by Celeste Raye
He felt a sense of sheer awe. This was beyond what he had imagined, what he had thought was possible. “The gardens that were in the old Tralam, can you grow them here?”
“I can.”
She could. The weapon had not stripped that talent away from her, and he believed her. He believed that she could and would regrow all the lush and beautiful greenery that had been in those gardens and the greenery that had stung his soul with its beauty, much as Lornia herself did.
Faces turned toward them. Mouths opened as Lornia walked forward, her voice ringing with authority. “My name’s Lornia. I too am an Eldern.”
An Eldern. That word was one he had never heard before, but he understood it now with his rudimentary understanding of her language. They, his race, had called her kind the Speakers because they had not had a word in their known languages that would simulate the one she had just used.
He stood there, staring at them all. Lornia said, “And this is Drake, who commanded the weapon against those who would have breached Tralam at its weakest point. That Tralam is no more. I am the sole keeper of the gardens, and I’ve come to keep yours.”
Gasps rolled through the hall. Then came a shout of pure victory and hope. Then they surged toward them. Drake found himself being met with cheers and rapid speech, much of it he could not understand or respond to yet, but he would. He had a lot to learn, yes, but he had much time to learn.
A feeling Drake had never known before washed over him, leaving him flooded with gratitude and exhilaration.
He had given up all of the power of one universe, and he had found himself possessed of something far sweeter.
Love. Home. And the people of which he could be a part. A family.
The night had come to Tralam. It hung across the sky, which was visible outside the windows, and Drake stood at one of the windows, his hands still on the sash as he leaned close to the thick panes that held the atmosphere of space out, and the wind as well.
Lornia stood behind him, her eyes locked on his lean frame. This was the being that she loved, and they had somehow managed to stay together despite the pull of space and time and everything in between. That they would stay together from now on was not something that she doubted.
She went to him. Her hands slid along his shoulders, and he said, “It’s beautiful out there.”
She looked out the windows. It was beautiful. The machine had created that outer view, all rugged mountains and long vistas of sky. They were there, yes, and they could leave the fortress now to go to them, something that had not been possible for so many centuries.
This Tralam was not exactly like the old one. It was a different one, one that had never known the beast wars, the perfidy of Franchine. In this universe, the Federation’s founding fathers had never come, and she had never become the weapon that she had been in that universe where Drake hailed from.
But it too had its problems and sorrows.
Drake drew her into his side. His fingers stroked across her arms, and then he turned her into him for a long and lingering kiss that left her shivering and loose of limb.
Fire started within her and kept building. This was her mate, her man. The one that she loved and wanted in her bed and life.
His kiss brought the taste of sweet water and the nut breads that grew in this Tralam as well, the favored food of her people. His teeth tugged at her bottom lip gently, and his body pressed closer, bringing the feel of his hardening manhood to her lower belly. Her body responded, and her back arched so that she could rub closer to him.
That urgent press of his stiff cock made wetness start and spread through her body, made her lips part further as his tongue plundered her mouth and then teased her tongue into a long dance that made her breath come in rapid waves.
His hands traveled down her body, and she moved closer. Her hands shucked his garments away, and he stood there naked before Lornia as she dropped to her knees. Her fingers reached for his erection and that hardened flesh trembled and then grew harder still as she put it into her mouth, letting her tongue run over the silken skin of the head of it. A slight and thin drop of fluid came welling up from the slit at the top of his member, filling the back of her throat with that salty flavor that was just his.
The scent of his body, clean and yet slightly starchy, all male, filled her nose and his thick pubic hair brushed against her nose’s tip as well, tickling it a little. He filled her throat, every inch of him throbbing and stiff and so delicious that she let him go all the way down her throat and then she rested there for a moment, her fingers rising to tickle at the flesh directly between his asshole and balls.
Drake groaned and pressed forward again, cutting off her breath. He withdrew, and she took in a long breath and then took his dick back into her mouth, her tongue tracing the raised bas-relief of the veins that wrapped around that heavy shaft. Her fingers moved to his sac, and she stroked her thumbs across that flesh, feeling it lift and tauten with each suck of her lips and flick of her tongue and caress from her fingers.
Drake moaned out, “Oh my God. That feels so good. So goddamn good.”
His nails raked through her hair, leaving her scalp tingling and her skin feeling like it was aflame with the desire that raced all through her body as he pumped his hips back and forth, using her mouth.
He pulled out of her mouth with a wet pop and hauled her to her feet. His hands gripped her upper arms and then she was on her back on the bed, and he was there, right there with her. The mattress sagged below their weight and her nipples stiffened as his tongue found the light pink peaks and bathed them, then his hands gripped the fleshy globes around those nipples, squeezing them gently, then harder, his touch roughening as he sucked her nipples harder, his teeth scraping over them and bringing pleasure to her in huge waves.
