by S. E. Smith
“Sounds good,” he replied.
The slightly gruff tone in his voice caught her attention. He faced her, and she stumbled to a stop. They stood contemplating each other in silence for several seconds before he gave her a crooked grin.
“I’m glad you’re back,” he said.
She smiled back at him. “So is Adaline… and so am I,” she confessed. “I’ll put the stuff on the counter. Just put it wherever you think things should go,” she added. She cleared her throat, stepped around him, and placed the items she was holding on the counter.
“Sounds like old times,” he chuckled.
“You always knew the kitchen wasn’t my favorite place to be,” she quipped.
“Food poisoning was never on my list of things to experience more than once,” he playfully shot back.
“You are such a wuss sometimes,” she retorted with a dramatic sigh.
His warm laughter made her smile. It had been a long time since she felt this sense of peace. She turned away and began unpacking the boxes while he put away the groceries and began dinner.
Maybe Adaline is right. Maybe I should think about Bear in a different light, she mused.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Warship Rayon I:
Heading toward Earth
Adalard rolled his shoulders, ignoring his aches and pains, and waved a hand at Brogan, the man standing across from him in the training room. The huge, dark-haired male sneered as he wiped blood away from his lip. Brilliant green scales with white flakes ran along Brogan’s neck as he tried to control his dragon.
Adalard was questioning his sanity for antagonizing the Valdier warrior. Brogan was one of the legendary twin dragons. There were only two sets of twin dragons in all of Valdier history who had learned to control their incredible power without going on a murderous rampage, and while Adalard was familiar with the tactics that Cree and Calo used, Brogan and his twin brother, Barrack, were older and edgier—more like him, he realized.
Brogan’s eyes narrowed when Adalard smiled at him—okay, the smile was more of a smirk and the curve of his lips might have held a little too much arrogance. He was glad they had decided on the rules of engagement before the match—more for the sake of the ship than their personal safety. Still, from the way Brogan flexed his muscles, Adalard knew he was going to be sporting even more bruises than he already had.
Brogan charged him. Adalard, anticipating the attack, blocked the man’s bone-shattering blow, twisted and struck back. His fist connected with Brogan’s shoulder, knocking the man forward. Brogan curled into a roll, rose up, and attacked again. He fell back when Brogan’s bare foot caught him in the chest. Grabbing the man’s leg, he swung around and planted his elbow in Brogan’s stomach. Disgust ran through him when Brogan didn’t even grunt from the blow. He stumbled forward when Brogan shoved him away. Twisting, they circled each other, each assessing their next move.
Brogan growled, rubbed his bruised shoulder, and scowled at him. “What’s got you so uptight?”
“Nothing,” he replied in a curt tone.
He feinted an upper left cut to Brogan’s jaw before striking out with his other fist. The dragon-shifter twisted away and Adalard missed. An alarm sounded, bringing an end to their session, and they relaxed their postures. Sweat dripped from their brows. The thin material of Adalard’s shirt was soaked with it. Brogan had ripped his shirt off ten minutes into the match.
“Your temper has been getting shorter and you’ve become increasingly tense the closer we get to the planet. Either there is something we need to be concerned about or you need some stress management,” Brogan muttered, wiping his face on his tattered shirt.
He paused and studied Brogan’s expression. “Who put you up to this?” he suddenly asked, waving a hand at the room.
Brogan gave him a crooked grin. “Everybody on board. They are all sick of you stomping, moping, and biting everyone’s heads off. I volunteered to try beating it out of you,” he explained.
He ran his hands through his damp hair before dropping them to his side. With a deep sigh, Adalard studied the other man. Everything Brogan said was true. He just thought he had been able to conceal it a bit better. Turning away, he walked over to a bench against the wall and sat down. Brogan followed him and sat beside him.
“My mate is on the planet. It… has been a long time since I’ve seen her,” he confessed.
Brogan stared at him with an expression of disbelief. Adalard leaned back and rested his head against the wall. He didn’t know why he had shared that information with the man.
“Are you daft, Curizan? You have a mate and you have ignored her for years?” Brogan exclaimed.
He glared at the other man and jumped to his feet. “I haven’t exactly been ignoring her! I’ve been trying to save the galaxy,” he growled.
Brogan leaned back, folded his arms across his chest, and looked suitably unimpressed. “Nothing is more important than your mate, not even the galaxy,” he stated.
Adalard paused in his pacing and glared at Brogan. “Perhaps it is a little too much to get through that thick skull of yours, but without a galaxy, there is no place for my mate. I wasn’t going to put her in any more danger than I already had,” he snapped.
Brogan grew surprisingly quiet. “I remember my death. I remember the deep despair of my dragon and the craving to find my mate. When… Barrack and I were given a second chance… a chance to find a mate that would accept both of us… we knew that we would do whatever it took and wait however long we must to find her. Now, as we grow closer, I wonder if everything is a dream. I could not imagine finding her, then having the strength to let her go again,” he admitted in a quiet voice.
Adalard returned to the bench and sat down with a grunt beside Brogan. He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. A multitude of emotions swept through him—fear, regret, depression, nervousness.
