by Nya Rawlyns
Caitlin splashed warm water along her arms, cleansing weeks of sandy grit from her sore skin. She maneuvered into deeper waters, not liking that she couldn’t see the bottom and vaguely fearful that some voracious monster lay hidden in the murky depths. Allowing her toes to explore the squishy bits required concentration, so she did not hear or sense when he came up behind her, so close she could no longer bend over without touching him.
Trey murmured in her ear, a familiar act, always leading to a complaint, a prelude to pain. She missed the words at first, confused at the tone and gentleness. She tried to move away but he grasped her shoulders with a feather touch, his long fingers stroking her collarbone with exquisite grace.
She stuttered, “I-I’m sorry.” The words spilled out unbidden, nothing more than habit. Act contrite and pray he would accept her meagre apology and lessen the pain in deference to her acquiescence.
“It’s all right. I’m not going to hurt you.” But he grasped her shoulders tighter, his fingers digging into her parched skin. Abruptly he released her but did not back away. Instead, he wrapped his arms around her waist and cradled her as he buried his face in her neck. He moaned, “Oh gods, what have I done?”
Caitlin whispered, “It’s all right. It will be...”
Her gut clenched at the tight hold, but not in fear, and she could not fathom what had changed. The stranger—her captor, her torturer—moaned his anguish and regret, his emotions so long bottled up they released in a waterfall of passion, stinging cool against her overheated flesh. She longed for the hate, for its simplicity and bright edges. Her body, her mind, had no strength left for this wash of need and desire, though she’d longed for it, praying and beseeching and bargaining with unknown, unknowable deities.
The stranger, the man—Trey—at last, a name. Did that make him real—more real than ‘Aiden’—and her befuddled fantasy world? Which was the more genuine, more authentic? With his arms about her, encasing her with hope, she wasn’t sure she wanted an answer to that or any other questions. His hard body pressed against her back, a cocoon of strength. She trembled at the tell-tale bulge against her butt as he slowly rotated his hips, whispering sweet trills of pleasure. If only it could be enough, in a land where time had no meaning and they drifted, linked, no longer alone.
“Caitlin, Caitlin, Caitlin,” Trey crooned as he explored her thin frame. He seemed intent on mapping her body, his fingers searching like a man rendered blind, seeking images, aching for clarity, and for truth. Inexplicably he pleaded, “Don’t leave me, please don’t.”
She whispered, “I won’t,” and meant it. When he pulled away, the heat of the day gripped her like a blowtorch. She couldn’t explain the sensation of a cool breeze when he’d wrapped her tenderly in his arms. She’d thought of passion as heat, a burning, shooting wash of flame, not this sweet chill that caressed every nerve ending. She wanted to turn around and face her enemy but feared what she’d find. An illusion. A dream, another mindless fantasy wreaking havoc on her soul. She could not bear it if he were goading, baiting her again, as he had so often in the past. The dance, it hurt, yet she floated through the sequence, content with the cadence, bending her mind to his will.
“Let me bathe you...” he paused and said quietly, “...please.”
Caitlin nodded her head and allowed him to take her hand and lead her into deeper water. The reeds or grasses, whatever the plant life that had her in such a tizzy earlier, now cushioned her feet. They waded through the gelatinous liquid, stirring up mud and debris, until he stopped and motioned her to wait. He strode further out, cautiously feeling with a foot.
“There’s a ledge here. Don’t go any further.” Trey backed away, guiding Caitlin to safer footing. “Bend over. Let me wash your hair.”
She complied, rejoicing in the feel of his strong hands unknotting and combing through her tangled locks. Her hair had grown abnormally fast and hung mid-back, though the dreadlocks had made it seem shorter. She tried not to think about what the muddy water would do to her tresses. He lifted her head, then tilted her chin and smiled, his normally stern features melting into almost a boyish quality. His teeth seemed abnormally white against chapped sore lips. Neither of them would pass for cover models any time soon. She stared into startling sable brown eyes, lit with an inner fire, gold-flecked. He’d left his glasses on shore.
