by Sue Wilder
“Are you enjoying the cruise?” Kace mocked, stepping over the raised threshold, and in all honesty, Lexi thought her reaction was reasonable under the circumstances. She launched off the bunk and smashed an open palm against the side of his neck. Kace staggered before telekinetic power slammed Lexi against the wall and she slid to the cold floor.
“Look at you, babe,” he taunted. “Just a pile of nothing in borrowed clothes.”
“You’re not looking so well yourself,” Lexi managed, staring at the angry scar tissue that disfigured his neck, the memento Christan had given him in Zurich.
“You don’t object if I sit down?” Kace kicked hard against her leg as he walked to the chair. A mantle of dark energy settled with suffocating intensity, but to Lexi, he needed to be the suave executive with no consideration for boundaries, a man who was nothing. Not someone who would use knives to pry memories from her mind. It was the only way to deal with the reality.
“Event planning, Wallace?” Mockery was in her voice and Lexi pushed it hard. “You couldn’t come up with a fake business manlier than yoga?”
“And you,” he responded, “so proud of psychic abilities that are truly pathetic. You had no idea why I sent you to Montana.”
Lexi scooted back until she was sitting upright, not sprawled like a broken doll. “How long are we playing musical boats?”
“Not long.” The enforcer kicked out, his foot connecting with her ankle. “Having fun now?”
Lexi lifted her chin. “That swim in the Mediterranean was fun.”
“You didn’t think so when they dragged you back.”
“You watched?”
“Of course.”
“So now what?” Lexi feigned boredom as she looked around the tiny room. “Rubber hoses, water boarding?”
“You have a new memory line,” Kace said, his voice as bitter as his eyes. “It’s disgusting the way they mark up your skin.”
Lexi stared at his scarred neck. “You don’t appreciate the similarity?”
Kace frowned and nudged her leg again. “Get up.”
“Why?”
“We can do it lying down if you want.”
Lexi thought about that, about the Spaniard rubbing himself as she showered, and pushed upright. When Kace stood he put himself close; she was sensitive to the menacing heat.
“I tried to help you,” he said against to her ear. “All those months ago, babe, when he found you and you wanted to run. Too late now.”
Lexi stared evenly, then followed him into the damp passageway. When they reached the new stateroom, she stepped inside and waited as Kace followed and locked the door. The stateroom was larger than her former pea-green cell but without the small window, with no way to see outside. Suddenly, she needed to count the first five stars.
Beneath her feet, engines rumbled and the boat shifted against the pressure wave. After a moment, Kace spread his lean body across a chair and gestured for her to sit in the opposite chair, beside a polished, built-in desk. She remained standing, a small defiance but necessary.
Kace shrugged. “Tell me about Cyrene.”
“I hear it’s an archaeological site, although with all the looting there isn’t much left.”
“I’m more interested in the Cyrene in your dream.”
“Who says I dreamed?”
“I do. I was in your mind the whole time—didn’t you feel me?”
A spark of alarm pinged against her skin.
“No?” he asked when she didn’t respond. “Well, I was. Do you know you dream in color when it’s a past life and black and white when it isn’t?”
“I’ve never noticed.” But Lexi remembered the dream of her puppy and his bloody red paws—the only vivid color—and wondered about the truth in his statement. The chair seemed like a good idea.
Kace moved his long leg aside as she sat down. “You don’t believe me.”
“That shouldn’t come as a shock.”
“Did you really want to show her your goats?”
His smile was mocking, and Lexi thought back to the presence she kept at the periphery of the dreaming. The spark of alarm was burning.
“Was that all you did?” Kace asked. “Listen to her stories and draw pictures in the dirt?”
“I was a child. Children like stories and drawing.”
“What else do you remember about this Grandmother?”
“Nothing. It was a child’s dream.”
Kace dragged a finger along the edge of the built-in desk, tapping once. “Here’s something interesting,” he said. “The Grandmother gave you her name. Do you remember?”
“Yes.”
“She said it was Zal, didn’t she?”
Lexi turned her face toward the door.
“Did you know zal is the Etruscan word for the number two?” Kace asked. “Do you speak Etruscan, babe? No? Didn’t think you did.”
“What’s your point, Wallace?”
“I think we can give up on the ‘it was a child’s dream’ argument, don’t you think?”
“I can’t control what my mind does when I sleep.”
“I can, babe, and that’s what I want you to understand.” Kace leaned forward to hold her attention. “I control everything you do. I’ve shielded your energy signal and as we speak, the boat that brought me here is moving in a different direction. There’s an interesting passenger on board, someone who replicates you enough the people who watched every time you were paraded around the deck will now have to decide which boat they want to follow. Do you know why Jago took your clothes?”
“Jago?”
“You refer to him as the Spaniard. I told you, I can get into your mind whenever I want.”
“So you say,” Lexi challenged. When he arched one scarred eyebrow, her hands began to tremble.
“Jago takes my clothes,” she said when it became obvious he expected an answer. “This interesting person wears them while she parades on deck and that’s your big deception. It won’t work.”
“Why?”
“If anyone was actually watching, I don’t think they’d be fooled.”
