Axel glared. “Can’t you be a little more specific?”
Gina pushed several buttons on the panel. “State precise location of the coordinates last entered,” she ordered.
Temple Of the Moon, Machu Picchu.
Gina smiled. “Machu Picchu—it’s so beautiful there. Perhaps Sugar just went to mediate. The energy is quite wonderful in the Andes. I’ve visited Machu Picchu many times. I even took a lover with me once.”
“A lover? Since when do you have lovers?” Axel asked.
Gina looked at her brother. “For many years, Axel. I gave up my vow of chastity before I turned two hundred. My first regeneration is only seventy-five years away. I’m not interested in a mate yet, but I’m not ready to die either. I have much work to do.”
“I’m sorry for your primarily human genetics, Gina. I’m grateful not to have any more humanity than I do.”
Gina laughed at Axel’s rude comment. “Isn’t mourning your hybrid-Lyran genetics a bit hypocritical for someone who publicly claimed a human mate?”
“No. All males have weaknesses. Sugar is mine.”
“Weakness? I’m sure Sugar would love to hear you consider her that.”
“Must we discuss this now, Gina?”
“Now don’t get wrong me, brother. I like your female. Despite her odd name, I find Sugar fascinating and quick-witted. She is not at all who I expected you to choose as a life partner.”
Axel huffed. “Sugar is not who I expected to choose either. But she is my chosen mate, and she must accept that I protect what is mine. If the woman must indulge her wanderlust, then it will be with me watching her back.”
“Sugar defeated nearly all our best warriors. She physically subdued you in front of Mother’s chosen elite. Now our own father is training her to fight. Our parents do not seem as concerned as you do about your mate needing your protection.”
Axel couldn’t be honest without betraying Sugar’s trust, but keeping so many secrets was not easy for him. Hiding the truth was like tying a metaphorical noose around his throat.
He turned to Gina. “The arrangement for their training is between Father and Sugar. It was put in place before I returned to the palace to stay. I do not approve of her fighting. It vexes me that Mother is supporting it despite my wishes. Now I have two stubborn females to be concerned about. How did my life come to be nothing more than this?”
Gina grinned as she stared out of the window of Axel’s airship. “Perhaps it was because of love.”
“Love,” Axel repeated. That word still sounded strange to his ears. It only sounded right when Sugar’s lust-filled voice whispered it in his ear. “Sugar swears we have that connection.”
“Really? And what does Axel of Rodu, Lyran prince and future leader of the Guardians of Earth, have to say about falling in love?”
Axel snorted as he turned to stare out of the window. “How much longer until we get there?”
Gina’s smile lasted until they landed in the valley at the base of Machu Picchu. Cloaking was engaged on the airship, and their landing went unnoticed. Their presence didn’t cause a ripple among the natives who were fearfully running down the mountain path and fleeing into nearby vehicles.
“What’s going on? Everyone is leaving in a hurry. What are they saying?” Axel asked, his stomach clinching anxiously.
Gina listened to the language, but it was too rapid for her translate without help. She pulled a headset from her tool bag and ordered it to translate what it heard. She increased the speaker system volume so she could hear outside the airship.
“They’re telling stories about what happened to them. It’s confusing. You’d think they’d be used to earthquakes by now.”
“Sugar,” Axel said, growling low. “Sugar is behind this chaos. It follows her.”
Gina held up a hand. “Hush, brother. There are so many agitated voices that my translator is struggling to keep up. I need to work on improving its speed.”
Axel glared but went silent.
Gina ignored Axel’s brooding and repeated what the translator was saying. “The mountain shakes with the power of the ancestors. Two were sacrificed to the Temple Of The Moon. Rocks swallowed them whole. It was the will of the gods.”
Axel grunted. “Bad things are always the will of the gods. How is any of this helpful? These beings all practice post hoc ergo propter hoc thinking and their logic leads to an unproductive circle of stupidity. They’ll probably embellish their experience of a simple earthquake for days. By the time the novelty starts to fade, the number of people lost to the natural occurrence will be two hundred instead of merely the actual two it was in reality.”
