by Cara Wylde
“Where are you taking me? What is this place?”
She was fighting him, so he squeezed her arm harder.
“You’re hurting me! I can walk on my own, you know.”
“Silence, woman.”
“The hell is wrong with you? The other two are almost decent compared to you.”
Kay fought a smile. That would have been a first. In their triad, he was, actually, the most decent and pleasant one. A diplomat at heart, Kayvor had always been the level-headed guy who would keep Ash’s temper in check and bring Trev back to the real world when he got too caught up in his religion. For reasons that eluded him, Pippa’s remark made him feel... funny. Like... he hadn’t felt particularly good about himself in a while, and with just a few well-placed words, she’d made him feel like he was in charge. Like he knew what he was doing.
“I’ll tell you about the Temple of the Heart and the Prophecy if you tell us how you got here,” Trev offered.
Kay rolled his eyes. His friend was so obsessed with the Prophecy, and with saving everyone on Iarna from freezing to death through magic. Why couldn’t he see this wasn’t a matter of religion? Their planet had simply drawn the short straw and got its climate all messed up. It happened. It wasn’t fate, nor magic. It was simple science.
Pippa cocked an eyebrow and stopped struggling so hard. There was no use trying to convince Kay to treat her nicely, but she felt like she might have a chance with Trev. Ash was right behind Trev, and she could feel his hungry eyes on her back. There could be something there, too.
“You’re right, I escaped from the Black Laverna,” she began. “But I didn’t board that wretched ship of my own accord. I mean, I did... but I had no idea it was a slave ship. I thought it was a commercial ship headed to the other end of the Milky Way Galaxy, and that it would drop me off on Uthea. I even paid for the ride. Although, thinking back... they did ask for a ridiculously small price. It should have raised some red flags.”
“What’s on Uthea?” asked Ashtar.
Pippa bit the inside of her cheek. “A new life?” She didn’t feel like talking about it.
“I heard about planet Uthea, and compared to Terra, it’s poor and lacking in opportunities,” Kay said. “Why would anyone want to leave Earth and relocate to Uthea? Were you running from something, Pippa Steele?”
Pippa’s heart started beating faster. Adrenaline rushed through her veins, and despite the cold, wet walls around her, she felt a drop of sweat making its way down her spine.
“N-no. I wasn’t running from anything. Can’t an adult woman make an adult decision to relocate? What’s the big deal?”
Kay threw her a quick glance. With every word she said, he was becoming more and more curious about her. A strange creature from a strange, distant planet. And she was lying to them just then. He could tell that Trev had caught the lie, too, but he wasn’t sure about Ash. The Iarnian General was too absorbed by the gracious sway of her hips.
“Are we there yet?” Pippa looked around her, as if she was trying to guess how many feet under the ground they were and for how long they had been walking. “I’m cold. And hungry.”
Kay ignored her. She was just trying to change the subject, anyway.
“Uthea is an agricultural planet,” he said. “Were you a farmer on Terra, too?”
“No.” She answered without thinking, then cursed under her breath, drawing the three men’s attention to her. Not that she hadn’t already had their undivided attention... “Sorry. I...” She cleared her throat. “No, I’m not a farmer, but back on my planet, everyone has it in their blood, you know... The land. I’m a quick learner, and Uthea is in need of workforce.”
“What did you do on Terra?”
Pippa swallowed hard but remained silent. When Kay squeezed her arm painfully, she yelped and threw him an angry glance.
“I’ve told you enough. Now tell me where you’re taking me and why. What do you want from me?”
“I believe you can help us,” said Trevkon, a hint of a smile in his voice.
“Just for the record,” said Kay, “I don’t. But we’re a triad, and we stand together. After I let Trev see for himself that you’re not who he thinks you are, then he will let me return you to where you belong.”
“Earth?”
Kay smirked. “Nice try.”
“What about me?” asked Ash. “I’m part of the triad, and my opinion matters. I still say we should keep her. Fertile women are hard to come by. Especially in winter.” He grumbled the last words.
“You keep using that word... triad. What does it mean?” Pippa asked exasperatedly. “And what’s this whole thing with fertile women? It makes me feel... err... uncomfortable.”
It was Ashtar’s time to contribute to the conversation, which was fine with both Kay and Trev, since the wife matter on Iarna was the last thing they were interested in.
“Since the eternal winter has taken over our planet, many Iarnians have chosen to leave for more welcoming planets,” Ash began. “Women and children, mostly. Now, there are more men on Iarna than women, so the Council of Four decided that our only chance to survive the winter is to... well... adapt. In each household, three men come together to form a triad and take one woman as their wife and life mate. Unfortunately, even so, there are still those who remain without a mate. It wouldn’t be our case, really, since we’re pretty popular around these parts, but Kayvor and Trevkon here are too busy with their stupid careers to think about the future. I’m the only one who actually lives in the present and understands how important it is to find a fertile woman and start repopulating our planet.”
