by Mikayla Lane
It was only later that everyone wished they’d done something, anything, differently.
Chapter Sixteen
Mikal looked around them for what seemed like the hundredth time. He knew he was being obsessive, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. There was a change in the energy that he couldn’t explain, but he knew Chance could feel it too.
The moment they’d stepped on the ferry to the amusement park, he had felt the dramatic change in the energy around them. He’d sent a call to Chris, who was already at the amusement park with part of a team, but Chris said that the area was clear.
Mikal’s feelings didn’t change when the ferry reached the island either. If anything, his concern increased as a thread of expectancy seemed to flow through the energy around them. He found himself scanning the crowd of people around them, sure he would find what was triggering his alarm, but he came up with nothing.
“Daddy, can I please ride the carousel now? Please?” Charlie begged as she held tightly to Chance.
Mikal’s heart skipped a beat when she called him daddy. The miracle of being a father still caused that magical feeling inside of him, and he smiled at his little girl. He couldn’t help but admire how well the four women had chosen clothing for her.
The light pink, long-sleeved shirt and purple leggings covered most of her pale white skin. Her white hair was pulled into a pony-tail and flowed from the back of a hat. Sunglasses hid her white eyes, and she looked no different than any other human child who was out with her parents for a day of fun.
He and Chance also sported long sleeves, caps, and sunglasses in an effort to hide their unusual eyes and sparkle to their skin, but Mikal still felt like they were being noticed.
Mikal looked around the carousel, trying to see if there was anything out of place that he could put his finger on, but all he saw were excited children and their parents or grandparents. Pasting a smile on his face, he looked at his excited child.
“Yes, you can go on it, but only if you stay with Mommy,” Mikal said.
Chance’s nervous gaze clashed with his for a moment before she nodded, silently agreeing to his plea to guard the child carefully and keep her senses open for danger.
Mikal pulled a couple of tickets out of his pocket for them to get on the ride, and he stood anxiously to the side as they waited in line for their turn on the carousel.
“You need to try and chill out, bro. The area is clear, and you look like you’re ready to go on a killing rampage. It’s bleeding from your energy if the wide berth the humans are giving you is any indication,” Chris warned, afraid that Mikal’s hyper vigilance was actually drawing attention to him instead of allowing the family to blend in.
Mikal shook his head, his eyes darting around the area, seeing only his siblings and the Tezarians mingling among the humans as they protected his family.
“I’m telling you, Chris, something is wrong. I think this is a bad idea,” he said.
Mikal looked up and saw his brother nodding at him from across the carousel.
“If you feel that strongly, then we should go,” Chris said to Mikal, suddenly feeling alarmed.
Something had changed around them and he began to feel Mikal’s urgency to leave. Looking around the family more closely, Chris called out to the rest of the team.
“Guys, stay alert! Something is different, find what it is and get ready to get them the hell out of here!”
Mikal listened to Charlie’s screams of delight as she twirled around on the carousel with Chance, his eyes darting around the area as his skin began to prickle with warning. If there weren’t so many humans around he would have pulled them off of the carousel and left immediately.
Instead, he looked around the area intently, trying to find the source of the threat he felt strongly throbbing through the energy around them.
Mikal saw the ride slowing, and he moved to where the riders would exit. He stood next to several parents and felt the hair rise on his neck prior to feeling the sharp stab into his side.
“Don’t say a word or make a scene or the girl and the kid die. Got it, freak?” a cold, hard voice whispered into his ear.
Mikal nodded his head as the drug hit him, and he could feel his ability to shift drain from him as the metals in his body became disrupted.
He looked across the carousel and saw the panicked look on Chris’s face and knew his family was taking action. Mikal turned to Chance and Charlie as the area erupted into chaos around them.
Mikal saw a dark figure swoop in from out of nowhere and seize Chance and Charlie, the three disappearing completely from view as several armed humans came at him from across the carousel, causing the innocent parents and children to scream and scatter from the area.
The moment he saw Chance and Charlie disappear, Mikal quickly turned on his attacker, took his weapon and broke his neck. The body had barely hit the ground before he’d launched himself over the railings of the ride and began running to find Chance and Charlie.
“Where are they?” he screamed to his family through the Shengari’ as he ran full out through the screaming humans.
“I don’t know!” Chris yelled in frustration as he fired at several humans shooting at Mikal.
“Damn it, Mikal, it looked like you took them to the air!” Shane called out to him as he ran towards the humans that were closing in on Chris and Mikal.
“I’ve been drugged; I can’t shift!” Mikal screamed out to them before turning to the colored energy strand in his mind.
“Chance, where are you, baby?” he asked her through their private path.
“Mikal! We’re in a scary place. Charlie is crying. There’s all these things popping out at us, and people are screaming,” Chance said, her voice reflecting her fear.
Mikal looked around, trying to figure out where the hell she could be when he saw the haunted house ride. Without breaking his stride, he dodged the bullets whizzing around him, jumped the empty cars and ran inside.
He gave his eyes a moment to adjust to the change in the light, and he moved carefully around the props and moving cars, listening for any sound that would indicate where Chance and Charlie were.
