by K H Lemoyne
“Reality, Mia.” He opened his hands in mock apology.
“I give you my name, and you give me reality?”
“My name is Turen.” Even in the silence, she could almost hear the calm attempt at peace in his voice.
This was a verbal ping-pong match. “I—” She thought back to the boxes of Alex’s clothes, packed and ready to go. Perhaps in the odd circumstance, control necessitated letting go. “I’m a writer. I freelance for magazines and the Internet, non-fiction work.”
“A distributor of truths to the masses.”
His comment sounded pretentious, though she suspected it wasn’t his intent. He’d opted for safe, daylight topics for conversation, something to link her to home, to ground her. His thoughts seemed always one step ahead of her.
“Not so much. Mostly I write articles about women’s issues, do a lot of research, hunt down experts, and put complicated jargon into simple English.”
He nodded. “A detective and an interpreter.”
She laughed. “You could make toilet cleaning sound exotic.”
He brushed a hand over his mouth. “And the loved ones, Mia?”
She hesitated, not wanting to give up too much personal information, not wanting to admit there was no one, not willing to be so naked with a total stranger, even one who seemed determined to protect her. “I have loved ones.”
“Ahh, too close. I’ve hit the personal space.” He tapped his fingers against his legs. “I admit I don’t understand your ability to be here.”
“It’s not like I did this on purpose or chose to be here,” she whispered, almost believing the statement. Strangely, this was the closest she’d been with anyone in a long time. She closed her eyes and rested against the wall.
For many long minutes they sat together in comfortable silence.
“Mia, it would be in your best interest for you not to return.” The low timbre of his voice whispered through the foggy haze of her weariness. She could almost feel the warmth of his breath on her skin, but her eyelids were too heavy to open and check.
The memory of his voice followed her into sleep.
CHAPTER 5
Turen shook the fatigue from his brain and pushed down annoyance as his cell door swung open and slammed against the wall.
Shank and another guard hauled him up by his arms, locked his manacles together in front of him, and tethered him to a chain.
The absence of a hybrid detail flagged a new phase in his confinement. With a new set of protocols, the game changed again. He needed an infusion of energy. His shoulder muscles still burned from dangling on Rasheer’s hook the day before. In defiance, he wrenched them back, lifted his fists to his waist, and blanked his expression.
“Where to?” Shank asked before he shoved Turen into the hallway and waited for clarification.
The other guard held up a hand and turned his head away. With a nod, he acknowledged a communication from his ear link. “Holding cell five, test lab level. Got it.”
A fist above Turen’s kidney sent him to his knees.
“Damn it, Shank. We were warned, no injuries.” With a curse, the second guard grabbed Turen’s arm, pulled him up, and planted himself in the middle of the confrontation as he tapped his ear link to disconnect.
Shank glared and fingered his weapon, but remained silent.
Turen shuffled where directed, down the corridor, up the stairs, through turns, up more stairs, and along another corridor. Their effort was an obvious attempt to disorient him, but his capacity for recollection exceeded the ability of these men to confuse. They passed the sublevels of Rasheer’s torture chambers. At the next level, a waft of fresh air greeted him from the dark recesses of an adjoining corridor.
Closer to freedom—not close enough.
“Not that way.” At the intersection of several corridors, the guard with the link jerked his head to the right.
Turen managed a brief view of a cavernous enclosure. Bright lighting hung from the sixty-foot high rock ceiling. Flats with wooden crates lined the bare dirt floor in organized aisles. Men with hand trucks maneuvered between the warehoused goods in civilian T-shirts and cargo pants.
Xavier’s drug trade was thriving based on the level of activity. A lucrative effort too, if the size of the cavern and the rows upon rows of crates was any indication.
Unbelievable.
Several feet down, the shine from lights embedded behind metal grills reflected off the gray painted concrete floor, replacing empty hallways. Metal doors lined each side of the hall, with no windows to view inside and only a service slat for food or water. Evidently a new style of prison cells.
The guard with the comlink unlocked a door in silence, released the security catch that fastened the manacles together, and gestured with his head for Turen to enter. Shank delivered a shove from behind in petty retaliation for the lack of freedom to do more damage. Turen caught himself on one knee as the door clanged shut behind him.
The walls and ceiling were smooth, still hewn from the rock of the stronghold’s mountain. Unlike his previous rustic cell, this one followed the hall’s painted concrete architecture and lighting style. A waist-high spigot graced the opposite wall, with a narrow trough grooved into the length of the floor to drain water. A flat rock slab extended from the wall with several folded rough-weave blankets.
Turen raised a brow.
Modern chic it wasn’t, but definitely a step up from before. He moved to the spigot and turned the knob. The device clanged and shook as air rumbled through the pipes in the wall to produce water, at first only a dribble at a time.
He rubbed his fingers beneath the slow, cold flow and then cupped his palm to taste before spitting it out. Metallic, yet clean. He squatted, dipped his head beneath the water, and rubbed his hair and neck with vigor. The fluid soothed in chilling numbness across his wounds, while his brain fired through the reason behind his change in location.
A status upgrade, or had his time almost run out?
