Shadows of the Night (Kingdom Key Book 2)

by TylerRose.

  “Nails was fond of ‘pepper parties’ during which he would personally swipe a piece of jalapeno against the labia of every woman present. Yes, I’ve had it done. No, I don’t like it. Please wash.”

  “As you desire…this time.”

  Alone together in the silence that was not silent, with the windows open to the night sounds, she named every animal they heard. She told him about how far away it was, what it looked like, what it ate, if it was dangerous. She fell asleep mid-sentence. He kissed her cheek and ignored the noises so he could sleep himself.

  The morning dawned bright and cool.Before she even thought about coffee, Tyler was up and dressed and outside in the garden to start harvesting the rhubarb. Shestna joined her, learning to twist the stalks off without ripping out any baby shoots starting to grow up from the base. She showed him how to twist the huge leaf off the top of each stalk and place it between the plants to act as fertilizer and weed killer at the same time.

  “The heavy cover stops weeds from growing and then the leaves decompose to feed the plants,” she said, deftly cracking off another tough leaf.

  Together they went through the entire row of ten plants, pulling all the biggest stalks but leaving younger ones and shoots. With his hand strength, he could hold four or five stalks and twist all the leaves off in one motion.

  Taking the baskets inside, she set him to washing stalks while she made pie crust dough. With a hand held pastry mixer and Gramma’s biggest ceramic bowl, she quadrupled the recipe and had them made and divided out into four balls for chilling in a few minutes. By the time she was done, so was he.

  Together they diced up the stalks and she measured twelve cups into Gramma’s biggest metal bowl. Sugar, grated orange peel, a shot of cinnamon, some flour to thicken, and she picked up the bowl. Tossing the ingredients to mix just until the sugar began to liquefy with the juices from the rhubarb was more efficient than using a spoon for this quantity.

  Bowl set aside, she got out two wrapped balls of crust dough. Swiftly cut in half, she rolled one out on the floured table. Placed in a baking dish, she started on the another while he filled the pan with a two cup measure as a scoop. When all four pies were filled, she taught him to dot the filling with butter. He finished that while she rolled out the top crusts. Copying her motions, he learned to form a pinched edge. Vents cut in, all four pies went into the oven at the same time. She started another batch of crusts while he started to cut another twelve cups of rhubarb.

  Gramma came down to see the pie making operation in full swing. She kept to her side of the kitchen while Radames got a cup of coffee and sat at the worktable to watch. Sausages in one pan, Addie cycled through thick-cut French toast in another until she had three slices for each person. She had breakfast finished when Tyler and Shestna had the next four pies ready and in the fridge to wait. Porch table set, the four sat to eat their breakfast and enjoy the morning.

  “Pies smell done,” Addie and Tyler said at the same time.

  Tyler went in to get them out of the oven and onto the cooling shelves. Shestna put the next set into the oven for her and they returned to the table to continue the meal. They were down to the end of the third pot of coffee, talking on much of nothing, when pickup trucks pulling trailers started to pull into the back yard. Five in all, one after the other.

  Driving into a large semicircle behind the black fire pits, they halted and people flowed out of trucks and trailers to set up their individual campsites. An unfamiliar face was driving Radames’ full size RV. Zarabeth holding his hand told Tyler who he was. The new husband had become part of their family rather than her becoming part of his family. Interesting.

  After greetings with Gramma, Tyler introduced Shestna. No one said anything about his appearance. An uncle reached out a hand to shake in greeting, paving the way for the other men to follow suit.

  Tyler had the tween and unmarried girls in the gardens at once, harvesting everything that was ready. The young men were setting up tents on the other side of the campers. Mothers had their cooking stoves up and running. Grandmothers and older aunts were sitting with Addie on the porch, watching and talking while little ones ran all over the place. Half a dozen 8 to 10 year olds climbed the tree over the stream to hang-drop into the water.

