The witch looked long and hard at him, then lowered her eyes. “Unfortunately, no,” Topper answered. “I used a short term, powerful dampening spell. To control his wolf, I had to make it irreversible by any magic, including my own.”
“Then we will move forward accordingly,” Theo replied.
“Prue, take Chase with you on your broomstick,” Dreyden ordered. “Harmony will need him, once we find her.”
Dreyden only had the best of intentions, but his actions only made Chase feel smaller. He was once a powerful werewolf, now he was a charity case.
“You are not helping Harmony by sulking,” Pati pointed out.
He had not realized his internal turmoil was visible to those around him. Perhaps only Pati identified his mood because they had been close for so long. Chase could feel his face redden and attempted to make a quick exit, but Pati grabbed his arm.
Pati’s grip on him was unusually strong. “We have a town full of knights in shining armor. What Harmony is going to need is for someone to be there after all the excitement is over. To comfort her when she wakes from a nightmare or nurse her if she is injured. We have no idea what shape we will find her in.”
Chase could barely swallow due to the obstruction in his throat. He knew Pati was right, she generally was. It would be his mental fortitude that would help Harmony through whatever was to come once she was free. All he could do was pray they would be in time to save her from whatever fate her kidnappers had planned.
***
A bright light blinded Harmony when she finally had the strength to open her eyes. She was so groggy. It had been so long; she couldn’t remember the last time she had issues waking. Harmony finally realized she had been drugged and was slowly recovering from the effects. Over the years, she had witnessed a number of her prisoners go through the same process.
When she turned her head, blinding lights still impacted her ability to check her surroundings. She attempted to move her legs but was unable to. Something was preventing her from moving. As her senses came alive, Harmony realized her naked flesh was on a cold metal table. A chill ran down her spine and it wasn’t because of the gurney’s temperature.
Should she cry out? If she did, it would only alert whoever was holding her. Memories of talking to a man in a conveyance near the spaceport came flooding back. Harmony had been concerned about him discovering the cloaked facility, she had not considered she was the target.
“Good, you are awake,” a male voice said. She still could not see anything or anyone. “You are a beautiful specimen. I’ve watched you since your arrival in Magic. Recently, I read reports I first considered to be fantasy, but I had to check this town out. Everything seemed normal until I saw how you moved. You are not human, although you certainly resemble one.”
The man ran his finger along the bottom curve of her breast. Harmony’s body jerked at his touch. She struggled to free her arms so she could wrap her powerful hands around the bastard’s throat. A cry of frustration escaped her lungs when she was unable to release herself from her restraints.
Where was Chase? He must have witnessed her abduction. If she held on a little longer, her Chosen One, Dreyden, and the residents of Magic, New Mexico, would come after her. They had been investigating the tracks that disappeared in the desert. With the powerful beings who lived in town, they must have discovered where they had taken her.
She heard a small chuckle. The sound only fueled her desire to liberate herself and bring down the Earthling who dared to touch her. Her breathing quickened as she continued to struggle.
“Stop provoking the subject.” A woman’s shrill voice startled Harmony.
The word specimen didn’t sound any alarms in her mind, but when the woman called her a subject, that panicked Harmony. Both words were used to describe a study or an experiment, not to refer to a prisoner.
“We cannot have her slashing about while we x-ray her,” the female said. “Jordan, give her benzodiazepine. That should settle her down for a while.”
“Yes, Dr. Argon. I’ll be right back.” She heard Jordan’s footfalls as he moved to the side of the room.
“Jordan was right about one thing,” Dr. Argon said. “You are a beautiful subject. My work on you will get me published in all the medical journals.” Harmony felt the woman’s cold hands roam her leg. “Your muscles seem to be different than ours. We watched you run with so little effort.”
Magic’s protection spell must have disguised the jaguars, but not the way she moved. After she escaped, she’d have to talk to whoever cast the shielding magic.
A sharp pain emanated from her arm and Harmony started to immediately struggled to stay awake. She didn’t want to lose consciousness. If she fell asleep, she would not be able to free herself.
***
A roar echoed through the subterranean base Chase and the others searched. The sound meant Danyal had discovered something. Danyal had an unusually good sense of smell, even for a shifter. After today, he would never call Danyal a disparaging name again. If they were successful, he was going to owe Danyal big time.
Chase followed the others to the spot the jaguar shifter was pacing. As far as Chase could tell, they were at the end of a hallway. There was no sign of another door.
Topper arrived, chanted where she stood and the wall slid open. He would have to ask Danyal later what had alerted him to this spot. If Chase had been searching this area, he would have missed whatever the jaguar spotted.
The shifters moved forward. They entered another maze of corridors. There was no guarantee Harmony was in this section of the complex. They would have to search every additional square inch they discovered and continue looking for hidden areas. He didn’t know how, but he felt time was running out for his mate.
When they reached another dead end, Chase smashed his fist into the dry wall. The physical pain he felt shadowed in comparison to his aching for Harmony. They’d been searching for hours. Another day had begun without his mate by his side.
“Let me see that,” Prue demanded.
