Monica hit the dirt like she was spring loaded. Completely unfazed from her collision with the ground, she grabbed Noel’s arm on her rebound and yanked her to her feet.
It was enough to throw off Noel’s shock and jog her sense of self-preservation. She ran. She ran so fast she outran Monica and began dragging her.
She ran so fast she didn’t know what the hell happened when she was abruptly slammed against the ground. She thought for several moments that Monica had tripped and fallen on her.
Until she was hauled up and tossed over a broad shoulder that knocked the breath out of her and made her black out.
Chapter Two
“Can you believe those stupid bastards led the damned Amazons back to the colony and got us captured?” Monica burst out angrily.
Noel still had a headache—from being carried with her head hanging down, she thought. “Did I get hit on the head?”
Monica’s anger subsided abruptly and she moved toward Noel, examining her head carefully. “I don’t see anything. Whiplash probably,” she diagnosed, “from being body slammed on the ground by that bitch.”
* * * *
Drak stared out at the drifts of snow that were gradually growing higher, his expression a cross between disgust and plain out anger. But it had very little to do with the weather conditions outside that were more miserable than usual. He had hated this time of year since he’d been a boy. And the fact that a forced peace lay over the lands due to conditions that no sane man would tackle for glory or riches had little to do with it, directly, at any rate. It reminded him of his losses, filled him with fresh pain that he had hoped every year would not visit him with his memories.
The distance of time didn’t seem to have helped a great deal.
He considered that for a moment. How many anums had passed?
He had been four anums when his sister had been born. He recalled the birth. He would not have recalled the age he had been—didn’t—but he did recall that his mother had said that he was four anums older and that he was certainly old enough to be his young sister’s protector.
Except he hadn’t been competent enough to protect her and no amount of practice or skills acquired since that time could make up for the lack he had had when it had been needed.
That was what tormented him, he realized, far more than the losses.
It had been his fault—all the way around.
His father, Drak the Dark, had broken centuries of tradition when he had decided to keep his woman until she delivered his son—his heir. He had ignored his advisors when they had pointed out that it was always possible to determine his seed from the others—a Flaxen always knew his get by scent—knew the scent of the woman they’d impregnated. Even if it transpired that the child favored his mother rather than his father—a rare thing!—he would know the off-spring by scent!
There were reasons for the traditions! And refusing to honor age old traditions was just asking for trouble!
The advisors hadn’t lost their heads for pointing that out to their prince, but it had been a near thing.
He, of everyone, even his closest friends, knew why his father had ignored tradition and kept his woman.
In the beginning it had been because, despite the myths to the contrary, a man did not always know his child—sometimes, yes, but there was no absolute certainty except when the child looked like a copy of the father. It rarely mattered, however, and that was why most men were content to adhere to the centuries old tradition. Unless a man had valuable possessions or property that he wanted to ensure passed to his son, there was no reason to be concerned.
His father was not actually the son of Drak the Red, however, as he was first believed to be and he had suffered for his father’s ‘mistake’. Until the day he died, Drak the Red had searched for his ‘true’ son, determined to usurp the changling that was his name sake and replace him with the true heir. Drak the Dark refused to take a chance that he might repeat that mistake and bring another man’s son to his throne.
So he had taken the woman and she had born a son for him—and then a daughter—and still he would not return her to her people because he had become enthralled with her long before she had born his first child. It hadn’t been until she had become pregnant a third time that Drak the Dark had begun to feel some concern that his son and heir might be weakened by the presence and influence of a female.
And that anxiety had been compounded by the worry that his woman might produce a second heir who could create a split in the realm if the younger son should decide not to accept his elder brother as high prince.
That decision had pitched all of them into a nightmare. For although he had hated his father ever after for his decision that had cost him his beloved mother and sister, he hadn’t been so blinded by his hate that he wasn’t aware that it had created a hellish existence for his father for his final years, as well.
Occasionally, he wondered what his life would have been like if his father hadn’t thumbed his nose at tradition, but he didn’t like to travel that road because he was fairly certain his mother would still be alive if his father hadn’t kept her, hadn’t become obsessed with her.
That was the danger of keeping a woman! A man could lose his head over a woman. It would warp his judgment and distract him and that would make him dangerous on the battlefield.
Uneasiness slithered through him at the last thought, but he dismissed it.
He would not make the same mistake his father had!
The approach of his second in command distracted him from his dark thoughts. He straightened, studying the older man as he moved briskly across the great hall. Kulle bowed respectfully when he reached him. “Lord, the ship is prepared.”
Drak felt his belly tighten. It was much the same reaction he had to imminent battle—the thrill of the fight, the fear of defeat and death—anticipation and dread rolled together in an unidentifiable rock in his belly.
There was more fear and dread in this, however, than anticipation. “And Moden—is he confident that that rusting contraption will make another voyage and back again?”
