Interra (Awakened Series Book 5)

by Harley Austin

  “No place you would have ever heard of. My family is spread all over the world these days. I’m sure the mash-up of a bunch of different languages makes me sound like I’m confused.”

  “No, not at all; it’s very unique. So your family is all over the world? Where do your folks live now?”

  Rion knew at some point that question would come up and he had tried to prepare himself for it; but it didn’t help. A grim pain gripped him. His face fell and he tried to recover as best he could.

  Serena saw the sudden fall of Rion’s expression. Oh, no! she thought as a rush of trepidation warned over her. What had she said?

  “They’re gone, Serena.” he offered, fumbling his recovery, badly.

  Serena reached out and touched his hand, “Oh, Rion, I’m sorry. I had no idea.”

  “No, no, it’s fine.” The pain Rion still felt over the loss of his parents had a way of popping up at the worst possible moments. He fought back his misting eyes. ”They passed away not long ago. I guess in a lot of ways I’m still not quite over it.” He finally regained some composure and quickly changed subjects, “So what about your family? Where’s home?”

  Serena was glad that Rion had decided to move on to something else.

  “They’re in North Carolina now, Ashville. My dad’s job keeps them moving around a lot.”

  “Really? That’s a beautiful area. Do they like it where they are?”

  “I think so. But who knows. Next year they could be in Alabama or Montana.”

  “I know the feeling,” Rion commiserated. “I’ve moved around a lot myself over the years.”

  “Is that because of work?” Serena asked.

  “Partially, I can pretty much work from anywhere. But the company has a rather large presence here in Texas. San Antonio is more or less central to Dallas, Houston and Austin, so it was easier for me to move here for a while.”

  “So what do you do for them?”

  “Network security. It’s interesting work,” he said wryly, rolling his eyes a little. “If you’re a geek.”

  “Security? Like doing what?”

  “Let’s just I keep the bad guys from breaking into networks they are not supposed to be in. But, I’m under a security contract; they don’t let us talk about the details, unfortunately.”

  Serena was well familiar with that kind of answer. Jake had been mired in Israeli national security and wasn’t able to discuss a lot with her at times either.

  “So you’re a geek who doesn’t play video games—”

  “No.” He took a drink from his glass.

  “So what do you do for fun?”

  “I—like to, re-build things.” Rion chose his words carefully.

  “Like cars?”

  “Yea. Sometimes.” He nodded. “Usually motorcycles, and—small, vessels. Things like that.”

  “So you have a boat?” she asked.

  He nodded and smiled. “You could call it that. I’ve more or less rebuilt a few of them from the ground up. I’ll have to show you my latest one some time.”

  Serena wasn’t expecting Rion to own a boat. Then again, she should have known that he had to have money. He did live in the tallest building in town after all. She did wonder what kind of boat it might be though, but it would be un-lady-like to ask him how big it was.

  “I’d love to see it.”

  Rion smiled and then noticed the chain around her neck. The thick box-link draped to the top of her cleavage and then disappeared into her shirt, ending in a ring-like bump beneath he could easily empathically feel.

  “You put your ring on a chain. It looks nice.” The larger chain was a bit thicker than most and a good choice for the heavy ring.

  “I did. Thank you. I really like wearing it.”

  “I like you wearing it, Serena. I hope you don’t ever take it off.”

  “Maybe I have once or twice. I usually wear it all the time though. Is that okay?”

  “I—feel better knowing that you have it with you. You should leave it on,” he smiled. “I know this sounds dumb, but it gives me a warm feeling—I mean, knowing that you’re wearing it.” Rion smiled at his little foible.

  * * * * *

  Dinner was perfect. Serena didn’t want the evening to end. Apparently, neither did Rion. With the theater not far away, it was close to nine when both found a place in line to get tickets for a movie. They were holding hands, their fingers locked together gently as the line began moving slowly through the corral.

  “Hi y’all!” Serena heard a familiar voice from behind her. She turned to see Kelly, Celeste, Marci, and several other girls from her dorm suddenly piling into line behind them. Serena quickly dropped Rion’s hand and scowled at the smiling faces of her friends.

