First Dimension

by Rebecca Royce

  She smiled and patted him on the shoulder. “It doesn’t feel like real skin, right? That’s because it’s not. Its just clothing created with metaphysics. My body died on earth, this is just a manifestation of something the Shadow King created so I could breed, cook, and clean for the man who claimed me.”

  Hawk swallowed hard. “And have you bred?” It was a disgusting way to think of procreation and even though this new Annabelle was not the woman he’d loved, he hated to think of her having to endure that type of fate.

  She nodded. “Once. His name is Matthew. They took my son ten years ago. He would be grown now, I fear I might not recognize him if I saw him on the street. Through various sources, I am told he trained to build sailing ships and now he is the chief apprentice to the top ship builder in the land. It’s rather impressive; his father was a low level miner. I haven’t seen him in years.”

  This whole place was so screwed up it now rivaled Earth for its inconsistencies and problems. In fact, it was probably worse. Haven had troubles, but parents were not forcibly separated from their children.

  He wasn’t going to ask Annabelle how many times she’d been forced to ‘breed’ before she’d actually conceived. That sort of discussion would fall under way too much information about her personal business. Besides, he still had to find Hadley—that was first and foremost—and fixing this business for Annabelle had to come second.

  Hadley still had a warm body back on Haven that she could be restored to.

  A shout behind him garnered his attention and Dragon plowed into the room. “We have company.”

  Unsheathing his sword, Hawk ran out of the tent prepared to fight and wanting to lead the action away from the women. His men stormed out of the tents they had searched, each as alert to the noises outside as he had been.

  He nodded right and left and they spread out into attack formation. Their soon-to-be opponents needed a lesson in stealth. They made enough of a racket to wake the dead. Hawk quickly assessed them.

  They held their swords sloppily but at least they had them, unlike the poor wretches he and his men had eliminated at the mine. A few of the group limped behind the others and Hawk rolled his eyes. There was nothing more distressing than doing battle against an enemy made up of untrained youth, old men, and the infirm. Was this all that was left of the Shadow People?

  Why didn’t the King send better enforcements than this? Or were they all out stealing innocent women and forcing them to mate?

  The thought brought much needed fury to his blood.

  “Make it quick, gentlemen.” Hawk gave his order loudly; he wanted the approaching attack to hear his confidence. Half of winning a battle was mentally psyching out the enemy. In previous encounters, it had taken a lot more than boasting, but Hawk supposed with this group it wouldn’t take much.

  “Halt.” Dragon grabbed his arm.

  “What?”

  “Something is happening. Can’t you feel it?”

  Hawk had never been particularly attuned to his psychic nature, but he closed his eyes and tried for one second to feel what was so important that his brother had stopped his attack.

  There was a ripple in the air, but he wasn’t trained enough to know what it meant. He opened his eyes.

  “What is it?”

  Dragon’s eyes were huge, his pupils dilated. “I have no idea. I’ve never felt anything like this before in my life and I don’t mind telling you, little brother, that scares the hell out of me.”

  A surge of energy knocked Hawk onto his back. He felt paralyzed, his limbs wouldn’t cooperate. He knew this feeling; he’d experienced it once before when Hadley had healed the knife wound Dragon inflicted on him. It had to be her. What in all of the dimensions was she doing?

  The energy that flowed over them was overpowering, all consuming. It forced his eyes closed. Memories long forgotten flooded to the surface. He saw himself as a child, standing in front of his father as the patriarch of the family had taught him discipline with the crack of a whip.

  His mother’s worn face when, after weeks on her own, she’d shown the slightest hint of weakness from not knowing where her husband had been for months at a time or if he was still alive and returning to them.

  Dragon’s eyes rimmed in red, lines of fear stark in his face as he’d stared bravely at his parents while they turned their back to leave him in Astor. His gaze moving to Hawk’s with accusatory daggers, blaming him for having the audacity to be born a Warrior. His twelve-year-old self knowing that when next he saw his brother things would never be the same.

