Prism (Awakened Chronicles Book 3)

by Harley Austin

  “I think he was pumping Cierra all night,” Tyler groused.

  “Again?” Brayden raised his brow. “He’s going to end up knocking her up.”

  “I think he’s trying to.” Tyler didn’t look happy.

  “Alright you guys, knock it off,” Parker warned. “We all have our fav friends here. Tyler, no one complains about your monopolizing of Cierra. Bray, you sleep more with Bryn than me now. We’re all attracted in different ways; it’s not something to complain about. Truth be told, I’m surprised all of the women here aren’t sporting baby bumps already by now.”

  Both Tyler and Brayden agreed.

  “I think I’m just jealous of Dade,” Tyler admitted, loading a makeshift bench press bar with discs of thick ice they’d cut from the room.

  “I’m jealous of Dade too—” Brayden agreed. “Have you seen the guy in the shower? Now that’s packaging.” A soft whistle lifted from his lips.

  “Dude, Dade would make horses jealous,” Tyler agreed.

  “Jeeze you two. Just sleep with him.” Parker grinned.

  “He only likes girls, Parker.” Brayden assured. “Then again, so do you Chase.”

  “Sorry guys.” Tyler began lifting the bar, grunting. “You’re both hot. You’re not that hot.”

  “Sorry I’m late, guys.” Wynn entered the weight room. “Late night.”

  “We know,” both Tyler and Brayden grumbled.

  “Did I do something wrong?” Wynn looked at Parker. “She wasn’t that loud, was she?”

  Parker nodded.

  “I’m sorry.” Wynn frowned.

  “Cierra was supposed to sleep with me last night,” Tyler barely got the bar back to it’s makeshift cradle. He sat up on the ice bench.

  “She was? I didn’t think we were doing schedules.” Dade looked genuinely concerned. He’d been trying really hard lately not to just run roughshod over any of the others.

  “It wasn’t a schedule. We had a date. It’s my birthday today.”

  “It is? I’m sorry, Chase. Happy birthday. Honestly, I didn’t mean to crash your date. I wonder why didn’t she mention it?” Wynn asked.

  * * * * *

  The shower felt a little warmer than normal, the water actually felt hot instead of just less cold. Romero basked in the steam. She didn’t want to leave it.

  “How are you feeling?” Lear entered the back of the shower room. Romero was always intrigued by the intricate body tattoo, or whatever it was, that slinked and wrapped all around her from ankle to wrist.

  “Nice. The water’s warm today.”

  “It is warm.” She stepped into her shower next to Romero wetting her skin. “Hmmm.”

  “You always do that,” Lear looked at her.

  “Do what?”

  “Stare at me.”

  “Sorry. Your tattoo is amazing. I like looking at it.”

  “I like looking at you.”

  “You’ve said that before.”

  “It’s true.”

  “Your really nice-looking, Brooke, beautiful, but—I’m not like Bryn.”

  “I know. You only like the guys.”

  “How come you never sleep with any of them? They all want to sleep with you. Don’t you like guys?”

  “I do. They’ve all asked me. I’m just, not interested in going there right now. I might—later.”

  “Well, if I was a guy, I’d probably be wanting to date you sooner than later,” Romero offered.

  “You would?”

  “Any guy would.”

  “Why would you need to be a guy?”

  “I guess I’m just not into the same-sex thing,” Romero admitted. “Call me old fashioned.”

  “It’s not old fashioned at all. Same-sex couples have been together for eons.”

  “I know. The truth is, Brooke, I’m a lot like Dade. Both of us were raised in the church.”

  She chuckled. “You guys are hypocrites.”

  Romero nodded. She knew exactly what Lear was talking about. The church wasn’t big on sex if people weren’t officially married either, but that wasn’t exactly stopping her from sleeping with the guys. “You’re right. I am.”

  “I bet I could make you scream like Dade does,” Lear grinned.

  “I don’t scream.” Romero scowled. “Do I?”

  Lear nodded. “You do. I think it’s cute. You probably look really hot when you’re screaming.”

