The Alien's Mystery (Uoria Mates IV Book 7)

by Ruth Anne Scott

  Strong, powerful, and fearsome, the Denynso were incredible warriors and had designed innovations and resources that astounded Elianna. The technology and transportation that Elianna was accustomed to from Earth, however, weren’t their way. She thought no less of them for these differences, and in fact was incredibly impressed by the amazing people who she had joined and now considered her family, but she worried that her mate and the other men would be hurt if they thought that this wasn’t the case. The discomfort at him going through the ship alone stemmed not from the thought that he would get lost, but more from the thought that the strangeness of the stark, cold environment would trigger the fierceness within him that dwelled within all of the Denynso. Even though Ciyrs was not a warrior, but a healer, he still had the aggressive nature of the other men and could easily become uncontrollably violent, worsening the emotional turmoil that he was obviously experiencing.

  Elianna continued through the ship as quickly as she could without running. If she controlled her steps, she could keep herself calm. That way if Ciyrs did decide to reach out for her through his thoughts, he wouldn’t feel her emotions and be further upset. She wanted to find him so that she could comfort him and give him the strength and support that she knew only she could provide for him. It went beyond the love and passion that grew stronger with each day that they spent together, to the sense of destiny and responsibility that had been bestowed on her when she bonded with him. He had been waiting his entire life for the woman who was made for him and from the moment that they came together, she knew that she had been waiting for him as well. It was his love for her that had saved her life after her brutal attack, and that had imbued her with the power to heal that she now shared with him. It was her love for him that would support and reassure him.

  She felt like she had gone through nearly the entire ship when she finally walked past a small observatory and noticed Ciyrs out of the corner of her eye standing in the center of the room. She stepped up to his side and joined his gaze at the solid grey expanse in front of him.

  “The shields are up,” she said, wanting to break the silence in the room as much as explain to him why the observatory was opaque.

  “Shields?” Ciyrs asked, not turning to look at her.

  Elianna walked over to the small control panel on one wall and pressed the button in the center. There was a low humming sound and the panels that covered the curved ceiling above started to move out of the way. As they disappeared into the seams between the individual panes of glass they revealed a geodesic dome melded together with thick bands of metal between the glass. She came back to his side and they stood silently staring through the glass for several long seconds. In the far distance Elianna could see a cluster of glimmers that looked like stars but that she knew were planets. To one side there was a larger planet with a small moon hovering close by. Though she knew that all of the celestial bodies that she saw were moving rapidly, the entire scene was calm and peaceful, as if everything was still and they were still in it.

  “The baby could have died,” Ciyrs finally said.

  His voice was low, almost too quiet for her to hear. For a moment, she was unsure if he had actually spoken it to her or if it was a personal musing that he hadn’t intended for her to hear.

  “But it didn’t,” she said.

  “He,” Ciyrs said.

  “What?”

  “He. The baby. It’s a boy.”

  Elianna couldn’t help the slight curve of her lips as she thought of the new baby boy that her mate had helped into the world.

  “But he didn’t,” she revised herself. “He survived.”

  “His mother didn’t.”

  The words hit Elianna painfully and she drew in a breath to soften the clenching of her heart.

  “I know,” she said. “You can’t blame yourself for that.”

  “Of course, I can,” he said. “There’s no one else to blame.”

  “That’s because there is no blame to be had. Sometimes women die during childbirth. It’s horrible, but it happens. It always has. Especially when the baby is coming earlier than it is meant to. Haven’t you ever heard of a premature baby?”

  Ciyrs shook his head.

  “Until we encountered these women, Eden was the only pregnant woman I had ever encountered. The warriors who are younger than me were born and raised in their mother’s homes. I was only a few years old when they came along, and had no reason to meet their mothers or see them when they were babies. Mothers and children didn’t eat in the banquet hall with the rest of us, and until they were old enough to start their training, they didn’t engage with us.”

  Elianna was astonished. She knew that Lysander was the first of the new generation of the Denynso, and the first baby to be born in the compound in quite some time, but she couldn’t imagine a life without ever encountering young children.

  “Well, I can tell you that at least in human women, there are times when pregnancies do not continue for as long as they should and the babies are born too soon. A lot of the times when this happens, it’s because of something that’s wrong in the mother’s body.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” Ciyrs asked.

  He sounded frustrated, but Elianna forged forward.

  “Because when that happens, the only thing that can be done is to try to save the baby’s life. With everything that that woman had been through during her pregnancy, and likely even before, her body probably couldn’t handle the stress of giving birth on top of whatever it was that caused the premature labor. It just gave out. You did everything that you could.”

  “If I had done everything that I could, they would both be alive.”

  “That’s not true, Ciyrs.”

  “There had to be something else that I could have done to help her. I didn’t know what to do. I barely even noticed that there was anything wrong with her. All I was thinking about was the baby. By the time that I had him out, she was beyond my help. She just lay there bleeding and I couldn’t do anything to stop it. I was so afraid that the baby wasn’t going to live. He’s so incredibly small. Much smaller than Lysander when he was born. He barely made any sound. I just tried to keep him warm.”

