by Mikayla Lane
Jacordan and she, being of the House of Stealth, were adept at sneaking, hiding and surprising their enemy. It explained why she, and John had been so good in the mountains of Afghanistan; it had been their element. Even without her beast, Roniq, somehow she and John remembered the skills from the past.
Even out here, with all these uniquely talented aliens, she was still able to sneak up behind them. Yesterday, she’d gotten behind Jax and had her gun in her spine before the woman realized she was even there. It had been the talk of the camp all night. Lara had been really glad that Jax had not only taken it really well; she bragged about how well Lara had done it.
“Get your head out of the cloud's girl! We need breakfast then I want us in the forest by seven.” Jax said, pulling Lara out of her own thoughts.
Lara sighed when she realized she’d been drying the same patch of hair while she’d been deep in thought. She quickly re-wet the now frizzy patch and combed it out before getting dressed as Bree headed into the shower.
“Last day girls! Let’s make it good!” Bree said whooping as she turned the cold water on full blast.
Lara grinned and shook her head as Bree shrieked when the icy water hit her body. Bree was definitely their morning person; she thought heading out of the bathroom where Dog’ee was waiting for her.
“We need to speak. Privately.” The cat said with uncharacteristic seriousness. Her curiosity piqued, Lara hurriedly put on her boots and headed outside with Dog’ee right on her heels.
Lara headed deep into the woods to make sure that the others, with their beast hearing wouldn’t hear whatever was so important to Dog’ee. She had a few questions of her own that she wanted answers to as well. Feeling like they had gone far enough, Lara stopped and turned to Dog’ee. He looked worried; Lara thought.
“You take bracelet off. You’re remembering too fast and it too dangerous.” Dog’ee said, surprising Lara.
“What do you mean? How can memories be dangerous? And what would the bracelet have to do with it?” Lara asked, not willing to tell Dog’ee that she also thought the bracelet was helping her to remember.
“I don’t know how it works. I know what I see. You see the memories at night. It’s too much too fast. Human brain can’t take too much too fast.” Dog’ee said, laying a comforting paw on the toe of her boot.
Lara shook her head, thinking about it, but not really believing it, so she was already trying to disprove the cat. She woke up with a vicious headache this morning though. One that was still throbbing even after she’d taken three ibuprofen when she’d brushed her teeth.
Lara shook herself again and looked at Dog’ee. “Ok, so what’s the worst that could happen if I remember too quickly?” She asked, still doubtful that memories could harm anyone.
“Your brain get too hot, and you die.” Dog’ee said so simply it took Lara a second to register what he said.
“You’re kidding right?” Lara said with a sarcastic snort.
“No, you die. You take it off now.” Dog’ee said, stamping his paw on her boot in his typical dramatic fashion.
Lara moved her boot back from his paw, so he couldn’t stomp on her again, before replying. “No. I don’t believe that memories can kill me. Besides, I’m just now getting to the good part. I finally became a teenager, and I want to see what happens… at the end.”
“You fool! You die at the end!” Dog’ee said poofing out his fur in anger before shaking himself back to his sleek self.
“Seriously! The damn memory can’t kill me again! Besides, you’re the one snooping in my damn dreams at night, wake me the hell up before I die!” Lara said huffily, crossing her arms over her chest.
“It not that simple! You take it off, and we talk to Ratoka tomorrow!” Dog’ee said, spreading his feet out wide, his claws digging into the ground. Lara could tell his temper was rising along with her own, but she didn’t care; she wasn’t going to take crazy orders from an equally cat.
“I don’t need some old monk-like dude to tell me that memories are just that, memories. Besides, we’ll be there tomorrow, and I seriously doubt we’re going to speed things up enough in one night to get to the end. It’s taken two nights to hit puberty!” Lara said, her frustration mounting the more they talked about it.
For some reason, she really wanted to remember it all before they got back tomorrow. She just felt like she should be alone when she got to the end. It was weird. Lara knew that. However, so was everything else that had happened since she’d met Viper, she thought staring down at Dog’ee.
“Yo Lara! You out here?”
Lara and Dog’ee both turned to the sound of Bree’s voice. Dog’ee growled and looked back at Lara. “Take it off!”
“Oh fuck this.” Lara muttered quietly before raising her voice to shout back at Bree. “I’m coming.” With one last look at Dog’ee, Lara turned and stomped back through the woods to the camp.
She wasn’t even sure if he had followed until she reached the main cabin and headed to get some breakfast. She saw him out of the corner of her eye, sitting by the door and staring at her. Yeah, cause that’s not creepy at all she thought, shaking off the shiver that ran down her spine.
Lara wasn’t stupid; she knew something was kind of ‘off’ today. Besides the headache, she felt jittery, like she’d had too much coffee, even though she was getting her first cup now. She sighed heavily as she took a seat near Jax at one of the tables.
There were a few times in her life when she’d had the same feeling. None of them good times. Maybe Dog’ee was right, and she should take off the bracelet for now; she wondered, fingering it under the table.
“Oh please tell me you aren’t sitting there pining for your caveman. Tell me you aren’t that far gone yet!” Jax teased her in a whisper. Which of course had been pointless around the beast bonded who heard it anyway and laughed.