  The life-draining feeling that death after death and failure after failure experienced during his years on Earth had all but destroyed him, until Hadley had looked up at him from under her glasses and thanked him for bringing them to her despite her fear of him. Two seconds later, she had called him a pirate and restarted the heart he thought ceased long ago to beat.

  Hawk wrenched his eyes open. He had told her to stay out of his emotional baggage. It was too much for her to take on and he wouldn’t have her harmed in any way. Using every bit of force he could muster, he pulled his head up to look around. Everyone was either doubled over or flat on their backs.

  He didn’t know how Hadley was doing this but he was sure it had to be killing her. Annabelle stumbled out of the tent, shrieking like a banshee.

  Her skin, the color of a tomato, pulsated. He couldn’t touch her, but Hawk would have bet anything that her outsides would no longer feel cold. The same surge of energy that had brought up his old memories and banished the negativity contained in them had given Annabelle back her live body. It appeared that live tissue was reanimating Annabelle’s previously dull shell.

  All of this made sense, Hadley could heal. It was what she did, and somehow she was fixing the entire dimension. He couldn’t let this continue.

  If Annabelle could walk around, so could he. He pulled himself to his knees. Crawling like a baby, he made his way to Dragon. His brother writhed on the ground, his hands on his face.

  “Dragon.” Hawk shook him twice. “This is Hadley, this is what she does. Get hold of yourself.”

  Dragon moaned. “How can she have this much power?”

  “You said it yourself. She is the most powerful person born of our realm in a thousand years. Get yourself together. I need you to track the energy.”

  “Track the energy, yes, that sounds like a smart idea.”

  Hawk rolled his eyes. “Can you do it?”

  “If you help me up.”

  After he’d gotten Dragon to a sitting position, his brother shook his head to clear it like a wet dog. “I need to concentrate.”

  “So concentrate.”

  Dragon glared at him and Hawk tried not to smile. In that one look, he had seemed more lucid. One thing he could count on, Dragon would always get it together to be angry with him no matter what the circumstances were.

  “I’ve got the direction.” His voice was two octaves lower. “That way.” Dragon pointed to the sky in an easterly direction.

  “We need to get there.” Hawk silently wished he had his mutated powers back and he could have just levitated and gone after her.

  “I think I can help with that.”

  Dragon blinked twice and changed into an actual giant lizard. Hawk smiled. It was a good thing he hadn’t argued about his older brother accompanying them. Turned out he couldn’t have done any of this without him.

  Hawk climbed on top of him. He really did feel like a lizard. How far did this changing go? Did his brother still think like a person or was he now deducing things like an animal? Come to think of it, what was the level of intelligence on a dragon? Truthfully, Hawk had no idea.

  The flight was bumpy, not smooth like it would have been on one of his birds. It was also possible that Dragon was just not that good at flying. Hawk shrugged. As long as it got him to Hadley, he would take as much jostling as need be.

  A black cloud surrounded them and rain poured down on his head. Where had this w
eather come from? As they moved forward, the rain got worse until lightning bore down on them.

  There was no way any of this was natural. They must be getting close. Someone didn’t want them getting to Hadley, which only made Hawk feel more determined. He looked down on his brother, who was getting just as fatigued as he was, if not more.

  Dragon wasn’t in love with Hadley. It was possible his brother wasn’t as dedicated to this rescue mission as he was. He wished they could talk so Hawk could convince him into staying course. Looking down at the giant flying lizard that he shared DNA with changed his mind. Eyes squinted, he saw his own feelings reflected back at him. His brother was not a coward and he would not be turning back now.

  Hawk took a deep breath. There wasn’t an act of nature that would keep Hawk from Hadley. Lightning struck and Dragon jerked quickly to the right to avoid being hit. Hawk held on tight but nearly fell off. Dragon roared.

  The deafening crack of thunder rang his ears. Whoever was doing this to them was a dead man.

