“That means you are of no use, no importance to me. You are fodder for the war, collateral damage if you will. Just like you were on your planet.”
“Then what is your name?”
The Shadow stumbled before he quickly recovered.
“If I mean nothing, then what is your name? What do you have to fear?”
“Which name are you looking for?”
“I’ll take any of the three.”
“What makes you believe I have three names?”
Locke took a step in the dark hoping that what he was sensing was accurate.
“I’ll take your human name, part of you is still human. I’ll take your alien name or species name, you can always give me your new name. Don’t you want to be called something more than Shadow?”
He was appealing to the human in him who would crave recognition an identity separate from the group. Was there that much human left in him?
“It bothers me to think I may have judged you a bit too hastily.” His form became more solid. It was still a Shadow, but it was the shape of a humanoid.
“Names must be earned not given. You have not earned that privilege although you fight like a warrior. Continue to fight who knows maybe I will tell you my name. Either way, I am not the Shadow that will take your mate away from you tonight. You should have bargained with me. Now it is too late.”
Locke was back in the house the battle raging around him. Sensation returned to him the pain of his wounds pulsated through his body. He shook as he knelt the overload enough to lay him out.
‘Resistance is futile.’ A ghost from his past whispered in his ears. He fought harder, the same way he fought that day when they assured him, he would die with his brother being next. Without the Shadow there to challenge him he focused on the fight adding his help to his team.
Standing he staggered over to the detective no one was paying attention to. If the Shadows wanted the detective, then they would have to come and get him. Focusing his energy, he threw it at the wall using it to blacken a place in the circle around the detective. Wails of pain filled the room, he did it again.
When the clear fastening around the detective’s ankles and wrist started to loosen Locke went to work on the ones at his ankles pulling them until he was free. The Shadows sent up an alarm. Cade, Key, and Kayden formed a line in front of him to fight the Shadows while giving him time to get the detective down. He worked on his wrists fumbling with fasteners that were still too tight. When his fingers were bloody and aching, he changed tactics. Claws slid out, he used them to cut at what was holding the detective to the wall even as they nicked and cut the detective at the same time. When he got both wrists free, the detective collapsed. Locke caught him lowering him to the floor before pulling him away from the circle.
With a growl of hatred, the Shadows left.
“Are they gone or just invisible?” Mira was exhausted, her hair was all over her head as her eyes looked black from the fight. Her hands were bloody, there was a long gash down her arm to her wrist.
“They’re gone.”
“Keep doing whatever you are doing. There are six Shadow traps in the room, let’s disarm them,” Cade was already walking toward one of them.
Tristan walked over to the detective while the others contained the traps. He stabilized him as much as possible. Ven walked over while the others were occupied. He placed his finger in front of his lips and looked at both Locke and Tristan swearing them to silence without saying a word. He reached out and cradled detective Oliver’s head in his hands. When he backed up the detective was conscious looking around the room.
“I think you’ll live,” Tristan said when Ven was back on the other side of the room.
“The traps are contained.”
When cade said everything was under control Locke struggled to his feet, then stumbled to the door. He was going for Ava whether she was ready for him or not.
Chapter Twenty-four
“Please, take a seat,” the Shadow gestured to a chair facing his. Ava walked to it taking a seat.
“You’ve done a lot to get me here, alone.”
“You’re worth the effort. If you decide to come without a fight, you’ll be worth your weight in gold.”
“I'm not sure if I should be flattered or offended.”
“I was going for the first but take your pick.”
“Why me? What do you want?”
“I’m interested in your gift, just as I am with the detective upstairs.”
Ava nodded thoughtfully she leaned over placed her elbows on her knees, steepled her finger then pressed her lips against them. The Shadow was hiding something. His very nonchalant reply told her nothing.
“It would help if I could see you, a black blur isn’t helpful. Even if it’s a humanoid black blur.”
“I agree let’s have some truth between us.” His form shifted until the Shadow part of him disappeared. A man sat in front of her.
She blinked her eyes then deciding she wasn’t seeing correctly she rubbed them and blinked again.
“Do I know you?” There was something about him that was jogging her memory.
“Does this help?” He changed forms again. Sitting before her was a fifteen-year-old Ron Foreman.
No, no, no that was impossible. Ron was safely tucked away in her past a memory she didn’t know what to do with. He was the nerd she had a crush on, the one who didn’t know she was alive. It can’t be him the Shadows were playing tricks with her trying to break her down.
“Hi, Ava.”
“You can’t be Ron.”
“You came to my funeral. You were hot in that black knee length dress with the sensible one-inch heels. I spent half the time wishing you were in stiletto’s that way when I stripped you, I could leave the heels on.”
She sat back shoving the heel of her hand into her mouth. This couldn’t be happening.
“You're psychic?”