“Mikal! You have to hurry and get them out of here! They have a damn army here, and we’re getting hit from the land, air, and water!” Chris warned, trying to run through the panicked humans to get to his brother.
Mikal cursed in his mind as he tried to separate the sounds of the screaming from those of the ride so he could pinpoint anything different that would lead to his mate and daughter.
“Chance . . . can you get away?” Mikal asked, hoping if she could break away he could find them.
“No! He’s done something to my energy, but it’s not the drug,” she answered fearfully.
Mikal heard the humans enter the ride behind him and knew he didn’t have much time to find them or they all stood the chance of being captured. Seconds later, Mikal felt a comforting hand on his shoulder and a familiar energy.
“Calm yourself, son. I would never harm your chosen family. I am only trying to help. I can feel an anomaly in your energy. Can you shift?” a smooth, deep voice whispered in his ear.
Mikal jerked around and saw the shock on Chance’s face as she looked from the large, dark man holding her and Charlie to Mikal.
He was as surprised by the resemblance between them as Chance was. His father’s head was also completely shaved, the only color on his face to break up the beautiful midnight color of his skin was his white eyebrows and goatee.
Even his build was so close to Mikal’s that he had only to look a half-inch lower to see eyes that matched his own—not only in color, but in shape and size as well. It was humans shouting behind him that jolted Mikal out of his perusal. He narrowed his eyes at his father and made the only decision he knew he could make.
“Get them to the rendezvous on Olympic Island. My brothers are waiting to take them to safety,” Mikal said, referring to the pre-planned spot they chose if so
mething went wrong.
“Mikal . . .” Chance started to argue before they heard the humans coming closer to them.
Mikal’s father shook his head and was getting ready to speak when Mikal heard a human close behind him, and he turned and raised his arms above his head while he walked towards the armed humans.
Mikal felt the probe of energy in his mind right before a burst of colors flashed so brightly behind his eyes that he staggered as the humans took a brutal hold on his arms and yanked them behind his back, placing him in handcuffs.
“My son, I will take your family to the safety of your friends. But I will return for you. I have not searched so long only to lose you again,” Mikal’s father whispered to Mikal along the path he reformed in his son’s mind.
Mikal blinked in the sun as they pulled him out of the haunted ride. A dozen armed men immediately surrounded him. He kept his head down, unwilling to see one of his siblings and possibly give away their location.
“Chris, I’m letting them take me so you can get Chance and Charlie out of here. My . . . father is with them. So I guess you shouldn’t try and shoot him,” Mikal said, his joke falling flat on his brother.
They passed a golf cart, abandoned by terrified park staff, and the mercenaries threw Mikal into the back and kept their weapons trained on him as they sped away.
“Mikal . . .” Chris began but Mikal cut him off.
“Don’t. You know we can’t. There are too many humans and children that can get hurt. Obviously these bastards don’t care about that, but we should. Talk to Sergei, he knows how to find me,” Mikal said as he was yanked roughly from the cart and pushed into a helicopter that had landed on the island airport.
“I will find you,” Chris swore to Mikal as he clenched his fists in impotent rage as he watched the helicopter take off with his brother inside.
“We’re tracking the bastards!” Siggy called out through the Shengari’.
Mikal smiled dangerously at the fully-geared humans sitting across from him in the helicopter, enjoying the widening of their eyes and the smell of their fear.
“I have no doubt that you will find me, brothers. And when you do, show these assholes what we can do when they don’t have human children to act as shields for them,” Mikal said to all of his siblings along the private path they shared on the Shengari’.
Mikal chuckled at the various responses from his brothers and his sister, all promising to get him back, all promising a retribution that would rattle any warrior.
The oldest man in the helicopter leaned forward, a snarl on his face.
“Laugh now, you bastard freak. You won’t be laughing later,” he threatened.
Mikal grinned broadly, unwilling to let the human’s meager threats to shake his faith in his family. He leaned forward, chuckling as the man quickly sat back.
“You may want to know your enemy before you engage them,” Mikal said with a sneer of his own.
The older man turned such a bright red that Mikal wondered if the guy was going to have a stroke.
Of course, I couldn’t get that lucky, he thought with another grin at how easy it was to push the buttons of this small man.
The man motioned to the nearest mercenary, and Mikal didn’t bother to duck the blow from the man’s rifle butt. Instead, he moved towards the hit, meeting the butt of the rifle, shocking the mercenary delivering the blow. It was such a startling move that the humans just stared at him, never realizing that he’d effectively minimized the blow by cutting down on the speed and force in which it was delivered.
Mikal grinned as he felt the fear and surprise run through the energy of the humans. He may not be able to shift, but the drug couldn’t stop him from sifting energy and keeping them off balance until his brothers came for him.
He sifted the older man first, trying to find something in his energy that could tell Mikal how they had found them. Once he got past the rage, he felt humiliation and hatred in the man’s energy, and he wondered if the man was part of the labs they’d raided and had taken it personally.