“We both agreed at the time that it would be best. I just… did not expect to be gone for so long,” he confessed.
“I’m assuming your mission was successful,” Brogan reflected.
Adalard sighed and leaned back again. “No, it wasn’t. I think that is what makes the situation even worse,” he admitted.
“It isn’t like a Curizan, especially one from the royal house, to be defeated,” Brogan observed.
“I haven’t accepted defeat. I came because I sent my mate to her planet to keep her safe,” he snapped.
“And… she is no longer safe,” Brogan guessed.
Adalard muttered a curse and rose to his feet again. “No, she is no longer safe. A message was received from an informant planted within the group of traitors warning me that Samara has been targeted,” he replied.
“How do you know the information is reliable?” Brogan asked.
He glanced at Brogan before looking around the training room. The information had come from Blaze, Vox’s long-lost brother, who was positioned deep within the rebel group. Blaze had risked exposing his own position in order to relay the information.
Hamade Dos had always stayed one step ahead of him. He didn’t know how. Ha’ven had ferreted out the second traitor onboard the Rayon I not long after their return but obviously not before the second Changeling had shared the information with Hamade that Adalard’s new interest was not just another lover—but a mate.
What he didn’t understand was why it had taken Hamade so long to act on it. He could only speculate that his constant pursuit had delayed the Curizan’s ability to find Samara, but it still didn’t make sense. He turned and glared at Brogan.
“It is reliable,” he said.
Brogan rose to his feet and placed a hand on Adalard’s shoulder. “Then save her—and kill the bastard who is after her,” he stated.
“That has always been my plan,” he replied.
He stayed where he was for a short time after Brogan left. Walking over to a row of windows, he stared out into space. They would be arriving on Earth tomorrow. He had promised Jagui
n and Sara that he would keep an eye on the twin dragons, and he would—from a distance. He had spent enough time during the journey to know that no one could contain Barrack and Brogan if they didn’t wish to be contained. Besides, he had more important things to deal with.
For seven long years he had searched every nook and cranny in the galaxy for Hamade. The general had proved a wily adversary. They had clashed a few times, including at their last encounter on Kardosa when he was sure that he had mortally wounded the other man. Hamade had tried to kill him with the black symbiot. Visions of their clash played through his mind as if it had only just happened.
Kardosa six months ago:
The lower level was unusually quiet for the Spaceport. The few open vendors hurriedly closed the doors to their shops. Adalard stood at the far end of the empty corridor while Hamade and two of his men stood at the other. After six-and-a-half long years and a path paved with the dead followers of the New Order Cult, he had finally caught Hamade before he slithered back into the shadows.
“This is the end, Hamade. Your bases are destroyed. There is nowhere else for you to hide,” he called out.
Hamade straightened the sleeve of his tattered uniform. The two men behind him stepped aside. Adalard wasn’t concerned about them.
“This is a war you cannot win, Adalard. Do you think destroying a handful of bases and my warships will stop what is going to happen? You’ve only delayed it. This is larger than both of us,” Hamade retorted.
“It is over for you,” he promised.
He was ready when Hamade pulled out the glass cylinder and tossed it. Adalard shot all three men before the cylinder hit the hard metal floor of the spaceport. He pocketed the laser pistol and lifted his hands when the dark mist spiraled upward from the shattered container. He didn’t yet activate the shield that his brother had refined over the years. He needed the creature to come to him. Pulling a compact cylinder from the satchel he was wearing across his chest, he placed the oblong container on the ground in front of him. The container was specially crafted by his brother and Morian Reykill.
He straightened and waited for the creature to attack him. It didn’t take long. He triggered the cylinder a split second before the creature reached him. A brilliant arc of energy surrounded the creature. The darkness surrounding the core of the symbiot disintegrated, leaving only the golden entity that had been trapped inside. In seconds, the living metal was contained within the trap.
He picked up the cylinder. If the entity had been a replica, there would have been nothing left. Morian had given him a set of instructions upon her return from the Hive and begged him to do everything in his power to protect the living symbiots trapped inside the entities.
“Please, they cannot resist what they are ordered to do. If you can save them, I can return them to a place where they can heal. Your brother will know what to do,” she said.
The instructions had been gibberish to him, but Morian had been correct that Arrow would be able to understand. His brother had been very quiet, which was unusual for Arrow. Within days, Arrow had delivered the trap to him.
He slid the cylinder back into the satchel and looked over in the direction where Hamade and his men had fallen. He cursed when he noticed only two bodies instead of three. Striding forward, he closed the distance between them until he was standing over the two men. Both were dead. He pulled a protective shield around his body and turned in a tight circle, scanning the shadows for any movements.
“They’re gone,” a high-pitched voice informed him.
Adalard’s eyes narrowed on a dirty boy wearing tattered clothing who was partially hidden behind a disposal container. The boy stood up and held his hands in the air. Adalard motioned for the boy to come forward.
“Where did he go?” he asked.
“For twenty credits I’ll tell you,” the boy countered.
