“I don’t believe we can’t keep you protected. We need to see my mother.” He took her hand and headed for the door. “She should be able to help us.”
“Storm, you can’t stop the dream. It’s going to happen whether you like it or not.” Heather found herself running to keep up with his long legs once again.“What do you mean?” He slowed down when he realized how fast he was moving.
“I’ve tried every tactic I could think of to stop what ever happened in past dreams to no avail. They always happened and when I tried to manipulate them I sometimes made it worse.” She was grateful he slowed down.
“So you want me to let you be kidnapped? Put your life in danger because of a dream?” His face grew angry. “I’m not going to let that happen so stop talking like that.”
“Storm.” He ignored her and continued to his mother’s rooms. “My heart.” That he couldn’t ignore. He stopped and looked at her, not happy with the way their conversation had been going. “I mean you no disrespect but I have dealt with these dreams all my life.”
“I can’t let you get hurt.”
“I won’t be hurt as long as you don’t try to force changes that will affect the outcome. Please, Storm.”
He didn’t knock, just pushed the doors open. “Mother.”
“Oh no.” Heather looked around. Anseri’s room had been destroyed. It looked like a huge fight had happened there. Pulling out her weapon, she stepped over shattered glass. She used as much caution as possible as she searched the room for his mother.
“Where the hell is she?” asked Storm, his voice laced with concern.
“Storm, she’s over here.” Heather knelt down beside her mate’s mother.
Setting her weapon down, she touched her wrist and the side of her neck for a pulse.
Her eyes fluttered open. “No.”
Heather looked at her. “No?”
“Trap.” She closed her eyes and licked her lips.
And ice cold finger of fear ran up her spine. They hadn’t had time to do anything more than talk about what could happen and now the time had come. She looked up and saw three men behind Storm. Words wouldn’t leave her mouth as she tried to warn him. One of them hit him from behind with a hypo.
He went down fast, head striking the edge of a short table to his right.
Heather jumped up to go to him and found herself surrounded by seven men.One spoke. “Take him out.”
Heather moved, grabbing the closest man to her and breaking his neck in seconds. The body slid lifelessly to the ground. “You touch him and I will kill every one of you just like that. If you leave Storm alone I will come willingly. Those are my conditions.”
The man she assumed was the leader nodded and gestured for her to walk in front of him. She wanted to check on Storm, make sure he was okay but knew if she faltered at all they could change their minds. Her engagement ring caught the light. In her vision she never had the ring on so in one quick movement she pulled the ring off and let it drop to the floor.
She looked at Storm’s still form once more before allowing the men to lead her out. What would happen now was up for grabs.
Chapter 16
Storm came to in the medlab. He found himself surrounded by security as well as medical people. He growled at them to get away so he could figure out what had happened. His head hammered. Touching his forehead, he found a horrendous bump and realized it was tender.
“I’m still working on that.” The doctor pulled his hand down. “You took a hard fall and a heavy dose of a neutralizer. I’m surprised you survived it.” It took a second before he realized where he was and what had happened before he fell unconscious earlier. “Heather.”
“Gone.” His mother answered him. She had been moved to another medical bed nearby. Her color was off. He had never noticed how pale his mother looked before this. “She offered herself when they threatened your life.”“Why didn’t she fight?” He couldn’t understand why she would give herself up so easily.
“To protect you.” His mother waived off one of the doctor’s assistants when they tried to inject her with something. “You see that body there? She killed him to keep them from ending your life. I took care of the other one when he circled around to finish the deed anyway.”
“Where is she?”
“We don’t know.”
****
Heather’s heart pounded in her chest. How was she going to get out of this? She hadn’t thought past keeping Storm alive. Now she had to figure a way to escape.
“Welcome.”
“Send me home.”
“To your mate? The man who has slept with more women than the years you have been alive?”
“He is my world.” She didn’t know the voice but it had to be someone who knew Storm well. She knew of his sexual exploits. She had read his file. She felt something cold against her neck before her world turned upside down.
Heather opened her eyes to find Storm sitting on the bed beside her.
“You okay?”
She looked around to find herself back at the medlab. “I think so. What happened?”
“My mother’s apartment was attacked.” He took her hand in his. “They tried to take you but I was able to stop them.” She didn’t remember it that way. She had sacrificed herself to keep him alive. Yet here he sat. How could that be? Storm smiled at her but didn’t seem himself either. Something was wrong. She just wasn’t sure what it was.“Problem?”
“No.” She wasn’t sure what to do. Everything seemed backwards.
Storm had been knocked out and she had been taken so how was he sitting on her bed? Did he rescue her that fast? It didn’t make sense.
“It’s okay, my love.”
My love? Storm never used that term of endearment. They talked about that. My love was an Earth phrase, not a Vespian one. This couldn’t be real.
