Too Long a Soldier (Kingdom Key Book 3)

by TylerRose.

  He halted.

  “Am I in any way unclear, Mr. Black?”

  Jerome blinked at him, taken aback by this change of role. Emotions hardening, he replied as his many years training with Chen had conditioned him.

  “No, Sir.”

  Yoshgaard turned away. “Come with me.”

  Disconcerted and more than a little angry, Jerome followed across the wide cement plaza and through an arch in the middle of a high wall. Emerging into a rich garden, he caught sight of Julian hurrying behind a tall hedge wall. Yoshgaard was gesturing expectantly to a side path, bodily blocking the way Julian had gone.

  “She’s in there?” Jerome asked.

  “So you see that you are very near when she is ready to receive you.”

  Glowering, Jerome went up the indicated path and around the hedge. There was no actual door, the wide, tall hedge acting as screen from the doorway to the central garden. The single room was sparsely furnished, looking rather like a hotel room. Yoshgaard poured a glass of water and held it out to him.

  “You must drink well while here. Our planet is very warm.”

  “No thanks. I’m more concerned about her. I hate not knowing what’s going on,” he said, already pacing the room.

  “Of course. She is your friend and your lover and you care for her as you have no one else. She is not my task, however. You are.”

  “How long are you going to keep me here?”

  “Until Jiogaard says you may be there. No longer.”

  “You have some way to counter the Rovan?” Jerome asked.

  “It has been removed from her but we cannot prevent the after effects,” Yoshgaard replied, remaining calm and standing near the doorway in case the very unpredictable Dragon lived up to his reputation of not taking no for an answer.

  “You mean the tremors and the pain.”

  “Yes.”

  “So what, exactly, is this place?” Jerome asked, turning to his instinctive need to know everything that he could possibly learn about a situation.

  “It is the place where the wrongfully persecuted find safety and healing. It is Sanctuary. Im Reesana was wise to bring her here where she cannot harm anyone or anything.

  “So what’s happening?” he demanded.

  “Julian is helping her.”

  Julian was rushed to the room. The situation was explained during the swift walk but he had already known. He’d known all along the danger she was in but had not been able to get away to come help. He dropped the cloak he’d been wearing and loosened the cuffs of his shirt, folding them halfway to his elbows to get them out of the way. Hard eyes appraising her, he looked next to Landra Ahr.

  “She’s been unconscious for how long?”

  “A few minutes. She had a very bad episode and I brought her here,” Landra Ahr said.

  “This Widening is extremely powerful and most unexpected,” Jiogaard said. “It’s been less than a year since her first.”

  “She attempted to teleport several times,” Landra Ahr informed him. “And threw Jerome into the wall. She has been unusually violent.”

  Julian reached across the bed to grasp her by the upper arm and thigh and dragged her to him in one pull. Off the edge of the bed and onto his leg as he stepped back and knelt on the other knee.

  “Let her wake,” he said when he had her in position.

  Several seconds and she stirred and groaned.

  “Open your eyes and look at me, Tyler.”

  Landra Ahr’s sensors spiked wildly as she regained consciousness.

  “Open your eyes. See me!”

  Her lids fluttered and parted, eyes glazed and staring. She saw him. He smiled at her.

  “Having a rough night, are you?” he asked, gently placing the thumb of his right hand against her left temple and the first two fingers on her Third Eye.

  She jerked in his arms, energies causing Landra Ahr’s sensors to spike again. He recalibrated the scale.

  “Oh no you don’t. Not nearly so easily,” Julian said.

  She began to cry, fingers of both hands going to her head to grasp her hair and pull as she babbled in a language Landra Ahr didn’t know.

  “I know it hurts,” Julian said, hand leaving her face to gently pry her fingers away.

  He placed the hand on his chest and she gripped his shirt instead. Her other hand followed under his firm insistence, and she held onto him, her life preserver in a turbulent sea of crashing sounds, sensations and images.

  “I’m here,” he said.

  He lifted her farther over his thigh so that his left arm supported her at the shoulders and her head fell back. In this position, she could not get footing, could not brace herself for a fight. Could not resist. His left hand held her upper arm securely, keeping her in place, while his thumb returned to her temple and fingers pressed over her Third Eye once more. She gave a pained shriek and tried to pull away. Julian reacted at once, holding her still.

  “Shhhh, it’s okay. Let it happen. I’m here now. It can happen.”

  He pushed through the color and sound crashing through her mind, searching for that quiet place she had created long ago as a protective mechanism. She fought him, trying to drive him out, but he advanced methodically, confidently. He cut off her space, cut it in half again and again until the chaos could no longer move. He took that opportunity to do what no one else could.

  Under the noses of the Sanctarians, he shared all the secrets he knew about her. All the things she had forgotten, that no one was to tell her. All the things Earnol continually tried to hide from everyone. After this moment, the information would be safely locked up inside her head where no one could get at it except the few men with the ability to reach her there. Hades would find it. He would know what to do.

  When he stopped, the chaos calmed into its place once more. The energies left behind melted into the rest of her mind and energy, like melted butter flowing into a pool of butter already melted in a bowl. Mind and energy reorganized themselves into the new whole left behind in the chaos’ wake.