Chase pulled back his hand. He did not want anyone fawning over him. “It’s fine. We need to continue the search.”
“I can use elemental magic to keep your hand from throbbing.” Prue grabbed his forearm. “Your mind and senses won’t be at their peak if your hand is in pain. Stop being difficult and let me help you.”
Harmony was suffering unknown terrors and his friends were ministering to him. His stupid act of frustration had temporarily refocused their efforts from the rescue of his mate. Chase stopped fussing. The sooner Prue finished seeing to his wounded hand, the sooner they could refocus on what brought them here.
“We’ll find her,” Prue said as she worked on his bruised hand.
Words of encouragement were not going to get Harmony back into his arms any faster or stop the churning in his stomach. He did his best to control his anxiety, but he was fighting a losing battle.
“We need to get back to finding Harmony. I don’t know what I will do if anything happens to her.” The blockage in his throat continued to grow as he shared his fears with Prue.
Rather than trying to further soothe him, Prue sat at his feet, ready to cast another locator spell. Magic’s town folks were all using their particular powers to find Harmony. He felt embarrassed at his earlier anger about giving to the community and getting nothing back in return. Now, he had obligations he would never be able to pay back in full.
Topper joined them. “Another passage has been discovered. We will continue searching every inch of this place until we find her.”
Chase followed Topper, ready to build his hopes on the latest discovery. At this point, that was all he had. Hope would have to pull him through until they finally rescued his mate.
Chapter 13
An argument pulled Harmony out of her drug induced sleep. She had problems deciphering their words. The universal translator was sending garbled data to her brain. Or was her mind the issue?
Harmony tried
to move, but she was still strapped to the cold metal table. She was not in pain or felt any part of her was violated. Whatever they had planned, they had not started. That thought caused waves of unease to cascade through her body. With little information available about Earth, Harmony was not sure what to expect.
She needed to focus on escaping. If she tried to release herself, her captors would know she was awake and begin their nefarious acts. It was doubtful she’d enjoy what they had planned. The fact she lay naked on the table indicated they had no empathy toward her.
Her mind was clearing and her body continued to come back to life. Whatever they gave her was more of a means to knock her out, not a nerve agent that would incapacitate her muscular capabilities. She would wait until the last minute before she made her move.
A cold hand touched her arm, causing her to jerk. Whatever the argument was about had ended and their attention was once again on her. Not good!
“The subject is conscious,” Dr. Argon said. “All the x-rays have been taken. We should begin the internal examinations. The rest can be done during the post-mortem.”
Harmony attempted to free herself once the translator provided her with what the woman had said. Time had run out; she’d played the helpless alien for too long. It was time to take action.
“You humans are barbaric,” Harmony sneered at her captors. “There is a reason why technologically advanced races stay clear of undeveloped worlds such as Earth.”
Did they really expect her to lay silent while they did God knows what to her? If they were surprised she spoke English, they certainly didn’t show it. Her arms and legs barely moved as she fought the restraints. Her Titian strength was failing her.
“Do you think we will allow you to take over our planet without a fight?” Dr. Argon asked. “We will learn all we can from your body, ultimately your two male counterparts, and finally your technology. I don’t know where your spaceships are, but we will find them. Earth needs to be prepared for what will occur one day.”
“We don’t conquer worlds.” Harmony continued her futile struggle to release herself. “When a planet reaches a certain technological advancement, the Coalition invites the world into a trading partnership. Until that point, our people stay away and allow the world to evolve on their own.”
Dr. Argon laughed as if Harmony said something funny. “You expect me to believe that? I owe it to my world to learn everything about you to protect ourselves against the ultimate invasion. Enough wasting time, Jordan, put the silencer in her mouth.”
Jordan lifted her head and dragged a tight elastic wide band down her forehead, over her nose, and finally secured it over her mouth. Hair caught in the elastic band pulled at her scalp. Her fighting only caused a stiffening of her neck. Jordan’s clammy hands held her face while his fingers worked to finish installing the silencer. The plastic forced her mouth open and her tongue secured below the bottom section.
“Good,” Dr. Argon commented. “Keep holding her head while I take my cultures. I will then send the probe down her throat.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Harmony saw a long swab move toward her. She tried to pull away from the invasion, but Jordan’s grasp on her was too strong. The swab was placed in her mouth and rubbed against her throat. Harmony gagged as the cotton slid along her pharynx. Glacierian body scans were used to examine and diagnose illnesses. She had never been prodded in such a fashion.
Harmony tried to form words when the tool was removed from her mouth. Only unintelligible sounds exited her. Between her struggles and the stress, she was under, Harmony’s energy waned. Feelings of hopefulness began to replace anger.
After another swab was removed from the opening in the mouth silencer, her head was roughly turned to the side and something was placed in her ear. Feeling less violated, Harmony concentrated on her breathing and slowing her heart rate. She needed to gather her strength to ultimately free herself.
Her neck cracked when her head was moved from side to side and her other ear was examined. After each examination, Dr. Argon stepped away and recorded her findings. Jordan found opportunities to touch her in the doctor’s absence. She voiced her distress, but every sound she made sounded like the next.
