“You’re taking me?”
“I am if you want to come.”
“I sort of thought of us burning away until we eventually died.”
“We could go out that way also.”
It was so easy to pick death after living a tough life. Instead, she listened to his voice again. He had described their daughter, their first born. Her skin would be exactly one shade darker than hers but one shade lighter than his, making her the perfect blend of both of them. She would have his silver eyes because they would be beautiful with her skin tone but she would have Grace’s black hair, that way no one would think she was older than she was.
He assured her that this would keep him from having to kill both humans and aliens alike over his daughter. Joaquin had dreamed out loud as they burned and Grace had listened to every word, taking it into her heart. Now she didn’t want to give up the chance to make those dreams come true.
“I always wanted to go to the trials.” Her lips twitched as she said it.
“Always? For how long have you always had this desire?”
“At least for a couple of minutes.”
Joaquin threw back his head and laughed. The heavy hand squeezing his heart loosened a little allowing him to breathe.
“I wouldn’t want to crush your dreams off a few minutes ago. We’re off to find the trials.”
“Follow the yellow brick road,” she whispered, walking backward and holding onto his hand.”
“Follow the yellow brick road,” she said louder before she broke into song. “We’re off to see the wizard.”
Now she was running, and Joaquin was laughing again. Having nothing better to do, he ran down the corridor with her having real fun for the first time in centuries.
They stopped when they came to this bright red door. Joaquin looked around for Voyager but couldn’t find him. Grace went up to the door and placed her hand on the knob before leaning her shoulder against the door and pushing it open.
The room on the other side was small but cozy. There was a large fireplace on one wall with several well-worn couches in the room. The walls were a bright yellow. Sitting on one of the couches were Grace’s parents hunched over a small wailing baby.
“Tina, is she going to be ok?” Her father asked her mother.
“How am I supposed to know? I know as much as you do about small helpless babies. Stop crying, Grace and tell us what’s wrong.”
“Even I know babies can’t talk.”
“I know I just want her to be all right.”
Tina laid baby Grace on her lap and began to undress her.
“Finally,” Joaquin whispered in her ear. “I get to see you naked.”
She hit him in the arm but still blushed.
“Feel her mark,” Tina laid her hand on Grace’s chest feeling the heat coursong through her body. “Do you think we should take her to the hospital?”
“I don’t know. What if it’s the curse and they try to take her from us.”
“I prayed she wouldn’t get it.”
“I think it takes prayer mixed with something else, and right now we don’t know what else it takes. Tina, you’re the mom what do you think we should do?”
She raised her hand to the buttons on her shirt undoing them one at a time. When she was done she slipped out the shirt and raised Grace to her skin allowing Grace’s heat to penetrate her body.
A single tear slid down Tina’s cheek. Mark leaned over and kissed her tear away.
“She didn’t escape the curse.”
Tina shook her head no as her daughter’s heat went into her body.
“We’ll teach her everything we know and learn over the next ten years.”
“It won’t be enough.”
“It’ll be a shot. We’ll give her a chance to break the curse she will have to do the rest, just like in ten years you’ll have to do the rest, and if our plan works, maybe we can find her before she turns thirty to give her an option.” Mark bent his head and kissed his daughter on her cheek before he took his wife and his child into his arms.
Chapter Six
Joaquin and Grace walked on a little more subdued. They left the room her parents were in and were walking down another corridor this one was dark blue which fitted her mood.
“Do you think it’s worth it Joaquin?”
“What?”
“The fight to live, to overcome, to strive, to be more than you were called to be or were meant to be. Do you think it’s worth it?”
“If you had asked me this question two months ago or even the day before I met you I would have said no. Then you walked in my life, and I was looking at things differently. You didn’t change me, but you made me question myself.
My answer is maybe, but here’s the hard part. It’s hanging on until the worthwhile part shows up. Sometimes we give up much too soon.”
“Where are we? It’s hot.”
“Feels like the dessert out here.”
Grace agreed and lifted her hand to wipe her brow; sweat was beginning to pour down her face.
“Grace?” Joaquin lifted his hand to touch her. She was burning up. He looked in her eyes to see she was consumed with fear.
“It’s all right nothing can hurt you here.”
Voyages laughter came from behind them.
“Pay him no mind; everything can hurt you here. In fact, you may die here, and I know you will be okay with that option because I have it on the best of authority that the two of you already chose death once.”
“That’s not fair,” Grace shouted. “We didn’t know. The only choice we had at the time was death.”
“How will you handle it next time? Death is the easy way out. You do not suffer just the people around you.”
“You’re wrong Voyager; death may be an easy door to walk through, but it’s not the easy way out. What I suffered, what I went through to lead me to that decision. It wasn’t easy.” Joaquin words touched Grace's heart as her arms went around him.
“It is time to make another decision, Joaquin.”
“I know.”
“Turn around,” Voyager told them.