“No! I was definitely not here, but I wasn’t with him!” Lara said, laughing with the others.
“You ok? You look like you didn’t sleep well.” Jax asked, staring hard at Lara’s face.
Lara was surprised. “I’ve slept great since we got here.”
Jax just shrugged. “You have some dark circles going on under those eyes.”
“Hmmm.” Lara said, dismissing it. Dark circles weren’t exactly apocalyptic in her book, and they certainly didn’t mean the cat was right.
The rest of breakfast went comfortably, with Lara feeling every bit a part of the team of men and women in the room. They bonded well together; she thought as she laughed at the antics of a Valendran and hybrid Relian in the corner.
“All right warriors and gentlemen.” Jax said to the giggles and grunts of the team. “Let’s get ready! Two teams outside! Team leaders, will have the problem we’ll be dealing with today!”
Lara stood and rubbed her temple as Jax handed her a comm unit. “You and I. Head to head today. Let’s make our last day memorable!” Jax said with a wink.
Lara had an eerie feeling it would be.
*****
Viper, Dread and Drago paced outside of Ratoka’s home waiting for him to open the damn door. He’d told them through the Shengari’ that he had news about Lara, and they’d arrived within minutes.
Since that bastard Grai, dropped the news that he’d given Jax’s team the go for a training mission and wouldn’t tell them where she was, they’d been going crazy with worry.
Son of a bitch even took his family to Koda’s ship to avoid them. Viper didn’t believe for a second that their portal had to be taken down for repairs as soon as they got on board either.
Ratoka had no sooner opened the door when Viper asked, “Where is she and is she all right?”
“She is well. For now. I do not know where she is though.” The man said, stepping back from the open door so the brothers could enter.
Viper sighed in relief. “What do you mean for now?”
“Sit. All of you.” Ratoka said motioning to the ceremonial rug laid out on the floor in the liv
ing room.
Viper followed Dread’s lead and sat in a circle on the rug, with Ratoka seating himself last. Viper was surprised when the man began speaking instead of making them beg for information like he normally did.
“Your mate has been given a gift, by a crafter. One that is helping her to remember the past much more quickly than the energy you gave her. Dog’ee said she is showing signs of brain heat.” Ratoka said bluntly.
“What the fuck is brain heat?” Viper asked, wondering what the hell could go wrong this time. He was starting to get the feeling that the Gods brought Kinara back to him only so they could take her away again.
“It is when too many different energies collide instead of combining. She is human; her brain is incapable of using the connections being made so rapidly in her brain through the memories. It’s causing her brain to get too hot and will eventually kill her if we cannot slow it down.” Ratoka told them honestly.
“You have to be fucking kidding me! You’re telling me the Gods sent her back with a kill switch? What the hell kind of second chance is that? ‘Remember little human’, and then you die?” Drago said angrily storming to his feet.
“No! Of course not! Sit down and calm yourself, you are not helping.” Ratoka said, glaring at the man until he did as he said.
“Explain.” Dread said simply, trying to keep his own rage in check. He was not going to lose her again. With or without the help of the Gods, he would make damn sure she and Viper would have a chance to be happy this time.
“Humans… they are so different than us. The last time I assisted a planet with the conversion, they were of beast species. This is my first human conversion, and I am learning this as well, so your patience would be appreciated.” Ratoka said to them defensively before continuing.
“As a Tezarian, you know that each planet has a heartbeat like we do. This heartbeat is like mother’s milk to all creatures that dwell upon it. You hear this heartbeat along with your mothers as you are created and grow.”
“Throughout your life, your body requires you to hear that heartbeat, to feel the energy of it, or you become sick and diseased. It’s as important to feed your body’s energy as it is to have air to breathe, your very cells scream for it.”
“The more Lara remembers, the more her body and cells are screaming for the heartbeat of her home world. If she gets to hear that heartbeat, while on this planet with its own heartbeat, without knowing how to separate the energy…” Ratoka left the sentence off, knowing the intelligent young men would understand what he meant.
“She’s training with Jax. Jax gave her the gear. Damn it!” Dread growled.
“So the gear is pumping the Tezarian and Valendran energies into her while she wears it and being in the forest, away from all the EMF energy they are inundating people with on the planet; she's feeling the strong heartbeat of Earth. The humans call it a Schumann Resonance.” Drago said glaring at his brothers when they looked unsurprised and unimpressed that he knew that.
They teased him constantly about being the biggest one of them and also the more intelligent one. So he wasn’t about to add that the humans had also figured out the importance of the heartbeat. That they sent astronauts into space with recordings of the resonance to help prevent sickness and delay cell and bone degeneration.
It had been easy to figure out from there why the Relian’s had convinced the humans to blanket huge populated areas with cellphone towers and other EMF producing technology. Although they kept the science, mostly from the population, they had figured out that disrupting the ability for your body to feel the heartbeat, would cause mass sicknesses of the body and mind.
