“It is my fault, but you will never know why,” he said with a sad smile. “I will send you to where he can find you when you have said your goodbyes.” Without another word, he turned and walked out of the room.
Terrian hugged her close. “This is not goodbye,” he said harshly in her ear. “You will see me again.” Pulling her head back, he kissed her roughly, passionately, showing her physically the words he dared not say aloud. And then, he was gone.
He released her, the pain in his face something she would remember until she could remember no more, and then turned and walked away, his shoulders slumped forward as he strode from the room.
Slowly Ari turned and looked at her grandmother. It was her plan to leave. It was her decision, and she accepted that as the adult she was. But in this one instant, she felt like a little girl who just wanted her Nana to take it all away. A sob escaped her throat and then another one.
Abigail strode forward and pulled her sharply into a hug.
She cried for a long time, letting every feeling she had loose as she held on. When the tears began to dry up, she said what she needed to say. “T-tell Cory and Jane that I love them, that I’m sorry I will never see them again. Let the girls know about their crazy Aunt Ari, okay? Please don’t let them forget,” she said with a sob.
“Nobody will ever forget you, Arwen,” Abigail said in a husky voice. “But don’t give up, honey. You can come back to us. Please, come back to us.” They held on for a few minutes more before Ari knew if she did not pull away now, she might not be able to.
A commotion in the yard made them both turn toward the door. Arwen’s heart sped up. The negotiator must have arrived.
Instead, Mayir, Terrian, and Verisha walked in the door.
“Verisha!” she exclaimed, happy he was back and alive for Mayir’s sake.
He looked at her, his eyebrows rubbing together. “You have been through too much already, young Arwen.”
“I’m glad you are back. Mayir was worried.”
He raised an eyebrow and looked at his father-in-law. “You must be slipping if you let someone know your true feelings.” He just got a glare in response.
“I am glad you are back, Verisha,” Abigail said with a forced smile. “Mayir wondered where you went. Once Arwen has gone, maybe you can tell us the tale?”
“Arwen is leaving?” he asked in surprise.
“She is going to face him.” Mayir’s words hung heavy in the air, and Verisha looked around in surprise.
“Then I came back at the right time. I bring information,” he said simply, “on how you can beat Orion.”
Chapter Sixteen - The Contract
“Yes!” Terrian exclaimed.
“You know how to beat Orion? How?” Mayir demanded.
“Sit, sit,” Verisha said, magicking chairs out of the ether for all of them. “Do you want the long version or the short one?”
“Short one,” Ari said. “I have to go free my nieces.”
His head snapped up. “He has your nieces?” She nodded and a strange keening sound left his lips before it cut off. “What you need to know is there is a holding place where all magical contracts are kept if the purveyors of said agreements wish to have recourse if someone breaks it. This place keeps the magic intact, even if those who originally created it lose their ability to do so on their own. To place a magical contract within the archives, you must have within the contract a way of ending it at some point. Mayir and I assumed all these centuries that Orion would not have been stupid enough to place his contract there.”
“You found it,” Terrian said, his eyes darting to Ari’s with hope. “How does she get out of it?”
“It is a simple and not so simple thing. Written at the very end of the contract, obviously as his way of getting it recorded, was one line. ‘To end the suffering of those within the Agastion bloodline, the one he asks must deny him thrice.’”
Silence filled the room as Ari ran the words over in her mind. “What does that mean?”
“It means you have to say no to his request that you accept his enslavement,” Mayir told her. “Three times.”
“I’ve already said it once. Screamed it actually.” And it had hurt like hell. Could she deny him twice more?
“Does it have to be three times in a row? Or three times over time?” Abigail asked, leaning forward.
“I don’t know. The escape clause was short and gave no other information.”