Behind them was an ancient door rising. They watched as it came out of the ground. It didn’t stop until they had to crane their necks to see the top.
“You can walk through that door and face whatever the trials have for you. It is not in the best of moods so no telling what it has planned. Or you can hide out here until your natural bodies die. The choice is yours.” Voyager walked towards the door; it swung wide open inviting him inside when he got close.
“What are we going to do?” Grace looked over at Joaquin. She took a seat on an outcropping of rocks as she waited for him to make up his mind.
She couldn’t go in there alone and she wouldn’t even if she could. Whatever they did from this point on they would do together. She didn’t know what it was, but when she made the decision to lie on that ledge with him, she linked their lives, their futures together, and it would break her heart to unlink them.
“Grace, did you know that I am selfish? I truly am. A good male, a better male, would have already caught your hand up and entered into the trials. I’m not that male. The trials hate me for what I represent. It hates me for what my people did, and ironically it hates me for what happened to my people.”
Joaquin walked over to her and took her hand before approaching the door.
“Then why are we going in?”
“I can’t control how someone or something feels about me. I can only be me; there are somethings you can’t change, like who your parents are. On the other hand, there are some things I can do. Like getting to know you better. Remember when you asked me if it was worth it? Yes, being with you is worth it.”
They stood before the door waiting for it to open, it didn’t budge.
“I’ll stand here all day every day if I have to, but eventually, you will let us in.” They stood there staring at the door for over an hour before it finally opened up.
They
walked through together. Everything would be okay now Grace thought. She turned to tell Joaquin. Instead, she burned.
The flames were beautiful, enchanting and she missed them. Why she thought as she moved down a street, would she ever deny her fate in life? She was meant to burn, to kill, to watch mortals and aliens burn. She was born to purify the Earth to bring it back to the beauty it once held before high-rises, and smoke blocked the sky, and the sun was no longer able to communicate with the Earth. This wasn’t a curse, it was a blessing.
She chased a group of three men down the street. I am providing a valuable service, she said to herself. These men found a teen and were terrorizing her. The flames knew they planned to do so much more, and the flames were hungry; they could have eaten the teen, but they would rather consume the evil that walked the land.
She trapped them against the back wall of an abandoned building. Look at this place the flames pointed out. The building was beginning to crumble, the sides of it littered with graffiti, and it was being used as a drug house.
Kill them, the flames whispered, don’t let those beings live on this planet. Yes, she agreed, they would start with those in front of her.
“Please don’t hurt me. I’ll never do it again.”
Lies, her flames said before it reached out with greedy fingers and stroked them over the male’s skin, watching as he screamed while feeding them his blood.
Eat, Grace, the flame encouraged her; this is our life, it was always meant to be our life. Grace nodded, but she remembered feeding on a different source, a source that brought her joy. She felt the briefest of caresses on her lips before the flames reached out for the second male. It consumed him whole leaving nothing behind. The third tried to run. Grace tried not to listen as the flame tried to laugh it was so happy.
The girl, the one the men, would have raped and killed, was standing before them looking at Grace as her fire spread. Let’s kill her too.
“No,” Grace said aloud. She had let the fire have her body, allowed it to do whatever it pleased, but Grace would not be party to killing an innocent child.
Her fire didn’t like hearing the word no. Grace shrugged, we all get told no at some point.
“Go home,” she told the teen. She turned and ran while Grace thought about how she was going to spend the rest of her life.
We can do whatever we want, Grace, her flame told her. This is how it was supposed to be. You living and learning until you turned thirty, me cleansing the world after that.
“Do you remember when Joaquin took us to that pond?” Her flame flinched at his name. She refused to think about him, to remember him.
Yes, her flame replied.
“Remember how dead it was and there was slime along the top and sides of it. I was scared that maybe some scientist was using it as a test subject to make monsters.”
I remember, Grace, her fire replied, you’re so funny.
“Do you remember what happened when you touched the pond?”
My flames shot up in the air. They were so beautiful but the stench coming from the pond as they burned the slime was unappealing. I directed the fire around the edge of the pond, and the weeds and the dirt, and the trash that was collecting there disappeared in my fire. When it was over, when the flames were gone it looked different. I still wouldn’t step in it, but it looked like it had a chance to be clean.
“That’s cleaning the earth. A controlled fire that takes out what is choking the water to give it a chance to breathe freely again. That’s helping the Earth. Killing the children of the Earth will eventually make the Earth cry.”
My job…
“Maybe we need a better job.”
Grace turned to walk out of the ally. I can’t change, Grace; I’m cursed.
“I know.” Her fire pulled itself inside and allowed Grace’s body to come out. They walked until they found a mattress near the train tracks. She allowed her body to drop as she fell asleep. There would be no new tomorrow for her or little girls with the perfect color of brown skin. Her life would hurt, until someone who knew enough hurt her.
*~*~*~*
“Grace! Grace!” Joaquin had been walking for hours calling out her name determined to find her.
