I followed him, and he turned, yelling back at me. “Please, Paige. Go home. Leave, please. I'll explain later, but you need to get out of here.”
His voice was frantic, and just hearing him beg and plead for me to leave sent chills down my spine. What was going on? I started to ask, but that's when I saw it – saw what he was staring at.
A hunk of metal was in the sky directly above us. It wasn't a helicopter or a plane though. I had no idea what it was, but it was falling fast and coming right toward us.
“Please, run. Paige, I'm begging you.”
But it was too late. Whatever it was hit the ground with a loud boom that shook the earth beneath my feet. I almost lost my balance, but I managed to keep hold of my footing. In the moment of chaos, I swear I saw Baz's outfit changed from what he'd been wearing on our date – a pair of jeans and a white button up shirt – to some sort of full-body suit. He hadn't had time to change, did he?
“Paige! Go, now,” he shouted again. He pulled out a knife, a long sword-like blade that was curved and appeared very, very sharp.
My eyes grew wide. Where had it come from? I had watched as he'd pulled it from a sheath on his back – a sheath that was previously a button-up shirt. Had it been on beneath the shirt the whole time, and I'd just not noticed it? What in the hell was going on?
Was I dreaming?
“Bazarok, your brother sends a message.” The voice spoke in a strange accent – much like Baz's own – and it seemed to come from the large metal contraption.
I watched in stunned disbelief as two men stepped from the metal wreckage, swords of their own in hand. They both looked eerily like Baz with the pale, white skin and dark hair. One had even longer hair – down to his waist and pulled back in a long ponytail. His eyes were coal black, and as he stared at me, it felt like icicles formed inside of my chest.
The other was taller and leaner, but had a scar down the right side of his face as if someone had split his face open and he had somehow lived to tell the tale. His eyes were also black, but his hair was silver, a light blue color that wasn't found naturally on earth.
“Tell my brother I don't want to be retrieved, he can have the throne for all I care,” Baz said.
I was taken aback by his words. He spoke so clearly, as if none of this came as a surprise to him. As if none of this was a shock. I just stood there, frozen in place as I watched the two men walk toward Baz, weapons in hand. Baz was obviously not going down without a fight.
“Tsk, you know better than that, Bazarok,” the silver-haired man said. “You know that as long as you're out here somewhere, you're a threat. And we can't have that, now can we? Why not just make this quick and be done with it?”
The man's eyes flicked over to me, briefly, before turning back to Baz.
Baz looked over at me, too, and there was something in his eyes for the first time since the two men emerged from that wreckage. He was not scared for himself. It was almost like me being there scared him the most. I didn't dare say a word or ask what was going on, mainly because I couldn't find the words. I had no idea what to say even if I could, and I really didn't want to draw attention to myself.
“We both know you're not here to retrieve me,” Baz said. “I know that Kapoc sent you here to dispatch me. I'm no fool. So, let's get on with it, shall we?”
“I guess that settles it then, Jorak” The silver-haired man said to his companion with a smile. “He's no fool, and he knows what Kapoc's true orders are.”
Jorak, the man who'd remained quiet up to that point, lunged toward Baz, his sword slicing through the air with a loud whistle of wind. I closed my eyes, afraid of what I might see, but when I opened them again, Baz was still in one piece. His sword had stopped Jorak's.
But that still left the other man free, and he, too, went toward Baz wildly, knocking him slightly off balance. I screamed as Baz fell, but he thankfully was not hurt.
Until that moment, I hadn't realized I wasn't breathing. I had been holding my breath since the fighting began, but as he fell, I let out a panicked cry. I couldn't bear to watch Baz be hurt, even though I had no idea what was going on or why the two men had come for him. Or who they were. Or why they'd emerged from something that reminded me of a wrecked UFO.
Without thinking, I rushed toward the fighting, determined to help Baz. But when he saw me coming, his eyes grew wide.
“No, Paige, don't!”
