by Jade Alters
“Then…why haven’t I seen you?” Dorian’s baritone voice rumbles across my eardrum. Now that deserves a full peek around the corner.
I dare to inch my eye out, just enough to catch a glimpse. No one’s seen Dorian vertical since the Truce Camp endeavor. At least, not that I know of. My eyes lock on him for a split second. Just enough time to see the gnarled bandage fastened tight over the cut corner of his shirt. A huge gauze pad conceals the wound from Heren’s bolt gun. Even several full days later, I can see the fringe of lifeless scale peeling away from the gaping hole.
“I’m still working things out in my head… You know that,” Stephanie murmurs, at a volume that’s difficult for even me to hear. Everything about Dorian’s reply, however, is plain as day. The words. The anguish. It’s enough for even me to cringe for the poor bastard.
“I know… I guess I just figured it’s been long enough…at least to decide what you think about me,” Dorian’s voice grates in his throat. “We’ve been working together for months. We’ve fought together, for our daughter. With our daughter.”
“I…I know,” Stephanie’s voice is weak, unsure. There’s a different sort of pain in her tone. Something more akin to remorse. “And I’ve come to love you for that.”
“But for nothing else?” Dorian whimpers. It’s like he’s just been hit with another of Heren’s bow gun bolts. “Do you still…remember nothing?”
“A little,” Stephanie admits, almost in a whisper.
“We were married! We loved each other! Do you not remember that?” Dorian bites. I chance another look from behind the pillar. His eyes aren’t nearly as sharp as his words. I’ve been there. With each word comes the sting of regret.
“That’s just it, Dorian,” Stephanie shrinks away from him. She crosses one of her shimmering blue arms over her chest to hold the other. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen her Astral body so complete. She’s like a fluorescent, older version of her daughter. “We…we loved each other. I don’t remember too much from before the accident, but the man I see…isn’t the one I remember.”
“Your death changed both of us,” Dorian mutters in a cold, disconnected voice. I can hear the will drain out of him. But when he opens his mouth again, it resurfaces one last time. One last reach for the thing he wants more than anything. “But not the way I feel. That never changed. We were going to build something beautiful! Before the Council ruined it all! Everything!”
“We were,” Stephanie says, “but it’s like you said. My death changed us. More than you realize. It poisoned you, Dorian…and that has changed the way I feel. I’m here… I’ve been here. But you could never…”
“Stephanie, wait. Please don’t…” Dorian’s voice finally loses the last bit of its strength. I hear a few weak footsteps, and round the pillar another inch to investigate.
What I see is a mighty warlord, reduced in privacy to the form of a devastated child. He stands mid-step, hand still out reaching for Stephanie. She’s not there. Presumably, she vanished through a wall as easily as Hoster did right before he sent me on this little espionage assignment. Dorian’s hand drops slow, crumpling into a tight, smoking fist.
I withdraw behind my pillar. I do my best not to listen in any further, and instead focus on finding the perfect opening to zip away. Sure, this sucks a fat one for Dorian, but it’s not exactly a betrayal in the making. The last thing I want to spend my time doing is listening in on the most private kind of someone else’s pain. I cock my heels to launch again just as Dorian starts to sniffle. He won’t hear a thing. But then he stops himself, so abruptly, it can’t be for no reason. He noticed something.
“How long…have you been there?” Dorian growls.
I dig my nails into the pillar behind me, hard enough to scrape off some sediment. I wait a few uncharacteristically hard heartbeats to breathe. I listen, as if he could be talking to anyone else. As if, if I just stay quiet enough, this bone-chilling situation will just resolve itself. But my gut drops out. Fight and flight tickle opposite sides of my brain. Even with the element of surprise, even with his wound still recovering, I doubt I could take Dorian alone. And I’ve lost the element of surprise. I suck down the quietest, deepest breath I can in preparation to sprint.
“About thirty seconds,” says Horace Dalshak. My brain and heart struggle to reconnect in the second that follows. I hear footsteps, but I don’t dare take another peek from behind my pillar. It’s too good to be true. “Sorry. I was looking for you to talk about the mission. I…didn’t know you were with someone.”