  New pathways were opened in her brain. The door was cracked open again, into that place where worlds would be created. She would find it eventually and begin her life’s work again. He felt the heat of her aura, and higher levels of intensity for nearly all her existing abilities.

  The impatient chaos quieted, her work done for now. There would be other evolutionary leaps until only one more remained. The final evolution from physical form to life-creating goddess.

  Tyler sagged, releasing a tremendous breath and suppressing all knowledge gained. At some point in the future, she would know all the truths.

  “Take her,” he said at last, his strength greatly diminished by his effort.

  Sixteen minutes and forty one seconds, by Landra Ahr’s clock. He was closest, and stepped forward to move her to the bed. Scanning in those seconds, he found her energy was very low but steady. With the crisis over, he began to analyze the readings he had gathered over the last three days. Somewhere in them must be the indicators for this Widening.

  Jiogaard came forward to give her an injection. “Nutrients,” he said to Landra Ahr. “A dense concentration to help her recover.”

  “What of the Rovan?”

  “That was removed from her system when you came through the electromagnetic sphere of our planet. She’ll be fine. It will take time, however. Will power and inner strength on her part. Diligence on yours. Continue to make her sleep as often as you can get away with it. Fatigue is her enemy and it is only a breath away at all times.”

  “Jerome,” she said.

  A whispered plea barely audible. Jiogaard touched a gentle fingertip to her Third Eye for a moment.

  Yoshgaard rose from the chair. “Come with me.”

  “Where to?” Jerome asked, having finally calmed enough to be still and lean against a far wall.

  “She has asked for you.”

  Jerome was out the door and bounding across the gardens separating the two paths. He dodged
around the hedge and stomped inside, ignoring the stares. She was unconscious on the bed.

  “What’s going on?” he asked Landra Ahr, the only being present he could fully trust. “This guy said she asked for me.” A jerk of his thumb to indicate Yoshgaard.

  “She did and still is,” Jiogaard replied. “Her physical form is exhausted but her mind is aware enough to communicate with me. She requires your familiar energy and presence to comfort her after her ordeal.”

  Jerome eyed him suspiciously, but lay facing her on the bed. Moving in close, arm around her, kiss to her forehead. She was still too hot for his liking. After a moment, she released another tremendous sigh and melted into him, pressing her forehead to his chest.

  Lips close to her ear, he whispered so only she could hear. “You need not be scarin’ me like that, little girl.”

  “How much Rovan did she ingest?” Julian asked.

  “Five doses in liquid,” Landra Ahr replied. “The pains will be very bad. Is there nothing to help her?”

  “The Voranians have spent billions of dollars. Other planets have spent billions more,” Jiogaard said. “The most anyone has been able to do is put the person into a medically induced coma for the duration of the pains and the worst of the early addiction. Up to ten days.”

  “She’d kill us if we did that,” Jerome said.

  “Yes, she would,” Julian agreed. “Landra, may we speak outside in private?”

  He led the way out and around the hedge. “What I want to know is how in the hell you called for a portal to bring her here.”

  “I have a vocal recording.”

  “A recording?” Julian questioned, then it dawned on him. “She’s let you hear her sing. You are indeed privileged to know the secrets.”

  “The only people who would know her better than I do would be you and the man she married twice.”

  Julian’s expression fell hard. “You know about Shestna?”

  “I know she calls him Sta. Is he as he was in her own timeline?” Landra Ahr asked.

  “Yes, he is exactly the same man. Events are different is all. In this one, he sits on the Council of the Celestial Congress.”

  “The Indigenous died before they could form their attachment,” Landra Ahr said. “But he should know of this event. Please contact him and tell him what has happened. He may be able to help her in ways we do not know to think of.”

  “I will. He doesn’t know she exists. No one does.”

  “Perhaps it is time. What is it that you are not telling her?” Landra Ahr asked.

  Julian smiled. “She has her price for returning and so do I. I am not permitted to fill in her blanks. She has to find the answers herself. I can only confirm what she discovers when she remembers. In coming back, she had forgotten some things about her previous life.”

  “This price was issued by your father or by Sanctuary?”

  “Sanctuary. The price is high, Landra. There is no negotiation. You accept terms or you go nowhere. These are the people to whom Tyler and I are accountable. The only people. Neither of us will do anything to jeopardize the other.”

  “I understand.”

  “I’ll come to the warehouse soon as I can, likely sometime in the afternoon. And then I’ll have to start working with her right away to get the pyro under control before she scorches someone.”

  “Then it is truly over?” Landra asked.

  “The Widening is, yes.”

  “What are her new abilities?”

  “Pyrokinesis. If you hadn’t brought her here when you did, not only would she have died but she would have taken half of Toledo with her. She’s got a nuclear bomb in her head now and can lay it out any time she wants, anywhere she’s standing. Ancients only know the ways she will find to utilize it. Everything else is increased exponentially. If she could read a mind 100 miles away, now she can read it a million miles away. She’s going to hear more people crying for help from much farther away. It’ll never stop.”