The silver-haired man knocked my feet out from under me, and I hit the ground hard, driving the breath right out of my lungs. I laid there, stunned for a moment as I tried to learn how to breathe all over again. Baz looked worried, but he didn't have long.
“Behind you!” I yelled.
Jorak had come up behind him, nearly taking his head off with a wicked slice of his blade, but Baz ducked just in time. The sword came close, though. Too close.
“You know this woman, Baz?” Jorak asked, stepping down on my hand until I cried out in pain. “Does she mean something to you?”
Baz looked at me, and I could see how worried he was, but his answer said otherwise, “No, she's just a human. I am here as an observer. To study. I feel nothing for this other species.”
“Is that so?”
He stepped down harder, and I bit my tongue, determined not to scream, but the man continued bearing all of his weight down on my hand. The earth beneath us was soft, so my hand sank in just a bit, the soil giving way and keeping my fingers from breaking under the weight. It didn't hurt nearly as bad as it could have.
“Just leave her out of it,” Baz screamed.
“Leave her out of it? Really? Did you hear that, Jorak? He doesn't care for her, but he wants us to leave her out of it.”
“Because she's not who you're after. It's me,” Baz snarled. “So come and get me.”
Jorak was too busy laughing with the silver-haired man to noticed Baz's sword move swiftly through the air. One slice – that's all it took. I screamed as Jorak's head crashed down to the ground with a meaty sounding thud, falling a few inches away from my own face. The silver-haired man looked surprised and angry, but also a bit impressed.
“What a fool. He shouldn't have let his guard down,” the silver-haired man said with a sigh. “But that's fine. I can take you out myself.”
The man stepped off my hand, giving me the freedom to grab him by the ankle. Wrapping both my hands around his leg, I pulled him down to the ground. His free leg kicked back hard, hitting me in the face. I saw stars, but I didn't relent. The whole time he fought with me, Baz slipped into position. I'd distracted him enough that Baz now had him by the throat. The tip of his blade was against his flesh, holding him in place, and Baz smiled at him.
“Talking about fools with their guard down – ironic, isn't it?”
Before the man could answer, Baz buried the blade into the soft flesh of his throat. I closed my eyes, but that didn't stop me from seeing blood gushing from the man's neck and splashing to the ground all around me. But what drew the biggest scream for me was the fact that the blood was blue.
I screamed and screamed, but it was as if no one heard me.
No one. Not even Baz. He was lost in his own little world.
And I was lost, afraid I was stuck in a horrible nightmare with no escape.
****
“What in the hell was that?” I stammered. “I just watched you kill two men. Who in the hell were they and what happened? Please tell me that was self-defense. Please, please, please.”
Baz was wiping the blood away, helping me bathe in the bay, and rinsing me off. He didn't say a word, and there was something in his eyes that made me feel almost sad for him, as if he was horrified over the entire scene. At least, I wasn't the only one.
“I really don't know how to explain it to you, Paige,” he said, meeting my gaze. “What do you think you saw?”
My hair was soaking wet, but the blood was gone, at least as far as we could see.
“I don't even know,” I whispered. “I mean, it all felt so
– paranormal. So alien. Not sure if that's the right word for it, but whatever it was, it didn't feel human to me.”
“That's because it's not,” he said with a sigh, wiping the water from my cheek with the blanket we had been sitting on before all hell broke loose.
“What do you mean, it's not?”
“It wasn't human,” he said softly. “Because I'm not human.”
Book Two – Revelation
Chapter One: Paige
My heart was hammering in my chest so hard I was sure it could be heard over the waves that crashed ashore close by. My head was spinning, and I had no idea what in the hell was going on. What had I just seen? What had just happened?
I dropped to my knees in the sand, fighting against the tears that stung my eyes. I'd just witness Baz kill two men. He stood up to his ankles in the water, washing blood – blue blood – from the curved blade of a sword I hadn't even known he was carrying. I caught myself looking at the steel blade, watching the way the sunlight glinted off of it.