Hands braced against the wall, he let the water trickle over his neck and down his back. What of Mia?
Would she follow him in the pattern of her last several trips? She had no innate ability to shift through space, as his people did, but he couldn’t discount her link to him, since she continued to appear.
His suspicion for her first visit had been Rasheer, because the man would enjoy taunting Turen with an innocent victim, especially an innocent woman. Yet if Rasheer had the power to bring forth women, he would have little need to turn his sadistic attentions on his male prisoners.
She’d shown up three times—not of her own volition—of that he was certain. Her emotions read of confusion and panic, though she fought her fear well and projected an uncommon innocence compared to the other human women he’d encountered.
He’d had his share over the centuries. Given and received pleasure, encountered his fair share of subversion and lies too, though it mattered little. Always brief, each encounter was an end met, a need assuaged, with no involvement. The couplings lacked an emotional and spiritual connection, never enough to satisfy his desires.
Never did he find a glimmer of what Xavier had exhibited with his mate. With the exposure to women of his race limited to only the friends he’d grown up with in the Sanctum, he suspected he would never find such fulfillment.
Just to witness Xavier and Maitea’s bond, their silent communication and love, had been painful. Joy for his brethren struggled against a thread of envy stretched beneath his skin.
Instead of betraying his jealousy, he left the Sanctum’s safety and searched. He walked through endless cities of humans and waited for a lost mate of his people to call to him, finding only emptiness. Too immersed in his own struggle to find personal joy, he’d failed Xavier and Maitea instead of being nearby when they had needed him.
He owed Xavier his allegiance. He owed him a chance to present his claim of a plot against Maitea’s life. Despite Xavier’s current mad choices and recent past, Turen refused to
discount Xavier’s claim without visible proof and his own scrutiny. More important, certainly more selfish, he wanted his comrade back to stem the hopeless lethargy and stagnation infecting his people under Salvatore’s rule.
Turen turned off the water and moved to the slab, still not able to shake that his own actions had brought him so low. This maelstrom of his creation even snared Isa. She hadn’t died by his hands, but with certainty, without his choices she would still be alive now.
And Mia?
Was her presence here a sign of help, another penance for his acts, or perhaps a test of his dedication to his people and their secrets?
How in the hell was he going to keep a human female safe in this prison? If he could get back to the Sanctum, she wouldn’t be able to follow, given the Guardian security there. However, escape from this prison wasn’t an option for him.
In the pit of his stomach, he knew she would show up again. He prayed it would at least be in the cell and not out in the compound, where she risked Rasheer’s attentions.
Or perhaps his relocation would sever the link between them. He squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed his face. Heaven knew he could do without the burden of her welfare and soul on his shoulders. The weight was heavy enough with the souls already entrusted to his care, ones who would perish without the blessing his children would bring.
The lights overhead dimmed in a pattern of pulses and then shut off. The only light that remained was a narrow green line that followed the trough of water on the floor to a pinhole drain at the corner of the room. Neon green illuminated the one wall of the cell with a low intense glow, leaving the other walls and the rock slab bed in lower shadows.
Something new.
***
Ansgar unfolded into the deep grasses at the top of the ridgeline along the cliff’s highest edge. An ocean-borne breeze blew across his face while he watched gray foam crest on the dark, chopped waves.
He lifted his hand and a peak of water danced in a column, rising from the wave caps, ten, twenty, then thirty feet into the air. It swirled and glistened with the sun’s last rays. The water sparkled, answering his call, until, with a sigh, he waved it back to the bowl of the sea.
The sunset kissed the earth behind him, elongating his shadow. He turned in time to witness the midnight blue blanket of night sky overlay purple, indigo, and pink in a final whisper.
I can’t keep doing this.
With a shake of his head, he clenched his fists and stalked toward the whitewashed lighthouse set back from the cliff’s edge. For one hundred and fifty years the building had served the coastline and its inhabitants. It had provided discreet cover for his bloodline for all those years.
Hand braced against the doorframe, he waited in the deepening dusk. He closed his eyes and focused around him for signs of others, his senses attuned for sounds and smells beyond the roar of breakers and salt-laden air. Two hours of setting false trails and crisscrossing deep tracks within the throng of the dense populations of the neighboring cities didn’t diminish his diligence. Fortunately, his efforts would disrupt the pursuit of even the most relentless of his brethren.
Xavier had taught them the skills to erase their imprint as children. Now Ansgar applied his lessons with a vigilance bordering on psychosis.
A slight click sounded as a remote access opened the door inward. He shut the door behind him, pausing for the click to ensure the lock engaged. At least it would keep the human threat out.
He took the open spiral staircase several steps at a time to the next landing only to spin around in a search about the empty room. “Pip?”
“Back here.”
With a quick exhale, he put the small metal case he’d brought with him on the desk and continued through the connecting hallway to a tiny bright kitchen.
The gleam of white walls, white cabinets, black tile floor, and black countertops mirrored the rest of the rooms and floors of the retired lighthouse. Briet focused with a large knife, converting the piles of vegetables before her into an exercise in cubism.
