“In time, these worlds became some of the Ra’s most cultured peoples. Most of the time the other star systems joined with us willingly. It was a time of great prosperity.”
“Prosperity through force?” Kira asked.
“It was not at all like that, Kira. Prosperity through treaty and commerce.”
“How did you maintain order over something that huge?”
“Fear. But not fear of the Ra. But fear of a mysterious race we called the Yin.”
“Oh? Someone the Ra were actually afraid of?” Kira asked.
“Someone we respected, Kira. Someone—like Tanner.”
Surprise suddenly lifted over Tanner’s face.
Kira was beginning to see the light. “You feared a race of psionics.”
“Everyone feared them. Not just the Ra,” Dane corrected firmly. His tone softened. “They were, few in number but a force of benevolence to be reckoned with. If a government grew too despot, it’s leaders too oppressive, the Yin made firm examples of those who dared tempt fate by breaking what you would call the Golden Rule. For millions of years the Yin maintained peace throughout our galaxy.”
“What happened to them?” Kira asked.
“No one knows. Little by little the influence of the Yin began to wane. Like their race was dying out for some, unknown reason. But no one knew why. My father was the first to openly challenge what remained of the Yin. He seized the reigns of imperial power through the Senate and with fleets, like the one you see around us at his command, he discovered what remained of the Yin homeworlds—and destroyed them.”
“So that’s why you’re here. To destroy Earth?”
“Perhaps, Tanner.”
“Perhaps?” Kira asked.
“My father has sat on the throne of the Ra for countless millennia. Sired thousands of princes. None of whom will ever ascend to the throne.”
“The Ra are immortal?” Kira asked.
“Of course. One of the few races that are.”
“Is that why you’re not attacking us? You’re plotting a way to use us?”
“Not attacking?” Dane asked curiously. He studied the both of them for a moment. “You don’t know, do you? How odd.”
“What don’t we know?” Tanner asked.
“Your ancestors, the people you call the Masters, were a group of ancient separatists who left the Ra and fled the brutal rule of my father. Only before they fled, they stole our knowledge. Knowledge that belonged to our people. A knowledge we called Reflex. We chased them to the edge of the galaxy and demanded they return what they had stolen, or we would take it back by force. In a desperate move, they bolted for the Travada, a nebula on the outer rim of our galaxy. Somehow they opened a corridor, to this galaxy. We followed them, or at least we attempted to. The corridor collapsed with our vessels in pursuit. It was unknown to us how many, if any, of our fleet made it here.
“For over two hundred thousand years we have searched and labored for ways to reopen the corridor your ancestors created. Eventually, of course, we succeeded. And now that I am here, your people continue to plague me with one deep dilemma after another.”
“What dilemmas?” Kira asked.
“It has been some three hundred thousand years since anyone has seen a Yin. Yet, I have apparently stumbled upon not just a Yin but a Yin homeworld. A most miraculous find. I have also found the homeworld of the separatists who stole our secrets to Reflex. Only, as you can see,” Dane lifted a glass of something dark purple from a hovering tray within the room, “the Master’s ancient defenses prevent me from getting anything but the smallest of scout vessels to your Aden paradise.”
“So that’s why you’re keeping your distance.” Kira now understood.
“But I wish those were the only dilemmas.” Dane continued meeting eyes with Tanner.
“Why are you looking at me?” Tanner asked.
“Do you not feel it? Tanner?”
Kira shot a quick glance at Tanner. She sensed his feelings. He was fighting it with everything he had. But the there was no mistaking the deeply powerful genetic attraction each of the two young men were feeling—for each other.
64
T anner slumped standing against a huge, smoothly polished pillar. Dane had left them and promised to return the next morning. The lights of the dome were now slowly dimming bringing on a kind of evening within the cities below. The visage of the stars, the evening dome, and the gigantic to tiny ships that moved between them captivated their attention.
“There must be a trillion people out here,” Tanner lamented.
