Dangerous Lovers

by Becca Vincenza

  Jurek and Liasare materialized in the main hall of the Yarrister residence when the two youngest children of Rykerian and January came flying around the corner screaming and laughing. Not expecting anyone to be standing there, they both skidded to a halt. When they saw who it was, they screeched, “Aunt Sarah, Uncle Jurek,” and flew into Jurek and Sarah’s arms. The adults picked the two children up and tickled them, causing them both to erupt in a series of giggles.

  “What in the world?”

  Liasare spun around to see January standing there. The grin fled from her face, as did the laughter emanating from her.

  As far as sisters went, the two women looked like night and day. January was petite with hair that was an unusual mix of silver and gold and eyes that were ice blue. Liasare had a good six inches in height on her and the contrast in their hair and eyes made them look like complete opposites.

  “Sarah, Jurek. What are you two doing here?”

  Before Jurek could answer, Liasare retorted, “We need to talk January. About something important. Now.”

  January glanced at Jurek and he shook his head.

  “Is Rykerian here?” Liasare asked.

  “Yes, he’s upstairs.”

  “You may want to ask him to join us.”

  Let’s go in the study then,” January suggested. “Elysia, Marko, go outside with your brother Therron. He’s out in the back. Tell him I said he’s to watch you two for a while. Now go sweeties.”

  The two young children scurried off while the adults made their way to the study. Moments later they were joined by January’s husband.

  “I want to know everything you know about Tommy. And don’t try to lie to me. You’re holding something back and I want to know exactly what it is,” Liasare demanded.

  “Sarah,” Rykerian began, “It’s complicated.”

  Liasare looked at Jurek and rolled her eyes. He could only shrug. “I swear to all the gods that exist for everyone that has ever lived, if I hear that ‘it’s complicated’ one more time, I’m going to go ballistic and psycho all at once. Do you think I’m a moron Rykerian? I don’t give a flying fuck how complicated it is. I can follow. I want to know where my brother is goddammit! Now tell me!”

  Both Rykerian and January flinched at Liasare’s choice of words, for she had never spoken to them like that before.

  January looked at Jurek again, but he only shook his head again. He was adamant about staying out of this one.

  “Sarah, you don’t understand,” January said.

  “Okay, first of all, your sister, Sarah Liana St. Davis is dead. She died when her brother disappeared and no one would bother to tell her what the fuck happened to him. In her place, Liasare Davidson was born. Liasare is headstrong and won’t give up when her mind is made up about something. Let me fill you in on a bit of information about her. She is dead set on figuring out what happened to her brother. You see, she saw him at a party one night and he acted like he had no idea who she was. She forced him to stop and tried to talk to him and do you know what he did? He put a bullet in her. That’s right, her only brother put a fucking bullet in her. Now, stop stalling and tell me what the hell happened to Tommy. I’m not kidding January. I’m not leaving here until you tell me the truth.”

  Rykerian ran a hand through his hair and for most people that action alone would have stopped them dead in their tracks, but Liasare was immune to his looks. Tall and beautiful, Rykerian had bronze hair and cobalt blue eyes and his stature as both a Yarrister and a Guardian gave him his authoritative nature.

  “Sarah, please listen.”

  “No, you listen Rykerian and stop calling me Sarah. I don’t use that name anymore. Start calling me Liasare. Again, I want to know everything.”

  “We can’t tell you everything.”

  “Can’t or won’t.”

  “Can’t.”

  “So do you know where Tommy is?” Liasare asked.

  “Not exactly,” Rykerian hedged.

  “Dammit Rykerian. Stop playing cat and mouse with me.”

  “I’m not. There is a lot at stake here.”

  “Don’t I know! My brother’s life is at stake. If it wouldn’t have been for Jurek, I wouldn’t be standing here right now. What aren’t you telling me?”

  “January, you know where he is don’t you?” Jurek questioned softly.

  All eyes swung to them. January looked at Jurek and then at Rykerian and finally at Liasare.

  “Rykerian.”

  “January, stop. You know how this works. You can’t do this.”

  “Rykerian, it’s Sarah and Jurek. They won’t betray him.”