“I…I’m not,” Dorian manages to grunt, sounding only half as injured as he really is. I can’t believe it. Horace Dalshak really is here. I’m as good as invisible, and there actually is some kind of coup! It’s all too much for me to process at once. So I tune in with my ears and save the processing for later.
“I’m sorry, friend,” Horace offers, in perhaps the most genuine voice I’ve ever heard from him.
“Don’t be,” Dorian gives one last sniffle. He clears his throat, but his next words are in no way absent of the hurt he still harbors. The only difference I hear in his voice is an attempt at acceptance. “I suppose…the past is to be mourned. Not resurrected.”
“A mystery we have yet to solve. Perhaps you will be the one,” Horace says.
“I’ve had enough philosophy for one night,” Dorian refutes. “What about the mission?” I slide my feet a painful inch around the side of the pillar. I have to do anything I can to hear this. The hidden mission of the Kyrie.
“It seems as though some new information has been made available to us,” Horace says. “Recovered from the Lotus Vault itself.”
“Is it what we’re missing?” Dorian asks.
“Part of it, maybe. I’m still figuring out the translation. Much of it is written in the same language the Origas’ records we collected at the Truce Camp was,” Horace explains.
“But you can read it?”
“I will,” I can almost hear the smirk in Horace’s reply. Then I hear a snap. I wait about five seconds before I dare take another look. Sure enough, there’s no trace anyone has visited this remote corner of the Academy. No Horace. No Dorian. There’s hardly so much as a disturbed dust cloud.
I let my back hit the wall. My head hits my open palm a second later. I can’t believe this is really happening. That they would actually plan a dissent at a time like this. Hell, even I know how important it is we hang in together, with the Lotus gunning for all of us.
What I can believe even less is that Emery isn’t here for me to tell. I won’t be able to talk to her about it until morning. It seems like too big a secret to keep to myself, or even just to share with Hoster. But I’m not sure who I trust enough to tell. At least, not until I remember I don’t have just one official Dalshak parole officer.
My knuckles hit the door adjoined to mine. My oldest friend appears in the opening.
“What the hell you want in the middle of the night?” asks Serge.
“Not to see your ugly face, that’s for sure,” I bounce right back at him, “Let me in.”
Broken Bond
Bryant,
The Broken Academy, Cece’s Room
Gray flashes of flesh jump through my mind. I can still feel the corrupted earth through my fingers. I feel it tremble against the rip and tear of overgrown nails. The last strength of my legs threatens to give way. Then I feel something hit my chest. This one sensation is somehow more potent, more real, than all the others preceding. A rift splits my dream wide open.
My eyes freeze on a flat-colored surface. It takes a while for me to recognize it as a ceiling, when I finally notice the fan hanging there. I let my eyes roll around on the edge of my sockets, rather than move my head, to gauge where I am. The walls are mostly plain. The curtains are drawn over the windows. All I can tell from here is that it’s a standard Academy bedroom. Then I notice the weight on my chest. It hasn’t moved since it first plopped down. I drop my chin to my chest to see the top of a dark head of hai
r.
“Cece?” I whisper.
“Finally,” Cece yawns as she turns her head up at me. Her crystal blue eyes manage to drink in even the slight amount of light in this room, and shine. The second I meet them, my chest inflates with a rush of air. Memories race back to me. I survived the Truce Camp battle. Helena and I detonated our wall. I made it back to the Academy, and I came here. “I was actually starting to worry about you.”
“I must have been out for some time then,” I manage to smirk. Each little movement of my face and flick of my fingers returns a tingle of feeling to a small part of me. Cece runs a hand down my stony-skinned chest. Ripples of sensation swirl around my entire body.
“About three days,” Cece says. When she sees some of the expression return to my armored cheeks, her lips curl into a smile. “I missed you.”
