by Mikayla Lane
Since she wasn’t sure if it was normal or not, Quinn tried to suck it up and get through it, but the pressure and heat continued to build until she wasn’t sure if she could take anymore.
Quinn screamed and yanked away from Angel’s hands just as the pressure popped in her head, and sounds and voices came rushing through her mind. There were so many voices, and all of them were so loud she couldn’t distinguish what anyone was saying. She winced from the volume of the voices as she looked at Angel and Dree, her hands covering her ears to block the sounds.
“Did it work?” Quinn screamed at them so she could be heard over the voices and sounds. “Can someone turn that down? It’s too loud, and everyone is talking at once.”
Angel and Dree looked at one another worriedly before Angel looked at Quinn.
“Can you hear me?” Angel asked.
“Of course,” Quinn yelled, “but everyone else is too loud.”
Angel shot a glance at Dree, and Quinn watched her move to stand beside Angel.
“Can you hear me as well?” Dree asked.
“Guys, I’m not deaf!” Quinn yelled, wondering why they weren’t bothered by the volume.
“It worked!” Angel yelled out as Dree screamed in excitement and hugged Quinn.
“Your beast has to turn down the volume for you, and you and he have to work together to choose the different paths to speak on,” Angel explained.
“It worked?” Quinn yelled, her voice softening on the last as it dawned on her what Angel said.
“Atarma, can you turn it down?” Quinn asked in her mind.
Just as the volume began to lower, Quinn watched Angel and Dree pale, and several of the brothers run into the room calling out for her to get off that particular channel.
The voices suddenly became distinguishable just in time for Chris to tell her that he loved her before his heart stopped beating.
Chapter Twenty Two
Chris and his teams dropped from the craft and into the woods surrounding the old monastery. He kept low, using the surrounding foliage as cover as he headed to the edge of the clearing to keep eyes on the human guards surrounding the old building.
Ainsley had already begun porting everyone she could to one of the cloaked ships hovering above them, and from the chatter Chris heard, the girl was doing a great job of getting it done quickly.
Fiona had gone inside with Ainsley to try and get her sister out. Dread, Viper, and Drago had gone with her as backup in case she encountered any resistance to them leaving.
He was in the closest location to where they were housing Moira and was backup for the Tezarians and Fiona while they tried to get the damaged hybrid from the humans.
Chris found a good spot, laid on the ground on his stomach, and looked through the sight on his rifle to study the area. The mission was going perfectly, and he hoped they could get back soon.
With the area clear, Chris let his mind wander for a moment to how beautiful Quinn had looked when he left for the mission.
I could get used to having a beautiful mate and my son waiting for me when I get home, he thought as he smiled.
He couldn’t believe how incredible it felt to know he was going to be a father. Seeing Quinn pregnant with his son made him look at every moment he’d spent with her over the last 10 years in a different light. Chris now knew he’d loved her all along, but he had feared he couldn’t have a mate because he was a cursed Dranovian.
Chris thought of the Tezarian friends who fought beside them and the hybrid ones who seemed to try and accept them, and he shook his head.
Maybe cursed isn’t the right word after all, he thought.
Suddenly the shengari’ lit up with shouted warnings, and Chris barely had time to erect an energy shield around himself as the human guards began firing automatic weapons into the woods from all sides of the monastery.
Chris wasn’t sure how they’d been discovered and had no time to ponder it as he stood, ordered his teams to open fire, aimed his own weapons, and downed the humans firing on his location.
Chris heard the calls from Viper and Drago and ran past the fallen humans into the monastery. He easily followed the unsettling shift in his energy that would lead him to an anomalous one, assuming that was where Moira, Fiona, and the Tezarians would be.
He knew he was close when he heard shouting and profanities being screamed at someone. Chris slowed his stride when he turned down an old stone hallway and saw Viper and Drago standing outside a door, their bodies tense and hesitant.
Chris remained on guard as he moved to the door and cautiously looked inside. Even with all the things he’d seen in his life, Chris was shocked at what he saw in the room.