Inanely she asked, “Can you see?”
He laughed and leaned in, squinting. “No. Not much anyway, but I can’t risk losing them in here. We’d be in hell of a fix then.”
“Like we aren’t already?”
A mask fell over his face and he let his hands fall to his side. “I guess I have some explaining to do.”
Caitlin longed for his touch, its absence sent waves of ... something cascading through her. She had no words for the emptiness, the profound sense of loss.
“Do you feel that?” she asked in a strangled voice.
“Yes.”
“What is it? What’s happening to me?”
“To us, Caitlin. To both of us.”
“Why? I don’t understand.”
“Because you are mine.” Trey spoke with sadness and regret. “I’ve brought this on you, on us. And there’s no going back.”
Caitlin mulled his words. He’d said it before and she still did not comprehend the significance or why he seemed filled with remorse, as if he grieved about something over which he had no control. The man stood before her, his head bowed in silent supplication. His sandy brown hair hung long and stringy over his rough features.
She stroked his cheek with a palm and said, “My turn. I want to wash your hair.” He raised his head with such a look of hope and despair it nearly broke her heart. He nodded and bent down, burying his head in the water and gripping her hips to steady himself as she stroked and pulled the knots apart. It was an oddly satisfying act, not so much intimate as soothing. She revelled in the pressure of fingertips against his scalp, the texture of his hair, the long stroke across her palms as she drew lengths of strands up and back. His hair was almost as long as hers and she imagined how it might feel when dry, brushing against her lips as he explored her neck with his mouth and tongue.
“Turn around.” Caitlin gently guided the man until he stood with his back to her. She pulled at his hair, then divided it into three bunches and plaited it into a thick weave, tying it off with several strands of hair.
Trey reached back, curious at what she had done, stroking the length carefully so as not to dislodge her work. He murmured, “Better,” then stepped back, his leg giving way as he plunged off the shelf. Arms flailing, he landed with a splash and disappeared from view. Caitlin gasped and reached toward where he’d gone down, but before she had time to panic, he surfaced with a laugh.
“Come on in, woman. The water’s fine.” He swam off using powerful strokes that carried him almost to the far shore. He yelled back, “Still deep on this side. You’re standing on something over there. Let me look.”
Before Caitlin could object, he disappeared below the surface.
Chapter Twelve
Eirik paced irritably along the empty corridor. As usual, his brother was late. They’d agreed to meet in the Egyptian rooms at the Metropolitan Museum. Though a wildly popular exhibit, the holdings were so vast, with so many nooks and alcoves, that visitors seldom crossed paths with others, and this late in the day most had gone on to other interests.
Eirik felt his age profoundly. The eldest of his kind, he’d guided the clans through millennia in this dimension. Of late he’d spent protracted periods in the city, far from his beloved mountainside and the chill winds that whipped the snows into fanciful curtains of lacy ice, a fairy tale kingdom of impossible vistas and improbable beings. He sorely missed the bards and poets who held sacred their history and beliefs. The discovery of the Portals and his peoples’ flight from incessant wars and discrimination, from the shouts of hate and spite, and the slow evolution toward what he believed was enlightenment would make a splendid story
, perhaps even an exhibit in these halls of history. If only it could be so. But the schism had destroyed any chance at reconciliation with this world so they lived outside this time and space, meddling and scheming and plotting. They’d convinced themselves that they’d evolved for a higher purpose—at least he had. Lately he’d sensed questions, some lingering doubts.
“Eirik.”
“Gunnarr.”
“It’s been a while, Brother. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
Eirik expected the usual sneer and look of disdain, but this day his younger sibling seemed different. He had aged, his hair now streaked with grey and his bearing less military, almost soft in its outlines. Eirik wondered if he looked as old and used up—both of them spent, no longer relevant to the times.
“It’s Trey.”
Gunnarr clenched his fists but a flicker of sadness and hope flitted across his scarred features. “What about my boy?”