“Would you rather the fleeing people thought the seismic activity was caused by aliens? Or even some sort of superhuman with extraordinary powers? I think it best that the locals continue to blame their gods for everything. Such simple beliefs make protecting our queen a much easier task.”
Axel rose and headed to the exit. “I’m tired of this trip even though I’ve barely begun it. Lower the ramp, Gina of Rodu. Lower the ramp and let me out so I can chase her down and end this madness.”
“Don’t be so melodramatic, Axel. Are you planning to run all the way to the top of Machu Picchu? That will take you over an hour even in your panther form. If you just wait a few minutes, I’ll fly us up there. It looks like the site is being evacuated for safety. We’ll likely be alone if we wait to go up. That would be helpful. Right?”
Axel leaned his handsome head against the ramp door and started banging it slowly. He stopped when he heard his sister laughing at him.
“Fine,” he conceded. “We’ll wait a few minutes and then you will fly us up there.”
7
Rodu felt for a pulse and found it was faint. He ripped away the tattered remains of the boy’s shirt to search for injuries.
Sugar skidded to a stop and knelt down beside the boy too. She started searching his body as well. “Is he alive?”
Rodu nodded. “He breathes still, but that doesn’t mean he’s okay. From what Nyomi understands of the records, the merging process sometimes kills the host. Upon death, the blade allegedly goes back into hibernation.”
“Something is wrong. His trident only has two prongs,” Sugar said, pointing to his chest. “Mine has three.”
“As does mine,” Rodu observed. “That may be the problem.”
“What can we do?”
“I don’t know.”
Rodu positioned the youth so they both could look him over. They found a warped mass of gold protruding from the boy’s chest and his fingers were wrapped around it.
Sugar whistled. “Wow. Looks like he kept it from merging with him on that side. I’m surprised that was even possible.”
“Agreed,” Rodu said, rocking back on his heels. “My blade knows of no action to take. Has yours said anything?”
“No. What the hell are they up to?” Sugar said to vent her irritation. She closed her eyes and tried to calm herself enough to go inside to where the sentient being possessing her lived.
Artifact? Do you see this?
Affirmative, came the answer.
“Is this the problem you warned me about?” Sugar asked out loud.
Affirmative. Merge incomplete. Host death imminent.
Sugar sputtered with indignation. “Oh, the hell you say. Can’t the blade be removed from him without it costing him his life?”
Merge irreversible. Resistance causes death.
Rodu frowned harder. Sugar knew he’d heard too. What were they missing?
“Well, I say fuck the logical conclusion. The host is not dead yet,” Sugar said sternly as she stared at the boy.
The kid had nearly managed to fight his blade off. It was more than she or Rodu had managed to do. Despite his youth and his toned muscles, there were no lines of experience on his face. He looked young enough to have been one of her students back when she’d been teaching. Sugar would be surprised if the kid was over twenty.
&nb
sp; Life signs thirty percent and falling.
“Stop stating the problem and try offering a solution,” Sugar commanded.
She reached out and pried the boy’s fingers away from the misshapen mass of gold still protruding from his chest. If the blade had been a real knife, the wound would have been bleeding.
Sugar linked her fingers with his and squeezed them hard. “Listen, kid. I know what happened to you is a real shocker, but being a live blade host is way better than being a dead kid. So let the thing that attacked you take over and finish what it started. I’ve got exactly the same kind of blade in my chest, and it isn’t as bad as you imagine. I promise. And I’ll tell you all about it when you wake up. What do you say?”
Sugar drew in a breath when hundreds, maybe even thousands, of fine gold wires suddenly sprung from the twisted gold mass. They silently went up into the air and then curved back down to his skin where they penetrated like super thin acupuncture needles before disappearing completely. The gold mass gradually started shrinking as more and more fine strands of gold disappeared inside the kid.
