How could she have forgotten the mysterious Darkness? It was easy. She focused on the thing she knew and not on those things that were simply a black shadowy figure in the corner of her mind.
Taking a deep breath, she relaxed into the seat and watched as Mick took them up through the layers of the atmosphere.
They were on the first layer. When man first made his move into the atmosphere, this was where the wealthy lived. Things were different now. This layer housed the people who were just wealthy enough to make it off the ground. No one looked down on you if you lived here but everyone knew you didn’t quite make the cut.
They merged into the next layer of the atmosphere. Here was the warehouse section. No one with a respectable business allowed their goods to sit on the surface of the Earth. There were large buildings up here and massive machines. Jaz never studied how they kept things up in the atmosphere but working on one of those machines would have made her heart beat so fast with fear she was sure she would have died from it. The workers up here had her respect.
The next level was populated with businesses. If you needed something, you could find it here. Mick merged quickly onto the next level that was the gallery level or the shopping level. Galleries spread out for miles over the city appealing to all to come and try the varieties they offered.
Jaz had been in several of the different galleries. Each time it was virtual. If she were actually to step foot in a gallery, they might kill her because of her clone status. She was not allowed to mix with the humans like she was one of them. It always surprised her that there weren’t clone only stores, but no one wanted to cater to clones.
She watched Mick’s hands as he brought them up to the next level. They were once again on a residential level. The traffic was thicker up here. People were trying to get home from whatever their day held. He blended seamlessly with traffic making her feel proud of his skills. She chuckled; she was acting like she taught him to drive.
“Jaz, do you want to drive for a while?”
Was he making fun of her? She was a clone; they weren’t allowed behind the wheel of a hover. A frown molded her lips. It never dawned on her before that society treated her like a second-class citizen, but they did. The rules of what she could and couldn’t do were so tight she began to suffocate. Her head dropped to her knees, and she started trying to control her breaths.
“What’s wrong?” Mick was looking for a place to pull over.
“I’m fine. Please, keep driving.” Her voice was shallow, but she needed to deal with this on her own. Finally, her heart slowed down, and the realization came back to her that she refused to be that person anymore.
She sat back in her seat. “I can’t drive. Clones aren’t allowed to learn.”
“I’ll teach you. There are several unused ranges on the Earth, or I can create a range close to our house. Whatever works better for you.”
The way he treated her made chest ache. He didn’t apologize for the hell she lived through because he didn’t cause it. Instead, he simply offered to rectify what happened in the best way he could. If she made it through everything that was coming after them, she’d take him up on his offer to teach her to drive.
They were now on the upper levels, where the truly wealthy lived in very elaborate homes. The beauty of the area took her breath away. Maybe if this had been last week, she would have wished to be one of the ones living here. After what she went through today, the hell the people on Earth lived in, the fact that the wealthy could send an assassin for her and sleep well at night, leached the beauty out of the homes she was seeing. Right now what she saw was superficial, and she didn’t want any part of it.
Mick took them up another level; it was considered to be the dead level since it was believed to be uninhabitable. Jaz knew from talking to Ash that this was untrue, but they allowed the humans to think that. The level where Mick and his brothers lived was above this one.
She was shocked when she looked out the front window and caught a shadow in front of them.
“Mick?”
“It’s The Darkness; they have been there for a while.”
She shuddered. Couldn’t she get a break at least one night of good sleep before she had to face another threat to her life?
The shadow grew larger until a small black spacecraft was hanging in front of them.
Across the hull of the ship, there was movement. Something she couldn’t name seemed to be slowly crawling over the ship.
“Mick,” her words were getting stuck in her throat choking her as she tried to get them out. “What is that?” came out in a rush.
“Don’t look at the hull of the ship!” Mick was screaming at her, but she didn’t hear him.
Her eyes were wide she couldn’t even blink as she stared at the creature on the hull. It called to her seducing her with words that didn’t make any sense but twisted her soul just the same. It whispered to her of death. A death she craved, wanted above all things. It told her how Mick would kill her by plunging his dagger deep into her chest and eating her heart. He was a killer, and she knew it. Knew she was his next victim. Save yourself, it whispered. Her hand went to the holster that kept her firmly in the seat.
She began to unbuckle herself. Yes, she would kill herself before Mick got a chance. It was the only thing that made sense.
Mick grabbed her jaw and forced her to turn her head even as she fought him, screaming at him for how he treated her. Telling him how she knew he was planning to kill her. He pulled her to him and shielded her eyes in his chest until her rigid body began to relax.
“Jaz? How are you feeling?”
“Strange. What just happened?”
“You were looking at a warship of The Darkness. On the hull is an ancient language so old that it’s thought to be alive, so evil that it can ensnare you as it slithers over the hull. All it takes is a look to be captured for a lifetime.”
“It wanted me to die.”
