But I wasn’t sure if I would ever feel safe on my own again.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The rest of our meal was fairly subdued, and afterward we said our goodbyes and departed in our respective vehicles, Callista and Raphael making a far better show in his sporty red BMW convertible than I did in my older Honda. Gideon didn’t seem to notice the disparity, though, only got in the back seat and waited for me to join him.
“Do you want to tell me what happened in there?” he asked quietly as the car pulled out of the parking lot and headed toward home.
“Nothing happened,” I said.
His raised eyebrow was eloquent, and I let out a little sigh.
“I don’t know what it was. Like the creek was talking to me, but once again I couldn’t understand what it was trying to say. And it was as if I could see the power in it, like bright sparkles of light dancing all along its surface. Not like sunlight, though. Something stronger, but at the same time diffuse.” I pulled at one of the curls hanging over my shoulder, watching as it went nearly straight under the tension, then bounced back as soon as I released it. “That probably doesn’t make any sense.”
“Not completely, but I’ll admit I don’t know all that much about this creek of yours.”
“It’s not my creek.”
“I’m not so sure about that. It seems to have some sort of connection with you, even if you haven’t figured out yet how best to work with its energies.”
That was a tactful way of describing the situation. Since I wasn’t sure how to respond, I only reached over and took Gideon’s hand, held on to it like a lifeline as the car maneuvered through the thick West Sedona traffic and then eventually pulled off into the sleepy neighborhood where the cottage was located.
Everything looked the same, although I had to admit to myself that I didn’t know why I thought it would have changed. We got out of the car and went inside, neither of us speaking. It wasn’t until I’d dropped my purse on the dining room table and began to head into the kitchen in search of water that Gideon said,
“Have you asked your mother for help?”
Puzzled, I turned back toward him. He stood just inside the front door, arms crossed, his brows pulled together in an abstracted frown.
“My mother?”
“Or Kirsten Jones.”
“Why?”
“They drove out the Reptilians before, didn’t they?”
“Well, yes, but….” We’d been over this ground before. My mother hadn’t really known what she was doing, had acted out of instinct. Or, more to the point, something seemed to be acting through her. As for Kirsten, she had the aliens right in front of her, itching for a fight. It was easier to take on your foe when you knew where to find them. All right, I knew more or less where Lir Shalan and the rest of his cohorts were, but since I didn’t have a spaceship, heading into orbit and confronting them was going to be a little difficult. “This is entirely different. For one thing, they’re no longer occupying a base here.”
“That you know of.”
His remark, offered so casually, made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Could Lir Shalan have slipped back into the base out in Secret Canyon without anyone knowing? That would make our encounter the night before all the more telling. He’d been able to intercept me because he wasn’t on his ship at all, but lurking nearby.
I shivered, and at once Gideon was there next to me, pulling me close, holding me against him so I could breathe in the warm scent of his skin, drink in his nearness.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. But we must accept that as a very real possibility. Now that he knows he has the backing of your government, or at least elements in it, he can afford to be bolder.”
“Why, though?” I asked. “That is, why would he feel the need to be here at all? The base has been defunct for longer than I’ve been alive. It certainly isn’t going to offer the sorts of comforts or resources he’s used to on the Eclipse. Unless he’s got engineers working in there to get the labs up and running so they can make more hybrid soldiers, I just don’t see the point.”
Gideon pulled away slightly so he could gaze down into my face. I saw tenderness in his eyes, but also genuine worry, a clawing fear that he wouldn’t be able to protect me from his father. His hand cupped my cheek, and he said, his voice barely a whisper, “I think there’s a very real point. I think you know exactly why he’s here.”
I swallowed then, and couldn’t come up with anything to say.
At sunset, I walked down to the creek. Gideon tried to stop me, saying he didn’t think it was a good idea for me to be going anywhere alone. He was probably right. But I couldn’t get rid of that nagging sensation at the back of my brain, the one telling me there was something horribly important that I’d overlooked.
I somehow knew I needed to be by myself. Gideon’s presence was a comfort, but sometimes just having another person around was enough to keep me from being able to concentrate fully. And if Lir Shalan was strong enough to overcome the energy of the creek and still swoop down and grab me, then I knew I truly wasn’t safe, no matter where I was or who I was with.
The mildness of the day was slipping away as the sun set, but I was still comfortable enough in my shirtsleeves. A breeze ruffled my hair, playing with it and sending it to dance around my shoulders. I should have been calm, surrounded by the warm, slanting light of early evening, and yet every muscle in my body was tense, every nerve ending pinging with brittle energy.
I really didn’t want to know if I’d come out here alone as a sort of challenge to Lir Shalan. The underbrush rustled to my right, and I came to a stop on the path, heart beating wildly — only to let out a relieved breath a moment later when a rabbit bounced out from under some sumac, paused right in front of me, and then took off again, bolting into the thick stand of cottonwoods to my left.
The rest of my short journey passed without incident, although I had to keep telling myself not to have a panic attack at every shadow of a bird that moved overhead, every rustle of the leaves on the trees. I wasn’t alone out here at all; the wildlife of Sedona seemed to be keeping watch over me.