His dark head moved lower. His hands measured out the distance between her ribs and then spanned her waist. Her body opened, her legs spreading wider as his head ducked lower still. His tongue parted her wet flesh, and then his fingers pierced her body, going deep within her core as his tongue slid around her clit and made it rise and stand, trembling and erect, under the pressure that sent shivers across her skin and a cry from her mouth.
“I need you inside me.”
The words broke from her lips. He moved swiftly, unable to resist that plea. She parted her legs yet again, and he slid between her legs, his cock pressing into her in one long and swift motion that left her spinning toward climax. He was so heavy and thick, so long and wide, and he filled her in every way, and all the way to the ends of her body and desire too. Her hands found his clenching ass cheeks and held on, riding him as he rode her. They raced toward completion, both of them breathing hard and fast, both of them groaning and sweating now as they strained together one final time before their bodies pulsed and arced toward each other and stayed there, meeting and still reaching.
The orgasm sent her body back into the mattress, her heels digging in deep and her eyes closed, then opened again as he carefully balanced himself up above her on one arm to keep her from having to bear his weight. That was such a small thing, and yet it made her happy because it was so him, that small but important consideration.
He moved away from her, and she curled up next to him, slinging an arm over his waist while one of his hands rested on her breast. She said, “Will you be happy here?”
“I will be happy here, and if you have to leave here, I will be happy wherever we go.”
She said, “Let us hope it does not come to that. I do not know about you, but I do not want to ever make that trip again.”
Drake began to laugh. “Me either. I have to admit it was the worst trip I ever took.” His eyes searched her face. “Can you be happy here?”
“Yes.”
“Because your people are here.”
“That is one reason, but there are others. Here, the Federation never came, and they are gone now, and they can’t return. Not from where I sent them.”
He propped hi
s head up on one hand and surveyed her face again. “Tell me.”
She played with the edges of the sheet, her lips compressing. “Are you sure you want to know?”
He caught her hand. His voice was firm. “I do. If I hadn’t, I would not have asked you.”
Had he asked? It had sounded a lot like a command. She did not dare look at him to say what she had to say just then. She was afraid she would see horror on his face, but she did not want to lie to him either. Never that, and she also did not want to spend their lives not trusting him with every secret she held. “I created a sort of Tralam for them.”
She looked up at him then. He didn’t look disgusted or even particularly upset. He said, “What do you mean by that exactly?”
“I mean I created a place, a singular little pocket of space and time, and put them into it, and there they will stay until they all go extinct.”
He blew a soft whistle from his lips. “I see. You do know that they may live a long time, yes? The ships have food printers. They could recyc water for a century at the most though, and that depends on just how many were aboard those ships. They will likely mate and have children who will be raised in that…in that version of this place. But how do you know that they will never escape from there as you left Tralam?”
“Because unlike Tralam, there is no map, and no legend. As far as anyone knows, they were simply blown away. Because, unlike Tralam, there is no way in or out. I did not leave that or make that for them. It is sealed from all sides and even if they could get out, there would be no place for them to go.”
He understood what she was saying then. “My God. No, not you. It was not you that did that, it was the weapon and the machine working together within you, and with the Orb. You created an entire dimension for their prison.”
She asked, “Do you fear me now?”
“No.”
That allowed her to breathe again. She nestled close to him. “I know it is cruel, what has happened to them. I know there were people and beings on those ships who did not deserve that fate…”
“They did. The minute the stepped onto those ships, knowing what the ships were going to do, the second they closed their eyes to the truth of what sort of mission they were on, they were guilty. They had already done that very same thing in other systems, and so they too owe that debt. Do not ever let yourself feel as if you are guilty of harming innocents.”
“People on the planet’s surface died from that blow I dealt. That I do regret.”
She did. She had had no way of controlling the power. Maybe one day she would learn how to, but since she had never had to use herself in that way before, she had not known how to stop it once she had loosed it upon the world. But he had known. Somehow he had known to reach past the weapon and find her, to make her come back to herself in order to stop the rest of what she might have done if she had been left to loose that power unchecked and unbound.
He said, “I know. I regret much too. I regret that I did not know then, when we met, that power was what I wanted. That I was so weak and riddled with anger over a childhood I had left behind a long time before. That I did not have the heart to do what I should have done earlier that day, when we may have been able to save more of the people on that planet. I went soft, and I regret that, but not the reason why.”
“You were afraid for me.”
“I was afraid I would lose you forever.” He slanted her a smile. “I still worry that that might happen. I mean, you are still the weapon and one day you may be called upon once more.”
No. She would be. There was no maybe to it. She had seen that too during that hellish calling back of the weapon to a fortress where it and the Orb could be protected.
War would come again.
That ancient race that had warred with itself had been so advanced, and they remained so even though they too were trapped in a dimension far away from the universe that Drake had called home for so long. The universe right next to his, and a universe that would open soon because when her Tralam, the one she had hidden and sheltered and been imprisoned within, had fallen, that door had slid open, something she had to tell him—but not yet Not while there was nothing that either of them could do to protect the ones he had loved and left behind.
