by Nina Croft
She tiptoed her way carefully through the tentacles, which protruded from the floor of the cavern along with every other surface. But there was no sense of danger here. It was as though they welcomed her, wanted her here. Loved her.
She brushed her fingers across one projection and felt a pulse of recognition sizzle along her nerves. A greeting, and she sent it back.
Kneeling beside Devlin, she touched her fingers to his throat and felt the steady flow of his blood. His skin was hot, clammy with sweat, but he was alive and, unbelievably, he was here.
She should move. Instead, she sat back on her heels and stared down at him.
Presumably, he must have come back early and found her gone. Had he also found the explosive device? And what about the secondary device she had set? If he had found them, what was he doing here? Why had he come after her?
He lay on his back, dark lashes shadowing his cheeks, his stern mouth relaxed so she could see the sensual curve of his full lower lip. Unable to resist, she trailed a finger over his mouth and his warm breath feathered her skin, then along the scar up to his eye. His lashes fluttered against her fingertip. She hadn’t realized how long they were. She stroked his hair back from his forehead; his skin was still hot to the touch, but cooled as she ran her palm over him.
How long would he be out?
Too long.
But she found she couldn’t contemplate leaving him. If that meant her plan failed, so be it. He’d come after her and, at the knowledge, the hard lump of ice that encased her heart melted just a little bit more.
She told herself it was due to the heat in the cavern. But she knew the process had started when they’d made love earlier. It had cracked a little more when Thorne had told her he loved her. Now, kneeling beside Devlin’s unconscious body, she knew she was beaten.
She lay down so her head rested against his chest, listened to the thud of his heart, and blanked the future from her mind.
It must have been an hour later when he shifted beneath her.
Saffira pushed herself onto her hands and knees and sat back on her heels. His lashes fluttered open, and glowing violet eyes gazed up at her, inhuman in the dim light.
“Fuck, that hurt.”
Her lips twitched. But honestly, there was no cause to smile. What did she do next? “Why?” she asked.
He shook his head, ran a hand through his hair, pressed a spot between his eyes. When he’d obviously decided his head wouldn’t fall off if he moved, he sat up slowly and looked around. “Shit. I really need to get out of here. This place gives me the serious creeps. What are these things?” He pointed to the nearest tentacle. It grew from the floor a foot away, violet, vaguely luminescent, obviously alive, though not quite sentient, she was guessing. To prove her wrong, it bent in her direction, and she leaned across and stroked her fingers over the blind head and felt again the pulse of welcome.
“Baby aliens,” she said. “Sort of.”
“The Collective were always really secretive about the nature of Meridian,” Devlin said. “We always presumed it was some sort of element, but it’s alive.”
“It’s their secondary source of reproduction,” Saffira said.
“Shit, are you just telling me I had sex with an alien?”
“No. Maybe I should have said asexual reproduction.” She studied him, her head cocked to one side. “How do you feel?”
He took a deep breath and stretched his arms above his head. “You know, considering a little while back my brain was boiling in my head, I feel good. Very good.”
“I’m glad.”
“But I’d still like to get out of here.”
“Let’s go then.” She pushed herself to her feet and led the way across the floor and out of the birthing chamber. As soon as they left the room, Devlin stopped her with a hand on her arm. They were in the wide tunnel, still bathed in the violet glow from the chamber, and she turned to face him.
“This is far enough,” he said.
He didn’t say anymore, just took her in his arms, and drew her close. His head lowered to hers and he kissed her. Did he taste different? Of cinnamon and other spices. She relaxed into the kiss, losing herself in the taste of him, the feel of him.
All too soon, he drew back. “Tell me.”
She shrugged helplessly. “Tell you what?”
“What you planned. Why you didn’t wait for me.”
She nibbled on her lower lip, but she was way beyond lies. “After about two hundred years on Earth, I sort of came to the conclusion that perhaps mankind wasn’t worth saving.”
“I’m surprised it took you that long.”
“Before that I had the dreams and visions…” She touched him lightly on the chest. “I had you. But the visions stopped, and eventually the memory faded. I was lonely, I couldn’t trust anyone, and all around me there were horrible things going on, wars and famines.” She gave a sad smile. “People can be cruel.”
He stroked her hair from her face. “I know.”
“I had a lot of time to think about it, and I came to the conclusion that it’s hard to care for mankind en masse. You need to care for individuals, but I couldn’t allow myself to do that. The few times I tried nearly ended in disaster. So I stopped trying, kept myself aloof. Of course, I had no choice but to go through with the original plan to save mankind because otherwise I wouldn’t exist either, and I found I didn’t want to cease to exist, and I didn’t want to die. So I adjusted the plan. It was simple, really. I’d come back here on the Trakis One, hope to hell that you would wake me, then I’d return to the planet, get my immortality, take over the Blood Hunter, and get out of this shitty universe and into a better one. And after that, I’d do whatever the hell I wanted.”
“I found the explosive device on the Blood Hunter. You planned to keep her here until you could get back. I dismantled it. She’ll be gone now.”
“Maybe not quite yet.”
His eyes narrowed on her. “What else did you do?”
