Earth

by Jaymin Eve

  He shifted his gaze until our eyes met and, as if he couldn’t help himself, he hooked a hand around my waist and pulled me closer.

  His voice lowered. “I don’t suppose I can convince you to take your pixie Lucy and leave Abernath for a while.”

  I snorted. It was a little ragged, which was simply due to his overwhelming presence. I was drowning a tad in the emotion and love of our melding bond. Plus Brace was hot, really freaking hot. But even devastating hotness was not a good enough reason to let this man dominate me. Over-protective was his middle name, and I was going to halt that right now.

  I tilted my head back, letting the moment extend between us. Parting my lips, I exhaled slowly, and of course I noticed the way his eyes followed the movements of my lips. I secretly smiled at that.

  “There is not a single thing on this planet or any other which would make me leave you or Josian here with Que.” I spoke sweetly, letting the words trickle from my lips, and I caught the half-grin which tipped up the right side of his mouth.

  “You’re lucky I love you, because sometimes I get the very strong feeling I should be taking you over my knee and spanking you.”

  His whispered words shot heat through pretty much every part of my body. I was reasonably innocent, but something about the flash of mental image his words evoked was enough to skyrocket my arousal. I had to lick my lips, to moisten them enough to speak.

  “Spank me.” Yep, okay. Wait, what? I flashed him a grin. “One: in your dreams. Two: who said that would be a punishment?”

  A wicked grin crossed his face then, and I almost swooned like a female experiencing her first romance in the Renaissance. I never even knew a man could actually bring a lady to a swoon. Damn Brace and his unnatural hotness. Stupid Walker genetics.

  The clearing of a throat broke the spell which had been weaving around us, and I noticed for the first time the golden orb of our aura. It had momentarily filled the space. As we separated the gold eased, and the ancient, unlined, pissed-off face of Brace’s mother came into my line of sight.

  “One would think you two didn’t have better things to do than fondle each other. Wasting precious time on … something so unimportant.”

  My eyes flicked back to Brace. I mouthed the word ‘fondle’ at him, wrinkling my nose at the same time. Your mother has a real way with words, I said through our bond.

  Brace gently bopped me on said nose before turning to his insane mother.

  The softness in his gaze disappeared as he faced Lasandra. It didn’t take a genius to see the warning in his black eyes. He wouldn’t be tolerating her crap for much longer. Which was completely fine with me. Sure, I didn’t want a huge rift to occur, but Lasandra had been coming at me quite aggressively, and it wasn’t in my nature to just lie down and let someone stomp on me. Even if that someone was my mother-in-law.

  “Brace!”

  The shout broke the moment; Colton had impeccable timing. For once. It took the wolf-Walker a few minutes to find the secret entrance – Brace was probably guiding him mentally – but soon his very blond hair and icy white-blue eyes made an appearance. He seemed a tad pissed off as he stomped down the darkened stairway, boot steps echoing. Then, when he reached our level, I understood why. Fluttery wings disturbed the still air, and my best friend Lucy popped out from behind her mate. Lucy, the pixie cross faerie.

  Colton was as protective as Brace, sometimes worse, and he would be hating that she was here in this unknown and possibly very dangerous situation.

  Brace graced his second-in-command with a tense grin. “I see you were as successful as I was in keeping the deadly duo out of it.”

  Colton growled, practically throwing his hands into the air. “Do these two listen to anyone? … Stubborn … crazy … frustrating.”

  Surely he wasn’t talking about us? We were totally lovable. Plus he’d forgotten to add funny, smart, and kickass.

  Ignoring them, Lucy flew across the tight space and linked her arm through mine. “The big, strong men are trying to keep us poor, weak females out of danger.” Her tone dripped with derision. “I’m thinking Colt loves his dog house so much that he wants to permanently move in.”

  “Lucy, you seriously can’t –”

  “Shut it, ass!” She cut him off, leaving him opening and closing his mouth.

