by Fall, Carly
He led her to a room with a table that had the sticks and balls, just as the house Jovan had taken her to on first night they met, and she wondered what exactly one did with them.
Noah leaned up against the table and crossed his arms. She stood before him, her head bowed.
“Liberty, please look at me.”
Slowly, she lifted her gaze to meet his. It was difficult to hold it.
“So, according to Earth customs, you and I are brother and sister.”
She nodded and looked down at the floor again. “Yes, I have been made aware of that. However, we are not from this place, and I was born into servitude so I understand—”
“Don’t, honey. Let’s not even go there.” She looked up at him, but he held up a hand. Rubbing his hands over his face, he turned his gaze back to her. “Look, I’ve been here a really long fucking time. In fact, I now consider this my home. I pay my taxes, I abide by their rules most of the time, and I’m doing my best to clean up this clusterfuck of Colonists that we unleashed on these people. Therefore, I follow their customs and social guidelines.”
He took a deep breath and continued to study her face, and Liberty fought to keep the eye contact.
“I consider you my sister, Liberty, and I look forward to getting to know you. And as your brother, it is my job to protect you and look out for you. I hope you will want to stay with us and become part of our family.”
Liberty felt as though her heart might jump out the front of her chest. She had family here, true family. “And I as well, Noah,” she said softly.
They eyed each other for a minute, then Noah stretched out his arms. “Come here, Libs.”
She found the shortening of her name endearing and went to his embrace, engulfed in his big arms. Laying her cheek against his chest, a feeling that everything was going to be fine solidified itself within her. Her brother was the leader of the Six Saviors, a group of highly moral and dignified Warriors.
He reminded her of her sire, their father. Her father had requested she come to the golden tower of his abode, which overlooked much of the city. Standing at the window, his dark orange smoky form swirled before her.
“I am here to serve you,” she had said before stepping into the room.
“Come forth,” he had said, his voice quiet.
She stood a few feet behind him, waiting for instructions. She looked out the window to see the once-shiny golden buildings were now tarnished; the streets that bustled were now quiet. Every now and then a black form of a Colonist passed into her view.
He turned to her. “Our world is coming to an end,” he had said.
She remained quiet.
“I am sending you to help the others carry on the race.”
She remembered she had wanted to argue, but she was a servant, and she would do as she was told.
“You shall take your leave henceforth.”
Or maybe not.
“But my moha—”
He shook his head. “Do not question me. You will go, and you will carry on my royal line, even if you are in servitude. Do you understand me?”
Her sire had never referred to her by her given name, as was custom, and she often wondered if he even knew it.
“Goodbye, Liberty,” he said in the native language much to her surprise as she left the room. “May our gods keep you safe.”
If he hadn’t put her on that escape pod, she wouldn’t be standing here in her brother’s arms.
Yes, she might have been born into servitude, but her sire was a good male. He had saved her life. She felt no love for him, nor hate. Their relationship had not been a traditional father-daughter relationship, but one of sire and servant; yet, he had never been cruel or awful to her in any way.
Her thoughts turned to her moha, who she missed terribly, but now that she was in her brother’s arms, it took away some of the pain.
“Thank you for your acceptance, Noah,” she said quietly. “I would understand if you didn’t acknowledge me for your sister, but I am grateful that you have.”
There was a beat of silence while Liberty savored the acceptance and physical contact, then she pulled away and said, “Your . . . our father was a decent male. If you wish, at some point I can tell you about his life as I knew it.”
“I’d like that, Libs,” Noah said with a sad smile. “It’s hard to believe it’s all gone. I’d like to hear about him and my moha and what their life was like. I’d also like to know what your life was like.”
“Very well, then,” she said, surprised that Noah had any interest in what her existence had entailed. She had to remind herself that she wasn’t in servitude, but an equal to Noah, a sister.
“What is this called?” she asked, motioning to the table.
“Pool,” Noah said, “or Billiards, if you’re looking for the swanky word. If you want to learn from the best, you should have Abby teach you.”
“Very well, I think I shall do that.”
The silence stretched. “Perhaps I should go help Hudson in the kitchen,” Liberty said, feeling awkward, not sure what she should be doing now that she wasn’t confined with Jovan.
“If you want to, Liberty,” Noah said, “then please do. But just don’t think you have to, okay? That’s not the way it works around here.”
Liberty smiled. “Yes, Jovan made that clear. I am no longer required to serve others, and I understand that, although sometimes it is hard to break old habits.”
Noah stood to his full height. “Okay. Good. You work on snapping that servitude bullshit in half, okay? Now I have to go meet with the other Warriors. We’re up to our asses in trouble around here, and we’ve got to find a way to figure it all out.”
Liberty watched as Noah left the room. His long legs carried him with confidence, yet she couldn’t help but notice that his large, broad shoulders seemed to sag just a little bit, as if he were carrying an extra weight on them.
She walked around the pool table and gently rolled the purple ball across the cloth. Two weeks ago she had been certain that her life would be a miserable existence on Earth, one of running from humans and barely scraping by. As she took in the room with the pool table and noted the fine furnishings and decorations, she knew that she would be okay and that she was safe with Noah, her brohah. She hoped that eventually she would fit in and be able to become a part of his family.