“Why do you think you never knew how much I fantasized about you in class?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because your shields were as impressive as mine. They’re still impressive. Think about it,” he walked over to her kneeling before her. “You and I were meant to be. We let youth get in our way, but as the humans would say we were fated. It’s not too late. When I died, I thought there would never be a chance for us again, but now here it is. I’m not a nerd anymore.”
He wasn’t a nerd he was hot as hell for a dead man for a living one too. Would they have made a life together if one of them had made a move in high school? Were they fated? That was the thing about fate it didn’t always bring people together. Had fate just missed the opportunity with them and then he was gone? What about all the years between high school and his death? He never reached out to her. Who was the woman who flung herself over his casket? It wasn’t a mother or sister. It didn’t matter.
Fate, life, or whatever you want to call it gave her Locke, and she didn’t want a do-over.
“I’m not sure where you think I could go with you, but I have a life and a mate. I appreciate your offer and even your interest, but it has come years too late. Even fate doesn’t wait forever.”
“If I have to force you, Ava, it will be painful.”
“Less painful than what you have in store for me? What am I to you? A battery, a meal, something to be consumed and then thrown away with the garbage?”
“You were always so willful, even in school. I expected you to break every day, but you never did.” He went back to his seat crossing his legs.
“What is your ability?” she pushed forward in the chair until she was perched on the edge of the seat.
A smile formed on his face, one that made her repress her urge to shudder.
“I have the ability to siphon energy. I’ve been able to do it since I was six. Why do you think our teachers were always unwell? You were a challenge one I couldn’t break. Those damn shields are almost impenetrable or least they were when I was alive. I wante
d to give you a chance for old time sake. That chance has expired, now you will experience pain.”
“Been there.”
His first attack on her mind threw her across the room. She didn’t try to get up, it felt nicer to lie still groaning. His second attack hit the shields she raised over herself.
“You realize you can’t win—”
Yadda, yadda, yadda she tuned him out. The most important things in her life were to stay alive and make sure that Locke stayed alive. Right now, he was quiet, like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop. She was desperate to help him, but he blocked her compartmentalizing his mind. It was keeping her from knowing what was happening.
“Are you worried about your mate?”
The word mate caught her attention.
“Don’t worry my partner is keeping him busy along with your other friends. Who knows if they are smart, they may get out alive? Now you on the other hand,” he walked over and knelt beside her. “You’re all mine.”
His hand reached out to trace her cheekbone. He left behind a row of mental fire that scorched her skin.
“Tell me how to take your shields down Ava, why are they so strong. Let me in.” He battered against her mental shields like a ram until her first line of defense failed.
“That’s a good girl. I knew I could break you down if I could get close enough. This is glorious, but it's not where your real power is. How many layers of shields do you have?” He began working on the second layer while she tried to catch her breath.
“Can’t breathe,” the words were choked as she raised her hands to her throat.
“You don’t have to breathe to feed me.”
“Thought we were fate—” her throat tightened up choking off the words as she began to turn an interesting shade of blue and purple.
“That offer had a short life and has now expired.” He turned her head clearing her airway.
She gasped in greedy breaths. Her hand was still close to her throat not believing she could breathe again. Ron blasted at her second layer of defenses as she lay helplessly. Her head was fuzzy and dark around the edges of her visions.
“Ron please don’t. We may not have been lovers, but I never hurt you in high school, never talked about you. Isn’t that worth something? Let me go.” A tear and then two trickled out the corner or her eyes.
“I’m sorry all deals are null and void. The past is just that the past. Soon I will get through your second shield and any other shields you possess then every thought you ever had will be mine. I will tear them out of your mind to feast on them.”
The image of an evil witch on all hollow’s eve was projected at her. The witch danced naked under the moon covered in the blood of her enemy’s, body parts and bones were thrown around in disarray. Her crying increased his laughter, it was bouncing off the walls.
His attack picked up consuming her body with fire.
“Don’t do it, Ron, don’t!” A powerful bomb went off in her mind her second row of shields crumbled to dust. She surveyed the battlefield with wet eyes. There was one last line of defense.
He rubbed his hands together even as he collected what energy there was from her abilities behind the second shield.
“Your mind is mine, give up now.” He walked around her mind like he owned it.
He caressed her recent thoughts with fingers that were soiled from death. Not ones caused in war rather from thinking he was a god that deserved to use humans as food.
“Ron you don’t want to do this, for the sake of what could have been.”
“It could never have been anything.” He caressed the memory of her in the big box store. He squeezed draining every emotion from it until it was dried up like it never happened. Then he moved to the one of her in the car hunkered down and crying.
“I love your tears they are tasty.”
She thought of herself on the beach the seashells that she refused to throw away. Patting her pocket, she found them even as he stepped through the refuse of her shields. He placed his hand on her last shield.
“Soon you will be mine.”
“This is your last chance Ron, even if you can’t do it for me, do it for yourself. Be the decent man I’m sure you turned out to be.”
“The only one who ever cared about decency was you. The rest of us were always about getting ahead.” He battered her third wall of defenses.
