“I will see you to where you are going. From there, I’ll decide what to do next. My kind are loyal, and I have given my loyalty to you. I will ensure that you are safe, and then I’ll find my way home.”
“Thank you, Jem,” Galadriel said. “Alright. Let’s go.”
She held the necklace out in front of her body, the engraving facing up. They all reached forward and rested their fingertips to the carving. The pull returned, and she drew in a long breath, willing herself to stay calm as the portal grabbed her and took her into the unknown.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“Galadriel! Galadriel, open your eyes.”
The voice seemed to be coming to her through water, but she could breathe. There was no light shining through her eyelids, and she feared that they were too late. She felt hands grasping her upper arms and pulling her up from the ground. The weight of the bags she had carried left her body, and she felt herself swept from her feet into strong arms.
She wanted to open her eyes, but she couldn’t find the strength. It was as if she was experiencing everything at a distance, unable to reach out to what was happening to her, but still able to hear and feel it. Her body curled against a hard, warm chest, and she drew in a breath of Vyker’s scent. After a few moments, his warmth left, and she was lowered to something soft. The world around her disappeared as unconsciousness took her again.
She didn’t know how long she had been asleep when she started to come back to consciousness again. She felt Vyker’s hand touch her face, and the other press over her heart.
“Please,” he whispered into her ear. “Please, Galadriel. Open your eyes.”
Galadriel struggled to bring herself back into reality. She concentrated on the sound and feeling of Vyker and let it bring her up and out of the darkness. Finally, her eyelids lifted, and she could see his face. A smile broke over his lips, and he leaned down to kiss her.
“You came back,” he murmured. “I thought that I had lost you forever.”
“You made it possible to get back to you,” she said. “Thank you for the engraving.”
“It’s the only way that I could reach out to you. I didn’t know where you were, but it was all I could do.”
“Is she alright?”
Galadriel turned toward the voice, and saw Angela standing in the doorway to Vyker’s bedroom.
“Angela!” she exclaimed.
“They found their way back to the portal that brought them here,” Vyker explained.
“How did you get back?”
“I used the portal that brought us to the jungle. It sent me to a stream that I had already been in, and I knew how to travel from there. I had to get back here. I had to be waiting for you.”
“The star stones,” Galadriel said, suddenly remembering the significance of the stones.
“Do you have them?” he asked.
“Rilex does.”
His face darkened, and she remembered that he didn’t know his father’s best friend was still alive.
“That man who was with you,” he said. “That was Rilex?”
She nodded.
“Yes. He’s the man who helped me get here the first time, but I didn’t know. He didn’t tell me who he was. I realized it when I got back.”
“Vyker?”
Another voice came from the door to the room, and Galadriel saw Rilex standing beside Angela.
“I’m going to bring Jem and Ty to the guardians,” Angela said, stepping away from the doorway and disappearing into the front of the home.
When she was gone, Rilex stepped further into the room.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry that I failed your father and that I never found my way back to you. I should have been here to raise you and to help you finish this for your father. Please know that I tried.”
“I know,” Vyker said. “I know that you would never have betrayed my father.”
“Never,” Rilex said. “I wanted to come back. I wanted to be here for you as I promised your parents I would be. I don’t know why I was there. I don’t know why I couldn’t get back.”
“Galadriel,” Vyker said simply.
“What?”
“You were there because you needed to be. Galadriel needed you. Without your help, she might not have ever made it here, and everything would be lost. You fulfilled your promise to my father, just in a different way.”
The men embraced, and Galadriel pulled herself to her feet. She felt weakened by the transition through the portal, but she knew that her job wasn’t finished yet. There was more to do. She crossed the room to the men and placed her hand on Vyker’s back.
“We need to get to the temple.”
They hurried out of the building and into the temple. Rilex reached into his pocket and withdrew the stones that they had collected as well as the one that had belonged to Vyker’s father. He placed them in Vyker’s hand, and he and Galadriel stepped back into the center of the floor. As he had with the stone that they found in the wall in the frozen stream, Vyker nestled each stone into the wall, furthering the sequence around the engravings. It seemed that he had already added the two that she found in the jungle, but when he stepped back, she could see the space in the wall where there was still a stone missing.
“Where are we going to find the last one?” she asked, a hopeless feeling starting to build inside her.
There were no other clues, no other engravings to help them. When Vyker looked at her, though, there was joy in his eyes.
“I already know where it is,” he said.
He took her hand and guided her outside. In the time that she had been moving in and out of consciousness, night had fallen again. He stopped her in the sand in front of the temple and looked into the sky.
“Where is it?” Galadriel asked.
Vyker pointed to the sky, and Galadriel followed his gesture to look at Orion again.
“Orion?” she asked, confused.
“I made that constellation for you,” he said. “I knew that there would be a point when we would be apart, and that would be a way to keep us together.”
“It’s you,” she said. “It made me feel better to look up and see it when I was away from you.”
Vyker was shaking his head, and she looked at him quizzically.