  I almost giggled as lines of shock settled over his face; Walkers were not used to being reprimanded, especially by a pixie a third of their height.

  “If you wanted a female who was content to sit home knitting scarves and raising a brood of blond-faerie-pixie-wolf-Walkers,” she said the last mouthful in a rush of tinkling words, “then you should have mated another female.”

  I sensed the slight trickle of hurt under her tone. They were very newly mated and, as happens in all new relationships, were still feeling their way through. I assumed that since they were having this discussion out loud, one of them had cut the other out of their mind. The pixie, for sure. If over-protective was Colton and Brace’s middle names, stubborn was Lucy’s.

  A grin rippled across Colton’s face then, which seemed odd in the middle of their bickering. Then the self-righteous anger died from Lucy’s features, and I knew exactly what had just happened. Walker males had plenty of weapons at their disposal. They could disarm a female with little to no effort. Colton stepped closer to her – to both of us, since our arms were still linked – pushing Brace out of the way as he crowded over us.

  His eyes never left Lucy’s doll-like face. “My little pixie – I want none other than you. The fire with which you face life is one of your most beautiful traits.” His tone was low, with that growly timbre that spoke of his animal inside.

  “Why are you always trying to change me then?” Lucy bit back, but with a fraction of her previous intensity.

  He shook his head, short strands of his silky hair falling across his handsome features. “Not change, I would never want to change you. I protect. I need to protect you, because if anything happened …” He trailed off, stark terror flashing across his incredible eyes. “Nothing can ever happen,” he finished on a whisper.

  Everyone in the room knew about the ghosts which littered Colton’s past. His father had gone rogue wolf and killed every member of his family, bar his twin Magenta and niece Petal. His very real fear that he might lose it in a similar way had almost cost him his bond with Lucy, but in the end he couldn’t live without her. I really hoped that there were no more victims in his cursed family. I couldn’t live without Lucy. It was not something I would even consider.

  Lucy left my side and moved toward her mate. She would not be able to stand his pain; I knew the feeling all too well.

  Can you remind Colt why he’s here? I said to the ever patient Brace. Being princeps had really taught him tolerance. Something tells me he’s forgotten about the two giant tanks of Walker in the room.

  I knew that if we didn’t start doing something, Lasandra, who was tapping her foot on the floor in an agitated manner, was going to lose her shit.

  Brace took a step forward and placed a hand onto Colt’s broad shoulders. “Sorry, old friend, I understand your need.” His eyes flashed to me for a moment. “I really understand it … but we have to deal with this room first. You’ll have plenty of time for everything after we lock away the Seventine.”

  I loved Brace’s confidence, but I wasn’t sure I shared it. All of us could very easily be destroyed in the next week. Especially if the Seventine managed to free their last brother before we found the Earth half. The Walker stories certainly indicated that a full-strength Seventine would annihilate us. I wasn’t sure if that was true, but right now we had an advantage, as they were limited in what they could do.

  They could only sever certain tethers – generally those of important landmarks across the seven worlds. They then used this stolen energy to break the bonds holding their brothers in the prison. There was just one brother left in the dark mountain. To free him would require an astronomical level of energy, not s
omething they could just gather from one tether, so I was reasonably confident that we had time to spare.

  Of course, one could never forget how nefarious the Seventines’ plans often were. Like severing one of the suns of Crais. Sure, we’d managed to circumvent that, but in the end they’d still ended up freeing two of their brothers. I needed to check in with Fury about how her world was coping with their single ball of energy. I hoped the loss of a sun meant Crais was now a more hospitable place for the tribes to live. My gut told me that taking Crais’ sun’s energy and releasing it on Dronish had been the right thing to do to restore balance. But only time would tell.

  Fury and her world weren’t the only ones I worried about. Talina and Ladre were on Spurn, dealing with clan wars. Ladre had stepped down from Baroon, the strongest of the clans, but they weren’t letting him go easily. I hoped Talina wasn’t copping it from those assholes again. I took comfort in the fact that Ladre would have her back.

