by Tenaya Jayne
Sabra didn’t have to argue with herself about what she was going to do. The arguments in her mind didn’t make a dent. She would go out tonight and search for him. She had to. She was compelled beyond reason. The desires of the animal inside her took over with fierce primal instinct.
The entire day stretched out before her. The morning sunlight streamed through her window, bringing with it the acidic reality of what her day would consist of. Tucker and Gahu would be spreading the word around about their deal. She was bought and paid for with a ticking clock over her head. The Savage Solstice was her deadline to become the fighter she had to be, and to change her fate. She would never be content to stand quietly behind Gahu. She damn well wouldn’t do it. Especially now. She thought of the black wolf again.
She closed her eyes. His gaze ate her up as he moved in. Heat rushed up her body, pulling chills behind it. Shivers and fever. She would find him again. He would drive her insane until she knew who he was. Once she knew, what would he do to her sanity then? She dozed into a mix of half-sleep, half self-constructed daydream.
She started guiltily as a knock sounded on her door. Reality sild down her throat with a bitter burn.
“Sabra! Get up and get dressed in your best dress,” Tucker barked.
A few choice retorts ran through her mind. She barely kept them in.
“I can’t,” she said pathetically.
Tucker pounded on her door again. “Open this door right now!”
“Go away!” she moaned. “I’m sick. I’m not going anywhere. Go spread your happy news that you’ve roped Gahu into taking me off your hands by yourself.”
“I don’t believe you’re sick.”
“If I spew all over you will you be satisfied? Cause I’ll be happy to oblige you.”
“Damnit, Sabra! Why are you doing this? I know you’re faking,” he insisted.
“Maybe I am. Maybe I’m not. Either way, you don’t want to take me along. Trust me.”
“Why can’t I count on you?” His voice went whiny.
“Oh, you can count on me. You can count on me to mess things up. It seems you think I always do. Just go away and leave me alone.”
His exasperated sigh was so loud she heard it through the door. “Fine. But if I see you outside, looking well, you’re in serious trouble.”
“Noted. Now, go away.”
She listened to him stalk away and slam the front door behind him. She thought about what he and Gahu would be saying about her. She imagined the hearty slaps on the back from the men and the hugs and congratulations from the women. Then she really did feel sick to her stomach.
She pushed her embarrassment down with anger and dropped to the floor, beginning her first set of push-ups, ignoring the pain of her broken rib. She’d burn off her emotions as she put her back into getting stronger. When she finished her workout, she didn’t intend to stay in her room. Maybe she’d sneak off and run all the way to Paradigm. Asher’s choice of training arena brought the shifters front and center in her mind. She wanted to learn what was happening to the shifters in the aftermath of Copernicus.
After she was sweaty and her muscles burned, she began thinking about what people would be saying about her. A familiar ache spread through her chest. Sophie. She missed her so much. She was so lonely without her. No one really knew her, now. Only Sophie had really known and understood the heart of her.
“I miss you, baby sister,” she said aloud, quietly as if her sister could hear her. “You wouldn’t believe what’s happening to me. I’m going to be the pack leader. I swear I am. Tucker’s got me locked up with some guy…and I met someone.” Shivers ebbed and flowed on her skin as she thought about the black wolf again. “We ran together…something happened between us. It was elemental and…and hot. It’s like there was light and flame all through me. I have no idea who he is, but what I felt with him was so real.”
****
Shreve had watched Sabra use the whip as she fought with the older wolf in the ruins of the shifter colony. She looked like a vengeful goddess when she’d spun around and lashed out at that beam. He’d listened to their conversation. She was training for something. And there was a possibility she could die in the event. His stomach swooped as he witnessed her fighting ability. Her trainer didn’t see her weaknesses the way he did, or if he did, he didn’t say. Shreve could teach her better than that old man.
Stupid. He chided himself, instantly dismissing his idea. No, he couldn’t train her. She’d never let him. But he didn’t have to sit by and do nothing. He could help her.
He waited until the trainer put all the weapons back in their hiding place and left, before coming out. Just to be sure he wasn’t caught off guard by anyone, he used his elf ability and became invisible before walking into the makeshift sparring ring.
He walked around it slowly, thinking. How could he make it a better training space for her? The charred earth under his feet drew his gaze and pulled his thoughts down like a magnet. Phantom screams of the shifters rose up from the ground and filled his ears. His stomach plunged, making him instantly and violently sick. He was a part of this crime. His hands hadn’t lit the fires, or cut the flesh, but he’d delivered the order. He was the mouthpiece of evil.
Shreve found himself on his hands and knees. Guilt caressed from his head down to his feet with heavy hands. He tried to shake it off, but it clung to him and sank deep inside. He longed for forgiveness. The desire to run from this place filled him, but he knew better. There was nowhere he could go, nowhere to hide from the feeling inside.
Shreve felt the beating of his heart. Time thumping away. He would own his guilt. He wouldn’t be a coward and waste the end of his life running from something he couldn’t escape anyway. He took a deep breath and allowed himself to sink under the weight of self-hatred. He touched the ground and brought his dirt-covered finger to his tongue. He let the bitter granules rest in his mouth before swallowing. The dead were a part of him now.