  “If it’s any comfort to the two of you, we already know some things about him. We’ve been tracking him and we know he’s a Xanthian minion. If you don’t tell us, we’ll get close enough to bring him in for questioning,” Jurek informed them.

  “No! You can’t do that! Promise you won’t do that!” January shouted. “Rykerian, you must tell them. If you don’t, I will!”

  Liasare was shocked at January’s reaction. Her eyes moved between Rykerian and her sister, trying to uncover what was being communicated between the two of them. When it finally seemed like Rykerian was going to speak, the sound of a teleporter was heard and Xarrid, Rykerian’s younger brother, materialized into the room.

  Now it was Liasare’s turn to be further shocked. Jurek and Xarrid embraced, as if they were long lost friends.

  Like most Vesturions, Xarrid was impossibly handsome. While the resemblance between him and Rykerian was strong, Xarrid’s actions were more in line with Jurek’s. He was less refined and was dressed in snug fitting pants that hugged his hips and a white shirt that was unbuttoned halfway down his chest, showing off a perfectly sculpted set of muscles. Eyes the color of Rykerian’s, with hair as black as Jurek’s, he would make any warm-blooded woman stop and take a second or third look.

  “Don’t tell me you are in on this too,” Jurek said.

  Xarrid turned and nodded in Liasare’s direction, “Hello Sarah.”

  Before Liasare could comment, Jurek said, “Xarrid, don’t call her that if you want to keep your head. She goes by Liasare now and she is not very happy at the moment. Her brother’s been missing for months and no one is willing to fill her in.”

  Xarrid looked at Liasare, assessing her and then commented, “So this is what the ruckus is all about.”

  “Don’t you dare look at me all squinty eyed and judge me. If your brother had been missing and no one would tell you anything, don’t you even hint that you wouldn’t go to the ends of the universe to find him.”

  “Told you,” Jurek said.

  “Can’t say that I blame her,” Xarrid responded. He turned to Rykerian and said, “Look, we know we can trust Jurek. Jurek obviously trusts Sar ... er ... Liasare, so why don’t you put the poor girl out of her misery and tell her what’s going on?”

  “I’m waiting,” Liasare said, tapping her foot.

  Rykerian released a sigh and January gave him a nod. “Tommy volunteered for this. We had been trying to find out more about the disappearances. There were so many. Thousands of humans every day ... gone.”

  “I hate to break this to you, but it’s not just humans. This is happening all over the universe to almost every species we know of,” Jurek dropped that item of news on them. They all turned to him wide-eyed. “You mean it’s not happening on Vesturon?” he asked.

  Xarrid answered, “Not that we’re aware of. We didn’t know it was happening everywhere. We hadn’t heard anything about that. How is that possible?”

  “Whoever is responsible is covering it up somehow.”

  “Let’s get back to Tommy,” Liasare demanded.

  Rykerian gave her a hard look but January squeezed his arm, encouraging him to continue. “Tommy was on Earth, monitoring the situation. Some of his friends had disappeared, so he came to us and told us his plan. At first we said no, but the more he talked about it, the more it made sense.”

  L
iasare felt her stomach twisting into a giant bowl of knots as a sense of dread crept over her. “He volunteered to become a minion, didn’t he?” she quietly asked. Her chest suddenly felt like there was a thousand pounds of steel binding itself around her and she found it nearly impossible to breathe.

  Jurek flashed to her side, sensing her distress, and pulled her to him, placing his hand on her head to relieve her discomfort. “Breathe, Liasare,” he whispered. Feeling her breathing return to normal, he asked, “Better?”

  She nodded. All eyes in the room were on them, but Liasare just ignored them.

  “Tell me. Why did you let him do this?”

  Rkyerian moved to Liasare, reaching for her hand, which she moved away from. “He insisted. We begged him. We tried everything we knew to change his mind. We even used you. We told him we’d tell you. That almost worked, but in the end, he said there were too many lives being lost and he felt useless. He had to do something.”

  Rykerian looked at January and she nodded. There was more and Liasare knew the worst was yet to come. “Oh no. What is it?” she asked.

