“I’m counting on it. No matter what happens, don’t ever take off this ring. They’re very good about coercion.”
He nodded.
“What about Signature? Without me or Parker, Christie will just take over.”
“We have people that will watch your company. Besides, Christie doesn’t care about your company.”
“She doesn’t?”
“No. That’s not her job.”
“What do you mean, that’s not her job?”
“She’s not who you think she is, Brayden. She was like you once. Not any more.”
“Like me, how?”
“Shhhh,” Carissa lifted her unclothed body from Brayden’s to kiss him sweetly on the lips. Her will entered his through the invisible tendril from her mind. The tiny psionic jolt was subtle. When she pulled away he was fast asleep. She watched him sleeping. He was just as beautiful as her Winter. Only with dark hair. “Gods, you guys. What am I going to do with two of you?”
She slipped out of bed and dressed, then quietly left the room, closing the door behind herself.
23
P arker was pretty sure something more than just routine incarceration was happening after he’d been ushered onto a helicopter with two other people he’d never seen before along with what looked like a platoon of heavily armed SWAT guards. Obviously prisoners of some sort, the three of them looked at each other saying nothing as the helicopter lifted from a Helijet pad next to Vancouver Harbor.
Instead of the typical oversized prisoner-orange jumpsuit, all three had been dressed in two-toned grey and charcoal-grey insulated body suits that reminded Parker of running tights, only these were thicker with some kind of thin insulation layered into the snug stretch fabric. The left chest of each of their tight shirts had an odd-looking barcode and number, along with a name. “Parker-7” was what he could read of his. The other guy sitting across from him looked younger, maybe eighteen or nineteen. He had a build a lot like Parker’s own, but much slimmer and just about as tall. “Tyler-13” was printed on his left chest. The teen was nice looking too. Really nice looking; with a hip millennial haircut, thin defined facial features and a dimpled chin. Parker met eyes with him a few times as both more or less studied each other from head to toe. Two burly guards sat between Tyler-13 and a standout busty female probably in her early twenties. Her very long dark hair had been pulled back into a ponytail and accentuated her smooth olive skin. Her thin waist, curvy hips and Latin ass had not gone unnoticed by Parker or Tyler as she’d taken her seat on the other side with the guards. “Romero-1” was printed across the top of her left breast. As beautiful the Latino was, Romero didn’t look especially interested in meeting eyes with anyone at the moment.
* * * * *
Brayden sat flipping through some magazines, none of which were keeping his attention. He’d been waiting for maybe an hour in the small room with the big mirror. He figured someone was watching him. He had no idea who.
When the door opened he was surprised, not shocked, but surprised to see not just a pair of Canadian police, but Christie as well.
“Hello, Brayden. Surprised to see me?”
He winced at her. “Not really.”
“I find that a little intriguing.” She sat down across the table from him. “I would expect you to be shocked.”
“Nothing about you surprises me anymore, Christie. Not after what your did to Mauri and Jack.”
“Jack was a tool, Brayden. A little too unstable. He’s in a better place now.”
“And Mauri, is she in a better place now too?”
“I needed Mauri to make this look official. It’s official.” She smiled. “Now no one will care about a couple of guys who got arrested for murder one and sent to some Canadian prison somewhere—eventually to be forgotten.”
“Prison? What no trial?”
“I’ve already tried you. You’re guilty.”
“Of what?”
“Oh, they haven’t told you?”
“No one’s told me anything,” he scowled.
“You have the bad-boy genes.” She offered him a wry plastic smile.
“’Bad-boy’ genes?” he returned an incredulous glare.
“That’s right. It took me only a minute to figure out Parker was hot. He and I were attracted right of the bat. I had him fucking me the first night we met. You guys are always like that.”
Brayden just watched her, still glaring.
“But imagine my surprise when I walked in on the two of you doing the nasty. That was just too much luck to have for one little cruise. And you were already on the boat. What luck, huh?”
“I still have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Good. Let’s keep it that way.”
“What’s going to happen to me?”
“You’ll see, Brayden. For now, we’ll put you on ice.” She got up to leave. “Oh, and by the way, the little trinket you’re wearing—” she pointed to his hand. “You’ll be leaving that behind.”
“Go to hell.”
“That’s funny. Parker said the exact same thing.” She smiled and left.
* * * * *
The five-hour jet helicopter ride included several stops for refueling over some of the most densely forested, glacier mountain terrain Parker had ever seen. It was a lot different than seeing the mountains from the vantage point of the cruise ship. These mountains looked not just pristine and beautiful, but ruggedly dangerous as well.
The winds around the mountains whipped their helicopter like a toy until it landed in the middle of a wide glacier. The three of them were ushered off the chopper and then all watched as it lifted away leaving them standing alone on the side of the mountain glacier in the freezing wind. Even in their insulated running gear it was getting colder by the minute.
They all looked around in silence at the white mountainous terrain and then at each other. The wind wasn’t just from the chopper taking off. It was blowing down the glacier with gusts of snow hard enough to obscure anything more than a few hundred yards away.
