Prism (Awakened Chronicles Book 3)

by Harley Austin

“That’s hardly a secret. It’s all part of the former British empire.”

  “There’s nothing former about it.” She found her shirt and let her covers fall away while she quickly put it on in the chilly air. Romero had a chest that was slightly too large for her frame. Her smooth olive breasts with darker tall nipples stood off her chest and seemed to defy gravity. He watched her pull on the insulated top of her bodysuit and then fix her hair back into a ponytail. “It’s worldwide, Parker. You think America declared independence from the Crown back in the seventeen hundreds. All it did was seed a new territory for others to come in later and buy up. You people aren’t free. None of us are.” She slipped off the other side of the bed and into her shoes.

  Parker stood and followed her back to the kitchen part of their hotel.

  “So what are they doing with us?” Parker watched her vend some coffee from the machine’s black tap. She took a sip. The look on her face told him she’d tasted better. “Experiments?”

  She shook her head. “Not that I’ve ever heard. They want to recruit and train us.”

  “To do what?”

  “Whatever they need. There’s a war going on, Parker. The biggest war you have never seen or heard about.”

  “Between who?”

  She met eyes with him taking another sip. “The gods.”

  26

  P ARKER. ROMERO.” Both heard Tyler call out from the dining room part of the hotel. Both left the kitchen and met him standing in the center lobby looking up at the top of the elegant curved ice stairs that led down to the floor of the hewn ice cave. “Looks like we have company.”

  The three of them looked up to see four more young people standing at the ledge of the stairs, all of them dressed in same two-toned grey-dark bodysuits—two women and two guys—one of whom Parker recognized immediately!

  Brayden had seen him first. He’d already left the others and was descending the stairs quickly. Both met on the wide middle landing and immediately pulled each other into a tight lip-locked an ass-gripping embrace.

  Romero raised her brow looking at Tyler, who just watched the two men kiss like it would be their last.

  The other three incarcerates descended the stairs slowly until they surrounded the embracing guys.

  “God, I thought I’d never seen you again!” Parker kissed him.

  “I thought the same thing.” Brayden returned his kiss with a vengeance.

  One of the young women standing next to the two kissing guys, a fair-skinned early twenty-something with auburn-red hair leaned in close to the slightly taller white-haired beauty who’d descended the stairs with her. “Why don’t you ever kiss me like that?” Her words were thickly accented with her Irish heritage.

  The white-haired woman, about her age, nudged her Irish friend playfully, completely enthralled by the two early thirty-something guys who’d now stopped lip locking and just held each other close. Jesus they were both hot on her genetic radar.

  “Parker,” Brayden pulled back to look at the others he’d been traveling with. “What are you doing here?”

  “I was about to ask you the same question.”

  “I thought I’d never see you again.”

  “I was beginning to wonder the same. Who are your friends?” Parker asked now looking at the three.

  “Oh,” both pulled away from their embrace but never stopped touching each other. “This is Bryn …” Her uniform read ‘O’Brien-4’.

  “Pleasure to meet you, Parker.” She shook his bare hand with her gloved one. Her Irish accent easily matched her last name. Her fair skin, high cheek dimples and full lips were haloed by bountiful waves of auburn-red hair.

  “Likewise.” He smiled.

  “Her friend Brooke …” Brayden continued. The white-haired girl standing next to O’Brien was slightly taller, maybe five-ten or eleven, and like O’Brien, sported her own version of drop-dead curves. The name printed on her shirt read ‘Lear-2’. Parker locked eyes with her immediately and never let go.

  “Whoa—simmer down there, buddy.” Brayden put his hand on Parker’s chest, drawing his eyes back to his own. “I need you to focus.”

  “I am focused,” Parker assured. He smiled at Lear again; she returned the smile with one of her own, her eyes never leaving his as the two shook hands.

  “And this is Dade.”