Pippa was speechless. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Ash felt her reluctance, so he added: “Not that we’d make much of a difference. But, you know... we do our job, another triad does its job, and so on. Say... if each triad produces five or six kiddos, that should be a substantial enough contribution, right?”
Pippa’s breath hitched. To her relief, neither Kay, nor Trev seemed to agree with Ash.
“We’re not taking her as a mate, and we’re not having six children,” said Kay.
Trev chuckled and tried to hide his amusement as best as he could. “What Kay said. Also, being a priest of the Temple of the Heart is not a career, Ash. It’s a vocation. A calling.”
Ash shrugged.
“We’re here, by the way.” Trev stepped in front of Pippa and Kay and opened a dark, invisible door in the wall to their left.
Pippa noticed that the tunnel was continuing even past the secret door, and she wondered just how long and deep it was. Maybe it connected the triad’s villa to more than one place in the city. Kay released her arm, and Trev motioned for her to follow him. No matter what was waiting for her inside the temple, there was no turning back. She would have to play by their rules and hope she’d soon find her chance to make her way out of there.
Kay, Ash, and Trev left the torches they had used to light the way at the door, and grabbed three lamps made of something that looked like crystal. When they touched the roughly shaped objects, they lit up and started giving off a pale pink light that didn’t seem to be artificial, but rather natural.
“What are those?”
No one answered her. Pippa was fascinated by the strange-looking lamps for exactly two seconds. Then, she saw the colorful images that covered the walls, the ceiling and the floor, and she found herself completely lost in detailed scenes depicting people bathing in warm waterfalls, riding beautiful beasts that looked like horses, working rich fields... Here, they were burying seeds in the ground, and there, they were gathering ripe crops of what they would later store in huge barns. The pictures were so breathtaking and intricate that Pippa instantly knew they had been made by hand.
“Is this... Was this your planet?”
“Fifty years ago, yes,” Trev replied, sadness in his voice.
“What happened?”
They stopped in the middle of
the room, where a red stone stood on a pedestal. Its color was faded, and the rough edges didn’t even reflect the light of the lamps. It was such an unusual phenomenon, that Pippa closed her mouth and gave up asking more questions. The four of them were silent for a minute, simply contemplating the stone that had no shine and no life left inside it.
“This happened,” said Trevkon, eventually. “One day, the Heart of Iarna stopped glowing, and with its death came the slow, painful death of our planet. That very day, it started snowing, and it hasn’t ceased since then. Our only hope is to bring the Heart back to life, so our temple and our planet would thrive again.”
“And that’s what your Prophecy says...” Pippa was doing her best to make sense of what sounded more like a fairytale than a true, verifiable solution.
“Yes.”
“And what does that have to do with me?”
“Just... I don’t know.” Trev ran his hand through his long brown hair. He stole a glance at Ash and Kay, but neither seemed willing to intervene in any way. This was his territory. On the bright side, they weren’t going to stop him, either. “Come closer.” He took Pippa’s hand and pulled her toward the red stone. She resisted him at first, but then gave in with a sigh. “Just... look at it. Does it... say anything to you?”
“Say?” Pippa threw him a concerned glance.
“Not like that. Does it communicate to you? But not in words... At a subtle level?”
“I don’t know what you...”
Just before she finished the sentence, Trev pulled her hand roughly and placed it on top of the red stone. Pippa drew in a sharp breath and held it. She stared at the thing as if she was waiting for it to bite her. She wanted to pull back, but Trev had a strong hold on her hand, and she suddenly felt her body grow weak and tired. It only lasted for a moment, though. With all her might, she gathered her strength and pulled her hand free. She took a couple of steps back, breathing heavily, as if she’d just ran half a marathon, and licked her dry, chapped lips.
“Take me back,” she said with ragged breath.
“Did you see that?!” Trev turned to Ash and Kay.
Ash shook his head indifferently, which meant he’d completely missed the split second when the red stone had reflected the light coming from the three crystal lamps.
Kay, on the other hand, looked like he’d just seen a ghost. His olive skin had turned pale, and his big brown eyes had grown even bigger, as if threatening to come out of their sockets.
“You saw that, Kay. You did!”
Kay shook his head and cleared his throat. He needed a moment to compose himself.
“It doesn’t mean anything,” he eventually said. “It’s just a stone, Trev.”
“No. No! How can you say that?” He turned to Pippa. “Touch it again.”
“I don’t think so. I want to go back to my room. Now.”
Ash gave her a mischievous smirk. “Still feisty. Look at her, she’s giving us orders.”
Trev closed the space between him and Pippa and tried to grab her hand again, but she pulled away and turned to the door.
“I saw it, and Kay saw it, too. Pippa, you have to touch the stone again. It’s you. I know it’s you. You can help us.”
“Trev, leave her,” said Kay.
She tried to make a run for the door, but her knees were suddenly too weak, and her mind was filled with heavy fog. She tripped on her own feet and fell to the floor, her eyes already closed, and consciousness lost when her body hit the cold tiles.
