“I wish Dad was here,” Asher said, lowering his chin in defeat.
Raymond placed a hand on his younger brother’s back. “We don’t need him anymore. He taught us everything he knew about the potential of a deva. We inherited dozens of dangerous books that we can turn to for more defensive and offensive knowledge.” Taking a deep breath, Raymond turned to everyone else in the room. “We need to have some faith in the powers of our friends and family. I know we will manage to overcome whatever adversity we’re faced with this time. We always do.”
The others solemnly nodded in appreciation of Raymond’s little motivational speech, and some even had feeble belief in it.
Chapter 22: The Zen Garden
Para’s clean getaway had proceeded almost flawlessly—except for one hitch. One very big hitch.
Much in the same way that the ballroom filled with people had jammed her telepathy, her teleportation skill hadn’t worked in exactly the way she had intended.
When she had splayed her fingers across her abdomen, conscious of both the mere seconds until her merger ended, and the prana beam which had been heading towards her and would hit in far less than a second, she had slightly panicked. Her focus had been thrown off.
Part of the issue was that all of the strongest energy signals on the planet had been standing in the same room with her. She had always used these signals to orient herself, to create a map of where she wanted to be. The only map she’d had the time to create at that single, pivotal moment was a “must-teleport-as-far-away-from-everyone-here-as-possible” map.
So she had locked onto the only other powerful energy pattern she could sense. She had done so instinctively, without even realizing whose life force it was. She would have normally tried to teleport a few blocks away from whoever it was, and even try to pinpoint a precise location, but there had been no time. Her training of her teleportation skill in the vector zone should have prepared her for this, but the environment, however harsh, could never replicate the true complexity of the real world—and stressful real world situations.
When Para materialized, she found herself in a completely unrecognizable place. The first noticeable attribute of her surroundings was that the gravity had changed—it was at least a hundred times greater than a moment before. She could feel the strain on her arm as she moved her fingers away from her stomach. She was on a different planet. The second thing she noticed was that the room in which she stood was a beautiful Zen-type garden, with an amazing surfeit of greenery, waterfalls, and even a menagerie of colorful exotic birds.
This is definitely not Kansas.
In the center of the indoor garden, levitating several inches above an ornamental cushion, was a man. This was the third thing that she noticed and the sight of him made Para break out into a cold sweat, for she had seen this man before. His forest-green locks were arranged across his broad shoulders—extremely broad, for he was gigantic. She imagined that in that seated posture he was almost as tall as she was standing. There was a fierce, intimidating aura about him, and a mystery that was enhanced by his tightly-shut eyelids.
She had seen him several times before. Always, it had been in her dreams. The dreams which she now knew to be prophetic. All of the ones which had featured this man as their star had been nightmares. She felt like she already knew him. She already knew what he would sound like when he spoke. She already knew what made him smile. (Cruelty, mainly.) She already knew what horrors he was capable of enacting.
The green-haired man was cross-legged and in a deep state of meditation. Even so, although he was very tranquil to achieve the focused state, his life force was the most prominent landmark in the universe. His energy had been so marked and magnetic to Para’s mind that it had beckoned her into making the grave error of teleporting clean across the universe to this man’s private garden.
She already knew that he was the greatest villain her family and friends would ever face.
Para felt a strange sensation which could only be described as true fear. It was the first time that she, Para, as an amalgamated being, had ever felt such a thing. She knew her union was about to wear off, but she would rather get back to Earth and risk being discovered than spend another second in the company of this man.
Para began moving her fingers back to her bellybutton, but before they reached their destination, the man’s eyes snapped open.
“An intruder,” he observed, before extending his hand towards her.
Para flinched, expecting an attack to be fired at her. She expected that her fingertips, which barely grazed the edge of her Swarovski-crystal corset, would soon save her from this, but she found that she was suddenly frozen. Not frozen in shock, not frozen in fear, but actually physically frozen. Her fingertips were immobilized, only millimeters away from her stomach, and she couldn’t seem to push them any closer to her body. She grunted in effort as she struggled to pull her hand against her abdomen, but it was futile. She couldn’t move even those tiny millimeters, not to save her life.