“Let’s assume, for the sake of your health, that they are watching and they divide their resources to cover all the options. What do you expect to happen?”
Lexi pushed at the loose hair around her shoulders, stared at the stateroom wall before looking back. “Whoever these people are, they won’t be that stupid.”
“They were stupid enough to leave you with Luca.”
For an instant Lexi couldn’t breathe, trapped in the dark with hot wet blood splashing against her face. Quiet rage tightened her expression.
“What do you want, Kace?”
“You haven’t figured it out yet?”
“It’s been a long few days.”
Kace studied the unbowed tilt of her head, and silence fell between them. The engines pick up speed, the pressure wave increasing as the boat changed directions. Then with an abrupt movement, the enforcer rose to his feet, reached into a covered shelf and slapped a pen and several sheets of paper on the desk.
“Time for a little artwork, Gaia.” He braced both hands on either side of the paper. “Let’s see what you remember before we get to Shahat.”
✽✽✽
“Cara,” Christan whispered deep in her mind. “Are you there?”
He wasn't sure if she would answer. Energy was shielding her and he recognized the source. Rolled his shoulders and pressed harder against her psychic shields.
“Can you hear me?”
“Yes.”
The relief nearly had him. He couldn’t waste the time, though, and he spoke quickly.
“Did they move you?” They’d watched through the drone’s camera as two ships came together and realized the possibility of another transfer.
“No. It’s someone else wearing my clothes.”
“Do you know where they are taking you?”
“Shahat.”
“He’s with you now, isn’t he?”
> “Yes.”
“Do whatever he tells you. No matter what. Don’t fight him. I need you to survive, cara.”
“Find me,” she said.
Two simple words that broke him in two.
“I will.”
✽✽✽
They moved her at dawn.
As the sky turned from gray to pale blue the inflatable boat tore through the water toward the coastline. Lexi’s fingers were numb as she held the cable beside her. She was wet and shivering when Kace drove the black zodiac onto the pebble-strewn shore and dragged her out.
A second zodiac arrived, and in all there were six warriors, including Jago, the Spaniard. They forced a blue burka over her head, and as she struggled to arrange the heavy material she wasn’t sure if the warmth was worth the horrid smell. Vision was obscured by a lattice of purple stained a rusty brown. Every part of her recoiled at the thought of what that brown was, and she stumbled painfully when Kace pushed her into a battered 4 by 4.
Two men joined Lexi in the back seat while the others loaded into another vehicle. They were all dressed in black. From the urgency in the movements, Lexi feared the worst. She sat rigid, her legs shaking from the cold. Even the first rush of welcoming from the earth did little to ease her tension.
They drove for what seemed like hours but wasn’t. The road followed an ocher coastline as barren and empty as it had been for centuries. Trees grew here once, but scavengers stripped the hills in an unending need for firewood. The trees had never regenerated.
Part of Lexi mourned for the loss, but this was a used land, battered by generations of violence and war, tribal feuds and foreign invaders. The newest invaders were the worst, with levels of brutality not seen in centuries. There was only blood and heat and a burning sun in the sky, and the remaining, searing imprints that made the earth weep. Lexi ached deep in her throat as she ignored the images, but the emotions were overwhelming. She stared through the purple veil that suffocated her, focused on some tiny pinpoint of nothing in the distance and thought of Christan.
She thought about him as they drove along that empty road, thought about the fragility and fierce heat of their attraction. No male should be that powerful, so compelling, and a tiny smile curved her lips at a solitary memory.
Christan had been on the floor while she held a pillow clutched in her hands. Lexi had been laughing hysterically, having just swung at him while he, unsuspecting, had walked out of the bathroom and into her line of fire. She called it playing, which he hadn’t understood until she showed him how, and then he was playing at the most inopportune times. He could startle her with his requests, the deep smoky seduction in his voice. Ask her to draw fingernails down his chest, to place wet warm kisses along the tattooed lines that were the most sensitive. She’d want to bite down on that sexy mouth and feel such heat between her thighs she didn’t mind burning their dinner or staying in the forest until the air went cold. Her nipples would harden until he growled and urged her on when she pushed him flat on his back. “Touch me.” And she would close her fingers around him. “Tighter.”
“Like this?” Teasing, because she knew what he liked and he wasn’t shy about asking. And he would reach for her.
“What do you want, cara?”
It was the unending, unanswered question, how they could be together with such intimacy and then fall apart when the emotions got hard. Christan’s energy was in her veins and his intellect in her mind. He was an alpha and she understood his need for vengeance, the fury of retribution. She had gotten Kace to put her on land and that gave Christan the advantage. Lexi took a shaky breath and hid the memories behind the wall where no one could touch them. But she still ached.
The road was paved until it was not, due to erosion or neglect or the occasional roadside explosion. Pools of muddy yellow water from a recent cloudburst filled the ruts. Lexi’s spine hurt from the continual jolting. The men seemed oblivious to her discomfort; one was smoking a cigarette, the other cleaning his fingernails with the tip of a knife that had dull brown spots embedded in the etching on the hilt.