  At least there didn’t seem to be anything further on the possible Seventine energy setup on Spurn. It seemed that the only problem the water world was experiencing was political. The Yerks were upsetting the balance, fighting against their position at the bottom of the clan chain.

  I hated that my girls were not here with me. There was so much that had to be done and so little time that it wasn’t feasible for us to stay together. But the uneasy churning in my gut which generally warned me of impending danger had been off the scale the last few days. As if my body knew we were on the countdown to the convergence. The countdown to the possible end of the seven worlds in this star system. So many innocent lives.

  We could not lose.

  The first life I needed to save was Josian’s.

  “So what’s the plan?” Urgency laced my tone. “We just break this energy cage and deal with whatever comes out?”

  Colton snorted. He was calming now that Lucy was tucked back under his arm. “This is a cage powered by the ancient crystals of the originals. Breaking it will be near impossible.”

  My brows furrowed as I squinted for a better look. I was sure the stones were exactly the same as the ones I’d absorbed on Nephilius, but maybe I had missed something. Lasandra caught my eye and gave me a single nod. Okay then. And with the evil-mother-in-law confirming my thoughts, it was time to get my father out.

  “Step aside, boys,” I pretended to roll up my sleeves, “and prepare for the creepy-crawlies to emerge, because I’m about to bust down this place.”

  Lucy cracked up, glitter fluttering around. “The power’s gone straight to her head. It’s official. Abby’s lost it.”

  Ignoring their decided lack of confidence in my abilities, I threw out my tether. The power-well inside me gave a jerk, and I knew the greedy little thing had been feeling all left out and lonely. I’d be a liar if I didn’t admit that a very small part of me was starting to crave the rush of energy flowing through my body. I wanted to take it all in and store it inside my well. Then when my well was full I’d move on to the section which I called my ‘filing cabinet’. I’d recently learnt that I could lock excess energy into that compartment. So this time, unlike on Nephilius, I was not going to ground off the energy. I was going to store some of it. You know, for future dramas.

  My knees locked into place as the first surge of power hit me. It was strong – but nothing compared to what I had experienced on Nephilius. I was pretty sure I could take this one on my own.

  “Red …” Brace’s tone held warning. He couldn’t step closer; my power held him at bay, but the glare came right across without a problem. “What are you doing?” You can’t just attach to any power source. What if you can’t handle the strength? You have to stop taking risks. I’m not at my best when you’re in danger.

  While I thought it was cute the way he finished his lecture through our link, I was a little busy trying to deal with this influx of pure vitality. My tether continued to pull from the stones; my well seemed to be much larger than it had been on Nephilius. I was able to take so much more of the energy. The first two stones flickered and died out.

  “Holy shit!” Lucy surged forward, her wings a flutter of light. “Abbs is well deserving of her kick-ass title.”

  If I hadn’t been so busy I would have rolled my eyes at her. There was nothing special about me other than what my birth had gifted me. I had powerful parents. I was made of energy from the originals; that was my gift of birth.

  As more of the stones flickered out, I quickly reached my well-holding limit. My locked-in legs wanted to crumble under the sudden onslaught of energy filling my entire being, but I pushed on. Another stone went dark.

  This was the point where the full-to-bursting feeling indicated that I’d have to start grounding off some of the power. Instead I opened the part of myself which I had used once or twice to hold foreign energy. My good old filing cabinet.

  It was a simple task to take the next surge of energy and, instead of emptying it into my overfilled well, I slotted it into the compartment, like slipping a file away for the night. For some unknown reason this worked the same way as grounding off the energy. The pressure eased in my well. I could tell by the way the slots filled in my ‘cabinet’ that this compartment also had a limit, and eventually I would fill this space. But still, this discovery was one of my more wicked abilities. It felt like a weapon which could be used against the Seventine. Something which might tip the scales in the final battle. Like a backup battery which would be waiting if I ran out of power against the Seventine.