“It works with The Darkness, channeling its desires.”
“Are we free?”
“No, we’re caught in the field they deployed.”
“Can I look?”
“Yes, but only if you look in the window. Do not look at the hull of the ship.”
“I won’t,” she said it aloud knowing he needed to hear her say the words.
Carefully she turned her head seeing the front of the ship that looked like a futuristic version of a vid screen. The screen went from being totally opaque to lightening enough that she could see the beings in the ship looking at her.
A small whimper escaped her lips before she bit down on her tongue to stop it.
There were two males looking at her. She assumed they were males, though it was hard to tell. There was more bone showing than flesh, although flesh hung from the skeletons almost like they were a bizarre Halloween decoration. One meant to keep children from sleeping at night.
“What happened to them?” she asked him, suddenly grateful they chose to skip eating dinner earlier.
“The Darkness. It beats you until your muscle is hanging off your body barely attached to your bones. That’s how it exposes your soul. Then it demands that you do the one thing you’ve been fighting against. Kill your mate.”
“What happens if you do?” She whispered the question as if the apparitions in the other craft could hear them.
“What you see before you are the results.”
“How does The Darkness take you over? Force you to do something you don’t want to do and why your mate? Why not a mother or a child? It doesn’t make sense.”
“The Darkness doesn’t go after everyone. It targets special males around the galaxy. Males that have been given a special task of protection or to defend, warriors that work for the innocent. These are the beings The Darkness desires to corrupt because their skills are highly coveted by The Darkness.”
He turned to look at her, his blue eyes beginning to burn with the fire of hell. “Someone like me.”
He turned around
and stared at the screen of the other craft.
“Mick,” she screamed his name and pulled on him trying to wake him up from whatever trance held him.
“Welcome, brother,” one of the males said to him giving him a smile. His muscle and bones became skin and bones as Mick looked at him, allowing him a glance of what the male used to look like.
“We have been waiting for you, brother.” The other male said.
The word brother triggered something in his memory. Mick calmed, stopped fighting when he remembered he had brothers, and they would never let anything happen to him. He was safe in the arms of his family.
“That’s right,” the more seductive one whispered. “We’re your family. We take care of those who belong to us. You need to come to us. The one by your side plans to kill you. To take your soul, do not let her.”
He turned his head to look at the female sitting next to him. Who was she?
He ignored her; she was puny, what could she do to him? He was a mighty warrior for the…a warning went off in his head not to say the name of those that created him.
Where were his other brothers? Amethyst eyes appeared before him quickly changing to silver, looking like lightning strikes against the sky. They frowned at him. Warning him? Had he done something wrong? Wasn’t he still part of the family?
“They’re not your family,” the male whispered. “We are your family. We’ve searched for you, centuries have passed and still we searched. Now that we have you, we won’t let you go.
He turned again because the puny female was beating on his chest. Tears were tracking down her face as she cried. She could be beautiful, but the distress on her face was too real for her to be anything but terrified. He could see her mouth moving but couldn’t hear a sound. Why couldn’t he hear her?
He turned back to look at his brothers, unsure of what was happening. Why did he feel like there was a fog inside of his head stealing his memories?
“She’s doing this to you. You must get rid of her, be free.”
He turned and unbuckled the holster holding her in. He would let the puny female go, this way she would no longer distress him. The male that held his attention, he knew him. He was his oldest brother. Mick smiled knowing he would make him proud.
The façade around the male shimmered and broke as if he could no longer hold it in place. Mick screamed when the illusion broke before him, he was looking at Anchil, one of the evilest henchmen of the Army of Darkness.
He came back to his senses as if a cool breeze blew through his mind just in time to see Jaz fall from the hover.
His scream of no followed her.
Chapter Nine
She was going to die and for some reason, she was calmer than she expected. Maybe it was because no one would be watching with their malice and greed or maybe because some things are inevitable. No, she knew what it was. She was going to die; soon darkness would take her, and she would never know another thing. Mick would live, maybe forever and he would relive her death over and over again. In the end, she was getting the better part of the deal.
She allowed images of him kissing her to play through her mind and lost herself in the bliss that was his arms.
He threw himself out the hover car after her. She was so far ahead; there was no chance of him reaching her before the deadly arms of the Earth welcomed her home forever. His body changed, the particles rearranged until he was blending in with the very air around him. He hurtled like a rocket to Earth, a prayer of please on his lips as he tried to catch up with her.
Then he felt it, power, it flooded his body increasing his speed. His brothers, a small smile, played on his lips; they were banding together and giving him all they had to save his mate. He could feel all of them touching him as she shot faster and faster through the atmosphere. There she was, so close but still too far away.
She was approaching the earth at a dizzying speed. The further down she went the more of a chance for her to hit into a hover; that would be an instant death like hitting the ground. He had to save her. Head down, his body went as thin as it possibly could; he was no longer within the margin of safety but he didn’t care. He passed her and came to a stop inches above the ground. She fell into his arms, and he reversed taking her back in the sky dampening the deadly inertia by reversing it.