Only then did she notice the green smog which swirled around her. Para realized that she was locked inside some sort of force field.
The man lowered his hand, which he had evidently used to direct the force field which ensnared her. He smiled, raising himself out of the levitating position and onto his feet. He dusted himself off, smoothing the wrinkles out of his regal clothing. The force field held her so effectively that Para couldn’t even move her eyeballs—but the aspects of his clothing in her direct line of sight were undoubtedly imperial. He walked towards her, slowly and purposefully. Finally, he stopped before her, and stared into her eyes with interest.
Para thrashed with all of her might against the force field, but to no avail. After what felt like several minutes of struggle, a thought suddenly struck her. She had been joined together for longer than thirty minutes. Her union should have worn off by now. It should have worn off not long after teleporting to this planet. There was only one explanation: the force field that she was held within was so strong that it was keeping her from dividing. Not only could her body not move, but it couldn’t unravel and separate from itself. This drained every last drop of hope she possessed for breaking free, and she abruptly stopped wriggling.
“There, I see you understand. It is pointless to contest my will.”
She could not even close her eyelids to blink. All that she could do was stare into the dark violet eyes which appraised her. Her hand was still raised before her stomach in the position for performing teleportation, her fingers separated in an awkward formation. Her eyes began to hurt from being held open for so long. They were dry and burning. Moisture began to gather in the bottoms of her eyelids, but she couldn’t blink and use it to moisten her eyes. It was an unusual method of torture, for sure.
“I think that we should introduce ourselves, since we will soon be very intimately acquainted,” said the giant, tanned man. The immense vitality which radiated from his person in waves reminded Para vaguely of her grandfather, Kaden Burnson. She remembered what it had been like to sit on his shoulders as he breezed through the sky, feeling safe and secure in the knowledge of his might. To feel the same kind of power being emitted from an adversary gave her the precise opposite feeling. She swallowed as she observed the man’s chiseled body and face. He wore a wide metal belt around his tapered waist, accentuating his muscular core.
“I am Lord Zvarin, the Emperor of the Seven Galaxies. I have fully conquered a quadrant of the universe—and in record time, I might add. Far faster than my sister expected when she first tasked me with the duty.”
He moved closer to Para, and bent down slightly to examine her features. He grasped the fingers which were close to her bellybutton with a large gloved hand, and pushed her hand down to her side. Para wondered how he was able to move her body when she was not. Now that her fingers were very far away from their desired destination, her comfort levels plummeted further. Zvarin used the same gloved hand to firmly grasp her chin and move her head from on
e side to the other. She felt like she was a horse being inspected. Or a slave being inspected before being purchased.
“You are Para, a fused being from the north-easternmost section of the Universe,” Zvarin spoke for her.
Sakra. How does he know my name? How does he know that I’m two people? Why couldn’t he just be supremely powerful and dumb? Why does he have to be brilliant as well? This is the worst news yet.
“It is my pleasure to meet you, Para. Welcome to Planet Zvora.”
Zvora? Where the hell is Zvora? I thought I knew about a lot of planets, and a lot of habitable moons. I paid careful attention when my father used to give me lectures on this type of thing when I was younger. There’s only one explanation. I’m really far from home—like really far, even for deva standards. Shit, why I couldn’t I just have aimed for Kansas? Or Kentucky. Or Kazakhstan. Or Kari, or Kale—the moons of Saturn and Jupiter seem really nearby now.
I must have teleported clean out of the Milky Way.
I want to go home.
* * *
Gordin could fly pretty rapidly—he could cover hundreds of miles within seconds—but he knew that he couldn’t beat instant teleportation. In the moments it took for him to get home, that Medea girl could have already arrived there and blown up his whole family as they slept. The vision danced through his mind like the worst possible nightmare.
