by Mikayla Lane
“You dare lecture me about doing things to our own after what happened at Fiorn’s Folly? There is a very valid concern regarding where his loyalties lie! I will not have him loose at this or any of our facilities unless I know our people are safe! How the hell do you know this isn’t a set up? That he isn’t still loyal to them even after what they did to him?” Grai demanded, his voice rising with his anger.
“What the hell did you do to him?” Lauren shouted at both men.
Blade braced his hands on his knees as he tried to breathe away the pain as he looked up at Lauren.
“It was a worm. Same kind I’ve used on us since we were kids. There was no intention of hurting him, only making sure he didn’t find a way to notify the humans where we are!” he said, his eyes accusing as he glared at her.
Lauren glared at both of them as she crossed her arms over her chest.
“A worm? Just a simple worm? Really? Did you ever use one on anyone before they were beast bonded?” she asked, her voice sounding deceptively casual as she saw Blade’s eyes widen before he cursed.
“What?” Grai asked, looking between Blade and Lauren for an answer.
“Blade just realized the reason he didn’t use worms on the unbound, like Mikey. Why don’t you tell Grai why you didn’t,” Lauren said, her anger radiating from her in waves.
Blade wiped a hand down his face and shook his head at his own stupidity while he turned to Grai.
“She’s right . . . I honestly didn’t think about the fact that he isn’t beast bonded. The energy worm I sent into his mind was supposed to attach to the strands of energy that extend from the beast into the brain,” Blade explained before Lauren interrupted.
“When there are no strands that extend, that worm is like a pinball bouncing around the beast and causes major disruptions in the energy of the host. If not caught in time, the beast becomes superheated and causes irreversible brain death!” Lauren yelled, her fists clenched in anger at the risk they took with her patient’s life.
Grai remained unfazed by her anger or the situation.
“A mistake was made that won’t be made again. It does not negate the need for him to monitored closely to ensure the safety of everyone here! Or did you forget that we have children and families here that need protected?” Grai demanded, unwilling to feel the least bit sorry for his decisions.
Lauren wasn’t about to be cowed by the intimidating leader. Not where her patients were concerned and certainly not where this patient was concerned.
“There are other ways to watch him without risking his life! You should have told me! What was the point of bringing him here if you thought he was so dangerous? You could have taken him anywhere! Why? What are you doing?” Lauren accused as it dawned on her that Grai was using the young soldier for something.
Grai didn’t even flinch at her tone or accusations.
“The protection of our people, our families, and children is a duty I take very seriously. I will not stand here and allow you to chastise me for doing my job just because you don’t like the person used to achieve it. There has never been a plot to harm the man, only to ensure that he didn’t notify anyone where he was until he figured out if he wanted to remain here or return to them,” Grai argued, uncaring if she believed him or not. He’d done what he had to do.
Lauren’s anger only rose at the callous, calm way Grai tried to defend his actions.
“How dare you! You aren’t some supreme leader that has the authority to endanger anyone you want just because you think they might be a threat! He’s one of our own!” Lauren yelled back.
Grai’s nostrils flared, and he took a deep breath to calm himself.
“This comes from the person who was more than willing to side with Fiorn against her own people until he went too far and threatened a pregnant woman and child! Don’t stand there and pretend offense to something you are guilty of yourself! Again, this only arises as a problem because of who he is to you, and not because of who he is in general! I suggest the next tests you perform evaluate your compatibility to him as a mate and when you finally come to your own senses, Amun will be here to take over his care because you obviously are far too close to this situation—and him—to be objective,” Grai ordered, leaving Lauren stunned and speechless.
Grai looked at the shell shocked doctor and tried to calm his own quick anger. He put a gentle hand on her shoulder and made sure his voice was calm.
“Lauren, run the tests. Take a little time to adjust to the results and work with Amun to figure out the discrepancies you found in his mitochondrial DNA. The worm is gone and another one won’t be put there, but I’m going to suggest that you both move to Base Beta while you figure things out. For the sake of everyone’s safety, I hope you will agree,” Grai said softly.
Lauren nodded her head absently, Grai’s previous words still sinking in.
Blade grinned broadly as he walked past Lauren to the door, limping only a little.
“Congrats, my friend. Seeing this look on your face was almost worth the hit to my balls. Almost. I owe you one,” he said with a teasing grin as he squeezed her shoulder in support before he left.
Chapter Six
Lauren paced in front of the window for the second hour in a row as she waited for Mikey to awaken. With Amun’s help, she’d been able to clear Mikey’s brain of the energy residue from Blade’s mind worm, and his temperature had stabilized.
She and Amun had discovered that Mikey’s unbound beast had seen the worm as a threat to his host and had shut down Mikey’s brain to protect it from the foreign invader. Once Blade removed the worm and the residue was cleared, Mikey’s body came out of the coma, but he still hadn’t awakened, and that worried her.
Lauren stopped pacing, pulled out her comm, and ran the same scans on him as he lay in the bed near the window. When the screen flashed the same information, she sat heavily on the side of the bed and gently ran a hand down his cheek.