“I won’t ask for your forgiveness,” he whispered. “I’m not worthy of asking. But I am sorry. No, sorry isn’t adequate. I am broken with remorse. Everything I did…I had no right to do. And no matter the regret, I cannot reverse it…I can’t take it back, even though I’d give anything.”
He forced himself to his feet. There was nothing else for him to say to them. He couldn’t do anything to help them. But he could help Sabra. He thought of his fleeting time left to live. She’s worth it. I’ll give my time to her.
He found the whip in its hiding place and pulled it out. He tucked the coiled leather under his arm and left the blighted place. He’d return it before she came back again. After he’d improved it.
Chapter Five
Tesla was down for her afternoon nap. Forest dug in the dirt around the plants under the open nursery window, enjoying the sunlight on her shoulders. The last few days had been a little easier. She didn’t feel quite so ragged. Every time her mind began grinding on the wizard problem, her father being off-world, or her fear of Tesla’s development, she would jerk herself up and put those worries in a cage. If catastrophe was looming, time was too short to waste it worrying on things she couldn’t fix. She chased peace down until she caught it firmly with both hands. She had so many happy things in her life, she determined to focus on them, and let the rest fade to black.
She’d been so isolated the last few months. She had meetings scheduled tomorrow in her office. Syrus was taking the day off to let her go in to work. She missed her friends—Kindel, Ena, and Redge. She wanted to take Tesla with her and show her off, but she feared the baby would burn everyone with her hands. Forest didn’t expect to be able to stay a full day in Fortress. She decided to begin to let a few people come to her home and meet with her there.
She desperately wanted some girl time with Netriet and Journey. She missed Shi like an aching hole in her chest, but Shi was silent now, not gone, but inaccessible.
Something’s wrong.
Ice and steel went straight down her s
pine, and she held her breath, listening. There was no noise for a moment. Forest got to her feet and rushed into the house. Tesla screamed before she reached the nursery door. Forest flung the door open and ran headlong into an electrical storm. The force of the energy in the room threw her backward. Red sparks and lightning snapped and flashed over the crib, filling the air around Tesla.
Forest pushed at the energy holding her back, but it wouldn’t let her through. Syrus! She yelled for him in her heart.
He was behind her in three seconds. “What’s wro—“ He didn’t finish his question, as he could clearly see for himself.
Syrus put both of his hands straight out in front of him and pushed into the dancing and flashing light that now filled the whole space. Lightning from his hands broke through the storm. Forest followed on his heels, desperate to get to Tesla. Syrus swept the energy away from the crib like spider webs. He reached in and picked the baby up.
He turned to Forest, his face drained of color and his mouth open in shock.
She shook her head in denial. “No. How is this possible?!”
“I don’t know.”
Tesla held out her arms for her mother. But she wasn’t the four-month-old baby Forest had put to sleep in her crib only an hour ago. Somehow, in the electrical storm she created, Tesla had aged, so she now resembled a two-year-old. The baby outfit she’d been wearing hung in torn ribbons on her body.
Forest took her daughter in her arms and tried her hardest not to cry, but she couldn’t help it. She sat in the rocking chair, and Tesla, who couldn’t even sit up by herself earlier, sat upright on her lap. She held her little hands clasped together in her lap and wrung them slowly, the red veins still brightly lit from her fingernails stretching halfway up her forearms. Her black hair hung in unruly curls to her shoulders. Her large, gray eyes, looked calmly at her stunned parents. She was even more beautiful than before.
“Sweetheart, can you understand me?” Syrus asked her.
She nodded easily.
“What happened to you? Do you know?”
Her eyes widened, and she looked down at her hands. Tesla looked into Forest’s face, strain pulling in her neck and around her eyes. She touched her lips, tugging her bottom lip to the side. A strange, strangled gurgle came out of her mouth. She balled her hands into fists. She threw herself backward, another odd sound coming from her throat. Tears began running down her cheeks.
Late that night, Forest sat alone in the garden, her head resting on her knees. So many fears and what ifs were spiraling through her mind. She heard Syrus come up behind her, but she didn’t look up. He tapped her shoulder with the bottom of a full wine glass.
She sighed and took the glass gratefully from his hand as he sat down next to her.
“She’s playing in her room,” he said. “I left the front door open so she can find us if she looks.”
Forest glanced at the door standing wide open, the light spilling out along the ground. Her burning, bloodshot eyes began filling with tears again.
“In one moment, I was robbed of two years… This morning I had a baby. Now I have a toddler.” She took a deep drink. “I’d bring Copernicus back to life, just so I could kill him again.”
He rubbed her back. “I would too.”
“Do you think she can travel through time?”
He frowned. “I don’t know…I hope not. I’d say it’s impossible, but that’s wrong, just because I’ve never heard of anyone who could. I don’t think that’s what happened today.”
She looked desperately into his eyes. “What do you think happened?”
“I honestly don’t know. I just hope it doesn’t happen again.”
“She can’t talk, Syrus.”