She would find a way to make sure he could help them. She would send him back, and with the Orb, as soon as she figured out a way to use the Orb to let him travel without her.
That too would come to pass. She had seen it too. What she had not seen was the life they would have together because that still had yet to be written.
And they would write it together.
They might be forgotten one day, but that would not matter to her. They would never forget each other, not even after death came for them and took their bodies from the world.
They had a love that was so strong it could cross space and time.
What was death in the face of a love like that one?
Epilogue - Drake
Blade stood on the battlefield, his entire body shivering. All around him lay the dead. Thousands. Those that they had hoped to save. The weapon had fired and done its duty, but like all weapons, it had no ability to separate good from bad and so those in its path were now gone, their lives given in the name of vanquishing the Federation forever. It seemed to be so contrary, the way that the weapon had dealt out death. He had been standing very close to Lornia when she had become the weapon and deployed, but he was still alive. Those who had been much further away lay on the ground, their body scorched and burned away to almost nothingness.
Tara!
Had she survived? He staggered a few steps, his eyes searching all around him. Where was she? To his vast relief, he saw her and began to run toward her. All of the Revant siblings had also survived it seemed. Their mates had as well. He could see them all embracing each other and checking to make sure that none of their number had sustained serious injury.
Talon stared at him as they gathered in a little knot. The beings around them wept for their dead while cheering the fact that the Federation was gone, even if they did not quite understand what had happened to them.
Renall spoke first. His eyes were large and luminous, and a slight thread of blood ran from one ear. He spoke in a voice made thick by the dust and the stink of the air. “Drake?”
Blade’s heart ached. “Gone. I don’t know…”
He let the words trail off. He didn’t know where Drake had gone. He had seen Drake grasp Lornia tightly, and then they had both vanished from sight. All the things he should have said to his brother rose up in his mind, making regret a vital thing that clutched at his intestines and heart.
Tara held his hand. Her face was streaked with dirt and gore and a patch of her hair, a small round section right near her temple, had been burned away. Jenny had blood coming from her mouth, and Marik was tending to her. Margie and Jeval were close by, and Margie let out a pained scream that caused Blade to jump a little. He asked, “What is it? Is she all right?
Jeval looked at him. Weariness settled onto his face, but there was joy there as well. “She’s in labor. Our baby is on the way.”
Blade put his shoulder beneath Margie’s and lifted her with Jeval’s help. They all carried her toward the hospital where a stream of the injured was also headed.
Blade’s eyes went to the skies. Where was Drake? Had he survived whatever had just happened?
Would he ever know?
Tara’s hand found his again as they laid Margie down on the berth that was available and Marik bent to help her. Jenny, too wounded by her using the weapon within her to be of any help, lay on a small pallet on the floor while Jessica and Clare bent over her, doing their best to hold onto her hands while she cried out as the last bits of pain from loosing her darkness on the world took hold of her and racked her body.
Blade staggered backward, his face gray with fatigue and his heart heavy. He turned away and staggered toward a wall, his eyes streaming tears. Tara let him go, knowing that he was g
rieving not just for the actual losses, but for the loss of the brother he had never really gotten to know.
“You look like shit.”
The words jerked Blade around, and his mouth fell open. His eyes rounded. “Drake?”
It couldn’t be. The man before him was very old, stooped, and white of hair and wrinkled of face. He wore a simple wool tunic that hung about his body, and there was a scar above his right cheek, a deeply imbedded thing that closely matched the scar on Blade’s own cheek.
Drake said, “Yes, it’s me. Don’t ask how. I don’t know. Lornia did it somehow. But not yet, many years from now. Centuries from now. I’m dying, where I am, but that doesn’t matter because you’ve been gone for centuries already, so it had to be here and now.”
Blade whispered, “I’ve lost my mind.”
“No, you haven’t.” Drake’s gnarled fingers extended something. It hung in the air, winking and shining. Blade’s forehead wrinkled with confusion. “What is it?”
“The map and key to Tralam. Guard it well. War will not come again in your lifetime, which will be very long. But it will come, and when it does, you will be gone, and your children will be the new us, the warriors who stand against the darkness. They will need this then.”
Blade wanted to say no. Whatever that thing that Drake held was, he wanted no part of it. His throat was thick. “I shall never see you again, will I?”
“No.” Drake sighed. “But I promise you my life has been everything I could have wanted it to be. I wish I could have come later, after this part of it was over and after peace began and stayed for you. But time only allows this moment. Take it. But remember this: you cannot seek out Tralam, ever. If you do, you may change everything, and time and space are not forgiving of that.”
Blade reached for the map. His fingers closed around the hard shape of it. His eyes met Drake’s squarely. “I wish we had time to really be brothers.”
Drake’s smile softened the age on his face. “We are brothers. Don’t you ever forget it.”