Finally, her head was craned back, she could feel her tendons extend and her neck cracked again. A nasoscope was forced up her nose. At least, that was the name of the tool Dr. Argon had requested Jordan hand her. She could barely tolerate the number of fingers pressing into the skin on her face.
“Keep her right eye open, Jordan,” Dr. Argon ordered. “If she blinks, we’ll have to do the cornea examination again.”
Jordan situated his digits around her eyes and pulled her skin back. Between the repulsion of him touching her and the discomfort caused, Harmony renewed her struggles. Her actions were countered with a hand painfully squeezing her breast. In response, Harmony stopped moving and the pressure ceased.
Bright light assaulted her eyes, blinding her in a haze of red. When the light was removed, before her eyesight could adjust, Harmony felt a drop of liquid fall into her eye. She struggled to blink when a blue light replaced the earlier white light. It felt like a century had passed when Jordan finally released her. Tears pooled around her eye and finally ran down the side of her face.
“Start hooking her up while I perform the upper GI. The barium I administered earlier should be nicely situated,” Dr. Argon said. “You obviously understand English. I am sending a probe down your throat. The test will be easier on you if you stay perfectly still. She doesn’t seem adversely impacted by the barium, it will be safe to be used when we capture the other aliens.”
Before she could react, Argon was shoving something in her mouth and it snaked down her throat. Harmony was not sure what type of damage it would do if she struggled, so she followed the advice given. She continually fought the urge to gag. Meanwhile, Jordan was placing wires and tape on her head. They must be preparing to record her brainwaves. When he started to place similar wires on her chest, Harmony couldn’t help but struggle. Dr. Argon’s cold, merciless hand once again forced her squirming to cease.
Harmony lay perfectly still. There was nothing outside the room to alert her captors that Chase and the others had penetrated the base to rescue her. The sense she was all alone once again threatened to overwhelm her. These creatures could continue with their experiments until they were ready to kill her and there was nothing she could do.
***
Another dead end. Chase leaned back his head and screamed in frustration. His wolf had always absorbed the edge of whatever emotion he felt. Now, his human self could barely function with all the negative emotions swirling inside him. It was as if every nerve ending within him was on fire, and not in a good way. This was not like sexual stimulation, but pure dread.
“Don’t give up hope,” Theo said. “We are getting closer, my dragon senses it.”
For someone who had just discovered he was a shifter, Theo believed everything he felt was some type of communication from his dragon. Chase nodded in agreement, but his heart felt differently. With each passing minute, what hope he still possessed dwindled.
He couldn’t understand how the witches were powerful enough to open a portal to a planet in a distant galaxy, but couldn’t locate his mate. If Harmony was conscious, she had to be emitting all sorts of emotions the witches could connect with. Unfortunately, their greatest hope for finding her had been silenced when he became human. His wolf would have sensed and rescued its mate by now. A guilt so heavy, it threatened to weigh him down, continued to steal his sanity.
“Wouldn’t we be able to connect with energy generated by the electricity Harmony’s captors must be using?” Chase asked in desperation. “Doesn’t it leave some kind of heat signature equipment or magic can connect with?” He was grasping at straws, but if the possible wasn’t working, maybe it was time to focus on the plausible.
Theo was obviously not on the same wave length. He didn’t react one way or another to Chase�
��s comment. They continued to use magic to find new pathways and continually failed in finding Harmony. Even with the location spell that brought them to this location, Chase was beginning to question if Harmony was even present. Perhaps she had been here at one point and then they moved her outside of New Mexico to a more secure government base. If that occurred, she’d be lost to him.
Prue was still on the floor chanting, her crystal swinging back and forth. It had been an hour since she started the latest locator spell and it had produced nothing. He was about to turn away, when he noticed the gem had slightly altered its direction. The longer he watched, the more convinced he was the crystal was indicating she was east of their current location.
“Topper,” Chase yelled at the top of his lungs.
The witch arrived and gave him a questioning look. Chase pointed to the crystal, now pulling to the east. Topper reached for the necklace and Prue released it to the more powerful witch. Once it was in Topper’s possession, the clear rock started to glow.
“This way.” Topper walked in the direction she had come and then turned left.
When the crystal glowed purple, the group stopped, staring in wonder. They had never seen an enchanted crystal change colors. Chase had noticed they had traversed through two sections they had discovered and searched. As far as he was concerned, they were on a wild goose chase. He’d had enough.
Chase reached for the crystal and pulled it from Topper’s hand. She held on tightly and the chain broke, causing the crystal to fall to the floor. The stone shattered, scattering over the floor in a perfect circle. The magic was indicating they were to look down, not make directional changes on the same level.
They all stared at their feet in wonderment. By all indications, they believed they were on the lower level and no other floor was below them. Obviously, they were wrong.
“How do we get down there?” Chase asked. New hope blossomed in his heart.
Magic, New Mexico: A Touch of Harmony (Kindle Worlds Novella) Page 9