“Fascinating,” Rodu said as he watched.
“And kind of gross,” Sugar added, watching the third prong of the trident form and rise to the surface. The skin of the kid’s chest seemed to move out of the gold’s way as it took its designated place.
Sugar glanced up at Rodu. “This is what happened to us. God only knows what violence the initial explosion produces. From what little I remember, it was like getting my chest ripped open at hyper-speed.”
Rodu lifted a shoulder. “The process does not appear to be as bad or as gross as cellular regeneration. Body parts fall off, and you nearly turn to a skeleton before everything grows back. They try to keep you under the whole time but sometimes you wake up anyway. I used to consider the regenerating cylinder to be a death machine.”
Sugar chuckled at the term but saw he was serious. “Death machine? Really?”
Rodu nodded. “After the first time the Lyrans regenerated me, and I saw that I was a youth once more, I did actually wonder if they were a race of gods. In my awe of their technology, I felt as primitive as they no doubt considered me to be.”
Sugar nodded and looked back at the boy. His chest rose and fell normally now with every breath The three-pronged trident of gold was nearly complete. “Okay, Artifact. How’s he doing now?”
Merge forty percent complete. Host lives.
“Only forty percent?” Sugar repeated in surprise. “But his trident is nearly done.”
Initial merge damaged host. Organs require repair.
Sugar frowned. Damn it. They hadn’t gotten to him soon enough. “Estimate time for organ repair to complete.”
Six hours twenty-two minutes and thirty-five seconds.
She blew out a frustrated breath. “How much recovery time will the host need after the merge is finished?”
Two weeks, eight hours, and forty-seven minutes.
Sugar looked up at Rodu with wide eyes. “Did you hear the answers?”
“Yes. I heard—been hearing the answers for a while now. They’re like an echo in my head,” Rodu said instantly. “Our blades must have decided that keeping me in the loop was finally a good idea.”
Rolling her eyes over the machinations of the beings who so often controlled her and Rodu’s lives, Sugar rocked back on her heels and sat in the dirt. Not wanting the kid to stop the merging process again, she kept her grip on his fingers as she looked around.
“What’s up with all this gold, Rodu? I’m familiar with Inca design. Some of this doesn’t look Inca at all. I’d love to get a closer look at it, but just in glancing around, I can tell you the designs are stranger than what was found in Sumer or at Gobekli Tepe. Last time I saw a symbol system like this was on the handle of the blade in my chest.”
Rodu looked around, his gaze taking in what it hadn’t until now. “It’s probably best if Nyomi and her people come retrieve this. She will store all items requiring further investigation. The rest of the treasure will probably remain in this room, and some of the Peruvian people who care for Machu Picchu will be guided to discover it. The treasure rightfully belongs to their descendants.”
Sugar chuckled at the thought of ancient Inca priests hiding the blade among all this gold to keep it company. “How often has Nyomi filtered finds like this one?”
That question immediately had her wondering a bigger one about how many archaeological finds were the result of alien intervention. Her mouth twisted at the thought. So much for human curiosity and perseverance. Explorers were following alien crumb trails without even realizing it.
“Nyomi was preserving the most unique of Earth’s treasures long before she found me,” Rodu answered. “The pre-history records from the Sphinx are what you’ve been reading. They contain the most detailed information of the time before the geological event that destroyed the early Earth civilizations. The Sphinx records also tell the story of the aliens who created the Egyptians. I started reading those once but had to stop. It was too disturbing for me. Unlike you, I am unwilling to have all my beliefs shattered for the sake of knowledge that will never change my past.”
Sugar nodded in empathy. “I can understand that, but I still find all of this fascinating. So tell me the truth, Rodu,” she began with a smile. “Who really built the pyramids?”
Rodu chuckled and lifted both shoulders in a massive shrug. “The majority of pyramids in my land were built in some more ancient time. Builders like me were told a limited amount of facts, but in general, the knowledge of their origins was kept a secret. The Pharaohs considered the pyramids to be personal gifts to them from their gods.”