Kulle released a snort that was part amusement and part disgust. “Likely your order would have worked with anyone else, Lord. But that one became witless the moment I suggested he would be sailing with us if he was so confident in it. He has not had a woman before.”
Drak rolled his eyes. “A miscalculation, that! Well, we will all know before long if it will make the journey there and back.”
Kulle frowned, glanced around uneasily, and moved a little closer to where Drak stood in the window embrasure. “I am not concerned that it will hold together for the voyage,” he muttered in a growling whisper. “It is the speed—or lack of it—that concerns me. If it will not make the trip there and back swiftly, it will not make it at all and then you would be trapped in that dread, dark sea forever! For you would not catch our world or its sister before you ran out of supplies.”
Drak shrugged. “There is always that risk. There has always been that risk. But they will not come to us and if we do not go while the two worlds are closest there is no chance of catching our prey.”
They had always been inclined, in point of fact, to consider that the gods favored their voyage/endeavor. For the one time of year that the sister worlds were closest was in the dead of winter when the weather was far too foul for hunting or warring, making it the perfect time to turn their attentions to mating. And the second closest approach was just before spring thaw. This circumstance made it just possible to take them back to the more benign of the two sisters for their delicate term of gestation and return in time to prepare for war.
Not that there was always a war to return to. Historically speaking, war was actually fairly rare. There was likely to be a skirmish or two between rival clans over some dispute, however—which made it absolutely necessary to make and repair weapons and polish their fighting skills—but they had not had all out war with another clan since he’d been a boy.
&
nbsp; That war had broken out when his mother had tried to escape with him and his sister to prevent his father, Drak the Dark, from separating her from her son.
He had made treaty with their enemies after the death of his father in battle. It had not been a popular decision since their enemies had killed the ruling prince in battle—earning him the sobriquet of Drak the Fair—but he had considered his father as responsible for his mother’s death as he had the man who’d captured her—or more. After ten years of war and the death of all parties initially involved in the dispute, he had figured it was time to make peace between their two clans.
“Well, I am too old for such things, Lord. I am happy enough to wait here by the fire,” Kulle commented with a touch of amusement, “while you strapping young lads pursue the vixens.”
Drak uttered a derisive snort. “You do not have enough anums on me to consider yourself old,” he retorted. “And I am beyond the thrill of capture myself, if it comes to that. I would not be going if it was not my duty to the men and to the realm.”
Kulle’s amusement waned. “Will you be taking young Prince Terl on this raid?”
Drak’s own humor vanished. “I have said that I will not,” he responded tightly. “When he is old enough to lead a raid he may do so with my blessing. Until then, he is my heir and will do his duty to the realm and stay here.”
Kulle nodded quickly and backed away. “I will tell the men to prepare themselves quickly for the voyage. You will be leaving at first light?”
“Aye. Make certain my sons are there to bid me farewell.”
Also coming in 2014 from New Concepts Publishing and Kaitlyn O’Connor:
The Watchers:
LOST WORLD
By
Kaitlyn O’Connor
Chapter One
Claire wasn’t certain what woke her. She might have heard or felt something that filtered through her sleeping mind and roused the conscious side of her brain. It may have been the tiny animal portion of her brain, still primitive and ready to react instantaneously to threat, that brought her swimming upward swiftly toward full awareness.
Whatever it was, the alarms failed her at the most critical juncture of her life, the one time she needed her instincts to survive, because she didn’t actually have time to react. She was so sluggish even when she reached complete consciousness, she couldn’t process what she’d detected and determine what the threat was or how to react to it.
Then again, none of her instincts might have been triggered.
She’d gone to bed late and, as tired as she was from almost a week of breaking down the old nest, sorting and packing belongings, and then moving and unpacking and sorting, she’d been too wired to fall asleep.
No doubt the strangeness of her new apartment had played a role in the problem. She never slept well in strange places and she hadn’t even had time to settle into her new apartment. Most of her belongings were still scattered around the place in boxes—sorted only by the room they belonged in. Her mind was also active, refusing to be quieted so that she could rest, going back over and over a mental check list to make sure everything had been done that needed to be done. But she was to start her new job the following morning and the nervous anticipation threading her veins was mostly to blame for the hours she’d lain awake and restless, she was sure.
Which meant she might never have completely achieved her goal of restful sleep, not even for a matter of minutes, but she was aware of a rapid rise from the depths toward the light of awareness.
She did know that she emerged with a jerk from unconsciousness to consciousness, even though she wasn’t certain what had made her awaken, and it was the ominous, distinct sound of breaking glass just as she reached the horizon that made her bolt upright.
Her feet hit the floor beside her bed before she had even fully assimilated the sound, but her mind was working furiously with it. Was it close? In her apartment? What had broken? Who broke it? Was it an intruder? Or did something just fall? How could anything just fall over, though?