“Son, do you believe you can find her by simply calling her name?”
“Don’t you call me son.” He turned on Voyager. “I’m not your son. Fathers don’t die so other boys can live knowing that they will be leaving their only child all alone.”
Joaquin walked away from him calling Grace’s name one more time.
“That boy is stubborn.”
“Much like his father,” Voyager turned around to look at the male standing next to him.
“You may be right but you know I can’t go to him. There’s too much at stake. None of the surviving Arbrin/Matra’s can know what happens after death.”
“That leaves us with the question of what to do with your son.”
“I could give you some suggestions.”
“Leave before he comes back; I have no doubt he will be able to tell you are the real deal.”
Voyager walked up on Joaquin.
“How do you do that?”
“I can do a lot, but we are here to talk about you. I have decided to give you a present.” A wicked smile touched his lips and then Joaquin disappeared.
“Voyager, get me out of here!” Joaquin's hands went around the bars of the cage shaking them.
The walls were a dingy gray, and they were wet with something, and he wasn’t real sure it was water that was sliding down them in consistent little streams. There was nothing around him but rolls of cells. This must be what it felt like to be in prison. There was a cot in the corner without the benefit of a sheet or a blanket and a bucket.
He was going to kill Voyager the next time he saw him. A movement to his side caught his attention.
“Joaquin?”
Her voice was weak, but he would know her anywhere.
“Grace!” He went to the side of his cell. She was in the cell that was one away from his. Far enough away that he couldn’t touch her but close enough that he could see her clearly
“Grace.” He stuck his hand out knowing he would never be able to touch her, but he had to try to hope for a miracle. Something that he had never been granted in his life.
“Are you doing well?” she asked him.
Him? He stuttered she looked like she had been through the ringer. She looked so worn and weary.
“Are you eating, Grace?”
“The fire has been eating, but I haven’t had much.”
“You can’t live like that, love, you’re more than fire. If it takes your body, you’re going to die. All your relatives, they died didn’t they?”
She gave a nod and allowed her head to rest against the bars. “How long have we been here, Joaquin? It feels like forever to me.”
“You have to hold on, Grace. I’ll get us out of here, but you have to hold on.”
“I heard you when you were describing our daughter, and I hold onto the picture I have of her in my head.” Her body slipped, and she lay down on the cold concrete.
“Baby? Grace?”
“I’m so tired; I have to sleep.”
“Sleep, I’ll find a way to get us out of here. Do you want to play trials? Then let’s play but you better not hurt her.”
Joaquin clutched at his stomach and began to dry heave. The only thing inside of him was bitterness. Something buried much deeper was trying to push the bitterness out.
“Grace?” he opened his eyes looking through the bars for her but the cell she was in was empty.
“She is gone.”
He flipped around to see Voyager looking like his father sitting on the cot.
“Where is she? If you have hurt her I’ll…”
“You are full of threats most of them useless, but I have noticed a disturbing pattern. You seem to care for Grace, but you care nothing for yourself. Why is that? Is that what she would want for you?” Voyager
stood and walked over to the bars and looked into the cage the used to hold Grace.
“What if your life was as important as Grace’s? What if your parents loved you as much as hers did? What if you’re throwing something special away?” Voyager shrugged his shoulders and looked at him.
“I forgot your nothing but an abomination.”
Joaquin stood to his feet and charged Voyager. He stepped to the side and Joaquin ran through the hole in the swiveling mist behind Voyager.
“I need to find something else to do for fun,” Voyager mumbled to himself before disappearing.
Chapter Seven
Joaquin picked himself up off the dirt floor. It was pitch black wherever he was, his eyes always good at seeing in the dark weren’t helping him much right now. He moved around cautiously and ran into something that was waist high. His hands explored it telling him whatever it was wasn’t natural, and it was heavy enough he couldn’t move it.
There was a sound to the side, a male was humming; Joaquin dropped to his hands and knees hoping that he could stay hidden behind the object until he could assess the situation. Brightness flared in the room.
A quick look around the object told him that the male in the room was around his age, and he was Arbrin/Matra, he was also his father. They were in a cave; this one looked like supplies were kept here. The object he was behind was a large storage unit.
This wasn’t Earth it couldn’t be; he’d never seen a cave made out of pinks, reds, and blue on Earth. He must be on his planet. Not his planet, he wasn’t born here, he was born on Earth. This must be his father’s planet. Joaquin looked at him again to see his father setting up what looked like a feast on the table. Seeing the food reminded him that he hadn’t eaten and made his heart clench when he remembered that Grace hadn’t eaten.
“Genar?” A soft voice whispered through the cave.
He would know that voice anywhere; it was the voice of his mother. His mother? How could she have known his father back on his planet?
“Jen a Quay,” his father called out, a smile on his lips.
Joaquin's Saving Grace (Alien Mates Book Five 5) Page 4