  “That escalated quickly,” Shestna said of all the activity. “Now I know why you made so many pies.”

  “Yep. Eight pies times six pieces to serve 48 who will likely eat it. Or eight pieces in order to have a few second helpings. Time to get the second batch out.”

  Pies cooling, they both joined the harvesting in the garden. Tyler picked peas while he carried heavy baskets to the edge of the porch. Mothers came to select things to make into lunch and supper.

  “Where in the world did you find him?” Zarabeth sneered about Shestna.

  “On another world. I do that now. I travel to other planets for my work. What do you do, Zara? Other than vacuum the trailer and wash the dishes?”

  Zarabeth grunted in anger and went to pick radishes instead.

  The sun soon became too harsh for Tyler and she retreated to the protection of the porch. Somewhat cooled down after half an hour, she telepathically called to Shestna. He went upstairs with her.

  “I want to get cleaned up and go find Jerome,” she said. “Can you stand using a shower instead of a bath, so we can be quicker about it?”

  “If you are in the shower with me, yes. However, I doubt we’ll be quicker.”

  “I’ll be there in a moment, if you want to get the water going. I prefer warm rather than hot in this heat.”

  He went and she got out her phone. She manually dialed Thomas’ private cellphone number from memory, having not programmed it in. Not unexpectedly, he didn’t answer. He didn’t recognize the number format, so would let it go to voicemail.

  “It’s Tyler. Remember I asked you to find Jerome for me? I need to know if you have.”

  She recited her number and hung up. One minute, fully undressed, and her phone was ringing.

  “Yes, Thomas.”

  “Are you free?” he asked.

  “I have no price. Have you found him?”

  “I have coordinates for the front gate where he’s staying.”

  “Can you take a picture of it on a map with city names and send the picture to my phone?” she asked.

  She’d caught him off guard with that request. His silence spoke the volumes he wouldn’t. He wanted her to come to him.

  “I think I can,” he finally said. “Through an email. I have a program we’re testing.”

  “Please do. Right now. I want to go see him in half an hour.”

  “Okay. Can you come here so I can see you? Have you been well?”

  “Well is a matter of perspective and rather something of a day by day situation. I’ve been extremely busy.”

  “Will you come here?” he reiterated.

  “I don’t have time this trip, Thomas.”

  “All right. No pressure. I just miss you is all,” he backpedaled. “I’ll send the picture in a few minutes.”

  “Thank you.”

  She hung up and went directly to the Voranian waiting in her bathroom. She stepped into the water first, blocking most of the spray, and he followed. The tub was a freestanding basin on feet with a rod all the way around for the curtain. She pulled the ends together to enclose the space.

  He gently brought her into his arms to hold her close, looking into her eyes a moment as her hair grew wet.

  “Thank you for last night and this morning, Femina. I have seen a side of you I did not know existed. I would never have expected you to walk into a creek to pull up fish traps with an alligator looking over your shoulder. There are times your fearlessness impresses me greatly. I can see the family respects you a great deal.”

  “Some of them. Some of the cousins only think of themselves.”

  “Yes, but we won’t talk about them right now,” he said, turning her to make her lean backwards against the wall six inc
hes the other side of the tub. “I must have you.”

  “Must?” she questioned as he maneuvered into place.

  “Must. I want you so right now that I cannot go another second.”

  His penis shot up into her with enough force to make her stiffen and shudder.

  “I cannot claim ownership of you,” he said. “But you have ownership of my heart, Femina. Never doubt it. Never doubt my love or my devotion to you.”

  “I don’t,” she managed to say.

  She said no more as he sent her into her greatest bliss time and again until he was ready for his own climax. Then he watched her wash her hair and her body, eyes hungry for her all over again.

  “You know that I understand what you are, what the Immaculate is,” Shestna said, having stepped out first to get the towel for her. “I know there is supposed to be a team of men, friends and lovers, to help you. Would you allow me to be the head of that team?”