  The clouds abruptly cleared and looming in the horizon was a dark blue castle. At some point, it must have been beautiful and majestic, but now it was decrepit and dead looking. Hawk had no doubt that was where Hadley was being held.

  A white cloud of mist formed around the outside of the building and with a blinding yellow light it changed in front of his eyes. The blue stones lost their worn look and glowed as though they were brand new.

  “Dragon, if you can hear me in there, she’s fixing the landscape. I hope we’re not too late.”

  Fire spat from his brother’s mouth, burning orange in the night sky.

  He would not fail Hadley. She was his life and he would reclaim her. Anyone who got in his way would regret it.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Hadley heaved into the toilet, but she had long ago emptied the contents of her stomach.

  Come to me Hadley.

  The squid wanted her attention, had desired it for hours but Hadley had no idea how to stop what was happening and no clue how to answer the squid if she wasn’t asleep. So for the moment she continued to make friends with the porcelain bowl below her.

  She wiped her mouth and sat up. Leon paced back and forth from the window to the table. His hair glowed like the midday sun and his eyes sparkled as if they had been cut out of amethysts. She’d never liked blond men, but he was going to make some woman—claimed or otherwise—very happy.

  “It’s enough. I’ve been telling you for hours that it’s enough. Stop this now.”

  A wave of dizziness swept through her and she hit the wooden floor below her. Her ears rang. When she could raise her head, she glared at Leon. “Don’t you think that if I could stop this, I would? Does it look like I’m having a good time here? I warned you this would happen. Ends and means remember? Someone else said something similar to me once and he ended up feeling bad about it too. So save your remorse, because if I love him and I’m still pissed about what he did, then I’m likely never to forgive you.”

  He crossed to her. “Ms. Pettigrew, you must believe…”

  “Oh, I’m Ms. Pettigrew now am I? It’s Dr. Pettigrew. Why do I feel like I’ve had this conversation before?” She laughed as another wave of nausea hit her. Instead of going back to her previously disgusting position, she closed her eyes and hoped beyond hope that if she just lay there long enough it would cease.

  Moments later it did.

  She shook her head and raised her hand. “Help me up, your Highness or Leon or whatever I’m supposed to call you. I have a fever, I can barely move, and I want to lie down. Do you have a bed or a couch or a couple of pillows I can use?”

  “Bed is this way.” Leon picked her up and carried her as if she was a baby to the nearest bedroom, which proved to be not very close at all. After ten minutes of walking, she was finally placed down on comfortable cotton sheets in a dark and sparsely decorated guest room.

  “In my mother’s lifetime, we had servants and staff here who could have helped you. I’m afraid we long since stopped caring about such things. You’re stuck with me.”

  The small amount of light that illuminated the room seemed like too much. She squinted and raised her hand above her eyes to block some of it out. “You remember your promise, don’t you Leon?”

  “To tell Hawk. Yes, I recall, and I won’t fail to deliver your message although you may get your chance. Your brave boyfriend has been attempting with aid of a seriously pissed off dragon to get through the castle defenses for half an hour. He may succeed shortly.”

  “Couldn’t you just let him in?” Why did everything have to be a struggle?

  “No. I am not going to let a raving lunatic of a Haven Warrior into my castle on purpose, even if you do claim to love him.”

  Another wave of energy was going to spew out of her. She knew the symptoms now: her temperature rose, she started to sweat, and just when she thought she was dead, the energy left her body with such a force that she either seized or vomited. Personally, she preferred the latter but the first option had been the most common.

  “I don’t like the way you said claim. What does that mean?”

  Leon sat down on the end of the bed. “I mean,” he reached out and grabbed her hand. “That sometimes fate puts someone in front of us for a reason. Maybe you’ve saved us all because you’re meant to be my queen.”