Fiona stood with her arms stretched out in front of her while a human priest waved a gun around. On the bed was Fiona’s twin, Moira, tied down at all four corners to the wooden bedposts. Her face was ravaged with abuse and scars, and fresh blood oozed from scratches.
Chris could see bruises covering most of the flesh on Moira’s arms and legs. New ones were forming around her wrists and ankles where she violently pulled against her restraints.
Dread stood beside the bed, his expression one of indecision and horror as he looked down at Moira. Drago moved around Chris and stood beside Fiona, trying to keep the priest from shooting the restrained Moira and his stunned brother.
Moira jerked at her restraints and growled in an almost inhuman voice at Dread.
“Let me free so we can fuck and mate!” she screamed as her green eyes swirled with darkness. “We can sacrifice our child to the dark one!”
Chris tried to ignore the rantings of the crazed woman, and he took aim from the doorway at the priest.
“I’ll die before I allow you to unleash that unclean demon on the world!” the priest yelled, and with a shaking hand, he took aim at Moira.
Moira sat up as best as she could and spit at the priest as she cackled with laughter.
“My mate can’t let you hurt me! Can you, baby?” Moira shrieked at Dread as she made obscene gestures at him with her tongue. “Come, Dread, take me from here! Our children would make powerful additions to the dark one’s army!”
Chris watched as the priest began to pull the trigger, and Chris fired, watching dispassionately as the human crumpled to the floor.
“You killed a priest, and I’m the bad one?” Moira shrieked with glee before cackling with laughter.
Fiona looked up at Chris in stunned horror before dropping to her knees to check on the priest.
“I tranquilized him,” Chris growled as he moved into the room and stood near the bed.
The woman in the bed no longer resembled her twin except in stature, and Chris quelled the intense urge to expulse the beast within her. It was the stunned and still-speechless Dread and the pain that radiated from him in waves that stopped Chris from doing anything.
Fiona kneeled at the priest, making him more comfortable on the floor so he wouldn’t be sore when he awakened, and Chris turned to Dread.
“Why don’t you get out of here on the ship with the other hybrids, and we’ll meet you back in Peru. I can help Fiona with this,” Chris suggested, trying to spare his friend the sight of his crazed and tortured mate.
Chris saw Dread’s eyes widen and watched his mouth move at the same time he saw a flash to his left. He thought he heard Dread shout and felt a horrible pressure in his chest. Chris looked down and saw the ornate dagger handle protruding from his chest and Moira’s hand pounding it in, but it still didn’t register in his mind.
“Help this, Dranovian dog,” Moira sneered in his ear.
She held Chris’s neck with one hand and tried to drive the dagger deeper into his chest with the other.
The pain hit Chris when he felt someone trying to pull Moira off his back, and he gasped for breath as his legs began to give out. He was caught in strong arms before he hit the floor, and Chris looked up at Dread as he clutched his chest. His fingers immediately grew wet with blood.
Ch
ris pulled his hand away and tried to focus his vision on the blood dripping from his fingertips when he turned to Dread.
“Get away . . .” Chris croaked on a gasp as his lung collapsed.
“Don’t try to talk. We’re getting you help, Chris. Hang in there!” Dread urged him as shouting and screaming erupted around them.
Moira hurriedly freed herself from the rest of her bonds and launched herself at her sister. Fiona was thrown to the floor, her sister sitting on her chest. Fiona fought desperately to get Moira off of her as her sister grabbed her by the hair and slammed her head into the floor.
Drago ran past Dread and Chris and pulled a shrieking, flailing Moira off of Fiona and punched her in the face, knocking her out cold. He eased her to the floor and searched the room until he found another coil of the rope they’d used to tie the woman to the bed.
He wasted no time in re-securing Moira’s arms and legs, knowing she wouldn’t be out long; he hadn’t hit her that hard. He’d only wanted to immobilize her, not kill her. He couldn’t do that to his brother’s mate.