Trev tried to catch her, but he barely managed to grab her by the arm and slow down her fall. In a split second, Ash and Kay were at his side, and the three of them were trying to wake the Terran woman up.
“I told you to leave her alone,” Kay whispered. “Look what you’ve done.”
“The Heart of Iarna reacted to her touch,” Trev insisted. “Is it that hard to admit what you saw with your own eyes?”
“All right. Yes, the stone reacted to her. Happy now?”
“Come on, guys...” Ash was the only one who seemed genuinely concerned with Pippa’s well-being.
“It still doesn’t mean anything,” Kay added bitterly.
“Guys, seriously. Stop arguing.” Ash took Pippa in his arms and carried her to the door. “Grab your torches and let’s get out of here.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Pippa
She stirred in her sleep, turned on the other side, gasped and jumped wide awake when she felt the soft touch of fur on her hand. She scurried to the edge of the bed, panting, her mind trying to catch up with her senses.
“It’s just a pillow,” she whispered. “Just a pillow...”
Pippa rubbed the sides of her arms and looked around her. She was back in her room. Her room... Back in the room that acted as her prison, even though it was the most luxurious place she had ever seen. She wondered whose room it was. The wardrobe and drawers were filled with women’s clothes, and the bathroom was stocked with all the toiletries a girl would want. And she couldn’t believe that almost everything was made of fur or covered in fur! Even the pillow cases!
She got out of the bed and sighed in relief when she saw she was still dressed in the clothes she’d put on earlier. At least, they hadn’t made a thing out of stripping her naked every time they put her to bed... She grunted at the thought, then shook her head slightly. That was the last thing she wanted to think about. She ran her hand through her tangled hair, pulled at the knots, and cringed when she realized how dirty it was. She eyed the door, listened to the complete silence that reigned over the house, then decided it was time for a bath. She’d think more clearly once the sweat and grime she’d accumulated over days and days spent in a tiny cell on the Black Laverna had flowed down the drain.
Pippa went into the bathroom, locked the door behind her, and ran herself a hot bath. She poured almost a whole bottle of pink, rose-scented liquid into the water, then just stood there, unsure of what to do next. The white, fluffy bubbles looked so inviting, yet she felt too apprehensive to take off her clothes. She stole another glance at the door and wondered whether it meant anything that she’d locked it from the inside. Eventually, she took a deep breath and removed her sweater, then her pants. After all, neither of the three men had approached her in questionable ways so far, so maybe she was safe. For now. At least, until Kay sent her back to the slave trader, or Ash convinced him to keep her as their mate, or Trev...
Pippa froze in place, one leg over the edge of the tub, already sunk in the hot, scented water. Trev and his red stone... Trev and his insane stories about a Prophecy and how she was the one who could save an entire planet from dying under a hundred feet of snow and ice. She bit the inside of her cheek and forced herself to come back to the present. Slowly, she sunk into the water and turned the faucet off with a skilled flick of her foot. She relaxed against the tub, closed her eyes, and allowed the tension in her muscles to leave her body little by little with every breath she released through slightly open lips.
She’d felt it... the red stone. Trev had called it the Heart of Iarna, but Pippa already knew the stone was no heart. It was just a crystal, like all the crystals on Earth. She’d owned so many that she’d lost count of them. Rose quartz, amethyst, celestite, selenite, smoky quartz, jade... She’d left them all behind and swore to herself she’d never work with crystals again. Their power was so strong, their vibration so high... And the red stone in the Temple of the Heart reminded her of her old babies. She used to call them babies back in the day, when she practiced crystal therapy and energy therapy in the small and cramped space she’d rented downtown. The red stone’s energy was asleep, and had been asleep for a long, long time. The crystal wasn’t dead, just drained. Probably. The glimpse of vibration she’d sensed when Trev had taken her hand and placed it on it made Pippa think of amethyst, rose quartz, and black tourmaline. Was it possible for one crystal to embody the energies of more crystals at once? Maybe the crystals that were born and grew
in the heart of this planet were more powerful and complex than the ones on Earth. Still, it didn’t make any sense. From her own experience, Pippa knew crystals could aid people, animals, and the earth, but weren’t responsible of maintaining life on an entire planet. Who knew what the Prophecy actually said, and what Trev had understood?
“Maybe I should ask him to show me the text,” she thought. “Or not. Maybe, I should worry about my own damn life and freedom.”
She almost jumped out of her skin when she heard the door handle rattle. She covered her big, heavy breasts under the water, and curled into a ball.
“Oh, you locked yourself in there,” Ash’s voice came through the door. “How sweet.”
Pippa cleared her throat and made sure her voice wouldn’t falter when she spoke.
“I’m taking a bath. Give me five minutes, okay?”
The door handle rattled again, and Pippa wondered whether he was messing with her or he was actually trying to break down the door.
“Five minutes, for God’s sake! Five!”