  “Speaking of hot, this water’s a little too hot now.”

  Lear nodded turning down the temp as the steam grew thicker in the room.

  “Now I wish I was a guy.” Lear admitted.

  “Why?”

  “Then I could sleep with you. And make you scream.”

  Romero blushed. “I wouldn’t want you to change, Brooke. You’re beautiful the way you are. If anything, if I were a guy, you’d be in serious trouble about now.”

  “I would?” Lear smiled with demure lips. She moved into Romero’s shower stream with her. “What kind of trouble?”

  Romero was a bit surprised by Lear’s move. She’d never been quite this forward before. Romero pushed Lear’s wet body against the wood wall of the room and held her there with her own, their breasts wet and sliding between each other’s. “Be glad I don’t have a cock the size of Dade’s right now, because I’d totally fuck you like there was no tomorrow.”

  Brook loosed a bated breath. “I’d let you.”

  “You would?”

  Lear nodded. “Would you kiss me as well?”

  Romero looked at Lear’s lips. The woman was beautiful. There was no denying their attraction. Could she really kiss another woman? Lear was just—Oh, what the hell. Romero felt Lear’s hands move down her back and over her ass as both sank their lips into each other’s.

  * * * * *

  “Where is all of the steam coming from?” O’Brien met the guys coming out of the gym room. It had lifted into the top most part of the hotel’s dome like a dense fog.

  “Looks like the shower room,” Wynn offered.

  “I know its coming from the shower room. Cierra and Brooke are in there right now. But we’ve been here for weeks. It’s never been this thick before.”

  “She’s right,” Parker agreed. “It’s never been this way. It’s always like cold steam.”

  “Maybe someone turned up the temperature?” Tyler asked.

  “Maybe they have. I’ve noticed the walls look a little more glossy than they usually do.”

  Both Romero and Lear emerged dressed from the room and still holding hands. Everyone was looking at the two of them.

  “What did you two do in there?” Wynn asked.

  “None of your business,” Lear defended.

  Wynn wasn’t in a joking mood. There was a lot of steam filling the dome of the hotel. But the nuance wasn’t lost on Brayden.

  “You two really heated up the showers, huh?” he pointed up. Both girls now looked at the clouds of steam filling the top of the room.

  “Oh—wow.” Romero’s eyes drew wide. “The water’s actually hot now. We may have let it run a bit longer than normal.”

  “Hot?” Both Wynn and Parker quickly moved past the girls to check out the showers. In a few minutes more steam was rolling out of the shower room again. A minute later both guys exited with the steam.

  “It is hot,” Parker confirmed. “Question is, why?”

  “Water that hot could start melting things in here.” Wynn didn’t look happy.

  “So we actually have hot water now? What’s the big deal?” O’Brien asked.

  “It’s not just hot water, Bryn. I think all of us have been noticing that things are warming up in here.”

  “But that would be a good thing? Right?” O’Brien asked.

  “No,” Wynn corrected. “That would be a bad thing. If the igloo melts, it will send water everywhere in here. If it melts too much then we lose our shelter from the elements above us. The way the wind blows around here, we’ll freeze to death from exposure.”

  “Why
would the temperature be going up?” Tyler asked. “We’re dug into a glacier. The wind outside is still just as cold.”

  “It could be whatever’s powering the cave.” Brayden offered.

  “I’ve wondered about that more than a few times,” Wynn agreed. “No one’s running power cables across a frozen mountain range in the Yukon.”

  “We are talking about the Seven, guys,” O’Brien corrected. “I’ve heard of the gods doing things a lot more miraculous than plugging in some remote shelter.”

  “I think you’re making Dade’s point, Bryn,” Parker agreed with her. Whatever is powering this place is going to be a little on the miraculous. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  “It maybe geothermal,” Tyler offered. This whole range of mountains is volcanic.”

  “But none of them have been anything close to active; not for centuries,” Brayden countered. He’d lived around the mountains all his life. None of them were active.

