Too Long a Soldier (Kingdom Key Book 3)

by TylerRose.

  “Well it’s going to have to do. I need some space. I’m trying to search for him and Landra’s constant scans are fucking annoying and a distraction. An’ don’t suggest I sleep with you again. Your Staff Power, even if you don’t have it around me, kills my search.”

  “Are you having any luck?” he asked rather than further a confrontation. She was spoiling for a fight and he could see it.

  “I know many places he is not,” she replied, sitting back in the booth and stretching her arms over the top.

  “That’s helpful,” he nodded.

  “Can you start looking into the Rovan trail?” she asked.

  “Already am,” he said with a smile. “We’re a team, don’t forget. You do your thing. I’ll do mine and we’ll meet in the middle to compare notes. Just don’t push me away, okay? I’m not going to let you. Not this time.”

  “When I know something, you’ll know something. Same deal I made with Landra Ahr.”

  Her eyes trailed to a booth on the far wall, feeling something. Seeing something.

  “Excuse me a minute.”

  She slid out of the booth and headed for that table.

  “Robert Bliss? There’s a phone call for you. This way please.”

  Curiosity getting the best of him, Jerome followed.

  “Where’s the phone?” the guy said.

  “Out here,” Tyler replied, leading him to the packed vestibule.

  “I don’t see no phone.”

  She turned on him, grabbing him by the front of his shirt, spun him around to walk him backwards through the doors.

  “Hey, what are you doin’, bitch?”

  “You tell your supplier that I have a message for Solomon.”

  “Who?”

  “He’ll know who. You like that Rovan crap? You like what it does to your girlfriend? Here’s the message.”

  She jacked his jaw hard enough to send him reeling backwards out the doors, and followed to beat the fuck out of him while giving the verbal message.

  “Rovan is not tolerated in this establishment! Anyone brings that shit here, I will know! You tell Solomon to get off my god damn planet or he’s gonna look like you!”

  How he stayed on his feet, only Jerome knew. She was keeping him standing because she wouldn’t hit him if he was on the ground. Kick after kick, punch after punch, finally, she bounced him off the wall and let him fall.

  “Cage rattled.”

  Two of her crew had come out.

  “Clean this shit off my parking lot,” she snarled, heading back inside.

  Her steak salad and his burger were waiting. They sat and started to eat.

  “So there’s this Rovan house I just learned about. It’s on Prouty. The house with the shiny new Mustang in the drive and the kids in rags playing in the front yard,” she said, dipping the edges of a rolled up piece of lettuce into the cup of Italian dressing on the side.

  He laughed at her casual attitude.

  Meal finished, he walked her back to the other side and gave her a firm and very public kiss, and left to investigate a drug house on Prouty.

  She helped clear out the dining room and get it ready for the second show before heading for the dressing room to get ready.

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  Solomon laughed his ass offat the pictures of the beaten man and the message that accompanied them.

  “This happened where?”

  “A restaurant outside the Southwest side of town. It’s called Giuseppe’s. She’s the head bouncer Friday and Saturday nights and did not care that she did this in front of everyone waiting to get inside.”

  “No, she wouldn’t. She’s not the shy type,” Solomon said, going to the tall table to pen a note.

  “Next Friday you have someone give this to her. Make sure it’s someone not involved in the operation. She won’t hurt someone you pay twenty dollars to deliver a piece of paper.”

  Finished and sealed in an envelope, he gave it to his human contact.

  “No one looks at this.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  Another Friday night.Both concert sets were sold out. Not only were the people there, but they had money to spend. Having survived the attack a month and a half earlier, the young were more than eager to celebrate their youth.

  Jobs were plenty for anyone willing to work in the cold and help with the cleanup and recovery of the few corpses that were being found. Thousands of able-bodied men were making good money, and the next phase would be rebuilding. That would mean more jobs for men and women alike.

  For a blue collar city always on the brink of financial disaster from a single automotive strike, the promise of steady construction work created a bright future.

  Meechi was at the restaurant early, waiting for Jerome to bring Roc. Tyler sat with him, told him what to watch for. He’d already seen the Rovan. Not within Safe Haven, but around different parts of the city.

  “Do everything you have to do to keep your residents clean,” she pleaded with him. “It’s taken like acid here. A little piece of paper. It’ll burn the tongue visibly. One hit and they can literally never stop taking it.”

  “How you know so much?”

  “I watched someone go through it.”

  He only nodded. “Does Jerome know you’re the Rose that fronts the band here Saturdays?”

  “No. It’s not come up and it don’t need to. Not yet.”

  Meechi chuckled. “Alright. I won’t say anything.”

  “How are you and Roc?” she asked.

  “We’re fine. She’s such a great woman. She’s worried about you, you know. Says you’re not yourself.”

  “They wouldn’t know what being myself is, dude. They’re just getting a taste of me in a sustained state of fury. I find it greatly productive.”

  “Miss Brooks?” a twenty two year old girl in too short a skirt asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I was told to give this to you.”

  Tyler took the envelope, opened it.