  “And what are y’all doing here?” She was mostly glaring at Kelly.

  “Lighten up, Serena,” Celeste started in, “we’ve all been wanting to see this. Hi Rion.” She flirted a smile at him.

  Rion smiled back. He leaned in and half whispered into Serena’s ear so everyone could hear. “Relax. We’re surrounded.”

  “Evidently,” Serena glared half smiling herself now at all of them.

  The line had grown long but was moving quickly. All of her friends were chatting and carrying on, pulling Rion and Serena into their fun and conversation. They were close to getting their turn to buy tickets when everyone’s attention turned to one of the far ticket windows. A small group of obvious roughnecks had simply walked up to the window without bothering to wait in line. They were getting boisterous with the ticket clerk behind the window because he wouldn’t sell them tickets.

  Serena felt Rion’s hands around her waist as he gently pulled her back and stepped in front of her. The clerk evidently won the stand-off as the motley crew huffed away from the window cursing obscenities about having to stand in line. The rest of the ladies had followed behind Serena, leaving Rion first in line. The unruly cadre stomped toward the head of the line right where Rion was standing. As the group approached, Rion could easily smell alcohol. The first of the gang, a burly tattooed thug about Rion’s same height, stepped right in front of Rion. Serena took a step back. Rion never took his eyes off the ruffian.

  “What are you looking at, butthead?!”

  Serena could see that Rion didn’t intimidate easily. Rion just stood there, his gaze fixed squarely on the other man’s face. Rion himself was quite intimidating. He wasn’t burly and overweight like the redneck thug in front of him, but he would certainly give anyone pause before they tangled with him, that is, if they weren’t too drunk to notice.

  The bear-sized thug took a step into Rion’s personal space. Rion never moved but continued to look the thug in the eye. People were backing away from the two of them as the other three roughnecks surrounded Rion.

  “Think yer’ hot shit, huh, pretty boy?!” he bellowed.

  Rion never moved—a muscle.

  The guy was right in Rion’s face.

  The thug’s arms flew up to give Rion a shove.

  Serena couldn’t see everything that was happening because one of the gang had stepped right in front of her. But she saw the thug pull a hunting knife and draw back. That was all Serena needed. She took a couple of quick steps forward, planted her hand in the middle of his shoulder blade for leverage and forcibly lifted his knife hand back as far as she could in a very unnatural backward motion. She had done the move in practice hundreds of times, but this was the first time she had followed all the way through and actually felt flesh tear.

  The thick blade fell loudly onto the sidewalk.

  Serena quickly pulled him backward over her planted leg and sent the now screaming thug face-first into the concrete. With a smooth pivot she turned to help Rion, but he had already turned and was looking—at her, his eyebrow raised in surprise. The big man who had attacked Rion was sitting on his butt, his nose misshapen and badly bleeding just as profusely as his mouth was complaining.

  “By dose! Buck man! Do boke by dose! Buck!”


  The other two hoodlums helped their bleeding leader to his feet. With one bleeding and another of them wailing with a badly torn and dislocated shoulder, it was evidently enough to take the fight out of the drunken lot of them. They gathered their complaining and howling wounded and left quickly amidst a cheering, clapping and now laughing crowd.

  Rion looked approvingly impressed at Serena. “You are just full of surprises,” he smiled. “You don’t look Israeli.”

  “I’m not,” she admitted; “an old boyfriend was. I trained with him for a couple of years.”

  Rion nodded his approval, “Good instructor.”

  Serena knew what he meant. He wasn’t disrespecting her or her skills. Complimenting one’s instructor was a sign of respect for both student and teacher. Once more, Jake wasn’t your average civilian Krav Maga instructor. Jake was Mossad and full out offense was what he had taught Serena.

  Rion purchased the tickets and they picked up some popcorn and sodas from the concession.