  “Red!” Brace’s call broke into my thoughts. “How are you doing this? You’re taking too much.”

  I wanted to reply, but I couldn’t. Every facet of my being remained focused on draining the crystals and storing the energy. Over half the crystals were blinked out now, and so far nothing untoward had exited the strange, round room.

  “She couldn’t take this much power on Nephilius,” Lasandra said, stepping closer to her son, “she must have discovered a way to ground out the power herself.”

  Brace’s chest lifted as a few rumbly growls rocked him. “That would be all good,” he said, “except I can feel that she’s not removing that energy; it hasn’t left her body.”

  Through our bond, he knew what was happening inside me, even though he was partially locked out at the moment. I could feel him tapping on the barrier which had erected between us when I’d started to draw in the energy. I hadn’t deliberately done it; it was a side effect of using my tether in this way.

  “Share it with me, Red; you don’t have to do this alone.” Brace tried again.

  I attempted to drop the barrier, but it wouldn’t budge. All of a sudden panic kicked in, which was not the best thing when I had this much energy riding me. I knew from previous experience if I didn’t drain every crystal, the energy would just reinsert itself and the barrier would be reinstated. There were only a couple of those glowing lights left to wick out. I could do this.

  The filing cabinet was starting to fill and I wondered if I’d have enough space to finish this job. With a sense of desperation, I clawed at the barrier between Brace and me. Trying to find a sliver to break through and share these final portions of power.

  All it took was one glance at my face and Brace knew I was in trouble. He surged forward with both his body and power, and smashed through the barrier between us. Our melding connection flared to life, and my mate took some of my energy with ease. He wasn’t even affected, just internally storing it with the zillion tons of power he already rocked. Lucky ass.

  The pressure inside me eased.

  I swear I never even knew what stress was until I met you, Red. His tone was resigned, but slightly amused.

  I’m keeping you young, I quipped back.

  His sigh was long and deep. It’s either that or you’re sending me to an early grave, but one thing I haven’t been since we met is bored. I had no idea how dull my existence was before you.

  His last words – which were said in an offhand manner – warm
ed my heart.

  Ready? We still had to drain the last stone. My well was full, my cabinet was full, but with Brace’s help I would finish.

  Prepare yourself. I’ve no idea what sort of protections might be on this room. Que could have rigged it to do anything if an unauthorized entity broke the dome.

  I swallowed. Colt’s ready to grab Lucy, right?

  Yep, he was born ready for that.

  Walker males were pretty on point when it came to overprotecting the heck out of their mates, but still I had to check – it was Lucy. She was slightly more breakable than the rest of us and I couldn’t live without her. I forced myself not to close my eyes as the last stone sputtered and died out. Fighting the instinctual fear of what type of Que-freaky-guardian-creature might spring out at us.

  There was an extended pause, as if the room wasn’t quite sure what to do, and then – nothing happened. Brace stole away the last of the energy rattling around inside me, but I barely noticed I was so focused on the space which had been previously barred from us. The room was open now, ready for us to start exploring.

  “That was certainly anti-climactic,” Lucy trilled. “I was expecting a massive explosion, followed by flying harpies and spiders.”

  I grinned. “You really thought Que would have harpies and spiders guarding his secret lair?”

  She shrugged. “That’s what I would have.”

  I straightened minutely, allowing my tense muscles to stretch and extend out from the position they’d been locked in during the energy drain. I felt no internal discomfort from my newly acquired power. I simply had to shut the door on my filing cabinet and it was all sitting nice and neatly, waiting for me to pull it out when I needed it. So freaking awesome.

  Laughter sounded in my head. Yes, Brace said as he finally understood how I’d managed to take so much of the crystals’ power. That is quite awesome, as you put it. Not that it’s any surprise to me; your awesomeness seems to be expanding daily.