When I came to the bank of the creek, I stopped, then bent down and unlaced my shoes, pulled off my socks, and rolled up the legs of my jeans. Walking into the water seemed to have helped Gideon, and so I thought it was time for me to try.
The current that flowed over my bare feet as I ventured out into the creek was so cold that it made me want to gasp, but I gritted my teeth and ignored the discomfort.
“All right,” I said aloud. “Tell me what you want.”
Nothing, of course. Only the sound of rushing water and the wind rustling in the trees.
Except….
The tingling began in my toes. At first I thought it was only my extremities going numb from the icy water, but then I looked down and saw a flare of light under the creek’s surface, winding around my feet, then flowing up my legs, shimmering and a yellow so pale it was almost white. The tingling moved up my body in sync with the movement of the light. It wrapped around my waist, then flowed up and over my chest and down my arms, flashing as it surrounded my hands.
I held them up, and light flowed between them. So strong, so bright, so powerful. I knew then what it had been trying to tell me. The power in the creek was the same power that was within me.
“Taryn!”
Gideon. I turned and saw him standing on the bank of Oak Creek, eyes wide with surprise and something close to fear. There was no need to fear, however. The creek meant me no harm, and the energy rippling around me now was only a manifestation of the power I had carried within me all along.
“It’s all right,” I said, spreading my arms wide. “It can’t hurt — ”
I’d been about to say, It can’t hurt you. But then the light flowed out from me and moved to envelop him, and I let out a gasp. He made some sort of exclamation — in his shock, it came out in the Reptilian language — just before
his face lit up with wonder.
Because the energy, the light, whatever you wanted to call the manifestation — it was shimmering down his arms just as it had with me. As if by some unspoken prompt, we both spread our hands toward one another. The energy jumped between them, like two poles on a battery making a connection. I could sense it thrumming in the space between us, vastly more powerful now than it had been just a moment before.
“Do you feel that?” I called out, my voice carrying over the sound of the water and the energy’s hum, like the lowest note of a bass that had been plucked and continued to vibrate long after the string had been touched.
“Yes,” Gideon replied. He didn’t look quite as surprised as he had a few seconds earlier, but under its greenish hue, his face was pale. “How is this possible?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “The energy — it’s in me, just as it’s in the creek. And it seems as if it’s in you, too.”
“I’m not psychic.” He glanced down at his outstretched hands, at the sparkling near-white light that surrounded them. “So why is it working for me?”
“Maybe you inherited some latent powers from your father.” That seemed the most reasonable explanation to me, although I honestly didn’t know for sure. “Or maybe your mother was a little psychic. Did she ever mention anything like that to you?”
“No.” Across the several yards that separated us, his eyes met mine. “Perhaps it’s the connection we now share. I wouldn’t have been able to do this even a day ago.”
Could it be that simple? I supposed it could. Gideon and I now shared a physical intimacy, and maybe that was enough to awaken in him the capability to handle this strange energy as well.
Whatever the case, I knew it was time for me to get out of the water. The creek had shown me what I needed to know — that its power was mine, and I would be able to call on it when needed. Besides, I could barely feel my feet, the water was so cold. I made my way to shore, thinking that as soon as I was out of the creek, the energy would dissipate.
But it didn’t. If anything, it got stronger the closer I got to Gideon, which seemed to reinforce my earlier theory that the connection between us was the important consideration here. I went to him, barely able to make out his features through the cloud of scintillating energy that surrounded him, surrounded me.
He reached out to touch my face. I felt a surge of power move through my body as the cloud shimmered and shifted, enclosing us in a single brilliant bubble of light. Without stopping to think, I went on my tiptoes so we could kiss.
We seemed to be suspended, floating, sheltered in a perfect quiet place where nothing could touch us, nothing could hurt us. The light glistened all around, within and without.
The kiss could have lasted forever, or only a few seconds. I couldn’t tell, and perhaps it really didn’t matter. When our mouths lifted from one another, though, the energy evaporated like mist in sunlight, leaving me to wonder if I’d really seen it, really experienced it.
The wonder in Gideon’s eyes was all I needed to tell me that I hadn’t hallucinated the whole thing. He blinked, then glanced around, as if trying to figure out where it all could have gone.
Yes, the energy had disappeared, but in its place was an unexpected, ravening need. I took his hand and pulled him toward me again, bringing his mouth down to mine so I could kiss him again and again.
It was like setting a match to dry brush. He tasted me, hands moving to cup my face…and then those hands were moving down my body, his arms going around me so he could lift me from the rocky ground, hurry up the path that led to the back door of the cottage.
At another time, I might have marveled at such a casual display of strength. Right then, though, I could only think of how much I needed him, wanted him.
He burst through the back door and moved on to the bedroom. As soon as he set me down, we were all but tearing at one another’s clothes, rushing to remove those impediments so we could be flesh to flesh, skin to skin.
Gone was the hesitant, gentle exploration of a few hours earlier. He pushed me down onto the bed, his mouth on my breast, his hand between my legs, even as I reached over to grasp him, to wrap my fingers around his shaft and feel how ready he was.