  Elianna turned toward her mate and reached out to touch his back.

  “Ciyrs, there is nothing that you could have done. You couldn’t have prevented her from going into labor, and even if she had been in a hospital, there’s a good chance that she still wouldn’t have survived.”

  “How am I supposed to call myself a healer when I could just let a woman die right in front of me and not be able to do anything to help her? I tried. I did a healing on her, but it didn’t do anything. The other women said that she had just lost too much blood.”

  “You are a healer,” Elianna insisted. “You were born to heal and to care for people. This isn’t the only time that you have seen someone die.”

  Ciyrs’s eyes closed briefly and she regretted the bluntness of her words.

  “I know,” he said. “I’ve seen death. I’ve caused death. I have walked into battle with the sheer purpose of killing as many of the enemies as I possibly could. I watched as they died around me and never once considered helping even a single one of them. I’ve also watched as warriors were wounded and fell to the ground at my feet. Very few didn’t survive. I have saved many lives. I have taken more. Nothing has ever made me feel as helpless as watching that woman die right in front of me. I felt like she was taken from me. I saw her breathing. I heard her voice. She was there with me, getting ready to deliver her baby, and then she was gone. I don’t even know if she heard him cry.”

  “You are a healer. You are not magic. You have the power to help, to heal, and to treat. You have done incredible things. I wouldn’t be alive today if you weren’t determined to heal me. Neither would Leia. Neither would Zuri or Eden. Lysander would never have been born. Imagine what would have happened to Maxim. That doesn’t mean that you will always be able to stop something from happening that has alrea
dy started. That woman might have been breathing or talking when you went back to her to help her, but the life was already leaving her. She was already gone. She had gathered all of the energy and life force that she had left within her and directed it toward making sure that her baby was born and was a safe as possible. Once that was done, she had nothing else to keep her going. You didn’t lose her. You saved her baby.”

  “Where are you?”

  The sound of Eden’s voice in her mind was startling, and she pressed her fingertips to her temples.

  “Eden?”

  “Are you with Ciyrs?”

  “Yes,” Elianna replied through her thoughts.

  “Where? Pyra is trying to find you.”

  “We’re in the observation dome.”

  “He should be to you in a minute.”

  Eden’s voice left her mind and Elianna looked back to Ciyrs.

  “Eden?” he asked.

  Elianna nodded. Communicating with Eden through her mind wasn’t a frequent occurrence. They had been able to link their minds this way since Ciyrs had saved Eden’s life, connecting himself and his mate to Eden while also giving Eden Denynso DNA. Being able to communicate this way was something that was usually reserved only for mates after they had completed their bond, which made the connection among the three of them unique. It was also a fairly sensitive subject for Pyra, who was not linked to them in the same way and was uncomfortable with the closeness that his mate maintained with the healer who had rescued and changed her. To ease this discomfort the two women agreed that they would limit their communication to each other except in the most dire of situations, ensuring that Eden’s connection with Pyra remained special and Ciyrs and Elianna didn’t feel intruded upon by her hearing their thoughts.

  A few minutes later, Pyra stalked into the room.

  “We need to leave,” he said forcefully.

  “Has Rilex returned?” Ciyrs asked.

  Elianna noticed that he hadn’t asked about the lovely hybrid woman who Rilex had chased or the baby who she had taken with her.

  “No,” Pyra said.

  “Then we have to stay,” Ciyrs said. “We can’t just leave and head for Maxim without him. All of us came here together. We need to stay together. He might be in danger.”

  “We don’t know Rilex,” Pyra said. “I know that he arrived with Jem and that he’s been helping us, but how much do we really know about him? He hasn’t told us what planet he is from, or even what species he is. We don’t know why he was with Jem, other than that he told us that he and some others found him on some other planet. We don’t know why he’s here helping us or what his motivation might have been to follow that hybrid woman back out onto the planet.”

  “What’s going on?” Jem asked, coming to Pyra’s side in the doorway.

  The Denynso leader looked at Jem as if still startled at the appearance of the once-lost warrior.

  “I came to find Ciyrs,” Pyra said.

  “I know,” Jem said. “Eden told me that you were looking for him. What were you saying about Rilex?”

  Elianna saw Pyra bristle slightly.

  “He left the ship with that hybrid woman.”

  “Severine,” Jem said.

  “What?” Pyra asked.

  “Severine,” Jem said. “Rilex gave her a name.”

  “Why would he do that?” Pyra asked.

  “Because she’s a person,” Jem said calmly, the gentle personality that they had all mourned so heavily when they thought he was dead obvious. “She deserves a name.”

  “That doesn’t explain why he followed her back out onto the planet. How do we know that she wasn’t some sort of spy that infiltrated our ship and has now left to rejoin the hybrid army and tell them everything about us so that they could attack us more effectively? He could have been manipulated by her and joined them.”

  “You saw her captive,” Jem said. “You saw the torture that she was facing. Ciyrs himself treated her injuries. Your mate tended to her.”

  “She could still be trying to ingratiate herself with the army with information about us hoping that they will take her back in.”