She lifted a shoulder in a casual shrug. “Introduced some sleeping gas on a timer into the life-support system.”
“When?”
“An hour after the explosion. Time for you to get it under control. I had to wait until you were all back from the Trakis One, so I couldn’t do it straightaway. I timed it for Tannis’s deadline.”
“So what? We would have all slept soundly until you came to wake us up.”
“Not quite. I could have recycled the gas through the life-support system and it would have continued indefinitely, but I didn’t want to risk leaving you all sleeping in case something happened and I never got back and you never woke up.”
“Aw, sweet.”
She pursed her lips. “Actually, it was a moment of weakness, but we all have them. Anyway, the gas will clear after a certain amount of time and everyone will wake up. Maybe with a headache, but nothing else.”
“So how long?”
She glanced at the comm unit on her arm. It was set to show how much time she had to get back. She’d planned to have enough to get back and secure the crew. “They’ll wake in thirty minutes, give or take.”
“We can go comm them from the shuttle. Maybe Tannis will wait, though I doubt she’ll be feeling too friendly if you knocked her out…again.”
But she realized something. She wasn’t going anywhere. So much for her carefully thought-out plan.
“I can’t leave. I don’t know what I can do to help, but I know that I can’t leave my people. I thought I could turn my back on them. I’d convinced myself they were nothing to me. And there’s something…” She shook her head as the elusive vision teased the edges of her mind. There was something she needed to do.
“Then it looks like we’re stuck here.”
She had to force the next words out. “You could go.”
He shook his head. “I’m not leaving you.”
Some emotion bubbled inside her at his words. “Why? Why did you come after me?”
He cupped her chin i
n his palm, stroked his thumb over her lower lip. “Because I love you.”
At his words, something broke inside her. “Shit.”
He gave a rueful smile. “Not the reaction I was hoping for.”
“Why does everyone have to decide they love me now when I am so totally unlovable? Why couldn’t you have loved me before when I was nice and sweet and wanted nothing more than to save the whole fucking world?”
“Maybe I don’t like nice and sweet.”
“And you like me now.”
He nodded. “Oh, yeah.”
“So what changed your mind, after you left me?”
“I was working on the Trakis One and everything was going through my mind. What I wanted. What you wanted. And I realized that maybe I wanted you more than I wanted revenge. I was going to tell you I’d come with you, stay here, help you any way I could.”
She bit down on her lip as though she could stop the well of emotion overflowing inside her.
“It was weird,” he continued, “but being with you made me…happy.” He gave a wry smile. “I almost fucked up because I didn’t recognize the emotion. I don’t remember feeling happy, though I guess I must have as a child. I realized that I could go after my revenge and maybe have a moment of satisfaction, but I wouldn’t be happy. Not ever again—without you.” He reached out, tipped her chin, and kissed her again. “And I want you. I don’t think I will ever get enough of you.”
“Then have me.”
She drew him down until she felt the soft, silky sand at her back. He came over her, his kiss turning fierce, his hands on her body, cupping her breasts, between her thighs, almost rough with need. She wasn’t aware of how she got out of her clothes, but at last, she was naked beneath him. He stared down into her face as he pushed inside her. Then he was moving on her, in her, with an urgency she, too, felt. She wrapped her legs around him, pulled him deeper, thrust with her hips as though she could meld with him, make them truly as one. Sensation built inside her, spiraling up and out from her core to fill her entire body. Her eyes were closed and purple light pulsed behind her lids as she gave herself up to the sensations. He was drawing near his own release. She could sense it in the tightening of his muscles, the swelling of his cock inside her, and she rubbed against him and came in a storm of sensation. She rode the feelings as he followed her over the edge, then came again as he pushed inside her one last time.
Collapsing onto her, he wrapped his arms around her and rolled so she lay sprawled on top of him.
“I love you,” she murmured.
His eyes flickered open. “I know.”
…
Devlin lay on his back, arms under his head as he watched her dress. He felt at peace for the first time in as long as he could remember.
He also felt vaguely weird, presumably from the changes caused by the sex-with-an-alien thing. He didn’t want to delve into that right now, though. He wasn’t sure how he felt about immortality. He’d never wanted it. But that was before. Things had changed, and maybe eternity with Saffira wouldn’t be such a bad thing. That’s if they survived.
Was Saffira now an abomination? Would they try to kill her as they had Skylar and Tannis? Not if he could help it.
Suddenly, he was filled with urgency. He needed to find out what was going on, rally Thorne and his people, see what they could do to fortify the Keep and make sure there was a safe place for Saffira to live while he sorted out how to solve the problem of these Old Ones, whatever the hell they were.
He jumped to his feet and straightened his clothes. “Come on.”
She tossed him a smile. “What are you thinking?”
“Just that we need to get these people of yours organized. Make sure you have a safe place to go. Find out what I can about the Old Ones and what we’re up against. Speak to—”
“Have you always been so…take-charge?”
“Yeah.” He grinned. “Get used to it.”