“That’s okay,” Ari said, letting out a long breath. “The fact is, there’s a chance. Which is a thousand times better than what I had fifteen minutes ago.” She stood up. “But still there is no time to waste. Mayir, I need you to send me now.” She still felt fear. Seeing Orion again terrified her. But she also felt hope. From the sounds of it, if she said no three times…“Wait. Does that mean if I can say no three times all the females in my family are forever free from his control?”
Mayir chuckled. “It certainly sounds like it. The zoor must have added that line without thinking it through first. Good! First bad mistake he’s made.” He turned to Ari, an expression on his face she could not understand. “Ready?”
Slowly she looked around the room. Verisha watched her without an expression on his face, Abigail with hope, Terrian with love and worry. “I’ll be back,” she whispered, unsure if she believed it but hoping it would be true. The last thing she saw before the room disappeared was a single tear dripping down Terrian’s cheek, following the path of the scar that she never got the chance to ask about.
Bright light shown all around her, and she blinked, squinting to get her bearings. As she looked around, she was startled. “What are you doing here?”
“I will take the girls to safety.”
She hid a smile. He might never admit it, but she thought Mayir had a bit of a soft spot for her, probably hoped to help as long as he could. “Thank you.” For everything.
He just nodded. “Follow me. We are on Drega Prime, an almost uninhabitable planet. This is the safest place to bring you as Orion should feel cocky about being here. Nobody to anger while he is being a zoor.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask,” she said as she followed him along an almost imperceptible path at the base of two hills. “What does zoor mean?”
He chuckled lightly. “It started out as a rather rude nickname for people from his realm, but over the millennia has come to stand for any being that has no goodness in them whatsoever.”
The area around them was barren. The hills were dead gray dirt, and she couldn’t see a plant in sight. “What happened to this planet? Obviously we can breathe, so there’s a decent enough oxygen atmosphere, but why are there no plants?”
“The peoples who used to inhabit this place destroyed it through their greed. They created poisons that destroyed their own land. Finally, they had to move on to another planet when they could not grow enough food to survive. They are currently destroying it now.”
“That’s kind of sad.”
He barked out a laugh. “Have you not noticed, Arwen, beings who should be intelligent tend to not be so when money or some sort of gratification is hung in front of their face? Even your own planet has its problems, hmm?”
Grimacing, she nodded.
They walked several miles at least before they came up on a large plain. Gray dirt was visible everywhere she looked. “We wait,” he said when she looked at him.
So this would be where she battled Orion. Would he bring the girls with him? Would she get to say goodbye before Mayir took them to safety? In a surprise act of emotion, he put an arm around her and squeezed. She winced as some of the hairs on the back of her neck caught on something, but the pain was negligible considering the action.
Before she could respond, the air seemed to whoosh around them and there he was. Standing fifty feet away, Orion watched the two of them. He was dressed in the same clothes he had worn in the coffee shop the first time she saw him. “I don’t want you, Mayir,” he said with a sneer. “Go home like a
good little Fae.”
Mayir growled softly but did not respond. Ari decided it must be up to her. “He’s here to take the girls home to safety. As I won’t be able to,” she tacked on, hoping he would get what she wasn’t saying. Both Mayir and Orion turned and looked closely at her. “I’m sorry,” she whispered to Mayir as she took a few steps away.
“Hmm,” Orion said, watching her. “But they are such good little assurances, my pet, though they are very annoying. How can three little humans be so incredibly loud?”
Her lips twitched, but she couldn’t really feel amusement. “Take it or leave it, Orion. Either bring the girls so he can take them or I leave now and you will never find me again.” It was as big a bluff as she had ever made in her life, but she hoped he bought it. When he didn’t move but kept observing her, she took a step back toward her trainer.
“Wait,” he said. “You won’t leave if I give the little brats over to your babysitter?”
Her mind went over everything. If she agreed to stay, that wasn’t agreeing to his enslavement. “I will stay here if you bring the girls and give them to Mayir.”
Nodding slowly, he was gone.
“Where did he go?” she asked, afraid she had blown it. Would the girls pay for her mistake?