  “You want to be the Apogee?” she questioned. “Why?”

  “Because I think that is how I can best help you, at least for now. It’s going to take time to find the ones who will fill the other roles. You may require another Apogee, depending how long it takes you to progress to the next phase. Whatever that phase may be. I doubt you will fulfill your ultimate purpose within my remaining lifetime. I have maybe another thirty or forty years at best. It could take many hundreds, or even a thousand years, for you to have your next Widening. You may have many Apogees during that time. Will you accept me in that leadership role? Will you respect me as that authority?”

  She said nothing, going into the bedroom to dress and brush her hair.

  “I’ve made the offer. We’ll leave it lay for now,” he said when they were both in fresh clothing. “Are you ready to go?”

  She was even more troubled, came to him to take his hands with eyes and forehead working through her emotions.

  “I think we’re going to have to make it up as we go. However it works, we’ll have to let it just happen naturally. I can’t force anyone into a place. Neither can you. What happens, happens.”

  “I can live with that,” he said with a kiss to her forehead. “Do you have the coordinates?”

  She picked up her phone to look at the email message that had been sent. A picture of a map with a red X circled was attached. She made the picture larger, to see what cities were there. Seeing where Mexico City sat in relation to the X, seeing where the Yucatan peninsula was, where the border with Guatemala was, she focused hard on the marked spot.

  The bright heat of Louisiana was replaced by the bright and hotter jungle to the south of Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, Mexico. They were up in the mountains, the dirt road interrupted by a gate. The camera was new enough technology. She just looked into it and waited. No one spoke to her.

  Within a few minutes, she heard a vehicle coming toward them from inside the compound. She could feel him. That dense dark spot coming closer. The closer he came, the more nervous she grew. Around the last bend and she saw him. Hair loose and wild, those dark glasses trying to hide his soul.

  He was taller than she remembered, even more muscular. Such a sight for sore eyes but her smile wavered as he got out of the vehicle.

  “What do you want?” he asked, covering the last two strides to the open slat gate.

  She was tongue-tied. The heat of him, the intensity of his aura, the anger in his voice—they stole her words and her breath in the same instant.

  “She wanted to see that you are well,” Shestna said for her.

  “Who the fuck are you?”

  “Her friend. Who the fuck are you?”

  “Not her friend,” Jerome snapped.

  “I’ve seen Chen,” she finally managed to say. “He and Demitrius both. They’re doing well.”

  “Landra Ahr told me you were there. Did you enjoy fucking my friend in my bed?”

  “No. He enjoyed me in that bed and declared it was his bed. I know you’re in danger here. I have a home of my own you can come to off-planet. I’m offering you a safe place to live, where you won’t be hounded by Feds.”

  “I don’t need it. Go away.”

  He turned his back on her.

  “Thank you,” she said, halting him enough to turn around again.

  “What the fuck for?”

  “Stopping Adamantine. Stopping the death and destruction. In case no one else has ever said it, I am. Thank you.”

  “It’s not like you were there to help,” he shot back.

  “I didn’t know it was happening. I was sent on a mission a long way away so I couldn’t help. It was hidden from me or I would have been there. I swear it.”

  “A liar swearing to something?”

  “You need to stab at me. Fine. I remember our night together far more kindly than you do. I think it’s because of that night that I am who I am right now. Thank you for that, too.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “Your crystal power. The way we kept jolting each other. It kicked my telepathic development into high gear.”

  “Telepathic development?” he scoffed, shaking his head and walking to the car.

  She teleported to a spot in front of him. “Yes, Jerome. I know you couldn’t ask me to stay at your warehouse. I know why. I hope Touch is well also. She must be frightened out of her mind, to be pregnant on this crappy planet.”

  “What do you care? Feeling guilty about it?”