Because the cell structure of each person is unique, they would each react differently to the loss of the ‘food’ for their cells. Mental illnesses, such as depression, anxiety, panic attacks, suicidal and homicidal thoughts, dementia, lack of empathy and a host of others, could all present themselves among the people.
That didn’t include the physical problems that could manifest as well and because cells make up the whole of your body, every part of it could become affected. With usually the weakest point being affected first.
“So her cells are fighting each other now, choosing sides between her first world and this world, and she’s being ripped apart from the inside because she’s human and doesn’t have a beast to help her. And someone gave her a gift to speed this up? Awesome. Just fucking awesome.” Viper said sarcastically, his hopes of keeping Lara alive this time diminishing by the moment.
“What the hell can we do?” Dread said, feeling the hopelessness bleeding from his brother.
“We must get her and remove her from all but the Earth’s heartbeat until her brain catches up to the changes being made by the memories. We need her back here. Quickly.” Ratoka said, the seriousness of the situation all too clear by the worry in his voice. It was obvious to all of the brothers that the normally stoic man was a little shaken by the situation.
“Can we fix it?” Viper asked, his tone implying that he doubted it.
“Of course, course it can be fixed! Do not think the Gods did this to punish, Viper. They did not. It is up to us to understand what is happening and try to help. That is what we will do.” Ratoka said, laying a comforting hand on Viper to help his negativity.
“How the hell are we going to find her if no one will tell us where she is?” Drago asked, voicing the problem they’d made no headway on over the last two days.
Even training missions were kept ‘need to know’, in order to ensure the protection of the team members. They had already exhausted everyone who knew, and they weren’t talking under order from Grai, and no one would cross him. Not because they feared him, but because they respected him.
Ratoka sighed, as if he had dreaded the question. “If Dog’ee is correct, I believe they will end their trip early.”
Viper stood abruptly. “You mean we’re supposed to wait until they come back with her body? What the fuck? I thought you were going to help before it was too late!”
“Of course, course it won’t be too late! Her physical symptoms will bring them back, but it won’t be anything that cannot be fixed…” Ratoka said, hoping no one noticed that he left the sentence off without finishing it. He should have known better.
“There’s something you’re not telling us. What are you leaving out?” Drago asked with narrowed eyes that studied Ratoka intently.
Ratoka felt really uncomfortable under the stares of the three brothers and cleared his throat quickly before answering. “Since we do not know how far away that they are… or how rapidly she may be deteriorating, there is a small chance that she can decline too quickly…”
“Damn it Ratoka! So she can die! We need to get Grai. How the hell can we get him to give the order to make them come back?” Viper asked, pacing the room with worry.
“We’d have to tell him the truth about the prophecy.” Drago added, willing to project it on the side of his ship and fly through the middle of Paris if they had to.
“How long do you think it’ll take him to find out about it anyway? Seriously… he probably already knows half of it by now. We just don’t know he knows. He’s a smart bastard.” Viper muttered clenching his fists, wishing he could choke the man for letting his mate leave like that.
“Look, he’s going to have to know sooner or later anyway because it’s going to get hard to explain when we start finding and bringing lost souls here next. Not including the fact it would be unfair to use him to protect them without explaining why.”
“And there’s the commitment our people have already made to help them defeat the Relian’s. We have no choice but to tell him. It is the right thing to do.” Dread said, proud of the way he had reasoned that out.
“Funny how the right thing in this case is also what you need the most. The Gods surely weave such an intelligent design don’t they?” Ratoka said with a knowing smirk, opening his personal path through the Shengari’ to Grai and sending a brief message.
He grinned at the quick response.
“He’s blocked our paths on the Shengari'; we can go to Ivint…” Dread began when Ratoka stood and interrupted him.
“He is meeting us at the conference room in twenty minutes.”
The brothers looked back and forth curiously before running to follow Ratoka out of the door.
Chapter Seventeen
Amun looked at the scans again, even though he knew that the results would be no different than they had been when he looked at them earlier. With all he had seen and learned since coming to this planet, he was still surprised by his findings.
He couldn’t stand around rerunning tests or reviewing them all day, he had to tell Ivint and Grai, there was no avoiding it. They had to be warned. Using his private path through the Shengari’ with Grai, Amun learned he was already back and heading into a conference room.
Amun was stunned to learn that Grai had intended to call him to the meeting anyway and headed out of the door of the MedLab on the Adaria and to the port station to Dillon. He sent another apologetic message to his mate, Jess, and disappeared through the portal. He didn’t even blink in surprise when Grai met him on the other side.
“We need to speak before we go in the meeting.” Grai said, pulling the doctor from the room.
*****
Viper spent the drive to the office building trying to go over in his mind the best way to get Grai to help them, and he kept hitting a wall. He couldn’t concentrate. Between his beast Zaxin, screaming in his mind to find their mate and his brothers warning him not to piss off Grai, he was drawing a blank.
He wasn’t sure if he felt better or not when they entered the conference room and Traze, David, Risk, Ivint, and Reven were already there. Viper slid into a seat on the other side of the table from them, while his brothers and Ratoka sat on either side of him. He was getting ready to ask where Grai was, when he entered the room, followed closely by Amun.