  “The Xanthians are using their famous nanochips to create their minions.”

  “What are you saying?” Liasare asked, her voice trembling.

  “Sit down Liasare.” It was Jurek who spoke and he didn’t suggest it, he demanded it. She obeyed him without hesitation. Oddly enough, even though the Yarristers and January were her family, now she felt they had betrayed her and Jurek was more family to her than they were.

  January knelt in front of her and told her how Tommy had instigated the whole thing. The Xanthians were implanting nanochips into the brains of the captives in order to create minions. Once the chips were implanted, the person would do whatever they were ordered. That’s why Tommy didn’t recognize Liasare when he saw her and it’s also why he shot her. The nanochip had taken over his brain. Tommy had uncovered this information and decided he would become an implant. The information he could attain this way would be invaluable to the Guardians in stopping the Xanthians.

  “But how are you going to retrieve this information?” Liasare wanted to know. “It would seem impossible once his brain is taken over.”

  “I implanted a recording device inside his body that sends us a constant stream of information.”

  “What if they kill him?”

  “We argued with him over that too, but he said it was a chance he was willing to take. I’ve been monitoring his brain activity and it’s similar to when a human is in a coma. Honestly, Liasare, if he were to die, he wouldn’t know it,” January explained. “It’s as if he is already dead.” Liasare trusted January’s knowledge here because she was a healer, or a Vesturion physician.

  “Don’t ever say that again and I would know, dammit! This is wrong on so many levels. Why wouldn’t you tell me any of this? How could you do this?”

  “We didn’t do it. He did. We tried and tried to talk him out of it. When he said he would do it with or without our blessing, we had no choice. No one, except Rykerian’s brothers know about this. The Guardians don’t know, Shandro doesn’t know, no one Liasare. Tommy wanted it that way.”

  “I’m going to tell Shandro. He helped me get to Earth and he’s been as troubled over all of this as I have. Tommy’s his best friend and it’s not fair that he should suffer as I have. Get him here right now,” Liasare insisted. She rubbed her arms and hugged them around herself, trying to dispel the ache in her stomach.

  January was still kneeling in front of her when Jurek came and took a seat next to her. “Come here,” he said as he pulled her to him again. Placing his hands on her head, she instantly felt relief. “Better?”

  “Yeah. Thanks, I needed that.”

  January kept eyeing them. Jurek wasn’t one to avoid an issue so he looked at her and their eyes met.

  “January, do you remember that day on Lare-Stell when neither of us could figure out why we had that strange connection?”

  January nodded, thinking back to that day, almost nineteen years ago. They had been arguing but for some reason, even though she was being held as a hostage, a bargaining tool really, they both liked each other … felt connected in some way. “Yeah ... seems like yesterday, doesn’t it?”

  He nodded, agreeing with her. “It’s Liasare. That’s the connection,” Jurek said. “And before you ask me anything else, don’t bother because I don’t have any answers for you. When I do, I’ll let you know.”

  She stared at him with a puzzled look on her face. His posturing, his stance toward Liasare, the way he hovered over her spoke volumes to January. She wondered how deeply involved they were with each other.

  Very, he answered her in her mind.

  Seconds later, the sounds of a teleporter were heard again and there stood Shandro. Liasare flew into his arms and let him hold her. He pressed her tightly to him, as Jurek sat and stared. His eyes narrowed and his mouth pressed into a thin line. Liasare felt his current of power notch up and she lifted her head to look at him. She immediately felt his anger; it created serious static charge in the air around her. Every hair on her body stood at attention.

  “Are you okay?” Shandro wanted to know.

  “Yes, I’m fine. I wanted you here so we could tell you what’s happened to Tommy.”

  “Is he ...?”

  “No! He’s alive, but you need to hear the whole story.” She stepped away from him then and returned to Jurek’s side. Her emotions were out of control, see sawing every which way. Shandro stared at her, then at Jurek and raised his brows. Jurek stood and angled his body in front of Liasare, partially blocking Shandro’s view of her.

  Jurek looked at Shandro and narrowed his eyes. You’d better keep your bloody hands and eyes off of her you little fucker.