Mikal flashed the older man a brilliant white smile and relaxed back into the seat as if he had no care in the world. Taking a chance on his theory, Mikal focused on the older man.
“I’d like to say I’ll feel bad when you’re again humiliated for your incompetence. But to be honest, I’ll just celebrate for a moment then move on with my life like you’re the nothing that you really are,” Mikal taunted, seeing the red suffuse the man’s face immediately.
Mikal felt the man’s rage rise instantly and he watched the man fumble with the straps holding him in his seat as he tried to get out and get to Mikal.
“Sir, you can’t! Just stay put, we’ll be there soon,” one of the other mercenaries said as he glared at Mikal.
The older man leaned as far forward as the straps would allow and he spit as he spoke through gritted teeth.
“You didn’t embarrass me, you bastard! You ruined my life! My career!”
Mikal stared at the man, his grin remaining in place only to irritate the older man while he tried to figure out what the hell the guy was talking about. Granted, he and his siblings had done some serious damage to a lot of really bad people, but Mikal couldn’t recall ever seeing this particular man in their files, and he knew he’d never seen him before today.
Feeling strangely confident, Mikal probed a little deeper, hoping for something more to go on.
“You have to wonder if you were that good at your career or your life if it could be ruined that easily. Sounds to me like you’re just an average failure, and you’re looking for someone to blame,” Mikal said in his most condescending tone.
“You son of a bitch!” the man yelled.
He turned beet red again as he tore at his straps, this time breaking free and stumbling across the small space to Mikal as the mercenaries attempted to keep the man upright.
With his face inches from Mikal’s, the man began to scream at him.
“You bastard, you’re the one who went on that bridge! I did my damn job and lost it all because that bridge fell! It was your fault, and I lost everything! My wife, my job, my home!” the man screamed in Mikal’s face.
The irony made Mikal laugh heartily for a moment while the mercenaries continued to keep the enraged man on his feet in the helicopter as they flew across Lake Ontario towards New York.
Mikal leveled a disgusted glare on the older man, finally realizing whom he was facing.
“What I find more disturbing than anything is that you shot at me on that bridge, causing a collapse that killed 46 people, and the only thing you care about is that you lost your job,” Mikal said.
The helicopter took a sharp right turn and Mikal used it to his advantage. Lifting his long powerful legs, he caught the older man around the waist and as the craft started to right itself, he slammed the man into the wall above his head.
Mikal laughed as the mercenaries across from him caught the now-unconscious man and pulled him across their laps. Mikal saw the butt of the rifle coming at him from his right and he dove towards the hit, again deflecting most of the force of the blow as he glared at the slightly shaken mercenary holding the weapon.
Mikal was determined to keep the assholes off balance. They thought he was his father, and they had no idea there was more than one of them loose in the world. He wanted to keep it that way. The less they knew, the better. And the safer his real father would be.
*****
Chris waited until he saw the dark blur flash around the trees near the water before he stepped out from behind a tree and held his arms out.
“Chance! We’re over here!” he called out, watching in fascination as the black blur turned sharply and headed directly for him.
He saw a few of his siblings come out around him as the dark blur stopped right in front of him. Seconds later Chance and Charlie came into form. Chris sucked in a sharp breath as he looked at a spitting image of his brother, only a little older, standing behind the females.
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His brothers raised their weapons and aimed directly at the man who had obviously fathered their brother as Chris took a step closer to him and held his hand out for Chance as he spoke to the wary stranger.
“Don’t take it personally, but we’re taking no chances with our brother’s family,” Chris said before he chuckled. “I know how that sounds since you are obviously his father, but you’re not part of our family.”
Chance looked at Mikal’s father a little nervously before he spread his arms wide and she ran with Charlie to Mikal’s brothers. When they were safely behind a wall of siblings, Chris lunged at the man and had his hands wrapped around his throat while Declan kicked the back of his legs, dropping him to his knees in the grass.
“You tell me how the hell you found my brother and where they are taking him!” Chris roared in the man’s face.
Mikal’s father didn’t blink or attempt to fight them. He stayed calmly on his knees, his hands loose at his sides as he stared into Chris’s blazing eyes.
“I know how this must appear to you, but I swear I had nothing to do with my son being taken. I only arrived here this morning. I was on the other side of the planet when I felt Mikal’s energy. I came as fast as I could, expecting him to be gone as he was every other time I’ve felt him. I was stunned to see him standing there . . .” Indrid said, his voice breaking as he thought of his first glimpse he’d had of his son in almost 147 years.
There wasn’t a Dranovian or Tezarian there who didn’t feel the man’s deep anguish and pain. Chris let go of his neck and stepped back from him, trying to judge if he was telling the truth or not.
“Why did you take the females?” Declan asked accusingly.
Indrid looked up with sad eyes.
“I could feel his love for them and knew they were his to protect. When I saw him attacked, I moved to protect that which meant the most to him. Now, if you are done interrogating me, I’m going to find my son,” Indrid said evenly as he stood and began to shift.
“Wait! Damn it!” Chris said, stopping Mikal’s father from disappearing.