“Mick,” she looked at him stars shining brightly in her eyes. Then she looked down. They were so close to the Earth she could have been splattered all over it. Her body finally shook as the fear she held at bay overtook her.
“You saved me.” She buried her head in his neck. Her tears flowed freely, and she had a meltdown in his arms. He held her until it was over.
“You’re okay, Jaz mine.”
“Jaz mine?’
“Because one day you will be mine. You just don’t know it yet.”
She laid her head back down on his shoulder. That sounded just about right to her.
She looked down at the earth. It appeared bruised and scared, and her heart went out to it.
“I didn’t know there were areas under the dome that were this bad.” Nothing was growing in this patch of the earth, it was so black and charred.
“The war wasn’t an easy one and the Earth suffered greatly, but it will recover.”
Her heart ached for what she saw before her. A few of the tears she shed made their way to the ground. Mick began to propel them higher. Not wanting to scare her by simply moving them from one place to another. The ground below greedily absorbed her tears with a sigh of comfort.
“Where are we going?”
“To Damon’s house, I want him to give you a checkup. I need to know you’re fine.” His fingers gripped her tighter. If he had failed, she wouldn’t be in his arms now. She’d be dead, and he’d belong to The Darkness. He could never forget that he caused this.
“You won’t get an argument from me.” If their positions were reversed, she’d be saying the same thing.
“Mick, where is The Darkness?”
“It will regroup and devise another plan to come after me.” There was a good chance of his brothers coming to help now that The Darkness had made its next move.
He took them through the levels slowly. They passed hovers; she watched the people inside, but no one could see her.
“Are we invisible?”
“We are; would you like me to take the shield away?”
She shook her head against his neck. She was fine with the fact that no one could see her.
“What about the hover?”
“One of my brothers will retrieve it for me.” She nodded and closed her eyes knowing he would let her know when they got there.
The air up here was incredible. Why hadn’t she noticed it the first time she came? Mick was setting them down on a path surrounded by beautiful flowers.
“Are we at Damon’s?”
“We are. His house is over there.” He pointed to the right, and a huge house came into view. It was one story and seemed to expand far as the eye could see.
There was a beautiful waterfall that skipped gladly down the side of a mountain and made her mouth curl up in joy just to see it. She already loved coming to this level. Everything up here seemed so alive.
“All of these flowers can’t be native to the earth.” She was looking at one with a blood-red stem and an orange bloom.
“The flower you’re looking at is from our native planet. We decided to bring some of the beauty we thought we might miss when we left. In Damon’s yard, you will find flowers for the beauty of it as well as flowers that serve a medical purpose. We also have a collection of flowers that were in danger of dying out on their natural planet but thrive here.”
“Is that why the mountain and waterfall are here?”
“When we designed our homes, we took the things we loved about the Earth and made sure they were able to thrive this far up.”
He placed his hand on her arm and gently led her to the front door. He tapped on it and then entered.
“
Damon?” He used the house-wide intercom system.
“Come to the medical wing.” Damon’s voice came out of the wall next to them making Jaz jump as she looked for him.
They walked down the hallways that seemed to flow from one to another.
“How do you find anything with the intersecting hallways?”
“There’s a pattern to them that you won’t see unless we teach you. Once you learn the pattern, you won’t ever get lost.”
“I’m going to need that lesson,” she said before they stopped in front of a door. The door slid open, and she no longer felt like she was in a home. It looked more like a huge medbay.
“Welcome to my medical wing.” Damon was dressed casually in jeans and a tee over which he wore a white medical jacket.
“Thanks for being willing to treat me.” Jaz knew he was a very famous doctor. There was research with his name on it that saved millions of lives. She knew all that, and still she tensed a little. Her status as clone meant that very few physicians would willingly treat her.
“You’re welcome.” He frowned at her before indicating the medbed where she should sit. “Why you would think I wouldn’t be willing to treat my brother’s future mate, and my sister, eludes me.”
Right, he didn’t see her as a clone. That would change after he examined her. She hopped up on the medbed and stared at the walls.
“I know they’re yellow, isn’t it great.”
“Why are they yellow?” In all the medical facilities she had ever been in the walls were always white.
“I think white walls are sterile, but the yellow walls are calming, it’s like they are saying calm down everything will be all right.”
She thought about the walls, not sure of what to say so she moved on wondering if he treated Brook already.
“Damon, can you tell me if Brook is all right?”
“She and Ash were in here before you. You only just missed them. They’re going to stay with me until they have a new place to live. That will give me more access to Brook to monitor her. She needs more sleep and a change to her diet, other than that she is healthy.”
Mick (The A'rouk Brothers Book 1) Page 6