Eirik tilted his head, curious that he would refer to Trey as his ‘boy’, something he’d never called him even as a child. He’d been the one failure in Gunnarr’s long line of successful breedings to produce a warrior clan of loyal followers, whose trust and unquestioning obedience would be guaranteed. It was all they had to safeguard their genetic anomalies. Eirik understood, and had even indulged in the wanton ruttings, spreading his seed far and wide in the human population in hopes of maintaining their bloodlines.
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
Gunnarr managed to look surprised. “What do you mean? Don’t tell me he’s gone missing. How is that possible? I told you to keep him on a tight leash.”
“Yes, well, maybe if you hadn’t beat the shit out of him at every opportunity, he might be more willing to play the obedient little lackey you trained him to be.”
“You have no right,” Gunnarr sputtered.
“I have every right. You cut him loose, forced him to choose. Why do you resent that he left you? What else did you expect him to do? I was there to pick up the pieces, Brother.” Eirik sat heavily on a stone sarcophagus and glared at his sibling. “Why did you do that to him?”
“Because I love him, you old fool. I know him better than you think. What I did, well ... I did it for him. He hated the battles, the blood and the stain on his soul. It slowly ate at him, destroying him in front of my eyes. And...”
“And what?”
Gunnarr fidgeted and thrust his hands in the pockets of his jeans, unwilling to meet his brother’s eyes.
“Gunnarr?”
“He would never have survived Bryn.”
“Bryn? What about him? I don’t...” Eirik’s voice trailed off and he stared hard at Gunnarr. “You don’t mean... Oh shit, no. He didn’t.”
Gunnarr growled, “No, thank the gods. I kept them apart as best I could, but I could see where it was going. It was a matter of time.”
“Sweet Freyja. Was Trey aware of Bryn’s perversion?”
“I don’t think so, but I’ll never be sure. We have a small problem now.”
Eirik barked a laugh. “I thought that was my line.”
“This isn’t funny, Eirik. Bryn’s gone. When he realized it was Trey at that cock up at headquarters, he took off and we haven’t seen him since.”
“Shit, shit, shit. Do you want me to get my people on it? I don’t have any way to track him but we’ll do...” Eirik paused as Gunnarr handed him a small device. “What’s this?”
“This is how you track him, Brother, but do it discreetly. We must not let our people know that we work together on this matter. It might lead to complications.”
“Understood.” Eirik accepted the tracking module, fingering it idly as he considered his next words. “You know my people will dissect this thing.”
“Of course, but it makes little difference. I want my sons returned, Eirik, both of them. In one piece if at all possible.”
“Agreed. Then there is another matter.”
“Hmm, I wondered when you would get to that.” Gunnarr, moved toward his brother and muttered, “Move over. I need to sit. I’m not as young as I used to be.”
Eirik smirked but scooted over, making room for the bear of a man. “We need to return home soon. Refresh. This dimension, the stress, the antagonisms and constant feuding drain my soul. I long for peace, Gunnarr.”
Gunnarr placed his hand on his brother’s shoulder and sighed, “As do I.”
“So?”
“All right. This is what I know. We have a genuine shape shifter on our hands. Or, at least we did. We knew of a family of gifteds. Powerful, with extraordinary abilities, varying in degree and type. We managed to conscript the father, used his talents, but it fell apart and he threatened certain of my interests.”
“Yes, I know the broad outlines of this. I also know that you used his wife to infiltrate and destroy my headquarters.” Eirik allowed a measure of anger into his voice as he spat, “And I expect restitution when this is over.”
“Whatever. Table that for now. We lost the asset.”
“She’s dead.”
“Damn it, Eirik. You didn’t!”
“No, you did, you fool ... or at least your trigger-happy outlaws did. Trey took her through a Portal and tried to save her but she chose the warrior’s way. That little stunt is what caused my nephew, and your son, to finally break with his realities.”
“That explains it then.”
“Explains what, dammit.”