But that didn’t seem to be enough. We shifted around one another, and in the next moment, I’d taken him into my mouth, and his tongue was touching me, sending exquisite shivers of pleasure all through my body, light sparkling around the edges of my vision in an echo of the creek’s energy. Suspended in time, we greedily feasted on each other until I shuddered my way through the first orgasm, and I could tell he was close as well.
We moved again, and this time I was on top of him while he filled me, his hands on my breasts, caressing. A wild cry escaped my lips at his touch, but I didn’t care. I rocked my hips as we found our rhythm, each one urging the other on, until I came again, the world dissolving in darkness and light while my body shuddered its way through the orgasm and to someplace beyond it. In the next instant, he climaxed as well, a low groan rising from somewhere deep within him, a sound so deep I could feel it reverberating all through me.
And then it was over, and I was collapsing at his side as he reached out and drew me close, his lips touching my hair as he whispered, “I love you, I love you,” over and over again like some kind of invocation. We breathed one another in, until our pulses calmed and our eyes closed.
Spent, we fell asleep in one another’s arms.
The lilting bing-bong of my phone woke me. I sat up in bed, blinking into the darkness. Beside me, Gideon stirred, then put out a hand to touch my arm. “What is it?” he asked.
“My phone,” I replied. “It’s still sitting out on the dining room table.” The room was pitch-black, so we must have been asleep for some time. I blinked again and glanced over at the clock on the nightstand. Ten minutes after midnight. We really had passed out after our frenzy of lovemaking.
And then there was that whole episode by the creek. I knew I needed time to process what had happened there, to figure out whether Gideon had power of his own or had merely melded with mine because of the bond we shared.
The phone went quiet, and I bit my lip. Phone calls after midnight were pretty much a universal code that something seriously bad had happened. Would whoever it was call back, or was the reason for the call something that could be relegated to voicemail?
Then the bing-bong came again, and I knew I had to get up and find out was going on. No time to put on any clothes, so I grabbed my robe off the hook on the back of the door and drew it on as I hurried out to the dining room. Behind me I heard rustling noises, and guessed that Gideon was getting dressed as well.
After flicking on the chandelier, I reached inside my purse and rummaged around for the phone. As usual, it had slipped out of the side pocket where it was supposed to live and was mixed in with my wallet and my cosmetics bag and all the other miscellaneous junk that floated around in there. At last my fingers closed around the little rectangular object, and I pulled it out, taking a quick glance at the display as I did so. My house number, the landline my parents had never wanted to get rid of.
Blood running cold, I put the phone to my ear just as Gideon emerged from the hallway outside the bedroom. “Hello?”
“Oh, thank God.”
My mother’s voice. “What is it?” I asked, my tone sharp. “Are you and Dad okay?”
“Yes, we’re fine, but — ” She stopped there, her voice hitching a bit.
That was not my mother. She might lose her temper from time to time, but she was not the type to get weepy about things. Not unless something really awful was going on.
“But what? Mom!”
A deep, gasping sort of sigh. “It’s Kelsey. She’s gone.”
“Gone?” I repeated, somewhat stupidly. What she’d said didn’t seem to make any sense, but maybe I just wasn’t all the way awake yet. I couldn’t imagine Kelsey going anywhere. She was hell-bent on hanging around until Michael came to his senses and a
dmitted how he really felt about her.
“It’s the Reptilians,” my mother said. “They’ve taken her.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Kara sat at her dining room table, eyes red, although it seemed as if she was all cried out by the time Gideon and I got to the house. Kirsten was next to her, holding her hand, while behind her, Lance paced angrily, hands knotted into fists at his side.
“I told her not to go,” he growled, frustration and fury spiking out from him in bright needle-like bursts of crimson and carmine. “Told her it wasn’t safe. But she told me I was being silly. Silly!” The last word was more spat than pronounced.
“Go where?” I asked.
Lance stopped pacing. Not that that was much of an improvement; I saw the way his eyes narrowed as they took in Gideon standing next to me. He’d activated his disguise just in case we were stopped by the police or anything like that, but of course Lance knew what was hidden behind the brown eyes and tanned skin. And clearly he wasn’t too happy with the Reptilians right now, even though of course Gideon had absolutely nothing to do with Kelsey’s disappearance.
“A party in Cottonwood,” Kara said drearily. “A friend of hers from work was throwing it. Kelsey said it wasn’t a big deal, that it wasn’t as if she was going to be driving up to Flagstaff or something.”
“The highway patrol found her car,” my father said, his tone quiet but matter-of-fact, as if he knew that Lance didn’t need to hear any platitudes right then. Next to him, my mother stirred uneasily in her chair but didn’t say anything. “It was on the side of 89A, a little past the turnoff for Page Springs.”
“The lights were still on, which is why they stopped,” Lance put in. “Classic abduction scenario, when you think about it. Car on the side of the road, lights on, engine running, no one inside. No sign of anyone breaking in, no sign of a struggle. The satellite radio was on, but the clock was frozen. Eleven twenty-two.”
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