“But their gods were aliens from other planets.”
Rodu nodded. “Yes, I believe they were. I’ve pondered this issue for a long time. I can only imagine that the first Egyptians felt about their alien gods the way I have often felt about the Lyrans. In that way, I remain a true example of my people.”
“How do you feel about the Lyrans now? Do you see them as gods still or just beings like you and me?” Sugar asked, genuinely wanting to know.
She had yet to make up her own mind, but she was coming to accept that Athena—the maker of the blades—had been an alien for sure.
Rodu lifted a shoulder before answering. “Being a blade host kept me too transitory to make human connections. The Lyran people have been both friends and family for nearly two millennia.”
“Do you feel like you’re alien like them?”
Chuckling, Rodu reluctantly nodded. “I suppose at times I do. I see with clarity that Earth is only one planet of many that are being cared for and nurtured by beings from other planets. To help one planet survive is to help all planets continue, according to Nyomi. No one knows which planet holds future knowledge that will be needed by the others. If I were a mere man with no blade inside him, I would still be grateful for her people’s guardianship of Earth. Humans are not enlightened enough yet to take proper care of our own planet.”
Sugar nodded in agreement. She hadn’t completely gotten there yet in her thinking, but Rodu’s sentiments certainly resonated within her.
A blonde head turned and a pair of very blue eyes opened to stare at her in stunned surprise. Sugar smiled at the handsome kid and bent closer. “Hello there. How are you feeling?”
“That must have been some party. You’re an older woman,” Lake rasped out through a dry throat.
Sugar lifted her head and glared when Rodu snickered. Her smile faded as it moved back to the boy. “You’ve been hurt in an accident. I’m asking how you feel.”
Lake groaned and closed his eyes. “I feel like there’s an elephant sitting on my chest. What did you do to me?”
His accusatory comment brought Sugar’s smile back. She squeezed his fingers firmly. “Not a damn thing yet, kid, but keep that sense of humor. You’re going to need it when you really wake up.”
She grinned back at a smiling Rodu. “Looks like he’s going to make i
t.”
“Agreed,” Rodu said as he nodded.
“When do you think we can move him?” Sugar asked.
Six hours twenty minutes and twelve seconds.
Sugar rolled her eyes and then looked at Rodu.
“I heard,” he said.
“Is your blade a smart-ass like mine?”
Rodu’s only response to her question was to laugh.
When the kid had been silent for a full five minutes, Sugar, at last, let go of his fingers. “Guess we need to find out who he is. Someone might be missing him.”
She reached under the kid and fished his wallet out of the back pocket of his pants. She flipped it open and looked for ID.
When she found it, she burst out laughing. “This is unbelievable,” she muttered.
“What’s so amusing?”
Sugar passed the wallet over to Rodu. “Check out his name. Now everything makes sense.”
Rodu laughed as he read the host’s name aloud. “Lake Allen Wright. I always forget how literal the blades are. The Protector blade really was in a lake.”
Sugar chuckled again and rose to go investigate the strange treasures.
They had a long time to wait before the kid could be moved. She wanted to see if some of the symbols on the gold items were as alien as Rodu suspected.
8
Axel sprang from the airship the moment Gina set it down on an open plateau. His long legs ate up the distance as he hurried to the Temple Of The Moon.
Gina followed behind her brother at a slower pace and found him growling and snarling at the stone walls. Some doorways in the carved out cave were false and appeared to be merely frames for the rock surface. Others were genuine doors, but they went only into small, empty rooms containing nothing.
“Sugar was here. Her essence lingers in this place,” Axel stated flatly. “Where is she?”
He let loose a roar of frustration over not physically finding her. The sound shook the cave and brought a shower of small rocks raining down on both their heads.
Gina glared at her hot-tempered brother. “Why must you always react so fiercely? Calm yourself before you bury us under this mountain.”
Mad Panther (Alien Guardians of Earth Book 2) Page 4