“He went to get your nieces. He doesn’t have the ability to send others unless he is with them.” Mayir turned and looked into her eyes. “His greatest fault is his ego. He thinks he is more powerful than he is. Use that any way you can.”
As she nodded, the air changed around them again and he appeared, the three girls lying dead on the ground at his feet. “No!” she screamed, ready to dash forward. Unable to move, she realized Mayir’s magic was holding her in place. “Let me go!”
“No. Not until he releases the girls from their slumber and sends them with me.”
Slumber? They weren’t dead? Relief went through her. Orion gazed at her mentor with disgust. “Take them. They are of no use to me.” In the next instant, all three girls lay around Mayir’s feet.
He looked at the three of them and then up at her. “Good luck, Arwen Maria Reynolds Agastion. Remember everything I’ve taught you.” Before she could respond, they were gone and she was left with Orion.
Never in her life, not even when she was wandering along that straight rode on Zeta, had she ever felt so alone. Standing just a few feet away was the enemy. Was she good enough to fight him? At the thought, her mind seemed to instinctively trace her light barrier, becoming aware of every shift and change in it.
“So, pet, we meet again,” he said smoothly, walking toward her. “You kept me waiting a very long time. You should be proud of yourself. Nobody in your bloodline has ever done that before. Of course,” he continued, “you will be punished for your disobedience. First off, you have a question to answer, do you not?”
A tug at her right hip made her aware it was happening. He had started his assault. Focusing on that area, she gently pushed it out and away, not wanting him to realize just how much she had learned.
“Question? I wasn’t aware you asked one.”
His red eyes darkened, and a grim smile crossed his gaunt face. “Playing games, pet? I almost had you twice, but something tore you away from me. Not anymore. This time you will answer me.”
A burn began in her ankle and started its way up her leg. As she shored up her protection, she backed up as he advanced. “Once again, I’m waiting for a question.”
“Fine,” he said, stopping his advance and flicking something off his slacks. “Pet, do you accept your eternal enslavement to me, your master?”
Just like that, it happened. Attacks on several areas of her shield happened at the same time. Panicked, she was unable to focus, and he made his way in. Immediately, her chest tightened and breathing became difficult. Her brain went fuzzy, and she had a hard time remembering what was going on.
What was she supposed to be doing?
She needed to breathe.
There was something important she was supposed to be doing.
“Air!” she gasped, “I need air.”
“Say yes, and you can have all the air you want,” he said in a deep soothing voice that she so desperately wanted to follow. As she dropped to her knees, grabbing her neck, her left ankle seared with pain, and for a brief moment in time her head cleared.
“NO! I won’t accept—” Her voice cut off as breathing and speaking became impossible. Her chest tightened even more, and her throat seemed to shut off.
“No?” he hissed, standing over her. “So you enjoy choking, pet? Fine, I will let you choke until you pass out. When you come to, I promise you will be more malleable. It will be easier to gain your respect back in my dungeon anyway. So many torture devices I can use on you.”
At the word dungeon, images of blackness entered her head, and she knew she had to fight. If he got her back there, the chances of her getting out of this were nil. Struggling to stay on her knees, she tried to ignore the need for air and the incredible desire within her to give into him, even as she worked at strengthening her protection.
It was so hard, black spots began to swim in her vision, and she didn’t know how, let alone what she should do to repair the holes in her silver barrier. At the thought of silver, Terrian’s eyes swam in front of her face. “Come back to me,” he said and with a strangled interior cry, she fell over.
Terrian. If she passed out, she would never see him again. Ever. She would live a life she wouldn’t wish on anyone. Plus, if she could somehow fight Orion off, she would free her family forever of the zoor. Her hands moved to the back of her neck, clutching each other, even as she rolled her body into a ball.
Think! Think, Ari! What do you need to release his control and get some air?