He headed along the tunnel, Saffira behind him, and came out into the open air, breathing deeply. The sun had set, but a fat moon hung low on the horizon and the night was half-light. He stared up into the sky and could make out the Trakis One. She was moving, heading toward the black hole. So they hadn’t left yet, but they were on their way. Did that mean the Blood Hunter had left? She was too small to see with the naked eye.
They were also too far away for his comm unit to function, but the communicator in the shuttle should still be able to reach them.
As he sank down into the pilot’s seat, Saffira came to stand behind him, her hand resting on his shoulder. He opened the link, and someone picked up straightaway, so they must have recovered.
“You’re awake, then?” he asked.
“Obviously. But no fucking thanks to your girlfriend,” Tannis growled. “That fucking little bitch drugged us.”
Devlin chuckled.
“On the other hand, I suppose she could have killed us instead.” The admission was grudging. Tannis was silent for a moment, and Devlin waited for what she had to say. “We’ll wait for you. Just get your asses moving.”
He didn’t even ask Saffira. “We can’t. We have to help her people.”
“You sure? Like abso-fucking-lutely sure? Because this really is the last time I’ll ask.”
This time he did look at Saffira and she nodded. “We’re sure.”
Again, Tannis was quiet. “I can’t risk the others…”
“I know. We’ll be fine. Just keep safe. And kill Hatcher for me.”
“I will.”
He closed down the link. Saffira’s hand slipped into his. “Thank you.”
“It’s what I want.”
He rose to his feet, made his way out of the shuttle, and stood on the sand frowning for a moment. There was something he was missing. Something about Meridian. “Hey, shouldn’t we be able to read each other’s minds now?”
She frowned. “We should. Try concentrating.”
He did, staring into Saffira’s eyes. But nothing. He reached out further. And caught the flicker of voices in his head. “I can hear something.”
“I can’t.”
Then a voice spoke in his mind, clear as if they had been standing beside him.
Devlin, what the hell have you done?
“It was an accident.” He realized he had spoken aloud. Closing his eyes, he thought the words. This was going to take some practice.
Is Saffira there?
Yes
Is she okay?
She’s perfect. We’re coming over there.
I’ll see you soon. And welcome.
So the telepathy thing worked, but why wasn’t he reading Saffira? He wanted to be inside her head. She was staring into space, an unfocused look in her eyes. As he watched, she fell to her knees and clasped her head in her hands.
He ran toward her, but she was already struggling to her feet.
“They’re awakening.”
“Who’s awakening?” But he knew who she must mean. The fucking Old Ones. “We have to get out of here. Now.”
She shook her head. “No.”
“No?” He was going to have to have a serious discussion with her about obeying orders, though he had a suspicion it wouldn’t take. “Where do we have to go?”
Without answering, she hurried back the way they had come. He heaved a huge sigh, but followed her. She came to a halt in the center of the circle of small mountains and turned around, studying their surroundings. The mountains were each similar in size and cone-shaped. “There,” she said, pointing to the mountain opposite. About fifty feet away, it appeared no different from the others. But she headed across, her stride purposeful.
“What’s so…” But he shut up and followed her. She obviously knew something he didn’t. What was new?
She stopped at the foot of the mountain. Like all the others, this was rough ochre sandstone. It appeared smooth, unmarked but, as they stared, a narrow fissure appeared in the unbroken rock. It widened until it was broad enough for them to pass t
hrough. Devlin peered inside but could see nothing beyond the first few feet. Saffira took a step forward and he stopped her with a hand on her arm.
“Speak to me. What is it?”
She glanced into his face, and he tried to decipher her expression. Wonder? Excitement? But no fear.
“The Old Ones are awakening.”
“And that’s good?”
From what he’d heard of the Old Ones so far, they were best avoided, at least until he learned a little more about them—like how to kill the fuckers. Though if they were anything like the Collective, they’d be almost impossible to kill.
“I don’t know,” she replied. “But they’re calling to me.”
He rubbed his head. “Why can’t I hear them? Why aren’t they calling to me?”
“Because this is my destiny. This is why I was born.” And she pulled free of his arm and stepped into the fissure.
Devlin stared after her for all of two seconds before taking a deep breath and following her. Immediately the darkness swallowed him. He hurried his pace and banged straight into her. She’d stopped, now she took his hand, and together they walked through the darkness. The tunnel widened until Devlin could no longer touch the sides with his outstretched arm.
He tightened his grip on Saffira and allowed her to lead the way. She did so without faltering. He was unsurprised when the darkness gave way to a dull purple glow that lighted their path. They were heading to the source of the light.
He was fully expecting to enter a chamber like they’d been in earlier—the birthing chamber—Saffira had called it. But when the tunnel finally opened up fully to form a huge cavern, there were no tentacle-like projections reaching from the walls or floor.
Instead, there was just a huge, boulder-like object in the center, as big as one of the shuttles. As Saffira pulled free of his hand and moved toward it, a sense of unease trickled down his spine. A shout hovered on his lips. He wanted to yell at her to get away, and his legs twitched to run. In the opposite direction.
But he stood unmoving as she stepped closer. Her hand came out and rested on the curved side, and a ripple ran through the mound.
“Holy freaking shit,” he muttered. “Is that…thing alive?”