“I would say I did too, but…I have been asleep,” I tease her. Cece pretends to look offended for a moment. Then the pride of a good teacher wells up in her smile. Her cheek pushes up my chest, to fit her lips between mine. It feels like a lifetime since I’ve felt it. The softness inside my own hardness. The warmth of her burning chest against mine. The harder her face presses into mine, the deeper I feel a fire in my chest. It’s like Cece shares her own draconic heat through our lips.
Before I know it, a new appendage has begun to stiffen between my legs. Cece’s hand glides up the shaft as soon as it’s formed. She puts her head up into the armored underside of my jaw. She plants tingling little pecks all along the rim of my neck. Her fingers fold my boxers back to let my penis flop loose. It straightens up like a sword. Cece uses her deft, soft hands as a sheath. Her loose fist hammers into my pelvis, giving me the longest strokes she can.
I run a rocky finger down her spine, just to feel it arch. When she flips over on her back, I slide my hands up her shirt, just to feel her nipples stiffen. Now it’s my turn to massage. I don’t know where she’s just come from, but her muscles are loose and tired as I circle a black and orange armored finger around her bulging clitoris. She leans back, burying her face sideways in her pillow to muffle her moans. Only her hand remains rigid, and in motion. She slides it down and up the only soft part of my body. It’s so fast, so intense. And I’ve only just woken up. When she lifts her shirt to show the subtle bounce of her breasts with each flick below, there’s only so much I can take.
I feel myself throb a few times in her grip. The feeling triggers a wide smile at me. This triggers a wave of overwhelming convulsions in my pelvis. I lean forward, hard, into her grip while the tremors of ecstasy rattle my body. I can’t help it. I pulse out a shot of liquid between each stroke of her hand. A spray of lightly lucid orange liquid flies up onto Cece’s stomach and chest.
“Don’t stop,” she moans. With my waist suddenly weak from her relentless stroke, it’s easier said than done. But I don’t stop, and neither does she. Cece’s grip only tightens on me as she nears her own orgasm. Her massage quickens to an overwhelming pace. Demonic ejaculate scatters up and down her body as she twists her legs around and shakes against my flicking finger. Cece bites down hard on her pillow. She cries out deep in her throat. Her hand slows to a steady glide on my penis, then finally stops.
We flatten out against her bed, side by side. Heavy breaths in rhythm mark our synchronicity, as we drift right back off toward sleep. Then a blare of noise fills the room. Cece shoots straight up. I’m only a second behind.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me… Now?” she says.
“What? What is that?” I ask. Cece turns to me with flushed cheeks, but a grim weight in her tired, blue eyes.
“You really slept through those, huh? It’s an alert. Somewhere, we’re under attack,” Cece tells me.
Bryant,
Point Arena Research Facility
It’s all so fast I can hardly keep track. One second I’m in Cece’s bed, the next we’re in the Administrative Wing, and the next we’re shooting down the Tether Teleporter to Point Arena. The hallway between the offices of the Council filled with bodies almost instantly. Cece and I stood before the leaders of the Council and the Kyrie alike. They listed the details of the mission like it was some freelance offer, for any who responded to the alert to take should they choose. Just how many of these attacks have they dealt with in the time I was out? I still wonder.
“There’s been a security breach at the Point Arena facility. A group moved in from the water’s edge, and has made it inside,” Magister Reynold’s voice piped up over the chatter of the patchwork army that gathered in the Administrative Wing. One by one, groups rumbled down to whispers, then fizzled out completely. Everyone took a collective step closer to him. To gauge if this was a mission for them.
“We don’t believe it could be Vampires. They would have no reason to invade one of our facilities. Nor would they likely have the means for a waterborne infiltration,” Lucidous added. Vampires? I wondered. It was at this point that I got my first real taste of how much had transpired in my rest.
“We also don’t know exactly how much of the facility the invaders have overtaken. Reports were vague and fast. This leads us to believe the staff are under extreme duress. We will dispatch a large party with several leaders immediately,” Dragonlord Thise announced. Everybody in the mixed crowd shuffled uneasily. The time was dawning for the decision. Who would risk their lives? Who would make themselves the living barrier between our attackers and our safety?
