by Mikayla Lane
Oh well, she thought. She had no time for a potential fling with a tourist. Not that he’d be interested in her anyway. She was far too plain to ever capture the attention of a man like that, she thought.
Rebecca knew she was passably pretty. But her mousy brown hair, plain brown eyes and too thin figure could never attract a man who looked like that. Not that she had time for any man, she thought with a grimace. With the season coming up, she’d be on the river almost continuously… damn, why was she even thinking about this?
Ugh… she thought trying to chase the crazy guy out of her head as she pulled her burning dinner out of the fire. She sucked on her burned fingers and cursed. Damn, she really needed to get her head in what she was doing. It was too dangerous out here for her to be distracted with some naked fool, who she would never see again and who was so stoned he would never remember her either.
The guy had been so out of it, he’d called the bear his mate. A bear! And who used words like that? She thought as she opened the package of food she’d only wanted to heat and ended up burning into a mass of charred and inedible crap.
Rebecca sighed and grabbed a couple of protein bars, vowing to catch some fish for breakfast to make up for her lack of dinner. If she kept making stupid mistakes like this, she’d have to head back early and she didn’t want to do that. She’d been planning this trip all winter and was excited about trying to find the caves.
She washed down the protein bars with some water and gathered up her mess, putting it away so it wouldn’t attract any more bears. Rebecca figured she’d seen more than enough of them on this trip. A little too up close and personally.
Stop! She screamed at herself. Every damn thought did not have to lead back to the naked stranger, she thought as she chastised herself. Rebecca forced all thoughts from her mind save checking her gear and supplies before bedding down for the night.
Wanting to get an early start and figuring she could forget about the guy in her sleep, Rebecca headed into her tent and crawled into her sleeping bag. She shuffled around inside for a few minutes, trying to ramp up the warmth with her movements and body heat as she tried to force her mind to think of anything other than the fool and his bear friends.
As Rebecca lay there in the dark, watching the firelight play shadow tricks on the tent, her last thoughts before finally drifting off to sleep were of a sexy stranger that she couldn’t seem to get out of her head.
*****
The binoculars stayed fixed on the lone female until she went into her tent. After several minutes of no movement, Blint assumed she was asleep and he crept farther up the mountain to the others.
“The female is sleeping, we can easily sneak down there and take her out,” he suggested with a grin, thinking he could have some fun with her first.
His leader backhanded him across the face and Blint held his now battered cheek in his hand as he glared at Jalorn who was growling at him.
“Don’t be stupid! She is well known around here and if she went missing or was found dead, they would have the whole damn town out here looking for her! We leave her the hell alone and keep moving. Dagog will not be pleased if we fuck this up and I have no intentions of letting one of you assholes get me killed,” Jalorn warned, making sure that his team understood him.
Now that Dagog had taken over control of the Relian Empire, the days of lazy contentment were gone and anyone who didn’t want to put in the effort to help Dagog achieve his goals were summarily killed. Jalorn wasn’t going to end up being one of the casualties of Dagog’s arrogance and narcissistic need to rule this world.
He turned to his team with a growl. “We’re supposed to be tourists enjoying the area and that is what we will continue to pretend. Now get moving! I want camp set up within an hour, we’re leaving early in the morning!” Jalorn said as he watched the rest of his men scramble to do as he said. Everyone but Blint.
Blint shuffled around, holding his cheek and doing as little as possible. Jalorn knew the moment Blint was assigned to him that he would end up killing him. Jalorn wasn’t sure when he would kill him, but it looked like it was going to be sooner than he thought.
He hadn’t been kidding about not screwing this up. There was no way that he was going to be their psychotic leader’s next victim. It had taken him years to gain Dagog’s trust and he wasn’t going to let that work be ruined by the latest round of defective clones assigned to him. Even if he had to kill them all and complete the mission himself.
If Dagog wanted him to find some mythical place that his father had found long ago in these mountains, then that’s what he was going to do. He just hoped like hell it was here, otherwise, Jalorn wasn’t going back to tell the crazy fool that he was wrong.
Chapter Five
Gracus woke slowly, as if his body was coming out of a really heavy sleep. As his mind began to function a little more clearly, his eyes popped open and he sat up quickly. Too quickly and he turned when he felt hands trying to right him as he swayed.
“Scaden! What…?” Gracus said as he looked at Scaden and Amun’s concerned gazes.
Amun stepped forward and began running scans to ensure Gracus was free of the drug as Scaden tried to explain things to their confused friend.
Scaden cleared his throat, unsure how to begin. “Do you remember the cabin?” He asked, trying to figure out what Gracus remembered.
Gracus held his head in his hands as an image popped in his head about a large and beautiful cabin near a sizeable river in the mountains. Then he saw another one of him walking through a forest, watching birds and squirrels.
Gracus looked up at Scaden and nodded his head slowly, unsure why he was having a problem with his memory and why he was in a MedLab. “I remember the cabin. What the hell happened?” Gracus asked Scaden and Amun, a sinking feeling in his stomach.