Chapter 20
Liberty found Abby, Faith, and Beverly in the Great Room, all sitting in the plush, dark brown sofa and chairs, while light music wafted through the speakers.
“Hi, Liberty!” Faith said, getting up and giving Liberty a hug. Liberty almost suffocated in all the red hair cascading around them.
“Hello,” she said, smiling at the warm greeting. “I hope I’m not intruding.”
“Of course not,” Beverly said. “We’re just making lists for everything that needs to be done for Thanksgiving. Come sit down.”
Faith took Liberty’s hand and brought her over to the couch. Liberty touched the worn leather, loving the feeling of it.
“Where is the child, Killian?” Liberty asked.
Beverly smiled and held up a small device. “Naptime. We’ll know when he’s up when we hear him crying through this thing.”
“I see,” Liberty said. After a beat of silence, she asked, “What is this Thanksgiving?”
“In a nutshell, it’s a time of year when we give thanks for all we have. It’s traditionally celebrated with a huge meal, and we have a lot of mouths to feed,” Abby said.
“And a lot to be thankful for,” Faith added.
“What a wonderful celebration,” Liberty said.
“We’re happy you’ll be here with us,” Faith said, giving Liberty’s hand a squeeze.
The four of them talked a little more about the upcoming holiday, and Liberty found herself caught up in their excitement.
“So how are things going with Jovan?” Abby asked.
Liberty felt warmth on her cheeks at his name and couldn’t meet Abby�
��s gaze. “Oh, very well. He’s a quick study.”
“That’s good. I don’t think any of us had any idea of the strength of his gift. I always thought he could only get a glimmer of a person’s emotions if he touched you, not . . .”
Liberty had tuned out, thinking about how much she had come to like Jovan while they were sequestered in their learning session. He was a good male, an honorable Warrior to his core.
However, there was something very wrong with her when she was in his presence. She didn’t know how to describe it, except to say that at times she felt an ache in her lower belly, and there were other symptoms that led her to believe that somehow Jovan was making her ill. She could only hope he would learn to control his gift during the sleeping hours so she could move into her own abode.
She eyed the pretty doctor, Beverly. She wanted to ask Beverly what had happened during Killian’s birth, but she didn’t have the courage and it wasn’t any of her business.
She thought she should probably get examined for her strange symptoms that Jovan was causing, but she wasn’t sure who to go to. Cohen was a healer of her people, but he was also incapacitated at the moment being an SR44 male without his mate. Besides, she would feel better speaking to a female regarding her illness. It was her understanding that Beverly was a healer of humans, but also helped the Warriors with medical issues. Yes, she would talk to Beverly when there was a free moment.
Chapter 21
Jovan lowered himself into the black leather chair that creaked under his weight. Rayner sat across from him at the black marble table and nodded a hello. Hudson came in, a burb rag flung over his shoulder. Jovan noticed Hudson’s white silk shirt had a large, yellow stain on the front.
“Looks like you got nailed with some baby barf,” Jovan commented.
Hudson looked down at his shirt. “I know. This is a three-hundred-dollar shirt. I’ve got to remember to lay off the silks when it’s burping time.”
Jovan studied Hudson, once again surprised by how much had changed in the past year. Hudson used to be the most miserable son of a bitch Jovan had ever been around, but now he was so happy it was almost sickening. Rainbows, puppy dogs, and unicorns were practically flying out his ass.
Noah walked in, running his hand through his brown hair, the sound of his boots muffled by the thick carpet. His blue shirt read MMA Elite in white lettering.
“Okay, guys, looks like it’s just us four for a while. Understandably Cohen and Talin are in bad shape.”
There were grunts of agreement.
“So, let’s get Jovan here up to speed. By the way, nice to see you again, J-man,” he said, leaning over and offering Jovan a fist, and Jovan bumped.
“Thanks, man.”
“So, here’s where we are, Jovan.”
Jovan listened while Noah recounted the happenings of the past two days. “We’re quiet as a church on Wednesdays on the Colonist front, which is good. My main concern at this point is that the government has some of our people. I have no idea where they would’ve been taken. Talin’s done a little B&E on the government computer systems, specifically the FBI and CIA, and has come up with a big, fat nada.”
Jovan nodded. He imagined that aliens being captured would be buried deep within the agencies, not up on the same page as their dress code.
“Anything on the FBI dude checking out the silo in Phoenix?”
Noah nodded. “Yep. We’ve been monitoring from here and caught him looking around again, but he was there only a short time. Besides that, we haven’t seen anything around the silo except coyotes and rabbits.”
That was good news.
“So there’s no way for them to trace us back here, right? As far as an ownership paperwork trail, right?”
Rayner nodded. “Talin said he put the rest of the properties under different LLCs, so hopefully not.”
“Don’t you think it’s a little odd that this FBI guy is by himself? Where are the rest of the Feebies? Why is this guy flying solo?” Jovan asked.
“Good questions,” Rayner said. “No answers for you though, my friend.”
