by Tenaya Jayne
So much had happened during the night; her mind was all over the place, and there was something important she needed to do right then, before it was too late. She swallowed and cleared her throat.
“Hello,” she said to herself. He voice was growing faint. The ability to speak was leaving her swiftly.
Desperate, she ran from her room, into the kitchen where her mom stood at the counter, drinking her coffee. She set her mug down as soon as she looked at her daughter.
“What is it? What’s wrong, Tesla?”
She grabbed Forest by the hands. Forest winced as Tesla’s power shocked her, but she didn’t pull away.
“I love you, Mommy.” Her voice was barely audible.
Forest gasped, tears immediately filling her eyes. “Oh, my baby.” She pulled Tesla against her in a tight hug. “Please say something else. What a beautiful voice you have.”
“I’m sorry, Mom. I’m so sorry for everything. I’m sorry how much I’ve hurt you.” That was it. Her voice was gone then.
Forest sobbed against her, and shook her head. “Oh no, sweetheart. No. Don’t say sorry.” She pulled back and put her hands on Tesla’s cheeks. Forest laughed through her tears. “I didn’t think I’d ever hear your voice.”
It’s gone now. I can’t hold it for very long. She signed.
Too happy to care about anything else, Forest pulled Tesla tightly against her chest again. “Thank you for speaking to me.” Her sobs choked her again. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt this happy before. Such a beautiful voice. More beautiful than any sound I’ve ever heard.”
She pulled back again and grasped Tesla by the shoulders. “You know what this means? It means there’s an answer! If your voice can be unlocked for even a moment, then it can be unlocked for good. There’s an answer. You can solve it. No one can solve problems the way you can.”
Maybe. I’ve got bigger problems to solve first though. I think I might be close to a breakthrough. I need to work in Kyhael today.
“Can I help you at all?”
No. Thanks though.
“Your birthday party is tomorrow. Everyone’s coming. Is that still going to work? It would be a shame to cancel.”
I don’t want to cancel! Aunt Sabra said she’d bring the baby. I want to see Sophie. I want see everyone else, too. But I really want to see Sophie the most.
Forest leaned in and kissed Tesla’s cheek. “You’re sweet. You look better, by the way. Like you’ve been resting better, even though I know you haven’t been.”
Tesla thought about X and smiled. I feel better…I should get ready and go. Questions are burning through my skull. I need answers.
“I need to go, too. I’m going to be late for work.”
Tesla felt a bit icky from her long night and decided to take a shower. By the time she got out, Forest was already gone to work. She dressed, put her hair up in a ponytail, and carefully retrieved the two small spheres from the pocket of the jeans she’d worn the previous night.
When she landed in Rune-dy headquarters, Merhl almost walked right into her.
“Hey, you,” he said, smiling. “What mischief have you been up to?”
I think I found something! My brain is about to explode. I found these people—you have to meet them. I’m going back there tonight, if I can manage it, and I think I know a way you can go with me. But before that, I’ve got some lab work to do, and then I have to go to the Heart and work on the blood lock.
Merhl chuckled. “Who’s the busy girl? I’ve never seen you sign that fast. I almost missed what you said. I’ll be here all day, if you need me. Rahaxeris is in the library.”
She smiled and rushed past him to the lab. She meticulously laid out her work space and positioned the spheres on two different trays. Placing both hands flat on the large work table, she lifted a red light hologram of the blood lock onto the surface and enlarged it so the strands, elements, proteins, and molecules were clearly visible.
She broke open Maggie’s blood first. She didn’t look up as her grandfather came into the room and looked over her shoulder.
“Where did you get that?” He was astonished, eyeing the genetic strands Tesla had visually projected into the air from the blood. “That’s…”
Tesla looked up, smiled, and nodded. Yup. I found a witch.
He gaped at her. “Holy shit!”
Damn straight, she answered. That’s not all. Look at this. She broke open X’s blood and projected it up the same way for him to see.
He narrowed his eyes, and his brows came down in confusion. “What is that? Is it mutated?”
Magically altered human. He’s a necromancer.
She showed her grandfather the shape she’d found in X’s blood and how it almost fit the hole in the blood lock.
“You’re missing something.”
I know, but what?
“I see it now. It’s a prism, Tesla.”
She looked back at it and shook her head. It’s incomplete. There’s a symbol that has to go in the center. The power of the Heart can only be refracted through the symbol I can’t find. This blood is only one half of the symbol.
He sighed and patted her shoulder. “I’ll leave you alone for a while. I know you work better that way.”
X’s blood was one half of the symbol, and even though she knew it was important, Maggie’s blood wasn’t the other half and possession of her blood didn’t help their defenses at all. Tesla closed her eyes, her mind wandering onto X. She lifted her hand and ran her thumb over and over against the pads of her fingertips.
What if…
Tesla grabbed a needle and jabbed her finger. She held her finger over his blood so hers dropped on top of it. A flash sparked and smoke rose into the air from the mixed blood. She held her breath as she pulled an image into the air from the drop.
Son of a bitch. There it was.