“At least,” Kira agreed. “These clothes; they agree with you.” She ran her fingers down the edge of his cape.
“We’re only being treated like this because of the attraction.” Tanner frowned. “I felt it the minute I stepped into the room with him.”
“You’d prefer a dungeon?”
“No.”
“Then don’t belittle a twist of good fate. Perhaps as emissaries of Aden, we have a chance of keeping the Imperium at bay.”
Tanner frowned. “But for how long?”
“He doesn’t know what to do with us; Aden, I mean. He’s treating us like royalty for a reason, Tanner.”
“He’s buttering us up, you mean.”
“It’s more than that. What would you do? Put yourself in his shoes.”
Tanner pushed away from the pillar. “His father hates people like me. He wants to see the Yin destroyed.”
“Dane’s not going to be able to kill someone he’s attracted to; he’s not.”
“So that’s his dilemma?”
“It’s much more than that, Tanner. Imagine if Dane had a handful of newbloods. Even just one or two might allow him to overthrow his father and take the throne. If he were also armed with Reflex? He’d be unstoppable.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of. I’m not helping these people, Kira.”
“Tanner, you may not have a choice. Dane isn’t stupid. He’ll draw you into his game of chess.”
“Well, I’m not playing.” Tanner gave her a firm look.
She giggled musically.
“What’s so funny?”
“Have you seen where you are?” she smirked.
Tanner looked around. “So?”
“You just bathed with a prince. You’re dressed like a god. You’ve been paraded and all but worshiped in the halls and towers of the Ra aristocracy. Tanner. Whether you like it or not, you my dear are already playing in his game.”
* * * * *
“I’ve plotted a course they’re likely taking through the cloud, Admiral.”
“Let’s have a look, Adam.”
The floor behind the main observation bridge glowed to life with a three-dimensional holo grid display that Dark and the rest of the command crew descended a short flight of ornate stairs into.
“The cloud is made up of trillions of these ice comets, dwarf worlds, small moons and just about every other kind of stellar debris you could image. We’re assuming that just about everything in the cloud is booby-trapped so that doesn’t give you a lot of wiggle room if you’re trying to navigate through it.”
Adam walked through the real-time moving objects of the cloud as represented by the holo grid.
“It’s constantly in motion so you need to be making continuous course corrections or have really good predictive navigation to maintain at least a safe distance between yourself and any of the physical objects dancing around out here.
“The best way to do that is to stay away from the cloud’s orbital plane where the objects are the most dense. But since we’re nowhere near that plane, it makes it easier for them to plot a course through the cloud to the inner wall and then make their way to Earth almost uninhibited.”
“They can’t just jump through it? Like we did?” Beau asked.
“No, Beau. Performing a jump is a discipline of Reflex. They’re still using ionic drives to achieve FTL, faster-than-light travel. You can’t just warp through the cloud. That
would be suicide.
“There are a few courses they could plot from their current position to make it through. All of them converge here, eventually,” Adam approached an area that appeared to be empty, “a wide open bubble of nothing, an oasis, so to speak. From here they can pretty easily exit the cloud to the inner wall and then to Earth or Aden, as our world was originally called.”
Dark approached the oasis model that Adam had just pointed out.
“You want to intercept them?” Kari assumed, walking up behind him.
“I do. How does the goddess of war feel about interrogating some guests?”
“It beats sitting around.” She smiled.
“Thank you for the analysis, Adam. Very good work.”
“My pleasure, Admiral.”
“Perry, maintain our stealth and plot a course to the oasis. I want to see what comes through here.”
“Aye, Admiral.”
* * * * *
Dane tossed and turned sleeplessly, his mind filled with thoughts and his body hungry, but not for food. Alone within his private chambers, he stretched beneath the soft silky feel of a deep purple sheet that draped half of his muscular bare skin including a noticeable long, thick and heavily throbbing bulge between his well-cut thighs.
He opened his eyes, staring at the ceiling, taking deep breaths.