“It seems like we’re kind of in a holding pattern on all fronts waiting for shit to happen.”
Noah nodded. “Pretty much.”
There was a break in the chatter, and just for a kick-in-the-groin-fun, Jovan let down his shield to test the waters. The overwhelming sadness was still present, but not as strong. His fellow Warriors gathered in the room were all rolling in a bit of melancholy, but nothing too awful.
He let is guard down a little more, just to see what would happen, and he started hearing their thoughts.
Oh, hell.
All three of them were thinking about sex. This he simply did not want any part of. He took a deep breath and put his shield back up.
“So when’s my sister moving out of your room, Jovan?” Noah asked.
Not soon enough, Jovan thought. “I still need her around at night. She’s protecting me from the emotions while I sleep. I’m not strong enough to do that myself yet.”
Noah nodded and barked out a laugh. “Funny that little pixie thing is protecting a big fucker like you.”
Hudson and Rayner chuckled as well.
“Tell me about it,” Jovan said. “That is one tough female under that innocent-looking facade.”
Noah squinted his eyes, as if he were looking for some trace of what Jovan was thinking. “Let’s make sure she stays innocent, Jovan.”
Jovan held up his hands. “I got no plans of anything else, Noah. For God sakes, trust me a little bit.”
Noah sat back in his chair and crossed his arms. “I trust you just about as far as I can throw you, Jovan. You’ve always had a wild side, a bit of a dark streak. Don’t fuck around with my sister.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Your motorcycle, or death on two wheels, as Abby calls it. How you tend to act before you think when hunting Colonists, and how you always go for the rush in the hunt. The amount of women you used to go through. Hell, you were almost as bad as Hudson.”
Jovan rolled his eyes. Nobody was as bad as Hudson, but Jovan did have to own up to being a close second. And yeah, he liked his bike, and he liked the speed it offered. And well, he did always like a good adrenaline rush . . . so maybe he did have a bit of a wild side, but that didn’t mean he was going to bed Noah’s sister. “Look, nothing is going to happen between me and Liberty, okay?”
“It better not.”
“I hate to interrupt you guarding your sister’s virtue, but are we done with business here?” Rayner asked.
Noah nodded.
Rayner stood up. “I’m going to go see what Faith is doing. And I hope it’ll be me.”
Chapter 22
Blake Birmingham drove the rented silver Escalade on Interstate 80, his nerves on edge. Last week, when he had left the silo for the second time and went back to his office in Phoenix, he had pulled up the ownership papers of the silo, trying to do a little more research on who owned it. As he studied the screen, he noticed the properties that were once listed under that particular LLC were no longer there.
“Son of a bitch,” he had mumbled. Somehow, they had gotten into the government system and changed the ownership names on the properties. Just as he thought that he was at a dead end, he remembered that he had accidently taken a screenshot of the property listings last time he had looked up the ownership information on the silo. He clicked on the trash icon and started going through the files, finally finding the screenshot he wanted. Amazingly, he found the listings of the property in Phoenix and a property in Fernley, Nevada, just outside of Reno. He knew there had been more, but the screenshot hadn’t captured it.
Immediately, he had put in for his overdue vacation, and was now speeding down I-80, hoping and praying that whoever owned the silo in Phoenix had gone to Fernley. He was certain they weren’t in Phoenix because there hadn’t been any camera movement when he moved along the fence on his second visit there.
He had no idea if they would be in Fernley, but he needed to check it out. If they were there, he wasn’t going to lose them again.
This time he wasn’t going to pussyfoot around with them. He needed answers on who—and what—he was. He never understood why he could see the ash his father left around the house after beating him and his mother. But his mother never could see it. His first memory of the ash was on his seventh birthday. Blake had been allowed to have two friends from school over, and his mom had made cupcakes. The boys had played outside, and his father had grumbled and complained about the noise.
When Blake’s friends left, his father complained about the mess they had left. Looking back on it, Blake could now see that it wasn’t any big deal; it was a mess that three seven-year-old boys would have made. He watched as his father’s temper escalated, and his mother told Blake to go to his room. Blake huddled in his closet with his hands over his ears as he tried to block out the scream and thumps of his father beating his mother.
When silence finally settled over the house, Blake came out of his closet. He snuck down the stairs and saw his mother sitting at the kitchen table dabbing her mouth with a cloth. He noticed a slight trace of black stuff covering the floor, and he asked his mom about it.
She glanced down at the floor and looked at him with confusion. “I don’t see anything, baby,” she had said. “Please don’t be telling stories, okay?”
Over the years, he continued to see the ash, but he kept it to himself. It was his first indicator that he didn’t fit into the world’s version of “normal.”
The urge to kill when he was angry vibrated within him just below the surface, and that scared him. He worried that one day he would get angry, act on his impulse, and hurt or kill someone, just as his father had.
These things that made him fundamentally different from everyone had caused him to keep people at arm’s length. Sure, he could have a few beers with guys, and he loved a good-looking woman, but he never allowed anyone to get too close. To all those who knew him, he was just Blake, the happy guy who liked whiskey, football, and loved his job.