Her blood mixed with his, formed the complete symbol. She extracted the image and placed it in the hologram of the blood lock. Of course it was nothing but a model of the real thing, but she saw when placed in the real blood lock, this would cause a chain reaction. But there was still something nagging her. She waved her hand through the hologram, making it disappear. She wasn’t ready to share this. Wrapping her and X’s mixed blood in a sphere and slipping it into her pocket, she cleaned everything else up, leaving Maggie’s blood for her grandfather to mess with if he wanted.
She scrawled him a quick note, saying she’d be back later, and opened a portal for herself to the Heart.
The flames sparked at her arrival. “Tesla,” the Heart said inside her head. “The lock is holding steady. Attacks have gone down in number over the last few hours.”
I have something I want to show you. She thought.
She reached into the flames and opened the blood lock. With a shaking hand, she put the blood filled sphere inside. The lock wrapped around it and absorbed it. A shiver beginning in the center, vibrated all the way out to the edges of the tesseract. The living machine took a breath. Then came the explosion. Tesla was blasted backward, struck a tree trunk, and fell to the ground, unconscious.
“Wake up. Please, wake up,” the Heart pleaded to her.
A part of her heard it, but she couldn’t answer. Couldn’t surface.
When she came around, the afternoon had grown long. White light from the soil held her aloft, suspending her an inch off the ground.
“There you are. I tried to keep you comfortable,” the Heart said as the light lowered her and faded away.
Thanks. I’m all right, or will be soon anyway. She rubbed her head, and then adrenaline hit, and she jumped to her feet and ran to the blood lock.
“Don’t fear. It is not damaged.”
She exhaled and blinked a few times examining the change to the lock. The symbol was there, in the center, but it hadn’t changed the strength of the lock. Her heart sank. The symbol was completely integrated, but it seemed to be doing nothing.
“Why are you disappointed?” the Heart asked
.
I don’t understand. I thought this was the answer that would make the lock perfect.
“The lock is perfect, princess. Don’t you see? I think you don’t because you don’t want to. You had other ideas and this does not fit into them. You must adapt.”
Tesla hung her head and nodded. You’re right. I wanted to hold them out forever. But the wall will fail. War is inevitable. This is not the answer of defense. This is our offense…she thought back to her night with X and what Maggie had said. Only the dead can kill a wizard. Tesla closed the blood lock and took a step back from the flames. We will be your prism. X and I.
“Yes. But not yet. You must bring him to me.”
I care for him. His magic balances mine.
“I see everything inside you, Tesla. Do not fear the gifts destiny gives. We will continue holding the wizards back as long as we can. But now we must also prepare to fight. So work hard, but live hard too, for we might fail. Live as if this is the last of your time, because it might be. If there is joy to be had, seize it.”
Chapter Eight
The wall over Regia had changed, but much to his irritation, Lachlan couldn’t perceive exactly how. It was just different. This unexpected challenge was beginning to really turn him on. Especially now that, through the power of the universe sphere, he’d gotten a glimpse of the wall’s creator. And oh, she was exquisite. The Darkthing he’d sent hunting her had been successful in being his eyes at least. It hadn’t been able to capture her, but next time, maybe… And since she’d attacked it, he knew what kind of power she possessed.
He shivered. So long, over a thousand years, since he’d had a woman. All the worlds they’d conquered had provided various races, but none of their females were compatible, and he hadn’t given them a second thought…but her…
He didn’t care if she was capable of giving him children. He wanted her. And as powerful and unique as she was, perhaps offspring would be worth striving for. Any barriers of natural laws could be manipulated if necessary.
He rubbed his hand over the cool surface of the universe sphere, forcing it to show him what the Darkthing had seen again. She was against the wall, fear in her eyes. That’s how he wanted her, pinned between his body and the wall. He couldn’t tell her age. She was physically mature, but there was innocence around her. He hoped she was untouched so he could have the pleasure of turning this snow white rose to crimson.
Innocence couldn’t hold out very long against his touch. He’d wake her up and turn her dark. Make her hunger for things she didn’t know existed. She’d be his, willing or not. His queen or his slave. He didn’t care either way. Both prospects were sweet enough to make his teeth ache.
He set the sphere down on the center of the bed, surrounded it with pillows, and got up. He padded naked through his bedroom to his mirror wall and looked at himself with scrutiny. What kind of man would she desire? Two thousand years old, but his appearance didn’t give his age away. His body had been rebuilt long ago and maintained its youth effortlessly.
He flashed his eyes at his own appearance, seducing himself. What woman, or man, wouldn’t want him? When he had her, he would overwhelm her with his physical perfection. He would charm her until she fell in love with him. He ran his hands over his hard, muscled chest. She wouldn’t hold out for long.
X tried to sleep after Tesla left, but it was useless. His brain wouldn’t shut off, his body wouldn’t relax. He felt strung out and hyper. He’d kept quiet for a while, to let Maggie finish her sleep, but as soon as the dawn broke, he began to work on his house. As he knew she would, Maggie came stalking over to him, a cranky look on her face, as soon as he began hammering.
She didn’t say anything at first. She just stood there watching him for a few minutes. “In a hurry? You’re working like a man possessed.”