“Get . . . aw . . . ay,” Chris gasped out as he looked up at Dread.
“I’m not leaving you, Chris. I’m so sorry. I let my guard down,” Dread assured him as his voice broke in fear for the Dranovian leader as Chris struggled to breath.
Dread tried to ignore the blood beginning to pool around his knees where he knelt on the floor beside Chris.
“Get here now!” Dread screamed through the shengari’, watching helplessly as Chris’s breath stuttered and rasped in his chest.
“A . . . way,” Chris whispered on a desperate breath.
“Dread, wait!” Viper called out. “He’s telling you to back away. So are the other Dranovians. Get away from him!”
Dread looked down at the dying Dranovian apologetically and moved away from him until Chris was lying on the floor, looking up at the ceiling unblinkingly as his body jerked and begged for breath.
“What now? Damn it, he needs help!” Dread roared in fear and shame as Chris drew a final breath and lay still on the floor.
Dread was getting ready to storm over to try anything to help Chris when he was thrown back by the eerie blue light that sprouted from the floor like living vines of energy. Dread scooted back towards the door and watched in awe as the blue tendrils of energy wrapped around Chris’s body, twisting and turning until they began to fully engulf him.
I love you, Quinn, Chris thought as his heart stopped.
“What the hell?” Viper asked in wonder as footsteps pounded down the hall towards them.
Drago pulled Dread to his feet and out of the room as Mikal and Indrid suddenly appeared next to the energy sarcophagus fully entombing Chris’s body. Mikal kneeled and laid a hand on the arcing blue energy.
“There’s still time,” Mikal whispered, calling out the news through the shengari’.
“Thank the gods! Get out of my way,” Luca said as he ran into the room and threw his medkit bag on the floor beside Chris.
Grant pushed through the increasing number of siblings blocking the door and set his own medkit bag down on the other side of Chris as Luca quickly pulled items out of his kit and set them up around Chris.
“Have Deacon send us a stretcher,” Grant ordered.
With an apparatus in hand, Grant sunk his hands deep into the arcing energy around Chris’s body.
“I got it in!” Grant told Luca as he moved his hands out of the energy mass.
“Getting ready to plug him into stasis in 3, 2 . . .” Luca called out.
Grant pulled his hands away from Chris just as the blue energy shield shimmered and began to disappear as Chris and his beast went into stasis.
“We got him,” Luca said with a heavy sigh.
He wiped his forehead as he leaned forward and started squeezing a green goo into the torn skin around the dagger in Chris’s chest, completely sealing the weapon in place until it could be removed without causing further damage.
Grant began getting Chris ready for transport while Luca checked the stasis controls and made sure his brother’s body would remain in perfect condition during the flight home.
“Aww, did I kill your friend?” Moira sneered from the floor, her swelling face only a foot from Chris’s.
“Shut up, Moira,” Fiona snarled back at her sister.
“Fuck you, fuck you all! The dark master will kill all of you anyway!” Moira cackled with laughter as she rolled around on the floor.
Fiona stood angrily and swiped something off of a nearby table. Dread screamed at her to stop but couldn’t get across the crowded room fast enough to stop her from plunging it into her sister.
Everyone stopped and silence reigned as they all took in the sight of the needle sticking out of Moira’s arm, the plunger already deployed before Fiona pulled the needle back out.
“What did you give her?” Dread asked in fear as he watched his damaged, mind-ravaged mate sink quietly to the floor.
“It was a horse tranquilizer—the only thing that works on her for any length of time,” Fiona said.
Her chest heaved, and her voice showed her stress and fear as she looked down at her sister. The reality of the situation hit Fiona hard, and the syringe dropped from her numb fingers to the floor.
“Chris is ready; we’re going,” Luca said, unconcerned with anything but his brother.
Grant turned to accept the stretcher being handed to him from the doorway but instead moved to let his father in the room.
Grai knelt next to his son and looked at Luca.
“Is he in stasis and stable?” Grai asked on a choked whisper.