Amun spoke up. “You purchased some candy in town that contained a legal drug. Your body reacted badly to the combination and you were found by a river guide, unconscious in the woods. The drug is being flushed out of your body and the more that is removed, the more your memory will return to you. You should be fully normal by tomorrow morning,” Amun said, watching Gracus closely for any signs of a problem in his healing.
Gracus looked blankly at Amun, trying to process what he was telling him. For some reason it felt like it was taking his mind a long time to comprehend the words that Amun had spoken. And the images that began popping in and out of his head were just as slow as his thoughts, even though they were helping him remember.
“Mike’s Mountain Magic Blend…,” Gracus said as Amun and Scaden nodded.
“It was drugged?” Gracus asked, his forehead scrunched as he tried to remember.
“No,” Amun said reassuringly. “It’s a legal drug that is only available in a few states. No one thought to warn you…” Amun wasn’t sure what else to say about that and just let it go.
Gracus saw the images in his head of eating the stick candy as he walked through the forest and how in tune he had begun to feel with nature. But, anything after that was a blank.
Gracus shook his head. “What did it do to me? How did you find me? Where is my beast?” he asked, still very confused.
Amun coughed, looked to Scaden and walked away, pretending a sudden interest in a monitor on the other side of the room. Even with his mind a little cloudy, Gracus knew that they weren’t telling him something.
He glared at Scaden and said, “Tell me now. I need to know.”
Scaden cleared his throat and said quietly. “You stripped down and fed the drugged candy to a couple of bears. You were found by a human river guide, naked and sleeping between the two bears,” Scaden said, unsure what reaction to expect out of his friend.
Gracus looked horrified before he put his head back in his hands and groaned at the images the words had brought into his mind. He could see the baby bear clearly in his head and remembered the chewy candy in his pocket.
“No!” Gracus said sucking in a shaky breath. �
��Tell me I didn’t harm the bears!”
Scaden rushed to assure his friend, a little surprised that his first thought was for the animals. “No! The river guide who found you said that the bears seemed fine when they woke up. The drug didn’t seem to leave any lasting effects on them,” Scaden said, watching his friend closely to make sure he didn’t lose it.
Amun added, “Your beast was put into slumber by the drug and will return as soon as it is out of your system.”
Gracus saw more images running through his mind and he began to feel a little dizzy with it. He shook his head to try and clear it and turned to his friends. “How bad did I fuck up?”
Amun feigned an interest in his comm while Scaden looked at the floor for a minute. Gracus was getting really worried and was getting ready to ask again when the door burst open and Traze T’Alq came sliding in the room.
Traze looked at Gracus and spread his arms wide, a big grin on his face and he started singing a song about bears and necessities. Gracus looked at the boy in confusion as Scaden and Amun tried to push the kid out of the room.
Traze saw Lt. David Jacobs striding angrily towards him with Grai hot on his heels and he fled the room, hitting a button on his comm before he left that flooded the walls of Gracus’ room with the meme’s that he had pulled from the web.
Gracus stared in dawning horror at the pictures on the walls as David split off from Grai to chase after Traze while Grai walked right into the room with Gracus.
Seeing the horrified look on the poor man’s face, Grai swore he was going to kill his little brother for making this more difficult for Gracus than it had to be.
Gracus, seeing Scaden and Amun avoiding eye contact with him, turned to Grai and in a choked whisper said, “Tell me…, please. I don’t remember.”
Grai couldn’t stand to see the guy like this and nodded his head. “That is you… obviously. I don’t know what you’ve been told or figured out yet, but it was an accident, Gracus. None of us could have guessed the reaction the candy would have on the Valendran system. Unfortunately, you were the one who figured out that this candy needs to be placed on our ‘Do Not Consume’ list. I’ve already sent warnings out to all of our off world personnel.”
Grai saw the red suffuse Gracus’s face before he put his head in his hands and groaned. Grai put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Gracus, no damage was done. Those images have been deleted and no more exist. My brother, Traze…,” Grai sighed and shook his head vowing to make his brother delete all of the images off of their internal systems. “I am truly sorry that you found out like this and I will speak to him.”
Gracus could have sworn he heard Amun chuckle and say, “Good luck with that.” But he wasn’t sure if he heard him correctly. Instead he turned to Grai.
“I am so sorry… I never intended…,” Gracus began before he looked at his lap and sighed. “Am I back on the Adaria?”
Grai laughed. “No, you’re here in Dillon. We were the closest and most complete MedLab to where you were. Since we weren’t sure what the drug’s effects would be, you were brought here to recover.” Grai sobered, knowing that the poor man probably needed some peace now more than ever.
“Gracus, as soon as you are fully recovered, we will find another place, free of drugged candy, for you to go. I am sorry that my lack of forethought has caused you such grief on your first visit to this world. I had intended that it be pleasant for you and failed miserably. For that I apologize, but if you will give me the chance, I will make it up to you.”
When Gracus looked to argue, Grai interrupted him, knowing the man didn’t need to be making rash decisions out of embarrassment. “You get better and in a day or so, when Amun releases you from care, we can discuss this further. Until then… I have a brother to find. Just get well, my friend, everything else is under control,” Grai said with a smile before he nodded at Scaden and Amun and went in search of his asshole brother who had done such a dick move showing Gracus those pictures.