“Trey took the woman, the shifter, that night. We screwed up, okay? She escaped but we were close to getting her back when my son interfered and spirited her away. We assumed he used a Portal. We have several in the area, but you know that already. We put traces out but none of the jump points had been used recently. He vanished in a puff of smoke and I still don’t know how he did it.”
Eirik snickered, “I do. He drove.”
Gunnarr looked at his brother dumbfounded. “Drove?”
“A Porsche, no less.”
Gunnarr stared at his elder brother, slack-jawed.
“We thought he went south to Atlanta. We were wrong.”
“Do you have any clues?”
Eirik nodded. “We think he ended up in Wyoming. He knows a man there, a friend of sorts. Trey doesn’t know that we are aware of that. Anyway, we sent a team to look for him. I’m suspecting he found a Portal not in our catalogue.”
Gunnarr said, “So the rumours are true. I suspected as much. That’s the other reason I sent him to you—you and your intellectual snobs of scientists.”
“The thing is, if we find the jump point, we can track him to whatever dimension he bolted with his cargo. But a lot of time has passed. We could easily lose him and the woman in some trackless wasteland.”
“I think I can help you with that.”
“Oh?”
“My organization has access to certain, uh, military grade materiel. Single man copters, specialized instruments adapted for harsh environments. I will put a team at your disposal, with limited accountability to you and your people. Will that suit?”
“Most generous. There will be no wards on that Portal so the retrieval team will have unlimited access.” Eirik eased off the stone crypt and straightened with difficulty. “You know we risk a lot by doing this. If word gets out...”
“It will be up to us to see that we have containment. Are you willing...?”
Eirik shook his head yes, then held out his hand. “Truce for now, Gunnarr?”
Gunnarr shook the older man’s hand, agreeing to the terms. “Truce. Bring me my boy, Eirik, and I will be in your debt.”
“No debt bond, Brother. We’ll bring him back for both of us. Gods willing.”
****
“Oh, dear God! Trey? Trey!” Caitlin screamed, her howl of fear echoing off the sheer cliff faces. There was no sign of him after his precipitous plunge into the murky depths.
She waded along the ledge, frantically counting off ‘a thousand one, a thousand two’ in a metronome of panic. She had no sure way of tell
ing time but at least seven minutes had passed since he’d disappeared under the surface. No one could survive that long. Her fears of monsters lurking unseen seemed not so fanciful now.
“Trey. Please. Don’t leave me. I can’t be alone.” She sobbed her anguish and howled to the gods, “I hate you. I hate you. I...” She buried her face in her hands, her body wracked with agony and terror at the prospect of facing life abandoned, alone, without him.
“Caitlin? What’s the matter? It’s okay, everything is fine.” Trey wrapped his arms around her, drawing her close and rocking her body gently as she sobbed away her fear.
“I thought I lost you. No one can survive that long without oxygen.” She pressed her face into his massive chest, moaning, “I can’t lose you. I can’t.”
Trey stroked her cheek and nuzzled her hair. “I’m sorry, so sorry. I can hold my breath for longer than, uh, normal. Um, I’ve got special diving abilities.” The man floundered, as if he desperately wanted to avoid the whole ‘I’m-not-exactly-human’ issue, something she’d long suspected but carefully buried to keep her sanity intact
With exaggerated care he steered her toward the stony beach and said, “Come on. Let’s go back to the shore.”
Caitlin clung like a leech, her arm wrapped tightly around his waist. She managed to ask, “What did you find down there? You were down so long.”
“A cave, fairly big too. No air space, but I think at some point it might have been open. I couldn’t see much. Had to go by feel. Damn this dimension and me being half blind.” Trey settled her on a patch of grass near where they’d piled their clothing and sat beside her. He felt around for his glasses and slid them on with a sigh. “That’s better. I have no idea where the water came from. I couldn’t go far enough back to trace if that was the source for this pond. Even I have my limits.”
“I’m just glad you’re okay, Aiden.” She startled, realizing her mistake. “I’m sorry, I meant Trey.”