“Yeah, Dad. He’s going to be OK,” Luca assured their distraught father as he placed the stasis equipment on Chris’s stomach for transport.
Grai nodded his head then reached down and picked Chris up in his arms, carefully keeping the stasis equipment and the dagger undisturbed, then he ported to Deacon’s ship.
He carefully laid Chris’s body on the waiting stretcher and set the portable stasis machine on the bed next to his son. He held Chris’s cold, pale hand while the ship began filling with the teams porting to leave.
“I am sorry,” Drago said as he put a comforting hand on Grai’s shoulder.
Grai nodded his head, never taking his eyes off his son, the dagger still protruding from his chest and the machines keeping Chris alive.
“I know, Drago. There is no blame here except on Satalis,” Grai assured the Tezarian.
Dread had ported to the ship with Moira in his arms and sighed in relief when he heard Grai’s words, but he still moved to the opposite side of the ship from Chris. He saw no reason to enflame already raw emotions. Fiona sat beside him and covered her sister with a blanket she’d pulled from the bed before they left the monastery.
The ship was silent as each of the brothers and Tezarians lent their energy to assist their brother and reported back to the other siblings who had taken Quinn and left for Base Beta the moment they knew where Chris was being taken.
Ainsley moved out of the seat next to Haruki and tentatively stepped down the aisle of seats to stand next to Grai. She put her hand in the one Grai wasn’t using to hold Chris’s and laid her other hand on Chris’s leg.
Grai smiled down at the girl, and she turned her blue eyes to his.
“He’ll be OK. I can feel him,” she whispered.
Grai’s eyes filled with tears, and he gently squeezed her hand.
“I know. I can feel him too,” he whispered back.
“You’re a really good dad, and he loves you a lot,” Ainsley said, looking back at Chris. “I wish I had one like you.”
Grai sat down next to Chris so he could look in Ainsley’s eyes as he spoke to her.
“Chris and his siblings didn’t have a mother, but the love they had for one another was just as strong and enduring. It’s not much different with Fiona, the others, and you,” Grai explained. “You’re a band of people fighting for the same thing and loving and protecti
ng one another. There may be no one to give the title to, but there are many who would love and protect you without it.”
Grai nodded towards the rest of the craft and was proud to see the rest of his sons nodding their heads in agreement.
“On my word,” Haruki was the first to say, and the others followed suit.
Ainsley was overcome with emotion and couldn’t speak as the tears slipped down her face. Grai pulled her down to sit in the seat beside him and held her against his side as she cried softly.
“Where are we going to put Moira when we get back?” Mikal asked his father through the shengari’.
Although highly trained, Grai could feel the tense energy among his sons regarding the crazed woman in their midst, and he couldn’t blame them. He had to admit it was tough to look at her while the dagger still protruded from Chris’s chest.
Grai knew the ship Lara was flying was taking the other anomalous hybrids to the Peruvian site while they rushed Chris to Amun and Lauren at Base Beta. With tensions so high, he knew it wouldn’t be a good idea to keep Moira contained close to where Chris would be.
Grai looked over to where Dread tenderly held the still unconscious Moira in his arms.
“We won’t. Tell Deacon that once we get Chris off the ship to take them to Peru with the others,” Grai ordered then looked over at Grant and Luca. “Get a mediband on her and make sure she doesn’t awaken again until they get there. Sergei can change the dose as needed later.”
Grai locked eyes with Dread and was relieved when the Tezarian nodded his head in agreement to use drugs to keep Moira knocked out. What happened to Chris was a clear indication of how dangerous Moira was, and no one wanted to take another chance of her escaping her bonds.
“We’re landing right outside of the medlab doors in five! I repeat, five!” Deacon called out.
Luca stood and headed for Moira with a mediband programmed to keep her unconscious while Grant began checking the machines they’d hooked up to Chris to keep him in stasis. When Luca returned, he double and triple checked the equipment to make sure their brother remained alive.