  He didn’t want to, but Parker unglued his smile from Lear to shake hands with the new guy. Dade looked to be about the same age as Tyler, maybe a little older. The shortest of all of the guys at probably six feet, Dade had definitely been dating a gym for the past few years at least. The guy was built and cut like a someone from the cover of a Muscle Fitness magazine. Like the rest of the guys, Dade had handsome down well. He wasn’t cute like Tyler, but instead held a damn impressive look that dripped with confidence. The print on his broad-wide and thick-cut chest read ‘Wynn-1’.

  All of them descended the stairs to the lobby floor where both Romero and Tyler now each exchanged hello’s while genetics quickly took center stage among the group. They were all attractive and all attracted; it was just a matter of who was being more attracted to whom. In moments it was clear that the white-haired Lear had the attention of the men in the group. The woman’s genetics were practically catnip.

  Brayden seemed to be in the most control of his hormones, at least at the moment, as he looked around at all of the very comely faces. “It looks like they’re gathering newbloods.”

  “Newbloods?” Parker asked. “What is that? Exactly.”

  “They’ll tell you—” Brayden pointed at O’Brien and Lear. “I think they know the most about what’s going on.”

  “You know why we’re here?” Parker asked.

  “It’s because you’re a god, Parker.” Her Irish accent thick. “You just don’t know it yet.”

  “I keep hearing that,” he frowned.

  “She’s right.” Romero spoke up. The two new girls weren’t the only newbloods who knew the score. “They want to recruit us. Turn us into their soldiers.”

  “They don’t want just soldiers.” Wynn offered. “They want soldiers they can control. That’s why they only take the younger ones. In fact, I’m surprised you two are even here,” Wynn stated. “They usually don’t let the older ones live—long.”

  “Maybe they’re running out of people to find?” O’Brien asked. “Newbloods are rare now.”

  “Maybe not rare enough. Look at this place.” Wynn had already been studying the dome and lobby. “They were expecting to put dozens of us in here.”

  “Maybe there’s going to be more to come?” Parker offered.

  “I don’t think so,” Romero ventured. “They’ve been having a harder and harder time finding people like us.”

  “It feels like others have been here before.” O’Brien lifted her arms while looking around the huge space.

  “Maybe we’re the last then?” Tyler added.

  “Let’s hope not,” Romero frowned.

  Parker watched O’Brien move slowly through the space, touching things with her bare hands. “You mean they’ve had other people locked up here? Others who can become one of these gods?”

  “That’s why they took us, Parker,” Wynn wasn’t looking happy. “I’m a little amazed there are this many of us after what I’ve been hearing.”

  “What have you heard?” Tyler asked. “Who told you?”

  “The guards, mostly. They’re having a harder and harder time harvesting us. Either we’re all dead or we’ve gotten a lot better at hiding. Let’s hope it’s the latter.”

  Everyone except Parker and Brayden were nodding.

  “I guess we’re the unlucky ones then,” Brayden frowned.

  “Unlucky? You guys both look at least thirty,” Wynn half glared at the two of them.

  Both Parker and Brayden nodded.

  Wynn’s gaze narrowed. “So how do you get to be thirty and not get found out?” He raised a brow at Parker and then Brayden.

  “Yea,” Tyler agreed
. “That’s a really good question.”

  “It is a good question.” Romero assured. “The answer is, you don’t.”

  “You think maybe they’re already working for the Seven?” Lear asked looking at the younger faces.

  “How well do you know this guy, Romero?” Wynn asked, nodding at Parker.

  “We just met yesterday on the chopper that brought us here. Tyler and I have been together for months. What about his friend? How long has he been with you?”

  “Just a couple of days. Then they brought all of us here.”

  “Hey, wait a minute,” Brayden began smelling something he suddenly didn’t like. “We’re just like all of you are.”

  “Oh, no you’re not,” Tyler countered. “You’re older. Cierra’s right. That never happens. Unless you’re already working for the Seven.”

  The others began surrounding the two guys.

  “We’re not working for anyone.” Parker defended. “I don’t know who you’re talking about. The seven what?”

