see the courtyard clearly, which had never been possible before. The windows of the Temple were rarely cleaned of snow and ice since the people of Iarna had started to stray away from their gods, so Kay was used to not seeing much when he looked through them. Which didn’t happen often, since he himself didn’t visit the Temple unless he had to.
“It stopped snowing,” he said.
He pressed his hands to the window as he watched in awe how drops of water flowed in thin, long rivulets on the other side. The ice was melting. For the first time in fifty years, the ice that was covering the windows of the Temple of the Heart was melting!
“What?” Trev came by his side. He was holding a huge tome that he couldn’t yet make himself give to Pippa.
“Look.”
Ash, who had brought Pippa the glass of water she’d requested, told her to stay put. He went to the window to see the miracle for himself.
“By Esus! Do you see that?” He pointed at a dark patch on the ground. “Is that what I think it is?”
The priests still serving at the Temple did make sure to shovel the snow in the courtyard from time to time, lest it blocked the main entrance. Since there hadn’t been a mass held at the Temple in years, that was pretty much the only service they did, along with sweeping the floors now and then. Thanks to them, the layer of snow in the courtyard was thinner than the growing layers beyond the fence, so yes... what Ash had just spotted was, indeed, the dark ground underneath the white mantle of the eternal winter.
Kay dragged in a sharp breath. It didn’t matter that what he saw had nothing to do with science. It was real, so he had no choice but to believe it. He gathered his courage and turned to Pippa. When she avoided his gaze, he walked to her and knelt beside her chair. Gently, he took her hands into his.
“Pippa, I’m sorry I doubted you.”
She chuckled nervously. “You didn’t doubt me. You doubted Trev.”
Kay nodded and smiled. “Nevertheless, you’re the one who did this. You’re the one who brought hope back into our hearts. So, here’s my promise to you: if you heal our planet and bring back our four seasons, I will personally make sure you reach Uthea safely.”
Pippa looked up at him, her eyes slightly wet with tears of joy. Kay’s heart skipped a beat. Oh, she was beautiful! He understood perfectly why Ash had given into his lust. Who could resist this woman’s deep blue eyes, full lips, and generous curves? Even as he held her hands, he could feel the warmth of her body passing through to him, making his blood run faster and his breath quicken.
“Really?” she whispered. “You promise?”
“Yes.”
“We will make sure it happens,” Trev said, and Ash agreed.
“But what about the slave trader? It’s not a good idea to cross a Sepharan...”
Kay reached out and caressed her cheek with the back of his hand. The red spots on her nose and cheeks looked a little odd, yet unbearably cute.
“I will make him a good offer.”
Pippa chuckled. “An offer he can’t refuse?” When neither of them reacted, she cleared her throat and tried to conceal her amusement. “All right. That sounds good.” She looked at each of them, in turn, holding their gaze for a moment, then nodded. “Now, do you want to know my story?”
* * *
Pippa
She took a deep breath, stared at her glass of water, took a sip, then finally set it down on the nearest table and crossed her hands in her lap. It was hard for her. The wound was still fresh, and she wasn’t ready to talk about it, but she had to. This was her way out. Her only way out. And, who knew? Maybe she’d feel better afterwards. She’d talked to her friends back on Earth, sure, but she hadn’t told them everything. She hadn’t gotten as deep as she intended to go now. For this deal to work, she had to be fully honest. Especially since reviving the Heart of Iarna depended on Ash, Kay, and Trev understanding who she was, what she could do, and what she needed from them to succeed.
“I told you the truth about my mother,” she started bravely. “She died three months ago. Of cancer. I couldn’t save her.”
“I’m so sorry,” Trev whispered. He grabbed another chair and sat down next to her. Ash was sitting on the floor, but Kay was still pacing restlessly. “We have heard about this illness. Iarnians don’t suffer from it, but we know it is widespread in the Milky Way Galaxy.”