  “Actually, yes, I do feel guilty that I wasn’t there to help. Even though I was tricked into not being there, I feel guilty as hell about it. Just like you feel guilty that you didn’t ask me to stay. You feel guilty as hell for letting me get on that bus, for not stopping me. I’m here to tell you it’s okay. I forgive you for not taking me there.”

  “I don’t need your forgiveness.”

  “Maybe you don’t think you do. But you have it all the same. Call Landra Ahr if you ever do need a place to live. He can reach me.”

  She offered her hand. He hesitated, but took it. They shared that same jolt. The expression in his one good eye changed. He still felt what she did. It was in him somewhere.

  “Earth is nothing,” she said, looking through the glasses into that real eye. “You and I have a lot more to do.”

  He shoved her back. “No.”

  She stepped in, to reason with him. Jerome’s hand raised to hit her. Shestna teleported between them, nose to nose and eye to eye with Jerome, his arm blocking the strike.

  “Do it, Earthman. I will hurt you in ways you didn’t know you could be hurt. Your crystal energy doesn’t intimidate me. I can take it from you and leave you a puddle of nothing.”

  He took Tyler by the wrist and teleported to the other side of the gate with her.

  “It is obvious you would rather stay here on a planet that wants to kill and study you. So be it. When you realize how wrong you are, contact your Landra Ahr as she says.”

  It was he who teleported them back to their room in Addie’s home. Tyler sat on the edge of the bed to weep helpless tears. He stood in front of her, holding her around the shoulders.

  “He’s so full of hate and anger,” she said when the tears were ending.

  “Yes, he is. I don’t think there is anything you can do for them, Femina. They don’t want help.”

  “He doesn’t want help. She might but he’s not going to let me get near her. I need to sit alone and think for a while. Can you manage being with the family?”

  “I like your family,” he said. “I will sit with the old women on the porch and hear their stories.”

  She teleported to the limb of the tree hanging over the stream. Sitting alone, smoking her pipe, she remembered her night with Jerome during a blizzard. Only a year and a half ago…an eternity. A single heartbeat. She’d felt that same jolt that had impressed his scent and his aura on her.

  She needed him, but his rejection was so complete that it nearly ended in violence. How could she grow to be what she was to be if he wouldn’t come with her
? She might never have another Widening. She might never find another who could take his place.

  “I don’t care. You do what I say now.” A harsh voice and a slap.

  Tyler looked down to see Zarabeth and her new husband, with Zara’s hand to her face. Tyler leapt down, stalking along the bank.

  “If you ever lay another hand on her, I’ll choke the life out of you,” she promised, and gave a psychokinetic shove of her hand that sent him flying into the stream. “You only get one warning.”

  Zara stared after Tyler as she started back toward the house.

  “Why would you defend me? You never liked me.”

  Tyler stopped, looked at her younger cousin. “I don’t have to like you in order to stop an asshole from abusing you.”

  “You won’t do anything,” the husband said, having climbed up the bank.

  She went face to face with him the same way Shestna had with Jerome, walking him backwards with the force of her fury. “I’ve killed two men already this year. One of them just for giving me a flower. Go ahead. Try me.”

  He did, taking a swing at her. She blocked and landed an open palm to his sternum that sent him back into the water. She turned to continue her walk back to the house. He scrambled back up, tackling her from behind. She tucked and rolled and was on her feet. Zarabeth’s screaming brought the family running around the campers to see what was happening.

  Tyler was in mid-throw, slamming the husband onto his back and knocking the wind out of him. Standing with feet on either side of him, she bent over and put a hand around his throat. Squeezing hard, he knew that sensation of throat closing from inside.

  “Hit your wife again and I will plant you. Keep yourself at least thirty feet away from me until you leave.”

  One of the uncles lifted her away from the man on the ground. “Enough, Tyler. Walk it off!”

  She turned hard and stomped away.

  “You should not have said that,” Radames told his brother.

  She walked between two campers and their corresponding fires and kept on going around the side of the house. Radames caught up to her, stopped her walking.

  “What is going on?” he asked.