  Tyler

  Can we meet for dinner and talk?

  Only Talk.

  Solomon

  She looked at the girl and smiled and grasped her hand. “Thank you so much for bringing this to me. You go back to whomever sent you and you take his hand just like this and say ‘here’s your answer’ and then you go enjoy your night.”

  The girl rolled her eyes and went outside. With a jerk of her head, Tyler brought Meechi along to follow her into the store room.

  “Lock the door,” she said, psionically following the girl out into the parking lot, to the tall, lean man with brown hair.

  Hands grasped, words spoken and Tyler teleported him into the storage room.

  “You must be Tyler,” he said after the jarring change of scenery.

  “And you’re about to be dead, Don.”

  Before he could move, she had him by the throat and was lifting him up. He thrust upward into the ceiling and she held him there while she stood below.

  “Everything I want to know,” she said, and raped his mind for everything he knew.

  Which wasn’t much. A meeting place and a blindfold. And then he was there. He was teleported to the compound. A farming compound with several house-like buildings and a barn. They’d walked into an invisible structure that looked remarkably like a K’Tran ship on the inside. Smelled like a K’Tran ship, too. He saw several aliens while talking to Solomon. It was parked on the ground. He’d walked into it and walked out of it before being teleported back to the meeting place.

  “What’s the point of a blindfold if you’re just teleported to the place?” she asked rhetorically, and teleported him as a dead heap to the meeting place out in the middle of nowhere to the East of the city.

  Meechi let her pace until his phone rang. “It’s Jerome,” he said, and answered.

  “Where are you? Thought you were here?” Jerome asked.

  “I am. We’re in the store room. Be out in a minute.”

  “Something happen?”
<
br />   “Later.” Meechi hung up on him. “They’re here.”

  She stomped out and to the table. “I’m not hungry.”

  She continued on outside to pace the parking lot for a while and cool down. When she was able to come inside, they were in the middle of the meal. She took to her spot in the bar, almost not hearing the band jamming it out, and drank too much.

  On his way out, Jerome stopped to take her fingers and give her a bit of a shake.

  “You gonna kill anyone else?”

  “Don’t know yet. The night is young,” she said, and downed her fourth shot of Jack Daniels.

  He smiled and gave her a kiss before heading out.

  Two in the morning, the rest of the night having been fairly uneventful, and she teleported home. Landra Ahr was physically in her room this time, waiting for her. The scan was like knives running over her aura.

  “Stop doing that!” she said, kicking her boots off.

  “You are inebriated.”

  “So the fuck what.”

  “You were inebriated last weekend as well.”

  “So the fuck what,” she repeated, taking down her jeans.

  “Are you developing a drinking problem, Tyler?”

  “I’m sure you’ll be the first to know,” she scowled, and psionically shoved him out of the room.

  The door shut in his face and he recognized one of those moments when it was beneficial not to have emotions. He opened the door, about to unload on her exactly what he thought about her recent behavior. She was already passed out. He scanned intensely, finding her energy readings in a transitional state. Rather than relaxing into slumber, they were intensifying. He remained to monitor her through the night.

  “Landra, where are you?” came Jerome’s voice through his internal comm system about nine in the morning.

  “Tyler’s room.”

  “Something I should know?”

  “No.”

  He cut the connection and remained for the next three hours in silence. She woke all at once, out of bed in a second, to the coffee maker to begin brewing, to the bathroom for her morning routine. Her first cup prepared, into the window seat she went, blanket around her.

  “Are you hung over?” he asked, coming closer.

  “No.”

  “Do you remember last night?”

  “There were a lot of parts to last night. To which do you refer?”

  “The one when you shoved me out through your bedroom door.”

  She did but said nothing, spooning up the hot coffee for a sip.

  “You never used to be able to do anything to me, Tyler. Did you have a Widening?” he asked.

  “My abilities are always evolving. Some things come and go. Some appear once and never again. When I have a Widening, you will know it. Have no doubt on that.”

  “Then please give me an explanation.”

  “I wasn’t in the mood to listen to a lecture. Didn’t Jerome tell you Solomon had one of his cronies bring me a note?”

  The small envelope appeared in her fingers and she held it up. Three small pincers came out from the backs of his fingers to open the delicate paper envelope and remove the small rectangle from within. The first held the envelope away while two others worked together to unfold the note.

  “I do not know the language,” he had to say.

  “It’s Deek’Traian, specifically the fourth planet. Tyler. Can we meet for dinner and talk? Only Talk. Solomon. It’s his same game-playing shit.”

  “Obviously he cannot be trusted.”

  “Which is why the person who brought the note is dead. As far as he is concerned, I am not to be trusted and I am not to be predicted.”

  “Do you know where he is now?”

  “No,” she glowered over her cup. “The guy didn’t have knowledge of location. He’ll get sloppy and I’ll have him.”

  “Or you’ll get sloppy and he’ll have you,” Landra Ahr pointed out.

  She said nothing.

  “Is that what you want?” he asked, refolding the note and putting it back in the envelope to hand out to her.