“It’s not me,” he said. He traced the sword with his fingertip. “The blade.” He traced what she had always seen as a shield. “The wall.” He turned and looked at her. “It’s you. You told me that it was a warrior, and I have never known anyone stronger than you. I put you in the stars so that when I was alone, you could keep me strong.”
Galadriel felt warmth rush through her and turned into Vyker’s kiss. Their mouths played across each other tenderly, and she felt her heart reaching toward his. She pulled her mouth away from his and looked at him.
“But, I don’t understand what that has to do with the star stone.”
“Do you remember when I made the constellation for you and the middle star of the belt was missing?”
“Yes.”
“That star,” he said, turning to her and touching his hand to her belly, “represents our son.”
“Our son?” she asked breathlessly.
Vyker nodded.
“When I had you kiss that stone before I made the star, I didn’t know that he was coming, but when I found out, I realized that that was the stone that was missing. Our line gets their first star from their father, and I gave him that one. This stone,” he said, drawing a stone from his pouch, “created that star.”
They turned back to the temple and walked back to the wall. Vyker held the stone up to her again, and she touched her lips to it, feeling as though she were kissing their child. He brought the stone to his own lips and kissed it, and then settled it into place in the wall. Suddenly, all of the stones glowed brightly and then sank, disappearing beneath the black surface. The light emanated from the engravings and then dimmed. She felt a sense of
fulfillment and knew that the wall was sealed.
They walked hand-in-hand out of the temple and found Ty, Jem, Rilex, Angela, and Jacob waiting in front of them.
“Is it done?” Rilex asked.
“It is,” Vyker told him, his voice sounding happier than Galadriel had ever heard it sound. “Now, we celebrate.”
Vyker walked deeper into the village as Ty stepped forward toward Galadriel and took her hands in his.
“What are you going to do now?” he asked.
“I’m going to stay here with Vyker,” she said. “He’s too important to leave his time. Besides, I think that I would be better able to assimilate to this life than he would be to mine.”
Ty kissed her on the top of the head.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“How about you, Jem?” she asked. “Now that I’m here and I’m safe, what are you going to do?”
He glanced in Angela’s direction, and she noticed a strange flicker of orange cross his eyes before he turned back to her.
“I think that I will stay here for the time being. Besides,” he said, showing her the portal that he wore around his neck again, now surrounded by a small metal cage to prevent him from touching it accidentally, “if I change my mind, I know how to go back.”
Galadriel smiled and nodded at the man, not knowing how to express the gratitude that she felt toward him. As Jem walked away, she saw Vyker coming back toward her.
“Aren’t you coming?” he asked. “They can’t celebrate without us.”
“And what are they celebrating?” she asked teasingly.
Vyker took her around the waist and pulled her up against his body.
“We preserved the wall. The future is secure.” He touched her belly tenderly. “In more ways than one. And I have you.”
“Always,” she said.
“Always,” he replied.
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
His mouth touched hers and Galadriel let her eyes close, knowing that when she opened them she would know exactly where she was, and that she would never again question the path that she had taken. A thought flashed into her mind, and she broke the kiss.
“How did the wall get to where it was in the desert?” she asked.
Vyker looked down into her eyes and then lifted them back to the entrance to the temple. She knew that there was more to come. Their journey would never end. As long as the stars were shining, though, she would always be there to follow him.
THE END
EASTER EGG?!
If you’re a Uoria Mates fan, did you find and enjoy the Easter egg in this book? Feel free to email me at [email protected] (I personally reply to all my readers!)
If you haven’t read the Bestselling Uoria Mates Series, you can read it for free on Kindle Unlimited or get all 10 books on the crazy sale HERE.
Tales from Angondra
A Sci-Fi Romance
Complete Series (Books 1 – 6)
Ruth Anne Scott
#1 Alien Romance Series on Amazon.com
Contents
Book 1 – Abducted by Aliens
Book 2 – Crashed on Alien Planet
Book 3 – Saved by an Alien
Book 4 – The Alien’s Captive
Book 5 – The Alien’s Wonderland
Book 6 – The Alien’s Bliss
Book 1 – Abducted by Aliens
Chapter 1
Carmen Herrera shut the bakery door as quietly as she could, but the sleigh bells hanging from it made such a racket everyone in the place turned to stare at her. A statuesque woman behind the counter scanned her uniform up and down. “What can I do for you, Officer...” She peered at Carmen’s name tag. “Officer Herrera. I’m sorry we don’t serve donuts.”
Carmen blushed. “I’m not here for the donuts. I’m responding to a call-out regarding an abduction in the neighborhood.”
The woman wiped her hands on her apron and nodded. She towered over Carmen with flowing curly blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. Decorative italic letters splashed across the front of her apron and matched the brochures on the counter: Penny’s Peppermints. “I made the call. I’m Penelope Ann King. I’m the owner of this bakery.”
Carmen looked around. All the customers listened to their conversation. “Did you know the girl who disappeared?”