He inwardly cursed himself that he had never dedicated enough time to learning something like teleportation. It was ridiculous. He had trained with the Fire Deva for dozens of years. Kaden Burnson had treated Gordin like family, devoting himself not only to Gordin’s training, but to his development as a person. In fact, the man had probably spent more time teaching him than he had spent with his own two sons, or his granddaughter. And yet, even with only a few years spent with her grandfather in her childhood, Pax had managed to pick up the rudimentary aspects of the technique. Somewhat. Enough to greatly develop it and improve her success rate using it in her adulthood. Enough that she had evidently been able to teach it to someone else in the future.
Gordin felt slightly jealous and inferior that Pax, in such a short period of time, had managed to learn more from Kaden Burnson than he had in dozens. Perhaps this feeling wasn’t correct—and perhaps something should be said for the fact that any amount of peacetime training could never be equivalent to the concentrated effect of wartime training. Then, there was Pax’s advantage of being a blood descendant of Kaden’s—but nevertheless, Gordin couldn’t shake the feeling of being less of a fighter. He also couldn’t keep himself from thinking that if he had known the skill instead of Pax, he would not have taught it to the wrong people. Of course, there was no confirmation that Medea wasn’t the right person, but Gordin had a very bad feeling.
Whenever trouble came, it always came in hordes. This was Gordin’s experience, and life had confirmed his conviction over and over again. So, with chills running through his body and morose thoughts swimming through his mind after the confrontation in the ballroom, Gordin flew home as fast as he could. He focused on sensing the faint, resting energies of his children and wife, and searching for any fluctuations.
It took him mere seconds to make a beeline from the Kalgren Compound in ultra-urban Los Angeles to the less densely populated beaches of Northern California where he and Layla had chosen to raise their family. Those seconds felt like hours as the frantic thoughts flew through his mind. He lowered himself to the ground and weaved himself through the familiar path of trees to get to his home, but he didn’t use the front door as he normally did. He headed straight for the nursery window.
Gordin sighed in relief when he laid eyes on his sleeping son inside of the crib. He leaned down and kissed little Oren’s forehead gently. The toddler was the spitting image of his father, except for his striking hazel-green eyes. Gordin marveled at the fact that although Oren was the smallest, and the most helpless of his family, his prana patterns were the strongest. Moving on, Gordin quickly exited the nursery and headed to his daughters’ room. When he flung the door open, Olive sat up instantly.
“Daddy?” she asked in confusion, sensing his energy even in the darkness of the room. “What’s wrong? You came home from training?”
“Are you okay? Is Nyssa safe? You’re both unhurt?”
“Of, course, Daddy. I sensed a lot of big energies. Uncle Vincent got really mad?”
“You should have been sleeping,” Gordin scolded her gently. Upon being reassured that the girls were fine, he turned to leave. “Wake your sister up and then go into your brother’s room.” Gordin made his way to the room he shared with Layla, flinging the door open. Layla stirred and groaned to be woken out of her sleep.
“Lay,” he breathed in relief, rushing over to the bed. He stared down at her in the mellow moonlight.
“What? I’m sleeping,” she grumbled, squinting one eye open. “Gordie? Why are you—”
She was interrupted by Gordin flinging himself down onto the bed beside her and wrapping his arms around her tightly. She found her speech muffled as her face was buried in Gordin’s sweaty training clothes.
“Oh, another booty call,” she mumbled, trying to turn over and go back to sleep. “Not tonight. Go away. Haven’t I made you enough children?”
“Ah, Lay,” Gordin murmured again, not letting her escape his tight embrace.
“I’m so sleepy,” she protested. “I literally just got the girls to bed after reading to them for about six hours, and breastfeeding Oren. Can we do this another time? I’m really not in the mood.”
Her speech was interrupted by the realization that Gordin was clinging to her for dear life—as though he feared for her safety.