The scans showed that he was well and sleeping, but Lauren couldn’t help but feel something was still wrong. She tried to convince herself that it was just her imagination or irrational fear because she wasn’t sure how to handle the results of the other scans she’d done. Still, she couldn’t shake the niggling suspicion that she was missing something.
She stood to resume her pacing when her hand was grabbed and she looked down into Mikey’s smiling face.
“Why you look so glum, doc? What happened?” Mikey asked as he sat up and looked around the unfamiliar room.
Lauren sat back down on the bed and smiled at the young man who the scans said was her mate.
“You’re OK now. You just had a bad reaction to something. What do you remember?” Lauren asked, pulling out her comm to run more scans now that he was awake.
Mikey shook his head for a moment, trying to clear the fog shrouding his memories. He remembered Lauren coming to his room and going to the dining hall with her . . . Mikey jerked his head up and looked at Lauren in horror.
“Oh God . . . tell me I didn’t say those things,” Mikey said, grabbing his head with both hands as the memories flooded his mind.
Lauren reached out to lay a calming hand on his arm when Mikey skittered across the bed and stood on the other side.
“Don’t touch me . . .” he said as he saw in his mind the way he’d raised his fist to her in the dining hall.
Lauren stood and faced him on the other side of the bed.
“Mikey, it wasn’t your fault. There was a problem with . . . your treatment that caused you to act differently. It won’t happen again,” Lauren promised, wishing she could strangle Grai and Blade.
She didn’t dare tell him that it was Blade who’d caused the problem without making him pull away from them all—and her. He was her mate, and she couldn’t stand the thought of losing him before she could even get to know him.
At 85 years old, and a child of two hybrids, Lauren hadn’t spent much time considering the whole mating thing. Maybe it was the fact that sh
e’d found her mate that made her consider it now, she wasn’t sure, but it didn’t matter. She refused to lose her chance at a future before it could begin.
Mikey grabbed his head in his hands and slid down the wall until he was sitting on the floor. He couldn’t stop his mind from replaying the moment he’d raised his fist to strike Lauren, and he was horrified at what he’d done and at the fear he saw in her eyes.
He heard a movement and looked up to see Lauren coming towards him on the other side of the bed, and he jerked himself to his feet as he looked around wildly for a door.
“Don’t come near me!” he warned as he saw the door and rushed out.
Lauren followed him out of the door and skidded to a stop when she saw him standing in the middle of the hallway with his mouth agape as he looked around.
“Where the hell are we?” Mikey whispered as he took in the enormous hallway.
The hall was so large that Mikey felt like he’d awakened into an alternate universe inhabited by giants. He saw Lauren come out into the hallway with him, and he instinctively put her behind him as he looked for potential threats.
“There is nothing to fear. This is one of our many bases on the planet. I brought you here so that you could learn more of our people with a lot less ‘aliens’ around,” Lauren said gently as she peeked around his back to look up at him.
Mikey looked around in awe, still trying to understand what he was seeing.
“Where is this place?” he whispered as he took a few tentative steps forward.
Lauren smiled, incredibly glad that his surroundings had distracted him from the incident in the dining hall. He was intelligent though, and she knew that at some point he would recall it again. She only hoped that she could sufficiently explain things to him before that happened; she was tired of taking two steps forward and one back with him. Knowing he was her mate made her more determined than ever to convince him that he should stay.
Lauren slipped her hand in his and pulled him a little further down the hall.
“This is Base Beta, in Antarctica. Do you recall the stories about Admiral Byrd and his flight to inner Earth? Well this is where he came. Our people were already here,” Lauren said, seeing Mikey’s eyes light in recognition of the name.
Mikey looked around the hall as he allowed Lauren to pull them further down the long passage.
“Why did you build it so big?” Mikey asked, still whispering, although he wasn’t sure why since Lauren wasn’t.
Lauren chuckled, delighting in his curiosity and the change in topic.
“We didn’t build it. It was already here when we re-discovered it. But we have the permission of the owners to be here. You’ll get to meet some of them. If you’re a history buff, you’d know them as Hyperboreans. They are the guardians of the rainbow bridge,” Lauren explained as she led them to the door at the end of the long hallway.
Mikey was trying to rack his brain for where he’d heard that name before. He’d always preferred to read than watch most of the garbage on the TV, but he did love watching anything that had to do with history and science.
They finally reached the door at the end of the hallway, and Lauren opened it to reveal a stone staircase just as wide as the hallway. Mikey was amazed at the long, wide steps as they descended the seemingly never ending stairs. Lauren turned at the bottom and opened another door. This time sunlight streamed through the opening and beckoned Mikey.
When he finally stepped outside, he took a sharp breath and looked around.
“There’s no way this is Antarctica,” Mikey whispered as he took in the herd of wooly mammoths and the green grass and trees.
Lauren grinned broadly and pointed upwards.
“There’s the rainbow bridge,” she said.
Mikey looked up and gasped at the red and green swirls of the aurora australis above him. He had only seen the phenomena in pictures or on the TV, and he was stunned at its beauty in real life—until he looked closer.
Mikey’s mouth fell open in surprise as he stared up at what the beautiful colors disguised.
“What the hell is that?” he asked as he moved farther away from the door and out into the open.