Penelope Ann nodded. “I hire girls from the neighborhood to work here. It gives them a leg up in the world and gives them some experience of earning their own money doing something other than selling their bodies and dealing drugs. I hired Rosie three weeks ago, and she never missed a shift—until yesterday.”
“If she was selling her body or dealing drugs,” Carmen replied, “she may have gone back to her pimp. Maybe she didn’t want to slave away in a bakery anymore and wanted some easy money.”
Penelope Ann narrowed her eyes at Carmen. She could spike a bug on a needle at a hundred paces with those eyes, and something solid and powerful lurked under her white chef’s jacket. Carmen stiffened for the inevitable response. “Rosie loved working here. She planned to enroll in community college next semester. She never wanted to go back to the streets. She wouldn’t go back to her pimp unless he took her back by force.”
“Then there’s nothing we can do,” Carmen replied. “If she worked for him before, we don’t have any reason to believe she didn’t go willingly.”
Penelope Ann smacked her lips. “You cops are all the same. I should have known you would stick your big toe in the mud like this. We’re talking about a young girl’s life, and you have my word she didn’t go back to her pimp—not willingly, anyway. Are you really going to stand there and tell me you won’t do anything to help her?”
“I can’t do anything about it,” Carmen told her. “If she spent years working for some pimp on the East Side, and then spent three weeks working here,” she swept the bakery with her hand. “We would have to have something more than your word to interfere with her going back to him.” Carmen glanced toward the door. Now would be a good time to make her escape.
But Penelope Ann wasn’t finished. “It isn’t just Rosie. A lot of girls keep disappearing from this neighborhood, and they don’t turn up back on the streets, either. They just vanish, never to be seen again.”
Carmen nodded. “Our captain briefed us on that, but we don’t have the resources to investigate those disappearances. They go into the Cold Case archives. If we turn up any evidence for them, we’ll address them later.”
An African American woman in baby blue nurse’s scrubs stepped forward. Her fuzzy Afro surrounded her fresh face and set off her glinting brown eyes. “You have the resources to investigate them, but you won’t because the girls were runaways and drug addicts. You don’t have to lie about it. We know the truth.”
Carmen turned to her. “I’m sorry. I don’t think I know you.”
“You don’t know any of us,” the nurse shot back. “I’m Aria McCray, and I’ve lived in this neighborhood since the day I was born. Penelope Ann has been here since she was three and went to school with me and Marissa Evans.” She pointed to a slender woman sitting by the front window. Her fiery red hair glowed in the morning sun. “She’s been the head librarian at the Public Library for ten years, ever since she graduated from college. None of us knows you from Adam.”
Carmen shifted from one foot to the other. “Just because I only moved here a year ago doesn’t mean I don’t care about this neighborhood as much as you do. I don’t make the decisions on what cases to investigate. The department decides that.”
“Four of the girls who disappeared worked here,” Penelope Ann chimed in. “I gave them jobs and a place to live and extra food if they needed it. None of them lasted more than a month before they vanished. Now I want to know what you and your department are going to do about that.”
“Like I said...” Carmen began.
Penelope Ann cut her off with a
wave of her hand. “I know what you said. You said they went back to their pimps and their dealers, but we all know that’s not true. I used to see Carrie Townley standing on the street corner at ten o’clock at night, and I used to see Zoe Martin walking up and down in front of the shoe factory on Benson Street. Neither of them has come back. They disappeared off the face of the earth, and your department and your captain and you and every other cop in the world couldn’t give a flying.....”
Screeching tires drowned out the rest of her words. Carmen glanced out the window and saw the police paddy wagon pull up outside the bakery. She ran through what she would say to excuse herself from this situation before she faced Penelope Ann again. Then she noticed something that made her turn around again. The vehicle outside the bakery had no windshield and no driver’s side or passenger’s side windows. It was one solid white mass. It had no license plate, either.
Carmen opened her mouth to say something, but all at once, a blinding flash of light exploded through the bakery. Carmen’s ears popped, but no sound accompanied the flash. She blinked to clear her vision, and the next minute, she found herself sitting on the hard metal floor of the paddy wagon. Penelope Ann, Marissa, and Aria sat next to her. The four women exchanged glances.
“What the blazes is going on?” Aria snapped.
“We’re in the police van,” Penelope Ann rounded on Carmen. “Are we under arrest or something?”
Carmen shook her head. “This isn’t the police van. That’s what I thought at first, too, but this van has no windows and no license plate. I don’t know where we are, but we’re not with the police.”
The vehicle—or whatever it was—gave a lurch, and Carmen tumbled sideways. Nauseous vertigo seized her, and she braced herself with her hands against the floor. The vehicle spun faster and faster until no one could sit up straight anymore. They lay on the floor and groaned in agony.
Then the spinning stopped as suddenly as it started. The four women sat up and looked at one another. A gentle vibration hummed through the metal surrounding them.
Alien Portals: A SciFi Alien Multiverse Romance Novel Page 25