His laughter went through her.
“You are funny, which is why I am still here, open your eyes.”
She cracked one open and yep; it was Voyager sitting on top of a boulder that hadn’t been there when she passed out. She opened the second eye so she could see him better and stare at his chair.
“You may enjoy lying in the dirt, but I prefer not to.”
She looked and she was in the dirt, not one blade of grass was around.
“Why am I alive?’
“Someone is not very grateful to still be living.”
“That’s not what I meant…I mean.”
“Well, spit it out. What did you mean?”
“I’m just having trouble believing I’m still alive. Colun’s power was going to my heart I could feel it slowing me down.”
“You are right. Although it may have been amusing to watch you die, it would not have involved blood and guts. Additionally, Colun would have demanded we go after you, bring you back to your body, and it gets rather tedious chasing spirits. I decided to lend a helping hand.”
She stared at him, her eyes big and her mouth hanging open.
“Your mother dropped you on your head when you were a baby, didn’t she?”
Voyager gave her a surprisingly sad smile, “I wish. Instead, I was born with a taste for blood and gore. Maybe I will go fight in a war when the trial is over.”
“Do you know where Colun is? There were two beasts after him the last time I saw him. Is he all right?”
“He is fine, looking for you as we speak.”
She smiled, he was looking for her. Her heart sped up with the knowledge.
“Too bad, he will not find you anytime soon.”
“Why?” There were times when Voyager scared her, and this was one of them.
He smiled, and his body changed, he looked like her husband.
“Because your past is calling you.” He lifted a hand, and her body flew into the air.
*~*~*~*
Where was she? She felt like she was just waking up from a dream. A smile touched her lips when she realized she was on the street where she lived. It didn’t take her long to walk down the street and ascend the steps to her porch. She was home, and it had just been a dream. Her smile turned to a frown; she didn’t want Colun to be a dream.
“Sara,” her husband called her, but she didn’t want to go inside. So she sat on the porch swing and lazily kicked her feet so the swing would start.
The front door opened and Jim walked out. What did she ever find attractive about him? She knew what it was. She was flattered that he paid her attention when she felt no one would ever want her. She had been grateful to him for calling her name, hugging her, and whispering I love you in her ear.
Her gratitude may have lasted forever if he had been able to keep up the act, but he didn’t love her. He simply wanted something from her. She never figured out what it was.
“What are you doing out here?”
“Swinging.”
Jim was a tall man around six feet, with beautiful blue eyes and the whitest of teeth. There were times she would feel them at her neck. She used to think he might be a vampire waiting for the right moment to drain her dry.
He was on the thin side weighing about a buck seventy. He came and joined her on the swing.
“I have a surprise for you in the house.”
She remembered this day or more accurately she didn’t remember this day. Something happened in the house and when Jim came back that night he told her he was getting a divorce. It turned out that she was a sorry waste of time. His words not hers.
She swallowed hard, didn’t she want to know what happened in the house that day? No, she screamed, but she was up on her feet following him through the door.
“Where’s Annie?”
“Your mom has her. She’ll bring her home tomorrow.”
“I’ll cook us a special dinner tonight; we can put on some music, dance, maybe drink a glass of wine. It’ll be nice.”
“No Sara, today's our last day. You know when you got pregnant I thought maybe that was a good reason to keep you around. You could give me children to walk in my footsteps, but when Annie was born I realized that would never happen. Your genetics are too strong, they overruled mine and always would. Here I am, a destroyer, and my child is prey. I’m the laughing stock of the community, but don’t worry only you are going to die. I won’t kill Annie until she matures.”
They were standing in the living room she hated. The antique furniture seemed to be mocking her, and the rose palette was way to calming.
“Jim, you’re just hungry, that’s why you're saying all of this.”
“I took on this look because it seemed to be popular with Earth females, but you never were all that crazy about it. It never made your heart beat fast like the other females before I killed them. He dropped his skin like it was a cloak and she hollered.
“Not, this time, Sara.” The room they were in turned into a prison keeping her from escaping as she ran to the door.
She banged on it and then went to the window but she couldn’t break it, and the people outside acted like they didn’t see her.
“We have nothing but privacy.”
She turned around to face the thing she called husband. Jim was now over eight feet tall with the head of a monster; it was misshapen with jagged teeth and eyes that were more circular than oval, but the body of a man. The most developed man on the face of the Earth. He was big; she knew he could crush her with his hands.
“What are you?”
“I’m a destroyer. My people didn’t originally look like this when we first came here, but interbreeding with the natives and others led us to this new look. Sara, we love it, I love it. I love knowing that I’m one of the most powerful people on this planet. Here’s a secret for you. We run the government and anything else we want. But all I want right now, Sara, is you. You’re deliciously full of power and I want it for my own.