  “They don’t need to be active,” Tyler continued. “All you need is to sink a shaft down just deep enough to find either hot water or just hot rock. A little over two hundred degrees and you have instant and unlimited steam to generate all the electricity you need. I bet this place is geothermal powered.”

  “It sounds like you maybe right, Chase.” Parker agreed. It wouldn’t take much of a shaft to give us hot water and a little power to run the lights and kitchen in here.”

  “What would be heating up the water then?”

  “A problem,” Tyler frowned. “The thermal shaft is getting warmer for some reason.”

  “Maybe they sank it too deep?” Brayden offered.

  “That could be—or they cracked something open without realizing it.”

  “Are you saying they drilled into some volcano?” O’Brien asked.

  “All of the mountains here were formed from some kind of volcanic activity at some point. There could be all kinds of dormant magma fissures beneath us. It’s possible they cracked one open.”

  “What would that do?” Wynn asked.

  Tyler moved next to the wall of their ice cave slipping his finger along the normally dry wall. He pulled it back wet showing all of them. “This—”

  * * * * *

  Carissa fumed, pacing her apartment. She stood in front of a window with a near areal view of a beautiful Atlantean city, its golden spires, tall buildings, sweeping marine skyways alive with undersea traffic, and oblique domes that all shimmered with light giving the aquatic metropolis a deep sea illumination all its own.

  The ornate polished solid white granite stone door chimed softly and then slid almost silently open. Denton Dark entered the spacious luxury quarters to find his sister still glaring out the window. He took hold of her shoulders from behind and softly kissed the back of her head just behind her crown.

  “You’re not the only one who’s upset about this.” He moved to standing beside her.

  “Upset?” she fumed not looking at him. “Who’s upset? I’m not upset. Livid maybe. Furious.”

  “You forgot pissed.”

  She glared at him. “Carson has no idea who he’s dealing with. She’ll kill them. All of them.”

  “We’re following her. At some point she’ll lead us to them.”

  “It’s a dangerous move, Denton. Desperate.”

  “These are desperate times, Carissa. It’s not just Winter. She has Dade as well. And probably Lyris.”

  “I heard. She’s not just going to turn loose of seven newbloods. She’s like a cat. She’ll play with her prey until she’s bored and then—”

  “We won’t let her get that far.”

  “She slipped our grasp before, Denton.”

  “She won’t be able to now. Prince Ian is tailing her. Following her every move.”

  “Prince Ian? He’s a sun god—”

  Denton nodded. “Exactly. Interra is taking no chances.”

  Carissa seemed to relax a bit.

  “If anyone can find them, Ian can.”

  “Then I’m sure Prince Beau won’t be far behind.”

  “The Gemini are powerful, Carissa. They won’t let us down.”

  33

  R ain was falling constantly now inside the warming hotel space from dripping ice above them. Tiny to small streams ran along the floors that had turned to wet slush. Ironically, the only room that wasn’t raining was the Teak-lined shower room, because the wood walls, floor, and ceiling that prevented the warmer water from hitting the ice walls was now keeping the ever-dripping rain and melting snow away from them. The front of the shower room had become a makeshift bedroom with four of the airbeds lining either side of the front of the small room.

  Each had staked a claim to a shared mattress, except for Lear who seemed to want to have her own.

  “How long do you think this will last, before it caves in on us?”

  “Depends on how thick the ceiling is.” Wynn looked up at it. “We’re down pretty deep. Could be a week, maybe months.”

  “Well the good news is, it’s getting warmer,” Romero rolled onto her back with one of the many paperback novels that had been stocked in the hotel.

  “And the bad news is,” Brayden mused, “it’s still winter in the middle of the Yukon, but this glacier’s melting like it’s summer in Florida.”

  A low rumble followed by cracking ice above in the main part of the hotel got all of their attention.

  “That wasn’t just a moving glacier; that was a tremor.” Parker assured looking up.

  “Tyler,” Wynn looked at him lying on his elbows beside him, a sci-fi paperback in his hands. “What mountain range do you think this is?”