  Liasare watched Jurek’s reaction and knew this was not going to be good. Oh great, just what I need now ... a testosterone showdown between Shandro and Jurek. And, lucky me, I know who the winner will be.

  Liasare grabbed Jurek’s arm and squeezed it, forcing him to look at her. “Not here, not now,” she whispered sternly.

  “What do you mean?” he asked innocently.

  “Ugh. You know exactly what I mean and don’t be such an ass,” she hissed.

  “Will someone tell me what’s going on?” Shandro asked.

  “Why don’t you fill lover boy in,” Jurek hissed back to Liasare.

  She cut him a withering look. “Stop it! This isn’t why we’re here! I need your support, not your annoying adolescent behavior.” Turning away from Jurek, she said, “Shandro, I think it’s best that you hear it from January. Her details are impeccable,” she said sarcastically.

  “Before this turns into a battle of the wills,” Xarrid interrupted, “let’s all remain calm here and let January speak.”

  When she finished telling the story, Shandro was livid...not only with her, but also with Tommy and himself, for not seeing what was happening. “So what are your next plans?” he asked Liasare.

  Turning to Jurek, she asked, “What are we going to do?”

  Jurek eyed Shandro before answering. “We are going back to Earth to continue with our plans, but we will no longer be looking for Thomas. We will try to shut down every warehouse the Xanthians have set up. My men will continue to intercept cargo vessels containing weapons and we will track all disappearances.” Then he turned to Xarrid and asked, “What are the Guardians’ plans?”

  “We want to uncover where they are taking all the abductees. They must have some sort of training base they are sending them to for further assimilation. The warehouses aren’t the answer.”

  Jurek rubbed his neck and said, “I agree. Right before we came here, Lare-Stell had been probed by a Xanthian bot and Ludo was analyzing the data. He came across some unusual things. I’ll find out what they were when I get back. There have been other disturbing things happening in the universe. There is a disruption of the normal flow of things. The Praestani feel it when we travel. We think it goes way beyond the Xanthi
ans.”

  “Explain,” Xarrid demanded.

  Jurek raised his brow for he wasn’t used to being addressed in that manner. Xarrid snorted, “Sorry man, you know how it is when you’re used to giving the orders.”

  “If it were anyone else Xarrid.”

  Xarrid laughed.

  “To your, er demand, we think they are amassing an army of sorts. And worse than that, we think it’s more than just the Xanthians.”

  Xarrid, Rykerian, Shandro and January looked at Jurek in alarm. “Jurek, can you please explain that to us?” It was Rykerian asking this time.

  Jurek began to pace and dragged his hands through his hair. “That’s the thing. That’s what’s so bloody irritating about all of this. We haven’t been able to figure it out. We know they’re taking people. We know they’re building an army. We also know there are creatures from the Dark reappearing.”

  “Stop! Please repeat that last bit,” Xarrid requested, in a deadly calm tone.

  “Listen, I know what you’re thinking, but hear me out. Liasare can attest to this because I shared a memory with her. We’ve seen the creatures of the Dark. I’ve personally taken out dozens. I have a hunch that they’re back, and it’s one hunch I hope I’m wrong about.”

  Rykerian pulled January into his arms. They looked at each other, communicating their fears. “Tell us about these creatures Jurek,” January asked.

  Liasare sat down on the sofa and hugged her knees to her chest. The thought of those creatures made her skin turn to ice, like a million frosty needles were piercing her everywhere. She shivered when she remembered the vision of Jurek’s memory. Shandro noticing her distress, made his way toward her when Jurek cut him off.

  “Don’t you dare touch her, Guardian,” he said, his voice laced with steel. “She’s off limits to you.”

  Shandro stopped dead in his tracks, looking at Jurek and then at Liasare. She couldn’t bring herself to look at Shandro. All eyes were on them again. It was evident Jurek was staking a claim, boldly and in front of everyone she cared about.

  Liasare looked at Jurek and he stared at her, daring her to say something. She wisely held her tongue, because she knew if she said anything, the silent battle between the three of them would erupt into something ugly and that was the last thing they needed.