Chapter Fifteen
Why didn’t she paint the walls? Sara laughed at herself. Her husband was a destroyer, good name for the way he looked. He was a destroyer who wanted to consume the power he felt within her. The power she spent a lifetime denying. Why? Because if she denied it, she would be normal, and being normal was the most important thing in the world. Normal people fit in, got invited to parties and the amusement park. Normal people had friends and didn’t have the girls at school calling them names.
It was only at the end of her life that she finally realized normal was overrated. Be yourself, Sara, and stick your middle finger up at the rest of the world. Be unique, be an individual. She’d never get that chance now.
“Jim, I know I’m supposed to go meekly to my death, and while that does have a certain appeal, you just threatened my daughter. The one person on this Earth who I know for a fact loves me for me. So since I can’t trust you to keep your animal face away from her, I’m going to have to live.”
“Not, this time, Sara. I have you where I want you.”
He crossed the room, his legs twice as long as hers. She ran from him because she wasn’t in the mood to die and he stalked her, tiring her out because she couldn’t get out of the room.
“How long can you keep darting around the room like a mouse on speed? I have the stamina to go for hours.”
“We could have used some of that stamina in the bedroom.” What are you doing making him mad? He roared and lengthened his stride making her have to run faster.
“I wasn’t in this for the sex.”
“It’s a good thing because you suck in bed.”
“I’m going to suck you dry.”
“Now you want to suck on me because when I begged you to, you turned over too satisfied from the five minutes you gave me and went to sleep. I still haven’t figured out how you managed to impregnate me.”
“The only reason you're still alive is that you carried my seed and destroyers need a mother the first year of their lives.”
Come on, Sara, think of something because the monster you married is going to kill you. His eyes were all white now. There was nothing but rage on his face; he was truly going to kill her. All she had was this power he said was inside of her. She stopped running; sometimes you simply couldn’t outrun your future. Instead, she reached inside her to that secret room that she liked to visit in the dark.
‘I need a shield,’ she told herself and then she touched what looked like a treasure chest and took out what looked like a breastplate, one warriors of old wore. She put it on.
Jim reached for her and knocked her back against the wall. It hurt like hell, but she never felt him touch her.
“What game are you playing, Sara?”
“Life, it has cute little game pieces along with money and…”
He roared his anger as he stomped across the room until he was in front of her. His nails turned to claws as he raked them over her body, she screamed until she realized they weren’t touching her.
“Who taught you to shield?” he demanded.
“Well, see there was this monster who pretended to my husband…” She giggled and giggled until she was curled up on the floor laughing. Big tears falling from her eyes and she didn’t know if they were real tears or tears you can’t help when you just laugh too long.
“You won’t win; I’ll find a way through that shield.”
She was going to win, not because she thought after marrying a monster she deserved to live. She was going to win because her daughter’s life was on the line and she wouldn’t lose her. She walked back into that room and went to another treasure chest.
“The armor is perfect, but I need to be able to fight back. That’s the only way he will let me live. It’s the only way I can protect Annie.”
The second chest opened. Within it lay a small anorexic star. “What am I supposed to do with this? Top my Christmas tree?”
“Power comes from many sources. Yours comes from the stars, from space itself. It is wide and vast, and you can pull on it day or night, but you lock yourself in the house away from your power source. Because of this, it is small. Remember small does not mean weak.”
She bent over the chest and picked up the star. It beat like it had a heart and it was warm. She pulled it to her chest, and it disappeared inside of her. Jim’s roar brought her out of herself.
“Jim leave, just go and we’ll forget this ever happened. You can have a divorce, and we’ll live separate lives.”
“You always were cute, Sara. It’s those big green eyes combined with your black hair. I’ll miss you.”
She shrugged, only time would tell if he would miss her. Jim began to throw spears of red that felt like electricity going through her body. It was only a matter of time before he broke through her shield. She ran to the window and looked out at the sky hoping her little star was pulling the power it needed to defend her.
“I’m a sick woman, Jim, because I don’t want to kill you. Your welcome, I’m making the exception because you’re my daughter's father, but I can’t let you kill us.”
She reached within herself and countered his strike with one of her own. He frowned and tried again. She countered it again. Each time he came at her, she deflected the strike. He didn’t stop; he simply came at her faster until she was on the defense.
She let the next strike hit against her armor, and she went on the offense. Hit him with her power driving him back until he found himself unbalanced reaching out to catch himself from falling.
“You're bigger than me, Jim. You’re more powerful than me, but don’t you ever threaten my child.” She pinned him down until the shield he had around himself began to crack.
“Soon you won’t be able to defend yourself.” The anger Sara felt bloomed over her body. She was going to kill Jim; she no longer wanted to preserve his life and then she would talk to the rest of the people who had made her life a living hell. Malice, that voice in her head she hated, was trying to take her over. Make her it's willing victim.
Jim’s shield cracked like an eggshell, and she chuckled in glee. “Threaten me will you?”
Something caught her holding on to her tightly. Then her house began to speak. It told Jim to leave and never come back, or it would allow Sara to finish him off.