“I’m feeling a stronger need for privacy at the moment.”
She snorted. “Uh huh. Thinking you might have a girlfriend you’d like to invite in and close the door?”
He gave her a dirty look but didn’t reply.
“Are you planning to pursue her?”
He stopped swinging his hammer. “Of course I am,” he said, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“Are you sure you’re ready for that, given you’re just coming off a broken engagement?”
He answered her by returning to his hammering. He hoped she’d leave him alone, but she continued to stand there.
“She’s a princess. You know that, right?”
“So?” he demanded.
“Why do you think you have a chance?”
He gave her an angry look, but then his face turned smug. “Why are you messing with me? I have a chance. I’m the only one who can calm the storm, remember? Me.”
She smiled indulgently. “All right. I’ll leave you alone.”
“Thank you!” he said emphatically, rolling his eyes.
His energy crashed at midday, and he stopped working. He’d managed to finish the walls, frame the single window, and install the door. The only thing left was the roof, and that would take him two days, at least, on his own. Exhausted, he wasn’t even going to start anything else until he slept.
He ate, took a bath in the river, and put on clean clothes before flopping down on his bed for a nap. He looked up at the sky through his open roof, his mind stuck on all the details he could remember from last night. It wasn’t even dusk, but he wanted to be presentable in case Tesla came back that night. He fell asleep remembering her face, her hands, her body, the way she smelled, the sound of her laugh, everything… Damn, he wanted to put his hands on her.
He roused slightly in the middle of the night and turned onto his side, adjusting his pillow. His eyelids dragged open, and he blinked a few times before closing them again. Moonlight spilled into his house through the open roof. He thought he was dreaming as he felt a hand gently slide along his forearm. His eyelids dragged open again. She sat on the floor next his bed. He came fully awake in half a second.
He sat up, putting his feet on the floor. “Tesla,” he said quietly.
She smiled and rested her hands on top of his. He turned his hands over and laced his fingers through hers. He watched her react to the contact of their hands. She pinched her eyes shut, her lips parting before she bit down on her lower lip, a little moan of pleasure in her throat. I’m dying, he thought again. He waited silently for her to open her eyes, enjoying the wonderful sensation of their hands together, but not as much as he was enjoying watching her enjoy it.
She opened her eyes and smiled at him.
“Hello.”
Her perfect lips opened, but she didn’t say anything. She shut her mouth and looked down. Not yet. Almost. Her voice came into his head.
“Do you need to bite me? I don’t mind.”
I want to see if I can do it without biting you. Just being near you… Sorry for waking you.
“I’m not.”
She closed her eyes again and breathed easily. Time meant nothing. He might have stared at her, just like that, for seconds or hours. While her eyes were shut, he visually memorized every detail of her face, his heart breaking again. Feeling anything for her was the greatest risk he’d ever taken with his life. They had only spent a handful of hours together, but she was already too important to him. He had to find a way to slow himself down. His heart rushed toward her recklessly, and she was a cliff.
A shiver moved over her, and she opened her eyes again, smiling. She exhaled a strange sound, then cleared her throat.
“X.” Her voice was little more than a whisper.
“You did it. It worked,” he said happily. “You still can bite me though, seriously go ahead.”
She gave a quiet chuckle. “I shouldn’t. I want to, but I run the risk of becoming addicted.”
“Oh? Then I really think you should bite me. A little addiction never hurt anyone.”
She laughed a little louder and shook her head. “What is it about you? How are you abl
e to quiet the pain inside me? How can you unlock my voice?”
“I don’t know. What is it about you? What is it about your power that feels so good mixed with mine?”
She looked up at the moon, the easy smile fading from her face, and pulled her hands free of his. “I can’t stay long. Just a moment really.”
“Why?” he was crushed. He wanted her to stay all night.
She licked her lips, her eyes widening nervously. “I…” She shook herself. “Two things. Business first. I’ll be back in the morning, with a friend of mine, Merhl. He will stay here with Maggie and protect her, while you come with me, if you’re willing to.”
“Come with you where?”
“To Regia. Travel might be complicated for you, but I know we can manage it together. If you were just a normal, non-magical human, it would be impossible. But I know you can survive in Regia. The Heart of our world wants to meet you. Please come, X. I need you. My whole world will die if you refuse.”
He blew out a breath and ran his hands through his hair. “Wow. Um…okay. That’s really persuasive.”
“It’s totally unfair.” Her voice was aggressive. “It’s not your fight. I wouldn’t ask you to risk anything if I had another choice, but I’m begging you.”
He stood and paced next to the wall a few times. “I can’t tell if you’re telling me the truth.”
She stood as well. “What?”
“Maggie gave me the ability to know when someone is telling me the truth or not, but I can’t get a reading on you. I couldn’t last night either. I didn’t realize it until right now. You are immune.”
“You think I’m lying?” Hurt filled her eyes.
“No. That’s not what I said…I'm sorry. I have trust issues.”
She didn’t say anything. She just looked at him expectantly.
“I’ll go with you, Tesla.”
“You don’t have to answer me right now. If you need time to think about it.”