  “You can’t be this naïve,” Wynn retorted. “All of the newbloods know something. No one as old as you two are is that dumb.”

  “I’d never even heard the term ‘newblood’ until today.” Parker defended. He was growing a little nervous. It was just he and Brayden against the five of them. He might be able to take two of the girls in a fight if that’s where things were going, but Wynn alone could probably take him out and not even slow down.

  “Parker?” Brayden pushed back to back with him, a sudden nervous tone in his voice while the others moved around them not looking happy. “Tell me you brought your magic ring—”

  “They took it, Bray,” Parker frowned looking over his shoulder.

  “Ring?” O’Brien’s brow lifted. “What ring?”

  “The one my fiancé gave me. Carissa Dark.”

  Suddenly the five of them were looking at each other with wide eyes.

  “‘Dark’—” Wynn took a step back. “Fiancé? You were engaged to a Dark?”

  Parker nodded. “She gave me a ring,” Parker described it. “But the police forced me to give it to them.”

  “Yea, those weren’t police, Parker,” Romero corrected. “They were agents of the Seven. You shouldn’t have given it to them.”

  “I didn’t have a choice,” he glared. “They were killing people—right in front of me. I had to.”

  The group surrounding Parker and Brayden seemed to be studying each other for long moments.

  “What do you think, guys?” Romero asked. “We’ve all heard what the rings can do. Having one of those could certainly keep you from getting spotted.”

  They all nodded.

  “The Dark clan must have been protecting them,” Lear offered.

  “That’s possible.” Wynn agreed, his tone softening.

  “Give me your hand, Parker,” O’Brien was slipping off her glove.

  “Careful, Bryn,” Wynn warned. “He might already be awakened.”

  “He’s not. I’d know.”

  Parker held out his hand. The moment he felt her bare fingers touch his—it was like he could feel her, all over inside him.

  “You’re not exactly what I was expecting, Parker,” he felt her speak to him within his feelings. It startled him for only a moment.

  “What were you expecting?”

  “A spy. Your Carissa—she’s beautiful. I can see her, I mean, I can feel how you see her. You’re still in love with her.”

  “Very.”

  “You haven’t seen her in a while. Why?”

  “I thought she was dead. Now I really don’t think she is.”

  “She gave you a ring. Astonishing.”

  “Are you reading my mind?”

  “No. Just your feelings. You’re in love with Brayden as well.”

  “Kind of.”

  “You can’t lie to an empath, Parker. Not kind of. You are in love with him.”

  “I guess.”

  “You guess. You’re a piece of work, Parker. Most people never fall in love with one person. You’re in love with two.”

  She touched him in a way that somehow released intimate memories of both Carissa and Brayden instantly through his feelings. Parker drew a sudden breath. “God—” audibly fell out of his mouth.

  Wynn was suddenly between them pulling their hands apart. “That’s enough, Bryn.” He groused.

  “Don’t—” she jerked her wrist out of Wynn’s grasp, “touch me.”

  Wynn fumed. “Sorry, it just—looked,” he didn’t finish.

  “Ever!” she groused.

  Wynn frowned. He glared at Parker and let go of his arm.

  “Bryn?” Lear looked at her? “What is he?”

  O’Brien put her glove back on. “He’s one of us. They both are. Mundane newbloods.”

  “Was he really engaged to a Dark?” Lear asked, one of her white brows elegantly lifted.

  “He was. Probably still is.”

  “What do you mean, ‘probably’? Is he or isn’t he?” Wynn asked.

  “She died several years ago.” Parker offered. “At least that’s what I thought until a few of weeks ago. Now I’m not so sure.”

  “Yea, well you can stop worrying about that, Parker.” Brayden entered the conversation. “Carissa’s alive.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I talked to her. In the flesh.” Brayden looked him in the eyes.

  Parker took hold of Brayden’s arms. Partially because he was astonished and partially because he needed someone to steady him. His mind buzzed in disbelief. “Tell me you’re not joking.”

  “No. Winter. Honest to God. She found me at the pub close to our apartment. We talked. She sent me to find you. Even game me another ring.”