“There!” Romero pointed. All of them looked to see something like a short grotto of some kind. All three moved at a half run through the blowing snow to the short entrance of an ice cave. It wasn’t very tall and not very visible from anywhere. Each stooped to enter the short crevasse but within a few yards the ice cave opening grew taller and taller until the top of the cave was easily twelve feet above them. Warm-toned electric-flamed lamps illuminated the interior of what was obviously a tunnel roughly dug into deep ice of the glacier. The three followed the lights through the tunnel until they came to a sheer drop of about fifty feet. Stairs had been cut into the ice and descended into a huge domed room of rooms with nice, not expensive, but nice furniture.
“It’s like an ice hotel,” Tyler spoke first.
Romero nodded, folding her arms, not looking happy. “You mean prison,” her Portuguese accent evident.
“Can either of you tell me what we’re doing here?” Parker asked.
Both Romero and Tyler looked at each other and then both looked at Parker.
“You really don’t know—?” Romero met eyes with him for the first time.
“Am I supposed to?”
24
Y ou’re here because you’re attractive, Parker.” Tyler began moving down the steps and down into the dome of the large ice hotel—or prison rather, as Romero had just called it. The place appeared to be empty except for the three of them.
Parker followed Tyler down the stairs, followed by Romero. “Attractive? I’m assuming you’re not talking about my charming personality.”
“It has nothing to do with your personality,” Romero offered from behind him. Her voice softly echoed a bit through the room. “It’s your blood they don’t like.”
“The government has something against people with O Negative?”
“Most of us are O Negative.” Romero offered. “But that’s not why they hate us.”
“Am I missing some nua
nce here in the Millennial vernacular? Because I have absolutely no idea what the two of you are even talking about. So I’m ‘attractive’ with O Negative blood. Big deal.”
Tyler and Romero stood next to each other in the lobby area of the hotel. The air was cool but it wasn’t unbearable in their insulated tights. Something was keeping the temperature in the ice cave tolerable. Still, it was cool enough that it left all three of them with obviously visible breath and cold nipples.
“It is a big deal, Parker,” Tyler assured. “It means the government can make us into gods.”
“Gods?”
“Like the Nephilim,” Romero added.
“Nephilim?” Parker raised his brow. “Like in the Bible? Half man and half god?”
Both nodded.
“Define ‘god’?”
“It depends on your genetics,” Romero began.
“And the donor,” Tyler added.
Romero agreed. “If our blood comes in contact with one, you become superhuman. Just like they are.”
“With one? One of what—?”
“A god, Parker.” Tyler leveled. “You need to pay attention here.”
Parker was still fuzzy on the whole ‘god’ thing. “So if some ‘god’ touches me I’ll become superhuman?”
“It takes a little more than just touch,” Romero walked past him into the main seating area of the dome, her shoulder brushing his as she waked past. Both followed her. The ceiling in the center of the room was easily eighty feet above them.
“How much more. Like a kiss?”
“No, kissing usually doesn’t work, although, I’ve heard it can if they bite you,” Romero began. “Having sex with one usually does. One bleeding on you definitely does it. Their blood has to infect yours.”
“This is nonsense.” Parker’s tone grew incredulous.
“Yea. You’re right. It’s all nonsense, Parker.” Tyler agreed, his sarcasm thick. “That’s why someone just went to the time and expense of arresting you for something you probably didn’t do, shipping you and the two of us on an expensive chopper to god only knows where, probably the Yukon, so we could vacation rent-free in an ice palace for the next few years.”
Parker just stared at the both of them. Romero shrugged, her arms folded. Parker closed his eyes, shaking his head. “God, this is not happening to me.”
* * * * *
Brayden’s ring bounced and skidded across the concrete floor with a heavy thudded chime before it rolled and came to rest next to the wall. One person lay dead in front of him with three others waiting to be executed if he didn’t do as she’d demanded. Smoke was still rising from Christie’s weapon.
“You’re pretty pathetic, Brayden. I got to two before Parker did that.”
Brayden glared at her through welling eyes and anger.
“Tell you what? Let’s even the score so poor Parker doesn’t feel bad, shall we?”
“NOOO!”
She took aim.
Brayden closed his eyes just as the loud pop of the single shot rang out.
25
W hat are you doing up here?” Romero found Parker at the cave entrance staring at the blowing snow outside.
“Trying to keep my distance from the two of you.”
“And how long are you going to keep that up? A month? A week? A few days?”
Parker pursed his lips. She was already on his genetic radar somehow. He wasn’t even looking at her. That only made things worse.
“Are all of you like this?”
“Not all. Evidently the three of us are however. We’re going to crash in one of the cave rooms. Three warm bodies are better than one.”
“I won’t—” Parker sighed, not finishing his thought.
“Won’t what?”
“Be able to keep my hands off of you. Either of you.”
“No one’s really expecting you to.”