  Serena found it interesting that Rion had picked-up on her elite martial style so accurately. It only added to the intrigue and mystery of him. She also still couldn’t forget that she had somehow already seen him within her dreams. That now, more than anything, told her there was much more under the hood of this suave accented, occasional hobby lifter and boat rebuilder than met the eye—that was for damn sure.

  5

  M ornigns were something that Serena dreaded. She would always stay up late the night before attempting to draw out every last free moment of the day she could before having to start classes early the next day. It meant she would always go into morning classes groggy and dog tired.

  With the exception of the thugs at the ticket line, her date with Rion had been wonderful. Serena could tell that Rion had not been that much into the chick-flick the girls had wanted to see, but he seemed to enjoy her enjoyment of it. And he did laugh just as hard as everyone else in the theater. They held hands again and Rion lifted the armrest between their seats so they could cuddle up right next to each other in the theater. It was odd and elating how she just needed to be touching him.

  Serena replayed the previous evening spent with Rion in her thoughts. She was impressed with how Rion had placed his hands around her hips and moved her behind him when the ruckus was just kicking up in front of the theater. He was quite the gentleman and a protector as well. Not that Serena wasn’t capable of protecting herself, but Rion hadn’t known that. Rion really seemed like he was invested in her and their new friendship.

  She definitely needed to see Rion again, and this time without all of the girls flitting about as her personal chaperones.

  I wonder if he’ll call me today? she thought. She could call him, it was the twenty-first century, after all. No. Her mother would have a conniption if she knew Serena was calling a guy after a first date. That was just way too forward. You don’t impress a guy by being forward. Let them chase you, she could hear her mother saying.

  She had told him that he should have called earlier, even before their first date. He’s so not going to call you today, she assured herself. Then again, maybe he will, she continued to banter the thought all around her mind while walking slowly to class.

  “Hey, Serena!” Celeste bounced up to her from behind. She was way too bubbly for this early in the morning.

  “Hey,” Serena greeted slowly.

  “Guess what? The whole dorm is talking about what happened last night with you and Riii-un.”

  Serena was waiting for this. The dorm chatter was always much more interesting than what was really happening. What really concerned her was her folks. She still hadn’t told her folks about Rion yet. What was there to tell at this point? She’d just met him herself. What concerned her the most was the fight. Her folks had not liked her dating a military guy with Jake. They knew she’d been training with him. But if word got back that she had actually tangled with some bully, her mother would be mortified; and dad hated violence of any kind. She didn’t need to be dealing with fallout that might cast Rion in a bad light with her folks.

  “Oh, no. What’s everyone saying?” She was curious.

  “How you broke that guy’s arm; it was a really icky sound that made, by the way; and how Rion blocked the punches that big guy threw at him—”

  “Blocked? What punches? That guy threw punches?” Serena hadn’t seen those. She had been too focused on the thug with the hunting knife. No one had really talked all that much about what had happened while they were still at the theater.

  “You didn’t see that!? Oh, my gawd, Serena, you missed it!”

  Serena stopped walking, “So what did I miss?”

  “That big guy stepped right up to Rion and tried to sucker punch him. Only Rion blocked it, really fast; I’m not sure how; the guy then takes a step back,” Celeste demonstrated for Serena on the sidewalk, “and throws another punch really hard, but he misses because Rion leaned back just out of his reach.”

  “Well—” Serena now wished she could have seen Rion in action.

  “And then,” Celeste continued, “Rion whacks the guy right in the face with this like,” she sorely demonstrated with her own fists, “one-two, kinda like you do with your Karate stuff. Knocks the guy right on his butt. Then he turns really fast like he’s gonna nail the guy you grabbed, only you already had his arm up in the air making that icky sound. By that time all of us were all just watching you trash the guy onto the ground. The whole school is talking about you guys!”

  “Oh, Jeeze,” Serena now groaned. This was not the kind of celebrity she needed. “Celeste,” Serena began. “—never mind.” The cat was already out of the bag.

  Celeste was right. The whole campus did seem to be buzzing about the incident. One of Serena’s guy friends passed her in a hallway raising his hands as if in surrender, “I give up!” he joked in passing.