The first ripple of motion that went through the floor beneath her feet and made her stagger was hardly discernible. She thought, in fact, that she was still so drunk with sleep that she’d simply lost her equilibrium momentarily.
The second vibration left no room for interpretation. It was so violent it seemed to roll the floor beneath her feet like the waves of the ocean rolling toward shore.
She thought she screamed, but she was never afterwards certain.
The only thing she was completely certain of was that she’d woken to a life or death situation and she had to react—quickly—if she wanted to live.
She was surrounded by profound darkness, however. Not even the glow of her clock illuminated her surroundings.
The power was out.
And she was unfamiliar with the new apartment.
She staggered across the room to the wall where a door to the hallway should have been—would have been in the old apartment—and ran into solid—shaking—wall instead. She was too disoriented to think where the damn door was!
And she was terrified.
Florida didn’t have earthquakes.
They did have twenty thousand sinkholes, however … and counting.
She was going to die if she didn’t find her way out of the apartment!
That was the last thought that she recalled when she was able to recall anything at all.
A portion of the outer wall of her apartment collapsed outward, allowing enough light into the cave-like room that she was able to see the door and she staggered toward it, her primitive mind pounding out a litany—out! Out! Out!
She never reached it. Debris was raining down around her, something hit her that felt like a car, and then darkness swallowed her whole and she felt a horrific sense of falling that never stopped but followed her into darkness.
She was choking before she reached true awareness again. It felt as if every orifice was plugged with dirt. Before full blown panic could set in, though, she went into a coughing fit that cleared enough of the dust/dirt to allow her to drag in a little air. Grit filled her eyes when she tried to open them. Instinctively, she tried to lift her arms to wipe her face and discovered she couldn’t reach her face.
She was pinned. That was why she felt like an elephant was sitting on her chest.
She had the apartment building sitting on top of her—one floor, anyway. If it shifted ….
Terror clawed its way up her throat. She managed to turn her head and blink until she’d cleared her vision a little.
She wasn’t sure she’d opened her eyes at first. It was so dark the darkness almost felt … thick, as if it had substance, but then the blackness lifted a little after a few moments and she thought she could see shadowy shapes around her.
Shock had muffled her brain functions in much the same way the darkness had limited her vision. Random thoughts erupted, sputtered, and disappeared, like a television or radio that was getting a weak signal and only picked up brief flashes of sounds and images.
Sinkhole finally formulated in her mind.
She was in one, maybe at the bottom. Maybe just far enough down to be a smear if the building finished collapsing on top of her.
The irony of it didn’t escape her.
She’d been hired as part of the geological team the state had put together to assess the sinkhole threat so that they could determine what to do about it … and she was supposed to report for her first day on the job first thing in the morning.
She didn’t think she was going to make it for roll call.
* * * *
Dante’s mind awoke before his body was released and for many moments he was so focused on struggling with the panic of being paralyzed, of feeling his mind separate from his body as if the body didn’t exist, that he was barely aware of the voice of his overlord in his mind calling him to service. He’d long since ceased to believe there was anything ‘accidental’ in this particular form of torture, however, and because he k
new they delighted in tormenting him, he worked hard to deprive them of their enjoyment, taming his fear before it could reach a detectable level.
Why have you awakened me?
To do your job! To serve the gods and prevent the hum ….
I know the prime directive, Dante interrupted! There is a new threat?
You’re standing in it, the overlord responded dryly, abandoning him as precipitously as he had contacted him in the first place.
Since he fully released Dante from his prison at the same moment, however, it was some time before Dante was aware that he was alone in his mind. The pain was excruciating. He was so stiff, in fact, that he didn’t think he would have known he had been released if not for the pain.
How long had he been in stasis, he wondered, focusing his mind on each part of his body in order to flex muscle, tendon, and joint as blood began to circulate through his tissues and veins again?
How long had the bastards punished him this time?
He pushed that from his mind as he lowered his arms at last and released his eons old grip on his sword. It clanged dully as it hit the stone beneath his feet.
Not that he gave a fuck who might be alerted to his presence!
In any case he was almost instantly distracted by the discovery that he seemed to be completely alone. Where the fuck was he? Where were the humans the gods had so graciously released him from his prison to watch?
Memories began to flood his mind even as he stepped off of the vita pedestal, stretched his wings several times, flapped them to fluff the feathers and then finally folded them against his back.
Water. He remembered abruptly that that was the last thing he’d been aware of before he was frozen in stasis because of …. He thrust that thought away before it could fully form. She was lost to him. He could not bear to think on that at the moment.
The city had sunk!
The gods had sunk it … as punishment. They had …. But there were survivors of the cataclysm or he wouldn’t have been awakened.
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