“Sara,” her house spoke. “Until you learn control you will become my prisoner.” She fell to the floor, and when she woke up, she was in bed. Her mom told her she had a bad fever, then Jim came to tell her he wanted a divorce.
Her dreams of happy ever after went up in smoke as she watched her husband walk out the door. The elusive feeling she was trying to hold onto dissipated like smoke, and she had nothing but her family and a house.
*~*~*~*
“Where is she?” Colun had pulled himself up after Voyager told him Sara would need him. He didn’t know how long he wandered around looking for her until he ran into Voyager.
Voyager was sitting on the side of an old wooden bridge. His legs were swinging, and the beam of the bridge was in front of him keeping him from making a splash into the water below.
Colun took a seat next to him. This bridge was one he may have seen thirty or forty years ago.
“We’re still in the trials but the period has changed.”
“The trials are funny like that. They can send you to any year you have ever lived. Personally, I think they can do the future too, but it is too much work, so they avoid it.”
“Who are you, Voyager. I feel like I know you, and I’m sure you’re not a Matra despite the form your wearing.”
“Would it matter if we have been friends for years or if you are just meeting me? Either way, you would have to pass the trials on your own.”
“I’m not here to pass the trial; I’m here to make sure Sara gets home safely. I was never meant to come here, Voyager. What do I know about love, faithfulness or anything the female heart needs? Freya knew I wasn’t the one even when I tricked myself into believing I had a chance.”
“You either leave here, or you die here.”
There was the whistle of the train in the background and Colun smiled; it reminded him of the time he spent in Newburg.
“I know, in the end Sara is more important than I am.”
“Maybe you are right.” Voyager stood and pointed in front of him. “Head in this direction and you will find everything you need.”
Voyager disappeared in front of his eyes, something he knew the Matra couldn’t do. Colun stood and started walking. The town of Newburg came into view; he knew where he was. The cars were old and simple; the people were friendly and time seemed to move slower. He walked until he came to the B&B. It was beautiful; it had a new paint job, and the windows shone like jewels. Over the years the B&B looked like it had been around for years. It was just an illusion, but they couldn’t live in a place that looked like the sun, rain and snow never touched it. This house, the new B&B, replaced the one they supposedly lost in a fire a few years ago. The house had decided to change configurations and needed a cover story.
He walked up the stairs of the porch, the house greeting him even in this old memory. It was so quiet inside; he wondered where everyone was. He walked up to the floor where he stayed. You couldn’t see it from the outside. The house was well over ten stories with only four that could be seen with the human eye. A noise caught his ear. He walked until he found it.
Gabe was in the bathroom, throwing up everything he ate. His body curled into himself, and he moaned with a pain he couldn’t keep hidden inside.
Colun walked over to him, cleaned him up and carried him to bed. How many years had he done this for Gabe, watched over him even when Gabe didn’t know he was there?
He searched for Rylan every day, but Xolon was wily and knew enough to stay away from Colun.
He left the room once he was sure Gabe was sleeping and went to look in on Cal.
“It does not look like he will be much of an advisor, does it? He is
little and scrawny, but that does not matter. He does not listen, and he cannot even feel his surroundings.”
“It’ll take time, but I’ll teach him all of that. He’ll be the most sensitive one here.”
Voyager shrugged and walked out of the room.
They walked into Victor’s room. He was sleeping with his soul-bond snuggled in his arms.
“Can you believe that one day he will ascend to the throne?”
Colun looked at him; he was still young. If they were on their planet, his parents would rule for centuries more before that responsibility fell to his shoulders. They weren’t on their planet, and he was already becoming the leader they needed even without the official title. Everyone knew who Victor was; he simply hadn’t stepped up yet.
“He does not have much longer, neither does Cal. The Arbrins/Matra’s will need a real leader. Too bad you will not be around when Victor and Cal need you.”
Damn you; Colun thought as Voyager disappeared. He cursed up a blue storm using all the new words from this planet and all the old words from his planet. When he finished, he looked at Victor, who was staring at him in open mouth amazement.
His location changed leaving Victor and the rest of his family. He stood in the foyer of the B&B and stopped long enough to promise his boys and Sara, that he would do his best to live a long life for all of them.
Chapter Sixteen
Sara stood up; she wasn’t sure where she was, but she remembered the last time she actually could recall. She was running away from Colun with a beast following her, and she was buck naked. She looked down to find herself dressed. The relief she felt made her knees wobbly. Why was she dressed like this? She wasn’t complaining mind you, but wasn’t she a little too old for this outfit. She had a cute red blouse that complimented the short skirt that was black and white with hints of red along the border.
Clothes were clothes; she’d take what she could get. Now to find Colun and get out of…” Her hand went to her head, and she fell to her knees as the memories of Jim came back to her. He was a Destroyer?
Colun's Passion (Alien Mates Book Four 4) Page 9