“You don’t know that. She can’t, yet. Give her some time to learn.” He kissed her temple. “Don’t buy trouble, baby. We’ve got enough already.”
“I’m sacred…and I’m so angry.”
“Just don’t let her see any of that,” he said.
Forest nodded and downed the remainder of her wine, trying to find something positive to think on. A small smile curved the side of her mouth. “Can you believe how gorgeous she is?”
Syrus grimaced. “Yeah, I can believe it. She’s almost as beautiful as you.”
Forest snorted and stood, the wine going pleasantly to her head. “She’s much more beautiful than me.”
He scooped her up into his arms and kissed her. “Don’t say things like that to me. I’m going to have nightmares as it is.”
“We shouldn’t be out here like this. I think one of us should be with her at all times, at least for now.”
He took her hand, and they both went back into the house.
Tesla was still small enough to sleep in her crib. Forest couldn’t leave her side for even a minute that night. She sat on the floor, leaning against the crib slats, her hand stretched through the bars, resting on Tesla’s back. Occasionally, she dozed, lightly. But she was always aware of even the slightest change in the rhythm of her daughter’s breathing.
Syrus came in and checked on them throughout the night. He offered to take her place, but she couldn’t leave. She knew she wouldn’t be able to rest at all. She’d be more worried in the other room. At least here, uncomfortable and worn out, she felt Tesla breathing. It brought comfort of the most basic, naked kind. Tesla was alive. At the moment, that was the only thing Forest knew for sure. But of course, that fact could change. She had never felt the fragility of life as she did now.
Forest’s hand moved gently back and forth on Tesla’s back, feeling the structure of her little body, skin, flesh, and bones. She gazed at her sleeping face. Her cheeks were flushed, and her dark hair tumbled across her forehead. She was like a piece of fine china. That was how Forest thought of her: tenuous.
****
Journey slowly approached the Heart. She stayed outside the circle of crystal trees, in case the flame turned temperamental again. Redge had insisted on coming with her. She consented on the condition that he keep a really good distance away.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, lifting her hands and opening herself up fully to the Heart. “I’m back,” she whispered.
Excitement shot through her as the flames trembled and sparks snapped around the top.
“I’m sorry for being too forceful the last time. I meant no disrespect. I’m an outsider. It was not my intention to cross a forbidden boundary. Please forgive me.”
The wind blew inside the circle, the leaves chiming a heartbreaking tune.
“I’m a healer. A heart-reader. Will you let me in? Will you let me try to heal your heartache?”
The wind stopped. The music of the leaves quieted.
Journey sat on the ground, placing her palms flat on the soil. She waited. For a moment nothing happened. White light surged out from the base of the flames, running along the ground on the roots in the dirt toward Journey. The light grabbed hold of her hands and wrapped around her fingers, pulling her down firmly to the ground.
She tried to not be afraid. Tried.
The Heart pushed inside her again, like it had the first time. Journey felt clogged with it. Her lungs, her veins, felt too full to function. She exhaled, forcing herself to relax and give it space to nudge its way through. The Heart was reading her, but it gave nothing of itself in return.
Alien, the Heart whispered in her mind. Its voice was a mixture, male and female, dulcet and guttural at the same time. Journey found the voice beautiful and ethereal. You are not Regian. Beautiful Alien. I like your flavor. Your power is seductive. I want to answer its whispering lure.
Slowly, like thick liquid, the Heart retracted. The power and light holding to her hands vanished.
She breathed deeply a few times, now that she could fully fill her lungs again.
“Thank you… Will you let me inside you, now?”
No…perhaps next time. If you come back, I will want to taste you again. The love in you is intoxicating. It distracts me.
“Distracts you from what?” Journey asked.
Them. The flames reached out and caressed the crystal tree that was cloudy. They hurt me so.
“Who are they?”
The flames sparked around the edges again.
They are the ones who poisoned me. Their love was the catalyst of so much death. The Heart gave a soul deep sigh. I love them so much. And I hate them, also.
“Will you tell me?”
Lay your head on the ground and close your eyes. I will show you.
Redge was pacing, a worried frown etched in his brow when Journey finally came back to him. Her eyes felt raw and scratchy from tears. She pulled tight against his chest.
“What is it?” he asked.
She just shook her head. “Take me home.”
Chapter Six
Shreve was getting familiar with the wilds near the Lair, close to the Wolf’s Wood. Apart from where the shifter colony used to be, no one cleared the forests, or lived there. Not that he was complacent or thought that he was alone. There was a road, infrequently traveled, as far as he could tell. He found the deepest, wildest place he could, where a river flowed not far away, and claimed the space for himself. The most important thing about his location was it was near where Sabra had shifted into a wolf. If she came back, he wanted to know immediately. His plans to pose as a werewolf and join their community were all but forgotten.
He laid the whip out on the ground in a straight line and considered it. It was completely inadequate. Sure, he could improve it, but in his current location, only marginally. There were a number of places he could go to find what he needed, but that meant time if he didn’t open a portal.
He coiled the whip back up, seriously considering just sending himself to Paradigm to buy what he needed. Perhaps the fear that using his abilities would wind down his fleeting time faster was nonsense.