The scar on his cheek pulled when he scowled down at the boy. The scamp didn’t bat an eyelash at the dark expression on his face. Adalard didn’t know whether to be amused or worried that the boy would get himself killed since it was obvious the kid didn’t have a lick of self-preservation in his bones. He withdrew one hundred credits and handed them to the boy. The boy’s eyes widened with delight before he quickly pocketed the credits.
“A woman came out of the shadows and took him. He was still moving—barely. You shot him good. I’ve never seen anyone shoot that fast,” the boy said in a breathless voice from talking so fast.
“Where did they go?” he demanded.
The boy shrugged. “She teleported them out. No tellin’ where they went.”
Adalard frowned and looked around in frustration before he returned his attention to the boy. He blinked when he saw the boy holding out a portable vidcom disk. He took it, stroking it for a moment before he looked back at the boy.
“What is this?” he asked.
The boy shrugged again. “A man paid me to find a Curizan with a scar on his cheek and give it to him. When I asked him how I was supposed to find you, he said look for the bodies. He was smart,” the boy said with a grin.
He rolled the vidcom between his fingers. “What did the man look like?”
“I don’t know. He kept his face covered, but I think he might have been a Sarafin. He had spots like they do on his neck, and he moved like a cat-shifter. He disappeared real quick,” the boy replied.
Adalard pulled another hundred credits out of his pocket and tossed it to the boy. The boy caught the coins with a hiss of delight, nodded at him before he twisted around and disappeared into the shadows.
He activated the device, and a facial scan logged his features while a second scan focused on his eyes, then a grainy image appeared, and he could hear the voice of a woman.
“The planet where Adalard Ha’darra’s mate lives has finally been revealed to our Master. His instructions are that you will retrieve her and bring her back to him,” the woman ordered.
“What use is a human woman to him?” Hamade questioned.
“It is not your place to question his desires, only to fulfill them,” the woman retorted.
“I will leave immediately,” Hamade replied with a bow of his head.
“Be careful. My sources have instructed me that Ha’darra has tracked you to Kardosa,” the woman cautioned.
“I will travel—” The message cut off before the woman finished what she was saying.
A cold wave of dread washed through Adalard at the memory, and he snapped back to the present when several crew members entered the room. Their laughter died when they saw him, and they bowed their heads in respect. He rose to his feet, nodded to them in return, and exited the training room.
For seven years he had followed Hamade from one end of the star system and back again. Each moment was engraved in his memory because it meant another second he was away from Samara. In the end, he had come full circle—trying to protect Samara from Hamade.
“Adalard, we will be in position on the dark side of the planet’s moon in two hours,” Jaguin informed him.
“I’ll be ready,” he replied.
Jaguin’s low laugh echoed through the communicator. “You may be, but is the planet ready for Barrack and Brogan? I’m seriously having second thoughts about this,” he muttered.
“It is a bit late for that. If it helps, I helped Brogan work out some of his anxiety,” he replied.
“And you are still alive? I’m impressed,” Jaguin laughed.
“Have you been able to communicate with Mason yet?” he inquired.
“Nothing yet. There must be something wrong with their communicator,” Jaguin answered, his tone changing to one of concern.
“Let’s hope that is the case. I’ll be on the bridge shortly,” he replied, ending the communication.
In a little over four hours, he should be on his way to the planet. The inability to communicate with Mason or Chad was troubling. If the main communication module was down, it could explain why they weren’t answering. He hoped tha
t was the case and not something more sinister.
Chapter Thirty-Three
“Here you go, honey,” Samara said, holding out a pair of small wool-lined leather gloves. “Make sure you listen to Bear.”
“Thanks, mom. I’ll listen,” Adaline promised.
“That’s a big basket,” Bear observed.
Samara laughed and placed the large picnic basket in the backseat of the UTV. “You both have bottomless stomachs and knowing my daughter, you’ll be back later than you plan. She’ll be starving the entire time you’re out,” she teased.
“I’ll keep a good eye on her,” Bear said.
“I know you will,” she replied with a smile before turning her attention back to Adaline. “If you start to feel cold at all, you let Bear know. Don’t wander off on your own,” she instructed.
“I knowwww,” Adaline groaned, leaning her head back against the seat.
Samara kissed Adaline’s upturned forehead. “And remember, no magic,” she murmured.
“I promise, Momma,” Adaline whispered back.
Samara stood back and watched as Bear drove away. He looked up in the mirror and their eyes connected. Her heart was in her throat when she lifted her hand in response.
She dropped her hand when they disappeared down the road. There was a lot to do. There was a bad storm coming in, and they were short-handed. The crew that was here would handle the cattle in the Northwest range, but there were still the horses, chickens, and other livestock close to the house. Feeding the cattle and caring for those that couldn’t handle the prolonged cold would be a full-time job alone for those on hand if the weather got as bad as the meteorologists were predicting.
Samara pulled on her gloves and headed for the UTV parked under the carport of the barn. Thanks to Bear, she had finished setting up the loft apartment last night. Of course, it helped that she and Adaline didn’t have very much in the way of worldly possessions.
Regret filled her for a moment before she pushed it away. She took a deep breath of the cold mountain air and embraced the familiar tingle as she looked out over the old farmhouse.