Rion

by Susan Kearney

  She didn’t see a control panel. Or a lever.

  They’d landed on a platform inside a busy bronzed metal dome where people in unusual styles of clothing strode by. Many wore makeup that covered half their faces. Men and women had skin that was neon pink, sparkling silver, gold, or blue, their hair wired with blinking crystals that changed color, too.

  She’d landed in a bizarre dream—only she was fully awake. This couldn’t be happening. But it was. She was far from home. And it was all Rion’s fault.

  “Why did you kidnap me?” She kept her tone low but couldn’t control the edge of anger.

  “I need your help.”

  “You could have asked.”

  “You would have said no. And if you’d known how badly I needed you, you’d never have gone on a date with me—not to Stonehenge.”

  Now she knew why he’d suddenly started treating her differently. To set her up. The bastard had flirted with her, kissed her, given her a spectacular orgasm… all to lure her out to Stonehenge so he could kidnap her.

  Damn it. She’d thought she’d finally found a man she could trust, a gallant knight. But he’d been deluding her from the start.

  “Look, I’m sorry I brought you here against your will. But I have to save my people.” Rion’s tone pleaded for her understanding. She wasn’t in a forgiving mood and said nothing, so he continued, “In my flashes, the conditions on Honor are brutal. Men are whipped until they can’t work. They kill women and children.” His face hardened. “I know taking you was wrong, but I’d do anything to save my people.”

  Was he feeding her another story? More lies? She spoke between teeth gritted with anger and embarrassment over how foolish she’d been. “What exactly do you want from me?”

  “Once we get to my world, I need you to send telepathic messages to Honor’s dragonshapers. Help me organize a revolt.”

  A revolt? “That sounds dangerous.”

  “I’ll protect you.”

  Like she could believe a word he said after he’d lied to her? Kidnapped her? She snorted. “I’m not interested. Send me home.”

  Rion pressed a microchip into her forearm.

  She jerked back too late. The device had already sunk painlessly through her skin. Although it didn’t sting, she frowned and rubbed the spot. “What did you do to me?”

  “I placed a subcutaneous translator under your skin. Now you’ll understand any language. And when you speak English, others will understand you.”

  “You could have asked first,” she muttered, a chill icing her blood.

  The public square was unfamiliar territory, but Marisa had traveled to many different countries on Earth. Humanity had basic needs. People required food, shelter, transportation. Most civilized societies had police or the equivalent.

  When a group of people surged past, she pointed. “Hey, that man’s waving to you. Is he your contact, Phen?”

  When Rion turned to look, she slipped into the group of people passing by. Within moments, the crowd swallowed her. Her nerves yelled at her to run. But blending in was the best way to hide. So she kept walking at the same pace, but at the first opportunity to change direction, she slipped into a new group.

  Behind her, she heard shouting and footsteps slapping the pavement. Had Rion called her name? She couldn’t be certain, but she didn’t dare turn back and look.

  Pulse racing, Marisa kept walking, feeling as if she were being chased through a nightmare. Overhead traffic vehicles looked as if they were about to crash but never did. Kids pulled behind them shiny red balls on leashes, which could have been toys, pets, computers, or a place to store their personal belongings. She had no idea.

  When a hand clamped onto her shoulder, her knees went weak. She turned to see not Rion, but a man wearing an official-looking gray uniform with piping on the collar. A black helmet with blue Plexiglas hid his face. Metal plates protected his chest. Between the chrome baton that hung from the holster at his hip, the knife strapped to his sleeve, and the throwing stars at his belt, he looked dangerous, deadly.

  “Come with me.” His voice, rough and mechanical, shot a shiver of fear down her back. Had she fled from a kidnapper to someone even worse?

  “What do you want?” She tried to step away, but he kept a firm grip on her shoulder.

  The crowd around them parted and kept swarming, paying no attention.

  “You have broken many laws.”

  “I have?” She glanced anxiously from the official to the crowd. Even if she could break his grasp, he might shoot her before she could hide.