  “They tortured other people didn’t they? To make you give it to them?”

  Brayden nodded, frowning. “I was supposed to use it to find you. Carissa told me not to take it off. Looks like I’m not as strong as I thought.”

  “That’s no measure of strength, Michaels.” Romero read Brayden’s last name on his snug shirt. “The Seven are evil. They’ve been killing us for centuries. The halfbloods for millennia.”

  “Halfblood?” Parker asked.

  “Your fiancé is part of a clan of demigods, Parker. Half human, half god. The Dark are the muscle behind the Dominion.”

  “You mean like the church?” Brayden asked.

  “Dominion isn’t really a church.” Romero continued. “I mean it is, but that’s not really its purpose. Not anymore anyway.”

  “I thought Dominion was like a cult?” Parker looked confused.

  “Depends on who you ask.” O’Brien offered.

  “What I want to know is why this Carissa just left you?” Tyler entered the conversation.

  “That’s what I would like to know as well?” Wynn’s curious stare had grown suspicious again.

  “He was dating a demigoddess,” O’Brien assured. “I could feel her within his feelings.”

  “Why did she dump him?” Wynn asked.

  “She didn’t. Not that I could feel.”

  “She must have had a reason?” Romero moved around the two guys still surrounded by the five of them. “You’re in love with someone and then you just fake your death and leave?”

  “I don’t know.” Parker had no clue why Carissa might do something like this. But whatever the reason, he knew it would have been necessary. Carissa wouldn’t have just done something like this to him unless she had no other choice. He turned to Brayden. “Did she say why?”

  Brayden shook his head. “We talked, but, she kept being evasive, like she didn’t want me knowing too much.”

  Parker pursed his lips.

  “That’s a Dark M.O., for sure.” Wynn agreed. “The less you know the safer you’ll be.”

  “The Seven must have found out about her; they may have been tailing her—she didn’t want them finding you,” O’Brien nodded to Parker.

  “Carissa wouldn’t give me any de
tails,” Brayden began, “but from what she said, I think that’s exactly what happened. I kept trying to press her for who she worked for, CIA, DHS; she wouldn’t tell me.”

  “That’s because the Dark are DDF,” Wynn began. “Dominion Defense Force. The biggest armed forces you’ve never heard of; and never will see. The army of the gods.”

  Parker shook his head. He was still trying to get his head around this whole gods and demigods thing.

  “Then, if your Carissa is DDF,” Lear began, her voice quite and almost musical, “the Dark must know we’re here.”

  “Not,” Wynn dowsed. “They dumped their rings. They’ll have no idea where we are now.”

  Both Brayden and Parker frowned.

  “It’s alright,” O’Brien moved up to Parker. “Dade lost his ring as well.”

  Parker suddenly looked up at Wynn. “Did they—?”

  Wynn nodded. “Don’t ask me how many died before I gave it to them.”

  Parker nodded.

  27

  T heir ice hotel had seemed large, but after a few hours of exploring the space, the half football field-sized space wasn’t feeling all that big with seven people occupying it. There were only ten hotel-sized rooms, common bathroom and hot shower facilities, a kitchen, and an open pantry well-stocked with enough frozen meals that would last for months with just the seven of them. Something supplied the hotel with power, but it sure wasn’t obvious where it came from.

  Brayden and Parker had paired up in their own room. Each room appeared a little different, as if whomever had decided that the décor of each small area needed its own unique artistic touches. Their room was a series of floor-to-ceiling semi-transparent foot-thick ice panels arranged in an offset design to conceal the sleeping area at the back of the frigid room. Cool blue lighting illuminated the panels and the ice block that formed the base of their bed in the back of the room. Aside from the thick airbed mattress and arctic sleeping bags, there wasn’t much to their room, or any of the other rooms for that matter. One thing the ice rooms did provide, they were quiet, naturally insulated from outside noise.

  “I just can’t believe she’s alive.” Parker had been in an up-mood all day.