One of the latest and youngest in a long line of sired princes, he’d volunteered to leave the homeworlds in an attempt to win favor with his father. He’d been here for centuries now. Plotting. Waiting. Studying their cultures. Their defenses. Observing their petty conflicts and simple wars.
Of course he wanted Reflex. That’s why he was here. But the discovery of the Humans and their connection with the Yin. That was much, much more interesting—and dangerous.
The Chronicles of Ra and their legends were replete with the mysterious Yin. Showing up like stealthy warriors seemingly out of nowhere and dispatching the most vile of ruthless rulers from within even the most heavily fortified citadels. Seldom were the Yin ever even seen. To see one, it was said, was an omen of either good fortune or terrifying justice. But to meet one, face to face, to see even a single Yin, how beautiful they were, was to fall hopelessly in love—with a god.
The legends were true. He had seen one; and not just seen one, but met and talked with one. And now his heart beat too quickly for someone trying to sleep. Dane’s skin glistened with a light perspiration as he arched his back, secretly pretending his hard male was moving against the skin of the beautiful god.
The door of his chamber opened. Dane sat up quickly.
* * * * *
With their glass armor in full stealth, Kirin and Gage moved silently together through the halls of the massive evening lit palace.
“Jeeze,” Gage looked around at the magnificent architectural details and extravagant opulence of the twelve-mile-high structure. “I guess the Ra never heard the word moderate?”
“This isn’t typical, Gage,” Kirin offered. “I bet someone really important lives here.”
They stopped and hid motionless as several palace guards passed by them making their rounds.
Floor by floor the two moved upward, exploring.
“Oh.” Kirin began. “Oh, my god, Gage. Are you—?”
“Feeling what you’re feeling?”
“KIRA? Here!?” Kirin empathically exclaimed.
“Looks like our little expedition just turned into a rescue mission.” Gage assured.
It didn’t take the two of them long to find the chamber where Kira was sleeping soundly. Kirin woke her with a gentle empathic nudge. “Kira!”
“Hmm?” feeling her brother’s voice she was almost immediately awake. “Kirin? KIRIN!” Both embraced tightly. “Gage! But how—?”
“Never mind for now. We’re getting you out of here.”
“We need to take Tanner as well. Tanner?” Kira’s feelings went to his side of their bed but, he wasn’t there.
“Who’s Tanner?” Kirin asked.
“A newblood. A new newblood,” she emphasized.
“Lovely,” Gage snarked. “That’s the last thing we need here. The Ra getting hold of one of us. Where is he?”
* * * * *
“Admiral? All of you may want to have a look at this,” the young halfblood female engineer got the Admiral’s attention. “I’m getting some odd resonance in the background.”
“There’s a lot of odd resonance like this in the cloud.” Adam assured, looking at the same readings she was.
“Yes, I’m aware of that, Adam. But this one’s moving, very slowly, but its moving.”
“They’re all moving, Mira.” Adam responded. “Everything floats around out here.”
“Are all of them about to float into the exit point of the oasis?”
“Helm! Hard about,” Dark ordered. “Close and tractor that anomaly!”
“Aye, Admiral,” Perry acknowledged.
Their vessel suddenly lunged to one side just as it was entering the navigable course out of the oasis to exit the cloud.
“Bastards!” Zaer cursed.
“What is it?” Amethyst didn’t like the tone of his voice. Zaer had returned to Earth to collect her and bring her back to the armada, but now something was happening to their small vessel.
“We’ve been spotted.”
“Gravitron tractor, Captain,” their pilot announced. “Wherever it’s coming from it’s a lot bigger than we are. We can’t pull free.”
Amethyst glared into nothing. Then a wicked smile crossed her lips.
Captain Zaer watched her carefully. “What is it?”
“No one you need concern yourself with, Captain. Let them reel us in. I just hope you like paying—in the Dark.”