“Jesus, Romero. I can’t—it’s like I’m hungry around the two of you—all the time.”
“We feel the same way when you’re in the room, Parker.”
“I know you do. That’s the problem.”
“Parker,” she moved herself up close to him, her hand resting on his chest. His arms wrapped around her as one of his palms instinctively found her ass. “We’re going to get out of this.”
“You’re just saying that.”
“Hope is better than despair.”
Parker nodded.
“Besides,” she palmed his ass with her hand pulling his front close to hers. “I’m into older guys.”
“Thirty-two is older, huh?”
“Forty is better, but you’ll pass. Let’s go keep warm.”
* * * * *
Tyler pulled the now steaming hot breakfast entrée from the microwave and set it onto a plate. Parker walked up with a hot cup of something that passed for coffee from another kitchen device, a machine that reminded him of something McDonald’s would use to brew coffee. He used the term coffee very loosely.
“Hey, good morning.”
“Hey.” Tyler didn’t look at him.
“You okay?”
“Fine.”
“You don’t look fine.”
“I’ll be alright.”
Parker had already been feeling Tyler’s jealously since before the three of them had even gone to bed. The guy had some deep feelings for Romero.
“I take it you two have some history?”
“I said I’ll be fine.”
“Tyler, I didn’t know.” Parker offered.
“Well, now you do.”
“This is a really sucky culture you people have.”
“You people?” Tyler looked at him now. “You are ‘our people’, Parker. And you’re right. It can be sucky.”
He walked off with Parker following him to a table.
“We’re going to have to find a way to get along.” Parker sat down, not close too him, but far enough away to give the guy some space.
“We’ll be alright.”
“Not if your feelings are hurt we won’t.”
Tyler started eating.
“Listen I’ll sleep in a different room if it will make you feel any better.”
Tyler sighed. “And freeze?” He gave Parker a frown.
“It’s not that cold in here. I can sleep in my clothes.”
Tyler seemed to be paying more attention to his breakfast than their conversation.
Parker got up from the table. “Sorry I brought it up. Just trying to help.”
Tyler sighed. He set down his fork. Parker waited, watching him.
“It’s not your fault.” Tyler offered, not looking at him.
Parker sat down again, moving his chair closer to Tyler’s.
“I’ve known Cierra Romero for a few months now. We’ve been through a lot in that time. I’ve been through a lot.”
“She helped you get through some tough times.”
“More than you know. I’m not exactly a strong person. I’m not like you. I didn’t even get the chance to graduate from high school before they took me, Parker.”
“Winter. The name’s Winter.”
He nodded. “Chase.”
“Well, I’m going to tell you what Romero told me last night—we’re going to get out this. All of us.”
“Sure we are.”
“Someone will find us, Chase.”
“No they won’t. The government’s been doing this to us for years, Park—Winter.”
“Doing what with us?”
“Who knows? I guess we’re about find out.”
Parker nodded and then stood.
“Hey, Winter.” Tyler stood up. “I know this attraction thing can be, a little weird to deal with. But just the same, I—ah, didn’t exactly have a bad time last night. With both of us sleeping with Romero.”
“No?” Parker half smiled.
“No.”
“I think she likes you,” Parker added. “I mean, more than just because of the attraction thing.”
“No,
she likes guys like you. It’s more than just the attraction thing. She likes older guys. It’s her thing. I’m not exactly there yet. I guess that’s why I got upset.”
“We’re all kind of a mess at the moment,” Parker nodded.
“At least we’re keeping warm.” Tyler managed a half grin.
Parker smiled. “Your breakfast is getting cold.”
“It’s fifty degrees in here Parker, it’s already cold.”
* * * * *
“Are you two okay?” Romero was sitting up on the ice bed in the hotel-sized room. Insulated mats and a tall air cushion mattress separated the thick down sleeping bags they’d zipped together into one bag for the three of them to sleep in the night before.
“We’re fine.” Parker relaxed onto the bed next to her. She still hadn’t dressed from the night before, her clothes still probably lost somewhere under her covers. “He likes you. A lot.”
“I know he does. He needs to like himself as well.”
“I think he’ll get there. He told me your name, Cierra. It’s beautiful.”
She smiled. “Does everyone call you ‘Parker’?”
“They do, actually. But it’s ‘Winter’, if you want to know.”
“I think I like ‘Parker’ better.”
“You’re not the first person to say that.”
He watched her fishing for her clothes under the covers.
“You seem to know the most about what’s going on with us.”
“I only know what I hear.” She slipped her tights on over her legs under the covers.
“So you don’t know what they’re doing with us?”
“Some of us get recruited. I know that much.”
“Recruited? To do what, for who?”
“The government.”
“Canada?”
“You don’t know much about us do you?”
“All I know is what you’ve told me. Everyone seems bent on keeping me in the dark.”
“Canada is part of the government, Parker. The Commonwealth.”
Prism (Awakened Chronicles Book 3) Page 9