  “Definitely the Coast Mountains. There are permanent glaciers everywhere. Maybe somewhere close to Mount Logan.”

  “And you’re sure Canada doesn’t have any active volcanoes?” O’Brien asked Brayden.

  “No. We don’t.” Brayden assured. “I’ve lived and traveled all over British Columbia and the Northwest. The last volcano to go off was Saint Helens, and that was decades ago. There’s nothing active this far north.”

  “Well something’s active now, and it’s warming this place up.”

  “We need to get off this mountain.” Tyler sat up on his knees closing the book.

  “And go where, Chase?” Wynn asked. “Dead is dead. If you go out there now, you’ll freeze to death inside of a day.”

  “And if we stay here we’ll be buried.”

  “Maybe not. Let’s not tempt fate. We’re still safer here than out there. At least in here we have food and shelter. Even power.”

  The lights flickered as another tremor rumbled softly beneath them.

  “You were saying?” Romero got to her knees on her sleeping bag.

  * * * * *

  “But—but, Rigel! I did everything you asked!”

  “Indeed you did, my dear, and then some.” Christie heard his voice on the other end of the phone. “Unfortunately, you allowed yourself to get captured. You used Seven assets to negotiate your way out of incarceration. The Sentinels are obviously watching your every move. I’m sorry, my dear, but your usefulness to us is now at its end.”

  “You can’t term me! I—I’m a soldier of the Seven!”

  “Were.” Was all he said before the line went dead.

  Rigel tapped off his phone. He tapped up another contact as video appeared on the screen. “Ah, Brad, good evening.”

  “Rigel. It’s always a pleasure.”

  “I have a little job for you and your team.”

  “A challenge this time, I hope?”

  “Unfortunately, no; not this time. I just need you to clean up a very small loose end for me, a halfblood—”

  “The cruise line scout? Christine I believe?”

  “I do so appreciate how well you do your homework, Brad. Yes, the very same.”

  “No problem. Anything else?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact. I’ll need you to retrieve a small group of mundane newbloods from one of our holding f
acilities, in the Yukon …”

  34

  S haking, rumbling ground was followed by deafening crashes of massive ice falling in the dark of night, followed even bigger tremors than they’d felt so far. All of them now found themselves scrambling onto Lear’s bed huddled and holding each other as the massive avalanche of ice and snow boomed all around them. The aftershocks of falling ice continued for long minutes after the tremors had ceased. Pulses pounded and a freezing cold chill quickly returned to the once warm room that was now pitch dark.

  “Everyone okay?” Romero asked.

  “Fine.” Parker was first to speak up.

  “I’m okay,” Tyler said.

  “Brooke and I are okay,” O’Brien assured, even though Lear said nothing. Both were clinging to each other.

  “I’m okay,” Wynn assured.

  “Bray, you okay?” Parker asked.

  But there was no answer.

  “BRAY!” Parker stood up and promptly bumped his head on some ice that had crashed though the wooden box that was lining their now very cool room.

  Then all of them heard a familiar voice on the other side of the ice, muffled by snow and debris. “Parker? Bryn?!”

  “Bray! Are you okay?!” Parker’s heart skipped a couple of beats after hearing his voice.

  “Yea. Fine. The whole placed caved in out here. We have an outdoor kitchen now.”

  “Very funny.”

  “He needs to get out of that cold before he freezes to death.” Wynn began digging through the soft snow between the massive chunks of ice until he punched through and could feel Brayden’s cold hands on the other side. Slowly the two managed to pull Brayden through the small tunnel and into their now very small and very dark igloo-like shower room.

  “Jesus, you’re cold,” Parker hugged him.

  “It’s really cold out there now.”

  “What do we do?” O’Brien asked, still holding on to Lear.

  “We wait, for now,” Wynn said. “What do you think, Cierra?”

  “I agree. We can’t see a thing until light. Then we’ll see what kind of damage was done. In the mean time, everyone pair up again. It’s going to get cold in here tonight.”