Gracus just nodded his bent head, his face flaming in his embarrassment as he tried to put the images in his head in some sense of order. It was all coming at him so fast and his mind was still working far too slowly to keep up.
“Gracus…,” Scaden began, feeling terribly for his friend.
Gracus looked up at him and Amun with sad eyes. “I really need to just think for a little while and try to make sense of everything. Can you give me some time… please,” Gracus asked, hoping they would leave him to his own thoughts for a little while.
Scaden looked at Amun, as if wondering if it was all right to leave him alone and it pissed Gracus off. “Don’t look at Amun damn it. I’m not a child! Get the hell out and leave me alone for a little while!”
When his two friends just stared at one another, obviously speaking privately through the Shengari’, Gracus started to get really angry until they finally nodded at him and left the room.
Although one of them had taken the images off the walls of his room, Gracus couldn’t get them out of his head. There was something nagging at his mind. Something important that he needed to remember.
Still feeling a little unsteady, he laid back down and closed his eyes, willing his beast, Clatz, to speak to him again and help him figure out what happened. He lay there for hours, trying to slow down the images as his brain tried to shake the drug and catch up.
It was the image of the bears, still in his mind, that kept causing his head to tingle aggressively that was driving him crazy. He drifted off to sleep with the image still stuck in his head.
An hour later he awoke with a start and the first thing he remembered was a face. A beautiful face, with laughing brown eyes, full, pouty lips and light brown hair with streaks that shone with golden highlights as the sun hit it.
His mate! He’d found his mate! he thought in amazement as he slid out of the bed and stood, holding onto the bed as he swayed for a second before he righted himself. Who was she? Where the hell did he find her? He wondered as he tried to make his still slow brain fill in the large blank spots in his memory.
It had to have been while he was here on the planet, he thought, knowing there was no way that he’d found her here at Dillon. The sun was behind her, he thought, allowing the image to dominate his mind while he tried to get clues to where she was. Where he had seen her.
Desperately holding the image in his mind, Gracus studied it. He realized that he had been looking up at her, laying on something cold and hard while something warm covered his back and part of his front.
It was then that the image Traze displayed on the wall rushed into his head and he finally understood. His legs almost gave out when he realized that she had been there. During his most humiliating moment, he had met his mate.
He covered his burning face with his hands and groaned in embarrassment. How the hell was he supposed to fix this? She must think him a complete fool! he thought in a panic, before another thought occurred to him. Where the hell was she? And who was she?
He sat on the edge of the bed, trying to piece everything together in his mind before he became frustrated and moved to the comm station in the room. He sat down a little unsteadily and began typing, hoping that Grai hadn’t ordered everything deleted.
He easily found the pictures, not on the systems here on the planet. No he thought, his humiliation was now truly complete. It was currently being broadcast throughout the Adaria and different alliance stations on the planet. Pushing aside his embarrassment, he studied the pictures, memorizing the location so that he could find it again. And he would find it again, he vowed. And her.
Gracus knew that she was somewhere in the forest in Colorado and he was determined to get back there. Rummaging through the room he found a pair of sweat pants and a t-shirt and quickly changed out of the standard medical gown.
Moving back to the comm, he studied the docking bay and the available craft and cursed the slowness of his mind and body as it took so much longer than it normally would have to get the informatio
n.
He ran through the conversation with Amun and Scaden over again in his mind, knowing there was a clue he was missing. It was several minutes before he remembered that they said he had been found by a river guide.
He easily switched over to the human internet and looked up the river guides in the area around where his cabin was and finally pulled up a website with a picture of Ms. Rebecca Carson. His mate.
“Rebecca,” he said aloud, enjoying her name on his lips as he ran a finger down the cheek of the beautiful woman on the screen.
Gracus felt a sudden urgency to get to her. A need so deep that he felt hollow inside and knew that only she could fill it. He had to find her. Now, he thought as a shiver ran down his spine and he began to feel a sense of paranoia overwhelm him.
He forced his mind to focus as he pulled every detail he could find in Grai’s systems about her. Slowly, but surely, a plan began to form in his mind. Gracus thought briefly about asking for Scaden or Amun to help him, but he was afraid they would think him crazy. Or worse, that it was the drugs making him think that he’d found his mate.
He was terrified that they would force him back to the Adaria before he had a chance to find her. He couldn’t let that happen, he thought, as his paranoia took hold of him.
Using the comm system and his access to it, he scheduled an available transport craft to drop him back at the cabin. Scouring his memory, he remembered that his gear and clothes were still at the cabin and he could grab what he needed from there, if she was still in the forest.
He sent all of the information on Rebecca to his comm and moved as quickly as he could, out of the MedLab and down to the docking bay, using his access to the security system in the building to ensure that he avoided Scaden, Amun and anyone else that might easily recognize him.
Thinking of the images that Traze had plastered all over the walls of his room, he could only be grateful for the fact that his face had been covered and no one would recognize him from those pictures.
Gracus made his way to the transport craft, slipped inside and headed directly to the waiting pilot. “I’m ready when you are,” he said, trying to avoid eye contact, somehow convinced that if he did, his plans to find his mate would be ruined.