Ahead, the landscape filtered through a smudgy weave of the veil. Lexi knew the burka made her anonymous, a lump between two men. She thought of the rusty-colored stains and her breathing grew agitated. But she would not give them the small gift of her fear. Memories of Phillipe drifted into her mind, and she drew on his strength, his voice as if he was sitting beside her, telling her of Christan’s history. Legends. Mythical tales.
They left the curving coastline and drove inland. More trees, a few battered buildings with pockmarks in the mummy-colored walls. Corrugated metal roofs had fallen, with the refuse piled in doorways. It was testimony to years of abandonment and fear. The heat intensified. Time filled with meaningless detail. She didn’t move when armed men blocked the road.
The breeze was thick with the stale acidity of cigarettes. Somewhere a radio played music approved by whatever power was in control. In the distance, goats grazed around abandoned buildings and rough-looking soldiers paraded with weapons at their sides.
They waited. Lexi itched as the salty, damp material of her clothes dried. Beside her, the broken window allowed heat into the vehicle. Rusted pickup trucks looked like casualties of war beneath shaggy eucalyptus trees. Tires were missing, hoods propped open. Interiors stripped.
When the rising sun was well above the nearby mountains, the men returned to the vehicles. No one bothered to tell her what had been said; it was better to study the landscape and wait for the comfort of Christan in her mind. A comfort that didn’t come.
There was little traffic. The road increased in elevation and snaked so far from the coast Lexi could no longer find the damp sea in the air. A small settlement came into view, where a brown dog chained to a post began an aggressive assault, barking as they passed. The 4 by 4 turned behind a squat, square building set in a patch of beaten earth with grass tufts scattered for the animals. Plastered walls were littered with tiny craters, bullet holes, the windows—only two—had been haphazardly boarded up with splintered wood. The silver roof was radiating heat in visible waves. When Lexi was pushed inside, the stench of rotting garbage made her gag. She walked stiffly to the center of the room.
Kace said nothing as he looked at her, refusing to cross the threshold. Then he nodded and Jago closed the door with a heavy snick.
After ten minutes, Lexi knew she had the building to herself. There wasn’t much to see, but she removed the burka and sat down on it, then scrubbed her fingers through her hair, convinced insects were crawling against her scalp. Bugs terrified her more than the location, and she didn’t know why. She was thirsty with nothing to drink. No food either. Bands of hazy, acid sunlight slanted through the boards at the windows. She watched the dust motes drift every time she shifted on the dirty burka, tried to detect a trace of a breeze, listened to the angry barking of the dog outside. When she could stand it no longer she pressed her palms flat against the grimy concrete floor and closed her eyes.
Welcome, Gaia.
The earth spoke to her, surrounding her in a familiar embrace. Words filtered through her mind, images, smells. The savory scent of roasting lamb, the sweetness of the dates with goat’s milk. The gritty texture of the stone-ground grain mixed with olive oil as she formed the flat bread. Her fingers, smoothing back the ashes from the fire before she buried the loaf in the hot sand oven. The slow passage of time, from morning to mid-day, to the evening fires and the darkness of midnight and the stars overhead.
In front of her, she watched as steam from the boiling water rose in curling ribbons. The evening air was cool, a nice respite from the heat, and her small hand hesitated over the red tea leaves and the black tea leaves. She always mixed them up, forgetting which color was used first for the ritual of sharing tea with friends around the fire, the several cups, each different, each holding meaning.
The stroke of her mother’s hand on her head, her father’s smile of indulgence while she fumbled with the burning pot.
The sounds of voices, a time to catch up over fried dates with bsisa. Food. Life.
And she remembered the cave.
“Come, Gaia, this is a special place.”
“Is it where you live, Grandmother?”
“It is where I remember. I want you to remember, too, Gaia. This memory is will be important, and you must keep it safe.”
“Mother says I remember to play but forget my chores.” The child laughed and skipped along the path leading to the cave. It was further away than expected, but she was with the Grandmother so it would be acceptable to her mother, since Gaia’s duty was to be respectful to the elders who held the knowledge of age.
They walked through the hills, higher and higher, until she could look back to see how far they’d come. The Grandmother walked without a stick like other elders, and Gaia skipped along and stopped to find a pebble, realizing too late that she lagged behind, running to catch up as the Grandmother disappeared into the cave. It was a wide space that wasn’t dark but filled with light from the many candles burning in niches carved into the stone. There was an opening at the top, too, letting in the rose and yellow light that danced across the sandy floor.
Magic shimmered in the air.
The Grandmother took her small hands and placed them against the cave wall where drawings, like those she had practiced, had been etched into the warm stone. Gaia giggled at the vibration beneath her palms, tender, drifting sensations moving up her arms. The energy was odd and frightening, but then she smiled. It tickled.
“What is that?” she asked, and the Grandmother smiled in return.
“That is the earth, speaking to you Gaia. It will always welcome you home.”
“I didn’t know the earth could talk,” the child said, as the tingling entered her bare toes.
“Oh, yes, Gaia, it will always talk to you. In every life.”
“Is there more than one life?”
“It never ends here, child, it goes on.”