  “I am not anyone’s savior so don’t put that on me. I am a woman who has been given certain abilities and I’m happy to use them if I can, although this time I’ll admit, I’d love for them to stop. You would think there would be an automatic shut-off or something.” At his quizzical look, she groaned. She wasn’t even going to try to explain what that meant to him. If Haven was post-technological, Shadow Land looked like it had never had any. All metaphysics and no elemental science for these people. “And I am not your queen. I don’t even really like you, not at all.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “You’re blunt, aren’t you?”

  “And you’re blond. Why is that? Every shadow person I’ve encountered is as dark as nighttime and you practically glow with sunlight.”

  “I believe the word is albino, yes? My family has been this way for generations. It’s part of why my people believe we hold the most Mystical talent.”

  “And don’t you?”

  He smiled. “No, Hadley, I believe you hold the most Mystical talent.”

  “I’ll tell you again, Leon, I’m not one of your people.”

  Just then the energy inside of her heated up, leaving her feeling like she might erupt. She screamed aloud, cursing in every language she knew. Her head moved side to side on the pillow. This was the worst it had been. This time she wasn’t going to make it, she was sure to explode.

  A cool washcloth brushed her face. “I’m so sorry Hadley Pettigrew.”

  “Ah.” Her body ached and she arched off the bed uncontrollably. She gritted her teeth as her body began to shake.

  Afraid she would never have a chance to say anything again, she grabbed Leon’s shirt. “No remorse, just make it right. Finish what I started. Your people are fixed. Send the women home.”

  A feeling of floating overcame her. Everything seemed foggy. As if she watched an old movie, she seemed to be seeing things in black and white. She blinked a couple of times and sat up. She wasn’t in bed anymore and Leon was nowhere to be found.

  Had she died? She’d been afraid she was about to. Standing up, she almost slipped when something brushed up against her feet. Looking down, she realized she stood in a small lake although she didn’t feel wet. Once again, something rubbed against her feet and this time she shrieked.

  She had no idea what was in the water, it could be some kind of eel or a shark or a leech in there getting ready to eat her. Not sure where she got the energy she sprinted away from whatever was on the ground, although she had no idea where she ran because she couldn’t see anything beyond mist and clouds in the black and white haze.

  Don’t worry, Hadley, it’s just me.r />
  Putting her hand on her chest, Hadley felt herself sputter. “So, I’m asleep, okay, now this is making sense.”

  You’re not asleep.

  “Then we’re back to me having no idea what the hell is going on.” She snickered; it had been a long day, and if she didn’t laugh she would cry.

  You’re in a dimension we call the Cloud’s dimension. It doesn’t seem to support any life. We come here for peace and quiet, but I couldn’t get what was happening to you out of my mind so I’ve brought you here temporarily.

  Hadley swallowed. “Am I about to die?”

  Most likely but these things are never as clear as I would like them to be. Your kind has a remarkable way of pulling through, although I’d say at the moment things are not looking up for you.

  “Thanks for the honesty, I suppose.” She sat down in the water, uncaring that she got wet—what difference did it make anyway? She sighed as an image of Hawk filled her mind. He’d been trying to get to her. Had he made it? She would never get to tell him herself so she hoped beyond reason that Leon lived up to his word and told Hawk how much she loved him.

  It still burned her insides that she’d never get the chance to fight for him, to prove to him that she was his destiny and not Annabelle.

  We all agree that it would be awful for you to die here. You were meant to be the savior of not one but two worlds.

  “I am not and stop saying that, you’re going to give me a complex.”

  What did you want if you don’t want to be the reason two worlds get to continue?

  “I wanted to see you, to find you on my science vessel.”

  You would never have found us on your little boat.

  Hadley slammed her hands down in the water and watched as little splashes rippled throughout the lake. “Some people do, you know. There have been some scientists to see you or find you, even on Earth.”

  Terrible tragic mistakes, nothing more.

  Hadley snorted. “Sure.” She paused. What else did she want? Well, that was easy, she wanted Hawk but what did that even mean? Could she be his wife? Was there a way that was even possible?