“You couldn’t have saved her,” Kay said. “Why do you blame yourself when even we know it’s an illness that can rarely be cured?”
Pippa shook her head. “Please, just listen until the end. I could have saved her, and I tried. I wasn’t strong enough. Too tired, too drained... who knows? All I know is that it didn’t work.”
“But how could you...?”
“This was my job on Earth. My career. I discovered that I could see auras when I was nine. Each year, my abilities grew. By the time I was a teenager, I could do much more than just see the energy fields of people, animals, objects. I could manipulate them, so to speak. I could sense where the auras were broken, hurt, or stained, and I could cleanse them. When I was eighteen, instead of going to college, I decided to open my own practice and use my special abilities to build a business and help those whom the standard medical methods had let down. It worked great for a while. I was living the dream, you know? I was doing what I loved most, what I was good at, and at the same time I was helping people, giving them hope, healing them and changing their lives. By the time I was twenty-three, I could support myself and my mother. Then, she got sick, and it all went downhill. I don’t know what happened. I was so certain that I could heal her, too. I tried everything. Energy sessions, crystals, meditation... I used all the skills I had at my disposal, everything that I had learned in years of successful practice, and still her health kept deteriorating. At the same time, I couldn’t turn down my clients. I worked every waking hour. I pushed myself even when I thought I couldn’t keep going. But I had to help all of them. There was no way someone would step into my office and I’d tell them my schedule was full and there was nothing I could do for them. At some point, when my mom had already been in hospital for a week or so, I remember that I did think that I was exhausting myself and I needed a break. Her health was getting worse and worse, so I spent all my savings on the best treatments and interventions money could buy. I felt helpless. I could save all those people from conditions that were probably worse than hers, or more advanced, but it turned out that I could do nothing for her. Nothing worked. So, I turned to standard medicine. That didn’t work, either. I closed my small office and spent the last few days she had left of her life in hospital, with her. I never gave up. But it just seemed like my abilities didn’t want to work on her.”
Pippa paused for a tense moment. Kay had stopped pacing. He had his arms crossed over his chest, as if he didn’t know what else to do with them, and his eyes fixed on the floor. Trev was holding the book of the Prophecy in his lap and staring at its cover. Ash was the only one who was still looking at Pippa and paying full attention to her every word and gesture. It might have been that he understood what pain was better than Kay and Trev, or that he simply felt more connected to her. If it had been just him in the room with her, he would have hel
d her in his arms the entire time. As things were, though, he didn’t want to piss off Trev and Ash more than he’d already had.
Pippa swallowed heavily, then continued. The worst was over. She only had to finish her story, now.
“When my mom died, I decided to never practice again. It didn’t matter that I was left with no savings. I just couldn’t find it in me to go back to that way of life. I felt like my abilities had failed me. Had failed her. I already knew I could block them if I wanted, so that’s what I did. My friends were supportive... they wanted to help, but there was nothing they could really do to make me feel better. I let them try for a while, but it all eventually boiled down to ‘you have to move on, Pippa’, and that made things even worse. One day, however, I decided to move on. For real. My former clients were still calling me, and changing my phone number didn’t help. No matter what I did, people eventually found me. I couldn’t take it anymore. If I truly wanted to move on, then I needed to leave Earth. I needed to find a place where no one knew who I was, and I could start a new life, a different life. I promised to myself, and to my mother, on her deathbed, that I would never use my abilities again. And I...” She sobbed. “I broke that promise once already.” She wiped her tears with the back of her hand, sniffed loudly, and did her best to compose herself. “I broke it when I escaped the Black Laverna. I manipulated the Sepharans’ energy fields so they wouldn’t be able to react immediately, which bought me enough time to get the pod out of the ship’s range and land on Iarna.”
They were all silent for a while. Pippa felt exhausted. Getting it all out in just a few breaths had taken a toll on her, and now she felt like she could sleep for days.
Ash didn’t know what to say. He was better with gestures than with words, but he held back.