Was this all just a bad dream? Some horrible waking nightmare brought on by anxiety, perhaps?
I touched my face and felt the sting upon my skin from where one of the men Baz had killed kicked me. My hand also slightly throbbed from where it had been stepped on. No, this was most assuredly not a dream, not unless it was the most exceptionally vivid dream in recorded history.
I looked the man up and down and realized I knew a lot less than I thought I knew about him – which was already virtually nothing. Nothing about any of this made sense to me. What made even less sense, though, was what Baz had just said to me.
“What do you mean you're not human?” I asked him.
He turned and looked at me, a soft, gentle expression upon his face. He finished cleaning the blade of his sword and slid it back into the sheath on his back. Although he'd been wearing jeans and a white button-up shirt when we'd met for our date, he was now dressed in a black bodysuit of a sort. It was tight and clung to his every feature, revealing a man who was well defined and in shape. He was a man who was more powerful and physically imposing than he looked in normal clothing.
That was assuming that he was actually a man. Given what I'd witnessed, I had no idea what he was.
Baz moved away from the water and walked over to where I was still kneeling. I flinched as he dropped to his knees beside me, and I saw a look of hurt in his eyes. I had no reason to believe that he would hurt me. In fact, he'd never been anything but kind and a perfect gentleman. But then, after having witnessed him kill two men, I was on guard.
“I'm sorry you have been brought into this,” Baz said. “It was never my desire for you to be involved.”
I was having trouble forming coherent thoughts, let alone words. A million different and competing questions raced through my brain, but I couldn't make sense of any of them.
“What was your desire then?” I asked.
The question was out of my mouth before I was even aware that I was going to ask it. I looked him in the eye, though, as some part of my brain desperately sought an answer. I'd let my guard down enough to agree to a date with Baz, which was no small feat in my world. It had been forever since I'd trusted a man enough to date him. Hard-earned experience had taught me that even the most seemingly normal man could turn vicious and evil on a dime.
But there was something about Baz that made me believe he was more than that and better than that. I knew instinctively that he was genuinely as warm and caring as he seemed. So perhaps the piece of my brain that still wanted to believe also needed answers to questions that seemed out of place. Perhaps, some small part of my brain needed to know that I hadn't made yet another bad decision in a man and that when it came to matters of the heart, I wasn't a completely lost cause.
When it came to the heart, the strangest things sometimes arose at the strangest times.
“My desire?” he asked softly, as if speaking to himself. “My desire was – is – only to get to know you, Paige. You're unlike any woman I've ever known. Unlike any woman where I come from. All I wanted was a chance to get to know you.”
His words struck a chord deep within me, and I wasn't sure how to reconcile what I was feeling. On the one hand, Baz had stirred emotions within me that had long been dormant. After my last terrible relationship, I'd given up on the idea of dating or of finding a good, decent man. I'd thrown myself into my newest endeavors – my club, my art, and my music. I was focused on doing those things that made me happy, filled me with joy, and gave me a sense of satisfaction. Everything I was doing at the Mahogany Tavern, be it performing or helping spotlight new performers, made me feel whole.
But then this stranger – this beautiful stranger – had come into my world and had started turning it upside down, if only a little. I was struggling with my thoughts and emotions and with my very perception of reality at the moment. I knew what I'd seen and what had happened, but I was having more than a little trouble reconciling that in my head.
I needed answers. I wiped away the tears that had rolled down my cheeks and bit my tongue hard, trying to prevent more from falling. I needed to clear my head and heart. As a lawyer, I'd prided myself on my ability to separate emotion from rational thought when it came to getting to the heart of an issue. It was something my father had ingrained within me and something that had made me such a good attorney.
And it was what I needed there in that moment. I needed my mind to be sharp. I needed to cut through the emotional noise in my head and get the answers I needed.
“Baz, you said you're not human,” I said. “What did you mean by that? Who are – were – those men? Why did you kill them?”
Baz sighed and dropped down into the sand on his butt. He looked at me with eyes that told me he was reluctant to share his story, but I stared back at him evenly, unwilling to let it go.