  He ticked off regulations. “Landing without a permit or a license. Failure to pass through customs or decontamination. Trespassing. Evading Enforcers.”

  “I can explain.” She wished she could stop the dread rolling through her. Would he believe her if she said that this wasn’t her world? That she didn’t belong here? While she had no knowledge of Tor’s legal system or the consequences of breaking so many laws, her arrest seemed imminent.

  She should flee.

  As if sensing her rising panic, the Enforcer gripped her shoulder harder. “Let’s go.”

  “Where?”

  He didn’t answer. He simply marched her down the sidewalk. All around her, life went on. No one stared. No one shot her a sympathetic glance.

  Foreign smells hit her in a mélange of spicy perfumes, citrus fruits, cleaners, antiseptics, paint, and industrial fumes making her gut clench. Meat and vegetables, speared on shish kebabs and fried in oil, had a sugary-sweet aroma that made her stomach roil.

  Oh… my… God. She’d never felt so completely alone in her life. She had no friends or family here. She didn’t even know where this Enforcer was taking her.

  “How long before I can explain to someone in authority what happened?”

  “There’s nothing to explain. You broke the law. You are guilty. According to law 154 of the broken stone, the sentence is death.”

  “Death?” This Enforcer was dragging her to her execution? Her mind reeled. “You don’t understand. I was forced to come here.”

  “You broke the law. You will be punished.”

  “But I had no choice. I was brought to Tor against my will. Surely there are exceptions?”

  “None.” The Enforcer’s fingers tightened into an iron lock on her shoulder.

  Marisa began to shake with fear. She’d been in tough spots before. Covering a war in the Mideast, she’d once been caught behind enemy lines. This was worse. Her government wouldn’t be demanding her release. No one besides Lucan even knew she was gone, and although she’d gotten off one last telepathic message to him, even if he’d heard her, she hadn’t had the chance to tell him where Rion had taken her.

  She was going to die. Alone. On an alien world. And no one would ever know what had happened to her.

  WHERE THE HELL was Marisa? Rion searched the crowd but she’d disappeared. A bit of movement snagged his attention. There. She’d tried to blend into the crowd but her Earth clothing gave her away. Already an Enforcer had found her. With a leap off the platform he followed. He’d promised to protect her, but he hadn’t known he’d have to protect her from herself. He’d expected her to be furious that he’d tricked her. He’d anticipated that she wouldn’t easily accept her new circumstances. But he’d never expected her to flee. Not from him.

  Yes, in his flash, he’d seen her shot. At the time, he’d assumed she’d died in a gunfight, not execution-style.

  If the Enforcer shot her… Sweet Goddess. Rion wouldn’t let that happen. He had to save her.

  Rion peered through the crowd at the Enforcer marching Marisa to her death.

  Shifting position, he followed closely. Enforcers always worked in pairs. Another one had to be nearby. But if he could take out this Enforcer in one blow, before he could radio his partner for help, before he could hurt Marisa, he might be able to rescue her.

  Damn it. He shouldn’t have been so careless.

  Her ploy had taken him totally by surprise.
And her actions scared the life out of him. Who would have thought she’d make such a bold move when she didn’t know the terrain, or the laws or the customs? She’d never even set foot off Earth. For her to boldly take off on her own… amazed him.

  But she was Lucan’s twin. And her life in danger had Rion on edge. Not only because she was his best friend’s sister. Not only because of her telepathic talents. Above that, she was Marisa. If anything happened to her… it would affect him in ways he couldn’t explain.

  She would not pay for his mistake. Every cell in his body focused on getting her back.

  When the crowd thickened, Rion closed the distance, sneaking up behind the Enforcer and Marisa. Protected by helmet and body armor, the Enforcer had few vulnerable areas exposed.

  Rion struck hard and fast, slashing his knife into the neck, slicing the carotid artery. Hands going to his bloody neck, the Enforcer released Marisa. She immediately jerked away.