“Gord,” she whispered softly. “Sakra, what’s wrong?”
“A girl,” he spoke into her hair. “A very powerful girl. Possible Asura.”
Layla sat up immediately. “The kids—”
“They’re okay,” Gordin said, pulling his wife against him again, “and you’re okay. I’m not letting any of you out of my sight until this is over. Let’s go to the nursery.”
“Gord, wait,” Layla said, grabbing his arm. “Can you tell me what’s going on? Tell me now so that we don’t have to scare the children.”
He sighed. “You wouldn’t believe it if I told you. Her name is Medea.”
“Medea— as in—” Layla bit her lip before she could say anything further. Medea as in the girls? As in Para?
“Do you remember the new girl Thorn was dating?” Gordin asked, with a frown. “Apparently she’s extremely skilled with magick. Maybe more than all of us. Even Vincent was worried. She said that she’s from the future, but—”
Layla let out a sound that was half-snort and half-laugh, but all-relieved. Gordin looked at her questioningly. “Oh, the future you say?” Layla quickly covered. “Well, after Nyssa came back, nothing can surprise me. I wonder what the trouble is this time.”
“I’m not sure she’s telling the truth,” Gordin admitted, “but whether she is or she isn’t—she requested a new pair of size 7 shoes. She somehow knew your shoe size, and I broke her old ones.”
“You broke her shoes? How on earth... I’m not even going to ask.” Layla stood up from the bed and walked over to her closet. She opened the door and peered in, squinting in the darkness. “What color were they?”
“Ummm...”
“Men!” Layla said in dismay. “Can you even remember what color her dress was?”
“Ummm. Maybe white—no, silver?"
Layla sighed. “I’ll call Mrs. Kalgren and ask.”
* * *
“Now, I hope you understand that I cannot release you from that force field because you will merely teleport away. I do not know this delightful teleporting skill of yours, so I will be powerless to follow you. I prefer to not be in such a disadvantaged situation.”
Zvarin walked around Para slowly, letting his gaze roam leisurely over her body and her curves, accentuated by the semi-destroyed ball gown. She felt the
uncomfortable sensation of his eyes on her back when he was out of her line of sight. There’s no way out of this one, she realized. I’m at his mercy.
“What I could do is release only your head from the force field. That would give you a bit of comfort.”
Please, please, please. Anything. She remembered when she had been encased within metal in the vector zone. Somehow, this force field held her more firmly than the metal body cast. Even then, there had been some wiggle room within the mold. The metal had merely formed around the shape of her body, but the force field felt like it was actively crushing her, pressing inward from every angle. She realized that she could not even move her tongue within her mouth; the force field even extended within her body. It was a wonder that her heart was still allowed to beat, and that her brain was allowed to perform the functions of thinking. She could feel the force field squeezing its way between her every cell, and burrowing into every crevice. She imagined her organs being surrounded and squeezed by this invasive green mist, and she fought the urge to upchuck the contents of her stomach.
“You are probably wondering whether I will allow you to speak and blink. Do you think you deserve this privilege?”
Para felt humiliated and disgusted. The privilege of speaking and blinking? She wanted to roll her eyes at him. She wanted to spit at him. She wanted to do what Vincent mentioned earlier, and rip him about five new holes and then pull his intestines out of them. Then she wanted to jump rope with his intestines. Or make a lasso with them, lasso him like a cow, and strangle him with his own intestines. She could have continued to imagine creative ways to torture this man with his own intestines, but she was too distracted by the uncomfortable feeling within her skull that was probably caused by the constrictive green mist surrounding her brain.
“Para. I know you can communicate with me telepathically. When an emperor asks you a question, you are to respond. Do you think you deserve this privilege?”
She had no choice. She had no choice whatsoever. She was almost unsure if her brain would successfully send the message, with the heavy ache behind her eyes. But she could restrict her answer to one word.
Thirty Minutes to Heartbreak Box Set (Books 1-3) Page 89