* * * * *
Dane’s heart pounded heavily within his chest as his lips danced across Tanner’s. The young Yin rolled Dane to his back, burying his lips and his feelings deeply into the prince. The Yin was much stronger than he looked, easily overpowering Dane’s well muscled body as each moved in a superheated hip-rocking passion with their near wet skin only half covered by the draping sheet.
Tanner was completely lost. Dane’s incredible scent. The feelings Dane drew up within him were deeply powerful— unimaginably powerful. Much more so than what even Kira lifted within him. He couldn’t stop thinking about the prince even after he and Kira had gone to bed. With a light psionic touch, Tanner had sent Kira to sleep and stolen himself to the prince’s chamber. It was unbelievable how Dane made his body sing with desire as the two of them sank deeply into a building passion that was quickly pushing itself to a now deep and badly needed powerful climax.
But Tanner was suddenly aware of others in the room standing at the foot of Dane’s opulent bed.
Dane didn’t know why Tanner had just left their embrace, he was this close to his peak. He needed to release with Tanner—desperately. But Dane quickly noticed the three people standing in the room that Tanner had sat up to look at. Dane drew himself up to a sitting position next to Tanner as well.
“Playtime’s over, dude.” Gage said looking at Tanner. “We’re leaving.”
Dane looked at Gage and then back at Tanner. “Wait! You cannot leave.”
“Watch me.” Gage had already opened an invisible portal back to the ship.
“No. No, that’s not what I mean,” Dane’s voice drew a pleading tone. Both Dane and Tanner left the bed with the sheet, each covering their very aroused parts with different ends of the silk-like fabric. “Please. Don’t leave,” Dane implored.
“Sorry, that’s not an option.” Gage snarled.
“I’m not leaving,” Tanner broke in.
“Oh, yes you are,” Gage’s eyes began burning with psionic fire. Then Tanner’s lit up as well.
Dane looked astonished at both of the Yin, their eyes now aglow with their power.
“Stop it, both of you!” Kira broke in, stepping in front of Gage.
“I’m not leaving a Reborn in the hands of the R
a, Kira. You two have made a big enough mess already.”
“Hey, Gage, maybe we should just take the royal along with us?” Kirin suggested. “Send the Ra a little message.”
“No. No, please,” Dane extended his hand. “Wait.” He took a breath in frustration.
Kira could feel Dane’s disappointment. “Gage, stop being so rash.”
“He’s just stalling, Kira. The guards are probably already on their way.”
“No.” Dane began. “I haven’t called anyone. Test me. I’m not lying.”
All of them could tell he wasn’t.
“You must hear me out,” Dane pleaded.
Gage frowned, folding his arms.
“You won’t win this battle.” Dane began.
Gage’s eyes darted in thought momentarily.
“Watch me.” he said.
“Gage! Stop it,” Kira inserted herself again. “Don’t be so arrogant. Dane’s right and you know it. You’ve seen what’s out here,” she pointed to the fleets moving slowly beyond the sheer window coverings. “We won’t win this—not without his help.”
“His help? Ah, Kira, in case you haven’t noticed, hot stuff here is in charge of this armada. He didn’t bring it here to help us out!”
“Oohh! Men!” Kira growled her frustration.
“Kira,” Kirin softened his tone sensing her feelings. “Why are you trusting this Ra?”
“I don’t trust him. But he hasn’t lied to any of us once since we’ve been here.”
“Maybe that’s because he can’t?” Gage observed the obvious.
“Hmmm,” Kira grumbled, glaring again at Gage, all but breathing frost.
Dane held his tongue while the female engaged in her rather heated spat with the other Yin. She wasn’t backing down either. Their banter was interesting. The woman had spine. A lot of it. And these Yin men respected her for it. He found the exchange admirable. No woman ever spoke to a man in such tones—unless she was a princess, even then, she was all too careful if she did do so.
“Gage. Kira. Cool off, both of you. We don’t have to settle this here or even right now.” Kirin folded his arms, not happy with either of them at the moment.
Paradisus (Awakened Book 6) Page 25