  Her face was dirty, a new smudge on her cheek. Yet Rion had seen that smudge before. From somewhere the Enforcer’s partner fired two shots. Bang. Bang. There was a pause. Another shot.

  The exact same smudge and weapon pattern from his flash. Marisa was about to take a fatal bullet.

  As the crowd screamed, ducked, and panicked, Rion dived and tackled Marisa, and they rolled, knocking into people who were trying to scramble out of the line of fire. Rion used their momentum to keep rolling. They ended up behind a garbage bin.

  “You found me?” Marisa wiped her hair out of her eyes, which speared him with defiance. “Of course you found me. You need me.”

  “There’s no time to talk.” Rion grabbed her hand. “Come on. More Enforcers are on the way.”

  RION POINTED OUT a group of Enforcers headed in their direction. “Keep your head down. By now, they know what you look like.”

  “They do?”

  “They took our pictures the moment we arrived on the platform. By now, every Enforcer in the city must be looking for us.”

  The Enforcers’ deliberate march through the parting crowd and toward them made Marisa’s mouth go dry with fear. Police in any country looked much the same, but the difference here was that the populace practically tripped over themselves to avoid their own Enforcers.

  Something swooped at her. She staggered, and a small projectile whizzed by her ear. “What was that?”

  “Tracers. If one of them tags us, it’ll make it easy for the Enforcers to keep tabs on us.”

  She caught a flash of wings. Between Rion’s kidnapping and the Enforcer’s capture, she’d forgotten that Cael’s owl had also flown through the portal.

  “We have to move out. Now.” Rion placed his arm over her shoulder to steady her. “They have the exits covered.” He urged her forward, and she didn’t pull away.

  Rion might have forced her here against her will, but it was in his best interests to keep her alive. Going it alone had almost gotten her killed.

  “If Merlin hadn’t flown right at me, the tracer would have gotten me.” She craned her head back and searched for Merlin but didn’t see him among the monorail vehicles that swished in and out of the terminal. Overhead, more moving cars traveled through the air and disappeared into tunnels. She saw no tracks, no wings, and wondered how the moving trains stayed aloft. The immense geodesic dome had several windows. Outside, the sky was blue, a deeper blue than on Earth, and wisps of silver clouds floated by. But Merlin had vanished. “Where did he go?”

  “Someplace safe, I hope.”

  From his tone, she knew she and Rion were far from safe. She glanced back longingly but could no longer see the platform with the transporter.

  With eyes sharp and wary, Rion glanced over his shoulder at the Enforcers hunting through the crowds for them. Together he and Marisa dodged into thick foot traffic, and he pulled her with him behind a food station, where they merged with a group of singing youngsters.

  Rion took a right, then a left, leading her past stores and fruit stands, then maneuvered them onto a moving walkway. They stood between a janitor pushing what looked like a phone booth full of cleaning supplies and two men who had to be over seven feet tall.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “To meet my contact.”

  “To get the charges dropped?”

  “To hide us until we can leave for Honor.” He steered her around a copper-colored puddle on the pavement. But it couldn’t rain inside this building, could it?

  She needed to focus. On the important things. “I want to go home.”

  He raked a hand through his hair, face weary. “I’m sorry I had to drag you into this. But if you help me, I’ll make sure—”

  “I don’t make bargains with kidnappers,” she snapped.

  Rion glanced over his shoulder. “Keep your voice down.”

  She spotted a large squad of Enforcers coming toward them and jerked her thumb. “They’ve already spotted us.”

  “Come on.” Rion dragged her to the side of the moving walkway. He leaped onto the railing and hauled her up beside him. She looked down. They were balanced ten stories above another level. Below, the people were tiny. The ground was steel or concrete. Whatever. It was hard.

  “Trust me.” Rion squeezed her hand and yanked her over the edge.

  She would have screamed. But her vocal cords froze. Automatic reflexes kicked in, and she tried to dragonshape. But the morphing didn’t happen. She remained fully human, with no wings to stop her fall. Her stomach swooped up into her throat. Her hair whipped back from her face, and her eyes watered, giving her a blurred view… of death. She squeezed her eyes closed, all the while thinking, No, no, no. This couldn’t be happening.