Lauren looked up curiously, thinking maybe he was seeing one of their craft. Seeing nothing unusual, she sifted Mikey’s energy to make sure Blade hadn’t put in another worm when he was supposed to take the other one out.
“What is what?” Lauren asked, still scanning the skies to try and see what he did.
“The flashes of light in the colors,” Mikey said as he continued staring upwards.
Lauren tried, but didn’t see any flashes of light.
“Mikey, where are you seeing this?” she asked, becoming concerned.
Mikey pointed above them.
“Right up there. Every minute or so a bright flash of light goes through the colors. What is that?”
A deep throaty chuckle behind them had Lauren and Mikey turning, and Mikey placed Lauren protectively behind him as he faced the odd man smiling broadly as he looked up.
“Indrid!” Lauren said as she moved from behind Mikey and approached the handsome man.
Mikey watched as the odd man’s white eyes shone with light as he looked at Lauren. Indrid was tall—a few inches taller than him—with black, iridescent skin that seemed to sparkle from within. He had a bald head with white eyebrows and a white goatee. Although Lauren seemed to know the man and believed him to be safe, Mikey could feel the deadly energy that ran through him.
Strange, white eyes turned to stare at Mikey.
“I came when I felt your energy here. You can see the unseen,” Indrid Cold said. Indrid had arrived at Base Beta after being reunited with his son, Mikal.
Mikey wasn’t sure what to say, but he knew he was expected to say something.
“Um, I’m Mikey Davis,” he said as he held out his hand to the man.
Indrid smiled as he took Mikey’s hand and didn’t seem to be the least surprised when Mikey stiffened and tightened his grip on Indrid’s hand.
Mikey could feel his whole body begin to vibrate from the inside as he held Indrid’s hand. His muscles contracted as he looked into the strange, white eyes and saw a rainbow of colors before he jerked his hand out of Indrid’s and gasped for breath.
Lauren was immediately by his side and put a hand on his shoulder.
“Are you all right? What happened?” she asked with concern.
“He is fine. He doesn’t understand his gift. Yet,” Indrid said cryptically.
“What gift?” Mikey asked as he tried to slow the vibrations running through his veins.
“You aren’t quite ready yet. But when you are, I will help you,” Indrid said before he turned to Lauren. “When he needs me, call my name.”
“What do you mean?” Lauren asked.
“Call my name,” Indrid said before he disappeared before Mikey’s startled eyes.
“What the hell?” Mikey uttered as he put Lauren behind him and scanned the area for the strange, disappearing man.
Lauren put a gentle hand on his back, enjoying the feel of his body beneath her hand.
“It’s OK, Mikey. He is one of the Hyperboreans I was telling you about. There are a few of them here, and one of Grai’s adopted children, Mikal, is Indrid’s biological son. They have the ability to shift into the wind,” Lauren explained as she moved from behind him to look up in his face as she took his hand in her own.
Mikey used his other hand to rub his face, trying to understand what was going on. Since the moment he awakened, he felt as if he’d gone down the rabbit hole.
“I don’t know what to believe anymore,” he whispered as he rubbed her hand, hoping she was real.
Lauren sighed in sympathy and stepped closer to him, putting her other hand on his cheek.
“It’s a lot to take in. I’m sorry. I should have realized that before agreeing to bring you here. I thought it would bring you peace. I didn’t know it would affect your gift,” Lauren said, wishing she’d t
hought it through better.
Mikey hated to see her sad and upset—especially over him, and he wanted to make her feel better. He pulled her close, draped an arm over her shoulder, and turned them back to the wooly mammoths and the city laid out around them.
“I’m a tough guy; I can take a little surprise. This is an amazing place. Why don’t you show me around and explain it to me,” Mikey said, truly curious about the ancient city.
“Are you sure?” Lauren asked with concern, wondering if it was too much for him.
Mikey chuckled and pointed to the mammoths.
“I think if you don’t start explaining then I’m going to run over there and pinch a mammoth to make sure I’m not dreaming,” he teased.
Lauren giggled at the image that invoked in her mind.
“That probably wouldn’t be a good thing. Let’s head towards the center of the town, and I’ll fill you in on the way,” Lauren offered.
*****
Grai paced the conference room as they replayed the breakup of Koda’s craft over and over again trying to see the direction the second piece may have gone.
Blade stared at the footage on the wall before he closed his eyes and replayed Mikey’s version in his mind. Opening his eyes, he walked over to the wall and pointed to a specific area.
“Can we get a closer look at this area?” he asked Traze and Cristali.
Cristali pulled up the footage from that quadrant of the sky that evening and began to play the footage right before the aerial fight began.
“Change the angle a bit,” Blade ordered as he sat on the floor in front of the wall, ignoring the curious looks.
Blade looked up at the wall and watched the scene unfold before him for several long minutes.
“There!” he yelled as he stood. “Replay that last 20 seconds.”
“What do you see?” Grai asked as he stepped closer to the wall.
Blade grinned at Grai.
“The kid was right. Watch,” Blade said as he turned back to the footage on the wall.
“Here!” Blade said as he pointed at a small blur on the end of the footage.