Ava placed the shells on the surface below her. They had changed they were still seashells, but now they were made out of some of the most expensive stones she ever encountered. There was one stone that was forming it was still clay, she knew it was the experience she was going through now. This would be as important as the others she recounted. She gathered remnants of her wall together and made a makeshift crown. She placed each jewel in it before it sat on her head snuggly. I will make your trials your testimony. Wasn’t that written somewhere and if it wasn’t, it should be.
She stood as she watched her wall about to fall.
“I begged Ron, I even pleaded and cried for you to do something different. You refused to listen.” Her third shield collapsed. Ron gave a cry of joy as he moved toward it.
“Ava,” Locke screamed as he came into the room.
She changed positions in a blink of an eye, standing in front of Ron inside her destroyed third shield. Her hands came up.
He laughed, “What can you do to me, Ava.”
A blast left his hand directed towards her chest. A second blast tore out at the same time hitting him in his back. A large black hole was where his chest used to be.
“I begged Ron.” They were back in the living room. Ron lay on the floor halfway between Ava and Locke. The hole in his chest was smoking.
When they realized he wasn’t moving they both lowered their hands. Tristan ran into the room trying to get readings on him, that would provide them with answers on the nature of the Shadows.
“You did it, both of you.”
“Piece of cake,” Mira was still on the floor refusing to move. Locke was going face first when Ven caught him lowering him to the floor.
“Told you no problem,” Locke’s eyes closed even as his arm stretched out in Ava’s direction.
“There’s no blood. Why isn’t he bleeding?” Mira peered down at the Shadow. “Is he dead?”
“The dead don’t bleed,” Ava told her. She rolled to her knees trying to get to Locke.
“He’s not dead,” Tristan ran his scanner over him again.
Ven picked Ava up and moved her to lie in Locke’s arms. “Can we take him with us?”
“How will we contain him?” Cade turned to look at Ven.
“I think it’s moot, he’s beginning to disappear. I suspect his people are calling him home.” Tristan redoubled his efforts getting as many samples as possible.
“Is it over?” Ava mumbled against Locke’s chest as Ron disappeared.
“Not even close,” Locke stroked her hair.
“We dealt them a blow today, the first real one we can put in our column,” Ven told them.
“In the end, it’s not the battle that counts it’s the war,” Cade looked around the room at his wounded warriors.
“One step at a time commander.” Locke passed out.
Chapter Twenty-five
Ava finally appreciated the living room. There was a reason all the Kur’iks liked to gather here. It was large, spacious was a better word. It held plenty of comfortable furniture. The chairs and couches were spacious allowing for more than one person; they were both wide and deep. The cushions were so soft she could easily sleep.
Everyone was gathered here after having cleaned up and eaten. None of them had escaped some type of effect from the Shadows except maybe Ven. He was so much harder to read. The rest were sprawled out on the furniture looking like a train may have hit them. She and Locke were the worst of the group. Tristan worked on them both until he was sure they would make it.
Mostly they had suffered minor damage to their brains. That under any other
circumstances might have been irreversible. Their mate bond is the reason they were able to store each other’s mental patterns in a separate and hard to reach portion of their brain. They were repairing each other healing what could have been a life-altering fight.
“We know they can be defeated.” Mira lifted her lemonade in a cheer.
“Not defeated, but hurt badly,” Ava lifted her glass to join in the cheer.
Everyone else joined in cheering the fact that they had made a blow one that was almost deadly against the Shadows that were hunting them and hurting humans.
“Detective Oliver is expected to make a full recovery,” Taris followed him to the hospital, staying around until the doctors said he was out of danger. When they pronounced, he was on the road to recovery Taris left.
“I’m glad. I don’t know if the blow to the enemy would have been worth it if he hadn’t pulled through.” Ava winced before laying her head back on Locke’s chest.
She was suffering from horrific headaches that weren’t going to go away for a while. She was on bedrest, couch rest, it didn’t matter to Tristan as long as the end of it ended with rest. Her body wasn’t going to recover with her moving a million miles a minute. That was Tristan’s medical jargon followed up by the human body was an amazing bit of construction that was meant to be babied when everything went to hell. Having explosions go off in your head was the same as going to hell. Right now, she was doing Locke rest. That consisted of her lying on him.
“I still can’t believe the Shadows are dead.” Mira rubbed her hand over her face.
“I’m not sure they are. I’ve been thinking about this a lot. Ron saw me at his funeral, knew what I was wearing and even had ideas I won’t share what he wanted to do to me. They were all more carnal in nature. If he were dead, why would he care?”
“How could he have been there? Wouldn’t you have seen him,” Ava sat up before Tristan pulled her back down into the cradle of his arms.
“They streamed the service to him,” all heads turned to look at Taris.
The Wolf & The Psychic: BBW Alien Paranormal Romance (Werewolves & Mates Book 2) Page 15