  She was going to wake up in her bed, her pulse racing, and laugh at this insane nightmare. But slowly the wind stopped plucking at her. The swooping sensation faded. And she dared to crack open her eyes. The world was still alien, but they’d stopped falling. Some unknown force floated them down gently toward a crowded square.

  People sat eating, drinking, and playing games on spinning cubes. One man walked a six-legged canine. The diners acted as if they hadn’t noticed Rion and Marisa’s crazy fall and subsequent landing.

  “Antigravs caught us,” Rion explained. “Throughout the city they also prevent dragonshaping—something to do with electromagnetic changes on a cellular level.”

  Her feet touched the metal decking and her legs shook. “What are antigravs?”

  “Safety devices. You’re okay now.”

  “No. I’m not okay.” She was shaking so hard she had to hold on to Rion to keep from falling. “I thought I was going to die. Again.”

  He gathered her into his arms and cradled her against his chest. “I’m sorry. There was no time to explain.”

  Her teeth chattered. Sorry wasn’t good enough. The Enforcer could have executed her. During that fall, she could have died of fright. But she bit back the complaints. Rion’s warmth settled her. His solid strength was an anchor of familiarity in this strange new world. She breathed in his scent, closed her eyes, and told herself that she’d been in tight spots before. And there was nothing wrong with clinging to Rion if that righted her world.

  He murmured soothingly, “Just hang on a little longer and we’ll find a safe place to hole up.”

  “All right.” Her shaking subsided, and she stepped away from him. Taking comfort was one thing, but she couldn’t let herself forget that he’d gotten her into this mess in the first place.

  He half led, half carried her behind a slowly rolling automated cart that whistled and rumbled on metal wheels. After boosting her onto the cart’s seat, he climbed up to sit beside her. “We can rest here for a bit. But not for long. Sooner or later, they’ll figure out we jumped levels and are out of the grid pattern.”

  She rubbed her temples, trying to understand. “What are you saying?”

  “Isn’t the translator working?”

  Struggling to control her fear and anger, she told herself that screaming at him
wasn’t going to help. “I understand… your words, not the concepts.”

  Rion nodded and slung his arm over her shoulders, until their hips and thighs touched. “You’re suffering culture shock and jump lag—like jet lag, only worse. The Enforcers will canvass the entire level up there before they search down here. But with our pictures on their monitors, it’s only a matter of time before one of them spots us.”

  “How long have we got?”

  “Maybe ten minutes.”

  “How long will it take to reach Phen?”

  “An hour.”

  “Then we need a disguise.”

  “Good thinking. How do you feel about blue skin and silver hair?”

  She blinked, recalling the people she’d seen with blue-and green-tinged skin. She’d assumed they’d been born that color. “You can change my skin color?”

  He winked. “We can change you from the top of your head to the bottom of your feet. But it’s expensive, and I don’t have any credit chips.” He slung his pack from his shoulder and removed two hats, handed her one and donned the other. “However, if you can walk a bit farther, I brought some barter items.”

  Marisa forced herself to tamp down on the fear. Instead, she made herself think about the safety of a disguise. Taking a deep breath, she twisted her hair up on her head and put on the hat. “I’m good to go.”

  She wasn’t, of course. Any moment she expected a tracer to tag her. Or for the Enforcers to swoop down and surround them. But adrenaline kept her on her feet, kept her careful.

  A few minutes later, Rion led her into a booth that housed a machine that looked like a four-sided ATM. After opening the zipper on his pack, he removed five Krugerrands and placed the gold into a bin. The bin ate the coins, and credit chips came out.

  He handed her almost half the chips and pocketed the rest. “Gold’s even more valuable here than on Earth. Of course, after the Enforcers examine the gold, they’ll figure out it came from offworld. They’ll try to find us here. But we’ll be gone by then.”

  Just knowing the Enforcers might once again be tracking them down made her antsy. She didn’t plan to linger.