She tried to distance herself from the image of Storm without causing any type of reaction.
“Something is wrong?” He smiled her but seemed to sense she wasn’t happy.
“Since when did you use a human endearment? You told me you were above that.” Not exactly what he said but it was a test to see what Storm said next.
“True, but I thought that was what you wanted to hear.” She smiled. No matter what the man said now she knew who he wasn’t.
“You’re not Storm.”
“How can you say that?” he acted indignant but she could see a touch of fear in his eyes. He didn’t think she would see through his disguise so fast.“I know my mate better than you think.”
She found herself feeling woozy again. Her mind started to wander and she lost touch with reality.
****
“How the hell am I supposed to find her, Mother? I have nothing to go on.”She sat on the couch, watching her son pace like a predator. “My brother has a theory, if you’d bother to listen to him.”
“He speaks in riddles. How am I to interpret that?”
“It would help if you would listen to me from time to time instead of blowing me off.” He walked into the room. “At least your mate was honest in her feelings toward me.”
“She called you creepy.”
“She did.” He grinned as he sat next to his sister. “And I can see her viewpoint but I also believe I proved my abilities.”
“You pushed her to believe in her dreams.”
“Was I wrong?”
“She allowed herself to be kidnapped because you walked through her dreams. What do you feel you can do that no one else can?” Storm knew his anger over her kidnapping closed his judgment.
“How well do you know your mate?”
“Better than you.”
“Are you sure about that?” He looked at Storm. “Your mate would know you. Of that I am sure, but I’m not sure about the other way around.”
“What are you saying?”
“You are selfish. You refused to listen to her when she tried to make you see the future that could be. Now you need to believe in
the power of fate. The one thing you have never believed in.”
****
Heather woke up and found herself sitting in the main room of the elder’s hall. It didn’t make sense for her to be there. She saw no one else in the room. Strange.
Storm stood on the other side of the room. She could tell by his silhouette.
Then the room changed. It filled with people. So many she couldn’t see him anymore. Her mind couldn’t handle the overload. Everything shut down.
****
She opened her eyes once again and found herself back at the medlab on Earth. Looking around she couldn’t figure out how she got there so quickly.
The head doctor smiled at her. “Good to see you awake.”
“What happened?”
“You took a hard blow to the head when those men attacked the embassy. You’ve been in a coma for several weeks.” Coma? Nothing made sense to her. “What about the ambassador?”
“He’s fine. Heading back to Vespia tomorrow.”
She wanted to ask so many questions but decided against it. Her mind felt like it was filled with fuzz. “What happened?”
“You don’t remember?”
“Sorry.”
“You were assigned to protect the ambassador. On your first evening you found the embassy under attack and you stopped them. In the process you were hurt which landed you in here for the last few weeks.”
“What about the treaty?”
“It’s still being worked out. You putting your life on the line really helped move it forward.”
She slid her legs to the edge of the bed.
“Oh, no you don’t.” He pushed her legs back onto the bed. “You are still under my control until I clear you. You’ve been unconscious for over two weeks. There is no way you’re getting out of this bed.”
“Yes, sir.” She leaned back against the pillows on her bed. Now what?
****
“She’s been gone for twenty hours now. We have to find her now or we’ll never find her.” Storm felt trapped. He didn’t know what to do and very little to go on.
His uncle sat in a chair opposite of him. “You have no faith.”
“What should I have faith in? My mate is gone, just like you predicted.
Yet you can’t tell me where she is. What should I have faith in?”
“Your ability to find her.” One of the servants sat a glass in front of him.
“I know she would be able to find you if the situation was reversed.”
“Are you saying I’m not as strong as my mate?” Storm stood in anger.
“Heather believed in her dreams. She understood what fate is. Are you saying you aren’t as strong a believer as your mate?” He watched Storm’s anger come to a boil. “That is your decision.”
“I don’t know how to find her without help.”
“And that was what I was waiting for.” Hynna got up and moved to the area where his sister had been found. He picked up Heather’s diamond ring and sat it on the table. “Just how close did you and your mate get in your time together?”
“Why?”
“It’s the only way to find her.”
“You’re not making any sense.”
****
Heather had finally been released from the medcenter. She never knew true boredom until now. Her conversations with the head doctor and the physiatrists had her questioning everything. According to them, none of what she remembered happening was real. She never went to Vespia, or married Storm. Yet it seemed so real.
She sat in her room, trying to figure out what was real and what wasn’t.
The door chimed and she hit the button to allow whoever was there entrance. Her boss walked in.
“How are you feeling?” he sat on the edge of her bed.
“Not sure, sir.”
“You sound back to normal. The doctor has cleared you to get back to work.”