  Landra Ahr was reminded of the day when she shoved him out of her bedroom from fifteen feet away. He made a note to compare readings from that day to readings from the last two days.

  “Keep Jerome close, is all I can tell you,” Julian said. “He can contain her if she loses control. But rein him in while you’re here. He’s going to get himself into very serious trouble if he mouths off too much or gets physical with a Sanctarian. They’ll kick him off the planet without warning and the next time he comes back, he’ll be dead on arrival.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  Jiogaard and Yoshgaard exited the bungalow. Landra Ahr had a few questions for them as well.

  Jerome tightened his arms around her in the dim light of the bungalow, holding her a long time in the silence.

  “Too damn close, Ty,” he finally said. “Too fucking close to losing you. You promised you weren’t going to die for few thousand years. You didn’t say anything about coming so close that you’d scare the shit outta me.”

  “Surprised me too,” she answered weakly.

  The sound of her voice broke him down. For the first time since the day of Monica’s funeral, Jerome cried. Only a moment before pulling himself together and kissing the top of her head.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “I’m tired. Please take me home. I don’t want to be here.”

  “Soon as I can, babe. I promise.”

  She slept for a time and Jerome brooded and scowled. Landra Ahr and the two ‘gaards returned after a while.

  “We need to get her home,” he said to Landra Ahr, and got off the bed to pick her up.

  “She is not ready,” Jiogaard protested.

  “My home is where she is comfortable and my home is where she wants to be,” he replied shortly, bringing her closer to the edge of the bed.

  “We must be sure she is undamaged.”

  Jerome stood straight and turned around, hating this interference from these guys he didn’t know from a hole in the wall.

  “It’s like this. She asked me to take her home and you are going to let me.”

  “Or?” Jiogaard challenged.

  “Or nothing. You just will. I’m not playing your game. I may not know every fucking detail of her old life but I don’t have to. I’m her friend before anything else. I’m the one she comes to when she wants human contact. I’m the one into whose hands she puts herself when she can’t do for herself, and this is one of those times. You need to be respecting my place in her life. Period. She told me she does not want to be here. That’s that. Her wish is my command are you are in my way. So. I know how we got here. Someone needs to be telling me how we get off this fuckin’ rock.”

  “It is too soon,” the Sanctarian said.

  Jerome scowled at him. “I don’t like you. Whatever you are to her is irrelevant to me. I don’t like this place either. It seems to me that she has the right to leave whenever she fuckin’ feels like it. Babe, tell them you want to go home.”

  “I want to go home,” she said.

  He drove his arms underneath her, between her warmth and the bed beneath and picked her up.

  “You heard her.”

  In a flash they were in her room, everything exactly as it had been. Sitting in meditation, Chen opened his eyes.

  “How long were we gone?” Jerome demanded hotly, putting her on her own bed.

  “A few seconds. What is her condition?” Chen asked.

  “Stable. The Rovan is gone but she will still have to deal with the addiction. Landra, we need to talk.”

  They stepped into the hallway.

  “Why didn’t you speak up and back me?” Jerome asked.

  “You didn’t need me to say anything. You were handling the situation as I would expect. I would have achieved the same result. My silence was my support.”

  An unexpected answer. “Oh. Well…okay then.”

  Roc came to her own door. “It got quiet. What happened?”

  “She is sleeping. The danger is passed. Go back to bed,�
� Landra Ahr said.

  A pause as her door closed.

  “What do we tell them in the morning?” Jerome asked.

  “No one needs to know anything about Sanctuary. Not for a while,” Landra Ahr replied.

  “Okay, but—“

  “Jerome, do not let them unsettle you or make you question yourself. You handled the situation in the mature manner of a seasoned officer. You upheld your principles and your vow to protect her while under tremendous personal pressure.”

  “I did, didn’t?” Jerome stood straighter.

  “Yes, you did and I am proud of you. You are shaping into a fine officer, if still a hot-headed one.”

  “I’m always going to be hot-headed, Landra. Get used to it,” he replied, heading back into the room. “You expect she’ll sleep for a few hours?”

  “As exhausted as she is both mentally and physically, I would expect her to sleep at least five or six hours,” Landra said.

  “Then there’s nothing for me to do here. I’m going for a drive.”

  “Where are you going?” Chen asked.

  “I’m going to go be hot-headed, is where I’m going.” He bent to kiss her forehead. Still too warm. “Call me if I’m not back before she wakes.”

  Solomon sat on the edgeof his heavy, throne-like seat in the middle of his command room and listened. He’d already kicked most of the men out. Only Curlein and Ch’Wik were present because they knew how to keep their mouths shut and their thoughts to themselves. That was why he liked the K’Tran as a race. They didn’t broadcast their stupid thoughts with a megaphone. They kept their stupid inside their head. Obedient little soldiers who did what he told them, regardless what it was.

  Tyler screamed in pain, bringing his focus back to the speaker. Sounds of a struggle as she was deep in hallucinations. He couldn’t feel her, couldn’t hear her psionic emanations; but knowing her as he did, he could well imagine the scene happening in her bedroom.