“This should go without saying, but…it’s imperative we keep Point Arena in our control. Access to the facility means access to an entry point to the Academy,” Dorian’s voice rattled the glass panes of the Councilchamber doors behind him.
“First, let’s appoint our party leaders,” Chief Botan declared. This resulted in an immediate backshuffle of most of the crowd. While any of them were willing to lay down what they had to be a buffer between the supernatural and potential destruction, not many felt fit to lead it. That was where the woman next to me differed from the rest of the room. While they all shrunk away, she stepped forward.
“I’ll go,” Cece’s voice shattered the tenuous quiet. She’ll go. Just like that. The memory of her and I, so close in the dark, caught in each other’s hands…threatened to blow away in the wind of loss. Who knew what was waiting for her down there? How could she risk everything so carelessly, when there were others who could take her place? Not alone, of that I was certain.
“As will I,” I found it in me to project over the room.
“Count me in,” piped up yet another familiar voice from the other side of the crowd. Lee stepped out, his hulking chest held proud and high. This was followed by a hanging silence too heavy for seemingly anyone to break. Three party leaders might have been enough. We might have made it. But there was one more man brave enough. One more man, though nowhere near Lee or myself in stature, who stood just as tall.
“You’re going to need some cover,” shrugged Serge Dalshak.
And so, for the first time since the struggle between the Academy and Kyrie began, Cece and all three of her once-lovers came together to fight. I bunched in shoulder-to-shoulder with Cece, Lee and Serge in the core of our supernatural infantry. A few more Magicians. Some Fey. A handful of Shifters. But the four of us, in the heart of the crowd, the Dragon and each of us touched by her, felt the fire in our chests hotter than anyone else. Light raced over us from the swinging french doors of the Adjustment Lounge. The Tether Teleporter swallowed us, then shot us straight down to the steel research labyrinth along the rocky California coast.
The light recedes to show us the Tether room, filled with chaos. The rest of our unit spreads out instantly, forming a perimeter around me and the other party leaders. We search every edge of the room for assailants, but all we find are the cowering staff of the facility. They crouch behind computer monitors and take cover behind supply crates all around the circular room. The first thing I notice, once the initial fear of the unknown subsides, is the rumble. Something deep beneath our feet is
shaking the floor.
“Hang tight a sec,” Serge calls out when a few of our eager infantry creep outside the circle. He unfolds his arms wide before himself. Once they stick out straight from each side, he gives a sharp snap. “Alright. No one goes beyond fifty feet from me. You’ll be completely hidden.” he tells our group.
“Serge is right,” Cece surprises me in saying. I certainly never thought those words would leave her lips again, in that particular combination. “Keep it close, and only attack in ambushes. At least three of you to one target. We’ll need surprise to compete in these close quarters.” Heads bob in confirmation all around us, despite the terror in many of their eyes.
“The old team: back together. Who would have thought?” Lee grins wide. He puts a hand on both Cece and Serge’s shoulders. When both of them give an uncomfortable shrug to get Lee off of them, I blurt out:
“I did...eventually.” It’s only true once I say it. I never really saw Serge as an enemy, no matter where he put his loyalties. Part of me always believed we’d be back here, the four of us. I never expected it would take the threat of a supernatural eradication to prompt it. Cece and Serge stare at the ground for a few guilty seconds, before they both say:
“Let’s go,” then awkwardly stare at one another.
“Geez, alright. I’ll keep the commentary to myself,” Lee gives a weak little chuckle. The four of us walk over, in the center of a battle-ready circle, to one of the hiding workers of the facility. We don’t even get the chance to prompt the poor woman before her guts spill right out.
“None of us got a good look before they slammed into the shore, I’m sorry!” she whines. The woman shields her head with both arms, like she’s currently under fire despite the eerie quiet. “They’re in robes, so I’m pretty sure it’s the Lotus. But what do they want here? There were a few quakes on the lower floors, but…we’re not exactly fighters! We don’t have any idea what they’re doing I’m-”