Power. Cyclone. She knew that kind of energy only came when Terrian held her, but it was her only hope. Reaching down, she grasped hold of her ankle even as she brought him to mind. She felt him holding her, the amazing power within his arms, and the way he lit her up when he kissed her.
“Hurry up and pass out, pet, I have plans for us once you accept,” Orion said, interrupting her.
Just like that, anger coursed through her veins. Orion had enslaved women in her family for five millenia. And now, he planned to enslave her? Energy began to twirl in her chest, and she trembled. Plus, he had kidnapped her three nieces just for fun. The power built, pushing her chest out and in, and she realized with relief she was breathing. Without the fear of passing out, she concentrated on the openings he made in her barrier, mentally repairing each one in preparation for what she was about to do.
There would only be one chance, and if she screwed it up she would have wasted all her energy on this one attempt. He would have her because her barrier would collapse. But she had to take the risk. “Ask me again,” she demanded in a raspy voice, struggling up to her knees.
His eyes narrowed as he walked around her. “How are you breathing?” he murmured and then paused. “Ahh, my pet is ready to accept. That would be the only reason the pressure would let up.” Taking two steps backward, a cold, hard smile crossed his face. “Pet, you will be my slave for the rest of your days. Do you accept?”
There it was, the final question. She hoped denying him three times over time fulfilled the escape clause, because she had nothing else in her. She let all the images and memories of what he had done fill her up. Kidnapping her, her nieces, his twisting of Celie her great-great aunt, and finally his destruction of Mayir’s granddaughter. Fury burst from within her as the cyclone in her chest seemed to take over her body.
Opening her eyes, she stared right into his, thrilled to see them widen in surprise. “For the last time,” she said through parched lips. “No. I do not accept your enslavement, you red-eyed zoor!” At the last word, the power burst within her breaking through the fissures he created at the same time as a strange image passed quickly through her head. With a groan, her body collapsed as a scream filled the air.
****
The sun pelted down upon her as she lay on the dirt, but she had no energy to get up. Her breaths came hard and fast, and when something came between the sun and her, she whimpered. A male voice cleared its throat, and it did not sound like Orion so she cracked an eye open. Standing above her was a man with one eye and two noses. Surely, she was hallucinating. She closed her eyes and reopened them to be sure. Yep, one eye, two noses. “Who are you?” she asked, coughing at her dry throat.
“My name is Circe Olendeerthal,” he said in a nasal voice. “What is your name?”
“Ari.” Oh what she wouldn’t do for a glass of water. Even as she thought it, one appeared in front of her, and she guzzled it down. As it refilled itself, she drank it down again. By the third glass, her head felt a little clearer, and she sat up and looked around. “What happened to Orion?” The last thing she remembered was exploding.
“Ah, so you were with Orion when the contract was nullified, yes?” he asked, pulling a large stack of papers from his briefcase.
Just like that, her brain put the pieces together. “I did it. I nullified the contract. I said no to him three times!” Laughing in shock, she laid back on the dirt.
“It would seem so,” he said with a frown as he held the paperwork. “Do you know where he is?”
“Uhhh, no? The last thing I remember is telling him no and things went dark for a while.”
“I see. Well, Miss Ari, you have created an incredible amount of paperwork for our office. We have to release every female in your DNA strand. Do you have any idea how many that is? It will take us a century to find them all.” He sighed and ran his sleeve over his forehead to capture sweat that wanted to drip into his eye. “Anyway, if you see Orion again, could you tell him to get in touch with the magical contract archives? He owes us for all this new paperwork.” He stuffed the papers into his briefcase and stood up. “What a horrid planet. Do you live here?”
“No. I need to get back to Zeta, actually.” How long had she been gone? Did time go at the same rate from here to there? Where was Orion anyway? He could have taken her even though she said no. It wasn’t as if she was in any condition to fight him off. Considering how horrid he was, he didn’t seem like someone who would honor the end of a contract if he could find a way around it.
Your Dimension Or Mine? Page 17