“Thank you.” She was happy to hear that. Maybe she could get her life back to normal. Figure out where she got the crazy idea that she married the man. Marriage wasn’t something she ever thought would happen to her so why would she fantasize about it?
“You can start back whenever you’re ready. Should I expect you in the morning?”
“Yes, sir.”
He nodded and left the room. She stood and walked to her closet.
Pulling out her uniform, she set it out for the next day. It had been too long since she had worn it.
****
Storm sat at the table his uncle had directed him to. “What do you want from me?”
“I want you to admit that there is more to this than what you can see and touch.”
“Right now I can’t see or touch my mate so that is a hard question to answer.” He wanted to take his uncle and shake him. What did the man want?
“How intimate have you and your mate been?”
“What kind of question was that? As intimate as any couple would get.”
“No, no.” He shook his head, acting like he was searching for the right words. He wanted to ask something beyond what he had. “Have you and your mate shared intimacy beyond that of a normal couple?” Storm looked at his mother. “Do you understand what he’s asking because I’m just not getting it.”
“He wants to know how deeply entwined you and Heather are. Has anything happened that goes beyond the bond of mates?”
“Like what?” He looked from his mother to his uncle. “I’m not sure what you’re asking.”
“Have you and Heather shared thoughts?”
“No, but we have shared other things.”
The man just stared at him waiting for more info.
“Fine, the last few times we’ve had sex we’ve shared each other’s orgasms.” He didn’t like revealing something so intimate.
“Then there is hope. You need to connect with her. Find her through her mind.”
“And how am I to do that?”
He placed the ring she dropped on the floor on the table. “This will give you something of hers to bind to and you will have to go through some rituals that will help you bond to her once you find her. Understand we don’t know what is going on where she is so the first time or two you will only see what she sees.”
“No wonder why my mate thinks you’re crazy.”
“If I help you save her I don’t care what anyone thinks of me.” He stood and headed toward the door. “Coming?”
Storm stood. He was willing to do anything to get his mate back.
Chapter 17
Heather stared at the computer screen and pinched her nose. This was by far the dullest thing she had done in her entire career. So far they had her cataloging all the new files that had been streaming in from the Vespian society so it could be analyzed. The weird part was when she went to read it she already knew it. This was information she had learned from Storm’s sister. Yet that hadn’t really happened so how did she know all of this?
Could she have read this before her injury and forgot?
The more she thought about it the more confused she became.
Her boss walked into her office to check on her.
“Sir?” She stood, knowing her next request could be denied without a blink of an eye. “I wish to be put back on active duty. Working behind a desk is not what I feel I should be doing.”
“The doctors felt you needed it to recuperate totally.”
“And I feel I have done that.” She stood at attention. “The doctors have said as much too.”
“I know. I received a clean bill of health from them about an hour ago.” He leaned a hip against the desk she had been sitting at. “So you want a new assignment?”
“Yes, sir.” She let go of a mental sigh of relief.
“Alright.” He handed her a hand written note. Not something normally used now days. “The ambassador from Vespia will be marrying the human diplomat assigned to him and we have been told we are to attend.” She looked at the invitation and felt a little sick to her stomach but sh
owed no reaction. “Of course.”
“You feel up to it?” He studied her face.
“Yes, sir.” She couldn’t tell him how confused she was. How she was having problems keeping this reality and the one she thought was real apart.
If she did that they’d probably want to keep her for more observation.
Something she wanted to avoid at all costs.
“Good.” He nodded as he filled out paperwork. “I will see you here at eighteen hundred hours.”
She nodded.
****
Storm held her engagement ring, wondering why she had taken it off.
“So what do you want me to do?”
“Drink this.” His uncle pushed a drink in front of him. “It tastes horrible but will help you clear your mind so you can find hers.” Storm downed the contents. The bitter bile threatened to come back up.
He gagged a little before he could speak. “Now what?”
“Focus on the ring and her essence. Have it take you to her.” Storm rubbed his head. He wasn’t sure if he could do as his uncle asked but if it would bring her home he was willing to try anything.
He cleared his mind, not really knowing how he was going to find her.
It just didn’t make sense. He found the drug taking control of him, guiding him though many dream states. He felt pulled toward one in particular and as he entered it he found it familiar.
He saw himself standing up at the altar, saying his vows, except this time it wasn’t Heather up there with him. She stood in the back with other Earth officers. The woman he stood with he didn’t recognize at all.
He felt disembodied, floating amongst the guests but not really there.
Heather watched the ceremony with a detachment he didn’t know she was capable of.
Didn’t she understand this was all fake?
She stood with her commanding officers, her face devoid of emotion as she watched the proceedings. When the Storm at the wedding took his bride in his arms and gave her a knee weakening kiss he saw the lack of emotion from Heather crack just a little. One tear slipped down her cheek. She wiped it away before anyone else noticed.
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