Ansgar pulled out a chair and spun it around, sitting with his arms crossed over the spine to watch her. His posture was more casual than his mood, but he let his relief at completing this leg of the journey ease slowly into his bones.
He absorbed excess energy from his sister’s pixie-like frame while she maneuvered through her task. It helped him relax, some. However, the lump in his throat as he scrutinized her wayward blonde layers and pursed mouth didn’t ease him. He’d become used to his sister alive, healthy and available. The thought of losing her was the only desperate fear he knew.
“Did you have any trouble?” she asked.
“No. I have a better handle on the cryo computer than I’d like. Avoiding Tsu’s notice is the trick.” He followed the fierce chopping of potatoes as it continued without pause. “Maitea’s samples are with Isa’s in the other room.”
The knife tip lowered to rest on the board, and she glanced over. “Thank you.”
He nodded, but didn’t meet her gaze. He carried too many secrets these days. It weighed on him. He’d kept the full horror of Isa’s death from Briet. He’d kept his monitoring of Isa’s email and her disposition from the Sanctum. He hid his support of Briet’s freedom from his brothers-in-arms. It was getting to the point where he didn’t know what to say to whom for fear he’d let out the wrong thing.
With a sigh, she moved the potatoes, carrots, and onions into the simmering pot on the stove, wiped her hands, and came to sit beside him. “I know you’re worried, but I’m as safe here as anywhere. And I can do more good here.”
He pressed his lips together and shook his head. “I have a really bad feeling about this. You didn’t see Isa’s body. I can’t shake the belief you’d be safer with the others.”
“Your fear is talking. I can’t waste years of my life in limbo when I can be doing something worthwhile. If they lock me away with the others it won’t make me safe.”
“Why risk this, Briet? We carry enough burdens for these humans as it is.”
She rested her hand on his shoulder with a squeeze. “I have to follow my own counsel on what is best for me. I’m truly thankful my brother supports me.” She stroked his shoulder when he refused to look at her. “I’m sorry for the toll it takes on you. It’s not only about giving back to humanity. This is what I need to be doing. I make a difference, Ansgar.”
He met her gaze. “What if you came back to the Sanctum? You could continue your research there. You’d have Grimm to help you.”
She shook her head. Her short blonde hair shimmered in spikes about her jawline. “Grimm has his own work. Besides, we both know I’d be overruled and forced into cryo with the others.”
“There are those who would support you.” He waved a hand, disgusted with himself for pleading.
She gave him a sad smile in return. “Perhaps, before Turen disappeared. Before Isa’s death. Not even support from Grimm, Tsu, and Kamau would be enough to help me now.”
He let out a heavy breath. She was right. Not that he’d truly expected her to agree or perhaps even wanted her to. He needed to hear her logic combined with the conviction in her voice, because fear of losing the sister he’d raised from a little girl ate at his gut with every breath he took.
When he’d seen Isa’s body, what terrified him beyond words was imagining Briet’s face superimposed over the corpse.
“Even Leonis wouldn’t support my request to stay out of cryo at this point, would he?”
“No.” That was a sore point. The man revolved in a constant repetition of “needing proof.” He refused to acknowledge what the rest of them could clearly feel. They weren’t human. Their senses, their intuition, should count for more than paranoia.
“Hmm, another falling out with him?” She shook his shoulder to get his attention. “I’m careful. I don’t stay with any project for very long. I cover my tracks, but…” She glanced around the kitchen as if it offered her a way to ease his worry. “I’ve learned
so much working with the drug trials and hospital studies. This may be of value to us someday. It has definitely been of help to the children cured. This is the value we were intended to provide with our special skills, aside from our children.”
“Our people should not have to fade out of existence for the sake of value. Our people should not have to suffer the loss of generations of our history, of our future. Our people shouldn’t be on the brink of extinction.” He clasped her shoulders. “You should be able to have a mate, just as they all marry and have children—just as they are all able to breed.”
She bit her lip. “Don’t hold back.”
He turned away from the concern in her huge brown eyes.
She pulled him back to face her. When he refused to turn back, she gave a quick, light jerk to the long braid that ran down his back. “Ansgar, you’re right, but I can’t fix the problems our people face. I can try to move forward and not falter. Securing our women to safeguard them for a mating that may never happen isn’t the answer. It weakens us.”
“I only agree with you as long as you’re safe, Pip.” He leaned close to rest his forehead against hers. “The problem is, once that is no longer the case, it will be too late to fix. You are not expendable. I can’t be here enough to safeguard you.”
“I can watch out for myself.” She smiled. “What happened to my carefree, fun-loving brother?”
“He’s been mired down in death and betrayal.”
“Betrayal?” A frown pulled between her brows and clouded her expression. “Do you doubt Turen?”
“Leonis asked me the same thing.” Ansgar shook his head. “I would trust him with my life. I can’t risk you with anyone.” He watched the swirl of gold shift in the brown of his sister’s eyes and knew she couldn’t logic away his concern.
“And because you trust no one, that gave you pause? Really, Ansgar, surely you recognize the truth. You wouldn’t trust my own mate with me.”