“Who are you really, Baz?” I pressed. “I want the truth. I'm tired of the bullshit.”
“I will assume that bullshit carries a negative connotation, perhaps one of untruthfulness.”
I rolled my eyes. “Stop screwing with me.”
“Are you certain you are ready for the truth, Paige?” he asked. “Will you be able to accept that what I'm about to tell you is without bullshit?”
“Let's find out,” I replied.
He nodded and sighed, looking down at the sand beneath his feet. “Then I will tell you everything.”
Chapter Two: Baz
Paige was tenacious, fiery, and scared. I could see the fear in her eyes, and it caused me no small amount of anguish. The last thing I'd wanted was for her to be involved in any of this. I'd wanted to protect her from it. And I wanted to continue protecting her from it.
But my brother hadn't allowed that to happen. He hadn't allowed me to explore what I felt for Paige. He'd forced my hand by sending his assassins. I suppose I should have anticipated it, but part of me had grown comfortable on this planet and among its people. Part of me believed I'd blended in and could stay well hidden from my brother.
Apparently, I had been wrong. So very wrong. I should have known better.
“Yes, you should have known better,” Anjol said to me. “This is what happens when you delve into your emotions. This is why Optorions trust and rely on logic.”
“Quiet,” I snapped. “I do not require your input or attitude.”
“Who are you talking to?” Paige asked curiously.
I looked up and realized that I'd spoken out loud. Paige looked at me with her head cocked and an expression upon her face that was half curiosity, half fear. Everything I did seemed to cause her no small amount of fear and anxiety.
“It's not you,” I said. “I was speaking with my – computer.”
Paige looked at me like I'd gone quite mad. And perhaps, I had. All I knew was that I had been enjoying my time with her and getting to know her. And now, I realized that everything was in jeopardy because of my brother.
I knew that the only way to salvage anything out of this associ
ation with Paige and to allow me to continue getting to know her was to allay her fears, answer all of her questions, and be painfully honest about everything.
“Your computer?” she asked.
I nodded and tapped my head. “He's an organically based, artificially-intelligent computer system,” I said. “His name is Anjol, and he can communicate via an implanted chip in my brain. I hear his voice as clearly as I hear yours.”
“Uh huh,” she said. “And what, he can hear your thoughts?”
“Essentially, yes,” I replied. “Though, explaining the precise nature of the technology would be a dry, tedious thing. And truth be told, it's not something I can adequately explain anyway. But Anjol hears what I think and sees what I see. It's almost as if he is a part of me in a way. But to answer your question, yes, we can communicate without the need to speak actual words. Thoughts are sufficient.”
The expression on Paige's face was one of open skepticism and wasn't very difficult to discern. But mixed in with all of the doubt, there was also a trace of curiosity as well that was tempered by her unease.
“So, if you're not human, what are you?” she asked. “Who are you?”
I looked at her, momentarily afraid to speak. It was something of a new feeling for me. I'd never been afraid to give voice to my thoughts before. As the son of a king, I never had to be. But Paige was opening up new ways of thinking and being inside of me. And though these feelings and uncertainty inside of me were new, I didn't necessarily see it as a bad thing. It was just uncomfortable.
“My name is Bazarok,” I said. “I am the son of King Undorok, prince of the planet Optorio.”
Paige's eyes widened slightly, and the look of skepticism on her face deepened. “Prince of the planet Optorio? Are you serious right now?”
I cocked my head. “I can assure you that I am very serious, Paige,” I said. “You asked me to be completely honest, and so I am being completely honest.”
She sat back in the sand and ran a hand through her hair. As I watched her hair stir in the breeze and the sunlight caress her skin, I had the overwhelming urge to reach out and run my fingertips across her cheek. But I knew it wasn't appropriate and would not be well received, so I stayed my hand. She looked at me but said nothing.
Mated to a Bear (Legends of Black Salmon Falls Book 3) Page 20