  As she and Celeste walked into class, someone brought up a YouTube clip on one of the classroom monitors. One of the people in line had recorded a good chunk of the event on their phone and it had made the late night news.

  “Oh, good grief,” Serena breathed as she began watching the tail end of the video. With her family following her every move on Facebook, there would be no way to keep either Rion or the fight a secret now.

  “… of Texas’ youths. In the clip provided to us by a newsmaker, the two unidentified people in the video can be seen definitely defending themselves against the four gang members. All four of the gang were arrested by police at the hospital and are being charged with assault, assault with a deadly weapon, disorderly conduct, and being drunken in public. The theater’s management says it will press charges against the four to the fullest extent of the law.

  “Also this evening ...”

  “Hey Serena,” a classmate called from the other side of the room, “You’re famous!”

  She visibly rolled her eyes and then went to her desk. She glanced at her phone and then muted it. At least this would be a good excuse to call Rion after class.

  * * * * *

  Rion studied the new spatial thrusters within the three-dimensional holographic model carefully, making tiny adjustments here and there as the virtual engine drew down higher and higher volumes of dark plasma direct from the new reflex conduit. The new engine output soared but remained well will within the mathematical specs he’d calculated. Then he felt Sevrin approach him over the continuum, his semi-transparent avatar appearing in the dimmed light of the tower’s subterranean lab.

  “Hey, Sev,” he nodded, still concentrating on the output levels.

  “Hmm,” Sevrin nodded his approval, looking at Rion’s handy work. “Very nice.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Ah, Rion, were you aware that you were on the eleven ‘o clock news last night?” Sevrin’s cultured, older voice offered spryly.

  “Huh? I was?” Rion tweaked the design slightly, not taking his attention away from the critical piece floating in front of himself.

  “I
thought you were supposed to be her bodyguard. I didn’t know you were dating the young lady. When did that start?”

  “Oh,” Rion pulled his attention away from the model they were both standing in the middle of. “I was on the news?”

  “Don’t try to change the subject. She’s quite stunning, I must say.”

  “She’s just a friend, Sevrin,” Rion tried to assure.

  “Just friends?” Sevrin wasn’t buying it for second. “I didn’t know you could be ‘just friends’ with an Invicti?” he chuckled. “Besides, you don’t take ‘friends’ to movies, my boy. I know you. You like this young lady.”

  Rion sighed, “Alright, yes, I like her. We’ve been on a date, Sevrin. One, date,” he emphasized.

  “You do realize I am going to have to tell the rest of the family.”

  “Oh, good grief. Sevrin!”

  Sevrin’s avatar winked out of existence.

  Rion sighed. It didn’t take him but a few moments to pull up a new holo-screen and find the video news story. He watched it with some interest and then some worry. He got Sevrin’s attention over the continuum again.

  “Sev, I just saw the video. How big of a problem do you think this is going to create for her?”

  “Sizable, I’m afraid. We’ve already been seeing some U.N. activity in the area, the usual suspects. But they are clearly on the prowl for someone—most probably you or your young Invictette.”

  Rion sighed deeply in frustration.

  “We’ll handle the U.N., Rion,” he promised. “Mitch and I have already been discussing it. You just take care of your new—friend.”

  Rion felt Sevrin wander away. He looked at a picture he had taken of Serena while they had been out on the River Walk the day earlier. His fingers reached out and touched the 2D flat holo display. I am such an idiot, he thought.

  This was exactly what Rion had hoped would not happen. If Sevrin had picked up that Serena and Rion were together from the video then it was probably a good bet that others had as well. Rion wasn’t exactly unknown in certain circles of the government. The Seven would use her to get to him, if they could. This wasn’t going to work. There was a reason one of his Cardinal Rules forbade him dating Humans. He couldn’t put her in danger like this. His fingers touched the holo image of her again. How would he break it to her that they couldn’t continue to see each other? I’m sorry, Angel. I have got to end this.