  “I have been expecting him to try.” The envelope sailed from his hand to a shelf, slid between two upright books. “Would save me the time and trouble of finding him.”

  “Then why get so drunk that you pass out in five seconds?”

  “Because I fucking felt like it. That’s why. You’re not my husband and you’re not my father. Don’t lecture me.”

  “You’re right. I am neither of those things and never will be. I am, however, your friend. I am telling you that your behavior is increasingly alarming. I would be remiss in my duty if I did not speak my concerns.”

  “Your concern is noted,” she said, and got up to make herself another cup of coffee.

  “I’m trying to help you, Tyler.”

  “When I need your help, I’ll let you know. Right now I need silence, for you to stop with the damn scans every minute on the minute. It hurts. I feel real and palpable pain every single time you scan me. I want to be left the fuck alone for a while.”

  “I will stop the scans while you are awake,” he agreed, and retreated to the far corner of the room. He stood near the door, out of her immediate presence.

  She wasn’t home for long, however. By noon she was dressed and porting to Mickey’s for rehearsal.

  Saturday nightwas much less eventful. She drank no liquor, not even during her set with the band during the late show. She was much more calm returning to the apartment after closing, and sat outside in the cold quiet for a while. Jerome came out after a few minutes.

  “Come here,” he said, taking the seat beside her and holding out a hand. “Please.”

  She did, straddling his leg and resting her head on his shoulder.

  “We’ve not been as close physically since the battle. I’ve been missing you, little girl.”

  She said nothing, enjoying the warmth of his arms around her.

  “I know you’re angry,” he continued. “Aside from him showing up, what’s been eating you?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “There’s something missing. Something not right.”

  “Something to do with me?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “The aftermath of Adamantine?” he tried again.

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Maybe that you were here and did not fight him? You said you had in a good number of timelines,” he pointed out.

  “Could be. It was monumental when I did. Maybe that’s what I’m feeling.”

  “You sure?”

  “No,” she chuckled at herself.

  Pause as he thought about it. “You can’t see a thing can you, little girl?”

  “Blind as a bat, old man,” she whispered. “Worse than before. It’s…it’s almost like the sludge feeling before a Widening but without the pain. I should be able to see now. I know it. I don’t know why I can’t.”

  “I think we need to reduce your stress level. Let’s go smoke a bowl.”

  A smoke that turned into long, slow massage to her shoulders, which turned into hands and mouths and orgasms.

  “You had to stay a virgin to entice Adamantine. What about now?” he asked.

  “Not yet,” she said, hand on his cheek and hoping he would understand. “If I cannot see then I’m still chained somehow.”

  “Okay,” he said, and held her close to pop her clit a good one so she would sleep better.

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  Solomon stood over the dead body of his most trusted human ally. Tyler was not playing the game correctly. Her responses were unexpected. Unpredictable.

  He liked it. He wanted her even more, if that was possible.

  “Dispose of it,” he said, and turned away to walk the compound and plan his next move.

  He had learned Jerome Black was the silent partner in Giuseppe’s, and owned a large building with two more businesses and the dwelling above. He lived there. With her.

  She’d obv
iously come back to defend the planet from the winter invasion. He’d seen the video, seen her face to face. Glorious she was, with the red curls. Of course that was Jerome on the rooftop fighting the invader. They were, no doubt, lovers. She always had a lover.

  He could use all this information but needed more. he gave orders for one or two humans to gather information by going to the warehouse businesses. Just one visit to see how far they could get.

  How far was nowhere. One of the idiots tried to pass a bad check in the video store and Tyler beat the piss outta him. A hand rubbing down his face, Solomon realized the level of incompetence he was dealing with in these humans. They really were mightily stupid. Why she had come back to save this little shit planet was truly beyond his comprehension. Certainly he understood Earnol’s desire to have it destroyed, worthless as the people on it were. He’d not seen a planet so at war with itself. The constant conflict, even within a single society, was incomprehensibly detrimental to the growth of the society. Yet they continued on, killing each other with no effective repercussions.

  The planet would be far more valuable without the humans on it.

  He stepped up distribution and within three days, Rovan was all over the United States and being teleported to Europe. His top distributors converted the cash to gold by buying chains at wholesale prices through people selling their gold at pawn shops the distributors owned. On board the ship, the chains were melted and turned into plain bars weighing two ounces.

  A year. Maybe two. He’d leave with billions of Ruds worth of unmarked gold and leave behind a half-dead planet in ruins. Earnol’s problem would finally be solved and some salvage team could come in and strip the resources from the planet.

  He’d have to find a way to take Tyler with him. He very much wanted her. Could he get her to come voluntarily? What could he offer her? He could agree to not harm anyone she cared to name. He could agree to put them safely wherever she wanted them put.

  But…why hadn’t she done that herself? There was no need for her to remain.

  Unless no one knew she was there. Had she not established contact with her former allies? The K’Tran, the Voranians, they had always liked her and supported her. Why had she not gone to them for some sanctuary and taken her friends with her?