  “Why would she do that?” Jem asked. “She might not have seen or experienced anything but the facilities and labs, but she knows about the Denynso. She’s heard nothing her entire existence but about the power and viciousness of the Denynso warriors. She has been trained to destroy every one of our kind. Why would she put herself in the position of being vulnerable to us just in hopes that we would keep her alive and bring her here to Penthos?”

  “I don’t know,” Pyra said. “I don’t know anything about these hybrids except that they were created by the man who tried to kill my mate and my son, not to mention me and every one of us.”

  The tension in Pyra’s voice was a harsh reminder for Elianna of the dark time on Uoria when Ciyrs discovered that the Klimnu were mutated versions of the Mikana and Pyra commanded that all of the Mikana men were held captive in the meeting hall of the human settlement. She knew in her heart that the Denynso leader was truly a good man. He was devoted to Eden as her mate and was a wonderful father to Lysander. He was passionate about protecting the people he cared about and defending Uoria. Sometimes, though, those emotions overtook his logic and combined with the powerful warrior instincts born into him to create nearly overwhelming aggression and violence that shadowed his ability to make the decisions that he needed to.

  “Even you said that they needed to be rescued and protected,” Ciyrs pointed out.

  “Rilex wouldn’t trust someone for no reason,” Jem said. “He is anything but easily manipulated. He cares for her. Very deeply. He told me that he was struggling to let her know how he feels about her because she had suddenly withdrawn from him. If he went with her, it’s because he wanted to protect her. Nothing more.”

  Pyra let out a long breath and squared his shoulders.

  “We’ll wait for a short time longer.”

  With that, he turned and stalked out of the observatory and back down the corridor.

  Chapter Three

  Ellora stood her ground as the man in the red mask loomed over her. He took a step closer and leaned his concealed face down toward hers, obviously trying to intimidate her, but she refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing any fear in her eyes. Instead, she straightened up to her fullest height and kept her eyes locked on him. She wished that she knew who was behind the dark red mask, but at the same time she felt that if she did know who was lurking behind the deception of the mask that she wouldn’t be able to control the anger that was already burning in her belly.

  “What are you doing down here?” the man repeated in the same low growl.

  There was a tense, buzzing energy around him that made Ellora’s skin prick and the hair on the back of her neck stand up, but she still wouldn’t take a step back. She narrowed her eyes at him. The mask continued to taunt her and she couldn’t hold back the venom she felt any longer.

  “What are you hiding behind that mask?” she asked. “Are you so afraid that you don’t want anyone to be able to see your face?”

  “I’m not afraid,” the man said.

  “Then take off your mask,” she said. “If you are so proud of what you have done and aren’t afraid of me, show me your face. Show me who you are.”

  “Ellora,” Malcolm’s voice said from behind her, his tone low as if he were trying to calm her and lure her back toward him. “Stop.”

  “No,” Ellora said. “I’m will not be afraid of someone who will confront me but is not even strong enough to show their face.”

  In an instant, the man’s hands shot out from beneath his robes and clasped around Ellora’s neck. She choked as the pressure of his fingers dug into her skin and blocked her air. As she clawed at his hands with her own fingers and felt him lift her feet away from the floor, she heard Malcolm screaming, pleading with the man to put her down. Ellora kicked as hard as she could, but even when she made contact with the man’s legs he seemed t
o barely notice it, and the longer that he held onto her throat, the more her strength slid out of her, making her kicks weaker. Darkness was creeping into the edges of her eyes and she saw tiny lights bursting in her field of visions. She wondered why Malcolm hadn’t come up to help her, and felt suddenly and overwhelmingly alone.

  As if the feeling of abandonment and helplessness had reached something deep within her, in the moment just before everything went completely black, her mind went clear. Suddenly she wasn’t thinking of the masked man’s hands tightening around her throat. She couldn’t hear Malcolm’s voice or the fierce, growling breaths of the man holding her. In her mind, she saw Aegeus. It was an image that she had fought with herself not to think about for so many years, but that now was clear and vibrant in her thoughts. She could see her husband’s face, the details so present she felt as though she could have reached out to touch him. His mouth moved and she could hear his voice in her ears just as loudly as if he were standing right beside her.

  “Don’t give up, Ellora. Fight for me.”

  All of the determination and fury that had led her into the tunnels surged back and her eyes snapped open. The man’s masked face was close to hers and his hands were still tight around her throat, but she no longer felt like she was under his control. Ellora released all of the tension in her muscles, no longer holding herself up or trying to pry his hands from her throat. She let her hands fall away and went limp, forcing him suddenly to withstand her full weight in his grip. The sudden weight was obviously startling to the masked man and Ellora felt her head snap backwards as she fell toward the ground. She didn’t pause to think. She scrambled past the man, climbed to her feet, and started running. The multicolored lights above her head turned on rapidly as she ran through the tunnel, but she felt like she was moving blindly. She had never been within the tunnels and Aegeus had never told her about the subterranean network of corridors with enough detail that would tell her how to move through them. She passed by a few of the ladders that led up to the exits, but she could hear the heavy footfalls of the masked man as he chased her down the tunnel and knew that she wouldn’t have enough time to get up the ladder before he caught up with her.